Winterkill - C. J. Box [40]
“Clear your . . .”
But Romanowski had hung up.
A few minutes later, his phone rang again.
Joe snatched it up.
“Please hold for Melinda Strickland,” an unfamiliar female voice commanded.
“How did you get my number?” Joe asked. He knew he’d never given it to Strickland.
“Please hold for Melinda Strickland.”
Joe held, anger welling up inside of him. He heard a click as the call was put through.
“Uh, Joe, why is Nate Romanowski calling you?” Strickland’s voice was strained, as if barely under control.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Joe answered. “But how did you know that, and how did you get my cell phone number?”
“I don’t like being kept in the dark about things like this,” she said icily, ignoring his questions.
Joe was confused.
“He just called. Just minutes ago. And why should I report that to you, anyway?”
“Because, Joe Pickett, I am in charge of this investigation. A man was murdered, you know.” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. “I need to be kept in the loop. I can’t have this kind of thing happening behind my back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said, raising his voice. He felt his scalp twitch. “And there’s nothing going on behind your back.”
“He called you!” she shouted. “The man who murdered a federal employee on federal land called you, of all people!”
Joe stared at his cell phone as if it were a hyena. Then he raised it to his ear. She was still shouting.
“I’m losing my signal,” he lied, then turned the phone off and tossed it angrily aside onto his truck seat.
Eleven
Bucking a rooster tail of plowed snow in the county building’s lot, Joe parked in the designated visitors section and got out. Three floors of institutional blond brick housed the sheriff’s office, the jail, the attorney, the court, the assessor, the treasurer, and other county administration offices. The sandstone inscription over the front doors read:
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
WHERE THE PAVEMENT ENDS
AND THE WEST BEGINS
The slogan was an endless source of amusement, especially among a group of retired men who drank coffee every morning at the Burg-O-Pardner. They’d petitioned the Saddlestring Roundup for years with slogans that they preferred:
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
TRAILHEAD FOR THE INFORMATION COWPATH
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
MILLENNIUM? WHAT MILLENNIUM?
TWELVE SLEEP COUNTY—
TEN YEARS BEHIND WYOMING,
WHICH IS TEN YEARS BEHIND EVERYWHERE ELSE
Joe was still shaken from the events of the morning. The word “custody” hung in the air and wouldn’t go away. Joe hoped like hell that Brockius was wrong. And where was Jeannie Keeley, if she wasn’t in the camp?
Melinda Strickland’s rantings had angered and confused him further. She had sounded unhinged, hysterical. When would she go away?
And now this. Nate Romanowski.
After hanging up on Strickland, Joe had decided to visit Nate at the county jail. He was curious as to why the man had called him. He hoped as well that talking to Nate would dispel the lingering doubts he had about his guilt. And Joe also hoped it would really piss off Melinda Strickland. A newly installed metal detector and security desk were manned by a semi-retired deputy wearing a name tag that identified him as “Stovepipe.” He’d received the nickname years before in an elk camp when he fell over a woodstove in a tent and brought the chimney down all over himself. Joe had met Stovepipe during the previous summer when Joe had driven up on him to check out his fishing license. Stovepipe had fallen asleep on the bank of the river, where he had been bait fishing, and was angered to discover when he awoke that a trout had not only taken his bait, but had dragged his rod into the river.
This time, Stovepipe was awake, although barely.
“You ever find your fishing rod?” Joe asked, while he unbuckled his gunbelt and slid it across the counter.
Stovepipe shook his head sadly. “That was a hundred-dollar Ugly Stik with a Mitchell 300 reel. I bet you that fish must have been seven pounds.”
“Maybe,” Joe said, patting his pockets for metal items.
“Don