Winterkill - C. J. Box [41]
The sheriff’s office and county jail were on the second floor. Joe mounted the steps and pushed through frosted glass doors. Barnum’s door was shut and his office was dark, but Deputies Reed and McLanahan sat at desks, staring into computer monitors.
“Which one of you told Melinda Strickland that Nate Romanowski called me?” Joe asked.
Reed was obviously puzzled by the question. That left Deputy McLanahan. When McLanahan looked up, Joe noticed two things. The first was a barely disguised hatred—a snake-eyed, thin-lipped countenance similar to a horse about to bite. The second thing he noticed were the stitches that appeared to fasten McLanahan’s nose to his face.
“What can I help you with, Mr. Pickett?” McLanahan asked, the question posed as a bored statement.
“What happened to you?” Joe asked, taking his coat off and hanging it on a hook. He kept his cowboy hat on.
“Nate Romanowski happened to him,” Reed volunteered from across the room. McLanahan glared at Reed.
“When did he do that?”
“Two days ago,” Reed answered again, ignoring McLanahan.
“What are you, my goddamned mouthpiece?” McLanahan asked, rising from his desk. He turned to Joe.
“I looked in Romanowski’s cell and he was on his bed trying to choke himself. He had his hand in his mouth, and I told him to knock it off,” McLanahan explained, his voice nasal due to his injury. “He wouldn’t quit, so I went in there to make him stop.”
“And Romanowski decked him,” Reed said, pointing toward McLanahan. “Romanowski cleaned McLanahan’s clock, then kicked him outside his cell, and shut his own door. He doesn’t like Deputy McLanahan very much.”
“SHUT UP!” McLanahan seethed. Reed looked away, obviously hiding a smile.
Joe looked from Reed to McLanahan. McLanahan’s face was red, and his anger had caused tiny beads of bright red blood to leak through his stitches.
“He didn’t try to escape?” Joe asked. “Seeing that you were on the floor and he could have stepped over you and walked away?”
McLanahan shook his head. “Maybe he knows what I would have done to him if he’d tried.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Joe said, deadpan. Reed continued to look away, but Joe could tell he was smiling by the way Reed’s cheeks bulged out in profile.
McLanahan tried to gauge Joe’s comment. He looked ready to fight—and if not Joe, then Reed. Anybody. But, Joe thought, McLanahan is at his best in a fight when he’s surrounded by armed agents and his opponent is defenseless. Like Nate Romanowski was.
“Has he admitted to the murder?” Joe asked.
“He denies everything,” McLanahan said. “He hasn’t even requested a lawyer. Instead, he called you.”
“Maybe you should have hit him again with your rifle butt,” Joe said.
Reed turned back, expectant. McLanahan tried to grimace, but it clearly hurt his face to do so.
“Why exactly did he call you?” McLanahan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why the game warden and not a lawyer?” Reed wondered.
Joe shrugged.
“You going to meet with him?” McLanahan asked, looking at Joe with a suspicious eye.
“That’s why I’m here.”
McLanahan and Reed exchanged a glance, each waiting for the other to make a decision of some kind.
“It’s his funeral,” Reed said dismissively, “If Romanowski wants to talk to the game warden, he has every right to do so.”
McLanahan crossed his arms over his chest. “Something about this doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Me either,” Joe said truthfully. “I don’t know the man.”
“You’re sure?”
Joe rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m sure.”
Reed stood up, jangled his ring of cell keys, and threw Joe a “follow me” nod.
“You left your gun and everything with Stovepipe, right?”
“Yup.”
“Watch that son-of-a-bitch,” McLanahan called after them. “If he jumps you, I may not hear it.”
As they entered the hallway, Reed looked over his shoulder at Joe. “I’ll hear it,” he said.
Nate Romanowski lolled on his cot with his hand in his mouth, just as McLanahan had described. His other arm