Winterkill - C. J. Box [42]
The cell was ten feet by ten feet square, with a cot, an open toilet, a desk and chair bolted to the wall and floor, and a stainless-steel sink with a faucet that leaked a thin stream of water into the basin. The single window was thick opaque glass reinforced with wire.
Joe Pickett had never been in the county jail itself. He had been in the anteroom, where, on two occasions, he had brought in game violators because they were either drunk or drugged and he didn’t want to run the risk of leaving them out in the field. Unlike Lamar Gardiner, they had sat quietly in Joe’s pickup while being transported to town.
Although it was uncomfortably warm, the bare walls and metal furnishings made the cell seem cold. Not for the first time that day, Joe asked himself what he was doing here, and questioned whether he should have come. He wondered if he was thinking clearly enough after his encounter with Wade Brockius and the Sovereigns. Maybe, he thought, he should have run this by Terry Crump, his supervisor.
But the door closed behind him, and Nate Romanowski was sitting up, both his feet on the floor now, fixing sharp, cold, lime-green eyes on Joe. Romanowski’s head was bowed forward slightly, and he was looking out at Joe from under a thick shelf of brow bone that made him seem even more menacing. Romanowski was lanky and all angles, his sharp elbows and long arms jutting out from broad shoulders, his nose beaklike above a V-shaped jaw. His blond hair was thinning on top.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. His hand remained in his mouth slurring his voice.
“I’m not sure why I’m here,” Joe said honestly.
Romanowski smiled with his eyes, then ever so slowly withdrew his fingers from his mouth. Joe noticed that Romanowski was working his mouth gently with his tongue, probing his teeth. Then he realized what Romanowski had been doing: holding the teeth that had been knocked free by the rifle butt in the sockets they had come from, so they would reattach.
“Think that’s going to work?” Joe asked, impressed.
“It seems to.” Romanowski shrugged. “They’re loose—but my two front teeth are back in. They should stay there and firm up as long as I don’t use ’em.”
“You mean, like eating?”
Romanowski nodded. “Soup’s okay. Broth is better.”
“There are dentists in Saddlestring,” Joe offered. “One could be sent up here.”
Romanowski shrugged again. “It gives me something to do. Besides, I don’t know if Barnum would be that helpful.”
Romanowski’s voice was low and soft. The cadence of his speaking rhythm was sarcastic, making him sound a little like Jack Nicholson. Joe strained to hear him.
Romanowski seemed oddly comfortable with his surroundings. He was the kind of man, Joe thought, who was probably comfortable in his own skin wherever he was. He was cool, confident—and intriguing. And charged with murder, Joe reminded himself.
“Why’d you clean Deputy McLanahan’s clock?” Joe asked.
Romanowski snorted and pulled down the collar of his jail overalls. Joe could see two small burn marks, like snakebites, on Romanowski’s neck. Joe recognized the marks as the aftereffects of the Taser stun-gun that McLanahan carried on his belt. McLanahan, Joe guessed, hadn’t been checking up on Romanowski as he’d claimed. He had been harassing him, probably trying to elicit a confession.
“I’ll get right to it,” Romanowski said. “I want to ask you two favors. If you can do either one of them I’ll be in your debt. If you can do ’em both, I’ll owe you a life. Mine, I mean.”
Joe shook his head. What was this?
“First, you should try to get me out of here.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because,” Romanowski said, displaying either a smirk or a smile—Joe was unsure which—“I didn’t kill Lamar Gardiner. Not that I might not have if I was given the chance and considering the circumstances. I heard about those dead