Winterkill - C. J. Box [58]
Joe moaned inwardly. Strickland was the last person he wanted to talk to. He was placed on hold. Background music played. He identified the song as “Last Train to Clarksville” by the Monkees. Only the U.S. Forest Service would have a waiting tape that old, he thought.
He held. Maxine watched him hold, and minutes passed. He assumed that when the President of the United States wanted to talk with the President of Russia, this was how it worked.
“Joe?” It was Melinda Strickland. She sounded chirpy.
“Yes.”
“Joe, my friend, how are things going? Are you hanging in there?”
Her tone was that of a lifelong chum who was concerned with his health and welfare, which puzzled him.
“I’m fine,” he said haltingly. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m getting hammered by the press asking questions about how you found Birch Wardell out on that road. They want to know how he got hit by your car, and all of that, you know?”
Joe took the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Hammered by the press?
“I hit Birch Wardell with my car because he was standing in the middle of the road,” Joe said flatly. “It was an accident. Then I took him to the hospital and stayed with him until I was sure he was okay.”
“Joe, you don’t need to use that tone,” she said soothingly. “I’m on your side here, you know? They just keep asking me about you being there when Lamar Gardiner was killed, then you being there again when Birch Wardell was hurt.”
Joe felt a flush of anger. “Are you suggesting I had something to do with those incidents?”
“Oh, God no,” she said. “I’m on your side.”
“What other side is there?” Joe asked. “And who exactly is ‘hammering’ you with questions?” In Saddlestring, there was the Roundup, an FM radio station, and one local AM station that played preprogrammed music, stock reports, and CNN radio newsbreaks.
There was a long pause, and then she filled the silence with a rush of words. “That’s not why I called, Joe. Lamar Gardiner scheduled a public meeting for Friday night on the USFS strategic plan for this district . . . you know, the road closures. He announced the meeting quite a few weeks ago and I’m going to go ahead and chair it. I was hoping you would come and offer support. I know Lamar’s policies were controversial, and I could use your help on this.”
The quick change of direction caught Joe by surprise.
“I can be there,” Joe said, although he immediately wished he hadn’t.
“Great, great. Thank you, Joe.” Her chirpiness resumed. “You be careful out there, my friend. Things may be a little dicey until we get all this stuff figured out with the Sovereigns—and who knows if they’ll go after state government representatives as well as federal land managers.”
“Are the Sovereigns being targeted for Birch Wardell’s ambush?” Joe asked. He had heard nothing of this.
“I’m not at liberty to say,”
Then she wished him a good day and hung up. Joe listened to the silence on the phone for a moment, still not sure what had just transpired.
The conversation left him flummoxed. He wished he had recorded it so he could replay it later, and try to make sense of it. Melinda Strickland seemed to be implying things—that Joe was the subject of controversy and suspicion, that forces were out to get her, that maybe Joe was aligned with those forces—while at the same time assuring him that everything was fine and that she and Joe were working well together. Her backtracking, when he asked her for specifics, he thought wryly, left a smell of burning rubber as she floored it into reverse.
He turned off his cell phone so she couldn’t call again.
Instead of returning home and to his office, Joe turned toward the BLM joint range-management study area. He wanted a clearer picture of the crash site and the terrain that Birch Wardell described. It took nearly an hour and a half on drifted-in gravel roads to get to the place where Wardell had seen the light-colored pickup that had fled from him and led to the accident.
Joe stopped in the road and looked up the gently rising hill where Wardell said he had first seen the other vehicle. Gunmetal-gray