Winterkill - C. J. Box [96]
Joe barely heard what Munker was saying. He was still stinging from the unprovoked attack that started the meeting. It seemed to have come from nowhere. Joe knew that it was calculated. Calculated to do exactly what, he wasn’t sure. But it hurt.
When he glanced up, he realized that Elle Broxton-Howard was standing next to him. She looked at him with a mixture of false affection and pity. He hated that.
“ . . . Sheriff, what can you tell us about Spud Cargill?” Munker asked, turning his head toward Barnum.
“Spud Cargill was thought to have been seen yesterday afternoon in a stolen vehicle driving like a bat out of hell up Battle Mountain Road,” Barnum said, passing out copies of Cargill’s photograph. Joe took one as the stack went by. It was a Saddlestring Roundup photo from two years ago, when Cargill caught a five-and-a-half-pound rainbow trout to win an ice-fishing tournament in Saratoga, Wyoming. “He was seen going up, and blew right through the roadblock, but he wasn’t seen coming down. It’s possible he came down between the shift change, but we have no information on that. There’s too many old Forest Service roads up there to keep watch on all of them, but we’ve tightened up the security on the main roads as of today. Our assumption is that he is in the Sovereign compound, and the Sovereigns are harboring him. Last night, as many of you know, they refused to turn him over or even let us look for him. This leads us to believe that Cargill may have been in cahoots with them since the beginning.”
“There’s a leap of logic,” Joe whispered to Hersig. Hersig pretended he hadn’t heard.
“Cargill’s partner, Rope Latham, is currently in custody. He’s confessed to assisting Cargill with the murder as well as setting up the BLM employee.”
“Has he confessed to being in cahoots with the Sovereigns?” Joe whispered, again for Hersig’s benefit.
Hersig shot him an angry look that surprised Joe. Apparently, Hersig was more troubled by the lien and subpoena than Joe had realized. Hersig was dead serious this morning.
“What about the press?” Munker asked rhetorically, nodding toward Melinda Strickland.
She stepped forward as Barnum had. “We’ve been getting hammered with calls since last night, just hammered.”
Joe stifled a smile.
“The Casper and Cheyenne newspapers, radio stations from all over the state, and network affiliates from Billings and Denver have been calling,” she said, with a hint of pride. “CNN and Fox have contacted us as well. They’re all trying to figure out where Saddlestring is and how they can get here with a satellite truck.”
“Do they know about the storm?” a deputy asked.
Strickland nodded her head. “I told them about it, but most of them were already watching the weather. I guess this one’s supposed to be huge, much worse than the Christmas storm.”
Joe heard men mumble about the severe winter storm warning, and predictions of three to five feet of snow in the mountains.
“Which poses an opportunity, gentlemen,” Munker interjected. “The last thing we want is for this to turn into a standoff that’s the subject of every fucking twenty-four-hour news show in America. We cannot let these Sovereigns use the media to create sympathy, which they will do given the opportunity. They cannot be provided a forum for their twisted, antigovernment ravings. Believe me, I know. I was at Waco. I was at Ruby Ridge. I was in Garfield County, Montana, when the Freemen held out. If the press is here, we lose all tactical advantage. And there will be no possible way in hell for an efficient solution.”
Munker’s face was red and he was practically snarling. “I’ve been there, fellows. I’ve been there when dildo Freemen wearing hoods patrolled their ranch for the cameras, making us look like a bunch of wussy assholes.