C. Box - Breaking Point

The surface around the mound was scored with V-shaped tractor tire tracks.

Woods said, “We’ve got to check the backhoe for prints once the tech gets here. But it sure looks like somebody used it to dig this hole last night.”

Joe agreed, and winced.

“I found the car,” Woods said, gesturing over his shoulder in a vague southern direction. Joe frequently used the gravel ridge road Woods indicated. It was cut into the side of a steep mountain with a sloping grade on one side and a chasm on the other. There were turnouts for faint-of-heart drivers to return to civilization. Woods said, “It looked like somebody took it up the road and deliberately drove it off the ridge road into the canyon. They probably thought it would roll to the bottom and we wouldn’t find it for months, but there were enough trees to stop it from crashing all the way to the creek.”

“But no one inside?” Joe asked.

“No. But I could see those U.S. Government plates easy enough from the road.”

“And you’re thinking this happened last night?” Joe asked.

Woods shrugged. “No way to know for sure yet, but that would be my guess.”

Joe looked over at the mound again.

“Yeah,” Woods said. “If somebody was buried alive. .” He let his voice trail off.

Woods nodded toward his colleagues, who leaned on their shovels in a pool of late-afternoon sunlight. “I’d kind of like to get these guys started before it gets dark.”

Joe felt a pang of frustration. He glanced at the deputies with their spades and the Forest Service ranger talking to the highway trooper. He could tell by the way the ranger was gesticulating that he was showing the size of a fish he claimed he’d caught recently in Meadowlark Lake on the other side of the mountains. He thought, So much of law enforcement work is just standing around.

He heard the pop of gravel under tires and looked up to see Sheriff Mike Reed’s van strobing through the trees. It was a ten-year-old handicap-equipped panel Ford that had been specially purchased in Billings at an auction for the sheriff’s use. Joe could see Reed was at the wheel, using the hand controls, with the evidence tech, another new employee named Gary Norwood, in the passenger seat. The election the year before had taken place while Reed was in surgery from his gunshot wounds. He’d emerged from the hospital as the paraplegic new sheriff of Twelve Sleep County. The county commissioners had agreed to buy the van, but they were balking at purchasing the motorized wheelchair he’d requested, so Reed rolled down the side ramp and was immediately stopped fast in the soft dirt. Norwood bounded over to help, but the sheriff waved him off. Instead, Sheriff Reed leaned forward and grasped the thin wheels with his big hands and shoved, powering his way to firmer ground, where Joe met him.

“I hate this,” Reed said to Joe under his breath. “I’m fine in the office. I can get around. But out here it’s another story. But I’m the sheriff . I need to get out into the county.”

“Yup,” Joe said, stepping aside.

“And I don’t want anyone helping me, including you.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” Reed said. Joe wasn’t sure he would, either. Before he’d been cut down by a desperate suspect, Reed had been tall and strapping, with a graceful, loping stride. It had been less than a year since the shooting, but Joe could see the loss of muscle mass in Reed’s legs. His uniform trousers hung from bony thighs.

Reed spun in his chair toward Woods and asked for an update.

Joe listened in as Woods briefed the sheriff. Norwood tiptoed around the scene, snapping digital photos and placing evidence markers. Finally, Reed nodded, then called out to his men, “Okay, do this gently. Don’t get your weight behind the shovel. Sift the dirt off and put it on a plastic tarp. You don’t want to slice into anything with those shovels, gentlemen.”

The deputies nodded and got to work. Reed glanced at his wristwatch and instructed Woods to call back to the sheriff’s department and request a walled outfitters’ tent, a generator, and portable lights.

“This may take a while,” he said.

When Woods walked back to his SUV to get on the radio, Reed said to Joe, “I think I know what we’re going to find.”

“What?”

“At least two federal employees of the Environmental Protection Agency from Denver.” His tone was solemn.

Joe looked over. The deputies were proceeding with caution, as instructed. When streams of soil were dropped on the blue plastic tarp, it made a sizzling sound.

“You saw him, then,” Reed said to Joe, as they watched the fresh dirt get removed from the mound an inch at a time.

“Butch Roberson?” Joe said. “Yeah, I ran into him just above Big Stream Ranch this afternoon. He told me he was scouting elk.”

Joe described Butch’s clothing, gear, and rifle.

“On foot?” Reed asked.

“Yup.”

“And you believed his story?” Reed asked, flat.

“No reason not to,” Joe said, a little defensive.

“If you’d brought him in, we might be a long way to solving this thing,” Reed said, not meeting Joe’s eyes.

Joe didn’t respond.

“Sorry,” Reed said, shaking his head. “There was no reason for me to say that, and no reason to bring him in. You didn’t know anything at the time. But you know him, right?”

“Through my daughter,” Joe said. “We aren’t fishing buddies or anything.”

Reed sighed and shifted his weight in his wheelchair from his left to his right side. Joe noticed the grimace on his face as he did it, and realized Reed was in pain. He hadn’t considered that Reed still hurt from the gunshot wounds.

Joe asked Reed when the sheriff’s office had first gotten the tip to check out the Roberson lot.

“This morning,” Reed said. “Somebody called it in. Said he knew of two federal agents who were headed up here last night who never checked into the Holiday Inn.”

“Who called?”

“He didn’t give his name at first, but we tracked him down.” Reed dug a notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped it open. “U.S. Army Corps of Engineers guy out of Cheyenne named Kim Love,” he read. “He said he was supposed to come up here with the two EPA guys, but he got cold feet, or he felt kind of sick and needed to lie down. He said both things, so his story is a little hinky. I asked the guy to stay another night at the hotel before he headed back to Cheyenne so we could talk to him a little more. He said he’d check with his supervisor. That pissed me off, so I told him if he tried to leave my county tonight I’d have him arrested,” Reed said with irritation.

Joe asked, “He didn’t say why he and the EPA guys were here in the first place?”

Reed said, “Something about serving a compliance order. I didn’t quite understand at first. Not until I talked with Pam Roberson.”

Joe was confused. “I haven’t heard a thing about any conflict between the Robersons and the EPA. I’m pretty sure Marybeth doesn’t know anything from Pam or she would have told me. Why is the EPA poking their noses around here, anyway?”

Reed snorted and said, “You won’t believe it when I tell you. You’ll want to be sitting down, if what Pam told me is true.”

Joe waited, but Reed changed the subject.

“This might turn out to be my first murder investigation as sheriff,” Reed said. “I used to be damned hard on McLanahan for the way he ran things. But now all I can think of is what we’re missing or forgetting to do so some defense lawyer doesn’t rip us up in court. This isn’t easy, Joe. And I don’t even have to tell you what a shit storm we’re going to have if there are two dead Feds in my county.”