C. Box: Breaking Point

“Except when they don’t,” Nate said, and grinned. “So what are you going to do?”

Joe shrugged. “Something different. Something honest. I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m figuring it out, Nate. Governor Rulon has called my cell phone twice in the last couple of days. He says he wants to offer me a job.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And you haven’t called him back?”

“Not yet.”

Nate nodded and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then: “Since I’ve been gone, I’ve come up with a few projects of my own. It’s worked out pretty well. I’m in demand. Do you want to hear about it and maybe partner up?”

Joe looked over and squinted. “I don’t know. Do I?”

Nate smiled wolfishly. “It depends if you’ve completely shucked that Dudley Do-Right thing of yours.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then this is a subject best left for another time,” Nate said.

Joe was curious but not curious enough to ask. There was something disconcerting about Nate, he thought. Nate seemed too jolly, too devil-may-care, where in the past he’d been intense yet honorable in his way. Joe chalked it up to the terrible things that had happened to Nate in the past year, and understood how those tragedies could affect a man.

Still. .

County attorney dulcie schalk had come to their house two days before and had told Joe and Marybeth the governor was on a rampage against Batista.

It turned out rancher Frank Zeller had noticed an extra horse grazing in his pasture several days before that turned out to be Toby. Zeller had retrieved the digital recorder and delivered it in person to Rulon, who’d listened to it.

Although Dulcie said she didn’t know any of the details, Julio Batista had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation of his actions-not the least of which was the unauthorized use of a Hellfire missile. The governor wanted Batista arrested and was making the case for it to anyone who would listen, including Dulcie.

Dulcie said she was pursuing charges against Juan Julio Batista for the murder of Jimmy Sollis. So far, the federal agencies were refusing to turn over the audio and video footage of the drone strike, but Dulcie was tenacious, and she was certain she’d receive it in the weeks ahead. When she did, she said, she’d file the papers to have Batista extradited to Twelve Sleep County.

Joe said, “The murder of Jimmy Sollis? That’s it? He’ll claim fog-of-war stuff. If you’re lucky, you’ll get him on manslaughter.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Dulcie said, defensive.

“There’s more,” Joe said, and waited for Marybeth to hand Dulcie the file she’d put together.

“And maybe,” Joe said, “we can get him to deliver himself .”

Joe had visited Butch Roberson in the county lockup the day before. Roberson wore an orange jumpsuit with TSCDC-Twelve Sleep County Detention Center-stenciled across his back and over a breast pocket. He was shaved and cleaned up, although his arms were covered with bandages from his wounds. He looked smaller through the thick glass of the visiting booth, Joe thought.

Joe asked Butch if he’d changed his mind about his confession.

Roberson said he hadn’t.

“I need to ask you about representation,” Butch said. “I don’t know anything about being a criminal. I’m supposed to show up tomorrow before Judge Hewitt for a charging ceremony or whatever they call it. I built an addition on Hewitt’s house. He knows me, so I think that’s good. The county has said they’d give me a lawyer free of charge.”

“Duane Patterson,” Joe said. “He’s the public defender. He hasn’t handled any high-profile cases like yours.”

“He seems like a nice guy, though.”

“He is,” Joe said. “You could do worse.”

“I got a call from some public defense firm,” Butch said. “They said they have a team of lawyers who want to screw the EPA. I’m fine with that. I was starting to wonder if there was anyone out there who cared at all what they did to us.”

“That’s good to hear,” Joe said.

Butch shook his head. “It’s kind of out of my hands now, isn’t it? Now I’m just a peon in the system.”

“There are some good people out there,” Joe said. “You should at least listen to them. Even if they take you on to prove a point, it’s your point.”

Then Joe asked him if he knew the name Harry S. Blevins.

It took a moment for Butch to understand. When he did, his face flushed and he said, “That son of a bitch. So it was him, huh?”

“I think it was,” Joe said.

“Then why didn’t he ever call me? Why didn’t he talk to me man-to-man?”

Joe said, “I don’t think they do that.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Nate asked as Joe turned past the half-burned sign for Aspen Highlands. “Do you want me to put him down?”

“No,” Joe said, not sure if Nate was kidding. “Just be scary. Follow my lead and be the scary Nate.”

“I think I can do that.”

A team of smoke jumpers out of Missoula had been dropped on the location and had saved the structures within Aspen Highlands by igniting a backfire around the perimeter of the subdivision that destroyed the dry fuel before the wildfire could get to it. The crowns of many of the trees had burned, though, as well as a buck-and-rail fence that marked the development. Aspen Highlands was an oasis of green within a desert of scorched earth. Joe credited the smoke jumpers, of course, but wondered who had the clout to convince them to divert resources to spare the development when the wildfire was threatening every town and city throughout the front range of the northern Rocky Mountains.

Joe eased to a stop adjacent to the Roberson lot. The tractor was still there, and the hole where the agents had been found hadn’t been filled in. The grass inside the perimeter tape was trampled down flat by so many law enforcement personnel.

“This is where it happened, eh?” Nate asked quietly.

“Yup.”

“I imagined more land. This isn’t much.”

Joe nodded. He left the truck running and opened the door and said, “I’ll be right back.”

He returned with the faded plywood target that had been nailed to a tree. He tossed it into the empty bed of his pickup.

“What was that about?” Nate asked.

“Nothing,” Joe said. Then he gestured toward the two-story log cabin above them with the green metal roof. He remembered looking at it the day the agents were found.

“That’s the retirement home of Harry Blevins,” Joe said.

“Nice place,” Nate said.

“Nice pension,” Joe said.

There was a new-model Jeep Cherokee parked beneath a carport on the side of the cabin.

“He’s home,” Joe said.

“Does he live alone?” Nate asked.

“As far as I know. From what Matt Donnell told me, he’s divorced. He splits his time between here and Denver, where he also has a house.”

“What’s he retired from?” Nate asked.

“Used to be a supervisor for the IRS.”

“Please let me shoot him in the head.”

Joe wasn’t surprised that Blevins knew they were there before he knocked. It was quiet in Aspen Highlands, and Blevins no doubt heard the pickup turn up into his driveway.

He opened the door as Joe approached carrying the shotgun. Nate was a step behind.

Blevins was stooped and slight with a wisp of gray hair. He had close-set eyes, a thin nose, and a small mouth offset by a prominent lantern jaw. Joe thought the man gave off a palpable aura of unpleasantness.

“Can I help you find something?” the man said. “Why are you armed?”