C. Box - Cold Wind

Joe nodded.

“I’m pretty good at reading people,” she said, climbing up into the cab, “but I couldn’t read the judge. He seemed to be angry at everyone .”

“He’s in a hurry,” Joe said, starting the engine.

“But why?” Marybeth asked, shaking her head.

“Talked to Stovepipe,” Joe said. “Judge Hewitt drew a tag for a Dall sheep in Alaska. If he gets one, he’ll complete his grand slam: Stone, Rocky Mountain bighorn, desert bighorn, and Dall. Trophy hunters like Judge Hewitt will do anything to complete their grand slam, and this may be his only chance. The season up there opens and closes next month. I’ll check with a couple of buddies I know in the Alaska Fish and Game to get the particulars.”

Marybeth moaned aloud. “He’s hurrying so he can go hunting ? When my mother’s life is at stake?”

“Man’s got priorities,” Joe said. “Hand has to realize he needs to work within them. A Dall sheep permit is a once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

“She looked so. lonely up there,” Marybeth said. “For the first time in my life, I realized she has no one to support her. She has no friends, Joe.”

He turned toward the library. “Can’t blame that on anybody but her,” he said.

“But it’s so sad. She’s truly alone now.”

“She’s got you,” Joe said.

“But not you,” Marybeth countered.

“Didn’t say that.”

“Don’t look so glum, pretty lady.” Marcus Hand grinned at Marybeth as he approached them across the courthouse lawn.

“Why not?” Marybeth asked. Joe looked on.

Hand said, “’Cause we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em.”

Marybeth looked at Joe for an explanation, and he shrugged back at her.

She said, “I thought you objected to the two weeks? I was surprised you did absolutely nothing to gain more time.”

Hand chuckled. He looked at Joe, and Joe raised his eyebrows, also curious.

“Okay,” Hand said, “but this is the last time I talk strategy with you. Not because I don’t trust you two, but because. well, just because.

“The news about Bud was unexpected, but wonderful. It means one of two things: they’re hiding him away or they don’t know where he is. We can work with each of those possibilities. But the important thing is their entire case rests almost entirely on the credibility of their star witness. If they’re hiding him, it’s for a reason, like they can’t trust what he’ll say in public or my questioning of him will destroy their case. That’s good, too. If they don’t know where he is, it means he may not even show up. Or if he does, his credibility is already shot because of his flaky nature. This is all good. So the faster we go to trial, the better for us.”

Hand leaned back on his boot heels and smiled.

“One other thing,” Marybeth said. “My mom is innocent.”

“Of course she is!” Hand said.

“I hate how this has taken over our lives,” Marybeth said to Joe, thunking her fork down next to her half-eaten dinner salad on the picnic table outside the Burg-O-Pardner. Joe was finishing his burger with Rocky Mountain oysters on the side. He didn’t know why he’d ordered so much and knew he’d feel lethargic later in the afternoon.

“We don’t have to let it,” he said, after swallowing. They had local grass-fed beef at the Burg-O-Pardner, ground lean, and they broke state law by cooking it medium rare on request. He wished he didn’t like the hamburgers so much.

“Our girls are weirded out and neglected,” she said. “April is no doubt plotting something while our attention is diverted, and Lucy is miffed how little attention she’s gotten from us about that part in the play. Joe, she’s the lead. She sings and everything. The girl is talented, but you know what she said to me this morning before she went to school?”

“What?”

“She said, ‘Female stars like to say they’re actors, not actresses. So if an older woman kills someone, is she a murderer or murderess?’ ”

Joe put down the rest of his sandwich. “She asked that?”

“Yes. This plays heavily on her mind. No doubt she’s heard things at school.”

“How is April handling it? At school, I mean. High school kids are the worst.”

Marybeth sighed. “They are. And it’s even worse in that she said some of popular kids now think she’s kind of cool having a grandmother who’s accused of murder. Can you imagine that?”

“I can,” Joe said sullenly.

“And there’s a lot going on we’re missing. I almost forgot to tell you, in fact. Eleanor Sees Everything at the library said Alisha Whiteplume didn’t show up for work last Monday and no one’s heard from her. The folks at the high school are getting worried. Apparently, she’s not at her house and her stepdaughter is still with her grandmother. And her grandmother hasn’t heard a word from her.”

Joe’s mouth got suddenly dry. He took a long drink from his iced tea. He said, “Alisha is missing?”

“It’s not like her,” Marybeth said. “You know how responsible she is.”

Joe rubbed his jaw.

“Do you think Nate knows she’s missing?” Marybeth asked, trying to act nonchalant. “I think he’d want to know, don’t you?”

He grunted.

“I know what you’re thinking, that she’s with him. But she wouldn’t leave that little girl without letting her grandmother know.”

“Has anyone called the sheriff?”

Marybeth rolled her eyes. “Eleanor said they called yesterday. She said one of McLanahan’s flunkies said Alisha hadn’t been missing long enough to do anything yet. He implied keeping track of local Indians wasn’t their first priority since they almost always show up eventually.”

“He said that?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know whether he said it outright. Either way, Eleanor was angry about it. But that doesn’t matter. If Alisha is missing, that’s a big deal.”

She let it hang there.

Joe finally broke the silence. “Honey, I’m not sure whether you’re asking me to try to find Bud, clear your mother, try to find Alisha, call Nate, go to the school play, lecture April, or do everything at once. I’m only one guy, and I have a job to do on the side.”

Her eyes narrowed and shut him down. He was immediately sorry he’d let his frustration boil to the surface. He reached out and squeezed her hand. The one without the fork in it.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I think if we traded minds for an hour there’d be so much going on in yours I’d drive off a cliff because I couldn’t take all the voices. You, however, would probably be able to relax because it’s so quiet and not much is going on except maybe you’d want to take a little nap.”

She simply stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing.

“That’s what I wanted to see,” he said, and chanced a smile back.

But on the haphazard list he’d created in his mind, he added another task: Find Alisha.

Joe pulled into the library parking lot and they sat there a minute before Marybeth went in. He could tell she was processing what she’d heard and sorting it out. He told her about Bud’s absence the week before, hesitating when he confessed forcing the lock, but she seemed unfazed.

“So they don’t know where Bud is, either?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I can only imagine the scene when McLanahan tells Dulcie Schalk he’s misplaced the star witness.”

“What do they have if they don’t have Bud?”

Joe shrugged. “They may not have the airtight case they thought they had. I could see Hand blowing it wide open.”