C Box - In Plain Sight

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Sheridan,” Joe said, exasperated, “what do you know?”

Which really made her clam up.

Joe said, “Sorry,” and kept driving. He knew Marybeth had extracted enough information out of Sheridan to give the sleepover her stamp of approval. But he wanted to know the details too.

As he drove, the motor hiccupped and the check-engine light came on.

“What’s wrong with the truck?” Sheridan asked.

“It’s a piece of crap,” Joe said.

THE MAIN RANCH house was a lumbering stone castle of a home with sharp gables and eaves and the look of a building that belonged not in Wyoming on a river but on some country estate in England. Towering hundred-year-old cottonwoods shrouded the home on all sides, the spring leaves having burst out just that week. Joe approached the home from the east on a firm graded and graveled three-track that snaked through heavy trees. He could see assorted out-buildings through the timber; old sheds, a tall barn that was falling down, an old icehouse built of logs.

As they crossed a bridge over a little stream made manic by snowmelt, Joe saw what looked like an old chicken coop tucked away in an alcove facing the road, and noticed the windows had glass in them and the roof had a new set of shingles. It puzzled him that the Scarletts would maintain a chicken coop, and he was about to say so when Sheridan said: “That’s where Uncle Wyatt lives.”

Joe stopped the truck.

“Wyatt lives in a chicken coop ?”

“That’s what Julie told me,” Sheridan said. “He keeps odd hours, so instead of waking everybody up all the time, he lives in there. I guess he doesn’t mind.”

Joe looked at his daughter. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Sheridan nodded grimly. She was of an age when the last thing she wanted to do was admit that her parents might be right.

“Julie’s my friend,” she said.

“We can still back out,” Joe said.

“No. I’m not doing that.”

ARLEN GREETED THEM in the ranch yard wearing an apron and cleaning his hands with a towel. There was a smudge of white flour on his forehead. He strode across the yard and stuck his hand out to Joe, who climbed out of his pickup. Julie was right behind Arlen, beaming at Sheridan and running around to her side of the truck.

“My God, your face,” Arlen said, booming.

Joe looked over. Sheridan and Julie were packing the sleeping bag and overnight bag into the house and chattering. He wanted to talk to Arlen but didn’t want the girls overhearing him.

For a few moments, Joe had forgotten about his injuries. After shaking Arlen’s hand, he reached up and touched his closed eye with the tips of his fingers. Now that Arlen mentioned it, his face hurt again.

“That’s what Bill did, eh?” Arlen asked, reaching out and cupping Joe’s chin in his big hand so he could look closely at the damage. Joe didn’t like another man touching him that way and turned away as if checking on Sheridan. That was something about the Scarletts that grated on Joe, he realized. These people thought they owned everything in the valley, even the game warden’s face.

“Guess they haven’t picked him up yet, huh?” Arlen said. “Does Sheridan know who did it?”

“Nope,” Joe said. “Not by name.”

Arlen said, “When Bill Monroe showed up a couple of weeks ago he came to me first to ask for a job. My impression of him was that he was trouble with a capital T. I turned out to be right. I guess when I sent him on his way he drove up the road and Hank hired him.”

Joe nodded.

“I’m a pretty good judge of men,” Arlen said. “Hank’s got a couple of other new men over there I’d put firmly in the ‘thug’ or ‘cutthroat’ category. If I see Bill slinking around the ranch anywhere, I’ll call right away.”

“Arlen, let me ask you something,” Joe said. “How safe is it here right now? I mean, with the problems between you and Hank, and Hank’s new men? Do you feel okay about things?”

“Joe, it’s perfectly safe around here,” Arlen said, his voice low. “In fact, I’d wager it’s safer than just about anyplace I can think of. Safer than your own house, if you don’t mind my saying so. I heard about that little gift on your door…”

Joe felt his face flush when Arlen said it. He’d never liked the implication that he couldn’t protect his own family, and Arlen seemed to be implying that, if indirectly.

“Sure, Hank wouldn’t throw me a rope if I were drowning,” Arlen said. “But despite everything that’s wrong with that guy, and it’s a lot, he desperately loves his daughter. I don’t blame him, the girl is a gem. Hank still pines for Doris, his ex-wife. Doris is in the kitchen in there now, helping me bake some nice bread,” Arlen nodded toward the main house. “Hank wouldn’t let anything bad happen to his wife or his daughter and by extension, to her friends. He wants them to think he’s a good guy. He needs allies. He believes one of these days they’ll all come to their senses and move back to his place.” Arlen smiled at the absurdity of the notion.

“Besides,” he said, arching his eyebrows, “not every man on Hank’s payroll is loyal to Hank, if you know what I mean. If Hank was going to try something, I’d know about it well in advance.”

Arlen’s words had the ring of truth, especially that last bit of news. Arlen was a schemer, and he obviously had an informant in Hank’s camp.

“What’s the deal with Wyatt?” Joe asked, turning his head toward the road they had just come in on. “Sheridan said he lives in that chicken coop.”

Arlen laughed. “It’s much nicer than that, Joe. Wyatt’s got it all fixed up now. You make it sound like he’s sleeping in there with chickens. There are no chickens in there anymore.”

“Still…”

“It’s odd, I’ll grant you that,” Arlen said. “But Wyatt has always marched to the beat of his own drummer. The man just doesn’t sleep, or when he does, it’s for an hour at a time. He used to keep us up all night wandering around the house, puttering, doing his hobbies. Wyatt has a lot of interests, and almost all of them”-Arlen rolled his eyes, then settled them back on Joe-“stink. Everything Wyatt does stinks.”

Despite himself, Joe smiled at the way Arlen said it.

“He’s either making model planes and spacecraft, which smell of glue and oil paint, or he’s tanning hides or reloading bullets. Taxidermy is his newest obsession. Those chemical smells can get to you.”

JULIE AND SHERIDAN came back out through the front door with an adult woman in tow. She was dark and attractive, Joe thought, but there was something hard about her. Her eyes took him in. Her expression didn’t reveal what her conclusion was about him.

“I’m Doris Scarlett, Julie’s mother,” she said, extending her hand.

“Joe Pickett.” Her fingers were long and cool. She didn’t wear a wedding ring.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. “We’re going to get these girls to bake some bread, and then some cookies. We thought we’d have a few more girls coming out, so we have more than enough dough to roll in there.”

“Lindsay, Sara, and Tori can’t make it,” Julie told Sheridan, who had caught what Doris had said about the other girls.

Joe wondered if the other parents were concerned about the situation at the Scarletts, or if it was happenstance that the other girls weren’t there. He thought, as he often thought: What would Marybeth do here? He decided Marybeth would proceed with what they’d already decided, that Sheridan could spend the night with her best friend. Arlen had assured Joe things were fine. And they appeared fine.

“Nice to meet you too,” Joe said to her. She smiled and nodded, and turned and went back into the house. Joe could tell the introduction was for his benefit, at Sheridan’s instigation, to assure him that things were okay, that she and Julie were well supervised.