C Box - In Plain Sight

“I can get a search warrant and be back out within a few hours. Are you really going to make me do that?”

Joe could almost feel Hank smile on the other end, that cold smile he had, the one he reserved for people beneath him. “Yes, Mr. Game Warden, I’m really going to make you do that.”

And he hung up.

JOE SPEED-DIALED Robey Hersig and got his voice mail.

“Robey, I’m on my way down from the Thunderhead Ranch. Hank refused access, so I need a warrant drawn up as soon as possible and signed by Judge Pennock. And when I come back, I may need a couple of deputies to help look around, if you don’t mind coordinating that with the sheriff.”

Robey came on the line, saying he had just stepped into his office. Joe repeated what he’d left on the voice mail.

“I’m meeting with the judge this afternoon,” Robey said. “Will that work?”

Joe said it would.

“I wonder why he’s being so cantankerous,” he said, then chuckled, “but I guess that’s just Hank.”

“Or he’s guilty as sin,” Joe replied. “And his friend Bill Monroe is out there too, answering his phone for him.”

“Really?”

“That’s another reason why I might need the deputies.”

“So you don’t do something over-the-top to the guy?”

“No,” Joe said. “So he doesn’t beat me up again.”

JOE SPENT THE afternoon at his home trying to put epoxy over all the cracks and holes in his drift boat. He kept his cell phone on and in his front breast pocket. He was ready to drop everything on a moment’s notice and meet the deputies at the entrance to Thunderhead Ranch.

Robey didn’t call until a few minutes to five.

“The judge won’t sign the warrant until he sees the documentation for probable cause.”

“What?”

“That’s what he said, Joe.”

“He’s never asked for documentation before. What does he want, the transcript of the tip? That’s all we can provide him.”

“I guess so.”

“But a tip is a tip. I told you everything in it.”

“Joe, I’m just the messenger here.”

“Oh, I thought you were the county prosecutor,” Joe said, immediately feeling bad that he’d said it.

“Fuck you, Joe.”

“I’m sorry. What is it, is the judge hooked up with Hank? Or is he just shy about doing anything if the name Scarlett is involved?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Robey said.

“Robey…”

He hung up.

Joe angrily tossed his phone into the boat, where it clattered across the fiberglass bottom.

ARLEN SCARLETT WAS DISTRACTED. MARYBETH COULD tell. Though he was looking at her across her desk with the well-practiced face of an eager-to-please canine, his mind was clearly elsewhere. Even as she explained that she had broken Opal’s code when it came to her record keeping for the ranch, something Arlen should have been ecstatic over, his mind was elsewhere.

The previous week, Arlen had shown up at Marybeth’s office with five banker’s boxes full of paperwork-envelopes, statements, invoices, files. He complained he could not make hide nor hair of them. Opal had kept the books on the ranch, he said, and she’d never explained to anyone how she did it. Arlen claimed he had no true idea if the ranch made money and if so how much, or if they were in trouble.

Marybeth had reluctantly agreed to take a look at the contents of the boxes to see if she could find a method in Opal’s madness.

“It didn’t really take me as long as I thought it would,” she explained to Arlen, who looked at her but not really. The antenna of a cell phone extended out of a snap-buttoned breast pocket of his white cowboy shirt. Even though he never looked down at it or reached up for it, Marybeth got the distinct feeling the phone was what he was concentrating on, even as she spoke. He was waiting for a call.

“At first,” Marybeth said, “I couldn’t figure out why she filed things the way she did. It seemed like random collections of paper held together with rubber bands. Some of the papers went back years and some were as current as two months ago, just before she… went away. All in the same bundle. It was obvious she wasn’t using monthly P and Ls, or any kind of cash-flow records to keep track of things. But we know Opal was not the type of woman to maintain haphazard records, so I figured there must be some kind of formula she was using. It came to me last night,” she said, widening her eyes, trying to engage Arlen. “I realized she grouped records by season and category. It kind of makes sense, when you think about it. For example, you grow and sell grass hay, correct?”

Arlen nodded.

“Well, Opal’s approach was to start a file with a receipt from the first hayseed purchased for a specific meadow and go from there. She’s even put the purchase of a new tractor in that hay file if the tractor was used for cutting and baling. If one of your employees fell off the hay wagon and busted his arm, the workers’ compensation hearing materials would be put in the hay file.”

“We paid workers’ comp?” Arlen asked, surprised his mother had been so progressive.

“No, of course not,” Marybeth said, shaking her head. “Opal fought every single claim to the death. My point is that the only way to figure out what you’ve got here is to understand how Opal kept track of everything. It was her own system, and I still don’t have everything figured out yet, but I’m getting there. There are a few bundles of invoices I can’t assign to a specific project or category yet.”

“You’ve done a great job,” Arlen said. “I looked at that stuff for a month and couldn’t make anything out of it. My lawyer looked at it for ten hours, which he charged me a hundred dollars per hour for, and handed it all back and said there was no logic to it. But you figured it out. Damn, you’re good.”

Marybeth thought, Yes, I am.

“So?” Arlen said.

Marybeth arched her eyebrows, not sure what he was asking.

“Are we making money?”

“You’re making a ton of money.”

“Did you find anything that will help me in my battle with Hank?”

“Actually,” Marybeth said, “Hank’s side of the ranch seems to make more money than yours. It’s more efficient.”

Arlen said dismissively, “You mean he’s more ruthless.”

“If that’s possible,” Marybeth said, thinking of the workers’ comp claims.

Arlen’s cell phone rang and he jumped in his chair, clawing for it. Marybeth sat back and observed. He plucked the phone out of his pocket and stared at it for a moment while it rang. She realized he was unfamiliar with it, and didn’t know for sure how it worked.

“New phone,” he mumbled to her. “The buttons are so damned small…”

But he pushed one and held it up to his face, tentatively saying, “Yes? This is Arlen?”

From where she sat, Marybeth could hear a loud, deep voice on Arlen’s phone. As he listened, Arlen peered around her office. His expression was anticipatory.

“You’re here now ?” Arlen said, looking at Marybeth as if she should be as amazed as he was at the identity of the caller. “You’re right outside on the street?”