C Box - In Plain Sight

Luckily, he thought to drop the anchor off the back of the boat before he settled back between the seats on a pile of life vests and took a little nap. No, he wasn’t sure how long exactly. Maybe a whole hour. When he awoke he didn’t know where he was at first. He raised the anchor and started to drift downriver, picking up speed. That’s when he saw her. Opal Scarlett, right on the shore, standing in thick brush. But close enough that he could see her face, even if he couldn’t hear what she was saying over the river sounds. He had drifted too far and was picking up too much speed to row back upstream to hear her words. Nevertheless, he had hollered back at her. “Turn yourself in, Opal, for Christ’s sake! Everybody thinks I drowned you in the river!”

“You said she was closer to Hank’s place than she was to her own house,” Robey said to Tommy. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

Tommy was getting annoyed with the questions, and a hangover of industrial strength was starting to settle in, which made him even tougher to deal with.

“The whole fucking thing strikes me as odd, Robey,” Tommy said. “What has she been doing out there for a month when she knows the whole county is wondering what happened to her?”

Reed reviewed his notes, sighing loudly. Tommy looked over at him.

“What?” he asked.

“When I first got here and wrote down your story, you said you were fishing and you looked up and there she was,” Reed said. “Then, an hour later, you say you passed out in your boat, and when you woke up there she was. Now you say you were drifting downriver and picking up speed, and you didn’t see her until you looked back and by then it was too late to go back. That’s three different versions of the same event, Tommy. Which one are we supposed to believe?”

Joe had noted the discrepancies as well. Tommy was turning red. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his scalp.

“The last one, goddammit,” he said. “It was the last one. The last version.”

“That doesn’t sound too credible,” Robey said, sounding more sympathetic to Tommy than Joe expected him to be.

“And what exactly was she wearing?” Reed asked, not kind at all. “You say she was in jeans and a plaid shirt. What color was the shirt?”

“Huh?”

“What color was it? You said earlier it was a certain color. Do you remember now?”

Tommy looked down at his coffee cup and mumbled something.

“What was that?” Reed asked.

“He said ‘light yellow,’” Joe repeated.

Reed rolled his eyes again. “Light yellow is the color of the shirt he originally claimed Opal was wearing that day he threw her into the river. Are we supposed to believe she’s been wearing the same clothes for a month?”

“Yeah,” Robey said, rubbing his jaw. “And I think you said earlier she was wearing a dress, didn’t you?”

“If I did, I didn’t mean it,” Tommy said.

“Tommy Wayman,” Deputy Reed said, snapping his notebook closed and shoving it in his shirt pocket, “you are full of shit.”

Tommy moaned and sat back in his chair.

“I did see her, you guys,” he said thickly. “I just can’t remember all of the little details ’cause I’d been drinking.”

Robey said, “Of course, it would just be a coincidence that if Opal were actually seen on her ranch then you’d be completely off the hook, right?”

Tommy looked from Reed to Joe to Robey and said, “Really, guys…”

“I’m out of here,” Reed said. “You want me to give Tommy a ride back to his house?”

“Really, guys,” Tommy said again as Reed helped him to his feet.

JOE AND ROBEY sat at the table. It was midnight, and Tommy Wayman and Deputy Reed had been gone for fifteen minutes. Joe had poured a bourbon and water nightcap for both of them.

“That was interesting,” Robey said. “I thought for a minute there we had something.”

Joe nodded.

Robey said, “I think he wanted to see her alive, so he did. She’s probably on his mind all the time, since he could wind up in Rawlins because of her. He probably dreamed she was there while he was passed out, and when he woke up he convinced himself she was there. Tommy is losing it, is what I think. I hope he holds together long enough to go to trial. He’s a good man, Joe. He drinks too much, but he’s a good guy.”

Robey looked up for a response. Joe stared at his drink, which was untouched.

“What? Something is bugging you.”

“Sheridan said she had a dream about something similar to Tommy’s. She said Opal was alive out on the ranch.”

Robey stared. “A dream, Joe?”

“Hey,” Joe said, raising his hand. “I know. But Sheridan’s had some dreams that turned out to be pretty accurate. She’s like Nate Romanowski that way,” he said, wishing immediately he hadn’t brought Nate into it.

“Speaking of…”

“Nothing,” Joe said. “Honestly. Not a word.”

MARYBETH CAME DOWN the stairs in her robe. Her blond hair was mussed. Joe could see one bare foot and ankle and she looked particularly attractive standing there. He was suddenly ready for Robey to head home.

“Are you guys about finished?” she asked.

Joe said, “Yup.” He was glad he was the one staying. He wondered if Robey had the same thought and guessed that he did. Go away, Robey, Joe thought.

“Did Tommy have anything interesting to say?”

Robey chuckled. “That was the problem, Marybeth. He had so many interesting things to say-so many versions-that in the end he had nothing. It was a waste of time.”

“Maybe I should have called Nancy to come get him,” she said.

“You did the right thing.”

“He scared us when we saw him out there,” she said. “With all the things that have been happening around here, we’re a little jumpy.”

“I understand,” Robey said.

Joe said nothing. It made him angry to think about it.

He saw Robey to the door. As they passed his office, Joe said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that search warrant for Hank’s place. Do we have it yet?”

Robey turned, his face wary. “You haven’t heard?”

“Not a thing.”

“Judge Pennock refused to issue it.”

“What?”

Robey nodded. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. The judge said we needed probable cause, that the anonymous tip wasn’t enough to search a man’s home. Even though you transcribed the call real well.”

Joe was confused. He’d never had a search warrant refused before.

“Judge Pennock and Hank are friends,” Joe said.

“I’m afraid so. I didn’t realize it before. They must be pretty close.”

Joe snorted. “If they are close, Pennock would have recused himself. It’s got to be more than that.”

“I don’t even want to speculate, Joe,” Robey said cautiously. “I have to appear before Judge Pennock all the time. I can’t push this one too hard or he could make my life miserable.”

“Can’t we go over his head?”

Robey suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “We could, but I hesitate to do so.”

“You ‘hesitate to do so’?” Robey’s choice of words was so formal and bureaucratic that Joe repeated them.

“Look, Joe,” Robey said, “there are things I will go to the mat with, as you know. There are some subjects, for example, I won’t discuss with you because I don’t want to know the answers. But this fight between Hank and Arlen… I don’t know. It’s so dirty, and so…” He searched for a word. “… epic, you know? I’m not sure how hard I want to come down on either side. And we’re just talking about what? The possibility someone may have taken some animals out of season? That’s not even a felony.”