C Box - Blood Trail

“We’ll see,” Joe said, as Nedny’s big fleshy face and pipe appeared just above the rim of the gutter. Ed rose another rung so he could fold his arms on the roof and watch Joe more comfortably. He was close enough that Joe could have reached out and patted the top of Nedny’s watch cap with the spatula.

“Ah, the joys of being a homeowner, eh?” Ed said.

Joe nodded.

“Is it true this is the first house you’ve owned?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got a lovely family. Two daughters, right? Sheridan and Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“I met your wife, Marybeth, a couple of weeks ago. She owns that business management company-MBP? I’ve heard good things about them.”

“Good.”

“She’s quite a lovely woman as well. I’ve met her mother, Missy. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.”

“Yes, it did,” Joe said, wishing the ladder would collapse.

“I heard you used to live out on the ranch with her and Bud Longbrake. Why did you decide to move to town? That’s a pretty nice place out there.”

“Nosy neighbors,” Joe said.

Nedny forged on. “What are you? Forty?”

“Yup.”

“So you’ve always lived in state-owned houses, huh? Paid for by the state?”

Joe sighed and looked up. “I’m a game warden, Ed. The game and fish department provided housing.”

“I remember you used to live out on the Bighorn Road,” Nedny said. “Nice little place, if I remember. Phil Kiner lives there now. Since he’s the new game warden for the county, what do you do?”

Joe wondered how long Nedny had been waiting to ask these questions since they’d bought the home and moved in. Probably from the first day. But until now, Nedny hadn’t had the opportunity to corner Joe and ask.

“I still work for the department,” Joe said. “I fill in wherever they need me.”

“I heard,” Nedny said, raising his eyebrows man-to-man, “that you work directly for the governor now. Like you’re some kind of special agent or something.”

“At times,” Joe said.

“Interesting. Our governor is a fascinating man. What’s he like in person? Is he really crazy like some people say?”

Joe was immensely grateful when he heard the front door of his house slam shut and saw Marybeth come out into the front yard and look up. She was wearing her weekend sweats and her blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. She took in the scene: Ed Nedny up on the ladder next to Joe.

“Joe, you’ve got a call from dispatch,” she said. “They said it’s an emergency.”

“Tell them it’s your day off,” Nedny counseled. “Tell ’em you’ve got gutters to clean out and a fence to fix.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Ed?”

“We all would,” Nedny answered. “The whole block.”

“You’ll have to climb down so I can take that call,” Joe said. “I don’t think that ladder will hold both of us.”

Nedny sighed with frustration and started down. Joe followed.

“My spatula, Joe?” she asked, shaking her head at him.

“I told him I had a tool for that,” Ed called over his shoulder as he trudged toward his house.

“I’M NOT used to people so close that they can watch and comment on everything we do,” Joe said to Marybeth as he entered the house.

“Did you forget about my mother on the ranch?” she asked, smiling bitterly.

“Of course not,” Joe said, taking the phone from her, “but what’s that saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?”

The house was larger than the state-owned home they’d lived in for six years, and nicer but with less character than the log home they’d temporarily occupied on the Longbrake Ranch for a year. Big kitchen, nice backyard, three bedrooms, partially finished basement with a home office, a two-car garage filled with Joe’s drift boat and snowmobile, and still-unpacked boxes stacked up to the rafters. It had been three months since they bought the house but they still weren’t fully moved in.

Ten-year-old Lucy was sprawled in a blanket on the living room floor watching Saturday morning cartoons. She had quickly mastered the intricacies of the remote control and the satellite television setup and reveled in living, for the first time, as she put it, “in civilization.” Sheridan was, Joe guessed, back in bed.

Marybeth looked on with concern as he said into the telephone, “Joe Pickett.”

The dispatcher in Cheyenne said, “Please hold for the governor’s office.”

Joe felt a shiver race down his back at the words.

There was a click and a pop and he could hear Governor Spencer Rulon talking to someone in his office over the speakerphone, caught in midsentence: “… we’ve got to get ahead of this one and frame and define it before those bastards in the eastern press define it for us-”

“I’ve got Mr. Pickett on the line, sir,” the dispatcher said.

“Joe!” the governor said. “How in the hell are you?”

“Fine, sir.”

“And how is the lovely Mrs. Pickett?”

Joe looked up at his wife, who was pouring two cups of coffee.

“Still lovely,” Joe said.

“Did you hear the news?”

“What news?”

“Another hunter got shot this morning,” Rulon said.

“Oh, no.”

“This one is in your neck of the woods. I just got the report ten minutes ago. The victim’s hunting buddies found him and called it in. It sounds bad, Joe. It really sounds bad.”

If the governor was correct, this was the third accidental shooting of a big-game hunter in Wyoming thus far this fall, Joe knew.

“I don’t know all the details yet,” Rulon said, “but I want you all over it for obvious reasons. You need to mount up and get up there and find out what happened. Call when you’ve got the full story.”

“Who’s in charge?” Joe asked, looking up as his day of homeowner chores went away in front of his eyes.

“Your sheriff there,” Rulon said, “McLanahan.”

“Oh,” Joe said.

“I know, I know,” the governor said, “he’s a doofus. But he’s your sheriff, not mine. Go with him and make sure he doesn’t foul up the scene. I’ve ordered DCI and Randy Pope to get up there in the state plane by noon.”

“Why Pope?” Joe asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Rulon said. “If this is another accidental death we’ve got a full-blown news event on our hands. Not to mention another Klamath Moore press conference.”

Klamath Moore was the leader and spokesman for a national anti-hunting organization who appeared regularly on cable news and was the first to be interviewed whenever a story about hunting and wildlife arose. He had recently turned his attention to the state of Wyoming, and particularly Governor Spencer Rulon, whom he called “Governor Bambi Killer.” Rulon had responded by saying if Moore came to Wyoming he’d challenge him to a duel with pistols and knives. The statement was seized upon by commentators making “red state/blue state” arguments during the election year, even though Rulon was a Democrat. In Wyoming the controversy increased Rulon’s popularity among certain sectors while fueling talk in others that the governor was becoming more unhinged.

“Why me?” Joe asked.

The governor snorted. Whoever was in the room with him-it sounded like a woman-laughed. Something about her laugh was familiar to Joe, and not in a good way. He shot a glance toward Marybeth, who looked back warily.

“Why you?” Rulon said. “What in the hell else do you have to do today?”

Joe reached back and patted the list in his pocket. “Chores,” he said.

“I want fresh eyes on the crime scene,” Rulon said. “You’ve got experience in this kind of thing. Maybe you can see something McLanahan or DCI can’t see. These are your people, these hunter types. Right?”