C Box - Winterkill

He finally resolved to embrace his immobility, and he changed from his uniform to sweat clothes and made chili for everyone for dinner. He cubed elk steaks to brown with diced onions and peppers in his cast-iron pot. As the chili simmered, he added more ingredients and the aroma of tomato sauce, garlic, and meat filled the house. It was a good smell. Cooking also meant he got to stay in the kitchen while Marybeth and Missy visited in the living room, which was fine with all of them.

That evening, the girls cleared the chili bowls and silverware from the table while Missy tried in vain to call her husband on her cell phone.

“He never leaves it on,” she said angrily as she sat down at the table. “He only turns it on when he wants to tell somebody something.” Her tone was bitter, and Joe exchanged glances with Marybeth. Neither really knew Missy’s third husband well, but there had been rumors lately about the possibility of his indictment for land-use fraud. Missy had said little of this, except that the impending “issues” were one of the reasons they’d wanted to get away to their condominium in Jackson Hole in the first place.

“I guess you’re stuck with us,” Sheridan said as she opened the box of a Monopoly game.

Missy patted her on the head. “I enjoy being with you, darling.” Sheridan rolled her eyes as soon as Missy looked away.

“Sit with me, Princess,” Missy directed Lucy, who gladly did as she was told. Missy liked Lucy’s sense of style, and Lucy liked Missy’s huge traveling bag of makeup and hair-spray.

After a protest from April, Sheridan returned to the table with Pictionary instead of Monopoly. They divided up into teams. Joe was on Missy’s team, which meant that he gave himself permission to have another bourbon.

During the game, while the sand ran through the one-minute timer and the designated “artists” drew frantic sketches on pads for their teammates to guess at, Joe found himself paying special attention to April. She was the most determined artist on his team, and she drew very deliberately. When her pictures were complete, she was deliriously happy with herself, and she beamed. Joe had noticed before that April didn’t have the lively features and sparkling eyes that Sheridan and Lucy had. Marybeth had said that “the sparkle got beaten out of April early on.” He remembered that phrase as he watched her now.

After a round that Joe and Missy won by correctly identifying April’s drawing, April whooped and punched the air with pure joy.

“I like it that you’re getting more normal,” Lucy said to April. “You’re not so weird anymore.”

“Lucy!” Marybeth said, alarmed.

But April didn’t explode and start swinging, or withdraw and freeze her face into a pinched glare, as she had in the past. Instead, she smiled and reached across the table and mussed Lucy’s hair. Both girls laughed. Joe thought April seemed flattered. Sheridan beamed with relief, her eyes sliding from her mom to her dad.

During the second game, with Joe about to draw and Sheridan poised to flip the timer over, Joe suddenly looked up. “Listen,” he said.

“What?” Missy asked, alarmed.

“Do you hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “The wind stopped.”

“Too bad,” Sheridan chimed, turning the timer over and setting it down. “This is fun.”

“Sherry’s right,” Lucy smiled, her eyes wide. “Storms are good for our family.”

Joe smiled and sipped his bourbon, enjoying the moment despite the ticking of the timer. April tugged on his sleeve, her face was urgent.

“DRAW SOMETHING!” April pleaded. “We’re running out of time!”

It was two days before they could get back onto the mountain, and they needed three borrowed Sno-Cats to do it. The meeting point was at a clearing outside Winchester where the road ascended into the mountains. There were more people in the assemblage than Joe expected.

After the weather delay, the DCI agents had arrived in their state plane at the Twelve Sleep County Airport with two additional passengers, a U.S. Forest Service official and a female journalist. The Forest Service official had also brought two small dogs with her, a Yorkie on a leash and a cocker spaniel that she clutched to her breast. Joe noticed an attractive, dark-haired woman with the official who seemed to be keeping a close eye on the proceedings. A lone Saddlestring Roundup reporter, a twenty-three-year-old blonde wearing a Wyoming Cowboys basketball parka and driving a ten-year-old pickup, approached the gathering carrying a notebook opened to a blank page.

The Forest Service official intercepted the reporter in mid-stride, and an interview was begun. Joe was helping a deputy hook his snowmobile trailer to the back of a Sno-Cat, and he was close enough to overhear their exchange.

“My name is Melinda Strickland,” the Forest Service official said. She spelled her name for the benefit of the reporter.

“I’m here on special assignment on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service as the head of a special investigative team that needs to remain classified and off of the record for the time being.”

“Why?” the reporter asked vacantly. Joe wondered the same thing. The Forest Service was not a law enforcement agency, although individual rangers had some regulatory responsibility within their jurisdiction, and while Joe assumed it was possible, he had never before heard of a “special investigative team” sent by the agency. He thought it more likely that the agency would ask the FBI to intervene.

“You’ll be told in due course, if we confirm some of our suspicions,” Strickland said.

The reporter obviously didn’t know how to react. The woman sounded so… offical.

The Yorkie pulled at Melinda Strickland’s pant cuff, but was ignored.

“You’ll be the first to get the information when we decide to release it, but if you burn me by printing something before that, I’ll have your ass,” Melinda Strickland said, her eyes narrowing.

This got Joe’s attention, and he watched the reporter nod meekly. The brittle edge in Strickland’s voice seemed out of place and unnecessarily severe.

What, Joe asked himself, is she implying, beyond the murder itself? What suspicions is she referring to?

The Yorkie, frustrated, growled and pulled on Strickland’s pant leg, nearly knocking her off balance. She wheeled, and Joe watched with alarmed interest as she drew back a foot, seemingly about to kick the dog hard in the ribs. But something stopped her, and she quickly looked up to see Joe looking at her. To the side, the Yorkie yipped and cowered.

“That dog is going to get seriously hurt if he keeps it up,” Melinda Strickland said through gritted teeth. “I picked him up at the shelter to be a companion for Bette, here,” nodding at the cocker spaniel she held in her arms. “But it isn’t working out.”

Joe said nothing. Strickland turned from him back to the reporter, whom she dismissed with a few short words. Joe watched Strickland turn and look at the idling Sno-Cats as if nothing had just happened.

Joe was taken aback. She had restrained herself at the last possible moment, but it was obvious to him by the Yorkie’s reaction that he’d been kicked before. The incident left Joe feeling unsettled.

The DCI agent-in-charge, Bob Brazille, turned away from another conversation, and walked up to Joe. Brazille had an alcoholic’s mottled face and heavy-lidded eyes, and he made the introductions.

“Melinda Strickland, this is Game Warden Joe Pickett and Sheriff Bud Barnum.”

With a chilly smile, Melinda Strickland stepped forward and extended a gloved hand from under the belly of the cocker spaniel. Barnum shook it; Joe followed suit, but more warily. He expected her to mention the Yorkie again, but she just smiled as if nothing had happened.