C Box - Below Zero

“Sure you can, Brad,” Joe said. To Ron, “Lead on, Mad Archer.”

BRAD TEARFULLY CONFESSED into Joe’s microcassette while Joe drove toward Baggs and Ron followed. Every crime had been committed by Ron Connelly, Brad said.

“Why’d he do it?” Joe asked.

“Ron claimed at first he was tuning up for archery season, but things got plumb out of hand. The problem is Ron is as horny as a three-peckered owl. There’s plenty of natural gas but there are no women here, you know. I got Barb, and she’s no treat, but Ron… Ron is a mess.”

“Ah,” Joe said. His hands were still shaking from adrenaline, but he hoped Brad couldn’t see them in the dark.

“Ron did it all. Every one. Ron should be in prison,” Brad said.

“Don’t worry,” Joe said, “I’ll do my best,” knowing jail time was unlikely for the game violations but the meth might be the ticket.

“Good,” Brad said.

After a few miles, Brad said, “Jesus, you’re that game warden, aren’t you? The one from up north?”

Joe didn’t respond.

“I heard about you,” Brad said.

When Joe cleared the mouth of the canyon in the dark, he heard his radio suddenly gush with voices. He was back in range. At the same time, the cell phone in his pocket burred with vibration.

He took it out, flipped it open.

Three missed calls from Marybeth.

Uh-oh.

IN THE THREE HOURS IT TOOK TO GET THE POACHERS BOOKED and processed into the tiny Baggs jail, the word got out within the community that the Mad Archer was in custody. As Joe hoped, the deputy sheriff added drug charges to Joe’s list of game violations, and a quick search of Ron Connelly’s history via the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database showed outstanding warrants from Texas for additional drug-related charges and nonpayment of child support. In Joe’s experience as a game warden, the bad ones rarely just committed game violations. Behind the violation was usually a pattern of serious offenses in other fields. Ron Connelly, the Mad Archer, was a perfect example of the theory. Ron’s pal Brad, however, was clean except for a seven-year-old possession charge that had been pled out.

The deputy, a young former Iraq War vet named Rich Brokaw, was new to the job but had the weary old eyes of someone who’d seen things far beyond whatever life in Baggs could bring him. He said to Brad, “You’re free to go, but don’t even think of missing your court date.”

Brad refused to move. He, like Joe, had been noting the number of vehicles gathering outside on the street in front of the jail in the past twenty minutes. He, like Joe, could hear the rumble of men’s voices out on the sidewalk and the occasional shout. Apparently, the bars had emptied and the patrons were right outside wanting a piece of the Mad Archer and his accomplice. The new county building, financed with energy money, was under construction across the street. So the jail was located in a temporary modular unit on an empty lot. The modular was cheap and the walls quivered in strong wind. There was a single jail cell inside, open to the deputy’s office. The setup reminded Joe of the friendly small-town set for The Andy Griffith Show. If the men gathering outside stormed the door, they could be inside in seconds.

“If it’s all right with you guys,” Brad said, “I’ll spend the night in here.”

“Pussy,” Connelly jeered. “Assclown.”

“It’s like a damn cowboy movie,” Brad said to Joe, pretending he didn’t hear Ron. “The mob out there, Jesus. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come back with torches and pitchforks and shit.”

Joe said, “Neither would I.”

“Maybe we can sneak you out the back,” the deputy told Brad.

“No way,” Brad said, shaking his head. “I ain’t leaving tonight. If you want, I’ll pay you to stay here. There’s got to be a cost for staying the night, right? I’ll cover it so the taxpayers don’t have to.”

Brokaw looked at Joe and smiled, then went back to filling out the paperwork for Ron Connelly. Joe still clutched his cell phone. Three calls were akin to a home-front three-alarm fire, but when he’d tried to connect from the pickup, their home phone was busy. He’d left a message saying he had a man in custody and would call the second he had a moment of privacy. Marybeth knew the drill. He hoped that moment came soon, because he could feel his stomach start to roil. There were so many scenarios he could imagine involving Sheridan, Lucy, Marybeth, his crazy mother-in-law, Missy. Maybe his friend Nate had been apprehended by the FBI?

Someone pounded hard on the front door of the modular building, shaking the walls. Ron Connelly stared at the door, tried to act calm, but failed in his attempt. His hands gripped the bars of the jail door as if to milk them. Brad squirmed in a hardback chair as if he needed a bathroom.

Joe said, “If you guys would have shot somebody or robbed a bank or something minor like that, it would be calm out there. But you killed some nice game animals out of season and you shot that dog. So as far as those people out there go, it’s personal.”

Ron Connelly nervously raked his fingers through his long hair and chinned toward Joe and the deputy. “Those rednecks out there want blood and there’s just the two of you between them and us.”

“Yup,” Joe said. “And if it were up to me, I’d step aside.”

Ron’s face twitched. He didn’t know if Joe was kidding or not. Joe didn’t, either. He disliked Connelly more every minute he was exposed to him. What kind of man shot an eagle on the ground? Or Tube?

“I’ll up my offer to stay here tonight,” Brad said.

Brokaw finished the page he was working on, looked to Joe, said, “Okay. Let ’em in.”

Ron Connelly ran in terror to the back of the cell. Brad shrieked.

“Just kidding,” the deputy said, standing up and stifling a smile. “I’ll go outside and talk to ’em.”

Joe watched with admiration as the deputy stepped outside with a shotgun and told everyone to calm down and go home. When a man shouted that the Mad Archer should be released to them, the deputy racked the pump on his shotgun, said, “Go ahead, boys, I got nothing to lose. I don’t like this job much, anyhow.”

The crowd dispersed, and the deputy came back in, sighed, “Whew,” to Joe.

“Impressive,” Joe said.

“I learned in Basra that there is no sound in nature that makes men move along faster than the pumping of a shotgun. Except maybe a chainsaw, but we won’t go there.”

SIMULTANEOUS WITH the snap of the jail door on Ron and Brad, Joe opened his phone and speed-dialed Marybeth.

She was anxious. Someone claiming to be April had called their old house.

It took a moment to register. His stomach did a half-turn. Ron, Brad, the deputy, Baggs all faded from his consciousness. “Is this a sick joke?”

“I wish I could say for sure.”

“Impossible,” Joe said.

“Of course it’s impossible,” she said. But there was a hesitation-an opening he could sense that maybe she thought it wasn’t impossible.

“We paid for her funeral. We were at her funeral.”

“There was never an autopsy.”

“There was no need. I saw her, Marybeth,” Joe said. “She was there.”

“You saw her before. You didn’t see her after. None of us did.”

“Impossible,” he said again.

“All I can say is someone called our old house and asked to speak to Sheridan and Lucy. And whoever called identified herself as April and now has Sheridan’s cell phone number.”

“This is the sickest joke anyone’s ever played on us.”

“It’s depraved,” she said. “But Jason said the girl asked for ‘Sherry.’ No one has ever called Sheridan that except Lucy and April.”