Part 41 (1/2)
”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, wis.h.i.+ng 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?”
”Almost.”
”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 opportunityto 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 was 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 enteredthe 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 bas.e.m.e.nt with a home office, two-car garage filled with Joe's boat, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 thrill race down his back at the words.
There was a click and a pop and he could hear Governor Spencer Rulon talking to someone else in his office over the speaker phone, caught in midsentence, ”. . . we've got to get ahead of this one and frame and define it before those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 h.e.l.l are you?”
”Fine, sir.”
”And how is the lovely Mrs. Pickett?”
Joe looked up at his wife, who was pouring two cups of coffeeto bring one to Joe.
”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 shooting of a big game hunter in Wyoming thus far this fall, Joe knew. The first was still being investigated as a accident, but the second ”hunting accident” the week before raised alarms. A third would be disastrous.
”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 ch.o.r.es went away in front of his eyes.
”Your sheriff there,” Rulon said, ”McLanahan.”