Dark Signal Page 12

  I waved it away. “That’s what Gramma Ardith would say. It means there are small reasons that add up to the logical conclusion.”

  He shook his head.

  I tapped the dash. “Who else had a reason?”

  Trey didn’t like my answer, I could tell. “There’s always his wife.”

  I considered this. “Why would she go to all that trouble to kill Chad?”

  Trey held his fist up and flipped a finger. “She’s a city girl and tired of living in the middle of nowhere.”

  “She could get a divorce.”

  He flipped up another finger. “Maybe Chad’s been having an affair and she’s mad.”

  “Again. Divorce.”

  Another finger went up. “He’s abusive.”

  “Chad?”

  Trey shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the guy you least expect.”

  “Even so, why not divorce? Why go to such an elaborate setup to get rid of a husband?”

  Trey thought about it. “That’s what makes her more suspect. Whoever did it must have hated Chad. Planning and constructing it with pulleys and winches and getting it installed without anyone seeing was not something done in the heat of passion. This is a hatred that steeped for a long while.”

  “And you think Meredith would be capable of that?”

  Trey shook his head. “Not really. It’s more the work of a man, I think. That’s why I’m putting my money on Josh Stevens.”

  I had Trey drop me at the courthouse for my car. He made tracks back to Ogallala, and I stopped at my folks’ place. If I was going to conduct traffic stops, I’d need a few more layers.

  I walked into the kitchen to Dad’s legs splayed on the floor, leading to his head under the sink. I nudged his foot. “The sink leaking?”

  He grunted, tightening a pipe. “David dropped Esther’s ring down the sink. I’m saving the day.”

  David and Esther were two of Louise’s kids. At fifteen, sandwiched between two girls, and with the twins, Zeke and Mose, way younger, David’s hobby seemed to be picking on his sisters. “Nice.”

  Dad wormed from under the sink and sat up. He held up a cheap silver ring with a gaudy green stone. “Don’t think Davie meant to drop it. But he’s clumsy. Through the tears, I gathered the ring belongs to Marcee Bolton and Esther’s life would be over if she didn’t return it.”

  I held a hand out to yank Dad to his feet. “What do you know about Josh Stevens?”

  He washed his hands. “Comes from a good family. They mostly keep to themselves; you know Black Socks.”

  I handed him a dish towel. “There’s something between him and Louise. What is it?”

  Dad didn’t meet my eye. “You’d have to ask them.”

  Louise wasn’t talking. Dad was a clam. I didn’t know Josh well enough to ask him. I’d have to stay curious. “Would Josh have any reason to kill Chad Mills?”

  This time Dad gave me one of his come-to-Jesus looks. “No.”

  That’s about what I’d figured Dad would say. “Why are you so convinced he’s innocent?”

  Dad threaded the towel through the handle of the oven door. “He’s a good man, and you can tell that as well as I can.”

  In the face of this frustration, Bill Hardy’s offer looked mighty good. “That’s not going to help with the state patrol or the courts. I can’t stake my reputation on ‘Because Dad says so.’”

  Dad gave me the same look he’d leveled when I was in fourth grade and hadn’t turned in my report on France. It made me feel lower than a pygmy snake. “Then you’re gonna have to find out who really killed Chad yourself.”

  15

  With my thermal underwear and two layers of socks inside my Sorels, Ted’s brown sheriff cap pulled low and my warmest winter gloves, I reluctantly left the cruiser and hurried over to Milo. Two other county sheriffs gathered close.

  Lee Barnett from Spinner County threw a salute my way. Pete Grainger from Chester County tipped his chin in greeting.

  Grainger sniffed, a ball of energy in his compact frame. “I’m giving it two hours. It’s too cold for you to be standing outside.”

  Barnett, eyes red-rimmed and baggy, like a hound, agreed. “Anyone committing a crime in this weather can go ahead as far as I’m concerned.”

  My tingling nose couldn’t agree more. But as a woman and the newbie of the group, I needed to prove my Sandhills grit. “Where would you like me, Milo?”

  Grainger and Barnett didn’t say anything. They turned to their four-wheel-drive county sheriff vehicles.

  Milo spat a stream of tobacco in the old snow on the side of the road. “Don’t know why they’re grousing. They’ll be tucked into their rigs. We’re the ones with the short straw.”

  I nodded and watched with envy as they fired up their vehicles and drove off, Grainger to the east and Barnett to the west.

  While I wore the brown ski cap, Milo opted for his beige felt cowboy hat. His cheeks and nose were lit up like a jolly garden gnome with broken veins highlighted in blue. “We’ll set ourselves up here in my Bronco and wait ’til they give us the signal.”

  We sat in Milo’s idling county Bronco for Grainger or Barnett to alert us when someone crossed their radar.

  “How’d they treat you at the academy?” Milo asked after we warmed a bit.

  I’d spent six weeks of training and terror as the instructors had pushed and prodded and taught us how to deal with all the bad guys. “I learned a lot but probably not enough.”

  He nodded. “No substitute for experience. How’d you do on the shoot / don’t shoot training.”

  I hated to admit I’d barely squeaked by. My reluctance to pull the trigger concerned the instructors. “I was raised by pacifists, so I feel about guns like I do my crazy cousin Bart. It’s always good to know where he is, and it’s best to keep the safety on.”

  Milo guffawed. “I know Bart. That’s about right.” He didn’t let me off the hook. “Hauling it around on your hip feels uncomfortable at first. Like a snarling Rottweiler, but you’ll get used to it.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of familiarity. I changed the subject. “I rocked the PIT training.” Pursuit intervention techniques. They trained us to use a couple of tricks to stop a fleeing suspect’s car.

  Milo laughed. “Everyone does good at that. That’s playing around in cars.”

  Barnett keyed his mic. “Not much going on out here; maybe we ought to talk about a deputy.”

  Grainger piped up, “We got to get someone hired soon. The wife and I are taking the kids to Cancun the end of the month. I got two weeks stored up, and the kids deserve a nice vacation.”

  Milo grunted as he reached for the mic. “It’s not like we ain’t been trying.”

  Since a deputy needed all the certification of a sheriff, they weren’t easy to come by. The four sheriffs planned to hire one deputy to rotate weekends in each county and give us all a free weekend each month.

  Barnett said, “What about Conner?”

  My face didn’t twitch, but my gut squeezed. The last thing I wanted in Grand County was Ted working for me.

  “I’m all for that,” Grainger said.

  Milo keyed the mic. “That won’t help you with your Mexico trip. Ted’s not getting around too good.”

  At least there was that.

  Barnett grumbled, “Gunshot wounds don’t take that long to heal.”

  Grainger piped in. “He’s already walking.”

  To my way of thinking, a sheriff who shows up to a crime because he’d been in his mistress’s bed and gets shot for the favor shouldn’t be hired for a deputy spot within a year. The good ol’ boys in this co-op might not see it the same way. I needed to get a deputy hired right away.

  The radio went quiet, and Milo and I talked about his grandkids for the next half hour.

  Several cars whizzed by us before Grainger radioed. “Gray Ford Taurus. Clocked at eighty-three miles per hour.”

  Milo grabbed his cowboy hat and slapped it on his head. “Lez g
o.”

  He flipped on his lights. The pickup pulled over, and Milo flicked his chin at me. “You go ahead.”

  I knew the driver and walked with confidence until Milo growled at me. “Is that what they taught you at the academy?”

  “But this is a buddy of my brothers’.”

  Milo’s face hardened. “I don’t give a green goddamn if it’s the queen of England. Follow protocol. Learn to trust your training.”

  Chastised, I stepped closer to the side of the car. I placed a hand on the trunk to make sure my fingerprints were captured in case I ended up dead on the side of the road and they needed to ID the car. I kept my eye on Tuff to make sure either of his shoulders didn’t dip to indicate he shoved something under the seat or perhaps grabbed a weapon. Getting closer, I inspected the back seat for any passengers or contraband. Finally, I stayed close enough to the driver’s door so he couldn’t swing it out and knock me down, but with my right hip far enough away he couldn’t reach for my gun.

  I spoke into the driver’s window. “Howdy, Tuff. I’ll need your proof of insurance and license.”

  He grinned at me. “Wow. I didn’t know you’d already taken over. You’re looking good in the uniform.”

  Being a friend of my twin brothers wasn’t enough to get him off the hook. “License.”

  The sunshine clouded from his face. “How about a warning?”

  I tilted my head away from a gust that blasted ice crystals into my cheek. “How about your license.”

  He propped himself up and wrenched out his wallet, snapped out the license and handed it to me. “Registration and insurance,” I prompted.

  His manners didn’t improve after I’d made him wait ten minutes while I ran his docs through the system. He was right to be irritated since this would use up the remainder of his points. He snatched his license, registration, and citation from my numb fingers and rolled up his window without even a “nice day.”

  I threw myself back in Milo’s Bronco and huddled in front of the heater.

  He nodded. “See? Not much to it. But now it begins in earnest.”

  “What begins?”

  He spat into a Mountain Dew can. “You’re stepping back from regular Kate Fox to Sheriff.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not going to happen. Everyone knows me.”

  He gave me that we’ll see head tilt, and I dropped it.

  We made a few more speeding stops. Milo seemed satisfied I had the routine down and stayed in the warmth of the Bronco. Two of the stops were folks from Grand County that I knew. They took it a little better than Tuff, but both eyed me with disappointment.

  I barely banged the door closed when Barnett came over the radio. “Suspicious vehicle. Late model Chevy Malibu, rusted white.”

  Milo replied, “Speeding?”

  Barnett: “No. Indian. Looking weird.”

  Milo gave me a sheepish look and didn’t say anything. We flagged the car down, and Milo got out of the Bronco and approached the car when it idled at the side of the highway.

  The man inside the old beater looked to be not quite thirty. He had his paperwork ready to hand out his opened window. I took it, but didn’t know what I was looking for. His plates showed he was from Spinner County, Grand’s northwest neighbor that ran to the border with South Dakota.

  He gave me a nervous smile with white, even teeth. “What’s the stop for?”

  Milo stepped up. “Routine traffic stop.”

  The man’s face took on a skeptical smirk. “Not racial profiling?”

  Milo waved that away. “We’re pulling over everyone. Checking license and registration, the like.” Milo took the documents from my hand. “I’ll run these and be right back.”

  I stood beside the car, thankful for my Sorels and Ted’s cap to protect my cheeks. “What part of Spinner County are you from?”

  He stared out the windshield. “North. On the border. The Rez.”

  I couldn’t blame him for his attitude. “Badlands? What brings you down this way?” I regretted it as I spoke. It must sound like I was interrogating him when I was only trying to make small talk. Maybe my brain was freezing into stupid slush.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he peered up at me. “Honestly? I was going for a job interview in Antelope County.”

  “Oh?” I tried for casual. “What kind of work do you do?” I still sounded like a cop questioning a suspect.

  He wasn’t enjoying it. With barely contained hostility, he said, “I was up for appointment for sheriff.”

  The current sheriff of Antelope County had been indicted for embezzling from the treasury. It’d been a statewide scandal. I stuck out my hand. “Glad to meet you. I’m Kate Fox. Newly sworn in Grand County sheriff. It’ll be good to have another novice around.”

  He turned to the windshield again. “It won’t be me. I didn’t get the job.”

  I shoved my hand back in my pocket before it shattered in the icy wind. “Sorry to hear that.” I turned to check on Milo. He had the mic up to his mouth, sitting in the warm Bronco.

  “You’ve been through the academy?”

  He nodded.

  “Certified?”

  Our conversation took a more interesting turn before Milo returned. He handed Kyle Red Owl his papers. “Have a nice day.”

  That was all? Kyle nodded and took the docs. I thrust my hand into his dumpy car again and he shook it. “Very nice to meet you.”

  A slight grin crept onto his face. “Likewise.” He rolled up his window, turned on his blinker and pulled onto the highway.

  “Welp,” Milo said and led the way back to the Bronco.

  By this time, my lips were numb, and I couldn’t tell if I smiled or if my face looked like a death mask. Cold had climbed through my boots and socks, and my fingers wouldn’t be able to write a ticket if I had to.

  Static scratched the air, and Barnett’s irritation slashed through the radio. “This is bull. We’re heading back.”

  Milo grinned at me. “I knew they’d call it off soon. We couldn’t do it, you know. Me being the old man and you being not a man.” Milo picked up the mic. “You’re a couple of softies. We’ll do one last stop and call it good.”

  Barnett keyed the mic. “Do your one more all day if you want. We’re done.”

  Milo winked at me and held the mic to his face. “10-4.”

  We didn’t have to wait long. A gold Monte Carlo popped over the hill to the east, followed by a turquoise one. Milo blipped his lights and they pulled over.

  I followed procedure. Hand on trunk, approach from the rear, check the back seat.

  I stepped up to the window as Earl rolled it down. When the smell hit, I drew backward. He’d either been skinning muskrats or hadn’t showered for a year. Even the crisp breeze couldn’t wipe out the lingering odor of dead rat.

  Earl started talking before he got the window down. “I know I ain’t over the speed limit. This ol’ car don’t even run faster than fifty-five.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I know that’s not true. But we’re doing a standard stop. Checking everyone.”

  Newt ambled from his car. A black bruise ringed his left eye.

  I held up my hand. “You’ll need to get back in your car, Newt.”

  He stopped but didn’t return to his car. “Are you checking for drugs? ’Cause I know this is a drug alley. People are forever transporting marijuana across here.”

  Earl shot Newt a warning hiss. “Shut up, you igit. You open your mouth, and the heat will think we’re mules.”

  Newt’s mouth hung open. “We ain’t never.”

  Earl smiled at me, his teeth the color of margarine. “You gotta excuse my brother. He don’t know what the hell he’s talking about half the time.”

  I took inventory of the back seat. Several bulky black garbage bags, a child’s car seat with one side of the plastic busted, a pile of rusted iron pipe that had split, what appeared to be a broken sucker rod for a windmill, heaps of wadded paper, a VCR player, and a bo
xy computer monitor circa 1995. “Where you been today, boys?”

  Earl took on a professional demeanor. “We’ve been conducting business.”

  I nodded. “Junk dealing business?”

  Earl looked offended. “Recycling.”

  Newt leaned forward. “The new term is repurposing.”

  I couldn’t resist. “What do you do with this stuff, anyway?”

  Newt eyed the back seat to consider the junk. “Right there, that is good steel and iron. We can take that down to Ogallala and sell it for cash. Most of that stuff won’t amount to much, but you never know. And the deal we make is that we’ll take it all off your hands.”

  Earl frowned at Newt. “People don’t know the treasures they got.”

  They performed a valuable service, really. It might only be relocating junk from others’ homes to their ranch, but at least it was concentrated in one place. “I’m glad to see you don’t have anything strapped to the roof this time.”

  Earl nodded. “We learned our lesson, that’s for sure.”

  Newt joined in. “It would have been a real shame to lose that ladder. It didn’t come easy and it’s gonna come in handy for us.”

  Earl hissed at Newt again, “Shut up.”

  I rested my arm on the edge of the open window and pulled back at the smell. “What do you mean it was hard to come by?”

  Earl chuckled. “He didn’t mean nothing. Junk is all, you know. We clean up people’s sheds and that’s hard work.”

  Newt reached in and shoved Earl. “That didn’t come from no shed and you know it.”

  Earl growled, “Shut your pie hole.”

  Newt shoved Earl again. “We had to dig that out of the bottom of a dump.”

  Although the government had recently tightened down on it, for generations, every Sandhills ranch had its own dump. It sounds terrible that any old yahoo could go out on their ranch and create a garbage heap, but it didn’t work that way. Ranchers typically picked a blowout. This was a raw bit of exposed sand. As the incessant wind blew, a small scar could turn into a dune, eroding at an increasing rate until huge swathes of land became exposed sand desert. A rancher could stop this before it started by throwing tires, old appliances, even a car or farm implement into the small area. That stabilized the sand and kept the erosion from spreading. Instead of a giant sandbox, the rancher now had a small dump, a private landfill, and the surrounding hills kept their grass cover.