The Disappeared (Joe Pickett Book 18) Read online

  Joe sat up. “What do you mean I was sent down here to fail? The governor said he wanted me to be his range rider like I was for Rulon.”

  “Don’t be naive, Joe,” Nate said cruelly. “Allen wants to get as far away from Rulon as he can. He doesn’t want anyone comparing him to the last governor, because deep down Allen is insecure. He wants to get rid of anyone who might be loyal to the ex-governor—but he has to do it in a way that doesn’t get his hands dirty.”

  Joe started to rebut what Nate said, but it hit him.

  The strange disappearance of Pollock and the looting of Pollock’s records. That cleared the deck and prevented Joe from knowing what the former game warden was working on.

  The robbery of the case file from his room at the Wolf let someone know for sure why he was down there.

  The planned press conference even though Kate could not be positively identified.

  The pressure from Hanlon.

  The fact that he’d been sent out of his district to take over the case from the DCI in the first place.

  All had contributed to the debacle that had occurred at the trapper’s cabin, and all had helped establish a pattern of incompetence and failure if spun properly.

  Joe said, “Even if what you say is true, that’s an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get rid of one game warden.”

  “It is,” Nate said. “And my guess is that Allen didn’t figure it all out by himself and then set it into motion. He’s not that smart. He turned to a guy who knows how to work the system to do his dirty work.”

  “Hanlon,” Joe said.

  “Bingo. He’s been pulling the strings like a puppet master.”

  Joe sat back. He was hurt and tried not to show it. “But why me? Other than I worked for Governor Rulon?”

  “Think about it, Joe. Think about the backers. One of them asked for a quid pro quo. Something that backer insisted on before a check was written.”

  Joe started to ask Who? but then it all made sense.

  “Missy,” Joe said.

  “Your mother-in-law,” Nate said. “She has the means and she wants you to fail. That way, Marybeth will finally see the light: that she married a loser.”

  Joe moaned. It was insane, but it fit. Missy Vankueren was nothing if not diabolical.

  “How do you know it was her?” Joe said, while the Yukon rocked in a sudden burst of wind.

  “My falconer friends saw the two of them together a week or so before he formally announced his campaign. All they knew was that she was some rich lawyer’s wife from Jackson Hole. They didn’t make the connection, but I did. She’s always wanted to bust up your marriage so Marybeth and the girls can live with her in Jackson Hole high-style.”

  “It won’t work,” Joe said. “I know my wife. Missy doesn’t appreciate or understand her and she never has.”

  “True, but that won’t stop her,” Nate said. “Missy wants to finish you off. She’s relentless and she’s getting crazier by the year.”

  Joe knew that to be true. Nevertheless, he felt a chill roll through him. “I’m a forty-eight-year-old soon-to-be ex–game warden with one girl in college and the other about to start,” he said. “How am I going to support my family? I don’t have a Plan B.”

  Nate nodded and pursed his lips. He didn’t disagree.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Joe asked.

  “You asked me not to.”

  Joe rolled his head back and moaned.

  . . .

  AFTER A FEW MINUTES of silence, Joe asked, “Who was the other backer?”

  Nate chinned toward Buckbrush. “You’re looking at it.”

  After that sunk in, Joe winced and asked, “So what’s your conspiracy theory?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “That’s why I asked.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Nate, I’m not in the mood.”

  Nate said, “You know all the elements. They’re right in front of you. You just haven’t put them together yet.”

  “Enlighten me,” Joe said, trying to keep his annoyance with his friend tamped down.

  And for the next twenty minutes, Nate laid it out.

  *

  WHEN HE WAS THROUGH, Joe said, “That’s pretty crazy.”

  Nate conceded that. “Do you have a better one?”

  “No.”

  “So how should we proceed?”

  Joe thought about it for a minute, then said, “We keep going with the investigation as if nothing had happened tonight—as if I never even talked to Hanlon and you didn’t tell me about Missy’s role in this. We just keep moving ahead, because that’s the last thing Missy or Hanlon or the governor or whoever has been following me will expect.”

  “How do we do it if you’ve been fired?” Nate asked.

  “It won’t be official until they notify my director and they send me the paperwork. It’s Saturday night, so the administrative staff at HQ won’t be in the office until Monday morning. Plus, I’m not sure they know exactly where to send it. My town house in Saddlestring? The Hotel Wolf? The wheels of state government turn really, really slow. That can work in our favor.”

  A grin spread across Nate’s face. “I like it,” he said. “And we’ll come back here every night until we’ve got them?”

  “Yup.”

  “When we nail them, all bets are off,” Nate said. “I’m going to go Yarak on their ass. After all, how much more trouble can I get you in?”

  “Not much, but let’s not talk about that now,” Joe said cautiously.

  Then: “Maybe we can break everything wide open. If we do that, everything might change.”

  Nate nodded and his smile remained intact.

  “Plus,” Joe said, “it’s the right thing to do.”

  Nate laughed. “And just when I was starting to think you were getting more cynical, you come back as Dudley Do-Right after all.”

  *

  IT WAS EASIER to drive to the highway in their tracks because Nate didn’t have to break through the crust of snow.

  Nate said, “When you step back and look at everything going on around here, it’s more than coincidence that three things happened in this little community at the same time. Kate vanished as they were starting to put up the first turbines of the wind energy project. Then the local game warden just vacates his house and no one knows where he is. Have you thought about how that is?”

  “Not really,” Joe said. “I don’t see the connection at all.”

  “Do you want me to see how I can work the game warden’s and Kate’s disappearances into my theory?” Nate asked.

  “Not really.”

  “So you think all three events were random? That each has nothing to do with the others?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “We’ll see,” Nate said, arching his eyebrows in a conspiratorial way.

  Nate gathered his fencing pliers to pound the staples back in as they approached the downed fence. He said, “I’m guessing your talk with Marybeth will be eventful.”

  “Yup.”

  But Joe wasn’t yet thinking about that. He was recalling the missing files from Pollock’s drawer.

  Was B for Buckbrush?

  23

  JOE WAS PLEASED TO FIND OUT THAT A ROOM HAD OPENED UP AT THE Wolf for Nate, who got his keys and went upstairs. Kim Miller handed Joe a Saddle Bronc brown ale.

  He said, “Thanks, but I didn’t order this.”

  “It’s on me. I heard you had a rough day.”

  Joe didn’t respond. How much did she know? Was the word already on the street that he’d been fired?

  “I’ve never actually seen a blow-up sex doll,” she said, by way of explanation. “Are they as gross as I think they are?”

  “Oh, that,” Joe said, relieved. Then: “Yup.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me that McKnight had one of those disgusting things. He never seemed to like real people.”

  “So you know him,” Joe said.

&
nbsp; “I’m the bartender,” she said with a grin. “I know everybody.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “That doll of his looked pretty ridiculous in the picture,” she said. “And so does our sheriff.”

  “The picture?”

  Miller swiped at an iPad until the home page for the Daily Dispatch website came up. She handed it over to him.

  The headlines read: COWGIRL KATE FOLLY: NOTHING BUT HOT AIR!

  Followed by: PLASTIC FANTASTIC? love in a cold climate.

  Joe winced. The article—which of course had Billy Bloodworth’s byline—was written in a campy and derogatory style designed to portray the Carbon County sheriff’s office in the worst possible light. He referred to the raid as undertaken by “Countrified Keystone Kops.” The lead photo was of Sheriff Neal barking out orders while clutching the doll under his arm. The flash from Bloodworth’s camera highlighted his fleshy jowls. The flesh-colored vinyl of the doll stood sharply out against the dark background.

  There was also a shot of Sheridan standing menacingly over the prone figure of McKnight in the snow. Joe was grateful her back was to the camera so her face wasn’t shown. The caption of the photo read:

  Cowgirl Tough: This unidentified local female was an eager participant in the Keystone Kops debacle and stands proudly over the injured body of the innocent trapper. Photo by Billy Bloodworth.

  Nowhere in the story was it mentioned that the reason for the raid in the first place was the photo on Bloodworth’s phone or his claims that he and Sophie had identified the kidnapper and were closing in. The press had its privileges, apparently.

  Joe was furious. He would have been less angry if it were a photo of him. But his daughter?

  He considered chasing Bloodworth down on the highway but the reporter and Sophie had too much of a head start. They were well into Colorado and Joe not only didn’t have jurisdiction, he wasn’t sure he officially had a job in law enforcement anymore. And the damage was done. He knew it would be only a matter of time before Hanlon and the governor saw the story and used it for their press conference the next morning.

  “When I run into this Bloodworth guy, things are going to get real Western,” he growled.

  “Too late,” Miller said. “He and Sophie checked out a couple of hours ago. I heard him say they were driving to the Denver airport.”

  “Tonight?”

  “They checked out in a hurry. She was yelling at him for making her pack up in a rush.

  “And they stiffed us,” she said while shaking her head. “The company credit card he gave me was rejected and won’t go through.”

  “Oh, man,” Joe said.

  “It’s bad,” Miller agreed. “That article makes us all look stupid. I don’t think Billy likes us very much.”

  “No,” Joe said. “I don’t believe he does.”

  “Your daughter looks fierce, though,” she said while jutting out her chin. “She looks like a warrior.”

  Joe handed the iPad back to her, but left the beer on the counter. He told her he’d be back for it in a minute.

  He climbed into the freezing cab of his truck.

  Game wardens in Colorado used the same mutual-aid radio frequency Wyoming wardens used. He’d met several northern Colorado wardens and found them to be just as hardworking, professional, dedicated, and underpaid as their Wyoming brethren.

  When the dispatcher responded, Joe said, “This is GF-24. I’d like to request a BOLO in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado for a rental vehicle being driven by two suspects.”

  He described Bloodworth’s four-wheel-drive and gave a brief description of the reporter as well as Sophie. He told the dispatcher the persons of interest were suspected of defrauding an innkeeper, and “possibly other violations.”

  Joe didn’t feel very virtuous about his actions as he went up the icy porch steps into the Wolf.

  But what could they do? Fire him again?

  *

  HE HAD GATHERED UP his beer and started to mount the stairs when Kim Miller said, “Oh, there’s something else I need to tell you. I nearly forgot about it.”

  He paused.

  “Earlier tonight someone called and asked if you were staying here and he asked if he could talk to you. He wouldn’t identify himself, and it’s our policy not to give out that kind of information.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I could hear lots of voices in the background and glasses clinking together. I think he was calling from a bar. I do know what a bar sounds like, you know.”

  “Any idea who it was?” Joe asked.

  “I would swear it was Steve Pollock. I said, ‘Steve, is that you?’ He just got real quiet. Then I said, ‘Steve, this is Kim. I recognize your voice,’ and he hung up.”

  “Did he leave a callback number?”

  “No.”

  Joe said, “Why would he call here and not on my cell phone?”

  “Maybe so you won’t be able to track him down,” she said. “He used to come in here all the time. He knows our phones don’t have caller ID.”

  *

  IN ROOM 9, it took nearly a half hour for Joe to recount all the events of the day to Marybeth. She was aware of Sheridan’s involvement because she’d talked to her daughter earlier, but she was silent when he told her about his call with Hanlon. Then he told her about Nate’s theory about Missy being behind it all.

  Marybeth responded with a string of curses unlike anything Joe had ever heard from her before.

  “She’s really crossed the line,” Marybeth said about Missy after she’d calmed down. “I’m absolutely done with her this time. She’s gotten so evil and bitter that she doesn’t realize how going after you hurts us all. Do you want me to call her out on it?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  “No. She’d just deny it,” Marybeth said. Then wearily, “What are we going to do?”

  He knew she was talking about his job.

  “I don’t have an easy answer.” It killed him to admit it. “I’m still a game warden until I get the termination notice in writing from LGD,” he said. “Who knows—maybe she might not agree with the governor?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Marybeth scoffed. “Linda Greene-Dempsey will do anything to keep her position. Do you really think she’d take some kind of stand on principle?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Nope.”

  “I’ll have to sleep on it,” she said. “Not that I’ll sleep.”

  He understood and said so. Joe appreciated the fact that Marybeth didn’t panic, though she had every reason to do exactly that. Together, they had maybe two months’ of savings to cover them without his income. And they didn’t even have a house to move into.

  He knew there were grievance procedures for wrongful termination in place within the state personnel system, but he was unfamiliar with them. The very idea of pleading his case before a table of bureaucrats filled him with loathing. And deep down, he wasn’t sure he could prove that Hanlon and the governor had set him up to fail.

  Which he absolutely had so far.

  After a long pause, she said, “So you’re going to just press ahead as if nothing has happened?”

  “Yup.” Thinking, That’s all I know how to do.

  “You don’t owe those people. Plus, it isn’t like we knew Kate and she’s important to us. You could just pack up and come home.”

  “I know that,” Joe said.

  “But you can’t, can you? You’re like a dog with a bone. I know you. You won’t quit.”

  He didn’t respond. She knew him better than he knew himself.

  “In that case,” she said, “I do think I’m onto something with Kate, but I can’t confirm it a hundred percent yet.”

  Joe sat up.

  She said, “I was able to get into her Facebook timeline even though I’m not her friend and she had privacy settings on.”

  “How were you able to do that?” Joe asked warily.

  “There are ways. I learned this one from Lucy.”<
br />
  Their youngest daughter was adept at using social media and it came naturally to her. Joe didn’t realize she was capable of hacking into a private account, though.

  Marybeth continued. “It appears Kate liked a group called Cowboys Are My Weakness. The group is made up of like-minded women from all over, but most are from the U.S. or UK.

  “They’re cougars, Joe. Wealthy women who travel to pursue young cowboys. They have memes like ‘Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts’ and that sort of thing. They post photos of cowboys they’ve been intimate with, or at least they claim they’ve been intimate with. I think Kate posted a few of the photos, but I can’t confirm it yet. If she did, it was under the alias ‘Miss Kitty.’”

  “Miss Kitty?” he asked. “Like the Gunsmoke lady?”

  “That’s right,” Marybeth said, warming to it. “The redheaded one with the beauty mark. Anyway, Miss Kitty liked a lot of the photos posted on the group page. Kate wasn’t the most prolific user on the page by any means, but it’s obvious she spent time on that site. And she posted a few photos of her own.”

  “You’re good,” Joe said with admiration. “This is new. DCI missed that, and so did Billy Bloodworth and the British tabloids.”

  She said, “Maybe it takes a woman to have a feel for what other women want.”

  He agreed without saying, I never know what women want.

  Instead, he asked, “Is there anything on the site about her stay at the Silver Creek Ranch?”

  “Yes. I can’t confirm Miss Kitty is absolutely Kate, but there are a few photos posted on the page that correspond to the July dates when Kate was there. I recognize some of the buildings from the Silver Creek Ranch in the background. And there’s one photo in particular you’d recognize. I just sent it to your phone while we were talking.”

  “Hold on,” Joe said. He activated his email and found it. It was a shot of wranglers saddling up horses in the golden light of early dawn. Sheridan could be clearly seen throwing a saddle on the back of a roan.

  “See her?” Marybeth said.

  Joe didn’t respond, because although Sheridan was identifiable, it was obvious the photo wasn’t specifically taken of her. She just happened to be there.