Breaking Point jp-13 Read online

  “I hate this,” Reed said to Joe under his breath. “I’m fine in the office. I can get around. But out here it’s another story. But I’m the sheriff. I need to get out into the county.”

  “Yup,” Joe said, stepping aside.

  “And I don’t want anyone helping me, including you.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” Reed said. Joe wasn’t sure he would, either. Before he’d been cut down by a desperate suspect, Reed had been tall and strapping, with a graceful, loping stride. It had been less than a year since the shooting, but Joe could see the loss of muscle mass in Reed’s legs. His uniform trousers hung from bony thighs.

  Reed spun in his chair toward Woods and asked for an update.

  Joe listened in as Woods briefed the sheriff. Norwood tiptoed around the scene, snapping digital photos and placing evidence markers. Finally, Reed nodded, then called out to his men, “Okay, do this gently. Don’t get your weight behind the shovel. Sift the dirt off and put it on a plastic tarp. You don’t want to slice into anything with those shovels, gentlemen.”

  The deputies nodded and got to work. Reed glanced at his wristwatch and instructed Woods to call back to the sheriff’s department and request a walled outfitters’ tent, a generator, and portable lights.

  “This may take a while,” he said.

  When Woods walked back to his SUV to get on the radio, Reed said to Joe, “I think I know what we’re going to find.”

  “What?”

  “At least two federal employees of the Environmental Protection Agency from Denver.” His tone was solemn.

  Joe looked over. The deputies were proceeding with caution, as instructed. When streams of soil were dropped on the blue plastic tarp, it made a sizzling sound.

  “You saw him, then,” Reed said to Joe, as they watched the fresh dirt get removed from the mound an inch at a time.

  “Butch Roberson?” Joe said. “Yeah, I ran into him just above Big Stream Ranch this afternoon. He told me he was scouting elk.”

  Joe described Butch’s clothing, gear, and rifle.

  “On foot?” Reed asked.

  “Yup.”

  “And you believed his story?” Reed asked, flat.

  “No reason not to,” Joe said, a little defensive.

  “If you’d brought him in, we might be a long way to solving this thing,” Reed said, not meeting Joe’s eyes.

  Joe didn’t respond.

  “Sorry,” Reed said, shaking his head. “There was no reason for me to say that, and no reason to bring him in. You didn’t know anything at the time. But you know him, right?”

  “Through my daughter,” Joe said. “We aren’t fishing buddies or anything.”

  Reed sighed and shifted his weight in his wheelchair from his left to his right side. Joe noticed the grimace on his face as he did it, and realized Reed was in pain. He hadn’t considered that Reed still hurt from the gunshot wounds.

  Joe asked Reed when the sheriff’s office had first gotten the tip to check out the Roberson lot.

  “This morning,” Reed said. “Somebody called it in. Said he knew of two federal agents who were headed up here last night who never checked into the Holiday Inn.”

  “Who called?”

  “He didn’t give his name at first, but we tracked him down.” Reed dug a notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped it open. “U.S. Army Corps of Engineers guy out of Cheyenne named Kim Love,” he read. “He said he was supposed to come up here with the two EPA guys, but he got cold feet, or he felt kind of sick and needed to lie down. He said both things, so his story is a little hinky. I asked the guy to stay another night at the hotel before he headed back to Cheyenne so we could talk to him a little more. He said he’d check with his supervisor. That pissed me off, so I told him if he tried to leave my county tonight I’d have him arrested,” Reed said with irritation.

  Joe asked, “He didn’t say why he and the EPA guys were here in the first place?”

  Reed said, “Something about serving a compliance order. I didn’t quite understand at first. Not until I talked with Pam Roberson.”

  Joe was confused. “I haven’t heard a thing about any conflict between the Robersons and the EPA. I’m pretty sure Marybeth doesn’t know anything from Pam or she would have told me. Why is the EPA poking their noses around here, anyway?”

  Reed snorted and said, “You won’t believe it when I tell you. You’ll want to be sitting down, if what Pam told me is true.”

  Joe waited, but Reed changed the subject.

  “This might turn out to be my first murder investigation as sheriff,” Reed said. “I used to be damned hard on McLanahan for the way he ran things. But now all I can think of is what we’re missing or forgetting to do so some defense lawyer doesn’t rip us up in court. This isn’t easy, Joe. And I don’t even have to tell you what a shit storm we’re going to have if there are two dead Feds in my county.”

  Joe looked up. He said, “No, you don’t.”

  “We heard they’re on their way now. A couple of Fed big shots from the regional headquarters in Denver and some folks from Washington, D.C. They want to get up here and make sure we know what we’re doing, I guess. They want to make sure I don’t botch the investigation.”

  “You won’t,” Joe said, feeling bad for his friend.

  “I should just tell them to turn around and go back. That we can handle it.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because they didn’t exactly ask my permission,” Reed said, narrowing his eyes in anger. “You know how they can be.”

  One of the deputies digging into the mound gave a shout, and Gary Norwood jogged over to him. Joe and Reed saw the pops of a camera flash, then watched the evidence tech drop something into a paper evidence bag before he walked it over to show the sheriff.

  Joe looked inside as the tech opened the top.

  “One of our guys said it’s a.40 Sig,” Norwood said. “I sniffed it, and it doesn’t appear to have been fired. We’ll know for sure once we take it down to the lab and run it through tests.”

  Reed sat back in his chair and whistled.

  Joe said, “Hold it. These guys were armed? Armed EPA people?”

  “We haven’t found any bodies yet,” Norwood cautioned Joe.

  “Still,” Joe said, incredulous.

  Ten minutes later one of the deputies with a shovel called out, “Got a body.”

  Sheriff Reed pursed his lips and rotated back on his wheels, then set the chair down. It was an involuntary reaction, Joe thought, as if Reed were shuffling his feet after hearing bad news. Reed whispered, “Damn it.”

  Another deputy said, “I’m pretty sure we’ve got two.”

  Norwood hovered around the pit taking photographs, the flash popping.

  Joe left Reed and walked to the mound, which was now a shallow pit. He saw a young, waxen, square-jawed face that appeared to be looking up and out of the ground, eyes open. There was a single black hole in the brow. Next to the face was the profile of another man, older, turned on his side, his eyes closed as if sleeping. The arm of the older man was flung over the chest of the first, as if trying to cuddle. Their skin was dirty, pale, and dry, as though it were made of plastic. Norwood’s camera exposed their dead white skin in bursts of flash.

  Joe thought, So indecent. So obscene. So without dignity in death. Norwood retrieved two body bags from the back of Reed’s van and unfurled them on the grass.

  “Keep digging,” Reed said from the perimeter. “Let’s hope there’s no more in there.”

  Joe felt his stomach constrict. He turned and stumbled out of the lot, ducking under the yellow tape. He tried to hold in his nausea, and succeeded until he heard retching from one of the new deputies. Then he bent forward, his hands on his knees, until there was nothing left in his stomach.

  He heard the heavy bass beat of helicopter blades before he saw the lights in the still dusk sky. From the cab in his SUV, Woods said to Reed, �
��It’s the Feds. They sent up a bird from Denver, and they want to know where they can land.”

  “Tell ’em the airport,” Reed said sourly.

  “Sir,” Woods said, holding the mic away from him and covering it with his palm as though he wanted nothing more to do with it, “I think they want to land here.”

  “What, do they expect us to clear a landing zone like we’re in Vietnam?” Reed asked. “Tell them if they have to, they can land up on the road.”

  “Will do,” Woods said, ducking back into his vehicle because the sound of the helicopter was filling the forest.

  Joe looked up as the chopper appeared, hovering a hundred feet above the treetops. The wash of wind swayed the trees and caused clouds of pine needles to drop to the forest floor. A spotlight clicked on and bathed the lot and everyone within the tape in blinding white light.

  “This is Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI. Clear the crime scene immediately,” came the amplified voice from the helicopter, “and I mean immediately. Put those shovels down and step behind the tape until we give you the word.”

  The deputies all looked toward Sheriff Reed, and Joe saw the man curse. Reed rarely cursed, so it surprised Joe. But the sound was so deafening he had to lip-read the words: “Fucking Feds.”

  Reluctantly, Reed motioned to his men to step back away, and they did so, grumbling.

  “Coon,” Joe said to Reed. “Remember him? He usually doesn’t come on so strong.” Thinking: Coon must have somebody senior to him up there in the chopper, barking commands.

  Coon was Joe’s age, and he’d supervised the Cheyenne office of the FBI for several years. He was tightly wound and boyish-looking, with several children and a nice wife. Joe and Chuck Coon had been flung together on several cases, and despite the inherent bureaucratic tension, they’d gotten along well and Joe respected him.

  The helicopter above them was still for a moment, then banked and flew above toward the road. As it did, Joe felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket, and he turned his back to the beating sound and opened his phone. He could barely hear what the dispatcher said, so he had to keep asking her to repeat the message.

  “The governor’s on his way,” she said, practically shouting into the other end. “And he’s bringing your new director with him.”

  “New director?” Joe asked.

  “Oh,” the dispatcher said, “you haven’t heard?”

  6

  While Joe texted the question what’s this about a new director? to Wyoming game wardens Biff Burton and Bill Haley for some kind of clarification, Justin Woods escorted the occupants of the helicopter from where they’d landed on a wide spot on the ridge road down to the Roberson lot.

  Joe looked up to see three men behind Woods. He recognized the last in the group as Special Agent Chuck Coon, who lagged suspiciously behind the first two. Joe dropped his phone into his breast pocket and reached down to help Sheriff Reed spin his chair around to face them.

  “Got it,” Reed said impatiently, doing it himself.

  Woods lifted the crime scene tape and stepped aside so the men could enter.

  The EPA regional director-Joe would soon learn his name was Juan Julio Batista-ducked under the tape and halted, looking suspiciously from Reed to Joe to the body bags in the grass. He was slight, with a thick shock of jet-black hair and small eyes magnified slightly through rimless glasses. He wore a sport jacket over a light blue shirt with a button-down collar and pressed khaki trousers. Joe noted Batista’s fresh-out-of-the-box hiking shoes.

  Batista’s eyes flitted from face to face and didn’t linger long enough to make a connection. To Joe, he sensed equal parts fear, indignation, and contempt. He pursed his lips before saying to Reed, “I’m Juan Julio Batista. People call me Julio. You’re the sheriff in charge?”

  Reed introduced himself, then started to introduce his deputies, but Batista cut him off.

  “Where are the bodies?”

  “In the bags,” Reed said. “We left them open for your identification.”

  Batista paused cautiously, as if sensing a trap.

  “You assume I know them personally?” he asked.

  Reed shrugged. “You don’t? I thought they worked in your shop.”

  “The EPA is not a shop,” Batista said. “We’re a very large agency with eighteen thousand full-time employees. So no, I don’t know each and every employee personally.”

  “Sorry,” Reed said, “I just assumed. .”

  “Let’s not do that,” Batista said, looking past the sheriff and toward the hole in the ground. He took a deep breath and turned to the man behind him, and said, “Bring the files.”

  Reed extended his hand to the second man and said, “And you are. .?”

  “EPA Special Agent Supervisor Heinz Underwood,” Batista answered for him. Underwood simply nodded, and didn’t shake Reed’s hand.

  Heinz Underwood was in his mid-sixties, Joe guessed, but he was solidly built and ramrod-straight. He had short-cropped silver hair, a bristled white mustache, pockmarked cheeks from an ancient but serious bout of acne, a heavy jaw, and piercing eyes. Unlike his boss, he seemed to revel in full-on stares designed to intimidate until the recipient looked away. After finishing off Woods and Reed, he did it to Joe, who willed himself to look back without blinking. After a beat, Underwood smiled slightly. Joe wondered what the contest had been about, who had won, and when it would resume.

  Batista gestured for Underwood to follow him, and the two walked past Joe and toward the bodies. As he passed, Underwood gave Joe another look. This time, Joe smiled back. He got the impression Underwood was a tough professional who enjoyed his job.

  Chuck Coon stayed where he was, and seemed suddenly fascinated by the laces on his shoes. Joe sidled up to him and said in a sarcastic whisper, “‘This is Special Agent Chuck Coon of the FBI. Clear the crime scene immediately. .’”

  “Not now, Joe,” Coon said sharply.

  “Politics?”

  “By the truckload. I got a call this morning from the second in command of the Department of Justice in Washington, right over the head of my director. He told me to drop everything I was doing to accompany Mr. Batista up here and to use our chopper. So cut me a break, Joe.”

  “So the FBI is now on call to the EPA?” Joe asked.

  “Seems that way. But when the DOJ calls me direct, I do what I’m told.”

  Joe nodded and punched Coon affectionately on the shoulder.

  “Don’t let them see you do that,” Coon hissed.

  They turned to watch Batista and Underwood match up the faces of the bodies with photos from the personnel files they’d brought along. Batista said, loudly enough for everyone to hear: “Holy Mother of God.” Joe noted a tinge of a Hispanic accent in the phrase he hadn’t heard Batista use before.

  “Where did he come from?” Joe whispered to Coon.

  “Political appointee. I don’t know his history, but he seems to have a lot of juice.”

  “Ah.”

  Batista turned and walked deliberately over to Reed until he was uncomfortably close, Joe thought, and so he could tower above him and make the sheriff tilt his chin up to see his face.

  “Those bodies over there are EPA special agents sent up here in the line of duty,” Batista said.

  “That’s what we thought, and my condolences. Do they have names?” Reed asked.

  Batista looked over his shoulder to Underwood, and Underwood opened his files. “Tim Singewald and Lenox Baker,” Underwood said. “Singewald worked for the agency for twelve years, and Baker for two and a half. Baker leaves a young family behind.”

  Over his shoulder, Batista said to Underwood: “Make sure you call the next of kin. Give them my deepest sympathies and say it’s from my heart.”

  Underwood nodded crisply. “Do you want to talk to them as well?”

  “No, I’m busy here. I’ll have a letter sent.”

  “We’re very sorry this happened here,” Reed said to Batista, cutting in. “We’l
l do our best to bring the killer to justice.”

  Batista nodded to himself as if confirming his worst suspicions, and signaled for Underwood to come over to him. Joe watched the exchange with interest. Underwood approached Reed and Batista and said, “Sheriff, we’re taking possession of this crime scene. I need you to get your men to stand down until we can get our people in place.”

  Reed said evenly, “That’s not going to happen, gentlemen. I know how this works. This is my county and my jurisdiction. We’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and we’re gathering evidence and securing the scene. When you show me a court document signed by a judge ordering me to turn over my county to you, I might consider it.”

  Batista glared down at the sheriff but seemed too surprised to speak. He looked over anxiously to Underwood, who was stone-faced.

  “Until that happens,” Reed said, “I need you and your. . assistant to move out beyond the crime scene tape and stop interfering with our work.”

  Batista said, “Mr. Underwood is not an assistant, Sheriff. He’s our chief of law enforcement operations, and he brings years of experience from the FBI, the CIA, and Special Operations. There’s no one we can trust more to carry out an investigation like this.”

  Joe assessed Underwood, who looked both cold and capable. Underwood showed no reaction to Batista’s praise.

  Batista took a half-step back, and turned to Chuck Coon, obviously anticipating backup.