Stone Cold (7 page)

“Oh?” This was news.

“He's a busy man. Anyway, our agency desperately needs a new appropriation the next fiscal year to open our pilot WAC.”

Joe looked back, puzzled. “WAC?”

“Wildlife Appreciation Center,” she said with irritation. “Haven't you been keeping up with my ‘Memos from the Director'?”

He was caught. Since taking over, Director LGD had been
sending out electronic memos to all employees about her plans for modernizing the agency. Joe had stopped reading them months ago.

“Sorry,” he said. Then: “But I did finally retrieve that pickup from the top of the mountain . . .”

She dismissed his sentence with a wave of her hand. “Not now, Joe.”

“I thought that was important to you,” Joe said.

“Not as important as the WAC program,” she said. “Anyway, we sent the proposed language to the governor's office six weeks ago so he could request the funding from the legislature and put it in his State of the State address. He hasn't even responded. We really need him on board with this.”

Joe shook his head. “So you're asking me . . .
what
?”

She bore in. “To urge his support for the program. We can't expand our mission beyond blood sports unless the governor is behind it.”

He cringed. Joe hated when hunting and fishing were called “blood sports.” Most of the hunters and anglers he knew, both male and female, did so out of tradition or for subsistence or taste for wild game. Blood was a by-product. Plus, a growing number of anglers practiced catch-and-release.

“Oh, look,” Brandi Forgey said as she eased to the curb in front of the gold-domed capitol building. “We're here already.”

Something dark passed over Director LGD's face, and she turned toward her driver.

“You were supposed to take the scenic route.”

“Sorry,” Brandi Forgey sang.

“Well, I had better be going,” Joe said. As he did, he saw a twinkle in Brandi Forgey's eye reflected in the rearview mirror. It was in that
little signal that occurred silently between staffers that they recognized that neither had much respect for their mutual boss. Joe tried not to wink back.

“Don't forget to ask him about the WAC program!” Director LGD called out to Joe while he quickly gathered his backpack and climbed out of the SUV. There was a real strain of desperation in her voice.

As he walked across the brown grass toward the steps of the building, he again thought there was no way he could ever work among the politicians. He'd rather be on top of a windswept mountain with the likes of Dave Farkus.

•   •   •

L
OIS
F
ORNSTROM,
the governor's personal secretary, recognized Joe immediately and waved him through the anteroom to Rulon's office. Several people sat in worn lounge chairs, obviously waiting for a word with the governor. A stocky man in an ill-fitting suit with a briefcase on his lap objected, saying he had been waiting for two hours. To Joe, he looked like a lobbyist of some kind—a slickster.

“He's come all the way from Saddlestring,” Fornstrom said without sympathy.

“I came from Arlington, Virginia!” the man said, red-faced.

Joe stayed out of it and smiled at Fornstrom and entered Rulon's private office. He closed the door behind him.

The governor was on the phone when he entered, and he looked up and waved Joe toward one of two chairs in front of his desk. Joe took off his hat and put it crown-down on the other chair and waited.

The governor had two offices—a larger public room used for bill signings, press conferences, and small groups, and this close and intimate office, which was dark, book-lined, and cluttered with
memorabilia. A buffalo skull embedded with an ancient stone arrowhead dominated the wall behind the governor, and a tooled John Wayne Winchester Model 1873 lever-action carbine rested on a deer antler mount. Rulon had once told Joe he kept it loaded. Joe didn't doubt it.

Rulon said into the phone, “You read the legislation, so why are you asking me? It says if you send any of your agents into our state to enforce federal gun laws, we'll arrest them and throw them into the pokey. That's what it says, that's what I signed, and that's what we'll do.”

Rulon looked up at Joe and shook his head, exasperated. He
loved
giving it to the Feds. And the voters loved when he did it.

“That's right,” Rulon said to whoever was on the other end, “and don't start with the ‘gun culture' canard. We don't even have a
gun culture
in Wyoming. It's just part of who we are. Our murder rate is damned low, too. You folks might learn something from that where you are. So spare me your lectures.”

Joe could hear a raised voice on the other end of the phone, and Rulon rolled his eyes and studied the ceiling. Joe looked up, too, and for the first time saw the dozens of pencils stuck into the ceiling tile. They looked like icicles hanging there. No doubt the governor had tossed them up there over the years, and many stuck.

“Our time is up,” Rulon said, suddenly impatient. He leaned forward in his chair, and the person on the other end continued to make his case.

“Tell you what,” Rulon said, “send them up here. Try me out to see if we're serious. How about
that
?”

The governor slammed down the phone and said to Joe, “ATF bastards.”

“Ah,” Joe said.

“The damned Cowboy Congress hung me out to dry with this one. Sure, I signed it. But the Feds aren't pleased.”

Joe knew Rulon's description of the Wyoming legislature was
Cowboy Congress
. But he said it with some affection.

The moment the phone was cradled, Rulon had punched the
DO NOT DISTURB
button. And just that fast, the issue with the man from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was behind him.

“Good to see you, Joe.”

“Thank you, Governor.”

Rulon asked about Marybeth, about Saddlestring, about Sheriff Reed in a perfunctory manner. It was how he always established common ground. Wyoming had so few residents the governor practically knew them all, and familiarity was essential to his success and popularity, Joe knew.

“How are you getting along with your new director?” Rulon asked, probing Joe's face with intensity.

“Fine, I guess. She picked me up at the airport this morning.”

“Really?” Rulon asked, immediately suspicious.

“She asked me to relay a message—”

“Auuugh,”
Rulon groaned, cutting Joe off. “Is it about those damned Bambi-hugging stations of hers?”

“She called them Wildlife Appreciation Centers.”

Rulon rolled his eyes. “She thinks I'm made of money. Everybody does. I wish I could relive the day I let the fetching Mrs. Rulon convince me to name her good friend and fellow rabble-rouser Lisa Greene-Dempsey as the Game and Fish director. It was kind of a difficult time in our marriage, and . . . enough about that. We all make mistakes. Even me, as surprising as that may sound.”

Joe bit his tongue.

“Okay, to the business at hand,” Rulon said, shooting out his sleeve to check the time on his wristwatch. Joe knew it to be a signal to be quiet and listen.

“We have ten minutes before we're interrupted,” Rulon said.

“Okay.”

“How much do you know about Medicine Wheel County?”

Joe's heart sank. For a game warden, it was a district that was assigned as punishment.

“Am I being sent there?”

“So you've been there?”

“Passed through it on the way to South Dakota years ago,” Joe said.

Rulon said, “Those people up there . . . are peculiar. I don't say that about many places in this state, and what I say in this room stays in this room, right?”

“Right.”

The governor swiveled in his chair and addressed the top right corner of a huge framed state map on the east wall.

“Those people up there are insular, inbred, cranky, and they didn't vote for me in the last election. So to hell with them, I say. They remind me of hill people from somewhere else. More of them are on welfare and assistance per capita than any other county in the state. I don't like them, and they don't like me.”

Joe nodded that he understood what Rulon was saying even if he didn't necessarily agree with it.

“It's a shame, too,” Rulon said, “because that country up there is damned beautiful. It's just too bad those cranky bastards live in it, collecting government checks. I'd just ignore them the best I could, except there's a problem up there.

“Have you ever heard the name Wolfgang Templeton?”

Joe felt a twinge. He
had
heard the name, but he wasn't sure he could recall the details. It wasn't an easy name to forget. Rulon didn't wait for Joe to conjure up his recollection.

“Templeton is a mystery man, an enigma,” Rulon said. “Nobody seems to know where he came from or where he got his money. But six years ago, he bought this magnificent old place—the only way I can describe it is as a castle—deep in the heart of Medicine Wheel County. It's called Sand Creek Ranch. I've never seen it, but I've heard plenty. You can research the history of it later. We don't have time for that now.

“Anyway, this Templeton has bought up most of the private holdings up there. He's got his own little fiefdom, but he keeps completely to himself. No one up there—those cranky bastards—will say much about him other than they seem to revere the guy. Or they're scared of him—one of the two.”

Joe was intrigued. Not that large landholdings weren't often purchased by wealthy out-of-state owners—they were. But an extremely wealthy man buying up most of an impoverished county—that was unusual. Then it came to him, what he'd heard . . .

“The Feds suspect Templeton of being involved in organized crime,” Rulon said. “Actually, that's not exactly right. They have suspicions that Templeton is operating some kind of extremely high-end murder-for-hire business. They're very vague about what it is they think he's involved in or what he's under suspicion for. But for the last three years, they've been sniffing around and asking questions and bothering me. They assume since he lives in Wyoming that we must know about him, and they wonder why we don't cooperate.”

Rulon let that hang there for a moment.

“So why don't we cooperate?” Joe asked.

Rulon whacked the top of his desk with his open hand. “Because we don't know a damned thing about him other than what I just told you. This Templeton pays his property taxes, licenses his vehicles, and minds his own business. No complaints have been brought against him, so there's been no reason to investigate the guy. Apparently, he has an airstrip and his own plane, and he leaves for days and weeks on end—but we don't know what he does. Normally, I wouldn't care. Wyoming citizens can do whatever the hell they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else, as far as I'm concerned. But you know how it is here. There is just enough talk—and these federal suspicions—that I'm getting a little nervous about it.”

Joe was surprised. He said, “I thought you were generally at war with the federal government.”

“I am,” Rulon said emphatically, “and that isn't going to stop. It's one thing to be independent and tell them to leave us the hell alone and to go piss up a rope because we have plenty of mineral wealth. I have no problem doing that. But I have to pick my battles, you know? I can't let it be insinuated that we're harboring some kind of criminal threat, or that I'm letting this state be used as the base of operations for organized crime. We can't give those bastards any more reason to go after us.”

Rulon sighed and leaned forward and lowered his voice. He said, “The theme out of Washington these days is ‘reward your friends and punish your enemies.' I give them fits on all kinds of issues, but I do it to protect the citizens of this state. I can't give those bastards a justification or excuse to marginalize us any further, or punish us. We've got to make sure our own nest is clean, if you know what I'm talking about.”

Joe thought he did. He said, “Where do I come in?”

The governor steepled his fingers together and peered at Joe over them. “You've always had this ability to get into the middle of things. And when you do, you look at the situation in a clear-eyed way. At times, it's annoyed me and I just wished you'd gone on with your business. But it is a unique gift, and I recognize that.

“Joe,” Rulon said, “you're my range rider—a seeker of truth. You're my man on the ground, like before. Only this time, you can't get directly involved in the situation and you need to be wary not to embarrass me.”

Joe felt himself flush.

Rulon said, “To be honest, Joe, you weren't my first choice.”

“Oh?”

The governor's face was grave. “Two weeks ago, I asked my Division of Criminal Investigation to send a man up there to gather information. Not to storm the castle or throw his weight around—just to get the lay of the land and report back. It was done on the sly, but my guess is it didn't take long for those cranky insular hill people up there to figure out there was a stranger in their midst. It didn't work out, and now I have blood on my hands.”

Joe sat up. A state DCI agent had been murdered?

“We can't prove anything,” Rulon said. “But the poor guy burned to death in a motel fire.”

“Okay, I read something about that,” Joe said. “A fatality in a unit of some mom-and-pop motel. But no mention that he was with DCI.”

“It took some real arm-twisting to contain that story,” Rulon said. “We wanted to wait on revealing his identity until it was proven the fire was arson or an arrest could be made. We even asked the FBI for help with the investigation, but they couldn't determine any kind of
foul play. It was a fire caused by our man smoking cigarettes and falling asleep in bed, they said. Nobody up there talked, and there is nothing to go on to prove it wasn't a stupid tragic accident.”