Page 26 of Hell and Gone
“What does this prove? What are you trying to tell me?”
“On the surface, nothing, ‘cept Law and Carson had their understandin’. And Law likes to kick dirt in Howell’s face as often as he can. There’s no love lost between those two.”
“Why?”
“There’s history between them.”
Everett barely held back from rolling his eyes. There wasalwayshistory, he was learning, history as old and twisted and bloodied as the land itself. Maybe the stories about the Crazies were true and everyone here was slowly going mad, viciously tearing each other apart across their lifetimes. “What kind of history?”
“History like Law gettin’ thrown off the Endless Sky ranch as a hand. Gettin’ fired by the foreman, Jim Burke, when he was nineteen, fired so bad he was told to never step foot on Endless Sky land again or he’d be shot dead.”
Everett frowned.
“Lawrence Jackson has a violent past, Detective. He’s got multiple assault charges against him, one just six months old. Soon as Dell and Aaron were free, and Bill Warner hired them at Heart’s Rafter, ole Law went and found ‘em drinking and celebratin’ their freedom down at the strip club. He hauled them out of there faster than the bouncer could stop him, had them by their shirt collars and threw ‘em in the street. He laid down the law on those boys that night. Told them if he ever saw their faces again, he’d put a bullet in their hearts.”
Everett’s eyes went wide. Anywhere else, a threat like that would land a man in jail.
“He’s spent many a night in my jail. He’s a spitfire, a fighter. As fast as his mouth runs, his temper runs faster and hotter. Now, maybe his gun is movin’ too fast.”
“You suspect Lawrence Jackson in these murders?”
Braddock smoothed his hand down his face. His tobacco-stained voice was low, and he spoke slowly, dragging over each word. “I surely hope not. I know that boy. Watched him grow up. But you have to follow the evidence, like you said. For me, I look at his history. You may not get it or recognize it just yet since you’re an outsider. But Iknowwho Law is, son, down to his bones. I knew him as a child and watched him grow into a man.” Braddock shook his head. “He’s a wild bronc. He’s got a fight in him that can’t tamed, can’t be broken. Not by nothin’. He’d charge Hell with a bucket of water, cussin’ all the way, and then blame the Devil that he got burned.”
Everett stayed quiet. He let Braddock’s words pass through him.Outsider. He wouldn’t get any information that wasn’t dragged out, wouldn’t know what he needed to know to put the pieces of this puzzle together. There were questions he needed to ask but he didn’t know enough to ask them. And no one was overly chatty about giving up their gossip. Not to him, at least.
Even if no one wanted to talk to him, he could still understand crime. He understood hatred and what pushed a man to the brink, and beyond it. What drove a man to murder.
A constrictor knot and a reluctance to talk did not damn a man as a murderer, but it didn’t help Lawrence’s case, either.
Braddock laid out his theory, his fingers pushing into the tabletop as he listed each point against Lawrence. “Last year, we had a mite of trouble, and Law was right in the mix. He threatened to kill Dell and Aaron, and, lo and behold, those two are missin’.”
“He’s been the one pushing for a missing persons investigation for them.”
Braddock held up a hand, asking for patience. “I know. And I’m willin’ to take my portion of the blame on bein’ slow on that. If you’d known these boys, well, you might not have thought twice about them gettin’ gone neither. They are no-good boys. Look, I hope they’re gettin’ drunk somewhere in Cheyenne or Coeur d’Alene. I truly do.” He cleared his throat. “I gotta look to this town ‘n’these mountains and their welfare. And when I look around, I got two missin’ men threatened by Law, and now I got two dead bodies, both of them were brought in by Law. One was found dead on his land and no one but him saw the body hangin’, did they? The second corpse you brought in, but it was on land directly adjacent to the Lazy Twenty-Two.”
“Lawrence was with me when we heard the shot that killed the Endless Sky hand. It couldn’t have been Lawrence.”
“Public land stretches from Law’s ranch to Endless Sky. A man could slip on and off both ranches and disappear into public land, get lost. It would be easy to get gone, and fast. Now, ‘member those photos I showed you of those drug runner camps?”
Everett nodded.
“That camp wasn’t far off the Lazy Twenty-Two. Not far at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was suspiciously close. Within a day’s ride of the Lazy Twenty-Two ranch house. Convenient if someone, say, needed to ride out and meet their fellow conspirators? Orarrangesomethin’, like takin’ out troublesome cowboys on Endless Sky land?”
The wheels started cranking in Everett’s mind, pieces of evidence sliding in and out of theories, turning over, flipping left and right. Drug runners making camp in the Crazies. A murder, a split-second decision in the heat of the moment. Rage that lit the blood on fire, that nearly pulled the mountains down. Blame to pass around, every way around. Cowboys fighting truckers, cowboys fighting cowboys. Promises of revenge. Hatred everywhere he turned.
Who benefited from everything? From murder, from theft?
“What about the missing stock?”
Braddock shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not certain about everythin’, son. I have a hunch is all. I’m mighty suspicious, you’d say, of a man who brings me dead bodies and is connected to every one of them. And who threatened to kill our two missing men.”
“Then why push for an investigation? He was damn glad to see me when I drove up.”
“He might regret that,” Braddock said carefully. “You seem a man not hoodwinked easily. You’re on top of everything. Your reputation is well earned.”
Everett shifted. Nodded his thanks.
“You and I both know, as one law enforcement officer to another, that there are times when an offender, say, a murderer, likes to involve himself in the investigation. Out of some kind of sick sense of watchin’ the police, or to keep an eye on where the investigation’ is goin’. Some perversity that makes him want to be close to the law while underminin’ it.”
