Chapter Eleven
An hour later, April pushed through the double doors into the lobby of the sheriff’s department and made a beeline to Kristy Austin behind the counter. The receptionist looked up as April flashed her PI license card and said, “We’re here for Sheridan Pickett.”
Lucy was a few steps behind her sister, and she was visibly uncomfortable with the situation.
April’s typical “ready-aim-fire” way of dealing with the problem didn’t jibe with Lucy’s preference for more reasonable persuasion.
Lucy had her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her parka and she studied the ceiling as April made her demand.
“I’m sorry,” Austin said. “But no one is here who can help you right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Deputies Carroll and Bowkley are in the field investigating the shooting incident that happened yesterday. You know, the one that involved your father,” Austin said with emphasis.
“We’re glad they’re actually doing something,” April said. Then: “So where is this Sheriff Sondergard?”
“He’s not in the office at the moment.”
April put her hands on her hips and glared at Austin. “We need to get our sister out.”
“I can’t help you with that,” Austin said. “You’ll just need to take a seat and wait for one of the officers to come back.”
April said, “We don’t have time for that. Is she under arrest right now?”
“I’m not privy to the details.”
“You have no right to hold her if she isn’t,” April said.
Lucy attempted to intervene by touching April on the arm and gesturing toward the door. April ignored her.
“Where is the sheriff right now?” April asked Austin.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
April sighed loudly and rolled her eyes in frustration.
“Showing me a private investigator credential from Montana won’t get you anywhere here in this office, by the way,” Austin said. “But it was a nice try.”
“I told you that wouldn’t work,” Lucy whispered to her sister as they retreated.
“This is a small town,” April said to Lucy in a huff. “We’ll just go out and find him.”
—
Within five minutes, April and Lucy located a sheriff’s department SUV parked in front of the Burg-O-Pardner restaurant. The lot was filled with other vehicles.
“He’s joining the good old boys right off the bat,” April said to Lucy. “We probably should have come here first.”
The “Main Street Mafia,” as they were known around Saddlestring, convened every day for midmorning coffee at a round table in a side room of the Burg-O-Pardner.
The Mafia consisted of the mayor, several town councilmen, a county commissioner or two, the man who owned the grocery and liquor store up on the hill, the superintendent of the school district, and Hugh Williamson, who owned the largest construction company in the valley.
The group convened to discuss matters of the town and the county, and it was well known that the Burg-O-Pardner was where the real decisions were made.
Lucy once again reluctantly trailed April as her sister strode into the room and pointed at a tall, uniformed man who had to be the new county sheriff.
The men at the table all turned their heads toward April and Lucy, and the discussion they were having about the shooting of Joe Pickett went immediately quiet.
Lucy heard one of the men whisper, “They’re two of the Pickett girls” to another.
“How’s your dad doing?” the mayor asked. “We’re all real worried about him.”
“It’s touch and go,” April said. Then: “Sheriff Sondergard, could I please get a minute of your time?”
Lucy added, “He’s maybe a little better than that.”
“Tell your mom we’re praying for him,” the mayor said.
“Thank you.”
Sondergard looked quizzically at the back-and-forth, then excused himself, saying, “I should be right back.”
—
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Sondergard said as he joined April and Lucy and they moved into the main dining area away from the Mafia.
“I was told this is the ‘room where it happens’ here in Twelve Sleep County and I thought I better come see what it’s all about. Now, what can I do for you two?”
“Our sister Sheridan is in your jail,” April said. “We need to get her out.”
“What?”
“You heard me. She called us about an hour ago and said one of your guys roughed her up and threw her into the county jail.”
Sondergard stepped back, genuinely surprised. “One of my guys? You mean, one of my deputies?”
“That’s what she said.”
Sondergard’s eyes got big and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I just saw her this morning in my office. I don’t know anything about this. What was she arrested for?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” April said. “She told us she was looking into our dad’s shooting.”
“Look,” Sondergard said, fitting his cowboy hat on his head, “we need to sort this out. I’ll meet you two at the department in five minutes. I’ll take my cruiser and I’ll call my deputies to find out what happened. Did she say who arrested her?”
“Deputy Bowkley,” Lucy responded. “I think that’s his name.”
“He’s new on the team,” Sondergard said. “There’s probably some kind of misunderstanding.”
“We’ll meet you there in five,” April said.
—
When they had shut the doors of April’s vehicle, Lucy said, “Sheridan’s right. He’s kind of hot. And he seems nice, too.”
“Never trust a cop on first impression,” April said as she started the engine. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in Montana.”
“That’s Montana,” Lucy countered.
“It’s the same everywhere.”
“Well, I like him.”
“You like everybody.”
—
Sheridan followed Sondergard through the hallway that led to the lobby from the cell she’d shared for an hour with a sixty-year-old vagrant named Marta, who had been arrested the day before for soliciting customers at the Stockman’s Bar.
Marta had told her that she was from Hot Springs, South Dakota, and she was just trying to get enough money to get someplace warm, like Los Angeles.
She had an ex who had a tent on a street there, she’d said.
Sheridan was grateful Sondergard had released her, and she tried to read his mood, but it was difficult. He’d barely said a word when he let her out, and his manner was all business.
She got a glimpse of her sisters waiting in the lobby, but Sondergard ushered her into his office before they got there. “I need to talk with you,” he said brusquely.
Sheridan sat down in the chair she’d used earlier, and Sondergard swung behind the desk into his.
“I talked to Deputy Bowkley on the way over,” he said.
“He didn’t know who you were and he thought you were trying to screw up our crime scene and maybe even steal some objects from inside.
He’s a by-the-book kind of guy and he was probably trying to impress me. ”
“It was a misunderstanding,” Sheridan said. “I never would have taken anything from inside my dad’s truck.”
“I believe you,” Sondergard said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you were caught inside the county garage potentially contaminating a crime scene.”
“I was careful not to do that,” Sheridan said. “I didn’t disturb a thing.”
“That better be the case,” Sondergard said. “If we find anything different, I’ll have to charge you.”
“You won’t.”
“I told you to stay away.”
“I know you did,” Sheridan said. “And I told you my sisters and I planned to look into the case on our own.”
Sondergard rubbed his face with his hands, clearly frustrated.
Sheridan looked away so he couldn’t see tears in her eyes.
“I had to see it. Seeing my dad’s pickup brought it all home to me in a way I didn’t expect.
Seeing those bullet holes in the windshield…
I can’t believe he survived. And I definitely agree with you that there was more than one shooter.
The bullet holes in the front fenders came at different angles. Even I could see that.”
Sondergard sat back in his chair and studied the ceiling tiles for a moment. “I’m sorry. Still,” he said, “you’re making this difficult for me.”
“That’s not my intention. I think if we’re going to solve this crime, we all have to work together, like I said earlier. You and your team have the tools, and we have local knowledge. It’s a good combination if we keep each other informed of what we find.”
“I’m going to let you go, Sheridan,” Sondergard said. “It may be against my better judgment, but that’s what I’m going to do. But this can’t happen again.”
“It won’t—I don’t think,” Sheridan said with a smile.
Sondergard told her that he’d sent both of his deputies out to interview suspects on Antler Creek Road.
“That’s good,” she replied. “I’d suggest you go take a look inside my dad’s pickup as well. His phone has to still be in the cab somewhere. And there’s a notebook you need to find. The information from the phone and the notebook could help lead to who did this.”
Sondergard raised his eyebrows when he heard that.
“The password to his phone is 1-2-3-4,” she said. “I told him to change it a dozen times to something better, but as far as I know, he never did.”
—
Outside, the three sisters gathered inside April’s battered Toyota Tundra pickup with Montana plates.
April sat behind the wheel and Lucy took the passenger seat.
Both turned toward Sheridan as she briefed them on what she’d found in their father’s pickup, and what Sheriff Sondergard had told her about the investigation thus far.
Sheridan opened the photo app and handed the device over the front seat so they could scroll through them.
“Be careful,” she said. “Some of them are really hard to look at.” Then she waited for the reaction.
Lucy gasped when she saw the bullet holes and the amount of blood inside the cab.
“I can’t look at this,” she said as she handed the phone to April. April scrolled through the photos with a grimace.
“It’s a miracle he survived,” she said.
“Deputy Bowkley arrested me before I could find Dad’s phone or notebook,” Sheridan said. “But they have to be in the cab somewhere. When I talked to Mom earlier, she confirmed that he didn’t have them on him when he was flown to Billings.”