Breaking Point

“You know that.”
    “You should start,” she said, grinning. “Man can’t live on meat alone.”
    “I have.”
    He sat down with a plate of pizza slices, glanced at Pam, and said, “So here we are.”
    “Sheridan . . .” Marybeth said.
    “Yeah, yeah,” Sheridan said, pushing her chair back. “Nice to see you, Pam,” she said.
    Joe noted she called her Pam, not Mrs. Roberson.
    Then to Joe and Marybeth: “I’ll be out back in the barn with my new bird.”
    “New bird?” Joe asked, surprised.
    “Just a little kestrel,” Sheridan said over her shoulder as she went to the back door. “You’ll need to come out and see it.”
    Joe and Marybeth exchanged glances. While Sheridan had been Nate Romanowski’s apprentice in falconry, both had assumed she’d lost interest.
Apparently not,
Joe thought.
    Marybeth said, “Joe, Pam wants to talk with you to see if you can offer some advice.”
    Joe narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a lawyer.”
    “I know that,” Pam said.
    “She doesn’t need legal help yet,” Marybeth continued, “but since you’ve been involved in this . . .
thing
all day, you might have some insight.”
    “Or not,” Joe said.
    “I trust you and Marybeth,” Pam said. “Right now, I’m not sure who else I can trust. Is it true some big shot from the EPA put a reward out on Butch’s head?”
    “Yes,” Joe said.
    “Can he do that?” Pam asked, wide-eyed.
    “He seems to think he can.”
    “Joe, what is going on?” Pam asked.
    Joe chewed deliberately on a slice of pizza. He swallowed and said to Pam, “I was hoping
you’d
tell me what’s going on. Sheriff Reed said it was something he couldn’t even believe happened.”
    She nodded, and took a deep breath.
    Before she began, Joe said, “Pam, you need to have something clear in your mind before you start. I’m—we’re—your friend, but I’m also in law enforcement. I have an oath to keep. I’m not officially interrogating you, and you don’t have to tell me a thing if you don’t want. But if you do, keep in mind that it isn’t between friends, so to speak.”
    Pam looked desperate, and turned to Marybeth.
    Marybeth said, “Do you want me to leave?”
    “No,” Pam said, “I want you to stay. But I already told the sheriff everything. I don’t have any secrets. I’m just surprised Joe is acting like this.”
    “He has to,” Marybeth said, reaching out and patting the back of Pam’s hand. “Don’t take it personally.”
    “I’ll try not to,” Pam said, gathering herself together and throwing her shoulders back. Then, to Joe, “I’ll start at the beginning.”
    “Good place to start,” he said.

8
    “BUTCH WANTED A PLACE TO RETIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS, on a lake,” Pam Roberson said, “and he didn’t want to leave Wyoming. Montana would have been okay, or Idaho, but it was his dream to own a home closer to where he hunts and fishes. He practically lives for those things, you know. He likes to say he feels like he was born one hundred fifty years too late.”
    Joe nodded. It was a familiar story. He knew dozens of men who were hard workers and could pull in more income if they relocated elsewhere. North Dakota was booming, and it wasn’t that far away, for example. But the reason they lived and worked in Wyoming, he knew, was because of the outdoor culture, the lack of people, and the resources; specifically, big-game hunting and great trout fishing. It certainly wasn’t because of the wind or the weather.
    “So five years ago,” Pam said, “he was talking with one of the developers of Aspen Highlands. They wanted him to build a spec home up there to help get it going. As you know, we’re not wealthy people and our little construction company kind of exists week-to-week. Not many people are building homes these days, and those that want to can’t get bank loans, so it’s tough. So, financially, we really couldn’t make it work to do a spec home with no guaranteed return right away. But the developers offered Butch and me a deal: build the home in exchange for a lot that was worth sixty thousand dollars. We didn’t get first pick because they wanted real money for the first few sales, but we saw it as our opportunity to have the place Butch had always wanted in the mountains.”
    “What about you?” Marybeth asked. “Is that your dream, too?”
    Pam looked away rather than answer. Finally, she said, “I wanted Butch to be happy. I wanted him to have something to aspire to, if you know