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Joe slipped away and strode across the living room. It wouldn’t be that unusual to have a night visitor; people often showed up late to report an incident or turn themselves in. But that usually happened in the fall, during hunting season, not in the spring.

He clicked on the porch light and opened the door. No one. He stepped outside on the porch, Maxine on his heels. The only thing he could see, in the distance, was a pair of red taillights growing smaller on Bighorn Road traveling east, toward the mountains, away from town.

“What was it, honey?” Marybeth asked.

Joe shook his head. “Nobody here now, but it looks like someone was.”

“Dad,” Lucy said, coming outside with her sister, “there’s something on the door.”

“Oh My God,” Sheridan gasped, her hands covering her mouth. She recognized it.

So did Joe, and he was taken aback.

A small dead animal had been pinned to the front door by an old steak knife with a weathered grip. The creature was long and slim, ferretlike, with a black stripe down its back. It was a Miller’s weasel, a species once thought extinct. It was the animal that had led to Sheridan being terrorized years before, and Marybeth being shot.

And somebody who knew about both had stuck one to his front door.

11

THE NEXT MORNING JOE WENT FOR A RUN, FED THE horses, retrieved the newspaper, walked the girls out to the school bus (via the back door, so they wouldn’t have to see the Miller’s weasel on the front), and paced back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, waiting for eight A.M., when he called headquarters in Cheyenne and asked for Randy Pope. He was angry.

“The director is in a meeting,” Pope’s receptionist said, her tone clipped. Joe didn’t think he liked Pope’s receptionist; there was something off-putting and chilly about her.

“Can you please get him out of it?”

“Is this an emergency?”

It is for me, Joe thought. So he said, “Yes,” knowing Pope wouldn’t agree.

Joe listened to Glen Campbell sing about the Wichita lineman while he held. The music was another addition since Pope had taken over, but the choice of songs belied not only another era, but another planet.

Pope came on. “Make it quick, Joe.”

“Someone killed a Miller’s weasel and stuck it to my front door last night,” Joe said. “I tried the emergency number there in Cheyenne last night and they told me you were not to be disturbed.”

“That’s right, Joe,” Pope said, an edge in his voice. “I was at a dinner at the governor’s mansion. It was a get-to-know-you dinner, and I informed dispatch I was not to be interrupted.”

Joe sighed. “Randy, if you’re going to be my supervisor and require me to get authorization from you for every move I make, you need to be available. Either that, or loosen up the reins and let me do my job.”

Marybeth passed by the doorway to his office holding the newspaper. She cocked an eyebrow, cautioning him.

“That would be Director Pope,” Pope said, his voice flat. “Tell me again what happened and what you want to do?” Joe could discern he was measuring his words carefully. Joe vowed to try to do the same. Every time he talked with Pope he ran the risk of saying something that could get him reprimanded or suspended.

“There is a dead Miller’s weasel stuck to my front door with a knife . . .”

“That house is Game and Fish property,” Pope interjected. “It doesn’t belong to you personally.”

Joe stopped pacing and shut his eyes. This is what Pope did, his method—he’d say something so blatant and obvious that it killed the purpose of the conversation in the first place.

“I know who the house belongs to,” Joe said wearily. “And since you own it, how about a new furnace? How about that? How about putting some insulation in the walls and sealing up all of the cracks where the wind blows through?”

Marybeth was hovering in the hall, listening and not trying to hide it. He could tell she was amused, but also concerned.

“Joe . . .”

“Right, you don’t want to talk about that,” Joe said to Pope. “So how about we talk about the animal on the front of my, um . . . our door. The Miller’s weasel is an endangered species, as you know. But it’s more than that. This is personal.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

Again, Joe closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should count to ten, or resign immediately. Or drive to Cheyenne and shoot Pope in the heart, which would be the best alternative—or at least the most satisfying.

“I need your authorization to investigate it,” Joe said quietly, trying to keep anger out of his voice. “You said in your memo that you want to be informed prior to me opening any new investigations, so I’m informing you. I want to ride to where the last colony of Miller’s weasels are, and see if I can find any evidence of who was up there to kill one. Then I might need some help from our investigators to trace the knife. I can start interviewing people around here today to see if anyone saw the vehicle or knows who did it.”