Six

I lay the morning edition of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on the table beside bills and letters and a US map with locations of potential dates. The lead article was a rehash of what Ana Maria Villarreal said on air last night. She interviewed Sergeant Slade, who believes Jillie’s killer was her partner in a sheep rustling ring. Slade speculated she and her partner had a falling out, which resulted in her death in Wooly Hank’s pasture. Slade cited no more thefts since Jillie’s death as supporting his belief that she was half of the Midnight Sheepherder. Damned fool. If he remains the lead investigator on the case I’ll never get caught.

Unless that witness got a good look at me.

Now, that old retired Denver Metro investigator … is something else. When she put him on air after Slade, Anderson said little, but the tone of his voice, his confident manner, showed him to be a possible danger to me. Worse, when I hopped on the internet to talk with babes tonight, I got sidetracked and researched Anderson. He was some kind of legend in Metro Denver, solving every homicide assigned. “A born predator” is how the Denver Post referred to him. But I’m not worried. I’ve fooled the law all these years since being released, and I’ll continue to fool them.

And fool some washed-up range detective.

I’ve been a born predator all these years as well.

I check my watch and turn the TV on. Ana Maria’s noon update has already begun. She wraps up Jillie’s murder update with Slade’s theory and goes right into a story about working dogs. She explains how rustlers are using herding dogs to gather sheep and cattle quickly, making their escape long before anyone even knows they are there. This is not the first time I’ve heard this. “Within the space of a few minutes,” she says, “a dog can herd thirty head of sheep into a trailer, and the rustler’s away before the rancher has a chance to put his pants on.”

She asks for the public’s help: anyone knowing Jillie’s partner in crime—her killer—needs to call the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office.

For the briefest of moments, that old retired Denver cop’s face flashes across the screen again like he’s some secret weapon or something. But I’ve endured everything the law could send against me before. Sure, I spent some time in that retirement home for the criminally insane in Napa. But I look at it as time well spent, talking with loonies crazier than I ever was, who taught me to think things through before I act. Even crazies can have good ideas. Like planning your move down to the tiniest detail to avoid exposure.

The one departure from my flawless routine all these years was Jillie Reilly. With her, I had to act quickly or everyone within earshot in the bar would have known about me. And if Anderson believes Sergeant Slade’s theory, I never will get caught without the public’s help. But then I always knew that this time, I never will get caught. Perhaps I’ll send the cops a little note. Just a one-line zinger or something to let them know I’m still out here and alive. And of course I’ll send it from out of state like I always have. That’ll be a nice touch.

I start to turn off the noon news when I stop and stare. It just hit me that Ana Maria looks like the others: dark eyes, dark complexion, a little chunky. Except for her hair—dark brown and longer than the others—she could fit right in with them.

I quickly turn off the TV. The last thing I need to do now is get distracted by someone local when there are so many others within driving distance. “Don’t shit in your own nest,” Dad once told me, a few days before I killed him and stuffed his body into that abandoned water well.

I slip on my jeans and pull one boot on, caked with cow dung and sheep shit, and I pause. In the back of my mind, I worry my time may be running out even though I often think I’m untouchable. I know it’s just a matter of time before the witness that fled Wooly Hank’s gets a case of conscience and goes to the law. At some point he’ll take a rustling rap rather than live with the guilt of seeing Jillie’s murder. And the guilt that her killer will go free.

I tug on the mule ears of my other boot and my foot slides in. How good a look did the Midnight Sheepherder get? In the full moon, and illuminated by the headlights for a brief moment, he might have gotten a very good look.

Or not.

I just can’t take the chance. I must find that witness.

I pick up the broken piece of taillight and stuff it in my vest pocket. I need to go to town today, and it’ll give me a good excuse to look for the match for this piece of plastic. Ana Maria talked about the dog class put on by the county extension office starting at the Archer Complex. I didn’t plan to be there, but I’m thinking it would be a good place to start my search. Where else would the Midnight Sheepherder want to be other than in a class of sheepherding dogs?