Carson, Wyoming, was everything that Anders and Novack expected, and less. Forty-five hundred citizens were spread out over an area probably as large as Manhattan, and the closest thing to a high-rise was a tree house some kids had built in the woods behind their trailer.

Basically, the town was divided up so that half of the residents were involved in farming, while the other half worked at the state prison located at Lampley, twenty miles away. The Carson economy was therefore simultaneously at the mercy of the weather and the state crime rate.

The two detectives arrived at four in the afternoon, tired from their trip and absolutely frozen from the weather. The outside temperature gauge on their rental car showed the temperature to be eight degrees, which felt generous. Carson, Wyoming, made New Jersey feel like Guatemala.

They were initially sorry they had made an appointment for five o’clock, since they would have preferred to go to their hotel and rest for the night. That was until they saw their hotel, a dive out near the highway that for some reason had fourteen tractor trailers in the parking lot, even though there were only twelve rooms. The parking lot was unpaved, just loose dirt, and if there were a rainstorm it would likely be left to archaeologists to someday unearth the sunken tractor trailers.

They dropped their bags in their tiny room and left, arriving promptly at the police station, a two-room building that had them longing for the spacious luxury of the hotel. The entire police force was there when they arrived, consisting of a receptionist, deputy, and the chief himself, Matthew Drew.

If Novack and Anders were expecting Andy Taylor and Barney Fife, they were in for a surprise. Chief Drew was an experienced police officer, having spent eleven years in Reno PD. Born in Carson, he’d come back to care for his ill mother seventeen years ago, and though she died six months later, he never left.

“This is a nice, quiet place to live,” Drew said after the hellos. “But I guess you guys have come to change that?”

Novack shook his head and smiled. “Nah … we’re just working the job. One of the perks is that we get to visit nice, quiet places like this.”

Novack had sent information ahead for Drew to review before their arrival, including the sketch of Cashman. “I showed the sketch around a bit,” Drew said. “Nobody here has ever seen that guy.”

“What can you tell us about the victim?” Novack asked.

“Born and raised here; a little wild by our standards but no real problems. She got bored and left to go to L.A. when she was nineteen.”

“To be a movie star?”

Drew smiled. “A cocktail waitress. We set our sights pretty low around here.”

“When did she come back?” Anders asked.

“About two years ago. She brought a boyfriend with her.”

“Roger Blair?”

Drew nodded. “Right. I think he was originally from back East … Maine or New Hampshire or something. They lived in a trailer, about five miles out on the road. Pretty much kept to themselves. He was a mechanic, but he made most of his money blowing stuff up.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was an explosives expert; learned it in the army. The guy was amazing; give him a glass of water and a tube of hair gel, and he could incinerate South Dakota.”

“He made that into a business?” Novack asked.

“You’d be surprised how much use there is for explosives. Irrigation, clearing land, demolishing unwanted structures … he seemed to do okay for himself.”

“What did she do?”

“She was like his assistant,” Drew said, and smiled at the recollection. “You should have seen them; it was like he was a chef and she brought him the ingredients.”

“How come he and his wife got off so easy? What the hell is armed robbery out here, a misdemeanor?” Novack asked.

Drew shrugged. “Yeah, I was pretty surprised at that myself. Judge said it was a first offense, nobody got hurt … bullshit like that, but I was pissed off when I heard the sentence. He may have been pressured, but I don’t have a clue where it could have come from.”

“What did the wife do when Blair went inside?”

Drew shook his head. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, she wasn’t doing it here. Far as I know, nobody had seen her since.”

They spent the better part of another hour asking Drew questions. He answered them as best he could, but had no information getting them any closer to Sheila’s killer. “Do you know the warden at Lampley?” Novack asked.

Drew nodded. “Sure. Name’s Luther Marshall … I know him real well.”

“Any chance you could get him to meet with us?”

Drew smiled and called out to his receptionist, a forty-two-year-old woman named Bryna Keller. “Hey, Bryna, they want to know if I could get Luther to meet with them.”

She laughed. “That depends. You guys like beer?”

“On occasion,” Novack said.

“You guys like buying beer?” Bryna asked.

“Less so … why?”

“Luther and I are having a few tonight,” Drew said. “If you bring your big-city wallets, you can come along.”

Danny’s drive to Montclair took only about forty-five minutes, but if he had his preference it would have been forty-five days. He had been summoned to meet with his uncle, Senator Collinsworth, back for a few weeks while the Senate was on one of its frequent recesses.

The invitation came in the form of a phone call from Collinsworth’s chief of staff, Keith Rivers. That in itself was fairly ominous. When the senator had good news to share, he picked up the phone himself. When it was bad, Rivers would make the call. And there was no third choice; the senator wouldn’t be inviting him over unless he had some message to impart. “Gee, can’t a guy just want to chat with his favorite nephew?” simply wasn’t the senator’s style.

The invitation was for six o’clock, and for a drink, not dinner. Based on Danny’s experience, this was another danger sign. This was going to be quick, probably one drink, since otherwise the senator would have sent a car to pick him up. It would be extraordinarily unseemly for his nephew to be picked up on a DUI after leaving his house.

Danny was concerned that Collinsworth had learned of Tim’s current involvement with the police. The senator had provided federal business for their company, and didn’t want to be in any way linked to a suspected murderer. Whether Tim was guilty of anything was of secondary importance; public perception was the crucial factor.

The senator always referred to his home as “the estate,” and it was that and much more. The property itself was so large that it could have been an actual “state”; Rhode Island would have fit in one of the walkin closets.

For entertainment, the house included a screening room, tennis court, swimming pool, and a pair of bowling alleys. Unfortunately, Danny wasn’t summoned for entertainment, nor was he told to bring his bowling shoes.

The only positive to all this was that the senator’s third wife, Danny’s step-aunt Elaine, wasn’t in town. She was in Chicago at a fund-raising dinner for one of the charities she spent her time pretending to be interested in. Danny considered her a pompous pain in the ass, and that was giving her the benefit of the doubt.

When he was brought into Collinsworth’s study, Danny was not surprised to see Rivers standing unobtrusively off to the side. Rivers was well over six feet and two hundred twenty pounds, so unobtrusiveness was not his forte, but he knew when to blend into the background. There were very few times that Danny had ever seen the senator that Rivers was not around, so he barely took notice of him.

Danny started with, “Uncle Fred, it’s great to see you. You’re looking terrific.” He didn’t expect him to believe it, or to think much about it either way.

Collinsworth was sitting behind his desk in his spacious study. He spent a great deal of time there, though in Danny’s recollection he had never seen so much as a piece of paper on that desk. He did sip from a glass of chardonnay, as he seemed to do twenty-four hours a day. Danny had occasionally watched him speak on the Senate floor on C-Span, and was struck by the absence of the wine glass. He assumed it was hidden behind the lectern, but the senator seemed undressed without it.

“Danny, my boy, this is nice … you and I communicating like this.”

Danny had no idea where he was going with this, but it couldn’t be good. “I always enjoy talking with you, Uncle Fred.”

“That’s good, because I’m easy to chat with, aren’t I?” Collinsworth asked, swooping in for the kill.

Danny nodded. “Very easy.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you mention to me that the police are after your psycho partner for another murder?”

“He didn’t do it. He—”

The senator interrupted him. “Oh, so you only figured I would care if he actually did it? Maybe if he got convicted? You were waiting for the jury to come in before telling me? Or maybe you were holding back until the appeals court refused to overturn his conviction?”

“I’m sorry, but this time it’s really ridiculous. There was a murder, but he knows who did it. The guy confessed to him.”

The senator waved this off. “I heard the whole bullshit story. The police don’t believe it, and I don’t blame them.”

“Uncle Fred, I swear, they don’t have anything on Tim, because there’s nothing to have.”

“Is that right? You’re up on the case?”

“I think so,” Danny said, cringing. This was going to be painful; the senator was said to be pondering a run for the White House, and anything or anyone that stood even a remote chance of derailing him was going to be dealt with severely.

The senator shook his head sadly and turned to Rivers for the first time. “I wish I didn’t have a weakness for family.” Then, to Danny, “Did you know they identified the victim?”

Danny’s silence indicated that he didn’t.

Collinsworth decided to reveal an important piece of information in order to scare Danny, but of course without revealing that Anders was his source. “Did you know that Novack and his partner are out in a place called Carson, Wyoming, right now, following up on it? Does that sound like cops who are floundering around?”

“I swear, this will blow over. I know Tim as well as I know myself; there’s no way he could kill anyone.”

“Let me tell you something. Right now he’s in the process of killing your career.”