Despite Rulon’s eccentric and mercurial ways, like challenging the senate majority leader to a shooting contest to decide a bill or sending Joe on assignments “without portfolio” to maintain deniability, Joe knew that the governor had saved him and pulled him out of the bureaucratic netherworld. He owed him his job and his family’s welfare.
“I understand,” the governor said into the phone, “but if you permit one more well before your lawyers and my lawyers have a sit-down, I’m gonna sue your ass. That’s right. And I’m going to call a press conference out in some scenic spot in the mountains to announce the suit so every photo has that pristine view behind me.”
Joe could hear the caller say, “You’re out of your mind.”
Rulon nodded and waggled his eyebrows at Joe while he said into the phone, “That’s pretty much the conclusion around here.”
Smiling wolfishly, Rulon hit the speaker button on his phone and leaned back in his chair.
“You can’t threaten me,” the caller said. Joe thought the voice was vaguely familiar.
“I just did.”
“Look, can’t we discuss this more reasonably?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Rulon said, grasping the phone set with both hands, pleading into it. “That’s what I proposed.”
Joe could hear the man sighing on the other end. “Okay. I’ll have our legal guys call your people tomorrow.”
“Lovely. Good-bye, Mr. Secretary.”
Rulon punched off. Joe felt his scalp twitch.
“The secretary of the interior?” Joe asked.
Rulon nodded. In the west, the secretary of the interior was more important than whoever the president might be. And Rulon had just threatened to “sue his ass.”
“Empty suit,” Rulon declared.
Joe was confused. Did the governor mean the threatened legal action or the secretary himself?
“Both,” Rulon said, reading Joe’s face. “Now what is the occasion of your extremely rare visit to the very heart of the beast?”
Joe knew Rulon didn’t like formalities or rhetoric, and Joe wasn’t adept at either one anyway: “I want a leave of absence to pursue a case on my own. I might be in Wyoming, but I might also need to cross state lines. And this is the thing: I might need to call on you or the DCI for help at some point.”
Rulon leveled his gaze. “You know how much trouble you got me in letting Romanowski go?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “I want to thank you for sticking your neck out for me last year. I know you didn’t have to do that. I’m sorry about the heat you’ve taken.”
Rulon said, “Goes with the territory. I’ll survive. What can they do? Take my birthday away from me?” He gestured behind him at the photograph. “The people of Wyoming are smart. They’ll flirt with that knucklehead Niffin at first, but they’ll come to their senses.”
“I hope so,” Joe said.
“Besides, the Romanowski thing was peanuts compared to what Niffin’s operatives are saying about me and Stella Ennis.” Rulon probed Joe’s face, making him uncomfortable. Joe had known Stella two years before she showed up as the governor’s chief of staff. He knew what kind of power she had over men. He doubted Mrs. Rulon would be so understanding.
Rulon said, “Nothing happened. And the stuff they’re saying-that’s not how we do politics in Wyoming.”
Joe nodded.
“It could have. Hell, it should have. But it didn’t.”
“Okay.”
“She left on her own accord.”
“Okay,” Joe said, squirming. He wasn’t sure why Rulon felt the need to confess to him.
“Back to your request,” Rulon said. “What’s it concerning?”
Joe swallowed. “It’s a family thing. I’d rather not say.”
Rulon smiled slightly and shook his head, his eyes never leaving Joe. “You ask me things no one else would ask me,” he said.
Joe nodded.
“Good thing I trust you,” the governor said, standing up quickly. He was around the desk before Joe could react.
Rulon placed his hand on Joe’s shoulder like a proud father. “Go, son. Do what you need to do.”
“Thank you, sir,” Joe said, taken aback.
“Do the right thing.”
Joe said, “That’s what you told me last time, and I let Nate escape.”
Rulon chuckled. “I’ll advise your new director that you’ll be out of pocket for a while but that you’re still on the payroll.”
“Thank you.”
“But Joe,” Rulon said, leaning forward so he was nose to nose with him, “if this thing, whatever it is, blows up-we did not discuss it here, did we?”
“No.”
“And you can’t expect me to bail you out again.”
“I wouldn’t even ask.”
“So we’re clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rulon said, “I can tell from your eyes this is important to you. Go with God, but keep me out of it.”
14
NORTH OF CHUGWATER ON I-25, JOE REMEMBERED HE HAD muted his cell while he met with the governor, and he checked it. Two messages-neither from Sheridan or Marybeth. He retrieved the earlier call because he recognized the Baggs prefix. It was the weary voice of Baggs deputy Rich Brokaw, saying Ron Connelly had been released on his own recognizance by the county judge and that Connelly had apparently skipped town. His neighbors reported seeing Connelly packing up his belongings into his pickup truck the night before. Brokaw had checked out the house-empty, garbage everywhere, holes punched in the drywall. The sheriff’s office had issued an APB on Connelly, but so far there had been no credible sightings. Brokaw apologized for the way things turned out and said he’d keep Joe informed. Joe snorted angrily. Connelly didn’t seem the type to have seen the error of his ways and split town to turn over a new leaf. He seemed the type, to Joe, to escalate into something worse. Men who thought nothing of killing or injuring animals for their pleasure were capable of anything. Connelly was like that; Joe could sense it. What was the judge thinking?