She ordered security to block the road, both sides for half a mile, to everyone but law enforcement, called for a staff member to bring the keys to the closest unoccupied cabin.
“I don’t think I should tell them why.” Still knee-deep in the snow, Bodine stared at her phone. “I don’t think I should do that yet. I should call my parents. They need to know, but … Billy Jean’s parents, they live … near Helena. No, no.”
She had to press the heel of her hand to her forehead, somehow shove the information out of her brain. “Her mother lives near Helena. They’re divorced. Her father … I can’t remember. She has a brother somewhere. In the navy. No, no, he’s a marine.”
When Callen said nothing, she snapped at him, “It’s important.”
“I know it is. I didn’t know her, Bodine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s important. The sheriff’s on the way, and you can tell him how to contact her family.”
“I need to talk to them.” Everything inside her felt hot and dry, just scorched. “She worked for us. She was one of us. I need to talk to them, too. Somebody was chasing her. You can see where…” She looked back, saw the trenches in the snow. Where someone had chased Billy Jean.
And where Callen had come after her, to stop her.
“I messed that up,” she murmured. “I plowed right through, and I’d have grabbed on to her, moved her, if you hadn’t stopped me. It’s a crime scene, that’s what it is. I know enough to know you’re not supposed to go stomping around a crime scene.”
“You saw a woman lying in the snow. You saw blood. You were thinking of her, not a damn crime scene.”
Thinking of her—a friend, an employee, a woman with a rollicking laugh. And not thinking at all, Bodine admitted.
She couldn’t allow herself to do that again.
“I’d’ve made it worse. It can always be worse, and I’d’ve made it worse.” She had to take a long breath before she could look at him. When she did, she saw the bruise forming just under his right eye. “I’m sorry I hit you. I really am.”
“You’re not the first, I don’t expect you’ll be the last.”
Still, she gave the bruise a light brush with her fingertip. “You can put some ice on it once we … The cabin. Need to get the keys once they bring them down to Mike—security. The police can use it if they need to. They’ll need to get our statements, maybe talk to whoever saw her last before she left the Saloon.”
Think, think, she ordered herself as her insides quivered. Make an agenda, tick off the boxes. “And … I don’t know what else. I can’t seem to get my brain in order.”
“It’s working well enough from where I’m standing.”
“Maybe you could walk on up, see if they got the keys to Mike yet.”
“You’re not leaving her. I’m not leaving you. Bodine. Walking back to the road, right there, isn’t leaving her.”
She glanced back. They’d left the horses, just left the horses standing in the road.
“You’re right. We need to secure the horses,” she said, starting back. “And we need to get them to the BAC. When they’re done with us, the police, you could ride Sundown and lead Leo.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Even as he gathered the reins, Callen turned toward the sound of an approaching car. He steered the horses to the far side of the road, grateful the police had responded faster than he’d hoped.
He wanted, above all, to get Bodine away from there, away from standing in the snow, looking at the body of a dead friend.
The black truck with the county sheriff’s department emblem on the side stopped a few feet short of Billy Jean’s car.
Callen watched the man get out. The broad-shouldered, defensive lineman’s build, the cream-colored hat over short, straw-colored hair, reflective sunglasses over eyes Callen knew to be cold, hard blue. Square-jawed, thin-lipped, he turned his head enough to give Callen a ten-second stare before moving toward Bodine.
Callen thought, Fuck me, and secured the reins to a branch before crossing the road again.
“It’s Billy Jean Younger,” Bodine said. “She’s one of our bartenders.”
Garrett Clintok nodded. “Sheriff’s on the way. I’m going to need both of you to stay clear. Heard you’d come back, Skinner.”
Not sheriff, at least. “Hadn’t heard you were deputy. Bodine’s had them send down keys to that cabin right up there. I’m going to take her and the horses up there.”
“You’re going to wait until I say different.” He looked down at Callen’s jeans, boots. “You went right on out there, compromised the crime scene.”
“I did that,” Bodine said quickly. “I saw her and I didn’t think, I just tried to get to her. Callen stopped me. I’m sorry, Garrett, I just reacted.”
“Understandable enough. Did you touch her?”
“Callen stopped me before I got to her. I could see— Anybody could see she was gone, but I just reacted.”
“Her phone’s on the ground, the other side of her car,” Callen added. “We didn’t touch that, either. Deputy.”
“I really would like to get inside, just sit down. Maybe have some water.” Bodine shifted, just a little, just enough to put herself between the men and the ugly vibrations in the air. “I’m feeling a little shaky. Do you think Callen could go down to where I have Mike blocking the road, get the keys? We’d be right there. Big Sky Cabin. We didn’t want to leave her alone, but now that you’re here…”
“You go ahead. I don’t want you talking to anybody about this yet, not until we get a handle on things.”
“Thanks. Thank you, Garrett.”
They crossed the road together, got the horses, began to lead them up the road.
“You played him like a fiddle.”
Bodine sighed. “I don’t care for playing the weak-kneed female, but I’d forgotten how the two of you butt heads.”
“I butted back, that’s different.”
The cold edge in his voice made her want to sigh. “Maybe so, but I didn’t see the sense in having a pissing match with Billy Jean lying there twenty feet away. Since I’m supposed to be weak-kneed, go on and take the horses up to Mike. Ask him to have somebody come and take them in. I’ll wait on the porch in a damn rocking chair.”
Inside a half hour she’d made coffee; they had a fire going. And she’d paced about two miles circling the living area of the cabin.
It didn’t do her nerves much good when instead of the sheriff, Clintok walked in.
“I know this is a hard time for you, Bo. Why don’t you sit down for a bit? I’m going to take your statement in just a little while. Skinner and I are going to talk out on the porch first.”
“The sheriff’s here. I saw the trucks out the window.”
“That’s right. They’re doing what needs to be done, just like I am. Skinner?”
He jabbed a thumb at the door, stepped out again.
“Don’t provoke him,” Bodine warned.