Blood Land (16 page)

“What you see and hear

depends a good deal

on where you are standing;

it also depends on

what sort of person you are.”

C.S. LEWIS
,

The Magician's Nephew

Perception is too often involuntary,

but hurtful just the same.

ON THE second morning of the trial, while Ty was away from the jail and Pruett’s deputies stood present in court, the sheriff wandered back into the empty cell. There wasn’t much to see. A pile of damaged dime store paperbacks. The pro rodeo magazines Wendy had bought her uncle. A shaving kit with a few other sundries. On a whim, Pruett pulled the cot away from the wall. There was a small pile of cement dust and debris on the floor, against the wall. He looked up and saw that Ty had been carving something in the wall. The sheriff leaned in.

Numbers. He was carving numbers into the aged, softening concrete:

7002499

Pruett had no idea what the numbers meant. He was more concerned about what Ty had used to make them. Inside the pillow, pushed through a hole in the fabric and hidden amongst the faux goose down, Pruett found a metal fork with the three tines mashed together into a point and then bent slightly. Ty had made himself a nice little carving tool from a piece of flatware left by an unobservant deputy.

The sheriff made a mental note to give the prisoners only plastic utensils from there on in. He then went back to the empty office and sat down slowly in his chair. Every joint hurt. His back felt like a Slinky that stretched out until someone had tried (unsuccessfully) to push the coils back together, leaving an uneven, unbalanced mess behind. Only when the Slinky was pushed back together it was suddenly made of barbed wire, the points jamming into his spine.

Getting old had not proved to be everything he’d hoped. Actually he never hoped for much. And losing the love of his life had been far harder on him than a bad back, too much girth, drying skin, or any number of other ailments.

He reached into the back of the filing drawer, back past the metal bar where the folders hung, into that secret space. The bottle was there waiting for him. God he used to love a drink while he thought through the facts of the case. Better than buttered popcorn and movies. The warm bite; the way at first it made his mind feel sharper, more tuned into the case.

Pruett slammed the door.

Sharper, yes, until he woke up sleeping on the desk, further behind than when he started because of the splitting headache.

He wrote the numbers down on a pad with a bit of space between them.

7 0 0 2 4 9 9

It sure looked a hell of a lot like a phone number. Wyoming only had one area code—307—and 700 was the prefix to Jackson Hole. Pruett picked up the handset on the phone and punched in the full ten-digit number.

There was only one ring before a female voice answered:

“Bureau of Land Management.”

It took only that first day for the prosecution to present its case. Hanson had expected this tactical approach. It was smart. Keep it simple. Keep the jury alert and frosty; don’t let them wander off and dream up some other version of the crime. It was for this reason Hanson chose his opening remarks. The prosecution could hardly be accused of being biased if they concentrated primarily on the evidence at hand.

The prosecution called all the people present that night at the ranch—Vance Dustin and the McIntyres who were there: Honey, Rory, and Rance. Jorgensen also marched a few character witnesses through the courtroom who each testified to the violent nature of Ty McIntyre—kept them coming, in fact, until J.W. Hanson objected, stipulating that each of the next dozen or so witnesses would tell a similar story of conflict and/or violence with the accused.

It wasn’t as if every member of the jury didn’t already know Ty anyway, Hanson argued, which elicited a few chuckles from the box.

Jorgensen did call one final character witness, as Hanson knew she would.

“The prosecution calls Ms. Wendy Steele to the stand.”

“Objection,” Hanson said, standing up. “Prejudicial and irrelevant.”

“The witness testimony is completely relevant. Establishes the defendant’s propensity for violence toward
family members
, Your Honor,” the prosecutor argued.

“Objection overruled. We’ve been over this, Mr. Hanson,” said Butler. “However, this is a short leash, Ms. Jorgensen. A
very
short leash.”

Hanson had filed a motion to exclude Wendy’s testimony based solely on the fact that Ty was never convicted of a crime. Butler concurred but felt the testimony from a family member who, according to her own admission on the police report, had been stricken, was appropriate for the jury to hear. The compromise he devised was to allow Jorgensen to question Wendy on whether or not there had been any violence perpetrated against her by the defendant. No mention of charges, a police report, arrest, another trial, or any other details were to be allowed.

Of course, Hanson knew Beulah Jorgensen would do everything in her skillset to get a mention of the charges even to have them stricken from the record. Once in the jury’s mind, you didn’t strike memories.

“Ms. Steele,” the prosecutor said. “You are the daughter of the victim in this case.”

“You know I am.”

“Your honor, please instruct the witness to answer the question in the affirmative.”

“I’ll order her to answer the question in a direct manner,” Judge Butler said, intentionally allowing a bit of his Wyoming vernacular to slip into the remark. “
How
she answers questions is between her and her oath with God, ma’am.”

There was a murmur and cameras hummed and clicked. Butler tried to look judicious.

“Thank you, your honor. Ms. Steele?”

“I don’t remember the question.”

“I asked if you were the daughter of the victim.”

“Then my answer is no.”

“Excuse me?”

“You asked me a direct question and I said ‘no’. Directly.”

“You swore an oath before sitting in that chair, Ms. Steele.”

“The victim
is
my mother. Her dying did not change the facts.”

Butler shrugged.

“I want this on the record clearly. Are you the daughter of Bethy McIntyre Pruett?”

“No.”

“Do you need to be reminded of the penalties for perjury?”

“Her name is Pruett.”

“What?”

“She didn’t keep her maiden name. Believed rather strongly in it, if I remember correctly. So I won’t let you change her name here. For the record, that is. So no, I don’t even know anyone by the name you are using.”

“Permission to treat the witness as hostile,” Jorgensen said.

“Granted.”

“Are you her daughter or not?”

“Every person in this courtroom knows I am.”

“At your parent’s home on Green Ridge when you were but fifteen years old, did the accused, Mr. Tyree McIntyre strike you across the face with his fist, breaking your orbital socket?”

“No,” Wendy said.

“I’ll remind you
again
of your sworn oath, Ms. Steele.”

“It was fractured, not broken. You should get your facts straight.”

“And were you indeed fifteen at the time of your orbital socket being fractured by the defendant’s fist?”

“I don’t recall.”

“You were fifteen,” Jorgensen said.

“Is that a question?”

Judge Butler looked sternly at Wendy. “The witness will answer.”

“Yes, I was fifteen.”

“So you admit that the defendant is capable of perpetrating violence against his own family. A young girl—a child?”

“I most certainly do not.”

“But you said…”

“I told you what happened. That’s what you asked me.”

“And being stricken does not equate to an act of violence?”

“Violence is wanton, ma’am. I was stricken
accidentally.
”

“That is not an answer to the question I asked. Your honor, this is going nowhere,” said Jorgensen.

“I am inclined to agree, Madam Prosecutor. I believe you’ve established what you set out to establish.”

“With due respect, how is it you know what I am after?”

“I do know. And you’re done here. Approach.”

Hanson and Jorgensen walked forward to the bench. Butler covered his microphone.

“This has been discussed at length,” the judge hissed. “The defendant was never convicted of anything. All parties say the same thing, including the police report. You’ve been allowed to introduce the act by deposing Ms. Steele. She admitted to being struck by the defendant. Accidentally, I might add.”

“Then I ask you to strike the word ‘accidentally’ from the record.”

“Request denied,” said Butler.

“She’s not answered one of my questions directly, Your Honor.”

“On the contrary, ma’am. She has answered each of your questions directly. That you are unable to engage a tripwire and force the witness to say something disallowable by this courtroom so that the jury might hear it even
after
I ruled such testimony prejudicial to the accused is your own failure, not hers. Move away.”

To the courtroom, Butler said: “Your witness for cross, Mr. Hanson.”

“No questions, Your Honor,” Hanson said, and flashed the jury a slight smirk.

The call came on Pruett’s cell phone later that night, when he was home, busy washing a week’s worth of dishes caked with the grime of unwanted bachelorhood.

“Pruett,” the sheriff said.

“That murderer’s going to fry, Sheriff. Thought you’d want to know.” The voice was muffled, as if the words were spoken through gelatin.

“Who the hell is calling?” Pruett said.

“An interested citizen. The jurors, we know where the bear shits, sir.”

“So you’re on the jury. Calling the county sheriff. Not smart. Not smart at all.”

“I figured you’d be happy,” the caller said. “Figured I was callin’ the widower of a murdered wife ‘stead of some dumb…”

“Dumb
what
?” Pruett growled.

The call disconnected. Pruett wondered about how much stock to put in such a call. Number one, even if it were true, it was no big surprise. Hanson was losing the case. It wasn’t like it had the gleam of a winner in the first place. And he couldn’t prove it was a juror. And he sure as hell didn’t have a clue as to which one, anyway—though because of the near commentary, he had a couple ideas.

Pruett didn’t know how to feel about the call, either. Assuming the information was accurate. He’d tried to be impartial about the trial, the outcome and verdict—and Ty had, after all, let him live. He’d also stayed put to face the music; he could have headed off for Canada with the sheriff alive or dead and he didn’t. The old sheriff wasn’t sure if those facts alone made the defendant worthy of admiration. More than a small part of him had wanted to die up in the wilderness. Die or kill his wife’s murderer—or both—and there still wasn’t any reconciliation on either of those counts.

Besides, he was on the side of the law. People guilty of murder were supposed to be found guilty. And as far as Pruett knew it, Ty McIntyre was guilty. He may not have intended to kill her—hell, he might not have intended to kill
anyone
—but he’d shot Bethy. There was no disputing that.