In Plain Sight (Joe Pickett, #6)

by C.J. Box

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go by any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material. —F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

On the day after the election, Joe had received a four-word message from his supervisor, Trey Crump, that read: “Hell has frozen over,” meaning a Democrat had been elected.

Arlen was the oldest brother, and the best liked. He was tall with broad shoulders and a mane of silver-white wavy hair that made him look like the state senate majority floor leader he was. He had a heavy, thrusting jaw and the bulbous, spiderwebbed nose of a drinker. His clear blue eyes looked out from under bushy eyebrows that were black as smears of grease, and he had a soothing, sonorous voice that turned the reading of a diner menu into a performance.

Hank, the middle brother, was smaller than Arlen. He was thin and wiry with a sharp-featured bladelike face, and wore a sweat-stained gray Stetson clamped tight on his head.

Wyatt was the biggest but the youngest. His face was cherubic, without the sharp angles his brothers’ had. Everything about Wyatt was soft and round, his cheeks, his nose, the extra flesh around his soft brown eyes. He was in his early thirties.

So things had been rocky for a while, like all marriages, he supposed, but the storm had passed over them without fatal damage.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. —WILLIAM RALPH INGE, OUTSPOKEN ESSAYS, 1922

“Will it be necessary to call in the Wyoming National Guard to prevent a full-fledged bloodletting?”

Again, Joe closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should count to ten, or resign immediately. Or drive to Cheyenne and shoot Pope in the heart, which would be the best alternative—or at least the most satisfying.

This is a new agency, and a new era.”

“I had a daughter once,” Keeley said. “Her name was April. My brother thought she was his, but she wasn’t. She was mine. April was the result of a little fling I had with my sister-in-law, Jeannie Keeley. My brother, Ote, never knew a damned thing about it.”

“Joe Pickett was responsible for the death of my brother, my sister-in-law, and my daughter,” Keeley hissed. “And he don’t even know why I’m here. I’m an avenging angel, here to take out the man who destroyed my family.”

No matter what, there will be hell to pay.

He could have said, “Everything will be different.” But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled his daughters close to him and waited for the helicopter.