Survival

Chapter 6

Murder Board Redux

Okay, so this is a transition chapter before coming back to the relationship…It was brought to my attention via PM that I really gave the Murder Board short shrift in prior chapters. It's only my speculative take on the plotline thus far, so don't ask me, these are only ideas for one version that might happen. I also don't know*anything* about how 4th season is progressing, except Tony Tost said in his most recent tweet that there will be a lot of "history" in it. I don't own anything, lowly fan writer, etc. etc.

—Seven Months Ago—

It had been almost a month since her divorce had been final, and almost every night since then she and Walt had sat on folding chairs there in the storage room at the back of his cabin and tried to piece together the huge pile of data damning a small group of greedy and unprincipled men. At least, so far, they were all men, except for the tiny stooge part Deena had played for Malachi via Darius.

A packing crate became their worktable housing the unruly mess of information which they doggedly kept linking with the board. A lot of it was extraneous paper, but some of the juicier nuggets were downright head-on incriminating.

Sometimes Ferg would join them for part of an evening, or bring them new information to add to the pile. She thought he mostly enjoyed just being included, allowed to express his two cents, and make occasional contributions. He made some good points along the way that they were overlooking, or just too fatigued to see. They had just sent him home to get some sleep an hour before, because he was on duty in the morning, but Vic was convinced his mood and his energy had finally turned away from the negative emanations which had seemed like the entire last year.

"Where the fuck did you manage to find all this?" Vic had asked Walt once six weeks ago, after the investigation had suddenly taken off as the pile grew. It was approaching the height of the stack of the byzantine health care act passed a few years before. Each document had to be identified, scanned and placed into the word and excel documents she had been preparing for over the last two months. Each piece was a nail in the coffin of the conspiracy which had been responsible for the few loose cannons, chinks in the armor which had unfortunately ultimately directly led to the deaths of Martha and Hector, and indirectly to the unlamented Miller Beck and David Ridges.

"Different places, I called in a few favors out of state, but a lot is from Ferg's brother in Sheridan. He kinda owed me a favor."

It must have been a mountain of favors to match the mountain of documents.

"Which brother is that?" Ferg had two, and a sister, if she remembered correctly. His dad was in construction, something like that. Ferg occasionally took a day off to help out his dad at sites.

"His oldest brother, Mark. Must be, oh, about your age."

Ouch. To Walt, ever the mentor of a youngster in trouble, a young man her age. Walt seemed oblivious to what he had said.

"He did, huh? Why did he owe you a favor?"

He looked up sharply from where he was scanning yet another document. "Some computer-related issues a few years back. Hacking, mostly."

Now, she was fascinated. "So you helped Ferg's brother out of a computer hacking thing…"

"It was a misunderstanding, really, but it could have been felony material, so he's been pretty receptive to helping us round up some of these financials and emails."

"Seriously impressed, Walt," she said, scanning another document in and assigning it a number. "Had no idea."

As he reflected on an image taken from the stack of paper, she paused, wondering if the Murder Board were winding down, their on-hold relationship dynamics might change as well.

Walt had been firm about it as they had begun the project:

"You said it months ago in this very truck, until we figure out who created Barlow and Jacob as pawns, anyone close to me is in danger. You're right, it's chess: the judges are the bishops, but we have to find the ones who could make the moves to put Barlow and Jacob into motion," he said, grimacing, "and we still haven't found the Queen who can make moves like that. That could be multiple counties, regional, or even state level." He added after a few moments, "Knights are sometimes good at taking down Queens, but I doubt there are any Knights in this particular chess set."

At that, she pursed her lips, wondered how recently he had looked into his own mirror, but he was right, the high echelon of corruption terrified her—at that level, in Durant? How could four or five people in the lowest population, geographically largest county in America combat that?

Now he was back to staring at a single document in his hands. He finally, slowly, as though reluctant to do so, placed it in the open area in the middle on the Murder Board and stuck a pin firmly through it.

It was late enough she was getting bleary-eyed and coffee wasn't really doing it for her that late, but the latent caffeine rush was just enough to penetrate what he had just added to the Murder Board.

She inhaled sharply. "Fucking shit—The Queen?" she whispered. Hard to believe from where they had started, that they had found the enigmatic player who had set everything in motion…although it still looked like Martha's death was a momentary panic put into motion by a vindictive Barlow at the third tier of players in the game. It didn't look like the upper echelons had directed that, but it had been the weakest point of the game, where the pieces around it began trying to protect the others in quick succession. Hopefully the pieces would soon begin falling—into jail.

"It makes all the sense in the world, really. Wyoming royalty, and Martha paid for it," he said in an odd, thick voice, and when she turned, he was hunched over in tears. Something inside her broke watching him, and somehow just a palm on his forearm wasn't enough. She stepped over and enfolded him in her arms where he sat, his head hot against her chest. She would give anything for this board to free him from the prison in his mind he had inhabited alone the last few years.

He shouldn't have ever been involved in the investigation because his wife had been the victim precipitating the Murder Board. In Absaroka County, there had been no one else who could have possibly had the determination, interest, or willing to take the self-risk involved in putting it together. Even at this difficult moment, his grief was far preferable than resolving to take matters into his own hands, again. As she peered at the picture of "The Queen," she did a double-take.

"Walt, that can't be right…the evil mastermind is what, all of seventeen?"

"His photo may be the place marker, but he's not quite the end game," he said, voice still thick. "Carter might be the technological front, because as a minor he's under the radar—and he didn't inherit or lose the money. I'm betting the actual Queen is Graham, and we're about this close—" he pinched his thumb and forefinger together—"if we can financially link Carter transfers with Graham." He looked to the stack of documents. "We still have a lot of documents to go through, but I'm pretty sure we'll find it in there. It may be emails, numbered accounts, something putting them together."

"Walt," she said suddenly. "What about education accounts, like the judges' sons?"

He stared up at her, then at the pile of documents. "You're right. That's their M.O. That has to be it, and the proof is probably in there."

"Shit," she whispered, "the whole family. Penny is in prison for what—20 years?"

"The whole family except for," he said with emphasis, "Welles, who walked out of that cesspool and stayed far away."

The momentary adrenalin glow was fading, the fillip of success leading to more questions.

"But why, with their fortune?"

Walt, still hunched over, shook his head. "Maybe because reports of the growth of their fortune were greatly exaggerated, and that's why Penny did what she did. They got hurt in the '08 crash. Their financials all look like they took a serious hit."

"So how is Cady's Cameron Maddox linked into all this? I didn't know Maddox and the Van B's knew one another."

"Maddox is related to the wife of one of the judges. He has to be just a mule, transferring cash through Carter/Graham to his principals. He got a cut along the way. So many little cuts, laundering and re-laundering…"

"So if lots of people are getting small cuts, where's the casino money going? How did they expect to hide it after construction?"

Walt grimaced. "According to what I can piece together, most of the investments are now secured somewhere in the Caiman Islands. There are cooked books everywhere showing the cash is there, but it can't be. It's been siphoned off to the judges and the Van Blarcoms."

"But the income from the casino was expected to offset the shortfalls and save Jacob from the deficiencies before they became noticeable?"

"That's the theory…I would love to confront Jacob, or have the Casino Board confront him to producing evidence of the money. I can't, of course…but I've thought maybe an anonymous tip…especially as the contractors are going to start submitting their billings as final construction begins. I'm guessing that even without an arrest, that Jacob Nighthorse is going to have some 'splainin' to do, since the casino is so far behind schedule." His lips were pulled back in an unpleasant grin.

Her arm gripped his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Walt. This is way more than we ever thought—"

"It was pretty much what I thought, after finding out what Cassandra told Martha, about the Cheyenne graves. Even Hector somehow knew more was going on, and the evidence was in his Job Jar, which was why he was targeted and executed by David Ridges."

"Shit," she said again, with some heat, yet shivering a little as she remembered Hector's scalped head and dying last wish. "So, what now?"

"We finish, we put duplicate flash drives and documents in two separate bank boxes with other people's names on them, and we send a 3rd and 4th to the FBI and state respectively. They can counterbalance each other's investigations so that they don't just get put on hold."

"Wow. I've never been involved in an investigation this size. Whose names will the boxes under?"

He exhaled. "I'm not sure, yet. It just needs to not be us."

She went cold, because she realized that in this, he was still protecting her, that it was in case someone tried to eliminate them from the chain of evidence…They had both discussed upping their life insurance policies after everything that had happened, and wills to release the Murder Board documents to the press in the event of their untimely death.

"I'm leaning towards Henry for one of them."

"Good idea. What about Cady for the other?"

He fidgeted.

"Oh, got it, don't want to put her at risk, either."

He shrugged. "Maybe Ruby. She wants them hurt, after all."

"And we take down the board and get it back to the station."

"After I fix it up a little, but you've done a masterful job on writing it up, Vic."

"We did. We're a team, Walt."

She stared down at him, where the tracks of tears still lay on his cheeks. Shit, he was still mourning Martha. It was not the time for the discussion of any form of more personal teamwork. Not yet. She had been hoping since the divorce was final, but it was more that this needed to be put to bed before they put their personal lives into it.

"Let's finish this part and get it dismantled before morning. I want it to disappear before anyone gets wise to this final stage. We can go through what's left in little bits here. I'll take care of the repairs and bring it in."

"In this room, under the old sheet, it surely escaped any scrutiny. If anyone was watching the nights my truck's been out here, they'd think the Sheriff is diddling the deputy."

Walt winced and made a tsking sound with his tongue. "I hope the board escaped scrutiny for both our sakes, and that I didn't destroy your reputation in the process, because it was a good idea to set it up here."

"I'm glad we're pretty much done, though. It's still cold back here, and it's almost summer!"

He stood up, contrite. "I'm sorry, Vic, I guess…I guess I've never noticed. Do you want a blanket?"

"What," she grinned, "you've never noticed that don't take my jacket off?"

"Maybe I don't notice a lot of things," he muttered, almost as though he was beginning to shake off the paralyzing effects of the Murder Board, as they began to double-check every document and link as they removed them. The word meticulous rambled around in her head. It would have taken a staff of 20 to do something like this in Philly.

"Good-bye and good-riddance, Murder Board," she said under her breath, but regretted the closeness they had developed around each other during several months of intensive evenings together. Of course the hoped-for outcomes would be to someday provide justice for Martha, and maybe keep Walt from going after Jacob, the judges, Malachi, the Van Blarcoms, Cameron Maddox, and all those dirty in the entirety of it. She sighed, just a dozen people spread over three counties, but what a mess!

Almost summer…she had a thought.

"Walt?"

"Hmmm? He was slowly dismantling documents from the board after checking against the corresponding numbers in the document on her laptop.

"You know, Ruby's granddaughter Janine's getting married in June. June 27th. I just thought of it after I said summer."

"Oh, right. I remember the invitation."

"Would…would you want to go together? This will have gone out long before then."

That drew his attention. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? To go, I mean?"

"Would you have?"

He made a noise through his nose. "Probably not. I'd forgotten about it."

"Ruby won't let you forget about it." But now she was smiling. She told me," and she said it like Ruby had, kind of slyly, "Plus-ones are welcome!"

He ducked his head, but he was now sort of smiling. It was a definite improvement over the earlier tears.

"It might be a nice way to do something together without the whole town commenting."

"Oh, the whole town will comment."

She made a face.

"What do you typically wear to a wedding?" she asked, glad she had been able to change the topic sufficiently.

"Whatever Cady tells me to wear."

She brightened. "Good answer! So, are we on?"

"Did I just get asked out on a date?"

"Noooo…we were both invited. We're just going together, instead of separately."

"Well, okay, then," he said, and focused his attention back on the board.

She was so glad the board was nearly done…