Death Without Company (17 page)

I shifted my thoughts to Mari Baroja. I wondered if she would have preferred to die in one of the small rooms in the Euskadi Hotel rather than in Room 42 of the Durant Home for Assisted Living. Some of their lunches must have been longer than their three-hour marriage. I thought about the effect she might have made on the old sheriff’s life had she been able to remain nestled there, the good she would have probably done, the holes in his tattered sails that could have been filled. Why hadn’t they remarried? Religion, maybe, but perhaps the clandestine weight of Charlie Nurburn had been too much. Things like that have a way of gathering momentum until there simply isn’t a way of dealing with them in one lifetime. Maybe they were two different people by then. Maybe it was that those three hours weren’t to be tampered with, that those three hours for those two people had been enough. Some fires can’t bear to dampen and can provide heat even from the distance of time.

As soon as I closed the door of the truck and fired her up, I spotted a well-worn unit of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department sliding down Main Street. She was driving too fast, like she always did, but didn’t stop beside me; rather, she pulled around and parked. She got out, ducked her head against her collar, and trudged through the snow with a silent determination. She stood beside the window, and I noticed a piece of folded paper in her gloved hands. I hit the button, but the window only made a brief herniated sound; it was apparently frozen shut. She raised an eyebrow, then calmly unfolded the paper in her hands and slammed the face of it against the glass. It was a fax from the medical examiner’s office in Billings, and it said that Mari Baroja had died of complications due to naphthalene poisoning.

 
 
“Mothballs?”

We both stared at the speakerphone on my desk. “It’s where the smell comes from but, for it to be toxic, it has to be ingested. It forces the hemoglobin out, causing kidney damage and other assorted niceties.” We continued to stare at the little plastic speaker cover. “Some people have a hereditary deficiency of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenate that makes them particularly susceptible to naphthalene poisoning. Mari Baroja was in that group. It’s usually in people of Mediterranean descent, and Basques are on the list.”

I shook my head and looked at Vic who seemed lost also. “How would someone know that?”

“The same deficiency makes them sensitive to aspirin. If somebody knew that, it would give them a pretty good indication.”

I thought about the stuffed and golden brown crow I was preparing to ingest. “There’s no chance that this could be something else?”

“None.” The little speaker was silent for a moment. “The amount in her kidneys was miniscule, but her medical records showed that the deficiency was diagnosed back in the forties.”

“What medical records?”

“The ones I had faxed up from your hospital.”

“Who was the attending physician?”

There was a brief pause as he shuffled some papers. “You know, doctors really do have the worst handwriting.” I waited. “I. Brumfield ring a bell?”

“Isaac Bloomfield.” I looked up at Vic; I had already filled her in on the Bloomfield front. “Yep, that’s the personal physician of the decedent.”

“I guess you need to go talk to him.” I thanked Bill McDermott, punched the button, and looked back up at my smiling deputy.

“I’m glad I’m not you right now.” She started to get up and head for her own office as somebody opened the front door. I assumed it was Ruby. “Sancho is out at Sonny George’s checking the Mercedes. Do you really think somebody tried to kill the Doc?”

I took a breath. “I don’t know, but the accident sure seems fishy.”

She was grinning, enjoying my quandary. “You want me to head over to that hotbed of illegal activity, the Durant Home for . . . ?”

“Do me a favor first?” I couldn’t resist, she was looking so satisfied with herself. I stood and pulled the Post-it from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Call Charlie Nurburn down in Vista Verde and ask him when he’s going to be up here next?”

She took the slip of paper and frowned at me. “You don’t think we have more important things to do?”

I smiled back. “It’ll just take you a second.” She gave me the finger as I passed her on the way to Ruby’s desk. Dog was already there. “Isn’t Cady supposed to arrive sometime this afternoon?”

“All the flights from Denver have been canceled.”

I looked down at her, hoping what I had heard was wrong. “What?”

“All the flights from Denver have been canceled, and I’m not even sure if she made it there yet.”

“I better call.”

She held the receiver up to show me. “What do you think I’m doing?” I glanced at my pocket watch as Ruby watched me. “Got an important meeting?”

I continued to watch my sweep second hand. “No, but I’m expecting an explosion any time now.”

“Fuck me!”
It resonated down the hallway from her office and, a moment later, my highly agitated deputy was standing beside me and requesting a private audience in chambers. I looked back at Ruby. “Let me know what’s happening with Cady.”

She smiled. “You bet.”

 
 
“He’s dead.”

“No shit.”

“But Lucian didn’t kill him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure he didn’t, he’s too busy providing his answering service.”

“She did it.”

Her eyes widened. “She did it?” I told her the story just as Lucian had told me and watched as she sat there. “Ugh.” She looked at the fax on my desk. “I guess that puts a whole new profile on our victim, huh?”

“That and, from what the foreman told me, she was worth millions.”

“Methane?”

“Yep.”

She pursed her lips. “By the way, your buddy stopped by this morning.”

“Which buddy?”

“Cecil Keller, the roustabout that shot his foreman? Big fucker with bad teeth? Nice of you to give me the heads-up on that one. He said you wanted him to come in and have a little chat.” I smiled. “Go ahead and smirk. No current wants or warrants, but I confiscated the weapon and had a little talk with him about resolving his conflicts.”

I felt the muscles pull at the corner of my mouth. “I forgot about him.”

She shook her head. “You know, I’m glad I’m around, considering the laissez-faire attitude the two previous administrations seem to have taken toward capital crimes.”

I looked at the fax. “Yep, well, I guess the salad days are over.”

She grew quiet. “I’ll go over to the home. Where are you headed?”

“I figured I’d go over to the hospital and talk to Isaac, then I guess I’ll start with the family by telling Lana that somebody poisoned her grandmother.” She started out. “Hey?” She turned back. “There were some cookies on the floor beside her bed. I know it all sounds very Dorothy Sayers, but I thought I’d mention it.”

“And I’ll check the drawers for mothballs. Maybe Mari was schnockered and thought they were breath mints.”

 
 
Isaac Bloomfield wasn’t in his room, but he wasn’t hard to find; he was snoring in the staff lounge with a large bandage running from his temple and around his ear. I sat in the chair opposite his sofa, unbuttoned my coat, and placed my hat on my knee. The old guy snored like a Husquavarna chainsaw. “Isaac?” I said it three times before he heard me.

“Walter?”

“How come you’re not in your room?”

“I’m more comfortable here.” He leaned in and took my hands. “I understand I owe you my life?”

I shrugged. “I almost got both of us killed, if that’s what you mean.”

He shook his head at my inability to accept thanks. “How is my car?”

“Totaled.” I leaned back and watched him. “Isaac, last night you said the brakes failed.”

“Yes?”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

I took a deep breath and went on, before he could interrupt. “Isaac, did Mari have a deficiency of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenate?”

He sat up slowly and looked at me, after rubbing his eyes and putting on his glasses. There was a very long pause. “Naphthalene poisoning?” I nodded. “Clever.”

“Why is that?”

“She was a lifetime smoker, it would have made the trace elements difficult to discover, along with the miniscule amount to be effective due to the deficiency.”

I leaned back in the chair. “You learn something every day.”

“But it must be ingested to be poison. That would create a difficulty under most situations, but Mari’s sense of smell had long been deadened.” He thought for a moment. “We discovered her reaction to aspirin during one of her clinic visits, and it was a textbook response. I induced vomiting with a syrup of ipecac, since her respiration was not depressed, and then insisted on further testing.” He smiled and continued to look at me. “This makes things difficult for you, doesn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“You are looking for someone who knew her medical history.” He continued to smile. “If I were you, I would suspect me but, in that I am innocent, I have nothing to fear from your suspicions. So, I give them and you my blessing.” He leaned forward and again took my hands in his. “Find who murdered her, Walter. She suffered enough in life; there is no reason she should have to bear this final indignity.”

I took Isaac off the unofficial suspect list on my way out to the truck. Dog was waiting, so I let him out to pee and stretch his legs. I leaned against the Bullet and thought about all the Barojas I was going to have to contact in the next few hours. I loaded Dog up and headed out to buy some overdue baked goods.

Someone hadn’t been content to wait for the old woman to die, and all the suspects smacked of being too obvious. That’s how it worked, though. Motive and opportunity rode along like two out of four apocalyptic equestrians, grinning with their bony death heads at us lesser humans as we fumbled along, refusing to believe the obvious.

I had eaten the ruggelach, and I didn’t die.

 
 
I parked the truck and noticed a single set of footprints going in but none leaving. Lana must have walked. I opened the door and carefully shut it against the compacted snow at the sill. She needed to shovel. The bell at the top of the door tinkled, but no one appeared. I took a step in as I followed the dog but stopped to knock some of the accumulated snow from my hat and shoulders and to breathe in the fragrance of rising yeast and baking bread. The only sound was the quiet hum of the coolers and the winds of forced-air heating.

Dog had advanced down the long counter but had stopped at the end. His head dropped, and he stared at the small seating area in the back. I was surprised when he retreated a step or two, froze and growled, and looked at something around the corner. “Dog?”

It took about two strides to get to Lana Baroja who was lying at the top of the steps to the basement in a considerable amount of blood. Spikes of black hair were matted at the back of her head where there was a deep wound. One arm was turned while the other shot off to the side in an unnatural position.

I checked her pulse; the rhythm was fast. Tachycardia—no way to know the pressure. She was pale, bluish, and clammy, with a light sweat, classic symptoms of shock.

The numbers started up like an adding machine in my head; large bold numbers that stated simply that one third of the victims of head injury are unconscious and that more than 80 percent of the total deaths came from this group; that a full 50 percent of the individuals who could speak at some point after their injury and later died could have been saved with immediate treatment. I thought back to Isaac Bloomfield on the highway, my recently accumulated experience, and momentarily considered another line of work.

I checked her neck, but nothing seemed broken. I made the decision I had been making a lot of lately and scooped her up, yanking a tablecloth from the nearest table and wrapping it around her, being careful to support her head. As I made my way toward the door, Dog followed.

I had her at Durant Memorial in four minutes.

A doctor I didn’t recognize pushed me away from the gurney as he felt the region at the back of her head, palpating the lacerations and bruising, checking for signs of hemorrhage behind the eardrums, and shining a light into her eyes to see if the pupils were equal and reactive. I wasn’t surprised when the damaged Isaac Bloomfield appeared and called for a CT scan to examine her brain and the inner lining of her skull for evidence of the subdural hematoma he knew was there. I wasn’t surprised when he called for two units of blood as they rushed her into the operating room, nor was I surprised that A-negative was what he asked for, without consulting any files or records. I wasn’t surprised as I watched the snow from the waiting-room windows and felt the cold creep in from a winter that showed no signs of ending.

I was surprised when Isaac Bloomfield reappeared after twenty minutes and told me that Lana Baroja would live.

8

I reached out and pulled her hand down; it seemed that she was probing the wound a little too aggressively. “No idea, huh?”

She smiled, but I think it hurt. “No.”

I looked into her eyes again, but the pupils seemed normal; they must not have given her any drugs because of the head trauma. Even in the gauze turban, she was looking pretty good; amazing what youth can do. “How do you think they got in then?”

She was studying me now. “I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t get the door relocked.” I guess I made a face. “What?”

“No footprints and, odds are, they wouldn’t rely on you accidentally leaving the door ajar. Anybody besides you have keys to the place?”

She looked at me for a second longer than necessary but then answered. “Nobody.”

“Who rented you the space?”

“Elizabeth Banks at Clear Creek Realty.”

I made a mental note to call Beebee. “Have you heard from your aunts in the last few days?”

“Kay called and said that Carol was flying in from Miami and that we have to have a family meeting on Thursday; something about the Will.”