Death Without Company (24 page)

“What was the mother’s name?”

He watched me through his overlapped eyelids, which were magnified through the bifocals. He checked the ledger. “Ellen Walks Over Ice.”

I hadn’t moved since he had spoken. “Ellen Walks Over Ice . . . not Anna Walks Over Ice?”

He looked at the ledger again. “Ellen.” His eyes locked with mine. “Anna Walks Over Ice is the woman that works at the Durant Home.”

I looked back at him for only a moment. “Can I borrow your phone, Doc?” He looked around, finally giving up on the landline and handing me the cell phone from his smock pocket. Isaac didn’t have any staff, so he could have anything he wanted. “Isaac, what’s the number for the home?” The phone made a loud beeping noise. “I think you have messages.”

“I’ll check them after you make your call. The phone was in my car, and your new deputy, the young man, was kind enough to return it to me. I get most of my messages through my answering service, but sometimes people don’t want to talk to anyone but me.” He took the mobile, dialed the number for me, and handed it back.

Jennifer Felson answered. “Jennifer, is Anna Walks Over Ice working today?”

“Let me check.” I waited as she dropped the phone, picked it up, rustled some papers, and declared Anna Walks Over Ice missing for the day.

“She’s sick?”

“She’s an Indian. Sometimes they don’t show up, and mostly they don’t call.” Racial slurs aside, most Indians did have their own sense of time; these priorities had worked fine for centuries, so I guess they saw little reason to change. “She doesn’t speak much English anyway.”

I dialed the number for the Red Pony and asked Isaac which button to push. “Ha-ho, it is another wonderful day at the Red Pony bar and continual soiree.”

“Hey, do you know where Anna Walks Over Ice lives?”

“No, but I can find out.”

“Can you check on her for me?” He said he would, and then I asked him if he’d ever heard of Ellen Walks Over Ice. He said no, but that they were a large Crow family. He would ask Lonnie and then get back to me.

“Call me at the office.”

I handed the tiny phone back to Isaac and watched as he hit a few buttons and held it to his ear. He looked at the journal as he listened. “I have her age listed as late teens, possibly early twenties.”

“So she’d be in her seventies?”

He smiled. “You don’t have to make it sound so old.”

I glanced for the ghostly numbers on the inside of Isaac’s arm but the sleeve of his smock hid his dreadful distant past. “She probably hasn’t had as easy a life as you, Doc.”

He continued to smile and nodded. “You’re probably right.” He made a face as he listened to the cell phone. “That’s strange. The messages are from Anna.” He waited for a moment, listening. “She sounds very agitated.”

Evidently, the Doc spoke Crow.

 
 
When I got back to the reception desk, the more tanned and less anxious version of Kay Baroja was standing at the counter talking with Janine about how easy it was to get certified as a scuba diver in a three-day crash course in the Keys. I thought about slipping out the side door, but I needed to talk to her and this was the first time I’d seen the twins apart since she’d arrived. “Carol Baroja-Calloway?”

She turned with a smile like a barracuda. “Carol Baroja, period!” There had been some work done, the face a little tighter, the lips a little fuller, and the hair with bleached sun streaks. She smiled a perfect smile, the teeth a little too white, and extended a hand with no trailing bracelets or wedding ring. “Sheriff Longmire, I am so pleased to meet you!”

Yikes. I smiled. “We’ve met.”

She leaned in and exposed a formidable cleavage, which also looked engineered. “I was hoping you would forget.” She scooped up my arm and steered me toward the chairs at the other end of the waiting room. “I just wanted to apologize for my sister’s behavior. Kay can be rather trying.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t take any of it personally.”

“Even the part about being a son of a bitch?” She sat us on one of the sofas; if she had been any closer she would have been lap dancing. She was still holding onto my arm. “I was on my way in to check on Lana, but this is just too good of an opportunity to let pass. I just want to thank you for taking such a personal interest in my mother’s death and Lana’s welfare.”

“It’s nothing, I . . .”

“No, you have no idea how reassuring it is to know that we can depend on you in these difficult times. Is that horrible young woman from the division of criminal investigation still bothering you?”

I thought about it, finally remembering that she was talking about Cady. “Continually.”

“I’m so sorry.” She blinked, the steady way that contact lens wearers do. “Are there any leads as to who might have done this to poor Lana? The word is leads, isn’t it?”

I nodded and readjusted, but she still clung to my arm. “We’re following up on it, but there isn’t anything strong enough to discuss just yet.” She continued to look at me, and it was the first pause since the conversation had begun. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

Another pause, and the grip on my arm lessened. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”

I cleared my throat. “When was the last time you visited your mother?”

She thought. “About two years ago.”

“And what was your relationship like?”

The animation in her face subsided for a moment, and I think I was getting the first unrehearsed performance of the day. “Did you know my mother, Walter? Do you mind if I call you Walter?” She measured her next discourse. “In a word, she was a pickle. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my mother had a very easy life.” That was the understatement of the century. “And I think that that had an effect on her financial views.”

“I see.” I was wondering how long it was going to take for the money to come up.

“She had a simplistic view of our financial situation, all our financial situations.”

“Meaning yours, Kay’s, and Lana’s?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you’re aware of the arrangements my mother made concerning her estate?”

“As you know, I have a copy of the Will to aid in the investigation of your mother’s murder.”

The word murder didn’t stop her. “Lana is not really capable of understanding the magnitude of our financial situation, especially concerning Four Brothers.”

“You mean the meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights?” She leaned back and studied me as though I were suddenly a stain on the bathmat. In for a penny in for a pound, I continued. “What about your father, Charlie Nurburn?”

The look held. “He abandoned my mother fifty years ago, so he’s no longer an issue.”

She looked as though she was ready for the interview to be over. “Just a few more questions. Where does Father Baroja fit into all of this financially? He wasn’t mentioned in the Will.”

She ran a tongue across her teeth and pivoted at the waist, allowing her blouse to open—no tan lines. “Mother and Jolie were the only children of my grandfather and his three brothers. There was another child, Arturo, but he died of pneumonia. When the last of the brothers passed away a number of years ago, the estate was divided between Jolie and my mother, at which point Uncle Jolie sold his half of the ranch back to Mother along with half of his half of the mineral rights and began giving his money away to charity.” She paused, but I didn’t say anything. I was used to quiet, but she wasn’t. “He did not get along with my mother, so I took it upon myself to counsel him on a certain amount of financial responsibility, but I fear that his faculties are beginning to fail him.”

“In what way?” I wanted to hear her talk about the fairies.

“His grasp on reality is a little fractured.”

“So Father Baroja was found psychologically incompetent?” She wasn’t going to talk about the fairies.

“Oh, no. He voluntarily put his part of the estate in a Trust, controlled by a money manager.”

“And who is that?”

She smiled. “I really couldn’t say.” It was probably the fairies.

I cleared my throat and took her hand from my arm as I turned. “Do you have any idea who might have murdered your mother and would wish your niece harm?”

“I wasn’t that good a daughter, and I haven’t been that good of an aunt. I should have kept closer track of Lana, but I’m afraid she’s a little headstrong. The whole Basque thing . . .”

“Basque thing?”

She placed a synthetic fingernail across a mouth I was sure wasn’t finished speaking. “I think she may have been involved with some political activities when she was over there at culinary school.” She said over there as though it were a venereal disease.

I tried hard to not roll my eyes. “Hmm . . . ETA?”

“Yes.” She clutched my hand with both of hers, and it was starting to seem more like a wrestling match than an interview. “I’m afraid that she might have gotten involved with some sordid characters while she was in Europe. It could be that they are interested in Mother’s money.”

“I see.” I let the dust settle on that one and tried to reconcile Lana as the naïve innocent with Lana the intriguing terrorist and couldn’t.

 
 
I went back to the office to see if Bill Wiltse had faxed the picture of Leo Gaskell, but Leo didn’t fit as Charlie Nurburn’s illegitimate mystery child. That child had been born in 1950, which meant he’d be in his midfifties. Leo Gaskell was in his thirties. But someone poisoned Mari Baroja, someone tried to kill Isaac, someone tried to bludgeon Lana Baroja to death, and someone had tried to kill Lucian.

Someone was killing everybody who knew or thought that Charlie Nurburn was dead. Maybe they thought that they could get money from Mari’s estate if Charlie could be shown to be alive. Illegitimate children could not inherit, but Cady had mentioned that in Wyoming a husband could claim half of an estate, even if he was not in a Will or Trust, as an elective share. Maybe they wanted him alive for that purpose and then they could kill him off and inherit?

The sky was the color of liberty ships left in the sun too long with faint tinges of a deeper gray at the horizon. It wasn’t snowing, but what had fallen looked like albino BBs rolling around the parking lot. Vic and Sancho pulled up beside me and disturbed my reverie. I shut the Bullet down and climbed out. Saizarbitoria trailed along after Vic, and I could see that he was covered from head to tactical boot with a thick coating of ice and black soot; even his face was only marginally visible. “The chimney fire?”

He shifted from boot to boot. “You two don’t mind if I go in before I completely harden?”

I stepped aside and allowed him to continue up the handicapped ramp and into the heat and relative comfort of the office. I turned and looked at Vic. “I see your uniform is clean.”

She smiled. “He’s the mountain climber.”

When we got inside, Dog came to greet me and sat with his haunches on my foot. He had carefully avoided Vic. Saizarbitoria was on his way to the jail shower with a fresh towel held between forefinger and thumb. Ruby had obviously fussed over him, and he now had a cup of coffee. “We don’t have much here in Absaroka County, but we do have a fire department.”

“Their ladder truck froze.”

We all watched him go. Vic was still on her best behavior. “He’s fearless. We have to keep him.”

I nodded, and it was unanimous.

Ruby handed me a folder. “Leo Gaskell.”

I flipped it open. There was a regular arrest dossier on Leo Cecil Gaskell, a four-pager to be exact, and a quarter page photo of Leo at his last retreat in Rawlins. He was big, with long dark hair that hung just past the shoulders. Bingo. He had lousy teeth and a broken nose that completed the package, but it was his eyes that were scary. Devoid of any feeling, Leo looked like one of those guys who could strangle a kindergarten and then go home and water the plants.

“Not that fucker again.”

I turned to look at Vic, who was peering over my shoulder. “What?”

She looked at me as if I were the only village idiot left in town. “This is the guy who shot the foreman down on the methane field; Cecil Keller, the one you made come in and write on the blackboard.”

“Cecil Keller?”

“Yeah, this is the guy. He’s got a mustache now, but it’s the teeth. I swear it’s him.” She looked at me. “I’ve still got the gun.”

“Get it.” She disappeared.

I thought about the photograph of Charlie on the Rez with the pistols. I snatched the photo of Leo from the folder and held it up for Ruby to see. Her face reddened. “It’s not the name he gave us before, but that’s him. I’m sorry, Walt, but I didn’t bother to look at the fax when it came in. I know it’s no excuse, but the phone was ringing, and I just shoved it into a folder.”

“Tell Saizarbitoria that he’s earned an inside day and keep him off the roof.” I handed Vic the file as she handed me a chrome-plated, pearl-handled .32 automatic, identical to the four that Charlie Nurburn had worn in the photo. As Vic read the file, she whistled softly at the details. I turned to my second in command. “Looks like we’re going to Four Brothers.”

“I have to pee first.”

I took the file back and sighed. “Go pee.” I sat on the edge of Ruby’s desk and thought about whether Cecil Keller/Leo Gaskell was at work today and about his possible connection to the illusive Charlie Nurburn. The phone rang, and Ruby picked up her receiver and held it out to me. “Henry.”

“I am at Anna’s house, and someone has broken in.”

I looked at the phone. “What?”

“Someone has pried the backdoor open, and it looks as if they were searching for something.”

“I take it she’s not there?”

“No.”

Anna wasn’t at work and wasn’t at home. “Any word on Ellen Walks Over Ice?”

“Her married name is Ellen Runs Horse, and she lives in town at the trailer park by the highway; sometimes Anna stays with her when the weather is bad.”