The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volume 1-4 (9 page)

“I don’t suppose any of this might stem from conversations you may or may not have had with Cady, Ruby, or Vic.”

He was working the meat around, and the smell of the green peppers was intoxicating. “I talk with a lot of people about a lot of things.”

“How come you didn’t talk to me about Cody Pritchard eating his last meal at the Pony?”

He placed the metal stem of the spatula on the edge of the frying pan so that the plastic handle wouldn’t melt and leaned against the counter. I listened to him breathe and realized how much he had aged in the last twenty years, or the last two seconds. After a moment he reached across the counter with a steady hand and poured me another cup. “I did not think it was that important. You ran out of the place Friday night and did not say a word to anybody, and I knew I was going to see you this morning. I guess I thought I had more important things to talk to you about.” He poured himself a cup and placed the pot back on the burner. He looked me in the eye just to clear the air. “Well, officer . . . It was the night of November second at approximately 6:02 P.M. that the aforementioned, one Pritchard, Cody, entered the establishment known as the Red Pony. Witnesses to this fact are Mssrs. Charlie Small Horse, Clel Phillips, and the attesting Henry Standing Bear. The condition of Mr. Pritchard at that time was one of profound intoxication, whereupon he was refused alcoholic beverage and served one Mexican cheeseburger deluxe, including fries and a Coke. Twenty-five minutes later there was a verbal altercation between Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Small Horse, which resulted in Mr. Pritchard being escorted to the door of the establishment and asked to leave. The last I saw of Cody, he wheeled that piece of shit palomino-primer truck of his around in my parking lot, sprayed gravel, and headed east to a far better place than he had ever been before. So, do you want to book me, or you want to go take a shower?” He sipped his coffee.

“You seem a little defensive.”

“No shit? I just want to keep my proficiency and conduct reports up to snuff.” He smiled a tight little smile. “Anything else?”

“No, you pretty well covered it. I think I’ll go take a shower.” I stood up and walked past him toward the bathroom. I picked up the coffee since it was growing on me. I was hoping he’d say something, anything that would give me the excuse to turn around.

“Do not get me wrong, Walt, I did not like the kid, but then I do not know anybody who did. If you are looking for a suspect, just open the phone book.” He was watching the sausage as it burbled. “Are there any leads?”

I sighed and leaned against the refrigerator. “Toxicology at DCI said a high content of brewed barley malt, cereal grains, hops, and yeast . . .”

“Known in the trade as Busch Lite.”

“Ground beef, jalapeños, and American cheese.”

“Mexican cheeseburger. Anything else?”

“Nothing from toxicology. Ballistics says no lands or grooves, and the deformity of impact with the sternum makes identification that much more difficult.”

His curiosity sharpened. “Smoothbore?”

I shrugged. “Who knows, but if it is, it narrows the search to ten yards or less.”

“Which means it was somebody the little shit knew.” He smiled the tight smile again. “At least well enough to let them get close with a shotgun.” He pushed down on the frying pan handle, allowing the grease to puddle at the end of the skillet closest to him. “That is pretty close.”

“Yep.”

“No companions, no tracks?”

“Nope.”

“Any cover?”

My turn to smile. “That Powder River country, there’s a goodlookin’ woman behind every tree . . .” He joined me for the rest. “There just ain’t any trees.”

“Back to square one. Wadding or contact dispersal?”

“Nope. No powder tattooing, either.”

“Any hope of brass?”

“Ferg and that bunch didn’t come up with anything.”

“Hmmm . . .” He grunted. “I will withhold comment on whether Ferg and his bunch could slap their ass with both hands.” He frowned at the frying pan, spooned the pooled grease into a measuring cup that he must have used to apportion tomato paste, and flipped the majority of the contents. “Meteorite?”

I had to smile. “The more people I talk to, the more I am convinced that this may have been an act of God.”

“Hate to see the Supreme Being take the fall for this one.”

“He sees even the smallest sparrow fall.”

“That would pretty much describe the decedent, but would this not be stretching the jurisdiction thing?”

“Maybe.” The mood had lightened, and it was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. “Hey?”

“Hmm?” He looked at me, and the expression his face carried was one of open concern for a friend who had all but accused him of impeding a murder investigation. My heart wasn’t in the question, but I had to ask. “You know the scuttlebutt on the Rez?”

“What, you worried about the Indian vote?” He smiled to let me in on the joke, but it still hurt. “What?”

“The Little Bird rape case . . .”

“Melissa.”

“Melissa.” I was feeling lower and lower. “What’s the general feeling on the Rez about the job I did?” There was a brief look of irritation as he flipped his hair back and trapped what would have been a fine tail on a good cutting horse in a leather strip he had pulled from the back pocket of his jeans.

“General feeling”—he pointed up the phrase as silly white-man talk—“is that you could have done better.”

“And what is the basis of my failure?”

He turned his head and looked into the distance at the log wall only two feet away. “Two years suspended sentence, two years parole.”

“People don’t think Vern Selby and a jury had something to do with that?”

“These people do not have any bond with that judge or jury, none of whom were . . . Indian, and they do with you.” He paused. “You should take that as a grave compliment.” He opened a ziplocked bag of preshredded cheese and offered me some. I took a pinch and stuffed it in my mouth. Pepper jack. “Anyway, the goodwill of these people is not going to have much effect on your condition. There is only one person who can offer you absolution in this case, and he is a difficult individual with whom to deal . . . he forgives everyone but himself, and he never forgets.” We stood looking at each other, chewing. “You should go take a shower. Part three said she would be here for kickoff at two.” He pulled open the door of the oven and checked on his biscuits. The smell was marvelous.

“Part three?”

“Vonnie Hayes expressed a desire to participate in the bonding ritual this afternoon. I thought it might lead to a more desirable ritual between the two of you later this evening.”

I took a moment to reply. “I just saw her yesterday morning. She didn’t say anything.”

“Women seem to enjoy surprising you, perhaps because it is so easy.”

I looked around the house at the piles of books and accumulated dirt on the floors, the walls, and the ceiling. “Oh, shit . . .”

He followed my eyes and shook his head. “Yes, it is very bad, but we will tell her you are under construction. Red Road Contracting, the young men I told you about, will be here tomorrow morning.” He pulled the biscuits from the oven and placed them on one of the front burners. “Go take a shower.”

I started, but turned. “What’s part four?”

“Spirituality, but that may have to come from somebody else.”

* * *

I turned the water on in the shower and spent the time waiting for it to heat up by inspecting my bullet holes. I had four: one in the left arm, one in the right leg, and two in the chest. I looked at the one in my left arm since it was the closest. It was 357/100ths of an inch with two clean, marbled white dots on either side. The one on the inside had well-defined edges and was about the size of a dime. On the other side it was blurred, had a tail like a tadpole that had drifted back to my elbow, and was about the size of a silver dollar. The water temperature was acceptable, so I stepped in and grabbed a bar of oatmeal soap that Cady had sent me. I liked it because it didn’t smell. I kicked at the slow contraction of the vinyl curtains.

It was a monkey-shit brown Olds Delta 88 with two hubcaps and a peeling, blond vinyl top. I could see they were kids and just flipped the lights on for a second so they would pull over. It took what seemed like a little too long for them to do it. The driver threw open the door and started back toward the car I was using at the time; I figured he was upset because I had pulled him over for what seemed like nothing. I was wrong. He was upset because he and his friend had robbed a liquor store in Casper and had gotten away with $943 when I stopped them en route to Canada.

I lathered up, rinsed off, and felt like I had new skin. I reached for the shampoo and, feeling how light the bottle was, made a mental note to get some more. I had enough unattended mental notes to fill up the Sears wish book.

Near as we could figure, the bullet must have ricocheted off the window facing of the car and passed through my left arm. People always ask what it’s like, and the only answer I can come up with is that it’s like having a red-hot poker shoved into your flesh. It burns, and it hurts like hell, but only after. I wondered mildly if Vonnie would think that bullet holes are sexy. Martha didn’t; she hated them. A beautiful woman in my house; a woman who looked you over from head to toe, was confident and interested. I felt complicated and dreary.

I wiped off the mirror to look into the eyes of Dorian Gray. What I saw did not inspire me with confidence. My hair, wet or dry, has a tendency to stand on end. I fought with it for a while and decided that it was a good thing I was able to wear a hat in my chosen profession. I have large, deep-set gray eyes, a gift from my mother, and a larger than normal chin, a gift from my father. The older I get, the more I think I look like a Muppet. Cady vehemently disagrees with this assessment, but she’s fighting her own battle with this particular gene puddle.

It was with a great deal of panic that I heard a mixture of laughter resonate through the spaces at the top of the bathroom drywall and through the shower-curtained doorway. It was a quick right to the bedroom, maybe four feet, but I didn’t figure I could make it without being seen. I pulled the old black-watch pattern around my waist, slipped on my worn, moose-hide moccasins, and stepped into the cool, fresh dawn of interpersonal abuse.

As usual, she looked magnificent. Long fingers were wrapped around one of my Denver Broncos mugs, the old one with the white horse snorting through the orange
D.
She wore a plain, khaki ball cap with her ponytail neatly tucked through the adjustable strap in the back, a gray sweatshirt that read VASSAR, blue jeans, and a pair of neon running shoes. She exuded health, sparkling intelligence, and sex, though the last might have just been my read on things. She sat on my foldout step stool and laughed as Henry tried vainly to adjust the reception on my television.

“All right, I give up. What the hell do you have to do to get a decent picture on this thing?”

We had always watched the game at the bar on Henry’s satellite-assisted television but, for today’s game, he had thought it best to view it within the comfortable confines of my house. He was kneeling by the set, adjusting the fine tuning with the same finesse he had shown with the fuse box two nights ago. “That is decent.”

He turned to regard the screen as the usual blobs moved about in indiscriminate patterns. “You have got to be kidding.”

I crossed the room and leaned against a six-by-six. “Vonnie, welcome to Château Tyvek.”

“Is this the uniform of the day?”

Henry was right; I was going to have to make some changes. “Oh, this was just a little something I threw on.” I looked at the Cheyenne Nation. “What’s the score?”

He stood with his hands on his hips as two vague football helmets collided and exploded into a million pieces on the screen amid triumphant musical accompaniment. “It hasn’t started yet. Is it me or has football gotten more and more like wrestling these days?”

She squeezed my hand. “Bear says he doesn’t mind Native American mascots for athletic teams.” I noticed he didn’t correct her use of the term Native American.

“I don’t have a problem with native accoutrements. If they wish to use the tools of our trade to strike fear into their enemies’ hearts, who am I to deny them?”

This from the man who had worn a horse-head amulet around his neck for four years in Southeast Asia. Chinese Nung Recon teams and Montagnards believed it had been carved from the sternum of an unfortunate NVA colonel. Henry had done nothing to dissuade them from this thought, and only he and I knew the bone had come from the leg of his mother’s old, dry dairy cow that they had had to put down. “How’s lunch coming?”

“Who am I, Hop-Sing here?” He opened the oven door and peered in. “Almost there. Plenty of time for you to go put some clothes on.”

Her hand trailed after mine as I started for the bedroom. “Don’t go to any trouble on my part.”

I continued into the bedroom so she wouldn’t see how red my face was growing. I looked around the room and saw my life as it was. The edges of the mattress were threadbare and dirty, the sheets an uninviting gray. A battered gooseneck lamp sat on the floor beside the bed with a copy of
Doctor Dogbody’s Leg
opened to page seventy-three, where I had left it a while ago. The ever-present beer boxes loomed at the far wall, and the naked light bulbs allowed none of the low-rent squalor to escape. It was like living in an archeological dig. I thought about the woman in the other room and felt like climbing out the window. Instead, I went over to the crate that stood as my bedside table and punched the button just below the flashing red light on the answering machine. Evidently, I hadn’t heard it ring.

“Okay, so, after forty-eight hours of intensive ballistic study, we’re no fucking closer than we were at the beginning of the weekend.” She sounded ragged and edgy, and I was glad I was five hours away. “The cast content on the ballistics is fairly soft; 30 to 1, lead to tin.” She took a breath. “Here’s the kicker. There’s some kind of strange chemical compound . . . You remember those old Glaser Safety Slugs? The GSS’s? If that’s the case, Cody was SOL.”