There was a chubby cop eating an honest-to-God donut. His collar insignia said unit 6, which I had learned was Cady’s district. He seemed like the friendly type, so I asked him what had happened.
He looked at Dog, the extension cord, and me. “You’re not from aroun’ here, are ya?”
I was going to have to lose the cowboy hat and get Dog a leash. “Visiting my daughter.”
“She live aroun’ here?”
“Over on Bread.”
“Well, if the jumper had been so inclined, she could’ve had a hole for a skylight.” He fed the last part of his donut to Dog. “Some society kid from out on tha…” He clinched his jaw for the imitative effect. “Main Line.” He licked his fingers after feeding Dog, and I liked him.
“Seems like an odd place to jump.”
He looked back. “Yeah, they usually go out over the water. Who knows, maybe he couldn’t swim.” He scratched Dog’s head as the beast looked around for more donut. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Cady Longmire. She bought the little tannery behind Paddy O’Neil’s.”
He nodded. “O’Neil’s I know.” His name plate read O’Connor. “Ian got it from his uncle ’bout a year ago. He runs a clean place, jus’ don’ talk politics.”
“IRA?”
“With a vengeance. You Irish?”
“Isn’t everybody?” I looked past him toward the crime lab truck parked in the alley. “You guys stuck here long?”
“Nah, we’ll be outta here this afternoon.” I made a mental note and walked Dog on down the street. “I’ll keep an eye out for your daughter.”
I half turned. “Thanks.”
By the time we got back down Race, O’Neil’s was ready for business. I stood at the propped-open side entrance with Dog and heard noise from behind the bar. “Anybody home?”
Almost immediately, hisself popped up. “’Ello.”
I gestured toward Dog. “You mind if we come in?”
He paused for a moment. “It’s against city laws, but there’s n’body ’ere. C’mon in.” I sat on the stool nearest the side entrance, and Dog curled up in the doorway. “What’ll ye have?”
“How about an Irish coffee minus the Irish?”
He smiled. “One American coffee comin’ up.” He poured two and joined me, leaning on an elbow and extending his other hand. I noticed scars on his forearm along with the rows of Celtic snake tattoos coiling up and into his black T-shirt. “We waren’t properly introduced las’ night. Ian O’Neil.”
I shook the proffered hand. “Walt Longmire.”
He leaned over to get a look at Dog. “Who’s the beastie?”
“His name is Dog.” He looked at me. “Honest.”
“How’s ya daughter doin’?”
“A little better.” I changed the subject just to see if he’d trail along and looked behind me toward the bridge. “Looks like they’ve got some business?”
When I looked back, he was still looking at me. “Aye, somethin’ ta do wi’ tha boy that fell.”
“What do you know about that?”
He reached down the bar for a copy of the Daily News and tossed it in front of me. “Only what I read in tha newspapers.” There was a portrait photograph of Devon Conliffe and another of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge; the headline read JUDGE’S SON DIES IN BRIDGE FALL. The brawny young Irishman leaned in the way I had last night. “Sheriff, if ye wanna drink or a bite ta eat, yer more then welcome, but if yer in ’ere playin’ policeman, I’d just as soon ye go somewhere else.” He smiled to show me there were no hard feelings.
I smiled back, feeling like a complete ass. “Sorry.”
He reached behind for a bottle of Jamison’s and poured a dollop into his coffee. “I don’ see how ye can drink tha’ stuff without assistance.” He held the bottle out to me, but I shook my head. “So, yer tryin’ to find out who killed yer daughter’s boyo?”
“Something like that.” I took a sip of my coffee. “What makes you think it wasn’t suicide?”
He snorted. “He was a prick. If nobody killed ’im, they should’ve.” He set his coffee cup down and looked at it. “Look, Sheriff…I don’t need any trouble. I’ve had me share between Ireland for the Irish an’ Ireland for the Catholics. Now is jus’ an Irish bar, know wha’ I mean?”
When I got back to Cady’s place, I began my investigation by going through the mail I had been dumping on the kitchen counter. There were the usual bills and junk but nothing pertinent. There was a calendar on the side of the refrigerator; I had forgotten about the shooting club until I saw that Thursdays had been marked. I tried to think of the street that Cady had mentioned on the phone and finally came up with Spring-something. I fished around in her desk drawer and pulled out five inches of Philadelphia Yellow Pages, flipped to GUNS, and found the subheading “Safety & Markmanship.” There were a half-dozen, but only one was on Spring Garden Street. It was listed as Tactical Training Specialists.
I copied the address and number onto the note pad on which Lena had written all my messages and looked at the phone. It was too early to call anybody in Wyoming except Ruby, who was always on duty early.
“Absaroka County Sheriff’s Office.”
“It’s me.”
It was quiet on the line. “How is she?”
“Oh, as good as can be expected, responding to external stimuli but still no eye movement.”
The silence again. “Oh, Walter…”
“Yep.”
I could hear the choking in her throat. “What are you going to do?”
“Wait.” The silence again, and I thought I could hear sniffing on the other end, so I changed the subject. “How are things back home?”
She tried to laugh. “You want your Post-its?”
“Sure.”
Her voice strengthened, and she cleared her throat. “Chuck Frymyer came in and got his uniform.”
“Who?”
“The young man you hired for Powder Junction.” There was a pause. “Somebody stole all the pool balls at the Euskadi Bar.”
“Look under the table where they keep the rack; folks think it’s funny to hide them there.”
“Bessie Peterson reported that somebody dumped garbage over her back fence.”
“Talk to Larry Stricker. He’s the one that’s got the barking dog that she complained about last week.” Dog, thinking he heard his name, came over and put his head on my knee.
“A woman reported that an elderly man was walking down the middle of Route 16 wearing coveralls and a hunting cap. He sticks his thumb out and, when you drive by, he raises both arms.”
“That’s Catherine Bishop’s brother; he gets confused and goes out for unscheduled walks.”
“A caller requested an officer’s assistance, then hung up. Officers were dispatched and found a couple in a verbal argument. The telephone was found ripped out of the wall. An open bottle of whiskey was found on the kitchen counter.”
“What brand?”
“The report doesn’t mention.”
I petted Dog’s head, and it was silent on the line. “You know all this stuff.”
“Yes.”
“So this was all for my benefit?”
“Yes.”
The heat in my face was returning. “Thank you.”
She breathed on the phone for a while. “People are asking, so the prognosis is guarded but hopeful?”
The heat was on high. “Yep.”
“Vic was threatening to jump a flight to Philadelphia or call Omar and commandeer the Lear.
“Tell her I’m okay.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
“I better go.”
“Walt?”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
I hung up the phone and stared at the glass surface of the coffee table that reflected the clouds passing over the skylight. It seemed like everything in the world was moving.
I petted Dog again, then went over to the work area and looked at Cady’s desk. There
wasn’t a piece of paper on it, but there was an expensive-looking laptop. I could call Ruby back and ask her to help me with the computer, or I could wait and let Henry have a shot at it. There were some framed photographs on the desk: one that I had taken of her at the Absaroka County Rodeo when she was about eight; another of Cady with a young woman I didn’t know on some sort of cruise ship; and one of Henry looking at the camera with an eyebrow pulled like a bowstring.
There were no pictures of me.
I opened the desk drawers and found supplies but no work. I looked up at the metal-framed atrium and the walkways above. I knew there were two bedrooms up there, but so far I hadn’t made it to either one.
At the top of the spiral staircase, the master bedroom wasn’t very large, but it had a balcony overlooking the terrace in the back. It must have been the offices of the tannery when it had been a commercial venture, but now it contained a large four-poster bed and a French country bureau that her mother had bequeathed to her. I stood at the end of the bed and was flooded with Cady’s scent. I hung there like an impending avalanche, thinking about her, about Jo Malone grapefruit shampoo, about a partially shaved head and a U-shaped scar.
I sat down and stared at myself in the simple cherry mirror. It reflected me and a small, metal case that sat on the surface of the dresser. I went over and tried to open it, but it was locked. I put in Cady’s birth year and the small clasps popped open; I shook my head at her predictability.
Sig Sauer P226, 9 mm. It was a pricey version with plated controls and 24-kt-gold engraving; leave it to my daughter to get a designer handgun. There were two fully loaded clips in the case, and I made a mental note to discuss gun safety with her, if I ever got to talk to her again.
I pulled the ammo, placing it in the bottom drawer, closed the case, turned, and walked out of the room to the small landing above the kitchen. Dog watched me from the sofa below and then lowered his head to continue his nap.
I stood there for a while, holding onto the railing, and tried to think of what Cady would want me to do. Like me, she couldn’t abide mystery. Even as a young child, she asked questions—questions as statements, questions as answers, and questions as endless inquiry. She wanted to know everything and, if you told her to go look it up, she would and then come back with even more questions. Even then, she could interview a stump.
I turned and walked into the other bedroom. There was an old Pronghorn skull we had found on the backside of the ranch when she was six. It had probably been shot in the dirty thirties, dehorned, and left to bleach in the high plains sun. Cady had asked me what had happened to the antelope, and I told her the truth, like I always tried to do. She had taken it to Henry and, with his help, had decorated it with beads and feathers. It had hung in her room at the house in town; had hung at her assorted apartments in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Seattle; and now it hung over the guest bed in Philadelphia. There was also an elaborately framed but rusted sign that read “Department of the Interior—Indian Affairs, Boundary Indian Reservation” that Lucian had given her, and more photographs, but still none of me.
I glanced down at the bed at what had caught my eye from the landing. It was an ivory vellum envelope that read DADDY. I picked it up and saw an After Eight mint on the pillow beneath it. I opened the tiny envelope and read the three words, then carefully closed it and placed it in my breast pocket over my heart.
I had called Lena Moretti to tell her that there had been a change of plans and that we’d be having lunch at the Franklin Institute. She said that she’d never eaten there and probably for good reason, so we opted for Philadelphia-style pretzels. It was my first and was slathered with brownish spicy mustard. I had spoken with the head of security, and he said he’d send Esteban Cordero, who had been the security manager on duty at the time of Cady’s fall, down to speak with me as soon as he got in.
Lena was wearing jeans and a white snap-button blouse I was sure Vic had sent her. I figured she was trying to make me feel more at home. We sat munching and drinking cherry cream soda as children raced up and down the steps from the buses to the entryway of the museum. “What was she like as a child?”
I readjusted my Phillies hat. “We had the two-cheek rule. Cady always sat about halfway on a chair whenever we were trying to have dinner, so we instituted the two-cheek rule.” I sipped my soda. “What was the Terror like?”
Lena shrugged. “Disapproving.” She watched the children, who were making noises like birds—indiscriminate, bright sounds that made you happy to hear them. “She was a thirty-year-old trapped in a child’s body. She and her grandmother Nona always got along in their mutual dissatisfaction with me.”
“You? What’s not to like?” It was an innocent question, but it hit something along the way, glancing off and taking a lot with it.
She licked a spot of mustard from the corner of her mouth. “I had a rough period a while back.” She took a sip of her pop and looked at me. “I had an affair eight years ago. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the red A on my blouse.”
I was about to reply when a shadow crossed over me from the other side. I looked up and an elderly Latino in a blue blazer was looking at me with concern.
“Are you the man whose daughter was hurt?”
I stood and introduced Lena. We followed him up the steps and to the right as he told us about the police interview. “They asked a lot of questions the night it happened, and then another patrolman came and asked again.”
I finished my pretzel and pop on the way up the stairs, where a handicapped-access ramp ran along the side of the building, then changed direction and returned to the sidewalk below. He pointed to the flat area. “She landed there.”
I looked at the cement sidewalk. I tried to see the evening as Devon had described it; he had grabbed her arm, she had jerked it back and had fallen. It made sense as I looked at it. He was upset, she had gone to meet him, and there had been an argument.
I looked back at the entrance to the museum, but I couldn’t see the doorway from where we stood. “You saw her fall?”
“No.”
I turned and looked at him. “Then how did you know this had happened?”
“The kid banged on the door.”
“He came to the door?” He nodded, and I thought about what Devon had said at the ballpark, how he had said that he had run away. “Devon Conliffe came to the door of the museum?”
He nodded some more. “Yeah, I was in the main lobby when this kid ran up to the door and started pounding and screaming.”
“What’d he look like?”
He thought. “Tall, suit, blue tie, raincoat…” He watched me. “He said his name, pointed to what had happened, and yelled for me call 911.”
“He told you his name?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I called the police, got another one of the guys to come up to the lobby, and came out here.”
“How long did that take?”
He took a breath. “A minute, maybe two.”
“Then what?”
“When I got out here, he was gone.”
“When did the police arrive?”
“A couple of minutes later.” I stared at the concrete, and I looked back up at him. “What’d he look like?”
“The cop?”
“No, Devon Conliffe. You said he was tall and how he was dressed, but what did his face look like?”
“I don’t know. White kid, dark hair parted on the side…”
“Do you have this morning’s Daily News?”
He looked at me for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got it up at the front counter, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”
“Would you mind if we take a look?”
We passed the statue of Benjamin Franklin, who was seated contentedly in the warm glow of the science museum.
My attention was drawn back to the security desk. Cordero had slapped the newspaper onto the counter. I looked at it for a second and the
n spun it around so that it faced him. “Look carefully. Is that the kid who pounded on the door?”
He stared at the front page for a minute and then looked back up at me. “You know…I don’t think it is.”
6
“Three things. Devon said that he had run away as soon as another person had arrived. I assumed it was the guard he was talking about but, when I noticed that you couldn’t see the museum entrance from where Cady had been hurt, I started wondering.” I took a bite of my ice-cream bar and watched as Lena did the same. What would lunch have been without dessert?
“Second, Cordero said that Devon had dark hair, but it was blond.”
“And third?”
“The blue tie. When I spoke with Devon, he said that he hadn’t been home and that he was still wearing the same clothes. At the ballpark, his tie was red.” We were sitting on a bench in Logan Circle watching the fish and swans blow water twenty feet in the air, as if the humidity needed any help. “Individually, it’s not much, but all together…Of course, now that Devon’s picture is plastered across every newspaper in town, it’ll probably be harder to find the mystery man. Whoever he is, if he’s smart, he’ll fold up the tents and head home.”
“What if he was just some passerby? I mean, it is a big city.”
“I don’t think so. There weren’t any functions at the Institute that night, so why would anyone be hanging around the museum steps? How would he know Devon’s name, and why did he identify himself as Devon Conliffe?” I leaned back on the bench and took another bite of my ice cream. I thought about it as I looked at the nearest Indian in the Fountain of Three Rivers; he was representative of the Delaware River and had more than a passing resemblance to Henry. “Maybe, after Devon ran, the other fellow decided to pin him to the incident.”
“Then disappeared himself?”
“Evidently he had something to hide, too.” I finished my ice cream and was chewing on the stick. “We are looking for a Caucasian male, approximately thirty years of age, dark hair, and at least six feet tall.”
“You think the mystery man had something to do with Devon’s death?”
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