I looked at my daughter, who in turn looked at him. “Diet Coke.”
I motioned to Henry and me. “Iced teas.”
I sat on the stool next to Sancho and pulled his written report from under the personal property bag at his fingers.
The bartender’s name was Phillip Maynard, and he had a local address but had only moved here a week earlier from Chicago.
He came back with our drinks, and his eyes lingered on Cady.
“You new around here?”
She slid the can closer to her. “No.”
I folded my arms on the bar and got his attention. “Are you?”
He looked at me and quickly made the familial connection. “Uh huh.”
I sipped my tea. “So, there was an Asian woman in here night before last?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded toward Saizarbitoria. “He show you the photograph?”
“Yeah.”
“Same woman?”
He put his hands behind his back and tried to look at the report. “It was kind of hard to tell, but the clothes were the same.”
I nodded. “You get a lot of Asian women in here?”
He paused for a second. “I don’t know, I started less than a week ago—they could come in here in droves. I don’t know.”
“When did she come in?”
“Friday afternoon, before the after-work rush.”
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“Right. And what time is that?”
He thought about it and shrugged. “She was gone by four-thirty. She wasn’t here for very long.” I finished my drink and looked at Henry, who had yet to touch his. I followed his eyes as they traveled to the man with the sunglasses in the corner, who smiled a worried smile and then returned his attention to the National League West.
“What’d she have?”
Maynard refilled my glass. “I think she just had some wine.” He thought about it. “And a bag of pretzels.”
“She say anything?”
He reached around and took a sip of the beer that he had stored on the counter behind the bar. “Nope.” His eyes went back to Cady.
I studied the report. “It says here she arrived around noon?”
“Yeah.”
“Four and a half hours?” I looked at him. “You don’t consider that to be very long?”
The blood was rising in his face. “Well, I mean . . . some people stay in here all day.”
“And for four and a half hours she didn’t say anything?”
“Nothing in English, just French and a little Vietnamese.”
I gave him a look. “Vietnamese?”
He nodded. “I washed dishes in a Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago. I don’t speak the language, but I can recognize it.”
“Who did she talk to?”
“Herself.”
“Was there anybody else here?”
He studied the bar. “There were a couple of ranchers that came in to get out of the sun.”
“You know their names?”
“No.”
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“Ever see them in here before?”
He shook his head no. “Like I said, I been here less than a week.”
I glanced at Henry, who was still watching the man in the corner who still appeared to be enjoying the ball game.
“What’d they look like?”
“Working ranchers—locals, not the fl y-in type.”
I thought that the description fit the Dunnigan brothers who had been haying the roadside along Lone Bear Road.
“About sixty-something? One of them wearing a straw hat, the other in a ball cap with a ranch brand on it, had a squint?”
He started nodding before he answered. “Yeah, that was them.”
“They talk to her?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Catch any of the conversation?”
He shrugged. “They were tryin’ to hit on her. I mean, she was good-looking.”
“They leave together?”
“No, she left before they did.” He paused for a second, and I knew he was thinking about changing this part of the story.
“You know . . .”
The trick in these types of situations is to assure the subject that you know there’s more to the story and to let them tell it. “Yep?”
“They did leave just a little after she went out.” He partially closed one eye and bobbed his head. “They really were hitting on her pretty hard, now that I come to think about it.”
I nodded. “Anything else? It’s a homicide investigation, so don’t feel as if you have to hold back.”
“She paid in quarters.”
“Quarters?”
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“Yeah.”
I continued to look at him. “That’s odd.”
He nodded, quick to agree. “I thought so, too.”
“You’re not going anywhere, are you?” I handed the report back to Santiago and stood. “I’m assuming that we can contact you here or at the address my deputy’s got on the report?”
“Yeah, I’m here all summer. I don’t have a phone yet, but I’m workin’ on it.” He pulled a thin, black cellular from his back pocket. “I’ve got this, but it only works at the parking spot outside the veterinary office.” He nodded up the road.
“They’ve got painted rocks to mark the spot, and a sign that says ‘telephone booth.’ ”
“Welcome to Wyoming.”
He was suddenly talkative. “They supposedly have WiFi down at the motel, but I have yet to find it.”
I stood, anxious to end the interrogation and work the rest of the room. “Okay. Let us know, would you?” I walked behind Cady and toward the dark-haired man with the sunglasses, who still seemed completely absorbed in the baseball game. I noticed it was in commercial. “Hello.”
He looked from the television to me and stood, dropping his sunglasses with an index finger to peer his almond-shaped eyes over the top. “I’m good, Sheriff. How about yourself ?”
I was a little taken aback by his friendliness, not to mention the non sequitur, but you get used to this kind of reaction when you wear a badge. “Fine, thanks. Is that your Land Rover out there with the California plates?”
“Yes, sir.” He looked about fifty, perhaps a little older, and appeared to be in very good shape. “Is there a problem, Offi cer?”
“Just passing through?”
He paused when I didn’t answer his question. “I have a A N OT H ER
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piece of property I’m taking a look at in anticipation of retire-ment.”
“Here in the area?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what do you do, Mr. . . . ?”
He extended his hand, and his grip was strong. “Tuyen.
I’m in the motion picture industry, in the distribution of Asian-market films in the United States.”
“Mind if I see some ID?” He immediately trolled in his back pocket, brought out a black leather wallet, which he held close, pulled out his driver’s license, and handed it to me. He waited. His name was Tran Van Tuyen, and he was out of Riv-erside, California. Even in the photo, he was smiling. Fifty-seven. I memorized the license number and handed it back to him. “Thank you.”
“Have I done something?”
“No, we’ve just had an incident concerning a young woman who might’ve been from out of state, so we’re simply checking everyone.” He stopped smiling, just a bit. “Mr. Tuyen, are you Vietnamese?”
He blinked, and I felt guilty for even asking. “Yes.” He didn’t say anything else.
“The reason I ask is that the girl I mentioned is Vietnamese.”
He stared at the bar stool between us. “I see.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“What did this young wo
man look like, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Long black hair, midtwenties, dressed in a pink top with a black skirt.”
It appeared that he was thinking about it and seemed sad that I was asking. “No, Sheriff, I’m afraid not.” I watched what looked like a flood of emotions in him, a mixture of sorrow, 6 6 CR A I G J O H N S O N
loss, and then suspicion. “What has happened to this young woman?”
“I’m afraid it’s an ongoing investigation, and I’m not in a position to divulge that sort of information at this time.”
I listened as the training kicked in and thought about how I sounded like a recording and that maybe after the statement, I should have beeped. I had had this feeling before. “Are you going to be in the area long, Mr. Tuyen?”
He seemed preoccupied but answered with the same practiced smile. “Yes, the property I am looking at is near the town of Bailey, which is nearby?”
“Just up the way, off county road 192. What’s the name of the property?”
“Excuse me? ”
I leaned on the bar and tried to get a read on him. “The property you’re thinking of buying, Mr. Tuyen.”
He pulled what looked to be a fax from one of the realty offi ces in Durant. I studied it. “The Red Fork Ranch—that’s a nice place.” I handed the paper back to him and noted it was dated yesterday. “Richard Whitehead moving?”
“I’m afraid I do not know; I only know that the property is for sale.” He returned the paper to his pocket, his license to his wallet, slipped a ten from it, and then stood and placed the bill-fold into his jacket. He was about five feet nine, tall for a Vietnamese, thick of wrist, and his movements were very precise.
“Mind if I ask where you’re staying?”
“The Hole in the Wall Motel, in room number three.” He picked up the empty bottle and set it on the inside of the bar.
“I’m going to look at the property after I leave here. You’re not going to pull me over a mile up the road, are you?” He sighed.
“Because if you are, I’ll just take the Breathalyzer test now.”
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offended you, Mr. Tuyen.” He didn’t say anything. “If I have, I certainly didn’t mean to. I’m sorry to say that we don’t get too many Vietnamese here in Wyoming, and you’ll have to excuse me if I find it odd that we should suddenly have two.” I continued to look at the man and was conflicted with my own mix of feelings. It was possible that I was bordering on racial profi ling.
He smiled, just enough so that you weren’t sure if he’d done it at all. He took a card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. His head dropped, and he headed for the door. He looked back when I followed him and paused for a moment with his head still down. The smile was gone. He pushed the door open and disappeared.
Santiago stood and laid a five on the bar. “If you think of anything, here’s my card, give me a call?”
Phillip Maynard palmed the fin and the card. He called after us, but mostly to Cady. “Come on back anytime.”
The glass door bumped unevenly behind us. Tran Van Tuyen was driving west in the Land Rover, which looked like a passing emerald in a backdrop of overexposed sepia as it rolled down the Main Street of Powder Junction.
It was an absolutely gorgeous summer afternoon, and I took a deep breath like I always did when I remembered it was the pay-off time of the year; and felt like crap.
Cady pulled my arm, always reading the fine print of emotion when I was attempting to appear unruffl ed. She hugged me. “What’s the matter?”
“What’s WiFi?”
“Daddy . . .”
I took a deep breath and hitched a thumb in my gun belt.
“I’m afraid I may have just engaged in a bit of profiling.” I watched as Tuyen faced straight ahead and the shiny green 6 8 CR A I G J O H N S O N
utility vehicle made the turn on 192 and then under the over-pass of I-25. I squeezed her arm back. “You were popular in there.” I plucked a pen from my deputy and scribbled Tuyen’s license plate number on the envelope of the dead Vietnamese woman’s personal property packet. I read his card—Trung Sisters Distributing, with an address in Culver City and three phone numbers. I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation as I handed Saizarbitoria back his pen. “What do you think?”
Henry took a breath. “Yes, Walter, you are deeply prejudiced, and I have long been meaning to discuss this with you.”
I nodded and dug into the property envelope as they all watched me. “Only against Injuns.”
He nodded. “It is to be expected.”
I plucked out the plastic bag I wanted and handed the larger one back to Sancho, who was smiling and shaking his head at our banter. “You didn’t ask him about the Indians and the matches, boss.”
“No, I didn’t . . . Call those two numbers in to Ruby and see what she comes up with, then check the Hole in the Wall to see if he’s registered and alert the HPs just in case he decides to go somewhere.”
“Got it.” He disappeared into his unit and left us standing on Powder Junction’s old west boardwalk.
The Cheyenne Nation and my daughter watched as I searched the ziplock. She tugged at the short hair near the scar.
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
I didn’t answer her but held up the key fob, still in the plastic, and pushed the button. The lights flashed, and the doors unlocked on the maroon Buick junker at the end of the row.
5
The car had been stolen from a not so small community in Southern California called Westminster, which was, according to the dispatcher at the Orange County Sheriff ’s Department, better known as Little Saigon. Ruby said she’d spoken with a charming young man who’d confirmed the not so grand theft auto. He said that the vehicle had been stolen from a recycler’s lot and that the former owner, Lee Nguyen, had stated that he’d donated the Buick to charity but that the organization must have decided the car wasn’t worth the trouble.
We’d done as much physical investigation of the automobile as our limited abilities would allow, so we loaded the rusty sedan onto a flatbed and shipped it off to Cheyenne. The fi n-gerprints we’d lifted from the vehicle were probably female, judging from their size, or possibly from a child, and the tread deposits were from the immediate vicinity. There was nothing in the trunk, and the only thing in the glove compartment was a receipt for a new water pump that had been replaced in Nephi, Utah, only three days earlier.
I sent Henry and Cady back to Durant in my truck since Cady was looking a little tired and hitched a ride with Saizarbitoria over to the sheriff ’s substation. We drove with the windows down, since the Suburban didn’t have air-conditioning.
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Santiago spoke over the heated wind and the monster motor that got about eight miles to the gallon. “The bartender didn’t seem genuinely surprised about the Buick.”
We’d gone back in and questioned the guy again; he said he’d noticed the car there, but that he didn’t think it was a big deal. He said that even in the short time he’d been here, he’d noticed a lot of people got ripped and left their cars and trucks on the street rather than be harassed by us. I had asked him if a lot of them came from California, to which he’d responded that he hadn’t noticed the license plates. “Did he seem more nervous the first time we questioned him?”
The Basquo thought about it. “Yes, he did.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
“The guy in the corner, Tuyen?”
“I think so, too.” We parked in front of the WYDOT annex where we had a small office. “I’ll call Ruby and see if she’s got anything on this Tuyen guy or heard anything from DCI. You check on the repair bill in Nephi.” I handed him the plastic bag which had the receipt in it.
He looked at me, a little worried. “I think they only have one phone down here.”
> Powder Junction was going to take a little getting used to.
“Then I’ll call her on the radio.” I plucked the mic from the dash and stopped him as he started to close the door of the unit. “Hey? Call Maynard in about an hour and tell him that we need him to come and talk to us tomorrow morning here at the offi ce.”
Santiago smiled. “What time?”
“Make it early.”
He continued to smile and adjusted his sunglasses like a movie star, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the gascon with a A N OT H ER
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beret, feather, and sword. “Does this mean I’m being promoted to chief undersheriff of the Powder Junction Detachment of the Absaroka County Sheriff ’s Department?”
“Acting CUSPJD of the ACSD. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? I’ll look into getting you a second phone line.” As Saizarbitoria went into the office, I keyed the mic and sang, “Oooooh Ruuuuuubeeee, don’t take your love to town. . . .”
Static. “Stop that. Over.”
“So, you have any news?”
Static. “I’ve got information on the guy from California.”
“I’m all tin ears.”
Static. “Tran Van Tuyen became an American citizen in 1982, which is when he obtained an operator’s license. He doesn’t have so much as a parking ticket to his name.”
“Well, it was worth a try.”
Static. “You’re not going to start singing again, are you?”
I keyed the mic and ignored her. “Keep digging. He said he was here looking at some property, the Red Fork Ranch. Get a hold of Bee Bee and see if she’s ever heard of the guy, then call Ned Tanen at the L.A. County Sheriff ’s Department and see if he can come up with anything.”
Static. “Roger that.”
“Anything from DCI?”
Static. “They just faxed up the report.” There was a pause, and I listened to the silence of the radio. “They got an ID on the young woman.”
“Who was she?”
Static. “Her name was Ho Thi Paquet. Turns out she was a Vietnamese illegal who was picked up on prostitution charges in L.A. six weeks ago. She was scheduled for deportation, but I haven’t gotten any straight answers about what she might have been doing in Wyoming.”
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