“Duets? You and me?” she whispered breathlessly, and then noticed that all three men were watching and listening to her. Hawk’s version of watching verged on a glare.
“Sure,” he said. “Let me know what works out.” He paused. “So how do you feel?”
She took a deep breath, pleased to find it didn’t rattle her brain in her skull. “This hasn’t scared me off the book project, Stone.”
“I’m kind of surprised to hear that,” he said.
Sally glanced at Dickie, who was watching her intently. “I’m a little surprised myself. But I really hate the idea of somebody trying to scare me off something I want to do. Something I think I should do.” And now she looked at Hawk and smiled a little. “I’m a frigging ornery hagbody.”
She could hear the hesitation before he spoke again. “Cat says the sheriff’s gotten a court order to seize the contents of Nina’s office. Won’t that shut you down?”
That really pissed her off. And gave her an idea. “Oh, I don’t know. Just because the cops have decided to yank the papers doesn’t mean I can’t continue doing research.”
At this, Dickie and Scotty’s inquiring looks turned to glares. They could glare all they wanted. “We historians aren’t restricted to paper for our sources.” She continued, “Since they’re making it impossible for me to sit in some nice, quiet room with Nina’s archive, I reckon I’ll just work the oral history angle.”
Now Scotty was glowering in earnest, and Dickie slumped down, set his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands. Hawk burst out laughing.
“Oral history?” Stone asked.
“Oral history,” Sally said. “It’s an indispensable tool for anybody who’s trying to work on the recent past, or on subjects who express themselves in ways other than writing. Perfect for researching the life of somebody like Nina. The methodology’s pretty simple, but in practice it means being stubborn as well as subtle.”
“I can imagine,” said Stone.
Now she grinned, her headache almost gone. Maybe the nurse was right, and the side effect had subsided. Or maybe outflanking Scotty Atkins just made her blood run cool and easy. Or some might say she was simply pigheaded enough to beat a headache while she was forgetting good sense. “So I’d better get busy. Now that I can’t just sort paper, I’m going to have to go around asking lots and lots of questions of everybody I can find who knew Nina Cruz.”
Chapter 18
Spawn of the Devil of the Month
As Sally had seen, the local reaction to the news of Nina Cruz’s mad cow disease was a frenzy of carnivorousness. The response to her own encounter with talcum powder was decidedly more mixed. The mere mention of anthrax, even if the whole thing had been a hoax, had a lot of people acting squirrelly. Some saw her on the street and pretended they hadn’t. One woman who’d kissed up to her after that story in People actually crossed the street when she saw Sally coming. Sally thought she knew how Typhoid Mary had felt.
Then there were those who seemed to presume she’d done something to deserve being attacked. A student group of the wacko Christian persuasion circulated a leaflet headed with a picture of her and the words SPAWN OF THE DEVIL. Since this particular group denounced somebody in Laramie pretty much once a month, Sally decided she’d consider it an honor to be Spawn of the Devil of the Month.
More disturbing was that note in her mailbox at school. A folded piece of white paper with three words typed on it: TRICK OR TREAT.
Yes, she had to admit, that note gave her some serious heebie-jeebies. But she was damned if she’d let some ass-hole intimidate her. When the Boomerang called and asked her how it felt to be the target of bioterrorism, she told them that she didn’t really see any point in being terrorized. Tom Brokaw, after all, had gotten a weapons-grade anthrax letter in the mail, and it hadn’t set him back. And he, she pointed out, was from South Dakota. As a Wyomingite, she had to uphold state honor.
Some of the people who’d crossed the street to get away from her began to cross back.
Much to her delight and comfort, she got a lot of support from people who mattered. Dickie checked in daily to see how she was doing. Delice offered to lend her a gun (Sally declined). She was touched to the heart when a florist delivered a big vase of Stargazer lilies, with a card that read, “See you at practice. The Millionaires.”
And touched once again when she heard from more casual acquaintances. Pammie Montgomery showed up with a box of chocolate-chip cookies, declaring she’d made them from “the incorruptible recipe on the back of the chip package.” Burt Langham called to say that he and John-Boy wanted to buy her lunch at the Yippie I O. “We’re not worried about you being a carrier,” Burt told Sally. “Remember that we lived in the Castro in the eighties, for God’s sake. We know something about real plagues. And John-Boy wants to hear all about the opera gloves.”
Even Arvida Perrine, who’d seemed pretty out of it a few days ago, when Sally had phoned to talk with her about the benefit, had made a point of calling to check on her.
Sally’s students were best of all.
They gave her a standing ovation when she walked into class.
“You go, girl!” somebody yelled.
So she did. Right after class, she went to Hoyt Hall and started in on the first round of calls.
Nels Willen answered his land line on the second ring. He was at home in Colorado, sitting by his woodstove, watching snowflakes drift down. Three to five inches were predicted for the North Park area. “But you never know . . .” he began, invoking the ritual conversational gambit of the high country in wintertime.
Sally made the appropriate weather noises.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said. “I heard about the anthrax hoax. Must have scared the daylights out of you.”
The warmth in his voice disarmed her. “Yeah. And the night-lights, too. But I’m fine. Even the headache from the Cipro is gone.”
“That was a precaution. Back in my doctoring days, I’d have prescribed the same treatment. These days, I wonder if antibiotics aren’t a bigger problem than the stuff they’re supposed to treat. Technology’s a double-edged sword, huh? We’ve got to the point where every problem we try to solve with a tech fix generates bigger, badder problems. Wonder drugs create wonder bugs.”
“Most people don’t get involved in medicine unless they believe in science and progress, but once you’re in med school, they really pound that message home. What happened to make you change your mind?”
“Couldn’t take it anymore. I went hunting one weekend, and the guy I was with was a pretty bad shot. Managed to wing a doe in the leg, but that deer kept running, and it took us most of the morning to find her. When we did, she was still alive, and in unbelievable pain. Must have been runnin’ on three legs, ’cause the fourth was busted in half, the lower half near torn off. I put a bullet in her head.
“The next week, they bring this kid into the hospital, maybe thirteen years old. Followed her brother out onto the boarders’ run, with her brand-new board. Got about halfway down the mountain, going like hell and completely out of control, before she hit a bump, went ass-over-teakettle, and ended up with a leg that looked pretty damn much like the one I’d seen on that doe. What really got me, though, was that she had the exact same look in her eyes. I had this momentary vision of myself pulling out my rifle and shooting her in the head.”
“Oh my God,” said Sally.
“Yeah,” Willen said. “And then I had this image of handing her a gun and telling her to go ahead and shoot back. Kind of even the score.”
“Wow. All this happened right in the operating room?” Sally asked.
“Yeah. I’m not sure how, but I managed to fix her up, and they told me she was walking again, six months later. But by that time, I’d quit. Couldn’t make sense of the way I was behaving with animals, the ones on four legs, and the human kind. Took me a couple years of navel gazing to get my head around it.”
Jesus.
B
ut she plunged ahead. “I’d really like to talk with you about Nina sometime soon, if you’re up to it.”
Another pause. “Yeah. I’ve heard you’re writing a book. Cat told me she’d agreed to cooperate with you, so I reckon I can do the same. I’m planning to come up to Albany to meet with her over the next couple of weekends, so maybe we can get together then,” he said.
“That’d be great,” she said. They agreed to meet at her office.
“I’ve got one more question for you right now, if you don’t mind,” said Sally. “It’s about Nina having contracted mad cow disease. Do you have any thoughts on how that could have happened?”
He hesitated again before answering. “As you can probably guess, I’ve wracked my brain about that. After all’s said and done, it isn’t that easy to get bovine spongiform encephalopathy, even for your average meat eater. You have to ingest infected animal parts, and here in the U.S., we’ve been successful, so far, in keeping that from happening—or, at least, we think we have. The incubation period with this thing is so long that there’s no telling whether people who ate bad meat products ten years ago will start getting sick in the future. Of course, there’s lots of potential and real contamination going on, all the time.”
“Yes,” said Sally. “I saw the chicken episode on 60 Minutes.”
“Naturally, the people who ought to worry most about tainted meat are the ones still eating animals. It’s tough to imagine somebody who’s been a vegetarian for years being at risk. I have thought of one explanation, though,” Willen said. “Remember I told you about that crazy Swiss dude who had Nina on an all-organ-meat diet when she banged up her knee? Organ meats are supposed to be the worst source of infection. And that was a time when the stuff was getting into the European herds, and nobody had any idea it was going on.”
“That makes sense,” Sally said. “Have you mentioned that to the police?”
Willen laughed softly. “As a matter of fact, I have. That nice Detective Atkins has been in touch quite regularly.” But there was something beside humor in his voice.
“Nels,” said Sally, “you’re not blaming yourself for what that doctor might have done to Nina, are you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. “Of course not,” he said unconvincingly.
No time to think about that now.
She called the Wild West office. Randy Whitebird answered, pouring on the sympathy. “Oh Sally! We’ve been so worried about you. We were so glad when Pammie told us she’d taken you some cookies. What a bummer, man!”
Had she told him he could call her by her first name? But then, the guy was a Californian. “No harm, no foul,” Sally replied. “I’ve got a clean bill of health, and nobody was hurt. It’s pretty weird though, don’t you think?”
“The world gets weirder every day,” Whitebird replied. “But then, of course, we’re trying to do something about that.” He injected as much warmth as he could into the statement, but couldn’t completely cover the note of self-righteousness. Or the vagueness of the message.
“Listen, Randy,” Sally said, trying for cordiality. She didn’t like either Whitebird or Kali, but she needed to interview them as soon as possible. He’d presented himself first. “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m writing Nina’s biography. The police have seized her papers,” she told him, counting on his sympathy in that regard and not being disappointed.
“Yeah, I heard. What a violation of the First Amendment. Believe me, I know what you’re going through. We’ve had cops in the office for the past week, making copies of everything on our computers and in our files. And it’s taking them long enough to get this solved! With that fat-ass sheriff, sometimes it’s hard to tell if this is Mayberry or Selma, Alabama,” said Whitebird.
Sally was a big fan of the First Amendment, but she conceded, however grudgingly, the right of the police to investigate crime. And as a citizen of Laramie, she resented the comparison to Selma. Not to mention the fact that as a lifelong friend of Dickie Langham, she considered anyone who referred to him as a “fat ass” to be a philistine and a fool.
But once again, she squelched distaste and pursued conversation. “Since I can’t work on Nina’s papers,” she told Whitebird, “I’m concentrating on oral history for now. I want to talk to the people who were closest to her, and I’m hoping I can take you to lunch at the Yippie I O Café, just to talk about how you might want to be interviewed.”
Whitebird was willing. His schedule was pretty flexible. He was even available the next day. Sally suspected that he was the kind of guy who seldom turned down a free lunch.
On the way home, she stopped off at the Lifeway, prowling the aisles, trying to decide what to rustle up for dinner. She’d been thinking that they ought to eat more vegetarian meals, just for health’s sake. But a day that had started out cool and brilliantly clear had turned to clammy, overcast twilight chill. Meat-eating weather, she determined, and picked up a couple of packages of pork chops and some potatoes and apples and broccoli, enough so she’d have a pork chop dinner she could put in the freezer for some hectic night later in the winter. This was going to be one of those square meals that would earn a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
The pork chops were simmering away with the apples by the time Hawk appeared, pronouncing himself hungry enough to eat bean curd and barley. And then, moments later, the doorbell rang. Sally froze. The prospect of answering the door gave her a few problems.
Look, she told herself, what were the chances of another, more serious attack?
Not so remote, said her cautious self.
Cautious selves could not be permitted to run things.
But she looked through the peephole before she opened the door.
“You’re just in time for dinner,” Sally said. “We’re having pork chops. Good thing I bought enough.”
“Seems to be the season for pork chops,” said Dickie Langham, and walked in.
Hawk was pouring a couple of Jim Beams. Dickie took off his hat and jacket, accepted the offer of a cup of coffee, reached into his pants pocket, and extracted a plastic-sealed piece of Nicoban gum. He put the gum into his mouth and began chewing resolutely, knowing that Sally and Hawk banned smoking in their house. Sometimes it seemed to Sally that Dickie had traded his former diet of booze and blow for a new and questionable dependence on caffeine and nicotine. But then, she supposed trading the lethal for the merely unhealthy was a big step up.
“I’m surprised Detective Atkins didn’t come along with you,” Sally said, grinding beans.
“We’ve decided to try a new tack with you, Mustang,” he said as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Threats and intimidation seem ineffectual, so I figure we have two choices. One: Forget about threats. We can just cut to the chase and get a restraining order that would bar you from interfering with our investigation.”
“At which point,” Sally said, “it’d be easy enough to get a couple of lawyers to make you look like a free speech– hating fascist.”
“Instead of a dedicated public servant trying to protect a respected member of our fine community,” Hawk put in.
“Thank you for that show of support, Hawk,” said Dickie, sucking on his gum and watching the teakettle she’d just put on to boil.
“I’m kind of on your side on this one,” said Hawk, “being a concerned private citizen with an interest in protecting that same respected but perhaps headstrong community member.”
Both glared at Sally.
“What’s your second choice?” Sally asked, taking a sip of her bourbon.
“Share some information with you,” Dickie said.
Sally leaned back in her chair, her hand flying to her heart. “I’m like to die of shock here, Sheriff. Does your ace detective know what you’re up to?”
“Detective Atkins,” said Dickie, “works for me. The minute I give him the go-ahead, he gets the restraining order. So don’t fuck with me, Sally. I’m cutting you a big break here.”
“And I’m grateful
, but curious. To what do I owe this generosity?” she asked.
“To the fact that I’m betting that what I have to say will scare the crap out of you and get you to act like a sensible person instead of a damn fool,” he answered.
Sally took another sip, put her hands in her lap, and leveled a look at him. “Give it a try,” she said.
“All right. I’ll ask you to remember that everything I’m telling you right now is privileged. If I hear about one leak, one tiny piece of information that somehow shakes loose, we’ll put the lid down on you so tight, you’ll be wearin’ your underpants up around your ears. If you want to call out the lawyers, be my guest.”
“Should I leave?” Hawk asked, starting to get up.
“On the contrary. Maybe if you hear this, you can keep working on her to get a frigging clue, and let her goddamn book go for a while,” he told Hawk, happy to see that the water had come to a boil.
There was no defending herself from their scorn, so Sally went on the offensive as she poured water into the drip filter. “For now, let’s focus on the facts. I assume you guys have checked into Stone Jackson’s story about where he was the day Nina was killed?”
“A counter girl at the McDonald’s in Riverton told us she remembered selling a cup of coffee to a tall, balding man who was talking on a cell phone,” Dickie said. “It’s not a positive ID. We showed her a picture of Jackson, and she thought it might have been the same guy, but she wasn’t completely sure. When we asked her if she knew who Stone Jackson was, she guessed maybe he was the PRCA Champion All-Around Cowboy last year.”
One woman’s idol was another woman’s bald guy on a cell phone. “How about Kali? Have you been able to pin down her whereabouts?” Sally asked as she put a mug down in front of him.
Dickie took a swallow of his coffee and smiled at her. “Going for the obvious suspects? The people who weren’t in sight? I’d say that narrows the list down to, oh, say, the entire planet except the people you happened to lay eyes on that morning.”
Bye, Bye, Love Page 18