7
“He says you threatened him.”
I held the phone to my ear and tried to remember how I’d gotten involved in this mess but then recalled it was a damsel in distress who was more like a dame. “He started it with a metal cutter.”
“He said Ms. Moretti was brandishing a gun.”
I glanced at my impromptu posse leaning on the fender of the screaming-orange Dodge, one watching the horizon and the other checking her nails. “Define brandishing.”
“Walt.”
“Okay, she brandished it a little bit.” I sighed. “Look, Irl, it isn’t like we got anything out of him.”
“You got a restraining order, harassment, and a charge of cease and desist. He learned a lot of litigious lessons out there in California, and, pending court action, you’re not going to be able to go within a hundred feet of him.”
“What’s he hiding?”
“Heck if I have any idea, but he’s all lawyered up now, so it’s going to be a lot harder to find out.”
I sighed and began pacing back and forth. “Anything interesting from his sordid past?”
“Other than the things I’ve already mentioned?” The sheriff sighed and then chuckled. “A couple of years ago, he was back on a visit and attempted to shoot his next-door neighbor with a .40 for mowing his lawn on a Sunday afternoon.”
My response was slightly incredulous. “He’s religious?”
“About football.”
“Oh.”
“Came charging out of the house but must not be much of a shot with that Glock 22, because he fired the thing twice before killing it.”
“The lawn mower, I’m assuming we’re talking about.”
“Yes.”
“Is lawn implement destruction a felony here in South Dakota?”
“Nothing runs like a Deere or smells like a John.” Engelhardt laughed outright. “He bought the old guy another one, but Billy can be hell on wheels. He trashed a bar in Deadwood a few months back—stuck some guy’s head in a toilet.” I listened as he rustled some papers. “Don’t be fooled; he can be charming as hell in court—shows up in a coat and tie, all Hollywood businessman, and makes jokes about not being able to grow up. You’d be amazed how many middle-aged jurors want to get free work on their bikes around here.”
“So, no serious time inside, then?”
“No, he’s pretty careful about that kind of thing. I mean, it’s all just assault and battery type stuff, like I told you.” There was silence over the phone. “Why are you so interested?”
“Bodaway Torres called his shop twenty-one times in the last week.”
“Maybe he was having bike problems.”
“Maybe.”
There was another pause. “All right, then, but would you keep me informed so I don’t have to find these things out via APB?”
“Roger that.” I hit the off button and walked back toward the Dodge. “We are free agents once again, but Irl says ThE is lawyered up and that we need to leave him alone.”
“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. It is a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.” The Bear turned and looked at Vic. “Arthur Conan Doyle.” He shrugged and looked back at me. “All we wanted to do was talk.”
“I guess he’s got nothing to say.”
Vic stared at the Cheyenne Nation and then at me. “Neither of you want to hear what I have to say next.”
The Bear scratched the side of his face. “Then do not say it.”
She continued to thwart him by looking at me. “There was this guy I know who taught me that when an investigation grinds to a halt, you go back to the beginning and start over.”
I thought about it. “You know, I hate that guy who taught you that.” I leaned on the fender with her. “That was me, right?”
Henry interrupted. “And where, pray tell, is the beginning of this case?”
We both looked at her as she smiled.
• • •
Following the gold Caddy on the highway, Vic and I watched as the two heads turned toward each other, their hair whipping in the wind. “What do you suppose they’re talking about?”
“Probably the two thousand dollars of bail money she owes him.”
“I imagine she’ll tell him to put it on her tab.”
Vic wound her way through the Black Hills, her foot in the Challenger, causing it to bellow as we raced along behind the Cadillac. “That tab is getting to be pretty big.” She glanced at me, sideways. “So, you think he’s Henry’s kid?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he says he isn’t.”
“Boy, I want you on my side in a paternity suit.” She nodded toward the car ahead of us. “Of course, she says he is.”
“Well, like I said, Lola Wojciechowski’s turning out to be less and less a credible entity.”
“Momma’s baby, Poppa’s maybe.”
“I just don’t think it would’ve taken her thirty years to get in touch with him about it.”
My undersheriff cocked her head. “She’s tough.”
“She’s had to be.” I studied the car and could see Lola was putting a little distance between her and us. “I’m beginning not to trust her any farther than I can throw her.”
“So, it’s solely about justice for the kid?”
I took a deep breath. “As far as I’m concerned, but I’m not sure about Henry.”
“Did you talk to the doctors?”
“No.”
“I did.”
I turned and looked at her again. “Oh, now why don’t I like the sound of that?”
“That kid’s never coming back, Walt.”
I nodded my head and turned to watch the road being gobbled up by the muscle car. “Never?”
“Not one chance in a thousand.”
“That’s not what his mother thinks.”
“Yeah, the doctors told me about that, too. The one I talked with said he explains the situation to her, but then she keeps coming back with all kinds of scenarios, not a one of them with any medical credibility.” She watched me as I continued to study the rapidly passing outskirts of Rapid City. “I suppose you didn’t want to hear that, huh?”
I settled into the bucket seat, evidently larger than a bucket. “Not really—makes me sad.”
“I’m sorry, Walt. I just don’t want you pinning your efforts on bringing that kid back.”
I nodded, glancing at the speedometer and noticing we were approaching a hundred. “Um, you think we’re going a little fast?”
She gestured with a hand toward the windshield. “You want me to keep up with Maria Andretti here or what?” We banked another turn and started climbing an extended hill just as a siren sounded from a long way behind us. I watched as Vic glanced up into the rearview mirror. “Company.”
Swinging around, I could see the flashing lights of a black South Dakota Highway Patrol car gaining on us. “Well, hell.” It was about then that I heard the bellow increase and the Challenger felt as if it were shooting out from under me. “What are you doing?”
She gestured through the windshield again. “She’s out on bail; you think they’re going to let her get away with doing a hundred on an interstate highway?”
“Probably not—”
“I’ll bait and switch—give this highwayman a run for his money; besides, if he catches us, I’m sure you can talk our way out of it.”
“I don’t suppose we could just pull over and talk to him?”
She glanced at the speedometer. “Maybe before we went past a hundred and twenty.”
I reached out and clamped a hand on the dash.
Lola and Henry’s pace now seemed sedate as we blew past. Vic waved in the rearview and then checked on the HP’s progress. “He
’s still gaining on us.” She glanced at me, smiling just enough to reveal the slightly oversized canine tooth, increasing her lupine features. “He’s gamer.”
Just before we topped the hill, I glanced back to see the trooper pass the Cadillac as if it were dragging an anchor. “Mission accomplished—we are now his sole and exclusive target.”
The Challenger became very light in the tires as we weaved between the cars on the road and leveled off, starting down the hill. “What’s the next town?”
“Sturgis.”
“Is there a main artery leading out?”
“Alternate 14, which heads toward Deadwood and Boulder Canyon Road.”
The speedometer was now tipping one hundred and sixty as she blithely steered the Dodge into the emergency lane to pass two semis running in tandem. “This first exit. Here?”
I swallowed and tried to work up enough spit to speak. “No, the second one.”
Rocketing past the trucks and the startled driver of a minivan, she tipped the wheel, and the muscle car leapt back into the open lane like an animal on the hunt. “Cool, ho-daddy.”
I turned to see if the trooper was a member of the Joie Chitwood Danger Angels, but so far he hadn’t caught up, possibly slowed down by the eighteen-wheelers. “Take the next exit and then left under the underpass and out of town, but there’s going to be some traffic with it being rally week.”
“I like traffic—it’s cover.” She spotted the exit up ahead and, predictably, there was a lineup of cars and trucks with trailers hauling motorcycles backed up almost onto the thoroughfare. “You said left, right?”
“Yep, left.”
Slicing down the emergency lane, she decelerated and tipped the wheel just enough to get the rear end of the Challenger to break traction and begin a sickeningly slow slide to the right as the two back wheels attempted to catch up with the front.
I looked straight ahead at the intersection that was rapidly approaching, aware that the light was red and that traffic was streaming by in front of us.
Vic casually countered the drift just enough to keep the Dodge in play and, slowing her speed, continued turning to the right, glancing up at the overpass where the highway patrolman was sliding across the bridge with his antilock brakes fully locked. “Gotcha.”
A truck driver, pulling across the intersection, suddenly looked up the ramp in time to see us rapidly approaching slideways. He slammed on his brakes as Vic threw the Dodge across the opposing lanes, beat out a sedan, and put her foot into the more than seven hundred horsepower, slinging us forward as she took the emergency lane again, shooting past more cars, then roaring back onto the road and weaving her way through the lanes of traffic.
I could still hear the whine of the HP’s siren and turned to see that he had made a U-turn farther down the road in order to take the Boulder Canyon exit in the opposite direction. “He’s still back there.”
“Where does this road go?”
I glanced out the side window, the pines compressed by the speed like the opening credits of a movie not formatted to real life. “Deadwood.”
“Anything between?”
“Some small secondary roads in Boulder Creek and Oak Ridge.”
We leapt across a bridge and made a hard right, following the geometry of a curve not designed for almost ninety miles an hour. “Is that Boulder Creek we just went over?”
“I suppose—we were going too fast for me to read the sign.”
She dipped her head forward, indicating the road beyond. “He’s going to radio ahead, and they’ll be waiting for us at the cutoff in Deadwood.”
“I’d say that’s probably true.” A sign that read BOULDER CREEK COUNTRY CLUB flashed by. “Take the next road on the right.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
She pressured the brakes and broadsided through the turn onto the tiny road. “Apple Spring Boulevard—really?”
“It’s not on the maps, but there’s a dirt road that connects with Crook Mountain and leads back up to Whitewood and Route 34 that’ll get us back to Hulett. Tim Berg told me about it a while ago.”
She bellowed up the two-lane past the assorted houses, slowed at the end of the pavement, and stopped just before she cut the engine. “The human pencil holder?”
Vic referred to Tim’s propensity of sticking pencils and pens in his prodigious beard and then losing them. “And the Butte County sheriff, yes.”
She rolled down her window, and we listened to the highway patrolman’s approach. There was only a small break in the pines, but after a moment the black sedan flashed by. She raised a fist and smiled at me. “Let’s hear it for the Philadelphia Police Academy Tactical Driving School.”
I cleared my throat and attempted to settle my stomach by stepping out of the car. “No offense, but I don’t ever want to do that again.”
Vic slipped out the other side and looked at me over the hood. “You getting sensitive in your old age?”
I ignored her and leaned on the grille, feeling the heat from the Hemi engine as it ticked and cooled.
She joined me, crossing her arms and bumping her shoulder into my side. “What’s up?”
“I don’t mean to sound like a child . . .” I shook my head, clearing it with the scent of ponderosa pines, Black Hill spruce, quaking aspens, paper birch, bur oak, and green ash in this island of trees surrounded by a sea of grass. “But I really don’t want to be here.”
“Then go home.”
“I can’t.”
“Because of the kid?”
“Yep.” I stubbed the toe of a boot in the pine needles on the ground. “It was all up for grabs until I saw him, and now it seems like it’s something I have to do.”
Vic laughed. “And this is a revelation?”
“Not exactly, but I’m fighting the feeling that I’m some kind of windup toy that, when faced with a criminal enigma, falls into a mechanical response in order to solve the mystery.”
“You just answered your own question.” She laughed. “Walt, however it is you look at what you do, whether it’s a job, a duty, or—when I watch you do it—an art, you’re very good at it, and for my money you’re doing it for all the right reasons.” She swung around and stood in front of me. “You’re not doing it for that woman, you’re not doing it out of some bullshit sense of duty or some philosophical construct called justice; you’re doing it for that kid who can’t speak for himself. I swear you’re like this detective for the disenfranchised. Everybody that nobody gives a shit about, the people out there on the fringes—those are the people you speak for and that’s why I love you.”
I stared at her.
“That last part was just me.”
I continued to stare at her.
“And if you don’t say or do something right now, I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”
I leaned forward and gently kissed her on the top of her head.
It might’ve gone further, but then two more highway patrolmen howled by like internal combustion bandits on Boulder Canyon Highway, one after the other.
She looked at the pine needles I had disturbed, then turned back to me, and I could tell the spell was broken. “Speaking of cases that have ground to a stop . . .”
I nodded and thought about the man who might’ve been responsible for Michael’s death. “I’ve got feelers with the FBI.”
“McGroder?”
“Yep. He’s got contacts over at State and the NSA, and they are looking for anything on Bidarte. Some of the leads say he’s near the border in that Copper Canyon area, but others say he’s in Mexico City.”
“When do we leave?”
I took a deep breath. “It’s not that easy.”
“No? The asshole killed my little brother.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
She shrugged, unco
nsciously hugging her abdomen. “That’s okay; there are plenty of other reasons to kill the son of a bitch.”
I reached out, draped an arm over her shoulder, and pulled her in close. “Yep, I just want to make sure which one it is before we go hunting for him.”
“You’re so law abiding.”
“I try.” I looked up the dirt and gravel road leading to the top of a ridge and turning to the left. “So, you ready to go four-wheeling?”
She shrugged. “Fuck it—it’s a rental.”
• • •
The Challenger did pretty well, but there were a few spots where we could hear the low-slung undercarriage dragging on the rocks and catching on the sagebrush. “I don’t think this is what this thing was made for.”
We topped the ridge and barely missed the trunk of one of the aforementioned pine trees. “You could be right.”
“I think it’s only about a quarter mile or so to the paved road, so we might make it.”
There was a small wallow and then a turn, and I could see the gravel lot and turnaround where the pavement started up again. I could also see the Pennington County sheriff sitting on the grille guard of his shiny black Tahoe, and replacing his worn-out chewing gum with another stick.
“Been chewing that gum long?”
“Three sticks. I figured you would’ve showed up by now.”
I shut the door on the Dodge. “We were enjoying the environs.”
“I bet.” He pulled himself off the hood and stretched his back.
“Where’s the Highway Patrol?”
“I don’t know, probably out patrolling the highway.” He smiled at Vic as she closed her door, and then walked around the front and extended his hand to her. “We meet again?”
“Always a pleasure.”
He turned back to me. “Just because I know where you are doesn’t mean they know where you are. We got to the roadblock in Deadwood, and they said this pumpkin latte hadn’t showed, so I started thinking.”
“And here you are.”
“And here I am.” He waited a moment and then asked. “Explanation?”
I shrugged. “Which part?”
“What’s so interesting about this kid over in my hospital?”
An Obvious Fact Page 12