He looked at me out of one eye. “What’s she doing in Wyoming?”
“I ask myself that a lot of the time.” I waited a moment and changed the subject. “Where’s your daughter?”
He shook his head as he glanced around at the circumstance, if not the pomp. “She’s bored silly by this stuff, but then she’s bored silly by most of the things that I enjoy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I waited again. “Hey, how long has your daughter been in county?”
He thought about it. “It’s August, so I guess it’s been about two months.”
“Before that she was in Los Angeles?”
“Yes.” His eyes stayed with mine. “Why?”
“You mentioned the other night that you’d been running interference on this relationship between your daughter and Torres for eight months.”
He continued to look at me. “So?”
“You said she’s only been here for two months, so I guess they knew each other in L.A. or Tucson?”
He glanced at Chief Nutter and then back to me. “And why do you care, Sheriff?”
“I’m just trying to get a clearer picture of the relationship between Chloe and Bodaway in hopes that it might shine some light on the accident that may end up costing the young man his life.”
He crossed his arms over the Krieghoff K-80. “Are you accusing Chloe?”
“Nope.”
He glanced at Chief Nutter again to register his disapproval at being interrogated in this manner and then spoke slowly as if I might not understand English. “I have business dealings in Phoenix. I stay at the Biltmore, but my daughter, who used to stay there with me, said it was too stodgy, so she set herself up at the W, which evidently doesn’t monitor the individuals who frequent their poolside bar.” He took a breath. “That’s where they met and established a long-distance relationship, which I have been attempting to end for eight months.”
“I see.”
“Good, I’m glad you see.”
“And where were you the night that Bodaway Torres was run off the road?”
His eyes clinched down like the bore on the gun he held. “You know, Sheriff, I invited you here because I thought it might be fun, but you’re proving to be tiresome.”
I smiled. “Oh, just give me a chance; I can get a lot more mundane.”
He studied me for a long while and then moved back among the other shooters.
“I don’t think he likes me.”
Chief Nutter turned and rested the small of his back against the steel bar. “Is that your method, to go around pissing off all the people you’re investigating?”
“Go with your strengths, I always say.”
“I know he’s a little on his high horse.”
“And I know he bought you a truck.”
The chief was silent for a moment and then leaned over into my line of sight. “You got something you want to say?”
“He hates that kid lying in a hospital bed in Rapid, and when I’m looking for somebody who might’ve done a victim harm, I generally look for a suspect who doesn’t particularly care for that victim.”
“And if I told you Bob Nance didn’t have anything to do with injuring that boy, you’d believe me, right? Because the night Bodaway Torres was hurt, Nance was drinking with me at the clubhouse over there.” I stared at him, and he looked at the power broker. “So, I guess that means I’m one of the bad guys now, huh?”
I watched as the other women in Vic’s round began to shoot. “Not necessarily.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, I truly wish I had the finely tuned instrumentation that enables you to tell the difference between right and wrong, Sheriff.”
“Speaking of high horses.”
He smiled—it was slow, but he smiled. “He’s divorced, too. Sometimes when I finish a shift, it’s just easier to come up here than sit down in town with all the people I arrest for DUIs. Last week when that kid got tagged, Bob was here with a bunch of friends, playing cards into the wee hours.”
“Good enough.” I folded my arms over my chest. “Speaking of Bodaway, did I mention that both Mike Novo and I found gold paint on the young man’s bike—the same gold paint that’s on his mother’s convertible?”
He made a face. “Jeez, Lola ran over her own kid?”
“Think she’s capable of it?”
“Yes. Well, no. Well, I’m not sure, to be absolutely honest. I don’t know her that well.”
The Evans woman stepped up, preparing for the targets that would be pitched from the opposite towers, both high and low. She shot, annihilating the first clay but barely clipping her second.
I tipped my hat a little forward so that I could see better. “The car was parked at the Hulett Motel that night with the keys in it, so I suppose anybody could’ve been driving it.”
“You ask her?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She says it wasn’t her.”
“You believe her?”
I chuckled. “Well, I’m not sure, to be absolutely honest.”
Vic stepped up to the fifth station, which was made out of redwood and dug into the hillside, the 12 gauge broken down and cradled in the crook of her arm. She tightened her gloves, adjusted her hat, and then loaded the Remington with the two rounds one of the pullers handed her.
The chief unconsciously straightened his own hat. “She gets two clean hits, and she’ll advance.” He turned and grinned at me. “And then she’ll shoot against the men’s finalists, who I’m pretty sure are going to end up being your buddy Bob Nance and that surgeon from Billings.”
“Well, that should be interesting.”
The puller looked at Vic. “Ready?”
Once again, you could barely hear her voice, and it was epic watching her raise the thirty-inch barrels like a cobra rising to strike. “Pull.”
The target flew in a flat trajectory, different from the ones launched before, so Vic had to re-aim, but the result was devastating, the clay pigeon exploding. Something must’ve happened in the release of the second bird, though, and it was already speeding in the opposite direction when Vic sighted it. She waited just a split second.
Nutter was clutching the steel bar. “She’s waiting too long, it’s going to be too far for . . .”
At that second my undersheriff jerked back with the blast of the shotgun, and the clay target burst apart at the very edge of the Remington’s range.
The crowd erupted, and she turned and bowed, slinging the shotgun on her shoulder, whereupon they roared some more. She popped the two empty shells and gave them to a puller and then walked straight toward us. Handing Nutter the 12 gauge, she smiled through the carnival-glass optics of her glasses with millions of tiny rainbows dancing. “I like this game.”
He laughed. “It shows.”
She pulled the earplugs. “I think I could get good at it.”
I nodded toward the blonde woman. “Looks like you and Evans are going to be representing the gentler sex in the next round.”
She turned her face, scanning the other shooters. “Who’s next?”
“Bob Nance and Frank Carlton, that older hotshot over there with the khaki hat. The chief here says he’s some kind of five-time national champion.”
“They miss anything yet?”
“Nope.”
“Well then, we’re all even.”
Nance sauntered over and, leaning on the railing, studied my undersheriff. “Bob Nance.”
“Vic Moretti.”
I thought he was attempting to get a little edge. “Hey, you’re pretty good.”
“Thanks.”
He smirked. “You’re pulling just a bit when you fire.”
“‘There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care
for anything else thereafter.’”
Unsettled at being interrupted, he caught himself. “Excuse me?”
Vic’s smile narrowed, and her jaw muscles bunched just a bit. “You come over here to mind-fuck me, Bob? Because if you did you’re going to end up getting fucked yourself.” She gestured toward the elaborate walkways and towers. “This golfing with guns is fun, but I’ve been trying to hit shit that was shooting at me since I was in my twenties, so if, indeed, you are trying to mind-fuck me—go fuck yourself, because I fuck back.”
He stood there for a stunned moment and then, at a loss for anything else to do, turned and looked at me. I grinned. “She does and not gently.”
He stood there for a moment more and then, without another word, turned and walked away.
“Hemingway—that’s where the quote came from.”
Nutter laughed. “Bullshit that you know that.”
I glanced at the chief. “She’s got a T-shirt from the Philadelphia Warrants Department with that quote on it.”
Vic grinned. “I love that shirt—it’s one of my favorites.”
My undersheriff’s partner came over and extended a hand toward me, the late-in-the-sky sun playing off her curly blonde hair and Pacific-colored eyes. “Cornelia Evans.”
“Nice to meet you.” I turned toward Bill. “This is Chief Nutter, and I assume you’ve already met my undersheriff, Victoria Moretti?”
She leaned in closer to the Terror. “Hey, generally we split and do mixed doubles for the finals; is that okay? You know, Sadie Hawkins. You can pick first.”
My undersheriff looked baffled. “Huh?”
I translated, gesturing toward Nance and Carlton. “Ladies’ choice.”
“Oh.” She smiled and glanced at the two men. “I’ll take the old guy, the surgeon.”
“Carlton’s good, but he’s getting a little long in the tooth. Are you sure you don’t want Bob?”
“No, he’s a prick.” She made the statement as if it were the time of day.
It took Evans a few seconds to regain her composure. “Okay then.” She stuck her hand out. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” They shook, and Evans continued on her way toward the two men to deliver the news.
After a brief conversation, the older gentleman came over to meet his new partner, and in a soft, Southern accent murmured, “Well, hello young lady; how should we go about vanquishing these upstarts?” Vic smiled as they shook hands, and he glanced at me. “Walt Longmire, the much-vaunted sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming.”
“You and I have a connection, Dr. Carlton.”
“And what might that be?”
“Back in the late eighties you had a patient in Billings, a young girl of Japanese descent, who was in an automobile accident and had to be helicoptered down to Children’s Hospital in Denver.”
He clutched his chin like it was a knuckleball and took a second to think. “Amaterasu, shining over heaven. As I recall it was a difficult case, and the helicopter didn’t make it to Denver.” He didn’t say anything more, and I could see that he was unsure about asking.
“It didn’t, but she did. Came into my office a while back at Christmas—she lives in San Francisco. Maybe we’ll have a beer sometime, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“I would enjoy that.” He turned back, smiled at Vic, and gestured toward the course. “In the meantime, young lady, we have work to do.”
• • •
It was decided that the two teams would face off at station four and shoot with random pulls just to make things a little more interesting. If needed, the two teams would go into a second round or even a third if things stayed tight.
Nance and Evans were going to shoot first, and, evidently, Bob wasn’t into the whole ladies-first thing since he strode up to the platform and lifted his shotgun into a median position.
He barked the call. “Pull!”
It was a tough one, the first target being the high house and coming from the left. He nailed it and then drew down on the one that had just taken flight from the low house and his right. The thunder of the 12 gauge echoed against the Black Hills, and the second clay exploded.
Chief Nutter nodded. “Bob’s good—there’s not too much doubt about that.”
“Yep, but let’s see if the surgeon can carve him up.”
Carlton looked every bit the national champion as he raised the barrels and focused in on the upcoming targets. If you were doing diagrams on how to shoot skeet, you could’ve done worse than the figure the older man presented—classic was the only word for it.
The first clay came out of the high house again, and Carlton smashed it. Then the next came from the same direction but at a lower trajectory; the surgeon quickly adjusted and shattered that one as well.
He cocked his head as he turned back toward the crowd, and I noted that there was more applause for him than there had been for Nance—evidently the doctor was a fan favorite.
Evans shot well but barely clipped her first clay with an overenthusiastic shot; she then tagged the second.
Vic carefully placed the plugs back in her ears and stepped up onto the station without a shred of self-consciousness. The trigger hand sat at her side like a coiled spring, her slender fingers flicking every so often, and she carefully loaded the Remington.
The puller regarded her. “Ready?”
My undersheriff’s hand relaxed and came up in a graceful arc, snapping the shotgun together and in place, her soft voice once again like a pin dropping. “Pull.”
The two clays came from the low tower to her right simultaneously, and Vic peppered them with 12-gauge shot.
Carlton shook his head as he stepped up; he hit his first target but cleanly missed his second shot. I could see him apologizing to Vic as he stepped from the stand.
I watched as Nance coached Evans, but the two-time national champion missed one and we were tied.
There was a brief conversation at the stand, and the pullers and judges got together with Nance and Evans as Vic and Carlton stepped over to where we were.
I smiled at her. “How you feel, deadeye?”
The Terror pushed her cap back and pulled her earplugs. “I’m cool, but I could use a drink.”
Nance approached with a couple of judges; Evans was not with them. He leaned on the rail again. “Frank, Connie’s graciously elected to step down, and if you’re willing to do the same, Miss Moretti and I can go head-to-head Tour Pro style.”
The older man stepped to the side. “I’m afraid all I’m doing is holding my partner back, so I’m happy to acquiesce.”
Nance smiled and glanced at Vic. “Tour Pro style then?”
“Fuck yeah.” Vic bared her teeth, especially the extended canine. “What’s that, anyway?”
Nance didn’t say anything but turned away toward the range.
Carlton watched him go and then shook his head. “You shoot multiple times. They’ll place a row of rounds in front of you and as you fire, you break the shotgun down and fire again, sometimes as many as a dozen rounds instead of the two.”
She studied me. “Like tactical with pop-ups?”
“Pretty much.”
She snapped a finger and pointed before walking away. “Hendrick’s—stirred, not shaken.”
Chief Nutter and Carlton both looked at me. “Dirty martini, her favorite. Olives with the juice and onions.”
Carlton nodded. “Fighting scurvy, is she?”
Nutter watched Vic’s nether parts as she stalked toward the shooting stand. “Somehow, I don’t think scurvy would stand a chance.”
Gentlemanliness be damned again, Nance strode to the platform and stood, blocking Vic’s way as my undersheriff casually placed the butt of the Remington in her cupped hands again, the barrels lying easily against her shoulder.
It was easy t
o see why Nance chose this form of shooting for his finale. He handled the mechanics of reloading impressively and didn’t miss a single shot until the last set, where he missed the lower clay completely but then caught it with the second shot—scoring an eleven and a half.
There were cheers from the crowd. Like him or not, it was damn fine shooting.
I didn’t see how Vic was going to be able to do it.
The Terror ignored Nance’s smirk, stepped to the station, and stretched her neck to one side and then the other as I’d seen her do at hundreds of weapons qualification shoots down at the academy in Douglas.
Nance moved to the far side of the narrow table but then stopped and stood there, just barely in Vic’s line of sight. I waited for the attendants or judges to make him move, but they didn’t.
Vic’s hand dropped again and twitched once.
The puller seemed hesitant but then asked, “Ready?”
She gave the barely perceptible nod and then brought her hand up in the elegant arc again, slipping two of the shells from the table, loading the shotgun, and raising the barrels in one infinitely supple move. Her head dropped like a mongoose ready to strike, and her lips pursed. “Pull.”
Like a machine-fed shotgun, she adjusted her aim, dropping the barrels and reloading after each twin pieces of destruction, moving down the course like a ballerina working the barre. The closer to her opponent she came, the wider his eyes grew. Science was meeting art, and art was kicking science’s ass.
I’ve seen some shooting in my life, but I don’t recall ever seeing an exhibition like the one Vic was giving just now. There was a rhythm to her that was otherworldly, a matching of flesh and metal resulting in a series of explosions that echoed off the hills like a paradiddle of percussive beats. You could feel the crowd leaning forward as her momentum grew until two of the next-to-last targets dove with the wind. There was the briefest of pauses as she dipped the barrel, but the Terror’s aim was true and the clays exploded as if she’d reached out with a talon and crushed them one by one.
An Obvious Fact Page 14