Junkyard Dogs

by Craig Johnson

  “What about Polk?”

  “Dropped.”

  “Cool.” She reached up and flipped some of the clothing in the bag. “You gonna escort Junior to the shower?”

  “Unless you’d like the honor.” She pushed the bag at me again, but this time with a little more emphasis.

  Ozzie’s head remained down, but I suppose he felt as if he had to make some sort of effort at a conversation. “This is a nice jail, Walt.”

  I followed him down the steps. “We like it.”

  “I used to come here when I was a teenager, when it was the old Carnegie Library. I don’t think I’ve ever been down in this part.”

  “Probably not.”

  We made the landing and turned the corner into something that looked like Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan with Possession and Intent to Deliver. Santiago had arranged a number of event tables in the hallway, the dayroom, locker room, and all six of the regular cells. The Basquo was standing in the dayroom with a clipboard and looked up as we stepped down. “Four hundred and eighty-three plants in all.”

  “Holy frijoles.”

  I ushered Ozzie over to the bathroom adjacent to the small locker area. It was a regular facility that had been converted by moving the wall and adding a metal, one-piece shower stall. There was a single utility bulb, which was the only source of illumination other than a window near the ceiling. “I don’t normally do this, but I’ll close the door and give you a little privacy. Just get undressed and toss your old clothes out here, and I’ll hand you the new stuff when you get through.”

  He nodded. “Did my mother bring toiletries and a bathrobe?”

  I looked in the bag. “Actually, she did.” I fished a very pricey, plushy, Navajo-patterned robe from the bag and handed it to him along with a leather valet case. “Here you go.” He disappeared into the bathroom without another word, and I closed the door behind him.

  Sancho came over with his clipboard.

  “What’ve we got?”

  “It’s up to you, boss.” He shrugged. “If it goes to the U.S. attorney or the DEA, it means we lose jurisdiction, and it goes to Casper or Cheyenne. You want to go spend a week in Casper or Cheyenne testifying?”

  “Not particularly.” I knocked on the door behind me. “Ozzie, you undressed yet?”

  His voice came through the door. “Um, yeah.”

  “You want to hand me your dirty clothes?”

  “Okay.”

  The knob dutifully turned, and he handed me the wad of stained, filthy clothing. “Shoes?” After a second, they followed.

  “Can I have my other clothes? It’s kind of cold in here.”

  “You’ve got your bathrobe. I’ll give you the clean ones after your shower.” The door hesitated and then closed.

  I threw the dirty clothes on the floor of the locker room and listened as the water in the shower stall came on. I turned back to Sancho. “So, we go local?”

  “I don’t think the feds would go for that, and besides, it might be hard on the county financially.”

  I attempted to be entrepreneurial. “Well, we do have a cash crop.”

  He ignored me and slid the clipboard under his arm. “What’s Mister Greenjeans saying?”

  “That he grew it for personal use.”

  The Basquo looked around the room at the product, his dark eyes narrowing. “You’re kidding?” He shook his head in disbelief. “This is a high-profit, elevated narcotic value crop—sinsemilla.”

  I had a hard-fought knowledge of drugs, but my education was full of holes. “How can you tell?”

  “All female plants. I’d say Duane’s been hiding his light under a bush, so to speak. The cultivator has to be able to tell the male plants early in development and remove them, then by controlling the light regimen you hyperstimulate the female plants into producing buds.” He looked around at the jungle that surrounded us again. “Like these.”

  I was pleased that a little of the old light was back in Sancho’s eyes. It was possible that I could shut down the make-believe case of the missing thumb. “So what you’re saying is that Duane’s not just a pot grower, but the Johnny Appleseed of pot growers.”

  “He’s using advanced cloning techniques, root enhancement hormones, and a lot of other stuff I’ve never seen.”

  The water was still on in the shower. “Ozzie, are you all right in there?”

  His voice sounded over the noise in the metal stall. “Yes.”

  “Well, hurry it up; we’ve only got so much hot water in the building.” I turned back to the Basquo. “You don’t think Duane’s smart enough to do this on his own, do you?”

  “I don’t think he’s smart enough to tip cows.”

  “How about Gina?”

  He leaned on the other bathroom door facing. “Between the two of them, they might be able to tip cows. Boss, he was using high-intensity discharge lighting, industrial-grade humidifiers, ozone generators, and CO2 flow valves; there’s about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment alone down in that tunnel.”

  “Couldn’t he have used the profits from an earlier crop to purchase all this stuff?”

  He plucked the clipboard from under his arm, took a manila envelope from it, and handed it to me. “Receipts for all the equipment from a botanical supply company in Miami—all bought at the same time, six months ago.”

  “Why in the world would he keep the receipts for the equipment?”

  “They were hanging on the wall in the tunnel along with the warranties, all of them registered.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope, I guess he figured if something went wrong with the equipment . . .”

  I pulled a few of the slips out and looked at the dates. “You think somebody fronted the entire operation?”

  “It sure looks like it.”

  The water continued to run in the bathroom, and I knocked on the door. “Ozzie?”

  It took a moment, but he responded. “Yes?”

  “Hustle it up.”

  I worked my way through the receipts. “I had a nice visit with your wife and Antonio yesterday.” I tried to make it as innocent a statement as I could, so I added, “We had tea.”

  He studied the concrete floor. “I should have warned you—she likes tea.”

  “Hmm.” I stood there listening to Ozzie’s shower.

  “I don’t think my son likes me.”

  Once again, he didn’t use the boy’s name, but it was an opening that I wasn’t about to let pass. “Why is that?”

  “He cries whenever I’m around.”

  I stuffed the receipts back in the envelope. “I wouldn’t take it too seriously; babies are odd that way and pick up all kinds of anxiety from their parents. A lot of times a stranger can hold them, and they just stop crying. Maybe it’s because it’s someone different, and they can sense that there are no expectations; I don’t know. I’m not sure sometimes if my daughter likes me, and she’s in her late twenties.”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “I offered you a raise.”

  He looked up. “Through Marie?”

  “Yep.”

  “How much?”

  “Another two thousand a year.”

  He didn’t seem all that impressed. “What’d she say?”

  I allowed myself a smile. “She said she didn’t do your thinking for you.” He laughed at that, and it was nice to see the old Sancho. I extended an arm and knocked again. “Ozzie?”

  No answer. The Basquo and I exchanged a look. “Ozzie?”

  I turned the knob and swung the door wide to reveal an empty bathroom with the water still running in the shower and the tiny bathroom window open to the outside. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  9

  It was the first time I’d put out an APB on a hundred-and-twenty-five-pound barefoot man dressed in a bathrobe.

  “You know, I leave you two alone for five fucking minutes . . .” Vic was giving us a tongue-lashing as we hustled through
the reception area. She snatched our radios from the charging station beside Ruby’s desk and handed them around.

  Ruby turned in her chair and looked at us with her phone receiver in hand. “Mrs. Dobbs wants to know if those clothes were the ones that Ozzie wanted?”

  I waved her off and continued down the steps with my two deputies flanking each side. “Tell her we’ll get back to her.”

  We blew through the doors and into a black glass wall of snow. I looked at the time and temperature on the Durant Federal sign across the street and noticed we’d warmed up to three degrees and that it was 4:45. He couldn’t have gone far barefoot.

  We circled to the right and the open window. We hadn’t bothered with bars since it was so small and high up and because I was practically the only one who used the shower.

  “How in the hell did he get through that?”

  I shot a look at her. “Determination.” There was a wallowed-out spot in the snow where Ozzie had landed and a clear set of footprints leading diagonally across the lawn toward the back door of the courthouse.

  The assessor’s office was immediately to the right with a recessed room for their maps, and there were two sets of stairs that led to the courtroom above, one to the right and one to the left. The county clerk’s office was down the hall, and the treasurer’s counter was opposite to the right with a set of glass doors leading out to Main Street.

  I looked up the steps. “If I was running around town with no shoes, a bathrobe, and a constitution like a hummingbird, I might stay inside, but that’s just me.”

  Saizarbitoria leapt up the staircase and in a second was gone. Vic disappeared into the maze of the assessor’s rooms, and I continued down the hall to the long counter in front of the treasurer’s office. There were lots of mimeographed slogans and pithy remarks taped to the wall—IF YOUDON’T LIKE THE SERVICE, LEAVE, or, PROCRASTINATION ON YOUR PART DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A PANIC ON OURS. The signs were exemplary of the Absaroka County Tax Mob’s attitudes toward uncivil service.

  The usually garrulous ladies were standing at their desks and chatting like birds on a wire. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen a man in a bathrobe run by here?”

  Trudy Thorburn, a diminutive blonde, pointed. “He went thatta way, Walt.”

  “Thank you.” I placed the ends of a thumb and middle finger in my mouth and whistled loud enough to rattle the lights that hung from the ceiling. “When my deputies get here, send them after me.”

  I plunged back into the cold and looked for prints, but the sidewalks had been cleared and salted so it was impossible to discern any.

  I could hear someone coming up behind me and turned to see Saizarbitoria at the top of the steps. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Vic arrived, and I spelled out the plan. “Sancho, head back up the hill; Vic and I will split Main. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but if you spot him, hit the radio.”

  We split up. Vic crossed the street to the Office Barbershop, Crazy Woman Bookstore, and Margo’s Pottery, any of which would have been an esoteric choice for a man in a bathrobe. As I carefully picked my way along the icy sidewalk, I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth Ozzie thought he was doing. Whatever the charges, it wasn’t going to look good that he’d escaped from custody—no matter how ludicrous that escape was.

  I bypassed the engineering firm and the Office as they had already closed for the day and ducked my head in the lobby of the Owen Wister Hotel. The dark-haired young woman who was seated at the table closest to the door was rolling silverware into napkins and looked up. “Hi, Walt.”

  “Hi, Rachael. Have you seen a guy in a bathrobe run by here?”

  She made a face. “Ozzie Dobbs?”

  “Where?”

  She placed the roll of silverware on the table and considered me. “He came in the door a few minutes ago and asked if he could use the phone there at the reception stand.”

  “Long distance or local?”

  She smirked at me. “And how would I know that?” “How many numbers did he dial?”

  She glanced sideways and thought. “Local.”

  “Anybody use it after Ozzie?”

  “No.”

  I studied the plastic phone. “This thing got a redial on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hit it and write down the number and hang up. When one of my deputies gets here, give it to them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks.” I started to go but stuck my head back in and pointed a finger at her. “And stop sliding sideways on my main street.”

  I continued on to the Busy Bee and paused on the sidewalk to look in the windows. There was an elderly couple sharing coffee at one of the tables, and Dorothy was holding a pot behind the counter, but other than that, the place was empty.

  I waved and continued across the Clear Creek bridge, tried the door at the Euskadi Hotel, but it was locked. The Copper Front had closed, but the Sportstop was still open.

  Dave looked up from the cash register, his owl-like eyes peering over his glasses. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for Ozzie Dobbs?”

  I made it to the counter in three steps. “Where?”

  “Bought a parka, a pair of hiking boots, and a Stoeger 20-gauge coach gun with a box of shells.” He threw a thumb toward the rear of the store. “And lit out for the territories.”

  “You sold a barefoot man in a bathrobe a shotgun?”

  His eyes focused as the humor of the situation died. “There’s no law against that, is there?”

  I dodged a few clothes racks and strode through the ski equipment in the direction of the back door. “What did he buy that stuff with?”

  “The man’s rich, so I figured his credit is good.” He was yelling now. “Was I wrong about that?!”

  We were playing a different game now. In whatever deranged state Ozzie was, he was armed now. I unsnapped my .45 Colt.

  I came out the back of the sporting goods store into one of the few alleys we had in Durant, and I started having bad thoughts about the last time I’d been in an alley and about headless Philadelphia assistant district attorneys but quickly ushered those memories out of my mind.

  There were a few abandoned garages just off Main Street and a boot repair place, but nowhere I thought Ozzie might hole up. I studied the tracks and could see where a new set of hiking boot prints crossed the street, went between two of the garages, and on toward the Little League field and the city park.

  I plucked the radio from my belt and turned it on, something I’d forgotten to do when I’d taken the thing. It squawked. “. . . And if you don’t tell us where you are right now, the first person I am going to shoot is you!”

  I keyed the mic. “I’m behind the Sportstop, headed over to the ball field. Tell Sancho to go get his unit, stop in at the Owen Wister, and pick up a phone number from Rachael Terry. You can both meet me at the corner near the grandstand or over in the park by the public pool. And in other news, he’s now armed.”

  Static. “What?”

  “He bought a 20-gauge coach gun and shells in his detour through the Sportstop.”

  Static. “Jesus. Only in Wyoming.”

  I punched the button. “Did you get that, Sancho? He’s armed.”

  Static. “Got it. You want me to skip the Owen Wister?” “No, he can’t be that far ahead of me, and I refuse to believe he’s dangerous to anybody but us.”

  Static. “That’s a fucking comforting thought.” I returned the radio to my belt as Vic’s voice went silent, assured that my kindly and courteous backup was on the way.

  He’d skirted the field and crossed the street into the park. I followed the chain-link fence that surrounded the Olympic-sized pool that had been drained for the winter, and then the tracks disappeared.

  I plucked the radio from my belt and keyed the mic again. “Vic?”

  Static. “I’m at the ball field, which way did you go?”

  “I’m across past the pool on the Clear Creek trail. Have Sancho drive around to the other sid
e of the park and check Fetterman and the Stage trail.” Santiago’s voice broke in.

  Static. “I’m getting the number now, and then I’ll head over. You want me to just keep circling?”

  “Yep.”

  There was a drivable bridge to my right, but something led me straight ahead. The public bathrooms were also to my right, but there were no fresh tracks. It had started to snow more heavily now, which figured, and it was like I was in one of those globes. I walked past the horseshoe pits and tried to see if there was a spot where he might’ve veered off, but the only prints I saw leading into the trees were those of a few loose dogs.

  I figured if Ozzie had called somebody to pick him up, they’d be on the other side of the park. Obviously, his mother wasn’t a part of the escape. Hell, she wanted him in prison. Who else was there? And why the shotgun? If he hadn’t called someone to give him a ride, who had he called and why?

  The banks of the creek had intricate, serrated shelves where the center of the stream had opened up to the rushing water below and held dripping stalactites like those in caves. The openings were large enough for a man to fall into, but he’d have to try—I knew, because I had about a year ago. The closer you got to the water, the louder the water became, but other than that, the place was silent.

  There was no one braving the absolute cold of the park and besides, within fifteen minutes, it would be completely dark. My hand automatically went to my belt, but I guess I’d left my Maglite on the seat of the truck. The old-fashioned streetlights helped brighten the falling snow but not much else. They were placed around a protected picnic area that led to a large footbridge, which angled between a playground and a day care center.

  I picked up his prints in their light. It looked as if he hadn’t hesitated and had crossed the bridge toward Klondike Drive and the portion of town that stretched along Highway 16 West and up the mountain.

  I hurried and crossed the bridge, pulled the radio from my belt, and hit the button. “Vic?”

  Static. “Yeah?”

  “When you get across the bridge, head right and check out the area around the day care. I don’t think he went that way, but I want to be sure.”