Death Without Company wl-2

by Craig Johnson

  “Dark as the inside of a cow in here.” He sniffed. “Smells funny.”

  “It’s a supply closet.” I heard him rustling around and smelled the tobacco pouch he had just unzipped. “Don’t even think about loading up that pipe and smoking it.”

  He continued, “Tryin’ to improve the environment.”

  “And Leo Gaskell will smell it from halfway down the hallway.”

  He zipped up the beaded pouch, for now. “Who the hell is this Gaskell person, anyway?”

  “Please keep your voice down?” I leaned my shoulder against the doorjamb and tried to find a comfortable position. “We’re pretty sure he’s the one that tried to drown you in your bathtub.” I let that one settle in for a while. He didn’t say anything. “Leo Gaskell may be related to Ellen Runs Horse. That name mean anything to you?” He still didn’t say anything, so I turned around and looked at him. “Maybe Ellen Walks Over Ice?”

  He was sitting with his real leg propped up over the fake one, staring at the tobacco pouch and pipe sitting in his lap. “Yep, Anna’s sister.”

  “Did you know she had a kid with Charlie Nurburn?”

  “Yep. I was a deputy, for Christ sake.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, while we’re on the subject?”

  He exhaled deeply. “Kid’s dead.”

  I continued watching him in the thin strip of light from the partially open door. “Charlie Nurburn’s illegitimate son died?”

  “Yep.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me.”

  “Ellen Runs Horse?” He nodded but didn’t look up. “Saizarbitoria couldn’t find any reference to Ellen Walks Over Ice or any children at the courthouse.”

  “It was an illegitimate, half-breed kid born and died of cholera in Acme in 1950, and you think there were gonna be certificates?” He snorted and stuffed his pipe full.

  I decided to let him smoke; maybe it might occupy his mouth. “I’m working on a motive, and I was trying to put together a connection between Leo Gaskell and the Barojas, but if Charlie and Ellen’s kid died, then there isn’t any way to connect the two. I was working under the assumption that Leo might be the grandson, since he had one of Charlie Nurburn’s pistols.” He lit the pipe, and I had to admit that it smelled better. I watched him in the half-light, the smoldering embers of the pipe glowing red in the dark closet. “Lucian, where did you bury Charlie Nurburn?”

  A second passed. “Yer just not gonna let that go, huh?”

  “I think Leo Gaskell may have found him.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Yer shittin’ me.” He chewed on that one for quite a while. His dark eyes blinked, he took the pipe from his mouth, and pointed with the stem across the hall. “Who you got in the room?”

  “Henry Standing Bear.”

  “Well hell… if he gets in there ol’ Ladies Wear’ll cut him from cock to crown with a dull deer antler and save the taxpayers some money.”

  Lucian had a way with Indian names that was nothing short of creative. I started to respond, but the air caught in my throat for a second, and we both remained absolutely still. There were voices at the end of the hall, this time they came from Saizarbitoria’s direction, and they were growing louder. I had forgotten that the door opened to the inside of the closet, and two sheriffs with a collective three legs trying to get out offered a variety of excitement.

  Once we finally made it, I could see Vic talking to a man whom they had against the wall beside the stairwell door. Santiago had the man’s arm in a reverse wristlock high at the middle of his back with his feet pulled out and spread so that his weight was against the partition. Vic had holstered her Glock, and it looked as if she was trying to keep from smiling.

  As Lucian followed me down the hallway, I noticed a potted poinsettia and a card lying on the floor and scooped them up. I stopped a couple of yards away and called off the armada. “Let him go.” Sancho did, and Vic stepped behind Saizarbitoria so that he couldn’t see that she was trying not to laugh out loud. “Joe, what the hell are you doing here?”

  He cleared his throat and gestured to the card and plastic-wrapped flowers I held. “We were just glad that Anna was all right, and we all chipped in.” He glanced around again and then over to Saizarbitoria’s empty wheelchair. “Do you mind if I sit down, I think I might be having a little trouble…”

  Santiago holstered his weapon and held the chair as Joe sat. I thought he might be having a heart attack but then noticed the dark spot on Joe’s pants. I glanced over to Vic and she nodded, knowing I would want to speak with Santiago. I looked back down to Joe. “How about we get you to the bathroom, then we can talk?”

  He folded his hands across his lap and nodded, his face pale and his hands trembling. “That would be good.”

  I watched as Vic wheeled the poor man down the hall toward the bathrooms near the nurse’s station and turned to the Ferg, Lucian, and Saizarbitoria. “What happened?”

  “He came out of the stairwell, and I spoke to him, but he didn’t stop, so I bumped him, and he started yelling like a mad man.”

  Great. I glanced to the elder statesman. “What are you smiling about?”

  Lucian responded, of course. “Well, as incapable as this outfit may look, we’re still able to scare the piss outta the local gentry.”

  I shook my head, turned, and made my way back down the hallway to Henry’s room. He was at the door when I got there with the handle of the tomahawk palmed against his forearm as he leaned against the opening. I noticed that the surface of the thing absorbed light. He seemed perfectly relaxed. “False alarm?”

  I was about to speak when the walkie-talkie at my belt began to vibrate.

  13

  I jerked my head up and looked down the hall at Ferg and Saizarbitoria as they stared from their belts to me. I searched in the other direction, but Vic had disappeared around the corner; when I got back to Henry all he said before shutting the door in my face was “Go.”

  “Santiago, throw the blanket over your shoulders and stay there till Vic gets back with the wheelchair. Lucian, get in the closet, and Ferg come with me.” I charged down the hall and almost collided with Vic and the wheelchair as I turned the corner at the nurse’s station. “You vibrate?”

  “Yeah, and it was very exciting.”

  “Where’s Joe Lesky?”

  She was already past me and had forced Ferg to sidestep in the hallway to escape being run over. “First stall in the men’s room; I told him that if he stirred, I’d kneecap him.”

  I glanced over at the Ferg, who shrugged. “Sounds like the perimeter’s secure.”

  I pointed to his previous spot on the bench. “Sit.” He smiled and hurried by as I went for the supply closet and ran the door into Lucian, who had already manned his post.

  “Jesus H. Christ!”

  “Damn it, Lucian. Move over.”

  “I am over!”

  I squeezed past the door and sat on half my chair. “Shhh…”

  “I ain’t the one talkin’, goddamn it.” I turned and gave him the proverbial dirty look.

  It was quiet in the hallway, so Vic must have stayed with Saizarbitoria. I could hear the hospital heating system and Lucian’s aggravated breathing, which had subsided into a regular pattern. I waited and strained my ears, but there was nothing to hear. I went back over the plan and ran through the usual litany of doubts. What were the chances that Leo Gaskell would come straight to the room? Would he be smart enough to check the clipboard we had casually left on the counter at the nurse’s station with Anna Walks Over Ice’s name listed for Room 216? Or, had he asked Ruby what room Anna was in? If he did, there would be an older gentleman seated in one of the hallway chairs with a shopping bag between his legs seemingly falling asleep. At the end of the hall would be a small, dark-haired general practitioner assisting a patient to his room and, if he looked close enough, a supply closet door barely ajar.

  I waited twenty minutes and then
started thinking about my options. I could continue to wait, or I could blow the whole operation and go do a little clear and hold. For some reason, Leo had decided to take his time and, for my money, that made him infinitely more dangerous. Leo was developing tactics. He owed the state at least two lives; I doubted he was keeping score. That was okay, I was.

  Lucian had fallen asleep.

  I stood, and he stirred. “What?”

  I smiled at my old mentor as he craned his wrinkled neck, the one I had thought of wringing on and off for quite some time. “Nothing. I’m going out for a little walk.”

  He watched me and nodded. “Lasted longer than I would have.”

  Praise from Caesar. “You want a gun?”

  Silly question. He put a hand out as I unsnapped the. 45 and handed it to him. “You got one in the pipe.”

  “What are you gonna use, harsh language?”

  I glanced out the crack in the doorway. “I’ll get the shotgun from Ferg.” I looked back into the darkness at the old sheriff and my gun. “Don’t shoot me if I come back.”

  It was blinding in the hallway, but it felt good to stretch my back. I looked down the hall at Vic and Saizarbitoria; they looked competent and questioning as I held a finger to my lips. I pointed at them and looped a forefinger and thumb into an okay. They nodded, and I stepped across the hall. I knocked twice and opened the door a little. I waited a second then spoke into the black. “Henry?”

  “What are you doing?” It was a scolding tone.

  “I’ve got a feeling.”

  “Oh, goodie.” There was a deep sigh.

  I closed the door and started for Ferg’s position. He checked in both directions as I stopped just short of the intersecting corridor. I took a look for myself, stepped across, and knelt down beside him. “Got your sidearm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cock it and put it in the bag, I’m going to borrow your shotgun.”

  “Going huntin’?”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you want to do about Joe Lesky?”

  I glanced over in the direction of the bathroom. “He made any noise?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “You reckon Vic gave him a heart attack?”

  “She does me.”

  As I checked the short-barreled shotgun, the Ferg went over to the bathroom door and reassured Joe. When he came back, I slipped down the opposite direction and checked the only other wing on the second floor. There were no doors ajar, so unless I was going to do a room-to-room search, all that was left was the stairwell at the end of this hallway. There were heavy metal doors with thick, wire-reinforced windows set on a diagonal. I peered through as I passed, casually swung the door open, and held the shotgun ready.

  Nobody.

  I could go down and check the short entryway that led to the elevators, or I could continue from here to the first floor. The entry corridor would have been easily visible from Ferg’s location, so I decided to drop down through the stairwell. I eased the door shut and glanced through the four runs of stairs to the concrete floor of the basement below. I hated basements.

  When I got to the first floor there was a set of tracks leading down the steps. I placed my foot next to the prints and knelt down to look at them. The prints were of a different brand than the ones that had been left in the snow at the home, but they were larger than mine. Different shoes, but it was the same foot.

  I decided to forgo the conversation with Ruby that I had planned and continued down the stairs to the next security door, which was labeled, in large red letters, HOSPITAL PERSONNEL ONLY. I eased open the heavy door and looked down the corridor toward a steel screen-encaged bulb that hung about halfway down and that gave off a weak yellowish light. The footprints feathered away on the smooth sheen of the chemically coated concrete, and my only clue abandoned me.

  I quietly closed the stairwell door and moved along the wall to the first door on the right. I reached across and turned the knob. Locked.

  I glanced into the darkness between the next bulb and myself, another twenty feet away. The second door was on my side and an equal distance from the first. I moved along the wall and tried the knob. It was stiff but turned and opened. I glanced in, but the room was dark. I felt along the wall and flipped a switch. It was a storage room with cut-down trays and medical cabinets. There were sterile dressings, bandages, and utility carts, but no Leo Gaskell, so I flipped off the light and quietly closed the door.

  I thought I might have heard a noise, but I couldn’t be sure. I stood there for a moment, listening to the constant thrum of the building as it continued to go about its business of life and death. Join the club.

  The next door was locked as well, but I could see from here where the hallways joined at the center, just as they did on the two main floors. There were large pipes sticking from the wall that returned and disappeared into the concrete, and there was a little more light coming from the adjoining hallway. An old metal desk, crowded with papers and folders, was shoved against the wall. There was a chair kicked out to the side, and a faint set of boot prints where whoever had come down the stairwell had sat and waited.

  Waited for what? Waited for whom?

  It had been a while since I’d checked in, so I plucked the walkie-talkie from my belt. It was a calculated move, but I felt pretty sure about it. I switched the transceiver to silent so the only indicator would be the LED gain that hopefully one of my staff would notice. I hit the button. I hit the button again, clicking it off and on. Still nothing. I hit it one more time and got a response. “Where the fuck are you?” Good thing I had turned the volume down. “See anything?”

  “Footprints, you?”

  “Nothing. Do you need backup?”

  “No.”

  It was silent for a moment. “You suck.”

  The bottom drawer on the right-hand side was slightly ajar. I stooped and pulled out an impressive ring of keys, each one numbered and color coded with small plastic edges indicating the floor and wing of each. Why would someone leave an entire set of master keys in an unlocked drawer in the basement? I quickly flipped through the sequential numbers to Anna’s supposed room, each key clicking like an abacus. Key number 216 was missing. I entertained a dark series of thoughts as ice water flooded my bowels, and I turned the keys to the 100 series and found that key 132 was also gone.

  The initial response must have been that my left hand pulled the fore grip back, moving the action bar and bolt assembly of the Remington Model 870 back into a cocked position. This same hand must have then come forward as I dropped the keys and slammed a plastic shell with slightly imperfect and deformed buckshot into the action and locked it for fire. Then my right forefinger must have punched the safety through the mechanism, because it did not fire as I lurched forward, pushed the desk back, and ran into the darkness.

  I must have chosen the far passageway because it would give me a clear shot from the stairwell to the end of the corridor. I know it took no longer than a few seconds for me to make it down the hall, through the door, and up the stairs, but in the adrenalin-induced state it had all shifted into a hazed torpor. All I remember was yanking the door open to the first floor with the shotgun ready.

  My father had trained me; he was a precise and persistent shooting instructor who started teaching me when I was five. Most people are self-taught; they don’t shoot enough to acquire skill or even become used to handling guns. They stand wrong, hold their heads wrong, and even close one eye when they sight, thus cutting down vision and handicapping themselves in their ability to judge distance.

  Thirty-five yards.

  I clicked the safety off. “Sheriff’s Department. Freeze!”

  Only his head turned to me; his hands remained on the knob. He smiled with horrible teeth, and drew his shoulder back.

  I knew that I would make the shot, just as I was sure that there was a. 38 caliber revolver waiting on the other side of that door that was being held in a two-handed, standing position by a ste
ady hand with a set of beautifully manicured nails. At thirty-five yards the 12-gauge would more than hurt him, but at eight feet the. 38 would kill him. It wasn’t that I minded Leo dead all that much, but I didn’t want Cady to do it.

  As his shoulder came forward so did mine, and I fired.

  Contrary to popular belief, even the most powerful of modern loads and weapons only cause the target to slump and fall; Leo’s attempt to push the door open was converted into an assisted collapse into the doorjamb where his knees buckled for a moment. He straightened as he turned to glare at me.

  “Sheriff’s Department, don’t move!”

  He did, of course, and transferred his weight into a galloping retreat down the corridor. One foot slightly dragged behind the other in his attempt to get away. I pushed off and started to pursue him. He was moving fast, especially for a man with a couple of extra ounces of lead in him. There were fire exits at the end of the hallways at Durant Memorial, but he turned the corner leading to the front entrance and disappeared in the direction of the desk and Ruby.

  I am not the fastest man in Absaroka County; I knew I wasn’t even the fastest man in the hospital right now, but I was going to have to do. I tried to make the corner at the entryway and bounced off the far wall in time to see the pneumatic doors at the front of the hospital slowly close. Ruby was standing at the reception desk waving me on as I approached. “Go! Go!”

  I slammed through the two sets of doors and onto the sidewalk. Surely they had heard the shotgun up on the second floor; I was going to need backup. He had changed direction and was running the length of the hospital toward the snow-covered golf course and the town park that were located beyond the drifts that had been plowed against the parking lot’s chain-link fence.

  Sixty yards, and I was keeping pace.

  The air was cold, and each step felt as if I were pushing a car. I cursed my laziness at not running for the last few weeks but watched with satisfaction as Leo slipped on the man-size mountains of plowed snow and crashed into the fence. I started to bring the shotgun up but, incredibly, his hands clutched the twisted top of the railing, and he threw himself over and into the darkness beyond; I was convinced he wasn’t human.