Joe Lesky.
I grabbed the phone from Ruby’s desk and punched in the number for the home. Jennifer Felson answered, and I asked her if Joe was on duty. “He was here a little while ago, but he got off at 8:00. Is there a problem?”
“Is he still around?”
“I’ll check.” I stood there with the phone in my hand. “Shelly saw Joe walk out of here with Lucian about twenty minutes ago.”
“If they show up, call me. Thanks, Jennifer.” I hung up and looked at Henry. Double Tough had woken up with all the commotion and was now standing with us. “He has been everywhere in this case.” I looked down at Ruby. “Where are Vic and Saizarbitoria?”
She stuttered. “There was a fender bender on the highway bypass.”
“Radio them and get them in here now. Joe Lesky’s out with Lucian.” I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head. “Where would they go?” I took another breath and thought out loud. “Where would Joe take him?”
It was the clearest I’d heard him speak since he had been shot. “Breakfast?”
I turned to Ruby on our way out. “Tell Vic and Saizarbitoria to meet us at the Bee.” As we started down the steps, I noticed that the methane foreman was accompanying us. I turned my head toward him so that I could see him with my uncovered eye. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
He smiled as he caught the door and allowed Henry to go through first. “I thought ya might need somebody who could both walk and talk.”
He had a point.
We pulled up alongside the Busy Bee, just as Vic’s unit slid to a stop beside us, only missing the front of my truck by inches. Her window was rolled down. “Joe Fucking Lesky?”
The place was packed as we flooded in, all the patrons freezing at the sight of an armed sheriff, two deputies, an Indian, and a construction worker; we probably looked like the Village People.
I caught Dorothy’s eye from behind the counter. “Lucian and Joe Lesky?”
You couldn’t ruffle her feathers with a brick. “Haven’t seen them.”
We regrouped on the sidewalk, and I started breaking it down. “Vic, you and Double Tough go to the home and wait. If they show up, just tell Joe that we’ve got some papers for him at the office. Try not to tip him off but bring him in no matter what.” They left in Vic’s unit as I turned to Saizarbitoria. “Santiago, get Ferg and do a perimeter. Radio the HPs and tell them to stop anything heading south on I-25 and that we’re looking for Lucian and Joe Lesky.” I tossed him the keys to the Bullet, and he was gone.
I turned to look down Main Street and then back at the Bear. I thought for a long moment. “I’ve got a question for you.” He didn’t say anything. “What makes us think that Joe took Lucian?” I looked back down the street at the Euskadi Hotel sign. “What if Lucian took Joe?”
“Mornin’ Lucian. Joe…”
I limped the twenty feet to the table; Lucian was facing me as I came in, the old gunfighter to the end. Joe had his back to the door but turned and lightly smiled as I entered. There were two cups of coffee on the table, but it looked like Joe was the only one drinking. Lucian’s hat was off and placed on the chair beside him with the brim down, which struck me as strange. The old sheriff looked relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded in his lap. Joe had his elbows resting on the table. Neither of them had their coats on, both were hanging from their chairs, and the jukebox was playing Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanian’s “Ring Those Christmas Bells.”
I hobbled past them to the bar back and poured myself a cup of coffee and gently placed it on a saucer. Coffee bought ten minutes. I raised a cup to Henry, who had stayed back by the door. He shook his head no. As I stalled at the bar, trying to think how I was going to play this, I thought of the mixture of excitements the next few minutes could unleash.
“What happened to your leg?” Joe was looking at me, but he was also glancing at Henry and his bandaged face. “And what happened to you?”
I shuffled back over to their table, turned one of the bentwood chairs around, and sat, giving me ready access to my sidearm and Joe. “Oh… we got shot.”
They were both staring at us now. Lucian the first to ask. “Who the hell shot ya?”
I studied the little vase on our table with its decorative plastic sprigs of holly and mistletoe, then trailed an arm over the back of the chair and took a sip of my coffee, my sore hand hardly fitting the delicate dinnerware of the Euskadi. “Leo Gaskell.” I kept my eyes on the old sheriff. “We’ve got him up at the hospital, and they’re patching him up.” Another Lazarus on the pile.
It was quiet for a moment, but then the music swelled with the false vibrancy and good humor of the season. “Who’s Leo Gaskell?”
I turned and looked at Joe Lesky. You had to give him credit; he was good. “Drug dealer from over in Fremont County; looks like he’s the one that hurt Anna Walks Over Ice.” May as well keep everybody alive. “He’s up there talking to the investigators now.”
Joe’s head nodded. He too was trying to buy time but in an establishment where nobody was selling. “Well, it’s good you got the guy that did it.”
“Yep.” The old sheriff was watching me very closely as I turned back to him and tried to get a read. “What’re you up to?”
“Doin’ some Christmas shoppin’.”
“The stores aren’t open yet.”
He looked back at Joe. “I got plenty a time.” He adjusted his hat on the seat of the chair beside him. Now I knew where the gun was.
Joe started to push off from the table. “Well, it sounds like you fellas have a lot to…” Out of the corner of my good eye, I could see Henry’s hands move from his pockets.
“Sit.” It was the soft voice he used when he would ask me if I really wanted to make a move in our chess games, the warning voice that sounded like the guttural vibration in the back of a cougar’s throat. Joe eased back into his chair, and I turned to Lucian.
We looked at each other like we had for decades, a blind man talking to a deaf one. There was a line that neither of us was able to cross: his sneering at my supposed weakness and my righteous indignation at his immorality. I was sure that the chasm between us was a generational one. Lucian’s world was simpler, and he was unable to see that law enforcement had become complicated in the modern era; or was it that he was so close, so much of a part of the whole mess, that he had lost perspective on it long ago? Charlie Nurburn hung out there like a reoccurring nightmare and in Charlie’s child and his child’s child.
I guess the heat was getting to Joe, because he felt compelled to interrupt. “We were just having a little conversation somewhere quiet.” His voice was a little unsteady. “I came across some information I thought might interest Lucian.”
I glanced back as Lucian pulled his pipe from one jacket pocket and the beaded leather pouch from the other. The tension eased but only a little. “I got some information, too.” Lucian filled his pipe and struck a match on the side of his chair. “I, um…” He sucked on his pipe until he got it going, the thick plume of smoke roiling from the corner of his mouth. “Beebee Banks was visitin’ her mother over at the home. Walt, she told me to tell you she found out who had that little Baroja girl’s bakery building before she did.” The smile played on his face like a reflection on moving water. “Why, it was Joe here.”
Like the motor drive on an automatic shutter, I counted six different stills as my head rotated to Joe, like six separate heartbeats. “Don’t move.”
The weight of it was in the room with us now like a cold cloud-burst had suddenly let loose; the rain of recognition was dripping from all of us and, as I saw Joe’s hand slip from the table, I was positive that of the four men in the room, three had guns. I saw the Bear move, but I was closer.
The bones in his wrist crunched with a nauseating give, and I finally got a look at the Joe Lesky that had been so carefully hidden from me as, with a snarl of rage, he tried to twist and pull away. My left held, but I wasn’t going to t
rust it to do the job alone. His expression changed as the cold barrel of the. 45 pressed up under his jaw, forcing his head back to where he had to look over the contours of his face to see me.
I took a deep breath. “I said, don’t move.”
I watched as his nostrils spread, and he pulled air in like a bellows. “Let go of my wrist!”
“I don’t hardly think so.” I eased the pressure of the. 45 and allowed his head to lower enough so that I could see his expression. I thought of an old drill sergeant who had told me that a professional is the one who always has his gun. I risked a glimpse to the right, around the damn eye patch, and saw the long-barreled. 38 of Lucian’s duty revolver extended across the table eight inches from Joe’s face.
I looked back at Joe, who was glancing at his coat and thinking about trying the reach with his left. “You do, and I will splatter your brains all over the pressed tin ceiling.” His eyes came back to mine. “Now I’m going to place your hands back on this table, and you are not going to move them, do you understand?”
I swept my hand behind him, lifting his coat and throwing it to Henry. I pulled my cuffs from my belt. “Put those on.”
“You broke my wrist.”
“Put those on.” He pressed the one loop through and delicately placed it around his damaged wrist, only partially locking it as I counted only three notches that clicked. “All the way.”
He looked at me. “It hurts.”
“So will the. 45.” He clicked it again and then did the other hand as specified. I leaned back and took another deep breath as I pulled the Colt away from the underside of Joe’s chin. I turned my head, so that I could see Lucian with the inside of my good eye. “You all right?”
“I ain’t the one without a gun, if that’s what ya mean.”
I looked back at Joe. His eyes shifted from me, to Lucian, and then back to me. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not saying anything until I talk to a lawyer.”
Lucian snorted. “What makes you think that you’re gonna see a lawyer?”
My voice sounded a long way away, like it was coming from the land of reason. “Lucian.”
The old sheriff ’s hand didn’t move, and the extended barrel of the Smith and Wesson stayed even with Joe’s eyes. “I aim to kill this son of a bitch, right here and right now.” He pulled the pipe from his mouth and blew a strong lungful of smoke away from us. The pounding of “Ring Those Christmas Bells” continued as the jukebox charged on.
I cleared my throat and swallowed. “Lucian, I’m going to need you to lower your weapon.”
He gestured toward Joe with the stem of his pipe. “You killed my wife.”
I needed to buy some more time. I studied Joe. “When did you find out that Charlie Nurburn was dead?” He didn’t move, but his eyes switched from Lucian to me. “I’m betting that you knew he was dead by the time you contacted Leo. I guess you figured that Lucian here had kept Charlie alive for fifty-odd years and there was no reason why you couldn’t keep him alive for a little while longer or at least until you could get a share of Mari’s money.”
He didn’t move. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His tongue flicked across his lips. “Walt, you’ve known me…”
“No I don’t.” I leaned in on the back of my chair. “Did you kill Mari Baroja before you got Leo over here? You knew you could get him to kill Lana and Lucian, certainly Anna, but he didn’t kill them all, did he? And you didn’t do so well with Isaac.”
I was tired, and I wanted it all over with, but there was so much more to tell. “Leo tried to save his grandmother; he was hurt and was going to run for it but you knew we were down on the old Nurburn place. You were the one that shot Wes Rogers, and then you sent Leo down there in the cruiser even though you knew we were waiting and either way, you figured this problem would solve itself.” I kept the. 45 leveled between Joe’s eyes. “What were you going to do, Joe? Blame it all on Leo?”
His voice was strained. “I want a lawyer.”
Lucian exhaled, his arm still extended. “Best you can hope for is a priest, and that right soon.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
I looked into Joe’s eyes, trying to see some common ground between us, but there was nothing there. I glanced back at his rumpled coat, hanging from Henry’s hand. “If I go over there and pull a. 32 automatic from your coat pocket, and it makes a ballistic match with the gun that shot Wes Rogers, I can start proving a lot.”
I reached into the pocket of my jacket and lay the Christmas ornament on the table, face up. I slowly pushed it toward Joe, where the visible part of the man’s face in the photograph matched the man in front of me. “Never mind all the others… he was your son, Joe. How could you do that to your child?”
The old sheriff cocked the revolver.
I could see the lanyard ring at the base of the pistol’s butt, the loop that used to attach Lucian’s old service revolver to his belt in the style of the cavalry riders so that they wouldn’t lose their sidearms while mounted. Like Lucian, this morning it was untethered, out there in the wind where bad things could and would happen. “Lucian, you know what it is Joe here was getting ready to tell you. Whether it was as a bartering chip or leverage, you can’t do what you were planning to do because you’re not alone in this anymore.” He blinked, and I could see the welling in his eyes as Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians took the Christmas train home amid four-part harmony.
I saw his trigger finger tighten, and the legendary grip squeeze the wooden handle like a lifeline. The best I could hope for was to knock it away with my own gun, flip the table, or throw myself sideways into him. In the split second I was thinking this, Lucian swung the revolver around and emptied it with five thundering reports into the shuddering and now forever silent jukebox. He tossed the empty. 38 back onto the table where it clattered and spun with its barrel pointed at an absolutely immobile Joe Lesky. Lucian’s voice was low and weak in the silence. “Jesus H. Christ… I always hated that damn thing.”
EPILOGUE
The sounds the piano made were soft and just a little melancholy, with a poetic lyricism that matched the surroundings. Henry was planted behind the bar; Bill McDermott was dancing with Lana Baroja; Saizarbitoria was dancing with his wife, Marie; and Cady was dancing with our newest Powder Junction deputy, Double Tough. Dog was curled up by the piano; he had already called it a night, the shaved portion of his middle and the bandages on his head and abdomen making him look like a stuffed animal.
I made the musical bridge and cut in with an improvisational riff that paused the dancers but held my attention for a while longer. My fingers felt stiff, but I was loosening up. My eye patch was gone, and there was no serious damage to the cornea; my vision was a little blurred on the right, but Vic was to my left. I kept sneaking glances at her, still a little startled by her civilian clothes. She was wearing a short black dress and black cowboy boots with embroidered red roses and blue leaves. With the turquoise and silver chandelier earrings, it was western, with just a touch of gypsy insouciance thrown in for good measure.
There was brief applause as I reached for my beer and nodded in acknowledgment toward the dance floor alongside the pool table. I shifted my weight and leaned against the wall, looking over at Henry and signaling the jukebox. I had only played a half dozen songs, but my fingers hurt, and I needed a little relief.
Vic took a sip of her dirty martini and shrugged as the wind continued to batter the outside of the bar. Another storm had come in from the Arctic Circle and had dropped about eight inches of snow. The Ferg had volunteered for duty, but so far there hadn’t been any phone calls; it was the kind of holiday we liked, where the weather was so bad that the populace stayed in, including Ruby and Isaac, who had elected to stay home to avoid the amateurs who might have decided to drive.
“How’s your leg?”
“Still not up to dancing.”
“Nobody asked.” She glanced over her shoulder at my daughter
. “Cady flying out tomorrow?”
“If the weather’s decent.”
“Air Omar?”
I nodded and took the opportunity to watch her for a moment, like I always did when she wasn’t aware. “You got two new deputies for Christmas.” She stayed turned to the dance floor, watching Saizarbitoria, and tipped the delicate stem of her glass for another sip. “He’s a dark horse, but he’s sharp and he works hard.”
I took another sip of my beer. “The wife is nice.”
“Whatever.”
I smiled behind her back. “What about the hillbilly?”
Her head pivoted a little as she watched Double Tough, who was still dancing with Cady. “He’s durable.”
“That he is.”
She turned back around. “All right, so Joe got his name from the priest in Casper. Where did Leo get his?”
“Foster parents in Fremont County.”
She nodded. “Joe brought Leo over for the job after he laid the groundwork by keeping Charlie Nurburn alive?”
“Basically continuing Lucian’s efforts in hopes of getting a percentage for himself, but who knows? It looks like he was ready to kill half of Absaroka County to get what he thought he deserved.”
“What about Anna Walks Over Ice?”
“We found an unfinished letter at her house, in Crow.” I glanced toward Henry. “She outlined the whole situation; she had seen Joe add something to Mari Baroja’s Metamucil that night.” I took another sip of my beer. “I guess she just wasn’t sure enough, at the time, to accuse him, and then with Leo it was too late.”
She stared at the piano and tentatively reached out for a key. “Very understanding of you.”
I looked at my friend with the bandaged face; he was still mixing drinks behind the bar. “I didn’t have to kill him.”
In the dim glow of the stained glass of the billiard’s light and the Rainier beer advertisements, my chief deputy looked like some courtly renaissance woman, the kind that would poison your wine. “It’s Tuesday night. He’s probably got the board out.”
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