Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson

  “I talked to his wife, and she called him. He works at the welding shop up by the high school, but he’ll be here in about five minutes.” I nodded. “Hey, you don’t look so good.”

  I took another breath to quell not so much the nausea but the anger and watched as my hands shook. “I found Anna Walks Over Ice.”

  12

  Vic was looking at me like I was a crazy person. I hadn’t liked Jess Aliff’s answers. We were standing by one of the compression stations about four miles from everything with the propane engines running in the wind at full blast. It was loud, but I had been louder.

  The snow was the stinging stuff that was whisking across the high plains at thirty miles an hour. It was as if the weather had decided to change from bad to worse after I had found Anna Walks Over Ice in the trash can. The anger I felt was like the wind; rage has no place in law enforcement, and I stand fast against it the majority of the time, but it is there, waiting for fissures of passion, waiting for me to slip, and I just had.

  The gist of my outburst had been that I wasn’t particularly concerned if Leo Cecil Gaskell/Keller was chairman of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission, I wanted his ass and now. According to the foreman, Leo was in a crew that was working in the fields farther south, but he wasn’t sure exactly where. I had asked him if they had radios. He said they did, but that they only worked about half the time. I informed him that this time better be the half that worked.

  It was a stubby trailer, the kind that was usually used for hunting. I was the last one in; Vic stood in the little kitchenette, and Aliff sat at the fold-down table where he pulled a radio from a holder on the wall. He looked much as he had the day he had told me about being shot. The condensation from his breath had hardened in his beard and was now dripping onto the Formica-covered table and the assortment of papers that lay there. I stroked my own beard and wiped my hand on my jeans. I started feeling bad about yelling at the man; he likely held no great love for Leo Gaskell either.

  “I’m going to need an address for Mr. Gaskell, if you’ve got one.” He tore down a sheet that was taped to the wall and handed it to me. “When was the last time you saw Leo?”

  He stared at the table. “ ’Bout two days ago. We had a meetin’.”

  “Did he act suspiciously in any way?”

  The foreman looked at me. “Nope, I mean, he was like he always is.”

  Vic interrupted. “And how is that?”

  “Swings back an’ forth. Sometimes he’s so quiet you don’t even know he’s there, ’n’ other times he’s jus’ crazy.”

  “I guess one of the crazy times is when he shot you?”

  “Yeah.” He slumped against the bench seat of the trailer. “He wanted to borrow some equipment from the company, an’ that’s against the rules.”

  “What kind of equipment?”

  He shook his head, as if to dislodge the information. I was actually starting to like the guy. “A truck.”

  Vic and I looked at each other as he picked up the mic from the clip on the side of the radio. “Station BR75115 this is 75033, do you copy?” We listened as the waves of noise lapped against the antenna. “If they ain’t in the trailer or in a vehicle, we ain’t gonna get ’em.”

  There was a burst of static; the foreman caught it and began dialing the squelch up to where it was just below constant. “Come in BR75115, this is 75033. Johnny, it’s the boss. Y’all there?”

  “BR75033 this is 75115, over?”

  The foreman keyed the mic. “Johnny, is Cecil down there?”

  Static. “He said he was supposed to go to field storage yesterday and then work with you guys.”

  Aliff turned to look at me. “Well, shit. Field storage is where we keep all the heavy equipment when it ain’t in use.”

  It was the second time that day that I had stood looking at a space where a large thing wasn’t where it was supposed to be. “Where would he get the keys?” He nodded toward yet another stubby trailer that was parked by the opening of the chain-link fence next to the highway. I could see that the door of the camper was hanging slightly open. The door had been jimmied; it appeared that Leo Gaskell had a signature tool for all occasions. When we got inside, we discovered that he had also forced open the door of the lockbox. The foreman leaned in and examined the labeled hook where the missing key had hung. “Mack, CVH613.”

  Vic was trying to close the door behind us, and I watched as her breath billowed from the doorway. “Is that big enough to pull a house trailer?”

  He nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s a tandem. Haul damn near anythin’.” He looked back to me. “I guess whatever Cecil or Leo’s done, you can add grand theft auto to it.”

  Vic half laughed. I turned back from her to the foreman. “Mr. Gaskell is a prime suspect in a number of recent homicides.” I always felt like a used car salesman when I did it, but I pulled out a card and handed it to him, watching carefully to see if he understood the gravity of the situation. “If you see or have any contact with him, I’ll need you to contact me immediately.” He nodded and stared at the floor; the wind continued to beat a tattoo with the loose door. “Is there something else you’d like to tell me?”

  He licked his lips and caught part of his mustache with his lower teeth. “Yeah, I reckon there is.” We waited as he gathered a thought and muttered under his breath, “Man, our ass is gonna be in trouble no matter which way you cut it. We dug somethin’ up, jus’ out of the canyon, near that little homestead.” He looked back up at me. “A body, an old one.”

  I straightened. “How old?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but there wasn’t much left of it.” He looked from Vic to me. “You know how this stuff works, you find ol’ Chief Whosiewatchee and pretty soon yer up to yer ass in archeologists and every tree-huggin’ son of a bitch in three states.” It didn’t sound good, even to him, so he kept talking. “I’m six weeks behind schedule, I can’t keep good people no matter what I pay ’em, the weather is bound and determined to kick my ass, and all of a sudden I’ve got a sack of bones on my hands?”

  I tried not to move or do anything that might keep him from talking. “What leads you to believe the bones are Indian?”

  “Well, they all are around here.”

  Vic was now standing beside me when she spoke. “What happened to them?”

  He didn’t speak, so I did. “Let me guess, Leo Gaskell?” He nodded. “How long ago was this?”

  “ ’Bout a week ago. Cecil . . . I mean Leo’s got the remains. I think he’s plannin’ on blackmail’n the company.” He looked at the dull surface of the table in front of him. “I guess I’m in a lotta trouble, huh?”

  “Probably, but not as much as Leo.” We all nodded.

  Aliff said he didn’t need a ride back. We pulled out onto the access road leading to the highway. Vic called in the APB on the truck, and we drove along in silence before she spoke again. “It’s him.”

  “It’s not him.”

  She leaned a little forward to try and catch my eye. “You just don’t want it to be him.” She pulled a leg up and half-turned toward me, signifying that this conversation was far from over. “Why do you not want it to be him?”

  I was getting angry again. “Because Charlie Nurburn never made anything better when he was alive, and I don’t think he’s going to turn into an asset now that his bones might have been unearthed.”

  She leaned back onto the passenger door and, after a moment, she crossed her arms. “Jesus, don’t get mad at me, I didn’t dig him up.” She turned and looked out the windshield, and it was very quiet in the cab. She looked like an unfinished oil painting with her profile against the whiteout window, where the artist hadn’t bothered with the background just yet. It was symbolic; there was no periphery with Vic.

  Here I was again, taking it out on the wrong person. The person I wanted to take it all out on was out there somewhere with a hundred-thousand-dollar Mack truck, a mobile home, a grandmother and, most likely, the bones of his grandfather. I con
sidered how weird life had gotten in the last week.

  “Charlie Nurburn . . . Charlie fucking Nurburn.” She continued to look through the glass as the frozen landscape slid by. “What are the chances? What are the chances that after fifty years . . .”

  I sighed. “Charlie Nurburn’s sense of timing, even in the afterlife, is impeccable.” I stared at the ice-covered highway and felt the surge of impending deliberation loosening the traction of my mind. “Let’s go through this carefully, all right?”

  I could hear the smile. “Someone finds out that they are the possible heir to millions and counting.”

  I swung the Bullet onto the approach ramp and headed back north. “No, they’re not. Illegitimate children don’t get anything. To get anything, you would need a living Charlie Nurburn, so that he could claim his elective share.”

  “So, you kill Mari?”

  I set my jaw. “And then you try and get rid of every person who knows Charlie Nurburn is dead.”

  She propped her snowy boots up on my dash and gave me a long look. “Finding the mortal remains would certainly queer the deal.” She shook her head. “Jesus.” She made a face. “By the way, I don’t see the finesse of poisoning being one of Leo Gaskell’s definitive skills.”

  “There is someone else.” I stared out the windshield for a while, and she let me. “Mari and Lana could be the money, but why kill Anna Walks Over Ice?”

  “What did Anna say in all those messages to Isaac Bloomfield?”

  I passed a ranch truck hauling hay as Vic continued looking at me. “Isaac’s Crow is a little rusty, so I had Henry listen to them and he said that she was upset, wanted to speak to Isaac, but there were no details. There has to be something, though. Her house was broken into.”

  She studied me. “So Anna heard or saw Leo do something.” I nodded. “Why move the trailer?”

  “Evidently, grandmother Ellen Runs Horse nee Walks Over Ice is a sentimental favorite, and he must have found out that we were looking for him.” My thoughts darkened past black as I thought of the trailer park. “Why leave Anna in a trash can where you know I’m going to find her?”

  It was quiet in the cab of the truck. “He doesn’t care, Walt. He’s jacked up on meth and bat-shit crazy. He did it before and got away with it. Hell, Mari Baroja killed somebody and got away with it. It’s in the blood.”

  I took a deep breath. “Those two aren’t related.”

  She continued to watch the snow through the windshield. “Blood’s in everybody.”

  When we got to the hospital, there was a dark green Excursion with Montana plates parked in one of the official spots, and the small blessing of my day was that Bill McDermott had arrived with the body of Mari Baroja right when I needed him for the body of Anna Walks Over Ice.

  I parked the truck and looked at Vic. “You want to go over to the other wing and bring Cady and Henry over here? The meeting must be over by now.”

  “Sure. Are we going to check out Gaskell’s address, or what?” I handed her the folded sheet from my shirt pocket that gave Leo’s address as 23 Evergreen Circle. She unfolded the paper and stared at it. “I guess from here it gets serious.”

  I studied the steering wheel. “It was already serious.”

  Ferg was waiting for me outside the door of the autopsy room. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  I tried to smile. “McDermott inside?”

  “With Bloomfield and the new kid.” The Ferg nodded. “He Mexican?”

  I was glad I wasn’t the only one. “Of sorts. Isaac’s assisting at Anna’s autopsy?”

  “Yeah.” The Ferg tugged on the bill of his cap. “Walt, I was there. At the Runs Horse place.”

  I took a second. “Twenty-three Evergreen Circle? Why?”

  “That big ol’ boy was the one that dumped that refrigerator and all that trash over at Healy Reservoir.”

  I waited a second before I asked, “Did he answer the door when you went over?”

  “Yeah.” It took him a minute to come up with a description but, like all Ferg’s assessments, it carried resonance. “He was unconcerned.” I nodded, but it seemed like he wanted to say more so I made my final attempt at a smile and waited. “Walt, you don’t suppose that woman was in that trash can when I went and knocked on that door, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No, she was in my office on Thursday.”

  He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and dropped his head. “Thank God. I don’t think I could have lived with that.”

  We both finally smiled grim tight smiles aimed at our boots and stood there for a moment, letting the trains of silence pass between us, two grown men trying to figure out which way to turn next. “Lord, Walt, this is a nightmare.”

  After he left, I sat in one of the chairs and thought about Leo Gaskell. I had to get somebody over to the courthouse to look up any records there might have been on Ellen Runs Horse, on the mystery son, and on Anna Walks Over Ice. I figured Saizarbitoria was good for that. I could get Henry to check the tribal rolls and get Vic to light a fire under the HPs. I could let the Ferg take care of the county while I went over and had another talk with Lucian about current events. What I really wanted to do was strangle Leo Gaskell with my bare hands.

  I scrunched down in the chair, my collar came up even with my nose, and I fought the urge to go to sleep; I didn’t last very long, and soon I had that feeling, not so much that I was falling, but that the world was receding.

  The snow was blowing in my dream as well; it seemed that no matter where I went, snow followed. It was dark, with the only light diffused and from a distance, as if the illumination was split and redivided by the air alone. There was the laden feel of fog, which carried a weight in my lungs. I concentrated on the snowflakes as they flew in the light, but it was as if I’d left my peripheral vision behind. There was something out there, a bird maybe, but it was larger than any I’d ever seen, its wings pulling at the air that rushed around us. It was as if it had risen from the snow and was growing as it came closer. I kept looking, but it just wouldn’t focus. Something was wrong, and my neck muscles drained as my head lolled forward. There was a weight in my face that was heavier than it should have been, so I freed a hand and brought it up. It was cold, but I didn’t have any gloves. My hand was almost to my mouth when another reached out from the darkness at my left. It was small, but I could feel the fingers as they tightened around my wrist. It wasn’t aggression but desperation that fed her touch. Dark hair fell into my sight, and she tightened her grip. My head fell forward and my chin struck my chest and there was a flash as my one eye tried to focus. My voice sounded strange to me. “I’m sorry, I don’t . . .”

  It was impossible to see her face, backlit by the light, but even in urgency her voice was sultry, and I could feel my blood thicken as she started to speak.

  “I can’t . . .”

  She looked up and back toward the light; the large bird-like creature continued to draw closer. Her hand deftly released mine, caught my chin, and threaded its way into my beard. Her eyes locked on mine. I could see the lips moving, but the voice seemed to come from very far away. “Gero arte.”

  “Are you all right, Daddy?” I looked up with both eyes at my daughter, who was standing in front of me in the same, full-length coat she’d arrived in. I watched the width of the coat fall open as she placed her hands on my shoulders, the length of it spreading like wings.

  I yawned and glanced around at the assembled group. “Just a little tired.” I took one of Cady’s hands and turned to look at Lana. “How did the meeting go?” It was a modified turban now, and the absence of the silk robe and bunny slippers made me long for resort wear. She didn’t say anything, just folded her hands in her lap. “Well, at least you had good representation.” I looked up at Vic and got the ball rolling. “Fax that photograph of Leo Gaskell out to DCI, the HPs, and everybody else on the high plains. Get Bill Wiltse over in Fremont County; tell him I need everything they’ve got on Gaskell. I want to kn
ow where he came from, where he’s been, and why. Have Ruby run a check through the NCIC and then get over to the home and get some background on Anna Walks Over Ice. I want to know everything they have on her.”

  She smiled, and I caught a glimpse of that slightly overgrown canine tooth. “You bet.” I watched as she man-walked out the double swinging doors.

  “Santiago?”

  He left McDermott and came over. “Sir?”

  You had to love it. “I need you to go to registration and records over at the courthouse. Hurry because they will close right at 5:00.” He nodded. “And find whatever you can on Ellen Runs Horse and Anna Walks Over Ice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hey, Sancho?”

  “Yes, sir?” He stopped, but only his head turned.

  “What does gero arte mean?”

  His eyes narrowed. “It’s Basque for see you later.” He stood there for a second longer and, when he was sure I wasn’t going to stop him again, he disappeared, too.

  I turned back and met Cady’s gray eyes, the ones that had been certain of every situation and had realized how all things were since she was nine. “Would you escort Ms. Baroja back to her room while I have a brief technical conversation with Sweeny Todd and the boys?”

  She gathered her purse and pulled her coat around her. “Yes, sir.”

  Smartass. I turned and looked at Henry. His look told me he was in for the long haul. With the addition of the murder of Anna and with the disappearance of Ellen, the situation had also gotten personal for him.

  I turned to Isaac Bloomfield and Bill McDermott, who were continuing their discussion at the nurse’s desk across the hall. “Gentlemen?” They both turned and looked at me. “I need your help.”

  Things had gotten complicated since we had decided to bring Anna Walks Over Ice back from the dead. Henry had been cast in the lead role as he was the only Indian. The Bear had wanted the room directly below us, but I figured we had a better chance of isolating Leo on the second floor.