Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson

  “Were they able to get it out this afternoon?”

  “The paper came out late, kind of like a special edition.” I handed him the paper I was holding with Anna Walk Over Ice’s photograph on the front page. In bold type it read, LOCAL WOMAN STILL ALIVE AFTER TERRIFYING ORDEAL. “If this works, I owe Ernie Brown, Man About Town, a beer.”

  Vic came in from the hallway and stood at the foot of the bed as the Bear read about his pseudo-self in the Courant. She looked strange in the scrubs, her disguise complete with a mask, matching cap, and stethoscope. “How’s the patient?”

  He didn’t look up. “Resting comfortably.”

  I glanced back at the Bear. “You want to keep the paper?”

  “Yes, it might be a long night.” He pulled his Vietnam tomahawk from behind his pillow and placed it in the fold of his sheets, just under his right hand. It was a wicked little beast with an adze end in one direction and a hatchet blade in the other, and Henry could throw the thing with a frightening accuracy.

  “You do know we want him alive, right?”

  I met with the rest of our little troop out by the second floor nurse’s station. We were a motley bunch with Dr. Moretti, Saizarbitoria in his North Face cap with a blanket in a wheelchair, and the Ferg in street clothes with a shopping bag. I looked around at our assortment of hidden firepower and almost wished Leo Gaskell wouldn’t come; somebody was sure to get killed.

  “There are only two ways he can get to the room, either past the nurse’s station here or the end of the hallway. “Ferg, I want you seated in the waiting area with a clear view down the hall. Santiago, I want you at the doorway near the stairwell as if you’re getting ready to go into or have just come out of your room and get rid of those tactical boots. You look like a cop from a mile off.” I turned to Dr. Moretti. “Vic, you can wander. Everybody ready?”

  They all nodded.

  “This character doesn’t show a lot of patience, and he’s desperate, so I’m expecting him tonight. It’s still relatively early but that doesn’t mean he won’t come waltzing in here in the next five minutes, so stay sharp. He’s big, he’s mean, and he’s probably self-medicated, so don’t be a hero. If you spot him, sing out.”

  They all nodded again.

  I checked all the hallways on my way to the elevator and ran into Leonard Goes Far, the Crow gentleman that made sure the floors of the hospital glowed like thin ice. He nodded, which was all you usually got out of Leonard, so I continued into the elevator and felt the drop of my internal organs match my descent.

  There was no third floor on Durant Memorial and there were no patients on two that weren’t in on our deception, so there was only one floor and one direction we’d have to worry about. When I got to the front desk, Ruby was waiting, straightening her wig, her eyes a little wider than usual. “You sure he’s not going to recognize you?”

  “I am.” Ruby relaxed just a little. “Vic caught him at the door and ushered him back to her office. I doubt he even remembers I was there.”

  I nodded. “All the other doors are locked, so the only way he can get in is through here. If he comes in and asks, you just tell him that she’s on the second floor and then get busy with something else. “When you’re sure he’s gone . . .” I waited a moment until she looked back up at me. “When you’re sure he’s gone, use this.” I pointed to the two-way that was under the counter. “Just hit the red button once, that’s all it’ll take. Nobody else is going to use that red button, so I’ll know it’s you, and then I’ll know he’s in.” We were all wearing the walkie-talkies set on vibrate.

  I had moved Lana to Room 132, one of the inside corridor rooms where there was a thick, metal-core door that could be locked from the inside. She was in there with Cady. I could have taken them both back to the jail, but I figured it was more prudent and safer to keep all the eggs in one basket. I knocked three times, then once. Cady asked who it was, then opened the door enough to look up at me. “C’mere.” She followed me just outside the doorway where I tried to hand her a snub-nosed detective’s special. “Still remember how to use this?”

  She looked at the gun in my hand. “Yes.”

  I extended it a little toward her. “Just in case everything goes wrong. Whether it was an accident or not, it looks like he tried to kill her before, he may try again.” I placed the revolver in her hand. “There’s no safety. It’s resting on an empty chamber, double-action, all you have to do is pull the trigger.”

  “I remember.” She glanced up at me. “Anyway, I belong to a gun club back in Philadelphia.”

  “What?”

  Her gaze intensified. “A bunch of the attorneys go out every week and shoot at a local gun club up on Spring Garden. One day they asked me if the cowgirl knew how to shoot, so I went with them.” She leaned against the wall. “I had a really good teacher.”

  I waited a moment, but she didn’t say anything, so I pulled her in and hugged her. I held her there and squeezed her close. “If you pull it, use it, if you use it, use it to kill.”

  It was a large closet as supply closets go. There was a built-in drain in the floor with a set of faucets and shelves full of cleaning supplies, mops, brooms, and buckets. I had been smart enough to place one of the waiting-room chairs in there earlier. With the door slightly ajar, I could see the one leading into our Special Forces Anna Walks Over Ice. I hadn’t checked on the Bear; I figured he had his tomahawk.

  I settled in and tried to think of something to do while I waited, something other than waiting. I read a couple of labels on some bottles, flipped a mop handle between my hands, and thought. I thought about whether Leo Gaskell would win, place, or show.

  I heard someone at the end of the hall. It was a familiar voice. I picked up my hat and opened the door as he continued, “And undercover means you don’t leave the handle of that goddamned Remington, sawed-off scattergun hangin’ outta the shopping bag for every Tom’s Dick and Convict to see.”

  Vic was already there when I got to them. “Lucian, what are you doing here?”

  “This the way you run a stakeout, with peckerhead here advertising the whole show?”

  Peckerhead was the descriptive term Lucian used equally for plants, animals, and inanimate objects. “Lucian . . .”

  “I come up here to see how this pissant operation was goin’, and from what I can see, it ain’t.”

  I pushed my hat back and sighed. “You were supposed to stay with Isaac.”

  “Christ, he snores loud enough to wake the dead. I locked the door when I left.”

  I looked back at Vic, who was smiling and folding her arms over her breasts the way she always did when Lucian was around. The Ferg continued to look at the floor. The old sheriff wasn’t going to go back willingly, and I couldn’t leave him out in the open to abuse the staff and draw attention to himself.

  “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 hal
l 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.