Craig Johnson

by Walt Longmire 06 - Junkyard Dogs (v5)

  14 I watched him from the hospital reception desk. The weather had followed us down the mountain and had settled over the town. It was still morning, but the snow had stifled Durant, and even the hospital seemed empty. If it hadn’t been for the most recent of miseries, it would’ve been a lovely way for Sancho to end the week—to go home and sit by the fire with Marie and play with Antonio. He was sitting in the waiting area, his profile sharpened by the snow that cemented itself to the outside of the glass with enough force to make the casings groan. I couldn’t help but think that he was feeling like the window—thin, transparent, and liable to break. “Yep.” I kept my voice down as I spoke into the phone. “But we need that file after all. The situation’s changed.” There was some noise in the background, and it sounded like Sheriff Montgomery was reconnoitering his thoughts. “He’s been a bad boy?” “Yep.” “You think he’s a flight risk?” I glanced up at the Basquo. “Not anymore.” He hadn’t caught my tone. “Because we can arrange a warrant and have him brought back to Texas if you don’t feel like dealing with this character.” “We’d have to ship him freight.” It was quiet in the Lone Star State. “Oh.” He cleared his throat and sighed. “I’ll head over to the records building today and supervise getting those files personally but no guarantees.” “I’d consider that a favor.” I handed the receiver back to Janine, and she stared up at me with that look you sometimes get from people, even people close to you, that reminds you of just how far the distance is between you and them. Our society, our culture, and our humanity depend on never crossing certain lines, and here we were, slipping back and forth as if they didn’t even exist. She fumbled with the phone, and I gave her a quick smile as I retreated across the carpeted area to Santiago. He was leaning back in the chair, slumped down with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his dark eyes focused on the hand that had shot Polk. I thought about the connection between Ozzie Dobbs and Felix Polk and what it was that could’ve been worth both their lives. It had to do with the marijuana. If Ozzie was providing the bankroll, then perhaps Polk was providing the know-how. We’d have to check the ballistics on the bullet that killed Ozzie, but I was relatively sure that we had our man. I needed to talk to sharecropper Duane. When I glanced back up, the Basquo was looking at me. “How are you doing, boss?” “Happy to be alive.” He didn’t answer but went back to studying his hand. “How about you?” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, allowing only a fraction of the tension to leave his body. “Tired.” He looked it. “Hey?” The eyes came back to me. “You killed a murderer, and you saved my life—that’s a good thing.” “Yeah.” “Of course, I’m biased.” That got a smile.“I should go home.” “Yep, you should.” We sat there in the smothering silence of the snow and our thoughts. “I’m not sure if I have the energy.” “Well then, why don’t you take a little more time.” I stuck out a hand and gripped his. “You want me to call Marie and tell her everything’s all right?” “She doesn’t know anything’s wrong.” I nodded and thought about just how much drama had taken place in such a small amount of time. “Is there anything I can get you?” His voice was brittle. “I could use a glass of water.” I patted his hand and then immediately felt like a fool for doing it. “I’ll get it for you.” I filled the paper cup Janine gave me, and when I came out of the bathroom Isaac Bloomfield was waiting. “Changing of the guard?” “I understand you were Maced last night?” “Pepper spray.” He stood up on tiptoes to examine my face. “Your eye looks irritated.” “Pretty much all of me is irritated lately.” The Doc looked around the corner and down the hallway. “I’m assuming you want to know about the Lorme woman?” “I do.” “She was beaten up pretty badly, and she’s suffering from exposure. Where did you say she was?” “In the pump house of his cabin, farther up the canyon and down by the stream.” The Doc shook his head. “She’s going to be all right, but I was thinking of sedating her. I know you wanted to speak with her and thought this might be a good time.” He rubbed his long nose. “Then there’s the dead one.” “What about him?” “I’m doing the preparatory phase of the postmortem to save that young man from Billings a little time, and I think you might want to have a look at the late Mr. Polk.” “Oh, now, why don’t I like the sound of that?” How many times had I said that lately? “When you’re through with Ms. Lorme, I’m in room 31.” “The much vaunted room 31.” When I got back to the waiting room, Saizarbitoria was sleeping what looked like peacefully on the sofa. I put the water on a nearby table and fetched a pillow and blanket from the linen closet around the corner; I tried not to dwell on how intimate I was with the workings of Durant Memorial Hospital’s emergency wing. I didn’t want to disturb the Basquo so I put the pillow beside him and covered him up with the blanket. I stood and looked out the windows; the visibility had dropped to the point where I was starting to question whether my eye was getting worse or whether it was that I just didn’t want to see anymore. “So, you’d never seen him before last night?” “No.” “Never at the bar?” She was shaking her head before I’d finished the question. “No.” “Did he say anything while you were with him? Anything that might help us figure this out? Anything at all?” Carla bore more than a passing resemblance to her younger sister, and Claudia enhanced the kinship by sitting on the chair at her bedside. “He made a phone call while I was tied up in the car.” “With a cell phone?” “No, it was at a pay phone.” I moved a little closer and sat on the foot of her bed. There was a large bruise running the distance from her jaw line to her temple, a terrific split at her lower lip, and the marks on her wrists where he’d used zip cords. “Where?” She shook her head but stopped. It must have hurt. “I don’t have any idea. I mean I was tied up with a pillowcase over my head and was on the floor. I couldn’t see anything.” “How long did he drive after he put you in the car?” She thought about it. “I don’t know.” “Ten minutes?” “No. More.” “Twenty?” “Yeah, about twenty. Twenty minutes.” “He didn’t go anywhere else, just straight up the mountain?” She focused her eyes on me, sad that she couldn’t help. “I don’t know.” “It was a V6 Jeep. Was the motor straining to go up the mountain?” She nodded. “Then maybe it was the pay phone at the South Fork Lodge. Did you hear any other voices while he was stopped?” “No.” “You’re sure?” “Yeah.” It was only a little better than nothing. When I got back out to reception on my way to room 31, Saizarbitoria was still asleep, but Vic was waiting for me. She’d gotten the pillow under his head and held the Basquo’s duty belt and Beretta. I spoke in a whisper. “He wake up?” She whispered back. “Yeah, but then went right back out.” “Give you any fight about surrendering his sidearm?” “No.” It was state law that after a shooting, the officer had to hand in his/her weapon until a formal review had been completed. I sat beside her, and we both looked at him. “Just what he needs, to be on temporary leave right now.” She shrugged. “I figured I’d save you at least one shitty job.” “Thanks.” She unsnapped the safety strap on Sancho’s semiautomatic. “At the risk of cheering you up?” I looked at her. “He came through.” “Yep.” I smiled as I watched him sleep. “He did.” “How close was it?” “Very close.” I croaked a nervous laugh. “How stands the kingdom?” “Amazingly quiet.” She glanced out the window and into the maelstrom—it looked like heaven’s comforter had ripped loose. “It’s Saturday and snowing like a bitch, so the citizenry has shown a noteworthy amount of common sense in staying home.” “I love Saturday blizzards.” “Me too.” She sighed. “We do have one visitor back at the office.” “Who?” “Gina Stewart. She says she wants to talk to Duane, and she wants you there.” “Great. I get to hold her hand while she tells her husband that she’s having somebody else’s baby.” I yawned. “I’m going to need you to call up South Fork Lodge and see if Wayne or Holli Jones spoke with Felix Polk or overheard the conversation he might have had there last night.” “Anything else?” She leaned toward me, bumping her shoulder against mine. “The ME is probably parked at the rest stop near Pryor Mountain, but his offic
e says he’s on his way as of about an hour ago and just think, we get to reintroduce Felix Polk to his thumb.” “It’s the little things on the job that make it all worthwhile, isn’t it?” She smiled up at me with the wolflike tooth evident. “You know, I think I’m rubbing off on you.” About forty comments leapt to mind, but I let them all pass. “Could you call Ruby and ask her to make sure Gina stays in the reception area? After that, if you want to tag along, Isaac’s doing a pre-examination on Polk.” “Oh, joy.” I stood. “I need to talk to Duane before Gina does.” She increased the wicked smile she reserved for special occasions and stood beside me. “Well, he’s remarkably available.” One of the pre-mort procedures consisted of examining the body externally and getting the clothes cut off before rigor, if possible; consequently, Felix Polk now lay on the metal tray with no thumb and no clothes. “What do you make of that?” The Doc folded his arms and stood by the small parts dissection table. “He’s hung like a fucking cocktail sausage.” The Doc and I looked at her as she shrugged Sancho’s duty belt farther onto her shoulder. “Well, he is.” What Isaac Bloomfield was referring to was the amount of intricate tattooing that covered the majority of the man’s body. “Prison tats?” The Doc gripped his chin. “I’m no expert, but I would say yes.” I turned to Vic. “Go get the Basquo.” She departed without further comment, and I turned back to Isaac. “Anything else abnormal that you can see?” He shook his head. “Textbook center shot. I would imagine his death was relatively instantaneous. Why?” I studied the tattoos on Felix Polk. “We didn’t take photographs, and we transported the body. I just don’t want there to be any abnormalities that might lead anyone to be asking questions about the action Sancho took.” He nodded. “You’ll get a clean bill from me. You have the weapon Polk was holding when Saizarbitoria dispatched him?” “I do. An antique Luger, locked and cocked, and if he hadn’t done what he did it would be me lying here on the table, unsuited and unbooted.” The door opened, and Saizarbitoria followed Vic in. He was yawning but stopped when he saw the body of the man he’d killed. “I wouldn’t bring you in here, but with your time at Rawlins you’re the closest thing to an expert that we’ve got.” He stood there for a moment more. It may very well be the case that confronting the body of someone you’ve killed is the hardest thing on earth to do. I watched him as he stood there, his foot on the gas but not moving. You convince yourself that what you did was the right thing, but there’s that hard, cold fact that of all the things you can do as a human being—this is one you cannot undo. He stepped closer, swallowed, and leaned over the corpse. “Definitely state, possibly federal.” He peered at the numerous shapes and designs. “Some of these are freehand, others are machine.” Isaac looked at him. “I didn’t know that they have tattoo parlors in prison.” The Basquo shook his head. “They don’t. The inmates make them out of a toy slot car motor, a hollowed- out ballpoint pen, a guitar string, and a nine-volt battery. It’s a crono, 115.” He looked up at us, aware that we had no idea what he was talking about. Vic, of course, asked. “What the fuck does that mean?” “A written infraction to give or get tattoos inside.” His eyes returned to the body. “These things can tell you everything about the man if you read them correctly.” “Such as?” “Who he is, where he’s from, what he’s done . . . Everything. I’ve seen guys stupid enough to put their DOC numbers on themselves.” There was a particularly extravagant heart with flames and three-leaved shamrocks, unfortunately near the bullet hole in the man’s own heart. “Does the AB