Cold Dish wl-1

by Craig Johnson

  It was a monkey-shit brown Olds Delta 88 with two hubcaps and a peeling, blond vinyl top. I could see they were kids and just flipped the lights on for a second so they would pull over. It took what seemed like a little too long for them to do it. The driver threw open the door and started back toward the car I was using at the time; I figured he was upset because I had pulled him over for what seemed like nothing. I was wrong. He was upset because he and his friend had robbed a liquor store in Casper and had gotten away with $943 when I stopped them en route to Canada.

  I lathered up, rinsed off, and felt like I had new skin. I reached for the shampoo and, feeling how light the bottle was, made a mental note to get some more. I had enough unattended mental notes to fill up the Sears wish book.

  Near as we could figure, the bullet must have ricocheted off the window facing of the car and passed through my left arm. People always ask what it’s like, and the only answer I can come up with is that it’s like having a red-hot poker shoved into your flesh. It burns, and it hurts like hell, but only after. I wondered mildly if Vonnie would think that bullet holes are sexy. Martha didn’t; she hated them. A beautiful woman in my house; a woman who looked you over from head to toe, was confident and interested. I felt complicated and dreary.

  I wiped off the mirror to look into the eyes of Dorian Gray. What I saw did not inspire me with confidence. My hair, wet or dry, has a tendency to stand on end. I fought with it for a while and decided that it was a good thing I was able to wear a hat in my chosen profession. I have large, deep-set gray eyes, a gift from my mother, and a larger than normal chin, a gift from my father. The older I get, the more I think I look like a Muppet. Cady vehemently disagrees with this assessment, but she’s fighting her own battle with this particular gene puddle.

  It was with a great deal of panic that I heard a mixture of laughter resonate through the spaces at the top of the bathroom drywall and through the shower-curtained doorway. It was a quick right to the bedroom, maybe four feet, but I didn’t figure I could make it without being seen. I pulled the old black-watch pattern around my waist, slipped on my worn, moose-hide moccasins, and stepped into the cool, fresh dawn of interpersonal abuse.

  As usual, she looked magnificent. Long fingers were wrapped around one of my Denver Broncos mugs, the old one with the white horse snorting through the orange D. She wore a plain, khaki ball cap with her ponytail neatly tucked through the adjustable strap in the back, a gray sweatshirt that read VASSAR, blue jeans, and a pair of neon running shoes. She exuded health, sparkling intelligence, and sex, though the last might have just been my read on things. She sat on my foldout step stool and laughed as Henry tried vainly to adjust the reception on my television.

  “All right, I give up. What the hell do you have to do to get a decent picture on this thing?”

  We had always watched the game at the bar on Henry’s satellite-assisted television but, for today’s game, he had thought it best to view it within the comfortable confines of my house. He was kneeling by the set, adjusting the fine tuning with the same finesse he had shown with the fuse box two nights ago. “That is decent.”

  He turned to regard the screen as the usual blobs moved about in indiscriminate patterns. “You have got to be kidding.”

  I crossed the room and leaned against a six-by-six. “Vonnie, welcome to Chateau Tyvek.”

  “Is this the uniform of the day?”

  Henry was right; I was going to have to make some changes. “Oh, this was just a little something I threw on.” I looked at the Cheyenne Nation. “What’s the score?”

  He stood with his hands on his hips as two vague football helmets collided and exploded into a million pieces on the screen amid triumphant musical accompaniment. “It hasn’t started yet. Is it me or has football gotten more and more like wrestling these days?”

  She squeezed my hand. “Bear says he doesn’t mind Native American mascots for athletic teams.” I noticed he didn’t correct her use of the term Native American.

  “I don’t have a problem with native accoutrements. If they wish to use the tools of our trade to strike fear into their enemies’ hearts, who am I to deny them?”

  This from the man who had worn a horse-head amulet around his neck for four years in Southeast Asia. Chinese Nung Recon teams and Montagnards believed it had been carved from the sternum of an unfortunate NVA colonel. Henry had done nothing to dissuade them from this thought, and only he and I knew the bone had come from the leg of his mother’s old, dry dairy cow that they had had to put down. “How’s lunch coming?”

  “Who am I, Hop-Sing here?” He opened the oven door and peered in. “Almost there. Plenty of time for you to go put some clothes on.”

  Her hand trailed after mine as I started for the bedroom. “Don’t go to any trouble on my part.”

  I continued into the bedroom so she wouldn’t see how red my face was growing. I looked around the room and saw my life as it was. The edges of the mattress were threadbare and dirty, the sheets an uninviting gray. A battered gooseneck lamp sat on the floor beside the bed with a copy of Doctor Dogbody’s Leg opened to page seventy-three, where I had left it a while ago. The ever-present beer boxes loomed at the far wall, and the naked light bulbs allowed none of the low-rent squalor to escape. It was like living in an archeological dig. I thought about the woman in the other room and felt like climbing out the window. Instead, I went over to the crate that stood as my bedside table and punched the button just below the flashing red light on the answering machine. Evidently, I hadn’t heard it ring.

  “Okay, so, after forty-eight hours of intensive ballistic study, we’re no fucking closer than we were at the beginning of the weekend.” She sounded ragged and edgy, and I was glad I was five hours away. “The cast content on the ballistics is fairly soft; 30 to 1, lead to tin.” She took a breath. “Here’s the kicker. There’s some kind of strange chemical compound… You remember those old Glaser Safety Slugs? The GSS’s? If that’s the case, Cody was SOL.”

  Shit out of luck.

  “So, can you imagine somebody tracking that kid down with Teflon slugs?”

  No.

  “Yeah, well me neither.” There was a pause. “Anyway, I’ve done all that I can do here, and the pizza at Larry’s sucks. So, I’ll be home tomorrow. Any questions?”

  I stared at the phone machine and shook my head side to side.

  “Good. I’m taking tomorrow off. Any problem with that?”

  I continued to shake my head.

  “Good.” Pause. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow anyway.”

  When I entered the kitchen, Henry was holding the photographs that had been in the envelope at arms length.

  “You need new reading glasses or longer arms?”

  “Both.”

  Vonnie was glancing at the television and questioning him. “Twenty-five percent of all domestic murders go unsolved each year?” She shifted on the stool and smiled at me.

  I poured myself another cup of coffee and extended the pot toward her. She shook her head and waited to capture my next words with those eyes. “About five thousand cases go unsolved.” Her eyes widened. “About sixty-two percent of homicides in the United States involve firearms, which means me and my compadres have failed to identify some thirty-one hundred killers and their weapons every year.”

  “Seems like the guys on TV and in the movies always get their man; you real cops must be falling down on the job.” He lowered the photographs, and I noticed Vonnie made no effort to look at them.

  “Personally, I never miss an episode of Dragnet.”

  She cocked her head, and the eyes narrowed. “It seems like a lot. It was Sheriff Connally here before you, wasn’t it?” She grinned and looked off toward the front door.

  “You know Lucian?”

  “Oh, I had a few run-ins with him back in my bad old days.” She laughed, flashing that canine tooth that sparkled like a Pepsodent commercial. “Some of my posse and I had absconded with a fifth of my father’s Irish wh
iskey and high-tailed it to the Skyline Drive-In in Durant.”

  Henry perked up. “I think I heard about that. Didn’t you and Susan Miller dance naked on the hood of that ’65 Mustang during Doctor Zhivago?”

  She was turning just a little pink at the throat. “I was of a young and impressionable age.”

  “Hell, I would have been impressed too.” He stuffed the photographs back into the envelope and handed them to me. “Good luck.”

  Her smile went away. “You don’t think it was an accident?”

  “Not really.” Henry crossed behind me and opened the refrigerator door to pull out a pitcher I had never seen before, filled with a murky maroon liquid, ice cubes, and lemon and orange slices. I sat the envelope down on the counter and stared at it. “I’m hoping real hard that it is, but evidence is mounting that such is not the case.”

  “Why?”

  “Short-range weapon did the deed, no way you could sneak up on somebody out there. I’d hazard to guess that there aren’t many hunters looking to shoot pronghorn or mule deer with a 12 gauge. And there are some things that just don’t make sense.”

  He stirred the contents of the pitcher. “Powder burns.”

  She was following, but I figured I should explain the details. “When you shoot a shotgun at any range…” I paused and weighed the next question. “You know what a shotgun is?”

  Her eyes stayed steady to show no offense. “My father used to shoot skeet.”

  “Right. Well, this is looking like a rifled slug.”

  “Slug. Doesn’t sound pleasant.”

  “It’s not. Slugs basically convert shotguns into oversize rifles with enough power to crack automobile engine blocks.”

  “Why would somebody want to shoot somebody with something like that?”

  “Emphasis.”

  It rumbled in his chest, and I wondered about all the people who would consider it a good thing that the world was shed of Cody Pritchard. “Cody wasn’t exactly beloved by the…” I gave him a sidelong glance. “Indian community.”

  She placed a hand on the counter to get his attention. “It’s not Indian anymore, it’s Native American. Right, Bear?” She nodded for confirmation.

  He looked up and pursed his lips sagely. “That is right.” He turned his head toward me ever so slightly. “You must learn to be more responsive to Native American sensibilities.”

  Bastard. “The problem is the slug decreases the range of an already relatively short-range weapon.”

  “But wasn’t he shot in the back?”

  “Yep, but you’d still have to get close.”

  “Could he have been drunk or asleep?”

  “Drunk, certainly.” Henry wandered over to look at the blobs moving in the television. I had forgotten about the game. “Even with the complications of extensive tissue damage, his posture was likely erect. And since Henry was the last to serve him food and see him alive, I can take his word that Cody was at least capable of driving his truck and walking.”

  She turned her stool. “You saw him last?”

  He stared at the television screen, his arms crossed. “Do not ask me how I can tell, Walt, but I think your team is winning.”

  She turned back to look at me, then back to him again. “Bear, have I said something wrong?”

  “No, you did not say anything wrong… We will just say that I was the next to last person to see Mr. Pritchard alive.” He smiled to himself and crossed back to the counter. “Sangria, anybody?” He poured the liquid into three tall glasses and handed one to each of us. “How about a toast?” He raised his glass. “Here is to the three thousand one hundred that get away.”

  “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

  I looked into the big, brown eyes with wisps of butterscotch slipping by. “To Doctor Zhivago.”

  The game was uneventful and, as near as we could tell, the Broncos won by two field goals. By six-thirty we had dispatched the casserole, and Henry had made excuses that he had to go check on the bar. At the moment, I was massaging Vonnie’s foot from the opposite stool, with the gentle warmth of what remained of the sangria seeping into every relaxing muscle in my body. It had been one of those spectacular Wyoming sunsets, the ones everybody thinks only happen in an Arizona Highways magazine. Broiling waves of small bonfires leapt on top of one another as far as the horizon with injured purples drifting in multilayered, frozen sheets back to the skyline.

  “So, I didn’t hurt his feelings?”

  “No, I can guarantee that wasn’t it.” Her toenails were burgundy; the color matched the sangria, and I figured she had them done in Denver on a regular basis.

  “You must know him best?”

  I thought about what knowing Henry Standing Bear best meant and that that opened up a lot of country. “I don’t know about best.” I paused for a moment, but it wasn’t enough for her. “About ten years ago we were over in Sturgis for that motorcycle fiasco that they have every year. They put out this desperate plea for assistance and, if you’re an off-duty police officer, you can make a lot of money in one weekend. I was saving for Cady, to get her a car, and figured an extra thousand wouldn’t hurt. Henry hadn’t ever been over for the big wingding, so he decided to tag along. So, we’re sitting there at this little greasy spoon near the motorcycle museum the morning after, and I’m telling Henry that if I ever get this bright idea again to just slap me in the back of the head with a stilson wrench. That’s when this Indian fellow…”

  “Native American.”

  “… This Native American walks over to our table and just stands there. He’s a big guy like Henry, and I’m quickly running through the faces I’ve locked up for DUI, public indecency, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and jaywalking that weekend alone. I’m not making any connections, but the longer I look at this guy’s face, the more I’m sure that I’ve seen him somewhere before. That’s when Henry stops chewing his bacon, still looking at his plate, and says, ‘How have you been?’ I’m looking at this guy like never before, but damned if I can make the reach. He’s good-looking, maybe thirty, but he’s got a lot of miles on him. The guy says, ‘Good. You?’ I look at Henry and all he says is, ‘Cannot complain.’ You know how he never uses contractions. Well, the fellow just stands there for another minute, pulls out a cigarette, and lights it. Then he says, ‘Who’d listen? ’ And with this he just kind of turns and glides out of the place. I’m watching him walk out, and it hits me. He walks just like Henry. I turn to look at him and start to speak, but he cuts me off. ‘Halfbrother. ’ And that’s all he says. Come to find out, he hasn’t talked to the guy in fifteen years. As far as I know, he hasn’t talked to him since.”

  She looked puzzled. “Big falling out?”

  “Who the hell knows?” I squeezed her foot and leaned back on my stool. “I don’t think you hurt his feelings. I think it’s just a lack of windmills.” She laughed. “That, and probably there’s a part of Henry that wishes he had done it.”

  “You’re joking?”

  I wished mildly I hadn’t brought it up, because it was going to be hard to explain. “Nope.”

  “You really think he’s capable of something like that?”

  “I think under certain circumstances, everybody’s capable of doing something like that.”

  She exchanged feet, tucking the other one under her, and thought for a moment. “I guess I don’t, but then I haven’t seen all the things you’ve seen.” Her eyes held steady as they met mine. “Is there part of you that wishes you’d done it?”

  I thought for a moment, but she had me. “Yep, I guess there is a vicious little part of me that does.”

  I looked out the front window and watched the big cottonwood at the end of my road sway in the breeze that had just come up. It wasn’t bone cold, but it would be by the end of the night. Probably in the teens, and I could see the frost on the windows even though it wasn’t there. Winter was almost here, and I had to start remembering to look for the fall.

  She see
med lost in thought too, staring at my hands that were wrapped around her foot; but as long as I didn’t give it back, she had to stay. “Well, since we’re sort of telling our deepest, darkest secrets…” She trapped her lower lip in her teeth, let it slide out slowly, and continued, “When Cady was trying to fix us up a few years ago?” I waited. “I think a little part of me really was kind of hoping that it would work out.” She paused. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want to be sending mixed signals.”

  I was getting a sinking feeling, but I still held on to the foot.

  “I just don’t want to get moving too fast. The last relationship I was in was not a good one, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was in too much of a hurry.” Her eyes dulled and the angles on her face flattened and grew sad. “I think there was an awful lot about him that I thought I knew, but the truth was I was just coloring in the missing parts with colors I liked.” Her eyes sharpened again when she looked at me. “I can’t afford that with you; I like you too much.”

  “Thank you.” I still wasn’t giving up the foot. “What if you don’t like the way I look when I sleep with my mouth open?”

  We both laughed. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  I sniffed and bit my own lip. “Vonnie…”

  She did her best Gene Tierney. “Walter?” We laughed again.

  “Don’t let this lusty, youthful appearance fool you. I’m not seventeen anymore, and I don’t have the expectations of a seventeen-year-old.” I took the last sip of my sangria. “I, uh…” I cleared my throat and forged ahead. “At least you had a last relationship…” I cleared my throat again. “I haven’t had any relationships since Martha died. Talk about pushing a virtue to vice..”

  And to my absolute shock, her eyes welled and a single tear streaked like lightning across her face. I fought back the sudden burning in my own eyes and squeezed her foot. It was a fine foot, long and narrow with toes that looked like fingers. Aristocratic, as feet go. My mother used to say it was a sign of royalty; that, and eating one thing on your plate at a time. I’m not sure how much royalty my mother ever met and whether she ever got to break bread with them or examine their feet, but she felt strongly about things. It’s a family trait.