Cold Dish wl-1

by Craig Johnson

  Static. “Roger that.” I looked at the radio and smiled.

  By the time we got to the hospital, it was looking like a cop convention; both Vic’s and Ferg’s vehicles were parked in the official spots at the emergency room entrance. I pulled up to the door and walked around to get George. There was a small crowd at the desk when I made my way in. “You know, just because you’re as big as a bus, doesn’t mean you have to provide service like one.” I casually bumped past her and sat George in the wheelchair that Janine had pulled from the wall.

  “He’s got a gunshot wound in his left thigh, and I think his jaw’s busted. You better check his ribs. Thanks, Janine.” She rolled George away, and I nodded for Ferg to follow them. As he passed, he patted my shoulder and smiled. I called after him, “Hey, you got my hat?”

  He smiled some more. “It’s on the desk.”

  I watched them go down the hallway, then walked over and picked up the now disreputable piece of 10X beaver felt. It needed a little work. I was dusting it off as a sharp index finger punched my stomach. It didn’t go in as far as it used to. I turned to look at her. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “What are you doing out of here?”

  “I released myself.”

  She shook her head, but the poking stopped. “You looked like you were going to die last night.”

  “They gave me Tylenol. I’m feeling much better.” I gave her a thumb’s up. “What’s the story on DCI?”

  She looked at me for a moment longer. “Headed for Cheyenne with Jacob.” She looked down the hallway after George and his entourage. “What’s the word on him?”

  I walked past the glass partition at the reception area, over to the waiting room, and sat back in one of the chairs; she followed along and did likewise. I looked at the soothing gray that must have been chosen, along with the muted mauve of the walls, to calm upset relatives and loved ones. It made me want to take a nap. “I honestly don’t think he knows anything.”

  “What about the size nine Vasques?”

  I studied my coveralls and thought about a shower and a change of clothes. “I don’t think it was him. It could be the guy from Casper, or Jacob, or it could be somebody else…”

  Vic studied the side of my face in the humming fluorescence. “You make it sound like somebody else.”

  I turned to look at her. “I want to talk to Jim Keller.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “About?”

  “Things in general, nothing specific.” She looked tired too, but I decided to keep that to myself. “You get a ballistics check on the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  I had started to turn and study my dirty pants, but the tone of her voice pulled me right back around. “Oh, now, why do I not like the sound of that?”

  “No match, but it’s been fired.”

  I was glad I was sitting down. “How long ago?”

  She inclined her head. “Difficult to say, anywhere from three days to three weeks.”

  “Did DCI take the rifle?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Everybody’s real nervous about handling that thing.”

  “Because it’s haunted?”

  “Because it’s probably worth millions”-I hadn’t told her about the Old Cheyenne and their assistance on the mountain-“And it’s fucking haunted.” She was looking at my hands. “I put it in your truck and locked the doors.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I smiled at her because I liked her. Vic was like some exotic eastern bird that had accidentally landed in our high desert and had taken it upon herself to stay, and I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t. It was a profane little song she sang, but I had grown fond of it, like the first cries of the meadowlarks in the early spring. She had a quirky perspective on things and a foul mouth, but she would make a fine sheriff, no matter what anybody said or what words they used to say it. “How’s your love life?” That caught her off guard.

  “Shitty, how’s yours?”

  I shrugged and looked at the carpet. “How should I know?”

  “She was here.” I turned and looked at her with a questioning expression. “Vonnie.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah.” She crossed her arms and looked at her legs stretched out before her. “She brought flowers, but I told her you weren’t dead. I don’t think she thought I was funny.”

  “Most people don’t.”

  “Most people around here got no fucking sense of humor.” She didn’t move for a while. “Can I ask you a question, without you getting all pissed off?”

  “I’ll try.”

  She pursed her lips. “What is it you see in her? I mean, other than she’s beautiful, intelligent, and rich? I just don’t get it.” I pounded the crown back into my hat and made an attempt at straightening the brim. Relatively satisfied with the results, I placed it on my head and pulled it down. She finally spoke again. “I always wanted to be a woman like her. I think it’s because she’s tall.” She turned and looked at me. “It doesn’t seem fair that somebody should be beautiful, intelligent, rich, and tall. That’s bullshit.”

  I waited. “How’s my hat look?”

  She considered. “Like Gabby Hayes.”

  I tried for another subject, the third being a charm. “You been in to see Henry?”

  “I was, but then Dena Many Camps showed up, and I started feeling like a third wheel.”

  I moved my head back and forth like a disco dancer. “He gettin’ some sweet medicine?” I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. It was a risky move, but she didn’t resist, and I rested my chin on the top of her head. “Thanks for coming up after me.”

  Her voice was muffled and sounded strained. “You’re the only friend I’ve got.”

  “I bet you say that to all the sheriffs.” I held her there for a while. Her husband was an idiot. We stayed that way until I became aware of somebody looking at us through the glass partition. It was Vonnie. She didn’t say anything, just nodded and disappeared around the desk and down the hall where everybody else had disappeared. She was carrying a shopping bag and the aforementioned bouquet of flowers. I pulled Vic back up and looked at her. “You okay?”

  She smiled, but it seemed as if there was a little more ocean at the corners of her eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  I leaned her back and kissed her forehead. “Yep, you are.” I staggered up and steadied myself on my increasingly sore legs. “Vonnie just walked by.”

  She nodded. “I get you into trouble?”

  “I don’t think we’re to a place where I can get into trouble.”

  She stood. “That’s what most guys think when they’re in trouble.” She turned the corner and walked toward the automatic doors. As they opened, she paused, making them wait. “I’ll be at the office. It’s getting crowded in here.”

  I followed Vonnie’s trail and found her leaning against the wall outside room 62; she was holding the flowers with the shopping bag at her feet. Her long hair was pulled back in the single ponytail that she had worn to watch football with Henry and me, only a few days ago. The lines in her face were more evident today, in the harsh lighting, but they gave her a delicate appearance like some fragile and beautiful tapestry. Seeing her again was like unearthing an emotional library card with a lot of overdues. I slowed as I got nearer, a little worried about what might be coming. She looked up as I approached. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  It was good that I stopped, because those eyes were just a little bit hard. “How did you find out?”

  Her jaw set, and an awful lot of the wrinkles disappeared. “I bought a police scanner at Radio Shack, thinking it would be nice to hear your voice once in a while.”

  We stood there for a moment and listened as a female giggled through the walls of the Bear’s room. “I didn’t call.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  I nodded and looked at my boots. “I’ve been kind of busy.”

  She stood away from the wall, the flowers clutched in
her hand like a Louisville Slugger. “Did you know that they could hear you? That I could hear you? We heard every word you said, and you couldn’t hear anything when they answered?”

  “No.”

  “I could hear it all.” Her head nodded in a tense fashion. “I could hear everything. Do you know what that’s like, hearing those words and not being able to do anything?” She threw the flowers, and they hit me in the chest. “I have spent my whole life getting to a place where I don’t have to put up with things like this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I will not let you do this to me; I will not.” She stormed past, and I raised a feeble hand to stop her. She yanked her arm away and pointed to the shopping bag on the floor. “I thought you could use a change of clothes.” She stood there for a moment, and I thought there might be some kind of opening, but there wasn’t, and she continued down the hallway as I turned and watched her go.

  I sighed and stooped down to pick up the flowers. As tired as I had been before, I was twice that now. I figured there were better places to take a nap, but fatigue set in and I sat down with my legs stretched out in front of me. It felt good to stretch them, and my back was starting to hurt, so I just laid back and sprawled out on the tile floor of the hallway. I placed the flowers on my chest in a fit of symbolism and closed my eyes.

  More giggling slipped from under the door of the Bear’s room.

  I lay there for a while, thinking that what I ought to do was get up, find a shower, and change into the clothes Vonnie had so thoughtfully provided. I wondered how she knew my size and thought about what she had said. I was feeling sorry for myself, and it felt pretty good; so, I just lay there musing in self-pity, thinking about life, death, and a shower, in that order.

  More giggling.

  I had to eat something. I had to talk to the Espers and tell them about Jacob and try to confirm all of the suppositions as to what Jacob and George’s plans had been, where they had been, and what had happened. My five minutes had run out a half an hour ago. I had to speak with Jim Keller, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a word with Lonnie Little Bird about the last time the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead had been fired.

  Even more giggling.

  I could also talk to the Little Wolf woman to see if there were any more clues as to where the feathers might have gone to and come from. I needed to follow up on the Vasques, size nines, and get a better idea on who might have been leaving tracks all over God’s little acre in them. I didn’t think it was George, but there was the disturbing habit he had of running off every time he got the chance. He had been so sure that Henry had tried to kill him on the trail that I began wondering if that might have been one of the motivations behind his constant state of flight. I also wanted to check on Henry and get a more thorough diagnosis on how he was doing. The first part was in getting my eyes to open and, when I did, an upside down Janine Reynolds’s blues were there to meet me. “Hi, Janine.”

  She looked a little worried. “I thought you might want something to eat?”

  “Bless you.”

  She looked around and then back down to me. “Are you okay?”

  “Just thinking.” I reached over and picked up my hat where it had fallen during my dramatic interpretation. I looked at the flowers, still clutched in my other hand. “You want some flowers?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I pushed up and slid over to the wall as she handed a tray down to me. It was some sort of supposed egg matter that I’m sure had never seen the rear end of a chicken and two grayish meat patties that had never oinked. I placed my hat beside me with the brim up and placed the flowers in it. I rested the tray on my lap and picked up a piece of dry toast and began chewing. No wonder so many people died here, they starved to death. Whatever this was, it was not the usual. “Janine, is there a shower around here?”

  She blinked. I guess it was a strange request. “There’s the one in the staff locker room.”

  “Would anybody mind if I used it?”

  “I don’t think so; you’re kind of a local hero.”

  I continued chewing my toast and began wondering if it was real bread. “Why’s that?”

  “Because of what you did up there.”

  Everybody talked about the mountains as if they were on the second floor. I was uncomfortable with flattery, so I asked her how the Cheyenne Nation was doing. She said that he had turned out to be remarkably resilient and was lucky in that the bullet hadn’t done any serious damage to any of his solid organs. While the doctors were in there, they had taken his appendix. I asked about his index but didn’t get a laugh, at least not from Janine, as a sultry giggling erupted again from room 62. We looked at each other as I continued chewing my toast, and her face reddened. “Well, it’s good to know all his solid organs are functioning properly.”

  Janine made a hasty retreat down the hallway. A few moments later, Dena Many Camps came through Henry’s door. She straightened the same fringed dress I had seen her in a few days earlier and fine-tuned the lipstick at the corner of her open mouth with the tip of a middle finger. She froze for an instant when she saw me. I pulled a beaten tiger lily from my hat and held it up to her. She smiled and took it, bestowing a ravishing wink back over her shoulder as she sashayed down the hall and turned the corner.

  I figured that about a dime’s worth of Dena Many Camps and a Fresca would kill my ass.

  14

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” George Esper was, once again, at large. I dried off my damp hair, made sure the towel around my middle was secure, and sat beside my set of new clothes that were still in the green paper shopping bag from the Sportshop.

  Ferg looked like he was going to die. “He said he wanted something to eat, so I went to get a nurse…”

  I draped the towel from my head to over my shoulders and examined my fingers. The first layer of skin was pretty well shot, and the next was pink and sensitive. My ear hurt, and I hadn’t taken the bandage off for fear of disturbing it, but mostly I felt good, being clean for the first time in a couple of days. “Why didn’t you just ring for a nurse?”

  “I tried.”

  I thought about going back in the shower and drowning myself. “Where did you see him last?”

  “In his room, about five minutes ago.”

  I handed him the portable radio, still amazingly clipped to the back of my mud-encrusted Carhartts. “This building is not that big. Have somebody go stand at the northeast corner of the hospital, and you stand at the southwest; either of you spots him leaving, call in. You use your truck radio.” I looked up at Ferg and thought about how he had worked through the better part of the night, probably hadn’t had anything decent to eat in days, and more than likely needed to phone his wife and let her know he was still alive. Donna worked at an insurance firm in town and, after thirty years of marriage, they were still madly in love. On Sunday afternoons, you could see them walking, holding hands, along Clear Creek in the park. “He got away from me, too, don’t feel bad.” I picked up my hat to keep him from feeling self-conscious. “I think I need a new hat. What do you think?”

  He looked at me with hazel eyes not too disturbed by self-analysis and struck out for the southwest corner of the building. “Definitely.”

  I sat the hat back down on the polished surface of the wooden bench, which was anchored to the floor with three-inch pipe. I guess the administrators figured the doctors and nurses weren’t making enough money and might try to run off with the furnishings. I looked in the bag at my new clothes with a sense of trepidation. If she was angry when she bought them for me, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see what size they were, but the jeans were an exact fit, as were the jacket, shirt, socks, underwear, and undershirt.

  After I finished dressing, I put my gun belt on, carefully adjusting the jacket so that it covered the majority of it. Then I stuffed my dirty clothes into the bag for later washing or burning, placed my hat on top, and carried it with me into the hallway. Friday, midmorning, and there st
ill wasn’t much traffic at the hospital, which meant that George would have less cover. But, even though the building was small and the staff sparse, there were probably hundreds of places where he could be. I decided to drop my clothes off in Henry’s room, if he was between female visitations, and use it as a base of operations for the hunt for George Esper, take two.

  When I got to Henry’s door, I paused to listen and hear if anybody else was in there. I heard voices but, whatever they were saying, it wasn’t postcoital, so I pushed open the door and found George Esper seated in a chair beside Henry. I walked up to the bed opposite George and noticed that he had been crying. “Did it occur to you to say something to my deputy before you went wandering off, George?” He looked sufficiently sheepish and wiped the tears on his bare arm. “I mean, before I put out an all-points bulletin and file a missing persons with the FBI?”

  “Thsorry…”

  “George, here’s the way it works from now on. When I put you someplace, anyplace? I want you to stay there until I come and get you. Do you understand that?” He nodded. “Good, now go back to your room.” He got up and limped toward the door, but before he could get it open I called out, “And stay there.” I listened as the door closed behind him.

  “I think George might be a little confused.”

  I looked down at him. “Really. I think George is a lot confused.”

  “I am serious. I think something might be wrong with him.”

  “Other than continual flight syndrome?”

  Henry paused for a moment, then folded the sheet down and smoothed the edge. His hands looked strange in this setting, like wild birds accidentally indoors. “Does the family have any history of mental illness?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He shook his head. “He seems scattered, and he has no attention span.”

  “Concussed?”

  “Possibly.” He looked at the empty chair where George had sat. “He wanted to know what he had to do if he wanted to live on the reservation. He thought he might be safer there.”