Cold Dish wl-1

by Craig Johnson

  “That’s confused. He wasn’t that bad on the mountain.” We thought that one over for a moment.

  His eyes stayed steady on mine. “He knows about his brother.”

  I felt like sitting down. “What did he say? How does he know?”

  He shrugged. “It was not anything he said, it was just a feeling. But he knows.”

  I studied the polished railing at the side of the bed. “Do you think he was with Jacob when he was killed?”

  “I do not know that.” Henry smiled. “I am sorry to be so little help to you, but it is just a feeling. They are twins.”

  I leaned against the foot rail and peeled a small piece of the skin from the side of my hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Very well, and yourself?”

  “My hands are falling off and my ear hurts.”

  He nodded. “Things could be worse, your ear could fall off.”

  “There’s an intraoffice pool; odds are the doctor is going to cut it off.”

  “That would be a shame. Your ears are one of your finest features.”

  I looked out the window with him. “My thought exactly. They’re gonna get a fight when they come for it.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Put me down a fifty on keeping the ear.”

  “You’re up against Lucian.”

  He continued to look out the window. “He is still calling me Ladies Wear?”

  “Yep.”

  “Make it a hundred.”

  I laughed. “Well, I better call off the manhunt and go talk to George.” I looked down at him again. He really was recuperating quite well and looked as though he could get up and follow me out. “How’s Dena Many Camps doing these days?”

  “She is a wonderful and caring young woman.”

  I paused at the door. “I don’t suppose George mentioned what room he was in?”

  “No.” He still looked out the window, and I wondered how long they would be able to keep him. “He was probably afraid I would come looking for him.”

  I watched him for a moment longer and then went out into the hall. Doctors and nurses are human, and humans are creatures of habit, so I walked across the hallway and pushed open the door of my old room. George was sitting at the side of his bed, looking out the window at the parking lot. “Hey, George. Mind if I come in?” He didn’t say anything but kept staring out the window. The snow swept across the asphalt surface, piling up wherever the concrete partitions divided the lot. Nobody wanted to be here, and everybody was looking out the windows. I pulled a chair from the wall and sat down in his line of sight. I turned my head and also looked out the window. “Well, I’m glad to be inside, how about you?” He nodded but continued to look at the lot. I could see the Bullet from here; he was probably trying to figure out how to hot-wire it. “I’d say winter is here… George?” He finally turned his face toward me. I studied him carefully and noticed he was shaking. “George, are you all right?”

  “Chjakeb’s ded.”

  I could feel my eyes sharpen as I looked at the young man. “What makes you think that, George?”

  “Thsaw himb.” His lips moved, but no more words came out.

  “You saw him?” He nodded his head. “Saw him where, George?”

  “Othwe montan…”

  “You saw him up at Dull Knife Lake?” He shook his head as violently as his bandaged jaw would allow. “Where then?” The tremors continued to wrack his body as his naked legs hung from the bed and shook, the nearest thigh wrapped up in a winding layer of gauze. I wasn’t sure if they had him on anything, but with the head injury it was unlikely. “George, if you know anything? I need you to tell me about it. I’m trying to stop who’s doing this, but I have to figure out who it is before I can do anything.”

  “Yhew kan’tsopthm.”

  I nodded. “Stop who, George?”

  I watched as a finger crept from his hand and pointed toward the window. “Tthemb.”

  I felt a continuous charge run up my spine as I turned my head and looked out the window again, my reflected image only inches from my eyes. There was a minivan parked a little farther out, but I could almost swear that George Esper was pointing at my truck. “George, there’s nothing out there but my truck.” He continued to look, but the finger disappeared into his fist. I checked again and looked out to the municipal golf course. Maybe Arnie’s Army was after George. “George, who did you see up there?”

  The only thing he said was, “Yhew kan’tsopthm.”

  I stood up slowly and gently lowered the Venetian blinds with the cord that had been at my back. George still didn’t move, so I pushed him back in the bed with a hand on his shoulder and pulled the blanket and sheet up to his chin. He still shook as if he were freezing. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep?”

  “Yhew kan’tsopthm.”

  I looked down at another human wreck and patted his chest. “Well.. I might just surprise you.”

  I made my way through the automatic doors of the emergency room and waved at Ferg, who joined me. We used one of the blond brick walls as a wind block and stood against the building’s entrance. “He’s back in his room. I found him in Henry’s, but he’s back in his.” The air was more than a little brisk, so I flipped the collar up on my new jacket and pushed my hands farther into the pockets. “He’s acting a little strange, so you might want to keep an even closer eye on him. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but he might wander off again.”

  “You bet.”

  “I notified them at the desk. I’m going to head back over to the office and get things sorted out.”

  “You bet.”

  I was also willing to bet that Ferg would be sitting on George within the moment. I pulled my keys out, headed over to the Bullet, and looked through the window. I’m not sure what it was I expected to see, an entire Old Cheyenne war party riding shotgun or what. I stood there in the wind, the blowing snow peppering the side of my face with its sting, as I looked into my truck. The rifle was there, a palpable reminder of things I could not see and, beside it, sat a black-and-white box of ammunition for things I could. Vic must have left the box after the tests, a little joke, or maybe she thought I might need it. I wondered mildly what had happened to the Weatherby I had on the mountain or to the Remington that Henry had been carrying.

  Was anybody in there? Ever since the mountain, I was careful to look for them out of the corners of my eyes. It seemed as though, if I stood there long enough, they would begin to appear, sitting easily on the leather seats and looking back at me with their hair-bone chokers, their trade cloth tied in their hair, and their closed-mouth smiles. They held the rifle in their laps, waiting for me to get in so they could hand it to me. I leaned against the door and closed my eyes; the glass was cold, but I could think again. I opened my eyes, and they were gone. I stood there for another moment, and I’m not sure if I was making sure they were gone or hoping they would reappear. I turned the key, opened the door, and slid in next to the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead. My hand shook a little as I slid the rifle over and placed the box of ammunition on the seat next to me. The box looked old, as if the edges had been roughed off and the printing had been done by an antiquainted press. The date on the box even read 1876. It felt heavy, and I thought about pumpkins.

  By the time I got over to my desk, the Espers were waiting on line two. I had told Ruby I would get it in my office and passed by Vic’s open door. She was on the phone, and it looked like she was enjoying her call far more than I would mine. It was probably her friends at the Department of Justice, and I had a brief twinge of panicked jealousy. If Vic weren’t married to Wyoming anymore, she’d be a fool not to go back east and get a job with a large, urban department or with the Feds. As I sat there in my office, my plans for the first female Wyoming sheriff evaporated into thin, high plains air.

  I picked up the receiver and punched line two. “Longmire.” I sounded busy and possibly a little angry.

  “Sheriff?”

  It was Reggie Esper. “Yep,
Reggie. Are you still in Deadwood?”

  There was a pause. “We are. I told the mine I’d be back yesterday, but we had a lucky streak and decided to stay on ’til Monday. Then this South Dakota Highway Patrolman came to the casino and got us.” Another pause. “Walt, if this is about that damned Pritchard kid, I haven’t let the boys have anything to do with him…”

  “It’s not about Cody Pritchard.”

  Yet another pause. “Well, is it important? I mean I don’t want to cut a weekend short if I…”

  “It’s important.” I stared at the blotter on my desk and picked up a pen. I looked up at the old Seth Thomas clock on my wall, a plugged-in leftover from Lucian and Red Angus before him. I adjusted it twice a year, and it never lost or gained a second. “It’s a little after eleven, and you could be here by three or so?”

  There was a discussion going on in the background. “We’ll leave right after lunch.”

  He started to hang up. “Reggie? Make sure you come straight to the sheriff’s office.” He said he would.

  I put the phone back, leaned an elbow on my desk, and accidentally hit my ear. I swore and readjusted my hand to my cheek. It hurt to hold the pen, and I clutched my tender fingers in a half claw. I put the Espers down for four o’clock and wrote a note to ask Vic about ballistics. I had to talk to the Curator of Firearms at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, talk to Jim Keller, and call Dave at the Sportshop about Vasques, size nines. I was also beginning to wonder about Lucian and Turk. I started to punch the intercom on my phone, but all the lines were busy. Probably Vic, faxing her resume. I got up and walked out to Ruby’s desk.

  She was on the phone too, but she hung up. “Lonnie Little Bird was here looking for you.” She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. “He’s sweet.”

  “Yes, he is.” I paused for a second. “I’ve got the Espers coming in this afternoon. If they’re running late, can you stick around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything on Jim Keller?”

  “Not back from Nebraska yet. But Mrs. Keller has been here twice already today.”

  “How’s the kid doing?”

  “He’s in the back, asleep. I gave him the old sheriff report books to look at, which would put anybody to sleep. By the way, you have the worst penmanship of any sheriff we’ve ever had since 1881. I thought you’d be glad to know.”

  “Who was before 1881?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Nobody; that’s when we first became a county in the territory, about nine years before we became a state. You did hear about that?”

  I scratched at my ear and immediately regretted it. “Yep, I remember reading about it in the papers.”

  “Stop picking at your ear.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I slouched a little bit. “Do you know what’s happened to Lucian and Turk?”

  “They are having lunch down the hill at the Busy Bee. Lucian mentioned something about having a Come-to-Jesus meeting with his nephew.”

  “Oh, boy. Anything from Vic on the ballistics at DCI?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “She’s on the phone.” I looked down at all the blinking lights on Ruby’s console. “She’s on all of them.”

  “Then she hasn’t, or she is now.” She stayed looking at me.

  “We’re not going to be able to keep her, are we?” It was out before I knew I had said it and, when I looked up, Ruby’s electric blues steadfastly joined with mine.

  “Why don’t you go have lunch; she’ll be off the phones by the time you get back. Besides, you could use a little religion.”

  In its usual perverse manner, the sun had decided to come out and cast a glare without providing any heat. It might get warmer by the end of the afternoon but, for now, it was just plain cold. As I navigated the courthouse steps, I looked up at Vern’s window. He was probably up there still waiting for our lunch, but I could bet that he wouldn’t want anything to do with Lucian’s type of revival meeting, even though I was sure it would carry its own unique version of fire and brimstone.

  Cody and Jacob, convicted of two counts of first degree sexual assault, could have been sentenced to as much as forty years. The sentencing date hung over all of us for two solid weeks, but over nobody as much as Vern Selby. The jury had lived with deciding, and now they had passed it on to Vern like some communicable disease, and the fever of justice ate away at him.

  He had taken it upon himself to merge the two counts into one, which was his judicial latitude, and sentenced Cody and Jacob to a maximum of fifteen years in prison, far to the low side of the five- to fifty-year sentencing guideline. George had gotten the minimum of ten, but it all became academic when the judge had pronounced that the offenders would be incarcerated in a young adult institution in Casper and would therefore receive indeterminate terms. I guess Vern had decided that since they were all first offenders, the rape shouldn’t cost them the rest of their lives; never mind what it had cost Melissa.

  Cody Pritchard had turned to his friends in the back of the courtroom and playfully tossed his hat in the air and smiled. With time off for good behavior, Cody, Jacob, and George could see less than two years of soft prison time. Bryan Keller would receive two years of probation and one hundred hours of community service. The young men were once again released without bail, and Vern had nodded quietly in his chambers when I personally volunteered to drive the three of them down to Casper.

  When I got to the Busy Bee, I glanced through the window. Turk was slouched on his stool and was against the wall about as far as he could be. Lucian, with his lips barely moving, was leaning in and glared at the side of Turk’s face. Any thoughts of hunger passed, and I continued along the sidewalk to the Sportshop. When I went in, David was punching something into his computer behind the counter, and his wife, Sue, was waiting on an overweight middle-aged woman in the shoe department. I strolled up to the counter and leaned a hip against it.

  He looked up through the top of his bifocals. “Hi, Walt.”

  “What’s the number one selling hiking boot?”

  “Here?” He thought. “Vasque, maybe Asolo.”

  “Most popular size?”

  “Nine, maybe ten.”

  “Any way to track how many Vasques, size nines you’ve sold in the last year or so?”

  He looked at me and sighed. “You’re lucky Sue’s here today. I don’t have time for…”

  “Make time.” I looked at him for a moment to reinforce it.

  “I can ask Sue to go back through the special orders and check the stock, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on names if I were you. If they paid cash…”

  “I need you to do it now.”

  He pulled a pen from behind his ear and tossed it on the counter in defeat. “All right.”

  “One other question. Do you remember Jacob or George coming in to buy flies?”

  He crossed his arms and exhaled a long, slow hiss. “Maybe a week and a half, two weeks ago?”

  “Anybody else here when they were talking about where they were going?” It was a long shot, but I had to play it out.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Will you think about it?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean really think about it.”

  “Sure.” Before I could get too far from the counter he said, “Nice clothes.”

  I stopped and looked down at my fancy duds. “You help her with the sizes?”

  “Did it all on her own.” He smiled. “Somethin’, huh?”

  “Yep.” I continued to the door and rested my hand on the brass handle.

  “You should be proud of yourself, she’s quite a catch.”

  “Yep.” I pulled open the door and started out. “Call me.”

  By the time I got back to the Bee, Lucian and Turk had vacated the place and nobody was visible, not even Dorothy. I went in and sat at the corner stool, next to the cash register. After a moment, a shadow cast across my plastic-covered, vinyl menu. “What
are you having?”

  “Anything but the usual.” I closed the menu in one hand and reached it over to her. “I want to apologize for being sharp with you yesterday.”

  She took the menu and looked at my fingers. She had been talking to somebody because her next glance was up to my ear. “Feeling experimental, are we?” She reached down and threw two meat patties from a small Tupperware container onto the grill, then dropped a basket of hand-cut potatoes into the fryer. It appeared that hamburgers and french fries were not today’s usual. I asked her about Lucian and Turk. She raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re due a formal, verbal apology. Then I think the former, yet attending, sheriff intends to take a nap in the jail.” Her voice softened. “How’s the Bear?”

  I looked up. “I bet he’s out of there by this afternoon.”

  “Hard to keep a good man down.”

  I reached up to feel my ear. “You have no idea…”

  She slapped my hand away. “Stop that.” She turned back around and flipped the sizzling patties. “So, where are we on the case?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Inspector Lastrade…” And I did. I left out any suspicions I had about Jim Keller, but that was about all. I was looking defeat squarely in the face, and pretty soon the county would be crawling with DCI investigators and Feds. I honestly didn’t think they were going to get any further than I had. Nonetheless, I told her I was considering a career in telemarketing.

  She filled a glass with ice and then with tea from a pitcher that sat on the cutting board. “You can make a lot of money.” She flipped a couple of slices of cheese onto the burgers, prepared the buns for reception on an oval-shaped plate, and pulled the fresh basket of fries from the deep fryer, hooking them on the rack to drip dry. My stomach gurgled in response to all the activity, and I was glad she had put on two cheeseburgers. “Okay, unlucky at cards…”

  I took a long sip of the tea. “Don’t even ask.”

  She scooped up the patties, scooting them expertly onto the bun beds, and covered the rest of the plate with french fries. “That bad?” She slid the dish in front of me. “Careful, hot.”