The Western Star

by Craig Johnson

  I waved her away. “Go back to your lab and smell some more toxic fumes.”

  When we got to the Bullet, the Bear had finished worshipping the sun and was sweeping more glass from the passenger-side seat. “Where to now?”

  I opened the back door and let Vic in. “I’m thinking the scene of the crime.” I brushed a few more shards off my seat. “And then the windshield replacement shop on Old Lincoln Highway.”

  —

  I pulled into the alley behind Cady’s and parked as both Vic and the Cheyenne Nation gave me a questioning look. “I need to see a neighbor.”

  I shut the door behind me and, cradling the rock, walked over to the yard that was adjacent to the carriage house, but the three rather uninviting garage doors that faced the street were closed.

  The garden shed was one of those prefabricated metal buildings that had seen better days, as had the property on which it stood. It sat next to a power pole on a little L-shaped portion of land, a weed-festooned tract that I was betting neither landowner knew that they possessed and consequently one that no one cared for.

  There was a wooden fence that reached to about chest height, but a few slats were loose, which could allow a person to slip through. There was a shopping cart parked on the other side, so I was pretty sure the occupant was home. “Hey, Peter?”

  There was no answer.

  “Peter, I know you’re in there, because your shopping cart is out here.”

  After a moment, the homeless guy appeared; he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “I don’t know nothin’ about your windshield.”

  Vic laughed, and I glanced at the Bear, who smiled and held an eyebrow in abeyance. “Well, seeing as how I didn’t ask you about my windshield and yet you just volunteered the subject, I believe you might indeed know something about it.”

  He looked puzzled. “Huh?”

  I gestured behind me at the shattered glass. “Because you knew something happened to my windshield.”

  He continued to peer at me from around the corner of the tiny building. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  Vic shook her head. “We don’t have to, dumb ass, you already tricked yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sighed, and I decided to start over. “Hey, Peter, do you know how a rock went through my windshield?”

  He glanced around to make sure that no one would overhear. “Um, maybe it fell off something.”

  I tipped my hat back and rested my forehead on one of my arms. “Come over here to the fence.”

  “No.”

  I raised my face and looked at him and gestured toward the Cheyenne Nation, now standing beside me. “I’m tired and don’t want to climb over this fence, so if you don’t, I’m going to send him after you.” I then gestured toward Vic. “Or have her shoot you.”

  Slowly, the vagrant came around the tin building and drew closer. “Um, it was a dude.”

  “Had you ever seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “He was just standing here in the alley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he have a car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t suppose you got the license number, type of car?”

  “Not really.”

  Desperate, I threw out another question. “Color?”

  “He was white.”

  “I meant the car.”

  “Black.”

  “Okay then, what did he look like?”

  “Like a dude . . .”

  “He was driving, so he was older than sixteen?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sighed again. “A lot older than sixteen?”

  “No.”

  “Twenties?”

  “Maybe.”

  I glanced at Henry. “Do you mind taking over? This is wearing me out.”

  He caught the man by the front of his shirt and pulled him to the fence, his face now about four inches from Henry’s. “What did he look like?”

  The words came tumbling out. “Blond, he was blond and buff—you know, like a bodybuilder. . . . T-shirt and jeans with a leather jacket. It was an SUV, black, definitely black.”

  The Bear turned to look at me, and I nodded, at which point he released his grip and Peter backed away, running into the shed. “I’m calling the police.”

  “If I thought you had a phone, I’d take that threat more seriously.”

  —

  I watched as they secured Annie Welsh on a gurney and hauled her away. “You almost got me killed.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  John Schafer leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. “There was an uproar in the mess, we had to close it off, and I guess she got around us. She’s got a knack for it.”

  I handed him the blade. “What about the knife?”

  “She’s got a knack for that, too.” He examined it and then handed it to Bernard. “Seen that one before?”

  The guard studied it. “Nope, but I don’t frequent the kitchen, and I’m assuming that’s where it came from.”

  “Might be something you ought to know.”

  Schafer turned and walked through the cage toward the stairwell. “You coming?”

  I started after him and then stopped to look back at the cell behind me and at the set of hands still folded in the small opening. I walked back over to the door and kneeled down, taking one of the hands in my own. “Thank you.”

  There was no answer, but after a brief squeeze of my hand, I watched as he withdrew both into the cell. I stood and remained there for a moment before turning and walking past Schafer, leaving a hole in the trail of cigarette smoke that occupied the dank hallway. “Let’s go.”

  Collecting my things at the reception area, I went out to the Plymouth and leaned my back against my ticket to freedom. I could see the asylum graveyard across the highway, but I was no longer worried about the individuals buried under the stark numbered cobblestones; rather, about those who were buried alive in the catacombs of the hospital.

  “I’ll drive to the train station and you can drop me off.” Schafer patted the roof of the sedan. “Then she’s all yours.”

  I tossed him the keys and, dropping my duffel into the back, opened the door and climbed in.

  Schafer started the beast, turned the wheel, and navigated to the exit. He studied me from the corner of his eye and finally spoke as we drove through the gate. “Sorry about that.”

  “No big deal.”

  He nodded. “Didn’t get to spend much time with my brother . . . but I guess you did.”

  I was silent.

  “What’d he have to say?”

  I placed a hand on the dash and looked out the window at the town of Evanston. “We didn’t have a lot of time to talk.”

  “How’s he doin’?”

  I turned and rested an arm on the back of the seat, giving him a nice, lengthy look. “How do you think he’s doing?”

  Schafer studied me for a moment more and then burst out laughing, barely keeping the car on the road as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “I was just wondering if his story had gotten any more believable, and—hey, hey, hey—I guess I got my answer, huh?” He chuckled a bit more as he cut across the road and swung into the depot parking lot where The Western Star sat waiting.

  We both got out, but he hadn’t noticed that I was carrying the duffel in my left hand.

  “Here you go.” He tossed the keys toward me, and I caught them with my right. “I filled her up before I got you, so she’s full of gas and ready to go.”

  I stood there for a moment and then looked at the great steam engine working its breath up for the long pull back across Wyoming. I tossed the keys in the air once, caught them, and then casually slung them onto the top of the car. As they slid toward Schafer, I threw my
duffel onto my shoulder and began walking toward the train. “Won’t be needing them.”

  He called after me. “Hey, hey, hey . . . you don’t want the Plymouth?”

  I didn’t answer and continued down the side of the train toward the sleeper cars.

  “Are we going to have the pleasure of your company after all?”

  I looked back and could see John Saunders, the engineer, hanging an elbow from the cab window and looking down at me.

  “Until Cheyenne. For another six and a half hours, I’m guessing.”

  He glanced at his wristwatch and looked doubtful. “We don’t get moving, and it might be longer than that; there’s a front comin’ in, and if it hits before we get to Elk Mountain, we’re going to be spending a cold night on the tracks.”

  I nodded and kept going, noticing that most of the sheriffs I passed were still hungover. I finally found the one I was looking for standing on the steps to our sleeper car, as if he hadn’t moved since I’d left.

  He was stuffing the bowl of his pipe but paused to cock an eyebrow at me. “Change your mind?”

  I stopped, set my shoulders, and looked up at him. “Do you like mysteries, Lucian?”

  He struck a match on the surface of the Pullman, lit the old briarwood pipe, and looked down at me, the flame highlighting his face with an infernal glow. “No, I do not.”

  “Neither do I.” I looked up and down the tracks. “You gotta promise me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t hold back information pertinent to a case and leave me in the dark again, ever.”

  Smiling broadly, he puffed the pipe until it caught and then blew out the match and tossed it into the cinder bed of the rails. “You bet.”

  I had a feeling, and not for the first time, that I’d just made a deal with the devil.

  —

  “Why are we in fucking Nebraska?”

  “Pine Bluffs, Wyoming—if you please.”

  “Looks like fucking Nebraska.”

  “The young woman who was living at Leeland’s daughter’s address was here. She said she was his granddaughter.”

  The Bear unbuckled the seat belt of the Mitsubishi rental car we’d gotten in Cheyenne as a temporary replacement for my disabled truck as I made the turn and pulled up in front of the small house, its driveway empty. “Why would she throw a rock through your windshield?”

  “That’s not why we’re here—we’re here to see if she would testify to the fact that she suffered because of her grandfather’s murder. I don’t like being pushed.”

  Henry climbed out the passenger side as I lowered the windows a little bit for Dog, cut the engine, and reached back to flip the seat forward so Vic could escape the clown car.

  As we approached the front of the place, I noticed that the piano lessons sign wasn’t in the window any longer. “I guess she’s out of business.” Both Vic and the Bear looked at me. “There was a sign in the window.”

  He cruised past me and approached the front of the house, knocking on the frame of the screen door before casually opening the thing and trying the knob. Only an expert would’ve noticed how casually he placed his shoulder against the jamb and leveraged the locked door open with a little brute force.

  He nodded and waved for us to follow.

  Vic and I entered and glanced around at the empty living room.

  Henry walked toward what appeared to be the kitchen and looked at the empty rolls of packing tape, a broken pair of scissors, and a collection of odd newspapers. There were a few unused boxes stacked against the wall and a couple of tattered towels on the floor, a layer of dust coating everything.

  I went in the other direction past the bathroom, where the plastic curtain lay in the tub along with a broken curtain rod. There were two bedrooms in the back, one with a couple of loose pieces of wood on the floor, which could’ve been used to support a mattress in a frame.

  “What were you hoping to find?”

  I turned to see Vic standing in the doorway. “Her.”

  Henry squeezed past and walked to the single window in the back, stooping a little to look outside. “Hmm . . .”

  “What?”

  “Dead crabgrass.”

  I stepped over to the light switch and flipped it on but nothing happened. “Can I ask you something?”

  “About the crabgrass?”

  “No.” I was about to ask when I heard a noise from out front. “Was that Dog?”

  Vic glanced over her shoulder. “I think so.”

  I’d just begun moving back toward the front of the house when I heard the front door opening. I stopped and gestured for Vic and Henry to step back and clear the view. I leaned in and could see the shadow of someone passing along the living room wall.

  Whoever it was didn’t say anything, and I was getting a funny feeling about the whole thing when one of the floorboards in the bedroom creaked under my boot.

  I was just about to speak when a 12-gauge round traveled through the partition beside me, blowing a sizable hole in the wallboard. Throwing myself to the side, I snatched the Colt from my holster and looked back to see that Henry had flattened himself on the floor with fluttering pieces of Sheetrock floating in the air around him. Vic already had her weapon out as I switched to the other side and leveled my .45 from a crouched position, just as another round went through the wall where I’d been standing.

  Henry stayed where he was, and I was about to throw a few rounds back when I took a chance. “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, hold your fire!”

  There was a long pause and then a very shaky male voice responded. “Who?”

  The adrenaline was still coursing through me like an electric service line. “Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, damn it, and I’m the Absaroka County sheriff!”

  “Oh, shit. Why didn’t you identify yourselves?”

  “Why didn’t you identify yourself, especially before you started shooting? Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “Officer Louis Mittenbueller, Pine Bluffs Police Department.”

  “Hold your fire, Mittenbueller.” I watched as Vic helped the Bear up. “I’m not kidding. If you fire that howitzer one more time, I’ve got an undersheriff here who is going to start shooting back.”

  “Right.”

  I could see his shadow again as I stepped into the hallway and, with Henry following, moved into the back side of the living room, where a young man with a shaved head in black BDUs held a Remington shotgun at port arms. “Sorry about that, sir.”

  I reholstered the Colt and leaned into him. “Whatever happened to knock and announce?”

  “What?”

  “Announcing your authority to the premises and then waiting a reasonable time before entering.”

  He nodded. “Well, we got a phone call; somebody said there were two individuals, a white man and woman, and . . .” He glanced at Henry. “And a native, and that they had broken into a house. . . .”

  Vic shook her head. “I’m in uniform, you douche.”

  “When did you get the call? We’ve been here only about three minutes.”

  He stood up a little straighter. “About two minutes ago—we’re in the top five percentile in response time nationwide.”

  “What’s your percentile on shooting people?” I sighed. “Sorry. It’s all right, our fault, too. We were kind of cowboying it.” I gestured toward the road. “I’m usually driving my unit, but somebody threw a rock through the windshield. We’re looking for the woman who used to live here—”

  “Mrs. Leeland-Delahunt?” He made a face. “I don’t think she could lift a rock even when she was alive.”

  “You knew Abigail Leeland?”

  “Leeland-Delahunt. Sure, I took piano lessons from her growing up, but she died.”

  “We’re looking for the current re
sident, Pamela Delahunt.”

  “Mrs. Leeland-Delahunt’s daughter?” He looked somewhat confused and then volunteered, “Well, you’re in luck—she’s down at our office.”

  13

  “Who threatened you?”

  Pamela Delahunt sat in one of the Pine Bluffs Police Department office chairs, a hand over her face. “I thought I should report it, but now I just want to get out of here, okay?”

  Her truck was parked out front with a horse trailer packed with her belongings attached. “I understand, but whoever is doing this shouldn’t get away with it.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not my problem anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s still mine.” She took her hand away, and I could see that she’d been crying. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “After you came by, there were phone calls. Mostly they were just silent hangups, but then they started saying things like I should keep my mouth shut, that if I wasn’t careful I’d be sorry.” She clutched her hands in her lap. “What are they talking about?”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Oh, that I’d better stick to piano lessons.” She laughed, a hollow sort of sound, and wiped her eyes.

  “So, it was a man’s voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Young or old?”

  She thought about it. “In between, maybe.”

  I glanced up at Vic and Henry, but none of us had any ideas. “Did he have an accent, anything about his voice that was distinctive?”

  “Maybe a twang? He was angry.”

  “Was it a landline or a cell phone—was there any static?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  I sighed and leaned back in the chair, which let out a high-pitched squeal. “I’m afraid I may have gotten you into trouble by coming over here. I’m fighting a very public battle so that the man who killed your grandfather stays in prison.”

  —

  “He told you what?”

  I leaned against the upper bunk and, looking out the window, felt the shift as the train began pulling out from Evanston in the same direction as the east-traveling snow. It was almost as if the storm front had wedged itself under the back side of the steel wheels and was rolling them forward against their volition. “That he wasn’t the one who killed those girls.”