Death Without Company

3

I was enjoying the usual. “ Coronea custodium regis.” He looked at me blankly. “I bet you can figure it out.” I negotiated the last chunk of biscuit back into the spicy gravy with my fork and lifted it into my mouth.

“Keeper of the king’s pleas?”

I looked at Dorothy, and we both looked at him. “Who says the values of a classical education are lost?”

I watched as the woman who kept me alive by operating the only cafe within walking distance of the jail refilled my coffee cup. “You did, just last week.”

“Richard the Lion-Hearted established these guys as a sort of tax collector. They were in charge of keeping track of convicted felons and their property, which was confiscated in the name of the king.” I laid the fork back on the empty plate. He was about to finish the same amount of the usual that I had, and I was impressed.

There wasn’t anybody else in the little cafe, so Dorothy’s attention was exclusively on us. “And the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner?”

She was reaching for the coffee pot, but I shook my head. “A medical examiner is trained, a coroner is elected.” The phone rang, and I watched as Dorothy reached to get it. “The last coroner up in Yellowstone County got into a little trouble back in the midseventies.” I went on. “Eddie Cole used to get paid about a thousand bucks an inquest, and it was only when four bear attacks one weekend came up with a victim of the same height, weight, and coloring that King Cole got into a little hot water.”

When I looked back, Dorothy was holding the phone out to me. “Very agitated deputy for you.”

I handled the receiver like it was loaded. “Hello?”

“Are you enjoying your breakfast?”

I pulled the earpiece a little away from my temple. “I was until now.”

“We just got a report here at the office of some very angry individuals over at the old folks home, and now we’ve got those same individuals over at the hospital. I have been informed that this is one of your little fucking deals, so I would advise you to get your ass over there as fast as it can waddle.” The line went dead.

I looked at the two of them. “Gotta go.”

When I dropped Saizarbitoria off at the office with his bag, his cell phone, and his ball cap, I had the feeling I was sending him off to school. I warned him that all the training at the state pen wasn’t going to be of any use to him in there. He seemed undaunted. I told him to make friends with Dog because Harry Truman was right, but I don’t think he got it.

I stood up straight as I approached the reception desk at the hospital, something I rarely did in everyday life, but height came in handy in times of conflict. I could count on three hands how many physical altercations I had been in since I had become sheriff, but no matter what anybody says, size helps.

I walked between the two people at the desk and loomed over Janine, whom I had a special fondness for whenever I remembered that she is Ruby’s granddaughter. “Janine, you’ve got a situation here?”

She shrugged at the two on either side of me. “Yes.”

He wasn’t yelling when I turned to look at him; he was a good-looking fellow in a studied western way, fifties and trim, with an oversized cowboy mustache and dark hair, about average height. I was willing to bet that his haircut cost forty dollars and that, boots, hat, and leather coat notwithstanding, he wasn’t a cowboy. “Do I know you?”

He was taken a little aback but was attempting to get a verbal footing. “Lyle Lofton, I’m an attorney in Sheridan County.”

A lawyer, great; the tall thing didn’t work with lawyers. “Jeez, Lyle, I thought I was going to have to throw some people in jail for public disturbance.” I turned to the woman. She was in her fifties as well-lean, tall, dark, and a little strained. With her collection of neck scarves and turquoise, I was willing to bet that she wasn’t a cowboy either, but you never know. “Is this your wife?”

“Kay, this is Sheriff…”

I was glad she didn’t put out her hand; I didn’t want to risk being bruised by the bracelets. “Where is my mother?”

I paused for a moment. “If you are speaking of Mrs. Baroja, she’s being held in an attempt to ascertain a certificate of death from the attending physician, Dr. Bloomfield. And a possible coroner’s report as to the cause of death.” I made a mental note to call Bloomfield and cover my ass with as many doctors as it would take to hold off the lawyers.

“She was seventy-four years old.” I looked at the red splotching at her neck.

She was ready to blow again, so I figured I’d get it all over with at once. “It’s a standard procedure in deaths such as your mother’s where there may be concerns of reasonable suspicion.”

“Suspicion of what?”

I went ahead and dropped the bomb. “Foul play.”

She put a fist on her hip and looked at me with about as much jangling accoutrement and audacity as we could both stand. “The woman smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.” I waited, because I was sure there was more. “You know, we hear stories in Sheridan about how backward this place is, but until now I never really believed them.”

I smiled as the feathers brushed the inside of my chest like they always do when I get irritated. “Well, I’m glad we’ve been able to live up to everybody’s expectations.” I was always ready to smile when I was winning and, lawyers or not, they couldn’t stop me from doing what I was doing today. Unless my coroner was pumping nickels into the slot machines at the casino on the Crow reservation, I would be done by tomorrow. Lawyers always held domain over tomorrow; it was their gig. I looked back to her as she stared at the rug. “I’m sorry, I know.”

“You’re damn well going to be.”

We all watched as she marched out of the place. I turned back to Lyle, who pursed his lips and silently followed her out. I leaned my elbows against the counter and watched as they whizzed by the glass doors in $50,000 worth of non-Sporty, non-Utilitarian Vehicle. She was driving.

I tipped my hat back on my head. “How you doin’, Janine?”

“Better, since you arrived.”

“Any word on my coroner?”

“He got here about a half an hour ago.”

I found the room with a plastic sign over it that read SURGERY 02. I was just about to push the door open when I remembered what it was I was walking in on. I had been present for too many general autopsies. With as many as two MEs from DCI and a district attorney to boot, I sometimes chose not to participate. Three weeks ago, I had sat in one of these very chairs and spared myself the inevitable outcome of Vonnie’s. I had a dark feeling that forensic pathologists didn’t look at the rest of us the way the rest of us did.

I had forgotten to ask Janine if he had arrived alone, but all I had to do was knock on the door and walk in. I knocked on the door and opened it about an inch or two. “Mr. McDermott?”

“Yes?”

It was a young voice, a little hesitant, and not what I was expecting. I stared at the door handle in my hand as the strong smell of formaldehyde and hospital antiseptic overpowered everything. “Walt Longmire, I’m the sheriff here.”

There was a pause. “I’m almost finished with this part. I’ll be out in about five minutes.”

I closed the door and walked to the nurse’s desk. There was a coffee pot steaming on the back counter, but nobody was there, so I picked up the phone, dialed nine, and the office. As it rang, I thought about my inability to go in and witness yet another autopsy. Maybe it was because it was Mari Baroja and I had already summoned up a romantic image of her, maybe it was memories of Vonnie, but you spared yourself what you could.

“Absaroka County Sheriff ’s Department.”

“I’d like to report my holiday spirit as missing.”

She laughed. “I was just writing your Post-its.”

“How’s the new kid doing?”

“He’s wonderful. How can we keep him?”

“Well, we’ve already disabled his vehicle.”

“Lenny Rowell’s uniforms were still in the supply closet. They’re a little loose on him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s out with Vic right now.” Her voice got low, even though I knew there wasn’t anybody else in the office. “I think she’s on her best behavior. Well, as best as she can be. Walt, where are you?”

“I’m still here at the hospital, waiting on the results from Mari Baroja’s autopsy and making a little list…” I became aware of someone standing behind me, so I pushed off the counter and turned to face Bill McDermott. He was a medium-sized young man with sloped shoulders and a haircut like a blond Beatle, from their Liverpool days. He was probably in his thirties, with a childlike face that carried an innocence that was only partly diminished by one of the bloody gloves still on his hand. Bill was evidently a part of the new order of coroners who were qualified medical examiners. I had a suspicion, however, that Mr. McDermott had not been elected. “I’ve got to go.” I hung up the phone and looked at the altar boy. “Mr. McDermott, I presume?”

He nodded a bashful smile, looked at my gun belt, and then my star. “Hello, Sheriff?”

I moved around the desk. I was thinking that a little distance between us might help put him at ease. “Bill, why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee?”

He didn’t respond but watched as I poured us a couple of Styrofoam cups full. “Is there any cream?”

I offered him one of the powdered packets from the tray and was relieved that he peeled off the glove and dropped it into a waste can marked with a red biohazard sticker. He took the packet, tore it open, and dumped it into the cup. I took a sip of my coffee. “Yellowstone County has dropped the coroner system?”

“Yes.”

“The king is dead, long live the king.”

“Both puns intended?” He looked at my blank face and continued. “He’s dead. I did the autopsy on Eddie Cole. It’s how I got the job.”

“How’d he die?”

He took a sip of his coffee. “Suicide. He had an old Cadillac in his garage. Just climbed in, started her up, and took a nap. He left a note.”

“What’d it say?” I had to ask.

“ ‘When you perform the intermastoid incision, make sure the front quadrant is large enough for the frontal craniotomy. Most beginners make a hash of the thing.’ ”

“Professional to the last.” I nodded toward the operating room. “What’ve we got in there?”

He lowered his cup. “Caucasian, female, approximately mid- to late seventies, lifelong smoker, and the scars. I’ve just finished the thoracic-abdominal incision, exposed the pericardial sac, and took a blood sample.”

“Excuse me, but did you say scars?”

“The ones on her back.” He looked at me as if it were something I should have known. “A mass of scar tissue. It looks as though they were administered over a period of time.”

I unconsciously stiffened. “Administered?”

Bill nodded again. “Someone routinely beat the woman at some point in her life.” He looked at his coffee and swirled the tan liquid in the cup. “Probably with a belt, whip, or riding crop, something of that sort.”

I was a little shaken with that revelation. “What else?”

“Slight discoloration of the tissues and blood, but the type is what’s interesting. Was she Basque?”

I nodded. “We have a pretty large population from the turn of the last century; sheepherders mostly.”

“I thought so. The blood type, O with an RH-negative factor. Extremely rare, but 27 percent of Basques have it.”

“Cause of death?”

“I haven’t really gotten that far, but I’m betting that it’s a standard myocardial infarction or cerebral vascular situation.”

“That simple?”

“The numbers don’t lie. Out of five hundred thousand cases of sudden death each year, three hundred thousand are cardiac arrests following heart attacks. Considering her age, use of tobacco, genetic predisposition…” He thought for a moment. “Well, I’m far from being finished, and who knows what else we might find before the day is done? I like to do a thorough job.” He finished his coffee and dropped the cup into the biohazard container with the gloves. I agreed with his diagnosis and tossed mine in, too.

When I got out to the truck, there was another inch of snow, but there were a few streaks of sunshine. I gave the sky my darkest warning look to try and help out the little patches of blue but was only rewarded with a big fat flake in the eye. I climbed in and radioed Ruby. “What number Fetterman is Isaac Bloomfield’s office?” I waited as she looked up the number.

Static. “431.”

“Thanks.” Ruby hated using the radio, but I had told all of them I would only get a cell phone if they let me have a computer; so far, we were at a stalemate. The plows were out, and I watched the blinking yellow lights as I passed. The route up to the mountains looked clear, and I hoped that nobody would take it as an invitation.

The day hadn’t been as bad as I had thought it would be, so far. I started thinking about Cady, the fact that she was going to be here this weekend, and that, so far, I hadn’t gotten her anything for Christmas. She had been difficult to buy for as a child, and the situation hadn’t gotten any better as she had blossomed into womanhood. I would have to enlist Ruby’s help as a covert operator. Ruby enjoyed being a mole, but we were sadly lacking in haute couture. I wondered if I had any catalogs waiting for me at home. I wondered when I might get home. I wondered if the plastic was holding or if there was snow in the living room.

I thought about Mari Baroja as I navigated to the doctor’s office. I thought about who would do that to the woman, who was responsible. The most obvious culprit would be the husband. I didn’t even know his name or if he was alive or dead. Her personal physician was a good place to start, though. I had seen Doc Bloomfield at the hospital a couple of weeks ago when he had given me the final checkup after my adventures on the mountain, but I hadn’t been at his office in a long time.

It was on the corner with a convenient parking lot you could approach from both sides. There was a 1971 silver Mercedes 300 SEL parked next to the steps that I knew belonged to the doctor, but there were no other vehicles, so he was probably free to speak to me.

It was warm in his waiting room, and I watched the clown fish in the saltwater tank as Isaac brewed us two cups of green tea. I had said no, but he insisted. There was music softly playing, Handel, Suite No. 1 in F, and I believed we were at the Andante. It was one of Dorothy’s favorites. Visiting Doc Bloomfield was like visiting your grandfather about ten years after your grandmother had died or the cleaning lady had quit.

“How is the knee?”

I watched as his glasses revealed the multiple folds that did their best to hide the glint in his hazel eyes. I took my mug and glanced down at the pale, ghostly green numbers tattooed on the inside of his right arm where he had rolled up his sleeves. “Good.”

“How is the shoulder?”

I took a sip, and it tasted like kelp. “Good.”

He continued to examine me. “Hands look good; how is the ear?” I turned slightly and took off my hat so that he could see for himself. “Looks good.” He continued to study me. “You’ve grown a beard?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Nobody does.”

I broached the subject of Mari Baroja. He seemed genuinely moved by her death and stared at the faded print of the carpet. I studied the side of his face; his eyes were sharp with a little too much to contain. A thumb and forefinger came up, pushed the glasses onto his forehead and pressed into the sockets, rubbing emotion away. His features were strong, and it was like watching a roman emperor at the fall; I should be so lucky at that age. I waited a respectful amount of time. “Did you know her well, Isaac?” He didn’t respond, so I asked again.

He didn’t move, the fingers still in his eyes. “She was not a happy woman. I think she had many disappointments in her life.” He took the hand away, readjusted his glasses, and turned to look at me through the imperfect world of the lenses.

“Can you give me some idea as to the cause of death?”

I waited as his eyes went back to the floor, then to me. “Walter, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“No.”

“Why are you so interested in this woman’s death?”

That set me back. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

He actually reached out and patted my knee. “Even with the beard, you are a very young man.”

I was flattered, I think, but still didn’t know what to make of his response. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She was an old woman who was tired of living.”

“Are you telling me that this was a suicide?”

His eyes sparked hard for a moment. “No, that is not what I am telling you.” He withdrew his hand; the skin was transparent, and I watched as the blue and red protruded in the fists at his lap. “I think she was tired and gave up.”

“You knew her pretty well?”

“She was my patient for more than half a century.”

I took a sip of the tea out of habit and immediately regretted it. “What can you tell me about the scars?” He looked at me blankly. “The ones on her back?”

He raised his head and nodded. “She was involved in an automobile accident a number of years ago.”

“An automobile accident?”

“Yes.”

“The scars couldn’t have been the result of some form of abuse?”

He turned and looked at me again, the picture of questioning disbelief. “What would lead you to think that?”

“The Yellowstone County Medical Examiner.”

His eyes widened. “You sent her to Billings?”

“No, he’s here. His name is Bill McDermott, and he’s over at Memorial.”

“Walter, it was Mrs. Baroja’s expressed desire that there be nothing done to her remains other than what was legally required.”

“Well, it’s gotten a little complicated.”

“Who did you say was doing the autopsy?”

I sat the tea down on the magazines stacked at the table behind me. “New fellow by the name of Bill McDermott. He’s a licensed ME.” I waited for a moment. “So, you and Mrs. Baroja discussed the possibility of her death?”

He seemed less excitable now. “I discuss the possibility with all my patients. I try to be truthful with them, no matter what the circumstance.”

I leaned in. “Isaac, it sounds like you had a lot more responsibilities than that of family practitioner. Is there something you want to say to me?”

I waited as he took a deep breath and noticed, not for the first time, how small the man was. “I lied to you just now.”

“Yep, I know.” He looked at me again. “It’s something I’m pretty good at spotting.”

“You realize, of course, that due to the physician/patient privilege I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Yes.” We listened as the little pumps bubbled fresh oxygen into the fish tank; Handel joined the minuet. “You want to tell me about the scars first?”

He sighed. “Charlie Nurburn, her husband.”

I nodded and then stopped. “I don’t know him.”

“He was from the southern part of the county, near Four Brothers.”

“Middle fork of the Powder; not much out there.”

“Used to be a few little homesteads and an old coal mine.” I looked at the thick yellow nails as his fingers tightened at his kneecaps. “I used to run a clinic down in Powder once a week, Saturday mornings, back in the late forties, early fifties.”

I leaned back in the overstuffed chair and unbuttoned my sheepskin coat. “She was one of your patients then?”

“Yes. I delivered her two children and…”

“Three children?”

He paused for a moment. “Yes, I always forget about David, but I didn’t deliver him. I wasn’t practicing yet.” I waited. “She didn’t come in about the beatings.”

“What then?”

“Latent syphilis.”

I rubbed my hands across my face. “This guy sounds like a real charmer. How long were they married?”

“Long enough.”

“Jesus.” I looked at Isaac again. “Where is he?”

“Gone.”

It seemed like there was more. “Dead?”

“I’m not sure. Just gone.”

“When?”

“Years ago.” He waited for a moment, and his eyes stayed steady with mine. “It’s probably better that way, don’t you think?” I didn’t say anything. “You can understand my being circumspect concerning her situation.”

“Yes.” I wondered about all the individuals wandering around out there who were in serious need of the administration of a dreadful ass-kicking and weren’t likely to get it. “Why the response to the autopsy?”

“I thought she’d been through enough, and it was her expressed wish that her body not be disturbed any more than it already had. She was very religious.” It was a sad smile this time. “What does Mr. McDermott have to say about cause of death?”

I waited a moment and looked at Isaac, allowing myself the blurred vision of the living hell that he had endured. Lucian said that he had been one of three survivors of Nordhausen, a subcamp of Dora-Mittelbau for inmates too sick or weak to work in the tunnels of Dora. Nordhausen was a Vernichtungslager or extermination camp where starvation was the simple but effective measure. To make matters worse, on April 3, 1945, it was bombed by our air force. Since it was installed in concrete hangers, we thought it was a German munitions depot. A great number of the prisoners were burned alive; a week and a half later, when the 104 ^ th Infantry Division liberated Nordhausen, they found three thousand rotting corpses and three survivors. One of them was Isaac Bloomfield, and he weighed fifty-seven pounds.

I always thought that there was a reason why the old man was able to keep going; maybe it was because, as long as he was alive, he was a reminder. “Cardiac arrest. Any history of heart problems in the family?”

He chuckled to himself with a wistful quality. “Oh, Walter, there are nothing but problems of the heart in families such as this.” He continued to smile. “I suppose cardiac complications due to prolonged exposure to syphilitic infection; that, and I believe that Mrs. Baroja took solace in a number of lifelong vices that did nothing to prolong her existence.”

“So there isn’t anything suspicious about her death that you can think of?”

“I don’t think so.” He studied me a little longer than I was comfortable with. “Is this disappointing to you?”

I wondered how much he knew about Mari Baroja and Lucian and suspected that it was more than he was willing to admit. “No, that’s the one odd thing about this job. You’re always willing to turn work away.” I looked down at my uniform, the badge, and the. 45 at my hip. It didn’t take much imagination to see the distance that they put between myself and most people, let alone Isaac. Nice people with uniforms, badges, and guns had once told him they were doing things for his own good, his own safety, and his own welfare. Next thing he knew he was being carried out of a reinforced hanger with three thousand dead people. If I were Isaac, I wouldn’t let me in the same room as me. “What do you know about the children?”

“Everything. Carol, Kay, and David.”

“I’m assuming David is dead?” I thought back to the sad-eyed lieutenant in the photograph in her room. “Vietnam?”

“Yes.” His eyes softened a little. “That was your war, wasn’t it, Walter?”

“Don’t blame me, I didn’t start it.” I allowed my mind to play over the photograph again. “I’m trying to think if I knew him.”

“He was quiet.” He said it like I wasn’t. “Mari had a cousin, a priest, I believe.”

“Here in town?”

“He was not a priest here, but I think he retired here… If he’s still alive.”

The priest in the family photograph; this would take a little following up. I thought of the picture of the little dark-haired girls on the stoop. “Both of the twins are lawyers?”

“Yes.”

I changed the subject to the only other Baroja I knew who wasn’t a lawyer in an attempt to pick up my spirits. “I understand that one of the grandchildren has a bakery here in town?”

“Yes. Lana was David’s daughter. She is the only grandchild. The twins both have had miscarriages, probably as a result of the hereditary syphilitic condition.” It took a while, but his face brightened. “The bakery is a wonderful place. Have you been there?”

“No, but I’m going there next.” I patted my stomach. “I’ll take a baker over a lawyer any day of the week.”

“You must try the ruggelach, it is the best I have ever tasted.”

As we were leaving, I asked him if he would go by and formally identify Mari Baroja to save the family the grief. He said that he would, and I asked him if he wanted to turn the music off. All he did was lock the door behind us and ask, “Why?”

I watched as the silver Mercedes without snow tires made its way up Fetterman taking a right on Aspen and thought about a man who had escaped the concentration camps and now drove a German car. The Hun be damned.

I thought the snow had stopped, but it had just satisfied itself with a finer version of delivery. If I squinted my eyes and looked away from the breeze, I could still see the clandestine little flakes ganging up on me. “Okay, so where is this damned bakery?”

Static. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Base, this is Unit One, where is this damned bakery?’ Over.”

It had taken forever to get her to use proper radio procedure, and now I wasn’t sure I was happy with the results. “It’s still snowing, and I haven’t bought my soon-to-arrive daughter anything for Christmas. Have you listened to the weather?”

Static. “More snow. Over.”

“Wonderful. Any ideas about Cady?”

Static. “I’ll work on it, and the bakery is next to the small motor repair place next to the creek. Over.”

“Unit One to Base, thank you. Over.”

Static. “That’s much better.”

The bakery was on the back street, as Ruby had described, next to Evans’s Chainsaw Service, something I was going to need if I ever got my wood-burning stove into operation. The building had been a gift store that had been boarded up for a couple of years. She had pulled off all the old plywood and replaced it with new wood that sported a jaunty red with gold trim. A handpainted sign hung over the entrance between the two bay windows extolling, in a florid script, BAROJA’S BAKED GOODS, as simple as that. Baskets of baguettes and fresh loaves spilled out of carefully arranged displays along with bottles of wine and full pound wedges of exotic cheese. I stood there on the sidewalk and looked up the street to the Durant Courant ’s sign just to convince myself that I was still in the county seat. How could I have missed something like this?

I climbed up the steps and pushed the beveled glass door open to the soft tinkling of the attached bell and was immediately assaulted by the smell of vanilla. I pulled my pocket watch out and consulted it as to lunchtime; we concurred that it was early but acceptable.

I looked around, but there wasn’t anyone to be found. I had seen places like this in Denver, Santa Fe, and Salt Lake City, old buildings that had been partially restored but left with a rustic appeal. The red brick walls were exposed on the inside, and the pressed tin ceiling glowed a fiery copper. The floors had been sanded to the original planks, and their distressed quality was preserved in industrial grade polyurethane. There were shelves along the left side of the narrow building that were loaded with all sorts of gourmet goods in assorted bottles and boxes. The counter level had small wicker baskets filled with recognizable Basque baked goods that ran the gamut from black olive bread to Norman loaves. There was a large white porcelain display cooler that held all kinds of cheeses and complicated charcuterie. There were French posters on the walls, lithographs of what I assumed were advertisements for nineteenth-century liqueurs, and an old wooden display case that held a surprising number of antique corkscrews and wine accoutrements.

In the back were two country French tables surrounded by time-worn mismatched chairs, and an upright cooler that held rows of wines and beers that I had never seen before. My attention was drawn to a collection of dark gallon jugs at the bottom. I kneeled down and inspected one of the labels; it read, UNPASTEURIZED BEER FROM THE SPARKLING GEM OF THE HIGH PLAINS, WHEATLAND MERCANTILE, WHEATLAND, WYOMING. There was a jackalope wearing a tuxedo and a monocle on the label. “You have got to be kidding.”

I listened as footsteps approached from the stairwell that I assumed led to the basement. I stood and turned toward the doorway as Lana Baroja appeared, covered in a fine patina of sweat and flour. She still wore her snow boots, but the purple quilted long coat had been replaced with an apron full of doughy handprints, and her hair was now in a French twist. I was getting the feeling that Lana, with her flushed face and darting eyes, was a character in search of a French author. The eyes lost their spark when she recognized me. “I find it very hard to believe that you have a microbrew from Wheatland.”

She placed a fist on her hip and cocked her head. “You’d be surprised at what all I’ve got in here.” She walked past me and behind the counter. “I’m the best kept secret in Durant, not that it’s doing my bank account any good.” She straightened her arms and leaned against the counter. “I assume you’re here because you have some news for me?”

I looked at the cases and tried to spy the item that Isaac had recommended. “Arugula?”

“Excuse me?”

My courage was fleeting. “Something like arugula?” She continued to stare at me as if I were an idiot. “Dr. Bloomfield’s favorite?”

She looked at me through a finely arched black eyebrow and very long lashes. “Ruggelach, a traditional Hanukkah pastry, crescent-shaped, filled, and made with a cream-cheese dough?”

“That would be it.”

“As opposed to arugula or rocket, an aromatic salad green with a peppery mustard flavor?”

“I’ll take both.”

“I only have the pastry.”

“I’ll take that then.”

She smiled and wagged her head; she was enjoying herself. Most people did when it was at the sheriff’s expense. “You’re sure?”

“Anything but.” As she slid back the door of the glass case and extracted a plate of the delicate pastries, I reassessed my thinking about Lana Baroja. There was something old world about her, a practical quality that superceded the popular beauty of the day and drew its warmth from the earth rather than the air. She turned back around from the opposite counter and placed a small waxed bag in front of me. I looked at it. “It’s a gift.”

“For what?”

“Caring about my grandmother.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” I studied the little sack and thought about Mari Baroja. “Did she bake?”

“Yes.” She looked at the little white bag, and it was obvious to both of us that it was symbolic of something important and tactile that was being passed between us: it was a contract. “Whenever we visited from Colorado Springs she would bake things with me.” The dark eyes came up. “I guess that’s how I got started.”

“Your father was at the Academy?”

She brought her palms up from the counter. “Air force.”

“He died in Vietnam?”

“Yes. I didn’t get much of a chance to know him. Did you?”

I thought of the sad-eyed young man. “No, but I know a guy a lot like him. How about your mother?”

She stared at me for a second. “She’s still in Colorado Springs; her, a mean little shih tzu, and Jesus.”

I nodded. “I see.”

“What did Dr. Bloomfield say?”

I leaned a hip of my own against the counter. “He said that your grandmother had heart complications due to a chronic condition, and the medical examiner from Billings seems to concur with the prognosis so far.”

“So far?”

I started for the door; things had gone so well I didn’t want to spoil them. “We should have a death certificate by the end of the day.”

“It really isn’t fair, you know?” I stopped with my hand resting on the brass handle. She still leaned against the counter with her arms folded, staring at the worn surface. “Just when you get to the point where you can enjoy them, they’re gone.”

I thought about it. “It’s that way sometimes with children, too.”

She continued to stare at the wood and extended a finger to trace the grain. “I wouldn’t know.”

I paused for a moment more. “On the subject of family, what can you tell me about your grandfather?”

The finger stopped. “He was a prick, and he’s dead.”

I was relieved but tried to hide it. “He’s dead? Do you know how he died?”

The dark eyes looked straight at me and blinked only once. “Surely you know. Lucian Connally killed him.”