A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery

13

“I think Dog sleeps with you more than I do.” She had elected to pass up her usual seat on the guest chair in my office and sat on the floor near me.

I had slept on it again, as there wasn’t any room anywhere else. The hard wood, barely covered with a thin pad and threadbare carpeting, was killing my back, but at least I had had company. I reached over and scratched the belly of the beast that happened to be sleeping with his paws in the air, which displayed his more personal attributes. “He’s very faithful.”

Looking nowhere near as tired as I felt, she sat with her back against the bookcase. “So am I, and look what it gets me.”

“Were you up all night?”

She shuffled the papers in her lap. “Yes.”

I peeled the blanket back and started to stretch; my back ached but not nearly as much as my left knee, which had been worrying me since my adventures on the mountain last May. I rolled over and looked at her, still equipped with the bad-hair-day cap from last night. “You wear it better than I do.”

She glanced at me and then reached down and, giving me a nonverbal critique on the current state of my hair, handed me my hat. “I was just booking and researching scumbags, you were having the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, I am to understand.” She kept looking at me and grinned. “As your undersheriff, it is my duty to inform you that you are looking more and more like an unmade bed.”

I propped myself up on one elbow and placed my smoky, water-stained hat on my head. “Better?”

“An unmade bed at, say, Bob’s Flophouse by the river.”

I yawned. “Right.”

“The kind you rent an hour at a time?”

“Got it.”

She nodded as if she’d finished a report. “I have news.”

I pointed at the stack of papers. “It looks like.”

“More important than this crap.”

I struggled my way into a sitting position, which disturbed Dog, who also rose, licked my face, then gingerly stepped over Vic, and, likely in search of a second or third breakfast, disappeared out the door. “What could be more important than this?”

“Like Lazarus risen from the grave . . . Double Tough is alive.”

I turned and stared at her. I’d been thinking about nothing else as I’d drifted in and out of sleep all morning, half-convincing myself that what had happened last night hadn’t, but it just wouldn’t wash. “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”

She shook her head. “They hit him with the defibrillator in the EMT van and the fucker popped back to life—I swear to God.” She turned and sat Indian-style. “They say that Henry breathing for him all that time must’ve kept him going long enough for them to bring him back with a couple thousand volts. I told him he probably had a disease from all the places that the Bear’s mouth had been.”

I could feel the swelling of heat behind my eyes and a ballooning in my chest as I sat there—almost as if coming back from the dead myself. “He can talk?”

“No, at least not yet.” The emotion was about to overwhelm her, too, but she laughed and wiped a bit of moisture from the corner of one eye—I had the feeling she wasn’t telling me everything. “I mean, he’s half covered with second- and third-degree burns, and he’s going to lose the eye—but he’s alive.”

I felt a tear streak down the side of my face and watched as she half-sobbed another laugh.

“Uh oh, the waterbed has sprung a leak.” She put her hand on my face and continued smiling, even as the tears were now streaking her own. “He squeezed my hand, you know, when I told him about getting cooties from Henry. I mean he’s screwed up; nobody goes through something like that without sustaining some kind of brain damage and with him how can you tell, but he squeezed my hand when I was joking with him.”

“Billings?”

She looked at her wristwatch. “No, Denver. They’re taking off with him in about an hour if you want to go up to the airport and see him off.”

“I do.” I pushed the blanket away and slowly stood. “That’s two out of his nine lives that we know about.”

She glanced back toward the reception/dispatcher area. “Everybody wanted to wake you up and tell you, but Ruby wouldn’t let us. So I waited till you turned over.”

“I don’t think I turned over.”

“I don’t care.” She smiled fully, crinkling her eyes and showing that canine tooth to full advantage, wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, and took her customary seat. “You got the good news; you want the bad news now or when we head to the airport?”

“Now.” I again pointed at the stack of papers. “This stuff?”

She shook her head. “The elusive Orrin the Mormon is once again at large.”

“Junior or Senior; please don’t say both.”

“Cousin Itt.”

I slumped into my chair. “This is getting embarrassing.”

There was more than a little accusation in the next statement. “It’s because we’re running the place like a revolving door; the kid is in and out going to work, and the two of them are endlessly watching My Friend Fucking Flicka, so you turn your back for an instant and he takes French leave.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “I mean he’s relatively harmless, or as harmless as you can be when armed like a commando, but it’s starting to insult the credibility and professionalism of the department; I think it reflects badly when schizophrenic derelicts and arrested peoples are using the jail like the Kum & Go.”

I smiled. “Agreed.”

“We looked for him in the beds of all the trucks.”

“Good thinking.”

Her face came up, and the smile had returned. “Double Tough’s alive.”

I laughed. “Yep.”

She came around the desk and roosted in front of me, but this time I kept a hand on the edge, determined not to have a repeat of the Flying Wallendas. She leaned forward and put her arms around my shoulders, pulling me in. Despite all common sense, I found my own arms rising up and folding around her in a return embrace and thought about what this might lead to if we had been at my cabin. Her lips tickled my ear as she whispered, “I’m not sure if I’m happier that he’s alive or that I don’t have to watch what you were going to do to yourself.”

I pulled back and placed my forehead against hers. “Thank you.”

She softly head-butted me and then leaned back a respectable distance, placing her hands on the stack of papers that she had placed on the desk. “Speaking of people trying to get out of jail . . .”

“They didn’t escape, too, did they?”

“No, they’re doing it the old-fashioned way, with lawyers—makes Orrin the Mormon’s technique seem honest and forthright.” She stood and looked down at me. “You want some coffee? I want some coffee.”

I nodded my head as she went out, calling after her, “Big lawyers?”

The answer ricocheted off the hallway walls. “Shephard, Baldwin, Coveny, and Spencer over in Jackson.”

“Gary Spencer?”

After a moment she came back in with two mugs. “The big dog hisself.”

“Well, hell.”

She sat the coffees on my desk and thumbed through the papers. “They’re suing the county, the department, and mostly you for unlawful arrest, excessive force, harassment . . . all of which is supported by your actions in South Dakota and in the bar last night.” She picked up her new Philadelphia Flyers cup—the hockey season had just started—and sipped her coffee. “You’ve got to stop hitting people.”

I sipped my own and thought about my actions as of late. “There was only one or two . . .”

“Three, including the chopping and channeling you did to Gloss’s nose—twice.”

I tried not to look her in the eye. “That second time was an accident.”

“Tell it to the judge.” She set her mug down and continued perusing the papers. “They’ve pretty much called you everything but a Baptist and say you sleep with your dog—which I wouldn’t have believed until I came in here this morning.”

“How long?”

“We might hold them till the end of the day, but then they’re going to post and walk.”

I sipped some more coffee. “Can Verne stall on setting bail?”

She shook her head. “Nope, he heard the name Gary Spencer and folded like a card table at a bake sale in a high wind.”

“They’ve got a lot of money.”

“I know; I’ve seen their armaments.”

“No, I mean a lot of money.”

“More than you can make at a bake sale?”

“Enough to try and buy me off last night.”

“I’ve bought you off before.” She shrugged and picked up her mug again, winking over the lip. “Cheap.” She continued studying me. “A lot a lot?”

“Yep.”

“What, are they printing hundreds down there at East Spring Ranch?”

“Maybe.” I sighed and sipped some more; apparently it was helping. “They also seemed to know an awful lot about me.”

“Who?”

“Lockhart.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The quiet man?”

“Up until last night; he got real talkative on the porch of The Noose.”

“He probably thought you were going to hang him.”

I pulled the ATM slip from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. “He made a convincing argument that he and his group had nothing to do with setting fire to the sheriff’s substation.”

“Just this? ’Cause this can mean that just one of them was there.”

“No, Eleanor says they were there the whole evening.”

“Then it was somebody else from the group; I mean, how many of them are there down there in that nest?”

“That’s a good question.” I reached over to my coatrack, pulled my jacket on, and slipped the warrant from the inside pocket. “I think I’ll find out.”

She continued sipping her coffee, and I watched the wheels turn as she watched my wheels turn. “What are you thinking about?”

“What you said, about the number of people down there.” I unfurled the fax like a Biblical scroll. “Have you ever seen any women or children in the compound down at East Spring?”

“Personally, I’ve only gotten as close as the Mexican Grand Prix at the front gate.” She thought about it. “We saw some over in Butte County—the rat patrol and the girl at the table—but not here.” She thought some more and ventured. “So far, Big Wanda is it.”

I nodded and came around the desk with her following. “There were clothes out on the line at the house and toys in the yard, but I didn’t see any women or children.”

“It was in the middle of the night when you went back there.”

“Maybe that’s it.” Waiting at her office door while she grabbed her own coat, I rolled the warrant up and stuffed it back into my jacket. “But maybe not.”

“Something else.”

I stopped and looked at her. “What?”

“They’re expanding their operation. I put out a query and got contacted by the sheriff departments of both Garden County, Nebraska, and Hodgeman County, Kansas.”

I thought about it. “Why in the world would they need all these compounds stretched across the Rocky Mountain West down to Oklahoma?”

She shrugged and passed me in the doorway. “I guess that bake sale business is good.”

• • •

Saizarbitoria and Henry were sipping coffee in the dispatcher/reception area as Ruby talked on the phone. The Bear looked a little tired, and I told him so.

“Not as bad as you do.”

I nodded. “I guess you kept my deputy alive long enough for them to jump-start him.”

The Cheyenne Nation smiled. “Yes.”

“We’re going up to the airport to see him off—you want to come?”

“I need to call The Red Pony to make sure somebody can cover for me.”

I sometimes forgot about the Bear’s going concern, his bar out by the Rez. “We’ll tell him you send your love.”

He continued to smile and shook his head in mock sorrow. “Please tell Double Tough that I do not think it is going to work out between us, but that we will always have Powder Junction.”

“Lunch at the Bee for a planning meeting?”

“Yes.”

I started down the steps. “See both of you in a half hour.”

“Walt?”

Ruby’s voice froze me two steps down. “Yep?”

“Dottie over at the courthouse says a platoon of lawyers just hit the beachhead at Verne’s office, led by Gary Spencer himself.”

Vic looked up at me. “Change of plan?”

I glanced at the Basquo and the Bear. “Change of plan. Meet us in Powder Junction in an hour.”

The phone rang and Ruby stared at it, then at me. “And if I should be confronted with the posse of lawyers and the second greatest legal mind of our time?”

I shrugged. “Get an autograph; just make sure it’s not on a subpoena.”

• • •

He looked like hell. They had him so bandaged up it was almost impossible to tell who he was, but the one eye looked directly at me as they rolled him on a gurney under the slowly rotating blades of the helicopter. “How you doin’, troop?”

The bandages pulled at one side.

“So you want me to find you a co-deputy down in Powder Junction, blonde, about five-seven?”

He actually nodded.

“I’ll handle the interviews myself.”

Vic punched my arm as the engine kicked in, and they loaded him into the elaborate confines of the medical chopper, locking the gurney to the floor. We both joined him until they were ready to take off and were grinning like possums. I leaned my face down next to his, just so I could speak and have him hear me. “I know you’re hurting, but I’ve got to find out—did you see or hear anything last night?”

His voice was ragged and breathy. “Quiet.” Maybe I was doing nothing but assuring myself that he could still speak, but his words became stronger. “Stopped a few milk trucks trying to avoid the scales and bunch of kids earlier, gave a warning, speeding, gave drunk ride home, read a little, went to bed, nine. . . .” He tried to move an arm, but they had him pretty well trussed up. “Next thing, woke up in van.”

I smiled and placed my mouth next to his ear again and spoke over the roaring of the helicopter. “Good thing; if you’d awakened with Henry’s mouth on you, you might’ve suffered irreparable psychological damage.”

The EMTs pushed us away, and I took Vic’s arm and ushered the both of us back to my truck, parked at a safe distance. I hung on to my hat as the blast of the engine lifted the thing skyward and it hovered there for a moment before pivoting and climbing in a direct line along the mountains, headed south.

She shielded her eyes out past the bill of her cap and watched the flight-for-life get up to speed at about a hundred and fifty feet. “What’d he say?”

“Nothing special, a few traffic stops on some milk trucks, some kids, a drunk, and home and cot by nine.”

“What did you expect? They’re CIA, this is what they do.”

I turned and looked at her. “Are they CIA?”

She walked around the front of my truck. “C’mon, if you’ve got a quarter, I’ll give you the audiobook version on the way to Powder Junction.”

I took the bypass and jumped on the highway in an attempt to avoid the county courthouse and the litigious dangers that lurked there. Ruby’s voice sounded from my radio.

Static. “Walt?”

Vic started to reach for the mic, but I raised my hand and stopped her. “Wait.”

Static. “Walt, it’s Ruby.”

Vic studied me. “What?”

“Wait.”

Static. “Walt?”

I boosted my speed up to a hundred and hit the light bar. “Have you ever known Ruby to not use impeccable radio procedure?”

Vic looked at the two-way. “They’re there.”

“Yep.”

Static. “Walt, if you can hear me, make a stop somewhere and call in.” There were some voices in the background and then Ruby again, this time a little sharp. “He doesn’t have a cell phone.”

The radio went dead, and Vic settled in with her papers still in her lap as I pulled out past an eighteen-wheel tanker and shot by, easing back into the right lane. “Are you going to hit the siren?”

“They’ll hear it at the courthouse.”

“My, aren’t you crafty.”

“What’ve you got?”

She pulled her lipstick container from her shirt pocket. “The sample powder we took on the ridge in South Dakota did turn out to be quick lime.”

“So, if they killed her and buried her there, they moved her?”

She looked at the papers in her lap. “Yeah, I mean if this stuff was on the surface . . . But where?”

I reached over and tapped the stack. “What else have you got?”

“Nothing.”

I glanced at her. “Nothing?”

“Yeah, but it’s the pattern of nothing that’s interesting. All of these guys have state or federal connections, assorted former jobs with the State Department, various think tanks. . . .”

“I refuse to believe that Gloss was a part of any think tank.”

“Energy. He was involved with the oil industry in Oklahoma, then overseas in Iraq, Iran. . . . Even had a few fingers in Venezuela, Bolivia, and, of course, Mexico.”

“What about Lockhart?”

“He was the one in State and even served on a few influential Pentagon policy panels, but then he jumped ship and started working for a Texas-based corporate intelligence agency called the Boggs Institute that bills itself as a shadow CIA—which to me sounds like shadow bullshit. They engaged him as a chief geopolitical strategist, and I guess he was quite an asset for them with little ol’ clients like the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Marines.”

“My Marines?”

“Your Marines; I thought you’d enjoy that. Anyway, it was all milk and honey until those intelligence leaks a few years back when the Boggs Institute was exposed as just a bunch of money-grubbing assholes.” She read from one of the sheets. “‘With a geographical determinism that a lot of people mistook for predictive powers.’”

“What Henry Kissinger used to refer to as geopolitics?”

She nodded as she continued reading. “‘The supposed amoral, dispassionate concern with national interests like mineral and energy access.’”

“What happened to this marriage made in hell?”

“Some of Lockhart’s e-mails got leaked—a bunch of connections to a lot of CEOs of some really big corporations.”

I thought about it. “Seems like that would just add to his worth.”

“Not these leaked e-mails, which also included handy information for high-powered business travelers in search of brothels in Eastern Europe and Asia that specialized in child prostitution.”

She glanced at me, but I didn’t say anything.

“The Boggs Institute dropped him like a hot Mr. Potato Head, but he got picked up by a consortium of import/export businesses that dealt with consumer goods.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Has the ring of legitimacy.”

“Until they started expanding into tanker ships and crude oil; they reported more than a few shipments light, and Lockhart was called on the carpet before the Securities and Exchange Commission and put on notice. He supposedly retired shortly after that.”

“Free to pursue his other sordid interests?”

She sighed. “There’s also a little more on Gloss, but it doesn’t seem like enough.”

“What did you find?”

“The only criminal activity on the guy is a censorship by the Texas Gas and Oil Conservation Commission concerning some work he was doing in Mexico. I guess he was subpoenaed and gave sealed testimony to the Texans before they gave him the boot and told him he could never do business in the Lone Star State again.”

“Must’ve been something pretty bad.”

“For Texans to not want to do business with you? No shit.” She shuffled through the stack and then threw it onto the floor in the back—she was left holding only a single sheet of paper. “There’s information on all these guys, but just enough, never too much. I mean a shitbird like Gloss without a record? It just doesn’t make sense.” She placed an elbow on the sill and lodged a boot on my dash, something she always did when thinking troubling thoughts. “The connecting points are the government and the petroleum industry; all of them have ties with one or both of these things.”

I shook my head. “But why here? I mean you can tell me they got religion, but . . .”

“It’s gotta be oil, Walt.”

“Double Tough says there’s no oil around here, at least nothing worth drilling for.”

“Have you checked that with anybody else?”

“Hell, he said they can’t give the Teapot Dome away.” I eyed her with a sad little pit growing in the center of my stomach as the whirr of the tires on the pavement and the continued roar of the engine were the only sound. “What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just sayin’. . . .”

“Double Tough was a project foreman for an entire coal-bed methane operation down here, so I would assume that he’s intimate with the geology of the entire area.”

“Or?”

I stared at her and then returned my eyes to the road. “Look, I know we’re in the suspicion business, but . . .”

“You said a lot of money, Walt—a lot of money.” She looked at the sheet of paper in her lap. “He was in the energy industry.”

“So, we’re just going to arrest everybody in southern Absaroka County who’s worked in the energy industry? We better expand the jail.”

“He’s ex-military, too.”

She read from the paper. “Even had a few fingers in Venezuela and Bolivia. Sound familiar?” She studied the side of my face. “He never put any of that in his application or job history, nothing.”

“You’re saying he’s in on it? So, what, he set fire to himself?”

“I knew this was how you were going to react, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to tell you until I had more to go on.” She turned her face and looked south, and we listened to the ten cylinders, pulling us along at a hundred miles an hour. “When’s the last time you heard from Frymire?”

I looked at the back of her head, a little confused by the turn of conversation. “The last time I dropped off checks—about two weeks ago.”

“Nothing since?”

“No.”

“Don’t you find it funny that nobody’s heard from him except Double Tough, and the word from him is that Chuck is hitting the road with the fiancée that no one has met and moving it all, lock-stock-and-star to an undisclosed location in Colorado?”

I took a deep breath and then snorted at the thought. “Look, we’ve both been going without sleep, but that’s just crazy.”

“Maybe.” She unlodged her boot and turned in the seat to look at me. “I hope I’m wrong; I’m praying that I’m wrong, but I’d feel a lot better if we made a run over to the house they rent and talked to Frymire. How ’bout you?”

I didn’t say anything and kept driving.

• • •

Saizarbitoria’s unit was parked in the lot beside the Suburban, and he and Henry, drinking coffee in cups from the Sinclair station by the highway, were standing, studying the debris inside the burned-out husk of the Quonset hut.

As we pulled up, the Basquo came to my window. “Hey, boss, has Ruby been trying to get hold of you?”

“Yep, you?”

“Yeah, I answered and then some pompous asshole got on and wanted to know where you were.”

“What’d you say?”

“Started beating the mic on the dash and telling them that they were breaking up and that I’d call back when I got in range.”

“Now I know all your secrets.

“You bet.” He looked around at the wreckage, pulled a hand up, and cinched it on his Beretta in reaction. “Somebody definitely set that fire; you can see from the scoring on the char that it burned hottest at the beginning.”

I took his coffee and had a sip myself. “Where did you learn such things?”

“Frymire—remember? He was the fire investigation guy over in Sheridan.”

I could feel my undersheriff’s eyes boring into the back of my head.

The Cheyenne Nation’s voice was low. “What is the plan, assuming we have one?”

“These guys don’t like the heat, so they’re going to call in the lawyers and piss on the fire—I can’t have that.” They both nodded, and I looked at Victoria Moretti, who was studying us with her Browning tactical boot back on my dash. “But first I need to make a quick stop.”

• • •

None of us knew where the house was, and we couldn’t call into the office without alerting the gaggle of lawyers to our whereabouts, so the Cheyenne Nation had a brainstorm and looked in the phone book.

The house was down by the Middle Fork of the Powder River, set back in some Russian olive trees and red willow. Two-story and large for the area, it probably had been built as a ranch headquarters seventy-five years ago, but as the town had crowded in, the ranch had up and left. The clapboard was covered in a black spray of mold where the overgrown trees rested on the surface. Overall, the impression was one of decay; just the kind of place where two bachelors might live.

“It’s the House of Usher.”

There was a late-model Chevrolet parked in the driveway with plates that read FRY, which lead us to believe that there was no reason to call first; the only disturbing thing was that the driver’s-side door hung open. I parked in front of the bridge at the edge of the high grass. “They need a lawn mower.”

We got out and walked to the driveway. Vic went to the overloaded mailbox and pulled out a handful of assorted mail. “What they need is a wrecking ball.”

Henry looked at the windows, empty except for the Rebel flag hanging in the front. Still holding the shotgun, he took a few more steps forward and made his stand at the end of the driveway.

Vic sifted through the mail, dividing it into two groups as I joined her at the box. “Anything?”

“The usual crap, but there are handwritten letters to Chuck from an address in Sheridan in a spirally script with little hearts dotting the i’s.”

“So the fiancée exists?”

“Apparently.”

“Anything else?”

She stuffed the lot back into the mailbox. “I swear it’s only guys that get the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

Saizarbitoria joined us. “Would someone mind explaining to me what it is that we’re supposed to be doing?”

Vic growled. “Social call.”

The Basquo looked at the Cheyenne Nation still standing at the end of the driveway with the scatter gun. “You bet.”

We all joined the Bear like the Bighorn Mountain Mod Squad. “Reservation warrant?”

Henry was referring to the old method of planting somebody at the back door to yell “Come in” as you banged on the front. “No, we’ll just knock, and if nobody answers we go in.”

My undersheriff frowned as she checked her Glock. “Inadmissible; we find a body in there then we need this to be by the book.”

Sancho interrupted. “A body?”

I glanced at Henry, knowing well his habit of squirreling away ammunition. “Do you still have some of those extra shells in your pockets?”

“I do.”

Saizarbitoria wasn’t going to let it go. “What body?”

“Didn’t Frymire say something about needing more twelve-gauge ammo?”

The Bear nodded. “I believe he did.”

“Whose body?”

Henry turned and regarded the young man. “What body, whose body—is life really worth so many questions? Let us just go down there and shoot or be shot, shall we?” We watched as he blithely flipped the shotgun onto his shoulder as if it were a parasol in a fancy dress competition and paraded down the grass strip between the two gravel tracks in his worn moccasins as if it were a garden path—Sunday in the Park with Bear.

The Basquo glanced at me and pulled out his own sidearm as we started after the Cheyenne Nation. “How did we win?”

I shook my head. “I’m not so sure we have.” I paused at the vehicle and peered inside, but there was nothing out of the ordinary; no blood, not even keys.

Pushing the door shut, I looked at the house; the storm door which had the glass busted out was open along with the main door—even more disturbing.

The front porch was a little rickety, and more than a few boards gave way as I took the point position. I stuck to my plan and knocked, loud and clear. I waited, but there was no answer—Henry reached over and gently pushed it the rest of the way open to reveal a living room.

There was a large, flat-screen television on a stand in front of the curtained front window with a number of devices attached to it with cables and what looked like plastic guns. Vic moved past me and knelt down to look at the stack of cartridge covers. “Looks like the boys are gamers.”

Henry fanned out to the entryway that appeared as if it led to an abbreviated dining room as Saizarbitoria and his Beretta moved past into the kitchen.

I started getting the feeling that I should have my sidearm out, too.

Vic stood and looked around at the art held against the walls with thumbtacks; a few wildlife prints, posters from movies I’d never seen, and a silhouette target with the majority of his eleven-point heart shot out. She shook her head. “Men.”

I backtracked into the entry and followed the Bear as he stood looking up the steps to what I assumed were the bedrooms. I kept my voice low. “Anything?”

He shook his head as Vic, also speaking quietly, joined me. “If, and I repeat if, there is no one here, why was Double Tough sleeping at the substation?”

“Maybe Frymire went to Sheridan and didn’t tell him. I don’t know.”

Sancho had taken the basement, and Henry nodded toward the stairs and started up with us following. There was a landing at the top with one of those pull-down attic accesses, doors on either side, both of which were closed, and a window that overlooked the backyard. We split the duty as we got to the top, the Bear taking one door and Vic and I taking the other. The door was stuck to the old paint on the molding, but I bumped it open and found a mattress and box springs on the floor, the sheets and pillows looking like they got a regular workout. In an attempt at interior décor, there were a few Wyoming Game & Fish posters on the wall, and a large Turkish rug on the floor that looked out of place. The closet door hung open and clothes and an assortment of hiking and hunting boots were spilling out onto the floor.

As a token to amour, a small lamp with a pair of red panties hung over the shade was sitting on a cardboard set of drawers; it was still on and cast a pinkish glow on the cracked wall. Vic walked into the room and paused to read the label on the lingerie. “Victoria’s Secret. Of course.”

I turned to look at the Bear, whose girth blocked most of the other doorway, his face turned toward the ceiling. Vic joined me in returning to the landing behind him, and I moved to his side as he took a step into the room. He slowly raised his hand and finally an index finger, touching one of the stained cracks in the ceiling. He picked at the crack until a chip fell away and something seeped from the plaster.

He withdrew his hand and rubbed the thick substance between his thumb and forefinger and his dark hair pivoted to reveal the powerful face as he held his fingers out for me to smell.

No mistake about it.

I watched as a drop fell onto the narrow-pinewood floor, the drip sounding like the beginning of a soft rain.

This room was also empty, with the exception of two folding chairs, a sleeping bag, and what appeared to be a broken transistor radio.

Stepping around Vic and back onto the landing, I reached up and pulled the short cord, lowering the folding stairs, and flipped the bottom section down, placing the spring-loaded rails on the scuffed, worn floor. I put a foot on one of the treads to test if it would hold my weight and then gripped the rails and started up.

It was dark in the attic, but there was a string hanging within arm’s reach, so I pulled it, immediately illuminating the rafters with no insulation.

I backed down the steps and looked at the two of them. “Dead raccoon.”

Vic smiled. “Natural causes?”

I glanced at Henry, but he was no longer paying attention.

“I’d wash my hands if I were you.”

Vic started down the steps, and I spoke in a low voice. “I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.”

She stopped and turned as Henry continued downward. “Look, it was a perfectly reasonable line of inquiry, all right?”

“I was just joking.”

She turned and started off again. “Wasn’t funny.”

There was a scream from downstairs, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the Cheyenne Nation. Vic leapt down the steps Glock-first, and I even found my hand on my sidearm as I half-leapt, half-tumbled down the steps after her. There was a young woman standing in the entryway with a pizza box on the floor at her feet and the Bear with a hand out in an attempt to quiet her. She screamed again when she saw us but then placed a hand on her chest and leaned against the wall in an attempt to catch her breath.

Vic holstered her weapon and looked back at me. “The fiancée.”

Figuring it was my party by default and that I should welcome her to it, I stepped past Vic and Henry, and stuck out a hand of my own. “I’m really sorry about this; I’m Walt Longmire, Chuck’s boss.”

Her hand stayed on her chest, and she breathed deeply, finally pulling some of the blondish-brown hair away from her face. “Grace Salinas.”

I smiled. “Hi, Grace.” I looked down at the box leaking pepperoni and melted cheese. “Sorry about the pizza.”

“Oh, it was some promotion they were supposed to be having over at the Sinclair station. They called and said we’d won a free pizza and that we could come over and pick it up, but when I got there, I had to pay for it. Not much of a promotion.” She smiled back but then looked concerned. “You’re here about the shooting?”

Vic and the Bear glanced at me, and I continued to look at her. “Shooting . . .”

“This morning—the raccoon?”

“The dead one in the attic?”

“I told him not to shoot it, but it was keeping us up at night. He killed it this morning—I figured you were here because of that.”

“Not precisely, but is Chuck around?”

She glanced in the living room as if he should have been there. “He’s here somewhere; I just ran out to get the pizza.” She stooped and began scooping the pie back in the box. “If he went back to bed . . .”

“I don’t think so; we were just up there.”

She stooped for the box and started past us toward the kitchen. “Well, he’s got to be around here somewhere.”

Saizarbitoria was standing in front of the closed back door next to a table and chair; he leaned on the facing and smiled a stiff smile. The young woman considered him and then turned back to me. “Boy, the gang’s all here. Really, is there something wrong?”

Sancho widened his eyes in the brief instant we had before she turned back and looked at him. I, in turn, made strong eye contact with Vic.

“Excuse me, Grace?”

Her eyes returned to me. “Yes?”

“How about you accompany my undersheriff back out front for a moment—I’ve got some things I need to discuss with Sancho.”

“Sure.” She studied me for a while and then started off as Vic followed her out. “I just can’t figure where he got to.”

The Basquo waited until he was sure she was gone and then stepped back, opening the door behind him enough so that I could see Frymire, in a pair of boots and a bathrobe, lying in the backyard with a shovel still in his hands.