Death Without Company

14

“We think it was the extra layer of fat that saved you.” We were seated on the table in one of the examination rooms and were still waiting for the report from the eye doctor. Henry was sitting on my right because he knew it would irritate me. “A man with a normal amount of fat would have perished.” I sighed, trying not to think about how bad my face hurt and instead fingered the little plastic band they had attached to my wrist. The band had my name, age, blood type, and two bar codes, one for my meds and one for my lab, but I wasn’t planning on being here in another fifteen minutes so the whole system would become academic.

“You are lucky your coat snagged on the tree branch, or we would have never found you.” I fingered the tender spot at my side and stared at the floor with my one eye. “We argued over who had to give you mouth-to-mouth, but since I was the one who pulled you out, Vic did it.” He nudged me with an elbow. “I think she enjoyed it, or would have under different circumstances.” I felt him shift his weight and then hold something far out in front of me so that I could see it. “I thought you would like a souvenir from the briny deep.” He dropped a golf ball into my outstretched hand.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” Simple and honest; no one accepted praise with the grace of the Cheyenne.

“How’s Sancho?”

“I think he was more ashamed than hurt and is up and walking around even though his feet are sore.” He watched me. “I think he is embarrassed that you had to save him.” He was still smiling. “I told him you have saved lots of people.”

I nodded, and it was quiet for a moment, so I changed the subject. “How deep is Clear Creek?”

He slid off the table and walked around to where I could see him. He still had the Vietnam Special Forces tomahawk in an oxblood sheath at his belt. “Usually three to four feet.”

“Then why is it we have the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench out there?”

He was trying not to smile. “You picked the part that used to be the old reservoir.”

“I didn’t pick it, Leo Gaskell did.” I looked up through my one eyebrow. “How deep is that damn thing?”

“Twelve feet where you went in.”

I looked up at the clock in the examination room: 11:23 A.M. “I have to get out of here, where the hell is the damn doctor?” I started to reach up to my ear, but he slapped my hand.

His eyes stayed steady with mine as he slowly shook his head. “You are a horrible patient.”

I bounced the golf ball off the floor. “How are Lana and Cady?”

“Still asleep. They had a late night after we brought you in. Their door is locked, and Jim Ferguson is sitting in a chair outside it.” He dipped his head for a better look at my one eye. “Is that Cady’s Chief ’s Special?”

I bounced the ball again. “I loaned it to her.”

He nodded. “There were a lot of guns being scattered about last night.”

“Anybody find the shotgun?”

He stood up straight and flipped his hair back. “I did. I also found Saizarbitoria’s Beretta and your hat.” He gestured toward the offending article on the chair beside the door. “I like him.”

“Who?”

“Saizarbitoria.” He thought about it. “He is tough. He outran me last night, barefoot.”

It was as good a scale as any. “He’s also half our age.” I waited a moment. “How the hell did Leo Gaskell get away?”

“Perhaps Leo Gaskell is tougher.” Henry’s turn to sigh. “That, and Joe Lesky’s car has been stolen.”

I waited a second to make sure I had heard him right. “What?”

“He must have doubled back to the hospital parking lot and taken the car which, lucky for Leo Gaskell, was unlocked and had the keys in it.”

I shook my head and reached up to scratch my eye; he slapped my hand again. “I wasn’t going to touch my ear, damn it.” I rested my head against the pinched fingers that now held the bridge of my nose in an attempt to snatch the pain from my head. I bumped my eye patch and immediately regretted it. “Have we got an APB out on Lesky’s car?”

“Yes.”

“No signs of a Mack truck with a house trailer connected to it, I suppose?”

“No.”

I released my nose. “Where’s the staff?”

“All back at the office; we did not think there was any reason to continue the stakeout.”

I thought about Leo. I sat there like a typewriter with the carriage jammed. “Something’s not adding up.” I waited a while longer but, predictably, it was hovering, my usual itch just out of reach. “If you were going to kill somebody, would you walk there?” I looked down at my clean clothes, a gift from the hospital laundry, and turned my head so that my good eye was toward him. “Something else that’s been bothering me…” I scratched that little itch in the back of my mind and started making connections. “Why didn’t Leo kill Lana at the bakery?”

He took a deep breath of his own, and I marveled at how easily it went in and came out. “Any chance you might have chased him off?”

I summoned up the images from that morning. “There were tracks but no vehicle.”

“Taking into consideration Leo’s laissez-faire attitude toward transport, do you think it possible that he was still there?”

I thought about the one set of Lana’s prints going into the bakery and none coming out. “He must have been.”

The door opened, and Andy Hall was the first through it, just the man I wanted to see, even if it was only with one eye. Behind Dr. Hall were Isaac and Bill McDermott, who had decided to stick around in case we turned up some more bodies. It was three against two, but I had the Indian and that always evened things out.

Dr. Andy was the opthamologist from Sheridan and was a kind-hearted soul with an intelligent and quiet demeanor. He reached out with long-fingered hands, raising the eye patch and tilting my head back. It was funny how doctors handled people like luggage. “How do you feel?”

“Great.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “Nonpenetrating fracture of the left orbital with lacerations to the retina.” He half turned to the attending gaggle, and they all nodded in agreement. “I sutured the damage to the epicanthic fold; any cosmetic alterations can be done after the eye has stabilized.” He released my head and looked at me. “How’s your vision?”

“Before or after the eye patch?”

He looked back to Isaac for some assistance. The old doctor stepped forward with his hands clasped together. “The cold water was enough to slow your metabolic rate, but just so you do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation, you drowned last night.”

I glanced over at the coroner. “If it was all that serious, I’d be talking to him.”

McDermott was quick. “You wouldn’t be talking at all.”

Isaac started in again. “Pulmonary edema carries a progressive bacterial infection which we are preventively treating with antibiotics, but your shortness of breath, poor color, and general weakness…”

“Walking pneumonia.” I smiled at them, and it hurt. He hadn’t stayed in his hospital, so why should I? I snapped the little plastic wristband off and handed it to Isaac, who already had his hand out. I stood and picked up my hat. “All right, we’ve discussed the pneumonia; let’s do some walking.” I put my hat on; it felt funny, and I’m sure it looked worse. “I’ll take the drugs if you want me to.” He handed me a small plastic bottle. I steered Isaac out of the room and moved down the hall a little ways. “Is there a ring of master keys to the hospital that is kept in the basement?”

He thought. “A custodian might have left a set there, because it is easier for him to get to them, but he shouldn’t have. It is a breach of security.”

“Could you check that for me?”

“Yes, I believe I can do that.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and looked back to the Bear. “Are those keys still on the floor beside that desk?”

“Vic took them for fingerprinting.”

I looked back to Isaac. “I’ll return those to you when we’re through.”

Bill McDermott stopped us as we passed him. “I’ll need written permission to release the body of Mrs. Baroja to the next of kin. They’ve requested her about four times now.”

“I don’t suppose anybody’s asked about Anna Walks Over Ice?”

He glanced at Henry. “Actually, somebody has.”

I looked back to the Cheyenne Nation with my good eye and tried my half smile. “Of course they have.”

It was a short drive over to the bakery from the hospital; I almost hit three other cars on the way. “Maybe I should drive?”

“This eye patch thing takes a little getting used to.” It had warmed up, but there were still extended icebergs lining the roadsides and median. It had been a humid snow, and the coated trees looked as if they had been vacuum sealed for next year’s use. I looked out at Main Street, at the three-quarter inch, exterior plywood cutouts of bells, wreaths, reindeer, and the like. Twelve years running, and I was sure they were the most unattractive decorations in Wyoming; exterior ply holds ugly a long time. I remembered Ruby’s promise to take care of my Christmas shopping. I would have to check.

I parked in front, cut the motor, and unlocked my Remington long-barreled 870 from the dash. “I wonder if she has a hide-a-key.”

“What’s the fun of that?” We crossed the sidewalk, stepped in front of the door, and looked at the jamb surrounding the entrance to Baroja’s Baked Goods. Henry pressed himself against the facing and placed both hands around the knob, carefully but forcefully shifting the lock mechanism to the right and away from the catch. The door kicked forward as the bolt slid past the jamb with a mechanical clunk.

The shop smelled just as good as it had earlier in the week. “I assume you’ve already been here, as a customer, I mean.”

“Numerous times.”

“Figures.” I walked down the hardwood floor and listened to the hum of the big, white ceramic coolers. He went behind the counter and began filling the espresso machine. “What are you doing?”

“Making espresso.”

I was sure there were entire folders of contact prints, photographs, pathology reports, DNA procedures, serology, and trace evidence on my desk about Lana’s supposed attempted murder, but sometimes it’s important to see the scene, to see the blood. I crouched down. There was the origin target on the floor, but the wave castoff and cast-off bloodstains were what I was looking for, the follow-through and the drawback of the weapon that had struck Lana Baroja. They were there, along the nearest table, on the floor and the baseboard of the back wall. He had stood beside the doorway and hit her as she came up from the basement.

“Walt?” I turned back because his voice had changed. “Someone has cut a loaf of bread on the butcher block, has taken some provolone and buffalo mozzarella from one of the coolers, and has chased the meal with a couple of jugs of Wheatland microbrew.” He looked up. “Lately.”

I was glad I had taken the 12-gauge from my truck.

There were three doors on the landing: one to the bathroom, one that went to the basement, and one that continued upstairs. The steps to the second floor were warped and swayed in the middle. Tongue-and-groove boards paneled the stairwell, and a tiny grime-covered window provided the only illumination on the second landing where the stairs turned and went the other way.

I jacked a shell into the shotgun, flipped off the safety, and started the second flight. I didn’t figure I was going to surprise anybody, so I decided to introduce myself. Henry called from the front, “Ha-ho?”

“Broadcasting.”

It was quiet for a moment. “Careful, I do not want to have to drink two espressos.”

There were three rooms on the upper level: a small one for storage with a few windows that overlooked the alley in the back; another with a two-by-four table pushed against the wall; and the front room with a couple of windows overlooking the street. This was the room where Leo Gaskell had been living.

There was a ragged and torn polyester sleeping bag piled against one of the corners with a child’s bucking bronco blanket and a dirty pillow. The remains of downstairs’ repast lay on the floor nearby. There was a flashlight, which had been stolen from Northern Rockies Energy Exploration, and the coat I had seen him in last night. There was no Leo.

I coaxed the coat from its crumpled position with the barrel of the shotgun and flipped it open. It was a bloody mess. You could see where two of the pellets had done the most damage, one in the arm and the blood on the sleeping bag showed where the other had hit his foot. As bad as I was feeling this morning, somewhere out there, Leo Gaskell was feeling worse.

I nudged the jacket again and examined the inside pocket where two crystal-meth vials had exploded and thought that maybe Leo wasn’t feeling much of anything after all. I put my gloves on and fingered the shattered glass containers. A full 65 percent of the Wyoming division of criminal investigation’s cases concerned clandestine lab activity. It was a scourge. From Leo’s dental situation, I had assumed meth-mouth and was right.

“Espresso?” We all had our addictions. I sat against the wall and clicked the safety back on the shotgun before placing it in my lap. I took off my gloves. My fingers hurt. He sat beside me and sipped. “Well, at least we know where Leo has been keeping himself.”

“As the possible illegitimate grandson of Charlie Nurburn, I also ask myself where Leo’s daddy might be, if anywhere.”

“We are looking for a white male.”

“With an Indian mother; a half-breed.”

“Bicultural.”

I glanced over at him. “Are you aware of the damage you are causing with all this political correctness to the language of the mythic American West?”

“You bet’cher boots.” He studied the grim surroundings. “Age?”

“Ours, according to Doc Bloomfield. Anybody come to mind?”

“I always thought you might be a half-breed.”

I ignored him. “All right, he may have been here when I found Lana, but he’s definitely been here since.” I stretched my legs out. “I’m also wondering where Leo might have hidden an 18-wheel truck and a mobile home.” I took a sip, which tasted pretty good.

“And what is your answer?”

“Well, there’s too much activity at Four Brothers Ranch, and Vic and I were just there and didn’t see any evidence of Leo, but what about the 260 acres that Mari and Charlie lived on that is adjacent to the ranch? If I were looking for a place to hide something as big as a house, I’d go there.”

Ruby was talking on the phone with Dog’s head in her lap, and Lucian was asleep and snoring loudly on the wooden bench in the reception area with my. 45, cocked and locked, lying on his chest. “How do you get any work done around here with all the noise?”

Her head dropped, and she raised an eyebrow over a particularly cold blue eye. “I understand you went swimming last night?”

“Technically, I think it was struggling and sinking.”

She continued to shake her head. “You have Post-its, that woman from the state dropped off a love note and, lucky for you, Vic is delivering a summons to the bookstore for nonpayment on a newspaper ad. They don’t feel they should have to pay for an advertisement that misspelled the word literature.”

“I can see their point.”

“Saizarbitoria is in the basement. He said he was going to look through Mari Baroja’s effects. I think you should go see him first.”

I plucked my sidearm off Lucian’s chest as Henry and I went by.

When we got to the basement, Saizarbitoria was seated in the middle of the open floor with all of Mari Baroja’s correspondence carefully arranged around him in a semicircle. The whole side of his face was dark and bruised, and he was wearing slippers. He stood when we came in and stuck out his hand. “Thank you.”

I shook it. “You’re welcome.” I wasn’t as good as the Cheyenne, but I was learning. We looked around at the amount of paper stacked on the floor around us.

“She wrote poetry.”

“I’m sorry.” Some of the piles were close to a foot high.

He studied the letter in his hand. “No, it’s actually pretty good.” He pointed to one of the larger stacks. “This is personal communication.” He gestured to another pile. “Business correspondence, and this one is the poetry.” I looked around at the neatly ordered mess. “You don’t want to hear some of it?”

He was definitely spending too much time with Vic. “Maybe later.”

We sat down, and he carefully placed the poetry back in its place and looked at the largest pile in front of him. “She was a savvy businesswoman. She bought up all the surrounding leases adjacent to Four Brothers including Jolie Baroja’s, so she was not only getting the methane money from Four Brothers but also from about a quarter of the valley.”

“Maybe Lana should open up a chain of Basque bakeries?”

Saizarbitoria ignored us and went on. “Mrs. Baroja was probably one of the richest women in the state, but she lived like a pauper.” He glanced around and then back up to me. “I’ve been trying to establish some patterns, but it’s difficult.” He pulled a few bank statements out and a few letters from the personal pile. “She had established a trust fund for Father Baroja that he doesn’t seem to know anything about. I remember he said that they didn’t get along, but she must have felt sorry for him when his grip on reality began to slip. It isn’t administered in Wyoming but set up in…”

“Florida?”

His eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

“A little bird told me, a little southern bird.” I thought back to what Carol Baroja had said in the hospital waiting room when she tried to tie Lana with the ETA. I suspected that no money had gone to Father Baroja or the ETA. I figured that the money went to Carol Baroja’s private charity, herself, but didn’t think that that particular malfeasance had any relevance to the murders. “What about the personal stuff?”

He leaned in a little, and his voice dropped. “Mrs. Baroja may have had a long-term affair with Sheriff Connally.”

The Bear and I looked at each other and back to Saizarbitoria; it was Academy Award stuff but lost on the Basquo. “Ancient history. Anything else?”

He paused for a moment and then went on. “The relationship between her and her daughters was a little strained.”

“Uh huh.” I turned to the side and stretched my sore legs again: Indian style wasn’t working for me. “Any mention of Charlie Nurburn?”

“Old, numerous, and not kind.”

“Any mention of the financial relationship between Mari and him?”

“Some, early on, but he seems to be cut out of the picture by the early fifties.”

Henry and I looked at each other again, but he was quicker. “You can say that again.”

Saizarbitoria’s eyes were shifting back and forth between us. “Are you two going to keep looking at each other or are you going to let me in on this?”

“What’s the story on Leo Gaskell? You knew him in Rawlins, didn’t you?”

He grunted. “We were in the infirmary. He had sliced his hand open in a fight with some dealer from Cheyenne over what they were going to watch on television.” His eyes narrowed, and he was looking back into a place he wasn’t sure he wanted to go to again. “He was secured to a gurney but kept flexing his fingers, so I asked him if he was all right. He doesn’t even look at me and says, ‘I’m just wonderin’ how long you’d cry like a bitch if I was to get my hands around your throat.’ ”

I listened to the heat kick on in the jail and resisted the temptation to look at the Bear again. “All right, Troop. You in or out?”

He propped an elbow on his knee and placed the pointy end of his Vandyke in the palm of his hand. “You’re not going to tell me about Mari Baroja unless I stay?”

I leveled with him. “A lot of this stuff is local history. If you’re going back to Rawlins then you don’t need to know it.”

He looked at both of us, his black eyes glittering like the backs of trout rolling in dark water. “I’m in.”

We shook on it; the median age of our department was now securely under the age of fifty. “Mari Baroja cut Charlie Nurburn’s throat in 1951.”

He leaned back against the bars of the cell behind him and let out a long slow whistle. “Some of the poetry is a little dark.”

The plows had been doing their job, and the highway was clear as I set off south to the old homestead, but we had to hurry because it didn’t look like the weather would hold. Henry had made a few calls while I had gathered up some cold weather gear and called the Busy Bee for a few club sandwiches and a couple of coffees. Dorothy had met us at the curb with two paper bags. She hadn’t waited for a response but just waved, turned, and disappeared back into the cafe. We kept the food in the front, away from Dog, who was still sulking about having to leave the office, but Ruby was going out with her granddaughter that evening and couldn’t watch him.

About three miles out of town, we saw an HP headed in the other direction. He waved, flipped across the median, and pulled up behind us after I’d slowed and stopped. I wondered how Leo had escaped being detected.

“You were not speeding, were you?”

I didn’t acknowledge him but rolled the window down and leaned an elbow on the ledge as the light bar on the highway patrol cruiser began revolving and the door popped open. It was Wes again, and I watched as he straightened his Smoky the Bear hat and strolled up with the gigantic Colt. 357 banging at his leg. “License and registration.” He folded his arms and leaned against my door. He pushed the hat back, and a strong dollop of gray flopped down on his forehead.

“Are you the only one working out here?”

“We’ve got our two, three more from the Casper detachment, and another three from over in Sheridan.” He looked at my eye patch. “Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

I gestured over to Henry. “The Indian beat me up.”

Wes tipped his hat. “Hey, Henry.”

“Wes.”

“You know, all I’m looking for is a Mack truck with a mobile home attached to it.”

Wes nodded. “Seems like we’d be able to find that, doesn’t it?”

I pushed my own hat back. “I thought you were retired.”

“Next week.” He smiled an easy smile. “Why, you gonna have a party for me?”

“No, I was just wondering when we were gonna get some younger HPs around here with better eyesight.”

He shook his head. “Where you guys headed?”

“Down to Mari Baroja’s for a little look around.”

“You want me to tag along?”

“No, but if you or your boys wouldn’t mind swinging through Durant, Leo had been staying over Lana’s little bakery next to Evans’s Chainsaw.” I turned to Henry. “What kind of car does Joe Lesky drive?”

The Bear looked up from a small notebook. “Tan, ’87 Jeep Wagoneer, County 25, Plate 3461.”

Wes nodded and reaffirmed that Ruby had already taken care of the car’s ID. I smiled the half smile I’d perfected and turned toward him. “If I don’t see you? You be careful down there in Arizona.”

He smiled a smile of his own. “You bet.”

“Do you want to hear about Ellen Runs Horse?”

I negotiated around a slow-moving 18-wheeler, neither black nor Mack. “Sure.”

The dark wave of hair fell alongside his face as one eye studied me. “As we suspected she is Crow.”

I continued to stare at the road through my one eye. “Anyone hint about her having an illegitimate child with Charlie Nurburn?”

He nodded. “Better than that.” He shifted his weight and leaned against the door. “She registered a child, Garnet Runs Horse, in the tribal rolls, but gave the child up for adoption in 1950.”

“Lucian said Ellen told him that the child died. I guess she lied. Where did he go?”

“Wind River.”

“Name still Runs Horse?”

“I do not know.”

I thought about it. “That would figure, since Leo’s been living over near Lander, but where did he get the name Gaskell?”

“Maybe his father took the adoptive family’s name?”

“Maybe so.” I pulled my mic from the dash. “Base, this is Unit One, come in?”

After a moment of static, a cool voice responded, and it wasn’t Ruby; I had forgotten that she wasn’t there. “What the fuck do you want now?”

I glanced at Henry, keyed the mic, and quickly composed myself. “How was the bookstore?”

Static. “I bought you the Idiot’s Guide to Swimming.” The Bear snorted.

“Thanks.” I listened to the static for a moment, since it was more comforting than her voice. “Can you do me a favor?”

Static. “Seems like I’ve done you an awful lot of them lately.” Static. “What?”

“Can you run a check on any Gaskells who might be living over near the Wind River Reservation, Lander, or Riverton?”

Static. “I know what towns are near Wind River.” I nodded at the LED display on the radio, trying to get it to be nice to me. Static. “Have you signed the release papers on Mari Baroja? The Wicked Witches of the West are here.”

I wondered if they were in the same room and quickly figured yes they were. “I signed the papers and gave them to Bill McDermott who should still be over at the hospital.”

Static. “I’ll send them there.”

“Get a hold of Bill Wiltse and see if Fremont’s got anything on the Gaskells.”

Static. “Got it.” Static. “Just in case we need to get in touch with you while you are traipsing around the southern part of the county, how should we reach you?”

I thought about it. “Try the methane foreman.”

Static. “Double Tough?”

I smiled. “Is that what you’re calling him?”

Static. “Fuckin’ A. Over and out.”

Speak of the devil. As I headed down the ramp off the highway, I saw Jess Aliff with a couple of his roughnecks. They were on their way to Four Brothers, but he made the time to come over and answer a few questions. I asked him about the gunshot wound, to which he replied, “What gunshot wound?” I liked Double Tough more every time I saw him. I also asked him if he would direct us to the old homestead where Mari Baroja had lived with Charlie Nurburn and whether the road would support the Mack and a house trailer to which he had responded maybe.

We followed the ridge that he had told us about, moving diagonally southeast toward the north fork of Crazy Woman toward the Nurburn place. With the wind blowing, it was impossible to see if there were any tracks; our own would be invisible in a matter of moments. I stopped the truck after a mile and a quarter where the ridge divided and split off into two directions. “Now what?”

He looked at me. “If I were a creek, I would be where the ground slopes.”

“Right.” Sometimes it was good to have an Indian scout.

We topped the ridge cap and looked down the small valley. The road, or what we assumed to be the road, hung to the right side of the flat. The north fork of Crazy Woman turned right, around a curve, about a half a mile away. The blowing snow had filled in the small canyon, and it was difficult to see where the road might be.

“Would you drive a Mack truck down here with a mobile home attached to it?”

He took a deep breath and looked at the missing road. “No, but there are a number of things Leo Gaskell would do that I would not.”

I slipped the three-quarter ton into granny gear, it was already in 4-wheel, and committed. Most of the fill was powder, and the truck settled even as we idled the big V-10 down the canyon to the apex of the undersized ranch. At the far end of the stretch, I edged the truck against the coulee wall and glanced up at the meadow that opened to the flat at the bottom of the canyon. It was a beautiful spot but, if you spent the first part of the winter here, you spent the last part of the winter here, too.

The house was just as I had pictured it in my dream, weathered and leaning at an acute angle away from the predominant wind. Part of it had collapsed, and it looked like a cottonwood had leaned against it for a moment of support that had turned into forever.

I stopped the truck at the edge of the meadow, cut the engine, and decided to get out and check the ground before driving across. I had done enough swimming for one holiday season. I let the dog out and walked around to the front of the truck where Henry met me. The gusts had increased, channeling their force through the ravine, and hit us full in the face. It wasn’t actually snowing, but the wind was strong enough to take a percentage from the ground and make it airborne. The wind was the only sound. We squinted toward the little house as Dog arched out, dipping his head in the snow and rooting for who knew what. Henry flipped his collar up to protect part of his face; his hair trailed back and swirled above the hood.

I squinted and watched an underlying cloud cover approach from the mountains. You could vaguely see the snow-covered peaks. I thought about a damaged woman, bareback on a horse, racing through a rainy night, and three small children huddled in a back bedroom forbidden to move. It seemed sacrilegious to speak in the face of all the tragedy that had unfolded here.

“What are you thinking?”

I was startled by his voice and took a moment to allow the words to form in my head. “I am thinking about how complicated this case has become.”

He nodded. “It just got worse.” His hand came up and pointed past the dilapidated house where, just visible through the blowing ground snow, was the back corner of a mobile home attached to a black Mack truck.