Junkyard Dogs

12

“That’s seriously fucked up.”

“Yep.”

“So while old lady Dobbs is shtupping the junkman, Ozzie is shtupping the granddaughter?”

I was trying to get a few more winks and had my hat over my face. “Allegedly.”

“What’s in the water over there, anyway?” She was sitting on the floor, was petting Dog, and annoying me. Considering the conversation, I was glad we weren’t within earshot of Duane, still in the holding cells out back. “How does she know it’s not Duane’s?”

I continued to speak into the crown of my hat. “I don’t know, but Ozzie was the only other guy she was supposedly shtupping.”

She was quiet for a respectable five seconds. “Old lady Dobbs is going to be crazy for this.”

“Yep.”

I felt her shift her weight against the bench. “Does Duane know?”

“No, according to Gina.” I lifted my hat. “Is this conversation going to go on much longer? Because I was thinking about trying to get a little more sleep.”

She looked at her wristwatch, which was reminiscent of the one Sancho sported, a snappy little chronograph with more dials than Carter had liver pills. “So Ozzie was the financial backing and know-how for the doobage.”

I rolled up to a sitting position. “Yes, according to Gina.”

“Life according to Gina.” She glanced up at me and paused in petting Dog. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you through with your nap?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then we can go over to the bar next to the truck stop and ask them about who Ozzie might’ve phoned yesterday from the Owen Wister.”

The Bear was in my office making phone calls, which I assumed had to do with my daughter’s wedding—which left Vic and me alone in the barhopping expedition.

“Henry seems preoccupied.”

“Yep.”

“Something up?”

“His brother Lee has gone MIA again.”

She gave me her patented side-glance. “Doesn’t that pretty much describe his brother’s lifestyle?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“Last word was Chicago.”

She pursed her lips. “He headed out?”

“Not yet. He’s still got Cady and Michael’s wedding to plan.” She was smiling now. “What?”

“I’m trying to imagine the Bear as a wedding planner.”

The truck stop on the south end of the bypass was a place I infrequently visited, but my deputies were out there on a rotational basis, usually for drive-offs or for suspicious characters loitering around the truckers’ lounge.

The phone call Saizarbitoria had traced had gone to the pay phone in the bar attached to the back side. Vic shook her head at a large neon sign that had a giant chick springing from an egg to do the two-step. The sign read THE CHICKEN COOP.

“I hate this place.”

There were other signs hanging off the building advertising line-dancing lessons, mechanical bull rides, and Kuntry Karaoke on Saturdays. “I can’t imagine why.”

She opened the passenger door, got out, zipped her jacket up a little tighter, and straightened her gun belt. It was still blisteringly cold and, since the sun was setting, our hopes of getting above zero were plummeting. “It’s like the Redneck Ride at Disneyland.”

I got out on my side, smiling at Dog in the back. “They don’t have one of those.”

She met me at the front of the truck. “If they did, this is what it would look like.”

We pushed our way through the old swinging doors and paused at the more substantial glass ones that were inside a shortened vestibule. There was a western boogie with accordion accompaniment scratching the paint off the inside of the place, and Vic paused to listen.

“What the hell is that?”

I tuned my ear and listened a little closer. “That’d be ‘Three Way Boogie,’ Spade Cooley.”

She was wearing her fur hat again and a golden eye crept under it to look up at me. “Who?”

“Spade Cooley. He was the one who coined the phrase ‘western swing’ along with Bob Wills; got his start as a stand-in for a lot of the movie cowboys in California—murdered his wife in ’61 because he thought she was having an affair with Roy Rogers.”

My shapely undersheriff stared ahead in disbelief as she shoved open the inner glass door. “Happy fuckin’ trails.”

The place was as big as a barn and carried the same atmosphere. There was sawdust on the floor, along with a smattering of spent peanut shells. There was a bar to the left with rows of saddles mounted on swivel pedestals in place of stools. There was a much larger sunken area to the right that held a dance floor and, to the left, a fenced-in one with a mechanical bull and a pit full of mattresses on which the one-beer-too-many cowboys could land.

Smoking had been banned in most of the Wyoming bars, but a few still held their collective breath, and a thick haze of blue-tinted, elongated swirls hung in the air. There was a pretty good crowd in the place—a cluster at the far end of the bar and three couples out on the dance floor.

Vic took one look around and made a proclamation. “I’m going to the bathroom.” She skirted the dancers as if denim might be contagious and entered an alcove where a pay phone hung, took a left, and disappeared.

I made my way to the bar and leaned into an open spot beside the brass railings of the wait station. The bartender was a young kid—handsome, tall, and heavyset. He leaned against the bar-back with his arms folded and talked to some patrons. An Elvis look-alike, he had sideburns that would’ve made a Civil War general envious, pointy-toed boots, ripped jeans, and a T-shirt decorated with, of all things, a bolo tie.

I waited.

He continued talking but glanced at me. I smiled, and his attention returned to the conversation he was having.

I waited some more.

He looked at me again and then said something to the group, who shared a few quick looks at one another. One man laughed but didn’t make eye contact with me.

I waited some more, then reached across the bar and picked up an upside-down mug, flipped the Rainier tap on, and began filling my own glass. It was a bad thing to do on duty, but it was looking like if I waited till I was off, I’d be permanently on the wagon.

My actions got his attention, and he bulled toward me, slinging attitude as he came. “Hey, asshole! What do you think you’re doin’!”

I pulled off the tap and retrieved my glass of beer before he could get there. “I just figured this was the only way I was going to get a beer.”

He was in front of me now, puffed up and scrambling one hand under the bar and reaching for my appropriated beverage with the other. “Gimme that!”

“No.”

His hand came out with one of those short clubs that the truckers use to check tire pressure, and he rested it on the bar. “Give it to me now.”

I took a sip and began unbuttoning my sheepskin coat.

“I said now, asshole!” He thumped the surface of the bar with the club.

I hitched a thumb into my coat and pulled it back so that he could see my .45 and a quarter of my star. I heard a few snickers from down the bar and watched as the majority broke up and moved away toward the tables on the other side of the dance floor like a miniature stampede.

I turned to look back at him. “Hi.”

The billy club disappeared pretty quickly; I had to give him that. “Um, hi.”

“You new around here?”

“No, I mean yeah.”

I studied him and risked resting my mug on the bar. “Which is it?”

“I mean, yeah I’m new, now.” He stood there for a few seconds more and then stuck out his hand. “Stroup, Justin Stroup. I’m from over in Sheridan, but I’ve been away.”

“You lose your manners?”

“No. I, look . . .” He leaned in, his demeanor having changed rapidly. “I’m sorry, the boss says we’re supposed to throw a lot of attitude. You know, to add some flavor to the place.”

“You were about to flavor yourself into nine days.” I smiled at him to let him know I was kidding and watched as Vic approached from the bathroom. She stopped at the jukebox. “Didn’t you see me walk in with a fully uniformed deputy?”

He looked at her with more than a little interest. “Um, no.”

This didn’t give me a great deal of hope for his being able to tell me who’d received the phone call yesterday afternoon, but I asked.

“I have no idea.”

The response was predictable but, with the attitudinal change, I was beginning to like him. I took another sip of my beer and nodded toward the alcove where the pay phone hung. “That the only phone in the place?”

“We got a land line in the office and one behind the bar here, but they’re business phones.”

“Big crowd last night?”

“Yeah. It was line-dancing night, so there was a crowd.”

Vic took my beer and had a sip, in direct violation of Wyoming statutes; I could at least button my coat and be undercover. I gestured toward the bartender. “This is Justin Stroup.”

“So.” She flicked a look at him, and I could see traces of her lipstick on my mug as her eyes returned to mine.

I leaned against the bar; I refused to sit on the saddle stools. “When did you start work yesterday?”

“Six, like always.”

“Well, this phone call would’ve been around five-fifteen. Were you here then?”

“No. Carla, the part-timer, comes in and gets me set for the evening. The afternoon crowd is really light—we don’t even open till two.”

I rested the mug on the bar and watched as Vic, completely unaware, swayed a little to the music as the jukebox shifted from Spade Cooley to a female singer I didn’t know. “I don’t suppose she’s here?”

“No.”

“Have you got a contact number?”

He took a few steps toward the cash register, slid a spiral-ring notebook out, and flipped it open. “Sure.” He turned a page and slid it toward me. “Carla Lorme, the second one from the bottom.”

“Mind if I use your phone?”

Vic had moved toward the dance floor and had lifted her arms. Her jacket was open, and her eyes were closed as her head tilted back, her movements in perfect synchronicity with the music that seemed a little rock- and-roll for the place. Her dancing was simple, but it always looked that way with people who came to it naturally; and boy howdy, she looked like a natural out there.

He pulled the phone from the bar- back and set it on the bar alongside the notebook without taking his eyes off Victoria Moretti.

I dialed the number, but there was no answer and no answering machine. As the phone rang, I read the address in the notebook. It wasn’t far, just at the other end of the bypass, over the hill, and past the new high school.

I hung up the phone and shoved it and the notebook back toward him. “Thanks.”

The other dancers had vacated the floor, and it was no wonder. Vic was getting warmed up, and her head shot from one side to the other, the dark hair snapping the smoky room like bullwhips. She pivoted and slunk, something that wasn’t easy in the Browning tactical boots. I thought I recognized the melody from something my daughter had listened to. I inclined my head toward the young bartender. “Is that . . . ?”

“Lucinda Williams’s cover of AC/DC’s ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll.’ I didn’t even know it was on the jukebox; nobody’s ever played it.”

I continued to watch my undersheriff as she did a silent, self-involved Salome. “It’s my new favorite song.”

His voice carried from behind me and was a little wistful as we both watched. “Mine, too.”

“I felt like dancing.” She read the mailboxes as we topped the hill south of town; we were looking for 223. “We do that in the big city sometimes. Most of us don’t particularly feel the need to take lessons and stand in a straight line to do it.”

I widened my eyes and tried to forget the bit of pain I’d isolated behind the left one. “Or have a partner?”

“You could’ve joined me anytime; it could’ve been my Valentine’s Day gift.”

We almost missed the drive because of the piles of snow banked against the roadside, but Vic saw it and pointed. I hit the brakes, turned, and fishtailed a little as we slowed and continued down a narrow lane that opened into an area that had been plowed so that a vehicle could turn around.

It was a small house, lodged against the hillside with a low fence leading around to one of those old-type garages, only large enough to accommodate models that didn’t have names but had letters like A and T.

There was a light on in the back, and I pulled in behind a Toyota with local plates parked beside the gate. I looked at Vic. “You want to stay here?”

“No, I’m getting my second wind.”

I nodded and killed the motor and we cracked open our doors, which sounded like twin glaciers splitting. “Suit yourself—I haven’t found my first.”

The small metal gate hung ajar, and I could see where someone had made an attempt to chip away the ice on the walkway but had given up. There was a concrete stoop and, beyond that, a front door that hung open. I could hear the forced-air heating system trying to keep up with the cold from the walkway.

Vic and I cast a glance at each other and placed our hands on our sidearms, Vic going so far as to unsnap hers. I was the first to reach the doorway and looked inside. It was tidy except that the braided rug was shoved to the baseboard and a picture next to the door hung awkwardly. There were scuff marks on the floor where it looked like there had been a struggle.

I pulled my .45 from the holster.

I cleared my throat and spoke in what my father used to refer to as the field voice. “Ms. Lorme?” There wasn’t any answer, the only sound being the valiant attempt of the heater to warm all of Absaroka County. “Carla Lorme, it’s Sheriff Walt Longmire. Hello. Is there anybody here?!”

Vic looked at me. “Do you want me to get into character and say something?”

I gave her a look and stepped through the door into the small entryway. There was another door to my left, a stairwell going up, and what I took to be the living room to the right where a large flat-screen TV hung on the wall tuned to, of all things, Cops, with the sound muted. There was a desk with a computer that had a screen saver of some tropical island, and I tried to think about how long those things stayed on an inactive screen before hibernating.

There was a wooden chair, and a sectional sofa that half surrounded the room; a coffee table sat in the middle with a soft drink in an iced glass—another had been spilled onto the carpeted floor.

“Carla Lorme!”

I waited, but there was still no response.

I continued through the living room and another opening that looked like it led to the kitchen—I left the door to Vic. There was a coatrack lying on the floor with a bunch of women’s coats still hooked to it.

I listened as Vic opened the door, and I continued toward the back of the house where it looked like a light was on. It was an overhead bulb, but the room was empty.

I heard Vic behind me, commenting on the television. “That’s what I call irony.”

I was in the kitchen now and noticed the Formica counters, the economy appliances, and old cabinets.

“You know how many cops it takes to screw in a light-bulb?” I glanced at her. “Ten; five to change the bulb, and five more to reenact it.”

“Anything in the bedroom?”

“She didn’t make her bed, and there was a cat.”

I moved to the back and looked at another door that must’ve led to a cellar. “Anything upstairs?”

“Another unmade bed and a poster of Jessica Simpson. There’s a bathroom up there, and two toothbrushes in the mug on the sink. The amount of hair product leads me to believe it’s two women.”

I glanced back at the computer in the living room. “You see the screen saver?”

“Yeah.”

“How long before the screen on those things goes to black?”

She shook her head as she considered my absolute lack of knowledge concerning computers. “It’s adjustable; you can set them so that it’s on all the time.”

“Oh.” She continued to look at me as I glanced out the back door into the partial darkness. There were large drifts of snow and, like the Dobbs driveway, it looked like a frozen sea. I couldn’t see any tracks in the reflected light. I turned my attention to the cellar door. “I’m trying to learn about the damn things.”

“Yes, and we’re all so very proud of you.”

I turned the unlocked knob and swung the basement door open, and it was at that point that someone shot a full load of pepper spray in my face.

“Yeah, he pulled the knob loose on the basement door and then slammed into the cabinets and knocked them off the wall. Then he broke through the back door into the yard; took the storm door with him.”

I had my head in a tray with running water going into both eyes, so I was limited to what I could hear of the conversation. David Nickerson was working the night shift at Durant Memorial when Vic had brought me in. “So, you didn’t apply the snow?”

“Hell no, the fucker’s six foot five and weighs two hundred and fifty pounds so I just got out of the way. You should have heard the noises coming out of him; you know those old Frankenstein movies where the villagers chase after the creature with torches and set him on fire? It was like that.”

The doctor straightened the bib on my chest and laughed but with a degree of professionalism. “He’s lucky he got his eyes closed—that was some pretty potent stuff she got him with.”

“It wasn’t pepper spray?”

He laughed a little more. “Yes, but it’s a dosage meant for bears.”

“Jesus.”

“Well, it’s not going to do any good for that tear in his eyeball.” I could see a blur as he leaned down to check the water flow. “That was smart thinking, getting out in the snow. Did he rub?”

“No. After the pinball effect in the kitchen, he hit the ground in the backyard and just kept throwing snow in his face. He was having a little trouble breathing and there was the topical irritation, but all in all it was pretty much textbook.”

“How long did it take you to get him here?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.” I heard her move, and her voice came from another part of the room. “How’s the girl?”

The young doctor turned off the taps, moved the device, and adjusted the table on which I was lying until it felt level. “I think she’s fine. She banged her head and bruised her back when she fell. We’re going to keep her overnight to make sure she’s okay.” I closed my eyes and kept them closed. “Now, did she fall down the basement steps immediately after she sprayed the sheriff?”

“Yeah, we were both trying to get away from him. There’s a life-preservation thing that kicks in with us little animals when the big animals run amok.”

He chuckled. “You seem unharmed.”

“Hey, fuck you. It was like the running of the bulls at Pamplona.” Her voice was light, and I could tell they were having a good time, regardless of my expense. “What was I supposed to do? Shoot him and put him out of his misery?”

I’d had about enough, raised a hand, and started to get up. The doc caught my shoulder and helped me. “How are you doing, Sheriff?”

I opened my eyes just a little and couldn’t see much better than when they were closed. “Do you have anything for a headache?”

“Lots of things.” His voice changed directions. “Can you keep him here till I get back? It’ll just take a minute.”

Vic’s hands clasped my shoulder and steadied me as the curtain swished aside and the doctor’s footsteps diminished across the tile of the emergency room. “How you doin’, big guy?”

I cleared my throat and coughed. “What . . .” I coughed some more. “The hell . . .” I coughed again. “Was she thinking?”

Vic laughed, and I fought the urge to rub my eyes.

“Did I not call her sister’s name enough times? Did I not say ‘Walt Longmire, Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department’ enough times?”

I opened my eyes a little more and could just see Vic, who was standing very close to me. “She says that’s the same thing the last guy who came into the house said.”

I took a few breaths. I’d heard a little of the conversation in the truck but hadn’t been in any condition to really listen. “Other guy.”

“The one who took her sister about twenty minutes before we got there.”

I took another breath. “Where is Claudia?”

“In the next room.”

I stood, and Vic kept a hand on my arm. “The doctor said for you to not go anywhere.”

“It’s his hospital, he can probably find us.” I opened my eyes fully and was just about blind out of my left. “In the land of the blind . . .”

With Vic’s help, I made my way to another curtained room where a teenage girl was seated on one of the gurneys.

“Oh, my gawd, I am so sorry.” Her voice was familiar as were the words. As near as I could tell, it was what she had repeated the entire trip here. “I am so sorry, oh my gawd.”

Vic pulled a chair for me from the wall. “It’s okay. I’m all right.”

“You look horrible.”

“It’s okay, I normally look this way.”

She began crying and as much as I could make out, she looked like she was about seventeen. “I am so sorry.”

I cleared my throat. “Claudia, I need to ask you some questions about your sister.”

She nodded vigorously. “Okay.”

“She was abducted?”

“Yes. I mean, you guys don’t think this is a joke or something? You think this is serious, right?”

I waited but didn’t answer her question. “Could you tell me what happened?”

“Yeah. Um . . . We were watching television and saw the headlights of somebody coming up the driveway, so Carla gets up and goes to the door. I guess she must’ve opened it before whoever it was got there, and I heard her ask if she could help them, then they said something about the sheriff’s department. Well, I got up when I heard that because it was my job this year to get the renewal stickers on the plates and I still hadn’t done it.” She looked at me. “Do you guys go from house to house about that?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Well, I started out front where they were, but he already had her.”

I leaned in a little. “He?”

“Yeah. That would be important, huh? Yeah, he had hold of her and was dragging her outside.”

“Could you see him, make an identification?”

She shook her head. “No, he was wearing one of those masks like a terrorist.”

“A ski mask.”

“Yeah.” She thought about it. “Do you think it was Al Qaeda?”

“Probably not.” I cleared my throat and concentrated once again on not rubbing my eyes or looking at Vic. “What did you do?”

“I ran back into the house and grabbed the bear spray that we keep in the kitchen cabinet, but then . . . I guess I got scared and hid in the basement.”

“Did this person come back in the house?”

“No, I don’t think so. I just was so scared that I stayed there next to the door with the pepper spray and waited.” She started crying again. “Oh gawd, I am so sorry.”

“Did your sister have any enemies, any new acquaintances or anything like that?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yeah, I mean, neither of us have boyfriends. You know?”

I nodded along with her. “So, was he big?”

She nodded. “Yeah, almost as big as you.”

“Heavyset or muscular?”

She took a deep breath and thought. “He had a lot of clothes on, so I couldn’t say.”

“What kind of clothes?”

“Dark, they were just dark. I don’t know, just clothes; a coat.”

“What kind of coat?”

She shrugged, embarrassed. “Lumpy?”

I continued to nod back at her, trying to keep her from getting frustrated and shutting down. “What was his voice like?”

“Rough, I think, but he wasn’t saying a whole lot once he got hold of my sister; just a lot of grunting and stuff.” She twisted her arms and legs together.

The interview was interrupted by the doctor, returning with a couple of pills in one of those paper cups and a root beer. Evidently, Isaac Bloomfield had told the young man about my habits. “Thanks.”

I popped the tablets into my mouth and opened the root beer. “Was there anything else about his appearance that might’ve been distinctive? Anything at all?” I sipped the soda and felt the horse pills go down.

Claudia Lorme’s face, or what I could see of it, looked sad. “No, I don’t think so.”

Very early the next morning, Dog watched as I staggered from the bench in the office reception area, stumbled over my blanket, and answered the phone. It was David Nickerson saying that during the morning rounds, when he’d checked on Claudia, she had come up with a distinctive aspect of the abductor’s appearance.

I leaned on Ruby’s desk and widened my eyes against the pain. A little flat light was shining through the windows to the east, and the thin fingers of the tree limbs looked as if they were intertwined in an attempt to hold on to whatever warmth there might’ve been out there. “What’s that?”

There was a brief pause, and the young doc jostled the phone. “She says his thumb was bandaged.”