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?”
