“During the autopsy it was discovered that Mari Baroja was beaten and, during consequent conversations with Lana Baroja, Isaac Bloomfield, and Vern Selby, I discover that Charlie Nurburn was possibly the slimiest thing to ooze across the surface of the earth until his disappearance under ever increasingly mysterious circumstances.”
He still looked puzzled, and I was aware that most of the conversation in the room had stopped. “Lana Baroja is?”
I took Henry by the arm and steered him to the far side of the kitchen. I apologized to Maggie as we receded. I pressed Henry into a corner. “Lana Baroja is the granddaughter of the deceased and clearly of the opinion that Lucian Connally had something to do with the death of her grandfather.”
“I thought you said that he is alive.”
“It’s complicated. Also, it appears to be common knowledge that Mari Baroja and Lucian were involved in a Thursday afternoon tryst that lasted for years, but Lucian doesn’t admit to the affair.” I thought for a moment. “That and a ’50 Kaiser imbedded in the bank of the Little Powder for as long as we can remember.”
“So, we are talking about two potential murders separated by more than fifty years.”
I stood there for a while looking at him. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Do you think Lucian did it?”
For the first time that evening, the Cheyenne Nation was silent.
6
“I like your friend Henry.”
I had taken route 87 back from the Northern Cheyenne Reservation because, in a fit of optimism, I thought it might have been plowed. Mari Baroja had probably traveled this way in the opposite direction a few hours earlier; I wondered how she had felt about it. She rested uneasily on my mind, so I thought about sharing part of the burden with Maggie as we rode along on the inch or two of compacted snow. I looked over at her; if women knew how good they looked in the dash light of oversized pickup trucks, they’d never get out of them. “Really?”
“Uh, huh.”
The snow had slackened a little, but the fat wide flakes still swooped out of the darkness into the headlights and disappeared around the windshield in uncountable little games of chicken. I was munching on ruggelach and was trying to concentrate on the road and not let the thrill of a new association put us in a ditch.
“How long have you known each other?”
“Since grade school.” I felt a slight twitch as the rear wheels of the truck slipped a little. “I used to go to his auntie’s house, and we would watch the Lone Ranger. We’d play in the yard, and I always got to be Tonto.” She laughed, but I thought about the case. I wondered if Saizarbitoria had spoken to Charlie Nurburn. I’d given Sancho the job in hopes that I’d never have to speak to the man.
“You’re thinking about the Basque woman again?”
I glanced over. “Just concentrating on the road.”
It was pretty obvious she didn’t believe me. “What was her name again?”
I took a glance at the center console, where I had stowed the autopsy photographs. “Mari Baroja.” She was smiling. “What?”
“It sounds like ambrosia.”
I sighed. “Yep, it does.” I watched the snow for a little while. Lana’s statement still worried me. I guess Lana’s statement didn’t matter if her grandfather was alive but, if he was, why would he have abandoned a perfectly good Kaiser and moved to Vista Verde, New Mexico, without it?
She was still looking at me. “You’re a funny kind of sheriff.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, something I always did when I was forced to really think. “I don’t like mysteries, and I don’t like it when things don’t add up.” I turned and glanced at her. “How about we talk about you?”
“Hey, I’m one of my favorite subjects. Let’s talk about me.” I laughed. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, everything.” I glanced back at the road but ended up looking at her again. “How does something like you get around without being married?”
She folded down the visor and opened up a small leather purse. “As the queen apparent of Norway, I am only allowed to marry once I’ve reached the age of consent.” She pulled out an even smaller cosmetic bag, glanced at me, and reapplied her lipstick.
I nodded. “That age being thirty-five?”
She closed the vanity mirror and turned back to me with a ravishing smile. “Oh, I do like you.” She replaced the lipstick in the tiny bag and then the bag in the hand-tooled leather purse. “It’s really not all that interesting. I just found myself in an emotional and geographic place where I wasn’t happy.”
“And where was that?”
She cocked her head. “Charlottesville, Virginia. Louis taught at UVA, and after a while we began to regard each other as electives.”
“You chose Cheyenne, Wyoming, instead of Charlottesville, Virginia?”
“It seemed like a clean slate, and the South is full of ghosts. I had a job similar to this one and a degree in economics, so I came out for an interview at the Wyoming state job fair which, by the way, consisted of three balloons tied to the end of an event table in the conference room of the capitol building.”
“We’re a frugal state.”
She kept studying me, but it took a while for her to get up her nerve. “You don’t seem divorced.”
“Seem divorced?”
Her eyes squinted, but the blue sparkles were still evident. “Too much unreined compassion still there, not enough baggage.”
I waited a moment in respect. “Widower.” She nodded but sat there silently with her legs curled beneath her. I didn’t want to talk about Vonnie, but that wouldn’t have been fair. “There was another woman about a month or so ago.” She didn’t say anything. “I don’t think you could call it a relationship in the sense that it was consummated, but we were close, and it didn’t end well.”
Her voice seemed small and far away. “Can I be honest with you?”
“I would hope.”
“I read about it in the newspapers.”
I felt strangely violated, like somebody had burgled my personal life. “Well… that’s a price you pay for being a public figure.” She reached an arm out and rested a hand on my sleeve, somewhere alongside my heart. I could feel the welling in my eyes, and I wasn’t sure whether it was for me or for the women whom I had lost. I concentrated on the road and none of the moisture escaped, but I’m pretty sure the blue eyes didn’t miss the emotion. I was pretty sure those eyes didn’t miss much of anything. “We’re talking about me again.”
“Sorry.” Her head tilted forward. “Well, you’re stuck with me for another couple of days at least. I’ve got nine unclaimed security boxes at three different banks so I’m thinking that my predecessor didn’t consider Durant to be high on his list of priorities.”
I was relieved at the change of subject. “So, what do you do when you crack one open?”
“First I ascertain whether the owner is alive and the box has been forgotten or if the box is abandoned due to a death. Next I check on-line credit records or cold-call for possible relatives; if there’s no contact with an owner and the rent hasn’t been paid in five years, it gets turned over to us.”
“How does that go?”
“I get hung up on a lot.” She laughed and shook her head. “It’s really hard to get people to believe that we’re legitimate. They always think it’s some kind of scam, but we turned over eight million dollars to recipients and generated over fifteen million in unclaimed property just last year.”
I whistled. “Fifteen million. I’d say the state is getting its money’s worth. Maybe they’ll buy more balloons.” The visibility was dropping, so I slowed the truck down even more. At this rate, we might as well have gotten out and walked from the Rez. “You’re the department?”
