that you had gone bad.”
“Uh huh.”
“That you had stolen his dog.”
“Hmm.”
“And that he had tracked you from the Northwest Territories and was now going to have to kick your ass.”
I sipped my coffee and glanced at a ’60 short-bed half-ton that looked like a refrigerator on wheels and was remotely familiar. There was a man standing with the hood up, talking to a maybe thirty-year-old. I casually steered our path in that direction.
“Rebuilt, with only thirty-two thousand miles on her, floor shift and a heavy-duty suspension. I bought her off a rancher north of here.”
Juana leaned on the fender and looked up at the man who was speaking, as I stood a little away. “Hi, Bill.”
“Hey, chica.” He grinned right back at her. “How are you?”
The younger man, seeing an avenue for escape, wandered off.
Bill Nolan watched the man walk away. “Kids. If it ain’t got a satellite radio and cruise-control, they ain’t interested.”
She turned partially toward me. “Bill, do you know Eric Boss?”
He paused for the briefest of seconds and then stuck out his hand. “You’re the insurance guy that’s got everybody all worried.”
It didn’t fully appear that he remembered that we’d gone to a Powder River, one-room schoolhouse, classes separated by three years and a long time ago. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“Oh, any kind of authority makes ’em nervous around here.” He hadn’t changed enough that I wouldn’t have known him; still thin as a fence rail but with a few more years. A born car salesman, his father, Sidney, had owned the Powder River Red Crown Service Station along the river and to the north, and his mother had made peach ice cream that she sold for a nickel a cone.
I remembered that Bill had had an uncanny ability as a child: he could imitate coyotes. It was a talent he’d acquired when his father built two guest cabins near the service station on the banks of the river. The dudes were always disappointed whenever the animals weren’t making noise every night, so Sidney sent his son out to the riverbank to imitate them. He was good at it, and I wondered whether he could still do it.
The years had carved fissures and grooves in his face; he was about a head shorter than me and weighed about a third. His hair had gone a becoming silver, but the eyebrows were still jet-black and probably his most predominant feature. “You lookin’ for a truck, Mr. Boss?”
“No, I’m afraid not, but I would like to ask you a few questions, if I could?”
“Well, now I’m worried.”
I glanced at Juana and Benjamin, but she was determined to stay; she folded her arms and leaned against the old truck. “I was just wondering if you could tell me a few things about your relationship with the Barsads?”
He looked around from beneath the bushes of eyebrow, and the meaning was clear. “This sounds like it’s going to be a lengthy conversation, and I’m kinda busy today with the auction…”
“We could talk some other time?”
Juana moved Benjamin away as Nolan closed the hood on the truck. “That’d be handy. I’ve got some more stuff to get packed up over at the house, so I’ll be there later in the afternoon. I’ve got a couple of cans of iced tea in a cooler-refrigerator should be gone by then.”
“That’d be fine.”
He was already looking past me to where the auctioneer was setting up inside. “Around two then?”
“You bet.”
He nodded a perfunctory nod and walked past us; Juana hadn’t moved so far as to be out of earshot. “Still rounding up all the usual suspects?”
I gave her a long look with a smile at the end. “Why don’t you give that almost-associate degree of yours a rest.”
October 22: six days earlier, morning.
It had been the third number with a Youngstown area code that I’d tried. The first was a home phone where I’d left a message, and the second was an office answering service where I’d left another.
“I’d like to speak to Wendell Barnecke?”
“Speaking.” There was a mumbled pause, and I got the feeling I’d interrupted the dentist’s lunch.
“Mr. Barnecke, I’m sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming-”
“Is this about my brother?”
Vic and Ruby were in my office and were listening and watching me from across the desk; the dentist was on conference, which might’ve explained the bad connection, but the connection didn’t muffle the fact that Wade’s brother sounded officious.
“Well, yes it is.”
“Then I really don’t have anything more to say. I told the detectives that he…” There was a pause, and I listened to the noise that accompanied the man’s voice along with what sounded like gusts of wind. “Who did you say you were with?”
I reached down to ruffle Dog’s ears; touching the beast was a comfort. “Sheriff’s Department, Absaroka County, Wyoming.”
“Sheriff, look… you’re the sheriff of what county?”
“Absaroka. I’m assisting-”
“That’s not the county Wade lived in.”
“No, but-”
“Look, I don’t know anything about my brother’s business dealings, his life, anything, okey? So I wish you people would stop contacting me. I’ve told you everything I know. I haven’t even spoken to him since he was here in Youngstown, six years ago.”
“Then how is it you know what county he lived in, Mr. Barnecke?”
There was a longer pause, and I looked across the desk at the two pairs of female eyes watching me. “Sheriff, I’ve been doing nothing but answering questions about my brother with the FBI and the Ohio state police investigators-not to mention your own DCI people and detectives from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department.”
I looked down at the report on my desk. “Wendell-do you mind if I call you Wendell?”
“Yes, I do.” An even longer pause, and I could hear the ten-note song of a meadowlark. It sounded nice, wherever Wendell Barnecke was having his lunch. I pictured him sitting on a bench beside some pond in a park where the deciduous trees had just begun to change to red and yellow; then I started hoping that a maple would fall on him. “No, you may not use my familiar name. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you-”
I cut him off before he could get much further with his tirade. “Did you know his wife?”
“Which one?”
“Mary, the one we have in custody?”
His voice changed tone. “No, I’m afraid I’ve never met her.”
“Well, the situation being what it is-”
“Sheriff, can I tell you something, a little hard-won knowledge?”
“Sure.”
He spoke slowly. “Just for the record, I don’t know who killed my brother, but whoever did probably had a pretty good reason for doing it.” I could hear the rustling of what must have been the wrappings from his lunch. “I grew up with him and, at the risk of incriminating myself, I’m glad he’s dead.”
“I see.”
“I never met his most recent wife, but I’m sure she’s a fine woman.” His tone changed again but stayed prim. “I’m sorry for her situation, and I’m even sorrier that she ever met my brother, but people get what they choose in life.” He sighed, and there was more paper rustling. It sounded like he was packing up his food; evidently, I had ruined his lunch. “Now, if there isn’t anything else?”
