I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I need to know everything, because if I guess right, the FBI is going to sweep in here later and try to scoop you away-and I need all my questions answered before they do that.”
“They think I did it?”
“Possibly.”
For the second time, his eyes lifted to mine. “Do you think I did it?”
“No, I don’t, but right now I need to hear the story about yesterday afternoon.”
He sucked in his breath like I’d hit him, and he slowly began to speak. “We were going on a picnic as a celebration; I got a job over in Red Lodge as a sous chef.” He barked a laugh without much humor in it. “The job was advertised as a Sioux chef, S-I-O-U-X-you know, they misspelled it. I told them I was part Cheyenne, part Mexican, and part Sioux, and I think it’s what got me the job. I was going to go there next week, then move them over there next month.” He shook his head, and the tears simmered in his eyes again. “I guess that’s gone to shit now.”
“When did you head out to Painted Warrior?”
“I stopped in at the White Buffalo and got something to drink-pop and stuff, around lunchtime.”
“Eleven twenty-two?”
His eyes widened just a little. “Um, yeah. I guess so.”
This part checked out with the receipt we’d found; it didn’t, however, account for the beer cans and the fact that he’d been drunk when Chief Long and I had arrested him. “Clarence, did you go anywhere else?”
“No.”
My old boss, Lucian Connally, had taught me a long time ago that if you already know the answer, you don’t ask the question twice-and once you’d asked it, you waited, forever if need be.
He cleared his throat. “I, um… I got some beer at Jimtown when they opened. I mean, it was a celebration.”
“Okay.”
“We drove out there, and I parked the Jeep. I was afraid it was going to rain, so I put the top up while she and Ado played there in the grass.”
“Not out by the rocks.”
“No.” He looked at me again. “Hell no.”
“Then what?”
There was a pause, a short one, but a pause nonetheless. “Well, we were fighting.”
“About?”
The pause was longer, and this time I looked at him. “Inez Two Two?”
He froze, and I stood in an attempt to display the fact that I was not behind bars and could walk out of the room at any time. “Clarence, up until now you haven’t been completely honest with me, and if you don’t start, I’m going to personally hand you over to the FBI.”
“No.”
I placed my hands in my pockets and leaned my back against the wall beside Chief Long. He stood and walked over to the bars, hanging his thin arms between them; for a sous chef, he must not have been sampling a great deal of his wares.
“We were arguing about the job and moving. She wanted to go over there at the same time as me, but I wanted to get things ready. I rented an apartment over a bookstore from a guy named Gary. I just wanted the place to be nice.” He quickly added. “You can check all this.”
“We will. What happened after the argument?”
“Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea-that it was some huge, shitstorm fight; it was just the same argument we’ve been having for over a year now.” He studied me. “You married?”
“Widower.”
He looked contrite, an appearance I was not particularly unacquainted with from people looking at me through bars. “I’m sorry, but you know what I mean about living with a woman?”
I smiled, just to let him know that the conversation might not be going as poorly as he thought. “Martha’s been dead about six years now, and there are disagreements we’re still having.”
He nodded at me, and his eyes filled with tears again. “We kept arguing, and I drank beer; I don’t know, I guess I fell asleep.”
“You don’t know, or you fell asleep?”
“I fell asleep.” He glanced back and forth between me and the chief. “I know it sounds lame, but that’s what happened. I swear to God.”
“Then what?”
“I woke up, and they were gone.”
“Did you look for them?”
“Yeah, I looked all over the place but they weren’t there. I figured she’d gotten all pissed off and had taken Ado and walked home.”
“Did you look over the cliff?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “No-I mean, it never occurred to me.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I got in the Jeep and started home-thinkin’ I’d pick them up on the way, but I never found them.”
“Do you have any idea what time it was when you left?”
“No. Why, is that important?”
“Maybe.” I paused for a moment, a conversational indication that we were changing gears from him to the wide world. “Clarence, do you have any idea who might have some kind of grudge against you or your family?”
The thought hadn’t dawned on him. “You think somebody did this to her?”
“It’s possible, and it’s up to us to investigate all the possibilities. Now, can you think of anyone?”
“Against me, yeah.” He stared at the speckled white tiles on the floor. “But Audrey and Ado, no.”
“No enemies she might’ve had-family members, people she worked with?”
“No. Her parents are dead, and the only family is a sister of hers in Billings.”
“What about where she worked? Any difficulties there?”
“No. I mean, not that I know of.”
“Where did she work?”
The chief’s voice rose from behind me. “Human Services, over in the tribal building.”
“No arguments with anybody lately?”
“Only me.”
I checked my Colt, worked the slide mechanism, reinserted the round into the clip, and slapped it back in the stag-handled grips that Cady had given me one Christmas. “Does this mean that I’m no longer a suspect?” I carefully placed it in the pancake holster at my back.
Chief Long shrugged. “You’re low on the list.”
We stood there in the hallway of the Native Health Services building while Chief Long’s mother accompanied Clarence Last Bull in to see his son. “So, do I charge him?”
“That’s up to you. Do you think he’s a flight risk?”
“No.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“No.”
I shrugged. “Neither do I, but there might be a problem with his story.”
“What’s that?”
“Henry and I were at the base of that cliff when Audrey fell, so if Clarence was up there, why didn’t he hear me yelling at him, and why didn’t we hear his Jeep start up and drive off?”
“He was drunk, and we didn’t get up there until hours later.”
“Well, maybe.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s important to keep inconsistencies in mind.”
She nodded and hooked her thumbs in her duty belt. “He started opening up after he found out you were a widower; that was slick.”
