did you by any chance save that list I had you copy down concerning my daughter’s wedding?”
She looked surprised. “I gave it to her.”
“Cady was already here?”
“They’re still here. She said she wanted to see your dog, and I let them into Adrian’s room.”
I glanced at Henry. “I’ll be right back.”
I gently pushed open the door and could see Lena Moretti standing on one side of the crib and my daughter sitting in a chair with Dog’s head in her lap, the baby clutching her forefinger as he slept.
Once again, she had tears in her eyes, and I watched as the trunk of her body shuddered with her breath. She looked up at me. “He’s so small.”
I joined them at the foot of the crib. “They start out that way.”
Her eyes were drawn back to the sleeping child. “He’s all right?”
“That’s what the doctors say. A few bumps and scrapes, but evidently she was able to protect him from the bulk of the impact.” I leaned over and looked down at the lone survivor.
“She died.”
“Yep.”
“But there’s a father?”
“Yes, but he’s been implicated. The FBI says they have tapes of him negotiating with another man about killing both mother and child.”
Lena Moretti’s voice sighed from the other side of the crib. “My God.”
“It’s all pretty sordid.” I dropped my voice when I saw Adrian roll his head to one side. “We should probably get out of here.”
Cady stood and then whispered. “What about Dog?”
“He doesn’t really want to leave; he’s the one that found him.” The two women joined me at the foot of the crib. “We saw them fall and got to the woman, Audrey, as quickly as we could, but Adrian here had rolled down the hill bundled up in a blanket and Dog found him.”
I moved them toward the door, but Cady balked. “Wait a minute, did you say you saw them fall? You mean you were actually there?”
I cracked open the door, but she still didn’t move. “We were researching another area for the wedding and happened to be below when they fell. I even had Henry’s camera, which reminds me…”
Lena looked up. “What?”
“Nothing.” I scooted the two of them out. “How did the meeting with Arbutis Little Bird go?”
“Umm,” Cady answered, preoccupied. “She’ll be there tomorrow morning, and we’ll meet with her then.”
“Well, Lonnie says to bring a gun.”
Henry met us at the counter, and we moved as a group to the parking lot, where he dangled the keys above Cady’s hand. He dropped, she caught, and we started moving to our neutral vehicles.
“Daddy?”
“Yep.”
She steered me aside, placing her arm through mine and walking me away from both Henry and Lena. “What if I had something that would solve this woman’s murder and I didn’t use it. That’d be pretty bad, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
Unwilling to look me in the eye, she lowered her head, and I stood there staring at the strands of gold, auburn, and strawberry blonde, a combination that became more evident in the summertime. Her voice echoed against my chest. “What if I knew a way to make sure whoever killed Audrey Last Bull would be brought to justice?”
“I’d say that there’s no such thing as a sure thing.”
The eyes came up slow but sharp. “I would.”
She rose up on tiptoes and kissed the grizzle on my chin, then pirouetted away with the keys dangling between her fingers. “Lena and I will spend the night up in Colstrip, but we’ll meet you for lunch, here, tomorrow at noon.”
I watched her sashay over to the Thunderbird, and the two of them climbed in, fired Lola up, and roared away like a high plains Thelma and Louise.
As I stood there watching them turn left and head north, the Cheyenne Nation rejoined me. “So, what just happened?”
I breathed a soft laugh. “Unless I’m mistaken, we just got put back on the case.”
Henry drove us over to the Law Enforcement Center, but the place was vacant and the door was locked. Lolo Long’s cell number was listed on the door as one of the emergency contact numbers, but I figured we’d just go do a little snooping on our own.
“What makes you think he is with Inez Two Two?”
“Inez’s mother told me that Clarence was having an affair with her daughter a while back, and if Clarence is involved, then she might be a good place to start looking for him. If she doesn’t know where he is, then she might have other ideas where we could look.”
The Bear drove down Main Street and took a right toward the high school gym, which remained open on Saturdays and Sundays in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club. We parked the ugliest truck on the high plains next to the outside basketball courts with their chain nets and cratered asphalt and walked in down the hall to the unlocked doors of the gym. I could see why the Bear had had no doubts as to Inez’s whereabouts-the place was packed with young people. “So this is the place to see and be seen?”
The Cheyenne Nation snatched a worn ball from the rack just as a fat man with a whistle was about to yell at him.
“ Ha-ho, Monty. Wassup?”
“Hey, you lookin’ for a date, bad man?”
They shook hands and clutched each other’s arms. Fortunately, Henry played youth basketball with Monty Farris, the coach, so there had been no trouble when the Bear asked if we could use one of the smaller, more private, half-court gyms to discuss things with the young woman.
“You realize, of course, that without jurisdiction she can just tell us to go jump in a lake.”
Henry dribbled the ball and flipped it spinning in his hands, shrugged, and then began dribbling to the outside reaches of three-point land.
After about five minutes, a heavyset young woman opened the door and looked at us; she wore an oversized letterman’s jacket despite the season, and a black straw cowboy hat decorated with a gold concho, the stampede strings slung to the back.
“Howdy.”
She had the look of a whitetail that had just discovered two mountain lions at the watering hole.
I slipped off my own hat and stuck out my hand. “I’m Sheriff Longmire, and this is my friend, Henry Standing Bear.”
She took my hand with a great deal of trepidation and allowed the door to slip shut behind her, the sudden sound in the empty gymnasium causing her to jump. I gestured toward one of the fold-out wooden bleachers. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
She did, and I took the one beside her.
I waited a moment, but she just watched the Bear as he dribbled and strolled the arc. “I don’t know where he is.”
I waited a good long time and placed my hat on the bleachers brim up; I needed all the luck I could get. “And who’s that?”
That got a glance. “Clarence.”
Henry twirled the ball in his hands. “We understand you know him pretty well.”
She glanced at him, and her voice became flirty. “I know you.”
“Yes, but not in the same sense.” The Bear’s face remained immobile as he turned and effortlessly sank a thirty-footer. She looked at him and smiled as he retrieved the ball and dribbled back toward center court.
I shook my head at his prowess. “Can I ask you some questions, Inez?”
She took off her hat, which she placed brim down; evidently she didn’t need any luck.
