There were a few items inside, and he took the can out and emptied it on the table. Crumpled paper Dixie drinking cups, wadded-up Kleenex, shreds of cellophane, and the missing cork cap to the Wild Turkey bottle. Cody photographed the contents.
Larry saw the cap in the flash of the camera and whistled. “So we can assume he was on a bender after all.”
Cody pushed the cellophane strips around with the tip of his pen.
“What are they?” Larry asked.
“Cigar wrappers, I think.”
“So maybe he was smoking a cigar as well,” Larry said. “But I still think it was the open stove.”
Cody bagged the cellophane and the Dixie cups and the bottle cap and marked them with evidence numbers.
“What’s with that?” Larry asked, observing.
“You never know,” Cody said. “Maybe a print can be pulled.”
Larry nodded his head but eyed Cody with suspicion.
“Got something here,” Larry called from the bedroom.
Cody entered. Because the door had been closed, there was little smoke seepage or damage. The room was pristine compared to the kitchen; i.e., white walls, made bed, a half-full closet. Larry had his flashlight trained on an open suitcase on a cedar chest. Clothes were folded neatly inside. “He just got back from somewhere and hadn’t even unpacked yet.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Either that, or he was one of those anal types who packs the night before. But that doesn’t account for the fresh food in the refrigerator. Plus, the place just doesn’t seem lived in. It seems like it was closed up for a while and he just got here and immediately decided to get hammered. That’s kind of weird.”
“Yeah,” Cody said. Cody’s beam slid off the suitcase and rested on a battered leather briefcase next to the cedar chest.
“And something else, I just realized,” Larry said. “There weren’t any other liquor bottles in the kitchen. None. So unless he kept his bar out in the den where he burned up and every trace of it melted into the mud, the only bottle here was the one he was drinking.”
“Um-hmmm.”
“Which kind of makes me think he picked it up on the way here.”
“Um-hmmm,” he said, taking several photos of the suitcase, the closet, the bed.
“Hold it,” Larry said, moving farther into the room. He illuminated a dresser with several items on top; a comb, a Delta Air Lines envelope, a paperback, a pile of coins, and a wallet. “ID,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” Cody said. “Before you pick it up let me take some shots of the layout and the stuff on the dresser. Then I want to superglue the room. Then you can check it all out.”
Larry stared at him and Cody could feel his eyes on him in the semidark.
“Cody,” Larry said, “what the hell are you doing?”
“Investigating,” Cody said. “We’re investigators, remember?”
“Fuck you. I’m saying accident and you’re not. You’re treating this as a homicide.”
“I’m crossing every
“Bullshit,” Larry said, his voice rising. “You’re trying to show me up.”
“Not at all,” Cody said, opening his case and finding the extra-large can of superglue Fume-It. In a closed room, the aerosol glue would fog up the space and collect on any latent fingerprints on the surfaces of the walls, counters, or mirrors. Fingerprints would show on the flat surfaces like floral flocking on wallpaper.
“I’ll wait for you in the kitchen, you…,” Larry said, not coming up with the foul name he wanted that fit the bill.
“Just be a minute,” Cody said. “Close the door.”
Larry slammed it shut so hard the rest of the house shuddered.
Before releasing the spray, Cody threw the briefcase on the bed and opened it.
Ten minutes later, Cody opened the door to the dining area. “Got some shots,” he said. “The man was cleaner than hell. He must have scrubbed his walls. But I got some prints. Make sure we get the evidence tech to lift them.”
Larry stood in the dark in the kitchen and said nothing. Then he shouldered past Cody into the bedroom. The dissipating fog of Fume-It made him cough. When he emerged, he pinched the flashlight between his jaw and shoulder so he could use both hands to hold the ticket jacket up and open it.
“Used tickets and a baggage claim check,” Larry said. “Our man flew here on Delta from Salt Lake City three nights ago.” He dropped the jacket on the table and opened up the wallet.
“His name was…”
“Hank Winters,” Cody said.
“You knew him.”
“Yeah. He was my sponsor.”
3
“Sponsor?” Larry said. “Sponsor?”
As the realization dawned on Larry his face fell. “You mean, like Alcoholics Anonymous?”
“Yeah,” Cody said. “He was my guy. I’ve been up here a couple of times. That’s how I knew where it was and who he was.”
Cody shined his flashlight to where the east wall of the room would have been. “That entire wall was covered with books. Hank was a collector and he had some really valuable first editions. He bought them all over the country when he traveled. Some of those books were really old and dried out. When the fire got to them I bet they went up like cordwood and probably made the fire even more destructive because of the heat of burning paper.”
“But you didn’t say anything. You were holding out on me.”
“You mean knowing him? Or that I was in the program? Or that I think this wasn’t an accident?”
“All of ’em, you son of a bitch. We work together. We talk to each other. No secrets. This is how you got in trouble down in Denver. This is why you’re back in Montana. Damn you, remember when I told you never to put me into a position I didn’t want to be in?”
Cody didn’t shine his flashlight at Larry to see his face. He didn’t need to. Larry was angry, and hurt.
“I wasn’t holding out,” Cody said. “I wanted your honest take on the scene. I wanted you to talk me out of what I was thinking. I hoped you would. You didn’t.”
Larry threw the wallet down on the tabletop. He started to say something but caught himself. Then, mocking, he said, “My name is Cody Hoyt. I’m an alcoholic
Cody couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
Larry looked up, surprised. “That’s funny?”
“Yeah, it is. Tonight when I got the call, I nearly double-tapped a doper outside a bar for his twelve-pack of beer.”
Larry looked at him. “How long have you been in AA?”
“Two months. Just two months. Fifty-nine days, five hours to be exact. Hardest time of my life.”
Larry chinned the direction of the body. “And he was your sponsor? I don’t know exactly how this works, but this guy Henry-”
