think you’re due a formal, verbal apology. Then I think the former, yet attending, sheriff intends to take a nap in the jail.” Her voice softened. “How’s the Bear?”
I looked up. “I bet he’s out of there by this afternoon.”
“Hard to keep a good man down.”
I reached up to feel my ear. “You have no idea…”
She slapped my hand away. “Stop that.” She turned back around and flipped the sizzling patties. “So, where are we on the case?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Inspector Lastrade…” And I did. I left out any suspicions I had about Jim Keller, but that was about all. I was looking defeat squarely in the face, and pretty soon the county would be crawling with DCI investigators and Feds. I honestly didn’t think they were going to get any further than I had. Nonetheless, I told her I was considering a career in telemarketing.
She filled a glass with ice and then with tea from a pitcher that sat on the cutting board. “You can make a lot of money.” She flipped a couple of slices of cheese onto the burgers, prepared the buns for reception on an oval- shaped plate, and pulled the fresh basket of fries from the deep fryer, hooking them on the rack to drip dry. My stomach gurgled in response to all the activity, and I was glad she had put on two cheeseburgers. “Okay, unlucky at cards…”
I took a long sip of the tea. “Don’t even ask.”
She scooped up the patties, scooting them expertly onto the bun beds, and covered the rest of the plate with french fries. “That bad?” She slid the dish in front of me. “Careful, hot.”
“You know, I used to think I was pretty good at this relationship stuff…”
She wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, Walter.” She shook her head. “You know she’s had a rough life.”
“Yep, I know. She’s having a rough time buying the White Mountains in Arizona right now.” The food, as always, tasted marvelous. Maybe when I was unemployed, I could work part time for Dorothy. She was still looking at me, and I had the feeling I was going to have to go seek employment elsewhere. “What?”
“When her father killed himself ”-she had placed the pitcher on the counter, anticipating another fill-“there were some things going on out there.” The hazel eyes stayed steady under a salt-and-pepper lock.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “Just talk. I don’t think her marriage was very happy, either.” She looked down at my rapidly vanishing meal. “How’s the food?”
I stopped chewing long enough to reply, “Marry me?”
“That good, huh?”
I looked up to check, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind was still kicking up, so I figured the snowflakes that kept waltzing around my head must have just hitched a ride; their changing patterns reminded me of the mountain in an unsettling fashion. I thought about the visions I had been having and chalked them up to strain and just plain fatigue.
Turk was sitting in one of the reception chairs and stood when I came in. Ruby was seated at her desk with her lunch of a watercress sandwich on low-fat seven-grain bread, carrots, and a sliced apple unfolded before her, which looked fresh, healthy, and completely unappetizing. “What’s up?”
He glanced over at Ruby, who was watching him. “Could I speak with you, Sheriff?” His voice was still nasal with the muffling of the packing and bandages.
“Yeah, sure. You wanna talk in my office?” He nodded and followed me in. I sat at my desk and gestured for him to have a seat. He shook his head and continued standing. He looked like nine kinds of hell; the bruising around his eyes had spread as far back as his side-burns, and it hurt to look at him. “What can I do for you?”
“Uncle Lucian says this is a bad time to have this conversation with you, but I thought you ought to know about my intentions? I put my application in with the Highway Patrol.”
I had to laugh; I couldn’t even keep a hold of Turk. “Really?”
“Yes, sir.” He twitched his face to stop an itch I was sure he was going to have for a while. “Uncle Lucian said it might be for the best.”
I nodded and crossed my arms. “He’s a smart fella, that one-legged bandit uncle of yours.”
“Yes, sir.” He looked back up at me. “He also said that if I ever ran for sheriff, you’d just run against me, win and serve a half a term, and then step down, giving her two years to prove herself.”
“He’s right, I would.” Pretty soon I’d be running the place by myself. “He say anything else?”
I thought I saw just a glimmer of a smile at the corner of his mouth from underneath the droop of his mustache but, with the bandages, it was hard to tell. “He said that masturbation is a wonderful form of stress relief in the workplace and that the wildflowers are beautiful along I-80 in the spring.”
I stuck a peeling hand out to him. He looked at it, then to me. I’m sure we were a handsome pair, him with his nose and me with my hands and ear. “I won’t give you a bad letter of recommendation.”
He took my hand, hesitantly. “Thanks.”
I knew the colonel down in Cheyenne, and he owed me a few favors. “I’ll make some phone calls.”
He shook my hand a little more and then released it. “You really do want to get rid of me.”
“Let’s just say I think it might be a better fit.” I really did. The narrower limitations of vehicular law enforcement along with a more regimented style of department could be just what Turk needed. That or the colonel would never owe me another favor for as long as the state had paved roads.
I looked past him and saw Vic appear in the doorway. She glanced at Turk when he turned to see what I was looking at. “Jesus, you look like shit.”
He turned back to me before he left. “Good luck.” I had no idea he had a sense of humor. I could have asked him about his. 45–70, but it didn’t seem pertinent. It wasn’t him, and it wasn’t going to be.
Vic sat in the chair opposite me, propping her feet onto my desk as usual, and arranging a sheath of papers in her lap. I sat back down. “Don’t play with your ear.”
“Sorry.” I returned my hand to my lap. “Henry and Lucian are going even money on whether I’ll lose it. Ballistics?”
She shuffled the papers. “Both leads match, which does not come as a great surprise, both contain the same chemical compound, and both are from the same slug batch, 30 to 1 ratio… Same shooter.”
“How are your friends back in Washington?”
She looked at me for a moment. “Quantico.”
“Whatever.” I pulled out a pen, uncapped it, and underlined Jim Keller’s name. “I’ve always wondered why they haven’t tried to lure you back.”
“There’s an opening with the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes Services in the Criminal Investigative Analysis Unit.”
I nodded. “Do you have to say all that every time you answer the phone?”
“There’s also an opening in West Virginia at the FBI Fingerprint Analysis Lab, and there’s always Philadelphia.”
I exhaled slowly. “Well, I didn’t think we were going to be able to keep you forever.”
She looked up from the papers then returned to them, and it was very quiet for a while. “We ran a check on Roger Russell’s gun…”
“I didn’t even know you had it.”
She looked back up, allowing her head to drop to one side in dismissal. “Somebody’s gotta run the place while you’re out traipsing around in the woods.”
“And…?”
“Doesn’t match. And we got a call back from the Buffalo Bill Museum. They did acquire a Sharps. 45–70 from Artie Small Song more than a year ago.”
I shrugged. “Artie has also been locked up in the Yellowstone County jail since Saturday.”
She made a big show of pulling a pencil from behind her ear and scratching through his name on her papers. “Jim Keller?”
“Nothing.” I put the cap back on the pen and tossed it onto the blotter. “Which brings us to the Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead.”
She looked at her notes. “No match, but it’s been fired numerous times. Like a box of shells.”
“Twenty rounds?” She nodded her head. “When?”
