Dry Bones: A Walt Longmire Mystery (15 page)

“Of what? That he is a killer?”

“That he’s responsible.” Studying the swirls of brown hair that were, at the age of five months, just now creeping over her ears, I kept my eyes on the top of my granddaughter’s head.

He reached out one of his powerful hands, the fingertips gently touching the child. “If something happens to this one . . .” He nodded his head toward the front office. “. . . your philosophy will no longer hold sway.”

I looked up at him, making sure he understood. “No, it won’t.”

 • • • 

Watching the Thunderbird pull away in the drizzle, I felt my heart beat against my rib cage like an animal fighting for its freedom. The Cheyenne Nation was going to pick up Vic and, while helping her with her crutches and baggage, talk to her about our suppositions. I had a suspicion that she had already figured out that Bidarte was involved, but better to make sure she was forewarned and forearmed.

A lot of people might underestimate my undersheriff because she was wounded; a lot of people are morons.

Dog whined, and I patted his head. “Just you and me, pal.” I became aware of someone standing behind me and turned to find McGroder adjusting his umbrella. “And the FBI.”

“I hear you had a death in the family.”

I nodded and turned to face him. “My son-in-law, Vic’s brother.”

“I’m sorry. Anything I can do?”

We both stood there for a while, neither of us sure of what to say next. “Well, do you have any connections in Mexico City?”

“Me personally? No.” He took his sunglasses off and shoved them in the case, all the while petting Dog, who wagged like a windshield wiper. “I’m a domestic guy, but I’ve got friends in high places over at the CIA, NSA, and State.” He continued to study me. “You got trouble?”

“Yep.”

“Cop trouble?”

I brought my eyes up and looked toward the horizon like some third lead in a B Western. “No.”

“Oh, real trouble.” He pulled Dog’s ear. “Seeing as how you kept me from bleeding to death up on the mountain, I don’t think I could deny you much. Why don’t you tell me the entire story and I’ll see what I can do.”

I nodded and began the saga of Tomás Bidarte as the three of us walked back up the steps.

“Walt? Walt!” Mike and I both turned as a highly agitated Dave Baumann hurried to the base of the steps and put a hand on the railing. “Jen’s missing.”

Dog barked, and McGroder and I looked at each other and then looked back at him. “What?”

“Jen, she’s missing.”

“You mean the body?”

He looked confused. “What?”

“We’ve got the head.” I turned to look at the FBI man. “Don’t we?”

Baumann flapped his hands. “Not the
T. rex
, my assistant, the paleontologist, Jennifer.”

I stepped back down and got a read on just how upset he was. “What do you mean
missing
. Since when?”

“Last night at the museum was the last time I saw her. She didn’t show today, so I tried calling her cell and her home phones, but nobody answered at either one. Then I texted her, and she always answers.” He glanced down Main Street. “I was going to go out to her place, but then I got worried that maybe I should have somebody with me.”

“Does she live out at her father’s at Lake DeSmet?”

“Yes, the old rock shop.”

I turned to McGroder and gestured toward Dog. “You want to go with me? I’m fresh out of sidekicks with opposable thumbs.”

“But I’m having such a good time cataloging all this guy’s crap back in the holding cells.” He paused in mock quandary. “You bet your ass.” He pulled a cell phone from his jacket as all four of us jumped in my truck, pulling out as the rain picked up again, and headed north of town. “Jarod? Yeah, it’s me.” There was a pause. “What? No. Look, I’m headed out of town a few miles and just wanted to check in . . . Yes. Maybe an hour.” There was another, longer pause. “Well, tell him it has to do with the case. No, don’t put him on.” Then the third, and longest pause. “Because the acting deputy douchebag is a pain in my ass.” A short pause. “No, don’t tell him that.” He ended the call and looked at me. “Kids these days.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Baumann, looking a little uncomfortable with Dog sitting beside him. “Did you talk to her after she left the museum yesterday?”

“No, but she sent me a text message that she was looking through her computer files trying to find the one with Danny on it where we agreed to the arrangements about the dinosaur.”

I nodded and took the ramp onto the highway. “Does she live out there alone?”

“Yes.”

“Try her on the phone again, before I burn up the gas to find out she was taking a shower.”

He began calling under protest. “She would never just leave.” He shot a look at McGroder. “Not with them here.” He waited a while and then left a message: “Jen, this is the third time I’ve called you, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right? Hello? Hello?” Shaking his head, he looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Nothing.”

“Was she all right when she left last night?”

He shook his head. “Not particularly, but she’s rarely all right so it’s hard to tell.”

“Was she upset about anything in particular, other than the obvious?”

He glanced at McGroder. “You mean other than these guys taking Jen?”

“Yep.” The agent in charge glanced at me with a funny look on his face, so I asked, “What?”

He glanced back at Baumann. “Um, the deputy attorney might’ve dropped a subpoena on her last night.”

“What?”

He ran a hand through his crew cut. “Well, she was the first one to see the damn thing; I mean she found it, right? He’s probably going to want her to testify.”

Dave threw himself back in his seat as Dog shifted away and looked at him. “Against us?”

The FBI man shrugged. “For, against, whatever.”

“It’s not like she was going anywhere.”

“Look, subpoenas are like hemorrhoids: everybody’s gonna get one sooner or later.” He gestured toward me. “Even the sheriff, here.” He glanced back at Dave. “Don’t take it personally.”

Baumann folded his arms. “I won’t, but it’s Jen and she would have.”

I took the exit at Lake DeSmet and drove the rest of the way past the marina and the housing developments that now dotted the shore of the 3,600-acre lake nestled in the undrained basin between Piney and Boxelder Creeks, its two major tributaries at the base of the Bighorns. Named for Father Jean DeSmet, the first recorded Catholic priest to visit the region, the lake is the result of a massive coal seam fire. After the seam burned, the bottom of the basin collapsed and slowly filled with water from the area.

We drove past the Lake Stop store where McGroder noticed a large sign adorned with Smetty, the long-necked dinosaur that circled the print and winked at passersby. “What the heck is a Smetty?”

“The local monster that supposedly lives in the lake.” I glanced at him as I pulled my truck up to the rock shop. “In the late 1800s the lake had a surprisingly high salt content, and the Indians believed there was a lost tunnel connecting it to the Pacific Ocean. The legend gave rise to a number of stories of a creature similar to the Loch Ness monster, Smetty being the most popular.”

The FBI man turned to the scientist. “So, what are the chances that Smetty
is real?”

Dave shook his head as I shut the Bullet down. “None.”

McGroder looked at him a little quizzically. “How come?”

Dave huffed, “All right, setting aside the fact that this thing, probably an elasmosaurus, died off in the later Cretaceous period millions of years ago . . . even if one of these things survived, how the hell would it have lived in there for sixty-six million years?”

McGroder took on the role of devil’s advocate. “I don’t know—what’s the life span of one of those Elmo-sauruses, anyway?”

Dave palmed his face. “About thirty, if they’re lucky—real lucky.”

I held Dog’s collar as the two of them got out. “You stay in here, buddy. At least until we find out what’s going on.”

Mike thought about it. “Maybe it’s a family of them.”

Dave palmed his face again. “These marine reptiles were close to sixty feet long and weighed around fifteen tons.” He gestured toward the waves scalped by the Wyoming wind. “There aren’t and never have been enough fish in that body of water to keep one of those damn things alive for a week, let alone families of them for millions of years.”

The FBI man looked at the water the way men have since they crawled out of it. “Well, you never know.”

Baumann looked at him incredulously. “Yeah, you do. That’s the thing about science; you can figure things out with what we call facts. I swear that’s the reason I don’t specialize in marine reptiles. You’d be hard pressed to find a single, mouth-breathing moron that believes that somewhere on the planet there’s probably a tyrannosaurus walking around, but the vocal minority of so-called experts that believe that some species of sea serpents
has survived to the modern day never ceases to amaze me.”

As Dave began winding his way through the mazelike area in front of the rock shop, McGroder watched him depart and then gazed at the massive lake, his imagination transporting him to a place where science refused to carry water. “You never know.”

I shook my head and followed Dino-Dave.

Beginning as an Airstream trailer, the Lake DeSmet Rock Shop had been here for years and had grown exponentially from its humble beginnings to a fenced rabbit warren of tables made from concrete blocks and wide barn planks. There were rocks of all types everywhere, and say what you want about the product, nobody seemed to care that the things were sitting about in the weather. I guess if the rocks had survived for millions of years lying around on the ground, they could probably withstand a little sun and rain. There were signs all over the place, proclaiming G
EODES $
1
APIE
CE,
M
INERALS &
G
EMS!

Baumann was banging on the warped screen door, paint flakes dropping as he knocked. “Jen, it’s Dave, are you in there?”

“Kind of hard on the FBI, weren’t you?”

“He’s an idiot.” He rapped smartly on the door again.

“What about that fish that they caught off the coast of Africa back in the thirties? Everybody thought those things died off in the Cretaceous period, right?”

“You know, you bring up some of the strangest stuff.” He continued knocking. “It’s not the same—this is not a fish.” He turned back to the door. “You know, I almost wish they hadn’t found that damned Coelacanth—all it’s done is embolden all these crypto zoologists, creationists, and snake-oil salesmen who somehow believe that finding living dinosaurs will somehow invalidate the theory of evolution, which it won’t.”

I studied him. “Wishing they’d not found a specimen? That doesn’t sound particularly scientific, Dave.”

“You know, Sheriff, I’ve always thought of you as being an intelligent man.”

I sighed. “Don’t get me wrong; I agree with all the things you’re saying. It’s just that the scientific method, like the principles of detection, rely on that magnificent process called theory—a thought supported by empirical fact. But that’s the wonderful thing about facts—they keep turning up and, like theories, they evolve.”

He finally smiled. “Maybe I should have you come and do the talks at the museum.”

“No, thanks. I’ve got a pretty good day job.” I reached past him and banged on the door with the force of having done it a great deal more than the curator. “Jennifer, it’s Sheriff Walt Longmire—can you come to the door?”

There was no response.

I knocked again and watched as McGroder walked up. “What’s happening?”

“So far, nothing.”

He stood there for a moment more and then turned and walked away, continuing on around the building.

“Jen, it’s the sheriff. Open up.”

Still nothing.

I pushed past Dave and placed both hands on the knob of the dilapidated inside door.

“What are you doing?”

“Opening it.”

“Can you do that without a warrant?”

“If invited, yes.” I called out. “Hello, anybody home?”

A voice shouted from the other side of the building. “Sure, come on in.”

I pressed my shoulder against the facing and popped the door, swinging the thing wide as Dave stuck his head back in my line of sight. “You can’t do that; that was that FBI agent that said that.”

“Did you see him say it?”

“Well, no . . .”

I stepped into the crowded front room. “Then it’s a theory, huh?”

The Lake DeSmet Rock Shop had perhaps seen better days. There was an old cash register from the seventies that looked inoperable crouched on a vintage, oak-framed display counter that held a number of old rocks, minerals, agates, and a few of what appeared to be gold-panning kits.

Dave shrugged. “Jen kind of let the place go after her dad died, but she can’t seem to get rid of any of the stuff.” I stepped around the counter and picked up a phone by the cord. “I don’t think it’s connected—she uses her cell phone.”

I listened to it for a second and then hung it up on the wall cradle. “Well, it’s certainly not connected now.” I moved on to the noncommercial portion of the place and used an arm to part a beaded curtain. The windows had mustard-colored sheets draped over them, giving the room a dark but golden cast. The furniture was old, chenille-covered stuff from the thirties, with tattered Indian blankets thrown everywhere in a failing attempt to guard against the dog hair.

There was an opening to the right that revealed a kitchen, so I stepped in that direction but still didn’t see anything that looked out of the ordinary. There was a door leading to another storage area and possibly the back, and another across the main room that probably led to the bedroom.

The only newer items in the living room were a large flat-screen television and a desk with some electrical cords lying on the surface. I glanced around but couldn’t really see anything out of place or signs of a struggle. “Did she mention anything about going anywhere—staying with somebody?”

Dave stood in the doorway, holding the beaded curtain in his hands, evidently reluctant to enter. “No.”