Dry Bones: A Walt Longmire Mystery (21 page)

Taking a few steps, I draped the slicker over a shoulder, and threaded an arm through a sleeve, stopping to rest before threading the other. I waited a moment and then buckled the thing closed, flipping up the collar and pulling my hat down in the front.

Grasping the knob, I turned it and stumbled around the door as the wind and rain blew it against me, and I trudged into the dark, not really sure where I was and certainly not sure about where I was going.

The rain wasn’t as hard as I remembered it being before, but the wind had picked up. Since it generally came from the northwest, I tacked into it and down a hill onto what appeared to be an old cow path.

Figuring that Enic must’ve taken Bambino, I decided not to look for him and kept walking, assuming I’d eventually find a road and start my way back toward civilization on foot.

The cow path turned to the left and stayed on the lowland and out of the wind, for which I was thankful. My head was killing me, and all of a sudden, while wiping the rain from my face, I found myself lying on the path, struggling in the mud to stand.

I fell down a few more times but then managed to keep my footing. It felt like I was walking for a hundred miles, but I just ignored time and distance and kept going, hoping I wasn’t just walking in circles and not knowing it.

Trudging through the barrow ditch, I climbed up the hillside, and when I got there I kneeled in an attempt to catch my breath and fight back the vertigo.

I breathed heavily, again watching the vapor trail from my nostrils, and stood, at first a little unsteadily but then feeling somewhat better. I noticed that the rhythm of my steps was matching my breathing, possibly the only thing that was keeping me going. I pushed my hat up and gripped my forehead in an attempt to chase off the pain, but it stayed right there with me until I unexpectedly ran into something.

My thighs struck the blunt edge of a solid impediment, and when I tried to grab whatever it was, I slipped and fell backward. I lay in the road thinking I’d better get up before either I drowned like a turkey or something ran over me.

There was a lot of noise, and I swore I could hear voices as somebody, two somebodies actually, picked me up, trailed my arms over their shoulders, and dragged me to the backseat of a car. The Bobs.

I mumbled.

“What’d he say?”

“Something about not letting go.”

I was seeing double. I shook my head, another mistake in that now my brain felt like it was bouncing around like a sneaker in a washing machine.

“Good thing you’ve got a hard head.” Bob Delude made a face as the Bobs stood at the foot of my hospital bed like bookends.

Sitting the rest of the way up, I could see Henry and Doc Bloomfield at the side of my bed. “You know, I’m really getting tired of waking up in this place.” I could feel the bandages wrapped around my skull as I rested back on a collection of pillows. “Has anyone found Jennifer and Taylor?” Henry shrugged, and I looked at the two patrolmen, who followed suit. “What about Enic?”

“Also missing.” The Cheyenne Nation sat in the nearest chair. “We were hoping you could tell us where everyone was, but we did find the horse.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Yes?”

“Shoot him.”

“Too late. We already returned him safe and sound to the corral at the Lone Elk Ranch.” He studied me. “Did the horse have something to do with all this?”

“Well, kind of. The biggest problem was Enic.” I yawned and could hear cracking noises—probably not a good sign. “My head hurts.”

Robert Hall spoke up. “We’ve got an APB out on the two—should we add Enic?”

“Yep.” I glanced around. “Where are my clothes?”

“Locked up.” The doc’s voice was firm as he pulled at his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “DCI sent back the official report on Danny Lone Elk.”

“Now why do I not like the sound of that?”

“All indications are that Danny died of mercury poisoning.”

I glanced at the other men in the room, but they seemed as concerned as I was. “Mercury poisoning?”

The doc nodded. “Yes. If you’ll remember, I remarked on the flesh shedding at the fingertips?”

“Other symptoms?”

Isaac recited: “Tremors, emotional changes, insomnia, impairment of peripheral vision, headaches, lack of cognitive function—all the things that Danny had been suffering from that lately might’ve been misconstrued as alcoholism.”

“The rattle.” They all looked at me. “The turtle rattle that Danny kept getting out and placing on his chest when he took his naps—it had a strong smell to it, and I remember Dave Baumann saying that the things were dangerous because of the residual chemicals that remained from the museums cleaning them. He mentioned mercury, specifically.” I happened to catch Henry’s eyes as they played out through the dark past the windows. “What?”

He turned to look at me. “Fish.” He stood, placing his fingertips on the surface of the glass. “High levels of methylmercury can be retained in fish and shellfish.”

I stared at him. “Are you saying that Danny ate enough fish that he—”

“Well, in Danny’s case not exactly fish.” He turned to look at me. “Turtles.”

“Oh, hell.” I thought about it. “Didn’t Randy say that Eva fixed their dad turtle soup all the time?”

“She did, but still, where is the mercury coming from?”

I watched as Isaac thumbed up his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose, a habit when in deep thought. “Forty percent of mercury poisoning in the U.S. comes from power plants, but once again, there’s nothing like that in the area.”

I thought about the conversation I’d had with the Hardin hippy. “Turtle food.” They all looked at me. “The herbalist/pharmacologist up in Hardin told me that he sold turtle food to Danny by the truck-load.” I turned to the Cheyenne Nation. “What do turtles eat?”

He smiled the thin-lipped smile, the one that cut paper . . . or red tape. “Fish.”

“Most of that crap that Free Bird is selling is illegal Chinese stuff, and I’m sure it’s probably laced with mercury because it’s too bad to sell to humans.”

Bob shrugged. “So you think his death actually was an accident?”

“I am not sure, but if somebody knew about the mercury in the feed and subsequently the turtles in combination with the sacred rattle . . . Eva?”

I looked at the Bear. “You think?” I turned to Isaac. “Doc, I need my clothes—now.”

As he hurried out, I spoke to the assembled posse. “So, as near as I can tell, Taylor and Jennifer have a thing and Uncle Enic is helping them along.” I looked at the Bobs. “Can you guys get down to the Lone Elk place and arrest everybody who is down there?”

They spoke in unison. “Charge?”

“What, since when do you guys need a reason to arrest somebody?” I threw out the first thing that came to mind. “Probable cause.”

Bob turned to Robert. “I love probable cause.”

Robert nodded and looked back at me as they went out the door. “Me, too. So, not that it’s any of our business, but where are you two going?”

“Looking for the starstruck lovers and their guardian. I think I owe Enic a pop in the jaw . . .” As the HPs exited, I turned back to the Cheyenne Nation. “Where are Trost and the FBI?”

Henry folded his hands in his lap. “They were boxing up more of Jen, but it is late and they gave up when they could not get Jay to run the forklift in the rain.”

“It’s a manhunt—isn’t that what the FBI does best?” I pressed my fingers against my right eye, which seemed to want to pop out. “Wait, did you just say it was late?”

Henry looked at his wristwatch. “Close to eleven; Mr. Hall and Mr. Delude found you just before dawn and you have been unconscious all day.”

“Oh, no.”

Henry frowned. “Yes, you cannot move in your holding cell. From what I understand, Trost has been in negotiation with the DOJ to have Jen stored in the official depository in Bozeman.”

“What the hell is he thinking?”

The Bear shrugged. “I guess he has his sights set higher than the Big Empty.”

“I’m calling Joe Meyer.” I glanced around for a phone but could see only the internal one for the ICU. “As soon as I get my damn pants.”

 • • • 

There were some emergency clothes in my office, which was good because the director of the Cheyenne Conservancy and the chief of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, along with their bodyguard, were waiting for me.

I re-dressed and limped back into the dispatcher/receptionist area. Henry was sitting on the bench with Brandon White Buffalo and Lonnie Little Bird, Lolo Long sitting on Ruby’s desk, her long legs dangling. “Sheriff.”

“Chief. What’s up?”

She gestured toward the old man, who smiled. “I’m thinking there’s something you should know. Um hmm, yes it is so.”

“What’s that, Lonnie?”

“There was a meeting a few months ago with the tribal council, and those meetings, they get long, so I sometimes fall asleep. Mm, hmm.” He shook his head. “Which is how I got elected chief I suppose; I was asleep and couldn’t defend myself . . .”

“What about the meeting, Lonnie?”

“What?” He looked at me, his mouth moving in an attempt to continue the conversation, but not quite sure what it was.

“The meeting?”

“Oh, yes . . . There was a meeting. Mm, hmm, it is so.”

I stood there looking at him for a spell but then finally turned and glanced at Chief Long, who obliged me by reminding him, “The girl, Lonnie.”

His head rose back with his mouth open, the thought re-forming. “The girl, yes, there was a girl. She came to the first meeting and stood by the door, but then they got her a chair to sit on in the next one, and then by the time we got to the last meeting she was sitting with us at the table during the negotiations.”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“Danny, the negotiations with Danny about the Cheyenne Conservancy and the dinosaur.”

“Yep, but who was the girl?”

“The girl with the camera. Mm, hmm. Yes, it is so.”

Lolo added in explanation, “The paleontologist, Jennifer Watt.”

“She filmed all three of the meetings?”

Brandon sat forward, his giant hands linked under his chin. “It’s true. I remember that there was a blonde woman at the meetings, filming. Evidently she and Danny were very good friends, and he had her film everything.”

“Yes.” Lolo shrugged. “I didn’t think anything about it, but then she went missing along with Taylor and I thought it might be pertinent.”

I looked at Henry. “We need to find those two and get those files. Any word from McGroder on the computer?”

“Not that I know.”

I glanced back at Chief Long, figuring she probably knew the answer to such things. “How much can you save on one of those cameras?”

“Small, digital?”

“Yep.”

“They record onto a memory card, so it’s according to how big that is. If one file gets filled it will just flip over to the next.”

“Remembering that she films everything, enough so that the files from that meeting could still be in her camera?”

“I would think so.”

I turned to Henry. “All right, we’ve got the two starstruck lovers and their trusty companion; as my go-to guy on all things tracking, where would they be?”

“On the ranch—it is the only place where they would be safe.”

“Well, that’s only fifteen thousand acres—how would you suggest doing that?”

“Omar and his luxurious Neiman Marcus helicopter.”

My stomach flipped. “Tonight?”

“I thought you had gotten enough sleep.”

“Flying.” I listened to the rain pelting the roof of the old Carnegie library. “In this weather?”

The Bear smiled. “He has flown in worse.”

 • • • 

On September 3, 1996, Ron Bower and John Williams broke the round-the-world helicopter record in seventeen days, six hours, and fourteen minutes. They were able to accomplish this feat due to the Bell 430, which had a four-blade, bearingless, hingeless composite main rotor and close to eight hundred horsepower produced by two Rolls-Royce/Allison turboshaft engines. I was listening to the same sort of engines whine as we ducked under the swinging props and climbed into Omar’s helicopter, the rain now blowing sideways.

I envied the poncho the Bear had appropriated from the duty closet as I clamored toward a seat. “This fits the parameters of my worst-case scenario.”

We thumped into the soft, butter-colored leather of the obscene conveyance as the Cheyenne Nation closed the door behind us.

“Wait. It will most likely get worse.”

Omar called over his shoulder, “We in?”

I yelled back. “For better or worse!”

In revenge, he throttled up, and I felt my guts settle into the cradle of my pelvic bones, suddenly rushing up and skyward. “Oh, hell.”

The Bear turned and looked between the seats at our pilot. “You know where you are going?”

He nodded, most of his face covered from my view by the massive headset. “Start at the dig site?”

Henry shouted. “We will do a circle out, and if we find nothing then we can begin a grid pattern.”

Omar nodded, and we raced over Durant’s main street, headed south-southeast. The last time the three of us had been in this self-same helicopter had been in an attempt to save a young man who was being stalked by an unknown sniper in the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area. The weather had been moderate when we’d started, but then a front had come in with snow, sleet, and sixty-mile-an-hour winds that had sent Omar and the Neiman Marcus helicopter down the mountain and Henry and me on a life-threatening hike on snow-covered trails. “Don’t get shot this time.”

“I intend to do my best.”

“And don’t sing.”

“I did not sing before.”

I glanced out the window at the rolling hills we traversed, only a hundred feet or so above the wet, waving grass. “Can’t we fly higher, so we don’t have to go up and down so much?”

“I think he is attempting to avoid the wind, which is worse higher up.”

“Oh.”

He glanced out the window on the other side of the helicopter. “It also means the helicopter will fall a shorter distance should something happen.”

“Shut up.” I fastened my seat belt. “How fast are we going?”

He leaned forward again, reading the instruments over Omar’s shoulder. “One hundred and forty knots.”

I thought about the rough knowledge I’d received behind the control seats of a B-25 Mitchell by the name of
Steamboat
years ago. “One hundred and sixty-one miles an hour?”

He shrugged and went back to looking out the window. “I think he likes to go fast, and since it is his helicopter . . .”

I looked out and was barely able to make out the contours of the land now. “How are we going to see? It’s as dark as the insides of a cow out there.”

“Omar has assured me that he has enough auxiliary lighting that we should be able to spot them if they are out here. We can search for them until dawn and then refuel and start out again.”

He studied me. “How is your stomach?”

“Flipping like a trout.”

“Does it help to talk?”

“Some.”

“MMO?”

It was a game we had played for as long as I’d been in law enforcement, maybe even a leftover from Vietnam: Motive-Means-Opportunity. “Is it my imagination, or was it on this same helicopter that we last did this?”

He shrugged. “Breaks up the monotony.”

“And keeps my mind off my stomach.” I settled myself. “Suspects?”

“Jen, Taylor, Enic, Eva, Randy, and your friend, Dino-Dave.”

“No one else on the ranch as far as we know.”

The Cheyenne Nation nodded toward Omar. “Him.”

“He was there, but he doesn’t have a motive; anyway, we’ll throw him in when we get to opportunity.”

A voice suddenly sounded in both our headsets. “You two know I can hear you, right?”

Henry smiled. “Might be an opportunity to ask.”

So I did. “Hey, Omar, did you kill Danny?”

“No.”

I gestured with my one hand. “He’s innocent.”

Omar’s voice rang again. “I understand your having to ask.”

“Thanks.” I glanced at Henry as we both removed our headphones and hung them back on the interior hooks. “Jen.”

“Low on motive—what would she have to gain?”

“Taylor?”

“We’re moving on?”

I shook my head. “No, she had Taylor to gain.”

“You think Danny would have prevented the two of them from getting together?”

“Possibly.” I tilted my head. “But she was obviously trusted enough by Danny to be invited to all the Cheyenne Conservancy meetings. Two?”

He nodded. “Opportunity?”

“Zero, she didn’t live there and wouldn’t want to be caught near the pond, as nobody knew about the relationship with Taylor, or so they say.” I shook my head. “Randy seemed genuinely surprised.”