Probably waiting for your mother, I thought, but kept that to myself. “He shoots the rats that you’ve been complaining about.” I thought, with the turn of events, it was possible that Ozzie knew more about the relationship between the junkman and his mother, so I tested the waters. “Have you discussed any of this with your mother?”
He looked genuinely surprised at that one. “What?”
“Your mother, have you talked to her?”
He shook his head as if to clear my words from it. “What does my mother have to do with any of this?”
“Well, she was there.”
His mouth hung open. I wasn’t sure how much he knew about the situation, but I was certain he didn’t know how much I knew. “Look, Sheriff, just because my name is Junior doesn’t mean I have to check everything I do with my mother.” He was really steaming up now. “Did you check with your mother about our meeting today?”
I took a breath of my own and waited as Dorothy planted two iced teas on our table, glanced at us, and then made a silent retreat. When she was completely gone, I turned to look back at him.
He was a good-looking man, small but athletic. I could only imagine how difficult growing up with his father, a truly hard man, must’ve been. How strange it was to inherit somebody else’s dream and be forced to deal with the realities of it day after day. He was in a difficult position in more ways than one, whether he was totally aware of it or not. Ozzie Jr. must have had suspicions. It could be that these suspicions were what were fueling the current crisis, but only by making the situation clear could I deflect them and that meant betraying a trust; I wasn’t that desperate—at least not yet.
“My parents have been dead about twelve years, Ozzie, but there’s hardly a day goes by that I don’t wish they were here so I could ask them some damn thing about fixing potato salad, wiring my house, or how I’m doing raising their granddaughter.” I smiled, just to let him know we didn’t have to draw our flatware and go for each other’s throats.
His eyes were the same sad ones his mother had, and he was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry; there really wasn’t any call for me to say that.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, no it’s not.” He took a sip of his iced tea and stared at the table again, and I got the feeling he wanted to slow things down a little himself. “I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, and I’ve been saying a lot of things.” He looked up at me. “Now that you mention it, my mother and I had an argument when she came home last night, and I haven’t seen her since.”
I thought that I’d seen Betty Dobbs close to ten. “When did she get home?”
“I guess it was about midnight, but then she went out again and I’ve been worried sick.” He played with his napkin. “She said she saw you last night. Was that at the hospital?”
It’s at this point that a smart man would lie, and a stupid one would tell the truth—I hedged. “No, I didn’t see her at the hospital.” He was waiting for more on that, but I shifted gears and took us back in the direction I’d originally intended. “Ozzie, I’m really pleased that you’ve decided to take this course with things. I think it’s going to save a bunch of heart-ache down the road.”
He continued to study me, and I thought about the damage we all did in life simply by being ourselves and getting up in the morning.
“I made your eye appointment.”
“I know. Ruby said.” I had stopped in at Isaac Bloomfield’s office after discovering that George Stewart’s room was empty. “Did you release Geo?”
The Doc looked up through his thick glasses at the floating dust motes in his office. “No, he pulled a Longmire.”
I leaned in the doorway and hooked my hat on the handle of my Colt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Isaac closed the book in his hands and reshelved it on top of the fifth of the precarious stacks that were on his desk. “He checked himself out and disappeared into the night, not unlike another individual we periodically treat here at the hospital whose escapes have become so regular that we have now made his name a part of the lexicon.”
I dipped my head along with my smile and studied my boots in contrition. “Any idea when he left?”
“The night nurse reported him missing at one o’clock rounds.”
I thought about it. “How did he get home? He didn’t have a car, and as far as I know Duane and Gina were in Sheridan.”
Isaac adjusted his glasses. “What?”
“Doc, did anybody see Betty Dobbs around here last night?”
He looked surprised. “That’s the second time you’ve asked about her in twenty-four hours. Is there anything I need to know?”
“You don’t need to know, and trust me, you don’t want to.”
I thought about the time line. It had been around ten-thirty when I’d left Betty and after midnight when her son had confronted her, but she could’ve collected Geo before or after she’d gone home. I’m not sure why it was I was dwelling on the details of the previous night; maybe it was habit, maybe it was because I preferred those thoughts to the Saizarbitoria debacle, or maybe it was something else.
The Basquo had checked all the medical records and was waiting for me when I got to the reception desk. He was sitting in one of the waiting chairs and gazing out at the gray day.
“Is Marie here yet?”
He looked up at me with an indifferent look on his face. “She’s here with the baby now.”
I stared at him. “Everything all right?”
He didn’t move. “Yeah.”
I nodded and sat in the chair beside him. “Well, good.” He nodded this time but still seemed distracted, so I changed the subject. “What’s the word on the cooler?”
“Nothing much. The bar code is actually three years old, and the cooler was bought at a Pamida discount store. The nearest one is in Worland, which is seventy miles away, and there’s one in Moorcroft and Douglas.” He paused for a second and finally looked at me. “You’re not going to make me drive to Worland, are you?”
“No.”
“Or Moorcroft.”
“No.”
“Or Douglas?”
“No.”
His eyes returned to the window. “Good.”
“Anything from the hospitals?”
“A guy died on a three-wheeler in Story over the weekend, but it would appear both of his thumbs are accounted for.”
“I thought they outlawed those things.”
Sancho remained still, his eyes reflecting the dead of the afternoon. “They did, but more than a few still turn up.” He sighed. “How’s the Municipal Solid Waste Facility Engineer?”
“Released himself on his own recognizance.”
“Really?”
“Yep, and it’s possible that Betty Dobbs is missing in the short term.”
He took a long breath. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“About what?”
He leaned in a little and spoke in a low voice. “Boss, were Betty Dobbs and Geo Stewart kissing?”
I laughed a short laugh and sighed. “Vic is referring to the case as
Love Among the Ruins.
”
“Wodehouse?”
I shook my head. “Evelyn Waugh by way of Robert Browning.”
“It have a happy ending?”
I shrugged. “As much of a happy ending as a hermaphrodite having disfiguring cosmetic surgery to have her beard removed and an orphaned government official returning to a life of pyromania can be.”
The Basquo rolled his dark eyes. “Now, why would someone write that shit?”
It was risky, but I thought I might be able to transition the conversation. “I think he was making a satirical statement about the inherent failure of the pursuit of happiness and the ability of any state to provide for it.”
He nodded as he stood. “I can get behind that, but where do the bearded hermaphrodites and government pyromaniacs come in?”
“It wasn’t his strongest work; maybe you should try
Brides-head Revisited
.” I stood. “Where are you headed?”
He looked at his wristwatch, another chronographic monstrosity like Vic’s, with at least thirteen dials. “Marie should be finished with Dr. Gill so I thought I’d give her and the baby a ride home and then head back to the office and see if the NCIC has anything on the thumb.”
I nodded, aware that that was the third time he’d referred to his son as the baby; at least he wasn’t calling Antonio a critter. “How ’bout you let me take Marie and Antonio home and you can go ahead to the office?”
“You’re sure you wanna do that?”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“Okay.” I put my hand on Sancho’s shoulder and steered him toward the glass doors that whipped apart like magic when we stepped onto the rubberized mats. He smiled, and I was starting to feel like a baby seal in a Louisville Slugger factory.
I knew where Dr. Gill’s office was and leaned against the wall by the closed door, near enough so that I could hear them talking but far enough away to not understand what was being said.
I thought about Martha and how unprepared we’d been for our daughter. As it turned out, we hadn’t screwed up that bad, and the ongoing project was now a lawyer in Philadelphia and engaged to a fine young police officer, who was Vic’s younger brother. I think Martha would’ve approved of all but Vic, and then I thought about how unprepared I was for Cady getting married.
The door opened, and Dr. Gill looked at me over his bristle-brush mustache. “Well, we were expecting a uniform but not the big star himself.”
I took his hand and shook it. “Hey, Trey. Sometimes I take the more difficult jobs.”
He turned and looked back at the beautiful young woman now standing in the doorway, who glanced up at me with a frank and appraising look. She held Antonio swathed in a blanket in her arms. She wore gloves, fur-lined leather ones, a simple green dress, a heavy, shapeless coat, and sensible shoes—a wise choice, considering the conditions.
“I’m your ride.” She gave a brief nod and carefully made her way past me. I glanced back at Trey and shrugged. He smiled, waved a little wave, and shut the door between us.
“So, how’s the Critter doing?” Had I just said
critter
? I stumbled ahead. “Colicky?” She watched her feet as she walked, the dark hair forming an impenetrable hood with only a small upturn at the end of her nose evident.
Again, the slight nod.
I had a mild panic attack, my natural response to feminine silence. “Cady, my daughter, was like that; the first six months, we thought we were going to die.”
Marie and I turned the corner at the end of the hallway, and I followed her through the automatic doors. It had gotten colder, and she hunched her shoulders up around her neck in an attempt to protect the bare skin at the nape and pulled the tiny bundled person a little closer.
I opened the passenger door of my truck, and Dog leaned forward to sniff at them. Sancho had put the baby’s car seat in, and Marie installed him. I supported her hand, and she slipped onto her seat. I stood there for a second and then closed the door. I climbed in my side, fired the engine up, and turned to look at her as she attached the seat belt. I thought she might say something, but she didn’t.
I slipped the Bullet in gear and drove.
The wind was picking up; it was that lifeless time of winter when the shroud of the high plains stretches the sky’s rinsed cobalt with smears of thin, vaporous clouds.
I turned off Fetterman and took a right onto Poplar. Marie tucked the baby’s blanket and folded her hands in her lap—if the little guy was colicky, he was showing no signs of it this afternoon. I didn’t make a conscious effort to talk but found words in my mouth with nowhere else to go. “We didn’t think we were ready.”
I watched the numbers on the houses increase—they were smallish cottages that the mines had originally constructed for their employees but that subsequent owners had added on to until it appeared that one carport joined with another deck which joined with another porch. The hues of the little houses at this end of town were defiantly vibrant; whistle-stop colors in graveyards. Cars were parked in grassless yards, and dogs were tied to leafless trees by chains that led into the black openings of insulated doghouses.
I slowed the truck at 441 and pulled onto a cracked concrete drive with a faded tin shelter that sagged at the back. There was a Nissan Pathfinder with a bumper sticker I remembered from the first day I’d met the Basquo that read IF YOU DIE, WE SPLIT YOUR GEAR. I wondered if he had had a chance to climb any mountains since he had moved to Durant.
I killed the motor, cracked the door, and gingerly walked around the truck. She already had her door open and had unlatched the baby, presenting him to me. I took him carefully, and she got out of the vehicle. Her purse dangled from her elbow, and the three of us eased our way up the two steps of the tiny porch where, to my surprise, she pulled a set of keys from her purse and unlocked the door.
I wasn’t aware of anybody in our town who went so far as to lock their doors; most people didn’t even close them until really cold weather. They even left the keys in their cars with the engines running while doing errands downtown. We lobbied against such activities and went so far as to move the citizens’ cars around the block in an effort to make them aware that they could be easily stolen, but it had little effect other than smart-aleck phone calls to Ruby.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
I glanced down at her. “I’d love a cup of tea.”
She nodded, one brief jolt of her chin.
I followed her into the house. It was small, had probably been built in the twenties, with a set of narrow stairs that rose to my right, living room to my left, and a small dining alcove that must’ve turned the corner into the kitchen. She continued on, but I paused at a nifty little wood-burning stove nestled in a river stone fireplace. The house was spotless, and there were sweet touches everywhere; lace curtains in the windows, hardwood floors waxed within an inch of their grain, and a deep red border with a twin set of gold stripes that raced the perimeter of the room. The furniture was old but sturdy, and there were a number of framed pictures on the mantel.