“The hood blocked Dobbs’s vision.”
A semiautomatic pistol with the extension of a silencer rose in the flat light that was still reflected by the low-slung clouds, the barrel pressing against Ozzie’s chest.
“Someone he knew, someone he trusted; someone who must have convinced him not to shoot his own weapon.”
The Bear’s hands came together, simulating the shot that had fired with a sharp crack.
Both Lucian and I jumped.
The Cheyenne Nation turned to look at us, his dark eyes swallowing the surroundings like twin drains. His head swiveled back to where the entire episode had played out. “You whites get too involved with these things.”
Lucian caught a ride with Saizarbitoria, and I just hoped he didn’t tell him the Pat Cook story. The Bear and I walked the two miles back down the trail. I wanted Henry to see all the tracks that had led from town. Our one piece of luck last night was that the snow had tapered off so that the prints were still visible.
As we walked, each of us on opposite sides of the trail, his breath billowed up from his face. “Cold.”
“Yep.” He stopped, looking at the ground between us, and I pulled up with him. “Something?”
He nodded. “Coyote.”
“That’s helpful.”
We continued on. “Statewide, are there more murders in the winter?”
“No; there are more murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, and thefts in the summer, just like everywhere else. We get a spike at the holidays, but then it dies down.”
“No pun intended?”
“Nope.” He stopped again. “What?”
“Turkey; probably what the coyote was after.” He talked as he walked. “This Ozzie Dobbs; he had a lot of enemies?”
I thought about it. “Well, I suppose so. You don’t get something like Redhills Arroyo done without making a few adversaries.”
He glanced over at me. “Like whom?”
“Well, the city council, the county planning commission, the three other guys who were thinking about doing the same thing . . .” He stopped again. “What?”
He pointed. “This would be where the coyote caught up with the turkey.”
I cleared my throat. “Do you think we could try and stay on the case at hand?”
“Sorry.” He continued on. “These would all be enemies of the father, yes?”
“Primarily.”
“We need to discover someone who had something against the son.”
“Or somebody who had something to gain by his death.”
When we got to my truck, the radio was blaring something but cut off by the time I got the door open. The Cheyenne Nation climbed in the other side as I pulled the mic from the dash. “Come in base, this is unit one.”
Static. “Where have you been?”
I keyed the mic. “Henry and I were having a lovely, early morning walk in the woods.”
Static. “Mike Thomas called and said you might like to know that about five minutes ago, Gina Stewart pulled out of her driveway in the offending Oldsmobile with what looked like everything she owned stuffed to the headliner.”
I looked at the Motorola. “Oh, hell.”
Static. “Vic tore out of here in her unit but said she must’ve gotten on the interstate or taken old 87. I notified the highway patrol, but they haven’t seen her either.”
I keyed the mic again. “We will take the old road; it’s the closest to us. Tell Vic to do a slow case around the streets in town.”
Static. “Roger that.”
Henry, used to my high-speed chases, made sure the safety belt was over his shoulder and firmly attached to the clasp. I started the truck and threw her in gear, spraying a fine trace of snow, grit, and shale dust in a rooster tail.
I’d just turned back to the roadway ahead of us on the way to 87 when the oxidized, copper- colored, laden ’68 Olds Toronado flashed through the intersection. The car was doing a good sixty miles an hour when it went by, but the speed didn’t deter the dirty blonde from attempting to light a cigarette as she negotiated the turn just past the Log Cabin Motel.
“Was that the aforementioned Gina Stewart?”
“Yes, I believe it was.” I turned the three-quarter-ton’s wheel and stomped on the accelerator, leaping the Dear-born steel onto the tail of the Olds, which was headed for the mountains.
“You might want to turn on your emergency lights and siren.”
“Gimme a second, will you?” I reached down and flipped the switches.
I veered the truck around the corner and shot the distance past the Soldiers and Sailors Home, where the old guys usually sat and waved at traffic. There was nobody out there, testament to how cold it had gotten lately.
I could see the taillights of the Oldsmobile flare briefly as Gina slowed behind an eighteen-wheel truck; she passed him, forcing an oncoming pickup into the emergency lane.
I gave all ten cylinders their head, and Henry’s hand crept up onto the dash as we blew past the semi and started gaining on her. With all the stuff piled in the backseat, it was difficult to see if she was aware of being followed, but she must have been, what with the siren and lights; to prove the point, she accelerated.
Whatever Duane and his uncle had done to the Olds to make it the Classic, it was evident in the twin six-foot black strips the front wheels of the Toronado left on the pavement when Gina punched it.
Henry glanced at me. “Wow.”
I pulled the mic from my dash. “Base, this is unit one. I’ve got her on 16, headed west, up the mountain.”
Static. “Roger that.”
When my full attention went back to the road, I saw the brake lights come on the Toronado as it crow-hopped with all four wheels locked. I hit the brakes on my vehicle; the ABS served me well, and we stopped in a straight line well behind the Oldsmobile.
I’d already unsnapped my seat belt and was on my way out of my truck when I saw two gleaming black Dodge Chargers pointed in a nose-first phalanx that blockaded the highway in front of Gina.
The HPs in question looked like they’d stepped out of a recruiting poster. Rosey Wayman, whose sparkling blue eyes were giving her smile a run for its money, stood there in the middle of the road with her arms crossed, the short black gloves with the undone pearl snaps revealing the pale skin at her wrists—the only skin other than her face uncovered; and Jim Thomas, all six foot five of him, reminding me a little of me thirty years ago.
I could hear the Oldsmobile’s radio thundering against the inside of the windows of the car. Gina hadn’t moved. I waved at Rosey and Jim, who took a step back to show me that they were content to be providing backup.
As I approached the driver’s side of the Olds, I could see Gina still puffing on her cigarette. The window rolled down with a dysphasic whine, and the full volume of the music, if you could call it that, assaulted my ears. She flipped some ashes onto the asphalt between us as she glanced at me from the corner of one eye.
“What?”
“A drive?”
“Yeah.” She eyed my office and recrossed her legs. She had pulled a pen from the mug on my desk and was chewing on the cap. “I just needed to get out of that mausoleum. It’s okay when Duane’s around, but sometimes I just feel like . . . I don’t know. The place is creepo.”
I nodded and glanced at Henry, who was standing by the window. “A drive.”
“Yeah.” She was a little more defiant this time.
“With all your clothes in the car?”
She tossed it off with a nod of her head. “I didn’t know how long I was gonna be gone. I thought maybe I’d go to the hot springs in Thermopolis.”
“You had a chair in there.”
She folded her arms into a classic defensive posture. “I thought I might need someplace to sit.”
I looked down at the list on the piece of paper that rested on my desk. “And a box full of CDs and DVDs?”
She sniffed and pulled a lock of hair behind an ear. “Those were my favorites. I don’t know what all this is about, but I have a right to go out in the car for a drive, don’t I?” She let out a giant exhale of exasperation. “Look, can I have a glass of water or something? I’m not feeling too good.”
I got up. “I’ll get you some.” I glanced at Henry, as his eyes returned to the girl.
There was a small crowd at Ruby’s desk. Vic was, of course, the first to speak. “Well?”
I pulled a paper cup from the dispenser, pulled the toggle, and watched the water fill it up. “She wants a drink.”
Vic propped an elbow onto Ruby’s desk. “So? People in hell want ice water—I want to stick my boot up her ass.”
I didn’t say anything but walked back to my office and handed Gina her water.
“You know, you haven’t read me my Miranda rights yet.”
I sat on the edge of my desk and looked down at her. “I only have to do that if I’m going to arrest you. Do you want to be arrested?”
“No.”
“Good, because I don’t want to have to go feed the dogs, the raccoons, and the naked bird.”
She sipped her water. “That bird is disgusting.”
I tipped my hat back and studied her. I had to handle this one gently, or she’d just ask for a lawyer and clam up tight. “Gina, I know it’s been hard lately . . .”
“You’re damn right.” Her foot bobbed in time with her indignation; her pink socks were rolled up over her acid-washed jeans, eighties-style. “And now I’m stuck in the Addams Family.”
Henry shifted his weight and raised his head. My eyes returned to Gina. “And why is that?”
Her bobbing foot stopped bobbing. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Okay, but there’s something that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours that’s kind of changed the complexion of things.”
Her eyebrows rose, followed by the eyes. “What now?”
“Your neighbor, Ozzie Dobbs, is dead.” I watched her carefully, not so much because I considered her a strong suspect, but because she might’ve been carrying one of the pieces to this goofy jigsaw puzzle.
Her expression didn’t change much. “Shit.” Her hands came up and covered her face, and she crouched forward, the oversized sweatshirt deflating against her body and the remaining water in the paper cup splattering onto the floor. Her voice was muffled against her clenched hands. “Fuck . . .”
I put a hand forward. “Gina?”
When I touched her, though, she dropped her hands and looked at me as if I was asking about the weather. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”
I sat there looking at her for a moment. “Okay.”
I escorted her across the hall, and she closed the door. Henry stood, looking at me and the bathroom, where no sounds escaped. “You do not have a window in there, do you?”
The news of Ozzie Dobbs’s death didn’t seem to have affected Gina’s appetite.
“So, what’s this?”
I unrolled my silverware from my paper napkin. “We call it the usual.”
She tucked the same piece of hair behind the same ear. “Looks like fried chicken.”
It was fried chicken, and Dorothy served it with sweet coleslaw. She had picked up a couple of postcard recipes from the Brookville Kansas Hotel & Restaurant and had done a little tweaking. It was really good. Evidently Gina thought so as well—she had just finished a leg and was starting in on the breast as we talked.
I thought it best to try and steer the conversation back to her; in my experience, there wasn’t much young women enjoyed talking about more than themselves. “Gina, how did you end up here?”
“I met Duane in Mexico about seven months ago.”
“Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
It was a little hard for me to imagine, and evidently it was the same for the Cheyenne Nation, whose eyes met mine. “Duane was in Mexico?”
“Yeah, Grampus sent him down to Cabo San Lucas for high school graduation.”
I thought about it. “Duane stopped going to public school in the sixth grade.”
“Yeah, but Grampus didn’t see any reason why he should be penalized for dropping out. Duane’s twenty-one and Grampus figured he’d have been out of high school by now no matter what. He thought a trip to Mexico might make Duane more worldly. It did—he speaks some Spanish and everything.”
I tried to avoid looking at Henry. “So you met in Mexico?”
“Yeah. I saw him in this bar on the beach and just went right up to him and told him I was going to screw him blind—I think it really blew his mind.” I glanced around the Busy Bee, just to make sure that the conversation was confined to our table. She smiled at Henry and then me. “And I did.” We didn’t know what to say to that, so her eyes dropped. “I guess Duane’s in big trouble, huh?”
I risked a glance at Henry, but his expression remained neutral. “If I can keep the prosecution in- county, I’m hoping that I can keep Duane from doing much hard time. It’s just I was thinking that you’re in a position to help me figure some of this stuff out.”
She straightened the fork on her plate. “Like what?”
“Well, why don’t we start with Duane’s little cottage industry?”
She studied the table, and her eyes started to well again. “I thought you’d want to talk about Ozzie . . .”
“Well, I do, but maybe we should start with the easy stuff first.”
She sniffed. “Okay.”
“What about the marijuana?”
The smile faded. “What about it?”
“Well, my deputy, Mr. Saizarbitoria . . .”
“He’s cute.”
“Yep.” I took a breath; keeping up with Gina was wearing me out. “He said that the equipment and the procedures that Duane was using were pretty sophisticated and that he thought Duane might have a partner.”
She dropped the chicken breast that she was eating on her plate and put her hands in her lap. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you but thought you might know who . . . well, you see, there was a lot of very expensive equipment that was bought in Denver, and I was thinking you might know . . .”