* * *
By the time I got over to my desk, the Espers were waiting on line two. I had told Ruby I would get it in my office and passed by Vic’s open door. She was on the phone, and it looked like she was enjoying her call far more than I would mine. It was probably her friends at the Department of Justice, and I had a brief twinge of panicked jealousy. If Vic weren’t married to Wyoming anymore, she’d be a fool not to go back east and get a job with a large, urban department or with the Feds. As I sat there in my office, my plans for the first female Wyoming sheriff evaporated into thin, high plains air.
I picked up the receiver and punched line two. “Longmire.” I sounded busy and possibly a little angry.
“Sheriff?”
It was Reggie Esper. “Yep, Reggie. Are you still in Deadwood?”
There was a pause. “We are. I told the mine I’d be back yesterday, but we had a lucky streak and decided to stay on ’til Monday. Then this South Dakota Highway Patrolman came to the casino and got us.” Another pause. “Walt, if this is about that damned Pritchard kid, I haven’t let the boys have anything to do with him . . .”
“It’s not about Cody Pritchard.”
Yet another pause. “Well, is it important? I mean I don’t want to cut a weekend short if I . . .”
“It’s important.” I stared at the blotter on my desk and picked up a pen. I looked up at the old Seth Thomas clock on my wall, a plugged-in leftover from Lucian and Red Angus before him. I adjusted it twice a year, and it never lost or gained a second. “It’s a little after eleven, and you could be here by three or so?”
There was a discussion going on in the background. “We’ll leave right after lunch.”
He started to hang up. “Reggie? Make sure you come straight to the sheriff’s office.” He said he would.
I put the phone back, leaned an elbow on my desk, and accidentally hit my ear. I swore and readjusted my hand to my cheek. It hurt to hold the pen, and I clutched my tender fingers in a half claw. I put the Espers down for four o’clock and wrote a note to ask Vic about ballistics. I had to talk to the Curator of Firearms at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, talk to Jim Keller, and call Dave at the Sportshop about Vasques, size nines. I was also beginning to wonder about Lucian and Turk. I started to punch the intercom on my phone, but all the lines were busy. Probably Vic, faxing her resume. I got up and walked out to Ruby’s desk.
She was on the phone too, but she hung up. “Lonnie Little Bird was here looking for you.” She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. “He’s sweet.”
“Yes, he is.” I paused for a second. “I’ve got the Espers coming in this afternoon. If they’re running late, can you stick around?”
“Yes.”
“Anything on Jim Keller?”
“Not back from Nebraska yet. But Mrs. Keller has been here twice already today.”
“How’s the kid doing?”
“He’s in the back, asleep. I gave him the old sheriff report books to look at, which would put anybody to sleep. By the way, you have the worst penmanship of any sheriff we’ve ever had since 1881. I thought you’d be glad to know.”
“Who was before 1881?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Nobody; that’s when we first became a county in the territory, about nine years before we became a state. You did hear about that?”
I scratched at my ear and immediately regretted it. “Yep, I remember reading about it in the papers.”
“Stop picking at your ear.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I slouched a little bit. “Do you know what’s happened to Lucian and Turk?”
“They are having lunch down the hill at the Busy Bee. Lucian mentioned something about having a Come-to-Jesus meeting with his nephew.”
“Oh, boy. Anything from Vic on the ballistics at DCI?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“She’s on the phone.” I looked down at all the blinking lights on Ruby’s console. “She’s on all of them.”
“Then she hasn’t, or she is now.” She stayed looking at me.
“We’re not going to be able to keep her, are we?” It was out before I knew I had said it and, when I looked up, Ruby’s electric blues steadfastly joined with mine.
“Why don’t you go have lunch; she’ll be off the phones by the time you get back. Besides, you could use a little religion.”
In its usual perverse manner, the sun had decided to come out and cast a glare without providing any heat. It might get warmer by the end of the afternoon but, for now, it was just plain cold. As I navigated the courthouse steps, I looked up at Vern’s window. He was probably up there still waiting for our lunch, but I could bet that he wouldn’t want anything to do with Lucian’s type of revival meeting, even though I was sure it would carry its own unique version of fire and brimstone.
* * *
Cody and Jacob, convicted of two counts of first degree sexual assault, could have been sentenced to as much as forty years. The sentencing date hung over all of us for two solid weeks, but over nobody as much as Vern Selby. The jury had lived with deciding, and now they had passed it on to Vern like some communicable disease, and the fever of justice ate away at him.
He had taken it upon himself to merge the two counts into one, which was his judicial latitude, and sentenced Cody and Jacob to a maximum of fifteen years in prison, far to the low side of the five- to fifty-year sentencing guideline. George had gotten the minimum of ten, but it all became academic when the judge had pronounced that the offenders would be incarcerated in a young adult institution in Casper and would therefore receive indeterminate terms. I guess Vern had decided that since they were all first offenders, the rape shouldn’t cost them the rest of their lives; never mind what it had cost Melissa.
Cody Pritchard had turned to his friends in the back of the courtroom and playfully tossed his hat in the air and smiled. With time off for good behavior, Cody, Jacob, and George could see less than two years of soft prison time. Bryan Keller would receive two years of probation and one hundred hours of community service. The young men were once again released without bail, and Vern had nodded quietly in his chambers when I personally volunteered to drive the three of them down to Casper.
* * *
When I got to the Busy Bee, I glanced through the window. Turk was slouched on his stool and was against the wall about as far as he could be. Lucian, with his lips barely moving, was leaning in and glared at the side of Turk’s face. Any thoughts of hunger passed, and I continued along the sidewalk to the Sportshop. When I went in, David was punching something into his computer behind the counter, and his wife, Sue, was waiting on an overweight middle-aged woman in the shoe department. I strolled up to the counter and leaned a hip against it.
He looked up through the top of his bifocals. “Hi, Walt.”
“What’s the number one selling hiking boot?”
“Here?” He thought. “Vasque, maybe Asolo.”
“Most popular size?”
“Nine, maybe ten.”
“Any way to track how many Vasques, size nines you’ve sold in the last year or so?”
He looked at me and sighed. “You’re lucky Sue’s here today. I don’t have time for . . .”
“Make time.” I looked at him for a moment to reinforce it.
“I can ask Sue to go back through the special orders and check the stock, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on names if I were you. If they paid cash . . .”
“I need you to do it now.”
He pulled a pen from behind his ear and tossed it on the counter in defeat. “All right.”
“One other question. Do you remember Jacob or George coming in to buy flies?”
He crossed his arms and exhaled a long, slow hiss. “Maybe a week and a half, two weeks ago?”
“Anybody else here when they were talking about where they were going?” It was a long shot, but I had to play it out.
He shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“Will you think about it?”
“Sure.”
“I mean really think about it.”
“Sure.” Before I could get too far from the counter he said, “Nice clothes.”
I stopped and looked down at my fancy duds. “You help her with the sizes?”
“Did it all on her own.” He smiled. “Somethin’, huh?”
“Yep.” I continued to the door and rested my hand on the brass handle.
“You should be proud of yourself, she’s quite a catch.”
“Yep.” I pulled open the door and started out. “Call me.”
* * *
By the time I got back to the Bee, Lucian and Turk had vacated the place and nobody was visible, not even Dorothy. I went in and sat at the corner stool, next to the cash register. After a moment, a shadow cast across my plastic-covered, vinyl menu. “What are you having?”
“Anything but the usual.” I closed the menu in one hand and reached it over to her. “I want to apologize for being sharp with you yesterday.”
She took the menu and looked at my fingers. She had been talking to somebody because her next glance was up to my ear. “Feeling experimental, are we?” She reached down and threw two meat patties from a small Tupperware container onto the grill, then dropped a basket of hand-cut potatoes into the fryer. It appeared that hamburgers and french fries were not today’s usual. I asked her about Lucian and Turk. She raised an eyebrow. “I 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.”