The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (71 page)

She smiled. “That’s not why he stalls out.”

* * *

Lana still looked like a Hindu, but she had obviously gotten supplies from home since she now wore flaming red silk pajamas, a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and pink bunny slippers. The most recent copy of
Saveur
magazine lay open in her lap. “Looks like you’re settling in.” It was a kooky smile, but a warm one nonetheless.

“I’ve decided to treat this like a spa vacation.”

Isaac was seated on the ottoman next to the bunny slippers, the picture of the attending physician. “Well, Doc, what’s the prognosis?”

He continued to smile at her and, if I were a betting man, I would have labeled him as smitten. “If we can get the patient to stop playing with her head, we can probably save it.”

I stood by the plastic chair. “Stop playing with your head, or it’ll end up looking like my ear.” I glanced over at the Doc. “Or his head.”

“I like your ear and his head.”

Okay, I was kind of smitten, too. “Lana, I need to talk to the Doc. Will you excuse us?”

Isaac and I codgered our way out to the hallway, where I stopped. I didn’t see any reason to drag the Doc any farther than I had to. “How’s Lucian?”

“Asleep in the lounge; it’s where we’ve both been staying.”

I nodded. “Isaac, I need to ask you a question, and the situation being what it is, I don’t have a lot of time for niceties.”

He leaned against the smooth wall of the hallway and crossed his arms. “Yes, Walter?”

I hitched my thumbs in my gun belt and then shifted them to my jacket. It was enough that I wore a gun around Isaac; there wasn’t any need to broadcast the fact. “This human suppository, Charlie Nurburn, did he leave any illegitimate children that you know of?”

He sighed deeply. “This concerns the case at hand?”

“You know, a lot of people have been asking me that lately.” I waited to see if police prerogative would override medical confidentiality. I hated leaning on the old guy, but I needed some answers and, after all, we were talking about ancient history.

“There were a number of women.”

“I’m listening.”

“Perhaps an Indian woman.”

“I’m still listening.”

He took off his glasses and cleaned them with the corner of his smock. “I don’t know her name, or if I did, it has been too long, Walter.”

“When?”

“Early fifties. I could check my private journals and give you an exact date, perhaps a name.” I studied the small indentations at the Doc’s nose, where the same glasses had sat for a half a century. “I have those journals here.”

I straightened a little. “Here at the hospital?”

“In my office here.”

I laughed because it was all I could think to do. “Why would you have those specific journals on hand?” He looked ashamed but not particularly guilty.

“I was transcribing some historic familial selections for the young lady.”

“Lana?”

He smiled and shook his head at himself. “Foolish, yes?”

I smiled back at the charming old man and gently put my arm around his narrow shoulders. “Isaac, everything to do with women is foolish and, therefore, absolutely essential.”

11

“I need to do a little cleaning up.”

His diaries were piled on the desk and looked like old ledger books, the kind that businesses used to use for accounts and which the Lakota used for painting. He sat in the only chair, and I propped myself against an unoccupied corner of the desk.

I watched as Isaac deftly slipped a journal from the stack. It was the oldest of the tomes, and I was beginning to feel like some cleric in training. “My notes are not as complete as I hoped but perhaps something is relevant.” The thin finger with the yellowed nail traveled along the lines like the carriage on a typewriter, pausing here and then there; finally, it stopped.

“Something?”

“It was when I first started the clinic north of here near the reservation.” He looked up at me, his fingertip still on the spot. “December eighth, 1950, a boy, six pounds, two ounces.” He looked back at the ledger. “No name was given to the child at that time.”

“You think this baby was Charlie Nurburn’s?”

He carefully placed the book on the surface of the desk as if the years were in danger of tumbling out, and I thought about all the time that had been collected between the lines. “Acme was a hamlet up near Tongue River, small, even then. Once they stopped producing coal, it became even smaller.” He looked up at me with a thin smile. “It is difficult to hide things in small places.”

“What was the mother’s name?”

He watched me through his overlapped eyelids, which were magnified through the bifocals. He checked the ledger. “Ellen Walks Over Ice.”

I hadn’t moved since he had spoken. “Ellen Walks Over Ice . . . not Anna Walks Over Ice?”

He looked at the ledger again. “Ellen.” His eyes locked with mine. “Anna Walks Over Ice is the woman that works at the Durant Home.”

I looked back at him for only a moment. “Can I borrow your phone, Doc?” He looked around, finally giving up on the landline and handing me the cell phone from his smock pocket. Isaac didn’t have any staff, so he could have anything he wanted. “Isaac, what’s the number for the home?” The phone made a loud beeping noise. “I think you have messages.”

“I’ll check them after you make your call. The phone was in my car, and your new deputy, the young man, was kind enough to return it to me. I get most of my messages through my answering service, but sometimes people don’t want to talk to anyone but me.” He took the mobile, dialed the number for me, and handed it back.

Jennifer Felson answered. “Jennifer, is Anna Walks Over Ice working today?”

“Let me check.” I waited as she dropped the phone, picked it up, rustled some papers, and declared Anna Walks Over Ice missing for the day.

“She’s sick?”

“She’s an Indian. Sometimes they don’t show up, and mostly they don’t call.” Racial slurs aside, most Indians did have their own sense of time; these priorities had worked fine for centuries, so I guess they saw little reason to change. “She doesn’t speak much English anyway.”

I dialed the number for the Red Pony and asked Isaac which button to push. “Ha-ho, it is another wonderful day at the Red Pony bar and continual soiree.”

“Hey, do you know where Anna Walks Over Ice lives?”

“No, but I can find out.”

“Can you check on her for me?” He said he would, and then I asked him if he’d ever heard of Ellen Walks Over Ice. He said no, but that they were a large Crow family. He would ask Lonnie and then get back to me.

“Call me at the office.”

I handed the tiny phone back to Isaac and watched as he hit a few buttons and held it to his ear. He looked at the journal as he listened. “I have her age listed as late teens, possibly early twenties.”

“So she’d be in her seventies?”

He smiled. “You don’t have to make it sound so old.”

I glanced for the ghostly numbers on the inside of Isaac’s arm but the sleeve of his smock hid his dreadful distant past. “She probably hasn’t had as easy a life as you, Doc.”

He continued to smile and nodded. “You’re probably right.” He made a face as he listened to the cell phone. “That’s strange. The messages are from Anna.” He waited for a moment, listening. “She sounds very agitated.”

Evidently, the Doc spoke Crow.

* * *

When I got back to the reception desk, the more tanned and less anxious version of Kay Baroja was standing at the counter talking with Janine about how easy it was to get certified as a scuba diver in a three-day crash course in the Keys. I thought about slipping out the side door, but I needed to talk to her and this was the first time I’d seen the twins apart since she’d arrived. “Carol Baroja-Calloway?”

She turned with a smile like a barracuda. “Carol Baroja, period!” There had been some work done, the face a little tighter, the lips a little fuller, and the hair with bleached sun streaks. She smiled a perfect smile, the teeth a little too white, and extended a hand with no trailing bracelets or wedding ring. “Sheriff Longmire, I am so pleased to meet you!”

Yikes. I smiled. “We’ve met.”

She leaned in and exposed a formidable cleavage, which also looked engineered. “I was hoping you would forget.” She scooped up my arm and steered me toward the chairs at the other end of the waiting room. “I just wanted to apologize for my sister’s behavior. Kay can be rather trying.”

“That’s all right. I didn’t take any of it personally.”

“Even the part about being a son of a bitch?” She sat us on one of the sofas; if she had been any closer she would have been lap dancing. She was still holding onto my arm. “I was on my way in to check on Lana, but this is just too good of an opportunity to let pass. I just want to thank you for taking such a personal interest in my mother’s death and Lana’s welfare.”

“It’s nothing, I . . .”

“No, you have no idea how reassuring it is to know that we can depend on you in these difficult times. Is that horrible young woman from the division of criminal investigation still bothering you?”

I thought about it, finally remembering that she was talking about Cady. “Continually.”

“I’m so sorry.” She blinked, the steady way that contact lens wearers do. “Are there any leads as to who might have done this to poor Lana? The word is leads, isn’t it?”

I nodded and readjusted, but she still clung to my arm. “We’re following up on it, but there isn’t anything strong enough to discuss just yet.” She continued to look at me, and it was the first pause since the conversation had begun. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

Another pause, and the grip on my arm lessened. “I’m not a suspect, am I?”

I cleared my throat. “When was the last time you visited your mother?”

She thought. “About two years ago.”

“And what was your relationship like?”

The animation in her face subsided for a moment, and I think I was getting the first unrehearsed performance of the day. “Did you know my mother, Walter? Do you mind if I call you Walter?” She measured her next discourse. “In a word, she was a pickle. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my mother had a very easy life.” That was the understatement of the century. “And I think that that had an effect on her financial views.”

“I see.” I was wondering how long it was going to take for the money to come up.

“She had a simplistic view of our financial situation, all our financial situations.”

“Meaning yours, Kay’s, and Lana’s?”

“Yes. I don’t know if you’re aware of the arrangements my mother made concerning her estate?”

“As you know, I have a copy of the Will to aid in the investigation of your mother’s murder.”

The word murder didn’t stop her. “Lana is not really capable of understanding the magnitude of our financial situation, especially concerning Four Brothers.”

“You mean the meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights?” She leaned back and studied me as though I were suddenly a stain on the bathmat. In for a penny in for a pound, I continued. “What about your father, Charlie Nurburn?”

The look held. “He abandoned my mother fifty years ago, so he’s no longer an issue.”

She looked as though she was ready for the interview to be over. “Just a few more questions. Where does Father Baroja fit into all of this financially? He wasn’t mentioned in the Will.”

She ran a tongue across her teeth and pivoted at the waist, allowing her blouse to open—no tan lines. “Mother and Jolie were the only children of my grandfather and his three brothers. There was another child, Arturo, but he died of pneumonia. When the last of the brothers passed away a number of years ago, the estate was divided between Jolie and my mother, at which point Uncle Jolie sold his half of the ranch back to Mother along with half of his half of the mineral rights and began giving his money away to charity.” She paused, but I didn’t say anything. I was used to quiet, but she wasn’t. “He did not get along with my mother, so I took it upon myself to counsel him on a certain amount of financial responsibility, but I fear that his faculties are beginning to fail him.”

“In what way?” I wanted to hear her talk about the fairies.

“His grasp on reality is a little fractured.”

“So Father Baroja was found psychologically incompetent?” She wasn’t going to talk about the fairies.

“Oh, no. He voluntarily put his part of the estate in a Trust, controlled by a money manager.”

“And who is that?”

She smiled. “I really couldn’t say.” It was probably the fairies.

I cleared my throat and took her hand from my arm as I turned. “Do you have any idea who might have murdered your mother and would wish your niece harm?”

“I wasn’t that good a daughter, and I haven’t been that good of an aunt. I should have kept closer track of Lana, but I’m afraid she’s a little headstrong. The whole Basque thing . . .”

“Basque thing?”

She placed a synthetic fingernail across a mouth I was sure wasn’t finished speaking. “I think she may have been involved with some political activities when she was over there at culinary school.” She said over there as though it were a venereal disease.

I tried hard to not roll my eyes. “Hmm . . . ETA?”

“Yes.” She clutched my hand with both of hers, and it was starting to seem more like a wrestling match than an interview. “I’m afraid that she might have gotten involved with some sordid characters while she was in Europe. It could be that they are interested in Mother’s money.”

“I see.” I let the dust settle on that one and tried to reconcile Lana as the naïve innocent with Lana the intriguing terrorist and couldn’t.

* * *

I went back to the office to see if Bill Wiltse had faxed the picture of Leo Gaskell, but Leo didn’t fit as Charlie Nurburn’s illegitimate mystery child. That child had been born in 1950, which meant he’d be in his midfifties. Leo Gaskell was in his thirties. But someone poisoned Mari Baroja, someone tried to kill Isaac, someone tried to bludgeon Lana Baroja to death, and someone had tried to kill Lucian.

Someone was killing everybody who knew or thought that Charlie Nurburn was dead. Maybe they thought that they could get money from Mari’s estate if Charlie could be shown to be alive. Illegitimate children could not inherit, but Cady had mentioned that in Wyoming a husband could claim half of an estate, even if he was not in a Will or Trust, as an elective share. Maybe they wanted him alive for that purpose and then they could kill him off and inherit?