The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (95 page)

I glanced down at the bed at what had caught my eye from the landing. It was an ivory vellum envelope that read DADDY. I picked it up and saw an After Eight mint on the pillow beneath it. I opened the tiny envelope and read the three words, then carefully closed it and placed it in my breast pocket over my heart.

* * *

I had called Lena Moretti to tell her that there had been a change of plans and that we’d be having lunch at the Franklin Institute. She said that she’d never eaten there and probably for good reason, so we opted for Philadelphia-style pretzels. It was my first and was slathered with brownish spicy mustard. I had spoken with the head of security, and he said he’d send Esteban Cordero, who had been the security manager on duty at the time of Cady’s fall, down to speak with me as soon as he got in.

Lena was wearing jeans and a white snap-button blouse I was sure Vic had sent her. I figured she was trying to make me feel more at home. We sat munching and drinking cherry cream soda as children raced up and down the steps from the buses to the entryway of the museum. “What was she like as a child?”

I readjusted my Phillies hat. “We had the two-cheek rule. Cady always sat about halfway on a chair whenever we were trying to have dinner, so we instituted the two-cheek rule.” I sipped my soda. “What was the Terror like?”

Lena shrugged. “Disapproving.” She watched the children, who were making noises like birds—indiscriminate, bright sounds that made you happy to hear them. “She was a thirty-year-old trapped in a child’s body. She and her grandmother Nona always got along in their mutual dissatisfaction with me.”

“You? What’s not to like?” It was an innocent question, but it hit something along the way, glancing off and taking a lot with it.

She licked a spot of mustard from the corner of her mouth. “I had a rough period a while back.” She took a sip of her pop and looked at me. “I had an affair eight years ago. I’m surprised you didn’t notice the red
A
on my blouse.”

I was about to reply when a shadow crossed over me from the other side. I looked up and an elderly Latino in a blue blazer was looking at me with concern.

“Are you the man whose daughter was hurt?”

I stood and introduced Lena. We followed him up the steps and to the right as he told us about the police interview. “They asked a lot of questions the night it happened, and then another patrolman came and asked again.”

I finished my pretzel and pop on the way up the stairs, where a handicapped-access ramp ran along the side of the building, then changed direction and returned to the sidewalk below. He pointed to the flat area. “She landed there.”

I looked at the cement sidewalk. I tried to see the evening as Devon had described it; he had grabbed her arm, she had jerked it back and had fallen. It made sense as I looked at it. He was upset, she had gone to meet him, and there had been an argument.

I looked back at the entrance to the museum, but I couldn’t see the doorway from where we stood. “You saw her fall?”

“No.”

I turned and looked at him. “Then how did you know this had happened?”

“The kid banged on the door.”

“He came to the door?” He nodded, and I thought about what Devon had said at the ballpark, how he had said that he had run away. “Devon Conliffe came to the door of the museum?”

He nodded some more. “Yeah, I was in the main lobby when this kid ran up to the door and started pounding and screaming.”

“What’d he look like?”

He thought. “Tall, suit, blue tie, raincoat…” He watched me. “He said his name, pointed to what had happened, and yelled for me call 911.”

“He told you his name?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“I called the police, got another one of the guys to come up to the lobby, and came out here.”

“How long did that take?”

He took a breath. “A minute, maybe two.”

“Then what?”

“When I got out here, he was gone.”

“When did the police arrive?”

“A couple of minutes later.” I stared at the concrete, and I looked back up at him. “What’d he look like?”

“The cop?”

“No, Devon Conliffe. You said he was tall and how he was dressed, but what did his face look like?”

“I don’t know. White kid, dark hair parted on the side…”

“Do you have this morning’s
Daily News
?”

He looked at me for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got it up at the front counter, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”

“Would you mind if we take a look?”

We passed the statue of Benjamin Franklin, who was seated contentedly in the warm glow of the science museum.

My attention was drawn back to the security desk. Cordero had slapped the newspaper onto the counter. I looked at it for a second and then spun it around so that it faced him. “Look carefully. Is that the kid who pounded on the door?”

He stared at the front page for a minute and then looked back up at me. “You know…I don’t think it is.”

6

“Three things. Devon said that he had run away as soon as another person had arrived. I assumed it was the guard he was talking about but, when I noticed that you couldn’t see the museum entrance from where Cady had been hurt, I started wondering.” I took a bite of my ice-cream bar and watched as Lena did the same. What would lunch have been without dessert?

“Second, Cordero said that Devon had dark hair, but it was blond.”

“And third?”

“The blue tie. When I spoke with Devon, he said that he hadn’t been home and that he was still wearing the same clothes. At the ballpark, his tie was red.” We were sitting on a bench in Logan Circle watching the fish and swans blow water twenty feet in the air, as if the humidity needed any help. “Individually, it’s not much, but all together…Of course, now that Devon’s picture is plastered across every newspaper in town, it’ll probably be harder to find the mystery man. Whoever he is, if he’s smart, he’ll fold up the tents and head home.”

“What if he was just some passerby? I mean, it is a big city.”

“I don’t think so. There weren’t any functions at the Institute that night, so why would anyone be hanging around the museum steps? How would he know Devon’s name, and why did he identify himself as Devon Conliffe?” I leaned back on the bench and took another bite of my ice cream. I thought about it as I looked at the nearest Indian in the Fountain of Three Rivers; he was representative of the Delaware River and had more than a passing resemblance to Henry. “Maybe, after Devon ran, the other fellow decided to pin him to the incident.”

“Then disappeared himself?”

“Evidently he had something to hide, too.” I finished my ice cream and was chewing on the stick. “We are looking for a Caucasian male, approximately thirty years of age, dark hair, and at least six feet tall.”

“You think the mystery man had something to do with Devon’s death?”

I could feel the wood beginning to splinter between my teeth. “It makes sense. Somebody cares enough about Cady to follow her, cares enough to chance revealing himself after she’s hurt, and cares enough to possibly toss Devon off the bridge.”

She finished hers. “That’s a lot of caring.”

“Yep.”

“Are you still hungry?”

“Hmm?”

She smiled. “You’re chewing the stick, and I thought you might want something else to eat.”

I dropped it in the nearest trash can. Henry was with Cady this morning, and I wanted to get back to the hospital before he had to leave for the museum, but Lena was doing so much. I took a deep breath. “You want to tell me about this affair?”

She laughed and then looked at me through the corner of an almond-shaped eye. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered that part of the conversation.”

“I’m pretty good with details, especially those involving domestic disturbances.”

She looked at the Indian maiden leaning modestly on her side against an excited swan. I had read the plaque after we had crossed the street and knew that the young girl represented Wissahickon Creek, but in Lena Moretti’s mind she was possibly emblematic of something more. “It was eight years ago. Victor had made inspector and just started working with the Mayor’s Task Force on Organized Crime. He wasn’t home a lot, and I guess I got bored.”

I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “It sounds like there’s more to this story.”

She continued to watch the fountain. “There is, but that’s probably all you need to know.”

I waited a respectful moment before replying. “Okay.” I watched the people around the fountain, and it was only after a moment that I realized I was looking for a thirty-year-old male with dark hair and a darker reflection.

When I looked back, she had turned toward me and was smiling. “Who’s got the afternoon shift?”

“I do, but if you could check on Dog and cover for me for a little while this evening I’d really appreciate it.”

The smile held. “Buy me dinner?”

I looked back at the Indians. “Sure.”

She tossed her stick into the trash can as well and stood; she looked exactly like Vic. “My pick.”

* * *

I put Lena in a cab and grabbed one going in the opposite direction for myself. It didn’t take long to get to Spring Garden, and I felt a release doing something to track down some answers.

Tactical Training Specialists was the only going concern on the block, with gratings over the windows and a door that would have been more appropriate back home at Fort Fetter-man; it didn’t look like the best part of town. The sign on the glass read “Retail Handgun Sales—New and Used, Home Defense Classes, Indoor Shooting Range, and Basic through Advanced Training.” There was an adjacent parking lot with a side entrance that probably led to the range. I tried to remember what Cady had said about the instructor but could only come up with him being ex-army and a pretty good shot. I wondered casually how he handled throwing bodies over bridges.

I pushed the door open and an entry bell sounded. There was every gun I’d ever seen lined against the walls all the way to the back of the place. Glass-topped counters held the handguns, while the rifles and shotguns stood at attention, chained to the racks behind the counters. There were displays of body armor and home security sensors with locks and alarms at the center of the shop along with three-dimensional targets and gun safes.

“Can I help you?”

Jimmie Tomko was a little younger than I was, of average height and build with a light complexion and pattern balding that did nothing to hide the fact that he was missing his left ear; it also looked like he had a glass eye. He was sitting on a stool behind the counter and to my right, where he could see whoever walked in before they could see him. I noticed he was wearing a shoulder holster with a Kimber .45 and was reading the
Daily News,
which was folded back to the second page and the continuation of the Devon Conliffe saga.

I extended my hand. “Walt Longmire. My daughter is Cady Longmire.”

He smiled without parting his lips. “Hello, Sheriff.”

We went to his office, which overlooked the firing range, and he told me about his experiences in Quang Tri Province, which ended with a pressure-detonated mine made from one of our duds, a 105-millimeter round that had been booby-trapped. “Roughly two platoons had walked right by the damn thing, and I was next to last when the guy beside me stepped on something, and I turned.” He gestured toward his left eye. “Poached my eye just like an egg. They say the sand was probably the only thing that saved me and the guy in front of us.” I didn’t ask about the fellow who had stepped on it.

Not for the first time, I was anxious to get out of Vietnam, so I changed the subject. “Jimmie, how long have you had this place?”

“Since ’77.” He gestured toward the shooting gallery. “Put the firing range in about ten years ago, and it’s been the only thing that saved my butt.”

“That many people want to learn how to shoot?”

“There’s that, but it’s also the permits.” I looked at him questioningly. “A lot of these yuppies want concealed permits, but the chances of getting one in the city, even with training, are about as likely as Wilson Goode joining the Strategic Air Command.”

I vaguely remembered an instance in the city involving the ex-mayor, a helicopter, a bomb, and a housing project, and deduced that getting a concealed weapon permit in Philadelphia was nigh on impossible. “So, can they get limited permits through you?”

“Yeah, that way they get to transport the weapon to and from the premises within a locked case in the trunk of their car, ammo separate.”

“I gather that some of them have been abusing the privilege?”

He sighed. “I had been making good money until we had a prominent assistant district attorney who unloaded on a Toyota station wagon on Roosevelt Boulevard. He said a couple of guys had chased him at speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour.”

I thought about it. “I wasn’t aware that Toyota station wagons could go a hundred miles an hour.”

“He said it was drug dealers.”

I thought about it some more. “Is the Toyota station wagon the vehicle of choice for Philadelphia drug dealers?”

“No. So then he said it could have been the KKK, except that in the earlier statement he said the two occupants were not white.” Tomko watched me with the one eye. “Now, there could be two nonwhite members of the KKK cruising around Philly in a Japanese station wagon, but…”

“There’s just as much a chance of Wilson Goode joining the Strategic Air Command?”

“Exactly.” I was getting the hang of it. “Now, you are probably wondering why it is that I have told you this story.” He angled the front page of the paper toward me.

I stared at him. “Devon Conliffe?”

He nodded. “He was in the car with ADA Vince Osgood, a buddy of his.”

“What were they doing being chased by drug dealers?”

“There were a lot of questions along those lines.” He dropped the corner of the paper back on his desk. “Surprise, surprise, the charges were dropped. I think it might have been because Devon’s father, the judge, had pull with the court.”

“His father?” Tomko nodded. “And Devon still came here?”