2

ARN STOOD IN THE LOBBY of the new Public Safety Building in front of the Police Information Desk admiring the vintage photographs adorning the walls on both sides of the desk. The agency had recently moved from the old telephone building, and this was a welcome change from the dingy lobby of the old building. Officer Smith sat in his chair behind the elevated desk overseeing whoever entered with a problem. Right now, Arn had a problem.

“Don’t mind if I stick around and watch the action?” Smith said and grinned. “She’s on her way down now.”

Arn glared at him. Since Gorilla Legs had been relegated to the police chief’s assistant secretary—pushed out of her position by a pleasant lady—she had been on the prod. And right now, Gorilla Legs was stomping down the stairs to confront Arn.

Arn heard her before he saw her descending the stairs, heavy feet clomping on the steps as Arn hastily formulated his strategy of dealing with her. He hoped the secretary and gatekeeper to the Chief of Police had mellowed out since Arn last talked with her. But he doubted it. The woman—a descendent of Vikings she was always fond of telling folks—was as frightening as any usurper who ever sailed a Norse vessel.

“Anderson,” a deep voice boomed, echoing off the stairwell leading down to the first floor, “you’d better make your little tete-a-tete with the Chief short. He’s got a lot of work to do today, and he don’t need your bullshit to distract him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Arn said, sizing her up, wondering if he could take her in a fair fight. She would be a handful, with her thick football-player legs and arms any iron worker would be proud of. He finally concluded he would prevail in a battle with the Norse goddess standing in front of him, but he would sustain more injuries than he ever did competing in high school rodeos.

“Follow me,” she ordered.

Arn stayed a safe distance behind her as they walked up the steps and she used her security card to open the door to the hallway leading to the chief’s office. “Remember,” she said as she tapped the watch on her wrist before shutting the door. “Make it damn quick, Anderson.”

Chief Oblanski’s crew-cut head was just visible above the back of his desk as if he had lost something on the floor. “Safe to come out now, she’s gone,” Arn said as heavy footsteps faded down the hallway.

“Thank God,” he said and stood from his fortress. “That woman is running me to death.”

Arn pointed to the stack of paperwork sitting on the corner of Oblanski’s desk. “Looks like you got enough Chief work to last for years.”

“At least until the next budget is in. I’m just damn glad I’m not chief of your old department.”

Arn understood where Oblanski was coming from. More than a few times he had walked in his Captain’s office at Metro Denver right before budget time to find the poor bastard nearly bawling trying to put figures together.

Oblanski sat and motioned for Arn to do so as well. “As much as I hate seeing you come through the door—because I know you’ll be a pain in the butt—you are a welcome distraction from this,” he said and slapped the pile of papers. “Want something to drink?”

“Last time I was here, the machine had a mind of its own like something out of a Steven King novel.”

“I had Mort down in IT reprogram it.”

“Then I’ll have a cup,” Arn said, “of whatever you’re having.” He set his hat on the chair beside him while he watched Oblanski swivel in his chair. He punched buttons on the new beverage machine, and it started whirling.

“What brings you here when you ought to be out golfing?”

“I don’t golf,” Arn said. “Never could get the hang of hitting those little balls on the fly with my .38.”

When the machine finished spewing out the liquid, Oblanski handed Arn a cup. “What’s this?” he asked, sniffing the hot liquid.

“Green tea,” Oblanski said. “You said you were having what I’m having.”

“You been talking to Ana Maria?”

Oblanski held up his hands. “Not me. But this does help one’s regularity.”

“Why the hell is my regularity all of a sudden the object of public scrutiny? You have so been talking with Ana Maria.”

“Getting back to my question…” Oblanski quickly changed the subject.

“Helen Mosby asked me to look into her husband’s death.”

“Frank Mosby?”

Arn nodded. “Your department still assists the VA Police?”

“We do,” Oblanski answered. “But what’s there to look into?”

Arn eyed the trash can on one side of Oblanski’s desk, gauging if he could toss the tea in it without being seen. “Helen’s brother, Steve, died at a VA Center in South Dakota two months ago of an apparent heart attack as well.”

Oblanski sipped his tea and turned up his nose as if regretting going healthy this morning. “I’m still not following you.”

“Helen just wants to make sure both men died naturally.”

“I can’t speak for her brother, but the coroner assured me Frank Mosby died of heart problems.” He stopped mid-mouth and set his cup down. “If I’m hearing you correctly, if Helen doesn’t think their deaths were natural—.”

“They were murdered,” Arn said. “At least that’s what she is convinced of.”

“Well, her suspicions are flat wrong,” Oblanski said.

“Based on?”

“The Medical Examiner, I already told you.”

“So, the ME performed an autopsy on Frank?” Arn asked.

“If you’ve been talking with Helen, you know there was no autopsy. None needed, and she didn’t demand one at the time.” He nodded to his cup of tea. “Aren’t you going to drink it?”

“I’m thinking of tossing it. I’m a coffee guy.”

Oblanski grinned. “Coffee doesn’t help your condition—.”

“What condition?”

“Just trying to nip it in the bud,” Oblanski said. “All you old folks have GI issues.” He reached around and tossed the rest of his tea in the garbage beside his desk. “Don’t blame you, though—I’ll make us some coffee.”

Oblanski stood and walked to a small cabinet behind where Arn sat before stopping. “Seriously, if we ordered an autopsy on everyone who died an unattended death—natural though it may appear—the department would run out of funds.”

Arn understood. When he worked for Metro Denver Homicide, they would get called to all sorts of deaths that were natural—medical complications or weather-related deaths or for folks whose life just plain ran out. Unless there was something pointing to something other than natural, they did not order autopsies, either. “You did take photos, though?”

“Of course, we did,” Oblanski said and motioned to Arn’s cup. “Want another?”

“I’ll wait for the coffee to brew. Wouldn’t want my regularity to catch up with me right here in your office.”

“Me neither,” Oblanski said.

“Can I take a peek at those photos?” Arn asked Oblanski as he was measuring grounds.

Oblanski laughed and turned the pot on. “Are you a member of this department? Of course not. Ergo, you have no right to look at the photos.”

“Thought you said Frank’s death was natural. If that were true, what harm would it do to show a curious citizen what the scene looked like?”

“Look, Arn, I’d like to show you the pictures and diagrams of the scene—.”

“Have you ever meet Helen Mosby?’ Arn asked.

Oblanski grabbed a pencil among others stuck in an empty mug on his desk and began chewing the eraser off. Like he often did when he started getting nervous. “I gave her the death notice myself.”

“Then you know,” Arn said, “that she’s just like your sainted mother. Grieving. Wanting answers.”

Oblanski dropped his pencil in the garbage and turned to the coffee pot. “She’s not like my mother,” he said. “My mother was a stripper in Seattle and the only time she grieved was when she got too wasted and fell off the pole during a… performance.” He handed Arn a cup of coffee and sat with his own behind his desk. He looked out the window of his second-story office at the First Interstate Bank building across the street as if people coming and going had the answers. “I’ll ask Gorilla Legs to grab the file,” he said at last.

“And not your new secretary?”

“My new secretary, Mary, is busy making people feel welcome to this office. Gorilla Legs still doles out files. When I ask her real nice. Excuse me.”

“Good luck,” Arn said as Oblanski left the office to grab the files. “If you need backup with that woman, call one of your brutes you have working the street.”

Arn felt empathy for Oblanski as he walked out his office to ask Gorilla Legs for the file. Even though Oblanski was Chief, Arn knew she’d just as soon wrestle him to the ground over the file as comply with his request.

After many minutes and as Arn was contemplating calling 911 to rescue Oblanski, he burst through the door and shut it immediately. “She wanted me to remind you that you need to cut our visit short.”

“As short as I can,” Arn said. “Last thing I want is for her to give me the bum’s rush.”

Oblanski smiled. “That would be a YouTube moment. Here.” He handed Arn the file on Frank Mosby. “While you’re looking it over, I’ll be working on my budget. Gorilla Legs gave me until the end of the day for my patrol budget requests. Or else.”

Arn cringed when he imagined what her or else might entail. He opened the file folder across his lap and read the report: a Korean War veteran had walked into the restroom and found Frank lying dead beside the sink. The vet called the VA police who summoned the Cheyenne Police investigators.

Arn set the VA report aside and flipped to the Cheyenne PD report. After he quickly scanned it, he went back and reread it closer: there was nothing to indicate an unnatural death. The investigating officer had called their crime scene tech to respond to take photographs only because Frank’s death was unattended. No witnesses to see him collapse in the restroom.

Arn picked up the stack of photos and donned his reading glasses. He held each photo away from the glare of the overhead lights. Even though it appeared Frank died of medical conditions, the police photographer had done a thorough job of documenting the scene. Frank’s body had been photographed from multiple angles, all which combined told a story. When Frank collapsed, his cheek cut from where he hit the stainless-steel paper towel dispenser, slight blood drying on the dispenser.

The bruise on the side of his neck might have been caused when he fell against the sink going down—the investigator had speculated in his report, and a large gash on Frank’s forehead matched a blood spot on the floor where he fell, his final resting place.

Arn grabbed the photos and reports and stuffed them back into the folder. He handed it back to Oblanski, hunched over a calculator and eyeballing figures and spreadsheets and request forms. “See anything unusual?”

Arn shook his head. “Looks pretty cut and dry.”

“Pretty cut and dry?”

“The reports and photos corroborate the coroner’s findings—that he went down from a heart attack.”

“I hear a but in there somewhere.”

Arn nodded. “I’ll know more when I see the report on Helen’s brother.”

“So, you’re going up to Ft. Meade in the middle of the Sturgis Rally?”

“I have to.”

Oblanski held up his coffee cup. “Then I toast the bravest man in Wyoming.”