“We got you a computer and a girlfriend.”
Henry laid the pit bull next to Dougherty’s desk on the dog bed we had purchased. “What’s wrong with her?”
Vic put the computer, the cell phone, and the collection of discs on a stack of cardboard boxes. “She’s got a substance abuse problem.” She glanced around at the subterranean confines of the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. “Where’s the Dick?”
Dougherty was still looking at the dog as he spoke. “He hasn’t gotten back from Evanston yet. The sheriff came down and told me that he expected him around noon.”
I nodded. “Good to know.”
He studied the bandage on my neck. “What happened to you?”
“Got too close to a buffalo.” I gestured toward Henry. “Him, too.”
“Remind me to never go to South Dakota with you guys.”
I moved a Gagliano’s pizza box and put it with about twenty others on top of a nearby shelf and sat in the chair opposite him. “You guys must be single-handedly keeping the pizza joints in Gillette in business.” I pointed at the computer and discs. “That stuff is from the dead guy . . .”
He adjusted a folder under his arm. “What dead guy?”
“The one who had Roberta Payne.”
“The woman from the Flying J? You found her?”
“We did.” I glanced at Henry and Vic, finally dropping my eyes to my lap. “She’s dead.”
His shoulders slumped, and he seemed to fall back into the chair even though he didn’t physically move. “My God.”
“I’m afraid so. Deke ‘Big Daddy’ Delgatos killed her.”
“Who is Deke ‘Big Daddy’ Delgatos?”
Henry grunted. “One of the dead guys. It is complicated.”
“Nothing on Linda Schaffer?”
“Not yet.” I took a deep breath and explained, telling him about Deadwood, Custer State Park, and most of what had taken place at the State Game Lodge. “Evidently he was a hired killer, among other things.” I leaned forward. “First, I need you to find out who with the Las Vegas number the last text on that cell phone came from, then crack the computer open and get as much information out of it as you can.”
Dougherty nodded. “Will do.”
I gestured toward the file under his arm. “Got anything for us, troop?”
He sat forward and petted the dog, even going so far as to put his face down near to hers. He straightened her ear, and she sighed—match made in heaven. “Almost nothing.”
Vic leaned against the chain-link divider that kept the Campbell County files from making a break for it. “Almost?”
He sat back and handed the file to her. “I found the last reports that Gerald Holman didn’t file.”
I interrupted. “Where did you find those?”
He tapped a handle on one of the drawers in the desk. “Locked up in here.”
My undersheriff opened the folder. “Holman did another series of interviews in Arrosa; so what’s the big deal?”
The patrolman returned to petting the dog. “Look at the date.”
She glanced at the report. “Yeah, so?”
“It’s the day he killed himself.”
Her eyes returned to the file. “Oh . . .”
Dougherty stopped petting the dog but left his hand on her head. “How do you do an entire afternoon of interviews and then check into the Wrangler Motel and blow your brains out?”
Vic handed me the folder. “More important, what do you find out in those interviews that leads you to do it?” Inconclusive, the file simply read that Holman had made stops at Dirty Shirley’s, the Sixteen Tons Bar, and another location identified as undisclosed in or near Arrosa. I looked up at the group. “What other location is there, undisclosed or otherwise, in or near the town of Arrosa?”
Vic posited, “Private home?”
I thought about it. “There’s an elementary school and a post office . . .”
Henry studied me. “Nothing else in the immediate vicinity?”
“No.”
He smiled. “This should make things easier.”
Vic’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out, looking at it and then to me.
“What?”
“It’s your daughter.” I didn’t say anything. “The pregnant one.”
They all looked at me. “You answer it.”
“Chickenshit.” She held the phone up to her ear. “Hello?” She nodded her head. “Yeah, well he’s around here somewhere . . .” She listened again. “Right.” She listened some more, and I could hear the edges of my daughter’s voice traveling through the airwaves from the City of Brotherly Love. “Yeah, yeah, he told me that . . .” She was silent for a moment. “It is a case.”
I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation and then cleared my throat and held a hand out for the phone.
Vic shot eye-torpedoes at me and continued to speak, glancing at the Bear. “Yeah, he’s around, too—helping your dad.” There was another, longer pause. “I’ll tell him.” She pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it. “And a see you later alligator to you, too.”
“What?” I slumped in my chair. “Please tell me she hasn’t had the baby.”
She deposited the phone into her other hand and pointed at me with it. “No, but they are inducing her tomorrow, and there are three tickets for the noon flight to Philadelphia at the Gillette Airport for you, yon Standing Bear, and me, and I was informed, and I quote, that if we were not on that flight then we could all kiss good-bye any thoughts of ever seeing the grandchild within our collective lifetimes.”
“Gimme the phone.” She did, but I handed it back to her. “Could you dial it for me, please?” She did, without comment, and gave it back to me.
It barely rang once, and my very angry daughter was on the line. “Chickenshit.”
“Boy howdy.”
“Daddy, I want you on that plane at noon.”
“Cady—”
“I’m not kidding.”
I took a deep breath, like I always did when facing total annihilation. “I know, it’s just that there are some details that I’m going to have to take care of—”
“For who? A guy you never met who killed himself? Some women who’ve been missing for months now?”
“Well, there have been some developments—”
“I. Don’t. Care. I, your only child, am about to have a baby, who is likely to be your only grandchild. My mother is dead, and it is your solemn and imperative duty to be here with me.”
Feeling that a little privacy might be a nice addition to the conversation, I took the phone and started up the steps. “Cady, I promise I’m coming—”
“When? A week from now, a month?”
I turned the corner, walked down the hallway, pushed the outside door open, and stood on the elevated stoop behind the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department. I leaned on the metal railing and watched the interminable snow continue to fall. “I just need a little more time to—”
“No, don’t go on autopilot here.”
“Honey—”
“Don’t honey me.” She took a moment to calm herself, and I could see her threading her long fingers through her auburn hair, and I was glad there were more than two thousand miles between us. “I knew this was what you were going to do to me . . .”
I stopped myself from saying honey. “I’m not doing this to you; it’s just that I have responsibilities.”
“Your responsibilities are to me and the baby.”
“I know that.” I looked out into the parking lot and could see Dog looking at me through the windshield, fogging the glass with his breath. “Lucian is over here, along with Dog.”
“Dog is also on the noon flight—I paid them more so he could go on the small plane—but you need to get a crate.”
I pushed my hat back on my head and clutched my forehead. Of course, the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time had gotten Dog a ticket. I smiled in spite of myself. “What about Lucian?”
“Uncle Lucian can drive the Bullet back to Durant so you don’t have to pay for parking.”
“We have free parking at all the airports in Wyoming, or did you forget?”
She shrieked, finally having had enough of me. “I don’t care!” She was fighting valiantly, but I could hear the breaks in her voice as she spoke, and then there was a small sob. “Daddy, I’m afraid. Okay? They say there are complications and . . . I need you here for this.”
I nodded into the phone, Virgil’s words of disaster on the horizons of my life echoing in my head. “Right.”
“Please.”
“How much time do I have?”
It was silent on the line for a moment. “I knew you were going to do this—”
“When is the last moment I can leave?”
She literally growled into the phone. “You are not really booked on the noon flight.”
That stalled me out, and I was unsure of what to say next, finally deciding on something original. “I’m not?”
“No, I just switched you to the eleven-forty-two P.M. one to Denver and then the red-eye to Philadelphia where you will get in a paid car and come to the maternity unit of Pennsylvania Hospital on Eighth Street by eight tomorrow morning—thus sayeth the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time.” There was a pause. “I know you.”
I breathed a laugh and shook my head at my wet boots. “Yep, you do.”
“Eleven forty-two tonight, got it?”
“Yep.”
“That leaves you fourteen hours and forty-two minutes to break the big case.”
“No pressure.”
She pressed her advantage. “Now take Henry, Vic, and Dog to the airport so that they can catch their flight. Don’t forget the crate.”
“You said.”
“Move.”
“Yep.” I quickly added. “Hey . . . ?”
“Yes?”
I tucked that tiny phone in tight, hoping she could feel me. “I love you, and everything’s going to be all right.”
She sniffed. “You promise?”
I took a deep breath and whispered the truest words I’d ever uttered. “That, I do.”
Walking down the steps, I found Vic and Henry standing by the stairwell, and I was surprised to find the pit bull sitting next to Dougherty, with her head on his knee.
“Does she have a name?”
“Probably, but the guy that knew it is dead so make one up and let her get used to it.” Vic shrugged. “She’ll get fully awake here in a few hours but be careful because she might be a little wonky and she doesn’t care for strangers.”
I reached into my pocket and handed him a cellophane-wrapped orb. “If she gets really anxious, give her another magic meatball.”
As we trooped out the door and up the stairs, Vic added, “Personally, I’d let her wake up and then post her at the door here for when the Dick gets back.”
Dougherty called out after her. “Wait, she’s aggressive?”
My undersheriff yelled back down the stairwell, “She’s a bitch, after all; between her and the Dick—my money’s on her.”
As we trudged to the Bullet, I explained our newfound travel plans.
Vic buckled herself in the center seat as Henry closed the door and turned to look at me. “You should get on the plane with us; we can deal with this shit when we get back.”
I started my truck and headed for the Kmart again. “I’ll follow orders and grab the red-eye. I don’t suspect I’ll have much luck, but I’ll follow up on what we’ve got so far.”
The Bear leaned forward, making forceful eye contact with me. “You had better not miss that flight at eleven forty-two tonight.”
I nodded. “Did Corbin get anything off of the computer or the phone?”
Vic shrugged. “Nothing on the computer yet, but he did get the information from the server on the phones; both of them are registered to Deke Delgatos, paid for by Deke Delgatos—”
“How about a listing of most recent calls?”
She slapped a Post-it onto my dash with the number engraved in the paper and a period that looked like it might’ve been made with an ice pick. “One number; the pay phone at the Sixteen Tons Bar.”
After getting the crate for Dog, some toiletries and essentials along with a couple of carry-ons for Vic and Henry, and a cheap work jacket and pair of gloves for me, I pulled the Bullet to a stop as we found ourselves on the wrong side of another of those mile-long coal trains. “It’s somebody in Arrosa.”
“Yes.”
Listening to the claxon warning and the thundering momentum of steel wheels, I glanced at him. “Any ideas?”
Both he and Vic shot me a look and then continued watching the passing train. “We have not met any of them to have any ideas.”
“Oh, right.” We watched the train together. Fingering the vents, I turned up the heat. “So Roberta Payne was sold to Willie and then taken by Deke.”
Vic fingered the Post-it fluttering in the hot air. “I really called the folks over at First Interstate and guess what?”
Henry’s voice rumbled. “The money from the trust ran out.”
Vic nodded. “Yeah.” She turned and looked straight at me. “You said he said he’d been studying you.”
“Yep, but maybe that had to do with something else.” I thought about it some more. “Maybe Roberta Payne was thrown in as a bonus, but after the money ran out—”
Henry asked, “Which would mean that the other women are alive?”
“Possibly.”
“For what reason?”
“The answer to that might be on those DVDs.”
Vic added, “You don’t suppose you’re pinning your hopes on that because it might mean that the victims are still alive?”
Both of them were looking at me now. “Maybe.”
—
“Just remember that the cock crows at eleven forty-two post meridian, which does not mean that you arrive at the airport at eleven forty-one.”
“Yep.”
He glanced up at the sky. “Not to worry.”
Henry had called the airport to check to make sure the airplanes were still flying, but although the snow had been steady, it hadn’t been windy, so the plows were able to keep up, and flights were leaving relatively on time—but it was more than that. He breathed in through his mouth, and I watched him taste the frigid air. “It will stop snowing before midnight.”
I watched as the Cheyenne Nation lifted the large crate onto his shoulder like it was a shoebox and led Dog into the airport on the leather leash, his back apparently feeling better.
My undersheriff stepped into my view as I sat there in the driver’s seat. “Hey . . .” She glanced back and watched as Henry and Dog negotiated with the skycap at the outside desk, something I’d never seen at a Wyoming airport. “What are you going to do?”
I glanced at the Post-it, still stuck to my dash. “Just go over there again and poke around. That pay phone is outside the door of the bar, so I’m sure nobody’s going to know who was using it or admit to it, but you never know.”
She turned back to look at me and handed me her cell phone. “Take this. I gave the number to Dougherty so that if he found anything, he could get in touch with you.”
I knew better than to fight. “Okay.”
She studied me until I started to squirm. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Define stupid.”
“Getting shot.”
I popped the phone in my coat pocket and reached over and adjusted my arm sling. “Done that.”
“Getting stabbed, getting punched, getting run over—or anything that might physically impair you any further.”
“Right.”
“Where the hell is Lucian?”
“Last I heard he was playing chess at the Wrangler Motel, but that was hours ago.”
“You might want to find him and have him give you a ride back here to the airport.”
“Right.”
She reached over and pulled my face toward hers, the tarnished gold enveloping the world. “Walt, let’s be clear about this. You are on somebody’s hit list.”
“We don’t know—”
Her grip drew tighter. “A professional killer’s list; just remember that.”
“I will.”
“And be on that plane at eleven forty-two or you won’t have to worry about who’s got a contract out on you.”
“I promise.”
“And make sure you don’t stick your dick in a hornet’s nest.”
I nodded. “Something, I can assure you, I will endeavor to never do.”
“Good, because I have plans for it.” Her fingers dug into the back of my neck as she kissed me, her lips against mine as I gasped, breathing in her scent for the road. “By the way, happy New Year’s.”
I watched her walk into the airport with the two bags after Henry and Dog, and sat there, feeling like the loneliest man in the world. I thought about just parking my damn truck and running after them, but instead, I did what my daughter accused me of doing and put it on autopilot—I tugged the truck down into gear and pulled out.
—
The quickest way back to Arrosa was the interstate highway, but when I got to the on-ramp, the gate was down and an HP was sitting crossways, blocking the road. I peeled to the side and lowered my window, squinting into the stinging flakes. “What’s up?”
The older trooper smiled at me. “Closed for business. How you doin’, Walt?”
“Hey, Don. What’s the weather report?”
“Shitty, with scattered shitty and more shittiness till sometime tonight.”
“I’ve got to get a plane at midnight but first have to get over to Arrosa; any way you’d let me up on the big road?”
He shook his head. “Can’t do it. They’re plowing in tandem up there and they might push you into the guardrails.”
I started rolling up my window. “Thanks anyway.”
“Be careful with your radio, those old transponders down near there gave out; they’re working on getting them going again, but I wouldn’t count on my radio or cell phone if I was you.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I heard your daughter was having a baby?”
“That’s it; rub it in.” He gave me a quizzical look as I backed up and spun around one-handed, taking the surface roads to Boxelder and heading east, hoping that he and Henry were right that the weather would break before midnight—like eighteen minutes before midnight, to be exact.
There weren’t very many cars on the road, and I made a little more time by cheating and jumping on the highway for the last few miles. As I slipped off the interstate, I thought about how I wouldn’t make it to Philadelphia by tomorrow morning if I kept driving east and about all the players in this case and about how hard it was to keep a secret in a small town.
My shortcut turned out not to be such a great idea as I sat there watching another coal train pass by.
It can take three to four minutes for the average train, which weighs more than three thousand tons, to pass through a crossing. It takes a full mile or more for a train to stop; that’s sixteen football fields; that’s even after it’s struck something. According to the Department of Transportation, the drivers of automobiles cause 94 percent of all grade-crossing accidents, and approximately every two hours in this country, a collision occurs between a train and either a pedestrian or a vehicle—that’s twelve incidents a day. More people die in highway-rail crossings in the United States each year than in all commercial and general aviation crashes combined.
There was a honk from a horn behind me, and I glanced back to find a blue Volvo in my rearview—when I looked ahead, the train was long gone.
I pulled across the road into the parking lot of the Sixteen Tons with the Volvo staying close and was surprised to find a Campbell County Sheriff’s undercover car sitting near the door.
Parking the Bullet, I watched as Connie Holman got out of the Volvo and jumped in the passenger side of my truck. “Sheriff.”
“Ms. Holman.”
“What are you doing?”
I glanced around. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“I asked you to stop this investigation.”
I cleared my throat and turned in the seat, the belt scraping my neck, the charge of pain making me wince. “Well, it’s gotten a little more complicated.”
She clutched her hands together, and I don’t think it was the cold that caused her to do it. “You’ve got to stop this; you’re destroying my family.”
“In what way?”
She stared at me, her mouth opening to speak, but then she shut it and climbed out of my truck, slamming the door behind her and climbing back in her car and driving away.
I cranked my hat down, started to zip up my faux Carhartt coat, but then stopped and draped it over my sling. I’m not quite sure why, maybe it was in light of the recent activities, but I thought about the big Colt Walker I had put back in the center console, hefted it from the holster, and slid it conveniently into the sling.
I sat there for a moment, looking at the brief shelter of the pay phone and the receiver hanging against the side of the steel building. There really wasn’t anything tangible to tell me who it was that might’ve been involved, but I had some hunches—the kinds of things you couldn’t really define but could most certainly feel.
I was about to get out of the truck when I felt something vibrating in my pocket along with some blaring rap tune that Vic had told me the name of along with the artist, but nothing I had committed to memory. I fished it out and answered it as quickly as I could, thankful I was alone. “Hello?”
“Sheriff, it’s me, Corbin?”
“Hey, troop.”
“I’m still working on the computer, but while I was doing it I did some research on that group you mentioned, Asociación Punto Muerto?”
“Yep?”
“Well, the information I got is sketchy, but it translates pretty much word for word and stands for the Dead Center Association; it’s kind of an unofficial union for assassins and was started in South American prisons as a way for drug consortiums to get their contracts fulfilled, even if the hit man assigned to the job was killed or imprisoned. Once they assign a hitter for a job, there’s a pecking order of associates that are responsible for fulfilling the hit if that individual should fail.”
I sighed, thinking about the series of texts I’d received from the unknown person. “Oh, brother.”
“It allows these hit men to charge more for their services, because the contracts are guaranteed.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you think this guy that you killed was one of them? Because if he was, that means there’s probably somebody else coming for you, Sheriff.”
I was tired, and this news didn’t exactly pick me up. “Who knows? A lot of these types of associations from the prison systems tend to break down once the guys get back out into the real world. Anyway, it’s not something that’s going to keep me up nights.”
“One of the signifying factors is a skull tattoo with roses in its eye sockets on a member’s body, so you might want to get the authorities over in South Dakota to look for that on the decedent.” I could hear him nodding on the other end of the phone. “I just thought it was something you should know.” He paused. “And there’s something else. When I was comparing the files between Holman and Harvey, there seem to be some discrepancies.”
“Like what?”
“There’s a Connie Holman—”
“The investigator’s daughter?”
“Yeah, well, she’s mentioned in one of the interviews, but Harvey appears to have omitted it.”
I thought about that for a long time. “Thanks, troop.” And then changed the subject. “How’s your dog?”
His tone brightened. “She’s better but tried to eat one of the corrections officers who came down here looking for payroll files.”
“She’s a little protective of her turf.” I cracked open the door. “Call me if anything else pops up.” I punched a button on the phone screen and looked at the image of my undersheriff in a bikini on a beach in what I assumed was Belize; I figured she’d left the selfie just for me.
I slid out of the truck and walked over to the phone, scooping up the handset and putting it to my ear where the operator advised me that if I’d like to make a call, I should hang up and try again. “The story of my life.” I started to hang the thing up, but despite the cold or maybe because of it, there was a lingering scent in the plastic.
I headed for the door.
When I opened it I could sense a tension in the dim, smoky air and could see Lucian and Richard Harvey, of all people, seated at a table near the center of the room. I stood at the door, after having closed it behind me, and noticed the postman and the bartender having lunch—the gang being all here.
I cleared the cold from my voice and spoke. “Lucian?”
He turned his head a little but didn’t take his eyes off the inspector. “Good thing you’re here—I’m about to shoot this New Mexican.”
My shoulders lost a little of the tension that had accumulated there. “Inspector?”
He stood. “I am truly pleased that you are here and that I don’t have to babysit this cantankerous son of a bitch anymore.”
“Who asked you to?” Lucian pointedly looked at me. “I got tired of playing chess with Haji and Sandy Sandburg sent this asshole over to give me a ride and we ended up here.”
I pulled out a chair and sat, taking off my hat and motioning to the bartender for a cup of coffee, the wear and tear of the last couple of days finally settling on me.
Lucian stared at my sling, and I wondered if he noticed the Colt Walker snuggled away in there. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Got shot by a fellow over in South Dakota.”
“You shoot him back?”
“I did.”
“You do a better job of it?”
The bartender, Pilano, arrived with my coffee, and I thought about sticking my face in it but settled for a sip. “Yep.”
The old sheriff glanced at Harvey, just to let him know that some real Wyoming lawmen were on the case. “Have to do with Gerald Holman?”
“Maybe.” I cut to the chase. “We discovered one of the missing women in Deadwood, but she was with this hit man, Deke Delgatos.”
“Hit man?”
I nodded.
“Was?”
“He’s dead, she’s dead—he shot her and I, in turn, shot him.”
“Lotta shootin’ goin’ on.”
“Yep.”
He studied my arm, my neck, and the lump at the side of my head. “You look like hell.”
I sipped some more coffee. “I feel worse.”
“What happened?”
“Buffalo and a few other assorted adventures.”
Lucian raised an eyebrow, but Harvey interrupted the interrogation. “You think this Delgatos had something to do with why Gerald Holman killed himself?”
“Possibly. It appears he had control of the Payne woman.”
Inspector Harvey’s mouth hung open under his prodigious mustache. “How did you find that out?”
“Tracked the bank records in Roberta’s name that had money being withdrawn from an ATM in Deadwood. Went over there and discovered a ménage à trois and a cell phone.”
“What was the connection?”
I sipped my coffee. “You ever heard of the Dead Center Association?”
He stared at me, in a way I thought a little strange. “No.”
I finished my coffee and noticed the bartender was quick to come over with the pot but that the postman stayed near the bar. “Me neither, but I’ll tell you something I do know.” I threw a thumb toward the door. “The only other recently dialed number on this killer’s cell is the pay phone outside.” I watched the bartender’s hand shake as he refilled my mug, and then I raised my eyes to Lucian. “Hey old man, I was wondering if you could do me a favor and drop me off at the airport tonight around eleven?”
He nodded, studying me. “Are you planning on breaking this case before the New Year?”
I sipped my coffee and looked at the other three men in the room as I sat the mug on top of the ring it had made on the stained worn surface of the table, thereby freeing my hand. “Yep, I am.”