Death Etched in Stone

by C. M. Wendelboe

  He draped the towel over his arm, and hurriedly wrapped it around his shoulders when he hit the frigid outside air. He shivered all the way down the concrete walkway leading to the hot springs pool. Thick fog floated just above the hot water, the rising steam obscuring the pool. But not the smell. The acrid odor of sulfur seemed to bite his nose and sear his lungs, and Manny found himself holding his breath.

  He tossed the towel over the metal railing, and crow-hopped the shallow steps into the water, all doubts as to the relaxing and restorative properties of the pool fading in that first instant. He waded past the water jets, where the water flowing into the pool was hotter than the rest and settled back in three feet of healing mineral water. He sat on a concrete shelf in the pool and closed his eyes. Had his back actually hurt this intensely today? He wouldn’t know it now by every muscle in his weary body relaxing.

  He was getting used to it. He breathed deeply, inhaling the pungent odor, when he became lightheaded. He stood for a moment to allow the icy breeze to pass over his wet body, bringing him around, before he settled back in again.

  He suddenly trembled and shook his head to clear it. Something bad had happened here, he knew—just as he knew something bad had nearly happened at Legend Rock. He told himself he would use the full twenty minutes for some much-needed healing, and he closed his eyes. He pushed out any thoughts about Johnny soaking here. Manny wanted nothing to do with having a vision here—any more than he had wanted to be overwhelmed by Johnny’s wanagi at Legend Rock. But the spirit seemed to have stayed with him.

  Shower shoes flip-flopping on the concrete coming down the walkway prompted him to open his eyes. “Come in, the water is just great,” he called to the figure barely visible through the fog. Manny closed his eyes again and settled deeper in the water.

  The other bather entered the water from the other side of the pool, used by wheelchair-bound rehab patients. The bather slowly inched through the water, coming nearer.

  “Don’t know about you,” Manny said, “but this is to die for.”

  And it was.

  The other bather leapt on Manny’s back, hands shoving his head under the water. Smelly, bitter sulfur water entered his mouth. Down his throat. He thrashed around as he fought to hold his breath.

  Manny grabbed the other’s wrists in an attempt to pull the strong hands away from his neck, and he pushed up with his legs. His attacker momentarily thrown off, Manny spit and took painful, waterlogged breaths. The attacker found Manny’s head in the fog and shoved him under again. Thrashing. Manny gouged fleshy arms, turning into them and sinking his teeth into a wrist. The attacker yelled and put all the weight on Manny’s head.

  Then as suddenly as it had started, the attack broke off.

  Manny shoved hard upwards, clearing the water, gulping for air, when he heard Dick screaming. “You son of a bitch!” she hollered. Through the fog, Manny barely caught sight of a figure running past her, knocking her down on the way out of the bath house.

  Manny stood on shaky legs, taking in great gulps of air, spitting up water from deep in his lungs.

  Then the fog and heat overcame him again, and he teetered as another figure waded in water toward him. Manny lashed out, weak, but Dick wrapped her arms around his shoulders and eased him up onto the edge of the pool. “Breathe easy,” she said as she punched in 9-1-1 on her cell phone. “Ambulance will be here soon.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “You want to pay a fee for making me stay late? If you don’t shut that pneumonia hole and let the EMTs do their job, it will cost you a mint.”

  Chapter 28

  McDonald walked into the hospital room carrying a briefcase—and a smirk.

  “What are you grinning about?”

  “You feds can’t even take a dip in the pool without pissing someone off.” He pulled up a chair and turned it around, draping his arms over the edge like Willie did.

  “I didn’t piss anyone off. I never even spoke to anyone else until they walked into the pool. Besides, isn’t this an investigation for the local police?”

  McDonald grinned again. “They thought the attempted murder of a federal lawman might warrant calling in DCI. And since I was in the area wrapping up the Thomas homicide—”

  “Riverton’s not in the area. It’s a couple hours away.”

  “In Wyoming,” McDonald said, “that’s across the street. So, what did he look like?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t say? The guy fell on your head.”

  “Well, excuse the hell out of me for damned near drowning.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Did anyone see him running out of the bath house?” Manny asked.

  McDonald shook his head. “Just Dick, as he breezed past her on his way out. But she didn’t recognize him. At that time of day the regulars who come to soak in the pool were long gone. They know Dick keeps closing time like a railroad conductor. I was surprised she let you stay past closing time.”

  “She felt benevolent.” Manny sat up and propped his pillow behind him. “Did anyone in the park see him?”

  “There wasn’t anyone in the park,” McDonald answered. “When Dick called 9-1-1 and reported the attack, there was a unit on the north end of town and one cruising East Thermopolis. But you know the old saying.”

  “And that is?”

  “When seconds count, the police are just minutes away,” McDonald tilted his head back and laughed. “Anyhow, dispatch put out the word to a deputy in Wind River Canyon with the vehicle description of a newer Caddy or Lincoln. Nada.”

  “So Dick did see what the attacker was driving?”

  “She saw a pearl-colored Lincoln or Cadillac parked down the street from the bath house, but she never paid it any mind. It was gone when the EMTs arrived, and she figured that was your attacker’s car.” McDonald popped a piece of gum and handed Manny one. “You have no idea who tried to drown you or why?”

  Manny shrugged, his trapezius muscles aching from the exertion of fighting his attacker off. “The why is apparent: I’m getting a little too close to finding out who killed Johnny Apple. As for my attacker, I can’t even say it was a man. It could have been a woman.”

  “What, like some Russian weight lifter woman?”

  “Not necessarily.” Manny swung his legs over and sat on the edge of the bed, working the stiffness from his neck and shoulders. “A man in water’s an easy target. It could have been a good-sized kid even.”

  McDonald retrieved a pen from behind his ear and started writing. “Dick said the fog was so thick coming off the water that she didn’t get a good look at him either. Or her. But you must remember something about him. Or her.”

  Manny shook his head and a sharp pain shot down his neck. “I just figured it was another bather coming late in the day. And like Dick said, the fog was so thick. I didn’t see a thing. Except—”

  “Except what?”

  Manny rubbed his shoulder muscles. “Whoever dunked me had a powerful grip. Like my Uncle Marion got when he milked twelve cows every day.”

  “Great.” McDonald threw up his hands. “So we’ll look for some guy used to having his hands on dozens of tits a day. Wait until I put this out statewide.”

  “You do what you have to.” Manny said. “Just hand me my clothes.”

  “Not so sure that’s a good idea, you checking out of the hospital.”

  “I’m fine now. I’ll sign their form and leave.”

  McDonald handed Manny his trousers and shirt. He picked up the pale blue Speedos by two fingers and dropped them on Manny’s lap. “I wouldn’t have figured you macho FBI agents to wear something like this.”

  “I don’t. They belong to Dick.”

  “Now you’re saying Dick wears these?”

  “Just give them to her.”
r />   “I’m not sure which image will stick with me longer: you in Speedos two sizes too small, or you going commando.”

  Manny ignored him and picked up his Dockers. The pair of socks dropped out of the pocket.

  “Yours?”

  Manny shook his head. “I think they’re Johnny Apple’s. We’ll know better once we talk with his daughter.”

  “What’s this ‘we’? I got my own cases I’m working on.”

  “Johnny Apple will be your case.”

  McDonald eyed Manny suspiciously. “How will he be my case? He was found floating in your lake.”

  “Johnny Apple didn’t drown in Oglala Lake. I think he drowned in the State Bath House. In your jurisdiction.”

  “You got proof?”

  Manny wanted to tell McDonald that he’d felt something, when he entered the water, as if Johnny’s wanagi lingered in the pool. “Not yet. My pathologist in Rapid City felt Johnny died in warm water. At first I thought it was some bathtub, then I remembered there’s a hot spa in Hot Springs, South Dakota. But I ruled that out as a place of death.” Manny buttoned his shirt. “I’ll know for sure when Doc Gruesome compares water samples from Johnny’s tissues and lungs to that from the bath house.”

  “Until then—”

  “Until then, we give Johnny’s killer more time to cover his tracks.” Manny pulled his trousers on—commando—and dug his boots out of the tiny Patient Belongings bag. “Look, Dick said two guys came into the bath house and went into the mineral pool last Tuesday. Johnny signed the In Time on her sheet, so we know it was him. You can have handwriting analysis done when you get time.”

  “I think I could figure that out. If he were my case,” McDonald said.

  Manny tucked his shirt into his pants. “They locked her in the bathroom.”

  “I don’t recall a report like that coming across.”

  “She figured it was too trivial to report,” Manny slipped his boots on. “When she got freed from the locker room, they—and the state’s pocket change—were gone. I’m betting the theft was just a diversion. I’m betting Johnny was drowned in that pool, and his companion drove away with the body. Now all we have to do is find someone between here and Pine Ridge who might have seen them.”

  McDonald threw up his arm. “Well, shit, Mister FBI. Why we practically got the case solved. All we got to do is talk with everyone for . . . what? . . . three hundred miles.”

  “More like four hundred.”

  “Even better.”

  Manny put his hand on McDonald’s arm. “There’s only two ways from here to Pine Ridge, really. The north way, over the Big Horns by way of Worland and Buffalo and I-90 to South Dakota. Or the south way, towards Casper and through Nebraska.”

  McDonald closed his notebook. “Why would the killer have talked to anyone? Except for a gasoline stop, he—or she—could have driven straight through to Pine Ridge.”

  Manny straightened, his back and shoulders and neck knotting up like he remembered in his high school wrestling days. “Johnny had a post mortem stain from lying on his side. Now he had to have been dead a minimum of eleven, twelve hours for the stain to be fixed. Even with a stop for fuel, that’s only an eight hour drive to Pine Ridge. Even over the mountains. What do you suppose the killer did those other four hours, sightsee? I don’t think so. No, he stopped for something, whether it was food or something else, that delayed his drive to the rez.”

  “So we stop everywhere along the way, like gas stations, cafes.”

  “That, and we check with local officers along the way, and pray for a break.”

  “There you go with that ‘we’ again. My boss won’t let me cross into South Dakota on your whim.”

  “At least go the south route to the Nebraska border. If you don’t locate anyone who had contact with them by then, I’ll send someone from my Rapid City office to run the Wyoming border to Pine Ridge. I’ll go over the mountains and hopefully get a break that’ll help solve your case.”

  McDonald started to speak, but Manny held up his hand.

  McDonald stood and walked to the window. He looked out so long Manny feared he’d decided against helping him. At last he turned and faced Manny. “Okay. I’ll go that south route. Talk with every little one-man law enforcement operation along the way. Even the bigger departments. But what exactly are we looking for?”

  Manny threw on his heavy coat. “A big Indian guy driving a nice car. A Caddy or Lincoln, if Dick saw right. That’s all we got to go on. Now I need to get a water sample before I leave. You got sample bottles with you?”

  “Does a fat baby fart?” McDonald said.

  “Then give me a sample bottle and take me back to my car. And ask Dick to meet us back at the bath house and open up. I need to get a sample for Doc Gruesome.”

  “Well, in your travels,” McDonald said, “do not forget that your attacker is still out there. If he thinks you’re getting too close, you might not be so lucky the next time.”

  McDonald started out the door when Manny stopped him. “Did you get a chance to pull those old files on Butch Hausey’s murder?”

  McDonald hung his head. “I did. Officially, it’s still an open investigation, though nothing’s been done on it since the Sixties.”

  “Was there an officer’s opinion somewhere in there?”

  McDonald grabbed a small notebook from his hip pocket and flipped pages. “Neighbor, Henry Stalks the Enemy, felt Kenton Charging Bear was good for it. But he was laid up in the hospital after that beating Butch gave him. Kenton sure couldn’t have climbed out of bed and limped back to the rez to kill him.”

  “What if he wasn’t as bad as he made out?” Manny asked, tugging on his boots by the mule ears, and pulling his trouser leg over them. “What if he managed to return to the rodeo grounds and murder Butch?”

  McDonald smiled. “If I could prove that, I would get credit for a cold case solved.”

  Chapter 29

  Manny drove, slowing through slippery, snow packed turns and switchbacks. The winding mountain roads over the Big Horns were often dangerous in parts, McDonald had warned him before he left. Manny thought this must be the “parts” the agent had alluded to.

  A car came up fast on his bumper, and Manny grabbed the Glock on the seat beside him. But the car slowed only long enough to pass at a wide spot in the road. This was the second time a car had come up fast on his bumper, and the second time he’d grabbed the Glock before the car sped past. He wished he could breathe a sigh of relief because the car wasn’t that of his attacker. But the fact was that Manny had been bouncing off the ceiling of the rental car since he had left Thermopolis, waiting for the next attack. He just wanted it to come. He just wanted to confront the bastard who tried to kill him in the mineral pool. And probably killed Johnny as well.

  Manny pulled into a scenic turnoff overlooking a meadow valley a thousand feet below, and checked his back trail. The feeling of dread remained, and he shook it off. Perhaps the vision he had at Legend Rock and Johnny’s wanagi at the bath house tugged at his consciousness even now. Perhaps it had a message—or a warning—for Manny.

  Further along the icy road he passed Kirby and Winchester, too small to have their own police force, instead served by Washakie County sheriff’s deputies. He pulled into the county courthouse parking lot at Worland and walked inside. “I’m here to see Betty Stevenson. I called earlier.”

  “That’s me. Let’s see your bona fides.”

  He showed the dispatcher his identification, and she buzzed him through the door. “One minute, Hon,” Betty cradled a phone in the crick of her neck while she dispatched a deputy to an accident further up the mountain. She hung up and moved an Enquirer paper from a chair beside her desk. “When you called you said someone might have talked with an Indian guy driving a nice car, like last Tuesday?”

  “I am almost certain it was Tue
sday.”

  Her fingers floated over her computer keyboard. Tuesday’s dispatch log popped up and she put on her reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. “Nothing here, Hon.”

  “Toby gave a ride to some Indian dude last Tuesday night,” said a uniformed deputy who poked his head inside dispatch. He nodded to Manny: “We heard some FBI guy was going to visit us. You got an application to the Bureau?”

  “On our website.”

  “Who’d Toby talk to?” Betty asked.

  The deputy looked both ways along the hallway before stepping inside dispatch. “I don’t think I should say anything—”

  Betty reached up and swatted the deputy’s head.

  “Ow!”

  “You’ll get more than that if you don’t speak up.”

  “But you know what the sheriff said about Toby doing things on his own. Not calling in stops.”

  “Toby Head can fend for himself. What’s the sheriff going to do, fire his own brother-in-law? Now tell Agent Tanno what you know.”

  The deputy, still eyeing the hallway, rubbed the back of his head. “If the sheriff finds out—”

  “He won’t from me,” Manny assured him.

  The deputy glanced out the door and whispered, “Toby said he came across some Indian guy standing beside a nice car that had crapped out on the side of the road outside Ten Sleep. He helped the guy change a flat, and the guy left. That was all.”

  “And that big dummy never called it in?” Betty turned her back on the deputy. “Toby is sitting in Ten Sleep right now. The sheriff don’t trust him anywhere else. You want me to call him into the office, Agent Tanno?”

  “I’m going that way, anyhow. Get a place to meet, and I’ll talk with him there.”

  “He’ll be there. And tell him his Aunt Betty needs to talk when he’s done. In private!”

  Manny headed out of Worland, the road winding steadily higher with every passing mile. Ten Sleep, named by Indians because it was ten nights—or sleeps—from Fort Laramie, remained sleepy in other respects, too. With two hundred residents in a romantic year, the town boasted a handful of business that mainly catered to tourists who flocked to the area in summer to cliff climb or spelunk or raft the water downstream. Clara had wanted them to attend the annual bluegrass concerts there, but Manny had resisted. It wasn’t, after all, his polka music.