Another Man's Moccasins
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Baranski continued. “Il veut passer un bon moment. Tu vois ce que je veux dire.”
Bui Tin gestured toward the bustling street. “Choisissez une des portes.”
Baranski nodded his head and gestured helplessly with both hands. “Ouais, mais il aime les cowboys et il voudrait quelque chose qui fasse un peu western.”
Tin, who seemed to be in charge, pointed to a side street. “Il y a un club qui s’appelle Western Town un peu plus bas sur ce trottoir.”
As we walked past them, Van Bo grasped my hand and shook it. “Je suis tellement heureux de vous rencontrer, Monsieur Davis. J’ai tous vos disques.”
I followed after Baranski and Mendoza and nodded, completing A N
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the conversation with two of the twelve French words I knew. “Merci beaucoup.”
I caught up with them as they turned the corner. “What’d he say?”
Baranski stopped and looked across the street to where a neon cowgirl’s leg kicked up and down in a more than provocative manner and gestured to a hand-painted sign that read WESTERN TOWN. “He said he’s got all your albums.”
Static. “There are no records with the Chicago Police Department, other than the ones from the reports we’ve already received.”
“No next of kin?”
Static. “There was a mother in Evanston, but that number’s been disconnected.”
I sighed and stared at the mic in my hand. “All right, pending any further information from the great state of Illinois, we’ll file Phillip Maynard with the boys up in Billings. Anybody comes looking for him, and we’ll defer to that other great state.”
Static. “And what are we?”
I keyed the mic. “Somewhere between. What’s the word on Tran Van Tuyen?”
Static. “He lost a lot of blood, but it looks like he’ll make it. Isaac Bloomfield says it’s a pretty good blunt trauma from a not- so- blunt instrument.”
“Meaning?”
Static. “He said something like an angle iron.”
“Or a motorcycle part?”
Static. “Possibly, but why didn’t he kill Tuyen?”
“Remorse.”
Static. “That would explain both crimes, wouldn’t it?”
“Roger that.” I started to hang up the mic.
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Static. “Walt?”
I keyed it again. “Yep?”
Static. “Anything you’d like me to tell Cady?”
“Where are they?”
Static. “They were talking about coming down there.”
“Tell them not to. I’ll be in Durant soon. I need to talk to Tuyen, but I have to make another stop before I head back.”
Static. “Roger that. . . . Hey, you didn’t sing.”
I watched Phillip Maynard’s body being loaded into a step van. “I guess my heart isn’t in it.”
Bill came over and joined us as I backed out of the open door of the unit, propped my forearms on the top of the window, and looked at Henry, who had just rolled up the sleeves of his faded blue chambray shirt. He still looked cool and crisp, even in the heat. “Is this what they call an open-and-shut case?”
I nudged my hat back and rested my chin on my forearms.
I didn’t look cool—didn’t feel it, either. “As far as Phillip is concerned, it is.” I stared at the shiny glare of chromed refl ection in the Harley’s air cleaner, wondering where somebody like Maynard would get the money for a twenty- thousand-dollar motorcycle, and then voiced my real concern. “I’m wondering why he would want to kill Ho Thi Paquet, let alone Tuyen.”
Henry wrapped his arms over his chest, and I watched the muscles bunch under the dark skin, reminding me of the coiled rattler in the ghost town. “Perhaps she came back into the bar, and things got a little rough.”
“There are the charges from Chicago, but I’m just not sure . . .” I stopped suddenly and thought of the woman on the fax. “Damn.” I leaned back in the vehicle and keyed the mic.
“Ruby, you there?”
Static. “You ready with your reprise?”
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“Find the name of the woman who had the restraining order on Maynard, and see if you can get me a phone number?”
Static. “Roger that.”
I straightened back up, and the Cheyenne Nation was beside the door, along with McDermott. “What charges?”
“There was a domestic disturbance, an assault charge, and a restraining order concerning a woman in Chicago—Karol Griffith, I think her name was.”
McDermott looked between the two of us. “So this Maynard fellow had a record?”
“Yep, but something about all of this doesn’t seem right, and I’d like to talk to somebody who actually knew him before I tag him posthumously with murder in the first and attempted homicide.”
Static. “Walt?”
“I’m here.”
Static. “It’s a work number.” I copied it down. “Tattoo You.”
“Thanks.” I tossed the mic back on the seat as the Bear reached down and pulled out his cell phone from a nifty little leather holster at his belt. “So, do you want to go make a phone call?”
I nodded. “Yep, then we’ll go get Tuyen’s Land Rover. I figure he’ll appreciate us picking up his stuff and bringing his car to him.”
Henry smiled. “That, and it will give you another chance to look over his room and the vehicle?”
“There’s that.”
He nodded. “I’ll drive the Land Rover.”
We parked by the veterinarian’s office, and Henry dialed the number and handed me the phone. Ms. Griffi th answered on the second ring—she sounded personable and precise. I told 2 24 CR A I G J O H N S O N
her why I was calling, and she became less personable, but still precise. “He beat up my car.”
The reception, even in this key part of Powder Junction, was spotty at best. “He what?”
“He beat up my Charger with a baseball bat, but he paid to have it fixed the next day.” There was a pause. I had learned from years of experience to never interrupt the flow. “I’m sorry to hear he’s dead. Was it that piece of shit motorcycle?”
“The new one?”
“New, hell; he could hardly keep that ancient piece of crap running.”
“We’re not really sure.” I decided to keep the details to myself. “Ms. Griffith, would you say Mr. Maynard was given to acts of physical violence as a matter of course? ”
“No, not really.”
I thought about it. “But you say he beat up your car?”
I listened to the silence on the line. “Well, that was kind of my fault.”
“In what way?”
“I beat up his motorcycle first.” It was quiet on the line again, and I listened to or imagined the thousands of relays, switches, and electric impulses within the cellular system.
“He wasn’t particularly devoted to our relationship. He had this thing for Asian girls.”
It was only a block and a half from anywhere to anywhere in Powder Junction, so rather than suffer the tin can of a Suburban, we parked at the office and walked to the Hole in the Wall Motel. “So, she said he had this constant stream of Asian women he brought in from Canada?”
“Suspicious, considering the circumstances.”
“Yes.” We walked past Ethan and Devin, the two young A N OT H ER
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boys who had identified Tuyen’s Land Rover. They were dressed in another set of automotive T-shirts. I waved, and they waved back. “And what about Virgil White Buffalo? With the most recent developments, you cannot still be seriousl
y considering him as a suspect.”
I took a deep breath and felt the hot afternoon air burnish my lungs. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Virgil.”
Henry stepped in front of me. “Let him go.”
I pulled up and stared at the dirt street. “I can’t do that, and you know it.”
His eyes stayed steady on me. “Why not? ”
“He’s a potential witness to a homicide, and I don’t think he can be released on his own recognizance.” I took another breath but still found it hard to look at him. “Henry, he fought two highway patrolmen and two deputies to a standstill.”
“Trying to stay out of jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
I sighed. “Look, we can’t be sure . . .”
“He has spent enough time behind bars for one life.”
I finally looked at him, because I was getting a little angry.
“If he is a potential danger to himself or anyone else, he becomes my responsibility.”
He shifted his eyes, and they shone like shards of obsidian.
“And where does that responsibility end?”
“It doesn’t.” We stood there, the echo of my voice coming back at us from the empty street, louder than I’d intended. “It doesn’t ever end. Ever.” I spoke softly now. “As long as he’s in my county, he’s my responsibility, and that puts me in line with a lot of other people who might consider leaving a seven-foot socio-path in a culvert under the highway a serious dereliction of duty.”
“So, you are going to keep him incarcerated for the common good? ”
“Until I can fi nd somewhere for him to go, yes.” I started 2 26 CR A I G J O H N S O N
to walk around him and then stopped. “Henry, I can’t let him continue to live under the highway. It’s not humane.”
“Neither is keeping him caged like an animal.”
I took another breath, this one even hotter than the ones before, and held it for a moment. “I am aware of that.” I continued on a few steps before turning and looking back at him.
“What?”
He stood there for a moment and studied me. “I know you.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t move.
“What?”
“I know that the real reason you are holding Virgil is in an attempt to fix his life, and that is beyond your abilities. You look at him and see experiences and directions similar to yours, but badly taken.” He walked toward me. “You cannot correct the path he has chosen; it is his path. The only thing you can do is not punish him for something he has not done.”
“I’m not looking to punish him, Henry, but there’s got to be something better for the man than living under I-25.”
His face remained impassive as he answered. “Perhaps, but that is something for him to discover, not for you to give him.”
We walked along. “Well, maybe I can help.”
The Bear smiled. “I know. This is not the first set of moccasins in which you have walked.”
14
The Bear stood up from his hunter’s crouch where he’d been studying the motorcycle tracks. “They are the same.”
I took the key I’d gotten from the office and unlocked the door to room number 5 and ducked under the SHERIFF’S
LINE—DO NOT CROSS tape we’d festooned across the door. At the front desk, I had asked the girl who had one headphone in her ear if she’d heard any motorcycles this morning, but she’d said no.
I asked her if she usually wore both headphones while cleaning.
She said yes, she did.
I asked her if she’d cleaned Tuyen’s room this morning.
She said that she would have cleaned the room, but that he hadn’t been around and they never entered a room without the occupant’s expressed permission.
I asked her if she was kidding.
She said she wasn’t.
I asked about the previous night, but she said that they pretty much closed up at nine and always left a number that would reach the owners if there were any problems, that they lived only three -quarters of a mile away.
I told her she could put the other headphone back in now.
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I had turned Bill McDermott and his crew loose. I fi gured that the more important crime scene was the Dietz barn and that Henry and I could go over Tuyen’s room as a preliminary before calling in the cavalry.
The place was as I’d left it hours before. There was a large bloodstain at the foot of the bed, a smaller one further in, and an intermittent trail that led to the adjoining room and bathroom.
I turned and looked at Henry, who was still standing in the doorway. “If you came through that door and someone was waiting to hit you, where would they stand?”
He looked around the entryway and to his right. “Behind the door.”
“Okay, you want to come in and close that?” He did as requested and then joined me in looking at the distance from the door to the first bloodstain. “What’d he do, jump when he got hit?”
“Perhaps the assailant waited until he was farther inside?”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t make sense. I mean, if you were planning on getting somebody, would you wait until he closed the door and took three or four steps before you hit him? Especially someone as physically capable as Tuyen?”
“So, you think he knew him?”
I walked toward the bed and kneeled beside the larger of the two stains. “I didn’t get much out of him, but he said that someone had struck him from behind, that he had hit the ground, started to get up, failed, and then hit the fl oor again.”
Henry stood by the dresser. “That would explain the fi rst pool of blood, and then he tries to get up and falls where the smaller one is. Did he say he was unconscious before you got there?”
“Off and on.”
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He squatted down beside me. “Where was the wound?”
“Right side of the head and toward the back, just at the crown.”
“Just one?”
“I’m not sure.”
Henry looked back toward the door. “Is it possible that he was struck once, and then, when he started to rise, the assailant hit him again? That would explain the two stains.”
“It’s possible.” I studied the spread that had been fl ung back from the corner of the bed, revealing the end of the angle-iron bed rail and the corner of the mattress, stained with blood.
Henry studied the corner of the bed frame. “So he was struck and then hit the corner?”
“Maybe.”
The Cheyenne Nation studied me. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I want to talk to Tuyen.” I stood and noticed that the metal case that was in Tuyen’s car was on the dresser.
“Under the strictest sense of the law, I’m not really supposed to be going through his personal items.”
“No.”
I walked over to the bureau and flipped the leather-wrapped handle. “He didn’t say anything about missing his wallet and nothing else in the room seems disturbed, which leads me to believe that it wasn’t a robbery attempt.” I nudged the corner of the case with my finger. “Heavy; possibly a computer. If I was going to steal something in this room, I think I’d start with this.”
“Yes.”
“That makes this a suspicious item.”
“Yes.”
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“And as a duly appointed law-enforcement offi cial, it would be my responsibility to open it.”
“Yes.”
“There’s only one problem.”
“Yes?”
“It’s locked.”
With a sigh of exasperation, Henry slid the case toward him and flipped it up, looking at the four-digit combination.
He paused for a moment and then rolled the thumbwheels
until it read 1975. “Fall of Saigon.”
Click.
Saigon, Vietnam: 1968
I heard the safety go off but wasn’t sure where. The bouncer still stood in front of us, big, too big to be Vietnamese—probably Samoan.
Our noses were about six inches apart—I was a couple of inches taller, but he probably had me by a good forty pounds. The really disconcerting part was that he was the one wearing a cowboy hat.
Baranski held his badge over my shoulder into the giant’s face.
“Look, Babu, Criminal Investigation Detachment. We’re on a homicide investigation.”
That much was true.
“We’re working with your own ARVN intelligence sector . . .”
Not particularly true.
“. . . And if you don’t step aside, I’m going to tell USMC specialist Longmire here to drag you over to the Long Bin stockade and specialize in stomping a puddle in your chest and walkin’ the motherfucker dry.”
Hopefully true.
He didn’t move, but after a few seconds, he turned toward a slick-looking little fellow standing to the side, who disappeared behind the A N
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giant and then reappeared. He nodded his head, and the bouncer slipped to the left. I took a step forward but kept my face to him as Baranski and Mendoza passed behind me.
“Fuck you, son-of-bitch.”
I slowly smiled my best Powder River grin, the one that would’ve made Owen Wister proud. “Smile when you call me that.”
Western Town’s theme was western, but whose was anybody’s guess. The ubiquitous dancing girls wore white go-go cowgirl boots and either cheap costume cowboy hats or multicolored war bonnets, the kind that came from the Woolworth’s back home. In the dim light, I could see the walls were raggedly festooned with western movie posters that were hand-painted with Vietnamese print or maybe Japanese. I could hardly move with the amount of people in the place; nearly all were locals, but the few servicemen who were mixed in with the mass of civilians were mostly enlisted. It looked like we were the brass, for better and probably worse. Mendoza and Baranski were already scouting the crowd but, from their continued craning, it was pretty clear that they hadn’t spotted Hollywood Hoang yet.