Next to Last Stand

by Craig Johnson

  Taking the exit near the fishery, I glanced over to see her admiring the engagement ring that she’d been reacquainted with as she turned to look at me. “That woman who was with you the other night, I understand she’s your second-in-command?”

  “She is my undersheriff.”

  “And is she more than that?”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. “I’m sorry, but that’s really none of your business.”

  She laughed. “Oh, come on now, Sheriff. I’ve been dumping all my personal problems out for you, don’t you think turnabout is fair play?”

  “What leads you to believe my personal situation is any problem?”

  “Oh, they all are, aren’t they?”

  “Not really.”

  “Hmm . . . I must be doing something wrong.”

  I turned left into Story proper, past the manicured lawns and small log cabins, passing the town sign and firehouse. “Where to?”

  “Keep going straight, then right on Loucks and left on Route 2 toward Penrose Trailhead.”

  I did as she said, and we followed North Piney Creek west to where the road turned to gravel. “I never even knew there were houses out here.”

  “Only one . . . do you know the story?”

  “I heard it’s a castle.”

  She shook her head. “Actually the barn of a small abbey in Ireland that the count had disassembled, brought over, and reconstructed.”

  “At a reasonable price, I’m sure.”

  She sighed, scrunching into the seat. “Like I said, Philippe knows people who if they want something, they get it and a little of that might’ve rubbed off.”

  Making a long left, we brushed near the creek where there was an opening in the trees with an expansive lawn, and in the glow of the half moon, a genuine, old-world building of large stones. The main entrance was at the center with a portico, and the roof appeared to be rounded tile.

  Easing to a stop, I could see where two wings shot from the back, obviously a more modern design with glass walls and multiple floors and exposed circular staircases where some lights were on. The workmanship was remarkable, and the entire building, even though from different centuries, worked together to give a breathtaking appearance.

  As I stopped, she cracked open her door. “He had more native stone shipped over from Ireland to match the original tithe barn.”

  Closing the door and enclosing Dog, I looked at the main structure. “That’s some barn.”

  She shrugged. “He got it cheap.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s haunted.” I turned and looked at her. “Really.”

  “By what, unpaid contractors?”

  “The Spanish Lady.” As we walked toward the front entrance, she started to tell the story. “After the sinking of the Spanish Armada off the coast of Ireland, the British navy seized a number of the ships that were still floating and ran them aground, taking the crew prisoners. Since there were no proper prisons, they housed the Spanish where they could, putting them up in barns and other such buildings.”

  “And this was one of them?”

  “Close to a hundred men were kept in this very building as valuable trading commodities, but the locals were none too happy about them and neither were the local Catholic sympathizers. There was a woman who fell in love with one of the sailors and brought him food, only to be caught and hanged as a traitor.” We stopped at the front door. “She’s been described as the Spanish Lady and can be seen gliding along the lane, shrouded in a flowing mantilla, a ghostly specter in the moonlight.”

  “Does she answer doorbells?”

  “Let’s find out.” She pushed the illuminated button, and we listened to the chimes inside.

  Pulling out my pocket watch, I noted the time. “Only nine o’clock—does he go to bed early?”

  “Never.” Reaching out, she pressed the heavy lever and swung the door open. “Philippe, you have guests!”

  We stood there for a moment more, and then she entered, and I followed. “He does, though, take naps, or work in his library at the far back of the building.”

  Entering the front room, I glanced around, taking in what looked like the main hall of a hunting lodge, complete with flags and a staggering amount of taxidermy mounts. “He hunts?”

  Continuing on, she headed toward an opening to the left. “Antique shops and estate sales.”

  I stopped to thumb through the stacks of canvases leaning against every wall, then followed her through a formal dining room. She flipped on the lights and entered a commercial-grade kitchen with stainless steel counters, appliances, and a wall-size wine cooler. There was a half-eaten sandwich on a plate and an empty wine glass along with a burned-out cigarette in a marble ashtray on the center island next to a soapstone sink.

  Gesturing toward the repast, I glanced around. “Well, he’s here, or was recently.”

  “He eats all the time and never gains a pound.” Continuing toward the back, she called out again. “Philippe!”

  She rounded the center island and pulled up short. Her hand came to her mouth, and she backed away.

  “Is there something wrong?” She stopped, and I continued forward where I could see a large pool of blood and bloody handprints sliding down the shiny surface of a massive refrigerator. There was a large Japanese cooking knife lying on the floor, also covered in blood.

  I pulled out my Colt and turned off the safety on the large-frame semiautomatic, the metallic snap being the only sound in the room. “C’mon.” Rushing her back through the dining room and entry hall, I pushed open the door and ushered her to my truck to place her inside.

  Grabbing the mic from my dash, I keyed it and called in to the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Department and spoke to a nice young woman who promised to send the entire personnel along with any armed janitorial staff they might have there in the building. I handed the mic to Katrina, telling her to give the address to the dispatcher and to lock the doors, stay in the truck, and assist them in getting here if they needed it.

  Holding the mic as if she might crush it, she nodded. “Right.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t get out of the truck.”

  “Right.”

  Shutting the door and locking it, I headed back in, allowing the beam from my Maglite to lead the way. I switched on all the lights as I went until finally arriving back in the kitchen area where it still looked as if a pig had been butchered.

  As I stared at the scene, I was pretty sure we weren’t going to find him in the bathroom unless someone had hauled him there to cut him the rest of the way up in the tub.

  Glancing around, I could see no other signs of blood, no splatter or drag mark to show where the body might’ve been moved . . . nothing. I continued down the hallway into a sitting area. I kept looking for blood, but once again didn’t see anything.

  I stepped into the next room and reached over and turned on the lights. There was a space that was even larger than the others we had been in, with tables, desks, and rows and rows of large art and research books. When it was in order, I’m sure that it was breathtakingly beautiful with the stone floors, glass walls, and rough-hewn rafters, but at the moment—it was a disaster.

  Bookshelves had been overturned, desks cleared, and most of the furniture was scattered and upset, much in the same way Charley Lee’s room had been destroyed up at the Home.

  Trailing the Colt across the room, I could hear no noise and nothing moved, so I stepped in closer to the large oak library table and peered down at the books that remained there. I saw what I’d expected—Custer, Custer, and more Custer. There were the usual history books, some nonfiction, and even a few novels along with tome after tome of Western art books mostly from the nineteenth century, and, at the center of the table, a few enlargements of portions of the Adams’s piece.

  I picked up the one where the cavalryman was
fighting for his life against the determined Zulu warrior and then flipped it back onto the flat surface.

  I started toward the other wing, pausing to take in the carefully planted trees, bushes, and flowerbeds under a huge skylight at the center of the house. No wonder Philippe had felt more at home in the garden at the museum.

  There was another hallway, and I entered with the .45 at the ready, then moved along the wall and spotted one of the stairwells that circled to the second floor, which must’ve been a hayloft back when the abbey barn held horses and incarcerated Spaniards. The treads were metal and clanged, no matter how carefully I climbed, but I finally made it.

  It was another large room with a king-size bed and French furniture and a picture window overlooking the garden below. The room was in general disarray, but nothing like the ones downstairs. The bed covers were pulled back, and it looked like there might’ve been some activity in there recently. Clothes littered the floor, and there were plates and glasses strewn on every surface, but nothing that spoke to anything other than the owner being a wealthy slob.

  There was some movement to the left, and I swung around to take aim at a startled black and white cat, or what my grandparents used to refer to as tuxedo, that froze coming out of the bathroom.

  Lowering my weapon, I took a breath. “Howdy, Jellicle Cat, are you one of the Practical Cats from Old Possum’s Book?”

  The feline leapt from the floor onto the bed and stared at me.

  “If you killed him or T. S. Eliot, you might as well come clean.”

  She continued to regard me and finally meowed.

  “I should warn you that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  She licked a paw.

  Holstering my Colt, I glanced around and sighed. “Yep, that’s the response I usually get.”

  11

  “Well, at least you were already making the trip.”

  He sighed, stretching the cuffs of his plastic gloves. “This is cutting into my fishing time.”

  Sitting on one of the already dusted stools, I watched as Woody Woodson applied some sort of adhesive pad to the refrigerator over the handprint and stood, looking at his wristwatch. “So, what are you thinking?”

  He glanced at the floor and shook his head. “I’m thinking the same thing you’re thinking—nobody loses this much blood and lives.”

  “How long was the blood here?”

  “As near as we can tell from tactility analysis, about three hours before you arrived.”

  He glanced at me, reading my expression as I looked toward the glass ceiling. “Where did he go? There are no drag marks, spatter off-scene, drops . . . Nothing.”

  “I know.” He stroked his beard. “It’s a puzzler.”

  “Did you look in the refrigerator?” His face took on a panicked expression, but I assured him. “Don’t worry, I did.”

  “You know, you keep treating me like this and you’re going to stop getting jiffy service.” He glanced around. “As near as we can tell there’s no way you could clean up in that amount of time, so the body had to be put in something, but like you said, there’s no drag marks, nothing.” A young man in a blue windbreaker with the large DCI lettering on the back came in and took the print that Woody peeled off the refrigerator. “Sample that, then scan it and get me the results.”

  The young man disappeared as Woody went back to working the floor.

  “The knife?”

  “Bagged, but from preliminary analysis it had no tissue remnants.”

  “Prints?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Chances?”

  “Actually, pretty good. He was a world traveler and was printed by at least four other countries, along with artistic conservation groups of which he was a member—if it’s him, we’ll know in no time.” He glanced around at the extravagant home. “Art collector, huh?”

  “I think he sold more than he collected.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “You know what the most-watched television show down at the State Penitentiary happens to be?”

  “Prison Break?”

  “Antiques Road Show.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. We’re breeding a more knowledgeable crop of thieves.”

  I stood, stretching my shoulder muscles. “You need me?”

  “For what, play-by-play?”

  “I’ve got to go do some fence-mending with one of my fellow sheriffs.”

  Turning, he studied me. “How are you doing, Walt?”

  I stopped. “In what sense?”

  “In the I-heard-you-went-to-Mexico-a-couple-of-months-ago-and-killed-a-bunch-of-people sense.”

  “Yep, well . . .” I sighed, which flattened my lungs like a punctured tire. “They didn’t give me much choice on that.”

  He nodded and continued to look at me before changing the subject. “I saw your daughter at one of the attorney general’s functions over in Cheyenne.”

  “How did she look?”

  “Breathtaking.” He paused for just an instant. “Reminded me a lot of Martha.”

  “Tell her I said hi, the next time you see her.” Before he could respond, I turned and headed out, but his muffled voice rose up from the floor. “I’ll let you know if I find the body.”

  Walking back into the main room past the temporary tables that DCI had set up, I spotted Sheridan County Sheriff Carson Brandes standing near the door with another individual I recognized. The young sheriff glanced up at me, gesturing toward Conrad Westin. “You know this jaybird?”

  “Informally, yes.”

  Westin turned to me. “Philippe is dead?”

  “There’s some blood and the Division of Criminal Investigation’s crime lab is here.”

  “Blood?”

  “Yep.”

  “How much blood?”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Westin?”

  Sheriff Brandes yawned. “He says he’s got some personal items in there that he needs.”

  “Well, I’m afraid at the moment this house is a crime scene and we can’t have anything disturbed.”

  He stared at me. “The entire house?”

  “For now, yes.” I studied him back. “Do you mind telling me when the last time was you saw the count?”

  Brandes interrupted. “Excuse me, the what?”

  “He was a count, supposedly.”

  Westin crossed his arms. “Are you accusing me of something?”

  “As a known associate and employee, it’s possible that you may have been the last person to see Philippe Lehman.”

  “Alive? So, he is dead.”

  “Mr. Westin, so far there is no body, but considering the circumstances alive or dead, we are concerned as to his whereabouts—I’m sure you understand.”

  He weighed his response. “I saw him early yesterday evening when I brought some papers over, contracts for some artwork he’d sold.”

  “How did he seem at the time?”

  He thought about it. “Distracted, maybe a little worried.”

  “About?”

  “These were big contracts. There was a lot of money involved.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to do Mr. Lehman harm?”

  “No, I mean . . . No.”

  “You were going to mention someone?”

  “Well, you met him the other night, Serge?”

  “The bodyguard.”

  “Yes. Philippe owed him some money, and Serge made the remark that he was going to get the money from him the hard way if he had to.”

  “The hard way.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea where Serge was last night?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea where he is now?”

  “He was in Sheridan.
He has a room there somewhere.”

  I glanced at Brandes, who pulled out his cell phone and walked away as I turned back to Westin. “Hard to be a bodyguard from twenty miles away.”

  “Philippe didn’t allow him on the premises full time—he said he was oafish.”

  “And yourself?”

  He barked a laugh. “Myself what?”

  “Where did you go after you dropped off the papers last night?”

  “So, now I am a suspect?”

  “Just covering all the bases. If you have a reasonable alibi, we don’t have to trouble you again.”

  “I was at a party in the clubhouse at the Powder Horn by six p.m.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “About seventy of them.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Can I get my papers now?”

  “No. As I explained, nothing can be disturbed until DCI is finished.” Adjusting my hat back, I looked at him. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem particularly upset.”

  “Sheriff, you say there’s blood but no body, and you refuse to surmise as to whether the man is dead, so Philippe might turn the corner and come walking in, right?”

  “We can hope.”

  “Well, indeed, there you go. Am I free to leave?”

  “Yep.”

  He started to but then turned and leaned in. “Just so you know, Sheriff. Philippe was a real piece of shit, although he didn’t warrant killing. Even so, you’d have a hard time finding enough people to mourn him to play a rubber of bridge.”

  I watched him go out through the open door and then turned to my fellow sheriff. “Hey, Sheriff.”

  He hung up his phone, his face lined with fatigue. “Hey, Sheriff.”

  “Wanna talk sheriff stuff?”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled up a chair, and he sat in the one opposite. “It was just a social call.”

  The tall, lean young man laughed a response; it seemed like all the sheriffs in Wyoming were younger than I was. “Do all your social calls end like this?”

  “Not generally.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a county jurisdictional deal for you—you take Story, and we’ll take Clearmont.”