Junkyard Dogs

by Craig Johnson

  I raised my hat and sat up, tossing the blanket that Ruby had used to cover me with a quick flip. My familiar and recurring headache blistered across my brain. “What’d you test it in?”

  “A gallon of Jell-O and a box of sand.”

  I sat up, slumped against my desk, and draped a hand down to pet Dog. “Aren’t we enterprising.”

  “Hey, don’t be pissy with me for doing my job.”

  I held my temples for a moment. “I thought it was DCI’s job.”

  “I was bored. I don’t have a house and nobody bought me anything for Valentine’s Day.”

  We both sat there for a moment, looking at Santiago Saizarbitoria’s duty belt, semiautomatic, and badge lying on my desk. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d come into my office. “What’s Saizarbitoria’s badge doing here?”

  “I guess he dropped it off when he turned in my unit. Ruby says he left it at her desk, and she didn’t know what you wanted to do with it.”

  I sat there staring at the six-pointed star with the circle around it, the mountains with the tiny star over them, the open book, and the words that you could barely make out, Vero est Justicia.

  Truth is justice. Indeed.

  I stood and folded my blanket, laying it on the chair with the pillow. I picked up my hat and quickly walked around my desk, as though the Basquo’s equipment might’ve been haunted. I glanced back at the badge. “Kind of has a note of finality about it, doesn’t it?”

  Vic looked up at me. “I’m sorry.” She stood and held my hand as she pulled me into the hallway. “C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  When we got into the reception area, Ruby peered at me from over her computer. “This means Felix Polk didn’t kill Ozzie Dobbs?”

  I yawned and then made a face, attempting to draw the pain from my head. “No, it means that Felix Polk didn’t kill Ozzie Dobbs with the same gun with which he attempted to kill me. We haven’t done a complete search of the neo-Nazi’s cabin, but I’m sure we’ll find other firearms there.”

  Vic stood beside me, petting Dog, who had followed. “And what if we don’t find the .32 that killed Ozzie?”

  “Then Polk disposed of it.” My voice carried a little edge.

  She studied me. “Or?”

  “Or somebody else did it.”

  She didn’t smile, but her eyes softened. “You’re grumpy. Get up on the wrong side of your chair?”

  All three of them were looking at me now. “What it means is that a deputy of mine with PTS just killed a kidnapper for pointing a gun at me and that there might be another murderer running around out there somewhere.”

  “Then what would they, whoever they are, gain by killing Geo and then Dobbs?”

  I let out a deep sigh, and even I thought I sounded like a tire going flat. “Somebody’s circling the wagons.”

  Vic pushed me toward the stairs. “I’m hungry, so I’m betting you’re starved.”

  “I am, so we’ll grab something at the Dash Inn on the way.” I snagged my coat from the hooks on the wall beside Ruby’s desk and glanced back at my dispatcher. “Where’s the Bear?”

  She looked up at us as Dog joined the group. “He hijacked a plumber here in town and was last seen headed for the Reservation.”

  My shoulders slumped. “If he calls in, tell him I need him.”

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  “We’re going to head out to the Stewart place and look for those notebooks that Duane was talking about or anything else that might lead to a connection between Ozzie Dobbs and Felix Polk.”

  Ruby looked past us and through the whiteout windows in the doors behind us. “If Henry is unavailable, who do you want me to call while you two are traipsing around the junkyard?”

  “Get the Basquo back in here. Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “You know that’s against the law.”

  “Whose?”

  Ruby looked down and spoke the words neither Vic nor I would. “He quit, Walt. He’s gone.”

  We’d only passed three other cars—well, trucks, actually—since leaving the office. Durant was like a frozen ghost town. The snow was another eight inches deep since I’d come off the mountain this morning, and the tires of my truck were completely silent as we slowly wheeled our way off Main Street and took a right onto Route 16.

  Vic scrunched down in my passenger seat. “I guess we’re getting all the snow for the winter at one time.”

  “Hmm.”

  She watched the side of my face and then spoke in a deeper voice. “How’s the house hunting going lately, Vic?” The next voice was hers. “On hold.” She once again spoke in a voice I was sure was supposed to be mine. “Well, we’ve been a little busy lately.” She concluded the conversation with herself in her regular voice, but I’m sure it was directed at me. “Yeah? Well, you’re an asshole.”

  She looked out the window, and now I drove in absolute silence, almost wishing for some tire noise.

  We ordered three super- dashburgers—one for Vic, one for me, and one for Dog—with fries and two coffees. We sat there waiting at the drive-through window for our food, and I watched as another eighteen-wheeler slowly made its way off I-25 and parked alongside the road. WYDOT had informed us that they were closing the highway, and the trucks were piling up.

  “So, how’d the Basquo take it when he found out the truth concerning the case of the missing thumb?”

  I looked at her. “I’m sorry, is this a real conversation or another dramatic interpretation?” She stared at me for a long while, and I caved, incapable of withstanding the kind of silence she could put out. “He did the right thing.”

  She turned her head, and I watched her breath cloud the glass. “There are going to be questions.”

  “Yep.”

  “Especially since Polk’s gun wasn’t the one that broke Ozzie’s heart.” I looked at her. “Sorry.”

  My eyes returned to the road. “We’ll find that gun.”

  “It doesn’t look good with him quitting right afterward.” Her voice was softer. “I’m just trying to look at it from the state attorney general Joe Meyer’s point of view.”

  “I know.”

  She took her time before speaking again. “You should seriously consider whether you might’ve happened to have seen the reflection in the window of Felix Polk holding that gun to the back of your head.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  The food came along with a few biscuits for Dog. “Thanks, Larry, you guys calling it a day? They’ve closed the highway.”

  He smiled and shouted as I handed Vic the bag of food and stuffed the biscuits in my pocket to give to Dog later. “Yeah, we’re going home while we can still make it!”

  I smiled back as he handed me our drinks and quickly slid his window closed. I hit the button to roll up mine, a spray of wayward flakes swirling in the open window as I watched Vic lodge her coffee into the passenger cup holder and mine into the center one. “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou.”

  My dissertation was interrupted by Ruby. Static. “Unit one this is base, come in.”

  Vic looked at the radio and unwrapped her dashburger. “Your truck—your radio.”

  I sighed and pulled the mic from the holder. Ruby was still trying to win us over to a more businesslike attitude toward radio communication, and everybody had pretty much caved, except for me. “What?”

  Static. “I just got a weather report.”

  I keyed the mic. “How much are we supposed to get?”

  There was a bit of jostling before the next communiqué, and it became obvious where Ruby had found reinforcements. Static. “Ass deep to a nine-foot Indian.”

  I keyed the mic again. “Hello, Lucian.”

  Static. “What the hell are you doing out there?”

  “Checking on the remainder of the Stewart clan.”

  Static. “They say we’re gonna get eighteen inches by tomorrow morning.”

  “I won’t tarry.”

  Static. “See that
you don’t; I brought my chessboard with me.”

  By the time we got to the dump/junkyard, Vic had fed Dog his burger and half of hers. I’d eaten mine in four bites and was just now finishing off my fries as we arrived at the Stewart driveway.

  Mike Thomas was leaving as we got there, so we slowed and stopped. He pulled the ’78 orange Ford alongside my truck and rolled his window down.

  “What are you doing out in this weather, Mike? Neighborhood watch?”

  He shrugged under his insulated coat and frowned, throwing a thumb back to the tarp-covered heap in the bed of his truck. “Was gonna drop a load off at the dump, but Gina said they were closed today and waved me off.”

  I looked up to emphasize the point. “Well, it is kind of inclement.”

  “I’m off to the Caribbean tomorrow, if it ever stops, and wanted to clear out my shop.” He leveled an eye on me. “In sixteen years, I’ve never seen a workday when Geo Stewart closed. I guess it’s all different now that he’s gone.”

  “You heard?”

  “Yep, and when I pulled up to the house to see what was going on, Gina was piling stuff into that piece-of-shit Toronado again like she was pretty intent on going somewhere else.”

  I glanced at Vic, then back to the sculptor. “You sure she wasn’t unloading? We caught her on 16 the last time you called and turned her back.”

  He thought about it. “Hell, she might’ve been unloading for all I know.”

  “Well, we’ll go in and check on her.”

  He shook his head and began rolling up his window. “Good luck.”

  The Toronado was parked in the driveway close to the house, but the snow on it had been swiped off recently.

  I stopped behind it and threw the truck into park. “Let’s go.”

  Dog started his leap over the center console and into the front. “Not you. If those two beasts of theirs are in there, I don’t need you starting anything.”

  He looked disappointed, but I left the windows down a little and shut the door after me. Vic was at the front of the truck when I got there. She glanced up at me. “I’m assuming you didn’t mean me?”

  We trudged through the snow to the driver’s-side door of the Toronado. “Does that look like more crap than was in there before?”

  My deputy peered through the frosted window. “Arf.”

  I studied the prints leading up to the house and onto the porch; three trips at least. It appeared that Gina was still intent on leaving, even with the weather and the warning.

  The conversation with Duane hadn’t been as bad as I’d assumed it would be, considering the nature of the subject matter. When she told him she was pregnant and that the father was not him, he seemed surprised but not particularly upset.

  In the amount of time I’d been contemplating the Stewart social order, another quarter of an inch of snow had accumulated on the two of us. Without another word, we picked our way among the fresh prints to the house and met Gina coming out with a laundry basket full of clothes.

  “Howdy.”

  She started with a short scream and almost dropped the basket. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Sorry.” Vic and I stepped onto the porch in an attempt to not accumulate even more snow. “What are you doing, Gina?”

  She dropped the light blue plastic laundry basket after the question and took the smoldering cigarette from the corner of her mouth. “Leavin’.”

  “We told you to stick around.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” She glanced back into the open doorway of the house. “Grampus is dead, Duane’s in jail, and I’m getting the fuck out of here. I don’t give a shit what you told me to do.”

  Butch and Sundance appeared in the doorway, protective of Gina and obviously concerned that we were abusing their mistress. Butch, the one that had bitten me in the ass, was the nearest and was growling.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, the weather is pretty brutal, and the HPs have closed all the highways.”

  She took a strong puff on the cigarette, pregnancy be damned. “Fuckit. I’m still leavin’, and you can’t stop me.”

  I let that pass. “Something happen?”

  “Morris came over, and I told him about the baby, and he went all ape shit.”

  “Geo’s brother Morris?”

  “Yeah, he’s upstairs going through some of Grampus’ stuff.”

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him speak three words . . .” I could feel my headache coming back and wondered if they really had anything to do with my eye. “Would you like me to speak to him?”

  “No. Fuckit, I’m leavin’.”

  “You’re not going to get very far.”

  “I don’t care.” She started to bend over and pick up the basket. “I’m leavin’.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’re not.” The dogs caught my tone, even if she hadn’t, and were now both growling.

  Vic unsnapped the safety strap on her Glock. “Call ’em off, or I’ll throw a warning shot through both their fucking heads.”

  When you go to a dogfight, it’s always good to bring the meanest bitch.

  Gina casually glanced back and then screamed at them. “Shut up!”

  The dogs went immediately silent. “Gina, if you leave here now you’re not going to go anywhere except a ditch and then we’re going to have to pull you out. Just stay put and let me talk to Morris, and then, if we have to, we’ll give you an escort to a motel. Okay?”

  She looked even more sullen than usual, turned with her load, and went back into the House of Usher, followed by the two Hounds of the Baskervilles.

  There were more things piled by the doorway than I would’ve guessed would fit in the Classic, but who was I to judge. “Where is Morris?”

  “Upstairs in Grampus’ room. He said he was gonna get Grampus’ gun and shoot me.”

  Vic and I looked at each other. “Really?”

  She studied me as if I were a variety of moron she’d never met before. “Yeah, really.”

  “You stay here with Vic, and I’ll go upstairs.”

  “Fine by me. I’m gonna get a pop in the kitchen.”

  “You guys wait for me in there.” Vic nodded, and I took a step up the stairway. “Morris! It’s Walt Longmire, are you up there?”

  Nothing.

  It was odd, and I found it hard to believe that Morris Stewart would’ve responded in the manner she’d described. “Morris! Sheriff ’s Department coming up the stairs!”

  Nothing.

  It was my first time in the inner sanctum of the house, and from the look of things on the landing, the upstairs wasn’t any better than the downstairs. Junk cluttered the steps and continued down the hallway. There was a path down the middle, but car parts, stacks of papers, magazines, and cans of paint were stacked on either side. The place was an arsonist’s dream. I thought about how they cleaned the chimney with a mop full of kerosene and shuddered.

  “Morris, are you up here?”

  There were six doorways in the hall; five of them had the doors closed with the sixth, the one at the end, slightly ajar. I picked my way through the debris and placed a hand on my sidearm. “Morris!”

  I opened the nearest door—it was obviously Duane and Gina’s. There were car posters on the walls and a huge canopy bed that looked like it might’ve been bought at a discount furniture place, the kind you see in tents alongside the road. The only light in the room was a digital clock that was an hour off. I stared at it for a few moments, thinking that there was something about it that was important.

  Something about that clock and the time.

  I decided I’d start at the other end of the hallway with the door that was slightly open and work my way back. The floor creaked under my boots, and I started feeling like Gina, trapped in the Addams Family mansion.

  “Morris?” I nudged the door open—the gauzelike curtain on the other side of the room was flowing like the oversized sleeve of a ghost, to complete the analogy, and snow was piling up on the floor underneath the win
dow. I moved to close it and go on to the next room when I saw something lying in a single bed to the left.

  It was a tiny fold-out cot, really, but piled with sheets, blankets, and even a moldy buffalo hide. On closer inspection, the thing had horsehair tails hanging from the edges and intricate beading indicative of the late eighteenth century—probably worth a fortune but for the holes and the hair that was falling off of it.

  Something moved under the pile of coverings, and I took the couple of steps to the bedside. “Morris?”

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving anymore, so I reached forward and peeled the blankets back. It was Morris, and there was a great deal of blood saturated in the dirty sheets. The blood had come from a bullet wound in his chest, almost identical to the wound that Ozzie Dobbs had sustained.

  Then his eyes flew open.

  “Jesus!”

  His mouth began moving, but no words came out.

  “Morris, stay still. I’ll get you some help.” I pulled my radio from my belt and hit the button. “Vic? Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  “Vic?” I released the button and yelled down the hallway in a voice I was sure could be heard in the kitchen. “Vic!”

  I placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I’m going to go get help. I’ll be right back. Hold on, Morris.” I punched the button and yelled into the radio. “Base, this is unit one—come in!”

  As I rushed down the hall and toward the stairs, Ruby’s voice came through the speaker. “Unit one, this is base. Over?”

  As I passed Duane and Gina’s room, it dawned on me why it was important that the clock was an hour off—that Duane had said Gina had left for work by the time he’d gotten up from his nap, but in reality she’d reset the clock and gone out to kill Geo. I jammed the radio to my mouth. “Ruby, get me backup over at the Stewart place!”

  Static. “Who?”

  “Anybody. Everybody. Get me EMTs too. Morris Stewart has been shot and is bleeding to death. Hurry.”