by Thomas King
“You better shoot that cat,” said the sheriff as they walked into the main lobby. “Or get a dog.”
“Dogs are just as bad.”
“Not if you don’t let them in bed with you.”
The nurse at the front desk was much too bright and cheery. Her voice had all the qualities of a robin singing on your windowsill. Noah Ridge was in the emergency room.
“Follow the red line,” she chirped. “He’s in the second cubicle with his bodyguard.”
Hockney’s head turned slowly from the nurse to Thumps and then back again. “His what?”
The sheriff’s tone of voice slid off the nurse’s back like water off a duck. “His bodyguard,” she said as though bodyguards were common accessories for emergency room patients.
“Great,” growled Hockney.
For some reason, Thumps had assumed that the nurse had mistaken Spencer Asah for a bodyguard. An easy-enough mistake to make, seeing how Asah dressed. But when they got to the emergency room, Thumps discovered he was wrong.
“Hi, Thumps.”
“Hi, Cooley.”
“Hi, sheriff.”
“Noah Ridge,” said the sheriff. Simple and blunt.
“Do you have an appointment?”
Thumps half-expected that the sheriff was either going to laugh or pull out his gun and shoot Cooley. He did neither.
“Thumps,” said Hockney.
“Yeah, sheriff?”
“You know what’s going on?”
“Cooley has his own security company.” Thumps tried to sound matter-of-fact.
“Small Elk Security,” said Cooley.
The sheriff turned back to Cooley. “Noah Ridge hired you to protect him?”
“Not exactly,” said Cooley.
Hockney waited for the rest of the answer, but Thumps knew that waiting wasn’t going to do any good. Getting any kind of elaboration out of Cooley required that you ask the right questions.
Thumps backed up and started at the beginning. “Noah didn’t ask you to protect him?”
“Nope.”
“And he doesn’t know that he is now under the protection of Small Elk Security?”
“Not yet.”
“So, currently your services are . . . free?”
Cooley hooked his fingers in his belt and pulled his pants up. “It’s one of those complimentary things.”
“But if he likes your work, he may endorse the company or even hire you officially.”
“Those are good ideas,” said Cooley. “Maybe you could mention them when you see him.”
“We’d like to see him now,” said the sheriff.
“Someone tried to kill him this morning,” said Cooley. “You can’t be too careful.”
NOAH RIDGE WAS lying on the examining table. One eye had been blackened and his lip was cut.
“Looks like you found a little trouble,” said Hockney.
“Tough town you got here, sheriff,” said Noah. He sounded okay, but Thumps could see that the effort to talk was painful.
“You know what happened?”
“I was jogging. Somebody took me from behind.”
“Did you see who it was?”
Noah tried rolling over on one side but gave up immediately. “Just a glimpse.”
“Would you recognize him again?”
“No,” said Noah. “It happened too fast. One minute I was running, the next minute I was on the ground.”
There were more bruises on Noah’s chest and along his ribs.
“So, you’re out running and someone sneaks up behind you and beats you up?”
“That’s about it.”
“But you didn’t see who it was?”
“Sorry,” said Noah.
“They take anything?” Hockney was just going through the motions.
“Didn’t have anything to take.”
“And this happened where?”
“North side of the river. Near the bridge.”
Noah’s injuries were real enough, though Thumps had seen worse. Lots of times. He debated telling the sheriff about Grover Many Horses, but there was nothing to suggest that Grover had anything to do with the attack. Then again, this might be the very thing that Grover would do.
“I’ll look into it,” said the sheriff. “In the meantime, if I were you, I’d stay close to home.”
Noah forced his lips into a smile. “Is ‘stay close to home’ the same as ‘don’t leave town’?”
“Yeah,” said the sheriff, shutting his notebook, “it is.”
Behind him, Thumps could hear the faint strains of annoyed voices in the hallway, and he guessed that Cooley was performing his duties with some enthusiasm.
“When you’re feeling better,” said Hockney, “you and I need to have a little talk.”
“Told you everything I know.”
“Maybe so,” said the sheriff. “But sometimes trauma affects the memory. Always good to double-check.”
The voices in the hallway were becoming more insistent. Thumps could hear Spencer Asah explaining that he was an FBI agent and Milo Tashkent beginning a lecture on freedom of the press.
“You mind if I stick around?”
Hockney looked at Thumps. “Going to catch up on old times?”
“Something like that.”
“Just remember who’s paying you.”
Hockney lumbered out into the hallway. The sheriff wasn’t as large or as strong as Cooley, but Duke’s low tolerance for nonsense gave him the edge.
“They’re going to try to hang this on me, you know.” Noah slowly sat up. “You see my pants?”
“You leaving?”
“Sure as hell not going to spend the rest of the day in here.” Noah held on to the side of the table and waited for the pain to subside. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Who?”
“You been hanging around with that hick sheriff too long.” Noah straightened up, keeping his elbow against his side. “Where’s my shirt?”
“Can’t blame him. Too much of a coincidence,” said Thumps, “you and Mitchell Street showing up in the same town.”
“It’s a free country.”
“Even the hick sheriff isn’t going to buy that one.”
“I haven’t seen Street since Salt Lake City.”
“Lucy Kettle?”
“Before that, even.” Noah leaned back. “Street was in charge of the Salt Lake City field office. He’d been coming at me for years. When Lucy disappeared, he turned the investigation into a holy war.”
“He thought you killed her?”
“Why not? He figured I had found out that Lucy was an FBI mole.”
“Was she?”
“Help me on with my shirt.”
Thumps had to hold the sweatshirt while Noah eased himself into it. The bruises looked worse up close.
“What about Lucy?”
“Yeah.” Noah took slow, deep breaths to ease the pain. “She was working for the FBI.”
There was regret in Noah’s voice now, and for a moment Thumps almost believed him.
“It’s in my book,” said Noah. “If you want to know what happened to Lucy, ask the FBI.”
COOLEY WAS STANDING GUARD in the hall, keeping Asah and Tashkent at bay.
“So, can I go in now?” said Asah.
“You bet,” said Cooley.
“What about me?” said Tashkent. “I’m press.”
“Law enforcement personnel,” said Cooley.
Thumps patted Cooley’s shoulder and had that mild stinging sensation that you get from slapping stone. “You’re doing a great job.”
“Yeah,” said Cooley. “Sheriff said pretty much the same thing.”
Asah pulled Thumps off to one side. “He tell you anything?”
“He thinks the FBI had something to do with Lucy Kettle’s disappearance.” Thumps watched Asah’s face to see if he had been filled in on Salt Lake City. Evidently he had.
“Did he say who beat him up?”
“Says he d
idn’t see who did it.”
“Bullshit.”
Yes, Thumps thought to himself, it was. “You going to arrest him?”
“If someone’s getting arrested,” said Tashkent, who had pushed himself up against Cooley, “I want to know about it.”
The sun was bright and the air was still. Thumps watched his breath flow out of his mouth and freeze in mid-air. Asah wasn’t going to arrest Noah just yet. Maybe later, but not now. Or maybe not at all. So far as Thumps could see, this case, if you could call it that, was a mess. Too many questions. Too few answers.
And then there was Dakota After all these years, the sorrow was still as strong as the day he put her on the train to Albuquerque. Mitchell Street, Noah Ridge, Dakota Miles, Grover Many Horses. And Lucy Kettle. Somehow or other, everything seemed to lead back to Lucy.
Maybe that’s where the answers lay, not in the present but in the past.
FIFTEEN
Archie was where Thumps figured Archie would be. Sitting at the counter in Al’s, complaining about North American coffee.
“Thumps!”
“Hi, Archie.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“I’ve already been to the hospital.”
“Did you get any pictures?” Archie dragged his spoon through the coffee. “You know, she never makes it strong enough.”
Thumps wondered if Archie had ever attempted the sheriff’s coffee.
“You think she does this just to annoy me?”
“Did you get a chance to make those calls?”
“Sure. I made the calls. That’s the nice thing about living out here.”
Thumps was too tired to ask.
“Everything’s later back east. You can call someone at six o’clock in the morning and it’s really nine o’clock in New York. So you don’t have to wait to get your day started.”
“Archie . . .”
Archie took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “So, I called the publishing house and guess what?”
Al came out of the backroom with the coffee pot and set it down in front of Thumps. “You don’t look any better.”
“My cat kept me awake.”
“That’s the nice thing about animals and kids,” said Al as she poured coffee into a cup. “You can blame them for all sorts of things.”
“So, I called the publishing house,” said Archie, “and guess what?”
“You still complaining about my coffee?”
“Your coffee’s fine,” said Archie. “It’s just not thick enough. You got to use more beans.”
Al pointed the coffee pot at Archie and looked at Thumps. “You know, I only let him stay because he’s your friend.”
“Now the food,” said Archie quickly, “your food is good enough to be Greek.”
Al considered this for a moment and then filled Archie’s cup. “You two want breakfast?”
“I do,” said Thumps.
“I’m fine,” said Archie.
“You know he’s going to eat part of your breakfast,” said Al.
“Yeah,” said Thumps, resting his head in his hands, “I know.”
Al strolled over to the grill and began to work her magic. Having breakfast made for you was one of life’s great pleasures. You woke up, unable to care for yourself, you sat down at a table, and someone brought you food. Warm, delicious food. Thumps suspected that having someone feed you might just be better than sex.
“So, I called the publishing house,” said Archie for the third time, “and guess what?”
“What?”
“They were surprised.”
“About what?”
“That Ridge is on tour.”
Thumps could feel the hint of adrenalin creep into his system. “They didn’t know about the tour?”
“Nope.”
“You got the right publishing house?”
“Please,” said Archie, rolling his eyes. “Books and publishing houses I know.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe they want to keep it a secret.”
Thumps didn’t know the industry as well as Archie, but he was quite sure that a publishing house would not keep a book tour secret. In fact, Thumps suspected that the literary folk in New York would go out of their way to tell anyone who would listen about one of their tours.
“That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Nope,” said Archie, “it doesn’t.”
Al wandered over from the grill and slid the plate in front of Thumps. “I put an extra sausage on for your friend.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell him to make his own coffee, if he doesn’t like mine.”
Thumps sat at the counter and put the pieces in place. He couldn’t see the overall shape of the puzzle yet, but one of the corners was slowly coming into focus.
Archie was busy raiding Thumps’s plate. “You think he’s going to be able to do the reading tonight?”
“Probably.”
“’Cause he wasn’t feeling too good last night.”
“Last night?”
“Some kind of stomach problem.”
“He didn’t go to Shadow Ranch?”
“Sure, he went,” said Archie. “But he didn’t eat.”
“He came back to town?”
“Everyone was disappointed.” Archie helped himself to a piece of toast. “But you know what? He was lucky. The food wasn’t that good.”
Actually, so far as Thumps could see, Noah wasn’t having much luck at all. Someone threatens to kill him. He gets assaulted on a morning jog. And he winds up a suspect in a murder case.
“Kind of an exciting life.” Archie put a thick layer of jam on the toast.
Thumps had eaten at Shadow Ranch. Getting sick before dinner might have been the only silver lining in Noah’s short stay in Chinook.
“Could almost make a movie out of it.”
Yes, thought Thumps, you almost could.
Archie licked his fingers and finished his coffee. “Tonight,” he said, patting Thumps on the back. “Tonight, wear something nice.”
CHINOOK HAD A great many garages, but if you knew enough to eat at Al’s, you knew enough to take your car to Chinook Motors and Moe Alvarez. Moe had worked on the Volvo countless times, knew the car better than Thumps did, and, to the man’s credit, had never once suggested that Thumps get rid of it and buy something else. And why should he? The car was a mechanic’s gold mine. On more than one occasion, Thumps thought it might be cheaper just to pay Moe a monthly fee for service and be done with it.
“Let me guess,” said Moe as soon as he saw Thumps. “It won’t start.”
“I was thinking that it might be the battery.”
“We changed the battery last year.”
“So, it’s not the battery?”
“Could be,” said Moe. “But now that the sun is shining, I’d try to start it again.”
“And if it starts?”
“Then,” said Moe, “it’s not the battery.”
The Volvo was waiting for him where he left it. In front of the old Land Titles building. There was a parking ticket frozen to the windshield. The sheriff could take care of this one, thought Thumps, as he peeled the paper away from the glass. If he was a deputy, then it stood to reason that the Volvo, appearances aside, was an official police car.
As Thumps put the key in the ignition, he wasn’t sure what he was hoping would happen. The car was way past its prime. A new car or at least a good used car might make him feel better about himself. He had read somewhere that middle-aged men liked to buy fast cars as a way of recapturing their youth. Thumps supposed he was willing to put up with middle age, if he could have a vehicle that was simply dependable and didn’t complain every time the temperature dropped below freezing.
The engine turned over the first time. If the car had a sense of humour, Thumps didn’t share it.
WHEN THUMPS GOT to the Tucker, he didn’t call from the lobby. He went straight to Dakota’s room.
“Thumps.”
Dakota didn’t seem surprised to see him, but Thumps hoped that she hadn’t been expecting him. He had questions and wanted straight answers. Not like last night when she had been able to anticipate what he was going to ask, when she had been able to control the conversation.
“Come on in.” Dakota turned and walked back into the room. “You want anything to drink?”
Thumps tried to think of an easy way to begin. “I saw Noah at the hospital.”
“He said you stopped by.”
“We talked about Salt Lake.”
“Ah,” said Dakota, her voice holding the line between sarcasm and sadness, “the good old days.”
“He said that Lucy was a mole working for the FBI.”
“Did he?” Now there was only sorrow in her voice. “I suppose your next question is going to be about Mitchell Street.”
“Someone shot him.”
“That’s what Noah said.” Dakota walked to the window. The winter sun was bright and strong, and it flooded the room with light and the illusion of heat. “You know what I want to do? I want to go for a walk. I want to go for a walk by a river.”
“We should talk.”
“Sure,” said Dakota, turning back to Thumps, “let’s walk and talk.”
Thumps would have preferred talking to Dakota in her room or in the lobby of the hotel or in a restaurant. Someplace where you couldn’t see your breath. A few years back, Thumps had tried his hand at some winter photography. He had spent several days walking the river, looking for just the right image, but the grim spectre of cold trees and frozen water had depressed him more than he had expected, and he went home without ever taking a shot.
There was a sharp wind waiting for them when they came out of the hotel. Thumps pulled his head down into the collar of the jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“That’s better,” said Dakota. “The hotel gets stuffy.”
“I like stuffy.”
“Come on,” she said. “I want to see your world.”
It’s not my world, Thumps thought to himself as they headed for the river bottom. If it was my world, it would have forced-air heating.
In Thumps’s experience, cold weather generally limited movement and conversations. But the temperature didn’t bother Dakota. Once outside, she seemed to come alive.
“Did you know my mother was a doctor? My father was an artist. Both very successful. ‘Credits to their race’ was how people liked to describe them. My two younger brothers are successful. One’s a lawyer, and one teaches university.”
