Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson

  Ruby was on the phone but cupped her hand over the receiver and looked up. “Another one at Fetterman and 16; I’ll call Vic and tell her to go directly out there.”

  “Does it sound serious?”

  “Fender bender.” The phone rang again, and she frowned at it.

  “Call the Ferg and tell him he’s full time until further notice.”

  It was like walking into a snow globe and, since I had parked the truck, it had gained another inch. Dawn was lingering, but there was a faint blush back toward the hills and, with the glow of the streetlights, the whole place was starting to look like Bedford Falls.

  It didn’t take long to get to county road 196, and it didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. The best news was that all the participants in the vehicular altercation were alive, well, and arguing on the side of the road. I flipped on the light bar and pulled the Bullet over to the opposite side so that it would be visible from both directions. There was an older Chevy Blazer that I knew belonged to Ray Thompson, and a newer little Japanese SUV that had number 6 plates, Carbon County. There was one of those new-fangled racks on the top of the Nissan, and it had a bumper sticker that read, IF YOU DIE, WE SPLIT YOUR GEAR. Hello Santiago Saizarbitoria. He looked just like his photograph, only now he looked irritated. “Hey, Ray. This guy run into you?”

  “Yer damn right.”

  Ray’s wife was next, and I figured they must have been on the way to dropping her off at the school cafeteria where she worked. “Came out of nowhere, flew around that corner and ran right into us.”

  Saizarbitoria was about to explode when I put a gloved hand up to his face. “Just a minute.” I took Ray by the shoulder and steered him away from the vehicles and over to my side of the road. I checked in both directions, but there hadn’t been any traffic since the wreck. “Ray, I wanna show you something.” I walked him behind my truck and over to the stop sign where the two roads converged. “Ray, these are your tracks, the ones that slide all the way through the intersection.”

  “That’s not . . .”

  “You can see from the tire marks that your vehicle didn’t stop at the sign, and you can also see from the point of impact on both vehicles that you went through just as he passed. Maybe in all the excitement you just didn’t notice.” He didn’t say anything else, just looked at the tracks and fumed. I waited for a while myself, as the blue and red light flickered over the smooth surface of the snow. “In a situation like this, it’s going to come down to who has his vehicle under control, and you didn’t. Now, I’m going to get my camera and take a few shots of these tracks so that if there are any questions later on, we’ve got answers. But my advice to you is to go over there, apologize to that young man, and get out your insurance card.”

  By the time I’d taken the pictures, they were all grouped around the hood of the Blazer. I copied down information from both drivers, only partially listening as Saizarbitoria told the older couple that he was here for a job interview, and they wished him well.

  The Blazer would continue to the school even though I doubted that there would be any, but the little silver SUV wasn’t going anywhere. Ray had hit right at the wheel well, and the left front was pretty much pushed into the engine compartment. I radioed in to Ruby after we got in the Bullet and arranged for his vehicle to be brought over to Sheridan where it could be repaired.

  I also asked about Vic.

  Static. “She’s at Fetterman, and the Ferg’s out on Western where one of the snowplows took out a mailbox and got stuck turning around. By the way, you got your coroner from Billings.”

  “King Cole is driving down here in a snowstorm?”

  Static. “You’ve got to keep up with Yellowstone County politics; Fast Eddie was replaced last November. The new kid’s name is Bill McDermott, and he’s very earnest, so be nice to him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I turned to the sad young man beside me, pulled off a glove with my teeth, and extended a paw. “Walt Longmire, welcome to Donner Pass. You got anything in that car you’re going to need?”

  “Everything.”

  I watched as he climbed out and crossed, looking both ways. Fool me once . . . He gave the impression of being a lot bigger than he was. As I watched him dig a satchel bag, a Meeteetse Cowboy Bar ball cap, and a cell phone out of the car and walk back over, I would have sworn he was six feet.

  I continued filling out the accident report. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You and your wife. I’m assuming you have a plan for this interview?” I broke the scenario down. “If this goes well, what happens next?”

  “Oh.” He nodded and quickly jumped in. “If things look good, we were planning on coming back over the weekend and taking a look at houses.” He looked past me at the crumpled metal of the Nissan.

  “So you’re in for the long haul?”

  “Sir?”

  “Looking for a house? A place to raise kids?”

  “Yes, sir.” He waited a respectful moment before asking. “You married, sir?”

  I folded up my report book and stuffed it behind the four-wheel shifter. “I used to be. She died a number of years ago.” I sat there and looked out the window until the image of myself as a romantic figure quickly became ludicrous and faded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I turned and looked at him to see if he was real and, at that instant, I came to two conclusions about Santiago Saizarbitoria: that he had been brought up right and that he had a heart. He was halfway to being hired. He was wearing a black fleece jacket, and one of the tumblers fell into place. I looked at him the way you size up a pot roast at the grocery. “You’re a climber?”

  He smiled and looked at his watch. “Damn.”

  “Why are you looking at your watch?”

  He sighed. “Because my old chief bet me twenty bucks that you’d make me and every motivation I had in less than an hour.”

  Archie Pulaski was the chief in Kemmerer, and we had been known in years past to terrorize the Law Enforcement Academy and surrounding bars in Douglas. “You should know better than to bet with Poles in this part of the world.” I fastened my seatbelt and watched as he automatically fastened his. “What else did Archibald have to say?”

  “He said you were the best sheriff in Wyoming, and that if I was smart I’d keep my mouth shut and maybe learn something.”

  “Yep, well . . .” I put the truck in gear. “Archie drinks.” I pulled out onto the county road. “I’ve got a deal for you.” It wasn’t a question, and he looked at me. “How about I put you on for seventy-two hours, then we sit down and decide whether it’s working out or not?” I would have thought, with his background, that he wasn’t a gambler, but he didn’t hesitate and I started thinking that he was here for another reason.

  “Yes, sir.” He was quiet for a moment. “By the way, how much does the job pay, sir?”

  “Eighteen percent more than the job you’ve got now, and don’t call me sir. I ain’t your daddy near as we both know.” It was twenty-three years in the coming, but it still felt good.

  3

  I was enjoying the usual. “Coronea custodium regis.” He looked at me blankly. “I bet you can figure it out.” I negotiated the last chunk of biscuit back into the spicy gravy with my fork and lifted it into my mouth.

  “Keeper of the king’s pleas?”

  I looked at Dorothy, and we both looked at him. “Who says the values of a classical education are lost?”

  I watched as the woman who kept me alive by operating the only café within walking distance of the jail refilled my coffee cup. “You did, just last week.”

  “Richard the Lion-Hearted established these guys as a sort of tax collector. They were in charge of keeping track of convicted felons and their property, which was confiscated in the name of the king.” I laid the fork back on the empty plate. He was about to finish the same amount of the usual that I had, and I was impressed.

  There wasn’t anybody else in
the little café, so Dorothy’s attention was exclusively on us. “And the difference between a medical examiner and a coroner?”

  She was reaching for the coffee pot, but I shook my head. “A medical examiner is trained, a coroner is elected.” The phone rang, and I watched as Dorothy reached to get it. “The last coroner up in Yellowstone County got into a little trouble back in the midseventies.” I went on. “Eddie Cole used to get paid about a thousand bucks an inquest, and it was only when four bear attacks one weekend came up with a victim of the same height, weight, and coloring that King Cole got into a little hot water.”

  When I looked back, Dorothy was holding the phone out to me. “Very agitated deputy for you.”

  I handled the receiver like it was loaded. “Hello?”

  “Are you enjoying your breakfast?”

  I pulled the earpiece a little away from my temple. “I was until now.”

  “We just got a report here at the office of some very angry individuals over at the old folks home, and now we’ve got those same individuals over at the hospital. I have been informed that this is one of your little fucking deals, so I would advise you to get your ass over there as fast as it can waddle.” The line went dead.

  I looked at the two of them. “Gotta go.”

  When I dropped Saizarbitoria off at the office with his bag, his cell phone, and his ball cap, I had the feeling I was sending him off to school. I warned him that all the training at the state pen wasn’t going to be of any use to him in there. He seemed undaunted. I told him to make friends with Dog because Harry Truman was right, but I don’t think he got it.

  I stood up straight as I approached the reception desk at the hospital, something I rarely did in everyday life, but height came in handy in times of conflict. I could count on three hands how many physical altercations I had been in since I had become sheriff, but no matter what anybody says, size helps.

  I walked between the two people at the desk and loomed over Janine, whom I had a special fondness for whenever I remembered that she is Ruby’s granddaughter. “Janine, you’ve got a situation here?”

  She shrugged at the two on either side of me. “Yes.”

  He wasn’t yelling when I turned to look at him; he was a good-looking fellow in a studied western way, fifties and trim, with an oversized cowboy mustache and dark hair, about average height. I was willing to bet that his haircut cost forty dollars and that, boots, hat, and leather coat notwithstanding, he wasn’t a cowboy. “Do I know you?”

  He was taken a little aback but was attempting to get a verbal footing. “Lyle Lofton, I’m an attorney in Sheridan County.”

  A lawyer, great; the tall thing didn’t work with lawyers. “Jeez, Lyle, I thought I was going to have to throw some people in jail for public disturbance.” I turned to the woman. She was in her fifties as well—lean, tall, dark, and a little strained. With her collection of neck scarves and turquoise, I was willing to bet that she wasn’t a cowboy either, but you never know. “Is this your wife?”

  “Kay, this is Sheriff . . .”

  I was glad she didn’t put out her hand; I didn’t want to risk being bruised by the bracelets. “Where is my mother?”

  I paused for a moment. “If you are speaking of Mrs. Baroja, she’s being held in an attempt to ascertain a certificate of death from the attending physician, Dr. Bloomfield. And a possible coroner’s report as to the cause of death.” I made a mental note to call Bloomfield and cover my ass with as many doctors as it would take to hold off the lawyers.

  “She was seventy-four years old.” I looked at the red splotching at her neck.

  She was ready to blow again, so I figured I’d get it all over with at once. “It’s a standard procedure in deaths such as your mother’s where there may be concerns of reasonable suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  I went ahead and dropped the bomb. “Foul play.”

  She put a fist on her hip and looked at me with about as much jangling accoutrement and audacity as we could both stand. “The woman smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.” I waited, because I was sure there was more. “You know, we hear stories in Sheridan about how backward this place is, but until now I never really believed them.”

  I smiled as the feathers brushed the inside of my chest like they always do when I get irritated. “Well, I’m glad we’ve been able to live up to everybody’s expectations.” I was always ready to smile when I was winning and, lawyers or not, they couldn’t stop me from doing what I was doing today. Unless my coroner was pumping nickels into the slot machines at the casino on the Crow reservation, I would be done by tomorrow. Lawyers always held domain over tomorrow; it was their gig. I looked back to her as she stared at the rug. “I’m sorry, I know.”

  “You’re damn well going to be.”

  We all watched as she marched out of the place. I turned back to Lyle, who pursed his lips and silently followed her out. I leaned my elbows against the counter and watched as they whizzed by the glass doors in $50,000 worth of non-Sporty, non-Utilitarian Vehicle. She was driving.

  I tipped my hat back on my head. “How you doin’, Janine?”

  “Better, since you arrived.”

  “Any word on my coroner?”

  “He got here about a half an hour ago.”

  I found the room with a plastic sign over it that read SURGERY 02. I was just about to push the door open when I remembered what it was I was walking in on. I had been present for too many general autopsies. With as many as two MEs from DCI and a district attorney to boot, I sometimes chose not to participate. Three weeks ago, I had sat in one of these very chairs and spared myself the inevitable outcome of Vonnie’s. I had a dark feeling that forensic pathologists didn’t look at the rest of us the way the rest of us did.

  I had forgotten to ask Janine if he had arrived alone, but all I had to do was knock on the door and walk in. I knocked on the door and opened it about an inch or two. “Mr. McDermott?”

  “Yes?”

  It was a young voice, a little hesitant, and not what I was expecting. I stared at the door handle in my hand as the strong smell of formaldehyde and hospital antiseptic overpowered everything. “Walt Longmire, I’m the sheriff here.”

  There was a pause. “I’m almost finished with this part. I’ll be out in about five minutes.”

  I closed the door and walked to the nurse’s desk. There was a coffee pot steaming on the back counter, but nobody was there, so I picked up the phone, dialed nine, and the office. As it rang, I thought about my inability to go in and witness yet another autopsy. Maybe it was because it was Mari Baroja and I had already summoned up a romantic image of her, maybe it was memories of Vonnie, but you spared yourself what you could.

  “Absaroka County Sheriff ’s Department.”

  “I’d like to report my holiday spirit as missing.”

  She laughed. “I was just writing your Post-its.”

  “How’s the new kid doing?”

  “He’s wonderful. How can we keep him?”

  “Well, we’ve already disabled his vehicle.”

  “Lenny Rowell’s uniforms were still in the supply closet. They’re a little loose on him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s out with Vic right now.” Her voice got low, even though I knew there wasn’t anybody else in the office. “I think she’s on her best behavior. Well, as best as she can be. Walt, where are you?”

  “I’m still here at the hospital, waiting on the results from Mari Baroja’s autopsy and making a little list . . .” I became aware of someone standing behind me, so I pushed off the counter and turned to face Bill McDermott. He was a medium-sized young man with sloped shoulders and a haircut like a blond Beatle, from their Liverpool days. He was probably in his thirties, with a childlike face that carried an innocence that was only partly diminished by one of the bloody gloves still on his hand. Bill was evidently a part of the new order of coroners who were qualified medical examiners. I had a suspicion, however, that Mr. McDermott had not been
elected. “I’ve got to go.” I hung up the phone and looked at the altar boy. “Mr. McDermott, I presume?”

  He nodded a bashful smile, looked at my gun belt, and then my star. “Hello, Sheriff?”

  I moved around the desk. I was thinking that a little distance between us might help put him at ease. “Bill, why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  He didn’t respond but watched as I poured us a couple of Styrofoam cups full. “Is there any cream?”

  I offered him one of the powdered packets from the tray and was relieved that he peeled off the glove and dropped it into a waste can marked with a red biohazard sticker. He took the packet, tore it open, and dumped it into the cup. I took a sip of my coffee. “Yellowstone County has dropped the coroner system?”

  “Yes.”

  “The king is dead, long live the king.”

  “Both puns intended?” He looked at my blank face and continued. “He’s dead. I did the autopsy on Eddie Cole. It’s how I got the job.”

  “How’d he die?”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “Suicide. He had an old Cadillac in his garage. Just climbed in, started her up, and took a nap. He left a note.”

  “What’d it say?” I had to ask.

  “ ‘When you perform the intermastoid incision, make sure the front quadrant is large enough for the frontal craniotomy. Most beginners make a hash of the thing.’ ”

  “Professional to the last.” I nodded toward the operating room. “What’ve we got in there?”

  He lowered his cup. “Caucasian, female, approximately mid- to late seventies, lifelong smoker, and the scars. I’ve just finished the thoracic-abdominal incision, exposed the pericardial sac, and took a blood sample.”

  “Excuse me, but did you say scars?”

  “The ones on her back.” He looked at me as if it were something I should have known. “A mass of scar tissue. It looks as though they were administered over a period of time.”