Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery (7 page)

“No, I’ll introduce myself.” We shook hands, and I went around a sticky brass railing and down the steps. “Little known fact: offensive tackles score higher on the Wonderlic than any other position.”

“No shit; better than quarterbacks?”

“Better than quarterbacks—average of twenty-six.”

He thought about it. “So, I’m above the average for the highest-rated position?”

“Looks like.”

He waited a moment before asking. “You ever take the test?”

I slipped my hat on and started out the door. “Not in the NFL.”

—

I sat in my truck outside the Sixteen Tons, the best and only bar in Arrosa. There wasn’t anything to munch on since Dog had eaten the remainder of the ham, the red and gold foil remnants lying on the passenger-side floor mat.

He looked at me, completely unrepentant.

“You could’ve saved me a little.”

I spent my time on stakeout leafing through the files, looking for something, anything, that would connect the three women. I rested them against my chest, also wondering why it was that Gerald Holman, if he was so upset by the disappearance of Jone Urrecha, had visited her residence and place of employ only twice. It was easier to understand why Richard Harvey hadn’t made the trip to Arrosa, in that he was trapped in a basement with the cry and hue of Inspector Holman’s career coming to rest upon him—like he said, shit rolls downhill.

After a few moments, I saw the inspector general come out of the post office, lock the door, and start toward my truck. I rolled the window down as he stood by the Bullet.

Dave Rowan glanced at the
SIXTEEN TONS
sign. “The bartender says to tell you that you’re bad for business.”

I rested the files on the center console. “I’m hoping not to be here for much longer.”

“So is he.”

“You know this Tommy who owns the strip club?”

“Some; I’m the one who sorts the mail and puts it in the box for Thor.”

“The bouncer?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems like a nice kid.”

He stared at me for a moment. “You’ve obviously never seen him knock somebody down and kick their head for five minutes.”

I glanced at Dirty Shirley’s and the lurid blonde on the sign, thinking the kid might not be completely off steroids. “Bad news, is he?”

“Yeah. Sometimes in the afternoon, if his victims can’t find anyone else to call them a cab or an ambulance, they crawl into the post office.”

I sighed. “Does the owner of the strip club live around here?”

“No, or they wouldn’t have their mail delivered to a P.O. box.”

“Good point.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the intersection, where a familiar Cadillac Escalade EXT rolled through the stop sign. “Speak of the devil; you can ask for yourself.” He gestured with a hand and sounded like a sick Ed McMahon. “Heeeeeere’s Tommy!”

I hit the ignition, flipped on the light bar, and pulled out as Rowan stepped away. “Thanks.”

I was on the tail of the Cadillac and even blipped my siren before he could get to the parking lot of the strip club, but I guess he figured he was close enough that I wouldn’t mind if he pulled in there.

He sat, waiting patiently, as I got out of my truck and straightened my hat the way the HPs always did, bringing my aluminum clipboard along just for appearances’ sake.

The motor on the Caddy was still idling, and he had his license and registration hanging out the open window as I approached. I thought it was a little odd that he had on fingernail polish. “Hey, I . . .”

Snatching off the sunglasses, worn despite the cloudy day, the driver barked, “Do you know who the fuck I am?” As it turned out, Tommy was a Tommi with an
i
and a middle-aged woman with a massive pouf of reddish hair and a formidable chest.

I studied her for a moment, as if I were trying to remember where, exactly, we had met and then gestured toward her sign. “Dirty Shirley.”

She lit a cigarillo and shook her head, unimpressed with my performance; her voice was like a foghorn through 60-grit sandpaper. “Very funny.”

I gestured toward the only crossroad in Arrosa. “You didn’t come to a complete stop at that sign back there.”

She took a drag and blew the smoke toward my face, but the ever-present wind snatched it and forwarded it to the Black Hills. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope, and with it being in the proximity of the elementary school over there, it could be a hefty penalty—”

Tommi interrupted me. “Do I know you?”

She probably wasn’t as old as she seemed, but the alcohol, tobacco, and hard living had rolled up her odometer. “Probably not, and I don’t know you—I thought we’d established that fact.”

She studied my face, and then her eyes dropped to my chest in search of a badge. “You’re really a cop?”

I began copying the information from her ID, just in case the conversation didn’t improve. “I am.”

She sucked on the small cigar again, as if it were life affirming. “Around here?”

“Pretty much.”

“Not for long, bucko.”

It was about then that I decided to give her the ticket. I’d just pulled her over so that I could start a conversation, but the chances of that seemed slim, so I held up a finger before she could continue. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

I stopped and looked back at her. “Nope.”

“Well then, fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.” The whir of the electric window going up was the only other sound.

I shook my head and climbed back in the Bullet, unhitching the mic from the dash and changing the frequency to that of Campbell County. “Dispatch, this is Walt Longmire, I need a 10-14 on a black Cadillac Escalade, plate number 17—”

Static. “Who is this again?”

I keyed the mic. “Walt Longmire, I’m the sheriff of Absaroka County.”

Static. “Where?”

“Absaroka County, just to the west of you.”

Static. “And how can I help you, Sheriff?”

I read her the plate number along with the woman’s name.
“Tommi, that’s Tommi with an
i
Sandburg of Gillette; I’ve got her stopped for a traffic infraction, and I’m writing her up.”

There was a longer pause this time.

Static. “I’m transferring you to the sheriff’s office.”

I keyed the mic again. “I thought this was the sheriff’s office.”

Static. “I mean
the
sheriff’s office, the office of the sheriff, himself.”

With a sinking feeling, I went ahead and asked. “Why is that?”

Static. “Because she’s his sister.”

“She’s quite the charmer.”

Static. “Isn’t she though? She was worse when she had all her teeth.”

I keyed the mic while looking at the smiling face on her ID. “She has teeth on her license.”

Static. “Fake, some boyfriend or another knocked out the others.”

“I’m giving her a ticket on general principles.”

Static. “Okay.”

“No argument?”

Static. “Well, she won’t pay it, and I’m the one that’s going to get the screaming hissy fit . . .” The airwaves over northern Wyoming went silent.

“You mind telling me why you didn’t say that your sister owned the strip club on the edge of town?”

Static. “Didn’t seem pertinent to the investigation; I thought you were working on Gerald Holman’s suicide, not the case of the supposedly missing dancer—”

“Jone Urrecha.”

There was a pause. Static. “You think there might be a connection?”

“It was the last case he was working on.”

Static. “You want me to lean on my sister?”

“It might be helpful.”

Static. “Take your time writing her up, and I’ll call her on her cell phone and make up some bullshit about you being some kind of special investigator for the state.”

“Roger that.”

I took awhile writing the ticket by noting in great detail the conversation between us, practicing my cursive handwriting with special attention to the curlicues, dots, and assorted design factors, which were being eroded by the digital age. After a few minutes, Tommi Sandburg exited her vehicle, slammed the door, and crossed in front of mine, still puffing a cigarillo as she yanked open my passenger-side door.

“Not in here.”

She stared at me, plucked the fresh one from her mouth, and made a show of dropping it from shoulder height onto the gravel; then she stamped it out with a full twist, the cigar being what I was pretty sure she wanted to be my head. Tommi with an
i
then climbed in my truck and closed the door behind her. “Well, you’re a big fucking deal, aren’t you?”

I paused writing her ticket. “It’s on all my business cards.”

“I find it hard to believe that you have business cards.”

“I made that part up.”

She glanced back at Dog, having edged away from the diminutive woman to go behind me; say what you will about canine intelligence, he knew when he was out of his weight class, teeth or no teeth. “This your girlfriend?”

I ignored her and got to the pointed end of the stick as I continued writing. “Jone Urrecha.”

“Gone.”

“Where?”

Absently, she pulled another cigarillo from the pocket of what looked to be a very expensive leather jacket, and tapped the end on my dash. “God, I wish I knew; that sister of hers is driving me up a wall.” She pulled a Zippo from the same pocket and started to light up.

I stopped writing and looked at her.

With a long sigh, she repocketed the combustibles, turned in the seat to look at me, and nodded her head toward the winking sign down the road. “You know how many girls I go through on a yearly basis?”

I aimed the point of the flashlight pen above the ticket docket. “How many girls do you go through on a yearly basis?”

She stared at me with hazel death rays. “A shit ton.”

“Define ‘shit ton.’”

“Shit as in lousy, ton as in a bunch.”

For absolutely no reason, I was beginning to like her.

She slumped in her seat and studied the 870 Wingmaster locked to the transmission hump of my truck and then turned her attention to the barren hills a couple of hundred yards up the road. “I mean, it ain’t exactly the Folies Bergère around here—you know what I mean?”

I didn’t say anything.

“We’re on the circuit between Rapid City and Billings; I mean how are you gonna keep a naked girl down on the farm once she’s seen those two cities of light?” She scratched her head. “The usual tenure is about six weeks or so, but she lasted longer than most—all of the summer and through the fall.” She thought about it. “Smart kid, smart enough to not be doing this stuff, but I get ’em now and then—the ones that are having money problems, substance problems, personal problems . . .”

I watched as she extended a hand toward Dog as a peace offering. “Which one was she?”

Dog sniffed her hand and then turned and looked out the window. “Not very friendly, is she?”

“He.”

She examined Dog a little closer. “Jone never said, and when they don’t say and you can’t see any evidence of the other two, it’s usually personal problems.”

“Who did she spend her time with?”

“Nobody. She was a loner.”

I started writing again.

She watched me and then spoke up. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Every time you lie to me, I get the urge to finish writing this ticket.”

“Who says I’m lying?”

“Just about everybody I’ve already talked to today.”

She fumed for a while and then threaded her fingers into her hair, and I noticed her whole scalp moved, confirming my thought that it was a wig. “She used to pal around with Thor.”

“The bouncer?”

“I think they used to run up and down the road and shit.”

I stopped writing. “Any business on the side?”

She huffed again and then answered. “If there was, it wasn’t through me—that shit leads to trouble, so I discourage it.” She shrugged. “Which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, but if it does it’s not on my time or my books. Look, I’m no saint, but I try to keep the girls safe; it’s in my interest, you know?” She tugged at the front of the hair, straightening it not unlike the way I straightened my hat. “Sometimes they’ve just had enough and they move on.”

This was squaring with everything everybody was saying. “No contact then—no idea where she might’ve gone?”

“Nope. I still owe her a hundred and sixty-three dollars, so if you hear from her, let me know, will you?”

I thought about it as I studied the sign down the road and could see another coal train heading our way. “Don’t you find it funny that a person with financial troubles would light out overnight without waiting for the money owed to them?”

“Honey, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a funny business.”

“I’m getting that. What about Gerald Holman?”

“Who?”

I started writing again.

She stretched a leg out and bumped my knee with a gold boot. “C’mon, I honestly don’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”

“The sheriff’s investigator who came around asking about Jone, the one who killed himself.”

“Oh, him.” She nodded. “Thor talked to him once, I guess. I wasn’t there.” She studied me. “Are you thinking . . . ?”

I ripped the blue warning ticket from the docket and handed it to her as the train sounded its air horns while passing through the crossing. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a funny business, too.”

—

The bartender at the Sixteen Tons had never seen anybody eat one of the pickled eggs from the bar in the three years he’d owned the place, and neither the postmaster nor the BNSF high-line driver said they’d ever seen anybody eat one in the thirty years before that.

“Slow movers, huh?”

The thickset railroad employee with the shaved head and tattoos nodded. “You could say that.”

I glanced at the bartender. “What else have you got?”

“Frozen pizza.”

I studied the off-color ivory orbs floating in the reddish liquid. “I’ll go with the pizza.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the illuminated Olympia clock on the wall. “Happy Hour, you wanna beer?”

“Rainier.”

The cheery man glanced down at Dog—the monster was lying next to my feet. “Something for your dog?”

“No thank you, he just had a ham.”

He extended a hand. “Neil Pilano.”

“Walt Longmire. Nice to meet you, Neil.” We shook. “So, you live around here?”

“I live over on South Douglas Highway.” He glanced down at Dog. “What’s his name?”

“Dog.”

“Easy to remember.”

The high-line driver stretched a hand out as he finished his beer. “Greg Fry.”

“Good to meet you, Fry; you work the spur into Arrosa?”

He adjusted his American flag do-rag. “For a while now. You want a tour of the Black Diamond Mine sometime, just mention my name.”

I watched as he walked out the door; the bartender searched through the coolers for my beverage of choice, and the postmaster moved down to the stool next to me. “You gave Tommi Sandburg a ticket?”

“A warning; her brother seemed to think she’d bite me if I gave her a real ticket.”

“That or fall down out there on the road and start biting herself—she’s had a rough life.” He sipped his beer and nodded. “About a half-dozen marriages and counting.”

The bartender sat a bottle of Rainier in front of me and lowered a plastic bowl of water down to Dog, who immediately stood and began lapping it up.

“The ham must’ve been salty.” I turned back to the postmaster and took a sip of my beer. “Anyone next in the lineup?”

“Me, I hope.”

I swallowed carefully, so as not to spray the beer all over the bar. “You’re a very lucky man.”

“I know. Crazy, huh?”

“Have you ever been married before?”

“A short period of time back, but I don’t think either one of us took it very seriously—like my great grandfather used to say, nobody misses a slice off an already-cut cake.”

I sat my beer back on a coaster that advertised Dirty Shirley’s down the road and spread my fingers across the smooth wooden surface of the bar. “I think Tommi might be the kind that counts her slices.”

He nodded as he sipped his Coors. “You could be right.” He smiled to himself and, looking for a ring, studied my hand. “You married?”

“Widowed.”

“Kids?”

“One, a daughter in Philadelphia getting ready to have one of her own—due at the end of the week. That’s where I’m supposed to be, but instead I’m here.”

He lifted his bottle. “That’s the way most folks feel about Arrosa.”

I lifted my own, and we toasted.

“Any word on Jone?”

“Nothing yet.”

He eyed me through his funky glasses. “Any, you know, leads? From her mail maybe?”

“Leads?”

He lowered his beer and looked thoughtful. “Isn’t that what you guys call ’em, leads?”

“Sometimes.” I sat my Rainier back down. “No, just the usual junk forwarded from her previous address in Boise and some new stuff. But you must’ve noticed that.”

The postman shook his head, the ponytail wagging back and forth. “Nope, I just sort ’em—I don’t read ’em.”

I thought about it. “No personal correspondence, nothing.”

“Kids these days, they text, tweet, or use e-mail.” He pointed to the USPS patch on his shoulder. “That’s why we’re going out of business.”

“You’d think there would be something, though. Weeks of mail and not a single letter . . . Not even a postcard.”

A youngish woman came through the door and looked around, pausing for a moment and then walking straight to me. Careful to avoid Dog, she stood a few steps away in her business suit, long wool coat, and sensible shoes. “Are you Walt Longmire?”

I glanced around the almost empty bar for comic effect, a move which was lost on everybody except Dog. “I am.”

“Can I speak with you?”

“Sure.”

She glanced around, perhaps for her own comic effect, and jiggled her car keys. “Somewhere else?”

I pointed toward the back. “I just ordered a pizza.”

“This won’t take long.”

I stood and raised my voice so the bartender could hear me. “Mr. Pilano, have you already put that pizza in?”

A voice came back. “Just now.”

“Can you take it out and put it back in when I return?”

His head appeared in the swinging doorway. “No problem.”

Dog and I followed the woman out the door and were surprised when she kept walking toward the Arrosa Elementary School across the street—at least I was surprised. The parking lot was vast enough to allow the buses to make a full circle but right now held only a solitary blue Volvo. Beyond was a chain-link fence and a playground with equipment painted red and white, the school colors. We followed her through a gate in the fence, across the playground, and entered a door in the large, older stone portion of the building, which was, it turned out, the gymnasium.

She stood alongside the gleaming wooden surface of the basketball court, and turned to look at me, a large canvas satchel hanging from her shoulder. “I’m Connie Holman.”

“The daughter.”

She nodded. “I know who you are.”

I studied her, clocking her age at late thirties. “Have we met?”

“No, but I’ve read about you in the newspapers, magazine articles, WyoFile . . . Sheriff Walt Longmire, they talk about you like you’re some inevitable form of justice.”

I smiled a tight smile and threw a thumb back toward the bar. “I stop for a beer and pizza every now and then.”

She glanced through the metal grating of the multipane window and looked out onto the playground and past. “I’m sorry, but I’m a teacher here and on the school board, and it isn’t good for me to be seen hanging around in bars.”

I smiled. “That’s okay. It’s not so good for my reputation either, but I do it anyway.”

She volleyed a smile back. “I’m not stalking you.”

“I don’t suppose that would be good for your reputation either.”

“We had an in-service here, and I talked to my mother on the phone; she said something about having hired you.”

“Uh huh.”

“To look into my father’s death?”

I walked to the window, and the clicking of Dog’s claws on the gleaming wood as he followed me echoed as I leaned against the massive stones and looked up at the hand-forged girders. “This is one heck of a building for an elementary school gymnasium.”

She glanced up, and I noticed she was thin and appeared to be stretched just a bit too far. “It was the old bus barn for the eastern part of the county.”

The girders looked to be about twenty feet from the ground. “Not much headroom.”

She shrugged. “Fortunately that’s not a problem with elementary school basketball—not many granny-shot three-pointers.” She swung the canvas satchel and hugged it to her chest, I guess to feel a little more secure, and then walked out onto the court. “I used to dance here when I was a kid.” She did a half twirl and looked back at me. “I teach here now. It’s actually the third evolution of the school; the first was an old one-room that got moved back up the valley.”