Dry Bones: A Walt Longmire Mystery (3 page)

Dave leaned forward as Omar drove south. “It was the standard arrangement with the landowner and the HPDM—that we would search for fossils, and anything we found, we would share the profits.”

Vic turned and looked at him. “I thought the museum was a nonprofit?”

He nodded. “It is at the end of the fiscal year, but when we first unearthed the jawbone last August and we needed more time, I thought we’d better cement a deal with the landowner.” He pointed toward the backhoe. “Just to make sure that exactly this type of thing didn’t happen.” He paused for a moment and pointedly sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

Vic threw a chin toward me. “Oh, the sheriff here got pissed on.”

It was about then that a round from some sort of small arms fire caromed off the cab, leaving a narrow but nasty gash on the windshield, and Dave ducked. “My God, they’re shooting at us again!”

I stared at the groove as Omar yelled back over his shoulder, “Ballistic armor glass.”

He hit the gas and barreled down the makeshift two-track toward the roadblock as I turned back to Dave. “They shot at you before?”

“You’re damn right they did!”

Another ricochet and Omar fishtailed to the side and gunned it again, in hopes that if we made it closer to the parked vehicles the shooter might be less inclined to fire. We stopped in front of the two flatbeds.

Vic drew her Glock, but I held out a hand, rose up, and got out the other side, just as an Indian cowboy charged up the hillside to slap what looked to be a bolt-action.22 from the hands of a teenage boy.

I walked around both trucks with my hands raised, quickly covering the twenty yards between us. “All right, I’m not sure whose property we’re on, but we need to stop the shooting right now.”

With one last, hard look toward the kid, the Indian cowboy turned as another, older man in a black flat-brim hat joined him. “Sorry about that, Sheriff . . .”

The teenager interrupted. “You told me to stand guard and not let anybody in!”

The Indian cowboy picked up the rifle and threw it to the older man with the black hat as Vic and Dave joined us. “I didn’t mean for you to shoot the sheriff.”

“What’s going on here?”

He smiled a wide grin. “Protecting our investments.” He slapped the teen in the back of the head, knocking off his straw hat, and gestured toward Dave. “You can shoot Dave if you want to . . .” The kid actually reached for the rifle on the older man’s shoulder. “Leave your uncle alone; I was kidding.” He then threw the bearded paleontologist a glance. “Kind of.”

I looked at where the bucket of the big CASE backhoe was scraping away the side of the hill. “You need to stop excavating. Dave here says that you’re going to do irreparable damage to the dig.”

The Indian cowboy lifted a hand and whipped off his own hat, raising it in a wide wave, his dark hair swooping around his head like a flight of crows. The sound of the heavy equipment halted almost immediately. He turned back to look at us, his perfect teeth contrasting with the tan skin of his handsome face as he extended his hand. “Randy Lone Elk, Sheriff. I don’t think we’ve met.” He gestured toward the older man holding the rifle. “This is my Uncle Enic.” He lip-pointed toward the teenager. “And the All-American sniper here is Taylor, my nephew.”

I shook the hand and gestured toward Baumann. “Dave here is concerned about the integrity of his site.”

“His
site, huh?” He continued grinning. “Then he doesn’t know exactly where
his
site is.” He spread his arms and half turned, exemplifying the open country. “We are trying to draw some attention, and I guess it worked.” He gestured toward Dave. “These guys are attempting to get this fossil out of here before anybody could find out, but we’re renegotiating the deal.” He looked at me and then at Omar’s vehicle. “What the hell is that thing, anyway?”

I ignored the question. “Dave here tells me that you’ve been compensated to the tune of thirty-seven thousand dollars on this dig.”

Randy Lone Elk pointed a finger at Baumann’s chest. “That’s bullshit, and even if it wasn’t, thirty-seven thousand dollars is a joke, if not an insult.”

The paleontologist spoke up. “It’s a fair price for what we’ve uncovered so far, more than anyone has ever been compensated . . . And there’s the profit sharing.”

Randy laughed and returned his hat to his head with a tug, settling it hard on his forehead. “Sheriff, do you know what she’s worth? One smaller than this in the Black Hills went for over eight million dollars twenty years ago.”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

Baumann looked a little embarrassed but then provided the much-needed information. “A Saurischia, suborder Theropoda, genus . . .”

“A
T. rex
.” The rancher began yelling again. “Maybe the largest and most complete ever found.”

Baumann shook his head. “We don’t know that until we get the rest of her.”

Unable to contain his enthusiasm, Randy yelped, “We measured the exposed fossil bones, and Jen’s a lot bigger than the one at the Field Museum in Chicago—probably the biggest in the world!”

I couldn’t help but ask, “She?”

Baumann answered, “We can’t tell what sex it is, but generally the larger ones are female.”

Vic laughed. “Why Jen?”

Dave gestured toward the young woman still filming while leaning against the front of the SUV. “Jennifer was the one who found her, and usually you use either the Latin, or a place name, or the name of the person who discovered the specimen for its name.” He continued to shake his head as he glanced back at Randy. “Anyway, it really doesn’t matter. I already paid for the find, and I’m not paying again.”

Randy approached him, sticking his nose inches from Dave’s face. “Well, who the hell did you pay, ’cause it sure wasn’t me.”

“Your father—I paid Danny.”

He took a deep breath and swung around to look at all of us, his fists planted at his hips. “Then I guess we’ll have to wait for the old man to get back from fishing to find out about that.”

“It’s the type of asphyxia that is the direct result of liquid entering the breathing passages and preventing air from going into the lungs—in other words, all you need to do is submerge the mouth and nose.”

A full twenty-four hours later, I leaned against the wall of room 32 and watched as Isaac Bloomfield continued examining the body we’d found. “So, he did drown?”

“Not necessarily.” Peering at me through thick lenses, the doc adjusted his glasses. “The sequence of events pertaining to drowning are breath holding, involuntary inspiration and gasping for air at the breaking point, loss of consciousness, and finally, death.”

Vic folded her arms. “And then feeding the turtles.”

Isaac moved some of the hair away from Danny Lone Elk’s face, revealing the missing eyes and other assorted mutilations. “And feeding the turtles, yes.” The doc was approaching ninety and so sat on a stool he’d wheeled over to the examination table, a habit he’d picked up in his dotage.

“Randy says his father went fishing the other morning and that he didn’t come home last night.”

“That would coincide with my findings.” Isaac reached out and lifted the dead man’s hand, damaged where the turtle had attempted to make a meal of it. “I’d say he went into the water at around seven p.m. the day before yesterday.”

Vic leaned forward and looked at the devastation. “So the turtles took their time, huh?”

“I’m no expert on herpetology, but there seems to be a great deal of flesh removed from the fingers.” Isaac examined the bite marks on Danny’s hand, the ring finger having been almost severed. “But they probably wouldn’t have begun feeding on him until his body began to cool.” He looked back up at me, annoyance writ on his face. “Weren’t they worried that he’d disappeared overnight?”

I shrugged. “I guess he did it a lot; they said there are seven different fishing spots on the ranch and nobody ever knew where he went until he got back.”

“Seems irresponsible for a man his age.”

I sighed and restated my question. “So, he drowned?”

He lowered the hand and sighed. “From the initial examination, I would say reversible cerebral anoxia. Note the frothy substance emitting from the mouth and nostrils?”

“Yep.”

“Hemorrhagic edema fluid, the result of mucus in the body mixing with the water; the presence of this contributes to the prevention of air intake and the final asphyxia.”

I glanced at Vic and then back at Isaac. “So, he drowned.”

He stared at the marred features. “The only thing, Walter, was that Danny was a very good swimmer.”

“How do you know that?”

“He, like myself at one time, was a member of the Polar Bear Club.”

Vic glanced at me with an eyebrow arched like a fly rod at full strike, and I figured I’d better explain. “It’s where these crazy people get together and jump into freezing cold water in the middle of winter, usually to support a charity.”

She looked at me, incredulous. “You mean like a frozen lake?”

“Exactly.” Doc Bloomfield stood and redirected an examination light over Danny’s face. “Our chapter used to hold events out at Lake DeSmet on New Year’s Day. There was an instance where one of the younger members jumped in the hole in the ice and became disoriented. The channels are dangerous near the cliffs, but Danny here dove in and brought him back up to safety—as I said, he was an excellent swimmer.” He focused the light, the contrast making the damage to the man’s face that much more horrid. “So, how is it that he could’ve drowned in one of his own reservoirs on a beautiful day in May?”

Vic glanced at me and stepped forward to study Danny’s face. “Why did he stop doing the jump-in-and-freeze-your-ass-off party?”

Isaac carefully brushed more of the hair back. “He was getting older, and he was having drinking problems.”

“So, maybe he got plastered and then fell in the water?”

“He took pills.”

They both turned and looked at me.

Remembering the night I’d met the man, I pushed off the wall and stood over the body, reached toward the rolling table that held the dead man’s clothing, and unbuttoned the breast pocket of the same sort of green canvas shirt where I’d seen him get his pills all those years before. Fishing inside, I pulled out a prescription container and rattled the contents. Handing the waterproof bottle to the doc, I watched as he adjusted his glasses and read, “Omeprazole.” He looked up at me. “Nothing surprising here; it’s a proton pump inhibitor that blocks the enzyme lining of the stomach and decreases acid.”

“He was also chewing Tums when I first met him.”

“Danny suffered from stomach trouble his whole life.”

I gestured toward the bottle. “So this stuff is just prescription Tums?”

“Pretty much.”

“Who gave them to him?”

He read from the plastic container and handed it back to me. “A doctor in Hardin named, of all things, Free Bird.”

“You’re kidding.” I shook my head as I read the name. “Not Cheyenne or Crow, for that matter.”

Vic piped up. “Maybe he’s a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan.”

Isaac continued to study the body. “There’s something else that bothers me, Walter.” He reached out and turned Danny’s face. “The reddish coloring in the cheeks, fingers, and toes.” He examined the damaged hand again. “And there is some exfoliation on the digits, but it’s possible that that was the work of the turtles.”

I studied the pill container. “Can you get in touch with this Free Bird? In my experience, doctors tend to be a little more open with their own kind.”

“Certainly.” He suddenly noticed something in Danny’s other breast pocket, and he unbuttoned it, producing a large flask with a beaded leather sleeve. “Hmm . . .”

“Was he supposed to be drinking with his condition and taking those prescriptions?”

“No; as far as I know, he was a recovering alcoholic.” He turned the cap and sniffed the contents. “I’m not so discerning, since I don’t drink, but it’s certainly alcohol.”

I took it from him and inhaled the sweet/sour fragrance. “Whiskey, and I’m no expert but I’d say the good stuff.” I pocketed the flask in my jacket as I snagged it from the hook on the back of the door. “But I know an individual . . .”

Vic followed me as I headed out, Doc Bloomfield calling after us, “What about the autopsy?”

I caught the door as she breezed under my arm into the hallway. “Let’s hold off until we get permission.”

 • • • 

Vic handed her menu to Dorothy. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

The Busy Bee Café’s chief cook and bottle washer looked at me as I made a show of reading my own menu. “Why do you even bother?”

I glanced up at her. “What?”

“You always order the same thing.”

“Maybe I’m finally changing my ways.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“Hey, did you hear I’m a grandfather?”

She smiled. “Months ago . . . I also heard they’re coming for a visit.” She peered at me through the salt-and-pepper bangs. “You ever traveled with a five-month-old? It’s like maneuvers of the Eighth Army.”

I handed her the menu, and we said it together: “The usual.”

Vic watched her go and yelled after her, “And a couple of iced teas, if you would be so kind?” She turned to look at me. “So, dead bodies in the morning and the usual for lunch—just another day in Absaroka County, Wyoming.”

“I just hope it’s not turtle soup.”

She smiled and nodded. “So, how is the little family?”

“I guess everything’s fine. I’m not quite sure why Cady is wanting to bring Lola out here as young as she is, but I’m not arguing.”

Vic sipped one of the iced teas that Dorothy had brought over and then put it on the counter. “Maybe they need a change of scenery.”

Lena Moretti, Vic’s mother and Cady’s mother-in-law, had been in close contact with my daughter and had been helping out a great deal over the past months, and I was beginning to wonder if something was up. “What do your spies tell you?”

She sighed and studied Dorothy’s back as the owner/operator labored to fix our two usuals. “Ma says that they’re kind of overwhelmed.” She fiddled with her straw. “Personally, I think your daughter is getting tired of being just a mom and is looking forward to getting back to work on a more full-time basis.” She shook her head and continued, “I know my brother, and I figure he’s only so much help with the baby.” I’d noticed that Vic rarely said Lola’s name, continually referring to her as “the baby.” She turned and smiled at me. “I mean, as soon as she’s old enough to drink, play cards, and go to Phillies games, the dynamic may change.”

Vic lifted her iced tea in a toast, and I was relieved when she finally said my granddaughter’s and her niece’s name: “To Lola.”

I lifted my own, having finally accepted the fact that my granddaughter was named after a Baltic-blue T-bird convertible. “To Lola.”

She set her glass down and studied me. “So, why didn’t you order an autopsy?”

“The Cheyenne are touchy about that.” I sipped my tea. “And Danny was a big deal, a friend of Lonnie Little Bird and a tribal elder who held the medicine for the Northern Cheyenne Sun Dance.”

She nodded and looked out the window. “So, what are we going to do about the dino wars out at the Lone Elk place?”

I smiled. “You know, this is not the first time this type of thing has happened in this part of the country. Just about every tyrannosaurus skeleton in the world comes from this area.” I twirled my glass in the ring of condensation it had made, turned toward her, and tipped my hat back. “As a matter of fact, there was a big fight between two of the first paleontologists in the country, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, right here in Wyoming.”

“Jeez, with those names, didn’t they have enough to worry about?”

“Marsh’s Uncle Peabody bought him a museum at Yale so the young man could start the study of dinosaurs in this country. Up until 1866 there really hadn’t been all that much scientific study on the subject, although there are some who believe that fossil remains might have been responsible for formulating some of the Native American mythologies.”

“We have to call Henry.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, I continued with my Wyoming dinosaur history. “Marsh and Cope started out as friends, but I guess the friendship evolved into a colossal pissing contest.”

She thought about it. “Was one of them from Philadelphia?”

“I believe Cope was.”

“Figures.”

“Anyway, I guess the competition got to be too much for them. Back in 1872 down in the Bridger Basin where the two had competing digs on the same site, Cope used to go up on a ridge and spy on the Marsh group. Well, Marsh got together with his diggers and fabricated a fake dinosaur from a bunch of parts and buried it; they actually have a term for this bit of skullduggery—it’s what they call
salting
. Then the Marsh group made a big fuss, talking about this incredible find; Cope couldn’t stand Marsh getting credit, and later that night Cope and his group snuck over and dug the fake dinosaur up and then published papers about this significant find.”

“These were grown men? I thought scientists were supposed to be above that kind of thing.”

I shrugged. “Cope had recurring nightmares where he dreamed that the creatures he was uncovering came back to life to attack him.” I rested my elbows on the counter. “There are rumors that when Cope died, Marsh attempted to buy his bones from the Museum of Anthropology and Archeology at the University of Pennsylvania, but they said no. I guess they finally loaned his skull out to some scientist down in Boulder, and he had it sitting on his desk.”

“Oh, gross.”

“When Penn decided they wanted Cope’s head back, the guy in Colorado said he’d be happy to accompany the skull, but the museum told him to just send it FedEx.”

She rested a marvelous cheekbone on a fist and stared at me. “Are you trying to ruin my lunch?”

I smiled down at her. “Nope, I just thought you were interested.”

“I was; the operative word here is
was
.”

Our two open-face meat loaf sandwiches arrived, and I looked at my plate. “Since when is this the usual?”

Dorothy glanced up at the vintage B
EST
O
UT
W
EST
clock advertising “Enriched Flour Tomahawk Feeds for Livestock & Poultry” that had been up there since I’d been a kid. “About thirty seconds now.” The phone beside the cash register rang and she answered it as we dug in, but a moment later she was holding the receiver in my face.

I swallowed. “What?”

“It’s for you.”

I took it, fully expecting to hear the voice of my daughter, but, keeping it professional for propriety’s sake, I finally croaked, “Longmire.”

Ruby’s voice sounded more than a little concerned. “Walter, the FBI is here in the office.”

I thought of our sobriquet for big Indians. “Which FBI?”

“No, the real FBI as in Federal Bureau of Investigation, a.k.a. the Department of Justice.”

I sighed. “What do they want?”

“I am just the lowly dispatcher, and they have not deigned to tell me.”

I stared at my food. “Do you think they can wait until I eat my lunch?”

There was a pause as Ruby cupped the receiver and spoke with whom I assumed was the federal government, then came back on the line. “They say they’re hungry, too.”

“Send ’em on down.” I started to hand Dorothy the receiver but then pulled it back and asked Ruby, “It’s not Cliff Cly, is it?”

 • • • 

It turns out it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t recognize the suited individual with the crew cut who walked into the Busy Bee, cased the café, and then strolled over to the counter to extend a hand.

We shook. “Agent in Charge McGroder.”

He removed his sunglasses and smiled a broad smile. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me, Sheriff.”

I returned the smile. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”

He shrugged. “You mean almost bleeding to death?” He leaned past me and extended his hand to Vic. “Mike McGroder, out of Denver.”

I interrupted, “I thought you were Salt Lake City.”

“Transferred—more work in Colorado.” He turned and swept a hand back to introduce the two suited, sunglass-wearing individuals at the door, one male and one female. “But my staff is out of the field office in Salt Lake.”