Wait for Signs: Twelve Longmire Stories (5 page)

I turned back to the ex-mayor. “Genevieve McNeil was married to Bill Miller?”

Distracted by the few residents lining up at the broom closet for holiday cheer, he responded absentmindedly. “About ten years. She finally left him and married a man named McNeil, and it wasn’t too long after that that Bill died.”

I glanced back again, but Genevieve had returned to conversing with her friends and was now ignoring me. I noticed Lucian waving to get my attention and apologized to Bud for taking him away from his duties as bartender. He laughed, thumped my back with the flat of his bony hand, and returned to the makeshift bar as I ambled back to the chessboard.

“You gonna play chess or gallivant all night?”

I sat and reached down to pet Dog, who was snoring. I played at examining the board and threw out a question. “Hey, Lucian, do you remember when the Antelope
Bar on Main Street burned down back in the late seventies?”

He snorted. “When that dumbass in the slurry bomber missed the whole damn thing? Christ, I coulda’ hit that building
from five thousand feet with a sack of potatoes. Yeah, I remember. Why?”

“Do you recall who the primary witness was?”

Annoyed, he looked up from the board. “The fire?”

“Yep.”

He grunted a dismissal. “No.”

“Wasn’t it Genevieve McNeil?”

He thought about it with his lips pressed together and his heavy eyebrows crouched over his dark eyes. “Mighta’ been the old she-buzzard, hell, I don’t know—but then, it seems I don’t know much lately.”

*   *   *

That match and the next one were mine, but then he got focused and beat me three in a row.

It was approaching midnight, and Lucian understood my preference for being home in my cabin on New Year’s Eve in case Cady decided to call from Philadelphia. Dog joined me in standing as I picked up my coat. I glanced around the room, but Genevieve had disappeared. “You want me to walk you to your room? I know you don’t want to be in here at midnight.”

He looked up, half startled. “What, you gonna give me a kiss—or are you afraid I can’t find it? Besides, they got it locked.”

I pulled out my pocket watch to check and make sure I had plenty of time to get home. “C’mon.” Dog followed us as we made our way down the hallway toward room 32, and I looked over my shoulder to make sure that none of the staff was following. Giving his only leg a rest and pulling his briarwood pipe and beaded tobacco pouch from the pocket of his wool vest, the old sheriff leaned against the wall and watched me.

I pulled a credit card from my wallet and slipped it between the facing and the door, about where the catch mechanism was, but it only went halfway.

Lucian cleared his throat and lit his pipe. “They turned ’em so you can’t do that anymore.”

“Hmm . . .” I put the card back in my wallet. “I guess we have to go back to the old standby.” I gripped the knob in both hands, placed a shoulder against the jamb in order to force it away from the catch, and pushed. There was a slight cracking noise, and the door came open. I reached around, unlocked it, and held my arm out to motion Lucian inside.

He glanced at the lock plate and the small area of splintered wood. “You messed up my damn door, not that I ever lock the thing anyway.”

I stood in there with Dog; the room smelled a little like burnt chemicals, probably from the flame retardant in the curtains that had caught fire. I looked around and noticed that they hadn’t given him the option of another space heater. “You don’t ever lock your door?”

“No; why the hell would I do that in here?”

I thought about it. “Well, I’m going to head out.” He stood in the middle of the room. “You all right?”

He glanced up and then his eyes went back to where I assumed the space heater had been. “Yep.”

I stood there for a bit, then gave up the ghost and pulled the knob. I was about to walk away when I noticed the door across the hallway open about two inches; when I stopped, it quickly closed.

I weighed my options for a while, banking my hunches, then stepped across the carpeted floor and gently knocked.

The door immediately opened about six inches. “Not ringing in, Mrs. McNeil?”

Her face stiffened, and she took a moment to respond. “I’ve done a few more of them than you, Mr. Longmire.”

“Mrs. McNeil?”

“Yes?”

I glanced down at Dog as he sat on my foot. “I need you to do me a favor.”

“And what would that be?”

I looked at her. “No more fires.”

She stood there with her mouth opened, and now I was sure; I had nothing, but I was sure. She flinched and, with a fluttering movement, began closing the door, but I caught it in one hand and held it open. “You burned down Elkins’s Dance Hall before it could open. There’s no way the tinsmith Otto Hanck would’ve gone to the trouble of painting a man’s initials on an oilcan, but he would’ve for a woman. I knew the Hanck family and they were very religious, but Otto wasn’t specifically lying when he told authorities that he’d never tell them the name of the
man
who bought the oilcan. Your ex-husband Bill Miller was noted to be a heavy sleeper, but you woke him before the fire you set got out of hand.”

She didn’t move, but her eyes dropped to look at Dog.

“I figure you set the chain of events in motion that burned down all those dance halls, pitting the owners against each other—or you did it yourself. Then you set fire to the DeSmet Lodge, but that one didn’t go all the way. Is that when Bill found out?”

She didn’t answer but continued looking at Dog, who wagged in response.

“That’s when you left him, right?” I let out with a deep sigh and was sure she could smell the bourbon on my breath. “Then there was the Antelope Bar
on Main Street where you were the primary witness along with a few others for cover. I could go on, but all I’ve got to go on is hearsay, half-century-old evidence, and you in your hats in the photographs of every burned-down drinking establishment in the county for the last seventy years.” I paused and let the weight of my next words take hold. “But the incident that concerns me is the one in room 32 across the hall here.” I leaned down with my face very close to hers and could smell the old feathers of her hat and maybe even a little smoke—but maybe that was my imagination. “I don’t know when you went into Lucian’s room and plugged in that space heater and draped the curtain over it, but I bet I can find out.”

Her baleful, beady eyes came up and met mine.

“Don’t test me on this, Genevieve. If you do, I’ll send you down to Lusk to the women’s prison for whatever’s left of your miserable life.”

I lowered my hand and stood there, not feeling so good about bullying a ninety-year-old woman. I probably didn’t need that last part, but I wanted her scared enough to not try it again. She lowered her eyes and closed the door, and I looked at the painted surface. I could hear nothing but I was sure she was still standing on the other side, although the rules had changed now that she knew she was being watched.

After a moment, I turned to find Lucian standing in his own open doorway. “What the hell’s going on out here?”

I smiled at the old sheriff. “Nothing.” I stepped over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Just so you know—you’re not losing your faculties.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, and then the dark eyes sharpened. “And what makes you so sure of that?”

I glanced behind me at the room across the hall and then back to him, knowing full well he’d figure it out. “A little bird told me.”

She was waiting on the bench outside the Conoco service station/museum/post office in Garryowen, Montana, and the only parts of her clothing that were showing beneath the heavy blanket she’d wrapped around herself were black combat boots cuffed with a pair of mismatched green socks. When I first saw her, it was close to eleven at night, and if you’d tapped the frozen Mail Pouch thermometer above her head, it would’ve told you that it was twelve degrees below zero.

The Little Big Horn country is a beautiful swale echoing the shape of the Bighorn Mountains and the rolling hills of the Mission Buttes, a place of change that defies definition. Just when you think you know it, it teaches you a lesson—just ask George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.

I was making the airport run to pick up Cady, who had missed her connection from Philadelphia in Denver and was now scheduled to come into Billings just before midnight. The Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time had been extraordinarily upset but
calmed down when I’d told her we’d stay in town that night and do some Christmas shopping the next day before heading back home. I hadn’t told her we were staying at the Dude Rancher Lodge. A pet-friendly motor hotel that was assembled back in ’49 out of salvaged bricks from the old St. Vincent’s Hospital, the Dude Rancher was a Longmire family tradition. I loved the cozy feeling of the weeping mortar courtyard, the kitschy ranch-brand carpets, and the delicious home-cooked meals in the Stirrup Coffee Shop.

Cady, my hi-tech, sophisticated, urban-dwelling daughter, hated the place.

In my rush to head north, I hadn’t gassed up in Wyoming—luckily, the Conoco had after-hours credit card pumps. As I was putting gas into my truck with the motor running, I noticed her stand up and trail out to where I stood, the old packing blanket billowing out from around her shoulders.

Looking at the stars on the doors and then at me, she paused at the other side of the truck bed, her eyes ticktocking. She studied my hat, snap-button shirt, the shiny brass name tag, and the other trappings of authority just visible under my sheepskin coat.

I buttoned it the rest of the way up and looked at her, expecting Crow, maybe Northern Cheyenne, but from the limited view afforded by the condensation of her breath and the cowl-like hood of the blanket, I could see that her skin was pale and her hair dark but not black, surrounding a wide face and full lips that snared and released between the nervous teeth.

“Hey.” She cleared her throat and shifted something in her hands, still keeping the majority of her body wrapped. “I thought you were supposed to shut the engine off before you do
that.” She glanced at the writing on the side of my truck. “Where’s Absaroka County?”

I clicked the small keeper on the pump handle, pulled my glove back on, and rested my elbow on the top of the bed as the tank filled. “Wyoming.”

“Oh.” She nodded but didn’t say anything more.

About five nine, she was tall, and her eyes moved rapidly, taking in the vehicle and then me; she had the look of someone whose only interaction with the police was being rousted—she feigned indifference with a touch of defiance and maybe was just a little crazy. “Cold, huh?”

I was beginning to wonder how long it was going to take her and thought about how much nerve she’d had to work up to approach my truck; I must’ve been the only vehicle that had stopped there in hours. I waited. The two-way radio blared an indiscernible call inside the cab, the pump turned off, and I removed the nozzle, returning it to the plastic cradle. I hit the button to request a receipt, because I didn’t trust gas pumps any more than I trusted those robot amputees over in Deadwood.

I found the words the way I always did in the presence of women. “I’ve got a heater in this truck.”

She snarled a quick laugh, strained and high. “I figured.”

I stood there for a moment more and then started for the cab—now she was going to have to ask. As I pulled the door handle, she started to reach out a hand from the folds of the blanket but then let it drop. I paused for a second more and then slid in and shut the door behind me, snapped on my seat belt, and pulled the three-quarter-ton down into gear.

She backed away and retreated to the bench as I wheeled
around the pumps and stopped at the road. I sat there for a moment, where I looked at myself and my partner in the rearview mirror, then shook my head, turned around, and circled back in front of her. She looked up again as I rolled the window down on the passenger-side door and raised my voice to be heard above the engine. “Do you want a ride?”

Balancing her needs with her pride, she sat there. “Maybe.”

I sighed to let her know that my Good Samaritan deeds for the season weren’t endless and spoke through the exhaust the wind carried back past the truck window. “I was offering you a lift if you’re headed north.”

She looked up at the empty highway and was probably thinking about whether she could trust me or not.

“I have to be in Billings in a little over an hour to pick up my daughter.” It’s always a good idea to mention other women in your life when faced with a woman in need. “Are you coming?”

The glint of temper was there again, but she converted it into standing and yanked something up from her feet—a guitar case that I hadn’t noticed before. She indifferently tossed it into the bed of my truck, still carefully holding the blanket around her with the other hand, her posture slightly off.

“You want to put your guitar in here, there’s room.”

She swung the door open, gathered the folds up around her knees, and slid in. “Nah, it’s a piece of shit.” She closed the door with her left hand and looked at the metal clipboard, my thermos, and the shotgun locked to the transmission hump. She blinked, and her eyes half closed as the waft of heat from the vents surrounded her, and we sat there longer than normal
people would have. After a while her voice rose from her throat: “So, are we going or what?”

“Seat belt.” She opened her eyes and looked out the passenger window, and I placed her age at early twenties.

“Don’t believe in ’em.” She wiped her nose on the blanket, again using her left hand.

We didn’t move, and the two-way crackled as a highway patrolman took a bathroom break. She looked at the radio below the dash and then back at me, pulled the shoulder belt from the retractor, and swiveled to put it in the retainer at the center just as my partner swung his furry head around from the backseat to get a closer look.

“Shit!” She jumped back against the door, and something slid from her grip and fell onto the rubber floor mat with a heavy thump.

I glanced down and could see it was a small, wood-gripped revolver.

She slid one of her boots in front of it to block my view, and we stared at each other for a few seconds, both of us deciding how it was we were going to play it.

“What the hell, man . . .” She adjusted the blanket, careful to completely cover the pistol on the floorboard.

Thinking about what I was going to do, I sat there without moving for a moment, then pulled onto the frontage road, and headed north toward the on-ramp of I-90. “That’s my partner—don’t worry, he’s friendly.”

She stared at the hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds of German shepherd, Saint Bernard, and who knew what. She didn’t look particularly convinced. “I don’t like dogs.”

“That’s too bad—it’s his truck.”

I eased the V10 up to sixty on the snow-covered road and motioned toward the battered thermos leaning against the console. “There’s coffee in there.”

She looked, first checking to make sure the gun was hidden, and then reached down, and paused long enough so that I noticed her bare hands, strong and deft even with the remains of the cold. There was something else, though—a plastic medical bracelet, the kind you get at the hospital to remind them who you are.

She saw me watching her and quickly pulled the sleeve of her stained sweatshirt down to cover the municipal jewelry. Then she lifted the thermos by the copper-piping handle, connected to the Stanley with two massive hose clamps, and read the sticker on the side:
DRINKING FUEL
. She twisted off the top and filled the chrome cap. “You got anything to put in this?”

“Nope.”

She rolled her eyes and crouched against the door like a cornered badger. “Good coffee.”

“Thanks.” I threw her a tenuous, conversational line and caught a glimpse of a nose stud and what might’ve been a tattoo at the side of her neck. “My daughter sends it to me.”

The two-way squawked again as the highway patrolman came back on duty, and she glared at it. “Do we have to listen to that shit?”

I smiled and flipped the radio off. “Sorry, force of habit.”

She glanced back at Dog, who regarded her indifferently as she nudged one foot toward the other in an attempt to push the revolver up onto her other shoe. “So, you’re a sheriff in Wyoming?”

“Yep.”

She nonchalantly reached down, feigning an itch in order to snag the pistol. She slid it back under the blanket and carried it onto her lap. “Your daughter live in Billings?”

“Philadelphia.”

She nodded and murmured something I didn’t catch.

“Excuse me?”

Her eyes came up, and I noticed they were an unsettling shade of green. “Philly Soul. The O’Jays, Patti LaBelle, the Stylistics, Archie Bell & the Drells, the Intruders . . .”

“That music’s a little before your time, isn’t it?”

She sipped her coffee and turned to stare out the windshield. “Music’s for everybody, all the time.”

We drove through the night. It seemed as if she wanted something, and I made the mistake of thinking it was talk. “The guitar case—you play?”

She watched the snow that had just started darting through my headlights again. “Your dog sure has a nice truck.” We drifted under the overpass at the Blue Cow Café and Casino as an eighteen-wheeler, pushing the speed limit, became more circumspect in his velocity when I pulled from the haze of snow behind him and passed.

There was another long pause, and the muffled sound of the tires gave the illusion that we were riding on clouds. “I play guitar—lousy. Hey, do you mind if we power up the radio? Music, I mean.”

I stared at her for a moment and then gestured toward the dash. She fiddled with the
SEEK
button on FM, but we were in the dead zone between Hardin and Billings.

“Not much reception this close to the Rez; why don’t you
try AM—the signals bounce off the atmosphere and you can get stuff from all over the world.”

She flipped the radio off and slumped back against the door. “I don’t do AM.” She remained restless, glancing up at the visors and at the console. “You don’t have any CDs?”

I thought about it and remembered that Henry had bought some cheap music at the Flying J truck stop months ago on a fishing trip to Fort Smith, Montana. The Cheyenne Nation had become annoyed with me when I’d left the radio on
SEARCH
for five minutes, completely unaware that it was only playing music in seven-second intervals. “You know, there might be one in the side pocket of that door.”

She moved and rustled her free hand in the holdall, finally pulling out a $2.99
The Very Best of Merle Haggard
. “Oh, yeah.”

She plucked the disc from the cheap cardboard sleeve and slipped it into a slot in the dash I’d never used. The lights of the stereo came on and the opening lines of Haggard’s opus “Okie From Muskogee” thumped through the speakers. She made a face, looked at the cover, and read the fine print. “What’d they do, record it on an eight-track through a steel drum full of bourbon?”

“I’m not so sure they sell the highest fidelity music in the clearance bin at the Flying J.”

Her face was animated in a positive way for the first time as the long fingers danced off the buttons of my truck stereo, and I noticed the blue metal-flake nail polish and the bracelet that clearly read
LA
KESIDE PSYCHIATRIC H
OSPITAL—LAKESIDE, TN
.

“You’ve got too much bass, and the fade’s all messed up.” She continued playing with the thing, and I had to admit that the sound was becoming remarkably better. Satisfied, she sat
back in the seat, even going so far as to hold out her other hand for Dog to sniff. He did and then licked her wrist.

“I love singer/storytellers.” She scratched under the beast’s chin and for the first time since I’d met her seemed to relax as she listened to the lyrics. “You know this song is a joke, right? He wrote it in response to the uninformed view of the Vietnam War. He said he figured it was what his dad would’ve thought.”

I shrugged noncommittally.

She stared at the side of my face, possibly at my ear or the lack of a tiny bit of it. “Were you over there?”

I nodded.

“So was my dad.” Her eyes went back to the road. “That’s why I’m going home; he died.”

I navigated my way around a string of slow-moving cars. “What did your father do?”

Her voice dropped to a trademark baritone, buttery and resonant. “KERR, 750 AM. Polson, Montana.”

I laughed. “I thought you didn’t do AM.”

“Yeah, well, now you know why.”

Merle swung into “Pancho and Lefty,” and she pointed to the stereo. “Proof positive that he
did
smoke marijuana in Muskogee—he’s friends with Willie Nelson.”

I raised an eyebrow. “In my line of work, we call that guilt by association.”

“Yeah, well, in my line of work, we call it a friggin’ fact—Willie’s smoked like a Cummins diesel everywhere, including Muskogee, Oklahoma.”

I had to concede the logic. “You seem to know a lot about the industry. Nashville?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so you’re not a musician. What did you do?”

“Still do, when I get through in Polson.” Her eyes went back to the windshield and her future. “Produce, audio engineer . . . Or I try to.” She nibbled on one of the nails, on the hand that held the shiny cup. “Did you know that less than 5 percent of producers and engineers in the business are women?” I waited, but she seemed preoccupied, finally sipping her coffee again and then pouring herself another. “We’re raised to be attractive and accommodating, but we’re not raised to know our shit and stand by it.” She was quiet for a while, listening to the lyrics. “Townes Van Zandt wrote that one. People think it’s about Pancho Villa, but one of the lines is about him getting hung—Pancho Villa was gunned down.”