Craig Johnson: Death Without Company

Ruby’s voice called from the other room. “I’ve got something.”

We rushed in, as best we could, and crowded around the computer screen as Ruby summoned forth Joseph Walks Over Ice. “The name came up in the Department of Child Services in Cheyenne. A child was given up for adoption to a Catholic orphanage, a Saint Anthony’s in Casper, back in 1951.”

Henry and I locked eyes. It wasn’t that Ellen was giving up; it was what she had given up. “What else?”

“The child had numerous altercations and was described as emotionally disturbed. He was never adopted and left the orphanage at age sixteen.” She looked up at me. “That’s as far as it goes.”

Henry spoke softly through his bandage. “At that period in time, a lot of Indian children took the surname of the priest who ran the orphanage.”

Ruby’s fingers started dancing again. She turned to me. “The priest who signed off on Joseph’s papers was a Father Mark Lesky.”

Lesky, Joseph.

Joe Lesky.

I grabbed the phone from Ruby’s desk and punched in the number for the home. Jennifer Felson answered, and I asked her if Joe was on duty. “He was here a little while ago, but he got off at 8:00. Is there a problem?”

“Is he still around?”

“I’ll check.” I stood there with the phone in my hand. “Shelly saw Joe walk out of here with Lucian about twenty minutes ago.”

“If they show up, call me. Thanks, Jennifer.” I hung up and looked at Henry. Double Tough had woken up with all the commotion and was now standing with us. “He has been everywhere in this case.” I looked down at Ruby. “Where are Vic and Saizarbitoria?”

She stuttered. “There was a fender bender on the highway bypass.”

“Radio them and get them in here now. Joe Lesky’s out with Lucian.” I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head. “Where would they go?” I took another breath and thought out loud. “Where would Joe take him?”

It was the clearest I’d heard him speak since he had been shot. “Breakfast?”

I turned to Ruby on our way out. “Tell Vic and Saizarbitoria to meet us at the Bee.” As we started down the steps, I noticed that the methane foreman was accompanying us. I turned my head toward him so that I could see him with my uncovered eye. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

He smiled as he caught the door and allowed Henry to go through first. “I thought ya might need somebody who could both walk and talk.”

He had a point.

We pulled up alongside the Busy Bee, just as Vic’s unit slid to a stop beside us, only missing the front of my truck by inches. Her window was rolled down. “Joe Fucking Lesky?”

The place was packed as we flooded in, all the patrons freezing at the sight of an armed sheriff, two deputies, an Indian, and a construction worker; we probably looked like the Village People.

I caught Dorothy’s eye from behind the counter. “Lucian and Joe Lesky?”

You couldn’t ruffle her feathers with a brick. “Haven’t seen them.”

We regrouped on the sidewalk, and I started breaking it down. “Vic, you and Double Tough go to the home and wait. If they show up, just tell Joe that we’ve got some papers for him at the office. Try not to tip him off but bring him in no matter what.” They left in Vic’s unit as I turned to Saizarbitoria. “Santiago, get Ferg and do a perimeter. Radio the HPs and tell them to stop anything heading south on I-25 and that we’re looking for Lucian and Joe Lesky.” I tossed him the keys to the Bullet, and he was gone.

I turned to look down Main Street and then back at the Bear. I thought for a long moment. “I’ve got a question for you.” He didn’t say anything. “What makes us think that Joe took Lucian?” I looked back down the street at the Euskadi Hotel sign. “What if Lucian took Joe?”

“Mornin’ Lucian. Joe…”

I limped the twenty feet to the table; Lucian was facing me as I came in, the old gunfighter to the end. Joe had his back to the door but turned and lightly smiled as I entered. There were two cups of coffee on the table, but it looked like Joe was the only one drinking. Lucian’s hat was off and placed on the chair beside him with the brim down, which struck me as strange. The old sheriff looked relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded in his lap. Joe had his elbows resting on the table. Neither of them had their coats on, both were hanging from their chairs, and the jukebox was playing Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanian’s “Ring Those Christmas Bells.”

I hobbled past them to the bar back and poured myself a cup of coffee and gently placed it on a saucer. Coffee bought ten minutes. I raised a cup to Henry, who had stayed back by the door. He shook his head no. As I stalled at the bar, trying to think how I was going to play this, I thought of the mixture of excitements the next few minutes could unleash.

“What happened to your leg?” Joe was looking at me, but he was also glancing at Henry and his bandaged face. “And what happened to you?”

I shuffled back over to their table, turned one of the bentwood chairs around, and sat, giving me ready access to my sidearm and Joe. “Oh… we got shot.”

They were both staring at us now. Lucian the first to ask. “Who the hell shot ya?”

I studied the little vase on our table with its decorative plastic sprigs of holly and mistletoe, then trailed an arm over the back of the chair and took a sip of my coffee, my sore hand hardly fitting the delicate dinnerware of the Euskadi. “Leo Gaskell.” I kept my eyes on the old sheriff. “We’ve got him up at the hospital, and they’re patching him up.” Another Lazarus on the pile.

It was quiet for a moment, but then the music swelled with the false vibrancy and good humor of the season. “Who’s Leo Gaskell?”

I turned and looked at Joe Lesky. You had to give him credit; he was good. “Drug dealer from over in Fremont County; looks like he’s the one that hurt Anna Walks Over Ice.” May as well keep everybody alive. “He’s up there talking to the investigators now.”

Joe’s head nodded. He too was trying to buy time but in an establishment where nobody was selling. “Well, it’s good you got the guy that did it.”

“Yep.” The old sheriff was watching me very closely as I turned back to him and tried to get a read. “What’re you up to?”

“Doin’ some Christmas shoppin’.”

“The stores aren’t open yet.”

He looked back at Joe. “I got plenty a time.” He adjusted his hat on the seat of the chair beside him. Now I knew where the gun was.

Joe started to push off from the table. “Well, it sounds like you fellas have a lot to…” Out of the corner of my good eye, I could see Henry’s hands move from his pockets.

“Sit.” It was the soft voice he used when he would ask me if I really wanted to make a move in our chess games, the warning voice that sounded like the guttural vibration in the back of a cougar’s throat. Joe eased back into his chair, and I turned to Lucian.

We looked at each other like we had for decades, a blind man talking to a deaf one. There was a line that neither of us was able to cross: his sneering at my supposed weakness and my righteous indignation at his immorality. I was sure that the chasm between us was a generational one. Lucian’s world was simpler, and he was unable to see that law enforcement had become complicated in the modern era; or was it that he was so close, so much of a part of the whole mess, that he had lost perspective on it long ago? Charlie Nurburn hung out there like a reoccurring nightmare and in Charlie’s child and his child’s child.

I guess the heat was getting to Joe, because he felt compelled to interrupt. “We were just having a little conversation somewhere quiet.” His voice was a little unsteady. “I came across some information I thought might interest Lucian.”