I inclined my head toward him. “I get the feeling I’ve offended you, Mr. Tuyen.” He didn’t say anything. “If I have, I certainly didn’t mean to. I’m sorry to say that we don’t get too many Vietnamese here in Wyoming, and you’ll have to excuse me if I find it odd that we should suddenly have two.” I continued to look at the man and was conflicted with my own mix of feelings. It was possible that I was bordering on racial profiling.
He smiled, just enough so that you weren’t sure if he’d done it at all. He took a card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. His head dropped, and he headed for the door. He looked back when I followed him and paused for a moment with his head still down. The smile was gone. He pushed the door open and disappeared.
Santiago stood and laid a five on the bar. “If you think of anything, here’s my card, give me a call?”
Phillip Maynard palmed the fin and the card. He called after us, but mostly to Cady. “Come on back anytime.”
The glass door bumped unevenly behind us. Tran Van Tuyen was driving west in the Land Rover, which looked like a passing emerald in a backdrop of overexposed sepia as it rolled down the Main Street of Powder Junction.
It was an absolutely gorgeous summer afternoon, and I took a deep breath like I always did when I remembered it was the pay-off time of the year; and felt like crap.
Cady pulled my arm, always reading the fine print of emotion when I was attempting to appear unruffled. She hugged me. “What’s the matter?”
"What’s WiFi?”
“Daddy . . .”
I took a deep breath and hitched a thumb in my gun belt. “I’m afraid I may have just engaged in a bit of profiling.” I watched as Tuyen faced straight ahead and the shiny green utility vehicle made the turn on 192 and then under the overpass of I-25. I squeezed her arm back. “You were popular in there.” I plucked a pen from my deputy and scribbled Tuyen’s license plate number on the envelope of the dead Vietnamese woman’s personal property packet. I read his card—Trung Sisters Distributing, with an address in Culver City and three phone numbers. I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation as I handed Saizarbitoria back his pen. “What do you think?”
Henry took a breath. “Yes, Walter, you are deeply prejudiced, and I have long been meaning to discuss this with you.”
I nodded and dug into the property envelope as they all watched me. “Only against Injuns.”
He nodded. “It is to be expected.”
I plucked out the plastic bag I wanted and handed the larger one back to Sancho, who was smiling and shaking his head at our banter. “You didn’t ask him about the Indians and the matches, boss.”
“No, I didn’t... Call those two numbers in to Ruby and see what she comes up with, then check the Hole in the Wall to see if he’s registered and alert the HPs just in case he decides to go somewhere.”
“Got it.” He disappeared into his unit and left us standing on Powder Junction’s old west boardwalk.
The Cheyenne Nation and my daughter watched as I searched the ziplock. She tugged at the short hair near the scar. “What are you doing, Daddy?”
I didn’t answer her but held up the key fob, still in the plastic, and pushed the button. The lights flashed, and the doors unlocked on the maroon Buick junker at the end of the row.
5
The car had been stolen from a not so small community in Southern California called Westminster, which was, according to the dispatcher at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, better known as Little Saigon. Ruby said she’d spoken with a charming young man who’d confirmed the not so grand theft auto. He said that the vehicle had been stolen from a recycler’s lot and that the former owner, Lee Nguyen, had stated that he’d donated the Buick to charity but that the organization must have decided the car wasn’t worth the trouble.
We’d done as much physical investigation of the automobile as our limited abilities would allow, so we loaded the rusty sedan onto a flatbed and shipped it off to Cheyenne. The fingerprints we’d lifted from the vehicle were probably female, judging from their size, or possibly from a child, and the tread deposits were from the immediate vicinity. There was nothing in the trunk, and the only thing in the glove compartment was a receipt for a new water pump that had been replaced in Nephi, Utah, only three days earlier.
I sent Henry and Cady back to Durant in my truck since Cady was looking a little tired and hitched a ride with Saizarbitoria over to the sheriff’s substation. We drove with the windows down, since the Suburban didn’t have air-conditioning.
Santiago spoke over the heated wind and the monster motor that got about eight miles to the gallon. “The bartender didn’t seem genuinely surprised about the Buick.”
We’d gone back in and questioned the guy again; he said he’d noticed the car there, but that he didn’t think it was a big deal. He said that even in the short time he’d been here, he’d noticed a lot of people got ripped and left their cars and trucks on the street rather than be harassed by us. I had asked him if a lot of them came from California, to which he’d responded that he hadn’t noticed the license plates. “Did he seem more nervous the first time we questioned him?”
The Basquo thought about it. “Yes, he did.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
“The guy in the corner, Tuyen?”
“I think so, too.” We parked in front of the WYDOT annex where we had a small office. “I’ll call Ruby and see if she’s got anything on this Tuyen guy or heard anything from DCI. You check on the repair bill in Nephi.” I handed him the plastic bag which had the receipt in it.
He looked at me, a little worried. “I think they only have one phone down here.”
Powder Junction was going to take a little getting used to.
“Then I’ll call her on the radio.” I plucked the mic from the dash and stopped him as he started to close the door of the unit. “Hey? Call Maynard in about an hour and tell him that we need him to come and talk to us tomorrow morning here at the office.”
Santiago smiled. “What time?”
“Make it early.”
He continued to smile and adjusted his sunglasses like a movie star, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the gascon with a beret, feather, and sword. “Does this mean I’m being promoted to chief undersheriff of the Powder Junction Detachment of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department?”
“Acting CUSPJD of the ACSD. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? I’ll look into getting you a second phone line.” As Saizarbitoria went into the office, I keyed the mic and sang, “Oooooh Ruuuuuubeeee, don’t take your love to town. . . .”
Static. “Stop that. Over.”
“So, you have any news?”
Static. “I’ve got information on the guy from California.” “I’m all tin ears.”
Static. “Tran Van Tuyen became an American citizen in 1982, which is when he obtained an operator’s license. He doesn’t have so much as a parking ticket to his name.”
“Well, it was worth a try.”
Static. “You’re not going to start singing again, are you?”
I keyed the mic and ignored her. “Keep digging. He said he was here looking at some property, the Red Fork Ranch. Get a hold of Bee Bee and see if she’s ever heard of the guy, then call Ned Tanen at the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and see if he can come up with anything.”
Static. “Roger that.”
“Anything from DCI?”
Static. “They just faxed up the report.” There was a pause, and I listened to the silence of the radio. “They got an ID on the young woman.”
“Who was she?”
Static. “Her name was Ho Thi Paquet. Turns out she was a Vietnamese illegal who was picked up on prostitution charges in L.A. six weeks ago. She was scheduled for deportation, but I haven’t gotten any straight answers about what she might have been doing in Wyoming.”