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.”
4
“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 . . .”