After she secured the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet on the cork with a slap, she turned and looked at me with the remaining posters hanging over her arm and the staple gun at the ready. “I’ve got permission to do this.”
I looked down the barrel of the device and raised my one available hand. “Okay.”
She studied me, probably noticing I wasn’t wearing one of those nifty red Kmart vests. “Do I know you?”
“Walt Longmire, the sheriff of Absaroka County—we met last night. I’m staying at the Wrangler.”
“The what?”
“The Wrangler Motel.”
She nodded as the pneumatic doors opened and closed behind me, ushering in repeated arctic blasts from the outside. “Yeah, yeah . . .”
I pointed toward the poster behind her. “That your sister?”
Her chin came up. “Yes.”
I lowered my finger, gesturing toward the remaining posters. “Can I have one of those?”
The chin remained steady, as did the gaze. “Why?”
The doors continued to open and close, so I stepped to one side to avoid the sensors. “I thought maybe I could help.”
She snorted, and it was an ugly expression on such a pretty face. “Well, if you’re as much help as the rest of the guys that are supposed to be looking for her . . .”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “I think I might’ve discovered why there’s been a little slowdown in the investigation.”
“And why’s that?”
I glanced around with as little drama as I could to make sure that no discount shoppers were in earshot. “The detective that was working on the case is dead.”
“What’d he die of, old age?”
I stood there for a long time, giving her what my daughter used to call the nickel-plated stare. “Evidently it was a suicide.”
She looked back at the poster. “Good, maybe the next guy in line will do a better job.”
I glanced around again, a little embarrassed. “Maybe.”
She stared at me. “You?”
I nodded. “Uh, kind of.”
She didn’t move at first but then clutched the posters a little closer and dropped her arm that held the staple gun. “I’m sorry; that was awful.”
“It’s okay.”
She sniffed and then rubbed the red of her nose with the back of a fingerless wool glove. “The old guy?”
“Gerald Holman.”
“Yeah, him.” She moved to the side with me. “That’s why there was a different cop when I went in there last week; Wyatt Earp, the guy with the mustache.”
“Yep.”
She stared down at her fur-lined, lace-up Sorels and then handed me one of the posters without looking up. “Really, I’m sorry.”
I took the piece of paper and studied the copied photo of a beautiful young blond woman looking off to the right, laughing at something someone off-camera had said. “Pretty.”
“Yeah.”
“No other siblings?”
“No.”
I glanced at the bulletin board. “How often do you change the posters?”
She looked back. “Every couple of days; I use a different photo each time. She was like that; no two photos ever looked the same.”
I waited a moment before asking. “Can I buy you lunch?”
—
The Flying J Travel Plaza #762 off exit 126 on I-90 isn’t all that different from the rest of the six Flying Js in Wyoming, other than its location next to the Kmart on the Douglas Highway, but it was convenient and had a nice view of the parking lot and my truck, where Dog sat in the driver’s seat looking in at us longingly.
“Where did you get the plains grizzly?”
I sipped my coffee. “The Forest Service, he’s Smokey’s evil twin—at least when he’s around ham.” The truck stop groaned with the wind that had started up, and snow sandblasted the glass, pressing on the casings as I looked down at the poster on the corner table between us. “They said her apartment was empty, and her car was gone.”
Lorea held her hot chocolate close to her mouth and blew in it. “Trailer.”
“Excuse me?”
“She didn’t have an apartment; she lived in a trailer behind Dirty Shirley’s, the place where she worked.”
“The strip club is called Dirty Shirley’s?”
She looked at me over her mug. “Yeah.”
“No one has heard anything from her at all, phone calls, letters?”
“No. We were close and used to text each other all the time and suddenly she just stopped.”
“Credit card receipts—”
“Nothing.”
I studied the poster some more. “Five weeks.”
She took a sip and looked out the window at the monochromatic landscape of concrete and blowing snow. “Yes.”
I was trying to figure a way of getting around to the subject and could come up with nothing better than just asking. “I hope you’re not going to take offense to this, but—”
“What was a nice girl like Jone doing in a dump like Dirty Shirley’s swinging from a pole with nothing on but body glitter?”
“Something like that.”
Her eyes turned back to mine. “Upward of three hundred and fifty dollars a night, I’d suspect.” She pushed herself into the booth with her back against the window. “She was an education major at State until the money ran out.” As she curled her black legging-clad knees up under her chin, her dark hair draped around her face. “She said she’d gotten a job here in Wyoming with one of the methane outfits, which she said was only until she saved up enough money for next year. But my parents started hearing from her less and less—”
“What do they know?”
“That she’s missing, and that’s all.” She glanced at me, the wool hunting cap casting shadows over her eyes. “They’re older; there’s nothing they can do, and I don’t think they need to know that Jone was—”
“Was dancing all she was doing?”
She was about to answer, and possibly in a vehement way, when the waitress reappeared with a pot in hand. “You need a refill?”
I nodded and slid my mug toward her, glancing at Lorea, who was still giving me a hard look, as I slipped my hand down and opened one of the folders that I had at my side and held up a photograph for the middle-aged waitress to see. “Know this woman?”
She immediately looked sad. “Roberta Payne, she worked here over the summer.”
I stuck out a hand. “Walt Longmire, I’m the sheriff over in Absaroka County.”
She filled my mug, sat the pot at the edge of the table, and extended her hand in return. “Jane Towson. The cops come in here periodically to ask questions and retake statements.” Her face brightened just a little. “You know Inspector Holman? He comes in here a lot.”
“He’s dead.”
We both looked at the young woman seated across from me, and then I turned back to the waitress. “He passed away a couple of weeks ago—”
Lorea’s voice stayed sharp. “He killed himself.”
Jane slowly turned back to me, unsure of what to make of her tone. “I . . . I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed like a nice man.”
Gesturing with the photograph, I brought the subject back to Roberta Payne. “Did you know her well?”
“Um, not really. I mean we worked here together and we were in a book club for a while, but I didn’t know her really well . . . She was only here for a couple months before she disappeared.” She picked up the coffeepot and glanced at Lorea before asking me, “Do you think it’s possible that she’s still alive somewhere?”
“Sure, it’s possible.”
The young woman on the other side of the booth shimmied out and stood there for a moment as she counted out some change, her voice rote. “Reports of missing persons have increased sixfold in the last twenty-five years, from roughly 150,000 in 1980 to 900,000 this year . . . More than 2,000 a day.” Lorea tossed the change on the table but glanced at me. “Nobody gives a shit, lady.” She walked away from the booth, her voice a shadow. “Nobody.”