“Who mixed that up for her?”
Joe shrugged. “I did.”
“Did she eat or drink anything else that evening?”
They all looked at each other, and Louis was the first to speak. “She probably had her dinner at six with the rest of the clients.” He looked puzzled. “Do you think something disagreed with her?”
I looked at all their faces. “Mari Baroja was poisoned.”
Jennifer crossed herself, Louis stared at me in shock, and Joe paused and then translated to Walks Over Ice. They all looked sad, but they didn’t look like killers; they looked like people that cared a lot and got paid very little for their concern. The Indian woman said something to Joe, who looked at me, shrugged, and translated. “She says she will pray for Mrs. Baroja.”
We all sat there in silence for a moment.
The shock was still in Louis’s voice when he spoke. “Walt, this is horrible.”
“Yep, that’s the official view as well.” I studied them a while longer. “You can see how important this is?” They all nodded again. “Joe, do you have the Metamucil container?”
They all joined me in looking at Joe as his eyes widened. “Yes. Do you…? I mean, do you think…?” They all looked worried, images of other patients flopping around on the floor crowded in on them.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. The amount of this particular poison wouldn’t have an effect on most people.” I leaned back in my chair. “I’m going to need the can of stuff that was used to mix up her dose for that night. I’m also assuming that her meds would be with her personal effects?” Louis nodded. “Were there any glasses or plates left in her room?” After a brief conference, it was ascertained that there had been but that they had all been run through the dishwasher and were now perfectly safe.
There didn’t seem to be any more questions to ask, so I invited them to go down to the jail to be fingerprinted and called Vic to ask her to accompany them back to the home after she finished to collect the rest of the evidence.
It was 4:15, and I had three-quarters of an hour before they read the Will, so I punched the intercom. Ruby answered, “Are you through terrifying the people from the old folks home?”
“Laugh it up, I’m sending you there next. Do we have anything to eat?”
“Potpies in the jail refrigerator.”
It didn’t sound like it would hit the spot. “Vic didn’t bring any bread back from the bakery?”
There was a pause. “No, that would constitute stealing, and we try and refrain from that type of activity within our sheriff ’s department.” There was a murmuring on the other end. “But somebody just came in, and he says he’s willing to buy you a late lunch-early dinner as long as it doesn’t come in a bag.
I put my hat back on and hurried out before the Cheyenne Nation changed his mind. As a precautionary measure, I left my office door open.
He was staring at his chicken-fried steak sandwich; the long dark hair hid his face and muffled his voice. “How many murders have we had in this county since you became sheriff?”
I counted up quickly, then recounted. “Five.”
“Three in the last month?”
“Yep.”
He picked up the sandwich and looked at it. “You should retire.. quickly.”
I chewed on my usual as Dorothy came over and poured us more iced tea. “It’s very tempting to go with the lawyers.”
“They have the most to gain.” He growled it, the way he always did when talking about violence. “Assuming Lana did not beat her own brains out with a tire iron…” The chief cook and bottle washer looked over at the brave, and they both nodded.
I looked at them and wondered if people in other parts of the country were as smart-ass as the ones that I had to put up with. “You two are a lot of help.” Dorothy shrugged and went back to work. I took a sip of my iced tea and looked at the Bear.
He chewed. “Tell me about the timing on naphthalene poisoning.”
“Five to twenty minutes, so it had to be introduced to the victim less than a half an hour before her death.”
“Then it had to be someone who saw her at the home that night.”
“Possibly, but it could have been left for her in some form of consumable; of course, they washed all the glasses and dishes that were in her room.” I turned and caught Dorothy’s eye. “I need your phone.” She brought it over and sat it in front of me. I looked at Henry. “Why are you in town during a blizzard?”
He looked out the window behind us. “In case you have not noticed, it has stopped.”
I turned, and it had. “I’ve been kind of busy.”
He sat the glass down and continued. “I needed filing supplies and discs for the photo collection I am working on.”
I went ahead and dialed the number of the jail. “How’s that going?”
The lines at the corner of his lips pulled south, pinning his mouth like a pup tent. “The problem with leading Indians is you are never quite sure if they are following or chasing you.”
The telephone began ringing. “Absaroka County Sheriff ’s Department, Officer Saizarbitoria speaking. How may I help you?”
I stared at the phone. “Wow.” I jumped in before he could deliver another schpiel. “Sancho, it’s me. Is Vic around?”
“No, she’s done fingerprinting and went with the staff over to the Home for Assisted Living.”
I had seen her fingerprint before; with her Philadelphia technique, I was pretty sure she was the fastest fingerprinter in the West. “How long do you think it will take you to go through the boxes?”
“I’ll be done tonight.”
That’s when his trial period would be over, and I suspected he would hightail it back to Rawlins after that. I waited for a moment and then spoke again. “Hey, Troop? I want you to know that what you’re doing is important, and I really appreciate it.” He didn’t say anything. “About Isaac’s car, what makes you think somebody fooled with it?”
“There was brake fluid all over the place, and two of the bleeder valves were left just loose enough to leak over a short period of time.” He paused for a moment. “It was a front wheel and a back one. The car has a two-reservoir master cylinder, so it could only fail if both systems lost pressure. It just seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“You sound pretty sure.”
“My father was a shade-tree mechanic his whole life. It’s something I’d know.”
I hung up the phone and looked at the Bear. He had put his sandwich down but continued to chew. “Was that Anna Walks Over Ice in your office?”
I nodded and started to take another bite of mine but sat it back down. “She works at the home.” I drank the last of my iced tea and glanced over at Dorothy. “She doesn’t speak English?”
“No. Some of the elders believed it diluted your power.” He drew a deep breath. “She did not speak when she saw me.”
I continued to look at the 220-pound man who looked like he could have stepped from a Curtis photograph or a Remington oil. “You’re kind of hard to miss.”
“Perhaps.”
“If you get a chance, would you talk to her?” It seemed like I was always asking the Bear to help me out in an unofficial capacity. I smiled. “You speak Crow well enough not to embarrass yourself?”
He nodded. “Chiwaxxo diataale, baalaax bishee.” He stood and reached for his long leather coat hanging on the hook behind him, then turned and looked at me as he pulled it over his shoulders. “Anything else?” I was disappointed that he was leaving; I was just remembering the pleasure of his company. I suppose he read my disappointment. “Where are they reading the Will?”
“Jarrard and Straub, on the corner of Main and Gatchell.”
He nodded. “Maybe I will stop by.”
“Bring a lawyer, everybody else is.”
His mouth stiffened before he flipped on his Wayfarers. “Perhaps I will.”
He thumped me on the back and made me spill a little iced tea on my pants. One of the big bronze hands reached out to touch fingertips with Dorothy as she passed him. They did it with the casual assurance of professional basketball players. “Ha-ho, Queen Bee.”