“That I what, Sheriff?”
I was going to have to come across with a more palatable version of shtupping the junkman. “Umm . . . Is this the first indication that your son might’ve had . . . umm . . . concerning the intimacy between the deceased and yourself?”
She stared at me. “I don’t see what that has to do with the matter at hand.”
If I’d still been holding my hat, I most certainly would’ve dropped it. “Well, I think it has everything to do with it.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the way I always did when I was afraid I was going to say something I might regret later. “Betty, can’t you see how this might raise something of an emotional response in your son?”
“Not to the point of beating someone to death.”
“Well, we’re still not sure that that’s what killed Geo.”
Her voice elevated, just a touch. “I’m surprised at you, Walter.”
I leaned back in my chair and wedged my good foot under my desk, this time trying to take the weight not only off the not quite healed broken bone in my foot but the still sore bite in my right butt cheek. Her arms remained folded, and I felt like I was, once again, in the ninth grade. “If your son is charged, it’ll be for murder.”
“Yes.”
I leaned forward, trying to convey the seriousness of the subject even though I doubted Ozzie would have to do more than pay some heavy court and lawyer fees, and do community service. It was also possible that he and Duane would be picking up trash on the sides of the county roads in matching orange jumpsuits. “Which means he’ll go to Rawlins.”
“Yes.”
“Prison.” I paused. “Probably for the rest of his life.”
She didn’t pause. “Yes.” Her head nodded slightly, and it appeared as if she was agreeing with herself. “I understand, Walter, but I just don’t see anything else for it.”
My mouth closed for a moment in hopes that some sanity might creep into the conversation, and I could just feel the beginnings of another of my headaches coming on. I was saved by the red light that began blinking on my phone and snatched up the receiver. “Yes?”
“Scott Montgomery on line one.”
I made a face, even though I was glad for the interruption. “Who?”
“The sheriff of Travis County, Texas?”
“Oh, right.” I placed the receiver against my chest and looked at Betty Dobbs. “Will you please consider what I’ve said, Mrs. Dobbs?”
She stood and shrugged on her coat. She tapped the bag on my desk. “These are Ozzie’s things.”
“I’ll see that he gets them.”
She nodded once with her chin, turned, and started to leave. “Walter?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She stood with her back to me. “Are you aware that your door does not have a doorknob?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She stood there for a moment more and then continued out.
Hoping for a sane person, I raised the receiver to my ear and punched line one. “Hello?”
“Sheriff Longmire, Sheriff Montgomery here. I bet you don’t remember me.”
He was right. “Have we met?”
“Why yes, at the Doolittle Raiders Reunion in San Antonio a few years ago. You escorted Lucian Connally down here, and we were both on that flight where the crew of the B-25, The Yellow Rose, let him take the stick?”
I vaguely remembered a heavyset man who was wearing a very large palm leaf hat, who said that he was also a sheriff. I also remembered thinking we were all going to die that day. “Do you have a mustache?”
“I do! Hey, if you and Mr. Connally ever make it back down this way, we’ll be sure to show you Yankees a good time.” He paused to take a breath. “They were looking to do one of the reunions down here at Austin-Bergstrom International, but we got beat out by Dallas. Hey, do you have any say in the committee that selects the locations for the reunions?”
“No, I’m afraid that I—”
“That’s too bad, ’cause we sure would like for somebody to put in the good word for us. Have you ever been to Austin?”
“Well, no.”
“It’s a great town, you’d love it. We’d put on a heck of a show for ’em down here; everything’s bigger in Texas.”
The man’s enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself nodding at the receiver. “Sheriff Montgomery, I was wondering if—”
“Scott, just call me Scott.”
I nodded some more. “Scott, I was wondering if you’d had a chance to take a look at that bench warrant that you have out on Felix Polk?”
Vic came in and sat in the chair that Betty Dobbs had vacated. She leaned forward and poked through Ozzie Junior’s clothes.
He rustled some paper. “I’m looking at this fax your dispatcher sent down. We had a flood in the basement about ten years ago, and this warrant is so old. . . . What is it you’d like to do about this, Sheriff?”
I cleared my throat, and Vic looked up at me. “Drop it.”
The response was immediate. “Consider it done.”
“Simple as that?”
He laughed. “Walt, I’ll be honest with you, this is a Band-E that’s over forty years old.” He breathed into the phone, and I wondered what the temperature was in Austin, Texas. He spoke again, and this time his tone was a little more serious. “This fella a good guy?”
“Seems like.”
“How’d he come up on your radar?”
“We found his thumb out at the dump—seems he pinched it off in a log splitter. We ran the partial fingerprint through and got nothing, but his connection to you guys came up with his name.”
“He get it put back on?”
“The thumb? No. But I think he wants to make a key chain out of it.”
There was a pause. “Sounds like he’s suffered enough.” His voice sprang back to conversational like a leaf spring. “Hey, you say you’ll pull for us down here in Austin to get one of those Doolittle Reunions?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Well, that’s all we can ask, isn’t it?”
I thanked him and hung up the phone. “World War Two fan.”
“What about Polk?”
“Dropped.”
“Cool.” She reached up and flipped some of the clothing in the bag. “You gonna escort Junior to the shower?”
“Unless you’d like the honor.” She pushed the bag at me again, but this time with a little more emphasis.
Ozzie’s head remained down, but I suppose he felt as if he had to make some sort of effort at a conversation. “This is a nice jail, Walt.”
I followed him down the steps. “We like it.”
“I used to come here when I was a teenager, when it was the old Carnegie Library. I don’t think I’ve ever been down in this part.”
“Probably not.”
We made the landing and turned the corner into something that looked like Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan with Possession and Intent to Deliver. Santiago had arranged a number of event tables in the hallway, the dayroom, locker room, and all six of the regular cells. The Basquo was standing in the dayroom with a clipboard and looked up as we stepped down. “Four hundred and eighty-three plants in all.”
“Holy frijoles.”
I ushered Ozzie over to the bathroom adjacent to the small locker area. It was a regular facility that had been converted by moving the wall and adding a metal, one-piece shower stall. There was a single utility bulb, which was the only source of illumination other than a window near the ceiling. “I don’t normally do this, but I’ll close the door and give you a little privacy. Just get undressed and toss your old clothes out here, and I’ll hand you the new stuff when you get through.”
He nodded. “Did my mother bring toiletries and a bathrobe?”
I looked in the bag. “Actually, she did.” I fished a very pricey, plushy, Navajo-patterned robe from the bag and handed it to him along with a leather valet case. “Here you go.” He disappeared into the bathroom without another word, and I closed the door behind him.