The coffee that I had bought from the vending machine was worthy of the Lena Moretti treatment, but I sipped it anyway and looked around at the floor-to-ceiling windows and at the benches and indoor trees. “Don’t you guys have a room with a chair and a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling?”
“Budget cuts.” Gowder was doing most of the talking this morning. His suit, shirt, tie, and shoes once again matched his skin; I bet his socks did, too. “That nose looks like it hurts.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Katz wasn’t saying anything; interested cop, indifferent cop.
“Why don’t you tell us about the ball game?”
I sat down on one of the benches and tipped my hat back. “I just went down to talk to him about a phone message he left for my daughter and to get a clearer idea of the relationship between them.”
“And did you get a clearer idea of that relationship?”
“I think so.” I thought about it. “On his end, not a remarkably healthy one.”
He leaned forward and crossed his arms. “Well, we’ll have to take your word on that, since neither party is available for comment.”
I set my coffee on the table in front of me and let a long moment pass. “Maybe you’d better speed this up. I’m starting to lose interest.”
Gowder smiled and looked down at my hand that had just relinquished the paper cup. “Big hands.” I waited. “The late Devon Conliffe had marks on his neck indicating that he might have been strangled by somebody with big hands.”
“That the cause of death? I thought it might have had something to do with falling off the bridge.”
“Deceleration trauma.” It was the first time Katz had spoken.
I didn’t have anything to hide, so I went ahead and told them everything. “I put him up against the wall in the restroom, and my hand was around his throat because he was trying to kick me in the groin.” I looked at the two of them. “Look, if you guys liked me for this you would have arrested me last night. I realize that taking a nap is not the best alibi in the history of the western world but, if we can figure out when I bought the cheeseburgers from O’Neil’s and check that against your time of death, then you guys can get started on catching whoever really did this.”
“Where were you after the baseball game and before the nap?”
I turned back to Gowder. “The hospital.” I shook my head. “I can appreciate what you’re up against, but when would I have tracked him and how would I have gotten him up there?”
Gowder smiled some more. “Like I said, you’re a big guy.”
Katz set his own coffee down. “What Detective Gowder is alluding to is that the killer would have had to have thrown Mr. Conliffe over the railing and across the PATCO lines. That, without Devon’s participation, would have been quite a physical feat.”
I leaned back against the bench. “What about suicide?”
“What about it?”
I made a face. “I only spent five minutes with the kid, and I could tell he had problems, plus what happened the night before last.”
Katz leaned in this time. “And what did happen night before last?”
I told them what Devon had told me, including his promise to tell the police. “What’d he say to you?”
“He said that you had gotten rough with him and that he had to kick your ass.” I sighed and looked down at the surface of the table. Gowder chuckled. “We thought it sounded a little funny, too.”
“What did he say about the relationship?”
The one detective glanced at the other. “Same thing he told Patrolman…umm…”
Katz finished for him. “Moretti.”
The smile was back, and he looked at Katz longer than necessary. “Moretti. How could I forget?”
“I’m assuming you’ve listened to the phone messages?”
Katz pulled Cady’s cell phone from his breast pocket and handed it to me. “We have. We also checked his cell phone, his home phone, and as much correspondence as we could find at his residence, all of it confirming that the relationship was indeed of a serious nature.” He adjusted his glasses and looked at me between the red dots. “Mr. Longmire, I want you to know how sorry we are for what has happened to your daughter, but there are going to be a lot of questions concerning this young man’s death.”
Gowder raised his eyebrows. “His father is a judge with criminal appeals, and he has a lot of ties with the city’s current administration. Read: shitstorm.”
I thought about it. “What leads you to believe it wasn’t a suicide?”
“No note and, more important, even with the history of emotional problems, there’s no track record of attempts.” He looked at Katz, who shrugged.
“Look, Sheriff, you’re right, we don’t like you for this, but you had an altercation with the young man. He’s killed eight hours later a block and a half from where your daughter lives, and there you are without a strong alibi.” He laced his fingers together and looked at me from over the top of them. “We’ve done a little research and know everything there is to know about you. Marine investigator, one silver, one bronze star, Navy Cross…You’re a regular Audie Murphy.”
“Don’t forget my merit badge in macrame.”
He studied me for a moment and then continued. “More than a quarter century in law enforcement with backing from the state attorney general’s office, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, and the governor of Wyoming, all of whom seem to think you walk on rarified air.”
I watched the two of them. “So, what do you want from me?”
Gowder smiled again; I was trying to get sick of it, but it was a great smile. “We both have a half-dozen homicides in a case load…”
They needed an ally. The things you can always count on in law enforcement are that you’ll be underpaid, overworked, and looking for somebody to jump in the foxhole with you. “You guys hiring?”
Katz raised his head, and he was smiling, too. “We thought you might be able to assist us in that you have an advantageous position in connection with the case.”
I’d never get away with a statement like that in Wyoming. “You bet.”
We agreed to meet again in wind or rain, fair or foul, but mostly tomorrow at breakfast. They told me to keep Cady’s phone. I asked if I got a Junior G-Man ring, but they reminded me of the budget cuts.
When I got to Cady’s, Dog was happy to see me and was even happier when I found the extension cord that hung on the hook by the door. Clouds continued to threaten but nothing fell. I walked him up Race and took a left on Independence; there was a locked gate on the north side of the bridge. I looked at the open south-side walkway and decided to at least give it a try. There were two cruisers and a van from the crime lab unit still there.
I could see what Gowder had meant. There was a substantial railing and a light-rail track’s width across the high-speed train line, and only then the street below. Would have taken quite a throw; I figured Devon must have been moving about forty miles an hour when he hit the alley. The walkways looked to be twenty feet across, so there had been plenty of space to launch him, but who would he have trusted to join him that late at night?
There was a patrolman from the other side yelling at me to move on; he must not have gotten the memo. I waved and took Dog back down the walkway. At the bottom, we found a quirky subterranean passageway to the other side. We emerged just past the locked gate on the north and continued to street level, cut back on New Street, passed Saint George’s United Methodist Church, crossed Second, and stopped where the police barricade blocked the alley.
There was a chubby cop eating an honest-to-God donut. His collar insignia said unit 6, which I had learned was Cady’s district. He seemed like the friendly type, so I asked him what had happened.