The Dark Horse (12 page)

The majority of the items to be auctioned were in a large, tin-sided indoor arena with the heavy equipment parked in a row along a fence line. I wandered up and took a look. I wasn’t alone; there was a pretty good crowd of ranchers who had arrived early. It was late in the season for an auction, and the majority of the chores that these newer-looking implements would be used for were already done for the year. Prices would be low, and if you needed a swather, baler, or tractor for next year, now was your chance.

I exchanged a few nods but thankfully didn’t recognize anybody. I kept an eye partially peeled for a red Dodge duellie—so far, nothing.

I was always generally ill at ease at these types of things, feeling as though auctions were like picking over bones. I couldn’t help but remember the one at my parents’ place after they had passed. I’d gone through their things and hadn’t kept much, but when it came time for the auction I’d had a strong impulse to bid on everything like some museum curator attempting to keep the collection whole.

I still owned the place but hadn’t been back there much since.

“See something you like?”

I turned and found Juana and Benjamin watching me as I mindlessly fingered a Massey Ferguson model 775 swather—at least, that was what was decaled on its peeling side. “No, this looks too much like work.”

“Didn’t you say you were born on a ranch?”

I looked at her. “Not to you.”

She smiled and watched me as Benjamin studied the equipment. “Did you sleep okay?”

“No, but the toilet worked magnificently and so did the shower.” I inclined my head toward the little outlaw. “How are you this morning, young man?”

She nudged him with her hip, but he ignored both of us and pushed his hands deeper into his jean pockets. “He’s mad, because I won’t buy him and Hershel a horse trailer.”

“Hershel’s here?”

She nodded toward the tin building. “Inside, inspecting the trailer.”

I nudged Benjamin’s ever-present hat. “You two outlaws run together?”

He nodded and began speaking quickly. “He says we’re going up to the Battlement someday; it’s a butte where the dinosaurs are buried and the teepee circles are and where the secret graves are for the buffalo soldiers and the Indians that—” He quieted suddenly, remembering that he was in midpout.

I watched him as he looked at his mother. “Hey, I was just getting interested.”

He ducked his head and stared at the ground. “We can’t get there without a trailer; it’s too far for the horses, and there’s no water.”

“I’ve heard of the place; its south and east of here, isn’t it? Out on Twentymile Butte?”

He was chewing on the stampede strings again but spit them out to answer. “Yeah.”

I nodded, and we all walked along the equipment and toward the indoor arena, Benjamin hanging back. After a few moments, Juana spoke again. “I understand there was some excitement down at the bar last night?”

“I don’t know; I slept through most of it.”

She continued to watch me. “And that would be why they arrested you?”

I didn’t say anything; she continued to stare at me. “They released me on my own recognizance.”

She raised an eyebrow, but let it go at that. “You look tired.” I nodded again as we walked toward the more recreational items that were to be auctioned later in the morning. “Are you coming to the fights tonight?”

I laughed, because I’d forgotten all about it. “I thought I saw someone on the list I know.”

“The Indian?” I turned and looked at her as more than a little mischief played in her baking-chocolate eyes. “He asked about you, or somebody who looked like you.” She pulled herself up to a towering five-foot-four and quoted with a flat Cheyenne accent, mimicking Henry’s down to the excluded contractions: “A large man with a large dog who probably looks like he would rather be somewhere else.”

“That’d be me. What else did he say?”

She smiled the perfectly formed grin; her lips were pink today. “He said that you used to be his sidekick but that you had gone bad.”

“Uh huh.”

“That you had stolen his dog.”

“Hmm.”

“And that he had tracked you from the Northwest Territories and was now going to have to kick your ass.”

I sipped my coffee and glanced at a ’60 short-bed half-ton that looked like a refrigerator on wheels and was remotely familiar. There was a man standing with the hood up, talking to a maybe thirty-year-old. I casually steered our path in that direction.

“Rebuilt, with only thirty-two thousand miles on her, floor shift and a heavy-duty suspension. I bought her off a rancher north of here.”

Juana leaned on the fender and looked up at the man who was speaking, as I stood a little away. “Hi, Bill.”

“Hey,
chica
.” He grinned right back at her. “How are you?”

The younger man, seeing an avenue for escape, wandered off.

Bill Nolan watched the man walk away. “Kids. If it ain’t got a satellite radio and cruise-control, they ain’t interested.”

She turned partially toward me. “Bill, do you know Eric Boss?”

He paused for the briefest of seconds and then stuck out his hand. “You’re the insurance guy that’s got everybody all worried.”

It didn’t fully appear that he remembered that we’d gone to a Powder River, one-room schoolhouse, classes separated by three years and a long time ago. “Why do you suppose that is?”

“Oh, any kind of authority makes ’em nervous around here.” He hadn’t changed enough that I wouldn’t have known him; still thin as a fence rail but with a few more years. A born car salesman, his father, Sidney, had owned the Powder River Red Crown Service Station along the river and to the north, and his mother had made peach ice cream that she sold for a nickel a cone.

I remembered that Bill had had an uncanny ability as a child: he could imitate coyotes. It was a talent he’d acquired when his father built two guest cabins near the service station on the banks of the river. The dudes were always disappointed whenever the animals weren’t making noise every night, so Sidney sent his son out to the riverbank to imitate them. He was good at it, and I wondered whether he could still do it.

The years had carved fissures and grooves in his face; he was about a head shorter than me and weighed about a third. His hair had gone a becoming silver, but the eyebrows were still jet-black and probably his most predominant feature. “You lookin’ for a truck, Mr. Boss?”

“No, I’m afraid not, but I would like to ask you a few questions, if I could?”

“Well, now I’m worried.”

I glanced at Juana and Benjamin, but she was determined to stay; she folded her arms and leaned against the old truck. “I was just wondering if you could tell me a few things about your relationship with the Barsads?”

He looked around from beneath the bushes of eyebrow, and the meaning was clear. “This sounds like it’s going to be a lengthy conversation, and I’m kinda busy today with the auction. . . .”

“We could talk some other time?”

Juana moved Benjamin away as Nolan closed the hood on the truck. “That’d be handy. I’ve got some more stuff to get packed up over at the house, so I’ll be there later in the afternoon. I’ve got a couple of cans of iced tea in a cooler—refrigerator should be gone by then.”

“That’d be fine.”

He was already looking past me to where the auctioneer was setting up inside. “Around two then?”

“You bet.”

He nodded a perfunctory nod and walked past us; Juana hadn’t moved so far as to be out of earshot. “Still rounding up all the usual suspects?”

I gave her a long look with a smile at the end. “Why don’t you give that almost-associate degree of yours a rest.”

It had been the third number with a Youngstown area code that I’d tried. The first was a home phone where I’d left a message, and the second was an office answering service where I’d left another.

“I’d like to speak to Wendell Barnecke?”

“Speaking.” There was a mumbled pause, and I got the feeling I’d interrupted the dentist’s lunch.

“Mr. Barnecke, I’m sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming—”

“Is this about my brother?”

Vic and Ruby were in my office and were listening and watching me from across the desk; the dentist was on conference, which might’ve explained the bad connection, but the connection didn’t muffle the fact that Wade’s brother sounded officious.

“Well, yes it is.”

“Then I really don’t have anything more to say. I told the detectives that he . . .” There was a pause, and I listened to the noise that accompanied the man’s voice along with what sounded like gusts of wind. “Who did you say you were with?”

I reached down to ruffle Dog’s ears; touching the beast was a comfort. “Sheriff’s Department, Absaroka County, Wyoming.”

“Sheriff, look . . . you’re the sheriff of what county?”

“Absaroka. I’m assisting—”

“That’s not the county Wade lived in.”

“No, but—”

“Look, I don’t know anything about my brother’s business dealings, his life, anything, okey? So I wish you people would stop contacting me. I’ve told you everything I know. I haven’t even spoken to him since he was here in Youngstown, six years ago.”

“Then how is it you know what county he lived in, Mr. Barnecke?”

There was a longer pause, and I looked across the desk at the two pairs of female eyes watching me. “Sheriff, I’ve been doing nothing but answering questions about my brother with the FBI and the Ohio state police investigators—not to mention your own DCI people and detectives from the
Campbell
County Sheriff’s Department.”

I looked down at the report on my desk. “Wendell—do you mind if I call you Wendell?”

“Yes, I do.” An even longer pause, and I could hear the ten-note song of a meadowlark. It sounded nice, wherever Wendell Barnecke was having his lunch. I pictured him sitting on a bench beside some pond in a park where the deciduous trees had just begun to change to red and yellow; then I started hoping that a maple would fall on him. “No, you may not use my familiar name. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you—”

I cut him off before he could get much further with his tirade. “Did you know his wife?”

“Which one?”

“Mary, the one we have in custody?”

His voice changed tone. “No, I’m afraid I’ve never met her.”

“Well, the situation being what it is—”

“Sheriff, can I tell you something, a little hard-won knowledge?”

“Sure.”

He spoke slowly. “Just for the record, I don’t know who killed my brother, but whoever did probably had a pretty good reason for doing it.” I could hear the rustling of what must have been the wrappings from his lunch. “I grew up with him and, at the risk of incriminating myself, I’m glad he’s dead.”

“I see.”

“I never met his most recent wife, but I’m sure she’s a fine woman.” His tone changed again but stayed prim. “I’m sorry for her situation, and I’m even sorrier that she ever met my brother, but people get what they choose in life.” He sighed, and there was more paper rustling. It sounded like he was packing up his food; evidently, I had ruined his lunch. “Now, if there isn’t anything else?”

“Are you aware that there was a large insurance claim that could result in a substantial amount—”

He laughed, and it was not kind. “Are you joking, Sheriff? Whatever amount of money Wade might’ve made from all his wheelings and dealings out there, he most assuredly owed more than that to somebody, somewhere. I’m still paying off some of his debts here. He owed everybody, and I’m sure that when all the parties concerned are through picking the financial carcass clean, there will be nothing left but debt for anyone who had anything to do with my brother. That was the way he did business.”

“Mr. Barnecke, you mentioned your brother’s other wives?”

“Sheriff, do you mind if I ask what all these questions are about? My understanding was that there was pretty conclusive evidence that his most recent wife killed him and that she had confessed to the crime.”

I thought about Mary Barsad, who was only two rooms away. “Well, the evidence is inconclusive, but Mrs. Barsad did confess—”

He interrupted. “Then what is this all about?”

Saizarbitoria, holding a cardboard tray of food from the Busy Bee, appeared in the doorway. “There are some questions that—”

There was a loud sigh. “If there are questions, then why hasn’t the FBI asked them, or the state police investigators, or the
Campbell
County sheriff, for that matter?”

I glanced up at Vic, who shook her head. “Well—”

“Why am I talking to you?”

I stared at the red button. “I thought you might be interested, concurrent with the investigation—”

“Sheriff, I’ve got a news flash for you—I don’t give a shit. Okey? Wade’s dead and from all the information I’ve been getting, it sounds like his wife did it. Now, unless you’ve got some more information that I don’t know about?”

Vic, Ruby, Saizarbitoria, and Dog all looked at me. “No, I don’t.”

“Then I’d like for you to copy down this phone number.” I picked up a pen and dutifully jotted the number. “That’s my attorney, Sheldon Siegel, any more contact you wish to have with me can be done through him. Now, if there isn’t anything else, I’ve got to attend to an impacted molar and a root canal.”

After bidding a not-so-fond farewell, I was glad I wasn’t having any dental work done in Youngstown, Ohio, this afternoon. I looked up at my attentive staff and, as I’d expected, Vic was the first to speak.

“What a fucksicle.”

Ruby adjusted her reading glasses. “Doesn’t appear to be a great deal of love lost there, does it?”

Sancho looked at all of us. “I take it the brother was less than cooperative?”

I stood but left my hat on my desk. “You could say that.” I crossed to the doorway and took the prisoner’s lunch from him.