Junkyard Dogs (29 page)

The conversation with Duane hadn’t been as bad as I’d assumed it would be, considering the nature of the subject matter. When she told him she was pregnant and that the father was not him, he seemed surprised but not particularly upset.

In the amount of time I’d been contemplating the Stewart social order, another quarter of an inch of snow had accumulated on the two of us. Without another word, we picked our way among the fresh prints to the house and met Gina coming out with a laundry basket full of clothes.

“Howdy.”

She started with a short scream and almost dropped the basket. “Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry.” Vic and I stepped onto the porch in an attempt to not accumulate even more snow. “What are you doing, Gina?”

She dropped the light blue plastic laundry basket after the question and took the smoldering cigarette from the corner of her mouth. “Leavin’.”

“We told you to stick around.”

“Yeah, well . . .” She glanced back into the open doorway of the house. “Grampus is dead, Duane’s in jail, and I’m getting the fuck out of here. I don’t give a shit what you told me to do.”

Butch and Sundance appeared in the doorway, protective of Gina and obviously concerned that we were abusing their mistress. Butch, the one that had bitten me in the ass, was the nearest and was growling.

“In case you haven’t noticed, the weather is pretty brutal, and the HPs have closed all the highways.”

She took a strong puff on the cigarette, pregnancy be damned. “Fuckit. I’m still leavin’, and you can’t stop me.”

I let that pass. “Something happen?”

“Morris came over, and I told him about the baby, and he went all ape shit.”

“Geo’s brother Morris?”

“Yeah, he’s upstairs going through some of Grampus’ stuff.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him speak three words . . .” I could feel my headache coming back and wondered if they really had anything to do with my eye. “Would you like me to speak to him?”

“No. Fuckit, I’m leavin’.”

“You’re not going to get very far.”

“I don’t care.” She started to bend over and pick up the basket. “I’m leavin’.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not.” The dogs caught my tone, even if she hadn’t, and were now both growling.

Vic unsnapped the safety strap on her Glock. “Call ’em off, or I’ll throw a warning shot through both their fucking heads.”

When you go to a dogfight, it’s always good to bring the meanest bitch.

Gina casually glanced back and then screamed at them. “Shut up!”

The dogs went immediately silent. “Gina, if you leave here now you’re not going to go anywhere except a ditch and then we’re going to have to pull you out. Just stay put and let me talk to Morris, and then, if we have to, we’ll give you an escort to a motel. Okay?”

She looked even more sullen than usual, turned with her load, and went back into the House of Usher, followed by the two Hounds of the Baskervilles.

There were more things piled by the doorway than I would’ve guessed would fit in the Classic, but who was I to judge. “Where is Morris?”

“Upstairs in Grampus’ room. He said he was gonna get Grampus’ gun and shoot me.”

Vic and I looked at each other. “Really?”

She studied me as if I were a variety of moron she’d never met before. “Yeah, really.”

“You stay here with Vic, and I’ll go upstairs.”

“Fine by me. I’m gonna get a pop in the kitchen.”

“You guys wait for me in there.” Vic nodded, and I took a step up the stairway. “Morris! It’s Walt Longmire, are you up there?”

Nothing.

It was odd, and I found it hard to believe that Morris Stewart would’ve responded in the manner she’d described. “Morris! Sheriff ’s Department coming up the stairs!”

Nothing.

It was my first time in the inner sanctum of the house, and from the look of things on the landing, the upstairs wasn’t any better than the downstairs. Junk cluttered the steps and continued down the hallway. There was a path down the middle, but car parts, stacks of papers, magazines, and cans of paint were stacked on either side. The place was an arsonist’s dream. I thought about how they cleaned the chimney with a mop full of kerosene and shuddered.

“Morris, are you up here?”

There were six doorways in the hall; five of them had the doors closed with the sixth, the one at the end, slightly ajar. I picked my way through the debris and placed a hand on my sidearm. “Morris!”

I opened the nearest door—it was obviously Duane and Gina’s. There were car posters on the walls and a huge canopy bed that looked like it might’ve been bought at a discount furniture place, the kind you see in tents alongside the road. The only light in the room was a digital clock that was an hour off. I stared at it for a few moments, thinking that there was something about it that was important.

Something about that clock and the time.

I decided I’d start at the other end of the hallway with the door that was slightly open and work my way back. The floor creaked under my boots, and I started feeling like Gina, trapped in the Addams Family mansion.

“Morris?” I nudged the door open—the gauzelike curtain on the other side of the room was flowing like the oversized sleeve of a ghost, to complete the analogy, and snow was piling up on the floor underneath the window. I moved to close it and go on to the next room when I saw something lying in a single bed to the left.

It was a tiny fold-out cot, really, but piled with sheets, blankets, and even a moldy buffalo hide. On closer inspection, the thing had horsehair tails hanging from the edges and intricate beading indicative of the late eighteenth century—probably worth a fortune but for the holes and the hair that was falling off of it.

Something moved under the pile of coverings, and I took the couple of steps to the bedside. “Morris?”

Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving anymore, so I reached forward and peeled the blankets back. It was Morris, and there was a great deal of blood saturated in the dirty sheets. The blood had come from a bullet wound in his chest, almost identical to the wound that Ozzie Dobbs had sustained.

Then his eyes flew open.

“Jesus!”

His mouth began moving, but no words came out.

“Morris, stay still. I’ll get you some help.” I pulled my radio from my belt and hit the button. “Vic? Are you there?”

Nothing.

“Vic?” I released the button and yelled down the hallway in a voice I was sure could be heard in the kitchen. “Vic!”

I placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I’m going to go get help. I’ll be right back. Hold on, Morris.” I punched the button and yelled into the radio. “Base, this is unit one—come in!”

As I rushed down the hall and toward the stairs, Ruby’s voice came through the speaker. “Unit one, this is base. Over?”

As I passed Duane and Gina’s room, it dawned on me why it was important that the clock was an hour off—that Duane had said Gina had left for work by the time he’d gotten up from his nap, but in reality she’d reset the clock and gone out to kill Geo. I jammed the radio to my mouth. “Ruby, get me backup over at the Stewart place!”

Static. “Who?”

“Anybody. Everybody. Get me EMTs too. Morris Stewart has been shot and is bleeding to death. Hurry.”

I reached the landing and turned to find the front door once again hanging open, but I cut left toward the kitchen. I stalled at the swinging door I’d first seen Betty Dobbs walk through and could see Vic lying on the floor, blood on her head.

I ran to her. I could feel the pressure of my own body exploding from the inside. I gently pushed my arm under her shoulder and pulled her toward me and up from the floor. I froze as her head lolled to one side, and I could feel the air leap from my mouth. “No way, not like this. Not here.”

She gasped a short breath, and it was then that I could see she was still breathing.

Her next words were quintessential. “Fuck me.”

I held her head and spotted a frying pan big enough and old enough to have fed the whole Seventh Cavalry. It was lying on the floor by the refrigerator along with a large amount of spilled fried potatoes. There was a spot on it that was bloodied and held a tuft of brunette hair. I held her face up to mine.

She stirred again, and a hand came up, glancing off my arm and then dropping again. “What the fuck . . . ?” Her other hand came up and latched on to my sleeve.

“Are you all right?”

“My head . . . That bitch.” Her eyes opened, and I could see where a blood vessel had burst in her left one. “What the hell did she hit me with?”

“Looks like a frying pan. I guess you should be happy she didn’t have her gun.” I propped her up a bit. “Are you okay?”

“No, my head . . . Yeah, I’m good.” She started to sit up, but her equilibrium was off and she wavered in my arms. “Shit.”

I pulled her toward the kitchen cabinets and leaned her against them. “I’ve got backup coming with medical. Morris Stewart’s upstairs where she shot him in the chest—just like Ozzie Dobbs. Do you believe he’s still alive?”

She stretched her jaw, and I could hear the popping noise. “When we’re all dead, the only thing that’ll still be alive will be cockroaches and a Stewart.”

She was all right.

“Any idea where Gina and the dogs went?”

She tried to shake her head. “No idea. Did you check the car?”

“No, but we’ve got her blocked in, and I’ve got the keys.” She sighed, and I could tell it hurt. “I’ll check . . .” Her hand slipped, and she jarred back onto her butt.

“Stay. When the troops show up, tell ’em Morris is upstairs in the last bedroom to the left.” I stood.

She looked at me. “Where are you going?”

I pulled the .45 from my holster. “Hunting.”

 

 

I could see from her prints in the fresh snow where she’d tried the car, but then that she had turned and gone back in, the dog tracks following hers. There was melted snow from her shoes and the dogs’ paws that led down the stairs to the basement.

I turned the knob, but it was locked again. I reared back and planted a size thirteen into the wood by the knob plate and caught myself in the doorway as the wood exploded onto the stairs. I listened, but there was no noise from below, just the cold air from what I now knew was the cellar tunnel.

I flipped on the light switch and continued down the steps. She could’ve gotten her gun but wouldn’t have taken the risk of finishing off Vic since she knew I’d be coming down the steps pretty quickly. She was used to taking her victims unaware and at close range; she might get lucky with the .32 if I came at her, or she might not.

Then there were the dogs.

As I turned the corner at the landing, my radio crackled. “Walt, it’s Ruby.”

I pulled the radio up as I aimed the Colt at large into the darkened basement. “ . . . Kinda busy here.”

Static. “Walt, Santiago is here and says he’s got more information on Felix Polk.”

“Put him on.”

Static. “Boss, the name Polk didn’t come up as an inmate in Huntsville so I did a search for a Felix P and found a Felix Poulson who did time for killing a garage owner in San Antonio.” It was silent for a moment. “Gotta be the same guy, Boss. His next hit was the stretch in San Quentin for kidnapping a woman in Utah and killing her—same name, Felix Poulson.”

Where had I heard that name before? I keyed the mic again. “Is there any mention of next-of-kin contact?”

Static. “Kayla.”

I flipped the lights on and looked around with the radio over my mouth. “Have we got people coming?”

Static. “Yes. Everybody’s on their way.”

“Morris is in the bedroom upstairs, and Vic is on the floor in the kitchen.”

Static. “What happened to Vic?”

“Fortunately, she was assaulted with a frying pan.”

Static. “Fortunately?”

I keyed the mic again. “It was a hell of a sight better than the .32 Gina used on her great-uncle-in-law.”

I clipped the radio to my belt and continued to check the basement. There was no one there—man, woman, or beast. I watched the air blow the blue plastic that covered the opening in the old house’s foundation back toward me along with the cold from the other end.

The four-by-four attached to the bottom of the tarp was kicked sideways, and I was pretty sure it was where she and the dogs had gone. It was the only way out to the tow trucks that were the only other working vehicles.

I moved to the opening and shifted the wood on the floor to the opposite side. It was dark in the tunnel, and I reached up to the right where I could feel the junction box and switch.

I flipped it and absolutely nothing happened.

“Damn.”

I pulled my Maglite from my belt and directed it into the tunnel; the batteries were starting to fade, I’d been using it so much lately.

Poulson. Where had I heard that name?

The weak beam of the flashlight only penetrated the gloom of the tunnel for so far, and the only things I could see were a few cardboard boxes, a stack of mulch, and another of fertilizer. Saizarbitoria had done a pretty good job of cleaning out the place; it was such a shame that it had turned out to be his swan song.

I started into the jagged opening and had gone about a dozen steps when I felt the air pressure in the confined space change. The cold was like a wall, and I could feel it increase as I stood there. I listened carefully but could only hear a scrambling noise.

It was about then that I heard the breathing of something at the end of the tunnel, something running. I raised the flashlight again and could plainly see a single set of golden eyes moving fast and headed my way.

At least it was only one set of eyes.

Something in me hesitated as I brought the large-frame Colt up; I remembered how Butch had licked my hand. Maybe it was the ranch boy in me, maybe it was just being stupid, but I wasn’t willing to kill the less ferocious of the dogs.