Free The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson Page A

swallowed.
    She made a face. “How can you do that?”
    I half-smiled, which probably looked more like a smirk. “Practice. At a certain point in life, aspirin becomes a major food group.”
    She carried the bottle over and sat on the corner of the bed; she was careful to avoid Dog. “You’re making everybody around here nervous.”
    “Why’s that?”
    A rounded shoulder shrugged. “You just are.” She flipped her hair. “Maybe it’s because they think you’re an insurance man.”
    “Hmm . . .” I swallowed again, feeling the aspirins finally hit bottom. “Do I make you nervous?”
    “No, but I don’t think you’re an insurance man.”
    “What do you think I am?”
    “A cop.”
    I nodded. “And what does Benjamin think?”
    “He thinks you’re a cop, too.”
    I yawned and covered my face with my hand. “How do the two of you figure?”
    She put the bottle of aspirin on the bed and reached out to take my hat from my knee. “When you’re a fugitive, you get a feeling for these things.” She examined the inside of the black fur felt: “7 ¾-LONG OVAL. TEN X, H-BAR HATS, BILLINGS.” The mahogany eyes, young but deep-stained with experience, looked back up at me. “If you’re federal, and I’m hoping you’re not, you flew into Montana and bought a hat so that you could blend in—or you’re from the FBI field office in Billings or Cheyenne.”
    I stared at her, the pain in my head resurging. “What, you taking a mail-order course in how to become a private investigator?”
    “Almost two years of law enforcement classes at Sheridan College.” Both shoulders shrugged this time. “Ran out of money.” I sat there without saying anything. “You could be state, maybe an investigator from DCI, but they were already here.”
    I nodded. “You and Benjamin have very active imaginations.”
    “Or you could be local, but I doubt it—the sheriffs around here couldn’t find their butts with GPS.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, strictly Barney Fife.”
    I smiled, this time with my whole mouth. “So, bringing the vast experience of two years of law enforcement education to bear—”
    She placed my hat back on my knee and focused on my eyes. “Oops . . . maybe you are local.”
    I laughed. “So, did you know her—or him?”
    “Both. I cleaned house for them for the better part of a year.”
    “What were they like?”
    “Night and day.” She leaned forward and rested her folded arms on her knees. “She was great. The house was always spotless when I got there, so I’d help her with whatever she needed help with, painting, planting—she had a greenhouse.”
    “I’ve seen it.”
    “She had orchids; I’ve never seen anybody around here with those.”
    “What about him?”
    She made a face. “Loudmouth. If you were around him, you got to hear about just how wonderful he was. No matter what you’d done, he’d done it better. No matter where you’d been, he’d been there. That kind of stuff.”
    “I understand he had his fingers in a lot of pies?”
    “He owned this place at one point—the motel and the bar. It got to where if you came in for a drink you’d have to listen to him, so people stopped coming. After he died, Pat opened it up again.”
    “Who owned it before Barsad?”
    “Pat.”
    “Were they partners?”
    She thought about it. “I’m not sure. Wade’s business dealings were always a little complex.”
    “In what way?”
    She shrugged. “Wade was involved in everything but had this habit of making lists and stuff on little pieces of paper he called kites.”
    “Is that what you called him, Wade?”
    She studied me. “Sounds like you already know a little about what he was like.”
    “A little.”
    “He came on to me one time at their house; I passed, but he got more persistent and I got out a digging trowel to convince him of my lack of interest.”
    “Did it work?”
    “For a while, but then you had to remind him; he was like that.”
    “I heard a few gals