Free The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson Page B

weren’t exactly uninterested.”
    She was silent for a moment. “A few.”
    “Let’s say I was interested, just for argument’s sake; where would I find those women?”
    She studied me more closely. “I’m not naming names because I’m not sure, but if I was so inclined I’d check the immediate vicinity of the ranch. Barsad wasn’t one to go out of his way to look for female companionship; looking the way he did, he didn’t have to.”
    “Kind of like a journeyman outfielder—he’d catch it if it came near him, but he wasn’t going to stretch for it?”
    “Exactly.” She smiled. “There’s an auction over at Bill Nolan’s tomorrow morning at ten—I’d imagine everybody’ll be there. Might be an opportunity to meet all the players.”
    I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the armrests of the chair. “You still haven’t answered the big question. Did she kill him?”
    She sighed deeply and stood, looking down at me. “Are you from around here?”
    “Hereabouts.”
    “There’s a myth about this place.”
    I didn’t try to hide my confusion. “This town?”
    “No.” She crossed to the dresser, fetched the toolbox, and stood there holding it between herself and Dog again. “More like the West, or maybe it’s the world.”
    “Maybe it’s my head; I’m not following.”
    “The myth is that you’re supposed to be independent—you know, cowboy-up and all that stuff?”
    “Yep?”
    “I don’t think they mean for that to apply to everybody, especially women.” She nudged toward the door, but Dog didn’t move. She gave me a side glance. “You wanna call him off?”
    I made the same noise through my teeth, picked up the bottle of aspirin, and patted the swale of the bed; he was on it in an instant, wagging and smiling. “He was never on.” I extended the plastic bottle toward her. “You want your aspirin?”
    She held the door, and I watched her think about what she was going to say and what she wasn’t; then she spoke again, her voice carrying with the soft buzz of the yellow bug fluorescents outside. “Definitely local, or Billings; how else could you have the dog? Either way, you’re a dark horse, that’s for sure.” She closed the door, and I listened to her footsteps in a pair of leather sandals as they became a diminishing echo on the wooden walkway.
    In town seven hours, and I’d already been made by an associate degree.

October 20: seven days earlier, noon.
    I had rested the DCI file on my desk.
    “What the fuck are you looking for?”
    “She was diagnosed with chronic insomnia.”
    “So?” Vic came in and sat in the chair next to Saizarbitoria, who was eating his lunch on his lap. The Basquo was one of the newer additions to our little high-plains contingency and was still attempting to get over having one of his kidneys filleted only a couple of months ago.
    I was easing the young man back, but the going was slow after his injury. I’d assigned him court duty and a number of other less strenuous jobs, but it seemed as if a certain light was missing from the Basquo’s eyes, as if the dark at his pupils was overtaking the spark that had lived there.
    Sancho wiped some gourmet mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth with an index finger. His wife, Marie, packed his lunch every day and made what looked like incredible sandwiches. He took a sip of his Mountain Dew. “She was prescribed both Ambien and Lunesta.”
    I returned to the faxed sheets in the report as Ruby appeared in the doorway. “Joe Meyer is on line one.”
    We all looked at each other—it wasn’t every day you got a call from the state attorney general’s office, let alone from the ranking officer himself. I picked up the receiver and punched the button. “Hey, Joe—”
    “What the heck are you up to?”
    I liked Joe; he was old-school Wyoming and one of the few appointed individuals in the state who still exuded integrity. “I’m watching one of my musketeers eat his lunch on his lap and am