“No.”
My old boss, Lucian Connally, had taught me a long time ago that if you already know the answer, you don’t ask the question twice-and once you’d asked it, you waited, forever if need be.
He cleared his throat. “I, um… I got some beer at Jimtown when they opened. I mean, it was a celebration.”
“Okay.”
“We drove out there, and I parked the Jeep. I was afraid it was going to rain, so I put the top up while she and Ado played there in the grass.”
“Not out by the rocks.”
“No.” He looked at me again. “Hell no.”
“Then what?”
There was a pause, a short one, but a pause nonetheless. “Well, we were fighting.”
“About?”
The pause was longer, and this time I looked at him. “Inez Two Two?”
He froze, and I stood in an attempt to display the fact that I was not behind bars and could walk out of the room at any time. “Clarence, up until now you haven’t been completely honest with me, and if you don’t start, I’m going to personally hand you over to the FBI.”
“No.”
I placed my hands in my pockets and leaned my back against the wall beside Chief Long. He stood and walked over to the bars, hanging his thin arms between them; for a sous chef, he must not have been sampling a great deal of his wares.
“We were arguing about the job and moving. She wanted to go over there at the same time as me, but I wanted to get things ready. I rented an apartment over a bookstore from a guy named Gary. I just wanted the place to be nice.” He quickly added. “You can check all this.”
“We will. What happened after the argument?”
“Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea-that it was some huge, shitstorm fight; it was just the same argument we’ve been having for over a year now.” He studied me. “You married?”
“Widower.”
He looked contrite, an appearance I was not particularly unacquainted with from people looking at me through bars. “I’m sorry, but you know what I mean about living with a woman?”
I smiled, just to let him know that the conversation might not be going as poorly as he thought. “Martha’s been dead about six years now, and there are disagreements we’re still having.”
He nodded at me, and his eyes filled with tears again. “We kept arguing, and I drank beer; I don’t know, I guess I fell asleep.”
“You don’t know, or you fell asleep?”
“I fell asleep.” He glanced back and forth between me and the chief. “I know it sounds lame, but that’s what happened. I swear to God.”
“Then what?”
“I woke up, and they were gone.”
“Did you look for them?”
“Yeah, I looked all over the place but they weren’t there. I figured she’d gotten all pissed off and had taken Ado and walked home.”
“Did you look over the cliff?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “No-I mean, it never occurred to me.”
“What’d you do then?”
“I got in the Jeep and started home-thinkin’ I’d pick them up on the way, but I never found them.”
“Do you have any idea what time it was when you left?”
“No. Why, is that important?”
“Maybe.” I paused for a moment, a conversational indication that we were changing gears from him to the wide world. “Clarence, do you have any idea who might have some kind of grudge against you or your family?”
The thought hadn’t dawned on him. “You think somebody did this to her?”
“It’s possible, and it’s up to us to investigate all the possibilities. Now, can you think of anyone?”
“Against me, yeah.” He stared at the speckled white tiles on the floor. “But Audrey and Ado, no.”
“No enemies she might’ve had-family members, people she worked with?”
“No. Her parents are dead, and the only family is a sister of hers in Billings.”
“What about where she worked? Any difficulties there?”
“No. I mean, not that I know of.”
“Where did she work?”
The chief’s voice rose from behind me. “Human Services, over in the tribal building.”
“No arguments with anybody lately?”
“Only me.”
I checked my Colt, worked the slide mechanism, reinserted the round into the clip, and slapped it back in the stag-handled grips that Cady had given me one Christmas. “Does this mean that I’m no longer a suspect?” I carefully placed it in the pancake holster at my back.
Chief Long shrugged. “You’re low on the list.”
We stood there in the hallway of the Native Health Services building while Chief Long’s mother accompanied Clarence Last Bull in to see his son. “So, do I charge him?”
“That’s up to you. Do you think he’s a flight risk?”
“No.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“No.”
I shrugged. “Neither do I, but there might be a problem with his story.”
“What’s that?”
“Henry and I were at the base of that cliff when Audrey fell, so if Clarence was up there, why didn’t he hear me yelling at him, and why didn’t we hear his Jeep start up and drive off?”
“He was drunk, and we didn’t get up there until hours later.”
“Well, maybe.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s important to keep inconsistencies in mind.”
She nodded and hooked her thumbs in her duty belt. “He started opening up after he found out you were a widower; that was slick.”
I rested against the wall and tipped my hat back. “It wasn’t slick, it was heartfelt.” Wondering if Lolo Long was a lost cause as a student, I turned my head and looked down the hall. “There is a common humanity in all of us, and if you need something from somebody, you’d better understand that-it makes the job easier. Clarence might be guilty and we need to be aware because we are in the suspicion business, but he’s also a man who just lost someone who was very close to him.”
I pushed off and circled behind the reception desk to a coffeepot and a tray of mismatched mugs. She watched me.
“I’m separated, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.”
She fought with herself for a moment and then pointed to the. 45 at my back. “Not to change the subject, but do you mind if I ask why you wear that antique, anyway?”
I poured myself a cup. “It’s what I got used to in the service.” I thought about it. “It’s a failing to have a favorite, but there it is. Being overly familiar with a weapon is as much a fault as not knowing it at all.” I rapidly listed the 1911’s shortcomings. “Heavy, hard to aim, slow rate of fire-there’s a cult of weapons which blinds you to their weaknesses, but it’s what I’m used to.” I sipped my coffee and gestured toward her large-frame Smith in return. “Unless things have changed a great deal, I’m thinking that’s not what they had you carrying in Iraq.”
“No, they gave me a 9mm and I hated it.”
“And you like that. 44?”
“Yes.”
I sipped some more of my coffee. “I’ll ask you again when you have back problems here in about ten years.” I tried not to sound like Lucian. “It makes you stand funny; you’re compensating for the weight of that thing.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m a woman.”
I shook my head, gesturing at my six-and-a-half-foot frame. “You don’t see me carrying one, do you?”
She patted the revolver. “I like the weight.”
“No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t have to use a two-handed stance every time you pull it. I can guarantee that there will be times in your law-enforcement career when you will have more things to do with that other hand than aim.” I sighed. “You’re not up against body-armor-equipped assailants.”
She countered with a little heat in her voice. “Drugs, adrenaline-those are all factors.”
“Maybe, but nowhere near as large a factor as just plain missing, which is what you’re going to do with Dirty Harry there.” I gestured toward the pot with my empty mug, but she shook her head in a full snit, so I only recaffeinated myself. “I’m going to give you a little piece of information that most people don’t know; 50 percent of police shot in the country on an annual basis shoot themselves. I’m not talking about suicide, but about officers who accidentally fire into their off-hand while drawing or into the strong-side leg while reholstering. Another 30 percent are shot by other cops, and 10 percent after that get shot by people who take their weapons away from them.” I lifted the mug to my lips. “And that’s the uniformed, trained portion-don’t get me started on the common populace.”