“Well, Lonnie says to bring a gun.”
Henry met us at the counter, and we moved as a group to the parking lot, where he dangled the keys above Cady’s hand. He dropped, she caught, and we started moving to our neutral vehicles.
“Daddy?”
“Yep.”
She steered me aside, placing her arm through mine and walking me away from both Henry and Lena. “What if I had something that would solve this woman’s murder and I didn’t use it. That’d be pretty bad, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
Unwilling to look me in the eye, she lowered her head, and I stood there staring at the strands of gold, auburn, and strawberry blonde, a combination that became more evident in the summertime. Her voice echoed against my chest. “What if I knew a way to make sure whoever killed Audrey Last Bull would be brought to justice?”
“I’d say that there’s no such thing as a sure thing.”
The eyes came up slow but sharp. “I would.”
She rose up on tiptoes and kissed the grizzle on my chin, then pirouetted away with the keys dangling between her fingers. “Lena and I will spend the night up in Colstrip, but we’ll meet you for lunch, here, tomorrow at noon.”
I watched her sashay over to the Thunderbird, and the two of them climbed in, fired Lola up, and roared away like a high plains Thelma and Louise.
As I stood there watching them turn left and head north, the Cheyenne Nation rejoined me. “So, what just happened?”
I breathed a soft laugh. “Unless I’m mistaken, we just got put back on the case.”
Henry drove us over to the Law Enforcement Center, but the place was vacant and the door was locked. Lolo Long’s cell number was listed on the door as one of the emergency contact numbers, but I figured we’d just go do a little snooping on our own.
“What makes you think he is with Inez Two Two?”
“Inez’s mother told me that Clarence was having an affair with her daughter a while back, and if Clarence is involved, then she might be a good place to start looking for him. If she doesn’t know where he is, then she might have other ideas where we could look.”
The Bear drove down Main Street and took a right toward the high school gym, which remained open on Saturdays and Sundays in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club. We parked the ugliest truck on the high plains next to the outside basketball courts with their chain nets and cratered asphalt and walked in down the hall to the unlocked doors of the gym. I could see why the Bear had had no doubts as to Inez’s whereabouts-the place was packed with young people. “So this is the place to see and be seen?”
The Cheyenne Nation snatched a worn ball from the rack just as a fat man with a whistle was about to yell at him.
“ Ha-ho, Monty. Wassup?”
“Hey, you lookin’ for a date, bad man?”
They shook hands and clutched each other’s arms. Fortunately, Henry played youth basketball with Monty Farris, the coach, so there had been no trouble when the Bear asked if we could use one of the smaller, more private, half-court gyms to discuss things with the young woman.
“You realize, of course, that without jurisdiction she can just tell us to go jump in a lake.”
Henry dribbled the ball and flipped it spinning in his hands, shrugged, and then began dribbling to the outside reaches of three-point land.
After about five minutes, a heavyset young woman opened the door and looked at us; she wore an oversized letterman’s jacket despite the season, and a black straw cowboy hat decorated with a gold concho, the stampede strings slung to the back.
“Howdy.”
She had the look of a whitetail that had just discovered two mountain lions at the watering hole.
I slipped off my own hat and stuck out my hand. “I’m Sheriff Longmire, and this is my friend, Henry Standing Bear.”
She took my hand with a great deal of trepidation and allowed the door to slip shut behind her, the sudden sound in the empty gymnasium causing her to jump. I gestured toward one of the fold-out wooden bleachers. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
She did, and I took the one beside her.
I waited a moment, but she just watched the Bear as he dribbled and strolled the arc. “I don’t know where he is.”
I waited a good long time and placed my hat on the bleachers brim up; I needed all the luck I could get. “And who’s that?”
That got a glance. “Clarence.”
Henry twirled the ball in his hands. “We understand you know him pretty well.”
She glanced at him, and her voice became flirty. “I know you.”
“Yes, but not in the same sense.” The Bear’s face remained immobile as he turned and effortlessly sank a thirty-footer. She looked at him and smiled as he retrieved the ball and dribbled back toward center court.
I shook my head at his prowess. “Can I ask you some questions, Inez?”
She took off her hat, which she placed brim down; evidently she didn’t need any luck.
“When is the last time you saw Mr. Last Bull?”
She sniffed and took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her coat. “Can I smoke?”
I looked around the school property for emphasis. “I don’t think so.”
She stuffed the pack back in her jacket. “About a week ago.”
I paused again. “Before the accident.”
“Yeah.”
“And where did you see him?”
The shrug was one I remembered my daughter perfecting at that age. “Where we always meet, at the Buffalo.”
“The White Buffalo convenience store?”
She watched Henry some more and then spoke. “Yeah.”
“Did you arrange a meeting there, or did you just run into each other?”
“Just ran… what you said.”
I nodded and thought about what kind of chance Inez Two Two had in this world and was not overcome with confidence. The Reservation schools were consistently ranked as the worst in the state. The pay scale for teachers wasn’t bad, but the turnover rate was horrific and truancy was rampant; the student dropout point was around sixth grade and wasn’t improving.
“I didn’t know he had a kid.” She continued to watch the Bear. “He told me he couldn’t have kids.” She called out. “I bet you can’t do that again.”
The Cheyenne Nation shrugged, turned from the top of the key, and drained another twenty-five-footer.
Even I was impressed. I looked back at her. “Inez, I doubt that anybody would blame you for the responsibility of that relationship. Clarence is a grown man, and I think it would’ve been his responsibility to know how old you were.”
“I liked his Jeep.”
Henry bounced the ball off the wall and slowly dribbled toward us.
“His car was cool.” There was a trace of a sneer in the next part. “So we took a ride. That’s how it all started.”
I thought about it. “Did he ever take you to the cliffs at Painted Warrior?”
“Yeah, it was one of his favorite places.” She made a face. “Or used to be.”
Henry arrived and stood there flexing his fingers into the ball.
“What were some of his other favorite places?”
She thought about it. “He used to work for one of those Amish guys who’d fallen out with the others and lived down near Birney. The guy did handmade boots and had a cabin on the Tongue River near his place.” The shrug again. “Clarence promised me a pair of boots, but I never got them.”
“Do you happen to remember the boot maker’s name?”
She laughed, and I could sense she was in the act of shutting down. “Stoltzfus, try and forget that one; but they had a falling out and I don’t think Clarence was welcome there anymore.”
“Anywhere else, places where you think he might go if people were looking for him?” I was losing hope. “Anywhere at all.”
She actually smiled. “No.”
The Bear interrupted. “Hey, Inez?” She took her time, turning to look up at him. “You know who the smartest man I know is?” The fingers laced around the ball and he palmed it, one-handed, in my direction. “Him.” The Cheyenne Nation took a few steps back onto the court. “Now he may come on with the ‘just-an-ol’-cowboy routine,’ but when he does that it means the wagons are circling and pretty soon there is not going to be anywhere to go.” He bounced the ball to her, and she caught it. “You and me, we are going to play a game of TALK; you win-you walk, I win-you tell us Clarence’s hiding place. These are the rules-you shoot and miss, it is a letter for me. I have to match the shot to keep the letter. You shoot and make the shot, I will subtract a letter, two letters if I miss. That sound fair?”