Another Man's Moccasins

I unsnapped the strap from my Colt and pulled it from my holster. I clicked off the safety, looked at the dark spots on the carpeting, and took another step inside.

I raised my sidearm and heard a noise to my left. There were two double beds, with a kidney-shaped pool of blood at the foot of one, and there was more on the far side of the room.

Even with the clattering of the aged air conditioner, I could tell the noise was coming from another room on the far side; it sounded like someone walking and possibly dragging something. I extended the large-frame semiautomatic.

There were some clothes lying on the unslept-in bed and another pair of shoes, but what caught my attention was the phone cord that was stretched taut and led from the night-stand, across the wall, and out the adjoining doorway.

I took another step and silently cursed the creaking floorboards under my boots. The noise from the other room stopped, and the phone cord grew slack and drooped to the carpet.

I held the .45 toward the open doorway and took a deep silent breath before taking another step. I took another and could hear a slight creak and saw a flicker of movement. I swung the Colt around, pointing it at whatever had made the noise. Tran Van Tuyen was holding a tan push-button phone in one hand and a blood-soaked towel to his head in the other.

Even from this distance, I could hear Ruby’s voice coming from the receiver of the telephone. “Mr. Tuyen? Mr. Tuyen . . . are you still there?”

The blood from the wound at the side of his head had drained down to his face and stained his smile that half-beamed from across the room. “Sheriff?”

The smile remained as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped against the jamb, streaking a handwide smear of blood down the door and collapsing unconscious onto the carpet.

13

“Saizarbitoria thinks you did it.”

I listened to the squeal from under the hood as we turned the corner and figured the staff vehicle from the Powder Junction detachment of the Absaroka County Sheriff ’s Department was going to need a power steering unit and soon. “Really?”

“No, but we had a long talk about race relations.” I drove the faded red Suburban to the address Phillip Maynard had given us, as the Bear fiddled with the nonfunctioning vents, finally settling on rolling down his window, which stuck about halfway. “Santiago is a very intelligent young man.”

I’d given Sancho my truck after we’d gotten Tuyen stabilized and sent them rocketing off to the hospital back in Durant; I figured a one-way trip in the Bullet was faster than a two-way trip with the EMTs. Even with the vast loss of blood, Tuyen had come to and said that he had no idea what had happened other than that he had entered the motel room and someone had struck him from behind.

“So, we are basing our suspicions on a single set of motorcycle tracks outside the motel?”

“Sort of.”

“How sort of?”

I shrugged. “Exclusively.”

He sighed. “Why would Phillip Maynard kill Ho Thi Paquet and then try to kill Tuyen? ”

“I don’t know, but he seems our most likely suspect.”

Henry pulled his shoulder belt out, where it hung loose across his chest. “Drive carefully. I question the ability of this belt to keep me from slamming face-first into the dash should we find ourselves in a crash.” We were headed for the south side of town near the rodeo grounds. “He is our only suspect.” He thought about it some more. “Sometimes living in Wyoming has unexpected benefits.”

“Vic says that most of the benefits of living in Wyoming are unexpected.”

“She is a modern woman and expects a great deal.” I could feel him watching me before he turned back to the road and smiled.

Phillip Maynard’s house wasn’t really a house; it was more like an upscale chicken shack, which meant that in comparison to the other shacks that sat a little farther toward the banks of the middle fork of the Powder River, it seemed even more uninhabitable.

Henry placed his hands on his hips and stood at the gate. “Where do you suppose the door is?”

“Drawing from my ranch upbringing, I’d say it’s on the side.” I followed him as he walked around the end of the ramshackle building where we found a hollow-core door that had a tin sign tacked to the surface that read KEEP OUT.

We could hear commercials squawking from a television inside, and I knocked on the door. We waited and listened but heard nothing but the TV. This was getting reminiscent of Tran Van Tuyen’s motel room. “Phillip Maynard, this is Sheriff Longmire. Would you mind opening the door?”

Nothing.

We listened and learned how white our teeth and how fresh our breath could be if we would only use Brand-X toothpaste, but nothing from Phillip Maynard. I tried the knob, but the door was locked. I glanced at Henry. “I hope we’re not seeing a pattern here.”

“Do you want me to kick it down, or do you want to? ”