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Colonel-Mustard-in-the-library-with-the-candlestick routine, but thought better of it. “No, I don’t.”
* * *
    When we got back, the Bag Boys had already zipped Cody up and loaded him onto a gurney; some of the others were still processing evidence into freezer bags. One of the boys was dropping a tattered eagle feather into a plastic envelope. He looked up as we approached. “Looks like everything out here’s been making a meal of this poor guy.”
    T.J. turned to me. “Walt, are you going to be the primary on this one?”
    “Do you mean am I going to be riding in one of those Conestoga wagons of yours for five hours down to Cheyenne?”
    “Yes.”
    “No.” I pointed to the group of vehicles where Vic was busy putting away the photography equipment. “At the bottom of this hill, you will find my somewhat agitated, but highly skilled, primary investigator.”
    T.J. smiled. She liked Vic. “She have any cases pending?”
    “Well, she’s been hanging Christmas lights in town, but I figure we can let her go for a few days.”
    “It’s not even Thanksgiving.”
    “It’s a city council thing.”
    We followed the body down to where the rest of our little task force had congregated. Someone had brought a number of Thermoses full of hot coffee and a few boxes of donuts. I got a cup of coffee; I don’t eat donuts. I spotted Jim Ferguson, one of my deputies and head of Search and Rescue, across the bed of the truck and asked him if they had turned anything up on their walk around. His mouth was full of cream-filled, but the gist was no. I told him I was going to replace his staff with the sheep.
    “We did a three-hundred-yard perimeter, but the light wasn’t so good. We’ll do another soon as everybody gets a donut and some coffee. You think this guy left brass?”
    “I hope.”
    I took my coffee and moved over to where T.J. and Vic were seated on a tailgate. They were looking at some of the evidence; hopefully, they were discussing something I could understand.
    “Single shot, center, didn’t get too much of the sternum.” Vic held a bag up to the rising sun and looked at the metal fragment inside. “Fuck, I don’t know.” T.J. patted the spot beside her with the palm of her hand, and I sat. Vic continued, “It looks like a slug. I’m thinking 12 gauge or something just a little bigger.”
    “Bazooka?”
    She lowered the bag, and her eyes met mine. “You’re getting rid of me?”
    I nodded my head. “Yep.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re a big pain in the butt.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “And you talk dirty.”
    She handed the bagged bullet to T.J. “You’re going to be stuck up here with Turk.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe we’ll get the Christmas lights put up together.” Vic snorted and readjusted her gun belt. “Besides, you’ve forgotten more about this space-age stuff than I’ll ever know. You can relay information back to me.” The tarnished gold stared at me, unblinking. “You’ll only be down there for two days. It will take us that long to round up all the usual suspects.” I was the old dog who had learned his fill of new tricks, and it was only logical that I work the county and the people.
    She poked me in the belly. Her finger remained in one of my fat rolls, and she poked each word for emphasis, “If Search and Rescue don’t find anything, you gonna call Omar?”
    “That’s another reason for you to leave, you don’t like Omar.”
    She poked me again. “You be careful, all right?”
    This all sounded very strange coming from Vic’s mouth, but I took it as affection and punched her on the shoulder. “I’m always . . .” She knocked my hand away.
    “I mean it.” She didn’t have kind eyes, they rarely looked away, and they always told the truth. I could use eyes like that. “I’ve got a funny feeling about all of this.”
    I gazed back up to the patch of sage and scrub weed and watched the sun free itself from the red hills. “Yeah, well you got five hours to talk