“Scientific specimen I liberated from Lucian’s bar.” I patted the bottle I’d taken from the corner cabinet in the old sheriff’s rooms. “The control alcohol I’m taking over to Isaac.”

She raised an eyebrow, and we watched as Jay reloaded the forklift onto his truck and came over, taking off his gloves and handing me a clipboard and pen. “Compliments of the Jayco Corporation.”

I looked at the bill. “Two hundred and forty-six dollars?”

He shrugged, his mustache kicking to the side. “Equipment and labor.”

I waved him off. “Go find a G-man to give that bill to.”

“I did it as a favor to you.” I stood there and then signed the manifest as he admired Dave Baumann’s workmanship. “It’s a nice crate.”

Vic ran a hand over the wood. “Yeah, it looks like it can take a lot of punishment.”

I handed him back the pen. “Get Ruby to write you a check, and you can save yourself a stamp.”

Knowing where the true seat of power resided and not wanting to press his luck confronting her, he ripped the yellow receipt sheet off the pad and handed it to me. “At her convenience.”

He raised a fist. “Save Jen.”

Then he turned and walked away briskly; I wouldn’t want to face Ruby this early in the morning either. I closed the door and looked at the assorted boxes, file folders, and the enormous crate that all but filled the room. “The good news is that it’s not our responsibility to go through all this stuff.”

“Amen to that.” She took another sip of her coffee, slid around the far corner of the enormous box, and leaned against the wall as I set the bottle of rye on the crate’s flat wooden surface. “So, how’s the old fart doing?”

“Fine.” I thought about it. “Well, as fine as somebody who almost met his maker can be.” I took a sip of the coffee Vic had gotten for me. “Isaac saw him this morning and said there seemed to be no lingering symptoms other than a pretty good headache, which seems to indicate that he was poisoned by whatever was in the flask, and which leads us to the question of who filled the flask and from what.”

“You’re going out to Danny’s?”

I nodded. “The ranch is huge, and I’m not sure which house Danny was living in, but I suppose I’ll find it eventually.”

“Is there a Mrs. Lone Elk?”

“Not for some time now.”

She held her coffee in both hands. “So, you wanna talk?”

I waited a long time before answering. “I wanted to last night before Sancho started beating on the doors.”

She eyed me over the rim of her cup. “You had something you wanted to say?”

I waited a moment, crafting my words carefully. “Nothing specific—it’s just that it didn’t seem fair to know and not tell you.”

She nodded. “You’re a big one for the truth, huh?”

“I try to be.”

Of all the things she could’ve said, nothing would’ve surprised me as much as her next words. “Well, what if I told you it wasn’t yours?”

It’s a fact that the planet rotates at approximately 1,040 miles per hour, but there are those moments when the world just stops, magnetic poles be damned; you just stop the world with the weight of your own solitary gravitas. “What?”

She smiled, the kind of smile cats reserve for their dealings with mice, and didn’t move for what seemed like a long time. Her head dropped and her fingers threaded into her thick hair, her voice echoing off the sixty-seven-million-year-old female skull. “I’m joking, you asshole. Who else would I want to fuck around here, anyway; it’s not like the bench is deep.”

I stood there, attempting to reacquire the power of speech.

Her face rose, and she shook her head at me. “What in the world makes you think that Isaac didn’t tell me that he told you?”

I stumbled over the words. “He swore me to silence.”

She laughed, but it was a nice laugh and she looked at me with nothing but pity in her tarnished eyes. “Yeah, but it isn’t like you swore him, right?” She leaned her elbows on the crate we’d used most exclusively the previous night. “Isaac is always going to be on the lady’s side, Walt.”

“When did he tell you?”

“As soon as I woke up.” She propped an elbow and rested her chin in her palm, attempting to look pixyish and succeeding in spades. “Besides, he’s Jewish; along with the Irish and us Italians, they pretty much corner the market in guilt. There was no way he was going to let something like that slip to you and then not tell me about it.”

“So, how long were you going to let me tread water?”

She stood up straight and sipped her coffee again. “I knew you wouldn’t last; deception is not one of your strong suits.”

“Are you okay?”

She looked at the floor and wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

I took a deep breath and asked, unsure if I wanted to know the answer, “Was it a boy or a girl?”

She stared at the crate. “I didn’t ask; it just would’ve made it harder, you know?” Her eyes were wet with tears and reflected the light in the room. “I have to admit that I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I want that Bidarte character’s head on a plate.”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Yep.”

“I shot him close to a dozen times, and I would like to think that his remains are scattered all over the southern part of the county.” She pushed off, wiped her eyes with the butt of her palm, and looked at me again. “But right now I’ve got a job to do, and life goes on. You know?”

“I know.” Grabbing the bottle of whiskey, I squeezed around Jen and steered Vic toward the hallway by her shoulders. “You know something else?”

“Hmm?”

I turned her around and hugged her in close. “You are the toughest person I know.”

She pushed her face into my chest, her voice muffled. “Tougher than you?”

“You bet.”

“Tougher than Henry?”

“Yep.”

“Tougher than Dog?”

I paused. “Maybe not tougher than Dog—nobody’s tougher than Dog.”

She punched me and smiled. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

I pulled out my pocket watch. “Well, I’ve got an appointment with Isaac to see what else he might’ve learned from the whiskey sample. Then the acting deputy attorney is making his big speech in front of the courthouse, where I am supposed to be part of the set dressing as third spear holder from the right.”

She pulled back and looked up at me. “And then you’re driving out to the Lone Elk place?”

I sighed. “Yep, to talk to whomever it was that packed Danny’s lunch and flask for him the other morning.”

“Aw, hell . . . Let’s just talk to everyone, shall we?”

“Then, sometime later today I’d like to go get my daughter and your niece at the airport.”

“I thought Sancho was going to do that.”

“He’s on standby, and besides, he has to assemble the Pack ’n Play.”

“What the hell is a Pack ’n Play again?”

I slipped an arm over her shoulder and steered her down the hallway. “See the kinds of things you don’t have to cloud your mind with when you don’t have children?”

As we passed Saizarbitoria’s office, the Basquo called out to us, “Hey guys, we need another aesthetic opinion.”

We looked in and could see that Double Tough was leaning on Sancho’s desk again. Vic shook her head. “Is it another eyeball?”

DT smiled and nodded. “I got a collection, and I’m trying one out each day.”

Always an audience for the macabre, Vic moved into position and stared up in his face, “Too green.”

He seemed disappointed. “Too green?”

She pulled back. “Too fucking green. Jesus, Double Tough, it’s fucking Lucky Charms green!” She pulled me closer, forcing an opinion. “Well?”

I leaned in and could see that it was, indeed, kelly green. “Um, it’s a little on the bright side.”

“It looks like the Phillies’ uniforms on St. Patrick’s Day!” She whirled on the Basquo. “What’d you tell him?”

Sancho raised both hands. “I said we needed a second and likely a third opinion.”