She turned back to Double Tough. “Not green greener—hazel greener.”

He mumbled. “Yeah, okay, got it.”

She stormed out as I glanced after her and leaned in to look at his replacement orb. “She’s had a rough night . . .” The thing was the color of a shamrock and a thought traveled lightly across my mind. “Hey, DT . . . No offense, but . . . um, are you color-blind?”

He smiled and then came clean. “Half.”

I glanced at Saizarbitoria. “Help him out with this, will you?”

The Basquo nodded, and I glanced back at Double Tough. “Less green green, more hazel.”

As I turned the corner into the main reception area, I became aware of a lot more noise than I was used to and was treated to a mob of television news people from all over the region—K2TV and KCWY out of Casper, KGWN from Cheyenne, KOTA Territory News from over in Rapid City, and KULR and KTVQ from up in Billings.

In the frenzy of arguing with Ruby, they didn’t notice me or the bottle of rye in my hand. The only one who did was Dog, who crept away from the melee with all the dignity of a lion from hyenas and joined me as I backed down the hallway before the fourth estate could catch us.

Pushing open the back door, I held it for Dog and then turned the corner to find Ernie “Man About Town” Brown of Durant Courant fame sitting on the tailgate of my truck. Busted. “Hi, Ernie. How come you’re not inside with all the other riffraff?”

“I’m afraid it’s too crowded in there.” He patted the bed of the truck and Dog jumped in, sitting at Ernie’s side as the newsman produced a biscuit from his shirt pocket.

“How can I help you, Ernie?”

He fed Dog the treat and glanced at the bottle of rye, still hanging from my hand. “Where are you off to?”

“Going to see Isaac Bloomfield, give him this bottle, and find out about the preliminary autopsy on—”

“Danny Lone Elk.” He nodded and pulled out a small spiral notebook with a stubby golf pencil shoved in the wire. “I’ve got his obituary in the paper this morning. You know, his wife died about ten years ago, but he is survived by one son and one daughter.” He smiled and adjusted his trifocal glasses. “You should read the paper, Walter. You’d discover all kinds of things.”

Figuring there was no way out of talking to him, I leaned against my truck. “Yep, well, I figure my copy is lying in there at the reception desk, and I’m not going anywhere near that place.”

He gestured around him. “Just as I figured.” He licked the point of his pencil. “Now, about this announcement that the acting deputy attorney will be making . . .”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Skip Trost?” He nodded. “Colorado Springs kid, born and bred; worked on a number of elections down that way and was picked up by Tom Wheeler to head his campaign when he ran for the senate here in Wyoming.”

“I’ve heard Trost doesn’t have any trial experience.”

He fed Dog another cookie. “He doesn’t.”

I edged a half seat on the tailgate and folded my arms around the bottle so as to not drop it. “A lot of interaction with the media, though?”

He paused over the pad, the tip of his pencil like a wasp’s stinger. “I just need an official statement from you, Walter.”

All the while thinking that this whole shit storm of a witch hunt was being manufactured by some unconfirmed peon trying to make a name for himself, I switched into publicspeak. “The theft of artifacts is an extremely sensitive issue, and we’re just glad to have the cooperation of the U.S. Attorney’s office and the Justice Department in this complex situation.”

“Anything to say about the High Plains Dinosaur Museum?”

“The HPDM is a fixture within the community, and I’m sure that anything that might be construed as an illegal act will be scrutinized to the fullest and everyone within the organization will assist us in any way possible.”

“Anything to say about the Cheyenne tribe’s involvement or the passing of Danny Lone Elk?”

Given the fact that I had one dead man and another half-dead one, both of whom had sampled whiskey out of the same flask, I dissembled: “That’s an ongoing investigation and unavailable for comment at this time.”

He lowered his pencil, and it was not the first time I’d felt he might be reading my mind.

“How’s Lucian?”

The more formal portion of the interview over, I packed up my publicspeak and deposited it. “He’s okay. I’m on my way over there now to check on him and talk to Isaac.”

“Not to change the subject, but do you have any photographs of the T. rex’s head?”

“No, but I’m sure Dave Baumann does. I’m sure the FBI does, too, but I’d ask Dave.”

“Thank you, Walter.”

“You bet.”

He nodded, placed his notebook and pencil in the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and raised a fist. “Save Jen.”

 • • •

“You look fit—for a guy who died last night.”

His hands frittered over the sheets on the hospital bed. “Well, that’s good, because I feel like living hell.”

“I guess whatever you drank gave you a pretty good hangover.”

He ironed a hand across his wrinkled face and discovered an IV connected to his arm. “How did I get here?”

“Saizarbitoria and I loaded you onto a gurney.” I placed the bottle of whiskey on the floor beside my chair and got up, walking over and putting his arm back down before he got the idea of pulling the needle from his vein. I stood back with my hands on my hips, satisfied the hospital equipment was safe for the moment. “What do you remember about yesterday?”

“Got sick.” He thought about it. “Had a ham sandwich for lunch and figured it might’ve been that, but then I started thinking it was the flu.”

“Did you drink all the whiskey that was in Danny Lone Elk’s flask?”

He smirked his defiance at me. “What if I did.”

It was about then that Isaac and David Nickerson, who had just been appointed the head of Durant Memorial Hospital’s newly renovated ER, came in the room, both of them holding overloaded clipboards.

I walked back to my chair, reached down, and offered the bottle to the docs, which did not go unnoticed by the old sheriff in the bed.

“What the hell are you doin’ with my whiskey?”

“I pulled it from your bar; don’t worry, it’s not your best stuff.” Isaac took the bottle, and I turned back to Lucian. “They need to test it against the stuff you drank from the flask.”

“Be careful with that bottle; that straight rye is mighty dear.”

David quieted him. “It’s all right; all we need is a test-tube full—I’m a light drinker.”

The doc gestured toward his younger associate. “He’s been able to use our lab to examine the contents of the tumbler, and even though the results aren’t going to be as conclusive as those from DCI, we think we’ve discovered something.”

“What?”

The ER doctor cleared his throat. “Mercury.”

I glanced at the old sheriff. “You said it tasted metallic.”

Nickerson came around the bed and looked across at me. “I’m betting that if we did an autopsy on Danny Lone Elk, we would find he died of mercury poisoning.”

“Why didn’t it kill Lucian?”

“Because this particular form of mercury absorbs into the victim’s system more in an acidic environment, and with Danny’s ulcers, his stomach was chronically acidic.”

“So, both Danny and Lucian were most likely poisoned?”

Isaac put his clipboard at Lucian’s blanketed feet and then came over and took his wrist and checked his pulse. “Possibly, but it could be that the mercury was absorbed from the flask. We have no idea of its age or how long the whiskey had been in there.”

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