Survival
Chapter 7
Less than Big Indians
—Four Months Ago—
"And, just why are we going on a cloak-and-dagger in Sheridan, in a county where going undercover for you means taking your star off, putting on shades or changing your hat or jacket?" She was in her own gold leather jacket, over a turtleneck and jeans. Most importantly, neither of them carried a sidearm, although she knew without doubt Walt would have his duty weapon and a little extra something stashed away in some cranny of Omar's enormous truck. It was just how he was wired.
But it was that spring-summer beauty in the Bighorns, and the landscape was greening up for its quick surge and retreat. The Murder Board, which seemed to include everything but the kitchen sink and Lizzie on it (and she still withheld judgment on that; no doubt a link would appear sometime) had been sent out almost two months ago.
"Because if I told you about it, you wouldn't have come." Enigmatic, but all he'd revealed so far.
"So what's the plan?"
"Lunch, we're meeting a couple of guys."
"Snitches?
"Nope."
"Dealers?"
"Nope."
"Perps?"
"Nope."
She gave an exasperated sigh. "So are we billing time to the county, right now? Am I on duty?"
"Probably not. Consider this a favor to me." He looked over to her, a faint grin on his face, but tension there, too. The Murder Board was long gone, but she knew he'd been having endless phone discussions with higher mucky-mucks both State and Fed over it, and she knew why he was keeping her out of it. As Branch had once said, it could be dangerous to know where the bodies were buried.
To keep the phone conversations safer, Ferg's brother Mark had helped them run scans for bugs at the office several times, and multiple scans on all the office computers, including the laptops and their cell phones. Lately it had been hard to know where paranoia began and the rural Mayberry vibe ended. So far, the scans and physical checks hadn't found anything, but they were still hoping no one had known about the Murder Board, either. It was merely precautionary and common sense. Ruby was a little disconcerted about it all.
"Can't be too careful," Walt had told her. "We've had some sensitive information come through here in the last year." He had left it at that. Things had been quiet in Durant the last few weeks, so this little jaunt was a welcome diversion, albeit a mysterious one.
He was still watching for her to react.
"Like I wouldn't do you a favor? Okay, then of course I'll do it."
He glanced over again, lips pressed together, an inscrutable expression on his face. Regret? Fear? What the hell was that? she wondered.
They drove up to a pleasant little café, nothing special. Vic thought maybe it was a poster child for the generic café of the year. It had that most dangerous testimony of all, "Fine Food," plastered in the window.
Inside, Walt scanned the room, and began directing her along, his large hand against the small of her back.
Two men sat in a booth near the back. The one facing her made her say, "Aw, hell, no!" and brace herself to turn around, but Walt's arm in her back, and his big body, blocked her way.
It was no other than her buddy, Special Agent Towson, FBI, whom she had punched out a couple of years ago. The other man turned around at her words, and he looked familiar but she couldn't place him. They were both wearing simple long-sleeved polo shirts with windbreakers. If she'd been a suspect, she would have smelled FBI from a mile off…and she didn't mean the Wyoming acronym used for Fucking Big Indians.
She pressed her lips together.
The men stood, and the one she couldn't place slid around with her buddy Towson.
"Thanks for coming, Walt," that man said and shook Walt's hand. He gave her a look like he was assessing his chances that he'd get it back, but thrust his hand out to her as well. She shook and released it. She had learned to give a firm handshake—in a household with four brothers, you learned. The man looked faintly relieved to have it back. She wondered if he'd been briefed on The Holy Terror aspect of her past, or her proficiency at reverse wristlocks on miscreants.
"Not at all. I told you we'd hear you out." She took heart at his tone. Mild Walt was more terrifying in her mind than Threatening Walt.
"We would prefer to talk with her privately," said Towson, setting her hackles up.
"I'd rather we all understood each other," said Walt, perfectly pleasant, but shooting her a behave look. As though she wouldn't if she were alone with Towson. Or the other guy. Well, he might be right, at that.
Other guy spoke. "Deputy Moretti, I'm Cliff Cly. I don't think we met, then, but Walt assisted me in a case down in Powder Junction a couple of years ago. My jaw is still sore."
"So," she said, smart-mouthed but unwilling to take any guff. "Sounds like you and Agent Towson have undergone similar treatments at our hands. Is this where we get suitably chastened and sent back to Absaroka with our tails between our legs?"
"Vic." It was Walt, a soft but low warning. He was saying, Listen, don't speak. If she had learned anything in three years, it was if Walt was listening, she should, too. So she listened.
"Agent Towson and I are here because we have been sifting through a body of remarkable documents which came into our offices a couple of months back."
She waited. Working with Walt, she had perfected that pleasant, polite look of apparent patience, while nothing could be further from the truth. The documents he mentioned had to be from the Murder Board, but…so what?
A way-too-smiley waitress with the perky tag "Betsy" came by with water and took their orders. The conversation halted until she was gone.
"Well, short version, we were both impressed with the quantity and organization of the material, the cross-references to support the links, and the strength of the conclusions reached. We figured you must've borrowed a team of deputies from another county, and a firm to help you put it together…"
She thought about the late, caffeine-laced nights where just Walt and she had slogged through that huge pile of documents, with Ferg cheering them on, bringing them even more from Mark's latest haul, about cold pizza and a colder, empty back room, where she'd held a big tough-guy sheriff against her as he cried over his lost love…
"…but the sheriff assures us there were only four people, two providing data collection and two sifting through everything to produce the documents we have."
She was still waiting. Get to the point, she thought.
"We are here today prepared to offer the creator of these documents a position."
"A position?" Inside she bubbled with hysterical laughter. "For Walt and me?" Walt, after all, had put the byzantine puzzle together, she had just been his pipeline to the laptop.
Why wasn't Walt in his I want to punch your lights out, mode? She thought he'd be outraged, or at least reacting. Instead, when she looked to him, he looked grim and shuttered, and she thought with the paralyzing horror of realization, oh, fuck, he's in the "We've lost and hired deputies before" mode. Shit. The job offer wasn't for him and he didn't want to queer it for her. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Six months' training at the FBI facility in Quantico, then your own investigations division in DC. Very generous salary and perks, expense stipends." They proceeded on into great detail over the offer. All she felt was shock and pity. Shock they would ask, and pity that they were about to be let down in the very worst way. Would fuck off perhaps be too abrupt?
She wondered if her face registered abject horror. Or funk. She looked down, as their lunch orders arrived. Betsy checked in and flew off to happier tables.
The FBI guys both began to devour theirs, telling an amusing story about a suspect who had hidden the valuable contents of a safe in his toilet tank with the water off, until his girlfriend had used initiative when she needed to use the toilet…
Meanwhile, Walt didn't touch her, wouldn't look at her, and didn't eat much of his, which said volumes to her. He was afraid. He didn't want her to go, but he didn't want to get in the middle. She had heard it all before, about her marriage. Yada yada yada. This was déjà vu.
Well, fuck—why did he not just say that? But instead, as always, he said nothing.
Betsy arrived back in a few minutes to check on their food.
"I think the two of us would like boxes, please," she said, without consulting Walt. No use to waste good food that the FBI was no doubt paying for in the courting of her. She caught Walt's eyes. His lips were pressed together and he still wasn't eating. He finally shifted in his seat when the agents' mouths were full again.
"This is a pretty great honor, to be asked, Vic," Walt burst out finally, in what she thought of as his calm and considering voice. He used it to draw out suspects or reassure Horse in a storm. Well, this was a storm—a shit-storm! That was her cue, though.
"And I thank you for your generous offer, gentlemen, although a great deal of the—document—is really the sheriff's work, and he's too modest to reveal that," she said, suddenly remembering manners her long-suffering mother had drilled into her as a sprout. She thought maybe she should use a line from Pride and Prejudice on how to reject an offer of marriage: that they did her a great honor, but there was no way she'd accept…something like they were the last man on Earth she could be prevailed upon to marry sort of rejection. Instead, she went silent.
"I've already chatted with Walt, and we know how he feels, but will you at least think about it?" asked Cliff Cly. Somewhere along the way, Cliff boy had tuned into the fact that she was ignoring Towson and had become the Team Towson spokesman. One grudge from the Terror doth a lifetime make. Doing absolutely nothing so that Walt would likely freeze to death above Tensleep had firmly placed Towson pretty high on the Moretti Shit List.
It hadn't been the high-tech FBI, but friend Omar's contributions to Walt's well-being which had saved him that time That and Air Omar were two of Omar's most redeeming qualities in Vic's mind, which did not place him on said Moretti Shit List, but he still remained firmly on the Don't Hit on Me list. There were days she almost appreciated him, just not when he made his plays.
"Yes. I'll think."
"You have time. Off the record, though, you should decide in the next few months, before the first arrests are made."
Her eyes went to Walt's, and they shared a tiny moment of triumph. That was what the Murder Board had been all about, to get a measure of justice for Martha.
"Okay."
Each of the men produced a card, handed them to Vic. They signaled for the check, and went up front to pay, leaving Walt and Vic alone in the booth with their lunches and two boxes. She quickly moved around to the other side where the FBI agents had been sitting, so she could look him in the eye.
"Walt, what the fuck was that?"
"It's an offer."
"I'm aware of that. You knew about this? Set me up?"
"I…knew you wouldn't listen without my cooperation."
"You think I should listen? Are you trying to get rid of me? Honesty, Walt, no "getting in the middle" shit-lines this time."
A long moment, before, "No," he said, almost explosively. "I want you to stay, but you should at least have options. Everyone should have options."
She canted her head, like a dog which didn't understand a new command.
"What about you?"
"Me?" he didn't feign his surprise at the question.
"What. About. You. Your options. We talked a while back about you running again, resigning mid-term, and me being acting sheriff until the next election. Glass ceiling in Absaroka and all that."
"Yep."
"And you asked me to stay when I got my divorce papers."
"Yep."
"You held me after getting stitched up."
"Yep."
"But you haven't said anything since. Murder Board's done, and according to the FBI, a great success. You were kind of lukewarm about us just arriving together to Janine's wedding, and that's still coming up. Maybe after the FBI offer today, I'm saying I don't know where I stand with you."
It was bold, but she was pushing him just a little, making him stand up for himself.
"My feelings haven't changed."
She heard Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice in her head again. "My feelings for you haven't changed, if my presence is still adverse to you, then I will leave you be…"
"Which feelings would those be?" she asked. In for a penny, in for a pound…Get it out there. Towson and Cly could not even compete for last place, if he would just tell her.
It was pulling teeth, twisting arms, gnashing of teeth…it was great glaciers grinding their way down to carve a valley, it was…
"I still want you to stay. If you're willing, I want to start seeing you, now that…some things have been resolved. I want you find a place to live better than the Dump."
"Dump?" She had no idea he had any notion where she was living.
"That trailer. That's my fault."
"Your fault? She had finally rented an old, winterized travel trailer to sleep at when she wasn't pulling night shifts at the station. It wasn't the Taj Majal, but it was clean.
"I'd like a chance."
She blinked. Had the glaciers in the valley just started to melt? The convo had definitely shifted into Twilight Zone territory. She blinked again.
"I'm not married anymore, but I'm still younger and your deputy."
She could almost feel him gathering himself to respond. "Married was a deal-breaker. I think I've made peace with the other two."
She couldn't help herself, she grinned. "You think, huh?
"I have made peace with those."
"So, two offers today? My cup is overflowing."
"That wedding is only a couple of weeks away."
"Yep." She could play his game.
"Let's meet there. After that, let's test the waters for more."
More? More?
A pile of pulled teeth and twisted arms rose up before her. The great glaciers ground to a halt.
"Well, okay. I'm good with that."
And it was as simple as that. They left the café, boxes in hand.
"So, suit or Dockers for the wedding?"
"What?" he asked startled.
"What will Cady have you wearing?"
"Can I get back to you on that?"
She smiled. She already knew what she would be wearing. She hadn't watched him for three years for nothing.