Death Without Company by Craig Johnson Page B

granddaughter. “Janine, you’ve got a situation here?”
    She shrugged at the two on either side of me. “Yes.”
    He wasn’t yelling when I turned to look at him; he was a good-looking fellow in a studied western way, fifties and trim, with an oversized cowboy mustache and dark hair, about average height. I was willing to bet that his haircut cost forty dollars and that, boots, hat, and leather coat notwithstanding, he wasn’t a cowboy. “Do I know you?”
    He was taken a little aback but was attempting to get a verbal footing. “Lyle Lofton, I’m an attorney in Sheridan County.”
    A lawyer, great; the tall thing didn’t work with lawyers. “Jeez, Lyle, I thought I was going to have to throw some people in jail for public disturbance.” I turned to the woman. She was in her fifties as well—lean, tall, dark, and a little strained. With her collection of neck scarves and turquoise, I was willing to bet that she wasn’t a cowboy either, but you never know. “Is this your wife?”
    “Kay, this is Sheriff . . .”
    I was glad she didn’t put out her hand; I didn’t want to risk being bruised by the bracelets. “Where is my mother?”
    I paused for a moment. “If you are speaking of Mrs. Baroja, she’s being held in an attempt to ascertain a certificate of death from the attending physician, Dr. Bloomfield. And a possible coroner’s report as to the cause of death.” I made a mental note to call Bloomfield and cover my ass with as many doctors as it would take to hold off the lawyers.
    “She was seventy-four years old.” I looked at the red splotching at her neck.
    She was ready to blow again, so I figured I’d get it all over with at once. “It’s a standard procedure in deaths such as your mother’s where there may be concerns of reasonable suspicion.”
    “Suspicion of what?”
    I went ahead and dropped the bomb. “Foul play.”
    She put a fist on her hip and looked at me with about as much jangling accoutrement and audacity as we could both stand. “The woman smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.” I waited, because I was sure there was more. “You know, we hear stories in Sheridan about how backward this place is, but until now I never really believed them.”
    I smiled as the feathers brushed the inside of my chest like they always do when I get irritated. “Well, I’m glad we’ve been able to live up to everybody’s expectations.” I was always ready to smile when I was winning and, lawyers or not, they couldn’t stop me from doing what I was doing today. Unless my coroner was pumping nickels into the slot machines at the casino on the Crow reservation, I would be done by tomorrow. Lawyers always held domain over tomorrow; it was their gig. I looked back to her as she stared at the rug. “I’m sorry, I know.”
    “You’re damn well going to be.”
    We all watched as she marched out of the place. I turned back to Lyle, who pursed his lips and silently followed her out. I leaned my elbows against the counter and watched as they whizzed by the glass doors in $50,000 worth of non-Sporty, non-Utilitarian Vehicle. She was driving.
    I tipped my hat back on my head. “How you doin’, Janine?”
    “Better, since you arrived.”
    “Any word on my coroner?”
    “He got here about a half an hour ago.”
    I found the room with a plastic sign over it that read SURGERY 02. I was just about to push the door open when I remembered what it was I was walking in on. I had been present for too many general autopsies. With as many as two MEs from DCI and a district attorney to boot, I sometimes chose not to participate. Three weeks ago, I had sat in one of these very chairs and spared myself the inevitable outcome of Vonnie’s. I had a dark feeling that forensic pathologists didn’t look at the rest of us the way the rest of us did.
    I had forgotten to ask Janine if he had arrived alone, but all I had to do was knock on the door and walk in. I knocked on the door and opened it about an inch