The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 by Craig Johnson

John Browning’s auto-loading, single-action child graduated to .45 caliber, and the Filipinos began flying back out of the trenches they had hurled themselves into. Unaccurized, the weapon was about as precise as a regulation basketball but, if you hit something with it, chances were good the fight was over.
    I thumbed the standard duty holster open and took the weapon out to check it; an old habit. The matte finish was rubbed off at the sights and the ridges along the barrel’s slide action. Fully loaded, which it was, it regularly weighed 38.6 ounces, but today it seemed to weigh about three tons. What the hell was it doing on? Was I responding to some unconscious threat? Did I know more than I thought I knew? It was about this time that I became aware of the bathroom door being opened, and a fully dressed fireman looked at me and my gun.
    “I didn’t think the pancakes were that bad.”
    “Hello, Ray.” He was the young one I had seen talking to Vonnie at the kitchen window. “You need in here?” It took him a moment to respond.
    “Ms. Hayes sent me over, you got a phone call in the kitchen.”
    It was probably the first time he had ever used the title Ms. in his life. He still didn’t move. “Anything else?”
    He smiled, embarrassed. “You gonna shoot somebody?”
    I thought for a moment and sighed. “Anybody need shooting?”
    “Not that I know of.” He looked away for a second. “Sounds like the only one that needed it got it last night.” He was roughly Cody Pritchard’s age, and they probably had gone to school together. I nodded and started to squeeze by him. “What’s the um . . . story on Cody?”
    I stopped, and we were lodged in the doorway. I looked down at him. “Well”—I paused for effect—“he’s dead.” I watched him to see if there was anything else. There wasn’t, so I smiled. “You better get some pancakes over to the mayor at the Business Associates Committee table before you guys are putting out fires with a bucket brigade.”
    “You bet.” Always good to know on which side your pancake is buttered.
    As I made my way toward the kitchen, I mused on the thought of being caught in the bathroom playing with my gun. Great, as if everybody in the county didn’t already think I was loony as a waltzing pissant. When I got to the kitchen door, Vonnie already had it open.
    “No rest for the wicked?”
    “I wish.” God, she looked good with that little bit of sweat in the hollow at the base of her throat.
    “The phone’s over by the sink, back hallway.”
    I breezed by, trying to exude competent professionalism as I picked up the receiver from the drain board. “Longmire.”
    “Jesus, are you eating again?” The long distance whine from Cheyenne was no surprise; in my experience most things from Cheyenne whined.
    “I am motivating the constituency and have yet to eat any pancakes. What are you still doing awake?”
    “The state medical examiner just finished his preliminary.”
    “Let me guess. Lead poisoning?”
    “Yeah, the rig/liv says it was about six-thirty when he got it. Gives some credibility to the hunting accident scenario, changing light and all, but . . .”
    This must be good. “But?”
    “Massive cavitations with a lot of radiopague snowstorm.”
    My mind immediately summoned up a visual X-ray with the usual fragments of civilian hunting ammunition. Obviously, this was not the case. “Nonmilitary?”
    “Maybe semijacketed, maybe not. It’s a really strange caliber, and it’s big.”
    “What?”
    “We don’t know yet.”
    This was something. With Vic’s specialty in ballistics back in Philadelphia, I had assumed her initial assessment that it was a .30-06 was gospel. “What do you think?” There was silence for a moment.
    “I don’t think it’s a deer gun.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
    “I know what a fucking high-powered slug looks like, all right?” I let it set for a moment, and so did she.
    “Why don’t you get some