Read Online Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

everybody else wasn’t doing, but I got caught.”
    “Are you clean now?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    It really wasn’t my business.
    I pulled the piece of paper from my pocket and unfolded it, handing it to him. “Know her?”
    He took the poster I’d gotten from Lorea and nodded. “The Basque Rose, Jone, yeah . . . She worked here for a while.” He looked up. “She was kind of hard to miss.” He looked at the poster. “We used to run together . . .”
    Kay’s voice sounded from behind me. “Just run, huh?”
    He looked past me at the woman, who was finished playing at washing glasses and was now resting an elbow on the bar and pouring herself a stiff vodka without the rocks. His eyes went back to the poster. “Yeah, just running.” The knee pained him again, and he winced as he shook his head. “The sister came by here a couple of times.” He glanced up at me. “That where you got this?”
    “Yep.”
    “I figured you were some kind of cop.”
    “Sheriff, actually.”
    He looked surprised. “Really?”
    I nodded. “I’d show you, but it’s in a new leather holder and I’d just drop it on the floor.” I glanced down at the thick and highly suspect shag carpeting. “And to be honest, I don’t know where this floor has been.”
    He glanced around. “I do, and I wouldn’t get too close to it.”
    “What happened to her?”
    “She just disappeared; got off work late, around two or three, and when I went to go knock on her door to get her to go for a run the next morning she didn’t answer.” He gestured toward the back. “Her car was gone, so I figured she was just out doing errands—but she never came back. A day or two later I busted open the door and all her stuff was gone.”
    I leaned on the bar and draped an arm on the surface. “Did a detective by the name of Gerald Holman ever come by here asking questions?”
    “Couple of times, yeah.”
    I looked at him questioningly. “Only a couple?”
    “Yeah, why?”
    “Just curious. What about another detective by the name of Richard Harvey—tall, thin guy with a handlebar mustache?”
    “Nope.”
    “You’re sure?”
    He shook his head. “Well, didn’t talk to me, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t here.”
    “What happened to the trailer?”
    “What trailer?”
    “4661-A, Jone Urrecha’s trailer.”
    Kay interrupted. “Tommy sold it.”
    “I thought it burned.” I turned to look at her. “Who’s Tommy?”
    She gestured to the building as a whole. “The owner.”
    “And where is he?”
    She smiled. “Usually comes in around five.”
    Curtis gestured with a hand to get my attention. “It’s not what you’re thinking—”
    “And what am I thinking?”
    “That there’s something going on. Tommy doesn’t charge the girls anything but buys and sells the trailers all the time as a sideline.”
    The voice spoke from behind me again. “Tommy has a lot of sidelines.”
    I spun my hat. “And burns a few of them, too.”
    “Huh?”
    “4661-A.”
    Curtis smiled. “Space heater; nobody got hurt.”
    “Glad to hear it.” I glanced back at Kay, but she ignored me and sipped her drink. I stood and walked over to the kid. “Pick up your leg and put your ankle on your knee.”
    “What?” He looked at me for a moment and then did as I said.
    “Now push down on your knee and twist your foot and stretch it out with your other hand.”
    I could see the immediate relief in his face as his knee popped back in place. “Oh, wow!”
    I slugged down the rest of my iced tea like Philip Marlowe, rested the empty can on the bar, and picked up my hat. “You say Tommy shows up around five?”
    The kid stood, looking more like his Thor Asgard self. “You want me to say you stopped by?”
    “No, I’ll introduce myself.” We shook hands, and I went around a sticky brass railing and down the steps. “Little known fact: offensive tackles score higher on the Wonderlic than any other position.”
    “No shit; better than