A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery Read Online Free PDF

him like a teletype machine. “‘Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.’” He glanced up at my face for only a second. “Corinthians four:two.”
    I stared back at him and nudged him with my hand. “Get in the cell.” And then added, “Walt Longmire, quarter past twelve.”
    He stepped inside but turned as I closed the door. I reassured him: “Don’t worry, I’m going to gather up a few blankets and sleep right out here.”
    “Can I have the Bible? I saw it on your desk.”
    I thought about arguing religious semantics with him but instead just locked the door; then I retrieved the blankets and his book from my office. I handed it to him through the bars. “Who’s Orrin?”
    The return words were wooden, just as they’d been when he’d quoted scripture. “The Destroying Angel and Danite: Man of God, Son of Thunder.”
    “Uh-huh.” I nodded and suddenly felt very tired. “Get some sleep.”
    “I’d rather read.”
    I felt my shoulders slump but then gathered an old floor lamp that I’d used for just that purpose from the corner of the room and brought it over to the bars, switched it on, and directed the light into the cell. “There.”
    I flipped off the overhead fluorescents, pulled the mattress off of the bunk in the other cell, dragged it around to the floor, and piled on the blankets and a pillow. I sat on the mattress, pulled off my boots, and covered up. The kid was studying his book and was seated on the far bunk: “Don’t worry; we’ll get you out of here tomorrow.”
    He continued to turn pages in the Mormon Bible, his face close to the good book, but I could hear him plainly in that high voice of his: “Actually, I’m okay.”
    •   •   •
    “So this is Orrin the Mormon?”
    I spoke from beneath the blanket that covered my head. “He says his name is Cord.”
    “As in music or firewood?”
    “Firewood, I think.” I peeled the blanket down from my face and looked up at my undersheriff, now having sprouted two fully blown black-eyed Susans. “Oh my. . . .”
    She leaned against the bars and looked in at the kid, the web of her thumb hitched onto the grip of her Glock. “Yeah, I know, I know—it looks like I went all ten rounds at the Blue Horizon.”
    I looked at her blankly.
    “Boxing venue in North Philly.” She gestured toward the sleeping young man. “He talks?”
    I sat up against the wall. “He does.”
    “You get anything more out of him other than a first name?”
    “Not really.”
    She gestured toward the book lying next to the boy. “Who’s Orrin?”
    I repeated Cord’s mantra from last night: “The Destroying Angel and Danite: Man of God, Son of Thunder.”
    Vic shrugged. “Does Orrin have to say that every time he answers the phone?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “What’s he doing with Orrin’s book?”
    I yawned. “We really didn’t get a chance to cover that.”
    She watched the young man breathe for a few moments, and her face softened just a little. “Nancy is here from Hell’s Services; you wanna roust the fool on the hill out for a confab, or what?”
    “I’d like to talk to her first.”
    She pushed off the bars and walked down the hall. “Then get up. I’ll get you a cup of coffee, and you can join the in-crowd at Ruby’s desk.”
    When I got to the bench at the reception area, I was still holding a blanket around me as I collapsed against the chief therapist for Health Services and then slid down to rest my head in her comfortable lap. “I’d like to commit myself.”
    She looked down at me with big, liquid brown eyes. “Commit yourself to what?”
    “Getting more sleep, for a start.” Nancy had been a good friend of Martha’s, and I’d depended on her prowess in dealing with the more delicate aspects of domestic and child-related problems over the years. “We have a little dogie who’s been thrown out on the long trail.”
    She continued to look down at me and started