Page 39 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

“I see.” Coldmoon hesitated, then asked: “Is there any way these replicas could be faked up to look old, and sold that way?”

“Not a chance. My husband engraved or burned his initials into every piece. He didn’t want anyone passing them off as real.”

Coldmoon hesitated again, longer this time. “Do you think Running killed your husband?”

She folded her hands. “Running was always coming around here, pressing my husband on his debts. They had a fight and Grayson decked him. But…” She hesitated. “I wouldn’t have thought him a murderer. And why kill someone who owes you money? It’s a guarantee of never getting paid.”

“You know of anyone else who might have killed your husband?”

“That’s the thing—nobody. Grayson was a peaceable man: didn’t drink, do drugs, or pick fights. He didn’t have any enemies. Everyone liked him.”

Coldmoon glanced over at Pologna, but the man’s face expressed nothing beyond boredom.

“Can you show us his workshop?”

“Of course.”

The studio was behind the house, closer to the creek, a small log building. There was a single room inside with a wood stove; worktable; various stone-cutting, grinding, and polishing equipment; several small looms for beadwork; and racks draped with tanned buckskins, strings of feathers, trays of stones and shells. In a corner, shelves held pieces of wood for carving, and on the floor was a stack of reddish stone blocks.

“Is that the stone?” Coldmoon asked.

“Yes.”

“Mind if I take some pictures?”

“Go ahead.”

Coldmoon wandered around the shop, taking pictures, while Pologna followed, doing nothing. As they exited, Coldmoon noticed a pile of debris behind the studio. He walked over to it, Mrs. Twoeagle following.

“What’s all this?” There were dozens of broken pipes of the same reddish stone, along with many half-carved pipe stems.

“Anything that wasn’t perfect got dumped out here.”

“Why so many?”

“That’s what he’d been working on for months before he died. He was making pipes.”

“And throwing them away.”

“Grayson was a perfectionist.”

He thanked her and they got back into the car. Pologna had remained silent, and Coldmoon finally said, “She asked a good question: why kill a man who’s about to pay you what he owes?”

“They’realwaysabout to pay what they owe,” Pologna said wearily. “And they never do. People who owe money are always making promises.”

Coldmoon had to admit there was more than a little truth to the observation.

Pologna looked at his watch. “Almost three. What next?”

“The jail.”

The jail was in Mission, behind the Rosebud PD, a large, ugly, flat structure set in a vast expanse of prairie. They found Running in a holding cell by himself, dressed in prison gray, sitting on a cot and staring at the wall.

The warden unlocked the cell and led Running down the hall to a barren sitting area. Coldmoon and Pologna took seats opposite the prisoner, who looked dejected and listless. The warden remained standing at the door.

“Mr. Running,” Coldmoon began, “may I ask you a question?”

The man shifted in his seat and didn’t answer, avoiding Coldmoon’s eyes.

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