A DEAD RED MIRACLE: #5 in the Dead Red Mystery Series (19 page)

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Chapter Twenty-eight:

I trotted back to where Damian stood guard over Wade Hamilton's body and after we covered it with the blanket, I turned to field questions from the crowd of fishermen and boaters. The minute I held up my hands for quiet, cell phones instantly appeared to video whatever gaff I might commit. I would have to remember to do the same the next time a law enforcement officer did something dumb.

"My name is Lalla Bains," I said, choosing my words carefully. "I'm a private investigator. The authorities have been called and they are on their way."

Questions punctured the air. I held up my hands again. "It is not my job to discuss this case with you. That will have to come from the sheriff's department and I sincerely doubt that you will hear anything else today. As a matter of fact, right now y'all are just in the way."

I felt a lump rise in my throat; dropping Pearlie's Texas drawl into my sentence made me even more fearful of the outcome. If cornered, I had no doubt that Naomi would use Pearlie as a human shield in order to escape. We had to find them and somehow talk Naomi into releasing Pearlie. I sincerely hoped Caleb was able to locate Harley. I suspected that before the day was over, we would need both dog and man.

Someone in the crowd said something about a siren and then I heard it. A deputy sheriff must've been in the area and was now responding to my 9-1-1 emergency. I reminded Damian against answering any questions, then told him it would probably be best if he just didn't talk at all, excused myself and trotted back to the parking lot.

Ian Tom was talking to the park ranger, but when he saw me he broke off and hurried over. "Lalla, are you all right?" he asked, taking me by the shoulders. "Your 9-1-1 call said someone had been shot."

"I’m fine, fine, but Wade Hamilton is dead."

Ian's expression told me he wasn't the least bit surprised. "I have deputies and the M.E. on the way. Can you tell me how it happened?"

"First, you need to tell me if your sister's car or truck is in this parking lot."

Ian's head snapped up. "Was she here? Have you seen her? What'd she say?"

"I haven't seen her, Ian, I just know that someone used a rifle, probably with a scope, to shoot Wade. And I think it was to keep him from telling us the truth about your sister's involvement in these murders. Now tell me, what does she drive and do you see it in this parking lot?"

His heavy sigh told me everything I needed to know. Until this minute, I suspected that Ian Tom might have been responsible for these recent murders. But now, I understood that his secret had more to do with his own suspicions about his sister.

"That's it, over there," he said, pointing to a Ford F150.

I nodded then said, "How'd you know I'd be here?"

"Your secretary told me where I might find you," he said.

"You suspected your sister but didn't consider sharing with us?"

"I didn't put it all together until today, okay?"

"Then fill me in while we wait for the troops."

"All right," he said with a heavy sigh. "You know I got phone taps on the suspects. Wade was getting calls from a burner cell. I couldn't trace the number, but today he got a two-minute call that pinged off a tower on top of the Dragoon Mountains. That's near enough to my sister's home for me to guess she was in contact with him and I knew this was the last place Wade Hamilton had been seen alive, so I decided to come out and try to find him, or her."

"What put you onto your sister in the first place?"

"I left Arizona as soon as I could, which in retrospect was a selfish thing to do because I left my younger sister in charge of our crazy dad. Don't get me wrong, I loved my father, but after Mom died, he went overboard with this shaman thing. So I didn't hear that Naomi was married and had a kid, or that her husband had been shot until I moved back here and got in touch with her. She and Damian were living out at our dad's place and she's got all this expensive jewelry making equipment. When I questioned how she could afford it all, she told me she had a benefactor, someone who wanted to see her happy. I figured I deserved the verbal slap and shut up about it. Then Damian graduated from high school and got work in Vegas as a welder, my wife got cancer and life went on. I didn't see or think about Naomi until Damian came back to train for American Ninja Warrior and he said his mother was paying for a P.I. I had to wonder why she wanted to dig up the past."

"And you thought by giving us three possible suspects, we'd hurry this along?" I asked.

"Actually, I was rather hoping I would be wrong. But when Jesse Jefferson was murdered with the same MO as Ron's, the blunt instrument to the back of the head, I got this itchy feeling that she was orchestrating all of it." He stopped to look at Naomi's truck. "She'll be hell to find if she's on foot."

"Why do you say that?"

"We're Chiricahua. My father taught both of us how to track and hide the Apache way."

"That well may be but Caleb is bringing trackers and here he comes."

Harley, unable to wait for Caleb's SUV to come to a stop, leaped out and ran over to me. "How long has she been gone?"

Harley's interest was zeroed in on one person only and that was Pearlie. I looked at my watch. "Half-an-hour?"

"We still have enough light, let's go," he said, shrugging into his daypack.

Caleb came around the side of the SUV and pulled me into a tight embrace. "Harley's up to speed on the problem and he seems to think he can find Pearlie even without your dog."

"But you brought Hoover, didn't you?" I asked. Harley might have a heightened sense of smell for a human, but nothing beats a trained air scent dog for tracking missing people.

Caleb stepped back and nodded for my dad to get out with the dog. He clipped the leash on Hoover and handed him over to me. I didn't have to tell Hoover that he was here to work. The dog's muscles quivered, his tail beat the ground, eyes on mine, waiting for the command to
search
. All I had to do was hold the cloth in front of his nose and say the word. But I handed the leash to my dad and told Harley to give us a minute.

Harley looked up at the sun heading toward the west. "A minute is all you'll get."

I patted Harley's tensed cheek and agreed to the necessity for speed, then dragged Caleb over to Ian. "Ian and I have been talking. I think Naomi shot Wade Hamilton."

Ian's eyes shuttered against the painful truth. "I didn't think it would go down like this, or so fast. I had my suspicions, but now…"

"Don't even think about backpedaling on your sister, Ian. She's taken my cousin Pearlie as a hostage," I said through clenched teeth. "So where would she go?"

Ian sucked in a quick breath and looked up at the mountains behind the lake. "We used to hike all over these mountains with our dad looking for petroglyphs and pot shards. If I remember right, there's a cave she could get to, but it's a hike. I see you brought your dog. Good thinking."

I motioned for Harley and my dad to join us. "Pearlie will do everything she can to slow down Naomi, but we have Hoover and Ian thinks he knows where she's going. Ian, Damian is standing guard over Wade's body. If you need to be there for your nephew, Caleb and I can take the dog and Harley to search for them."

Ian's jaw tightened with new resolution. "I'm going with you. I'll leave a couple of deputies to stay with my nephew until the M.E. gets here. It's starting to cloud up. We need to hurry if we want to get ahead of the rain."

If anyone had an alternative plan, I didn't hear it. I took Hoover's leash, signaled to Harley that we were ready, put the cloth in front of Hoover's nose and told him to search.

It took Hoover a few minutes to zigzag onto a trail, but when he found it, he surged forward, eager to find his lost people and get his reward.

An hour later, a strong breeze was blowing against us, bringing heavy dark clouds and a cooling effect on our hot skin. All the same, we halted every fifteen minutes to drink water. I poured out some from my bottle into a cup for Hoover, then straightened to look over the brown hills, the dry grass waving us forward.

"We should keep going," Ian said, glancing at the sky.

"We don't have Hoover's four-wheel drive," I said. Harley and I had on daypacks, but Ian and Caleb had to hike in flak-jackets and utility belts holstered sidearms, flashlights and handcuffs.

"I'm good," Harley said. "Hoover and I can find her."

"Sorry, pal," Ian said, "but I’m going with you."

"Me too," Caleb said, adjusting his utility belt.

Harley doffed his hat and bowed. "Then after you, sirs."

"Ian, if it rains, could you still find the cave?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't been here in years."

"Then let's not waste any more time," I said, encouraging Hoover to keep moving.

Forty minutes later, we were well into the foothills and that much closer to the mountains and a cave. The good news was that the wind had abated; the bad news was that lightning was now powering through a huge black cloud and it was moving this way.

"Oh great. Now we have lightning strikes to worry about," I muttered.

Caleb put his arm around me."We're almost to the mountains. We'll find shelter soon."

"It better be soon," I said, "I just felt a raindrop on my nose."

I was hot, tired and footsore, and except for Hoover and Harley, I was sure the others were feeling the same. I handed Harley the leash.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"We're all but worn out and you're not even winded, but if you find the cave and Pearlie's inside, don't do anything. Just use your cell and call one of us. Promise?"

He accepted Hoover's leash and striding away, soon outdistanced us.

We continued to follow, but kept our pace reasonable so as not to completely exhaust ourselves. As water laden clouds started covering the sky, thunder rolled overhead and I jumped at the crack of lightning.

Another lit up the sky, and Ian stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him. "There!" he said, pointing. "That lightning strike lit up the entrance to the cave. That's where she's gone. I know it."

"Then we should take a more indirect approach," Caleb said.

Just then, another sound exploded through the air, but this time, I knew it wasn't thunder. I froze, then took off running.

"Lalla! Wait up," Caleb called after me.

"She's shooting at Harley and Hoover," I yelled over my shoulder and kept running.

To make myself a smaller target, I ran the twenty or so yards in a crouch and threw myself onto the ground next to them. Hoover wagged a hello and Harley grunted and pointed to the cave.

"Are either of you hurt?" I asked, breathlessly.

"She's not
that
good of a shot," Harley said. "While one of you distracts her, I'll crawl up those rocks behind the cave. Unless you or the sheriff got another plan?"

"Not yet, but the guys are right behind me," I said, stretching my neck to peer over the top of the weeds.

I felt another shot whizz past my ear and dropped to the ground, my heart in my throat. "Dammit! That was close!"

"Like a she-wolf," Harley said. "She's got her back to the wall with no way out."

Caleb and Ian flopped down beside us.

Caleb grabbed my arm. "You're going back."

"No. I’m not leaving, not with Pearlie in there."

"Told you she wouldn't go," Ian said.

"Since it looks like she's eager to shoot at anything that moves, Harley wants to get up on the rocks behind her."

"Alright then," Ian said. "We'll split up. Lalla and Caleb will go to one side and I'll take the other. I'll try to talk her out before she does any more damage."

No one could argue with Ian's plan; it was his sister.

Caleb and I took Hoover and crawled through the weeds to the right. Ian and Harley went to the left where Harley started climbing the rocks above the cave.

"Do you think Ian will be able to talk her into giving up?"

"He'll try," he said, un-holstering his weapon.

I put my hand on his. "Caleb, you can't get a clean shot from this far away. Besides, she'll use Pearlie as a shield."

"Few people can accurately shoot a rifle while holding onto a hostage," he said. "And you said so yourself; Pearlie will do everything she can to resist. We're counting on it now. I'll only shoot if I have to."

I ground my teeth in frustration. "You're betting my cousin's life against a mad-woman!"

I was still thinking about the logistics of this risky venture when Ian stepped out in front of the cave, his hands in the air. The wind blew away his words, but Naomi did as he and Caleb guessed. She had Pearlie by the neck, bound and gagged and she had her rifle to my cousin's head.

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed across the mountains.

I was so mad at that point I would've rushed her myself, but it started to rain and then fell in sheets so thick that wiping the water away from our eyes did nothing and Ian and Naomi disappeared behind the curtain of water.