An Arm and a Leg (4 page)

“Please share the reason for your sudden mirth.” Bellamy’s voice was calm and pitched low, but the face pointed toward Larry had turned dark red. “Did we say something funny?”

“No, sir. Just a touch of indigestion.” Larry patted his stomach with his open palm and leaned forward. He propped his elbows on his knees and flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the brim of his oversized Stetson. “Next thing we knew, O’Neil put his travel bag into the sister’s four-by-four and they drove off. I figured you’d want us to follow them.”

Larry waited for the other man to show some sign he’d done the right thing. But no change of expression registered in the stare that pinned him to his chair. Had it been a laser, it would have burned a hole right between his eyes.

The taste of bile filled Larry’s mouth and the beginnings of nausea toyed with his stomach. Hating the whine that crept into his voice, but unable to stop it, he continued. “They went to some pet kennel and took the interstate north. Just outside Eagle Nest, Mel got antsy and tried to shoot out their tires…”

Bellamy’s eyelids lowered to half-mast. The words printed at the bottom of a replica of an ancient-world map shot through Larry’s brain:
This be where monsters dwell
. Tightness prickled across his scalp, puckering it and starting up an ache in his head. A wuss, that’s what he was. Wuss-man Larry, afraid of his own shadow. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat.

“You let Mel shoot at O’Neil with his sister in the car?” Like a schoolmarm assessing the truth of a misbehaving student’s self-defense, Bellamy clasped his hands in front of his face and placed his steepled index fingers against his chin. He pursed his lips, an expectant look on his face.

“I told Mel not to shoot, I told him.” Larry cleared his throat again. “But he gets all wound up sometimes and just loses it.”

“Mel has the brain of an iguana. We never expect him to actually think.” Bellamy poked an index finger toward Larry’s face. “You’re supposed to be the smart one. Did you even stop to think what might happen if you let Lizard Brain ride in a vehicle with a gun rack in the window?”

Larry glanced again at Mel. But the guy just sat there like one of those sculptures carved out of a tree trunk with a chainsaw. “It was all I could do to keep the truck on them bumpy dirt roads. No way I could’ve stopped him without losing sight of O’Neil.”

“Enough excuses. It has become eminently clear why the two of you had to leave Amarillo in such a hurry. No self-respecting drug dealer would maintain such inept employees.”

Larry studied his boots while he considered what to say next. He decided against mentioning Mel’s shooting spree. And he sure as hell wouldn’t say anything about the amount of blood they found in the jeep or the drag marks that played out over a rocky outcropping. No use in pissing off the boss any more than he already was. “They took off cross country and we lost them for a couple hours. We followed their tracks and found the Jeep a good ways off the road.”

“So you captured O’Neil and the girl?” Bellamy looked up. A glint of something unnatural moved around under the smooth dark surface in his eyes.

At least, that seemed to be the best way to describe what was going on in the two holes someone had referred to as windows to the soul. Bellamy’s
windows
were more like round hollows hacked and dynamited into the side of a smooth rock cliff. Bottomless holes that living things fell into and were never seen again.

“Well?” Bellamy smacked his hand on his desk again. “Do you have them?”

Larry shook his head. “They’d already left on foot by the time we got there. But we found the bags they left behind.”

“And?”

“They were filled with the girl’s things, men’s clothes, and such. The rest of the Jeep was filled with food. O’Neil must’ve ditched your stuff before he got to his sister’s house.”

Bellamy took a deep breath and slowly released it. When he spoke, his voice sounded like a college professor trying to explain physics to a kindergartener. “We asked you to follow Tim in hopes he would lead you to our property, after which you would dispose of him in an apparent accident.”

“Yessir.” Larry nodded his head.

“But in your limitless wisdom you terrorized Tim and his sister and then lost them. Not only did you fail to bring us our property, but you have now involved the sister. If we have arrived at the wrong conclusion, please clarify.”

We want this, we want that, kiss our ass—like some kind of frigging royalty. Larry took a deep breath. “Me and Mel…”

“Mel and I,” Bellamy said through gritted teeth.

“Mel and I followed their trail until it petered out in the woods. Then we found their cabin. It had a plaque over the door with O’Neil written on it, so we waited for a while, thinking they might show up. But they never did. We couldn’t get a signal for the cell, so we come…came on back to check in.”

Bellamy walked over to a panoramically windowed wall that offered an unrestricted view of the sun-bathed Sandia Mountains. He stared through the glass while the muscles in his jaw alternately tightened and relaxed.

Although the old guy had to be in his sixties, his face remained nearly unlined. His immaculately trimmed Van Dyke goatee, a sleek mixture of black and gray, complemented his thick, snow-white hair. Standing at about six two, his slim build probably made him attractive to women—that and the self-confidence oozing from every pore. Yessiree, he’d most likely been a real cocksman once. Maybe still was, since the invention of that blue pill. One thing for sure, he’d probably never had to spend a weekend alone. And money? The pompous old prick must have piles of the stuff just laying around. Whenever he got bored, he probably rolled around on top of a huge pile of gold coins, like that Scrooge McDuck cartoon guy.

Bellamy turned from the window and faced the two seated men. “We don’t like the way this is going. The only bright spot in this whole situation is that O’Neil hasn’t yet gone to the authorities. If he had, all hell would have broken loose by now.”

“So what’s the plan?” Larry said.

“You mean beyond holding you responsible for any further trouble caused by this whole thing?” The look in the old man’s eyes made Larry’s insides turn to water.

“Yessir.” Larry squirmed in his seat. What was that saying about never letting the other guy see you sweat? Sweat was the least of the Wuss-man’s problems. He clamped his rectum sphincter as tight as he could, the muscle contraction raising his body a good inch off the chair. Nosiree, it surely wouldn’t do to crap his pants right here in front of the Boss.

“May we assume you still have your lock-picking tools?” Bellamy looked intently into Larry’s face.

“Yessir. I keep in practice.”

“Good. You and Mel go search the sister’s house and O’Neil’s car and apartment. We may yet be able to salvage this balls-up.”

Bellamy walked over to stand in front of Larry, bent at the waist and placed one hand on each of the arms of the younger man’s chair. He brought his eyes to within inches of Larry’s face. “Find our things, or you’ll have to start carrying parts of your face in a jar of that dreadful aftershave you insist on wearing.” Bellamy’s oddly cool breath hissed across his perfect teeth and stirred the tiny hairs in Larry’s nose.

The younger man shuddered.

Bellamy evidently saw the movement because he chuckled. Completely devoid of cheerfulness, the sound reminded Larry of a dull knife scraping against bone.

Chapter Four

Colfax County Deputies Nick Rollins and Judy Pritney followed retired Marine Corps Colonel Kate Stanger into her office. A young woman sat at Kate’s desk, her head bowed over a platter of the cafe’s locally famous chicken fried steak, homemade mashed potatoes with cream gravy, and Cajun style coleslaw. A tiny waif of a thing, her toes barely reached the floor. With a nubby white blanket draped over her rounded shoulders, she looked like a child who’d got lost in the mall and was waiting for someone to find her. Shoulder-length auburn hair flecked with twigs and pine needles hung in damp ropes around the pale pixie-shaped face.

Kate, the new owner of the Eagle Nest Café, shot a series of meaningful looks at Nick—her way of telling him to be gentle with the young woman she’d apparently decided to champion. He nodded his head once in acknowledgment.

The tongue-prickling smell of food made its way from the kitchen into the office, where it mingled with the fragrance of the wood-burning stove Kate steadfastly refused to upgrade to gas or electric. But the homey ambiance didn’t seem to register with the young woman.

Something about the small form tugged at Nick’s heart. Perhaps it was the forlorn way she hugged herself, or the way she absently pushed back a thick curl that kept falling over her right eye. Or maybe it was the smudge of mud at her temple.

Nick slammed his mind into neutral. No one knew better than he did how deceptive appearances could be. By the look of the bloodied clothes in the bag Kate handed him, this angelic creature might have done something horrible to another human being—horrible and messy.

The hunched figure picked up the fork. Wielding it like a croupier’s stick, she pushed the piles of food into different configurations, her movements slow and deliberate, as if requiring immense effort.

Kate put her hand on the seated woman’s shoulder—lightly, as if afraid she would break something. “Frankie, this is Deputy Nick Rollins and his partner Deputy Pritney.”

The young woman turned her face toward Nick, her strangely-colored eyes filled with the most intense despair he’d seen since his tour in Afghanistan. Hypnotic, ancient eyes in a child’s face.

Kate spoke to Nick, her voice low. “Doc Williams just left. He says there’s nothing physically wrong with her, but she’s in shock.” She shot another crusty look at him.

Nick nodded. Point taken.

He pulled a chair over to sit in front of the young woman. He rested his hands on his thighs and studied her face. “Can you tell us what happened, Miss O’Neil?”

Frankie stiffened and cleared her throat. At first, her words came haltingly, more mimed than spoken. But then, like pressurized reservoir water through a new eight-inch pipe, the events of the past thirty-six hours poured out while Pritney typed furiously on the laptop she’d brought.

“Would you recognize either of the men if you saw them again?” Nick said.

Frankie shook her head. “I only saw them in my rearview mirror. I just remember thinking there were two of them. One drove while the other one shot at us with a rifle.”

“Just a sec.” Pritney’s voice sounded unusually loud and strident. “How can you be so sure all the shots were from the same weapon? And how did you know it was a rifle?”

Frankie looked at the female deputy. “My uncle taught Tim and me how to use and identify all kinds of weapons. A rifle sounds completely different than a handgun.” She turned back toward Rollins. “Not an automatic, or even a semi-automatic. It was a single-shot rifle, the kind some hunters use. I’d say it was a Ruger 300.”

Deputy Pritney’s lips thinned. “You could tell all that just from the sound?”

Frankie shot a look of what appeared to be pity at Pritney and remained silent.

“Is there anyone you can think of who’d want to hurt either you or your brother?” Nick said.

“I’ve gone over and over that question in my mind. I don’t know of anyone who would want me dead. And Tim’s a doctor. He just wants…just wanted to help people.”

“Was your brother alive when you pulled him from the vehicle?”

Frankie shook her head. “I don’t…I wasn’t sure. It all happened so fast.” Her voice caught and she cleared her throat. “But he had no pulse and he wasn’t breathing. His head was…his face had been…” Frankie rubbed her eyes with the heels of both hands, as if trying to scrub away some image.

“So why didn’t you leave him in the vehicle and go for help?” Pritney said.

“I figured whoever shot at us would come across the Jeep sooner or later. It just didn’t occur to me to leave Tim behind for them to find.”

Deputy Rollins nodded. He’d seen more than one Marine carry a dead buddy for miles, refusing to give him up until left with no other choice. “So you buried him and went for help.”

“I couldn’t leave him out in the open where the animals could get at him.”

Nick took a business card out of his wallet. He studied the laptop screen in front of Deputy Pritney, wrote a case number on the back of the card, and handed the small square to Frankie. “I’ll stay in touch over the course of the investigation. But feel free to call this number if you have any questions or remember anything.”

Frankie dropped the card into the breast pocket of the borrowed shirt. She sat still, as if unsure what to do next.

Nick allowed his face to soften. “I know this is hard for you, but time is crucial. Can you tell me where you left your brother’s body?”

“No. But I can take you there.”

Pritney’s head shot up from behind the laptop, and she squinted at Frankie. “I thought you were lost.” Her voice oozed a level of sarcasm that surprised Nick but that Frankie seemed not to notice. “If you were lost, how can you remember where you left him?”

“Our uncle schooled us in woodcraft.” Frankie turned her head toward the female deputy. “I kept track of the location.”

Pritney cut her eyes sideways at Nick. Her lips pursed at whatever expression she saw registered on his face, and she turned back toward Frankie. “So you spent part of the night cuddling with a hibernating bear?”

This time Pritney’s tone of voice did register, and Frankie cocked her head at the deputy. “I know that sounds weird, but that’s what happened.”

Nick looked at his partner. “Actually, there’ve been several bears spotted in residential areas this year. Because of the drought, they’ve come down out of the mountains looking for food. Some have lost their fear of humans and even interacted with them in bizarre ways.”

Nick’s face heated at the look Pritney shot back at him. And she had a point. For all he knew, Miss O’Neil was lying her ass off, making the story up as she went. He rubbed his hand along the thigh of his right leg, the hard, pea-sized knobs of scar tissue discernible through the fabric of his uniform trousers. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been conned by a female in distress.