Dead Dry (32 page)
Authors: Sarah Andrews
“Then where is he?” I asked.
“That has yet to be determined,” was all she could stand to say.
TIM OSNER’S CREW WAS REWARDED FOR ITS PAINSTAKING efforts. At 7:49 P.M., just as we were arranging the vehicles to shine headlights on the site because it was
beginning to get dark, the archaeologist in charge of the site struck something soft yet unyielding with her trowel. She switched to a brush and uncovered a hand and then an arm. As the excavation proceeded, the mortal remains of the woman known as Gilda emerged from their rustic grave, and, after the corpse was carefully photographed and removed, the search for evidence was carefully widened, revealing the telltale shapes of shovel marks left by the murderer, who had hurriedly dug her grave under the cover of the willows. The condition of the body indicated that it had been interred for several days.
beginning to get dark, the archaeologist in charge of the site struck something soft yet unyielding with her trowel. She switched to a brush and uncovered a hand and then an arm. As the excavation proceeded, the mortal remains of the woman known as Gilda emerged from their rustic grave, and, after the corpse was carefully photographed and removed, the search for evidence was carefully widened, revealing the telltale shapes of shovel marks left by the murderer, who had hurriedly dug her grave under the cover of the willows. The condition of the body indicated that it had been interred for several days.
“What a lucky killer,” Tim mused. “What’s the likelihood you’re gonna get a storm like that so soon after, so you can toss the cart into the drink? I can see him thinking, if anybody finds her—a coyote digs her up, or someone digs in the bank for road metal—they’ll ascribe it to the forces of nature.”
“But why throw the cart in this creek?” Michele asked. “It brought us right to the corpse.”
“Guilt,” said Tim. “Killers may think they’re trying to cover their crimes, but they often expose themselves in convoluted ways. They’re like Lady Macbeth trying to get that spot of blood off their hands.” He stared into the grave. “This one was clever, but not quite clever enough.”
SATURDAY MORNING, MICHELE FINALLY LOCATED Hugo Attabury.
This did not require a house-to-house search of the continental United States. He turned himself in. He walked right into the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department offices under the guidance and protection of his new lawyer, a hotshot defense attorney from Chicago. The man who flew his plane to New Mexico Wednesday evening had dropped him off at a private airport near Albuquerque, where he had gotten a cab to the main airport, showed proper identification but paid in cash for a flight to the Windy City. He was now ready to talk to Michele Aldrich and swore that this time, he’d be telling the truth.
I was allowed to watch his deposition through the one-way glass of the interrogation room. He stated that the situation was straightforward: He had in fact flown Afton McWain to Salt Lake City on the Thursday evening in question. He had gone there to have dinner with a man who wanted to invest in his development enterprise. McWain had heard that he was going there and had asked for a ride. With
the thought that a little time together might provide the opportunity to persuade McWain to drop his case or at least tone it down, he had said yes. Attabury’s investor had sent a man to pick him up at the airport and had given McWain a ride into town. They had dropped him at the south end of the Salt Palace Convention Center, where he said he was expecting to meet a friend. When Attabury had last seen McWain, he was very much alive. No, he had no idea whom he expected to meet there. And yes, he could produce the driver of the car, who saw him back to the airport three hours later to retrieve his airplane and fly home to Colorado. During the intervening time, he had been at the home of the investor, and if he damned well had to he would produce that man as well. Having said all of this, Attabury folded his arms across his meaty chest and refused to say another word.
the thought that a little time together might provide the opportunity to persuade McWain to drop his case or at least tone it down, he had said yes. Attabury’s investor had sent a man to pick him up at the airport and had given McWain a ride into town. They had dropped him at the south end of the Salt Palace Convention Center, where he said he was expecting to meet a friend. When Attabury had last seen McWain, he was very much alive. No, he had no idea whom he expected to meet there. And yes, he could produce the driver of the car, who saw him back to the airport three hours later to retrieve his airplane and fly home to Colorado. During the intervening time, he had been at the home of the investor, and if he damned well had to he would produce that man as well. Having said all of this, Attabury folded his arms across his meaty chest and refused to say another word.
Michele didn’t even bother to ask any questions, let alone three times or in three different ways. She just sat and listened. She wasn’t in charge of the interrogation. Attabury had specified that he would answer only to Deputy Ernest J. Mayhew. The whole party was over in less than fifteen minutes.
I was beginning to truly worry about Michele. She had dark circles beneath her eyes, and she seemed almost listless as she sat in that windowless room. I suppose she didn’t know what to do next.
After Attabury and his high-priced lawyer left the room, Fritz and I stepped in. We had returned to Denver for the night, and this time he had slept on the couch, suggesting that I seemed well on the road to recovery and asserting that, even as cushy as the carpet was, he was in need of something softer.
But he stayed with me like a shadow, and he was there with me when I rejoined Michele. Deputy Ernie sat in a straight-back chair giving Michele a rather stony look. It didn’t take a mind reader to know what he was thinking.
I said, “Deputy, I’ve been meaning to ask you a few things. You grew up here, am I right?”
He turned toward me, shifting his opinion from her to
me. No longer was I a comrade in arms who had nearly been killed by the enemy; now I was just another interloper from out of state who didn’t know the hearts and minds of the locals. “Yes, I did,” he said slowly.
me. No longer was I a comrade in arms who had nearly been killed by the enemy; now I was just another interloper from out of state who didn’t know the hearts and minds of the locals. “Yes, I did,” he said slowly.
“Then you’ll excuse me, but you must know all the other fellows we’ve been asking questions about. Misters Entwhistle, Upton, and Johnson. And then there’s this group from away, the investors.”
He looked away. “Oh, them.”
Michele said, “Yes, them. I’ve been running checks on them with our colleagues over at the FBI. The principles of that organization are under investigation in two other states for money laundering and other suspected connections to drug running and racketeering. You’re aware of all that.”
“Yes.”
I said, “It must be terribly distressing having this going on in your town.”
“Spare me, Miss Hansen.” Mayhew inclined his head such that he could look at me from underneath his eyebrows.
I said, “All right, I can see that you’d like us to make this quick, so would you please show Miss Aldrich your photograph of that evidence I entrusted to you out at Jarre Creek yesterday evening?”
He frowned but opened his clipboard and produced the photograph. It showed the blasting cap as it had been found lying in the grass, before anyone had touched it. He shifted heavily in his chair, frowning with growing annoyance. He could tell he was being put on the spot, and he did not like it.
I said, “You know what that is, don’t you?”
“It’s a blasting cap. You told me that. They’re used by road crews, right?”
“I suppose they are, sometimes. Has anyone been working on the road out there any time lately?”
He shook his head. His hand was stiff on the clipboard, like a spider doing a protracted push-up.
I said, “Well now, I have another theory why that blasting cap was out there. You’ll note that it’s lying on top of
every blade of grass and leaf it’s touching, which suggests that it had not been there very long, but it’s splattered with sand and clay from the surrounding soils, so it was there during the storm, right?”
every blade of grass and leaf it’s touching, which suggests that it had not been there very long, but it’s splattered with sand and clay from the surrounding soils, so it was there during the storm, right?”
He did not deny my logic.
Michele’s eyes were beginning to widen. She was ahead of the deputy, miles ahead. “You use those things in gravel quarries, don’t you?”
“Yes, you do,” I replied. “Now the question I have for you, sir, is who among the men we’ve been trying to question has ever worked in a quarry?”
Deputy Ernest J. Mayhew closed his eyes. After a moment he let out his breath in a sigh. “He told me he was here all that day and night, and I believed him,” he said.
“Who?”
“Johnson.”
“Bart?” I couldn’t believe it.
“No, his son, Zach.” He hung his head. “We’ve known each other since we was kids.”
Michele turned toward the door, ready to head for the courthouse to get a warrant for his arrest.
The deputy held out a hand. “Stop, Miss Aldrich. This crime is not under your jurisdiction.” There was a phone on the table. He lifted the handset off its cradle and dialed a number. When the party answered, he said, “Sheriff, I’m afraid I need you to come down here. We got us some interrogating to do, and, well, it’s an old friend of mine.”
I waited patiently for the conversation to end, then said, with the respect due a man who could make an admission like he just had, “Ernie, may I observe while he’s being questioned? It’s just possible I’ve jumped to conclusions.”
Deputy Mayhew lifted his great head and looked at me. “That would be fine, Em.”
ZACH JOHNSON SAT IN THE CHAIR BY THE TABLE WITH his fingers twisting and one leg jumping like it was attached to an electric charge. His thinning hair stood in wild
sheaves around his head, and graying whiskers sprouted around his chin. “No, Sheriff, I never did nothing like messing with no blasting caps outside no quarry. Sure, I know how to handle them things, but I ain’t had my hands on none in years.”
sheaves around his head, and graying whiskers sprouted around his chin. “No, Sheriff, I never did nothing like messing with no blasting caps outside no quarry. Sure, I know how to handle them things, but I ain’t had my hands on none in years.”
The sheriff of Douglas County was an affable sort who looked like he would be more at home in a T-shirt and sweats than the uniform he wore. He sat opposite Zach, all slouched down in a chair with his feet up on the table. Zach hadn’t been formally charged, but he’d been brought in from the café in a cruiser and had been read his rights.
Next to Zach at the table sat Todd Upton, who had followed the police cruiser in his BMW. His hands lay on the table like sausages. He hardly even blinked. “You don’t have to tell them anything, Zach,” he said.
Michele stood next to me, itching to use her interrogation skills on such an easy subject. Her hands were twitching, and her lips moved with soundless words.
Fritz stood somewhere behind me. I could sense his quiet, rock-steady presence. I wondered what he was thinking. Did he find my line of work distasteful? Did he think I was taking undue risks? Could he ever be interested in getting together with a woman who lived my kind of life? With a sinking heart, I thought,
He wants more children. What kind of fool would want the mother of his children out mixing it up with criminals?
He wants more children. What kind of fool would want the mother of his children out mixing it up with criminals?
The sheriff opened his hands to indicate that he was at a loss to explain recent events and needed help. “The thing is, we’ve got a corpse down there in the morgue, and the county coroner’s taking a look at it, and we just thought that if you could tell us anything about this situation, it would be so much easier. You’d feel better, and we could take it easy on you, and we’d all stay friends.”
On our side of the glass, Michele muttered, “Well, that’s the short form, but he’s got the general idea.”
Upton said, “Zach, as your family’s lawyer, I recommend you say nothing further.”
Zach furrowed his brows. “Someone else is dead? Who?” He looked more mystified than scared.
The sheriff said, “We think you know. Come on …” When this didn’t get a response, he said, “I hear your dad’s been trying to sell the ranch. That would be a good thing for you all.”
Zach said, “No shit. I could shit-can that job I work and live a little.” He lifted one hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
“So if somebody tried to get in the way of that sale, you’d be mad at them, right?”
“Yeah …”
Upton said, “Zach, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
The sheriff smiled and lifted his meaty hands into fists and did a little tight shadowboxing, which was a complicated motion to accomplish while slouching. He meant it to look goofy, and it did. He was saying,
Come on, I’m in on the joke. We’re all pals here.
Come on, I’m in on the joke. We’re all pals here.
Zach turned his head to one side and eyed the sheriff like a bull who’s shying from the man carrying the cattle prod. “What you suggesting, Sheriff?”
“You tried to stop all this nonsense with ol’ Afton, and then she got in the way.”
“Afton? You think I killed Afton?” Zach was out of his seat with a jolt. “Hey, Sheriff, I don’t know what kind of fool you take me for, man, but shit, I don’t go whacking no neighbors!”
The sheriff dipped his head to one side and said, “Neighbors
plural
?”
plural
?”
Michele muttered, “He’s good. Now go for the jugular.”
Upton leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
The sheriff’s question turned Zach’s outrage into befuddlement. “What’s that mean?”
“What’s what mean?”
“What you said.”
“Plural?”
“Yeah.”
The sheriff’s face went slack. When he recovered himself, he said, “More than one.”
“One what?”
“Neighbor. You said neighbor-
zuh
.”
zuh
.”
Now Zach looked hopelessly confused. “What are you talking about? Did someone else get himself killed?”
“He didn’t do it,” said Michele. “Nobody can be that stupid and pull off that level of deception.”
I said, “I’m inclined to agree with you. How’s a man live that far into his forties that stupid?”
Zach was waving his hands around in a mixture of aggression and childlike fear. “What you saying, man? Someone killing folks up our way? I gotta get back up there and look after Pa!”
I said, “How’d he ever survive working in a quarry?”
Michele said, “He could never have figured out how to get himself to Salt Lake County and back, let alone kill a man and drop a wall of gravel on his corpse without killing himself in the process. We’re back to square one. I want Attabury’s head on a pike!”
I said, “But why would Attabury kill Gilda? She was his last hope of getting McWain’s property.”
As if he’d heard my question, the sheriff said to Zach, “I got one more question for you, and then I suppose we’re done. What you think of that lady Gilda that lived with ol’ McWain?”
Upton tensed. “Zach …”
Zach eyed the sheriff suspiciously. “She’s purty …”
“No, what I’m getting at is do you think she’d help you out, or do you think she’s not such a good neighbor?”
Zach’s face brightened a little. “Oh, she’s fine, she is. Why, just the other day she paid a call on Pa and—”
“Zach!” Upton roared.
Ignoring the lawyer, Zach hurtled onward. “And she told him she’d be glad to pick right up where they left off with their negotiations to put the ranches together. Pa was real happy.” He made a fist to emphasize his words. “
Real
happy.”
Real
happy.”
AFTER ZACH HAD BEEN DISPATCHED BACK TO HIS JOB at Bud’s Bar in Sedalia, Michele and the sheriff compared notes to decide whether they had two separate crimes or one. They agreed that the two murders seemed inextricably connected. They reviewed a preliminary report from the county coroner, which stated that Gilda had been killed by a blow to the head, just like Afton McWain. The sheriff agreed to press further into the alibis given by Hugo Attabury and the other suspects and suggested that they both meet with the FBI agents who were looking into the investment group’s questionable business dealings.
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