Desert Wind (21 page)

Stark pasted on his insincere smile again. “Monty, Monty, Monty. If you think you’re a judge of women, you’ve been standing out in the sun too long.”

“Maybe so, but people in glass houses, eh, Ronnie?”

Something passed between them that hinted of past trouble. More concerned about the present, I let it go. “Officer Stark, it’s less than a two-minute walk to that ridge where the shooter was holed up. I counted four shots, which pretty much negates a mere slip of the trigger finger, not to mention the fact that he refused to stop shooting when I identified myself as non-pronghorn. If we find more than one shell casing, it’ll go a long way toward proving I’m right. Otherwise, go ahead and call me hysterical, be my guest. But if I wind up dead on your beat, Monty here might mention to your superiors that a serious crime was reported to you and you did nothing about it, didn’t even fill out a report. Are you ready to shoulder the blame for that?”

Stark shifted his feet. “I’ll take a quick look and fill out that little report you’re putting so much emphasis on, but I’m gonna want you folks to stay with your vehicles.”

“Bullshit to that, Ronnie,” Monty snapped. “I’ll be right on your heels.”

I wanted to kiss the banty-legged little guy. “Me, too, Deputy. As a trained officer of the law myself, which I’m sure you’ve also found out, I can help spot possible evidence.”

Stark looked like he wanted to gun whip us both, but when he started up the shale slope with us right behind him, he didn’t chase us away. Once we reached the top of the ridge where I’d holed up until Monty came alone, I pointed to a scar where a bullet had chipped the granite. When I began digging in the sand in front of it, where the first bullet had hit, the deputy remained silent.

Within seconds I’d managed to unearth an almost-pristine copper slug: while I was no ballistics expert, it looked to me like a thirty-ought six from a low-velocity carbine. Not unusual, maybe, but it was the same type of ammo that had killed Kimama Olmstead. I figured that the sheriff, busy though he was, would be interested in seeing it.

“Are you carrying an evidence bag, officer?” I already knew the answer. No.

Monty volunteered that he had baggies in his truck. While I stood guard over the bullet with a reluctant deputy acting as witness, the farrier hotfooted it back to his truck, then returned with two baggies that smelled faintly of tuna fish.

“Here ya go,” he said, holding them out with one hand while transferring his sandwiches to the other. “Might as well have me an early brunch” With that, he began wolfing them down.

Both men watched as I rolled the bullet into the baggie and sealed it. A ballistics test would identify the caliber more accurately. Then I stabbed the stick upright into the ground to make the spot easier to find if further investigation proved advisable.

We had more luck when we reached the rock fall where my assailant had hidden out. Four ejected cartridges lay scattered across the ground. Yep, he’d been using a carbine. As I cooed over my finds, Monty gave me the other baggie, and I scooped them in with a rock chip. There was more than an even chance that the shooter’s fingerprints were on them.

Deputy Stark accepted the baggies reluctantly. “I don’t know what you think these will prove, because this entire incident was caused by some deer hunter a little too eager to fire at anything that moves.”

Monty snorted. “A deer hunter using a carbine? Nobody around here’s that stupid, not even the dudes. Far as that goes, Lena don’t look like no deer, neither, and we ain’t exactly standing in the middle of the woods. In clear country like this, any man that can’t tell she’s a woman ’stead of a pronghorn needs to be walking around with a white cane, not a rifle. Have you forgot that we had us a gunshot death a few months ago that nobody’s answered for yet? I wouldn’t mislay those evidence bags if I was you, Ronnie. That woman’s killer could be the same careless deer hunter.” His emphasis on the last two words revealed what he thought of the deputy’s theory. “Maybe even the same deer hunter who killed that Donohue fellow.”

Stark frowned. “From what I hear, no carbine took Mr. Donohue out. As for the other one, you talking about that Indian woman?”

“How many other gunshot women we got us in Walapai County?”

The deputy wasn’t giving up yet. “We do have one unsolved killing on the books, but I’m talking about Mr. Donohue. Unlike you, I’m not certain the Indian woman’s death was murder. I’m guessing she came between a hunter and a pronghorn like Miss Jones here did, and he took off when he realized what he’d done.”

“Nobody in town believes that but you, Ronnie.”

“Maybe you paranoid V.U.M. types don’t, but I’m speaking for the sheriff’s office.”

I sincerely doubted that. I didn’t trust Officer Smiley Face, so to hammer home the fact that Monty and I had witnessed him accepting the two baggies into evidence, I said, “Unsolved murders tend to make a police department look bad, officer, and I’m betting the sheriff will be curious to see if the rifling on that carbine slug matches up to the one that killed Kimama Olmstead. He might even be curious enough to put a rush on it at the crime lab.”

The cold smile made its reappearance. “We’re done here. You folks have yourselves a nice day.” Without another word, he walked back to his dusty cruiser.

As we watched the cruiser disappear down the road, Monty said, “I got me a police scanner in my truck. Wasn’t no report of a downed pronghorn.”

The news didn’t surprise me. “You know him well, the deputy?”

“Knew his mama. Sweet woman, dead now. Didn’t have no better sense than he does, but that still wasn’t no reason for his daddy to treat her like he did. ’Course, none of them Starks is exactly burstin’ with brains. Ronnie’s the smartest of the bunch, which says a lot about the rest of them.”

He finished his second tuna fish sandwich, then rubbed his hands against his leather apron. “Well, like the boy said, you have yourself a nice day, Miss Lena Jones. There’s some horses waitin’ on me need shoes.” He winked. “And I’ll be talking to your insurance company soon’s I’m done.”

***

After gulping down some water from my canteen, I called the Walapai County Board of Health Services and alerted them to a possible rabies outbreak. Then, I decided that as long as I was in the same general area, I’d stop by Sunset Trails Guest Ranch and talk to Hank Olmstead again. Now that I’d spent some time in Walapai Flats a new question had arisen. Where did his employees stand on the new mine? Did any of them have feelings strong enough about the issue to resort to violence? I hadn’t seen anyone from the ranch at the demonstration, but that meant nothing. Most of the wranglers and lodge workers would have been working. But I also wanted to know more about the guest ranch’s agreement to provide equine activities with Sunset Canyon Lakes. Had Katherine brokered it or had her husband Trent? In a murder investigation no stone should ever go unturned because something ugly might be hiding under it.

Not wanting to show up at the ranch unannounced, I drove until the mitten-shaped mesa lay two miles behind me, then pulled over to the side of the road and checked my cell phone for bars. Three. I was back in business.

“Sunset Tails Guest Ranch, Leilani speaking.” Jimmy’s sister.

After identifying myself, I asked if it would be all right if I dropped by to speak to her father.

“Oh, Lena, this isn’t a good time because one of our guests was thrown from a horse and we’re waiting for the ambulance and Dad’s beside himself and he’s…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “…snapping at everyone.”

“Are the injuries serious?”

“A broken leg, for sure. We’re worried about a couple of ribs, too.” Leilani lowered her voice. “Mr. Arden, that’s the guest, he’s been a bit of a problem ever since he got here, and, well, he demanded a better horse than he was given yesterday. So for some crazy reason Dusty let him ride Cisco. Well! Mr. Arden didn’t last five minutes. Not that Cisco is difficult, he’s not, but he used to be a cutting horse and can turn pretty fast. Apparently that’s what happened. They were all out on the trail and a rabbit ran right in front of Cisco so he swerved. Mr. Arden didn’t swerve with him, went right over the side. Not only that, but he got his foot tangled up in the stirrup. He’s lucky the horse didn’t bolt with him hanging upside down like that. I can’t imagine Dusty putting him on that Cisco.”

A not uncommon riding accident, but Leilani was right. Dusty had wrangled at guest ranches for two decades and should have known better. Dudes, especially the testosterone-fueled male version, often exaggerated their riding skills. Why hadn’t Dusty seen through the man’s lies? Maybe he had something on his mind. Or someone. Mia Tosches, perhaps? That cowboy had always liked the ladies, something which had caused no end of trouble between us.

“Lena, you there?” Leilani’s voice interrupted my train of thought.

“Uh, sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that tomorrow would be a better day for you to come out. Dad should have settled down by then, along with the rest of us. Ten o’clock, say?”

I agreed, then rang off. Next, I called Anderson Behar’s office and asked his secretary to email me a copy of Ike Donohue’s autopsy report as soon as it came in. But there I hit a wall.

“I’m sorry, Miss Jones, but the only person of record allowed to receive information like that is James Sisiwan,” she told me.

“He’s my partner at Desert Investigations,” I argued.

“I said I’m sorry.”

If she was sorry, why did she sound so damn happy? Biting back the snarky comment I wanted to make, I told her as politely as possible to email the autopsy report to Jimmy and gave her his email address.

“I can only do that with Mr. Sisiwan’s permission,” she said.

Bitch! “Then I’ll tell him to call you.” I hung up before I totally lost my temper, certain that when the world finally ended, it would be because some officious secretary refused to push the SAVE OUR ASSES button until she received permission from her boss.

It took me a few minutes to calm down, but when I did, I fished Olivia Eames’ card out of my carry-all and placed another call. The reporter picked up right away. Not wanting to keep the air conditioner running while we talked, I opened the Trailblazer’s windows to let in fresh air. At this particular bend in the road, I was close enough to the Virgin River to smell water.

“Lena Jones here, Olivia. Hey, what do you know about Mia Tosches?”

She began to laugh. “Girl, you just provided a bright spot in a shitty day! I love to gossip about that woman. What do you want to know? Who she and her turd of a husband have been sleeping with?”

“They both fool around?”

“Separately and together. The Thoroughly Modern Tosches, as they’re known in Walapai Flats.”

“She hit on me last night at the mixer.”

“Don’t brag. She hit on me, too. So’d he, as a matter of fact, but ewww!”

“Other than that, do you know anything that might tie either of them to Kimama Olmstead’s death? Or Ike Donohue’s?”

The laughter disappeared from her voice. “Only suspicions, Lena. And you know what they say, suspicions and a dollar won’t even buy you a cup of coffee.”

It occurred to me that if she did know something, she wouldn’t share, at least not until she broke the story. So I asked her about something else that had been bothering me. “Last night you mentioned that Katherine Dysart acted as a source for one of your stories at the
Boston Globe
,” I asked. “Which story would that be?”

“Why do you want to know?” Now she sounded cautious.

“It might be important. If you don’t tell me, my partner will find out anyway.” I kept my voice light.

The caution vanished from her voice. “That big Sisiwan guy? Long black hair? Tribal tat on his temple? A real cutie?”

Oh, lord, not her, too. “Yeah, the cutie.”

“I hear he’s Ted’s brother. That’s an interesting family, isn’t it, all those adopted kids. Tell me what you thought of Hank.”

Olivia was a pro, leading me down the garden path while ignoring my question. But I knew how to play the game, too. “Hank Olmstead? I couldn’t get a fix on him, other than that he’s worried enough about Ted to hire an attorney, however limited that attorney’s skills may prove to be. Nice segue, by the way, Olivia. Answer my question about Katherine.”

She chuckled, but still played it coy. “Katherine was an unnamed source in the story, and no matter how good your partner is, he can’t find what’s not in print.”

“I thought newspapers like the
Boston Globe
frowned on using unnamed sources.”

“It’s verboten if they’re the only source in the story, but I used six other sources and named each one. Katherine gave me some useful background info, that’s all. And you don’t segue so bad yourself.”

“Was the article about women whose husbands were imprisoned?”

The silence was so long that I began to think the call had been dropped. Before I punched in her number again, she said, “That’s one hell of a wild guess, Lena.”

“Not so wild. I spotted one of those home-made prison tattoos on Trent’s neck. A pretty unusual accessory for an Ivy Leaguer. Nothing like walking around with your rap sheet hanging out for God and the whole world to see.”

“He’s in the process of having it removed.”