Desert Wind (22 page)
“But in the meantime, there it is. If Dysart is his real last name, and even if it isn’t, Jimmy will find out all about him.”
She sighed. “You’re right. And since it’s all on record anyway, I might as well give you the sordid details. Yes, Trent served time. He and Katherine were at the Brae Burn Country Club one afternoon and for some reason, maybe he’d had too many celebratory cocktails after coming in two under par, he wound up in an argument with one of the Kennedy cousins. It got physical. Long story short, Trent socked him one, and on the way down the guy’s head slammed into the corner of a table. He never regained consciousness. Trent was contrite, but that didn’t count for much during his trial. He was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years in a medium-security prison. Turns out, there wasn’t much
medium
about it. The place was so rough that he had to join a prison gang just to survive; hence the tattoo.”
“Ten years? He must have been released early on good behavior.”
“That and over-crowding. But Boston being Boston, and with neither of their families speaking to them, Katherine convinced him that it might be best to start all over someplace else. Not easy to do with a prison record, so when a job search turned up dual openings at Sunset Canyon Lakes, they jumped at it. Satisfied now?”
“Roger Tosches didn’t mind hiring an ex-con?”
“Roger Tosches believes the only good Kennedy is a dead Kennedy.”
Jimmy and I arrivedat the same time at the jail, where a friendly but firm deputy told us that visiting hours were cancelled. Drugs had been found in one of the inmate’s cells, and the jail was on lock-down for the next twenty-four hours. And sorry, the sheriff was even busier today than yesterday, but I was welcome to call back later in the day when things calmed down. The sheriff was aware of my need to discuss the Ted Olmstead case, and yes, but for now I had to be patient.
“Lunch at Ma’s Kitchen, then?” I asked Jimmy, as we walked down the steps in disappointment.
He looked glum. “Might as well.”
Ma’s being so close, we left our vehicles in the county lot and walked over. We were early enough that the restaurant wasn’t yet crowded yet, so we had our choice of booths. The scent of garlic in the air announced that pasta was on the menu again. Once Jimmy’s little friend Tara took our orders—we both chose the linguini in clam sauce special—I lowered my voice and told him what had happened that morning.
Alarm leapt into his eyes. “You need to stop driving around alone in the desert.”
“Hard to do, since this is Arizona.”
“You know what I mean, Lena. There’s a lot of hostility floating around this little town. Remember that riot you ran into yesterday?”
“Who could forget?” The vision of the elderly woman and her smashed wheelchair would remain with me for a long time. Jimmy was right. For all its homey charm, Walapai Flats played house with a surprising streak of meanness, but if I’d been the timid sort, I wouldn’t have driven up from Scottsdale in the first place. Hell, I’d never leave my office at all, just remain anchored to my desk, merely answering phones. Private investigation was a dangerous business, because you never knew what kind of violence lurked around the corner. And God help me, I loved the game.
To get Jimmy off the subject of my safety, I told him about last night’s mixer and my conversations with Mia Tosches and Olivia Eames. “According to Olivia, Tosches doesn’t mind his wife’s extracurricular activities.”
Jimmy grunted. “Maybe, like that guy in the movie, he likes to watch.”
“
Being There
, with Peter Sellers.”
“Totally overrated, too,” he said with a sour look. “Give me a good Western any time as long as it’s the Indians who win.”
“That keeps your movie selection down to a bare minimum.”
He smiled. “Apparently you didn’t see my DVD collection when you broke into my trailer.”
Time to change the subject. “I almost forgot to tell you. Trent Dysart, Katherine’s husband? He’s an ex-con.”
“Based on your female intuition?”
“Don’t be sexist.” I described Trent’s prison tat and my conversation with Olivia Eames. “Look into him and see what other kinds of dirt you can dig up. Prison can make a man violent, even if he wasn’t violent before. And since Trent actually did kill that guy, supposedly by accident, I’m curious. He and Donohue both lived in Sunset Canyon Lakes. Who knows what kind of confrontation they might have had.”
“Sounds promising. I’ll check out Katherine, too.”
“That mixer, by the way…”
I was interrupted by Tara delivering our linguini, which looked and smelled delicious. She served Jimmy with great flair; me, perfunctorily. “Pie comes with the special,” she told Jimmy, batting her long lashes. “We’ll be getting busy in a couple of minutes, so I suggest you make your choice now. I’ll keep an eye on your booth and when you’re about finished with your entree, I’ll bring it over. So what do you prefer, apple, peach, lemon meringue, or banana cream?”
Jimmy gave her a gentle smile. “Surprise me, Tara. I trust your judgment.”
She flushed with pleasure then turned to me. “You?”
My own smile had no effect on her. “Apple. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream.”
After she walked away, I said to Jimmy, “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“That thing you have with women.”
He gave me a long look. “I like people, even women. Or more accurately, especially women. Unlike men, most women take the time to delve beneath a person’s surface and aren’t blinded by an artificial exterior.”
If I hadn’t known Jimmy better, I might have interpreted his comment as a dig at my own track record. Warren, the sophisticated film director; Dusty, the handsome wrangler. Had I looked beyond their slick surfaces when I met them? I tried to convince myself that my attractions ran deeper than that, but a small voice inside me whispered,
Liar!
We busied ourselves with our linguini. After finishing the last oily morsel, I said, “Just so you know, on my way back into town I called Ted’s attorney’s office and asked his secretary to email you a copy of Donohue’s autopsy report. She said she won’t do it without vocal confirmation from you, so call the bitch.”
“Language. We’re in public.” Jimmy pushed his plate away. “He was shot to death. We already know that.”
“But him calling around, apologizing for past behavior, that sounds like Twelve Step work to me. I want to know more about that. Now are you going to call or not, dammit?”
“I’ll call her if you stop cursing.”
“Deal. And Donohue…”
Cutting me off, Tara arrived at the table bearing two huge slices of pie; banana cream for Jimmy, apple à la mode for me.
“I’ve always admired a woman who’s not afraid of food,” Jimmy said a few minutes later, as I attacked my dessert. “But back to Ike Donohue. So you think some Twelve Step program might have played into his death?”
“I can’t think of another reason for those ‘I’m sorry’ phone calls, especially since he took the time to tell the granddaughter of an old friend to stop smoking. Considering the fact he used to do PR for a tobacco company, that sounds like an ‘amend.’”
“Maybe we should have looked for a drug connection in the very beginning. The lockdown at the jail proves there’s a problem in this town.”
“There’s a drug problem in every town.”
“On every reservation, too.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Jimmy had lost cousins to overdoses; I’d lost friends. The drug epidemic in America had become so widespread that few families remained untouched.
Then I remembered something I’d meant to ask earlier. “By any chance have you run across Donohue’s insurance policies? I’ve been wondering how much his wife will get.”
“Donohue left his wife a million and a half. These days, that wouldn’t be considered astronomical, but we’ve run into plenty of people who would kill for much less.”
“Nancy needs new furniture.”
He grinned. “Well, there you go.”
As soon as I finished my apple pie, I glanced over at Jimmy’s banana cream. “Boy, that looks good. I reached over and helped myself to a forkful. “Mmmm. It’s as good as it looks.”
“Say, did you call the Board of Health about that rabid coyote?”
“Even before I called Anderson Behar’s insufferable secretary.” I gestured with my fork toward his pie. “Do you want the rest of that? If not, I’m eating it.”
He shoved it toward me. “Knock yourself out.”
***
I left Jimmy to flirt with Tara, but instead of returning to my car, took a stroll through town. A good PI can glean information in the unlikeliest of places.
Although the day was too hot to be pleasurable, the overhangs that shaded the raised wooden sidewalks kept the temperature tolerable. Tourists were out in full force, strolling along John Wayne Boulevard, peeking into shop windows offering John Wayne tee shirts, John Wayne key chains, John Wayne DVDs. Each store sported a sticker on its door proclaiming the proprietor was a proud member of the Walapai Flats Chamber of Commerce. Spotting a familiar face inside Big Hoss’ Western Emporium—also a proud member of the Walapai Flats Chamber of Commerce—I walked in. The prosperous-looking gentleman who’d handed me a 10 percent off coupon at the demonstration yesterday was building a small pyramid of John Wayne coffee mugs on a table.
I pulled the coupon out of my carry-all and said, “I’ll take the mug that says, ‘Don’t say it’s a fine morning or I’ll shoot ya.’” On that issue, Wayne and I were in accordance; mornings weren’t my favorite time of day, either.
“Excellent choice,” the man said. “The quote’s from
McLintock
. We carry the film in DVD or VHS, whichever you prefer.”
“Was the movie made around here?”
“Nope, down by Tucson.” He reeled off a list of movies filmed in Walapai County and then tried to get me to buy one. Or two. Or three. When I declined, he walked over to a nearby shelf and brought back an obviously phony Indian headdress no real Indian would be caught dead in. “How about this? The green feathers match your eyes perfectly.”
“Just the mug, thanks.”
Recognizing that I wasn’t in a shopping spree mood, he led me to the counter, where I handed him my American Express card and 10 percent off coupon. As he picked up my card, I said, “Say, didn’t I see you at the demonstration?”
A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. “That was a very rare and unfortunate situation. We Walapai Flatians are actually very peaceful people.”
“That’s what you said yesterday, too. But if a little thing like a demonstration can get those peaceful people riled up enough to whack each other with baseball bats, what’s the problem with uranium mining? Is it radioactive or something?”
“Of course not!” Toning it down, he added, “Uranium mining is a perfectly safe enterprise when it’s handled responsibly. Those demonstrators you saw are nothing but radical environmentalists. If they had their way, we’d be back burning candles for light and riding bicycles to work.”
It didn’t sound that bad to me, though it would play hell with Desert Investigations’ website and Facebook page. “There was something else that puzzled me at the demonstration, an elderly woman carrying a sign that said ‘Hasn’t Walapai County suffered enough?’ What did that mean?”
“I have no idea.” He handed me my mug and my receipt. “Have a nice day.”
I ran into the same polite brush-off at Cowboy Clem’s Western Wear, where I purchased a white Stetson; Tumbleweed Books, coming away with a copy of
Arizona in the Movies
; and at Kalico Karen’s Koffee Kup, the special of the day being Iced Caramel Mocha Frappuccino. While I lapped up the calorie-laden thing, I perused a copy of the
Las Vegas Sun
someone had so kindly left on the reading rack. A story on B-2 informed me that a new casino had opened in Vegas, this one with a Wild West theme; it featured daily reenactments of the shootout at the OK Corral at two, Indian attacks at six.
The Vegas newspaper reminded me of Ike Donohue’s odd phone calls. Since Donohue had remained successfully employed by the Black Basin Mine right up until the day of his murder, I decided he probably wasn’t addicted to booze or drugs. Maybe he gambled.
After finishing my Frappuccino I resumed questioning the proud members of the Walapai Flats Chamber of Commerce, but my luck never improved. Everyone assured me the uranium mine wouldn’t make the town or the Grand Canyon radioactive, and tsk tsk, wasn’t that fuss at the demonstration a shame? It was all the fault of those nasty environmentalists. The old woman’s picket sign? Sorry, no clue. By three I gave up. I walked back to my Trailblazer and headed for the Gas-N-Go, where I caught Earl Two Horses clearing away litter by one of the pumps.
I rolled my window down. “Hey, Earl. Got a minute?”
“If you’re a customer.”
My gas tank remained three-quarters full, so while Earl dumped the litter into a trash receptacle, then walked toward the store, I pulled the Traiblazer over to the parking area. Steeling myself for more obstruction, I followed him. Except for the clerk at the cash register, a middle-aged woman with harlequin eyeglasses and old-fashioned beehive, the store was empty. When Earl said something to her I couldn’t hear, she smiled and grabbed her purse.
