Ill Wind (25 page)

“Wouldn’t Jamie love that,” she said. “She’s an opportunistic actor. Takes every chance to dash out on stage. But I doubt she has the tenacity to write the script to that extent.”

“If she didn’t set it up and she’s not lying, then we really are out here waiting for the dead to walk.”

“When you’ve ruled out the impossible, whatever’s left . . .”

They sat awhile without speaking. Anna was enjoying herself. A smear of lights over Farmington, fifty miles distant, was the only flaw in a perfect sky. Deep in the canyon an owl called and was answered.

“So write me your autobiography and we’ll get this lifelong friendship rolling,” Stanton dropped into the stillness.

Anna would have laughed but, remembering how sound carried in these natural amphitheaters, settled for a smile.

“Aw, come on,” Stanton pleaded. “Since we can’t have cheeseburgers and coffee out of paper cups, that’s the next best thing for making this feel like a real stakeout.”

If an expectant stare indicated anything, he was serious. Suddenly Anna felt shy.

“Just start any old where,” he encouraged.

“Well, I was born naked—”

“Not the ishy parts! I don’t want to know you that well.”

“I thought you should know the worst if we’re to be lifelong friends.”

“Okay then. Ever married?”

“You consider that the worst?”

“My ex-wives did.”

It was Anna’s turn for raised eyebrows, metaphorically if not literally.
“Wives?”

“Two.”

“Children?”

“Several.”

“Ages?”

“Oooh, that’s a toughie. Thirteen going on fourteen—second marriage. Nineteen and twenty-three—introductory marriage. Girl, girl, boy, respectively.”

Anna revised her estimate of Stanton’s age from late thirties to mid forties. She didn’t ask what had happened. Once or twice in the past, when she was feeling excessively polite or nosy, she’d asked that question. Nothing new happened under the sun and certainly not before the altar.

“You ever married?” Stanton asked again.

“Yes.”

“Died?”

“How’d you guess?”

“A lady who finds corpses on sunken ships and in kivas wouldn’t be so bourgeois as to be divorced. No glamour, no drama.”

A pang of embarrassment let Anna know he was right. Like other widows, especially young widows, she was prone to wearing her weeds like a badge of honor. Widowhood conferred a mystery and status divorce lacked. The difference between returning World War II and Vietnam veterans. Both had been through a war, but a judgmental public conferred glory only on those who had been victimized in a socially acceptable manner. In divorce, as in a police action, nobody truly won and everybody got wounded.

“You know the only reason Romeo and Juliet didn’t get a divorce is because they died first,” Stanton said.

A rustling stirred the pine needles behind them. “Are there snakes?” he demanded abruptly.

“Snakes don’t tend to be nocturnal. They’re too cold-blooded.”

“Most of the cold-blooded creatures in Chicago are exclusively nocturnal.”

“Our tarantulas come out at night,” Anna offered.

“Stop that!” He pulled his legs up again. “Don’t tell me that. You’re such a bully.”

“So tell me about the dead guy,” he said after he’d gotten himself arranged in a defensive posture.

“I already told you all that I know and then some.”

“Not the kiva dead guy, the dead guy you’re married to.”

Anna noticed he didn’t use the past tense and wondered if he’d tapped into her idiosyncrasies. “Neurosis,” she heard her sister’s voice in her mind. “Spade for spade.” All at once she felt terribly tired. A middle-aged lady up past her bedtime sitting on a rock in the dark.

Stanton was still looking at her, his face open and interested. Briefly, Anna thought of what she might tell him, wondered if it would have the cathartic effect of confession. Or if she’d merely paint the old pattern of the perfect marriage. Romeo and Juliet Go To New York.

“Nothing’s perfect,” she said finally. “It was a long time ago.”

Stanton laid a hand on her arm. At first she resented his pity, then realized that wasn’t inherent in the gesture. He was shutting her up, pointing to the west where a quarter mile distant the walls of an ancient ruin appeared in a flicker of light then vanished again into darkness. The effect was unsettling, as if, like Brigadoon, the pueblo had appeared momentarily in the twentieth century.

“Headlights,” Anna shattered the illusion. “That’s Sun Temple. It’s on another part of the mesa but your headlights rake across it when you come around the bend before the Cliff Palace parking lot.”

“The last ranger sweeping out leftover tourists?” Stanton ventured.

Anna shook her head. “Too late. Jennifer went out of service at midnight.” She squeezed the tiny button on the left side of her watch and squinted at the barely illuminated numbers. “It’s after one. Probably interps. Maybe Jennifer gave them the key. They may be out for the same reason we are.” Levering herself up, she stomped some blood back into her feet. “Might as well go after them. We’re legal; they’re not: in a closed area without permit.”

“A firing offense?”

“Definitely a calling-on-the-carpet offense.”

The roar of an engine followed after the lights. “Sounds like a truck.” Following the deer trail they’d taken to the mesa’s edge, Anna began threading her way quickly through the junipers.

“You must have eyes like a cat,” Stanton complained.

She stopped, took the mag light off her duty belt, and shone it back down the trail for him. He wasn’t far behind. When he chose he could move quietly.

The sound of an engine being gunned stopped them both. “Saw the patrol car,” Anna said. She began to run and heard Stanton follow. In less than three minutes they reached the parking lot but the truck was gone. “Rats.”

“No lights and sirens?” he asked as she backed the patrol car out.

“They have no place to go,” Anna reminded him. “We’ll catch them at the gate unless they left it open.” Still, she drove as fast as the winding road permitted. Partly to catch the offending vehicle and partly for the sheer fun of it.

“Whee!” Stanton said, and pulled his lap belt tighter.

“Three-one-two, three-zero-one.” The radio commanded their attention.

“That’s you,” Stanton said. “Boy, you’ve got an exciting job. Wish I were a park ranger.”

“Stick with me. You may get to see a dog off leash.” Anna picked up the mike and responded with her call number. Three-zero-one was Frieda’s personal number.

“Are you still on duty, Anna?”

“Yes. I’m on Cliff Palace loop with Agent Stanton. We’ve a vehicle in a closed area.”

“You may have to leave it. There’s a disturbance at Patsy Silva’s residence. It sounds serious. Al called. She said she’s heard shouting and what she thinks might be gunshots.”

“I’m headed that direction. See if you can’t get somebody else out of bed to lend me moral support.”

“Ten-four. Three-zero-one, zero-one-thirty-four.”

Anna made an educated guess that the instigator of this particular melee was Tom Silva and refreshed Stanton on the Silvas’ post-matrimonial relationship.

“Bet you’re glad I’m along,” he said smugly.

“And why would that be?”

“You’ll need somebody to calm the hysterical wife while you’re disarming and subduing the enraged husband.”

Anna laughed. “You’ve got the more dangerous of the two jobs.”

“I wish you were kidding.”

She took the turn at the Three-Way too fast and scared herself into taking her foot out of the carburetor. By the time they reached the four-way intersection she’d slowed to a safer speed.

The gate was closed and the chain in place.

“We couldn’t have been far behind. Where’s the truck?” Stanton demanded.

“They hid out somewhere along the way. Looped back around or ducked up a fire road. We won’t catch them tonight.”

In the headlights she could see the padlock’s arm was through the chain links but not clicked closed. “The gate is false-locked,” she told Stanton. “Get it for me, would you?”

Stanton complied, relocking the chain behind him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, lock ’em in.”

Anna’s thoughts had moved ahead to the upcoming festivities. Shortly before reaching the tower house, she told Frieda she had arrived on the scene, then opened the car window and turned off the headlights. Moonlight was enough to see by.

“Stealth ranger?” Stanton whispered as the car crept up the short drive.

“The dark is my friend,” Anna quoted a self-defense instructor from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

The Silvas’ residence was dark and, at the moment, quiet. Anna grabbed her flashlight from the recharger and pushed open the car door. Stanton folded himself out his side. “This is the creepy part,” he whispered.

For a moment they stood in silence not softened even by the hum of night insects or the rustling of predators and prey. Just when they’d come to count on it, the stillness was destroyed by the sound of shattering glass and shouting. “Goddamn you, Pats! Let me in. Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph, listen to me, for Crissake!” Fierce pounding followed.

“Ahh. Better,” Stanton said. “Now we know where he is and his church of choice.”

“It’s Tom.” Quietly, Anna led the way up the flagstone walk curling around the building. Behind the jut of the square kitchen, set into the curved wall of the tower, was the front and only door. It and the small porch protecting it were wooden. The rest of the dwelling was stone.

“You’re a dead woman if you don’t let me in!” came a cry so slurred it hardly sounded like Silva.

Anna switched on the flashlight. In her peripheral vision she saw Stanton melt out of the moonlight into the shadows as the beam spotlighted the man on the doorstep.

Looking like a refugee from the movie set of
Bus Stop,
Tom Silva, in Levi’s, boots, an open white shirt, and battered straw cowboy hat, leaned on the front door. Both arms were raised, fists balled, propping him up. He rested his forehead against the wood. The hat was pushed to the back of his head.

“Tom,” Anna said softly.

“Gun,” Stanton said just as quietly, his voice penetrating from the shadows.

Almost swallowed up in Silva’s right fist was a derringer. Anna took her .357 from its holster and trained it on him.

“Tom,” she said again. “Put the gun down. It’s Anna.”

Silva turned. The act unbalanced him and he stumbled backward, his shoulders crashing into the planks. The derringer sparked in the light as his arm swung up. Anna’s stomach lurched and her finger tensed on the trigger but he was only shading his eyes with the weapon, squinting to see past the glare.

“Fucking idiot.” Shaken by the anger adrenaline leaves behind, Anna said: “You just nearly scared me into shooting you, you know that? Put that gun down. Slow! Don’t you dare scare me like that again.”

“Anna?” Tom staggered half a step forward then fell back once more against the support of the door. “
Ranger
Anna? No shit?”

“The gun,” Anna reminded him. “Put it down.”

Tom brought the derringer in front of his face and studied it. Anna’s breath caught at the movement. She was becoming uncomfortably aware of the strain of holding the revolver at arm’s length in one hand and the six-cell flashlight in the other.

“This is my door knocker,” Tom said. It looked a match to the one he’d given Patsy.

“Drop the damn thing,” Anna snapped.

“Jeez-Louise,” he mumbled. “Keep your pants on.”

“Now,” Anna ordered, trying to cut through the alcohol shrouding his mind.

“I’m not dropping it,” he said petulantly. “It’s got a pearl handle. How ’bout I set it down real nice like? Okay?”

“Okay. Just do it.”

Silva bent down to lay the little pistol on the cement, lost equilibrium and fell against a post supporting the porch roof. The derringer clattered to the concrete. “Fuck,” Silva growled. “If you’ve busted it . . .” He reached for the pistol but a hand shot out of the shadows and snatched it away.

“I’ll go ahead and take care of this for you, Mr. Silva,” Anna heard Stanton saying politely.

Flashing blue lights and a screaming siren made Anna jump. She squeaked as well but fortunately the clangor drowned her out. Silva screamed outright. “Sheesh!” He collapsed on the welcome mat, his back to the door, and hid his face in his hands. “Pats is a dead woman. Missy and Mindy: dead. Fuck.” In slow motion, he rolled to his side and vomited into the petunias.

Anna holstered her weapon and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Stanton materialized out of the shadows and began patting the incapacitated Silva down for weapons. “Now you’ve done it, Anna,” Stanton said.

“Don’t I know it. I took ‘it’ out,” Anna said, referring to her revolver.

“Gonna be paperwork to atone for that.”

Loud bootfalls on the flagstone announced Jennifer Short’s arrival. “The pitter-patter of little feet,” Anna muttered unkindly. “Hey ya, Jennifer,” she said as the other woman came up beside her. “You might want to call ‘in service’ when you go out and ‘on scene’ when you arrive. It’s okay to spoil the surprise.”

“Sorry. Damnation. I’m always forgettin’ that.”

The porch light came on, giving Stanton light to work by, and Anna switched off her flashlight.

Jennifer’s face was flushed and her eyes bright. Clearly she was scared, but excited too. Maybe she’d arrived a bit like Wyatt Earp into Dodge but she’d made a quick response from Far View and she hadn’t hung back. “Good to see you. Come to join the fun?” Anna asked.

“Looks like it’s all been had. Ol’ Tom the only perpetrator?” Jennifer asked, disappointed. “Frieda made it sound like a riot.”

“He had a gun,” Anna tried to sweeten the pot. Jennifer perked up a little. “Why don’t you go work with Special Agent Stanton,” Anna suggested. “I need to check on Patsy and the girls.”