Threepersons Hunt (24 page)

9.

There was no number listed for Tom Victorio; he called Kendrick's office and the secretary put him through to Victorio.

“Where the hell were you last night?”

“It's a long story,” Watchman said. “Is my partner in town, do you know?”

“He's sitting right here in the office with me. We were thinking about calling out the United States Cavalry.”

“What did you find last night?”

“Nothing.” Victorio continued quickly: “I'd rather not talk about it right now but the answer's nothing. Pure nothing.”

“Maybe he keeps the stuff at home.”

“Let's just drop it,” Victorio said and Watchman knew it was because he had no way of being sure who might be listening on the line: Kendrick, the secretary.

Watchman said, “Did Danny Sanada drive into town a little while ago?”

“I wouldn't know. I'm not a traffic cop.”

“Put Buck Stevens on, will you?”

Stevens came on the line. “Jesus we were worried about you.”

“Things are breaking,” Watchman told him. “We've got to move in a little bit of a hurry.”

“You want to fill me in?”

“I will when I get the time. Right now find out where you can locate a man named Harlan Natagee. Ask Victorio about him. When you find Harlan tell him we think Joe may be gunning for him. Don't let him get near any open windows—Joe's still got that magnum rifle.”

“Do I put him under arrest? Protective custody?”

“You put him under arrest for suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.”

“Jesus.”

“Suspicion of conspiracy, remember it. We don't want a false-arrest suit later. We may end up with no proof he's done a thing. But I want him under wraps.”

“Who's he supposed to have conspired to kill?”

“Don't tell him anything. Recite him his rights. Tell him it's mainly for his own protection.”

“Sam, have we got a warrant?”

“No. I have grounds for presumption that a crime's in progress.”

“What crime?”

“Joe's out there with a loaded big-game rifle. Isn't that enough? Let's worry about the formalities later. Now listen, this is important. When you arrest Harlan it's got to be public, very public. When you put him in your car I want everybody to know you're taking him with you up to Charles Rand's ranch. Got that? Victorio can tell you where it is. I'll meet you there.”

“You want the whole town to know about it?”

“I want the whole damn Reservation to know about it. Now have you got it straight?”

“Yeah. I find him, I arrest him real loud and we go to Rand's place and meet you there.”

“Bring Victorio if he wants to come.”

“I'll ask him.”

“Harlan's got a right to legal counsel.”

“Yeah.”

“See you,” Watchman said.

There was no listing for Charles Rand but he found Rand Enterprises and dialed and listened to it ring.

A woman chirped at him. “Rand Enterprises, may I help you?”

“I'd like to talk to Rand, please.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Rand is on a long-distance call at the moment. Could I take a message?”

“You'll have to bust in on him.”

“Well it's a very important call, really. I'm sure he wouldn't like it if I——”

“It's an emergency,” Watchman said. His teeth were beginning to grind. “Get him on the phone, will you?”

She chilled. “Very well, I'll try. Hold on please.”

Finally a baritone twanged at him. “Charles Rand. What's all this about an emergency?”

“This is Trooper Watchman, Mr. Rand. I'm in Indian Pine right now. I'd like to come over and——”

“I'm pretty busy right now, Trooper. Can't we make an appointment?”

“There's a man gunning for you with a three-seventy-five magnum rifle right now, Mr. Rand. He might be focusing his crosshairs on your window while we're talking. I'd like to come over there and make some arrangements to prevent you from getting your head blown off. I'll be there in half an hour.”

He hung up, maliciously pleased with himself: he'd planted the seed of terror in Rand and broken the connection before Rand could think of the right questions to ask. It was going to be a bad half hour for Charlie Rand.

CHAPTER SEVEN

1.

W
ATCHMAN
had a plan now but it was distinguished less by artfulness than by desperation and he didn't hold out great hope for its success.

In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines … The tires whimpered on the curves, the white line dash-dash-dashed under the left fender, the treetops stood aslant in marching ranks, all bent the same way by the prevailing hard winds.

He drove through a series of sharp turns toward the rim. Below him the water of a lake looked like blue cellophane and reflected the dark bellies of clouds coming in from the west. Not far beyond it a ditch skewered the road and then at the junction of the county highway with a blacktopped side road there was a mailbox for Rand Enterprises.

A Ford Pinto was coming out of Rand's drive; there was a young woman at the wheel. She looked like someone's secretary: she even had the white collar on her dress. She nodded to Watchman as she drove away past him.

The Volvo rattled loudly across the grated rails of the cattle-guard in the fence and Watchman put the car up the blacktop looking for signs of the ranch buildings. This was timber country but a great deal of it had been cleared; the alfalfa was growing, very deep green, and the road went up a steady slope along a dead-straight line between the fields.

The buildings had to be beyond the ridge crest ahead of him and that was a good three miles' climb. It had cost a fortune to blacktop a private road this long.

Gusts made deep shining ripples across the fields and when he reached the top there was a wind sock standing out swollen from its pole. The plateau stretched away a mile or more in all directions and the road made a turn along the crest; the bend took him along to the west with a smooth dusty airstrip just beyond the barbwire fence that ran parallel with his route. Across the airstrip stood a big fuel tank and an open-sided hangar shading a pair of single-engine airplanes, one of which had its cowling off. A man on a stepladder was doing something with the exposed engine.

They were small old planes, both of them; the kind modern ranches use for herding and rocksalting and crop-spraying. There was probably a corporate Lear Jet for Rand's personal use; that would be why the airstrip went on for the better part of a mile. Beyond that stood a variety of wooden corrals and a little home-rodeo arena with highschool-style bleachers along the south side where spectators wouldn't get the sun in their faces.

There were stables and barns and the road passed between them. Watchman picked up the strong stink of horses and cattle and old straw. A row of trees screened the main buildings and then he made a last turn and the ranch was spread out in front of the Volvo and he had his look at it while he drove up to the main house.

The place had a ski-lodge flavor to it because there were four large buildings all constructed of unsplit logs. From the architecture it was evident the buildings had been here longer than Rand had but the sixty-foot swimming pool and the tennis court, green asphalt, were probably of Rand's devising. There was an open-fronted six-car garage and the blacktop drive made an elegant circle from there past the front of the house. In the center of that circle stood a strange fountain in the guise of a somewhat misshapen nineteen-fortyish airplane standing on its tail. It was probably a sculptor's rendition of the fighter-plane design that had begun Rand's fortune.

A galleried wooden verandah ran the length of the front of the house. There were double doors made of hand-hewn planks four inches thick. Watchman found a push button and pressed it; within the house a bell rang.

2.

“The stupid fool needs a bib,” Charles Rand said in his muted Texas twang.

“Maybe you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you, Mr. Rand. Maybe you want me to spell it out in blood.”

“I understand all right. The bastard's chucked a hell of a big rock into the pond.”

“Maybe that's because the water's getting up over his head. Joe Threepersons got taken. Like a hick in a whorehouse. He wants his money back.”

His face rigid with suppressed feelings, Rand presented his back to Watchman and looked out the window, indicating he didn't want further disputations. The window looked out into the trees and not much light filtered through. The room was big, dark-paneled, rendered gloomier by its somber velvet drapes; massive furniture was strewn around with masculine carelessness and there were antlers over the mantel.

Finally Rand said, “Don't shit a shitter.” He turned and fixed Watchman with baggy eyes. “Legally, Trooper, you can't even ask me if the sun's shining. You've got no proof of any of these allegations.”

“We're not in court, Mr. Rand.” Watchman tucked his chin in toward his Adam's apple. “I'm not slinging accusations. I'm telling you what Joe believes. Whether it's true or not, he believes you had his wife and boy killed.”

“Maybe instead of barging in here you ought to be out there stopping him before he does take a shot at somebody.”

“That's what I'm trying to do. I need your help.”

Rand inhaled to argue but then abruptly stalked toward the door. “Wait here.” He left the room and Watchman went over to the window and examined the woods outside. A dead-easy place to creep up on the house; Joe could be out there right now not more than twenty-five feet from him, unseen.

When Rand returned something was dragging down the pocket of his leather jacket. Probably a handgun. His breath was touched with whiskey. The heat wasn't intense up here but it seemed to be getting to him; chest-hair showed through his white shirt between the lapels of the jacket and sweat pimpled his forehead. He didn't look as urbane as he wanted to; when his eyes flicked Watchman's they were as bright as the eyes of a nocturnal animal pinned by the beams of headlights.

“He's a stinking ingrate,” Rand said. “It's a tissue of lies, you can see that for yourself. Why should I kill his wife and boy?”

“He thinks you got tired of paying for their support.”

“I never paid for their support. Who told you that?” It was a question but Rand didn't await the answer. “Three-persons, of course. I never thought he had that much imagination. But it's pretty flimsy. You'll never prove I paid anything for their support, because I didn't. My records of cash flow are wide open, God knows—the Internal Revenue boys see to that.”

“Fight me tomorrow, Mr. Rand. Help me today. Help yourself, you're the one he's gunning for.

Rand's indignation seemed ready to soar to its peak but he kept a flimsy rein on himself; Watchman couldn't tell how long it would hold. “This is getting out of hand. Way out of hand.”

He went over to his desk. Picked up a letter-opener and turned it in his hands while he spoke. It was Turkish in appearance, a brass weapon with a carved handle. His voice was measured, every word dropping like a separate brick:

“All right. This goes no farther than this room. I'll deny it if you bring it up afterward. Understood?”

“I don't sign that kind of blank check, Mr. Rand.”

“You're an Indian. I state it as a plain fact, I'm not trying to insult you. Your word wouldn't stand up against mine in court. You understand?”

“I'm listening.” Watchman did understand. It didn't matter that Watchman was a state police officer and a non-Apache; in court a good lawyer would make him out a biased witness because of his skin and Rand was right, they'd discount his testimony.

“It's not that I don't sympathize with that poor stupid fool,” Rand said. “I've got a little company doing biological experiments. I've watched a time or two when they put a laboratory rat into a no-exit maze. That kind of vexation, that's where Joe is right now. He's no thinker, he lives from crisis to crisis, he grabs at straws and I'm the only straw he can think of. All right, I understand that, but I'm not ready to get killed on that account. I didn't kill his wife. I've never killed anybody. I guess I could but I've never had to.”

Rand circled the desk and sat; he kept his concentration on the letter-opener, twirling it so that it shot fragments of reflected light off its blade.

“Nearly six years ago somebody walked into my foreman's house. Took a pistol off the wall and shot him to death. You saw the house outside there, it's the small one just this side of the fork in the driveway—over there on the far side of the fountain. I was the only one here that night. I heard the shot. By the time I got outside there was a car going away and the lights were still burning in the windows over there. I went over to see what the trouble was. I didn't recognize anything about the car, all I could see was the taillights going away. I went in and found him dead. I have no idea to this day who killed him.

“But it put me in a bad spot. Calisher had been having an affair with my wife, the woman who was my wife then. She's married to Dwight Kendrick now but that's neither here nor there. The point is I believe several people knew about this affair. I'd only found out about it a day or two previously. Now my own story was damned flimsy when you come right down to it. I was the only one there that night besides Calisher himself. I had the opportunity. I had the motive—it could have been demonstrated in court that I had just learned about him screwing my wife. I probably wouldn't have been convicted, there was no direct evidence to prove that I'd killed him—how could there be if I didn't kill him? But I was involved at the time in several very sensitive pending mergers and takeover bids and I simply couldn't afford to have my name linked, even remotely, with a sordid crime like that. It would have been one of those tedious cases where a rich man bought himself off in spite of his guilt, you see what I mean? Nobody would have believed in my innocence and every damn one of those deals could have fallen through, not to mention the damage those rumors would have done to all my future dealings.