Wild Wild Death (29 page)

Sure, the light was bad. That didn’t keep me from watching Dan turn as waxy as those candles. “Don’t be ridiculous. Come on, Pepper, tel this guy you know me and you know I wouldn’t do anything like that. The permits were legit. They had to be.

Besides, I never signed them. That was al left up to

—”

He swal owed the rest of what he was going to say, and come on, it doesn’t take a detective to figure out why. Too bad I never had a chance to astound the Taopi with my keen insights. Before I could utter a word, a couple things happened. A movement across the mesa caught my eye and I saw Caridad step out of her tent. That is, right before she took off running.

Like skinny little Caridad actual y thought she could outrun the Taopi Police, the shaman, the elders, me, and oh yeah, Dan? He wrestled his way out of Jesse’s grasp the moment he saw Caridad, and it helped that Dan was familiar with the terrain.

Even with his hands cuffed behind his back and in the twilight that swal owed us as soon as we were a few feet from the candles, he knew his way. The rest of us raced after him.

Something told me Caridad wouldn’t have stopped at al if she hadn’t run out of breath. Good news for us because Dan caught up with her, we caught up with Dan, and Pete Olivas put him in a hold there was no way Dan could escape. Once the running was over, we found ourselves near a gigantic boulder that stood guard at a spot where the mesa ended and the awesome nothingness of the New Mexico night sky began.

“Caridad? Honey?” Dan cal ed out to her.

“What’s going on here? These people are saying crazy things. Do you have any idea—”

“Of course I do not.” Caridad gulped in breath after shal ow breath. She was dressed in jeans and a light-colored jacket, and in the high beams of the flashlights aimed in her direction, I saw her raise her chin and throw back her slender shoulders. When she looked at the half circle of people gathered around her, her eyes sparked. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s exactly what we’d like to know.” Yeah, that was me. It was what Jesse was bound to ask, anyway, so I didn’t feel guilty about stepping on his procedural toes. “You were told to stay off the mountain.”

“Yes, and of course, I would have done this. But

“Yes, and of course, I would have done this. But Dan…” Caridad turned to me, her eyes big and moist and pleading, her breathing ragged. “You remember what we talked about, Pepper? You remember how I asked if you would do anything for the man you loved? When my husband cal ed me and told me he needed my help, of course I came here to the mountain. To him.”

“Me? Cal ed you?” Dan did a little squirming, but in spite of being short, Pete was no pushover. A bit of arm twisting and the squirming stopped. “Caridad, honey, I’m completely confused. You cal ed and said

—”

“You see what those kidnappers, you see what they have done to him?” When she looked at her husband, her smile was bittersweet. “He is confused.

I believe this is from lack of water. Pepper, she was the one who told me you had been kidnapped, Dan. I was worried. So very worried. And then I arrived here this evening to pick up a few things, and I found Dan here. The kidnappers, they must have left you here, though I do not understand why.”

Dan tried to step toward his wife, but by now, Pete had hold of his one arm and another of the cops had his other. He wasn’t going anywhere. “But that’s not how it happened! I mean, yes, some of it is. I was kidnapped.” As much as he was able, Dan turned to Jesse. “Brian Reynolds, he’s this ghost hunter I know from Cleveland… he and these three friends of his, they showed up here at the excavation last spring on their way home from Indians spring training in Arizona. You know, just to visit. It was great to see him. And I thought that was that. But then they showed up again a couple weeks ago and I was showing them around and… I don’t know, they must have knocked me out or something. One minute, I was here at the excavation, and the next thing I knew, I was in some cabin somewhere and they were talking about bones.” He looked over his shoulder toward the altar and Goodshot’s remains.

“That’s not real y Goodshot Gomez, is it? How could it be? He’s buried back in Cleveland.”

The fact that Goodshot had made the cross-country trip might have been something of a bit of news to Strong Eagle and the elders. Rather than let them get al discombobulated about it, I decided to gloss over the
how
and get right to the
why
.

“The kidnappers wanted the bones in exchange for you,” I told Dan. “Only then Norma stole the bones and she got kil ed and Arnie did, too.”

Dan nodded. “So that’s what happened to Arnie.

He left the cabin one evening, see, and he never came back. The other two guys—John and Gregory

—they got al upset. They insisted something was wrong, that Arnie had gone to the cops and that they were al going to end up in big trouble. They argued with Brian. He wanted to stick around. They weren’t paying attention to me, and I managed to loosen my ropes and slip out of the cabin. Lucky for me, city guys aren’t as used to roughing it as I am. I spent the night in the wilderness, hiked down the mountain the next day, and cal ed—”

There it was. Another one of those too-obvious-to-be-overlooked hitches in Dan’s explanation. Like I could stop myself? I turned to look exactly where Dan was looking.

And Dan was looking at Caridad.

“Of course you cal ed her first,” I said. “She’s your wife. And you figured she was worried about you.

Worried sick. But you’re not going to say that, are you, Dan? Because you know what it means.” A quick look at him before I turned back to the missus.

“He’s trying to protect you.”

This shouldn’t have come as a big surprise to Caridad, but her eyes snapped to mine, anyway.

“Come on, Caridad, give the guy a break,” I told her. “The next thing you know, Dan is going to confess that the kidnapping was al a hoax designed to get a hold of Goodshot’s bones. Just so nobody figures out that you’re the one who did it.” I swung back around in Dan’s direction. “I’m right, huh?

You’re keeping quiet, Dan, about who was in charge of those permits, and about who you cal ed after you escaped. That’s because it was Caridad. And if you talk, it’s going to make her look as guilty as sin.”

Dan’s chin quivered. “Don’t be sil y. How could you possibly—”

“There’s the old legend for one thing.” I glanced toward Strong Eagle, a sturdy, middle-aged guy with kind eyes and big, tortoiseshel glasses, and since a walk on the woo-woo side was no longer my stomping grounds, I let him take over.

“The legend says that the bones of the last person who knew the location of the sacred silver bowl needed to be brought here to the pueblo,” he said. “The story tel s us that once the bones are here said. “The story tel s us that once the bones are here and the prayers are spoken, the spirits wil appear.

They wil show us where the bowl is hidden.”

“Yes.” The other Taopi gathered around nodded and murmured. “That is so.”

“And that silver bowl…” I watched Caridad careful y. “That silver bowl has magical healing powers. That explains it al , doesn’t it? I should have seen it from the start. But I didn’t. Not until right now.

Not until I watched you huffing and puffing your way across the mesa.”

Caridad was stil breathing hard, so it wasn’t very convincing when she grumbled, “I do not know what you are talking about.”

“She got Brian to kidnap Dan because she knew I’ d bring the bones to ransom him,” I said for the benefit of the elders. “And Brian needed Norma’s help. Poor Norma, that pretty much sealed her fate.”

“But if Brian wanted the bones, why pretend they’d been stolen?” It was a good question, and I acknowledged it with a nod toward Pete.

“Because the guys Brian brought here to New Mexico with him, they were true Cleveland Indians fans. They believed Brian when he said he was doing this for the team. They thought that once they had the bones, they real y were going to bury them here on the pueblo. That would have been perfect because not only would it lift the curse on our basebal team but it would put Goodshot right back where he belonged. Only Brian never had any intention of burying the bones, did he, Caridad?”

She tossed her head and aimed a laser look at Jesse. “I cannot believe you, a professional, would let this… woman… make these ridiculous accusations. You cannot listen to her. She does not know what she is talking about.”

“Hel o, I’m talking about how you’re the one who real y wanted the bones.” Since Caridad was ignoring me so she could try her best oh-poor-me look on Jesse to gain his sympathy, I waved my hands in front of her face. “And Brian couldn’t let his buddies know that. That’s why the bones had to get stolen at Taberna. And that’s why somebody had to keep Norma quiet about her part in this whole thing.

Was it you who kil ed her? Or Brian?”

“This is insane!” Caridad made a move to get past us, but one of the elders stepped in her path and that gave me the opportunity to keep putting the pieces together. Now that I knew Caridad was the spider in the center of the web, the rest made perfect sense.

“Once Norma was out of the way, I’l bet you and Brian thought everything would be A-OK. He was going to sel the bones to you. That was when Arnie and the others realized they’d been double-crossed.

They weren’t going to save their favorite basebal team. So Arnie contacted me and then… Poor Arnie never stood a chance, did he? Once you bumped him off, you were free to do the deal with Brian. You paid him for the bones. That explains al the money they found in his pockets. And man, you must have been pissed the first time you tried the ceremony and nothing happened. That’s when you realized Goodshot’s hand was missing, right? And I’l bet anything the ceremony requires al the bones, not just most of them. That’s probably when you started fol owing me to see if I had the hand. It’s probably why you kil ed Brian, too. You figured if I didn’t have the hand, it meant he held out on you.”

I didn’t hold it against Jesse for coming up with a logical protest. After al , this whole mess was about to get sucked into the legal system, and there would be more pointed questions to come. “But the person who kil ed Arnie had to be an expert shot,” he said.

“Arnie got hit on the first try, and Pepper, we never got hit at al . The shooter just wanted to scare us away.”

“She just wanted to scare us away.” I turned again to Caridad. “You want to just come right out and confess? Then we can al get out of here and get back to the feast. I wouldn’t mind a couple more of those cinnamon cookies.”

Caridad didn’t say a thing. She didn’t need to. It was Dan who spoke, and when he did, his voice was low and so ful of pain, it hurt to listen to him. “She was on the Spanish Olympic team.” He did his best to move closer to his wife, but no way Pete was going to let that happen. “Caridad, they’re going to find that out, they might as wel know right up front.

She’s an expert marksman, rifle and pistol. But that doesn’t mean anything.” When Dan looked at me, there was pain in his eyes. “Pepper, you’ve got it al wrong. That doesn’t mean—”

“Let me guess…” I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I had to get Dan to face the truth. “When you escaped from Brian and his buddies and final y got off the from Brian and his buddies and final y got off the mountain, Caridad was the first person you cal ed?”

“Of course. She’s my wife, and she was so relieved to hear from me—”

“That she told you to lay low, stay out of sight, and not contact the authorities.” This from Jesse, and I wasn’t surprised. He was smart, and he knew exactly where I was going with this.

Dan swal owed hard. “She said there was some confusion about the excavation permits, that the cops were looking for me, and until things were straightened out, it was better if nobody found me.”

“Which also gave her time to fol ow me and see if I had the skeleton hand. I did. But Caridad, you didn’t know that until today at the feast. You must have seen me take it out of my pocket and when I tried to bury it—”

“You were burying a hand? On the pueblo?” The elder closest to me didn’t sound happy so I decided he needed to be reminded that I’d nearly been choked to death. Maybe if he realized I’d risked my life for the sake of a pueblo legend, he’d look a little kinder on me.

“You came up behind me and wrapped that rope around my neck. What stopped you from finishing the job, Caridad? Somebody was coming, right? And you couldn’t afford to stick around and finish me off.”

Her laugh echoed against the cliff wal s. “How foolish you al are,” she said, glancing around at the Taopi. “To listen to this woman. Why would I want to perform this ceremony? I am a scientist. If you’re looking for someone who believes in these sil y, paranormal things, you know you must look at Dan.”

His mouth fel open. “Caridad, how could you say such a thing?”

“He’s the one who believes in magic,” she said, swinging an arm in her husband’s direction. “He’s the one who wanted to prove the existence of the spirits. And he told me, many times… he told me he would do anything to make this happen.”

“Yeah, I bet he did. But you…” I took another step closer to her. “You’re the one who wanted the magical bowl, because according to the legend, the bowl cures sickness and you need it, don’t you, Caridad?”