Astride a Pink Horse (13 page)

When she’d made the appointment to talk to Dagoni and explained why she wanted to speak with him, the trepidation in his voice had all but screamed,
Not Rikia again!
Now, as she sat in the cramped outer office staring at the closed door to Dagoni’s office, Bernadette had the sense that she might be in for her second confrontation of the morning.

The door swung open less than five minutes into her wait to reveal a thick, meaty, gregarious-looking man of medium height. Glancing toward his secretary with eyes that seemed much too small for his head, then back at Bernadette, he said, “Major, please come in.” They shook hands, moved into his office, and took seats across from one another. A small octagonal table, littered with books and academic journals, sat between them.

Small talk, with Dagoni leading the way, took up the first few minutes of their conversation. Where Bernadette was from, how long she had been in the air force, and whether she liked what she did quickly segued into a summary of the high points of Dagoni’s seventeen-year tenure as mathematics department chairman.

When Bernadette finally asked, “So, how’s it been working with Rikia Takata?” the smiling Dagoni, sounding rehearsed, said, “He’s a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, you know.”

“Yes. I also know that he’s the second cousin of a Heart Mountain internment camp survivor. That he’s been at the university for
fourteen years; that he’s regarded by his colleagues as standoffish, eccentric, and a little paranoid; and that his research centers on ways to fight terrorism.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Dagoni said with surprise. “But if I may correct you, Dr. Takata’s research actually involves the development of algorithms designed to calculate and access mathematical equivalencies. Terrorism is simply the subject of that application. More simply put, Major, what Dr. Takata is actually investigating is how the various pieces and fragments of any one thing come together to form the whole.”

“I see,” Bernadette said, nodding. “Is he a hard man to work with?”

Dagoni smiled. “Aren’t we all at times?”

Thinking,
Second sidestep
, Bernadette asked, “Do you know his cousin Kimiko? She was at one time a very prominent antinuclear activist, I understand.”

“Yes, I do. And she’s quite a pleasant person, considering what she’s been through.”

“No hard feelings about her internment camp experience at Heart Mountain?”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask her that yourself. My impression has always been that Rikia is more resentful of our government’s internment of Japanese Americans during the war than she is. He’s actually quite vocal about it, and it’s the one thing that I’d say has rubbed his colleagues a little raw over the years. This is Wyoming, after all, and it’s not the kind of place where you continually want to criticize America. Now, may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“You don’t actually believe that Rikia or Kimiko is in any way tied to that missile-silo murder near Wheatland, do you?”

“Investigating murders isn’t part of my job, Professor. My assignment is to investigate a break-in and the security breach that occurred on U.S. Air Force property.”

“If that’s the case, as Rikia himself might say, you don’t want to overlook anything, big or small.”

“I certainly don’t. Let me ask you this: Do you think Dr. Takata might have considered breaking into a secure government facility in order to promote that equivalency research of his and prove a point?”

“No!”

Surprised by Dagoni’s supportive and adamant reply, Bernadette said, “What’s Dr. Takata got on his academic plate right now?”

“I’m not sure of everything that he’s involved in at the moment. I do know he’s scheduled to give a major equivalence theory paper at the Western States Mathematical Society meeting this week in El Paso. You might ask him about his research schedule when you speak with him.”

“We’ve talked, and we struck a bit of a sour note. My uniform seemed to upset him.”

“Dr. Takata’s antimilitary. Always has been.”

“Just another piece of the puzzle,” Bernadette said, smiling. “Sooner or later we’ll get to the whole.” She slipped a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Dagoni. “By the way, how does Dr. Takata handle giving research papers with that speech problem of his?”

“That’s what research fellows are for,” Dagoni said insightfully.

“So they give his talks for him?”

“Happens all the time.”

Nodding, Bernadette said, “Call me if any more puzzle pieces turn up, won’t you?” “I certainly will.”

Bernadette stood to leave, and Dagoni stood to shake her hand. “I couldn’t help but notice your pilot wings. I fly myself,” he said proudly. “I didn’t know they assigned pilots to OSI.”

“They don’t.” Bernadette turned and headed for the door, leaving Dagoni looking surprised as he struggled with yet another puzzle.

Cozy’s early-morning start from Denver put him at the base of the eastern slope of the Big Horn Mountains and within fifteen miles of Buffalo, Wyoming, by eleven a.m. More than a century earlier the quiet ranching community had been home to Wyoming’s fabled Johnson County wars, a series of shootouts, skirmishes, and killings that had erupted in 1892 during a dispute between large and small ranchers over cattle grazing rights. Although the wars had long since ended, squabbles over grazing and water rights still arose in the valley on occasion.

After getting home to Denver late the previous evening, Cozy had called Grant Rivers, the man Lillian Griffith had told him an anonymous caller to Digital Registry News had complained about, swearing that Rivers was tied to the Tango-11 murder. The half-asleep-sounding Rivers had grudgingly agreed to meet Cozy at his Four Creeks Ranch the next day at noon—but, he emphasized, only if he could give his side of the story on why Carl Ledbetter, the man Rivers claimed to be Digital Registry’s anonymous source, had tried to link him to a murder.

As Cozy gazed from his truck at red-rock foothills and a river valley of endless green, he had the feeling that he was driving through some lost nineteenth-century fantasy world. The frontage road he turned onto from I-25 was precisely where Grant Rivers
had said it would be, and a mile and a half later the county road that Rivers had told him to take a left on was there as well. As he headed down the washboard road toward Four Creeks Ranch, he had the sense that the raspy-voiced Rivers, who’d sounded when they talked as if he’d either smoked for far too long or had major throat surgery, might turn out to be some kind of High Plains reincarnation of the Marlboro Man.

Four miles later, still awed by the scenery, he crossed a cattle guard and drove beneath the massive log entryway to Four Creeks Ranch. A black, hand-forged, three-foot-tall “Lazy M” brand hung from the entryway crossbeam, swinging back and forth in the breeze. Just beyond the entry the ranch opened up into a secluded valley rimmed by steep red-rock walls and massive outcroppings. Tens of thousands of acres of heavily treed national forest rose in the distance from the valley floor. Whispering, “Damn,” and drinking in the unspoiled beauty, Cozy continued driving.

Rivers, who’d sounded like a man who wanted exoneration and also like someone who had nothing to hide, had said he’d be cutting hay by the time Cozy arrived. “Just look for a big old John Deere 4640 and a swather and you’ll have found me” had been his parting instructions. When Cozy spotted the tractor and a hay swather stopped midway down a fence that bounded the northern edge of a six-hundred-acre alfalfa field, a field that he could see also had a landing strip, he headed straight for them. As he got closer and realized that a man was standing inside one of the tractor’s six-foot-tall tire rims, he was pretty sure he’d found Grant Rivers.

Uncertain how he’d be received, since Rivers had deadpanned
during the previous evening’s conversation that he didn’t much like reporters, Cozy mulled over an interview strategy. Pulling the dually to a stop, he realized that the man had stepped from the tire rim and was now down on one knee, fidgeting with the tire’s valve stem. When the man looked up and waved for Cozy to join him, Cozy slipped out of his truck; walked several yards to the fence that separated them; and, careful not to drag his bad leg, vaulted the fence scissor-style.

It was easy to see that the ruddy-complected man wrestling with the valve stem was frustrated. Pudgy and sixtyish, with thick, bushy eyebrows and pockmarked skin, the man wore a grease-stained engineer’s cap. Cozy suspected that at one time he had been all sinew and muscle, but that day had come and gone. Thrusting a meaty hand at Cozy as he walked up, the man announced in a voice that sounded as if it were being filtered through an echo chamber being bombarded by hail, “Grant Rivers.”

“Elgin Coseia,” Cozy said, shaking Rivers’s hand.

“Well, if you ain’t, I’m guessin’ you’re his twin since you’re drivin’ a dually with Colorado plates, just like you said you’d be.” Rivers smiled, showing a set of downhill-sloping dentures.

Glancing down at the tire that Rivers had been struggling with, Cozy said, “Looks low.”

“Yep. It’s got a slow leak.” Rivers dusted off his hands and squared up to Cozy in the noonday sun. “Been tryin’ to decide whether to repair it or shoot it. But since I know you ain’t up here to ogle the Big Horns like most visitors, or to listen to my tractor woes, I’m thinkin’ we should handle your issues straight off so’s I can get back to mine.”

“Works for me,” Cozy said, glancing across the field to where another big John Deere sat idling. A man wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigar occupied the cab. Looking back at Rivers, he said, “Like I mentioned last night, I’m looking into that murder that happened outside Wheatland a couple of days back.”

“No need to pussyfoot around the issue, son. I know all about what happened at Tango-11. Believe it or not, we get the news up here, too.” Rivers adjusted his cap backward, then forward again on his head.

“Any chance you knew the dead man, Thurmond Giles?”

“Don’t think I knew him, but you never know. Back years ago I thought I knew my neighbor up the road. The one who sicced you on me in the first place, fuckin’ Carl Ledbetter. That damn water-stealin’ bastard’s been lookin’ for a way to slipstream my water rights away from me for years. Maybe the SOB thinks that by gettin’ people to thinkin’ I killed somebody, he’ll get my water. But he won’t, and he ain’t. Now, to answer your question, me and your dead man could’ve crossed paths back in the late ’70s and early ’80s when all them antinuclear protests were takin’ place out this way. But I couldn’t swear to it.” Rivers suddenly looked perturbed. “Got myself hung up in the middle of that protest mess back then, though Lord knows I tried my best not to. Had protesters show up at a missile silo that was right on my doorstep, and more than a few times, I might add. Even took a few shots at the bastards before the air force finally sent some of their boys out to shoo ’em off.”

“Giles was an African American, if that helps jog your memory.”

“Wouldn’t‧ve make no difference to me if he was a Martian. I
don’t really recall knowin’ the man.” Rivers dusted off his hands as if to say,
Next question
. The quizzical look on Cozy’s face triggered a brief Rivers laugh. “Guess I should explain a few things to you, son. Things that go back to the ’80s and them antinuke protests I just mentioned—by the way, what’s your political persuasion? You right-leanin’ or left?”

“I’d say I’m pretty much middle of the road.”

“Well, I ain’t. I’m hard-line libertarian, and proud of it. Ain’t always been that way. But I am now, and I’m guessin’ that it’s my political leanin’s as much as him covetin’ my water rights that put me on old Ledbetter-down-the-road’s enemies list. Anyway, here’s the deal. Your snitch, and that’s what the hell Ledbetter is, is more than likely hopin’ that he can get information about me that goes back some twenty-five years to come out. Stuff that goes back to when I used to ranch in Nebraska over near Kearney in the sandhills.”

Rivers looked eastward and frowned. “Back then the government wanted a slice of the sixty thousand acres I owned to build themselves a couple of missile sites like the one they found your dead man at. And originally, at least, not very much of a slice. Just over eighty acres is what they started out sayin’ they wanted.” Rivers, who’d started to sound like an overworked foghorn, looked a little embarrassed and cleared his throat. “Me bein’ patriotic and all, I sold ’em the land. Next thing I know the government’s got my water rights and my BLM grazin’ rights tied up in court. And the bastards didn’t stop there. They went right after my forest service grazin’ permits.” His face seared with anger, Rivers said, “What the turds really wanted wasn’t just a single spot for their missiles,
not at all. They wanted land for a dozen of their damn missile-silo sites and my goddamn water rights to boot.

“It took me over four years, a hell of a lot of lawyerin’, and most of the money I had in the world to wrestle them sons of bitches to the ground. But I did. Got my water rights adjudicated proper, and every one of my BLM and forest service grazin’ permits solidified. The only downside to the deal was that the SOBs got to keep my original eighty acres and their two fuckin’ missile silos. Knowin’ that even with the courts findin’ in my favor, they might come back, I sold out lock, stock, and barrel to an oil-drillin’ company with pockets a whole lot deeper than mine and moved my ranchin’ operation from Nebraska to here. But not, unfortunately, before I got to enjoy a couple of hell-filled years of havin’ a bunch of damn antinuke protesters camped out on my damn doorstep at them two missile silos the air force built.”