Burn Out (8 page)
This dozing off is dreadful.
It was the first thought that came to me when I woke an hour after I’d eaten and sat down to read the book I’d been trying to get through for over a week. I’d dreamed. . . .
Not of the pit or Amy this time—something else, a line of poetry over and over again. It still reverberated in my mind. . . .
I tossed the paperback on the floor. To hell with the former alcoholic and his non-midlife crisis!
In the kitchen I grabbed the keys to the Land Rover from the counter, took down the shearling jacket from its peg in the mudroom. Then, heeding an instinct I’d many times before recognized to be sound, I went to the bedroom, where we kept a .45 automatic—Hy’s weapon of choice—in a locked cabinet. Checked its clip. Put it in the jacket’s deep pocket, and set out for Willow Grove Lodge.
Home is the place where . . .
The line from Robert Frost’s “Death of a Hired Man” was what had echoed in my dream and now filled my mind as I drove.
Amy hadn’t had a real home in years—maybe ever—but Willow Grove Lodge, where Dana Ivins had said she’d been squatting in one of the cabins, was the place she’d be most likely to return to after giving up her rented room. And it was only a short way up the highway from where Boz Sheppard had pushed her out of his truck.
I pulled into the driveway there, coasted down the slope, and cut off the headlights as I tucked the Land Rover out of sight behind the main building. Dark and silent there, no lights showing in any of the cabins, not even exterior security spots. I leaned over to take a powerful flashlight from the pocket behind the seat.
The outside air was chill. The moon had waned, but when I looked up I saw a thick cluster of stars that were part of the Milky Way. The wind rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods and willows. I began walking upslope to the lodge’s entrance.
It was solidly padlocked, the windows secured by shutters. I walked around the main building, shining my light, then went to the first of the cabins, the one where I’d stayed years ago. Also padlocked and shuttered. Silver phosphorescent letters were sprayed on the wall next to the door:
APRIL & KEITH 4 EVER
.
I wished the couple luck, whoever they were.
I shone my light around, picking out the shapes of the other cabins. If I were going to squat here, I’d choose one far from the road, but not too near the lake, where passing boaters might spot evidence of my presence. A tiny one-room cabin surrounded by trees stood right over there, not thirty yards away. There was no outward sign of habitation, but that didn’t mean anything. Amy would hardly make a fire in the woodstove or open the shutters if she didn’t want to be detected.
Slowly I moved toward the cabin, flashlight in my left hand, right hand on the .45. I doubted Amy would be any threat to me, but if someone, say Boz Sheppard, was with her—
Screech!
I started, heard the flapping of wings. An owl speeding away with its prey.
Laughing softly at my edginess, thinking of how such a sound wouldn’t begin to penetrate my consciousness in the city, I went ahead toward the cabin.
The shutters were secure, and there was a hasp and padlock on the door, but when I touched the lock, it swiveled open. I removed it quietly, slid back the hasp, eased open the door—
A dark figure rushed at me. I tried to dodge, but the person came on too fast, hunched over, head slamming into my chest so hard that I expelled my breath with a grunt and reeled backward. My feet skidded on the layer of slippery fallen leaves. And down I went on my ass.
Stunned, I took a few seconds to realize that my assailant had run off, was thrashing around in the dark grove. I pushed up, and—holding the gun in both hands—ran toward the source of the sounds. My breath tore at my lungs and sharp pains spread out from my tailbone.
Suddenly the sounds stopped.
I stopped, too, looking around. Nothing moved. The only thing I could hear was my own panting.
Whoever it is, they’re hiding. That’s all right; I can wait them out.
I crept over to a thick tree trunk, leaned against it, getting my breathing under control. My lower back throbbed, and so did my head. What if I really had sustained a concussion last night, and my heavy fall to the ground had made it worse?
It was frigid under the trees: I could see my breath. Staying still was an invitation to frostbite. After a few minutes I moved in the direction where I’d last heard the thrashing sounds, placing my feet carefully, as silently as possible. I’d dropped my flashlight back at the cabin, but that didn’t matter; using it would have given away my position.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. . . .
Frost again. But these woods weren’t lovely. They were silent, full of potential hazards.
The hell with it.
I retraced my steps to the cabin, where I located the flash and shone it through the open door.
What I saw made me raise the .45.
More wreckage like that at Boz Sheppard’s trailer: overturned furniture, broken glass, linens pulled from the bed, pillows and mattress slashed, drawers in the tiny galley kitchen emptied. A door to the bathroom stood partway open.
I slipped inside and across the room. In the bath I found more broken glass and a torn shower curtain, its pole slanting down into the tub. The lid of the toilet had been removed and smashed on the floor. Otherwise the cubicle was as empty as the main room.
No one here, dead or alive.
I tried the light switch beside the bathroom door. No power, of course. My flash’s beam was strong, but it wouldn’t allow me to examine the place thoroughly. Besides, that was a matter for the sheriff’s department.
I moved back into the other room. Stepped on something soft. When I looked closely I saw it was the quilted jacket Amy had been wearing the day Sheppard had thrown her out of the truck. My light illuminated other objects that had been strewn around: T-shirts, costume jewelry, makeup, jeans, underwear, other teenage-girl attire.
And on the wall above them, a blood spatter.
I leaned against the Land Rover, bundled in the shearling coat, watching Lark’s team examining what she’d termed a “possible crime scene.” For a remote county that was probably operating on an insufficient salary budget, the deputies seemed well coordinated and knowledgeable. I’d seen less thorough initial investigations in the city. Not that that was any surprise: the SFPD has been through up-and-down cycles as long as I’ve lived there.
Lark finally approached me—a slender woman in her mid-thirties with blonde curls, worn long now, and freckles on her upturned nose. We’d spoken only briefly when she arrived and entered the cabin, not at all since her backup showed minutes later.
Now she said, “McCone, this scene looks bad. The place was tossed, there’s blood in the main room, the girl’s gone, and you say she’s Hayley Perez’s sister. How come you came here?”
“Someone told me—”
A man called out to Lark, and she held up a finger. “My forensics guy wants me. When I’m done with him, I’m going off duty. Let’s meet at Zelda’s, knock back a couple, and you can tell me what I need to know.”
The cavernous interior of Zelda’s was strangely quiet for a Thursday night. A couple of late diners lingered over coffee in the room to the left, and only a few drinkers gathered at the bar. Bob Zelda was absent—he’d told me he’d turned over the weekday-evening shifts to his son Jamie; Bob worked the weekends because he liked to listen to the country-music bands he employed.
I took one of the tables by the lakeside windows in the bar area and waited for Kristen Lark to arrive. After ten minutes I went to the bar and got a glass of white wine. Sipping it, I realized why I usually ordered beer at Zelda’s. Five minutes later Lark came through the door.
She pointed questioningly to my half-full glass. I shook my head, and she went to the bar; a minute later she was seated across from me with her own drink—a double bourbon.
“So, McCone, I hear you married Ripinsky.”
“I did.”
“I’m married, too.” She held out her left hand; a wide gold wedding ring circled her third finger.
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Fellow officer—Denny Rabbitt.”
“You look good,” I said. “Marriage agrees with you.”
“Marriage to another deputy, yes. Anybody else couldn’t’ve put up with the crazy schedule. Hy up here with you?”
“No. I’m taking some time off, but he’s busy with a corporate reorganization.”
She nodded, clearly having asked only for politeness’ sake, placed a tape recorder on the table, and asked, “So what were you doing at the lodge tonight?”
I outlined everything that had happened since I spotted Amy Perez outside the Food Mart, while Lark taped the conversation. “I didn’t mean to get involved in a police matter,” I finished. “It just occurred to me that Amy might be squatting at Willow Grove, and I thought I might be able to persuade her to go to her aunt and uncle’s.”
Lark shrugged. “Seems we’re having a regular crime wave this week. You want to help me on an official basis? You did before, remember.”
I solved your case for you and nearly lost my life in the process, you ingrate.
Lark waited for my answer.
I didn’t want to help out. I didn’t even want to be here talking with an officer of the law. But maybe I could find out some inside information about Hayley’s murder that I could pass on to Ramon and Sara.
“Okay, but I told you everything I know; it’s got to be a two-way street.”
“Deal.”
Lark turned off the tape, got up and went to the bar for another drink. When her back was turned I switched on the sensitive voice-activated recorder in my purse. The deputy hadn’t asked if I minded being taped, and I wasn’t going to ask her, either. She was fair, and a good law officer, but I was aware that our arrangement could backfire if I didn’t have documentation.
“Okay,” she said as she sat down again. “We didn’t have the info on the sister having taken out the life-insurance policy. Hadn’t really looked at Amy yet because we were concentrating on the Boz Sheppard angle. So far we haven’t located him.”
“You have any background on Hayley?”
Lark smiled. “Now
that
is where it really gets interesting.”
On my drive back to the ranch, I didn’t dwell on the facts that Lark had confided to me. She’d insisted on buying another round before we’d left Zelda’s at twelve-thirty, and even though I’d left most of my wine in the glass and was under the legal limit, I needed to pay close attention to my driving. High-desert people are generally hard-living folks, but it seemed to me that Lark, a law-enforcement officer and supposedly happy woman, had been pushing the envelope with her three double shots of bourbon.
The country around Tufa Lake is largely devoid of traffic at that time of night, and no wildlife sprang into my headlights, so I arrived home unscathed. There was a message on the machine from Hy: “Just wanted to let you know my ETA tomorrow—four p.m. See you then.” Pause. “Does your absence indicate you’ve been ‘sucked in’ by the Perez murder?”
Damn! He knew me all too well.
But sucked in I was—and with official sanction. I curled up in the armchair in the living room and listened to the tape I’d made of Kristen Lark’s confidences.
Haley and Rich Three Wings ran off nine years ago, ended up in Reno. He dealt blackjack at Harrah’s, she worked someplace as a waitress, but pretty quick she started turning tricks on the side. . . .
Around three years after they got to Reno, this high roller came to the casino. Hayley was waitressing there by then, and next thing she ran off with the guy, leaving Rich with only his old car and the clothes on his back. . . .
No, we haven’t found out who the high roller was. Rich claims he doesn’t know. We’ve got an inquiry in to the casino, though. . . .
That’s another thing we don’t know—where she was during the period between when she left Reno and three years ago when she turned up in Vegas. Living off the high roller, no doubt, but it didn’t last. . . .
In Vegas, she worked cocktails in a casino—the Lucky Sevens. Kind of downscale and dingy, LVPD says. So she went out on the streets again, got busted a few times, but always brought in a high-powered attorney who got the charges dropped. . . .
How could she afford the lawyer? Damned if we know. . . .
Name’s Brower. Frank Brower. With a big firm that’s rumored to be connected—Brower, Price and Coleman. Of course, everybody in Vegas is rumored to be connected. . . .
No, we haven’t been able to get hold of him. He’s on a cruise, or some damn thing. . . .
Yeah, we checked out the address on Hayley’s driver’s license. A mail drop. We’ve got no idea where she was living in Vegas. . . .
Apparently nobody here knew she was back in town, except for that insurance agent you told me about. And Boz Sheppard. And maybe Amy. We’ve questioned everybody, including Rich Three Wings and her high-school boyfriend, Tom Mathers. . . .
Here’s something: you might take another crack at Three Wings. I mean, he might open up more to you. . . .
I turned off the recorder. When, I wondered, would people stop assuming that because you’re Indian, other Indians will feel a natural connection with you? There are hundreds of tribes in this country; historically some have been mortal enemies, and today they’re squabbling over gaming rights. It’s like saying any American ethnic group—be it blacks, Chinese, Italians, Irish, Japanese, or Germans—is drawn together because of its background. Ridiculous. The Scotch-Irish family who adopted me at birth frequently fought like they were out to kill each other. Still do, sometimes.
But what the hell, in the morning I’d take a crack at Rich Three Wings. Tom Mathers, too.
It was the least I could do for the sake of the Perez family, I told myself.
Well, yes, for their sake, but also for my own. Cases change both the investigated and the investigator. Maybe one last effort would show me the way to the new life I was reaching for. It wouldn’t be any worse than dreaming of trying to climb out of a deep, dark pit.