Death on the High Lonesome (27 page)

“Marian, I think you have pretty good instincts. There might be more at play here than you know. People don't all of a sudden go one-eighty. The person Calvin was all those years is still there. He's just decided to put on a different mask.”

R
osie had come back from lunch when Virgil returned from the cemetery. Dif had been holding down the fort while she was gone. Virgil had hoped to meet Calvin in more than passing, but it wasn't going to happen in that scenario, he soon realized.

“How did everything go this morning?” Dif asked.

“About like you'd expect,” Virgil said.

“How's Charlie holding up?”

“Considering everything, he's doing okay. They were heading back to High Lonesome. He needs to get back to the familiar routine.”

“Yeah, there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. Charlie will snap back. Hell, I bet he'll be throwing a rope before Christmas.”

Dif made the comment as Rosie came through the door from the holding cells.

“Boy, Dif, I gotta say Edna trained you well.” She was
carrying the large rectangular rubber basin holding the lunch dishes from the cells. “You washed and stacked everything real nice.”

“Here, let me take that, Rosie.”

Virgil took the rubber container and set it by the door.

“Think I'll put that comment on my résumé if ever I start looking for a new wife.”

“Don't waste your time. You got lucky once. Better hold on to Edna as long as she'll have you. Don't think there'll be a line of takers if ever you become available.”

“Well, I got other talents besides washing and stacking that keeps that smile on Edna's face.”

“Here we go, another fish story. All you men are the same—it gets bigger and bigger with every telling.”

“Are we talking about fish here, Rosie?” Virgil asked.

“Might as well be. Don Juan over here actually thinks his amorous attempts with Edna are the reason for her smile. At your age, it's a wonder you can even raise the flag.”

“You'd be surprised,” Dif said.

“No, Edna would be,” Rosie said. “Just keep doing the washing and stacking if you want to keep Edna smiling.”

“I hate to get off the topic. No telling where this conversation is going to end up, but is there anything I should know regarding the affairs of this office?”

“It was quiet,” Dif said.

Rosita nodded in agreement. “Oh, there was one thing, Virgil. First thing this morning, Kyle Harrison stopped by. He left this for you. Said he heard you were wondering why they hadn't brought in those helicopters from Sky High to help in the search for that plane in the Superstition Mountains.”

“That's all he said.”

“Well, Virgil, you know those federal guys aren't big on
small talk, but he did say one other thing. Let me see . . . Oh, yeah, he said to tell you to remember what he said to you that night in the parking lot of the Black Bull.”

Rosita handed Virgil the envelope she had been holding. Virgil laid it on his desk.

“Well, are you going to open it?”

“Okay.”

He picked it up, then ripped open the end of the envelope. A set of keys fell out onto the desk. Virgil picked them up, turning them over in his hand. Then he sat down heavily in his chair.

“Well?” Rosie said. “Keys? Keys to what?”

“Keys to the Black Bull,” Virgil said.

“I don't understand. Why did he give you keys to the Black Bull? Where did he get them? What did he say to you that night in the parking lot?”

Virgil suddenly jumped out of his chair.

“What the hell?” Dif said as Virgil started heading for the door.

“Virgil? Virgil? What did he say? Where are you going?”

Virgil stopped at the door, then looked at each of them waiting for an answer. “I'm going to High Lonesome. Tell Jimmy to get out there pronto. I could be wrong but . . .”

He didn't finish.

“But what did Kyle Harrison say that's got you going out there?”

“He said, ‘Things are not always what they seem.'”

V
irgil was thinking about what he had said to Mayor Bob “Ears” Jamison at Velma's wake. Up until now truly everything had been like a puzzle to him, so many bits and pieces. He'd spent the last weeks since Linda Murchison got hit by the semi and thrown over the overpass trying to connect the dots, but he couldn't find a common thread. Where did she come from? Why was she on the highway in the middle of the night? Was she running from or to? How did she connect to Velma or Charlie or High Lonesome? Then when at last he thought he made a connection, it was not with either of them, but with their sons. Now with the death of Vernon, a man with more than his share of demons, that connection had become frayed.

It had taken the recollection of what Kyle Harrison had said to him that night outside the Black Bull, coming on the heels of his conversation with Marian only a little over an hour earlier, to know that the plane that was supposed to have crashed in the Superstition Mountains and the son who had calmly
accepted that his sister and father were going to try to rebuild High Lonesome had something in common. Neither was what it seemed to be.

The day had never cleared. No sun had broken through. The world was gray. Now, in midafternoon, a surprising light snow had started to fall. The temperature readout on the dashboard was thirty-three degrees, cold for the end of the first week in December. Not unheard of, but very unusual. By tomorrow, the temperature would probably bounce back to sixty, and if the sun was shining this would be forgotten, an anomaly. As the cruiser climbed toward higher ground, he saw a couple of places where a hint of snow had collected. Virgil thought of when he had stepped out of the cabin he shared with Marian up on the mesa. How the nighttime snow for a moment had transformed the landscape. Another example of when things were not what they seemed. He came to the turnoff for the ranch road, never slowed, but gunned the engine to new speed. The tires spun on the hardscrabble, digging in, scattering stone and loose gravel in the car's wake. The brief snow flurry seemed to be losing its battle. Large raindrops instead began to splatter the windshield. Virgil turned on the wipers. Dirt that had flown up mixed with the rain streaking across his vision till he was forced to turn on the washer. The barns, corrals, and last the house came into view. Nothing seemed amiss or other than as it should be. He saw two cars parked by the house. He slowed his vehicle, then rolled to a stop alongside one of them. When he stepped out of the car, there was a moment of self-doubt. It was strictly instinct that had brought him here, nothing but an intuitive sense. That innate voice of premonition that he had learned long ago to heed, not to ignore.

He could see lights on in the house as he headed down the
walkway, past the gardens that would show no color for months to come. He stopped at the front door. It was the one moment when he hoped his instincts would prove wrong. He knocked loudly, then after a moment passed, he knocked again. The door opened. Marian stood in the perimeter of an overhead light.

“Oh, Virgil,” was all she said as he stepped through. Then he felt another presence to his side, a sudden explosion in his head. The light and Marian faded from his view.

*   *   *

It could have been five minutes or five hours. All he knew was the pounding in his head was unrelenting. In a reflex move he put his hand to his head. He didn't need to look to know the sticky ooze was his blood.

“Oh, Virgil.” They were the last words he had heard. Now they were the first. He opened his eyes wide, trying to follow the sound of her voice. Finally, Marian's face came into view. He realized at the same time he saw her above him that he was lying on the floor.

“Here, this will help.” She raised his head so that she could reach his wound. He felt the sharp sensation of cold. A sigh escaped his lips. She took the cloth away, then replaced it with another. For the next few minutes, she kept repeating the process until at last the constant throb started to ebb. His vision became clearer. He saw Charlie sitting kind of slumped in a chair a few feet away. Then another figure overarching Marian as she knelt by his side.

“That's enough. You're wasting your time. It's not going to make much difference anyway. Get up.”

Marian, with the bowl and cloths in her hand, rose in response to the command. The unfamiliar voice continued.

“So you're the sheriff I've heard so much about. Can say one thing for you, you got a hard head. You were only out for ten or fifteen minutes. Thought you'd be gone much longer.” When he stopped talking, he reached down, roughly grabbing Virgil, dragging him to his feet. Then he literally threw him into a chair close by where Charlie sat. “What are you doing here?” Virgil looked up into the face he'd seen only in passing earlier in the day.

“So you're Calvin. Calvin Thompson. Out of the shadows, finally.”

“You didn't answer my question, lawman. What are you doing here?”

“I came for you, Calvin. I came for you.”

There was a momentary silence, then a sneer crossed Calvin's face. It was followed by the laugh of a madman.

“Well, you got me, but guess that's in reverse order. I got you.” Another crazed, hollow laugh followed. “You're making my job a little harder.”

“Oh, I don't know. You seem to be enjoying yourself. From what I know, you've been practicing for something like this for quite a while.”

“What do you know?”

“Oh, it took me some time to put all the pieces together, but I think I've got it mostly figured out.”

Virgil inadvertently glanced at Marian when he saw her move in back of Calvin. Calvin caught his misstep and swung around as Marian raised her arm. He grabbed her wrist, then smashed her in the face with a gun, which Virgil recognized only at the moment as his own. His hand automatically slipped to his empty holster as he saw the knife Marian held clatter harmlessly to the
floor. He saw her reel back from the blow, grabbing for the table in back of her as blood gushed from her nose.

“Thanks for the heads-up, Sheriff. My sister almost got me.”

Virgil tried getting to his feet. The room started spinning. “I'm sorry, Marian.”

She had managed to steady herself on the table. Then she grabbed one of the cloths from the bowl that she had used when she was helping Virgil. She held it to her face.

“I'm all right, Virgil.”

Calvin pushed her into another chair.

“No, no, Calvin. Why?”

Charlie stirred, pulled himself upright in his chair.

“Don't interrupt the sheriff. He was going to tell me how he's got me all figured out. Go on, Sheriff, continue.”

Virgil glared at Calvin, but knew he needed time.

“Guess it began with the girl. You knew her from Coastal. Realized she knew her stuff. I guess you needed money. Maybe you owed some heavyweights in Vegas or you just flat out couldn't wait for your share of the inheritance. Probably a combination. Then you heard about the oil and gas reserves that Coastal and other companies were looking into in the Southwest. That's when you remembered all the shale up in that High Lonesome country that borders the reservation and you wondered. So I guess you somehow got Linda Murchison to go have a look. But something went wrong, didn't it?”

“Pretty good, so far,” Calvin said. “She said it really looked good. As a matter of fact, she said the find could be huge. But then she told me she suspected most of it could be under reservation land. I asked her if it could be tapped on our land, then drawn out from there. She said she thought it could, but
then she said she'd have to tell them on the reservation. I tried to talk her out of it, but the stupid bitch was adamant. That's when I knew she couldn't leave the top of that mesa. But she had a hard head like you. When I came back to finish her off she was gone. When I heard much later that a woman had been killed crossing the interstate I figured maybe I got lucky. Then I heard the old man had gone up there looking for some strays, I figured another opportunity had come my way. I knew I couldn't be there, had to have an alibi, so I contacted some people. The moron I got was a pretty good shot, but not too swift on the follow-up. He told me when he looked down into that arroyo the old man looked dead. Blood all over. I shoulda told him the old man wouldn't kill easy.”

“So that's when everything began to head south?” Virgil asked.

“No, I figured I'd get lucky, get another chance. Here it is.”

“But what about Vernon and your mother? That was all part of it?”

“Vernon . . . Vernon just fell apart. I got him to give her the barbiturates in her tea, but that's all. I had to finish it.”

“An overdose of your insulin.”

“Pretty good, Sheriff. The old lady just went to sleep. I probably did her a favor, avoiding a painful old age.”

“But Vernon didn't agree with your rationalization, did he?”

“Vernon, he could have been part of all this, but he just kept getting shakier and shakier. I'd always been able to control him, but I couldn't take the chance anymore.”

“So, what, you loaded him up on booze and tranquilizers?”

Calvin laughed a little. Virgil felt for the first time in his life like he was looking into the face of pure evil.

“He was higher than a kite. It was probably the best trip
Vernon ever had. When I loaded him in that car, he had no idea where he was. All it took was me following him down the road, then giving him a little nudge when he hit the right spot. Thought he'd end up in the river, but he didn't quite make it. No matter.”

“So everything worked out until Marian.”

Calvin looked at Marian, seated on the kitchen chair.

“She was always a pain in the ass, even when we were kids. ‘Why don't you do what Dad wants?' ‘High Lonesome can be yours someday.' Well, she was right about that. After today, it will be.”

“So you figured she'd never come back here?”

“That was the plan. The old man could have lived out his days in some home. She could have sold me her share, gone on her merry way. What I have to do now is all her fault. You hear that, Marian? This is all your fault. Couldn't be content to stay in San Francisco. What was it you told me? ‘I never should have left High Lonesome.' Well, you're getting your wish. You never will.”

“What about me?” Virgil asked.

“You? Hell, you're just collateral damage.”

“Calvin, whatever you have in mind . . . you'll be found out. How will you explain?”

Calvin's eyes lit up. “Nothing to explain. My sister and dad died in a fire. You tried to save them. Died trying. They're going to find you right inside the door. Yeah, that's good. That's exactly how it will look. Marian died trying to save the old man, getting him out of bed. You, trying to save both of them. It's perfect.”

“No . . . No, Calvin.” Charlie tried to get out of the chair as he spoke, but fell back down.

“That's it. It's perfect. Get on your feet, Sheriff.”

He waved the gun in Virgil's face. Marian moved in her chair. “No, not you. Stay right there.”

Virgil got to his feet. “Now, I want you to get him into the bedroom.”

Calvin motioned with the gun toward the open door at the far end of the back wall. Virgil helped Charlie to his feet, then steadied him. Charlie leaned heavily on Virgil. Virgil placed Charlie's left arm around his shoulders, supporting him, with his right hand around Charlie's back. They took a couple of steps toward the open door.

“I'm feeling a little shaky,” Virgil said.

“Marian, get around on the other side of him. Now.”

She got up, then walked to support her father on the other side. She and Virgil exchanged glances, but said nothing. Slowly, they made their way to and then through the open door.

“Now, lay him on the bed.” They brought him to the bed, then sat him on the edge. “Stretch him out. Then undress him, put him under the covers.”

Virgil pulled off Charlie's boots while Marian undid his shirt. Together, they worked to get him out of his pants. All the while Virgil's mind was racing, trying to think of some kind of diversion, anything that would give him a chance at Calvin or the gun. But there was nothing. He was still breathing hard from carrying Charlie into the room. His head was pounding from the effort, while the nosebleed that Marian had managed to stop for a while was now running freely again, dripping on Charlie's shirt.