Desert Wind (25 page)

“Oh. It’s Boone. Gabe Boone.”

Chapter Sixteen

No one was thrilled to see us at the county complex. The jail’s lockdown had been lifted the night before, but the fact that Hank Olmstead brought in a man who confessed to killing Ike Donohue left the harried deputies little time to schmooze. After announcing ourselves to the officer manning the front desk, we joined Olmstead on a bench in the lobby. Now that freedom for Ted was at hand, his adoptive father looked ten years younger. The worry had disappeared from his eyes, and the slump that had detracted from his six-foot-plus height was gone. He sat close to Jimmy, and for once, didn’t speak to his son with an edge in his voice. Joy was as strong a bonding agent as grief.

“Shouldn’t Ted’s attorney already be here?” I asked. “I’d hate to think…”

The sound of doors slamming down the hall drew our attention. From the direction of the sheriff’s offices, voices shouted back and forth. At the same time, phones began ringing non-stop.

“What’s happening?” Jimmy asked, rising from his seat.

“Wait here!” Olmstead ordered. He walked over to a group of deputies assembled near the information desk. After a brief conversation, he returned shaking his head. “Something’s up, but they’re being tight-lipped about it.”

I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with Ted. Terrible things could happen to a man in jail. My concern faded when seconds later the deputies charged out the door so fast they almost knocked over portly Anderson Behar, who was entering the complex with his over-stuffed briefcase.

“Wow, where’s the fire?” the attorney asked.

Olmstead shook Behar’s hand. “No fire that I know of, Anderson, but it was very kind of you to drive here so early.”

“Glad to do it since I’m double-billing you for it.” At the look on Olmstead’s face, Behar winked. “Joke, Hank. Joke.”

Behar rested his heavy briefcase on the bench, opened it, and rifled through his paper collection. After pulling out a blue-covered packet, he took it to the duty officer, who picked up his phone and punched in a number. The deputy said a few words to the person on the other end, then waved the attorney down the corridor toward the sheriff’s office. Olmstead attempted to follow but the deputy told him to sit down.

“Theodore’s my son,” Olmstead grumbled, returning to the bench. “I can’t imagine why the sheriff won’t see me, too.”

I could. Over the past few days, I’d learned that if there was any possible way to complicate a situation, Olmstead would find it. Given his prickly personality, how he managed to run a successful tourism business was beyond me. But his behavior did explain why Jimmy had such a talent for getting along with problem people; he’d had plenty of practice.

Less than ten minutes later, Behar was back, a strange expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Olmstead asked.

Behar shook his head. “Nothing, as far as Ted’s concerned. I found out what that commotion was all about, though. It’ll speed up his release, since he has an iron-clad alibi for this one. As soon as the courthouse opens up, I’ll deliver these papers to the clerk, get an emergency hearing, and that’ll do ’er. Ted should be released by the end of the day, if not earlier. Relax, Hank. It’s a good news day. For some people, anyway.”

“I don’t want to wait that long before I see him,” Olmstead carped.

“You won’t have to. A detention officer will be out here any minute to take us in. But only you and I were cleared.”

Jimmy looked disappointed at not being able to see his brother right away, but settled back down on the bench without a fuss. I was less sanguine. “Mr. Behar, you said something about Ted having an iron-clad alibi for ‘this one.’ What did you mean ‘this one’?”

Behar glanced around to see if anyone was listening, but the only deputy remaining in the lobby was the man at the front desk, who was leafing through a magazine. “Well, the sheriff didn’t swear me to silence, so I guess I can tell you. The whole town will know soon enough, anyway. It appears there’s been another high-profile death.”

I immediately thought of Officer Smiley Face’s battered wife and child. “A domestic?”

“No, no.” To Olmstead, he said, “Hank, I’m pretty sure you know the dead man. It’s Roger Tosches, the man who owns the new mine and that big resort.”

The color drained from Olmstead’s face, but his voice betrayed no emotion. “We were acquainted, yes.”

“What happened?” I asked Behar.

“The sheriff told me that Mr. Tosches’ body was found on that long gravel road leading to Sunset Trails.” He frowned. “Hank, you saw nothing, ah, unusual on your way here?”

“If I had, I would have reported it,” Olmstead answered.

Behar got that look lawyers get when they’re not certain their clients are telling the truth. “Maybe you were distracted.”

Olmstead frowned.

The attorney pretended not to notice. “Anyway, that’s where all those deputies are headed, to your ranch. If you ask me, it seems like a pretty heavy response to something that might have been an accident, but maybe that’s the way they handle things around here. I asked the sheriff if it was a car accident and he said no, that the cause of death had not been determined.”

That’s what law officials always say, even if a big butcher knife is sticking out of the corpse’s chest.

“And Hank?” Behar continued, sounding worried. “Considering that whatever it was happened on ranch property, prepare yourself to be questioned. Make sure you don’t talk to them unless I’m with you, understand?” Spoken like a halfway decent criminal attorney.

Olmstead looked affronted. “Why would they want to talk to me?”

His determined obtuseness made me want to shake him. Olmstead would have driven down that road on the way to the jail this morning. How could he have failed to see a dead man lying in the road? Perhaps the attorney had confused the word “near” with the word “on” and Tosches’ body wasn’t actually on the road. Maybe it was off to the side, hidden in a creosote thicket.

“Mr. Behar, did the sheriff give any indication of when the body was found or how long it might have been lying there?”

When the attorney shook his head, Olmstead began to look worried. For his sake, I hoped Tosches had dropped dead of a simple heart attack—after Olmstead had walked through the county complex doors.

Making my excuses, I left them waiting to see Ted and took off for Sunset Trails Ranch.

***

When I pulled to the shoulder of the blacktop, I saw wooden sawhorses and crime tape blocking the turnoff to the ranch. If lookey-loos didn’t get the message, a sheriff’s cruiser, blue lights flashing, was parked behind them. Several more cruisers, an ambulance, and a farrier’s truck were parked about a hundred yards further down. Just beyond was a black Mercedes, nose pointed toward the distant lodge. A dark lump lay near next to the car. If Tosches had been there when Olmstead and the cook left for the jail, they’d need to swerve around him before continuing on. There was no way, simply no way, they could have missed him.

As I exited the Trailblazer, a deputy emerged from the nearest cruiser and swaggered up to me. Officer Smiley Face, wearing those spooky mirrored sunglasses. He wasn’t smiling today. In fact, Deputy Stark looked downright tense.

“Move along, Miss Jones. There’s nothing to see here.” A tic pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“What happened?”

“Nothing to do with you. Get into your car and go on back to town before I arrest you for interfering with a crime scene.”

Crime scene.
Thanks for the information, you dim bulb
. I tried for another slipup. “I was at the jail when the call came in that Tosches had been shot. Anybody know the caliber of the bullet?”

“Being a hot-shot former police officer, you should know we have to wait for ballistics testing on that.”

So he was shot. “Not if any shell casings were left lying around, like when someone shot at me.”

The nervous tic disappeared, replaced by a sneer as he spread his legs and put his hands on his hips in the “I dare you” position. Inching his right hand down to the top of his holster, he growled, “Return to your car!”

Realizing he’d like nothing more than to whack me across the face with his Glock, I backed off. When I drove away, I saw in my rear view mirror that he was still watching me through those mirrored sunglasses.

Several hundred yards from the barricade, the blacktop curved around a rock ridge. The second I was out of the deputy’s sightline, I pulled to the side of the road and called Jimmy. “Is your dad near by?” I asked when he answered.

“Sure is. Why?”

“Move away so he can’t hear you.”

When he spoke next, he’d lowered his voice. “Okay, I’m on the other side of the room. Dad’s really worried about the Tosches thing. Behar told him…”

I cut him off. “Is there another way to reach the lodge or is that gravel road the only way in?”

“Lena, Dad says…”

I interrupted again. “Whatever kind of meltdown he’s having, fill me in when we meet up later because right now I need to get to the ranch before the detectives do. Tosches was shot to death on ranch property, so answer my question.” I hated to talk to my partner like that, but time was a-wasting.

A grunt. “I know what I’m getting you for Christmas: a course in etiquette. But since you’re acting like a jackrabbit with its tail on fire, there’s a dirt trail along the river where the wranglers take the guests riding. It crosses the highway about two miles west of the road to the ranch. The terrain’s pretty rough, better for horses than cars, but your Trailblazer should be able to navigate the worst spots. Frankly, I don’t understand the rush. Shooting or not, the lodge is a whole mile from the turnoff, so I doubt if anyone there knows anything.”

“If they do, I want to find out before the cops tell them to keep their mouths shut.” I ended the call.

The river trail wasn’t hard to find, and Jimmy hadn’t exaggerated its difficulty. So many big rocks were scattered along it that the average vehicle would have bottomed out, but with the Trailblazer’s high clearance I bumped over most of them with no trouble. Once I had to veer off-road and onto a steep incline to skirt a Volkswagen-sized boulder that turned the trail into a one-horse lane, but the Trailblazer handled the incline with dispatch. Past the boulder, the trail widened again, and within minutes I was pulling into the ranch’s parking area.

There’s nothing more wonderful than a ranch in the morning. A rooster crowed, hens clucked, and cactus wrens sang their tiny hearts out. Over in the corral, horses whinnied while the wranglers tacked them up. As I stepped away from the Trailblazer, the same blue-eyed heeler I’d met the other day came barking up to me, eyes sparkling, tail wagging.

“Hello there, big fella,” I said, stooping to pat his head.

He gifted me with a wet slurp across the face.

“Don’t kiss and tell,” I warned. With the dog at my heels, I walked toward the lodge. As luck would have it, the first person I ran into was Dusty. The handsome devil stood near the steps, looking great in his ass-hugging Levis.

I hardened my heart. “Good morning, Dusty. If you’re expecting customers, you can forget it.”

“Lena?!” He stared at me in shock. A master of the quick recovery, he walked toward me, arms spread wide.

I took three steps back. Not far enough back, however, that I couldn’t smell soap and Brut. “Has anyone other than Hank Olmstead and the cook left the ranch this morning?”

“Lena, honey…”

“I’m not your honey. Did you hear what I asked?”

He shook his Stetson-hatted head. It was old and ragged, but he made it look good. “I don’t know because I’ve spent most of my time in the corral getting the horses ready for a trail ride. I can’t see anyone driving off into town yet, it’s too early. Leilani doesn’t do the shopping until around ten. But Lena, honey…” He started toward me again.

I held up my hand to keep him away. “If you’re thinking of picking up where we left off, cowboy, forget it. You cheated on me, your new wife shot up my apartment, our relationship tanked, end of story.”

Responding to my harsh tone, the blue-eyed dog began to whine. So did Dusty.

“But Lena, babe, I got an annulment, and you know how much I lo…”

“Don’t call me babe, either. Roger Tosches was shot to death on the ranch road, right at the highway turnoff. The road is crawling with cops.”

It was Dusty’s turn to take a couple of steps back. In the silence that followed, the dog, apparently deciding that he no longer wanted to be part of the conversation, took off toward the corral and the sweeter company of horses.

Dusty found his voice again. “Tosches? Shot to death? You can’t be serious.”

“Very much so. Can you prove you didn’t leave the ranch this morning? The sheriff’s detectives are going to come screeching up that road any minute, Dusty, and with your background, you know they’ll want to talk to you.” Speeding tickets, bar fights, even one shooting. The other man had shot at him first, but it still looked bad on a police report.

He swallowed. “I got up with the rest of the wranglers—we sleep in the bunkhouse, you know—took leaks with them, showered with them, ate breakfast with them, saddled up with them…Hell, I haven’t spent a damned second alone.”