Desert Wind (5 page)
“Mr. Donohue worked for Mr. Tosches.” With that, her chattiness ended and after asking me if I wanted dessert, either crème brûlée or strawberry crêpes, to which I answered no, she handed me my check and walked away.
Once I returned to my room, I took a leisurely soak in the tub, then threw on an oversized tee shirt and started work. I plugged my laptop into the Internet jack and Googled Donohue+Tosches. After a few false hits due to my error-prone typing of last names, a couple of interesting items popped up. From an article in the
Arizona Business Journal
I learned that Roger Tosches not only owned the Black Basin Mine, but was the lone developer of Sunset Canyon Lakes Resort, too. The resort appeared to be his only solo business effort, though, because a man named Cole Laveen was named as partner in his current mine holdings. No mention was made of Tosches’ wife, Mia, but I did find an article about Ike Donohue’s widow. A photograph in
Arizona Gamesman
showed Nancy Donohue in full hunting regalia standing over a dead elk, her foot on its bloody side, triumph on her face.
Call me a cynic, since I couldn’t help but wonder how much she inherited upon her husband’s death.
Two more hours of surfing turned up little else. This was where Jimmy’s expertise would have come in handy. He knew how to hack into sites that mere mortals couldn’t access. Irritated by my limited computer skills, I snapped the laptop shut and went to bed.
I’d brought along a Sue Grafton novel to get me through the lonely nights, but somewhere in the middle of the fourth chapter, I fell into a dream-plagued sleep.
***
I stood at the entrance to a mine. A wooden barrier had been erected in front of the dark opening, with a sign saying, DANGER! NO ADMITTANCE! I started knocking back the slats with a large rock when Jimmy emerged from the moon’s shadows and pushed me away.
“Don’t go in there, Lena.”
“But there’s something I need to find out!”
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Jimmy, so step aside.”
He didn’t move, but the moment I raised my hands to push him out of my way, he vanished.
I stepped over the remaining wooden slats and entered the mine.
Deeper shadows now surrounded me, but for some reason, I could still see the moon above. As I stared in amazement, I realized that I was no longer in the mine, but in a forest. Enveloping rock walls had transformed themselves into tall pine trees, their hanging branches creating a tunnel-like pathway. Fearless, I walked along, listening to the sounds of crickets, nightbirds…
Gunshots.
Children screaming.
In the magical way of dreams, my long-lost mother appeared beside me. Frightened, I took her hand. “I want to go home,” I whispered.
“It’s too late,” she said.
Other children gathered around us. One, a girl of around six, whimpered. “Don’t let them catch us, Auntie Helen.”
“You’ll be safe with me,” my mother answered, but I knew she was lying, that our pursuers were only yards behind.
It was our turn to die.
When I screamed myself awake, I had to wipe away tears from my face. Nightmares are worse when they’re not dreams—they’re memories.
July, 1959: Northwestern Arizona
As Abby watched from atop the fence rail, Gabe eased the saddle onto the young gelding so gently it didn’t even flinch. He tightened the cinch slowly, like he’d been doing all week to get the horse used to it.
“Yeah, that’s it, Star,” he whispered. “We’re pals, always gonna be pals. Just gotta get this first ride over with.”
Star, a rangy sorrel with a quarter-size splash of white on its forehead, twitched its ears, but its eyes remained calm. Only a couple of months before Curly died, the old wrangler had trailered the animal over to Gabe’s spread. With Curly’s wife dead the year before, there was no one else to leave it to.
“I’d a brought you my roping horse but he got sick on me with all them boils livestock been getting these days, so I had to put him down,” Curly had explained, then took time off to cough. Finished, he lit up another cigarette. “Only wisht I had more to give you.”
“You gave me plenty, and I mighty appreciate it,” Gabe had answered, with no exaggeration. There’d been the blue-eyed pup, grown these past five years into a gray and black heeler Abby named Blue. Now added to that first fine gift were the gelding, a lived-in saddle, a halter, a many-times-mended bridle with a gone-green bit, two coils of rope, and a rusting Ford pickup held together with baling wire. The sum total of a man’s life.
Looking into Curly’s yellowed eyes, Gabe had said, “Once the hospital fixes you up, you’ll be good as new. Then you come by and I’ll give ’em back. Loans is all they are.”
Whistling past the graveyard that had been, and both knew it. Sure enough, a week later Curly shot himself.
“You be careful,” Abby called to Gabe from her perch on the top rail as Blue waited loyally below. “That Star, he’s a big one. Don’t you go pulling a John Wayne, now.”
Every time Gabe took a chance with a horse, Abby teased him like that. She knew how he felt about Wayne and tolerated it, had even framed the autographed photo the Duke had given him, hanging it right above the center of the sofa so everyone who walked into the ranch house could see how important Gabe was. “To my good friend, Gabe Boone. Ride ’em, cowboy! An admiring John Wayne,” it said.
“You’re the one oughta be careful, Abby. A five-months pregnant woman’s got no business sitting on a top rail like that. What if you fall off?”
“I’ll sit where I want, cowboy.”
Gabe hid his grin. Losing their first baby had hurt her spirit something terrible, but with a new baby on the way, the old Abby was back. She sang at her work during the day and held him tight at night, singing a different song. “Women got no sense,” he whispered to Star. “None at all. Why, that girl actually loves me.”
“What’re you telling that horse?”
Gabe grinned at his boots. “Just that he’s gonna be a good ’un.”
Abby’s laugh was as pretty as a breeze playing through mesquite. “Sure you were, cowboy.”
Gabe put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle.
Star splayed out his feet. Humped his back.
Oh, here we go.
Gabe waited for a thousand pounds of horse to explode underneath him, but nothing happened. The animal just turned his head and gazed quizzically at him.
Gabe tugged gently on the right rein to straighten the gelding’s head, tapped its flanks with spurless boots, and shifted his weight forward. “Move along now.”
Star walked three steps forward, then stopped and looked back at him again. Gabe straightened its head and tapped its flanks. The horse obeyed, moving three more steps. Stopped. Looked back. Gabe tapped its flanks and got more steps. Stop. More steps. Stop. More steps. Repeating that three-step-stop-three-step dance, man and horse eventually made a complete circuit of the corral.
Abby opened her mouth in a theatrical yawn. “My, this is exciting.”
“Yeah, I’m thrilled to death.”
Gabe was secretly pleased. Bucking broncs might be fine for a rodeo, but they were a pain in the neck for ranch work. Better to have a steady horse, one that didn’t try to out-wild its rider. A no-nonsense horse that got the job done.
“Gabe!”
Concentrating as he was on the gelding’s step-stop-step progress, Gabe at first missed the strained note in his wife’s voice.
“Gabe. Something’s wrong!”
Gabe jerked his head up, saw Abby climbing down from the fence rail toward a worried-looking Blue, her jeans darkened with blood.
Oh, Abby
.
First thing the next morning I placed a call to Sunset Trails Guest Ranch and asked to be connected to Jimmy’s room. To my surprise, the young woman who answered informed me he wasn’t staying there. After identifying myself as Jimmy’s business partner, I asked where he might be staying.
“He’s at the Desert View Motel. By the way, Lena, I’m Leilani, his sister.”
Sister
. I wondered how many more of Jimmy’s siblings worked at the ranch.
When I told her it was nice to meet her, as it were, she replied, “Jimmy’s told us a lot about you and what a good detective you are, so I’m really glad you’re here. Ted’s in a lot of trouble, and as much as I love Jimmy, him being my older brother and all, I’m afraid he’s made things worse than they already are. Did you know he even got himself arrested? The way he looks, his long hair, that tattoo on his face, gosh, he really scares people.”
Not women, I thought. The number of women who’d taken advantage of Jimmy’s sweet nature was long and growing ever longer. There had been the divorcee who’d talked him into buying her a house full of furniture, then dumped him; the topless dancer whose full tuition he’d paid for cosmetology school but who dropped out the second week; the ex-con who stole his truck…But had he ever retaliated? Nope. He took his lumps and moved on to the next user. Compared to Jimmy’s messes, my love life, which included a serial cheater and a hard-drinking cowboy who’d almost got me killed, wasn’t all that bad.
Leilani sounded too young to hear the truth about her gullible brother, so I merely said, “Yeah, I heard about the arrest.”
With that, I gave her my cell number and told her to call me if she learned anything new, then rang off and looked around my room. On the bottom shelf of the nightstand, I spotted a copy of the Walapai County Yellow Pages, where I found the listing for Jimmy’s motel. It was still early, so there was a good chance I might catch him in his room. But when the Desert View clerk transferred me to his extension, he didn’t answer. Figuring that he had left for breakfast before visiting Ted at the jail, I decided to grab some breakfast myself.
The morning was relatively cool and a slight overcast promised to keep it that way. As I walked to my Trailblazer, the scent of frying bacon wafted to me from the Stagecoach, but I gave it a pass. Walapai Flats being such a small town, there was a good chance I might find Jimmy at one of the other local eateries. A few minutes later, I was proven right. Halfway down John Wayne Boulevard, I spotted Jimmy’s Toyota pickup in front of Cowboy Cal’s Espresso & Smoothies.
Entering, I saw my partner on a corner stool underneath an old movie poster of John Wayne that advertised
The Searchers
. Jimmy was so busy slurping down a pink smoothie he didn’t see me.
I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Couldn’t find a Starbucks?”
“What the…?” Turning around with a scowl, Jimmy found himself facing several alarmed faces. He lowered his voice. “Lena. Why am I not surprised?”
I slid onto the stool next to him. Leilani was right. Jimmy was a big man, and with his waist-length black hair and the curved tribal tattoo across his temple, he could look pretty fierce. Especially when scowling.
Smiling, I said, “You’re not surprised because state-licensed investigators like myself are good at finding people, even when they don’t want to be found. I drove up last night to bail you out, but was informed that your dad already took care of that. What’s all this about you ‘suborning perjury’?”
He shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “I was merely trying to get people to open up, to tell me what they knew about Donohue’s murder.”
I thought about that. “How close were you standing when you questioned them?”
“Close. I read in
Investigator’s Monthly
that to get information from people that’s what you should do. Stand close. What difference does it make?”
Did the man never look in a mirror? I motioned to the plastic cup in front of him. “What are you drinking?”
“Apple Cherry Soynami with wheat germ.”
“Good?”
An exasperated sigh. “Lena, if I’d wanted you up here, I’d have invited you along.”
“Judging from the pink moustache you’ve sprouted, it’s at least drinkable, so I’ll have one, too. And, Jimmy, I’m just here to help.”
He wiped his upper lip. “Don’t need your help.”
“I disagree. There’s that suborning perjury business hanging over your head, and your brother’s still in jail. Your dad couldn’t get him released, too?”
His scowl intensified, turning the tattoo even darker. “He tried. It didn’t work.”
“Then you both need my help.”
Leaving him to mull that over, I went to the counter and ordered an Apple Cherry Soynami without wheat germ from a pretty redhead. In homage to the place’s cowboy theme, she wore a Western shirt and cowgirl hat, but her makeup was pure L’Oréal. By the time I returned to my stool, Jimmy had calmed down.
“Why’d you leave out the wheat germ?” he asked, looking at the cup.
“Tastes like sawdust.”