Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (18 page)

“Did you see anybody besides Reed?”

“Not a soul, and I couldn’t see the ledge, either. I didn’t know what to think when I heard the first shot, but then I saw the flare and came out from behind the thicket. I reached Dylan’s body first, and I could tell he was in big trouble. When Reed got there, I sent him back to camp to get the first aid kit.” She made a little noise that was not quite a groan. “Dylan died within minutes. It brought back raw memories of the night Maurice was killed, and I was hunkered there with my arms around my knees when Jake arrived a couple of minutes later.”

“Which direction did he come from?”

Kayleen looked down at the map. “I wasn’t paying any attention.”

“What about Sterling?”

“He said he ran into Reed and learned what had happened. He went to the pasture to use his car phone to call an ambulance, then came back up to the clearing. There was nothing more to do but wait for the paramedics.” She went into the bathroom to blow her nose, and returned with a tremulous attempt at a smile. “I feel so silly about getting all upset like this. Here I am, presenting myself as a hardy, self-reliant woman who can take care of herself, and then an accident happens and I go to pieces. I’ve bought and sold more guns than most folks see in a lifetime, and what’s more, I know how violence has pervaded every segment of our society.”

“What did you think of Dylan Gilbert?” I asked.

“Nothing, really,” she said as she sank back down. “This morning was the first time I met him. We sat together at breakfast on a log down by the gully, and I did my best to be real friendly. He was young, not more than twenty-five, and like most kids that age, full of himself. Not poor Kevin Buchanon, of course. He’s about as forceful as a newborn kitten. After the accident, he was mewling like one, too.”

“Let’s keep talking about Dylan,” I said. “Did you have any reason to think there was anything peculiar about him? Was he telling the truth about his past?”

She studied me for a long while, then sighed and said, “You’ve been listening to Barry, haven’t you? I don’t know why Barry was making all those dark comments about Dylan, unless it was because he was jealous, like an older child when a baby’s brought home from the hospital. Until Dylan came along, Barry was the smart one. After he got out of the army, he found a job at a bookstore and worked his way up to department manager. Dylan had gone to college for a couple of years and studied engineering.”

“So you think Barry was jealous?”

“I don’t know any other reason why he was whispering behind Dylan’s back. I hate to say this, but the federal agencies would hardly bother with the likes of us. There are groups that stockpile weapons and build explosive devices, and some have resorted to violence. We’re all hot air and bravado, like I told you when you first objected to the retreat. None of us would ever find the nerve to do something illegal, much less dangerous.”

“Dylan found it dangerous,” I said, staring at her.

She looked away. “But that was an accident, and it didn’t have anything to do with us.”

I told her she’d be asked to sign the statement later in the week, then went out into the lot and steeled myself for the final two interviews. Before I’d talked myself into actually knocking on a door, Les emerged from his car.

“Sheriff Dorfer wants you to call him as soon as you can,” he said. “It’s real important.”

“Did he say why?”

“I asked,” he admitted, “but that’s all LaBelle would tell me. She’s in a real snit these days, isn’t she?”

“No kidding,” I said as I headed for the PD.

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“All I kin say,” Kevin said through a mouthful of tamale, “is it ain’t fair for whoever shot Dylan to get away with it. Everybody keeps actin’ like it was just one of those things. Why, I’d be mighty surprised if Arly bothers with the statements and I sure cain’t see the sheriff reading ‘em.” His remarks were directed only at the hillside below the ledge. Not even the cute li’l squirrel was anywhere to be seen, having retreated to a leafy nest to escape the cold drizzle.

Kevin finished the tamale he’d had the foresight to pick up at the Dairee Dee-Lishus, crammed the wrapper in his pocket, and discovered that for some crazy reason, he had a cassette in his pocket. Dahlia’s relaxation tape, he decided, wondering how he’d ended up with it.

He stood up, this time mindful of his head.

“No,” he said, continuing to talk out loud because it was kind of creepy out here by his lonesome, “if Arly’s gonna sweep this under the carpet, then it’s up to Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon to find the guilty hunter and see that he goes to jail. I owe that much to Dylan.”

Over the treetops he could see the roof of the old Wockermann farmhouse, and beyond that the chimney of Estelle’s house across the county road. That was about it, but it was comforting to know he wasn’t lost. All he needed now, he thought with a sigh, was some sort of plan.

It wasn’t likely the hunter had been between the ledge and the campsite, since that was where the make-believe soldiers had been. He shifted his attention to the woods off to his right. They rose steeply, but they didn’t look as thick and gnarly, so he decided to go that way and see if maybe he’d find a deer camp.

He climbed down to the spot where Dylan had fallen, although he kept his eyes averted in case there might be bloodstains on the rocks. Robin Buchanon’s old shack was somewhere in that direction, and it occurred to him that it might not be bad to get out of the drizzle before he was soaked to the skin. He could even try to scrounge up some dry firewood and build a fire in the rusty pot-bellied stove. Once he was warm, he’d come up with a real good plan that’d have made Dylan proud of him.

The going was easier for the most part, but there were plenty of thorns and treacherous holes covered with leaves. The birds had retreated, too, except for a crow making a racket from an invisible branch. Kevin made his way around the bluff and continued upward, saving his breath for gasping and panting.

The mountainside grew rockier as he climbed, and he was obliged to slow his pace on account of patches of mud as slippery as wet linoleum.

Several times he thought he was in spittin’ distance of the shack, only to discover outcroppings of slick, silvery limestone or desolate logging trails. The mud was so sticky he had to stop every few minutes and scrape his boots.

Maybe he was confused about the shack, he told himself as he stumbled over a log and came within a hair’s breadth of landing on his butt in the soggy leaves. Cotter’s Ridge was like one of those mazes where you have to find your way to the middle without crossing any lines. Kevin hadn’t had much luck with ‘em, even with the ones in the kiddie magazines at the supermarket. Jim Bob had pitched a fit when a customer brought one back claiming it was marked up. Thinking about Jim Bob made him more forlorn than he already was. There wasn’t any way Jim Bob wouldn’t find out that his temporary assistant manager had gone AWOL, and on the busiest day of the week, too. But Kevin had figured he owed it to his beloved wife and son to learn how to defend them when the country was overrun with foreign soldiers.

He was close to giving up when he finally caught sight of a sagging roof. He hurried up the road, went up on the porch, and dragged open the door. Inside it was still cold and daylight sliced through cracks and knotholes, but it was better’n outside. Dirt was everywhere, along with twigs, dried leaves, tufts of hair, and droppings that indicated animals had taken refuge over the years.

Hoping he wouldn’t run into a bear or a wildcat, Kevin pulled off his cap and eyed the stove. He was trying to remember if he had any matches when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. John Wayne might have whirled around and thrown a punch, but Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon fainted.

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I went into the barroom and looked around for Reed Rondly and Barry Kirklin. They were in the back booth, conversing intently over a pitcher of beer. Before I could reach them, however, Ruby Bee came out of the kitchen and said, “I need to have a word with you, and I need to have it right now.”

Reed and Barry glanced up at me. “Stay there,” I said to them, then went over to the bar. “What’s the matter? Do you need a recipe for ostrich and dumplings?” Ruby Bee gestured at a good ol’ boy slumped at the bar, who appeared to have been crying in his beer for a long while, then moved down to the end and waited for me with a decidedly unfriendly expression. “I have been trying to get in touch with you all day long,” she said as I sat on a stool. “You’d better throw that answering machine into the trash and get yourself a new one. What’s more, you’d better test it in the store before you pay good money.”

I wasn’t sure why she’d sidled away from the good ol’ boy, then spoken loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the washing machines at the Suds of Fun launderette across the road. “I am not a handyman,” I said levelly, “and I don’t do toilet seats. If you’ll excuse me, I have a sticky situation that requires my professional attention.”

“Well, pardon me for daring to interrupt you, Miss Eliot Ness. I’m sure as God made little green apples that someone broke into one of the units out back, but I’ll just get in line until you can get around to me. All I can do is pray there’s not a rapist hanging around the Flamingo Motel and waiting for his chance to attack me real late at night.”

“All right,” I said. “Tell me why you think someone broke into a unit.”

“The door was unlocked, but that might have been an oversight on my part. However, there’s no way getting around the toilet seat, the shag, and the lamp,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers. “If there was only one clue, I might wonder if I was imagining things, but the three together prove I’m not.”

I tried to keep a straight face. “I can see someone stealing a toilet seat and a lamp, but the carpet? It can’t be easy to move the furniture in order to pull out the tacks, roll up the carpet, and carry it out to-“

“Nothing was stolen. The toilet seat was raised, the lamp was unplugged, and the carpet showed signs that the chair had been moved. If that’s not evidence of a breakin, then I don’t know what is.” She put her hands on her hips and waited for me to reel with shock or race out the door to fingerprint the toilet seat.

I opted for a mildly concerned wince. “That’s really fine evidence, and I’m sure it’ll come in handy at the trial. It may be enough to secure the death penalty. As much as I’d like to drop this other thing and devote all my energy to catching this rapist, I’m afraid it will have to wait. Maybe you and Estelle can train the ostriches to attack on command.”

I turned around and went to the back booth. Reed stuck his nose in his stein, but Barry smiled and said, “Change your mind about a beer?”

“No,” I said. “I just spoke to the sheriff, who had a call from the county coroner. The coroner said that the gunshot wound did not cause Dylan’s death. It probably hurt like hell, but it didn’t hit an artery or any organs. It didn’t cause any significant internal bleeding, either.”

Reed lifted his face. “So what killed him?”

“We won’t know until the coroner does a more thorough autopsy,” I said, “and that won’t happen for a couple of days.”

Barry was no longer smiling. “Could he have had a heart condition? Maybe the trauma of getting shot set off a fatal heart attack. Aneurysms can burst, too. Most people don’t know they have one until it’s written on the death certificate.”

“Wait a minute,” Reed said in a strangled voice. “Are you saying anybody could have this-this thing and not know it? Somebody shouts ‘Boo!’ and you fall over dead?”

Barry snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

I intervened before we lapsed into a medical school seminar. “We won’t know until after the autopsy, so there’s no point in speculation.”

“What about a snake bite?” said Reed.

“After the autopsy,” I said, wishing I’d had the words printed on filing cards. “Until then, we’re treating Dylan’s death as a possible homicide, so I’ll have to get more detailed statements from all of you before you leave town. Ruby Bee has three empty units if you want to stay out there tonight.”

“I knew a guy once who got stung by a honey bee,” continued Reed, who clearly had some vestige of shared ancestry with the Buchanons. “He was deader’n a doornail twenty minutes later. We might should’ve taken him to the emergency room like he begged, but we thought he was being a sissy.”

Barry stood up. “I guess we’ll go back to the camp and collect our gear, then stay at the motel. We’ll get Jake’s and Dylan’s gear while we’re at it. Come on, Reed.” Reed downed the last inch of beer, belched, and got unsteadily to his feet. “You know, I was kinda curious about Dylan kicking off like that. The kid told me Dylan sat up and was gonna be okay. Five minutes later-“

“Come on,” Barry said, clutching Reed’s sleeve and aiming him toward the door. “The sooner we go, the sooner we can get back for a hot shower and some decent food. Who knows? Maybe the chief of police will join us at the end of her shift.”

“Why don’t I line you up with a hot little local number named Marjorie?” I said. “She’s on the quiet side, but I’ve been told she squeals when she’s excited.”

“Cool,” said Reed as he was dragged out the door.

I left before Ruby Bee could delay me with a harangue about my shoddy investigative techniques. Les gave me a thumbs-up sign as I went to Sterling’s room. He opened the door within seconds. Unlike Kayleen, he was still wearing fatigues, but his feet were encased in slippers.

“It’s about time, Chief Hanks,” he said. “I intend to file a civil suit citing you and that boorish sheriff. You have no right to detain us against our wishes. In that I have entered into a contract with the owner of this motel room, I am the legal tenant of record. The Fourth Amendment specifically addresses the right of the people to be secure in their houses against unreasonable searches and seizures. You may not enter this room unless you have a proper warrant.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “Since I don’t have a warrant, I’ll escort you to the sheriff’s department in Farberville. He should be finished with his press conference by the time we get there, but if not, we can join him on the steps. You might even get a chance to share your outrage with the media. They’ll go wild over your uniform and those medals you most likely bought at an army surplus store.”