Driving on autopilot, Ron braked for an intersection with a four way stop. A pickup truck stopped across the intersection in the on-coming lane and honked its horn. The noise jarred Ron’s consciousness back into the here and now. There was no cross-traffic, so the chief didn’t know what the pickup driver was honking about.
Then Ron saw that the pickup driver was Art Gilbert.
Gilbert drove across the intersection and stopped even with Ron’s window.
“Glad I saw you,” the landscaper said. “I thought of something else you maybe should know.”
“What’s that?” Ron asked.
Gilbert noticed that there was someone with Ron. He scrunched down to see who it was. Texas Jack looked back at him.
“You want me to tell you now?” Gilbert asked.
Ron thought about it. He looked at Texas Jack. Jack was still looking at Art Gilbert.
“You’ll keep anything you hear to yourself, won’t you, Jack?” Ron asked.
Texas Jack nodded, finally putting his eyes on Ron. “Sure thing.”
“Okay, Mr. Gilbert. Go ahead.”
“Well, last week, there was this British fella. He tried to bribe his way onto my crew so he could gain access to Reverend Thunder’s estate.”
Colin Ring, Ron thought immediately. “What did you tell him?”
“Turned him down flat. He got kinda mouthy about it until I picked up an electric hedge trimmer. Then he went on his way.”
“This was before Isaac Cardwell was killed?”
“The day before. I don’t know if it means anything. I thought you could sort it out.”
“I’ll do my best. Thank you, Mr. Gilbert.”
Art Gilbert nodded and drove off. Ron put his patrol unit in motion.
“I know that guy from somewhere,” Texas Jack told the chief.
“Who? Art Gilbert?”
“Yeah. I’ve met him before. Or at least seen him.”
“He keeps the grounds for both Jimmy Thunder and the mayor. Maybe you saw him at one or both of their places.”
Texas Jack shook his head. “That’s not it.”
But Jack couldn’t recall where he’d met Art Gilbert. Not before Ron dropped him off.
Chapter 34
After reading as much of the collected works of Colin Ring as he could stomach, Oliver Gosden went to see Alta County District Attorney Bob Heath. The deputy chief explained to the DA his suspicions concerning Ring. Oliver asked if there was any way they could persuade a judge to issue a subpoena for Ring’s notes on his biography of Jimmy Thunder.
The deputy chief said he might find something incriminating in them.
But the district attorney only laughed. “Subpoena a writer’s notes based on nothing more than a cop’s hunch? Try that and you‘ll have the wrath of every scribbler in the country descend on you. You’ll be on shit lists from the supermarket tabloids to the Harvard Law Review.”
“What are they going to do me?” Oliver asked. “Send hit men?”
“Worse. They’ll send lawyers. They’ll fill your life with misery.”
“Hey, didn’t they subpoena that screenwriter’s stuff at the O.J. trial? You know, all those notes or whatever that proved Mark Fuhrman said, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’”
“The defense team did that. Not us minions of the state.”
“So what’s sauce for the goose ain’t sauce for us? Is that what you’re telling me? What about talking to some of the eggheads over at the CCL?”
The CCL was the Center for Constitutional Law, a think tank established in town by Clay Steadman as a counterpart to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU’s charter was to protect the individual from a society that might deny him his constitutional rights. The CCL’s
raison d’etre
was to formulate constitutionally valid laws to protect society from individuals who refused to recognize anybody’s rights to be secure in their life, liberty or property.
The mayor said in creating the CCL he was in no way diminishing the vital work of the ACLU. Rather he was trying to establish a balance of interests that previously had not existed. But the ACLU had been so pissed at Clay Steadman they refused to accept any further donations from him. On the other hand, cops all across the nation applauded the fact that they finally had some legal heavyweights working their corner of the ring.
Hence Oliver Gosdens suggestion to Bob Heath.
“I’ll do that for you, Deputy Chief. And maybe they’ll surprise me and come up with some angle to help you. But you know what I think they’ll say?”
“What?” Oliver asked dryly.
“I think they’ll say that if nothing else you won’t be able to get this man’s notes because all he’ll have to do is invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Because, at heart, you’re looking to hang him with his own words.”
“Shit,” Oliver lamented. Heath was right. Short of stealing Ring’s notes, he wasn’t going to get them.
“Sorry, Deputy Chief. If this guy is your killer, you’re going to have to do some more police work to get him.”
So, that was just what Oliver decided to do. He was going to stick as close to Ring as the man’s own shadow. He was going to dog his steps, make him sweat and scoop him up when he cracked. Problem was, Oliver couldn’t find the bastard.
He wasn’t at his hotel, and when the deputy chief started checking all of the writer’s local haunts, as squeezed out of his old friend the Swiss hotel manager, he was always one step behind. Ring had already come and gone. Or he didn’t show up at the same time every day. All the bartenders, waiters, waitresses, hostesses, customers and barflies that Oliver talked to knew Ring. They liked him, too. He was described as gregarious, quick to buy the next round, an amusing storyteller and a good tipper. And, man oh man, did he ever listen when you had any dirt to dish.
But after several hours of hard effort, Oliver hadn’t been able to find his man.
He had heard something interesting at his last stop, though. A bartender told Oliver, “Yeah, Colin was here about an hour and a half ago. Had a pint, saw there was no crowd to speak of and took off.”
No, the bartender told the deputy chief, Ring hadn’t said where he was heading.
“But here’s something,” the barman informed Oliver. “There was another guy looking for him, too.”
“Who was that?” the deputy chief inquired.
“Don’t know the gent, and he didn’t give a name.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Gray hat, shades and a goatee.”
“But you weren’t able to help him, either, right?”
“No,” the bartender said. “But he came in just fifteen minutes after Colin split. So maybe he had better luck finding him.”
Ron’s manhunt for Didi DuPree failed to yield results by five that afternoon. With a dozen lower end motels still to check, Ron decided to turn his energies elsewhere for the remainder of the day. He returned to police headquarters and his office.
Dinah, his secretary, had gone home for the day, so he picked up his phone and called Sergeant Stanley’s extension himself. He asked the Sarge to bring in the evidence bag that contained the nails taken from the body of Isaac Cardwell. Sergeant Stanley appeared in his doorway within minutes.
“Come on in, Sarge, and close the door,” Ron said.
The sergeant followed orders and took a seat facing the chief across his desk. Sergeant Stanley laid the evidence bag containing the nails in front of Ron. The chief examined the nails through the transparent plastic of the evidence bag. Each of them was stained with blood from being driven through Isaac Cardwell’s body and being removed from the same. In addition to the bloodstains, there were smudges of black on the nails from penetrating the charred exterior of the lightning-struck incense cedar tree.
But for all their discoloration they were exactly the same kind of nails as the one Ron now took from his pocket. Sergeant Stanley’s eyes went wide when he saw the match.
“Jesus,” Caz Stanley whispered. “Where’d you get that nail?”
“Texas Jack Telford’s house,” the chief replied.
“You’re kidding?”
Ron shook his head. “It seems Reverend Thunder owes Jack almost two hundred thousand dollars in gambling debts.”
The sarge processed all the new information quickly.
“Chief, that might be a lot of coin to you or me, but it’s gotta be lunch money for Texas Jack.”
“He seemed to consider it a substantial sum when he mentioned it to me.”
Both men looked at the unblemished nail on the chief’s desk. Then the sarge asked, “Jack doesn’t know you have that, does he?”
Ron shook his head.
“It’d have to be a matter of principle more than money,” Sergeant Stanley insisted.
The chief gave that idea some consideration. Texas Jack had told him the he was careful about not winning too much from the handful of men who’d still sit down at a card table with him. So money
wasn’t
his primary consideration. Love of the game was. But if one his opponents refused to pay what Jack had won, that would remove any sense of legitimacy to the game. Reduce it to a charade. Implicitly make a mockery of Jack.
That might piss him off, all right, but enough to crucify a man?
The intuitive sergeant seemed to understand Ron’s silence almost completely.
“If Texas Jack killed Isaac Cardwell like that, it could have been as a warning. Pay up or you’re next.”
That paralleled Ron’s idea that Didi DuPree might have killed Isaac as a warning to his father. Ron was not happy that his suspect list was expanding when he wanted it narrowed.
“When we’re done here, run Texas Jack’s name with NCIC. Let’s see if his past isn’t more colorful than everybody already thinks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any movement at the Thunder estate?” Ron asked.
“No. Nobody in or out all day. They’re hunkered down.”
“Any word out of Mahalia Cardwell?”
Sergeant Stanley shook his head.
“Any feedback on the lion situation?”
“A day goes by without any more bad news, people start to lighten up. Not that there are many runners or hikers out on the woodland trails. But in town the pedestrian traffic is back to normal and the cafés are full.”
“How about the media? Are they behaving themselves?”
“I think they’re getting bored. Annie Stratton is encouraging the notion there are greener fields elsewhere for them. They might start buying into the idea soon. Even Ben Dexter hasn’t come out yet with that story accusing you of harassing Reverend Thunder.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Okay, Sarge, let’s keep this information about Texas Jack strictly between you and me. We’ll look at it some more after you do the background check on him.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Sergeant Stanley picked up the evidence bag, the chief handed him the nail he’d stolen from Texas Jack’s house.
“Sarge, find out every place in town where they sell this kind of nail.”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Thinking ahead to tomorrow, Ron had one final question.
“By the way, did you ever get in touch with the concierge at the Renaissance about finding a sketch artist for that likeness of Didi DuPree?”
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Stanley said, seeming uncharacteristically sheepish. “I’m meeting Marjor — I’m meeting Ms. Fitzroy at the hotel in an hour. She seemed to think she could be of help herself. I should have something on your desk in the morning.”
“Very good, Sergeant.” Ron kept a straight face as Dan Stanley left. But he found the idea that he might have played the inadvertent matchmaker for his dedicated bachelor sergeant both amusing and gratifying.
With things at least temporarily quiet, Ron thought it would be a good time to go shoot some hoops.
Chapter 35
Corrie Knox took a swig of water from the canteen that Tucker Marsden had offered her. She made sure she’d left him a last gulp and handed it back. He finished it off. It had been a long day and they were both tired.
The sun was lowering and the temperature was dropping. The sweat that had flowed through the heat of the day was starting to dry on their bodies. Tuck pulled his shirt away from his chest.
They had to be especially vigilant now. Their physical resources were nearing depletion. Their senses were dulled. And mountain lions hunted at twilight. All day, they had tracked the animal, expending as much energy on watching, listening, and maintaining field position — placing yourself for a clear shot if your prey broke from cover — as they had hiking up and down the mountain.
“The fucker’s still out there,” Tucker said softly. “He’s been leading us around in circles all day.”
“Damn, I wish we had a dog,” Corrie lamented quietly.
“I’d want three. Give us three good dogs and a guy who knows how to handle them and we could have bagged this bastard in time to have lunch by the pool.”
“Whine, whine, whine,” Corrie retorted. But she said it with a smile, and Tucker smiled back.
“What do you think, we have another half hour before it gets too dark to see?”
“Too dark for us to see,” Corrie replied.
“Whaddya say we try to get this cat to follow us for a change?”
“Yeah, as long it’s in the direction of our truck.”
The two game wardens moved carefully through the forest of alpine evergreens. The shadows of the trees lengthened. Each pool of darkness had to be approached with the utmost caution. Their rifles were lethal, but only if you had the time to get off a good shot. There was no question that with the coming of night the odds were quickly shifting in favor of the lion.
With the light about to fall past the point where a clean shot would be possible, they headed directly for the highway. It was time to get out of the woods. Time to get out in the open where the cat wouldn’t have any cover.
As they set foot on the pavement, knots of tension in their necks and shoulders began to unwind. Their truck was parked at a scenic overlook about a quarter mile downhill from where they stood. Five minutes and they’d be on their way into town.
“Well, hell, boys and girls, that was certainly a fun day,” Tucker said.
“Let’s do it again real soon,” Corrie agreed wearily.
“I know. We’ll come back tomorrow.”
They’d walked only twenty yards down the road when they heard an animal grunt. The sound had an almost mocking, derisive quality to it.
Tucker frowned. “That sonofabitch is just right inside those trees there laughing at us. Why don’t we see if we can have the last laugh?” He headed back up the road, trying to pinpoint the animal. Then he veered toward the trees.
Corrie yelled, “Tucker, stop! It’s too dark. You’ll never see him.”
She was greatly relieved when he heeded her warning.
Then he cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted at the trees. “Think you’re so smart? Well, we’re going to dinner. What the hell are you going to do?”
He turned his back on the woods and started down the road toward Corrie.
“Thanks,” Tucker said. “You were right. False pride will get you killed every ti—”
The mountain lion struck from the trees like a bolt. It leaped and hit Tucker Marsden from behind, high on his back and shoulders. The impact sent the big game warden tumbling down the slope of the road head over heels, the cat scrambling right along with him.
By instinct, Corrie jumped out of the way, up against the face of the mountain. Then she shouldered her rifle, but the two moving bodies were already several yards downhill of her. By now, Tuck was purposely continuing to roll, trying to keep the cat from getting a purchase on him, trying to keep those ghastly fangs from crushing his neck. Corrie had no way to take a shot at the cat without risking that she’d kill Tucker.
But she had to do something. The cat was pummeling her partner with its paws, and pretty soon one of its swipes would bring him to a stop. That or its razor sharp claws would sever a major blood vessel. In the dark gray wash of the day’s last light, shooting downhill, Corrie snapped off three quick shots from her Winchester 94.
She didn’t want to hit anything. Rather, her intent was to fire scant inches above the tumbling, scrambling bodies. Close enough for the cat to feel the passage of the rounds, hear flat, echoing cracks of the rifle shots to know it was in danger.
Her aim must have been off though, because she heard a feral howl of rage and pain — and was reasonably sure it hadn’t come from Tuck. Her heart leaped with joy at the thought she might have gotten lucky and nailed the cat. But then she saw the lion escape into the trees, moving somewhat unsteadily, but not as if it had been shot.
Corrie ran down the road to where Tucker lay curled on his side. She knelt next to him, her rifle pointed at the trees in case the cat made another try. But there was no sign that the animal was coming back.
“Jesus,” Tucker gasped in pain. “I feel like I’ve been through a threshing machine.”
Corrie dropped her eyes to him for just a second.
He was a mass of abrasions from the road surface and lacerations from the cat’s claws. A flap of his scalp hung loose. He shirt and pants were in bloody tatters.
“I think I broke my right leg,” Tuck groaned.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Corrie promised. She kept her eyes on the trees. “I thought I might have hit him, but I don’t know.”
“You didn’t. Those shots were damn close, though.” Tuck had to grind his teeth to master a wave of pain. “You
were
just trying to scare the fucker away, right?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’d hate to think you were willing to sacrifice me.”
“Unh-uh. You’ve got a real future ahead of you when you decide to grow up.”
Corrie used all her strength to help Tuck up to his good leg. She managed to do it while making him cry out only once. Tuck put his arm around Corrie’s shoulders and they began a halting, three-legged walk to their truck.
Corrie held her rifle at the ready in her right hand.
“So, my shots did scare the lion off then?”
“Sorry, Annie Oakley. But it was more of a guy thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“In all that tumbling and rolling and swiping and scrambling …”
“Yeah?”
Tuck smiled through his pain. “Right at the last second there, with the only good leg I had left …”
“What, Tucker?” Corrie asked with exasperation as they reached the truck.
“I kicked the fucker square in his nuts.”