Chapter 51
Sergeant Stanley had his button on when he dropped into Clay Steadman’s office.
The mayor noticed. “Nice button, Caz. Where’d you get it?”
The sergeant told him, and offered his to the mayor, telling him he could get another one. The mayor accepted and pinned it to his sport coat. Then he listened as Sergeant Stanley told him that the mountain lion had finally claimed a life — fortunately, not a life that would be greatly missed. He filled Clay in on the saga of Didi DuPree, Colin Ring, and Gayle Shipton.
Clay laughed mirthlessly.
“What’s funny?” the sergeant asked.
“I was just thinking nature plays fairer than the movie business. In Hollywood, the writer would have been eaten alive and the heavies would have survived.”
“If you say so, Mr. Mayor.” Casimir Stanley was one of the few Goldstrike cops who didn’t aspire to celebrity.
“But I don’t suppose we can count on the lion being so discriminating in the future. I don’t think the townspeople will take much comfort in the fact that it was a
bad
guy who got eaten. This news is going to crank up the panic and the anger.”
“You have to announce it?”
Clay gave his old friend a look, telling him he should know better.
“Yeah. Fortunately, I’ll also be able to announce I hired that houndsman from Louisiana. He’ll be landing in Reno tonight. Ready to go tomorrow. And the governor promised we’ll have more help from the state for Warden Knox by the morning, too.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s an improvement,” the mayor conceded. “But I’m going to impose a dusk to dawn curfew starting tonight. It’ll stay in effect until we kill this animal. Have the chief come by when he gets back in and we’ll work out the details.”
The sergeant stood up and saluted.
“Send Annie Stratton in, too, will you, Caz?” the mayor asked. Then he paused and sighed. “You know, all this stuff is beginning to wear on me. If I didn’t have a reputation as a macho sonofabitch to uphold, I’d let Annie make some of these announcements.”
Ron thought Jimmy Thunder looked like he was on the brink of a breakdown: mental, emotional, physical. Take your pick. In just the few days since Ron had seen him last, his deterioration was stunning. His skin looked lifeless and gray. His body slumped as if he’d lost the will and the wherewithal to stand upright. His eyes had sunk deeply into his face, and the light behind them was so dim it made the chief wonder if the man was functionally aware of his surroundings.
But the reverend had enough presence of mind to enrage his lawyer.
Jimmy Thunder told Ron that Marcus Martin must have misunderstood his conversation with Didi DuPree. Nothing criminal was either mentioned or implied.
Deacon Meeker, whose brow had suddenly beaded with sweat at Ron’s appearance with Marcus Martin, now smiled. He was sure he had the situation sized up. One con didn’t rat on another, not even years after both of them got out of the joint.
Meeker’s cocksure attitude crumbled and turned surly, however, when Jimmy Thunder informed him his services would no longer be needed. Jimmy told the deacon he thought he would be more at home in the secular world. The reverend’s one-time acolyte looked like he might have argued the point with his fists, had Ron not been there. As it was, he merely confirmed the reverend’s opinion of him by removing the little gold cross from his collar and grinding it under his heel before he stomped out.
Jimmy Thunder watched the deacon’s departure for a moment and then turned to Ron. “Have you found the man who killed my son?” he asked.
“Mahalia Cardwell is sure you did it,” the chief said impassively.
For just a second, anger flared in Thunder’s tired eyes, but it quickly faded.
“I’ve given that woman every reason in the world to hate me.”
“That’s her opinion, too. But there’s another little matter.”
“What’s that?” the reverend inquired, though he sounded past caring.
“You were seen driving your car on the night your son was murdered. Not far from where he was murdered. When you said you were here playing cards with Texas Jack Telford.”
Marcus Martin stepped forward and took Jimmy Thunder’s arm.
“Don’t say another word to this man, Reverend.”
But Jimmy did. He nodded at Ron and said, “That’s a beautiful button you have there. Wouldn’t it be something if we could all get along like that?”
“Yeah,” Ron replied. “It would.”
He took off his button and handed it to Jimmy Thunder.
Then he asked the reverend the question that had brought him to the man’s house and he got an answer that didn’t surprise him at all.
The information the chief got from Jimmy Thunder led him to the estate next door to Thunder’s own acreage. A discussion with the neighbor was the first link in a chain of six brief interviews Ron conducted that morning at some of the more lavish properties in town. At the final stop, he was given a long-distance telephone number.
But when he returned to his office and called it, the houseman who answered the phone told him the party he was trying to reach was abroad for the summer and wouldn’t be returning for another two weeks.
Stymied from that angle, the chief called the librarian in Berkeley he’d talked to yesterday — the one who remembered Isaac Cardwell stopping in before he’d come to Goldstrike with Colin Ring. She answered, but in a state of high agitation.
A radical protester shouting about the over-representation of white male writers in the library’s collection had just tried to set the contemporary fiction section on fire. But the can of lighter fluid the protestor had been using as the accelerant for her homemade flame thrower had blown up in her face. It was just terrible. The protester was horribly burned. The emergency sprinklers had put out the fire, but had also soaked thousands of books. And the library’s acquisition committee had scheduled an emergency meeting to heighten the sensitivity level of its purchasing policies.
The librarian was courteous enough to take the name Ron gave her and promised to see if there was any reference to it in the library’s magazine collection, but she couldn’t promise to call him back immediately.
He said as soon as she could find the time would be fine.
As Ron tried to think of another approach to his problem, Sergeant Stanley knocked on his door and entered his office with a stack of DVDs in his hand.
He said, “Here you go, Chief. All the surveillance video from the two home centers and the lumber yard. The two hardware stores are your no-tech, mom and pop places, but the owners both promised to do their best if you want to bring a picture in to show them.”
The sergeant put down the discs and rolled out Ron’s TV stand.
“We’ve got discs going back two weeks at the home centers, and a month at the lumberyard. Where would you like to start?”
Ron sighed at the prospect that lay before him. He looked at the ten DVDs Sergeant Stanley had secured for him. There was no way of guessing which, if any, of them showed the face he wanted. Still, he knew he had to look.
“Start with the lumberyard,” he said.
Sergeant Stanley powered up the TV and the DVD player and inserted the first disc to play. He handed Ron the remote control and said, “I’ll be right back with a cup of coffee, Chief.”
Ron said thanks.
Then he settled in to watch the first of the low-resolution black and white videos that retail management used to see who was stealing more from them on any given day — their customers or their employees.
Ron got lucky.
He didn’t have to play all the discs before he found the face he wanted. He’d had to slog through barely more than half of them. With judicious use of fast-forwarding, that had taken him only two hours.
He viewed the transaction three times. By his watch, it had taken only thirty seconds for the killer to plunk the item down on the counter, tender his cash, receive his change and walk away with his purchase. But there was no mistaking the man’s face. And there was no doubt he’d just purchased a box of the same kind of nails used in the crucifixion of Isaac Cardwell.
The chief stopped the video at the point where the buy occurred and ejected the disc from the player. The date and time stamp on the video’s jewel box indicated it had been shot a week ago, last Thursday afternoon. Just hours before the murder.
Ron was pinning down the details of the crime piece by piece, but the one element that still eluded him was motive. Why had the crime been committed? And why had Isaac Cardwell been the victim? None of the old standby reasons — money, sex, and vengeance — seemed to fit.
Insanity was another reason, of course, and nailing somebody to a tree was certainly a sign of a disordered mind. But Ron would bet courtside tickets to the NBA Finals that the killer had never hurt another person in his life. In fact, when he called Sergeant Stanley in and gave him the man’s name, and told him to run it through the state and federal databases for criminal histories, the Sarge said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Ron said he wasn’t.
He also asked Caz Stanley to have a sandwich and a soda sent in. He was getting hungry.
The last thing he reminded Caz to bring him was Colin Ring’s writings.
Maybe he’d find his answer there.
Chapter 52
There were still two hours until sunset, but Corrie Knox decided to call it quits for the day. When she and Oliver had paused to have granola bars for lunch, the deputy chief had called in to headquarters, and Sergeant Stanley had given him the good news about the imminent arrival of the houndsman and the additional officers from the Department of Fish and Game. He also mentioned the curfew the mayor was imposing. In light of those developments, Corrie decided there was no point in pushing their luck.
Especially since for the last hour both hunters had felt the sensation that they were being stalked had increased dramatically.
So much so they could practically imagine the mountain lion salivating.
But they never saw so much as its shadow.
“One clean shot,” Oliver said in response to Corrie’s calling off the hunt. “Come on, you will-o’-the-wisp sonofabitch, give me one clean shot.”
“They prefer sneak attacks,” Corrie reminded him.
“The bastard’s so close, been doggin’ us so long, it’s gotten very personal for me.”
“Him, too, I think.” Corrie never would have thought she’d say something like that — but at that moment, she believed it. “Listen, tomorrow we can dog him with real dogs. You can come along if you want.”
Oliver kept scanning the trees. “I just might do that.”
Then, being very careful, they walked out of the forest and back to the highway. Even there, they felt they were being watched from the trees. It was only when they got into Corrie’s 4x4 and drove off toward town that they could tell themselves they were no longer being stalked — but even then an ominous tingle played at the muscles of their shoulders and necks.
“I want to thank you for your help,” Corrie told Oliver as she drove. “I know the past couple of days weren’t easy for you.”
“You’re welcome — and they weren’t.”
“We’ll get him tomorrow.”
“Then let’s hope everybody obeys the curfew,” Oliver replied. “Let’s hope everybody’s
real
careful tonight.”
The deputy chief called headquarters from Corrie’s 4x4 and spoke with Sergeant Stanley. Both men knew the conversation was likely being monitored, and took care to speak elliptically. Oliver recognized the irony of the situation. Cops bugged the bad guys’ conversations, making them speak in code. Reporters eavesdropped on cops, making them use circumlocutions.
“Progress?” Oliver asked, regarding the Cardwell case.
“Chief’s busy with his new reading.”
Colin Ring’s material, Oliver surmised. Didi DuPree hadn’t needed a court order to get that stuff, now had he? But then Didi had wound up as cat chow, and they’d inherited it. Life as it should be, the deputy chief felt.
He’d dearly like to read Ring’s notes and manuscript, too. But after a day of having the mountain lion size him up for kibble, all Oliver wanted now was a warm bath and to see Lauren and Danny. He’d catch up on his reading later.
“Same cast of characters?” Oliver asked, meaning suspects.
“Might be a surprise guest appearance.”
A new suspect? That got Oliver’s attention.
“The chief want me to come in?”
“Hasn’t said so, Deputy Chief.”
“Let him know I want in.” If there was to be an arrest.
“Will do.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll be at home.”
“Ten-four.”
When Oliver broke the connection, Corrie asked him, “Ron’s making progress in the Cardwell case?”
“Maybe. He might have found a joker in the deck.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me the way things are going around here. Nothing ever turns out quite the way you’d expect.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Oliver agreed.
Then he closed his eyes for the rest of the ride home.
The sun was setting as Ron returned to reading Colin Ring’s manuscript, “Hollow Thunder.” He’d just spoken with Sergeant Stanley about enforcing Clay Steadman’s curfew edict. All pedestrians were to be off the street before dark. Vehicular traffic was to be limited to those going to work, returning home from work or leaving town. The fatal attack last night at Gayle Shipton’s house had been on the fringe of the built-up area of town, as had been the backyard invasion of the Derby house, but there was nothing to say the mountain lion might not venture deeper into residential or commercial areas. The police didn’t want any innocent bystanders in the way if a patrol unit spotted the animal and officers responded with gunfire.
Picking up where he’d left off, Ron was glad that he’d made his breakthrough — found the man he knew in his gut had killed Isaac Cardwell — before he had begun reading. If Ring had things right, Jimmy Thunder had more enemies that he’d have ever imagined. There were other televangelists, both black and white, whom Thunder had demeaned. There were officials of charitable organizations to whom Thunder had promised large donations and then failed to make them. There were former teammates from his pro football days whom Jimmy had publicly humiliated by revealing their personal failings and holding them up to his flock as examples of how people should not behave.
Wading through all those suspects could have muddied the water for years.
But one thing Ring had made eminently clear was the visceral hatred Mahalia Cardwell felt for her former son-in-law towered above the animus anyone else bore him. She blamed Jimmy Thunder for the death of her daughter. And now her grandson.
Even with what Ron had learned, however, he still hadn’t found a motive for why his suspect had killed Isaac Cardwell. It was all that stopped him from going out and arresting the man right now. A hand knocked softly at his door. He looked up and saw Corrie.
“I went back to your place and cleaned up,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
It was the first time they had a chance to talk privately, without distractions, since last night. He still thought she looked awfully young — but he no longer worried about it.
Ron said, “I don’t mind. You clean up real nice.”
Corrie smiled, somewhat ruefully.
“Glad I’m good at something. I certainly haven’t been able to find that lion.”
“You’ll get him tomorrow, when you have the dogs to help.”
“That’s what I told the deputy chief. He went home.”
“There’s a man who knows his priorities.”
“How about yours? They include taking a break for dinner?”
Ron had been sitting at his desk long enough to feel stiff. He was starting to get hungry again, too. And he knew if you pressed too hard at detail work, you just might overlook the one fact you needed most. Sometimes a break was just what the doctor ordered.
Especially when the doc looked like Warden Knox.
Ron stood up, and was slightly dismayed by all the cracks, pops, and creaks he made doing so. He saw Corrie was grinning at him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll rub some liniment into those tired old bones tonight.”
Ron stepped around his desk to join her and said quietly, “We’ll see who rubs what into whom.”
The moment they drove out of the police parking lot they were both aware how the town was not itself that night. Under the lavender sky of dusk, the curfew had swept the streets clean of strollers, shoppers, and moviegoers. Restaurants were closed. Sidewalk cafes were deserted. All of this on a night when the temperature held steady at its daytime high.
Normally, the temperature in Goldstrike fell appreciably at night. At an elevation of six thousand feet, the heat of the day dissipated quickly. Even in August, the mercury could get down to the fifties shortly after dark. But not tonight. If anything, the temperature seemed to be rising.
“Warm front must be moving in,” Ron said.
Above the mountains to the north of town, heat lightning flashed from fat black clouds stalled over the peaks.
“Rain?” Corrie asked.
Ron sniffed the air. “Don’t think so. Just a hot, sticky night with a few special effects thrown in for atmosphere.”
“Good night to hunker down, anyway,” Corrie said, looking out at the empty streets.
“Yeah. People won’t complain if it’s just one night at home.” Ron concurred. Then he nodded toward the ghost town view ahead of them and said, “It looks pretty eerie, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t surprise me if that mountain lion out there felt the difference and decided to come into town to look things over.”
“The way I felt out in the woods today, it wouldn’t surprise me if we find him under your desk when we get back to your office.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I keep telling myself that I’m a scientist, a trained professional, an outdoorswoman of considerable experience — and the longer this thing goes on, the less I can relate it to anything I’ve experienced before. I grit my teeth when I think I’m becoming superstitious, but I’m starting to believe not every mystery is susceptible to rational analysis.”
Ron looked at her. “In other words, you’re spooked.”
“You bet.”
He said, “The hotel restaurants have to be open to serve their guests, but that’s not what I had in mind.”
“Me neither.”
“You want to see if we can get a cup of coffee somewhere. Then we’ll drive around, see if we can spot the lion asking for directions to my desk.”
“Sure,” Corrie smiled. “If we see him, I’ll line up the shot and you can steady my rifle”
“As long as I have one hand free to hide my eyes,” Ron responded.
They found coffee but not the mountain lion. An hour later, they’d just stepped into Ron’s office when the phone rang. Ron took his seat and answered on the second ring. Corrie listened in from a guest chair.
“Chief Ketchum.”
“Hello, Ron. This is Jack Telford. I’d like to report a theft.”
A
theft?
Why had the call been put through to him, Ron wondered.
“Jack, you may have noticed we’re a little busy around here right now. Did you lose anything valuable?”
“A nail,” Texas Jack replied.
Ron didn’t say a word.
“Not worth a penny, in and of itself,” the poker champ continued. “But maybe it’s come to mean a great deal more to some folks.”
“You got something to say, Jack, say it.”
After a brief pause of his own, Texas Jack did. “I was thinking I might have given you the wrong impression the other day. Talking about how Jimmy Thunder owed me all that money, and how I didn’t expect to get it back. What with Jimmy’s poor son being killed so recently, it seemed, upon reflection, I might’ve pointed a finger at myself. What with policemen being naturally suspicious people, anyway.”
Ron responded, “We get a lot more suspicious when we learn a person has a rap sheet. And an unfortunate history.”
Jack’s silence was considerably longer this time.
Finally, he went on, “What I did, Ron, was think about those nails I dropped that day you came by my place. I guess I must have a suspicious nature myself. And I didn’t get to be the card player I am without being good at details. So I counted those nails. The ones I picked up and the ones I’d already put in my roof. I searched all over to make sure I hadn’t missed any, and I came to the conclusion that one was taken. You wouldn’t know what happened to it, would you?”
“I’ve got it, Jack.”
“Glad to see I haven’t lost my touch.”
“Tell me something,” Ron said. “Whatever happened to the guy who attacked you in the Harris County Jail?”
“That old boy? He got out. But not long after that he had the misfortune to get drunk and pass out on some railroad tracks — shortly before a fast freight train happened to come rumbling through. Kind of ironic, I thought, that boy pulling a train. So to speak.”
“Poetic justice,” Ron agreed.
“How much thought have you given that it was me nailed that Cardwell boy to that tree?” Jack asked.
“Enough to check you out.”
“You checked hard enough, you know I had a complaint against one man — not a whole race of people — and my score’s been settled.”
“Yeah, so you tell me.”
“So I don’t have to worry about you visiting me in any official capacity?”
“You’ve got no worries from me, Jack.”
“Then I’ve got something for you.”
“What’s that?”
“You remember I told you about knowing the fella in that garden truck the other day?”
“Unh-huh,” Ron grunted.
“I recalled where I saw him. It was at a funeral. Only reason I was there was to keep a friend company. I didn’t know the family, and they didn’t know me. But the old boy I was with played the horses like nobody you ever saw. Then he’d turn around and lose most of his money to me — just to keep his edge at the track. My friend brought me to the funeral because he was a friend of the family whose boy was being buried that day.”
“And who was that?” Ron wanted to know.
“Quite a fine young athlete by the name of Roger Braddock, played quarterback for New York. If you pay attention to such things, you’ll remember he was the boy Jimmy Thunder killed.”