Red Knife (17 page)

W
hen Elise Reinhardt opened the door, her hand held a small glass full of whiskey and her eyes held a look full of mean. Her gaze shot from the sheriff to Ed Larson, to Simon Rutledge, and finally to Cork.

“We already gave to the widows and orphans fund,” she said.

“Elise, I wonder if we can come in and go over a few things with you.” The sheriff was firm but not unpleasant.

“Again?”

“It’s important.”

“I can see that from the backup you brought.” She stepped aside and waved them in. “Hell, let’s get this over with. I’ve got a steak to grill.”

They came in and stood clustered in the living room. Though it wasn’t particularly dirty or cluttered, the place felt neglected. Flowers drooped in a vase on a table. The air in the room carried a distant unpleasant odor, like dirty socks.

Elise crossed her arms. “Sit down if you want. I’d offer you something to drink, but that might encourage you to stay.”

“We’ll get through this as quickly as we can, Elise,” Dross said. She didn’t sit. “The night the Kingbirds were killed, what time did Buck get home?”

“I told you already. Told you a dozen times.”

“Could you tell us again?”

“It was maybe fifteen minutes after Cork left.”

“What time would that have been?”

“Nine fifty, give or take a couple of minutes.”

“What were you doing when he got here?”

“Exactly what I was doing when Cork left. Listening to music and drinking Macallan.” She held up her glass.

“And after Buck got home, what did you do?”

“Went to bed.”

“Anything unusual occur that night?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Once Cork was gone, you didn’t leave the house?”

“Nope.”

“And you’re positive about the time Buck came home?”

“I am
so
fucking positive. And
so
fucking tired of being asked.”

“Do you think Buck killed the Kingbirds, Elise? Is that why you’re lying?”

She looked startled by the accusation. “I’m not lying.”

“Elise, we have a witness, someone who’s willing to swear that Buck wasn’t here at ten. Or eleven. Or even midnight.”

Elise gathered herself. “So, our word against his.”

“Hers.”

A slight disturbance ran across her face. “Whatever.”

“We know where Buck was during that time, and it pretty much assures us that he didn’t kill the Kingbirds.”

“Well, there you go.”

“You think it makes no difference that you lied?”

“Sue me.” She took a sip of the drink in her hand.

Simon Rutledge said, “Mrs. Reinhardt, when we first interviewed you, you said you weren’t sorry Alexander Kingbird had been murdered.”

“I’m still not. Like I told you before, he ran the Red Boyz. He’s hiding Lonnie Thunder. You ask me, all the Red Boyz need to be dealt with.”

“By killing them? The way you killed the Kingbirds?”

“Me?” She looked truly shaken.

“When your husband came home, you had a shotgun in the living room, one that had recently been fired. We’ve been told your husband thinks you killed the Kingbirds.”

“Who told you that?”

“The woman he was with from ten thirty until midnight the night the Kingbirds were killed.”

Elise blinked and put her drink down. “That son of a bitch. That goddamn son of a bitch.” She shook her head and huffed a sour little laugh. “All this time I thought he’d killed them, killed them for Kristi. I’d have lied my way into hell for him after that. But there he was, rutting with some whore instead.”

“What were you doing with the shotgun?” Dross said.

At first, Cork wasn’t sure Elise Reinhardt had heard the question. She seemed distant. He wondered if she was imagining Buck “rutting with some whore,” as she’d put it. Finally she focused on the sheriff. “I heard the dogs going crazy in the kennel out back. I thought maybe we had a bear nosing around and I got the shotgun. Turned out to be a cougar. I discharged the shotgun into the air and the thing ran off.”

“Can you prove this?”

Everyone waited. Elise seemed to enjoy the drama of the moment. At last she crooked a finger and said, “This way.”

She led them through the maze of the house to a back door. Outside, the afternoon was waning. Sunlight shattered as it fell through the pines and it hit the ground in pieces. The day was still pleasantly warm. They followed Elise to a fenced-in area that included a kennel and a short run. A couple of gray bird dogs came bounding to greet her. They leaped up, put their paws on the fence, and shoved their noses between the mesh.

“Good boys,” Elise said, and rubbed their muzzles. She walked down the fence line a few yards with the dogs pacing beside her eagerly. “Here.” She pointed toward the ground.

The tracks lay at the center of a large patch of sunlight. They’d been made in the wet dirt around an outside spigot that jutted from the ground and had probably been put there to clean the kennels.

Ed Larson, who’d been quiet so far, said, “Elise, how do we know these tracks were made that night?”

“Never saw a cougar around here before.”

“Can you prove that?”

“Tell you what, Mr. Smartypants. How about you make me prove it?”

Dross said calmly, “Where’s the shotgun, Elise?”

“Locked in the gun case.”

“May we see it?”

She looked exasperated. “Do you really think I killed the Kingbirds?”

“If you didn’t, there’s no reason for us not to see the shotgun, is there?”

She eyed them all as if she finally realized she was surrounded and outnumbered. “Come on.”

She led them back to the house and once again through the maze of Buck Reinhardt’s random construction to a denlike room hung with hunting trophies and with two large mahogany gun cases set against opposite walls. She dug in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small key ring. She unlocked one of the cases, reached in, and lifted out a shotgun, which she handed to Ed Larson.

“Robar,” he said, with real admiration. “Nice piece.”

“Buck had it custom built.”

“Mind if we keep it awhile?”

“Be my guest.”

The cell phone in its leather case on Marsha Dross’s belt began to bleat. “Excuse me,” she said. She stepped away and answered, “Dross.” She listened, then said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She slipped the phone back into place and said to Elise, “You might want to come with me.”

“Yeah? And why’s that?”

“We just got a call, shots fired out on County Road Eighteen, Elise. It looks like Buck was the target.”

“Did they hit him?”

“Apparently not.”

“Too bad.”

“Would you care to come?”

“If he was dead, maybe. Right now, I’d rather finish my drink.”

By the time Dross, Larson, and Cork pulled their vehicles off the road and parked behind the deputy’s cruiser, it was dusk. Simon Rutledge hadn’t come with them. He’d asked Elise if she minded his staying so they could talk a little more. She’d agreed, but only if he had a drink with her. Rutledge had said he could live with that.

On the far side of the road were two trucks from Reinhardt’s Tree Service. One was a big utility truck with a hydraulic bucket for trimming high branches. The other was Buck Reinhardt’s personal pickup, replete with the big rack of lights on top of the cab. Another vehicle was parked there as well, a cruiser from the Yellow Lake Police Department.

Buck was talking with Deputy Cy Borkman, who was taking notes. Dave Reinhardt stood close by. Two men sat on the rear bumper of the bucket truck. One was Adrian Knowles, who wasn’t much more than a kid, though he had a wife and an infant son to support. The other was Cal Richards. Richards was smoking a cigarette. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up high enough to show most of the long green dragon tattoo on his right arm. Neither of the men bothered to stand up when Dross and the others arrived.

Borkman separated from them and met Dross in the middle of the empty road.

“So what have you got, Cy?” the sheriff asked.

“Happened an hour ago now. Buck’s working in the bucket, doing some trimming.” He pointed toward the telephone lines that shadowed the road.

“Buck?” Dross said. “Buck was doing the trimming?”

Borkman shrugged. “Guess he likes to keep his hand in the actual business. His crew says he still hefts a pretty mean chainsaw.”

“Okay, go on.”

“They’re all focused on the work, got their backs to the road. They hear a vehicle approach, but they don’t take any notice. Suddenly, bang-bang. They spin around, see the vehicle speed off west down the road.”

“Did they give you a plate number or a description?”

Borkman shook his head. “Sun was in their eyes. Dark SUV was all they could say.”

“You told me on the phone the shots were fired at Buck. What makes them think he was the target?”

“There’s a bullet hole in the bucket. A foot to the left and six inches higher and there’d be a bullet hole in Buck.”

Buck seemed to have had enough of being ignored. He strode onto the asphalt and called out as he approached, “Got anything to say about me carrying now?”

He was, in fact, wearing his gun belt.

“Did you shoot back, Buck?” Dross asked.

“The son of a bitch was out of range by the time I cleared my holster.”

Dave Reinhardt had followed his father to the middle of the road. “Dad called me on my cell, Marsha. I thought maybe I could help.”

Dross said, “That’s okay, Dave. Buck, I understand nobody got a clear look at the shooter or the vehicle. Is that correct?”

“Indians,” Buck said. “I’ll give ’em this, they’re smart when it comes to being sneaky. Bushwhacked me with the sun in my eyes. Couldn’t see a thing.”

Bushwhacked?
Cork thought. Reinhardt had clearly seen too many Randolph Scott movies.

“Why do you say ‘Indians’?” Ed Larson said. “I mean, if the sun was in your eyes and you couldn’t see.”

“Who else wants me dead?”

Cork found himself imagining the line.

“So the truth is, you really didn’t see anything that might help identify the assailant?” Larson said.

“The smell,” Cal Richards said from the bumper of the truck.

“Smell?” Dross swung her gaze toward Richards.

“Yeah, greasy war paint.” Richards laughed. Knowles laughed, too.

A vehicle appeared on the road, coming from the east where the sky was slipping into the dark blue-gray that was the shadow of evening. Its headlights were on. The group moved off the asphalt and onto the shoulder near Reinhardt’s trucks. They all were silent as the vehicle approached and passed. A white pickup. The driver eyed them as he cruised by and headed toward the rosy glow in the west.

Dross said, “Buck, I talked to Brittany Young this afternoon. She told me you were with her the night the Kingbirds were killed. She’s willing to sign a sworn statement to that effect.”

“Okay. So?”

“She also told me you think Elise killed the Kingbirds.”

“I’m not saying nothing about that.”

“You don’t have to. We already spoke with Elise.”

Buck looked a little worried. “You tell her about Brit?”

Dross said, “She knows.”

“Ah, Christ.”

“Do you still think she killed the Kingbirds?”

“Hell, a lot of vengeance in that woman these days. Add enough booze and she’s up to just about anything.”

“We have the shotgun she took from the gun case the night of the murders.”

“My Robar Elite? What the hell are you doing with that?”

“Dad,” Dave Reinhardt said quietly at his father’s back, “the Kingbirds were killed with a shotgun.”

Buck spun around. “You think I’m stupid, boy? I know that. I want to know how they got it.”

“Elise allowed us to take it,” Dross said.

Buck shook his head. “Stupid cow. Hanging herself.”

“Dad,” Dave said, his voice still quiet but full of edge now, “they won’t be able to tell much, if anything, from the shotgun, so it doesn’t hurt Elise.”

“What did she say about having the shotgun that night, Buck?” Dross asked.

“Elise is your wife, Dad. You don’t have to answer these questions.”

“Elise can take care of herself, boy. She told me she shot at a cougar, Sheriff.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Hell, no. I’ve never seen a cougar around my place.”

“She showed us some tracks near the kennel. Cork’s seen cougar tracks before. He says these do, in fact, look like they were made by a cougar.”

“Well, what do you know? Maybe the bitch wasn’t lying.”