O
kay, so Cassidy Collins is really Angela Jane Eckert, and her mother was Claire Eckert,” I read to David off of Cassidy’s list. “The trailer park is called Wooded Acres, in northern California. That could help, but the kid has no memory of the full names of anyone she knew there. There are only four people listed, first names and no last names. Three old women, Sharlene, Sherry, and Sue, who Cassidy calls ‘The Ss,’ and describes as women in their late seventies with blue hair who sit around clacking their dentures and playing afternoon quarter poker at a picnic table. There’s only one guy on the list, a Jack somebody, who hung around the trailer park off and on, the son of one of ‘The Ss.’ She’s not sure which one. Cassidy doesn’t know where he lived or anything else about him, just that she saw him sometimes, and he gave her the creeps.”
“So, how do we investigate that?” he said, with a slight laugh. “Not much help.”
“That’s an understatement,” I said. I thought for a while, and then said, “Maybe this Argus person has been in trouble before?
Most of these guys have been, even if it’s only little stuff like peeping or exposing themselves in public.”
“That’s true,” David said. “At least it’s a place to start.”
“Let’s ask your San Francisco office to interview these three old women, find out if they know of anyone in the area who appeared overly interested in young girls,” I suggested. “And we need a list of all the sex offenders known to reside in the vicinity of the trailer park during the years Cassidy lived there with her mother.”
“Sure. We’ll give it a shot,” David said. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of,” I said. The info could take up to a few hours to come in, and I wondered if sitting around waiting was the best use of my time. “Anything I can do? Do you need my help?”
“No,” he said, understanding where I was headed. “You might as well get something else done while we check this out. Now that the Peterson kid’s been cleared, the California link is our most likely scenario, and our offices on the West Coast will take it from here.”
“Okay. I’m going to check on the horses,” I said. “And then, I’ve got that other case I’m working, Billie Cox’s murder. I’d like to have sit-downs with a couple of folks this afternoon, while you watch over Collins. Truth is I could use a break from that kid.”
“That I can understand. I’ll call if we discover anything,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m counting on it. I want this over, fast.”
I turned to leave, and David said, “Sarah?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Did we forget something?”
“You look great sleeping,” he said, eyeing me a bit sheepishly.
At first, I was surprised, even flattered, but quickly angry. “Glad you think so,” I said. “But I don’t think you get to tell me that. Not when you won’t explain why you’re pushing me away.”
David thought for a moment and then said, “I guess that’s true.”
For a moment, I hesitated, in case more was to come, but David put his hands in his pockets and just looked at me, his eyes sad but resolute, so I left. I had Billie’s murder to solve, and the way my life was currently unfolding, I figured that might be easier than either finding Argus or decoding David.
Ty Dickson, Clayton Wagner’s old partner, was a small man, about the size of an average woman. Of course, at seventy-nine, most folks shrink, but he had the look of a fellow who’d always been dwarfed in a crowd. We talked for nearly an hour in his walnut-paneled office on the first floor of his mansion, perhaps not surprisingly right across the street from Wagner’s palatial spread. The butler had escorted me to the room and then left us alone. The guy might as well have stayed for all the information Dickson offered. All he’d tell me about either the Stanhope Field or the photo sounded like a recorded copy of Clayton Wagner’s story from two days earlier. Not surprising since Wagner had probably prepped Dickson.
“Yeah, ya see, the reason I can tell you for certain about that photo is my wife, Emily, died soon after,” Dickson said, for the fourth time, each time emphasizing it, as if this point alone should erase any doubt about the photo’s time frame. “That’s why it’s all so fresh in my mind, that it was in December and all, ’bout eight years ago.”
Getting nothing new that might help solve the case, I figured I didn’t have much to lose. Why not say what I was thinking? “You know, Mr. Dickson, you don’t look any different in this picture than you do today. Hard to imagine eight years have passed.”
The old man smiled, displaying long, narrow, crooked teeth discolored by age and smoke, evidenced by ashes and cigarette butts, the filters yellow from saliva, in an ashtray cut from a hollowed-out steer horn on his desk. Throughout the interview, Dickson had
hacked away, a loose, hairball cough, the kind that usually means people aren’t aging particularly well. Guess he didn’t consider that a problem. “You know,” he said, with an impish grin, “folks often ask how I stay so young looking. I tell them the secret is clean living.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I said. “Cigarettes and whisky always make for a long, healthy life.”
The old man laughed, leading to another round of chest-rattling gasps. There was something wrong with Dickson, something bad. I figured he knew that and had long since stopped caring. Of course, he caught my point, knew that I didn’t believe him, but the curmudgeon didn’t care. Matter of fact, he didn’t look in the least concerned about my visit or my questions, which led to only one conclusion: The old man didn’t see me as a serious threat. I must be ice cold.
“Where were you the afternoon of Billie’s death?” I asked.
As if he couldn’t be more pleased by the question, most likely because he had his answer well-planned, Dickson explained with a self-satisfied smile: “I was here at home. My accountant was with me that entire afternoon, going over my tax return, getting it ready to file an extension. He’ll be happy to talk to you. You’re also welcome to shoot that question past the butler, Malcolm. He brought the bean-counter and me a couple of drinks when we finished talking business.”
With that, Ty Dickson grinned, giving me a parting glimpse of his not-close-to-pearly-whites.
Another dead end. As he escorted me to the door, Malcolm backed up Dickson’s alibi, and on a call from the car, the accountant did the same.
I fared better at the law office of Jimmy McBride, the attorney Bobby Barker and Billie Cox had dealt with regarding their plan to purchase the Stanhope Field. I guessed that Wagner and Dick-son didn’t know I had McBride’s name, so they hadn’t ordered him
to keep his trap shut. The minute McBride’s secretary brought me back to his office—a small, windowless room in a nest of legal offices in a rundown building—I knew he was the third man in the photo. There was little chance of mistaking his physique. McBride was in his forties, with a fringe of dark hair around a balding dome, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. His shoulders gave him away. They sloped to the point I figured he’d have a hard time wearing suspenders.
“So, tell me about the Stanhope Field,” I said, after introducing myself and explaining that I was investigating what I simply referred to as Cox’s death. No reason to put him on guard by calling it a murder. “I understand that Billie Cox was interested in purchasing it for Century Oil.”
“Terrible thing, her killing herself like that. Billie Cox was one smart woman,” McBride said, to which I gave no argument. “Stanhope’s a potentially lucrative oil field. It was developed in the thirties but abandoned in the fifties when the easy-to-reach reserves ran out. But our research suggests there’s a bunch more down there.”
“How can you be so sure of that?” I asked.
“We have a report that proves those wells can bring in big profits,” he said. With that he flipped through the stacks on his littered desk and pulled out an inch-thick file that read: stanhope prospectus. He waved it at me, and then plopped it back down on his desk.
“Impressive,” I said. “But my understanding is that Billie lost her enthusiasm for the deal. I’ve been told that she was considering backing out of the purchase just before her death. She didn’t believe that oil field was as rich as your report claims.”
McBride’s high forehead puckered, giving him a doubtful look. “She never told me that,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Why, Billie told me not long before she died that she saw the purchase as one of the primary reasons she was eager to acquire Century.”
“Acquire Century?” I repeated. “Billie Cox was working on a buyout of Century Oil?”
“Of course,” McBride said. “Clayton Wagner and Ty Dickson were giving her a sweetheart deal. They’re ready to move on, finally. I’m sure they told you that. The plans were on the Q.T., sure, but I don’t know why they’d hide anything now. Since Billie’s death, they’ve got the company publicly up for sale.”
“Why are they selling?” I asked. “Some reason beyond just being old?”
“Nah. That’s the main motivation. They figure time’s limited, and those two old geezers want to spend their final years setting up a foundation. They’re drawing up plans to build a charity hospital for kids. With no children of their own to leave their money to, they see it as their legacy, the way they’ll be remembered by generations to come. The Wagner-Dickson Trust is the pride of their lives. My theory is that they see it as a way of making amends. Neither one of those two old wildcatters was particularly thrifty. They spent a bunch on big houses, cars, beautiful women. In fact, they brag about the fortunes they squandered. But with limited years ahead, they seem intent on leaving something behind that ensures they’ll be remembered.”
“That sure is good of them,” I said. “Sounds like a great cause.”
“Unlikely for the two of them, I admit. Those old scoundrels have always been better known for finagling deals than good works. For most of their lives, there wasn’t a soul they wouldn’t have taken advantage of for money,” McBride said, with a laugh. “But in this case, looks like they’ve learned a new trick.”
“That I don’t doubt,” I said with a smile.
“Since they lived large, they haven’t got a bunch. Not as much as you’d think for two oil men. And to do what they want, they need more,” he said. “Selling Century Oil to Billie was going to provide most of the nest egg for the trust.”
Based on how freely he was talking, when I took out the photo from Cox’s computer, I wasn’t surprised that McBride didn’t hesitate. “Sure, that’s me,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone snapped a photo, but that’s Wagner, Dickson, and me out at the field.”
“When was this? Why were all of you out there?”
“It was last summer, July or so, and we went out so they could show me the property. I’d done some work for them in the past. They said they wanted me to see what I was representing so I could pass on their enthusiasm to prospective buyers,” he said. “We had a lot of paperwork to pull together, so the place really didn’t go up for sale until late last year, but it’s been in the works for a long time.”
“Now, maybe I’m getting confused, here,” I admitted. “I thought you represented the owners of the field?”
“Well, yeah,” McBride said. “I do represent the owners.”
“You told prospective buyers that it was owned by a partnership of some kind, right?”
McBride smiled. “Well, kind of,” he said, for the first time seeming reluctant to open up. Rather than offer any information, he said, “Didn’t you ask Mr. Wagner and Mr. Dickson who owns Stanhope?”
“No, I’m asking you,” I said. Of course, by then all the clues were tumbling into place in my brain, like those little mosaic pieces in a kaleidoscope that
click, click, click
until they form a pattern. McBride frowned, reluctant to go on, so I put my theory on the table, if for no other reason than to gauge his reaction. “What you’re going to tell me is that Wagner and Dickson own that oil field. That’s right, isn’t it?”
McBride frowned and appeared to consider the situation.
“Remember, Mr. McBride,” I cautioned. “I’m a police officer, a Texas Ranger here on official business. You need to tell me what you know.”
Lawyers aren’t always the best interviews. They can be reluctant to open up. But McBride paused for a minute, shrugged, and then said, “Well, I guess there’s no harm. I mean, it’s all really public record, if someone knew where to look and spent the time to trace all the records and the shell companies back.”
“Shell companies set up to disguise the fact that Wagner and Dickson own Stanhope, right?” I asked again.
This time McBride didn’t hesitate. He appeared to have convinced himself he wasn’t doing his clients any harm. “Yeah, Wagner and Dickson own Stanhope. They purchased it on spec in the seventies, assuming the field wasn’t played out and banking on someday being able to figure out how to get at the rest of the oil.”
“Did Billie Cox know they were the sellers?”
“No,” McBride said. “I’d been asked not to tell anyone, even Miss Cox, who the real owners are. It was all supposed to be done anonymously.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The truth is, Lieutenant, I don’t know,” McBride said. “I asked both the old gentlemen, but they never said, and I was there to facilitate the deal, not figure out their motives.”
“That’s what you meant by most of the money for the hospital coming from the sale of Century Oil,” I speculated. “The rest was coming from selling Stanhope?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Wagner and Dickson told me they needed enough to ensure that the trust endured well into the future. The hospital is their legacy. They didn’t want to take any chances that it wouldn’t survive.”
It had been a cordial conversation, and, for the most part, McBride had been forthcoming. I figured he had no inkling of how important the information he’d just given me might be. It was time
to give him a clue. “Mr. McBride, there’s something I would suggest to you,” I said.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t tell anyone just yet that we talked, especially Clayton Wagner and Ty Dickson.”
The attorney looked surprised, even startled. “Well, they’re my clients. I haven’t told you anything wrong, and they have a right to know.”