Strangers (14 page)

He said, “What happened, man?” in a rust-scraped voice, but not as if he cared.

“Somebody blew me off the road a few minutes ago.”

“Huh? What you mean?”

“Three shots from a high-powered rifle.” I gestured at the abandoned mine on the hillside. “From up there.”

“Hell you say. You see who it was?”

“No. I don't suppose you spotted anybody in the vicinity?”

“Not since I left town. Still up there, maybe.”

“I don't think so. You're Max Stendreyer, right?”

The black, feral eyes narrowed. “What if I am?”

“That's what I've been doing out here,” I said, “looking for you.”

“Yeah? Why? What you want with me?”

“Some conversation. You don't know who I am?”

“Never seen you before. You been out to Lost Horse?”

“Where I was coming from, yes.”

“Stay the hell off my property?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Then how'd you know I wasn't there?”

“No vehicle at your trailer. I could see that from the road below.”

“Damn well better not of been messing around my place. I don't stand for it, not from nobody.”

“Mind your own business, want others to mind theirs.”

“That's right.”

“Except when you decided to tell the sheriff you saw Cody Hatcher running away from the Oasis.”

“Shit,” Stendreyer said. The black eyes were slitted now, like an animal peering through a pair of embrasures. “Who the hell're you?”

“One of the few who think Cody may be innocent.”

“Outsider. Goddamn nosy outsider.” Now he was looking past me at the Jeep. “Hatcher kid's wheels. No wonder somebody blew you off the road.”

“Somebody,” I said. “You, maybe?”

“Hell no. I'm no sniper. I fire on somebody, it's face-to-face and with damn good reason.”

“How much business have you done with Cody Hatcher?”

“What?”

“I think you heard me. Business. Of one kind or another.”

Stendreyer rubbed a horny hand over his lipless mouth. “You're not law or you'd of said so. I don't have to tell you nothing.”

“That's right, you don't. Unless you have something to hide.”

“I got nothing to hide.”

“Then answer my question.”

“Fuck you, man,” he said, and jammed the Ford into gear and bore down hard enough on the accelerator for the spinning rear tires to spatter me with bits of rock and sand as he barreled away.

 

13

It was another ten minutes before the law showed up. One deputy in a green-and-white, all-terrain vehicle. His name was Evans and he was young, officious, and none too sympathetic. Joe Felix must have alerted his entire staff because he knew who I was and why I was in his county even before he demanded ID. He asked some questions, wrote down my driver's license and insurance information, then walked around the Jeep and leaned inside to examine the shooting damage and with a pocketknife dig out one of the slugs that had lodged in the passenger door panel.

The bullet had mushroomed on impact. Evans peered at it, measuring it with his eyes, then estimated its weight by feel and a couple of bounces on his palm. “Looks like it might be a thirty ought six. Soft nose, probably a hundred and eighty grains—plenty of muzzle velocity. Wouldn't have been much left of you if whoever did it was a better shot.”

“He hit what he was aiming at all three times—the Jeep, not me.”

“Uh-huh. You're still lucky, mister.”

“Yeah,” I said, “lucky.”

“Sure you didn't see anything of who it was?”

“Gun flash on the first shot, that's all. But he's not there now. There must be another way to and from that mine.”

“There is. Second snaketrack, leads down through the flats and connects with this road a mile or so back toward town.”

So the shooter could have been Stendreyer. The timing was about right, and he might have been lying when he said he hadn't seen another vehicle; you can see a long way across desert flats, and you couldn't miss dust clouds even on a wind-lashed day like this. If he hadn't done the shooting himself, it seemed likely he knew or had a pretty good idea who had.

But I didn't say any of this to Evans. Accusation without proof was not going to buy me anything except more grief.

I said, “You going to take a look around the mine?”

“When we're done here. Doubt if I'll find anything.”

So did I. “What about the Jeep?”

“Call went out for a tow truck. Should be here by now.”

Another ten minutes passed before the truck showed, the bright yellow job from High Desert Auto Repair and Towing. Rick Firestone was at the wheel. When he stepped out, the deputy said, “It's about time.”

Firestone glanced at the chronograph on his wrist. “Only been, what, forty minutes since I got the call. Anyhow, I was out on another one when it come in.” He let out a low whistle when he'd had a close-up look at the Jeep. “Wow, she's about totaled.” Then, to me, “You're real lucky you didn't get banged up yourself.”

“That's what I told him,” Evans said.

“Who done it? Shot her up like this?”

“We don't know yet. Might never find out.”

“Huh. Well, both rear tires look okay. Should be an easy tow once we get her straightened up.”

The sky had begun to darken and there were long, bleak shadows in the hills and across the flats by the time the three of us rocked the Jeep into an upright position and Firestone winched it onto the tow truck. Evans said, “Likely the sheriff'll want to talk to you. Where'll you be later?”

“Goldtown Motel. Or Cheryl Hatcher's home.”

One corner of his mouth quirked upward, and damned if the son of a bitch didn't wink at me. “I'll pass that on.”

He drove up toward the mine to have his look around, and I got into the cab with Rick Firestone. The reek of tobacco smoke permeated it; I lowered the passenger window about halfway. Once we were moving I said, “Lot of people around here own high-powered rifles, I suppose. Thirty ought sixes with telescopic sights.”

“Sure. Just about everybody I know's a hunter.”

“Including Max Stendreyer?”

Firestone ran his tongue around the edges of his flytrap mouth. “Well, prolly he is, but I couldn't say for sure. Unfriendly dude. He don't like people much.”

“Ever do any business with him?”

“Uh, business? You mean at the shop? Yeah, he gets his gas and service from us.”

“No, I mean do you buy what he sells.”

“Huh?”

“Grass. Pot. Dope.”

“Hey, not me, man. Uh-uh.”

“Cody admitted buying from him. So did Alana.”

“Yeah? Well, I don't mess with that stuff.”

Lying, but I didn't see anything to be gained by pressing him. “You a hunter, too, Rick?” I asked.

“Sure. Birds and rabbits, mostly.”

“What about Cody? Ever hunt with him?”

“Couple of times, yeah.”

“Recently?”

“I dunno. I don't remember the last time.”

“He have his new Marlin then?”

“Huh?”

“Brand new lever-action thirty-thirty Winchester.”

“Cody?” Firestone said. “Nah. He don't have a piece like that.”

“Yes he does. In his closet at home. I've seen it.”

A little silence. Then, “Man, he never said nothing.”

“Bought it from Gene Eastwell. Paid a lot for it, too.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Almost five hundred. Bought himself a new winch for his Jeep, too. Where do you suppose he got the money?”

“Beats me, man. Like I told you, him and me don't hang together much anymore.”

“On account of Alana.”

“Yeah.”

“You have a girl, though, don't you?”

“Me? Sure. Sure I do.”

“Four of you ever double date?”

“What for? Go out with your chick, you wanna be alone with her.”

“What's her name, your girl?”

“Uh, Rose.”

Lying again. Saving face, as if there was some sort of stigma attached to being unattached. Well, maybe there was when you were twenty or so and the kind of unattractive dim bulb women tended to avoid. He moistened his lips again, then reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

I said, “Do me a favor, Rick, don't light up. Tobacco smoke affects my lungs.”

“… Yeah, okay.” He shoved the weed back into the pack.

“Cody smoke, too, does he? Cigarettes, I mean.”

“Sure. Sure, he does. Most guys I know do. How come you want to know that?”

“His mother says he doesn't smoke at all. Hates cigarettes because his father was a heavy smoker and died of a heart attack.”

“Smoking don't cause heart attacks.”

“Or cancer. And there's no such thing as global warming.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. What about drinking?”

“Huh?”

“Cody like to drink booze, get high that way?”

“He ain't old enough to drink, man. Neither of us.”

“That never stopped me when I was your age. Don't tell me you've never tasted alcohol?”

No answer as we bounced over a rough patch in the dirt road, the wrecked Jeep swaying and rattling behind us. We were nearing the intersection with the first county road now. Around us, the desert had begun to darken perceptibly—an even more desolate landscape with the long dusky shadows crawling over its rumpled expanse.

“Okay,” Firestone said then, “so maybe I have a few beers sometimes. Maybe Cody does. What's that matter, anyhow?”

“Jimmy Oliver—does he smoke and drink?”

“Prolly not. That Jesus freak mother of his'd go bat-shit. Sheriff, too.”

“But you don't know for sure?”

“Nah. Told you, we don't hang together.”

“Derek Zastroy,” I said. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Who?”

“Bartends at the Saddle Bar. You know him, don't you?”

“Oh, yeah. Zastroy. He brings his wheels in for service now and then.”

“You ever hang with him?”

“That dude? No way. He wouldn't have nothin' to do with me. Thinks he's hot stuff, big pussy hound.”

“Bad blood between him and Cody, I hear.”

“Huh? I dunno what you mean, bad blood.”

“Over Alana. She was his girl before Cody, wasn't she?”

“I guess so.”

“They had a fight over her at a community dance not long ago. You there the night it happened?”

“Nah. I don't go to them things, I don't like dancing.” He reached for his shirt pocket again, an automatic gesture, but then he remembered my objection and let his hand slide down the front of his overalls instead. “Listen, all these questions. What do they have to do with you tryin' to get Cody off for them rapes?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe something. The more questions I ask, the more I find out. You never know what might be important.”

“Yeah, well, good luck. But I don't know nothing that'll help Cody or I'd of told you straight out.”

That put an end to the Q & A. Firestone kept his eyes fixed on the road and nothing more came out of the flytrap mouth the rest of the way back to Mineral Springs.

When we got there I asked him to drop me at Cheryl's house so I could pick up my car. He didn't want to do it; a ten-dollar bill changed his mind. But I had to wait until after he'd unloaded the Jeep at High Desert, so that it was nearly dark by the time we headed back out Yucca Avenue. And I had to tell him where to turn off because he said he didn't know the address.

“You've never been to Cody's home?”

“No,” Firestone said. “We always joined up at my place or somewheres else.”

“How come?”

“He never invited me.”

He drove off the instant I was out of the cab, barely giving me enough time to shut the door. I stood watching the wrecker's taillights diminish to red dots in the gathering darkness.

Options. Wait here for Cheryl again? But I wasn't ready to bring her more bad news, the shooting death of the Jeep, or to ask her any more questions just yet. Hole up in my room at the Goldtown for a while, find out what if anything Tamara had for me? Go on another hunt for Alana Farmer? Have another talk with Sam Parfrey if he was still in his office?

I made up my mind, satisfied myself that the car was in the condition I'd left it, and then drove over to Juniper Street. Lights glowed in the second-floor windows of Parfrey's law office; somebody was still there. It turned out to be Parfrey. The door to his private office was open and he was seated behind his functional desk, pouring a couple of fingers of Jim Beam from a pint bottle into a small glass. He had to have heard me enter the outer office, and to his credit he didn't try to hide any of the liquor when I walked in on him.

“Happy hour,” he said in morose tones. His plump face was drawn, the pale-blue eyes a little red-rimmed. “It's been a long day. There ought to be another glass here somewhere if you want to join me.”

“No thanks.”

“You may change your mind. I did as you asked, tried to convince Felix and that
cholo
Mendoza to let you see Cody Hatcher, but they refused. As expected.”

Cholo
again. Once could have been a mouth fart; twice indicated prejudice, and lowered my opinion of Parfrey. “I know. Felix told me yesterday.”

“I don't suppose you're here because you have good news?”

“News, yes, but not good. Not yet anyway.”

He listened to me tell him what had happened in the desert this afternoon, playing his little ring rotation game and not touching the drink until I finished. Then he tossed off half the amount he'd poured, made a face, and said, “I don't know why I drink this stuff. I've never much cared for the taste of whiskey. Have you told Mrs. Hatcher yet?”