Final Arrangements

by Rich Curtin

  Previous Manny Rivera Mysteries

  Artifacts of Death

  February’s Files

  Trails of Deception

  MoonShadow Murder

  Deadly Games

  Death Saint

  The Shaman’s Secret

  Coyote’s Regret

  Author’s Website:

  www.richcurtinnovels.com

  FINAL

  ARRANGEMENTS

  A MANNY RIVERA MYSTERY

  Rich Curtin

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual incidents, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Design by Berge Design

  Copyright © 2020 Rich Curtin

  All rights reserved

  ISBN-13: 9798639530036

  FINAL

  ARRANGEMENTS

  1

  DEPUTY SHERIFF MANNY RIVERA stepped out the front door of the small house he rented in Moab, feeling happy and irritated at the same time. He was refreshed after a week’s vacation in New Mexico with his fiancée Gloria Valdez—spending time together, making plans for their wedding, and visiting each other’s relatives—all that made him happy. And now he was looking forward to returning to the office, seeing the friends and associates he worked with, and resuming the job he loved—that also made him happy. The thing that irritated him was what had happened while he was gone. Sheriff Louise Anderson, his new boss, had solved a high-profile murder case in his absence. He regretted not being in Moab to handle it himself. To him, investigating capital crimes in Grand County was his domain, and he didn’t want anyone encroaching on it, not even his boss. Oh well, he thought, there was nothing he could do about it now.

  He paused for a brief moment to take in the view. The blue sky was filled with puffy white cumulus clouds, and the trees in his neighborhood were leafing out in every shade of green. The sun was peeking over the LaSal Mountains causing the snow which remained on the north-facing slopes to glisten. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs to capacity with the cool, high-desert air, enjoying its freshness and sagebrush scent, and reinforcing his belief that late May was one of the best times to be in Moab.

  He headed for the white Grand County Sheriff’s Department Ford F-150 pickup truck parked in his driveway and hoisted himself into the cab. He backed out into the street, waved to the young boy and girl playing in the front yard next door, and grinned at the sight of their little waves and shy smiles. Seeing them reminded him of how much he wanted a family of his own, and now that he and Gloria would soon be married, he hoped he would get his wish. At age thirty-nine, he knew he was starting late. He turned his vehicle toward town and headed for the Rim Rock Diner on Main Street. His stomach was growling and breakfast at the Rim Rock was his favorite way to start a workday.

  He pulled to a stop at the traffic light on Main Street and waited. Looming ahead of him was the Moab Rim, a two-thousand-foot high sandstone escarpment dominating the western edge of town. The massive cliff was glowing a bright copper color, illuminated by the rising sun.

  Main Street was crowded with Jeeps, SUVs, and pickup trucks as adventure seekers headed out to the backcountry for exploring, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, rafting, or just sightseeing in the national parks. The number of tourists visiting Moab had grown considerably since Rivera moved here seven years ago. The natural attraction had always been the region’s geologic beauty, but the growth in recent years was also being stimulated by businessmen promoting the area as a tourist destination. New motels and restaurants had sprung up all over town, and more were under construction. Moab, once a dying uranium-mining town, had blossomed into an outdoor recreation mecca, and the growth had exceeded everyone’s expectations. Many of the locals were beginning to regret what was happening to their little town. Rivera and Gloria had discussed where they might live after they were married, but as yet had made no final decision. She’d said she was willing to live wherever he wanted, and he’d said pretty much the same thing, though he had a powerful attachment to the canyon country around Moab.

  After breakfast, he planned to go directly to the office. He was eager to reconnect with his coworkers and learn more about what had happened while he was away. He’d heard on a radio broadcast about the murder in the LaSal Mountains, and that the sheriff had identified and arrested the perpetrator in a matter of a few days. Impressive police work, he thought. Sheriff Anderson was a retired Army colonel who had spent her career in the Military Police, so she’d acquired a great deal of experience in law enforcement. Evidently, she’d made the transition to the civilian world without missing a beat. Rivera was curious about the case and wanted to know how she’d solved it so quickly. One part of him resented her success, but another part was proud of her. She was new to the job, and some of Grand County’s citizens had been wondering if she was up to the challenge. Now she had proven herself.

  While he waited at the traffic light, Rivera thought he heard a familiar melody. He lowered his window, and the most beautiful accordion music wafted into his vehicle. He looked to his left and spotted a young lady sitting in a folding chair and playing an accordion in front of the Moab Information Center. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old. The accordion was connected to an amplifier and speaker, and the music filled the intersection of Main and Center Streets. To Rivera’s ear, the quality of the music was extraordinary for a musician so young. Several pedestrians had stopped to listen and watch her play, and one man dropped a dollar bill into her tip jar. Rivera loved Moab and the music lifted his spirits.

  The traffic light turned green, and he turned left onto Main and headed south, the music fading as he drove. Three blocks later, he pulled into the parking lot of the Rim Rock Diner. Betty the waitress would be waiting for him and, as she always did, would launch into one of her outrageous flirtations, pour him coffee, and ask if he wanted the usual. He would sit in the corner booth where he always sat, sipping coffee and looking out the window at Main Street with the LaSal Mountains as a picture-postcard backdrop. It was a routine he never tired of.

  As he parked and started to exit the vehicle, his cell phone buzzed. The caller was Millie Ives, the Grand County sheriff’s dispatcher. He hoisted himself back into the cab.

  “Manny, proceed to the residence of Shirley Miller on Shumway Lane.” She gave him the address. “Ms. Miller was a little incoherent when she called, but it sounded like she was reporting a shooting. EMS has been notified.”

  “On my way.”

  “Welcome back, Manny. Sorry to interrupt your breakfast.”

  Rivera started the engine, switched on the light bar, and sped south on Main Street. He reached into the door pocket and extracted a granola bar from the supply he kept there. He tore the wrapper open with his teeth, ate the granola bar, and washed it down with water from a plastic bottle. He wolfed down a second one as he sped up Murphy Lane and turned right onto the patched asphalt of Shumway Lane. The granola bars helped stave off his hunger, but did nothing to satisfy his craving for coffee.

  He coasted down into a vale of woody bottomland, passed a series of small houses and abandoned trailers, and slowed down for a flock of wild turkeys trotting across the road. He splashed across the low water crossing at Pack Creek and continued, soon pulling to a stop in front of a one-story, white clapboard house with an open porch in front. Next to it was a detached one-car garage wi
th a sagging roof. Both structures were old and in need of a paint job. The house sat in a cluster of cottonwood trees, and the front yard was mostly dirt with a sparse scattering of high desert grasses and brush. Rivera guessed the house had been built in the 1950s, probably during the uranium boom.

  A maroon motorhome was parked in the gravel driveway leading to the garage. It was dusty and decrepit, and its side panel had several dents and scrapes. It was an older model featuring squared-off corners rather than the aerodynamically shaped design of modern units. The vehicle was about twenty-two feet in length and looked vaguely familiar to him. Parked next to it under a tree was a light blue Datsun pickup of 1980s vintage with patches of rust beginning to show through the paint.

  Rivera hopped out of his vehicle. A stout, distraught-looking woman wearing baggy jeans and a faded Canyonlands National Park T-shirt was standing in the yard. She looked to be about sixty years old and had the craggy, sun-damaged skin not uncommon to people who have lived their lives at altitude under the desert sun. Her gray hair was pulled straight back and held with a plastic clip. Her hands were thick and weathered, and her face was frozen as though she were in shock.

  “I think Iggy might be dead,” she said. She pointed a finger at the motorhome.

  “Are you Shirley Miller?” asked Rivera.

  “Yes,” she said, in a barely audible voice.

  “Please wait here, Shirley.”

  The door to the motorhome was open and a pair of dusty boots rested on the first step. Rivera climbed the steps leading to the interior and peered inside, careful not to touch anything. He saw a man lying on the floor, eyes open, with a darkened bloodstain on the front of his shirt. His shoulder-length hair was brown, and he had about a week of stubble on his face. His skin was ashen, and he had an odd look of surprise on his face. Rivera reached down and checked the man’s carotid artery for a pulse. He was dead.

  2

  RIVERA DESCENDED THE STEPS of the motorhome. Shirley’s eyes were locked onto his, her expectant look asking the unspoken question. He made a wry face and shook his head.

  Her eyes welled up with tears. “So he’s dead?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. It looks like he was shot in the chest.”

  She drew in a breath and raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh, that poor man. Why would anyone kill Iggy?”

  Rivera called the dispatcher, briefed her on the situation, and requested the Medical Examiner be sent. He waved off the EMS medics who had just arrived and returned his attention to Shirley.

  “How well did you know him?”

  “As well as anyone, I guess. For the past six years, he’s been renting a parking space in my driveway for his motorhome.”

  “So this was his permanent residence?”

  “Yes.” The blood seemed to have drained from her face.

  “When did you discover the body?”

  “Just a little while ago. I came out to see if Iggy wanted some coffee. And there he was, on the floor with blood all over his shirt. I ran to the house and called nine-one-one.”

  “Was the motorhome door open when you got there?”

  She thought for a moment. “Yes, it was. And now that you mention it, I remember thinking how unusual that was. He normally kept it closed. He didn’t like bugs flying in.”

  “Did you touch anything inside?”

  “I don’t think so, except maybe the handrail by the steps.”

  “Okay, Shirley. I’ll need to talk with you some more, but I’m going to be tied up out here for the next couple of hours. I suggest you wait inside the house.”

  “All right.” She turned and walked with slumped shoulders toward the house.

  Rivera grabbed some evidence bags from his vehicle, put on a pair of latex gloves, and returned to the motorhome. He used his cell phone to take a series of close-up photographs of the victim and wider shots of the crime scene. He noticed a scattering of white feathers on the floor of the motorhome and several more stuck to the blood on the man’s chest. The source of the feathers was obvious. The shooter had used an upholstered pillow to muffle the sound of the gunshot. The bullet had torn through the pillow and blown feathers everywhere.

  Rivera unbuttoned the man’s shirt and saw the bullet hole in his chest. He would await the Medical Examiner’s official pronouncement on the cause of death, but there was no doubt in his mind—the victim was killed with a single bullet to the heart. Rivera emptied the man’s pockets. His front pockets contained a set of keys on a ring, a pocketknife, and less than a dollar in coins. His back pockets contained a red and white handkerchief and a thin wallet. The Utah driver’s license in the wallet showed the victim’s full name was Ignatius Milam Webb. He was forty-eight years old. The wallet contained thirty-six dollars in cash but no photographs or credit cards. Rivera bagged each item except for the keys which he dropped into his pocket.

  He stood up and made a cursory inspection of the motorhome. It was less then a couple of hundred square feet in size, but it looked to have everything its owner needed to live a comfortable life. There was a sink, a small refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a microwave oven in the kitchen area, a built-in desk against the wall, a television mounted near the ceiling across from a padded chair, and a single bed in the rear. A tiny enclosed area with a shower, sink, and commode served as a bathroom.

  On the floor were three wooden boxes, each filled with a dozen or more rocks. One of the boxes contained geodes which had been cut in half, the exposed faces polished to a glossy finish. Each geode was a striking, colorful specimen with a sparkling, crystalline center. Rivera was familiar with geodes. He had a couple of them in his home and one in his office. Another box contained rocks in a variety of mixed colors—green, tan, orange, cream, and reddish brown. These were mineral specimens he had never seen before. A third box contained an assortment of trilobite fossils. A fourth box, this one cardboard, contained about two dozen books. He glanced at the titles. They were all about geology, rockhounding, and mineral identification.

  A small folding table was wedged between the chair and the wall, and a handwritten sign that read Rocks and Fossils for Sale was stuffed in front of it. It was then Rivera remembered where he had seen the motorhome. It was sometimes parked at the intersection of US 191 and Hwy 128 under the trees next to the Colorado River. He had seen Webb from a distance, sitting behind the table with his wares on display, selling them to passing tourists.

  Rivera saw that a few of the rocks and books were strewn on the floor. Then he noticed the drawers in the kitchen and bedroom were open, and some of the contents had been dumped out. The papers on the desk were scattered as if they’d been rummaged through. It was clear the motorhome had been turned upside down as though the killer was searching for something. Rivera wondered what he’d been looking for and whether he found it.

  He stepped outside the motorhome and took photographs of the vehicle, the immediate area, the Datsun pickup, the Miller home and yard, and the neighborhood. Just as he finished, a pickup truck he recognized came up the road and pulled to a stop. It belonged to his friend Dr. Pudge Devlin, full-time vintner of fine Merlot wines and part-time Medical Examiner for Grand County. The vehicle door opened, and Devlin slid out with his little black bag in hand. He was wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a straw hat. There was a smile on his florid face, and a generous paunch hung over his belt.

  “Mornin’, Manny. What have you got for me today?”

  “Hi, Pudge. The victim is on the floor in the motorhome. His name is Iggy Webb. Looks like he took a bullet to the chest. I couldn’t find a pulse.”

  Devlin removed his hat, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and headed for the motorhome. To Rivera’s eye, he looked like he had put on ten or fifteen pounds since the last time he’d seen him. Rivera figured it was the wine. Years ago, after a successful career as a surgeon in Denver, Devlin had wanted to fulfill a wish he’d had on his bucket list for decades. He sold his medical practice and bought five acres in Castle Valley wh
ere he established a vineyard. The vineyard had flourished and now he was producing fifty or sixty cases of a fine Merlot wine each year. He bottled it under the Porcupine Rim label and sold it in and around Moab where each year it was in high demand but always seemed to be in short supply. Rivera smiled as he remembered it was in short supply because Devlin drank most of it himself.

  Rivera followed Devlin into the motorhome. The doctor stood there, looking at the dead man and shaking his head. He lowered himself to his knees and probed the wound in Webb’s chest with his fingers.

  “Not much question about the cause of death,” said Devlin. “Bullet to the chest. Looks like he was shot up close. If you’re through with the body, I’ll have it picked up and let you know the results of the autopsy as soon as I can.” Devlin’s tone was matter of fact, the result of decades of seeing death, handling bodies, and performing autopsies. Unlike the doctor, Rivera was still uneasy at the sight of a corpse.

  “Okay, Pudge. Thanks.”

  Devlin grunted as he pushed himself to an upright position. He extracted his cell phone from his pants pocket, called the mortuary, and requested the body be picked up and transported to the hospital morgue.

  “What’s with all these feathers?”

  Rivera explained that the shooter had used a pillow to muffle the sound of the shot.

  Devlin pointed to the geodes. “It looks like the victim was a rockhound.”

  “Yeah. He sold rocks and fossils to tourists.”

  Devlin picked up a geode and studied it. “Pretty, isn’t it?” It was a spherically shaped rock cut in half to expose a blue and gray shell with a hollow center lined with lavender crystals.

  Rivera nodded. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I’ve got a nephew in Denver who’s a rockhound. He spends most of his time hunting for rocks in the backcountry. He cuts them open and polishes the faces, just like this one. It’s like an addiction for him. That’s all he wants to do in life.”