by Dave Stanton
“Yes,” I said.
“So then you have a violent robber.”
“Yeah, but why cut off his arm? Wasn’t killing him enough?”
“Apparently not,” Humphries said.
I turned back to the photograph, and noted some cuts on Jordan’s other forearm, which I assumed were inflicted inside the house. Then I looked at the following pictures. They were graphic and looked almost as if the photographer had made a special effort to find angles that would highlight the gruesome nature of the scene. Like all murder photos, they exposed the stark finality of death, the wounds gaping open, the death stare of the sightless eyes, the lifeless body’s agony frozen in place.
I closed the folder. “Can you give me the names of the state police working the case?”
“Sure,” he said. He wrote on a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
“Thanks. How about Jeff’s cellphone? Did you find it at the house?”
“No, and he wasn’t carrying it either. The place had been ransacked, and my assumption is the perpetrators stole it, along with whatever else they found small enough to carry.”
I rubbed my jaw with my knuckle. “Seems odd they’d bother. They were there for a bigger score.”
“True, but thieves have sticky fingers. They take whatever they can get their hands on. It’s in their nature. They can’t resist.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
“We did contact the phone company, though, and got a couple months of call records. You can see them at the back of the folder.”
I opened the file again and found the copies of Jeff’s cellular bills, which included a lengthy list of phone numbers. The numbers were highlighted in a variety of colors and all were assigned handwritten letters.
“There were twenty-six numbers he called over the sixty days before his death. I verified each one and listed them A through Z.”
The last page in the folder was typed and showed the letters and corresponding company and individual names. One number was highlighted in yellow. It began with a zero and had fewer digits than the others.
“Anything suspicious?” I asked.
“That one was the only number we couldn’t reach. It was to a prepaid cellphone, with no owner of record. Other than that, nothing looked unusual.”
“Could I get a copy of this?”
“I’m sorry, no. But you can make some notes if you like.”
I scanned the page and jotted down a few of the most frequently called numbers, including the one beginning with zero.
“Look, I’ll help any way I can,” Humphries said, his tone apologetic. “I still have nightmares about this. This is a peaceful, churchgoing town. Nothing like this has ever happened here.”
I stood to leave. “Thanks for your help, Detective.”
******
“What did you talk about?” Melanie asked as we climbed into my truck.
“The detective doesn’t think any locals were involved. The Utah state police have taken over the investigation. I’ll call them.”
“What about Mia? Did he tell you anything useful?”
I turned onto the boulevard. The snow was now coming down in tiny flurries, and a thin coat was building on the rooftops. “Not really,” I said.
We drove down the main drag in silence. The skies were white and the colorful storefronts were obscured by the descending weather. It felt as if we were shrouded in a dome of mist. I hit my brakes to avoid a sedan fishtailing out of a parking lot.
“Shit,” I muttered. The weight of the crime scene photos sat in my gut like a flat beer. I had no notion why those who invaded Melanie’s house not only shot her husband to death, but also hacked his arm off, possibly before he died. It didn’t follow any logical line of reasoning, other than the killer was a sadistic son of a bitch. If so, that would be a clue, but not much of one.
As far as the implications for Mia, I didn’t want to contemplate that, but that’s what I was being paid to do. If I was alone, at that moment I’m sure I would have found the nearest bar. I’d start with a shot of Jim Beam and a cold draught. I’d sit at the bar staring into the rows of bottles and drink until my mind went numb. Then maybe, once my thoughts slowed and my emotions became muted, my intuition would kick in.
Or maybe I was just making excuses, because I’d always drank my way through my most sordid cases, and it seemed damned unfair and unreasonable to be riding the wagon now. But I’d committed to thirty days, and I hated breaking promises to myself as much as to others. It was a matter of principle. Besides, I only had two more days to go.
“Are you okay?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“You have a look on your face like you want to punch somebody.”
I tried to smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “Is that the jeweler?”
“Yes. Turn in here.”
I steered into the parking lot beside a long building with a gray brick façade divided by massive wooden pillars. It was a pawn shop. We went through the glass doors and walked past a section where hundreds of rifles and pistols were displayed, then past guitars, sporting goods, and electronic devices. At the end was the jewelry section. Beneath the glass counter top were rows of rings, bracelets, watches, and necklaces. A white-haired man with spectacles low on his pug nose sat at a small table in the corner. He held a disassembled watch and poked at it with a tiny screwdriver.
“Excuse me,” Melanie said. “I have some stones for you to look at.”
“I’ll be right with you,” he said, his eyes fixed on the watch. He gave the screwdriver a final twist, then set it down.
“What have you got there?” he asked, as Melanie set the black pouch on counter. She pulled the strings and shook two of the stones onto the glass. One was colorless and about a half-inch in diameter. The other was larger and had a purplish hue.
The man removed his spectacles and fit a loupe against his eye. “May I?” he asked, holding out his fleshy hand. Melanie put the clear stone in his palm. He pinched it between his thick fingers and peered at it. Then he set it on a black mat and examined it some more.
“It’s an uncut diamond,” he said, looking at us with raised eyebrows. “Are you looking to sell it?”
“It depends,” I said. “For now, we’re just looking for an appraisal.”
“I’ll bring up my microscope. Wait here, please.”
He disappeared into a back room and returned with a twelve inch microscope. Melanie handed him the stone again, and he put it on the tray and switched on a light. After adjusting a few dials on the scope, he repositioned it with a pair of tweezers. A minute later he looked up at us.
“It’s about four carats. I can’t say for sure since it’s rough, but I would predict VS1 clarity, D color.” His face was impassive, but he couldn’t hide the interest in his voice.
“What’s it worth?” I asked.
“I can offer you forty thousand.”
“What?” Melanie said.
“Take a look at the purple one,” I said.
Melanie placed the large jagged stone on the tray. The jeweler lowered his head to the eye piece and after turning the rock a few times, he switched off the light.
“I’d have to call New York to get you an appraisal on this one. I almost never deal in uncut rocks. But I can tell you, the clarity and color are extraordinary. It’s also quite large, but I can’t predict how many carats. I’d have to see it cut.”
“What’s your best guess on its worth?” I said.
He returned his spectacles to his face. “Definitely over a hundred thousand.”
Melanie returned the stones to the bag and cinched it shut.
“Just out of professional curiosity, do you mind if I ask where you got these diamonds?”
“An old inheritance,” I said.
“I have virtually unlimited access to funding,” he said. “I’d be happy to make you cash offers.”
“We’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your time.”
“Well, thank you,” he said, following us to the exit. “Please take my card. Eugene Baxter is the name. Always happy to be at your service.”
We got in my truck and I started the engine. Melanie sat clutching the black pouch in her small hand. When I looked at her she seemed lost in thought.
“There’s probably over a million dollars’ worth of diamonds in that bag,” I said. “Your bank should still be open. You need to get them locked away.”
“I can’t figure this out,” she said. “First the gold, and now this? I was the money manager. I can’t believe Jeff hid this from me.”
“The good news is, you’re rich.”
She didn’t reply, and when I glanced at her there were deep furrows around her mouth. It wasn’t until we reached the stop light across from her bank that she mumbled, “Rich and alone.”
I went into the bank with her and waited while she followed a teller into the back. When she reappeared a minute later, the frown was still on her face, and her gloom was palpable. Clearly, she didn’t view her newfound riches as reason to celebrate. I tried to conjure some words to cheer her. I thought she might burst into tears.
We stepped onto the sidewalk and stood under the archway. “Hey,” I said. I faced her and squeezed her shoulder with one hand. “I’ll find Mia and get to the bottom of all this. It’s gonna be okay.”
She looked up at me, her eyes big and childlike, and I saw tears forming. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she said.
“Believe this: you’re young and have most of your life ahead of you. There’s no reason you can’t have a great life. You’ll get past this.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, then she came forward and gave me a brief hug, but it felt obligatory and shallow.
We started back to my truck. “What now?” she asked.
“Let’s head back to your place. I want to see if I can talk to Jeff’s friend, the one ten miles up the highway.”
“Elias Pullman,” she said.
“Right,” I said, spinning my tires on the grainy snow as I steered my truck into the white haze.
CHAPTER 6
Fifteen minutes after dropping off Melanie at her house, I spotted the solitary mailbox she told me to look for. I eased onto the highway shoulder and turned down a rutted track leading to the right. It was not unlike the dirt road leading to Melanie’s place, except it had not been graded and had to be driven more slowly. After two patient miles, I reached a gate in front of a short wooden bridge. I got out of my rig and stood at the gate and looked down at the icy stream running a few feet below.
The gate was locked, but not by chain and padlock. Instead, a metal box attached to a post housed an electronic keypad and two large buttons, one green and one red. I rattled the gate and peered at the keypad, and then, shrugging, I pressed the green button. An ear piercing siren split the air, loud enough to cause deafness. I cursed and jumped back, covering my ears and running for my truck. Even with my windows closed, I jammed the gearbox into reverse and backed up to get away from the noise.
From a hundred yards, it was tolerable. I waited there for five minutes, until I saw a Toyota pickup with oversize tires come around the bend, approaching from the opposite side of the gate. The siren ceased as it neared the bridge, and when the truck stopped a man standing in the pickup bed hopped down.
He wore an orange hunting jacket and held a shotgun in his gloved hands. He stood staring in my direction. I got out of my cab and waved at him with both hands over my head, in what I hoped he’d view as a friendly gesture. After briefly conferring with the driver, the man with the shotgun waved for me to drive forward.
When I was within ten yards, he held out his hand to stop me. I killed my engine and waited for him to come to my lowered window.
“Who are you and what do you want?” he said. He was young and unshaven, maybe still a teenager. The blue baseball cap he wore advertised a brand of generator motors. The end of the shotgun rested across his shoulder. If I wanted to, I could have snatched it out of his hands.
“My name’s Dan Reno,” I said. “I’m investigating Jeff Jordan’s murder, and would like to talk to Elias Pullman.”
“No shit, huh? Wait here.” He went across the bridge and spoke to the driver, who then spent a minute talking into a cell phone. Then the young man came back to my window.
“I need to check your ID. Are you carrying weapons?”
I handed him my California driver’s license. “No weapons,” I said. He looked at my license and handed it back to me. “Step out,” he said. I paused and watched the driver exit the Toyota and walk across the bridge. He wore a Western holster carrying a large revolver. I stepped onto the dirt and allowed the man with the shotgun to perform a one-handed pat down. After exchanging nods with the driver, the young man said, “You can come back now, if that’s what you want. We’ll drive. You sit in the passenger seat.”
The driver spit a brown streak of chew into the snow. “You got a problem with that?” he asked. He was thick-bodied, had a bushy goatee, and wore cowboy boots.
“Nope,” I said.
I walked across the bridge and got into their pickup. The teen climbed into the bed and knelt, his left hand holding the rusted roll cage, his right grasping the shotgun by the stock. We drove the bumpy trail for three minutes. During that time, our conversation consisted of five words:
“Cold out,” I said.
“For you, maybe,” the driver responded.
The truck came around a low rise and rolled to a stop. I sat staring, my hands on my knees. In front of us was a collection of buildings unlike anything I’d ever seen. The compound comprised three main structures, if that’s what they could be called. The structures were forty-foot shipping containers, stacked two high. The unit in the center was orange, topped by a blue container. To either side, set at forty-five degree angles, were similarly stacked containers. One had a silver bottom and a green top, while the other was gray and red.
A twenty-foot overhang had been built in front of the center containers. Beneath it were a table and chairs, and a fire pit surrounded by blackened rocks. At the table sat a man in cargo shorts and army boots laced high on his white shins.
I followed the driver and the younger man to the overhang. The man at the table appraised me as I approached, one eye squinted and the other wide and bulbous. He wore a heavy camouflage print jacket and was smoking what I first thought was a marijuana cigarette, but when I got closer I smelled burning tobacco.
“Private eye, is it?” he said. His round face was white and clean shaven, and his thin brown hair was cut unevenly. About fifty years old, five-eleven, two hundred pounds. His calves were big, but his fingers were thin.
“That’s right. Dan Reno.” I handed him a business card. He looked at it, then said, “Boys, why don’t you go inside and help Mattie while I talk to Mr. Reno here.” The two fellows grunted and walked by us to a metal door in the center of the orange shipping container. After they went inside, the man opened a cooler next to him and pulled out a wet can of discount beer.
“You’re Elias Pullman?” I asked.
He drank from the can and belched softly. “That’s right. Go on, sit.”
I sat across from him. The chair rocked unsteadily on the dirt. Snowflakes were drifting down and the afternoon was growing darker.
“Who hired you?” Pullman said.
“The parents of Jeff Jordan’s wife.”
“What, they don’t trust the local authorities?” he said, his eyes askance.
“Guess not.”
“Well,” he said, his home-rolled cigarette burned down almost to his knuckles. “Jeff Jordan was a friend. He was good people, and he didn’t have his head up his ass like most do. You got questions, shoot.”
“Okay,” I said. “The men who killed him came to his house looking for gold, and they found it. Any idea who would know Jeff had gold on the property?”
Pullman flicked away the scant remains of his cigarette and grimaced
. “Now, that was a problem Jeff had. Diarrhea of the mouth. You talk too much, the wrong people are bound to listen.”
“Wrong people like who?”
“You never know, do you? Take a look around, this country’s on the verge of a collapse unlike anything you could imagine. People are getting desperate, even though they don’t know why. But they can sense it’s coming.”
“You mean the apocalypse.”
“That’s right, son. Maybe you’re not as blind as most.”
“Was Jeff involved with any other women? Anything going on the side?”
“You mean, was he a poon hound? No, that wasn’t his thing.”
“You’re sure he didn’t have a girlfriend or two stashed away?”
“Let me fill you in on some basic human nature, maybe this will help you down the road. When a man has gash on the brain, and he’s having some success, he’s gonna talk about it. He’ll brag to his buddies, whenever they’ll listen, about his sluts and blow jobs and what not. But I never heard Jeff say anything about getting his pole waxed. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” I said, as he raised his can and guzzled it down in long, noisy swallows. Then he crushed the can, wiped his mouth, and grabbed another.
“Is there anybody in particular you think may have targeted Jeff?” I asked.
“You see my property here?” he replied, waving his hand at the stacked containers. “You probably think I’m suffering from a mental disease. But those steel walls are reinforced and bulletproof. When the day comes, when I’m sitting on ten years of food supply and the masses are starving, guess who wins? You tell me.”
I took a deep breath.
“Wrap your head around this,” he said. “The oblivious out there are getting brainwashed on a massive scale. Those of us who woke up and smelled the coffee are digging in for the long haul. But we pose a threat to the evil motherfuckers who want to control us, to take away our freedom and run our lives. Jeff didn’t quite understand that, he didn’t quite get how dangerous it’s becoming. Because even without money, the awakened are a threat. But with money, that’s a combination asking for trouble.”
“Trouble from who?”
