Death Etched in Stone

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “I’m good,” Willie answered as he leaned against the far wall.

  Manny rubbed his hands together. “I’ll take a cup, Kola.”

  Shawna sat cross-legged rocking on a cot covered with a flannel blanket, holding a bandana to her face. She looked up at Manny, her bloodshot eyes matching her nose, red from crying. “Reuben told me about Nate. Reuben says you have some more questions for me.”

  Manny accepted the cup of coffee and waited until she’d brought the bandana away.

  “I do.” Manny took Tony’s Pennington County booking photo and handed it to her. It was an old black and white taken before they went digital, reminding Manny of most crappy driver’s license photos he’d seen. “Is this the man you saw dumping the body at the lake?”

  She took the photo and held it to kerosene lamp hanging from a nail in the corner of the shack. “It could be him, but his hair was longer. It was dark from where I hid.”

  “You stayed in the trees while Nate went for a closer look. Isn’t that how it happened?”

  Shawna looked to Reuben as if he had the answer.

  She started crying, and Reuben rubbed her back. “Tell Manny what happened, Little Sister.”

  She blew her nose and set the bandana on the cot beside her. “Nate said he thought he recognized the guy dumping the body, and he’d pay big bucks to keep our mouths shut, but he had to get a better look at him to make sure. I told Nate to stay with me. But he didn’t. When he came back, he was shaking. Bad. He knew who the guy was. Worse, Nate said he thought the guy knew who he was.”

  Shawna rocked on the bed, holding her knees to her chest. “Nate was never scared of anything. He’d been in juvenile detention before, but a legal eagle got him off the hook.” Shawna shook her head. “Eighteen and bulletproof, I guess. Except he wasn’t bulletproof when he came back from looking at the man.”

  “Did he say who the man was?”

  She shook her head and began sniffling again. She wiped snot from the end of her nose. “I thought it was that Indian guy who wanted a ride outside the D&D, but Nate wouldn’t tell me for sure. He said he didn’t want me to know in case I was caught.” She wiped her cheek and handed Reuben his bandana back. “Nate got greedy. He said he could get more money blackmailing the guy than he could ever get from selling the dope.” She started crying again. “‘We’ll be leaving for California soon,’ Nate said. ‘Just a few more days,’ he promised.”

  She buried her face in her hands, and Manny motioned for Reuben to step outside.

  “Don’t ask me to take her to a safe house, Misun.”

  Manny shook his head. “I wasn’t going to. But did she say anything at all about who the guy at the lake was?”

  “She’s pretty busted up about Nate. She’s a basket case right now. But before you called, we were talking. She admitted Nate never had enough money to buy the good stuff. She said this was his big opportunity.”

  “Some opportunity,” Manny said. He kicked a rock and it skidded over an embankment. “Why would anyone—probably Bobo—kill Nate over just a pound of weed?”

  “When I was in Sioux Falls, some of us were playing poker. Years ago, before they banned smoking in the prison, cigarettes were our chips. One dude from Cheyenne River Reservation thought another dude cheated him out of a cigarette, and he stuck a shiv made out of a toothbrush into his neck. He gathered his smokes up, and just sat there watching the other guy bleed out.” Reuben spit in disgust. “So, a pound of high-quality weed is more than enough to kill for. Especially for someone like Bobo.”

  Manny could not quite read the logic in that, but he trusted Reuben’s judgment about those things. “Where . . . ” Manny held up his hand. “No, I don’t want to know where you’ll be hiding Shawna. But at least stay in touch. Here, I forgot this.” He handed Reuben a charger.

  Reuben stuffed it into his jacket. “If we ever get anyplace with electricity.”

  Chapter 24

  The Cessna hit an air pocket and lost five hundred feet in a heartbeat. Manny grabbed the paper bag, expecting to fill it with his lunch. If he’d known he had to hitch a ride with the Lakota Red Baron again, he would have skipped lunch. Hell, he would have skipped breakfast. “I don’t know how you talked me into this. Again.”

  “I can’t hear you,” Willie said. “Pull the bag away from your face.”

  Turbulence had smoothed out, yet Manny kept the bag close to his mouth. Just in case. “I said, I should have chartered a flight to Riverton rather than ride in this heap of—”

  “Watch it.” Willie patted the dash lovingly. “Clementine’s my baby.” He handed Manny the binoculars. “Get us close to the airport.”

  Manny put the binos to his eyes. “Keep following the road.”

  “What did Walker say when he called?”

  “You know what he said.”

  “Tell me again,” Willie complained. “I was just a little dazed when you woke me at seven o’clock.”

  “Seven? That’s not exactly late in the day.”

  “So, Doreen and I were practicing for our wedding night,” Willie smiled.

  Manny was grateful to retell the story, to get his mind off the flying hearse he was strapped into. “Devlon Thomas’s secretary found him dead when she unlocked the law office this morning.” Manny had asked Walker to put out the word to the Riverton and Lander areas for any attorney who might have seen Johnny recently. “And Johnny is the only customer that Thomas saw in the last week that’s not a regular. There,” Manny pointed to the Riverton airport. “God-blessed terra firma.”

  “I still got to land this baby,” Willie said, as the wings shuddered.

  *****

  Manny stopped behind the Fremont County Coroner’s van, and the unmarked Wyoming Department of Criminal Investigation pickup.

  Willie unfolded himself out of the car on shaky legs. Manny smiled. “How’s it feel?”

  “I think we were safer up there,” Willie pointed to the sky. He grabbed the door of the rental for support, then slammed it, still angry that the Lander FBI claimed they had no agency car available they could use. “If they figured you were driving again, it was smarter for their budget to arrange this rental.”

  They started up the stairs leading to Devlon Thomas’s law office. Sergeant Walker came out of the door and met them halfway up.

  “You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?” Manny said.

  “You a little out of yours?”

  “I’m FBI.” Manny answered.

  Walker frowned at Willie. “Your driver’s not.”

  “Just tell us what you’ve got,” Manny said.

  Walker jerked his thumb at the door. “Devlon Thomas’s secretary, Lucille Lone Tree, and I go back longer than I’ll admit. Remember when you asked me to check law offices in Lander and Riverton in case Johnny Apple had seen another attorney? I was calling all the attorneys in the area, and when I called Thomas’s office yesterday, I got no answer. You know how it is with these one-man firms. Thomas could have been anywhere. Court. Depositions.”

  “Or just plain taking the time off to go fishing.”

  Walker laughed. “If the fat ass could have even waddled to the water’s edge.”

  “You don’t sound too upset.”

  Walker frowned, and his jaw muscles worked overtime. “Thomas was a piece of work. Treated Lucille like crap. She wanted to get another job, but the economy . . . ”

  Willie took a pinch of Copenhagen and stuffed it into his lip. He started putting it back in his pocket, but not before Walker reached over and snatched the can. He took a double dip and offered it to Manny. He shook his head, and Walker handed it back to Willie.

  “Did I adopt you now?” Willie said, shoving his can far down into his trouser pocket.

  “Like I said, the economy’s bad.” Walker shrugged. “Anyway, I came up em
pty on Johnny with every other law firm in these parts. I figured if Johnny saw an attorney, it wasn’t around here. But when I couldn’t reach anyone at Thomas’s office all day, I called Lucille at home. I hit pay dirt with Thomas. Lucille said Johnny had been in the day before his death, talking behind closed doors with Thomas. She said she’d find out more this morning.”

  Willie chin-pointed to the law office. “Apparently, someone got to Thomas before you could talk with him.”

  Walker nodded to Manny. “You know more people are killed in this country with ball bats than guns?”

  “I heard that somewhere.”

  “FBI statistics,” Walker said. “You should read them sometime. Anyways, Thomas’s killer must have read that report ’cause the bat’s still lying beside his body. Right where Lucille saw Thomas when she opened the door at six-thirty this morning.”

  Manny motioned to the front door. “Is she inside?”

  “She is. I told her she could go home, that you could talk to her there. But the woman’s stubborn. She demanded to stay until you came. She wants her boss’s killer found bad. Though I don’t know why.”

  “And DCI?”

  “The agent’s inside with Doctor Death.”

  “Doctor Death?”

  “Yeah,” Walker said. “The only guy that’s utterly happy to be here: the coroner.”

  Manny started up the steps. “I’ll talk with Lucille first.”

  Manny entered the office and badged the Riverton police officer. The patrolman noted Manny and Willie’s identity on a clipboard and pointed down the hallway. They stopped at the door leading to the office marked Devlon Thomas.

  Two men squatted beside the body. Thomas’s blood had leaked over a beige carpet from the wound in the back of his head. Beside the body lay a blood-caked aluminum bat. The younger of the two men stood when Manny and Willie stopped at the doorway.

  “I’m McDonald.” He shook hands and motioned to the coroner still squatting beside the victim.

  Manny recognized in McDonald that quality of officers who actually enjoyed working homicides. It was the one thing Manny never acquired: the love of dealing with dead bodies. “Give me the headline version.”

  “This doesn’t fall into federal jurisdiction.”

  “I never implied that it did. But it might tie into a case we’re working on Pine Ridge.”

  “Fair enough.” McDonald took out his pocket notebook. “The victim’s secretary unlocked this morning earlier than usual. Walker had asked her to. When she came inside, Thomas was in what we like to call his final resting place. Peaceable old shag rug with decades of tobacco stain, right beside his ledger he used to issue bills to the suckers he represented.”

  “You must have known Thomas?” Willie said. “You don’t sound too upset.”

  McDonald shrugged. “Thomas was one of those ninety-nine percent of attorneys who give the rest a bad name. He was born a shyster and worked every day to perfect it.”

  “Does the coroner have an estimate of time of death?” Willie asked.

  “Oh, he shoved that rectal thermometer up Thomas’s butt . . . Do you think they reuse those?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The thermometers, I mean, ’cause I’d hate the thought—”

  “Time of death?” Manny pressed.

  “Sure. The coroner said given the usual one-and-a-half degrees cooling per hour, that’d put death sometime between yesterday evening at eight and midnight. That’s if the temperature in here was normal. But Thomas had the heat cranked way up when we came in here. Hence,” McDonald exaggerated a deep breath and a wide smile, “the enticing odor.”

  “Some obese people lose core temperature more slowly,” Manny said to Willie. “Especially someone wearing a heavy sweater like Thomas.”

  “Which skews the time of death all to hell.” Willie squatted and leaned his back against the doorway, staring at the body. “How about rigidity?”

  McDonald laughed. “With all that fat? The last time he got stiff was on his prom night.”

  Manny turned his back on the coroner, who was whistling with glee as he went about taking measurements. “Tell me you got a suspect.”

  McDonald pointed to a large railroad safe in the corner with an open door. “We asked the secretary to open it, in case anything’s missing. There is: a cigar box with some office change. Few hundred dollars.” McDonald nodded to the victim. “Can’t say he was even worth that.”

  “So the victim might have left the safe open?” Willie asked.

  McDonald shook his head. “The secretary said Thomas always locked it when he left for the day. No, someone knew the combination. It was opened and shut so no one would know.” McDonald laughed. “Guess we have an ‘open and shut’ case.”

  “Who else knew the combination?” Manny asked.

  “Thomas and the secretary. And about thirty new attorneys through the years,” McDonald said. “The cheap bastard hired graduates right out of law school and paid them peanuts. Until they got fed up and moved to other firms, or started their own practices. But how does this tie in with your case?”

  Manny explained Johnny Apple’s body floating in Oglala Lake. “Let’s see what the secretary can tell us about Johnny’s meeting with Thomas.”

  McDonald pointed down the hallway to another open door. “Walker’s waiting with her down there.” He looked over his shoulder at Thomas’ office: “And I better get back to helping Doctor Death in there, before his heart explodes with delight.”

  Manny and Willie walked to the far end of the hall, Doctor Death’s whistling fading just as they entered the room. Lucille and Walker sat knee to knee on a leather couch, his huge arm wrapped around Lucille’s shaking shoulders. She looked up from her handkerchief, her eyes red from crying and her nose red from blowing.

  Manny pulled a chair beside Lucille and introduced himself, while Willie remained leaning against the door jamb. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Manny said.

  Lucille stopped crying abruptly and met Manny’s eyes. “You mean about losing my job?”

  “About losing your boss.”

  She laid the handkerchief on a coffee table in front of her. “Devlon Thomas was the worst employer a person could want. It’s good riddance for him. I just want to find the SOB who cost me my job.”

  Manny took out his notebook. “If you were to name a suspect in Thomas’s murder, who would it be?”

  “That’s easy. Johnny Apple.”

  “Johnny Apple’s dead,” Manny said.

  Lucille patted Walker’s hand. “I know. Tommy told me. Poor man. I always liked Johnny.” She wiped her nose and rim-tossed the tissue in a trash can across the room. “But you said Johnny died the day after he was here. So I guess it wasn’t him. He got awfully mad when he came in and talked with Devlon. They closed the office door, and after a while I heard them arguing.”

  “About what?”

  “You think I’m nosy?”

  Manny patted her knee. “No, I don’t. But tell me what they argued about.”

  She looked to law books lining one wall as if to remember. “Johnny’s will,” she said at last. “He wanted Devlon to draw up a new one. He wanted to change his beneficiary.”

  “I thought Johnny didn’t have anything of value?” Willie said. “The rumor is, Johnny was a crappy rancher.”

  “Was no rumor to it. He was lazy as hell and had nothing to show for it. But of all the things, he wanted to change who he deeded his mineral rights to. Kenton had willed Johnny the mineral rights, and his boys the land.” Lucille laughed and nudged Walker. “You think there’s any minerals under those sand hills?”

  “Lucille’s got a point,” Walker stretched his long legs out. “The oil and methane wells are long past Kenton’s ranch, to the west and north.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Manny said. “Johnny was worried
about mineral rights where there are no minerals?”

  “That’s what he demanded.” Lucille stood and paced the room, finally stopping to face Manny. “I’ve been worrying on that since Johnny came into the office all worked up. He’d never come to Devlon for his legal work in all these years. The man couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast that day. Devlon told him to go to Neville like he always did. But Johnny insisted he needed this done right away. Devlon said it would be a waste of his time, knowing full well there was no money under that ground. And he knew Johnny would never pay him for writing the will.”

  “Who was Johnny’s new beneficiary?”

  Lucille shrugged. “I don’t know. Devlon sent me home early that day. Cheap bastard. He typed up the paperwork himself and left this for me at my desk.” She showed Manny a note: Lucille: File Johnny Apple’s will with the County Clerk’s office when you get in. It’s in the usual place.

  “So you filed it?” Willie asked.

  She shook her head. “I intended to, but I thought, what the hell’s another couple days? So I left it in the safe, and it was gone when the DCI agent had me open it this morning. I can’t understand it.”

  “Maybe Thomas left the safe door open,” Willie suggested.

  Lucille shook her head. “He always locked the safe.”

  Lucille took a handkerchief from her purse and wiped sweat from her forehead. “When I unlocked the office this morning, I about fell over.”

  “From the smell?” Manny asked.

  “From the heat,” Lucille said. “Devlon always smelled about like he does right now. The odd thing was him cranking the heat up like he did.”

  “How so?” Willie said. He had already taken off and now wiped the sweat forming under his hat.

  “Devlon always kept it cold in here. ‘I can’t afford to heat the whole outdoors’ he used to tell me. Fact was, the fat ass couldn’t take the heat.”