Private Sins

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because I need a cup of tea. I could have killed you! I’m shocked too.’

  Edna was rooting in a cupboard. ‘I know we have some chocolate chip cookies someplace. I have to do some baking.’

  ‘You ride like — as if you were born on a horse.’

  ‘I haven’t been on one for twenty years. Riding’s something you never forget.’ She looked rueful. ‘I shouldn’t have done it; Val’s going to be cross.’ She was rubbing her back. Her shoulders were very flexible.

  ‘I won’t say anything. I hope I haven’t set Ali back: spooking him like that. I did try to get away before he came close.’

  Edna looked blank. ‘He’s not ready yet. There’s an Arabian mare — Barb — they’ve decided on —’ She trailed off. ‘I’ve told Jen she’s to choose which room she wants for the nursery,’ she said brightly.

  ‘What were you discussing with Sam?’ Miss Pink seemed only mildly curious.

  ‘Discussing what, dear?’

  ‘In the pasture. He was holding Ali, you felt his near fore — to see if the swelling had gone down? Then you stood back and you said something.’ Under the steady stare Edna’s face started to crumple. Miss Pink said desperately, ‘You and Sam talked like — like a couple of old horse dealers.’

  ‘No!’ Edna shook her head vehemently. ‘That wasn’t a dealer. That’s Sam; he’s Jen’s daddy. Sam Jardine — that’s it.’ And she beamed, delighted because she’d remembered a surname.

  18

  Miss Pink stepped out of the lift at the Rothbury, glanced in the restaurant and turned to the bar where Pat Kramer was studying sheets of computer printout. Actually, Miss Pink had wanted to speak to Russell but Pat looked up as she hesitated. The bar was as empty of customers as the restaurant, the place not yet gearing up for the modest Sunday evening trade. Pat raised her eyebrows in inquiry. Miss Pink advanced. She had showered and changed, and smelled of Bronnley lemons. ‘May I have a shot of dry vermouth in a tumbler of ice?’

  Pat was amused. ‘It’s different.’

  ‘Refreshing. There’s a note in the apartment saying Sophie’s gone to Irving. But she was lunching there, I knew that before I left this morning.’

  ‘She came home and went back. With my husband. Didn’t you catch the newsflash?’

  Miss Pink looked blank. Pat grimaced. ‘Their hand’s been found in the river.’

  ‘Hand? Whose hand? Oh, a ranch hand!’

  ‘The Gunns’ man. A guy called Byer. They took his body out of the water below Irving. It was on the television.’

  ‘Byer.’ Miss Pink released her breath suddenly and fell silent. Pat looked uneasy and nudged the ice-filled tumbler. Miss Pink picked it up and sipped absently. ‘Byer,’ she repeated and then, ‘Why Sophie?’

  ‘Russell’s gone with her,’ Pat said quickly. ‘He’s fond of Sophie. We both are; couldn’t let her go on her own.’

  Miss Pink was incredulous. ‘They’ve taken her in? But she — she hardly knew Byer!’

  ‘She knew him well enough —’

  ‘You’re telling me he was murdered and they arrested Sophie?’

  ‘Good God, no! I’m sorry, we’re at cross-purposes.’ Pat gave an embarrassed laugh, threw a glance at the doors that were open wide to the street and lowered her voice. ‘Sophie came back from lunching with their lawyer, put the TV on when she was in the apartment and caught the newsflash. The police were asking for help in identifying the guy. She recognised Byer straight away although he’s dead. Ghoulish if you ask me: putting a dead man’s face on the screen. Anyway, she called the sheriff in Irving and they asked her to go down and identify him formally. She told Russell that Clyde’s too sensitive, she wanted to spare him, and I understand that his mother is — rather confused? Russell went along for company. Not a nice thing to have to do: identify a drowned man. You look puzzled. Is something wrong?’

  Miss Pink caught her breath at that but she asked evenly enough, ‘Is that all you know: that he was taken out of the river? Nothing about how he came to be in it in the first place?’

  ‘I didn’t see the newsflash. Sophie said nothing else. I guess he had to be drunk and he fell in.’

  ‘So where’s his pick-up?’

  Pat didn’t respond, evidently taking it as rhetorical, distracted at that moment by a group of people pausing at the door. She pressed a button on the wall. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’ She gathered up her papers, flashing Miss Pink a smile — but the customers were advancing and she was enough of a business-woman not to leave the bar unattended. The new arrivals were elderly, the men in showy tartan trousers, the women blue-rinsed. They took their time deciding on their drinks and Pat was already serving them when a smooth, tanned youngster slipped behind the bar and took over. ‘This is Henry,’ Pat told Miss Pink. ‘Now I have to go and supervise the blue trout. It’s chef’s night off.’

  Miss Pink did a double-take. ‘Oh’ — arresting her as she passed — ‘the trout were delicious. I hope we weren’t robbing you.’

  ‘There were heaps,’ Pat assured her. ‘He always comes back with a load from those lakes. There’ll be more for you next time.’

  The customers were served and they retreated to a table. Miss Pink observed the new barman benignly and was about to open a conversation when she was forestalled. Glancing at the door, lowering his voice like a conspirator, he hissed, ‘Where are those lakes you were talking about?’

  ‘Ah!’ She beamed. ‘Another fisherman. They’re the Finger Lakes, at the back of the Bobcat Hills.’ She gestured westwards. ‘Buy the large-scale map for the Bobcats.’

  His eyes gleamed. He was a handsome boy, most attractive in his enthusiasm. ‘Cut-throat or rainbow?’

  ‘Mr Kramer brought us several rainbow — apparently. I’m no expert. Why didn’t you ask him?’ She was amused; was Russell possessive about his favoured fishing spots?

  ‘I’ve not had the chance. I’m sure he’d tell me if I asked’ — but his eyes belied it — ‘I had the day off yesterday so I haven’t seen the boss since. In fact, I never knew he’d caught anything — didn’t even know he was fishing, except this guy called and asked where he was and Mrs Kramer said he’d gone fishing. But there was a crowd in here — happy hour — I was run off my feet and I forgot all about it until you mentioned it there.’

  ‘The Finger Lakes,’ she repeated, suddenly feeling tired. ‘Buy the map.’ She nodded pleasantly and went up to the apartment where, to her amazement, she found Sophie ensconced at the window and drinking brandy.

  ‘I was about to call down,’ she said. ‘Came in the back way but I couldn’t face the bar although I knew you were there. Heard your voice.’

  ‘Is it Byer?’

  ‘Yes. And he’s been shot.’

  There was a long silence. ‘Suicide?’ Miss Pink asked brightly.

  ‘No. That is, I doubt it. A rifle shot — in the chest? No powder burns. And no exit wound so the bullet’s still there. They’ll find out tomorrow with the autopsy.’

  ‘How do you know all this? They wouldn’t show you the chest, surely, only the face.’

  ‘I called Seaborg. He found out. He would, of course.’

  ‘Why “of course”?’

  ‘He’s our lawyer. Byer was the family’s employee. We’re involved.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking just.’

  They regarded each other wordlessly, then both looked away, over the town roofs.

  *

  ‘You knew him,’ Hilton said.

  ‘Hundreds of guys knew him,’ Skinner protested. ‘And hookers. He wasn’t particular. Ask me, someone was waiting for him in a parking lot, followed him home. Some fight over a woman.’

  ‘What was the pick-up’s registration?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘You knew the guy.’

  ‘That don’t mean I know his registration! It were new; I mean, he’d just changed the model.’ Skinner looked sul
len but they could smell his fear.

  They hadn’t waited for the autopsy. It was obvious that Byer had been shot and already they knew that, outside his employment, Skinner was the closest person to him, not that anyone was really close, but there was gossip about poaching and the two men drank together. Shortly after Sophie Hamilton had identified the body in Irving, Hilton and Cole followed her to Ballard. They’d found Skinner hitching a horse trailer to his pick-up. He said he was planning on helping his ex-wife with her pack-trip tomorrow. He was sweating hard as they questioned him but the sun was hot and the air humid down there by the river, and hitching up a trailer is heavy work. Yes, he said, he had caught the newsflash, which was why he figured they’d need an extra hand either at Val Jardine’s place or at Glenaffric. It was when Cole pointed out that the murder of his buddy didn’t seem to bother him that he’d protested that plenty of other guys knew Byer, not to speak of hookers.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Cole asked.

  Skinner thought about that. ‘I can’t remember. Weeks, I guess, maybe a coupla weeks. I saw him in town one Saturday, in a bar. I had a drink with him.’

  They stared at him and he shifted his feet. ‘So which bars did you drink in?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Me?’ The astonishment was overdone.

  ‘You and him.’

  Skinner’s mouth opened and closed. ‘He favoured the Sage Grouse and the Maverick,’ he said grudgingly.

  Hilton glanced at Cole who retreated to the police car. ‘So that’s where you’d expect to find his pick-up,’ Hilton said, ‘at one of those bars?’

  ‘‘Less someone followed him home.’ Skinner’s eyes were wide, watching Cole. ‘A rifle shot would be loud in a parking lot.’

  ‘Who said a rifle was used?’

  ‘What else would it be? Guys don’t go to town carrying a handgun. Everyone has a rifle on the rack.’

  ‘So we’ll find his vehicle between Ballard and Bear Creek, right?’

  Skinner glared at him, the sweat running down his forehead. He wiped his eyes with his hand. Hilton looked past him to his ramshackle home, the door closed. He pondered. ‘Want to look inside?’ Skinner asked. ‘It’s all yours, man.’

  Hilton studied him, then shifted his gaze to the two horses in the makeshift corral. He grinned. ‘Don’t leave town,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be back in the mountains tomorrow.’ From somewhere Skinner dredged up a spark of belligerence.

  Hilton sketched a shrug and walked to the car. He glanced at the guy’s pick-up as he passed but it told him nothing other than that Skinner was packed, ready to leave. There was a pile of clothing on the front seat, his saddle in the back.

  ‘Check with Val Jardine,’ he told Cole. ‘Find out if Skinner arranged to help with her pack-trip tomorrow. Did you contact them in Ballard, tell them to check the parking lots at these two bars?’

  ‘They’re on their way.’ Cole found the homestead’s number in his notebook and dialled. After a long time Clyde Gunn answered and told him to wait while he spoke to his sister. He came back and said no, there had never been any question of employing Skinner. Cole lowered the mobile and looked from Hilton to the man’s trailer. ‘No,’ he said.

  Hilton inhaled deeply. ‘He might just be telling the truth. Check out Glenaffric to be sure.’

  Cole went through the motions. There was no movement from inside the mobile home but they knew they were being watched.

  Cole stiffened. ‘Edna,’ he mouthed at Hilton. He introduced himself boyishly and asked if she were about to take on Paul Skinner since she would be short-handed. He listened, raised his eyebrows in surprise at his boss… ‘When would he start?’ he asked, and: ‘Would he bring his own horses?’ After long moments during which he fidgeted impatiently, he cut her off with an emphatic, ‘Thank you, ma’am, you’ve been very helpful’ and lowered the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She’s employing him from tomorrow and he’s using his own horses.’

  ‘Shit. Get down to Ballard, see if we can find that pick-up.’

  This wasn’t going to be easy on Sunday evening. At the Sheriff’s Department they learned that although Byer had a number of motoring offences (driving under the influence and without insurance) the registration that the police had was for his old pick-up, and the Transportation Office in Irving wouldn’t be open until Monday. In any event there were no unclaimed pick-ups in the vicinity of the Sage Grouse or the Maverick so it was decided to abandon further search for the vehicle until the morning.

  The detectives were about to leave Ballard when a boy of twelve and a large man in work clothes walked into the station. The man was carrying a rifle and he looked stiffly angry. The boy had the wide-eyed stare of a terrified youngster trying to appear cool. They were shown into the sheriff’s office where Hilton and Cole stood aside, eyeing the rifle with professional interest that intensified with the man’s first words.

  ‘My boy found this,’ he said, laying the gun on the desk. The sheriff didn’t touch it. He glanced at Hilton. ‘Where?’ he asked.

  The man nudged his son who croaked, cleared his throat and whispered, ‘In some willows.’

  This time the sheriff looked hard at Hilton who was deadpan. ‘Which willows?’ the local man asked.

  ‘Upstream a ways,’ the boy said. ‘We didn’t steal it, we found it there’ — a long pause — ‘laying in the reeds and we couldn’t leave it, could us, not for little kids to find?’

  ‘Is it loaded?’ Hilton asked kindly.

  The boy stared at him. ‘It’s not loaded,’ his father said. Hilton looked out at the sky. ‘It’s still daylight. You’d best show us where you found it.’

  On the way the man explained a little more. His boy and a friend had been hunting a coyote they figured was stealing the wife’s chickens and they’d come home with this rifle, that was all. Hilton guessed from the man’s restrained anger and the boy’s terror that the father had discovered the rifle by chance, that the kid had thought he might retain possession of it, but he said nothing. None of that mattered for the moment, the priority was to discover where it had been found.

  Sitting in the front of the police car the man directed Cole to cross the river. In the back beside the boy Hilton was expressionless. This was the road to Glenaffric and to Byer’s house.

  ‘Take a right,’ the man said, while they were still on the bridge. Cole’s eyes met Hilton’s in the mirror. It was the way to Skinner’s place.

  On the left now were one or two small frame houses and, to the right, the thick belt of willows and cottonwoods that lined the river bank.

  ‘You can park here,’ the man said as they approached the second house. A heavy-set woman watched them from the porch as they left the car. Neither father nor son acknowledged her but it was evident from her interest that she was the mother. The man laid a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him towards the lush undergrowth and the start of a narrow path.

  It was a well-used trail, the kind that had been made and frequented by small boys who had grown up here and played in this sappy green world until they were old enough to own cars and travel to the real forest. Hilton was familiar with such places. Every country boy had his personal territory, which he knew like an animal, every inch of it. They walked about a quarter-mile before the boy stopped and pointed to a patch of flattened grass. ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘How’d the grass get laid?’ Hilton asked.

  ‘We stomped around, Elmer and me.’ His terror was back.

  ‘A coyote was laying up here,’ Hilton said calmly. ‘You can smell him. Where’s this trail go now?’ It seemed to continue, black and muddy as it neared the river. They could see reed beds beyond the willows and a coot called nervously.

  ‘I dunno,’ the boy said.

  Hilton looked at the father who said tightly, ‘It runs a half-mile or so to a fishing hole.’

  ‘On the river?’

  ‘There’s a side channel where we find catfish.’
/>
  ‘Let’s go.’

  The boy said something to his father. ‘No!’ the man exclaimed. Hilton looked cheerful as they resumed their walk in single file. Cole cast a puzzled look at the flattened grass and hurried after them.

  After a while the trail widened and became more soggy. The reeds took over on their right and they were so tall that they almost obscured the pick-up until they were within a few yards of it. Beyond the pick-up was a turning circle and a Jeep track.

  ‘Someone fishing?’ the father said. ‘What’s he doing here, off the road?’

  The boy stared at the truck as if it were alive.

  Hilton pushed past the two of them and glanced in the cab. He could see nothing to frighten anyone, neither there nor on the back, only the absence of something. He turned to the boy and beamed. ‘You thought the truck was scrapped,’ he said. ‘And they forgot to take the rifle and it would make a nice present for your dad, right?’

  The father gaped at him, then turned on his son. ‘You took it from here? Off of the rack?’

  The kid hung his head and started to snuffle.

  ‘It’s mired.’ Cole appeared round the back of the truck. ‘He got in deep and couldn’t get out again.’ He pointed. The pick-up’s nearside wheels were axle deep in black mud.

  They removed the documents, sent the father and son ahead of them and followed, careful to walk to the side of the track as far as the turning circle, but they could see no footprints other than those made by kids’ trainers. The rain had erased any fishermen’s tracks.

  ‘No keys in the ignition,’ Hilton observed, ‘but the documents left. Apart from a guy not being able to shoot himself in the chest with a rifle —’

  ‘It could be rigged —’

  ‘There’d be powder burns. Unless it was a very complicated mechanism and I don’t think Skinner’s a clever guy, do you? This’ — he gestured back towards the truck — ‘this is a stupid guy, or one in a panic: rigging a murder to look like a suicide.’

  ‘Why in hell did he leave the pick-up so close to home?’