“She gave me hell.”
She finished her beer. “You deserve it.” She looked around the bar. Her gaze landed on Dahlia. She looked back at me.
“Pretty girl,” she said.
“Just met her,” I said.
“Not bad for first day here,” she grinned.
“You know me, a regular babe magnet.”
“Blackhawk told me why you are here. You think Eddie’s nephew is innocent?”
I shrugged, “Don’t know. He had motive and opportunity, and we just found out it was his knife that did the deed.”
“Proved?”
I shrugged, “Staties are checking the DNA, but Billy thinks it’s his. Maybe they’ll find somebody else’s DNA too.”
“Somebody set him up?”
I shrugged again, “Nobody is on the radar. But we just got here.” I nodded at Dahlia and Joe. “Skinny kid with the hair is a police officer, and friend of Billy’s. He just told us another body was found out in the desert. Hunter’s found it. Missing a hand. Bled out.”
“Lot of missing body parts around here.”
I finished my beer. “Another one?”
She shook her head. “I still have to drive to Sedona. I can’t imagine,” she continued, “that this kind of thing is common in a small town.”
“Helluva coincidence.”
“Anything connect the two?”
“They both belonged to the same militia.”
“Militia?”
“What they call themselves. Police chief says they’re just a bunch of nitwits that run around in the desert in their four-wheel drives, and like to play army.”
“Boys are boys.”
She stood. So did I.
“Place to start,” she said. She looked around and noticed that Dahlia and Joe were watching. She came around and kissed me lightly on the lips.
“See what the babe thinks of that,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the motel.”
“Yeah, thanks. You know what this looks like?”
“Of course I do,” she said, taking my hand. She led me out of the bar.
14
It was full-on dark and the parking lot, which by now was half empty, was illuminated by lights attached to the roof line of the bar. She had parked her city-issued boat of a vehicle next to where the Mustang had been. The streets were empty. I think they rolled them up at ten. As we reached her car she moved to the driver’s side, then stopped, and turned to look at me. I had my hand on the passenger’s door. I stopped.
“You know, things don’t have to be much different,” she said.
“True,” I agreed.
“I am very fond of you,” she said.
“And me of you,” I said.
She leaned on the roof of the car and stared across at me.
“You know, one thing I have been thinking about for some time.” She hesitated.
“What have you been thinking about for some time?”
The dim light softened her features. She was quite lovely. This made her even more so.
“All the time we were together we never used the word love.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really,” she said.
“Commitment issues?”
“Probably.”
She turned her gaze across the parking lot and I turned to follow it. The dipshit that had been staring at Dahlia had come out of the bar and was staring across the lot at us. Two of his buddies joined him.
She looked back to me.
“You know I’m a cop through and through.”
I smiled. “I know that. I understand that. And I guess I am whatever I am.”
“Bon vivant, raconteur, man of the world.”
“Unemployed boat bum.”
“Speaking of that, you never did tell me where you get your money.” Again her gaze moved to behind me. I turned and the three men were making their way toward us. Boyce moved around the car, and came up beside me.
“Friends of yours?”
“Not hardly. Saw them for the first time tonight. The short one is named Calvin. He’s a cousin to the guy that lost his head. I think they have been drinking a long time.”
“I’ll handle it,” she said.
I laughed. “The last time you said that you got shot.”
“I’ll duck this time.”
The three men spread out a little as they came up to us. We waited. When they got close, Boyce said, “Calvin, you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew.”
He peered at her. “Do I know you?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But if you have more in mind than just getting in your cars and going home, you will.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you really need to turn around and go away,” I said.
He glared at me.
“We don’t need you Phoenix pukes coming up here and getting in our business.”
“Calvin, go home now,” Boyce said.
He turned his head and spit on the ground. “Shut up, bitch!”
When his head came back around, Boyce slammed him in the nose with the heel of her hand. She stepped into it, the punch traveling about fourteen inches. In a punch like that, the thing is to try to punch through the target. His head snapped back, and he went backward, and sat down hard. Blood was gushing from his nose. The other two were so stunned they didn’t move. When they did, they looked back at Boyce and she had moved her jacket aside to show the badge on her belt and the pistol on her hip.
“Get him up,” she said.
They stood stunned, looking at her.
“Now!”
They each took an arm and pulled the dazed Calvin to his feet. His eyes were glassy and he was very unsteady.
“If you boys don’t want to spend the night in jail, I suggest you take good old Calvin and yourselves out of here.”
The two wouldn’t look at her. They started the stumbling Calvin across the lot. She looked at me, and I was grinning.
“That’s all it takes to amuse you?” she said. “Give a guy a shot in the beezer and you’re a happy camper?”
“Maybe I do love you.”
“Shut up.”
15
The next morning Eddie and I were sitting in the hallway outside of Chief Berry’s office. He wasn’t in it. We were told this by the same policewoman we had met before. Now she knew us and smiled and told us that Chief Berry would be in shortly. He was. He walked by us and entered his office without looking at us. I looked at Eddie; he smiled.
“Guy’s in charge,” he said by way of explanation. “That’s the way they let you know.”
A few minutes later the policewoman came up to us.
“The chief will see you now.”
We stood and filed into the chief’s office while she waited by our chairs to ensure we didn’t dawdle. Don’t want to keep the man waiting. The chief was busy at his desk, and didn’t acknowledge us. Eddie made himself comfortable in one of the chairs and I followed suit. We sat in silence for longer than was necessary. Finally, the chief looked up at us.
“What can I do for you?” he asked brusquely.
“Why, a pleasant good morning to you, sir,” I said with a winning smile.
He looked at me for a long moment. His uniform was crisp and neat but he hadn’t shaven today. He looked like it had been a long night.
“I talked with Lieutenant Mendoza in Phoenix,” he finally said. “He said you were a pain in the ass, and had a mouth on you.”
I had nothing to say to that.
He leaned back. “He also said you had a trained set of skills, and could be helpful. He said you sometimes worked outside the boundaries, but if you did, you kept law enforcement out of it.”
“Well,” I said. “That was better than I expected.”
“So I repeat,” he continued. “What can I do for you?”
Eddie made a slight wave of his hand, putting the ball in my court.
> I took it. “We heard another body has been found. This one missing a hand. Is this related to Billy’s case?”
He looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Hell, we don’t know. We are, just now, trying to piece this thing together. I had a very early conference with the mayor and the City Council. I had nothing to tell them either and believe me, they are not happy, so forgive me if I am less than hospitable.”
“Hell of a coincidence,” I said.
“There are no coincidences,” he said tightly.
“Would it be possible to talk to the ME, and maybe see the scene where the body was found?”
“Jesus, son. Is this your idea of not meddling?”
Eddie straightened up in his chair. “Sir, no one else is helping my sister’s boy,” he said. “We aren’t going to mess with any evidence, but we need to know.”
Chief Berry looked at Eddie for a moment, then said, “The crime was outside my jurisdiction. I don’t have anyone on it. Why don’t you two wait outside?”
Eddie and I stood, and moved out the door. As it closed the chief had picked up his phone. We walked down the hall and resumed our seats and waited. A slow half an hour passed, then finally Joe Whitney came down the hallway. He was in uniform. He came to a stop in front of us, and we stood.
“Chief says I’m to take you guys over to the hospital.”
“Tell you why?” I asked.
“He says you want to see the medical examiner,” Joe said.
“Lead on,” I said.
He led us down the hallway and down the stairs, and then down another hallway until we went through an outer door into the back parking lot. He led us to a patrol car and waved us in.
It was a short jaunt to the hospital. He pulled the patrol car around to a no-parking area, and we followed him into the building. Once inside, it was every hospital, everywhere.
The morgue was appropriately in the basement.
After a long walk, we rounded a corner and beside the sign announcing the morgue stood a tall, cadaverous man in a white lab coat. He had a dark complexion, a prominent Adam’s apple, with thick dark-rimmed glasses. He held a clipboard. If this had been filmed in black and white, and there had been thunder and lightning, I would have expected him to be shouting “It’s alive! It’s alive!” He seemed impatient.
Joe Whitney said, “Doctor Patel, this is Mr. Bragg, Patrolman Bragg’s uncle, and his friend, Mr. Jackson.”
“How do you do,” he said formally. “Chief Berry called to ask that I give you gentlemen a moment of my time, and let me assure you, a moment is all I have. I still have rounds to make.”
“Your time is greatly appreciated,” I said. “We have been told that you have the body of a man by the name of Frank Wambaugh. We would like to see the body, and if possible have you tell us what you think happened to him.”
“The body is this way,” he said, pushing the large handicapped button that automatically opened the double doors. “But I cannot give you speculation. I don’t speculate. I can only offer conclusions based on my observations.”
We followed him into a cold and clinical room. There were three tiers of closed body drawers on either side. He looked at a chart, and then led us to one of the drawers. He took it by the handle and slid the tray out. The body was covered. He pulled the sheet off. The body was shrunken and chalky white. It wasn’t much of a specimen. One of the hands was indeed missing. There didn’t appear to be other severe trauma. I walked around the body slowly. There were light abrasions on his upper arm, his shoulder and the back of his neck.
I looked at the doctor. “What are the conclusions from your observations?”
Eddie smiled, and looked away.
Doctor Patel pushed his glasses up on his nose.
“The blow that took the arm was a very clean cut. A singular blow from a very sharp instrument. Whoever took it didn’t hack at it.”
“I’ve seen men that lost a limb,” I waggled my foot, “including me, and they didn’t die.”
He looked at my foot, then back up at me.
“Yes,” he said. He looked at the tag on the door. “Mr. Wambaugh died from loss of blood.” He picked up the arm missing the hand. “No sign that he tried a tourniquet.” He shook his head. “He just bled out.”
“What are these marks?” I asked, indicating the abrasions.
“Contusions that occurred just before he died,” he said, replacing the sheet and sliding the tray closed. “Blood rushes to bruised areas. So the abrasions occurred before he bled out.”
“Did you, by chance, see the body of Dick Mooney?”
He nodded.
“Were there any marks like this on him?”
He shook his head. “Not on the body. I haven’t seen the head.”
He turned and we followed him to the door. He allowed us to leave first.
“Thank you for your time,” I said.
“You are welcome,” he said, starting down the hall. He stopped and looked back at me.
“I don’t speculate,” he said. “But it certainly appears that the abrasions happened at the same time that he lost his hand. I would say that it is probable that whoever took his hand had someone forcibly holding him down.”
“Murder?” I asked.
“Hard to be an accident. There weren’t any guillotines in the vicinity,” he said.
“Sword?” I asked. He shrugged, turning to walk away.
We watched him walk down the hall and turn a corner, out of sight.
“Was that a speculation?” Eddie said.
“It was.”
16
It took an hour to get to the place where the hunters found the body. The squad car was a big, floating Impala, and Joe had to carefully traverse the unimproved dirt road that led us back into the high desert. There were parts of the road I didn’t think we were going to make, but Joe expertly kept the car moving forward. Whenever I glanced to the back seat, Eddie looked half asleep.
The turn off the highway onto the dirt road had offered no advertising. If you weren’t familiar with it, and traveling at highway speeds, it would have been easy to blast right by. Joe was familiar with it, and took the turn, hardly slowing at all. It was a rutted dirt road. As we moved along it, there were a series of offshoot roads, branching off at odd angles into what seemed to be nothing but open desert. The main road was just two tracks. The desert was flat and wide with mountains off in the distance. There was absolutely nothing out here. I wondered who had made the road, and why? I mean, there was nothing. Scrub cactus and desert plants. Staghorn, saguaros, cholla and ocotillo. The ocotillo had their bright orange flowers on the tips of the tall slender thorned branches that rose straight up. There was an occasional saguaro with its arms reaching. My mind went to the militia racing around yelling “Hands up or we’ll blast you!”
Bunch grass was everywhere. Where there weren’t other plants there was creosote. The smell of creosote was heavy in the air. And alongside the trail were wire fences that spoke to cattle.
I tried to pay attention. Third right, second left, fourth right, straight for five miles. Finally, Joe pulled the car off the track between two fence posts that bracketed a cattle guard, and I realized we had pulled beside some kind of fence corral. There was half a salt block surrounded by an impressive collection of cow patties. He stopped and got out. We followed. To my right was open desert with not much more that creosote bushes, but to my left was salt cedar and palo verde trees so thick you couldn’t see through them.
Joe started walking, paralleling the thicker brush. Eddie and I followed. We had gone a few yards when through the thick brush I caught the glint of water.
“What is this, a pond?” I asked.
“Earthen cattle tank,” he answered. “Ranchers lease the state land for their cattle to graze. They dig out the tank and run water in from their well.”
“From where?”
“Got a well dug a couple miles on down the road.”
“So this is
a cattle ranch?”
Joe laughed. “It’s state land but it’s leased to the ranchers.”
“How the hell do they round up the cattle?”
He shrugged. “Beats me.”
I followed him, careful not to step in something I would regret. As I walked, I saw random, spent shotgun shells on the ground. I stopped and picked one up and smelled it. It was old.
Joe watched me.
“This is a popular place for quail and dove hunters. Been here myself,” he said.
“That’s why you know about the well. Wasn’t it hunters who found the body?”
He nodded. “A group of guys from Prescott were hunting quail.” He pointed. “Body was found up ahead.”
He started forward and we followed. We were now on a narrow path that had been made by the cattle coming and going from the tank. The brush was getting thicker when suddenly we spilled out onto the bank of a broad wash. The bank was steep and deep. The wash had to be a hundred feet across.
“Supposed to be the largest wash in Arizona,” Joe said.
“Ever see water running in it?”
“Never have. It would be a sight to see. Watch yourself,” Joe said as he hopped down into the wash. I followed him down and turned to Eddie. He was smarter: he had moved down a way to an eroded spot. He slid down on his rear.
“Body was found across the wash, up on that knoll,” Joe said, pointing. He started across and we followed. I was surprised to find the wash filled with fine sand. I could see a path of indentations, either caused by men or cattle, you couldn’t tell which. On the other side he chose a spot where the bank was crumbling and the footing up was easier. They were just dimples in the sand. We scrambled up the other side. Joe picked his way through the brush and we stayed right with him. We walked single file. Ahead I could see police tape glinting yellow in the sunlight. It had been run in a broad circle. As we reached it, Joe lifted it and held it overhead. We went under.
“The body was found there,” he pointed. The spot he pointed at was in a thicket of underbrush. The matted-down grass was stained dark with blood as was a large flat rock.
“How the hell did they find it?”
He pointed back the way we had come. “The hunters had flushed a covey of quail on the other side of the wash by the tank. Birds will almost always fly across a wash to put a barrier between themselves and danger. One of the hunters got a bird as it flew and it went down on this side. They were hunting for it when they found Frankie.”
The Librarian Her Daughter and the Man Who Lost His Head Page 7
