Fire in Broken Water

by Lakota Grace

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the dash.

  “What?”

  “That red light—means something’s wrong.” He leaned forward, listening. “Engine noise. Sounds like your timing belt is loose. Supposed to be replaced at a hundred thou. How many miles you got on this car?”

  Damn it! The blasted timing belt was my problem, not his. On the other hand, was he telling me in his own curmudgeon way to mind my own business? I gave up and shut up.

  We wound down the switchbacks from Mingus to the valley floor and then turned right at the first roundabout entering Cottonwood. The small town was a solid middle-class farming community, but a more affluent mix was starting to move in, especially in the foothills of the Black Mountains. Houses with views meant money, and I figured that's where we'd find the Porsche. I wasn't wrong.

  The red sports car gleamed like a sword of fire under a streetlight in a cul-de-sac. I coasted to a stop in front of a house for sale half a block distant and switched off the Jetta’s headlights. The air fan whirred for a minute and then was silent.

  I pushed my seat back to its limit, trying to get comfortable for the long night ahead. Shepherd did the same.

  To pass the time we talked about the weather, and sports, and the latest political shenanigans by the good folks in Washington. Shepherd was an arch-conservative, while I was a social liberal, so we sparred for a while on that.

  Then Shepherd cleared his throat. “Now, on to this suspicious death out at the Spine Ranch.”

  “Gil Streicker.”

  He nodded. “Medical examiner's final report said enough arsenic in his system to make the man sick, woozy. He could have lost his balance, fallen. Plus, the arson examiner called me. He's determined the cause of the fire is man-made. That's enough to consider this a murder investigation.”

  He’d finally called it. We could move ahead with an official inquiry. Or could we? At Heinrich Spine’s insistence, the old barn had been bulldozed to make way for the new one. At least Heinrich’s wish that the dead man be cremated hadn’t been honored—yet. But Amanda’s tidying up of Gil’s quarters meant any evidence there was long gone. Even if we dusted for fingerprints, we’d find only signs of her compulsive mopping and swiping clean all surfaces.

  Why had we waited so long to collect evidence? What hadn't been destroyed by the fire was now obliterated. I expressed these regrets to Shepherd.

  “Too late to do anything about that now,” he said. “We’ll have to play catch up. Always a good idea to start with the people. We'll need to re-interview everyone again. Begin with that nurse, Fancy Morgan. Have her come to the Mingus station for an official statement, away from the ranch influence.”

  “I’ll call her in the morning,” I said. “And Ben may have found out something when he helped Marguerite with the computer system. I’ll check back with him.”

  Shepherd nodded. “I'll contact Dr. Spine. If need be, we can visit with him again. Maybe we can whipsaw his testimony between us.”

  It was good to have Shepherd on board. For the first time in many days, we were operating as a team on this murder case. But that left Shepherd’s Moby Dick, the red Porsche guy down the street.

  “You take the first watch,” Shepherd ordered, leaning back against the headrest. He tipped his baseball hat over his forehead and closed his eyes. Soon I could hear soft snoring. The guy was beat. No wonder, with this round-the-clock obsession.

  The Porsche gleamed in front of me like a siren of promise. I ate a power-bar and took a sip of water. Then I squirmed a bit in my seat and lowered the window, thinking some fresh air would help keep me alert. A mosquito flew in and bit me before I could swat it. Rolled the window back up again, rubbing at my elbow.

  I felt my head nodding and jerked awake. The dog had gotten me up at dawn this morning, and it had been a long day. I needed some toothpicks to keep my eyelids up! I shifted again and glanced over at Shepherd.

  Would music help? I considered switching on the radio but didn’t want to wake him. Anyway, my ears needed the quiet to hear any noise from the house. I twiddled my thumbs one way. Then twiddled them the other.

  When that didn’t work, I tried the multiplication tables. I made it all the way up to the elevens before I got stumped. Twelve times twelve was a gross. What was a gross anyway? Something big, like an elephant.

  I started counting elephants in the jungle. Nice quiet jungle. A nice silent jungle full of green vines waving in the gentle breeze. My eyelids closed again and stayed shut.

  I jerked awake with a start. The red beacon was gone! How had the Porsche driver left without my hearing him? I cranked down the window, but the night was silent except for a wind chime on the house next door.

  I poked Shepherd. “Wake up! He's gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone? You were supposed to be watching the car.”

  “Well, you were supposed to be keeping me awake, not snoring like a rusty lawnmower. What do we do now?”

  “Nothing. You blew it. Can't you even do a simple stakeout?” He snorted in disgust.

  “I blew it? What about you?”

  “Maybe I can go investigate a little since he's gone...” He looked at the house in the cul-de-sac.

  “Shepherd!” I exploded. “You don't have a warrant. And the man has committed no crime. You want to get hauled before Internal Affairs?”

  I started the engine and made a backup turn using the drive of the house-for-sale. Shepherd didn't talk to me the rest of the way back to my apartment.

  He got out of the car as soon as I pulled in, slammed the door and stalked to his own vehicle. Before I turned off my motor, he gunned out of the drive. Probably going to lose more sleep sitting in front of that Porsche owner’s house.

  I didn't care. This wasn't my problem and it shouldn't be his. Shepherd had one more day, and then this covert operation was over, one way or the other.

  I stomped into the house, adding Shepherd’s problem to the growing list I was wrestling with—Porsches, timing belts, evictions. I needed a break!

  But I didn’t get one.

  Chapter 19

  The following day, Fancy Morgan arranged to meet me at the office, mid-morning. Shepherd was conspicuously absent from the station, and for once, it didn’t bother me. We both needed some space after my screw-up the night before. I still winced at his tongue-lashing.

  Fancy walked into the office about ten. I set her up in the conference room and asked if she wanted some coffee. The room was small, with Army-surplus furniture. Ben and I had cleared out accumulated junk to convert the room into usable space, and the musty odor of old files and papers still lingered.

  “I could use something stronger than coffee.”

  “How so?”

  “Damn javelinas got in my iris beds. Tore them up, destroyed the plants.”

  “Oh, no!” I remembered how proud she had been of the iris when we’d sat together in the garden.

  Javelina—called wild pigs by some—were incredibly damaging to vegetation in Arizona. They traveled in family herds and used their snouts and sharp hooves to tear up ground when they searched for food. It sounded as though Fancy’s poor iris bed had made good pickings.

  “Next time I catch them out there, I’ll blow them to kingdom come.”

  “You don’t really mean that,” I said.

  “Watch me.” Her eyes glittered. “My uncle taught me how to shoot when I was little. Those nasty things don’t stand a chance.”

  Fancy sat there, tapping long fingernails on the table.

  “You mind?” She pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

  I did, but I also wanted a cooperative witness, so I shoved an ashtray her direction.

  It would be easy for a smoker to start a barn fire—they always carried matches or a lighter. But then Heinrich was a smoker, too.

  I tried to picture the old man killing Gil Streicker, but it was hard. Heinrich couldn’t do it alone, I decided. Could Fancy be paid enough to assist her employer? P
ossibly. Everyone had their price.

  I set a small recorder on the old oak table and tested to be sure it was working. Then I opened a small notebook to take notes as well. The physical act of pen to paper helped me focus on details, and sometimes, when technology failed, I was thankful for a backup system.

  “Thanks for coming in this morning,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Don't have much choice, do I?”

  I couldn't argue with that. I switched on the recorder, then, and gave the opening statement—the date, location, who was present.

  “We are investigating the suspicious death of Gil Streicker,” I said.

  Fancy sat up straight and stubbed out her cigarette. “Wait a minute. I thought Gil's death was an accident. Do I need a lawyer here?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Up to you. But anything you can tell us would be helpful in clearing up the matter for the family.” I made my tone friendly, nonchalant. This was always the tricky point in an interview. She'd not officially requested a lawyer. That meant we could continue without one if I could settle her down a little.

  I started with the safe topic she brought into the office. “It must be hard, having your garden destroyed that way.”

  “I spent good money to buy those iris. Now they're gone.” Her lips tightened. “Doesn't make any difference.”

  I raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Outstayed my welcome. Time I was moving on.”

  “Would you go back home? Where is that exactly?” She’d mentioned it briefly at our last meeting, but I wanted to pin her down if I could.

  “Just a stop on the road back east. You've never heard of it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Batesville,” she said, “like the coffin makers.” She spit out the words as though they were painful.

  An unusual association. “And the state?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. I left there years ago. Been stuck in this little piss-ant valley for too long. Thought I'd try Vegas this time. Or maybe the California coast…”

  Her voice sounded empty, discouraged. Hard to look ahead to a future with no hope.

  I leaned forward. “Fancy, where were you the night of the barn fire?”

  “In my room. In bed. I had nothing to do with Gil's 'unfortunate accident'.” Her tone held an active dislike for the involuntary self-disclosure she’d just made. I had sympathy, but gathering information was necessary if we were to find Gil Streicker’s killer.

  “Can anyone verify your whereabouts?”

  “Sure. The two guys I was having a threesome with.” She gave a laugh that choked off in the middle. “Of course no one can verify that. I’m a non-person around there.”

  “There was one thing, though…” Her mouth pursed, as though she were a six-year-old tattling to the teacher about another classmate’s misbehavior.

  “What? You hear anything suspicious?”

  “You mean like the midnight screaming match that Gil and Marguerite had in the hall? Woke me out of a sound sleep.”

  “Could you hear what they were saying?”

  She leaned back in the chair and lit another cigarette, drew deeply and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling, considering her next words. “I don't know how much you know about Gil Streicker...”

  I gave her a hand wave that said, continue.

  “He got to the ranch, not long after I did.”

  “When was that?”

  “Five, six years back. We'd talk, sometimes, after the family went to bed. He told me he'd been poor all of his life. That's what we had in common, him and me.”

  “But he was going to do something about it,” I prompted.

  “Like I told you, he used that good old cowboy charm to entice Marguerite. Never saw anyone fall so hard as she did. They became lovers.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Heinrich discovered it.” She smiled then, leaving little doubt who the informant was.

  “He swore no cowhand would get his land when he died,” she said, “and that was the end of it. Marguerite was devastated when Gil broke it off. She’d gambled that Gil loved her for herself, not for the ranch she’d inherit. Guess what—he didn’t.”

  Her tone was world-weary. Although Fancy’s employment made her invisible to the family, the woman had feelings. I wondered if Gil Streicker had made a move on her, too.

  “And the late night fight? What was that about?”

  “Marguerite had discovered Gil was romancing Amanda.” Another short smile. “Marguerite swore to get him fired if he didn’t leave her daughter alone. Then I heard her door slam and he clumped down the stairs in those big cowboy boots of his. Took me hours to get back to sleep.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What more do you need? If anybody had reason to kill Gil Streicker, it was Marguerite. Oh, and check out her husband, too.”

  “Dr. Theo? Why him?”

  She smiled that Cassandra smile. “The good doctor has an OxyContin problem. Ask him to explain that one.”

  She stood. “If you don't need me anymore, I'm leaving. I've got some things to pick up at the store before I head back to the ranch.”

  After she left, I reviewed my notes. The ME had found traces of poison in Gil Streicker’s system, and poison was traditionally a woman's method. Two women were involved with Gil Streicker. It was time to set up formal interviews with Marguerite and her daughter Amanda.

  But there were three women involved with Gil, if you counted Fancy Morgan. It couldn’t hurt to check Fancy's back story. I Googled the name of the town she’d given me. Towns by the name of Batesville showed up in Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio. No shortage of Batesvilles back east.

  Fancy mentioned something about a casket company in connection with the name. I tried that and came up with a little town called Manchester in Tennessee. That might also be a possibility.

  I put in a call to Ned Jamison, one of my fellow police academy classmates back in Tennessee. He answered on the first ring, his cheerful voice booming over the distance.

  “Peg! Haven't heard from you for too long. How's the West treating you?”

  Ned didn’t fit the police stereotype. He was a pudgy, overweight guy who wanted to be an officer so bad it hurt to watch him. His dad had been a police officer, and his uncle, too. That should have helped, but Ned tripped over his own feet. He was a computer whiz, but he'd barely made it through the obstacle course training.

  “Can't complain,” I responded. “You got a job yet?”

  Competition for positions was fierce in Shelby County in Tennessee where Ned lived. I'd been trying to talk him into looking farther afield, but he had a wife who refused to leave her family there. Ned wanted to be a detective, and he’d be a good one. But there was the little matter of getting the time in grade. To do that, you needed a job.

  Ned sighed. “I just gotta have patience. I've been teaching a class or two at the community college, waiting for an opening. What’s up with you?”

  “I need some background investigative work. But I’d got no money to pay you…”

  “Glad to keep the old skills polished. What you need to know?”

  “I got a lady here, name is Fancy Morgan. Nothing official, yet. Just poking around.” I told him about the name Batesville, the towns with that name, and the reference to caskets.

  “I’m looking for anything unusual,” I said, “that possibly happened, some five, six years ago.”

  “What kind of unusual?”

  “I’m not sure. I just have a sense something’s off.” I told him about Gil Streicker’s death and the machinations the folks at the Spine Ranch were going through to keep an investigation from happening.

  The sound of his scribbling pencil filled the space between us.

  “Pretty vague,” he said, “but let me see what I can do. Nothing but time on my hands right now, anyway.”

  “Something will turn up for you.”

  “Yeah, right.” But Ned didn't sound hopeful, just resig
ned.

  I wondered if I should give his wife a call, put a bug in her ear about how great a place Arizona was. The state didn’t have much water, but the people were friendly. I doubted even that would help, though, with her kin all being in Tennessee. Family was a powerful tie.

  As I hung up, Shepherd burst in the front door.

  “I just saw Fancy Morgan driving out of town. Good work, Peg, getting her to come in.”

  It was as though the events of the previous night had never happened. Perhaps in his mind, they weren’t that important. I set my own hurt feelings aside and told him about Fancy’s lost irises.

  “Tough,” Shepherd commented.

  Obviously, he wasn’t much of a gardener. He perked up, though, when I related the fight Fancy said Gil and Marguerite had had the night before the barn fire.

  “We need to follow up on that,” he said. “The Spine Ranch is holding a garden party this weekend. Might be a good time to check out the family.”

  I followed him into the lunch room. There Shepherd filled a cup with water and set it in the microwave to boil. He pulled a canister of loose green tea from the cabinet and spooned some into a mug with the water.

  “You going?” I asked.

  “Have to. Policemen’s Benevolent Fund needs replenishing. You’re on the hook, too. Got a party dress?”

  The PBF was the sheriff’s favorite fund. He dictated no overtime this summer because of the tight budget, but he suggested we donate our time to replenish the fund used to help officers’ families after a death in the line of duty. It appeared the Spine party would be one such “donation” opportunity.

  “Not in uniform?”

  “Nah, the Spine establishment says that would be too inhibiting to their guests. They just want us there in case of trouble.”

  Although I wasn’t wild about obligatory events, this one meant I’d get to see Shepherd in formal party wear. That should be interesting. I knew how much he hated dressing up and playing nice.

  “Your old beau, Flint Tanner, is invited to Marguerite's party, too. Heinrich's considering him as Gil's replacement. You know anything about that?”

  “Yeah, he told me.” I kept my tone neutral, but my mind was doing cart-wheelies at his news.