Miss Pink Investigates 3

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Every one?’ she repeated blankly.

  ‘All the way from the park,’ Pugh told her. ‘Duval said there wasn’t one left.’

  ‘He did it,’ Sprague said, accepting a beer with a grunt of thanks.

  ‘Bob Duval?’

  ‘His brother. Alex Duval. If that guy’s in Utah I’m going to find him.’

  ‘What would be his purpose in destroying the cairns?’

  ‘They want to stop tourists seeing the rock pictures,’ Pugh informed her. ‘And without the cairns no stranger can find his way through the Maze. The press would have been there tomorrow, get the chopper to lift them into the park, and they’d walk down to see where the boy died. Now they can’t go without a guide – and who’s going to guide them? Duval won’t.’

  ‘So demolishing the cairns has no sinister motive?’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Sprague said. ‘What we do know is that Alex Duval can come and go easy as a mountain lion, and no one any the wiser, so if he was up there some time after you were there, ma’am, who’s to say when else he was up there?’

  ‘Why should he have killed Shawn?’

  ‘Because the kid knew he killed the Indian girl, that’s why!’

  ‘But Alex was fencing in Horsethief— ’

  ‘So young Mike says. We’ll break that alibi, so-called. He’ll crack like an egg, will Mike, once we take him in for questioning.’

  ‘How did Alex kill Shawn?’

  Sprague stared at her blankly and she saw that he was too tired for his brain to be working properly. Pugh said: ‘We’ll find out in due course; pushed him over somewhere else, and carried him to where he was found?’

  ‘He wasn’t moved after he’d fell,’ Sprague said dully.

  ‘There was a cairn on top of that tower,’ Pugh said, his spirits seeming to rise as those of his colleague plummeted. ‘Forset says you saw it and that Sarah Gray kicked it down. Who built that?’

  ‘We assumed it was the man who died near where we found Shawn’s body, the owner of the skull. You saw the skull? He probably fell in the same place. If you could find the rest of the bones they’d be broken too.’

  ‘The skull wasn’t broken.’

  ‘Was the boy’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That train of thought reminded her to ask about the significance of the stake and the yellow ribbon on the bank of the creek.

  ‘That was where we found the knife,’ Pugh told her. ‘Estwick’s knife. It had been thrown out in the middle of the creek and got caught in some stones on the bottom.’

  ‘You must have dusted everything for fingerprints: the pony’s saddle, the bridle, even the knife.’

  ‘Nothing on the knife; you couldn’t expect it, but it would have been wiped anyway. The pony’s harness had prints on it but they were all the kids’.’

  ‘So Estwick’s prints weren’t on the saddle?’

  ‘No— ’

  The telephone was ringing. It was Jerome. ‘Melinda, are Mr Sprague and Mr Pugh with you?’ The formality of it astounded her. ‘Would you be so kind as to ask them to come over? We’d like you to come too.’

  ‘They’re about all in.’

  ‘They’ll come. Sarah has information for them. She knows who killed Birdie.’

  ‘Does she indeed? I hope she’s told you and Frankie.’

  ‘Shawn lied. And Sarah has photographs.’

  Chapter 16

  Sprague said: ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘She’s been holding out on us,’ Pugh said. ‘You remember: that afternoon she said she was photographing snakes. She had to be near the Estwicks’ place. She saw something.’

  ‘So did Shawn.’ Sprague did not move from his chair. He turned heavy eyes on Miss Pink. ‘That’s why he had to be killed, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  Sprague’s eyes did not change but Pugh was on to this like a terrier pouncing on a rat. ‘You mean Shawn didn’t know who the killer was?’

  ‘Yes, he knew – but he died by accident.’

  ‘If he knew who the killer was, and he died, logic says he had to – oh, God— ’ Sprague was at the end of his tether.

  ‘Who did kill Birdie?’ Pugh asked.

  ‘Shawn,’ Miss Pink said.

  There was silence. At length Pugh said: ‘I think we have to go over to the Grays’.’ He looked doubtfully at Sprague who started to pull himself to his feet. ‘Everyone’s gone mad,’ he grumbled. ‘Their brains have melted in the heat. She’s got photographs, the father said? Photographs of what? Snakes? What’s that going to prove?’

  Miss Pink took her jeep, the others got in the police car, Pugh driving. Lightning rent slate-coloured clouds above the Barrier. Ten seconds later thunder crashed and rolled through the canyon. There was a smear of rain over Wind Whistle and the Stone Hawk stood up livid against the dark side of the cliffs. By the time she turned in at the Grays’ road-end the world had darkened and the next flash of lightning made her cringe at the wheel. Then the thunder exploded and she glanced up the canyon to see an opaque wall of rain on the near side of the narrows. She was vividly reminded of that other afternoon, when Birdie had died.

  The cars skidded to a halt beside the big cabin and the occupants hurried into shelter, Sprague limping in the rear. In the sitting-room the big windows had been closed and there were splashes of rain on the glass. Lightning struck the needles of the Barrier, and the thunder, echoing through the canyons, was continuous.

  Frankie, seeing Sprague’s condition, brought coffee immediately; Jerome produced brandy. Sarah sat on a sofa looking resigned, a trifle bored. Miss Pink thought the girl was very tightly controlled. Her parents sat down and looked at the police expectantly.

  Sprague’s opening remark was a shock all the same. Taking a new lease on energy under the influence of the good brandy, he turned to Sarah.

  ‘So you got pictures of young Shawn killing Birdie?’

  Astonished, Jerome and Frankie stared at him. Sarah blinked once before she replied, but that reply, for Sprague, was more shocking than his own facetious question.

  ‘Not quite, but as good as.’

  ‘There they are.’ Jerome motioned to the kitchen table. ‘They’re still damp; we only just finished printing them.’

  They were four large black and white prints, very clear and professional. They showed water, and Shawn standing in it, waist-deep. He was washing himself, and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. On closer inspection – and the police and Miss Pink were fascinated – they saw that it was not any water, but a creek, flowing away from the viewer, and that the far bank was bare of trees.

  ‘You know where this is,’ Pugh told Sprague, who nodded. ‘The stake is there.’ Pugh pointed. ‘You took these?’ He looked back at Sarah who had not moved from her seat. He returned to her. ‘Perhaps you would tell us about it,’ he said politely.

  It was a week ago, she said: Saturday, the afternoon Birdie died. She had been working her way down the bank of the creek because rattlers like the banks. She had seen the storm coming before she left home so she had taken two cameras, one loaded with colour for the snakes, the other with black and white film, for the storm effects.

  She had been in the willows when she heard a splash which she attributed to some large animal, a calf perhaps, so by the time she came to the water and parted the willows whatever had made the splash was gone, and Shawn Brenner was on the opposite bank jabbing repeatedly at the ground. ‘It looked as though he was killing something,’ she said. ‘And when he stood up and threw it in the water it gleamed. It occurred to me he’d killed a snake and thrown it in the creek. I went on watching and then he slid down the bank and started soaking himself and his clothes. I thought it was some kind of revulsion associated with killing the snake, and it looked so odd that I took the pictures. That’s all.’

  Not quite, Miss Pink thought.

  Pugh said: ‘Why didn’t you tell us before, miss? It’s a week since the body was discovered.’

&n
bsp; ‘You wouldn’t have believed me.’

  ‘She thought you’d say she was making it up in order to protect Sam Estwick,’ Jerome explained.

  ‘But she had the photographs.’

  ‘We only just developed them this afternoon. My daughter doesn’t have a criminal mind. What she thought she’d seen was a boy killing a snake and throwing it in the water. It never occurred to her that he’d been cleaning the knife with which he’d mutilated a body, and throwing that knife in the water.’

  ‘The splash she heard was the body, him throwing the body— ’

  ‘She wasn’t to know— ’

  ‘Rolling,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Rolling the body in. Shawn was only ten.’

  The situation changed gear as their attention was transferred from Sarah to Miss Pink.

  Sprague said thoughtfully: ‘You knew it was Shawn before ever you saw those photographs.’

  ‘I didn’t know. I suspected.’

  ‘Why?’ Frankie asked. ‘How? What on earth gave— Oh, I’m sorry.’ She glanced at Pugh. ‘You ask the questions.’

  ‘I don’t know when I started to suspect him,’ Miss Pink confessed. ‘Once one came to consider him, there were a number of pointers … I don’t think it was when he said he saw a man carrying Birdie’s body; if I suspected him as early as that, it would have been only of lying. Of course, it became increasingly obvious that he was out to get Sam. But when he seemed to change his tune, having – as he thought – got Sam into jail, or custody, or at least made sure he was the most obvious suspect … He changed his tune and implied it was someone else, and at that point I felt that this was something more than a bad boy getting his own back on a man who’d threatened him with a whipping.

  ‘The people down here have been in a turmoil for over a week. It’s one thing to have the neighbours suspecting there’s a killer amongst themselves, but to have the press – and the police – at a loss, and at loggerheads, impotent: running after Estwick, then looking for someone else … Alex Duval forced to flee to the back country: all this on the say-so of one small boy, that was heady stuff. Shawn was manipulating the whole valley – and the visitors; he was cock of the walk but – and this was the strange thing – he was exposing himself to incredible danger, because he wouldn’t divulge the identity of the killer. I thought he was lying. So might the murderer, but he couldn’t be sure. It appeared that Shawn was stupid and reckless but then he talked to me and he was very polite and sensible, and even gave good reasons for some of his lies. Momentarily I was sorry for him: the confused little boy with too many “uncles” and no father, but when he left me I realised that I’d been manipulated; he’d made me feel sorry for him. I also realised that he was neither stupid nor reckless.’

  ‘That didn’t have to make him a murderer,’ Sprague said.

  She ignored him. ‘I thought him highly intelligent and very prudent. So how could that be reconciled with his claiming to know the identity of the killer? There was only one answer: that he was the killer himself. It was a fantastic answer but it was a theory, and once I’d entertained it, I started looking for facts. I had seen him come out of Wind Whistle when no one was home— ’

  ‘Duval never missed anything,’ Pugh said. ‘We asked him.’

  ‘Probably there was nothing lying around that he could use at that moment and which he could conceal. The point about his entering Wind Whistle is that, when Sam Estwick went out to bury the deer just before Birdie was killed, he left his hunting knife lying on the kitchen table. Shawn was light-fingered. By his own admission he was there. It would be Shawn who unsaddled the pinto – and that was a move which would point to Sam.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘Birdie couldn’t handle a saddle?’

  ‘She might pull it off; I don’t think she could lift it onto the buck. Sam or Paula would have unsaddled for her.’

  ‘And how did this boy of ten carry the body of a six-year-old across a field to the creek?’ Sprague asked sarcastically.

  ‘He didn’t. He told Birdie the Stone Hawk moved.’

  Someone gasped. Sarah’s eyes narrowed. Her parents were astonished. The police were utterly mystified. Miss Pink explained the tradition, and Sprague snorted his contempt for it.

  ‘Birdie believed it,’ she told him calmly.

  ‘They all believe it,’ Sarah said. ‘At least, the little ones do.’

  ‘So he lured her to the creek,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He must have slipped the knife inside his jeans, perhaps meaning to steal it originally? He didn’t kill her with it. Probably he hit her with a branch and threw that in the creek or just left it to be washed clean by the rain. Before he rolled the body in he mutilated it. He knew that that, most of all, would point to an adult male. No doubt he got that idea from a video too.’

  ‘Too?’ Sprague echoed, his eyes glazing.

  ‘He got some of his ideas from movies, and another source would be conversation between Maxine and Myrtle and their visitors when no one paid any attention to a small boy listening in, perhaps after some particularly bad instance of child abuse.’

  Pugh said: ‘And you figure all this was a deliberate attempt to frame Estwick?’

  ‘Of course it was. Shawn wanted his mother to marry Glen Plummer, who appeared to be very rich and had access to Arab horses, and who had promised him a pony. No doubt Shawn had Plummer weighed up – and the man did give everyone the impression of being a soft touch. But his mother was afraid the attentions of Sam Estwick would frighten Plummer off – and being what she is, Maxine could well have exaggerated Sam’s nuisance value. Finally when Sam said he’d advise Plummer to put Shawn in a special school, Sam almost signed his own death warrant. Shawn never hated Birdie. She was the tool that would be used to frame Sam for murder. If Shawn could have done it, he’d have killed Sam himself. As it was, the state would do it for him.’

  ‘He was too devious to do it himself,’ Sarah said. ‘He preferred to do it the way he did.’

  Pugh threw her a glance but he addressed Miss Pink. ‘If he was really after Sam, wanted him executed, why, once Sam was taken in for questioning, did he suggest the killer was someone else?’

  ‘I think he was carried away by his own sense of power and this was a way of bringing terror back to the canyon: suggesting the murderer was still among them. But removing Sam was the most important aspect for Shawn and I’ve no doubt that within a day or two the boy would have said that he’d meant all along that he’d recognised Sam as the man carrying Birdie’s body to the creek.’

  ‘But this is monstrous!’ Frankie exclaimed. ‘He was a little boy!’

  ‘There have been younger murderers. And they were equally good actors after the event.’

  ‘Monsters,’ Sprague muttered. His eyes were almost closed.

  ‘You’re the one who put it all together, ma’am.’ Pugh’s tone was gently insinuating. She gave him a thin smile. He returned it and went on: ‘Someone might have thought it was doing society a favour to push him off the top of that tower.’

  ‘How would they get back, Mr Pugh? Could you jump back?’

  ‘No one could.’

  Jerome said: ‘So tomorrow we can go out and try to find Alex and bring him home?’

  ‘Yes, sir, you can do that.’ Pugh sighed. Sprague was asleep. ‘I guess all we got left now is a mountain of paperwork. We’ll start with the photographs. I’ll make out a receipt.’

  Chapter 17

  ‘The police didn’t ask you how you came to suspect Shawn,’ Miss Pink remarked as she rode with Sarah above Horsethief next morning.

  ‘There was no doubt about it when we saw the prints developing.’

  Miss Pink refrained from pointing out that this did not answer the implied question; instead she studied Yaller’s mane and considered an alternative gambit.

  The morning was not conducive to discussion of murder. The storm had left the world fresh and sparkling with rain-washed colour. Puddles lay along the stockway, and on the pale pink mud were throngs of small butterflies the colour
of the sky. Below the riders, in Horsethief, the leaves of the cottonwood canopy shimmered in a breeze, and the Barrier rock was bright and innocent in the sunshine.

  Ahead of them the other ponies danced along the track; Miss Pink did not know where they were going except that it was to Limbo Canyon, but, despite unanswered questions, she did not feel insecure. There was no menace abroad today, otherwise why should Debbie and Jen have been allowed to help bring Alex in, with only Miss Pink and Sarah as escort? People’s faith was touching – and based on a premise so false as to be contrived: that Shawn had died by accident. Now she said: ‘You wouldn’t have produced those photographs had the police not been considering Alex as a suspect.’

  ‘Or anyone else. But you were very strong on Alex being the scapegoat.’

  ‘Sprague was losing his sense of proportion: the unrest in the valley forcing him to produce another suspect to replace Sam. And the police never give up on a man who has once been associated with a sex crime even when he was found not guilty. It’s the theory of no smoke without fire.’

  ‘Why did you leave me to tell them? You could have told them yourself.’

  ‘It was better coming from you; you were a witness.’

  ‘How could you know that? You didn’t know about the photographs until last evening.’

  ‘I kept quiet about one thing: I saw you in Rustler the day that Shawn was spying on you.’

  ‘I know that; you saw me coming down from the Twist with him. There was no secret about it. You must have seen us from somewhere around here.’ They looked to their right and saw the Twist above the slickrock.

  ‘I saw you in Rustler,’ Miss Pink insisted, and amended it immediately. ‘I saw your horse tied below the Pale Hunter.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘On top of the slickrock above Bighorn Spring. Alex showed me the way up; he thought it would amuse me. That’s why I kept quiet: because I’d promised Alex that I wouldn’t give him away. When we looked into Rustler the pinto was obvious immediately – it was hidden from you but not from us – and, with the glasses, I was able to find Shawn among the rocks of the reef. He was watching you, or rather, your horse.’