by M. K. Wren
“And didn’t want to get involved, I suppose.”
“Somethin’ like that.”
Conan closed the folder and returned it to Tate, then took some slips of paper from his pocket.
“I looked over George’s office last night. I didn’t find much of interest, accept he was running a comparison of head counts for the last few years.”
Tate nodded. “He was worried about rustlin’, mebbe?”
“I think so. When I called him, he said something about Bert Kimmons and that rustling ring working out of Winnemucca. I found these notes.” He handed them to Tate, who put on his glasses to examine them. “The three with the paperclip are exactly as I found them. My home phone, the license number, and that reference to a red car. The other was by itself, the one about Dry Greek Pasture”
“‘Check with Gil,’” he read. “You ask Gil about this?”
“Not yet.” He didn’t add that he probably wouldn’t until he knew more about the lines of communication in the family. “Did you check that license with Nevada DMV?”
“Yep. Truck b’longs to a feller named Al Reems; runs a little spread near Winnemucca. He swears up and down the truck never left his ranch that night, and a couple of his hands backed him up.” He unwrapped a fresh cigar, scowling as he bit off the end. “’Nother box canyon, that. Talked to Sher’ff Culp down to Winnemucca, He says Reems is slippery as a greased pig.”
“He thinks Reems is running this rustling ring?”
Tate sent out a pungent puff. “He knows it, but he can’t prove it. Reems’s son-in-law runs the meatpackin’ plant in Winnemucca, by the way, and this ain’t no penny-ante operation. They prob’ly sell the beef over to Reno and Tahoe; lots of reesorts and rest’rants ’round there.”
“And probably most of them inclined to ask few questions. Did either George or Kimmons say anything to you to explain that reference to a red car?”
“No, not a word. Wonder if that L stands for Linc.”
“Possibly.” Then he added with an indifferent shrug, “It might be a reminder of something else George wanted to talk to me about. My name and phone number were clipped on top of those notes.”
“Mebbe.” His chair squealed as he leaned back. “Well, you find anything else while you was nosin’ around?”
Conan chose his words, trying to avoid an outright lie.
“I’m just getting my bearings, and I don’t seem to be too popular either at the Black Stallion or Double D.”
Tate grinned wryly. “No, don’t s’pose so. I heard you was over to the Double D. Wonder you didn’t get shot at.”
“Well, I managed to get on speaking terms with Bridgie. She told me about Alvin’s fall from his horse Thursday night.”
Tate accepted that as a question and at first seemed annoyed at it, but apparently it was the answer that disturbed him, not the question.
“Purty flimsy as alibis go, ain’t it? Damn.” He clamped his teeth on his cigar, sending out smoke like a small fumarole. “If I don’t come up with somethin’ else soon, you know what I’ll have to do. I’ll have to take Alvin in, and that rankles, Mr. Flagg; damn, if it don’t.
Ben Kromer—he’s the district attorney—he’s been on my tail all day. Young feller, Ben; tryin’ to make a name for hisself.”
“Can he get a conviction on the evidence you have?”
“I don’t know. Mebbe he jest figgers he’s gotta do somethin’, one way or t’other. I guess he’s got people ridin’ his tail, too. Hell, this thing’s hit ever’ paper in the state and prob’ly a lot outside. I’ll tell you what’ll happen. There’ll be a trial and a lotta talk th’owed back and forth, but if Ben lays it out like Alvin killed George ’cause he found him blowin’ up his rezzavoy, there ain’t a jury in Harney County’ll convict him. He’ll get off, but nothin’s gonna get settled.”
“Aaron won’t be satisfied with that.” And he wouldn’t stop at that, not with his eldest son’s death unavenged.
Tate sighed plaintively. “Orn’ry cuss. Both of ’em. Jest plain orn’ry. And I’ve got that funeral to worry about now, with all them reporters and photogerphers gawkin’ around—think they’d have the common decency to leave people in peace to bury their dead.”
“That’s not what they get paid for.” Then a look at his watch brought him to his feet. “I’d better get down to the county agent’s office before the lunchhour.”
“I’ll give Cliff a call,” Tate said, punching the phone for an outside line. “I ain’t sure what you’re after, collectin’ dirt, but I hope to hell you hit the mother lode.”
CHAPTER 14
Burns was a prosperous town; there were few vacant stores along Broadway, its main street and the route of Highway 20. While the buildings presented earnestly “modern” fronts, a glance down the alleys showed backs of honest brick or stone, chinked and patched over the years, as unimaginative and as solid as their builders, but apparently a little embarrassing to second and third generations. The Arrowhead Hotel, however, displayed its weathered gray masonry on all four stories—which made it the tallest building in town—with little self-consciousness, although there was too much glass and tile at the entrance.
Conan had lunch at the Arrowhead coffee shop, reminiscently enjoying the passing scene along Burns’s Broadway, while waiting for Horace Foley to return to his office at the Harney Valley Bank and Trust. It was rather refreshing to learn that people still went home for lunch.
But he didn’t find Horace Foley refreshing, and when that appointment was concluded, he pushed his way out the bronze-accoutered doors guarding the citadel of finance with his temper at high simmer. Still, the vested, purse-lipped banker had yielded him some satisfaction. Conan seldom used the Flagg name nor the Ten-Mile, but it was both expedient and necessary in this instance; he had certain business to transact with Foley beyond the answers he sought from him.
Conan crossed to the east side of Broadway and walked south, taking note of the Waite Pharmacy as he passed. Another modern false-front, its windows filled with Revlon glamor and Rexall remedies.
At least Cliff Spiker had not, to his relief, shared Foley’s truculent attitude. He had been intrigued with the challenge of applying his geological expertise to the solution of a murder, and willingly undertook the analyses Conan requested, as well as supplying him with topographic maps. They had parted on Spiker’s promise that he’d have some answers for him tomorrow, Sunday or not
Conan turned into a stucco building painted an intense rose pink. On the door, in gold leaf, was the legend THE CLARION, VOICE OF HARNEY COUNTY. Inside, the fluorescent gloom vibrated with the clack of presses, and communication between the four staff workers was carried on in shouts. A counter provided a barrier to the public, and Conan waited there for some time before he succeeded in catching anyone’s attention. Finally, a wiry old man with spatulate, ink-stained fingers came over and peered at him.
“Somethin’ you want?”
“Jesse Broadbent. Is she here?”
“She know you?”
“Conan!” Jesse’s stentorian call rang through the din as she emerged from a door at the rear of the shop. “Abe, you send him on back here.”
Abe reluctantly opened the gate at the end of the counter, while Jesse motioned Conan to follow her into a glass-fronted office.
“Come on in here so’s we can hear ourselves think.”
She closed the door, cleared a chair of a drift of proof sheets, filled two mugs from a gurgling percolator, then sat down behind a desk that looked like the wake of a paper avalanche, grinning slyly at him as he eased into his chair.
“What’s wrong, Conan? You feelin’ a bit stove up?”
He reached for his coffee, which had the olfactory appeal of a seething caldera, and decided to let it cool, instead lighting a cigarette and offering her one.
“That has the ring of a rhetorical question, Jesse.”
She took the cigarette, then after a brief, surprised hesitation, leaned forward to accept
a light.
“Well, seems I heard somethin’ about you takin’ Domino on and stickin’ with him down to the bell. Damn, you keep up with that sorta thing, you’ll be a Harney County legend.”
“I’ll be in the Harney County hospital first.”
“That’s where a lot of our legends end up; that or the county jail. So, how’s the detective business these days?”
“Another rhetorical question? You could probably give me an itinerary of my activities since my arrival.”
“I could tell you what you was up to today, anyhow. You was at the courthouse to see Joe Tate, right? Then you paid a visit to the county agent, and I’d give a lot to know how come. Or how come you got ol’ Foley in such a dander.”
Conan shook his head in amazement.
“Word does get around. Well, I went to the county agent’s office to see Cliff Spiker about some soil samples, and if Foley’s in a dander, it’s because I was interested in his reasons for refusing Alvin Drinkwater a loan.”
She nodded, taking a swig of the scalding coffee without so much as flinching.
“What’d he say?”
“Only that ‘someone close to Aaron’ had advised him not to approve the loan. He wouldn’t name his adviser.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that’s inter-estin’, and don’t bother buyin’ a copy of tomorrah’s Clarion to see if I put that little item in. Here—I got a ashtray some’eres.” She uncovered one finally and pushed it toward him.
“Thanks. I have faith, Jesse, in your discretion, and very little choice. You’re my only trustworthy source of information.”
“You don’t trust Joe Tate?”
“I doubt he has the kind of information I’m after.”
She gave a short laugh. “What you’re after’s more like gossip, then, ain’t it?”
“More like.”
“Lookin’ for some fire under a smoke?”
“I’m just looking for some smoke.” He tried the coffee, found it still scalding, and guessed it would also serve very well as type cleaner. “What are people saying about George’s death?”
“Oh, they’re tellin’ it ever’ which way. Most of ’em figger Alvin done it, all right; that he jest flew mad when he come on George ready to blow up that dam.”
“Tate says there’s no evidence that George handled dynamite.”
“That don’t mean he didn’t”
Conan shrugged. “No, but neither does it lock any doors. Are you on good terms with Bert Kimmons’s widow?”
“Edith Kimmons? Sure. She and Bert was about the first friends me and Sam had when we come here. Why?”
“I found a note on George’s desk. ‘Red car,’ then an L with a question mark. It was paperclipped to another note with Kimmons’s name and a Nevada license number.”
“Oh—that rustlin’ thing. Red car and L. Offhand, that adds up to Linc, don’t it?”
“Maybe. I was hoping you could explain it.”
She laughed. “Well now, I ain’t exac’ly an oracle, y’know. But come to think of it, I asked Edith what Bert had to say about all that, and there was somethin’ about a red car.” She frowned in fierce concentration, then nodded. “Sure. A little for’n car, Bert said; passed it a while before he come up on that truck. He thought it was kinda queer, seein’ a car like that clear out in the tules. But it was goin’ west; that truck was headed east”
“Did he think it was Linc’s car?”
“He never said so to Edith. You figger it was?”
“I don’t know.” He took a swallow of coffee and tried not to grimace at it. “I’ve gotten the impression Linc has a penchant for women. For married women.”
Jesse took a long drag on her cigarette, eyeing him.
“You’re after some names, is, that it?”
“If possible.”
“When it comes to gossip, anything’s possible. Lately, there ain’t but one name; Linc usually jest takes on one at a time. Sylvia Waite, wife of the feller runs the drugstore up the street. She works there part time, if you want a look at her. Real purty woman, but that never kep’ Myron home nights. Mebbe that’s why she took up with Linc.”
“How long has she been taking up with him?”
“Oh, three or four months. Won’t last. Nothin’ does with him since Chari died. But if he needs an alibi for Thursday night, he’s got one. I ain’t sure he’d wanta use it.”
“He was with Sylvia Waite?”
“Yep. Y’see, there ain’t many places ’round here people can go when they’re lookin’ for a private bed. There’s a motel at the north end of town, the Sunset. It ain’t fancy, but the folks runnin’ it do a purty good business jest lookin’ t’other way and keepin’ their mouths shut.”
He couldn’t repress a smile. “But not shut to you?”
“Well, I always got on fine with Gladys Betzger, and Linc’s one of their reg’lar customers. Anyhow, he was at the Sunset Thursday night; come in about seven-thirty.”
“With Sylvia?”
“No. She come in later, by the back way, so to speak.”
“When did Linc leave the motel?”
“I don’t know. I mean, Gladys didn’t know.”
He nodded as he flicked the ash from his cigarette.
“Linc probably won’t need Sylvia as an alibi. His story is that he and Gil Potts spent the evening touring the bars. Tate swallowed it, so I’m sure Potts backed him up.”
“It’s prob’ly true. Jest not quite all the truth.”
“That’s a rare commodity even in an incomplete state.” He gamely downed more coffee before giving up on it entirely and finding a final resting place for the mug on a corner of the desk. “Can you tell me any part of the truth about that money Ted supposedly stole from the Running S?”
Both eyebrows came up, then went down in unison.
“No more’n you jest said. He supposedly stole it.”
“Then can you give me an expert opinion? Do you think it likely he did steal it?”
“Well, lately I’ve sorta been on the outside with the McFalls, and Ted’s jest a kid. Kids can change awful fast, and I don’t figger Aaron made hisself too popular with him, the way he set his heels over him marryin’ Bridgie. I…jest can’t say, Conan. It don’t sound like Ted. I mean, that ranch’s been his whole life. But people change.” Conan considered that statement and her uncharacteristic hesitancy. People did change, especially under stress, and Ted had been subject to a great deal of that lately.
“What can you tell me about Chari Drinkwater’s death?”
“What d’you mean? You think mebbe she didn’t die a natural death?”
“Did she?”
Jesse dismissed the question with a weary shrug.
“Natural as they come when you’re only nineteen years old. I talked to Doc Maxwell when it happened. He was all broke up over it; said he could’ve saved her if he’d got to her half an hour before, but he was out to the Riddle’s place deliverin’ a baby. I wondered if she wasn’t tryin’ to get to Doc that night. His office is in the north end of town, close to where they found her. You hear about that?”
“The phone booth? Yes, Tate told me about that and the anonymous caller. Where is that booth, by the way?”
“Right on the highway. Broadway, I mean. Lessee, Broadway and about Forty-fifth.”
“I understand Linc took her death a little hard.”
Jesse snorted. “A little! Poor Linc. I always figgered he’d be a differ’nt man altogether if Charl’d lived.”
“I thought they separated before he went to college.”
“Well, I ain’t so sure they stayed separated. But that’s pure gossip, or mebbe jest wishful thinkin’. I know Linc’s a hellraiser, but I guess he has his reasons.”
Conan put out his cigarette with slow jabs, wondering how far those reasons would drive Linc. Everyone involved in this case had reasons, it seemed; motives.
Then he rose, calling up a smile.
“Well, Jesse, thanks for the informati
on. Or gossip. I’m sorry I haven’t anything to offer in exchange.”
“I figger you will, sooner or later.” She sent a wry laugh after him as he went to the door. “But I got a piece of advice for you. Stay clear of Domino if you intend to stay on your feet.”
“I’m way ahead of you there. Thanks, anyway.”
CHAPTER 15
When he reached the corner of Broadway and Forty-fifth, Conan parked the Buick and got out to take a close, and aimless, look at the phone booth. He wasn’t sure why, except that it was the site of an enigma, and unexplained phenomena made him uncomfortable. He rationalized the stop by looking up Walter Maxwell’s address in the local directory; his office and residence were listed under the same number.
Then his eyes narrowed, fixing on a faded signboard across the street. An arrow pointed east and promised that two blocks away, the traveler—or seeker of privacy—would find the Sunset Motel.
Conan found it: old paint over old stucco; narrow casement windows, all curtained; a frugal neon sign announcing an eternal vacancy.
He drove back to the highway, crossed it, and wandered an old but well-kept residential district where golden maple leaves paved the streets. Dr. Maxwell’s house and office was marked with a small sign on the door. Conan wondered if he was married. No, he hadn’t worn a wedding band; Maxwell was the kind of man who would, even if he was a widower.
Conan returned to the highway and continued north out of town, so preoccupied he almost missed the junction where Highway 20 turned east again after its dog-leg through Burns. For nearly twenty miles the highway stretched across the plain of Harney Valley, never deviating a degree until it reached the barrier of Stinkingwater Mountain. The next ten miles he regarded as one of the most awesome drives in the state, yet when he finally turned off onto the dirt access road, he could remember little of what he’d seen.
At the Black Stallion, he put the car in the garage, welcoming the poplars’ shade and the cool scent of the sprinklers ticking out rainbows over the lawn. Mano Vasquez was tending the flowers by the gate, but otherwise the ranch seemed deserted.
