Tortoise Soup (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

by Jessica Speart

  It was what I had expected to hear. Still, the news stung like an ember being burned into my heart. I tried to take my mind off Pilot by focusing on business.

  “Is the meeting with Garrett?” I felt sure that Alpha Development was somehow involved. “I saw him at the mine when I stopped by yesterday.”

  “No. He’s not here,” Dee answered abruptly.

  Something was wrong. It wasn’t like Dee to be so remote.

  “Listen, Dee. I know that Golden Shaft’s patent went through. But when I came by yesterday, it looked as if the mine was shutting down. Yet security around the grounds was tighter than ever.” I paused and waited, but there was no response.

  “Then when I bumped into Garrett, I began to wonder if Golden Shaft might have worked out some sort of deal. You know, maybe sell Alpha some land and pocket the profits. Am I on the right track? Is the mine closing?” I pressed.

  Dee finally answered, “You’re partially correct. Alpha did receive some land.”

  “Really? Do you know how much?” I asked, trying to sound casual. It seemed that Noah had been right after all.

  “Fifteen thousand acres.” Dee’s voice was low, but the information tore through me with the impact of a major quake.

  That would give Alpha enough land to create a multi-billion-dollar development empire. I sat up in bed and threw off the sheets.

  “That’s a lot of land. Golden Shaft must have done well on the deal.” I prayed that Dee wouldn’t let me down now.

  “The transaction went through for the price of one dollar,” came her whispered response.

  “What!” I exclaimed. I could scarcely believe what I’d heard. For the first time, I began to distrust Dee’s information. “But how is that possible?”

  “Believe me, it is. I have to go now.” The tension in Dee’s voice snapped at me through the wire.

  “Wait a minute—I got back a preliminary autopsy report on what those tortoises died from. Does radiation poisoning make any sense to you at all?”

  I could hear Roy Jenkins yelling at his dogs next door as I waited for Dee’s reply. A heavy deadness was the only response except for the faintest of clicks.

  “Dee, are you still there?” I asked, wondering if we’d been cut off.

  “Listen, Porter. There’s something I have to tell you. But not over the phone. It’s too dangerous,” Dee whispered softly. So softly that I had to strain in order to hear. “Come by my house this evening and I’ll talk to you then.”

  Dee hung up before I could question her further.

  Anticipation of what she might know had me jumping out of bed and into the shower. The stream of cold water washed all my remaining drowsiness away, and I remembered that the clock was now ticking. The pressure was on to make good the time between now and my meeting with Dee. I decided to pay another visit to Bill Holmes at the conservation center, and this time confront him about the neon-green spray paint in his garage.

  I was already in the Blazer and heading out when my stomach began to rumble, and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten since losing Pilot. Yesterday morning seemed like ages ago. Apparently my stomach felt the same. Still, the thought of sitting down to solid food made me feel queasy. I stopped at the nearest 7-Eleven, where I opted for a Hickok special—a jumbo Coke and a buttered roll to go. That would carry me at least until noon.

  The expanse of the desert seemed larger and more desolate than ever as I rode alone, its silence settling down on me as heavy as a buzzard picking at my bones. I pulled onto the unmarked dirt road heading to the conservation center and willed my mind to go blank. If nothing else, maybe I’d be able to meditate my way to some answers. A swift movement off to the left caught my eye. An antelope squirrel was running for its life with a coyote not far behind. I found myself rooting for the squirrel’s escape with more intensity than usual. These days, I was feeling pretty low on the food chain myself.

  A cyclone fence sprang up, cutting the result of the chase from my sight. But I had little time to ponder the outcome, as the locked gate of the Center came into view. I didn’t bother wasting my time beeping my horn, I just pulled out my Leatherman, flicked the lock on the gate, and drove on through.

  I walked into the entrance hall, this time feeling as if the stuffed wildlife was watching my every move. I heard a rustle and glanced over at the exhibit. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find each critter awake and fully intent on laying waste to the building and everyone in it.

  Hurrying past, I made my way to Holmes’s office, but he was nowhere in sight. I checked the lab room with its empty tortoise cages. While the neon-green imprint was still boldly etched on the door, that room was deserted as well. I searched for the assistant whose fanny Holmes had caressed, and bumped into the portly biologist I’d encountered on my last visit. Formerly dressed in baggy jeans with ragged cuffs, he was now decked out in a white lab coat complete with pocket protector, and a pair of neatly pressed khaki slacks.

  “May I help you?” he asked, seemingly unaware of our prior meeting.

  “Remember me?” I reminded him. “I was here not long ago looking for Bill Holmes. Well, I’m here again. Same mission.”

  My biologist straightened the pens in his pocket protector before clearing his throat. “I’m afraid William Holmes is on an extended leave of absence. I’m taking his place for now,” he informed me in a lofty tone of self-importance.

  “When did this happen?” I silently kicked myself in the butt. I should have known to expect some sort of move on Holmes’s part after our last meeting.

  “Fairly recently,” my biologist said, standing perfectly straight. His hands were nestled inside the lab coat pocket, so that only his thumbs were in view.

  I glanced at the name tag on his lapel. “Just how extended is this leave of his, Charles?”

  “It’s indefinite.” Charles gave a smug, satisfied smile as if pleased that he knew something I didn’t.

  “Then I take it there haven’t been any more thefts since the last batch of tortoises were reported missing?” I figured I might as well pump him for whatever information I could.

  Charles gave me a funny look. “What theft are you talking about?”

  “You know—the three hundred and fifty juvenile tortoises that were stolen,” I prompted him.

  “I was told that was due to predation,” he slowly replied.

  “Who told you that?” I asked, beginning to wonder which one of us had lost our mind.

  “William Holmes did,” Charles answered uneasily.

  “That’s interesting. Did you ever happen to catch the critter that was snacking on all those torts?” For all I knew, Charles was also in on the scam.

  “Well, no,” Charles stammered, before making a quick recovery. “For goodness’ sakes, it’s not as if the perpetrator signs in and out, even though I know you’d like a full confession.”

  “Out of curiosity, when was it that Bill Holmes began working here?” I asked.

  Charles stopped and thought for a moment. “I’d have to say two years ago.”

  “And when was it that the staff first began to notice batches of tortoises were suddenly missing?” I inquired. I knew watching Court TV would pay off one of these days.

  Charles jammed his thumbs inside his pockets, his ever-inquiring mind humming almost audibly. “Now that I think back, it had to have been somewhere around the same time.”

  Biologists. You had to love them. I let Charles out of the witness box and headed to Holmes’s residence, eager to see what was cooking.

  My Blazer nosed its way through one subdivision after another, passing modest ranch houses on toothpick plots of land, before turning into the upscale development where Holmes resided. Rounding the corner, I slammed on the brakes. For the first time, I noticed a sign partially obscured by transplanted palms. If you were daydreaming, it was easy to pass it by. I got out of the car and parted the fronds to make sure my eyes weren’t playing a trick. But the bold lettering left no doubt, proudly anno
uncing, “You Are Entering An Alpha Development.” Uncle Ed must have offered Holmes a deal he couldn’t refuse.

  I pulled up to the house, where all was quiet as before. I didn’t bother to ring the bell this time; instead, I headed straight for the front window, as eager as a voyeur on his way to a peep show. The purple bean bag chair and big-screen TV were gone, along with my personal favorite, the black velvet portrait of Elvis.

  I didn’t need to jimmy the lock on the garage. It opened with an easy tug. Not surprisingly, the sporty red Miata was no longer sitting idle in its place. However, the can of neon-green paint had been left nestled in the coils of the garden hose, as if mocking my thwarted efforts to solve the case.

  I was about to pull the garage door closed when something warm and furry brushed against my leg. Imagining a giant, mutant tarantula, I let out a screech followed by a high jump as I twisted around to view the demon behind me. Holmes’s tabby cat calmly stared at me, daintily licking its paw, then washing its face. When Holmes had hightailed it out of town, he’d left the tabby to fend for itself. It was obvious that the cat was hungry; there was no hissing this time. Instead, Tabby rubbed against my leg as if I were a walking can of tuna.

  “All right, already!”

  Scooping up the cat, I closed the garage door and headed for the Blazer, where I placed the feline on the backseat. Tabby immediately went to work digging its claws into the vinyl upholstery. Suddenly the cat got a whiff of Pilot. Arching its back, it hissed.

  “Get used to it. He’s coming back,” I responded.

  I backed the Blazer out of the driveway and headed for the nearest convenience store.

  7-Eleven is about as gourmet as it gets along the side roads of Nevada. I stopped at the same store my high-energy breakfast had come from. This time I picked up two prepackaged tuna sandwiches, three cans of cat food, a pack of Ring Dings, a can opener, and a couple of Diet Cokes. The cashier looked at me and sneered, remembering my morning purchase.

  “You must be on a health kick,” he noted, his pimply face a monument to his own highly disciplined diet.

  I turned around, leaned down, and picked out a packet of Yodels, allowing him a view of the gun handle sticking out of the back of my pants.

  “Let’s add this to the list.” I slapped the Yodels down alongside the Ring Dings, daring him to make my day. I figured if being a wildlife agent didn’t work out, I could always play Bonnie. I just needed a Clyde.

  Being that it was lunchtime, I headed for the Clark County administrative building, where I pulled out my cell phone and gave Lizzie a call.

  “Have you eaten yet?” I asked, knowing she wasn’t one to ever turn down food.

  “Yeah. But I’m still starved anyway,” she informed me.

  I would have killed for her metabolism. “Meet me down in the parking lot. I’ve brought lunch,” I told her.

  “Why can’t you come up?” Lizzie asked petulantly.

  “I’ve got Ring Dings and Yodels.” I knew the temptation would be too great.

  “All right. I’m coming down,” Lizzie sighed.

  Soon I saw the top of her dark curls bouncing and heard her feet tapping as Lizzie maneuvered her way between the rows of parked cars.

  “What was so important that I had to come all the way down here?” Lizzie asked, holding her hand out for the pack of Ring Dings.

  I pointed to where Tabby sat on the backseat, chowing down a can of cat food I had just opened.

  “What are you becoming—a home for wayward strays?” Lizzie asked. She tore apart the cellophane packet of goodies with her teeth.

  “Tabby belonged to Holmes. It appears he flew the coop and left the cat behind,” I told her, between bites of my dry tuna sandwich.

  “What a guy. What a guy,” Lizzie mumbled. Polishing off the Ring Dings, she started on the Yodels. “But how’s Pilot going to feel about the new addition? A feline, no less.”

  The dry bread caught in my throat. I took a swig of Diet Coke, silently convincing myself that Pilot’s disappearance was just a temporary situation.

  “I was scouting outside Golden Shaft yesterday and let Pilot out of the car. He never came back.”

  Lizzie stopped eating. “What do you mean, he never came back? How did he get lost?”

  “He dug his way under the mine’s fence. He must have gotten onto their grounds,” I explained, working hard to maintain a calm exterior.

  Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief. “Then it’s okay. Brian will find him for you.”

  I looked at my friend and held back the urge to scream. “It seems that Brian is pretty busy at the moment.”

  I filled Lizzie in on the arrangement between Alpha Development and Golden Shaft.

  “What kind of deal is that?” she retorted. “It sounds like that scum Garrett is making out like a bandit, without Golden Shaft getting much in return.”

  “I know, and it doesn’t make sense,” I agreed. “Do you think you can check if any record of sale has been officially logged in?”

  “Sure,” she nodded. “We can do that right now.”

  I left Tabby to another round of face-washing and followed Lizzie inside.

  She quickly went to work punching in commands on her computer, where she scanned one record after another before finally giving up.

  “There’s nothing here. It’s as if the exchange never took place.” She looked completely mystified. “What do you think’s going on?”

  I had no idea. But I knew there had to be a catch for Golden Shaft to have given so much of their newly acquired land away.

  I shook my head, feeling as puzzled as Lizzie. “I don’t know. But I’m stopping by Dee Salvano’s tonight and I’m willing to bet she’s got some of the answers. Can I leave the cat with you for the evening?”

  Lizzie nodded, having moved on to her tuna sandwich.

  “Sure. In fact, the cat can stay with me permanently. That way, Pilot won’t feel he’s been replaced when you get him back home.”

  Lizzie spoke so matter-of-factly that I felt she had to be right. I gave her a hug and told her I’d call later on in the evening.

  “You’d better,” she warned. “If you find anything we can bury that bastard Garrett with, I want in.”

  I drove home and let Tabby play among the ruins while I made a half-hearted attempt to clean before heading out to Dee’s. No calls had come in on my answering machine. I checked the office, hoping for some sort of diversion, but all was quiet there as well.

  I took Tabby over to Lizzie’s bungalow at six o’clock and let myself in. The cat acquainted himself with his new surroundings as I opened a can of mackerel and placed it in a dish on the floor. It didn’t take him long to discover the jeweled turbans that lined the bedroom bureau. But what really caught the cat’s eye was the colorful array of feathered boas nesting in the limbs of the coatrack. By the time I got to Tabby, he was poised to pluck the boas as bare as a flock of Perdue chickens.

  I swooped down and picked up the cat as he let out a howl. Obviously Lizzie was going to have to rearrange her furnishings. I placed the cat in front of his bowl of food and locked the bungalow up behind me.

  It was still too early to go to Dee’s, so I headed for the Mosey On Inn. The drive seemed endless tonight. Purple mountains popped out against a deep-tangerine sky, urging me to press forward as I chased the light of the desert. Finally Paul Bunyan loomed up ahead. Usually a comforting sight, there was something sinister about the statue this evening as he glared off into the distance. I tried to shake the mantle of gloom that had begun to descend, but I knew that my time was quickly slipping away.

  I walked in to find Ruby at her usual spot behind the counter. But tonight her kewpie-doll face held an air of the grotesque, her ruby red lips more Bette Davis as Baby Jane than Bernadette Peters.

  “Mosey on in here, sugar. You haven’t been around for a while,” she said with a smile.

  Streaks of red lipstick were smudged on her teeth, giving her the appearance of a vamp
ire that had just fed. A shiver ran through me as I sat down.

  “What’s the matter? A ghost walk on your grave?” a voice croaked out from behind.

  I had heard almost those same words from Noah only yesterday. Turning around, I found Cammo Dude ogling me, his one good eye jumping strangely back and forth inside its battered nest of scar tissue.

  “Buy me a beer!” Cammo commanded.

  I nodded to Ruby, who pulled out a Bud. Cammo aimed for what there was of his mouth, but the liquid squirted down the lower half of his face and onto his shirt.

  “Shit. Give me a damn straw,” he ordered.

  My appetite was gone, but I ordered Ruby’s special of the day, a bowl of chili. I immediately regretted it. The small chunks of ground beef were as hard as kernels of unpopped corn, and the beans tasted like metal. I felt Cammo Dude’s breath over my shoulder and thought about giving him my food.

  “Your tortoises are all dead,” he cawed, like a crow announcing his presence. “But they sure do make damn good soup.”

  A pink tongue waggled out of his mouth as he futilely attempted to lick his lips. I put down my spoon, the chili turning sour in my stomach.

  “How do you know what happened to the tortoises?” I asked.

  “ ’Cause I spoke to the fella who bought them over in Pahrump.” Cammo’s eye flickered with a hint of glee. “I know who he buys them from, too.”

  “And who would that be?” I inquired. I tried to keep the edge of excitement out of my voice.

  “I want that chili!” Cammo demanded.

  I was more than happy to oblige.

  “And crackers, too!” he barked, a dribble of saliva working its way into the crook of his chin.

  Ruby pulled out a packet of Saltines and slid them down the counter. I watched Cammo slurp at the chili. More landed on his clothes than went into his mouth.

  “Who did he buy the tortoises from, Cammo?” I asked again. I wondered if the old goat was pulling a fast one or if he really had something to sell.

  Cammo Dude cackled. “You think you’re such a smart girl, doncha? But the whole time it’s been right there under your nose!”