No Way Home

by Annette Dashofy

  Only then did he notice the man’s blood-soaked shirt.

  Pete leapt to their side. He took the AK-47 in one hand and slipped the other arm around the man. With Zoe on the other side, they eased him to the floor.

  Behind them Morales said, “I’ll call for an ambulance.” He looked down at Calvin Bodine. “Make that two.”

  “Thanks,” Zoe said. She grabbed an already bloody pillow and pressed it to the man’s belly.

  The man put a hand on Zoe’s. “Wait. I must know.” He pushed up on one elbow and cast a glassy-eyed glare at Calvin Bodine. “Wolf, how did you find us?”

  Bodine only continued to whimper.

  Morales nudged him with his toe. “Hey. He’s talking to you.”

  Bodine sniffled. “Tracking device. On your truck. One of my men put it there the day we cornered you.”

  The man grunted and lay back. “Tracking device. I should have known.”

  Zoe repositioned the pillow and hushed him. “Take it easy, Pony Boy.”

  The man stared stoically at the ceiling.

  Pete eyed the gunshot victim. “Pony Boy?”

  “Billy Yellowhorse.” To the man, Zoe said, “This is a friend of mine. Pete Adams.”

  “Billy Yellowhorse?” Pete glanced at Morales, who nodded. The Navajo. Allison’s friend. Pete turned back to Zoe. “Where’s Logan?”

  Zoe met his gaze without releasing pressure on the pillow. “Oh my God. I forgot. He’s still in the bathtub.”

  The sun wasn’t up yet, but blue sky promised another gorgeous day. Zoe walked next to the gurney carrying Pony Boy from the cabin, a bag of IV fluids in her hand. “You’re going to be okay,” she told him as the New Mexico paramedics prepared to load him into the ambulance.

  “Medicine Woman,” he said, his voice weaker than Zoe had become accustomed to, “thank you. Take care of our friend.”

  “I will.” She handed the IV to one of the crew, and they rolled the gurney into the rig.

  Zoe watched the ambulance carrying Pony Boy pull away, and thought about the long night just past. At what point had she started to think of him as Pony Boy rather than Yellowhorse? Probably about the same time he’d dubbed her Medicine Woman. She smiled to herself. There were worse things than sharing a name with Jane Seymour.

  A second crew continued to work on Tucker. Or whatever the hell his name was. She shrugged the tension from her shoulders and approached the man with multiple names. As she’d suspected, his injuries consisted of a few first- and second-degree burns to his face, arms, and hands. His hair and eyebrows suffered some serious singeing, but otherwise, he’d been lucky.

  “I want to talk to you,” Zoe said.

  He turned away from her gaze.

  She’d come to accept that behavior from Pony Boy. This punk was another matter. She rapped his sternum with her knuckles. Hard.

  “Ouch,” he whined.

  “I want to know why you singled me out. Me and the farm.”

  He shifted on the gurney and groaned. “I really do love horses. Honest. I was looking for a place to ride. My cousin had gotten to know the area pretty good, so he gave me names and numbers of places. Yours was one of them.” A sneer crossed his face. “The girl…Bassi’s sister…hanging out there…was a nice bonus. Leverage, you know?”

  Zoe’s stomach soured. If Pete hadn’t taken away her MacGyvered flamethrower, she might well have used it on the Wolf again. “You really are a son of a bitch.”

  “And you’re just plain crazy.” He displayed his blistered arms. “You could have killed me.”

  She fixed him with a stony glare. “Yeah. I could have.” Glad she didn’t have to treat his wounds, she turned and walked away as he shouted vulgarities after her.

  Inside the cabin, she found Logan sitting by the fireplace, his leg propped up. One of the EMTs had traded her makeshift pillow splint for an air splint. There was a brief discussion of transporting him in the same rig with Tucker, but Detective Morales wisely intervened and said he’d take Logan in his pickup. Two additional Sheriff’s Office units arrived, but she had no idea when Morales would be ready to go. Good thing they’d given Logan something for the pain. He seemed content for the moment.

  “Hey.”

  She turned to find Pete standing in the kitchen, looking about as handsome as any man she’d ever seen. “Hey, yourself.”

  He moved toward her, and she collapsed against his chest, burying her face in his shirt. His arms around her felt like sanctuary after the last few days.

  Pony Boy had talked about being safe. This was safe.

  “Are you all right?” Pete asked.

  “I am now.” She breathed in his scent. “What took you so long?”

  She felt his laugh more than heard it. “Flight delays,” he said. “And for the record, you’re never getting on a plane without me ever again.”

  “Okay.”

  He took her by the shoulders and drew her away to arm’s length. “Are you sure you’re all right? Did he hurt you?”

  She wasn’t sure which “he” to which Pete referred. It didn’t matter. “No. I’m really okay. But how did you find us? Allison?”

  “Not hardly.” He tipped his head toward the cabin. “That Detective Morales is a damned good tracker. And a good cop. I’d offer him a job if I thought he’d accept it.”

  “Did I hear my name taken in vain?” Morales asked from the doorway.

  Pete slung an arm around Zoe, and she nestled against him again. “Not in vain,” he told the detective. “How would you like to come work for me in Pennsylvania?”

  “I was thinking about handing you an application for the SJCSO.” Morales raised an eyebrow at Zoe. “Or maybe you’re the one I should hire. You had things pretty well under control by the time we got here.”

  “No, thank you.” She wrapped her arms around Pete’s waist. “But I’ll tell you who you should recruit. Billy Yellowhorse.” She thought of how many times the Navajo had put himself in harm’s way to protect Logan. And her. “He’s got that hero mentality thing in spades.”

  Morales smiled. “I’m way ahead of you. As soon as he’s well enough to talk, I intend to do whatever it takes to get him into law enforcement.”

  “Good.” She looked up at Pete. “By the way, what’s going on back home with Dale’s murder case?”

  Pete’s face clouded. “We arrested his son. Scott Springfield.”

  “You don’t sound thrilled.”

  Pete didn’t reply, but his face told her he wasn’t. At all.

  “Scott Springfield?” Morales asked. “I know a guy by that name. Don’t suppose it’s the same person.”

  “Might be,” Pete said. “He’s a board member of Federated Petroleum.”

  Zoe pushed away so she could see Pete more clearly. “Dale’s son is on the board at FPR?”

  “It’s the same guy all right,” Morales said. “You say you have him under arrest for murder?”

  “Yeah,” Pete said. “We do.”

  “What evidence do you have on him?”

  Zoe looked at Pete, eager to hear his answer.

  He fingered the pocket where she knew he kept his phone. “I haven’t heard anything since I left yesterday, but as of last night we were waiting on a search warrant for the rifle used as the murder weapon.”

  “Scott’s father was shot?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “Off his horse. I found the body.”

  “Scott had been heard making threats against his father,” Pete said. “And he lied about when he’d last spoken to him.”

  “But you don’t have the murder weapon,” Morales said. He shook his head. “I’m afraid you have the wrong man, Chief.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Morales’s gaze fixed on Zoe. “You know how you were so convinced the Bassi boy didn’t kill Kayl
a Santiago?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “And I was right.”

  “Exactly. Sometimes you just know a person. I’ve known Scott Springfield since college. I know he had no use for his old man. But kill him? No. And he’d definitely not shoot him.”

  “I’ll ask you again,” Pete said. “Why are you so sure?”

  Morales crossed his arms. “When we were in school, a girl Scott was dating was shot and killed by a drunken idiot at a field party. Scott took it really hard. Now he’s probably the only Texan I know who doesn’t own a firearm. Won’t touch one. In fact, he’s a big supporter of gun control.” The detective shook his head. “Scott might have beat the hell out of his old man with his fists. But if the man was shot, Scott Springfield isn’t your killer. I’d stake my career on it.”

  Thirty-one

  Zoe had been in New Mexico less than five full days, but stepping outside the Pittsburgh Airport Saturday night was more of a jolt than she’d expected. “It’s cold,” she announced to Pete.

  He grunted and pulled his collar up.

  They’d flown out of Durango six hours earlier with temperatures in the mid-fifties. On their final approach, the pilot reported Pittsburgh at twenty-two. Not counting the wind. And it was only the third weekend in November. What would it be like in January?

  A dark four-door sedan pulled up to the curb. The driver’s door opened and Wayne Baronick, minus his usual smile, poked his head above the car’s roof. “Climb in.”

  Zoe reached for the rear door, but Pete beat her to it. “You can ride up front. I’ve seen what his backseat looks like.”

  She didn’t argue. Pete took her carry-on and tossed it in before lowering in next to it. She settled into the passenger side, grateful for the blasting heater.

  “Give me an update,” Pete said.

  Wayne maneuvered the sedan away from the curb, dodged weary travelers in the crosswalks, and headed west, away from the terminal. “I hate to admit it, but your man in New Mexico might be right.”

  On the drive to Monongahela County, Wayne reported that no firearms of any type had been found in Scott Springfield’s possession. Plus, it didn’t take a lot of digging to find out he was actively involved in the anti-gun movement in Texas. Added to the subpoenaed phone records revealing a number of cell calls placed from downtown Pittsburgh last Sunday morning at the time of Dale’s shooting, and all the police had managed to do was make an iron-clad case for Scott’s defense.

  The conversation flipped for the remainder of the trip with Pete updating Wayne on Wolf Man a.k.a. Noah Tucker a.k.a. Calvin Bodine and his meth pipeline to southwestern Pennsylvania by way of the oil and gas company employees.

  Wayne steered onto their exit. “Sounds like Logan Bassi should get a medal for standing up to them.”

  Zoe had been resting her head on the cool glass of the passenger window, watching the lights of businesses along the highway and listening silently until then. “I don’t think he feels much like a hero.”

  Wayne glanced at her. “No. I guess not. How’s he doing?”

  “X-rays showed his ankle wasn’t broken. He’ll be in one of those boot things for a while though.” But she knew that wasn’t what Wayne meant.

  He didn’t press the subject. “What about the Bassi women?”

  “Rose is glued to Logan’s side,” Zoe said. “She may never take her eyes off him again. Sylvia and Allison will stay out there until Logan’s ready to come home. I know he wants to attend Kayla’s funeral now that her parents have improved their opinion of him.” Zoe didn’t mention the vigil Allison and Logan were keeping over Billy Yellowhorse. He was still in surgery the last time Rose had texted.

  They rode the rest of the way in silence, although Zoe’s brain—and Pete’s and Wayne’s too, she imagined—was anything but quiet.

  “Where to?” Wayne asked as they approached Dillard. He glanced at the rearview mirror. “Your house?”

  “The station,” Pete said.

  Zoe noticed a hint of a tired grin flick across the detective’s face. They both knew Pete wasn’t going home. Not yet.

  Wayne parked next to Pete’s SUV in the police station’s lot.

  Pete tapped Zoe on her shoulder. She turned toward him, and he opened his hand to reveal a set of keys. “Take her to my place,” he told Wayne.

  “No way,” she said. “I wanted to work Dale’s case all along. You’re not cheating me out of it now.”

  “You need to get some rest.”

  “I slept on the plane.” At least she’d pretended to.

  Wayne looked back and forth at them. “Well?”

  Zoe held Pete’s gaze for several long moments.

  Finally he closed his hand. “Let’s go.” He opened the rear door, letting in another blast of icy wind.

  Having placed a call to Nate and asking him to join them, Pete flicked on the lights to the conference room and crossed to the whiteboard. He drew a black slash through the information on the half dealing with the drug overdoses. But it felt like weeks instead of hours since he’d faced the half pertaining to Dale’s death.

  “Where are we?” He started at the top of the suspect list. Hope Springfield. “The wife has an alibi.”

  “The cousin of a homicidal drug dealer,” Baronick said.

  “Did your investigation turn up anything on Cody Bodine?”

  “Not a thing,” Baronick admitted. “He’s clean.”

  “Okay then. Next.”

  “My men talked to Joe Mendez,” Baronick said, referring to the second name with its question marks. “He had nothing but high praise for Dale, and he insists he didn’t tell anyone about Dale’s plans to go horseback riding Sunday morning. I don’t think Mendez is our man.”

  Pete didn’t either. He drew a line through the name, but didn’t erase it. Not yet. “How about the other township supervisor?”

  “Howard Rankin has as good an alibi as you can find. He was at church. Got there early because he was a greeter that morning.”

  Pete drew another line and skipped down the list to Leroy Moore. “Same alibi here.”

  Baronick dropped into his usual chair. “You have some good church-going citizens on your suspect list.”

  Which brought Pete to the names between the two supervisors.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kroll?” Zoe said incredulously from the far end of the table. “You suspect them?”

  Pete faced her. “They’re on the opposite side of the debate from Springfield. They need the gas money and would’ve been in a pretty deep financial hole if he succeeded in blocking the drilling movement.”

  “But—”

  Pete held up a hand to silence her. “That’s why they’re on the list. But I seriously doubt if either one of them could or would go out in the woods and shoot Dale Springfield off his horse.”

  Pete drew lines through the Krolls’ names.

  The bells on the front door jangled, and Pete waited until Nate made his way down the hall to continue.

  “Welcome home, Chief,” the officer said. “Hey, Zoe.”

  She gave him a tired wave.

  Pete summarized what Nate had missed. “Have you turned up any other viable suspects we’ve overlooked?”

  “No. I spent all day talking to anybody and everybody who owns more than a couple acres. A lot of ’em are looking forward to coming into easy money, but I didn’t get the impression any of ’em would be willing to kill for it.” The officer ambled over to the board and studied it for a moment. “Interesting.”

  “What?” Pete asked.

  “You’ve crossed out all the names, except—” Nate placed a finger next to the lone un-cleared suspect. “Jake Moore.”

  “And why is that interesting?”

  “Because while I was talking to folks, I found out that Jake Moore is picking up where Mr. Springfield left off. He�
�s reorganizing the opposition. He’s even called another meeting for tomorrow. Noon at Parson’s Roadhouse.”

  Tomorrow. Sunday. One week to the day since Dale Springfield was shot dead prior to a similar meeting.

  Baronick must have been thinking the same thing. “I hope Jake doesn’t have any plans to go horseback riding in the morning.”

  Both Pete and the detective looked to Zoe, who sat leaning an elbow on the table and holding her head up in her hand. She was either deep in thought or half asleep.

  She blinked. “Oh. No. Not that I’m aware of.”

  Pete returned his attention to the board and Jake. Warren Froats had pegged the younger Moore as an attention-seeking blowhard. Pete wondered if the retired police chief would be present at the upcoming meeting to see the anti-drilling group’s new leader in action.

  One thing was for sure. Pete would be.

  Thirty-Two

  What a difference a week made. Last Sunday the barn had been crowded with riders, including Noah Tucker, ready to head out into the sun and near sixty-degree temperatures. This Sunday, Zoe stood alone, bundled against the chill, gazing out at the spot where she’d seen Cisco galloping home. Riderless.

  Last night she’d sat in the police station’s conference room and listened as Pete, Wayne, and Nate had discussed the question of who might have killed Dale Springfield. But what had bothered her a week ago and still bothered her wasn’t who, but how.

  Dale had been cold to the touch when she first reached him. How could he have been dead for so long when she knew precisely when his horse had come back to the barn, and she knew how long it took him to get there?

  She turned and crossed the indoor arena. Windstar nickered a greeting at her approach. She pulled a peppermint from her coat pocket and unwrapped it. The gelding’s ears pricked at the sound of crinkling cellophane. As he lipped the candy from her palm, she stroked the white stripe on his face. “What d’ya think, fella? Wanna go snoop around a crime scene?”