Maria couldn’t tell her friend the truth—that being starved in solitary confinement for almost a year did little for a person’s hair, fingernails, or psyche for that matter. So, she geared up to tell another lie. Her life had been full of them as an operative in the CIA. “My thyroid’s been acting funny,” she said. Right after Maria had gotten home from Tehran, she’d used the overactive thyroid excuse many times to explain her extreme weight loss and pallid skin. “Doctors say it’ll get better now that I’m on meds.”
Beth turned off the water, wrapped a fluffy white towel around Maria’s head, and sat her up in the chair. “Getting old sucks, doesn’t it.”
“What would you know about getting old?” asked Maria.
Beth looked anything but. Her friendly smile and curly strawberry blond hair took five years off her age. Even though she had three kids, most people thought Beth was in her mid-twenties.
“Whatever.” Beth combed Maria’s towel-dried hair. “What I want to know is if you’ve met anyone … interesting?”
“In Kanab?” answered Maria, feigning to be shocked.
“Yes, in Kanab.” Beth playfully slapped the back of Maria’s head. “Don’t dis on my hometown.”
Maria thought a moment. “I met Sherrie Mercer. She has a unique personality. Pretty aggressive for a small-town reporter.”
From the look on Beth’s face, Maria knew she hadn’t answered the question correctly.
“That’s not what I was getting at, but you’re right. Sherrie’s a bulldog. I think she had a pretty rough childhood. Lived off the grid. It put her in a constant bad mood. But I was wondering if you’d met any men.”
“I work with Pete Richins. He’s nice.”
Beth picked up her scissors and started snipping. A moment later her blades were nothing but silver blurs. People said she cut hair as fast as she talked. Maria felt a little queasy. Having someone behind her with a sharp object was a little too similar to some of the interrogations she’d experienced in Tehran.
It’s just a haircut, she reminded herself.
“Yeah, Pete’s a teddy bear,” said Beth. “Not the most ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ kind of guy. I was surprised he went into law enforcement, to tell you the truth. Anyone else?”
Hair fell onto the tile all around Maria’s chair. She had really only met one other guy, though she’d been pretty friendly to the cashier at the grocery store a couple of times. “Well, I met Rod Thorton … and his brother. What’s his name? George?”
“Grant. So, what do you think about Rod?”
From the grin on Beth’s face, Maria knew they’d hit the subject her friend wanted to talk about. “He seems put together. I’ve never seen a Search and Rescue team mobilize so quickly.”
“Anything else?”
“No, not really.”
Beth’s scissors clicked steadily as she cut. “Oh come on. You’ve got to admit he’s eye candy.”
It was conversations like this that made Maria feel out of sorts. It was like jumping into a swimming pool with too much vigor and having her swim top get “misplaced” around her neck. It was always a frantic recovery at the bottom of the pool as she tried to readjust the suit.
“Yeah, he’s cute.” Maria maintained her but-who-cares-about-that sort of face. “But his nose is a little too big, and I think he’s dating someone. The director of tourism?”
“Tara Crane. Former girlfriend.” Beth emphasized the word former. “They were together all of three months. If that.”
“It didn’t look like they’d split to me,” responded Maria. “They were pretty tight leaving a city council meeting together last week. And she was all over him up in the canyon two nights ago.”
“Tara doesn’t want to admit it’s over, but Rod called it off before Christmas last year. She says they’re just taking a break to ‘figure things out.’”
Nervously, Maria asked, “How did you know I knew Rod?”
“I cut his hair.”
Beth cut everyone’s hair.
“And he said something about me?” Maria was horrified. She hoped he hadn’t mentioned her meltdown in the cave or the late-night stargazing. Both were embarrassing for different reasons.
Beth pulled down on the front side sections of Maria’s hair, checking to see if their length matched. “Nothing weird. He remembers you from high school. He said he’d met you again on Search and Rescue and that you were still hot. Which you are, even with your straw hair.”
Maria knew she wasn’t gross to look at or anything like that. And she’d had plenty of men cat call and whistle at her while working undercover in less savory establishments. A few times she’d even had to kick a few in the groin to get them to leave her alone. But she couldn’t remember ever being called “hot” before.
Of course she’d dated around in college but had never gotten serious with anyone since her high school boyfriend … fourteen years ago! Her life of solitude had been her choice, but it shocked her to think it’d been that long since she’d had a real relationship. What had she been doing with her life?
Working. Always working.
“Oh.” Maria had no idea how to respond to the fact that Rod thought she was hot.
“Don’t ‘oh’ me. What do you think? Do you want me to set you two up?”
“No!” It came out loud, and an elderly woman on the other side of the salon looked up from her Better Homes and Garden magazine.
Beth held up her hands as if she was surrendering. “Geesh. Relax, girl. I just thought you …” she trailed off.
“Sorry, Beth. It’s just that being ‘set up’ sounds so pathetic. I mean, I’m thirty-two. I should be able to get my own date.”
“I get that. But he’s been really—”
It was definitely time to change the subject. One of the reasons Maria had come to get a haircut was to get information from Beth about the mayor and his wife. She’d better ask about them soon. At the rate Beth’s fingers flew, the haircut would be over soon.
“Not to change the subject but—”
“You’re absolutely trying to change the subject,” Beth interrupted her. “You need to open up for once.”
“I’ll work on it, but can I ask you about Mayor Hayward and his wife? Did you know them very well?”
For a split second, Beth’s scissors stopped moving. “Do you want me to answer as if Chief Branson is asking or as if Maria is?”
“Is there a difference?” Maria was sincerely surprised at the question.
“A little bit. Not much, granted.”
Maria grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m not a very good conversationalist.”
“You’re fine. It’s just who you are. Anyhow, if you haven’t figured it out by now, Mayor Hayward had problems. He was broke. He owes me about two hundred dollars for haircuts, which I’m going to have to write off as charity. There’s no way I’d ask his wife, Emily. She’s got to be feeling the sting.”
Maria kept quiet. She couldn’t disclose any information about Emily’s financial situation.
“Emily is a little strange,” continued Beth. “She doesn’t have many friends, though I do think she walks in the mornings with some of the ladies from her neighborhood.”
“Why do you think the mayor is broke?” asked Maria.
“Not sure. There are a lot of rumors out there. Most people say he gambles. That’s the risk of living so close to Vegas, I guess.”
Just then, Beth accidently nicked Maria’s ear with the tip of the scissors. Maria jumped in her chair, her body on edge, ready to defend itself.
“Oh my gosh. I am so sorry.” Beth’s face reddened. She went to wipe the cut, but before she could, a drop of blood dripped down Maria’s neck.
The red splatter on her neck infused Maria with numbness. A memory flashed through her mind.
In Tehran, Maria had met an Iraqi lawyer with only one ear. When she’d asked about it, he’d told her he’d been falsely accused and arrested by the pseudo army. Terrorists, really. Wh
ile he was in prison, the guards had performed a mock execution. They’d made him kneel on the ground and place his head on a cutting block. Instead of killing him, however, they’d only sliced off his ear. In the end, they’d simply wanted to freak him out and let him know not to listen to “American lies.”
“Crap. I seriously never do that.” Beth took a cotton ball with alcohol and rubbed it onto Maria’s earlobe. It stung for a second and then calmed.
“It’s no big deal. I actually have to get going.”
Beth brushed stray cut hairs off Maria’s neck. “Don’t you want me to style it?”
“No, I’m going to go home and take a quick shower before driving to Richfield.”
“Why are you going there? It’s two hours away.”
“Meetings.” Once again, Maria couldn’t tell her the real reason, which was to meet with Cal Emerson and discuss the note found in Mayor Hayward’s cell phone. The senator was in Richfield campaigning. That was a lot easier than flying to Washington, D.C., to meet with him there, so Maria was going to take advantage of the proximity.
Beth unsnapped the hair-covered cape and took it off Maria. After which, Beth adamantly refused Maria’s money, insisting instead the two of them go to lunch sometime. Maria agreed and hurried out of the salon into her car. She had to get out of town quickly if she was to be in Richfield that afternoon. Just as she was pulling on her seatbelt there was a pounding. Maria quickly turned her head to see what was making the noise.
Beth was hitting her palms against the passenger side window.
Maria rolled the window down. “What’s up? You want your money now?”
Beth stuck her head inside the car. “Aren’t you funny?” Her cheeks were a little more pink than they’d been a minute ago. “No, seriously, I want you to know I don’t spread bad rumors. It’s not my thing. The stuff I was telling you in the salon is stuff everyone already knows.”
“You’re fine,” said Maria, feeling a little guilty. In all honesty, she’d gone to Beth hoping to squeeze info from her.
“But there’s something I need to tell you. It’s not gossip. It’s something I saw, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve been feeling like you should know.”
Maria nodded, urging Beth to talk.
“The day before the mayor was found dead, I was on a bike ride. I’d gone a ways out on the old Culver road. Do you know where that is?”
Maria shook her head.
“Well, it’s pretty out of the way. Anyhow, I happened to see Mayor Hayward’s truck parked off to the side. I was going to cross the road to see if there was a problem, but then I saw he wasn’t alone in the front seat so I stayed on the other side.”
This was just the kind of information Maria had been waiting for. “Who was in the car with him?”
Beth bit her lower lip. “It was Whitney Thatcher.”
The treasure hunters dug and blasted week after week, and carried the dirt and rock out in buckets and wheelbarrows. During the entire search, Freddie kept the lead. It seemed fair that when the treasure room was broken into, he should be the first to see it. This nearly cost him his life, for the Aztecs had left a series of booby traps. Early in the work, Freddie hit an obstruction. The boulders crashed to the cavern floor, narrowly missing him. After that, the workers proceeded with the greater caution, disarming the traps as they found them.
–Argosy. “White Mountains $10,000,000 Secret” by Steve Wilson, March 1966.
Chapter 15
WHITNEY THATCHER? THE WOMAN who now lived in Maria’s grandparents’ home?
The name hadn’t even been on Maria’s radar. What possibly could be her connection with the mayor?
The question nagged Maria as she made her way north on Highway 89 to Richfield. Had Whitney been the one in the cave with the mayor? Could the two of them have been having an affair?
Their age difference was significant, but Maria had seen that a lot in her work. Still, their situations in life were so different. The mayor would have been looking for someone who could help get him out of debt—a woman he could use for fun and money. And if Whitney Thatcher had just bought Maria’s grandparents’ home, there certainly wasn’t a lot of money. The house was a 1970 rambler with linoleum tile and stalactite ceilings full of asbestos, probably.
But what else could it be? While studying law enforcement, Maria had learned there were three main reasons people committed murder—for love, for money, or for the thrill of it. Whitney Thatcher didn’t strike her as the mentally ill type getting her kicks off of shooting people. Most people like that didn’t work with kids at a government-run facility with a small budget and have an additional three children of her own.
Maria was thinking in stereotypes, of course. But a lot of time those stereotypes panned out. Sure, Whitney was pretty enough—if a man was into the bedraggled, over-worked mother of three young children type. Most weren’t.
In her rearview mirror, Maria noticed a gray Nissan sedan was following closely behind her. That might not have been that unusual on this sort of road, except at that moment they were the only two cars within eyesight and he was on her tail. Dangerously so. Close enough to—
Maria’s body lurched forward as the car behind her smacked into her bumper. She swerved to the right, hanging onto the shoulder of the road. The drop off to her right was at least twenty feet high, and there was no railing.
Pushing on the gas, Maria tried to get both front tires back onto the asphalt and keep ahead of the car behind. Her survival instincts were in full gear. Her body’s ability to go from relaxed to full alert in seconds was handy at times like this. Her mind analyzed the situation at lightning speed. The layout of the road. The speed she was traveling. Her car’s weight versus the one behind her. The details all came together in her mind in a clear picture.
Evasive maneuver number one was to fake like she was out of control. She purposely wiggled the steering wheel. Her car swayed slightly back and forth. This would give the other driver a false sense of security. It would heighten the excitement for the attack and make the other driver more willing to take risks to get the job done quickly.
As predicted, the car behind her sped up. But instead of trying to get on her left and bully her off the road from the side, it headed straight for her bumper. The driver probably thought a hit from behind worked the first time, so why not try it again.
The car behind bumped into Maria again. Both cars careened on the shoulder that was covered in slippery rocks and pebbles. Maria hit the brakes on her Jeep, turning her steering wheel sharply to the left.
The oncoming Nissan hit in the rear of her Jeep. Maria slid a few feet, but the other car jolted backward, spinning around. Maria slammed on her brakes, pulling her gun out of the holster, while at the same time checking the license plate. There was none.
The Nissan made a 180 degree turn and flew away from the scene at top speed. Maria aimed her gun at a tire and fired. The car was too far away, and she missed her target.
Maria parked her car on the shoulder of the road to get out of the way of traffic. Taking out her cell phone, she dialed 911. “My name is Maria Branson. There’s been a hit and run accident on Highway 89 involving a police car and a gray Nissan sedan, license plate unknown. Please send back up.”
The confrontation had been a warning. Had the driver seriously wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t have given up so easily and sped off. No, the whole thing had been a message: We don’t like you here. Go away.
Now it was Maria’s job to find out who sent it.
*
Not to be deterred from the investigation, Maria made it to Richfield, despite the fact the sheriff of Sevier County had detained her for an hour. He was painfully slow at filling out the paperwork. But eventually he finished the job and, from the tire marks on the road, confirmed Maria’s account of what had happened. She would have to replace her bumper, but other than that, she’d come out of the experience unharmed.
It was dinnertime when she finally sat
down with Cal Emerson. One of the senator’s bodyguards had gotten them food from a local deli. Maria’s stomach still hadn’t quite settled from the morning’s excitement, so she only picked at the large white bun.
The senator had chosen a salad. He carefully drizzled a fourth of the dressing on it. “I have to be careful with calories these days. You hit fifty and your body quits burning them like it used to.”
The senator was the epitome of friendly. He smiled as he ate, as he spoke, and as he listened. At the end of the day his jaw must ache, thought Maria. Both the senator’s face and head were cleanly shaven and shiny. His outfit was impeccable. The perfect politician.
Small talk took up the first twenty-five minutes of the forty-five minute interview Maria was allowed.
The senator was married and had a family. His children were all grown. Yes, he loved the Kanab area. That’s why he’d purchased a home there. He’d been in politics since his twenties, and he didn’t have plans to retire anytime soon. He was saddened by the death of his friend Darrin Hayward, the mayor of Kanab. They had known each other for decades. They had golfed and even traveled together. No, their wives hadn’t gone with them. Mostly they’d done fishing trips to Alaska, things the “wives” weren’t interested in.
At last it was time to get to the meat of why Maria had come.
“Senator, we found this note in Mayor Hayward’s possessions. It was hidden, as if he didn’t want anyone to find it. Do you have any idea why?” Maria shoved the note, now encased in a plastic shield, across the table so the senator could see it better.
He read it out loud:
“Let’s meet. We need to talk about Cal Emerson.”
He shifted confidently in his chair. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Chief Branson. What would this note insinuate?”
“That someone who knew the mayor knew something about you that he or she wanted to talk to Mayor Hayward about it. The fact the note was hidden indicates the topic of the conversation was one the mayor wanted to keep secret.”
The senator didn’t speak for a minute. When he did, his smile hadn’t faded a bit. “That is a lot of speculation without even the suggestion of proof. This note doesn’t point to anything clandestine. It could have been a discussion of my campaigning methods, which are very confidential by the way, or maybe a surprise birthday party for me. Pity sakes. Are you seriously thinking anyone would believe you?”
Robbed of Soul: Legends of Treasure Book 1 Page 11
