Caroline returned with a three-pronged grappling hook attached to a coil of rope. She shone her light on me.
“You okay?”
“Couldn’t be better. Now what?”
“I’ll try to snag whatever is down there,” she said. “If I can’t, well …”
“Well what?” I knew what.
“I’ll have to climb down.”
“Great.”
“It’s not that big a deal, Jake. Give me some light.”
Caroline sat near the edge of the abyss, knees up and feet apart, and lowered the hook over the side, the rope uncoiling beside her. She stopped when she’d played out about eighty feet. Then she lay down, peeking over the edge. She gently swung the rope and tugged, and swung it again and tugged.
“Got it,” she said triumphantly.
She sat back and began pulling up the rope, hand over hand, grunting with the effort. I aimed my lantern over Caroline’s shoulder and waited for the treasure to be hauled up—a satchel-fill of precious gems.
“It’s heavier than I thought,” Caroline said and pulled her catch up into the light.
It wasn’t a satchelful of gems.
It was a partially clothed, age-blackened, desiccated corpse—its wild-haired skull agape in a death grin.
Caroline screamed and lurched back, knocking the lantern from my hand. By the time I’d recovered the light, the mummified remains had dropped back down the shaft, taking our hook and rope with it.
30
WE STOOD OUTSIDE THE mine in the chill shadow of the mountain. Caroline was shivering, but not from the cold.
“What … I mean who …”
“Probably a treasure hunter who got too close to the edge.”
“My God.”
“Whoever it is, he’s been down there a long—” I stopped. I’d seen movement on the mountain’s slope, fifty yards above us.
“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.
“Someone’s up there.”
We stood perfectly still, staring up at the dark pines, listening to the wind sift through the branches.
“Maybe it was nothing,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But I’m sure the satchel is in that shaft.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow. You need a drink and so do I.”
We went to the Buffalo Bar in Idaho Springs. I’d been in there once years before, and I remembered shot-and-beer drinkers, high-backed wooden booths, and the heads of bisons mounted on the walls. Now there were skylights, hanging plants, and big-screen TV’s. At least they’d left one buffalo head. I left Caroline under its glassy-eyed gaze, and used the pay phone in the back. It was nearly six, but Abner Greenspan was still at his office.
“Where the hell are you?” he said. “No, don’t tell me. Better that I don’t know. Why weren’t you in court today?”
“It couldn’t be helped. What happened?”
Greenspan sighed audibly. “You bought yourself a lot of grief is what happened. Judge Sanchez issued a bench warrant for your arrest for jumping bail. In effect, you’ve waived your right to a preliminary hearing. You’re to be held without bond and bound over for trial.”
“Goddammit, Abner.”
“Hey, Jake, I told you to be there. I did all I could, but—”
“What about Helen Ester?”
“What about her?”
“Didn’t she tell Sanchez that Dalrymple forged those statements against me?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“What? Why not?”
“How should I know?”
“Didn’t she call you?”
“No.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Look, my advice to you is to surrender yourself to the court forthwith. It will look better at your trial.”
“You’ve got to find her, Abner. She can straighten out Sanchez. She probably left a message on the answering machine at my office. Check it out. Vaz has an extra key, or hell, just kick it down, everyone else does.”
“Are you coming in or not?”
“Not until I get my hands on Rueben Archuleta.”
“Who?”
“He killed Meacham.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I can make him confess, believe me.”
“This is wrong, Jake. You’ve got to turn yourself in.”
“Find Ester.”
“As your attorney I would advise—”
“Just find her.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He hung up.
When I got back to the table, Caroline had already ordered burgers and onion rings, and she was filling two glasses from a pitcher of beer. I told her about my phone call with Greenspan.
“The best way to make Archuleta show himself is for us to get the jewels.”
Caroline nodded in agreement. “We’ll do it tomorrow,” she said.
She’d said “we,” but she was the one who’d descend into the pit with a shriveled corpse waiting for her at the bottom.
“There’s one small problem,” I said. “I can’t go back to Denver tonight. The cops will be watching my apartment and office, and there’s probably an all-points out on the Olds.”
“So what do we do?”
“Spend the night up here.”
She frowned for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll call my grandfather and let him know.”
“Willy Two Hawks might be there.”
“I’ll think up some good lie.”
I paid the check, then waited while Caroline used the phone in the back. Getting the jewels tomorrow would be one thing, but using them as bait for Rueben Archuleta would be something else. I’d have to wait for him to make his move, and avoid the cops while I did so.
Caroline returned. “I have to go home. Now.” She looked upset.
“What is it?”
“My grandfather said he’d explain when I got there. He told me he was all right, but … I just have to go.”
“You can’t take my car. The cops might pick you up and hold you for questioning.”
“Then I’ll rent one.”
“In this town? Forget it.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll borrow one.”
We drove to the Gazette building. Closed. At the corner drugstore I looked up Witherspoon, H. R., in the local directory. I started to dial, then changed my mind. It was always easier to say “no” over the phone.
“Let’s find his house,” I told Caroline.
We did. It was an old Victorian frame built before the turn of the century, with a steeply peaked roof, a wide porch supporting narrow columns, and a profusion of wood filigree. Warm yellow light spilled through the lace curtains. When Witherspoon answered the door, he looked alarmed. But he recovered immediately and gave us a big smile.
“You folks really took me by surprise,” he said. “Come in, come in.”
The interior of the house featured hardwood floors, faded floral patterns on the furniture and rugs, and iron lamps with leaded glass shades. A woman was sitting in the parlor. She was tight-lipped and as faded as the room. Her patterned shawl perfectly matched her chair, and she seemed to blend into the surroundings. The only thing out of place in the house was Harry Witherspoon in blue jeans, flannel shirt, and stockinged feet.
“I’d like you to meet my wife,” he said. “Myrna, this is Jacob Lomax and his friend Caroline.”
Myrna nodded to acknowledge our presence, then went back to her book, its cover threadbare and devoid of color. When she turned the page, it crackled with age.
“Let’s talk in my den,” Witherspoon said.
Caroline and I followed him down a hallway and into a good-sized room, which had an enormous old desk at one end and a seven-foot-tall stuffed grizzly at the other. Caroline started when she saw the bear.
“That’s Ben,” Witherspoon said and sat behind his desk. “Would you believe I bought him at a garage sale?”
The walls were cluttered with book
shelves and framed photographs of Witherspoon—here holding a string of rainbow trout, there showing off a brace of freshly shot pheasants, over there smiling with a group of sunburned, parka-clad folks atop a snowy peak. Myrna wasn’t in any of the pictures. I wondered what she and Witherspoon had in common. Then I remembered he’d told me her father had owned the Gazette. Myrna probably owned it now.
“What brings you folks up here?” Witherspoon asked. The light gleamed on his steel-framed glasses.
“We’re in a jam,” I said, “and we need a favor. Two favors, actually.”
“Are they illegal or will they cost me money?” he asked with a grin.
“Neither.”
“Then let’s hear them.”
“Caroline needs a ride into Denver, and I need a place to spend the night.”
“No problem,” he said without hesitation. “You can sleep there on the couch.” He looked at Caroline. “Can you drive a stick shift?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can borrow my wife’s car.”
“She won’t mind?”
“She won’t even know,” Witherspoon said in a mock whisper. “She rarely drives anymore. Just have the car back by eight or nine tomorrow morning.”
“I really appreciate it,” Caroline said. “I’ll pay you whatever you—”
Witherspoon stopped her with a wave of the hand.
“Then I’d like to leave now, if it’s okay.”
“No problem,” he said and dug out a set of keys from a desk drawer.
We followed him down the hallway, past the kitchen, and out the backdoor. He flipped on an outside light, illuminating a tiny backyard jammed against the hillside. The yard could barely accommodate a carport, which covered a shiny blue Dodge pickup and a dull brown four-door Rambler. Witherspoon didn’t have to tell us which vehicle belonged to his wife.
I’ll see you in the morning,” Caroline said to me.
She climbed in the Rambler and drove down the narrow driveway along the side of the house to the street. Witherspoon and I went back to his den.
“You’re very generous,” I told him.
“I like you folks.”
“Don’t you even want to know what’s going on?”
“Not unless you want to tell me,” he said. “You want a drink? All I keep in here is bourbon.”
We sipped Wild Turkey out of shot glasses. Witherspoon said being a private eye must be a most exciting profession and I said the same thing about running a newspaper. We stayed up most of the night swapping tall tales, trying to prove the other guy right.
When I rolled off the couch at seven the next morning, my head hurt and my stomach was queasy.
I tiptoed around the house, looking for a bathroom. There was no sign of Witherspoon or his wife. After I’d thrown some water in my face and brushed my teeth with my finger, I went out the backdoor to wait for Caroline. Witherspoon must have started off early for work, because the carport was empty. The sky was clear and blue, but the town was still deep in mountain shadows and the morning air was cold. I shuffled my feet and beat my arms and wished I hadn’t locked the backdoor behind me. I also regretted not having pillaged the kitchen, and I promised myself that when Caroline got here, we’d find a nice, cozy, warm restaurant before we climbed to the mine.
Then I heard a car.
Myrna’s Rambler came up the driveway and stopped under the car canopy. Caroline sat behind the wheel. She didn’t get out or shut off the engine.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Caroline just looked at me, her eyes wide with fear. Then a man sat up from where he’d been crouched, hiding behind her in the backseat. He was wearing a nice leather jacket and he pressed a gun to Caroline’s head.
It was Rueben Archuleta.
31
RUEBEN ARCHULETA, ALIAS ANTHONY Villanueva, had one hand on Caroline’s shoulder and the other wrapped around a 9mm Beretta. No doubt it was the same gun he’d used to pistol-whip me in my office and shoot at me outside the Frontier Hotel and under the Westin Hotel—the same gun he’d used to blast holes in Zack Meacham. Its muzzle was now buried in Caroline’s hair.
“Nice to see you again, Lomax,” he said smiling, his teeth white against olive skin.
“Let the girl go.”
“Why would I want to do that?” he asked pleasantly, then in a colder voice, “Get back.”
I moved away from the Rambler as the left-hand doors swung open. If I’d had Willy Two Hawks’ gun, I might have yelled at Caroline to drop and then shot it out with Archuleta. But Willy’s pistol was in the glove compartment of the Olds.
“We’ll take your car,” Archuleta said. “Unless sweet cakes here was lying about the ropes and gear in your trunk.”
“He knows everything, Jake. I … I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “Look, Archuleta, why don’t you let her go? I can take you to the jewels.”
“Who’s Archuleta?”
“You can cut the act,” I said. “I know who you are.”
“Move it.”
We walked down to the street and got in the Olds, me behind the wheel, Caroline and Archuleta in the backseat. I took Thirteenth Street over the interstate and headed up West Chicago Creek.
“What happened last night?” I asked Caroline, trying desperately to find a way out of this.
“I lost my patience with you people,” Archuleta answered. “Soames could have died of old age before he got around to digging up the gems. So I went to his house last night and knocked him around until he told me everything. And then sweet cakes here phoned. I waited for both of you to show up, but since she came alone and since I’d already tucked Gramps away for the night, well, me and my sweety got real intimate.”
I looked at Caroline in the mirror and she lowered her eyes.
“You son of a bitch.”
“Hold that thought, Lomax. It’ll remind you that I won’t hesitate to kill her.”
I considered slamming on the brakes and going for the gun in the glove box. Of course, Archuleta would only have time to shoot me four or five times before I got to it, assuming he didn’t shoot Caroline first.
“Why did you kill Meacham?” I asked, guessing the answer.
“He was threatening to whack Soames before Soames dug up the satchel. So I whacked him first.”
“And Lloyd Fontaine?”
“My partner took care of him.”
“Your partner. He’s the skinny blond character driving a tan Ford, right?”
Archuleta laughed. “And here I thought you were stupid. Anyway, Fontaine was a threat, too. He had a diary and some incriminating photographs. And then you had them. I should have killed you the first time we met.”
I thought about Helen not appearing in court.
“What have you and your pal done with Helen Ester?”
Archuleta said nothing. My grip tightened on the wheel.
“You killed her, didn’t you?”
“Just shut up and drive,” he said.
If Caroline hadn’t been with us, I might have slammed us both into the next big tree. After a few miles I turned off the blacktop and onto the dirt road. The old Olds squeaked and groaned in protest as we bounced along.
“Take it easy,” Archuleta said.
“Can’t help it,” I said, steering for every rock and rut in the trail. I coaxed the Olds over a small boulder, then winced when she screamed in pain, bleeding oil onto the dirt and rocks behind us. By the time we got to the boulders blocking the trail, the oil pressure had dropped to almost zero and the water temperature was into the red. But instead of stopping, I gave her the gas. The Olds swung up the slope, leaving aqua-and-white door paint on a pine tree, then slammed back down onto the trail.
“Take it easy!” Archuleta yelled.
The engine started to clank. I shut it off.
“We walk from here,” I said. And all the way back down the mountain.
“You mean you walk. Me and sweet cakes are
staying in the car while you go get the satchel.”
“No,” Caroline said.
“What’s wrong, babe, don’t you like me anymore?”
“It’ll take two people to retrieve the satchel,” she said. “Wait for us here, if you want to.”
Archuleta was silent for a moment.
“Okay, we’ll all go,” he said.
I shouldered the pack and we all started up the trail.
It was several miles to the mine, and Archuleta made us stop a few times along the way. His Gucci loafers weren’t made for this terrain. Neither were his legs. But one thing that never got tired was his gun hand—he kept the weapon pointed at Caroline. Nevertheless, I’d have to try for him before we brought up the satchel, because at that moment he’d have no further use for us.
Two hours later we reached the mine. The sun was well up, but the air was crisp, almost cold. Despite the chill and the meager protection of his thin leather jacket, Archuleta was sweating profusely. He brushed dirt from his cream-colored slacks and waved his gun at the mine entrance.
“Is this it?” he asked, panting from the climb and the altitude and the thought of what lay inside.
“Go ahead on in,” I said, unshouldering my pack. “We’ll stay out here and keep the bears away.”
“Very funny.”
“Hey, tell it to that big brown bastard,” I said, looking behind him.
He glanced to his left and I swung the pack at his head and started to follow it in, but he ducked it, quick as a snake, then fired his automatic so close to my ear that I felt the bullet buzz past. I stopped dead in my tracks. The muzzle of the Beretta stared at my chest.
Archuleta kicked at the pack. “Pick it up,” he said. “One more stunt like that and I’ll shoot you both. Now let’s go.”
“We’ll need a length of timber,” Caroline said.
“For what?”
“To lay across the shaft.”
We hunted around and found a six-by-six that looked long enough. Caroline and I carried it into the mine, with Archuleta right behind. Pretty soon my lantern picked out the opening of the shaft. It gaped like a mouth. Caroline took the pack from me and emptied out the gear.
Archuleta’s light moved nervously from her to me. He didn’t like being underground any more than I did.
Blood Stone (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 2) Page 18
