Till the Butchers Cut Him Down

by Marcia Muller

  Hy didn’t speak for a moment. I looked at him, saw he was staring toward distant Tufa Lake. Its waters were turning pinkish gray now, the towers of calcified vegetation that gave it its name taking on definition.

  He said, “All right, now let’s talk about what’s really bothering you.”

  The old nonverbal connection that I’d feared lost was still in place. Thank God I’d come up here with a wait-and-see attitude regarding Hy and me; maybe things would be all right between us after all.

  “Okay,” I said, “I don’t think the explosion was intended to kill Anna.”

  “No?”

  “No. I think that initially it was supposed to be more of the same—an attempt to intimidate Suits but not hurt him, or anybody else.”

  “You said you felt like somebody was watching when you and Anna walked on the beach that afternoon. Whoever detonated those charges knew who was at the house.”

  “Right.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “Okay, I’ve got to back up a bit. In my conversation with Romanchek before I went up to Mendo last week, he told me that one of the reasons Suits went to Moonshine House that night was to ask Anna to move to the city. It wasn’t a snap decision; several people on his staff knew. He planned to surprise Anna with it just before he left, get her to come along on the return trip.”

  “Would she have done it on such short notice?”

  “Romanchek claims yes. If Suits asked her in advance, Anna would’ve come up with all sorts of reasons not to. But she liked to act on impulse, and Suits felt getting her to the city and then persuading her to stay was his best shot.”

  “And then what happened to Carole Lattimer made him put off asking. But I don’t see—”

  I plunged ahead, cutting him off. “Ripinsky, I think we can assume that whoever was responsible for that explosion had access to all of the information that the people on Suits’s staff did. Including the fact that Anna was supposed to return to the city with him. And that he’d hired me.”

  Hy nodded. Waited.

  “What would a watcher have seen when Suits and I boarded the JetRanger?”

  He thought, shook his head. “You tell me.”

  “Suits and a woman who looked like Anna. A woman of around the same height, with black hair, wearing this cape with the hood raised.” I pulled the hood over my head, looked up at him from under its edge.

  Hy’s jaw clenched. “So that’s it.”

  “That’s it. I was supposed to be the one who died at Bootlegger’s Cove. What better way to stop the investigation that Suits had initiated?”

  For a moment all I could hear was Hy’s breathing, as fast and hard as my own. Then he said, “But he didn’t put a stop to it, now, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “McCone, you take Route Three-fifty-nine east out of here to Hawthorne, Nevada, and then it’s a clear shot south on Ninety-five to Lost Hope. My Land Rover needs servicing, but you borrow it, get that taken care of, and you could be there by nightfall.”

  I’d been thinking the same thing, since putting on Anna’s cape the previous evening.

  The sun was spilling over the mountains behind us now, turning the mesquite to spun gold, chasing shadows deep into the creases of the ridge. In the distance Tufa Lake glowed in violent hues, its surrealistic towers obsidian monuments against its flat surface.

  “Happy birthday, McCone,” Hy said.

  Part Two

  Lost Hope, Nevada

  September

  Eleven

  The lights of the town shone far across the desert. I’d been moving toward them for what seemed to be hours.

  Coming south out of Hawthorne the landscape had been rugged: unrelenting brown interrupted occasionally by the deceptive water-slickness of dry alkali lakes, surrounded by the wild Toiyabe National Forest and the jagged peaks of the Monte Cristo Range. At a junction with a dirt road that cut through sagebrush toward the mountains stood a collection of trailers and a bar-café; a neon sign advertised Mimi’s Massage, a euphemism for brothel in this state where prostitution was legalized. After that I saw nothing but an occasional car or truck and more barren land.

  The highway was a good one, two straight lanes of asphalt ascending into the hills so slowly that I had to glance in the rearview mirror to tell that I was climbing. I let the Land Rover’s speedometer drift near eighty; when dusk came on, I eased up some. Even at sixty-five I felt as if I were barely moving. And out of the dusk the lights of Lost Hope appeared: just over the next rise … just atop the next hill … just out of reach. …

  I turned on the radio but could get nothing but static. Snapped it off in annoyance. The tires hummed on the asphalt; headlights flashed behind me, and a pickup went past in a rush of speed, red taillights winking good-bye. The desert sky was wide and clear, shot with ice-chip stars.

  As I watched the town’s distant lights I thought of Hy. He was at his ranch house, comfortable among his books and his memories of our time together. But out here in this lonesome land, my memories didn’t suffice. In just one night, my body hadn’t gotten enough of his; my spirit hadn’t gotten enough renewal from the strong emotional connection that seemed to be working for us once more. For company and reassurance I replayed our parting conversation.

  He’d leaned into the window of the Rover, kissed me lightly, and said, “You know, before last night I had a suspicion you might be coming up here to break it off with me.”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “From here on out, it’s up to you.”

  His lips tightened and he looked away. “McCone, I’m working toward being up-front with you. That’s not easy, given that deception’s been more or less my way of life.”

  Deception, his way of life. Was that a life worth sharing?

  He added, “I want this—us. Give me a little more time. That’s all I’m asking.”

  And so he had a little more time. Till the end of the year, that’s what I’d give him.

  I’d have no choice, anyway. Tomorrow morning he’d be gone again. To San Diego in the Citabria, where he had to talk with some people. Then he would catch a commercial flight to an unspecified destination on the East Coast.

  I suspected who the people were: Gage Renshaw and Dan Kessell, principal owners of RKI, and figures out of Hy’s dim past. Last June they’d engaged his services in an attempt to lure him into partnership in the firm. He’d turned them down, but perhaps he’d had a change of heart. Perhaps he’d begun to crave more of what Gage Renshaw called “the old action.” Risk-taking, danger—that was Hy’s métier, even more than it was mine.

  Well, no use speculating. Maybe I would do well, as Suits had repeatedly told me, to just let it unfold. …

  * * *

  The highway ran straight through the town, its speed limit abruptly cut to twenty-five. At first there were gas stations, fast-food drive-ins, and inexpensive motels; after about half a mile the old-fashioned central district began. High concrete curbs bordered the pavement, and beyond them stood stone and wood buildings that harked back to the teens and twenties. On the slopes behind them more lights shone, revealing a sprawl of small dwellings.

  This was silver-mining country, the information from Suits’s files had said. Lost Hope had been a boomtown during the teens, nearly died in the thirties, and languished for years after that, its residents eking out a living from travelers driving between Reno and Vegas and tourists headed for Death Valley or Yosemite. Four years ago the city government had been bankrupt, as were most of the businesses.

  The town’s salvation had come in the form of a gambler pal of Suits’s, stranded there by car trouble on his way to a high-stakes poker game in Vegas. During the day it took for his car parts to come by bus from Reno, he and the old man who ran the La Rose Hotel had discovered a mutual fondness for gin rummy, and in the course of their conversation across
the card table, the gambler had mentioned that he knew a miracle worker who could transform the place into a profit-making enterprise. When he left the next day, the old hotelier was several hundred dollars richer and in possession of T. J. Gordon’s phone number.

  Transform the place Suits had. Yes, he certainly had.

  Miner’s Saloon and Casino, Boomtown Museum, Montezuma Mining Company Tours, Sagebrush Bed and Breakfast, Rock and Mineral Shop, T-shirts, T-shirts, T-shirts! Esmeralda Steak House, Old West Barbecue, Kiddie Korral, the General Store, Antiques, Native American Crafts Outlet. …

  The neon signs blinked and shimmered. Motels sported No Vacancy signs. Tourist families strolled. Couples window-shopped. At the central intersection two mule teams waited to take customers on hayrides.

  Once again the town had it all. But did it really want its newfound hope?

  I’d made a reservation at the La Rose Hotel; now I had mental reservations as well. But I was pleasantly surprised when I found the four-story granite building at the far end of the strip: no neon flashed there; no banners advertised all-you-can-eat buffets. A doorman in conservative livery met me and summoned a valet parking attendant and a bellman. Inside, the lobby was tastefully restored in dark wood and brass; the reception desk and pigeonhole mailboxes looked to be original. To the left I spotted an old-fashioned bar; through an archway to the right came the familiar burble of computerized slot machines.

  As I registered, I asked if any faxes had arrived for me. They were there—copies of my notes on Suits’s turnaround files that I’d requested Mick send when I’d called to check on how things were at the office. As the clerk handed them across the counter, he gave me a curious look that made me suspect he’d glanced over them, maybe even read them. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that; on the one hand his interest might be harmless enough, but on the other. …

  My room was also a pleasant surprise: large, comfortably furnished in pseudo-antiques, decorated in Laura Ashley prints. Overly warm, but that was to be expected; while desert people are a hardy breed, they seem to think that we city types are hothouse flowers. I unpacked what little I had brought along, hung my toiletries case in the bathroom, and went over the notes. Then I freshened up and took myself downstairs for a drink, dinner, and perhaps some conversation.

  The old man whose acquaintance with Suits’s gambler friend had sparked Lost Hope’s renaissance had died during the turnaround—of shame, perhaps. The new owner was Marty McNear, the old man’s nephew. I stopped at the reservation desk, gave the clerk my card, and asked if Mr. McNear was available. He went into the office, came back, and said the owner would meet me in the lounge in ten minutes. Before I went there, I checked out the slot machines.

  All were of the new computerized variety rather than the noisy one-armed bandits with the pictures of cherries and oranges and watermelons that had first piqued my mild interest in gambling. I dropped a quarter into one. After I pressed the play button, it informed me that I had a credit of two dollars. Did I want to cash in or keep playing?

  I kept playing.

  Two bucks, four bucks, ten bucks, three-fifty. Three-fifty, two twenty-five, seventy-five cents, nothing.

  They’ll get you every time—watermelons and cherries or not.

  Marty McNear met me at the door to the lounge. He was perhaps in his early fifties, although it was hard to judge. His skin had the brown toughness of an outdoorsman who doesn’t bother with sunblock; his dark hair had receded to a curly, low-slung halo. He wore western garb and a big smile that told me he wasn’t the least bit wary of meeting with a private investigator. By the time we were settled on a red velvet banquette with our drinks, I knew why.

  “I’ve got to admit it, I’m nosy,” he told me. “I looked over your faxes. Didn’t intend to, but the name Gordon caught my eye, and then I couldn’t help myself.” His smile faded and he took a sip of beer. “I heard about what happened to T.J.’s wife. Pretty grim.”

  “You know T.J., then?”

  “Sure. I came out here a few years ago after my uncle died. Planned to fix up the hotel so I could sell it, then go back to Baltimore. T.J. and his pilot were staying in the worst ratholes in the building. His other people were at a motel out by the highway. You get to know a man when you’re living under the same roof—particularly one that leaks.”

  “Would you say you and he were friends?”

  McNear frowned, fingering a book of matches that was propped in the ashtray. “I don’t know as I could lay a claim to friendship. But we were good companions, and seeing his enthusiasm for the town gave me the idea to stay on.”

  “So you’re happy with the way the turnaround affected Lost Hope?”

  “Well, sure. Oh, I know it’s kind of tacky, but you should’ve seen it before.”

  “How do the natives feel?”

  “The merchants’re happy.”

  “And the others?”

  “Well, there’re always people who resent progress.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  He hesitated. “Ms. McCone, exactly why are you here?”

  “I’m an old friend of T.J. I was a friend of his wife, too, although I only knew her briefly. T.J. hired me last summer because someone was trying to sabotage a turnaround he was working on in San Francisco. What was happening didn’t seem to have much connection to that, so we went over his past projects and pinpointed Lost Hope as a possible trouble spot.”

  “Was Anna Gordon’s death connected to that sabotage?”

  “Yes, I think so. I’m here because I want … no, I need to find out who killed her.”

  “Well, I can understand that. She was a wonderful lady.”

  “You knew her, too?”

  “Sure. She visited T.J. for about two weeks shortly before he left here.”

  Why hadn’t Anna mentioned that to me? Oversight? No—an intentional omission. “What do you recall about her visit?”

  He shrugged. “Not a whole lot. I liked her. They seemed to be having a good time. We spent a few pleasant evenings together.”

  “Can you think of anybody who could tell me more?”

  “You might try Brenda Walker over at the Indian crafts shop. She and Anna hit it off, spent time together. In fact, Brenda took on some of the crafts from Anna’s reservation. Did real well with them, she said.”

  “Is the shop open tonight?”

  McNear smiled. “No moneymaking enterprise in Lost Hope ever closes early.”

  * * *

  The Native American Crafts Outlet contained an eclectic assortment of merchandise: Zuni pottery, Navajo weaving, Hopi kachinas, Plains tribes beadwork and quillwork, even Eskimo carvings. A short, round woman with close-cropped gray hair whom I took to be Brenda Walker was helping a customer decide among a trayful of silver earrings; I began to browse, stopping at a display of Shoshone basketry.

  Recently I’d developed a curiosity about my Shoshone great-grandmother, Mary McCone—natural, I supposed, since I was the only member of the family whose appearance mirrored our one-eighth Indian heritage. I’d done some reading on her people and learned that they’re one of the many Plains tribes, now scattered from the Wind River Reservation in western Wyoming to settlements in Idaho to small enclaves in Nevada. Their reputation as peaceable people is largely derived from their arms-open welcome of the white man—an acceptance prompted less by fondness for their Euro-American brothers than by their violent hatred of the Sioux. The white man rewarded them with some forty-four million acres in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Colorado, then recognized the value of that land and proceeded to take it all back. The Shoshone ended up sharing the Wind River land with another old enemy, the Arapahoe—referred to by all good members of the tribe as “dog eaters.” The Arapahoe don’t even dignify their fellow reservation dwellers with an epithet, merely turn up their noses and call them “non-Indians.”

  I’d read many amusing tales about the odd-couple tribes of Wind River Reservation, but none of them told me the things I really wan
ted to know. Such as what sixteen-year-old Mary had been doing in Flagstaff, Arizona, when my great-grandfather Robert McCone passed through in 1888 on his westward journey from Virginia. Such as what made her take up with a much older Scotch-Irishman and turn her back forever on her people. I wondered what her life had been as the Indian bride of a white man in turn-of-the-century California. I wondered why we had only one photograph of her—a faded and browned formal studio shot that showed her in her Sunday dress, rosary in hand, looking for all the world like a good Catholic matron. I supposed I’d be searching for the answers to my questions till the day I died.

  The gray-haired woman had made her sale, and the customer was leaving. I went over to the counter. “Ms. Walker?”

  She had her back to me, was doing something with a credit-card slip. “Yes, may I help you?” She turned and glanced at me; her round face paled. Her eyes moved from my face to the cape I wore and back again. When she frowned, I realized that for a moment she’d thought I was Anna Gordon.

  I identified myself and explained that I wanted to talk with her about Anna. She relaxed somewhat, pressing her hand to her breastbone over her heart. “That cape,” she said, “it was woven by the same girl who made Anna’s?”

  I nodded, unwilling to tell her that it actually was Anna’s; the explanation of how I came to have it was one I didn’t care to go into with a stranger. “Can we talk about her?” I repeated.

  “Why?”

  I took out one of my cards and handed it to her. “Anna’s husband is my client.”

  She studied the card, then set it on the counter. “He hired you to find out who killed her?”

  “Not exactly. The authorities in California are investigating that. Mr. Gordon hired me before Anna died, to look into some problems he was having with his current turnaround. I’m here because of them.”