Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  Oblivious to our arms around him, he reached into his back pocket for a blue-patterned handkerchief. Removing his sunglasses, he wiped his tears first and then blew his nose into the rag.

  “I knew right away she was gone. She was kind of stiff and her eyes looked cloudy. She just kept staring at me, begging me to do something, but there wasn't a god-damned thing I could do.”

  “Easy, buddy.” The middle man pulled him close. He looked vaguely familiar to me. “You did everything you could.”

  “Why would she go there?” J.B. mused and put his sunglasses back on. He turned back to me. I stared at myself looking back from the mirrored lenses. “Trade, why would she go out in the middle of the night and go swimming in a stock tank by herself?”

  “I don't know, J.B. Maybe she was hot and trying to cool off.” I swatted at a fly that was buzzing my face, thinking that a swim didn't sound like all that bad an idea.

  “In a filthy stock tank?”

  I knew what he was talking about. Most of the dirt dugouts are ringed in mud that the cattle have traipsed through in order to get to the water, which is never blue like in the movies. It's usually a murky green with flies, water bugs and scum floating on top.

  “It makes no sense.” J.B. shot a stream of tobacco juice into the corral.

  “You said she swam?” The Cowboy Spitter, who up to this point had been silent, chipped in.

  “You see that pool out there?” J.B. waved his hand back in the direction of the house. “It was done before the house was even finished. She swam every day, to keep fit.”

  “Well, she was that,” the middle cowboy offered.

  “But swimming doesn't make sense,” J.B. said. “She usually skinny-dipped. In fact all the help knew that when she was swimming they were to stay away from the pool.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “She had all her clothes on when I found her. Seems like if she was goin' swimming, she'd have taken them off.”

  That made sense to me too, but I kept quiet.

  We were all silent for a few minutes, letting this new piece of information sink in.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  We all turned at the sound of the new voice. A tall, thin, gorgeous woman with short sculpted auburn hair walked up. In spite of the heat she was wearing Rocky Mountain jeans, Stewart boots and a black T-shirt.

  “This is Jodie Austin,” J.B, said, neglecting to offer our names to her. “She came for the school.”

  Jodie smiled brightly. “Actually my second time around. I was here in April.”

  “You've been to the bull school twice?” I asked in amazement.

  “Glutton for punishment I guess.”

  She couldn't have been more than twenty-five or so and she looked more like a New York model than a bull rider.

  “Hey, Jodie,” the short cowboy said.

  “Bevo.”

  I looked at the middle cowboy and knew then how I knew him. His name was Bevo Bailey and I'd seen him in action many times at Tucson's Fiesta de Los Vaqueros rodeo. Like most professional rodeo clowns, Bailey was athletic and bold. His job required him to get in between a rider and a bull after the cowboy was dumped. Bevo was brilliant at what he did and a minor Tucson celebrity.

  “You really ride those things?” I nodded in Double Indemnity's direction.

  “Try to,” she laughed and her whole face became even more beautiful, if that was possible.

  I was pretty impressed. There are a lot of Buckle Bunnies who hang out around rodeo cowboys, but this one actually wanted to compete.

  “Jodie here's a model,” Bevo said. “You may have seen her in those Wrangler jeans ads or the Bud Light ones.”

  “I'm afraid I don't watch much TV,” I said.

  “Just as well,” the girl said.

  Bevo slapped J.B. on the back.

  “Well, pardner, I got to get going.”

  That seemed like a good cue so I took it. I gave J.B. a big hug and told him if there was anything I could do, to just call. With all the help they had around this place, I knew he'd never take me up on it.

  I left Jodie Austin, the spitter and J.B. hanging on the fence as I walked out with Bevo Bailey. As I glanced back over my shoulder I got a good look at the back of Jodie Austin's T-shirt. It read “Bull Riders Will Ride Anything Horny.”

  “He's really broke up,” Bevo said.

  “Seems to be.”

  “You know folks around here always thought it was funny that J.B.'d marry her, what with that big age difference and all.”

  I said nothing, thinking that $200 million could do a lot to evaporate any queasiness J.B. might have had about sleeping with a woman almost twice his age. If he hadn't been up to the task, I was pretty sure there would have been a long string of cowboys ready to ante up.

  “But he really cared for her,” Bevo said. “He loved her as much as J.B. could love anyone.”

  “You've known him a long time then.”

  “Twenty years or so. We used to rodeo together. I've been helping out here a bit with his school. Tell the students about bull riding from the clown's viewpoint. Things like how to help me save their butts from annihilation.”

  “Well, those are good things,” I agreed.

  When we reached the parking lot there were a lot more cars parked there. The news about Abby's death was spreading quickly.

  “Nice meeting you, Bevo,” I said as I headed for my truck.

  On the drive back to La Cienega I couldn't shake the image of the elegant Abigail Van Thiessen floating face down in a dirty Arizona stock tank with water bugs using her as a raft.

  5

  WE WERE LOW ON SALT FOR THE CATTLE SO I STOPPED IN AT Curly's Feed Store in La Cienega on the way home. As I pulled in, I saw my neighbor Sanders's Ford pickup. Before I went in, I told one of Curly's hands what I needed in the way of salt blocks.

  Curly and Sanders were at the counter sifting through an assortment of Chicago screws when I walked in.

  “Lotta money,” Curly was saying. I knew he wasn't talking about the hardware on the counter.

  “You hear the news, Trade?” Sanders asked. A cowboy, and probably the best-looking man in the county, he lives on a small ranch next to mine, called the Quarter Circle Running N. One of my closest friends, he runs his shorthorns in with my Brahmas and had spent the weekend with us rounding up cattle.

  “I just came from the Brave Bull. It's not going to be a secret for long.”

  “How's he doing?” Curly asked. J.B. had been a local fixture for a while and I suspected that in addition to trading at Guyton's Feed in Oracle, he and Abby had thrown some business Curly's way.

  “He'll be okay.”

  “Guess he was having that thing this week.” Sanders pointed to a bright green flyer advertising J.B.'s bull riding school that had been posted on the back of Curly's door. I'd always thought that the local postings were courtesy only since most of his students came from out of state with just an occasional one from Tucson or Phoenix.

  “There's at least one student up there already,” I offered, thinking of Jodie Austin.

  “Well, I reckon this'll take some slack out of his rope.”

  “Break a headstall?” Eager to change the subject, which would drift into a lot of unnecessary speculation, I pointed to the pile of screws on the counter.

  Sanders nodded. He used the Chicago screws on his gear. I didn't. Unless they were sealed with Loc-Tite or clear nail polish, they had the unfortunate habit of coming undone at the most inconvenient times. He made his selection, paid and left the store.

  “Say, that load of hay's coming later this week,” Curly said. He'd found us a deal on alfalfa in Yuma. I was low on hay, but had held off until Curly had checked with his suppliers. We were long past first cutting, which I refuse to buy, and I was eager to fill the barn before the summer monsoons came. Of course with the drought, that was optimistic thinking.

  “Lots of stem, right?”

  “Yup.”

 
I was one of his few customers who liked stemmy hay. If it's leafy it's often too rich and falls apart when you feed it. To me, that's like sprinkling money on the ground. Besides, over the years, a lot of horses have been seriously hurt by well-intentioned owners feeding them too well.

  The man outside was still loading my salt blocks so I strolled through the store, always a dangerous task, for I frequently buy things that I don't need. I grabbed a box of dog cookies for Mrs. Fierce and Blue and then remembered that I was almost out of food for my potbellied pig, Petunia. I say “my,” but she really belongs to my cousin Bea. The pig's just visiting us for a while until Bea realizes how much she misses her.

  I was writing out my check when Curly said, “It really is a terrible thing about that murder.”

  “Murder? Who said it was murder?”

  “Cripes, Trade, who drowns in a stock tank?”

  “That doesn't mean it was murder. Besides, who'd want to murder her?”

  He grinned.

  “That's not very charitable, Curly.”

  “Just kidding. You're right, she probably drowned.”

  Poor J.B. No matter what way this was sliced, he'd always be under a cloud of suspicion because he was a poor cowboy married to a filthy-rich older woman.

  6

  WEDNESDAY MORNING I PICKED UP THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR at the long string of mailboxes at the end of the lane and returned to my office. After turning on the cooler and pouring myself a glass of John Wayne iced tea—half lemonade and half iced tea—for it was too hot to drink coffee, I glanced at the newspaper.

  The headline in the Metro section jumped out at me: “Van Thiessen Death Suspicious.” According to the newspaper, the Pima County medical examiner had determined that Abigail Van Thiessen had indeed drowned, but the sheriff's department was reporting suspicious circumstances in connection with her death.

  I mulled this over for a few minutes and then succumbed to my curiosity. Picking up the phone I dialed the sheriff's department and asked to be put through to Detective Charles Borden.

  He picked up on the second ring.

  “Morning, Uncle C.” Borden is married to my aunt Josie.

  “Trade, what a nice surprise. How'd the roundup go? Bea said she had a ball.”

  I smiled, although he couldn't see it. Uncle C is also father to my cousins Top Dog, a triathlete and Geronimo Hotshot firefighter, and Bea, a Channel 4 anchorwoman. Bea had spent a few days gathering cattle with us, and also an afternoon helping out with the corral work, painting the fresh brands with oil.

  “We got it done,” I said.

  After asking about Josie and Top Dog, I got down to business. “Say, is there anything you can tell me about the Van Thiessen thing?”

  Uncle C groaned. “Shit, are you working on that deal?”

  While he'd never been particularly happy about my becoming a private investigator, especially since I had dropped out of the police academy years ago, he was less so now that my work frequently intersected his.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” I assured him. “It's just that I know Abby and J.B. Knew Abby,” I corrected myself. “In fact they were here gathering with us last week and the whole thing just seems so weird.”

  “Not too weird, Trade. Not with that kind of dough.”

  As we talked, an old red Mustang roared by the stage stop. It was going fast, too fast for our dusty ranch road and open range cattle. Since there was only a woman driver in the small car, my antenna didn't go up, just my curiosity. I watched the dust settle again on the road.

  “I read in the paper where the autopsy says she really did drown,” I said.

  “Drowning's tough. It can't be proven by an autopsy.”

  “But the paper says—”

  “Forget it. It's an exclusionary diagnosis. Kind of like what she didn't die of.”

  “But drowning's on her death certificate, right?”

  Uncle C gave a heavy sigh. He was used to my questions. “With drowning it's almost impossible to figure out whether it was an accident or murder, although most of them are accidental. Cause of death is still pending. The ME's office is running some routine toxicology tests and they won't be in until later this week.”

  “Booze?” I asked.

  “That and drugs.”

  “She was doing drugs?” While I'd heard that J.B. was a heavy drinker, I knew nothing about Abby's habits. And I'd never heard anyone even speculate on whether the pair used drugs. “I guess suicide's out, then?”

  “Very rare. And we're pretty sure this one wasn't that. Although she was clothed.”

  Mentally I agreed. Abigail Van Thiessen had seemed very happy last week. I'd seen no sign of depression or anxiety in her. “Why is that important?”

  “Most people don't want to be found dead naked.”

  While that made sense to me, I thought of all Abby's surgeries and suspected she might have been the exception.

  “So, I'm back to square one. What suspicious circumstances?”

  “Trade, look, I really can't talk about the case, you know that.”

  “Uncle C, just a little?” I pleaded. “My lips are sealed, I swear.”

  There was another sigh. “There's just a few things that are a little suspicious, okay?”

  “Like?”

  “Well she had a few old bruises on her that the ME suspected might have been from abuse.”

  I thought about this a minute. “She fell off her horse last week and I don't think that was the first time. That could account for something.”

  “Yeah. That's what the young husband said. We were going to ask you about it.”

  “Well, he isn't lying about that. She got dumped right in front of me. Martín saw it too.”

  “Then there's the crime scene. God, what a mess.”

  “It's a stock tank, Uncle C. What'd you expect?”

  “It wasn't the cows. That dumb cowboy rode his horse all around, then backtracked over his own tracks and then backtracked again.”

  “He told me he had to ride in to pull her out.”

  “I thought you weren't working on this,” he said suspiciously.

  “I'm not. I went up Monday to pay my respects and I talked to J.B., that's all.”

  “He managed to obliterate any evidence we might have found.”

  “Well, he was probably pretty shook up.”

  “What are you, his echo? He said the horse kept spooking and running away from the body.”

  Thinking of my own horses' aversion to dead things, I didn't find this too surprising.

  I took a long sip of my drink. “So, are you arresting J.B. Calendar?”

  “No use paying the sheriff's hot bologna bill until we're sure we've got the son-of-a-bitch nailed.”

  “Damn.” I sighed. While I didn't know J.B. well, I liked him and I didn't want to think of him as a murderer.

  After hanging up, I stared at the mess in front of me on the rolltop desk. I'd been working on a medical malpractice case for Garrison Wright, a personal injury attorney in Tucson. The results of last week's work were spread in front of me—handwritten notes of personal interviews and telephone calls.

  Since my private investigation business is a one-woman operation, I find myself managing my cases, as well as working them. While there are times when I've thought about hiring someone else to help with the workload, it still gets back to my being able to take cases or turn them away. If my work starts stressing me, I have no problem saying no. So far, the system's worked out pretty well.

  The downside is filing my weekly reports. I'd refused to take typing in high school and although I'm pretty fast with the three fingers I use, white-out tape is still my best friend.

  Doing anything to avoid the work at hand, I picked up the phone and made yet another call. In the middle of my dialing, the old schoolhouse clock chimed ten. Good. Late enough.

  Charley Bell, my information broker, picked up the telephone on the third ring. “Bell here.”

  “Hey, it's Trade.”r />
  “Ellis, how are ya?”

  “Good, Charley. Listen I was just here thinking.” I closed my eyes and imagined Charley in his doublewide surrounded with all of his electronic equipment. “You know I use that old IBM Selectric.”

  “Dinosaur, Ellis. Dinosaur.”

  “I know.” Although Charley had been trying to get me computer literate for years, I had remained something of a Luddite. Some days it was all I could do to retrieve my phone messages from my answering machine when I was in town. “I've been thinking about computers. What would I have to spend?”

  “Well, that depends. What are you going to use it for?”

  “Reports to my clients.” I used Charley almost exclusively for my electronic information gathering and I wasn't about to change that. He buys all the latest software and subscribes to all the databases so he can locate the information at a much lower cost than I ever could. Plus his expertise is priceless.

  “I could probably put something together for you,” he said. I could almost see the gleam in his blue eyes. Computers are Charley's life and putting one together from components would undoubtedly keep him busy for a day or two. “We could probably do it for under a thou.”

  I winced. Spending a thousand dollars was never easy, but then I thought of all the damned white-out tape I bought and what a pain it was to use, and about the missing “o” on the Selectric and decided that it was a legitimate business expense. Besides, I could probably use the damned thing for some of the ranch records.

  “You know, if you had one I could download a lot of the stuff you ask for.”

  “Download?”

  He knew he was taxing me. “Never mind.”

  “Well, if you really think you could do it for that …”

  “It's a done deal, Ellis. Trust me. Say, do you know what they're calling condoms in Sun City?”

  I smiled. Sun City was a large retirement community south of La Cienega.

  “I give up.”

  “Software!” Charley started chuckling. He loves his own jokes.

  And we hung up on that cheery note.