Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  My look had not gone unnoticed by Wise.

  “This was a gift,” he said softly as his hands ran over the smooth top of the desk, caressing it. “From Abigail.”

  “Nice present.”

  “She said it was in appreciation for all the time we spent together.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Counseling, Miss Ellis. We were very close.” His hooded dark brown eyes were almost reptilian. And bloodshot. Had he been working late? Staying up nights with a guilty conscience?

  “Was Abby having problems?” It was a throwaway question, for I knew that his relationship with her would have been a confidential one, much like that of attorney and client, priest and confessor.

  “We all have problems, don't we?” His soft voice was offputting caged in such a gigantic body.

  “Would you mind telling me a little about your relationship with her?”

  He spread his immense hands out, palms up in a gesture that I suspected had been practiced in front of the mirror many times. “An angel, a true ray of light. Abigail Van Thiessen was one of those people who come into our lives at just the right time.”

  “And when was that, Reverend Wise?”

  “It was back in the late '80s. I'd come from a church in Salem, Massachusetts, back to San Francisco and had some savings from a former career and was eager to start my own mission.”

  So Bobby Bangs, former 49er, had managed to save some money. I waited for him to allude again to his pro football career, but he didn't.

  “I'd found an old warehouse down near the wharf and started a church for the street people. I was working with some of the local community service programs and through the Food Bank I met a woman named Gretchen Pignelli who became a good friend. Her husband had made a lot of money in Silicon Valley and Gretchen traveled in some very wealthy circles. She brought Abigail to church one Sunday.”

  Interesting. Even back then Abby was cavorting with the downtrodden. The street people then, bull riders now.

  “Well, I must say, we just hit it off. Splendidly. Abigail felt very blessed by her good fortune and, like Gretchen, wanted to spread the wealth, as they say.”

  Remembering the donations from her checkbook register, I wasn't at all surprised by Abby's generosity.

  “She gave me a check for a thousand dollars that first Sunday. And I must tell you, preaching in that old cavernous, drafty warehouse, that check was like a blessing from God. And that was the beginning of our relationship.”

  “She's supported your churches over the years?”

  “I prefer to think that she's supported God's children,” he said with a smile that seemed sincere.

  “Was she a regular churchgoer?” I asked, remembering Peter Van Thiessen's reference to his sister's not seeing as much of Wise since her marriage to J.B.

  “She used to be.” He shook his head. “But not as much since she married Mr. Calendar. I'd hoped, of course, to perform their ceremony, but they preferred to go off to Las Vegas.”

  The light from the window behind me cast a golden glow, not unlike an angel's halo, around his head. I wasn't fooled though. What was that problem he'd had that sent him out of the NFL? Something to do with the police, I recalled. I scribbled Bangs's problem ? on my yellow pad.

  “You know she left you five million dollars?” I watched him very carefully, but his eyes never wavered or left my face.

  He shook his head again. “She left me nothing. The church is her beneficiary.”

  Very slick. How was the church structured? Surely Lateef Wise had a church board to govern such bequests. But how easy would it be for him to pull the money out? Could it be done?

  “Of course,” I agreed. “I understand there are some escalation clauses in conjunction with the gift.”

  “Fairly standard. Most of them are tied into number of congregants, programs, that kind of thing. However, an immediate two million dollars is to go directly to capital improvements. We'll be putting in a day care center once the estate is settled.”

  He showed no signs of being shy about receiving money from the dead heiress.

  “Do you have any idea who would want Abby dead?” I asked, abruptly changing my tack.

  “I read that article about suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. A double tragedy.”

  “Double in what way?”

  “Well, I mean she's passed on, and then to have it be a deliberate vicious act, that just compounds the loss in some ways, don't you think?”

  I ignored the question. “You were her confidant. Did she ever indicate to you that she was worried that someone was angry with her, angry enough to kill her?”

  “Any conversations I had with her would be confidential.”

  “Of course, but I believe the confidentiality issue might be moot once your client has died.”

  He studied a thick gold and diamond Super Bowl ring on his right hand. While it looked huge from where I sat I doubted that it was even close to the size 23 that I'd read that the “Refrigerator” wore.

  “I've already talked to the police. They were here earlier this week.”

  I waited.

  “And I will share with you what I told them because of who you are working for. Abigail came to me several weeks ago quite distressed.” Wise turned the gold ring round and round his finger, took a deep breath and then continued. “She was concerned that her husband was having an adulterous relationship with another woman.”

  “Did she mention anyone in particular?”

  “No. She was quite sensitive about the issue, told me that she felt rather foolish about marrying someone so much younger than she. Apparently her brother had warned her about that and she didn't want to discuss her husband's infidelities with him.”

  “Because of the ‘I told you so’ factor?”

  “Perhaps. At any rate, she felt that she really had no one to talk to so she came to me.”

  “Had she talked to J.B. about it?”

  “Oh, yes. They'd had several conversations, but Mr. Calendar denied everything. When I suggested marriage counseling, Abigail said that he was dead set against it, wouldn't even consider it.”

  “Do you think she was considering divorcing him?”

  He gave me a hard look. “She was more concerned about keeping her marriage together, of honoring the sanctity of her wedding vows.”

  I continued fishing for any details that would further damn J.B., but got nowhere. Either Lateef Wise really didn't know anything, or he was too cagey to share information. The thought occurred to me that he might want to stay on J.B.'s good side, at least until his $5 million was in the bank.

  When I couldn't think of anything else to ask him, he walked me to the front of the church and shook my hand.

  “We're a fairly liberal church here. You might want to drop by some Sunday and try us out.”

  “Thanks, Reverend, I'll consider that.”

  “By the way, I perhaps neglected to mention that I was in the Bay Area when Abigail died. If I can be of further assistance, Miss Ellis, please don't hesitate to call.”

  As I pulled out of the parking lot I had already determined that I didn't think much of Lateef Wise. He was too quick and too slick with his answers to my questions. He struck me as a man with something to hide. But what was it?

  While I was hot and frustrated when I left the church parking lot and would have preferred to go back to the Vaca Grande, I still had a lot of work to do and hanging out at the ranch wasn't going to get it done. I headed down Oracle Road instead.

  J.B. had listed one of his best friends as Dusty Lord, a weekend bronc rider who also filled in as a salesman at Western Warehouse. I headed there next.

  I found Dusty surrounded by boxes of Tony Lama and Justin boots, his full attention on a pale, overweight, gray-haired woman who I suspected had just moved to town. She was standing up, with a boot half on her foot as she tried to wiggle her way into it.

  “This is too tight,” she insisted.

 
“Ma'am, there's a little ledge there near the heel, if you just sort of wiggle your way down in it, your foot will seat right into the boot and it will fit just right.” Dusty Lord was somewhere in his thirties with a receding hairline and a farmer's tan.

  The woman leaned over, pulled the boot up by its ears and stomped on one leg in an effort to get the footwear on.

  “There! I've got it!” she said with a broad smile covering her face. “Harold!” She yelled to a man who was trying on straw cowboy hats. “Harold, I've got it. Ooh, give me the other one,” she said, reaching for the boot that Dusty was holding out.

  I waited, pretending to look at boots, shooing the other salesmen away saying I was waiting for Dusty. Lord heard me and gave me a puzzled look since we had never met.

  The woman had just made a lap around the carpet in her new boots when she plopped back down in the chair and tried to wiggle out of them.

  “Ma'am, let me help you with those,” Dusty said.

  He had the first boot off when I heard, “Excuse me?”

  I continued looking at boots.

  “Excuse me.” Louder.

  I turned. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to my feet. “What kind of boots are those?”

  I didn't have to look down to know what I was wearing. “Ariats.”

  “Oh, they lace up, don't they?”

  Duh. Good call since the hooks were clearly visible.

  “So you don't have that stupid ledge thing.”

  “No, you just lace them up.”

  “Do you have those?” She asked, pointing at my boots.

  Dusty Lord gave me a look to kill.

  “Sorry,” I said, smiling.

  Twenty minutes later he was finally done with the woman and then turned to me. “Now, what can I show you?”

  I introduced myself and handed him a card.

  “Oh. This is about J.B., right? He said you might call.”

  I wondered if Calendar had called his friends as a courtesy or if he was running interference. Either way I wished he hadn't.

  “Yes. I was wondering if we could talk.”

  Dusty wandered to an end cap of boots toward the back and then proceeded to tell me that J.B. Calendar was the best friend he had ever ever had. He and his wife had seen a lot of J.B. and Abby, thought they were happy and knew of no enemies she might have. He also knew about J.B.'s million. Screw around? Nope, not old J.B. Never. Not my pal.

  I was just getting ready to leave when I got a jewel.

  “You might check with Tommy Renner out at the auction barn,” Dusty offered. “He and J.B. used to be best friends.”

  Tommy Renner. Curious. He wasn't on J.B.'s list.

  I noticed that while Dusty wore no ring, there was a telltale white skin band, set off by his tan, around his left ring finger. He probably didn't screw around either.

  As long as I was on a roll with J.B.'s friends, I decided to try to reach Bevo Bailey. After leaving Western Warehouse I stopped at a pay phone and tried the number I had for him. I got a recording telling me that Bevo was out, but if I could leave my name and number, he'd get back to me. I did.

  I tried Tommy Renner at the Marana Stockyards and was told he was in and out, but would definitely be there Friday morning for the sale. I doubted that I'd have much luck reaching him if I made the drive out. Tommy could wait.

  Since most of the day was shot now anyway, I decided to head back to La Cienega.

  All the business with J.B.'s and Abby's friends still hadn't been enough to take my mind off the thing that was really eating at my guts.

  Martín Ortiz was leaving the Vaca Grande.

  22

  I STOPPED AT THE EEGEE'S ON NORTH ORACLE ROAD, PARKED Priscilla and went in. I was in luck. Sherry Kibble, Emily Rose's sixteen-year-old daughter, was working. After ordering a lemon eegee's, only the best frosted drink in the entire world, I asked to use the phone, figuring the refrigerated restaurant was a much better choice than melting into the pavement outside using the pay phone.

  After dialing my number and punching in the remote code, I accessed my answering machine. The first message was from Charley Bell, again asking how I was getting along with my new computer. A feeling of embarrassment washed over me since I really hadn't had time to get acquainted with the damned thing. The second message was from Peter Van Thiessen, who said that he'd be at the Brave Bull all afternoon and if I wanted to come up any time before eight this evening, he'd be there.

  I grabbed my drink off the counter and headed out the door.

  We sat in the great room sipping ginger ale and for the last few minutes had been making small talk, over the soft music that was playing. Peter was wearing a short-sleeved purple Brave Bull polo shirt and white shorts that set off his smooth, tanned legs. In fact they were so smooth that I wondered if he shaved them. I knew that swimmers did that, but did marathon runners do it too?

  Outside the window I could see José Covarrubias brushing down the walls of the swimming pool with a long-handled metal pole.

  “Looks like you've been getting some sun,” I said.

  “I've been running like a madman. Taking advantage of the dry heat.” He smiled.

  I wondered if he'd ever been running in the Baboquivaris. The lawyer and Clarice Martínez had both assured me that Peter was a very wealthy man in his own right. Plus he didn't stand to inherit any money from his half-sister. So why would he want to kill her? While I couldn't discount the possibility, I saw no need to bait him.

  “I visited Lateef Wise this afternoon at the Church of Brotherly Love.”

  “Church of Brotherly Rip-Off, you mean.” Van Thiessen snorted.

  “He seems to have been genuinely fond of your sister.”

  “Why not? She was his ATM machine.”

  “It sounds like you suspect him.”

  “It's certainly within the realm of possibility, don't you think?”

  I nodded. “Do you have any other candidates for me?”

  “You mean, I presume, other than the obvious?”

  “The obvious?”

  “Come on.” He was smiling, but it was a hard smile.

  “I'm thinking.” I wasn't going to say it and I was right, I didn't have long to wait.

  “J.B.”

  “You think J.B. killed Abby?”

  “Like Dr. Jesus, I think there's a distinct possibility.”

  “You don't think much of him, then?”

  “Think? Sure I think about him a lot. I see a down-and-out cowboy who charmed the socks off a woman who was thirty-two years his senior. That boy hit the mother lode.”

  “But that doesn't make him a murderer.”

  “Don't worry, I haven't forgotten who your client is.”

  “It's no secret that J.B. has retained me, but that retainer doesn't preclude me from disclosing the truth, whatever that may be.”

  “That preclusion would still be your choice.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you found he was implicated?”

  “As you said, my choice.” I smiled and drained my ginger ale. “But in order to move on, I've got to ask some hard questions first.” I hesitated a moment to let this sink in. “Like, did Abby do drugs?”

  He laughed. “You didn't know my sister well, did you?”

  He was right about that. I shook my head.

  “She considered her body a temple, a violated one to be sure, all that business with the liposuction, the face lifts—three that I knew of—the tummy tucks and eyelid nips. The only drugs she took were vitamins. Fistsful.”

  My mind flashed to the yummy cinnamon rolls that Gloria Covarrubias had been baking and to the lump of fat that Sanders had found in the campfire. Apparently J.B. hadn't shared his wife's diet.

  “Your sister drank?”

  “Sure she drank. But not excessively. She'd have one or two cocktails in an evening and she did like her Baileys before bed.”

  “And J.B.?”

  He cocked his h
ead, listening to the music. I felt that maybe he was lost in it, instead of paying attention to our conversation.

  “What?”

  “And J.B.?”

  “Well sure, he drank too.”

  “Moderately?”

  “As far as I know.”

  I returned to the drugs. “Did she ever take Prozac that you knew of?”

  “The antidepressant?” He looked startled.

  “I'm sure the police will be contacting you.” I was surprised that they hadn't already called. “But they found Prozac.”

  While I was willing to give up the Prozac, I kept my mouth shut about the ketamine. Until the police approached him I couldn't volunteer it. Em had given me the ketamine information confidentially. If the police were truly interested in it, they'd have to find probable cause to get a search warrant and that could take time. In the meantime if I tipped their hand, Em could lose her job and I could lose my license and the case could lose its implicating drug.

  “I don't get it.” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Why would Abby take Prozac? What was she depressed about?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “We didn't talk all that often, Trade. I think the last time was a couple of weeks before her … death. But she didn't mention anything being wrong and didn't seem upset at all. And she sure didn't mention anything about taking Prozac.”

  “Do you mind if we take a look?”

  “Not at all.”

  As we got up I saw José walk away from the pool.

  I followed Peter through a long series of hallways into the back of the house. We passed through Abby's sitting room, past her French provincial desk and into a cavernous marble bathroom. The top wall above her marbled vanity was all mirror with no sign of a medicine cabinet anywhere.

  Peter was opening the vanity drawers when Ramona, the maid, came in.

  “May …I… help …you …sir?” Her speech was very slow, deliberate and not quite right.

  “Oh, Ramona. Abby's medicines, where are they?”

  “Med …i…cines,” the girl repeated. It was obvious to me that she was slow. She thought about this for a long minute and then her face lit up. “Oh!”

  She reached for a lacquered Japanese cabinet on top of the sink and opened the top like a wooden basket. Inside were nestled a horde of vitamin pills—E, C, selenium, B complex, calcium, D, zinc, ginkgo biloba, kelp lecithin, shark cartilage and one amber plastic bottle with a white label. Peter handed it to me.