Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  “So you weren't in the area a few weeks ago?” I asked again, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  “Not in this area,” she repeated.

  Why did I have the feeling she was holding back? Was it just because she didn't want to talk, or was there really more to tell?

  I mumbled something in Apache, one of the few phrases I knew, under my breath, but purposely loud enough for her to hear.

  She gave me a startled look. “Are you … ?”

  “Part Apache,” I said, hoping that our Indian kinship might engender some trust. “Do you speak Apache?”

  She shook her head. I was relieved since I wasn't eager to confess that I didn't speak much of my ancestors' language. After all, my grandmother was a full-blooded Apache. But then, my English didn't have a trace of a Scottish accent either and my maternal grandfather, Shiwóyé's husband, had been Duncan MacGregor from the Highlands.

  Stella Ahil pulled the pot off the stove and strained the juice into another pot.

  “Do you know of any other People that may have used this area a few weeks ago?” I persisted.

  “No.” She had the saguaro pulp in a big metal bowl and I followed her as she spread it out to dry. “I told you, this is not usually one of the places we go.”

  Priscilla's roar could now be heard over the low hhhooo-hoooo-hoo-hoooo of the heat-resistant white-winged doves. Stella Ahil gave me a questioning look.

  “My friend,” I explained.

  A few minutes later Quinta came driving in. She shut off Priscilla's engine and reached for a pad of paper on the dashboard.

  As I walked up to the open window I saw that she was writing something down.

  “913 …” I said softly.

  “… BAS,” her whisper completed my sentence. I was impressed. Quinta had already thought to write down the license number of the old blue pickup.

  “Did you see anyone?” I asked in a low voice.

  She shook her head.

  I turned back to Stella Ahil. “If you think of anything, or run into anyone who may have been out here, I'd sure appreciate a call.”

  “Sure,” she said as she continued spreading her cactus pulp out on waxed paper, anchored by rocks.

  As we drove off I wasn't counting on getting that call.

  33

  WE PULLED INTO THE VACA GRANDE JUST BEFORE SEVEN. JUAN Ortiz was out watering the garden and his face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw us drive in. I was used to coming and going as I pleased. We had a long understanding that neither Martín nor Juan was to worry excessively about me if I didn't show up. That was one of the things about my work. I never knew where it would take me, or if I'd have to unexpectedly overnight somewhere other than home.

  I'd been thoughtless this time, though, since Quinta was with me. Of course her father and grandfather would have been concerned when we didn't come home.

  He wasn't the only one. Mrs. Fierce, Blue and Petunia did a wild Maypole dance around us as Martín came around the barn, with a horseshoe in one hand, wearing his short leather shoeing chaps. “Where have you been?” he asked as he hugged his daughter.

  “God, I'm sorry. We should have called,” I said. “I just assumed you'd know she was okay since she was with me. We had to camp out unexpectedly.”

  “I'll go tell Tata,” Quinta said as she raced off toward the garden.

  “We were worried,” Martín said.

  “I would have called, but we were miles from a phone before I knew we were going to have to stay.” I again considered getting a cell phone. But it was just one more thing to complicate my life, and I'd lived forty plus years without one. “Lose a shoe?”

  “I thought I'd get the horses shod before I left.”

  There it was again. His leaving. Like a knife in my heart.

  “Prego's not back yet, is he?”

  He shook his head. “Sometime tonight. I just hope he can get to the truck right away.”

  And I hoped he couldn't.

  There were several messages on the machine, none of them as important as the one that Top Dog had left.

  “I found Lonnie. He's in San Carlos, at Billy Cassa's.” I knew Billy Cassa. He worked at the hospital and had a fifth-wheel parked out at the Bylas rodeo arena. I was also pretty sure that Billy Cassa didn't have a telephone. Besides, I wanted to talk to Lonnie Victor and my best chance of doing that might be if I came unannounced.

  I took a quick shower, changed my clothes and pulled a couple of tamales out of the freezer and zapped them in the microwave. Throwing them on a paper towel, I retrieved a Diet Coke from the fridge, a fistful of Twinkies and a box of Cheez-Its from the pantry and dashed out the door with my road food.

  Petunia was resting under a cottonwood close to the edge of the pond, but Mrs. Fierce and Blue must have known that I was leaving again, for they were both sleeping in the shade of the truck. As I walked up, they rolled those great soulful brown dog eyes at me.

  They followed me to the barn where I told Martín where I was headed and that I hoped to be back tonight.

  I was just getting in Priscilla when Mrs. Fierce wedged herself between the door and me and gave me one of those “not again” looks. I hesitated only a moment. After all, I hadn't spent much time with my girls. But I drew the line at taking the pig.

  I guess they figured possession was nine tenths of opportunity for they wasted no time bounding into the cab of the pickup. By the time I passed through La Cienega they were both curled up behind the front seat, sound asleep, and I had polished off the tamales and was already on my second Twinkie.

  Although it was a fairly easy drive and still mid-morning, an hour later the lack of sleep I'd had was starting to get to me. There was something about the morning sun streaming into the truck that was so lulling. Fortunately by my third yawn I was just outside of Winkelman and able to stop and grab a quick cup of coffee. No decaf this morning. I'd take the shakes over sleeping at the wheel any day.

  Since I hadn't seen my grandmother in a while, I drove directly to her house on the west end of San Carlos. Shiwóyé's a medicine woman, but a modern-day one. These days most of her work is counseling Apaches in trouble—those with addictions, personal problems, out of work or in prison. On Sundays it was a good bet I'd find her home so I wasn't surprised to see her little green Geo parked outside her modest cement block house.

  Blue and Mrs. Fierce, delighted to be reunited with their brown San Carlos counterparts, took off in a mad game of doggy tag as I made my way to the front door.

  Shiwóyé opened it before I could knock and wrapped her brown leathery arms around me. I hugged back, conscious of the fresh White Rain shampoo smell of her gray bun as her head came just under my chin.

  She gave up the hug as abruptly as she had begun it and I followed her into the house, through the book-lined living room, past the wood stove, leaking over-stuffed couch and into the kitchen. Pride and Prejudice was on the Formica table, a long red ribbon marking her place, along with two placemats and sets of silverware.

  “You're expecting company?”

  “You, Pretty Horses.” She called me by my Apache name, the one she had given me years ago.

  “There's something to that medicine woman stuff, huh?”

  She grinned, her whole face a tapestry of wrinkles and warmth, the most beautiful I'd ever seen. It made me wonder what Abigail Van Thiessen would have looked like if she'd left well enough alone.

  After ladling soup into two bowls, Shiwóyé handed me a piece of folded paper. “Top Dog left you this. He thought you might be up.”

  I unfolded my cousin's note. Lonnie was at Billy Cassa's as late as 4 p.m. Saturday, I read. I looked at my watch. Almost twenty-two hours had passed. Would he still be there?

  “Your cousin had a fire or he would have joined us,” my grandmother explained as she set the bean and corn soup and donkey bread—a kind of thick tortilla—on the table.

  We spent the next hour getting caught up. She'd seen Lonnie a few
years ago when he'd been on probation for smoking dope, but had lost touch with him. She hadn't heard that he'd been working for an heiress in Oracle.

  After lunch I left the dogs at Shiwóyé's and drove the few miles back through Peridot and down to Highway 70 and then turned east to Bylas. A roadside sign encouraged, CHOOSE TRADITION, NOT ADDICTION.

  Passing Wildhorse and Bone Springs Canyon, then Yellowjacket road, I finally turned off for the rodeo arena, which was just off the highway.

  Not much was happening this morning. Billy Cassa's old fifth-wheel trailer was parked on the far side of the arena, close to the announcer's booth. I drove slowly around and pulled in next to an elderly Yamaha motorcycle. Two new lawn chairs were sitting in front of the trailer.

  As I walked up to Billy's house I could hear a cooler running and spotted a long orange electrical cord that ran up a pole next to the stand.

  I knocked on the hot metal door, but there was no answer. Waited. Knocked again until my knuckles hurt. When there still was no response, I resorted to pounding on the windows. It was Billy's trailer so I concentrated my efforts on the area I assumed to be the living room, since that was probably where Lonnie was bedded down.

  Finally, a curtain was pulled back and I found Lonnie Victor's pockmarked face staring at me, framed by a tangle of long black hair. “Billy's at work,” he growled.

  “I'm not looking for Billy.”

  “Whadya want?”

  “Hey, Lonnie. Trade Ellis, Top Dog's cousin, April Thompson MacGregor's granddaughter.” It felt funny to call Shiwóyé by her full name and I threw in the Thompson since MacGregor sure as hell wasn't an Apache last name.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned. Not a pretty sight. “Hang on.”

  A minute later he opened the door and stepped out wearing nothing but a pair of faded, torn Wrangler's. A key, attached to a metal ring, hung from one of the front loops of his pants. Probably the key to the old Yamaha.

  Lonnie had one of those skinny sunken-bird chests, populated with a few sparse hairs. His bare feet were long and skinny, like the rest of him. Looking like something out of an El Greco painting, he wasn't the healthiest-looking Apache I'd ever seen.

  “Who are you again?” He ran his hands through his shoulder-length black hair, ignoring the crust that was collected in the corners of his eyes.

  “I'm looking into Abigail Van Thiessen's murder for J.B. Calendar. I understand you were working for them.”

  He stepped back inside and pulled out a pack of Camels.

  It was hot outside, but he hadn't asked me in, and confined with him in there was not a place I wanted to be anyway.

  Lonnie grabbed one of the lawn chairs and pulled it around to the back of the fifth-wheel where there was a little shade from the announcer's stand. I did the same.

  He settled into the aluminum chair, lit the Camel, took a deep drag and exhaled, blowing three small smoke rings. “Yeah, I did some gardening for them.”

  “You were still working there when Abby died, right?”

  He was staring at the road, not looking at me. “Yeah.”

  “Do you have any idea who might want to kill her?”

  “You gotta be kidding? With her money?”

  “I know there were a few people who stood to inherit. Gloria, José, J.B….” I watched him carefully, but if the mention of any of these names meant anything to him, he was doing a good job of hiding it. “That preacher.”

  It was one of those merciless San Carlos afternoons and I wished I'd thought to bring my water out of the truck, but I didn't want to interrupt our conversation so I continued with a dry mouth. “You got any ideas?”

  “Look, I just worked there. I don't think I was ever even in the house. My stuff was all outside, so if you're looking for someone who saw something, or knew something, or something like that, you've come to the wrong place.” He studied the long ash on the end of his cigarette. “Because I really don't know anything.”

  The chairs were too close together and I could see the sweat from his left armpit drip down his side. Thank God I had my shirt on, since mine were doing the same thing. Mother Nature's air-conditioning system can be pretty effective.

  “You helped J.B. with his bulls?”

  “Sometimes. When he had that school of his running, I might open a chute, or something like that.”

  “Ever help him doctor them?”

  “Hey, do I look like a fool?”

  “Did you ever see him give them any medicine, inject them with anything?”

  His eyes narrowed. He was no dummy and was perfectly capable of reading between the lines. “Nope.”

  “So why'd you leave then right after she died?”

  He exhaled hard. “Wasn't my choice.”

  “You were fired?”

  He nodded, his long black hair swinging on both sides of his neck.

  “May I ask why?”

  “I saw something someone thought I shouldn't have.” He was slouching in his chair now, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his cigarette down to the butt.

  I waited, but Lonnie Victor needed another prod.

  “So do I play 64 Questions or do you want to share that with me?”

  He threw the spent cigarette toward the announcer's stand and reached for another. “Hey, I don't owe them anything. I ran into a couple of people going at it who shouldn't have been.”

  “J.B.,” I sighed. “And Jodie Austin.”

  “J.B.?” Lonnie was looking at me now. “No, not J.B. That brother of hers and that black woman.”

  “Peter Van Thiessen and Laurette Le Blanc?”

  “Yeah. Those are the ones I saw. Late one night, out by the pool. I'd left and then had to come back since I couldn't remember whether I'd turned off one of the water valves. That's when I saw them. He fired me the next day.”

  “J.B.?”

  “Nah, the brother. Said they were getting a professional landscaping service. Yeah, as though they wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for one to come up to Oracle.”

  I picked the dogs up at Shiwóyé's and headed back to La Cienega. The drive down gave me a lot to think about. As far as I knew neither Peter nor Laurette was married. So why would they worry if someone found them in a compromising position? Who'd care? But Peter had been concerned enough to can Lonnie Victor. He obviously didn't want him telling what he'd seen. But, why? Was this just a fling between Peter and Laurette or had Peter known her before and used her as a setup to get into his sister's house? And if so, why?

  Whatever was happening here had just tilted my investigation. Surprises. Sometimes the tilts worked, sometimes they didn't.

  Only time would tell.

  34

  ONE THING ABOUT JUNE IS THAT THE DAYS ARE NOT ONLY HOT, but they're long. Arizona's one of the few states in the union that doesn't honor Daylight Saving Time. Thank God. With our summer heat, the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging the sun to stick around any more than is absolutely necessary.

  It was still light when I drove into Charley Bell's at seven that night. His pack of dogs came running out from under his mobile home and drove Blue and Mrs. Fierce crazy. I waited until Charley came out before shutting down the engine and winding down the windows.

  “Ellis! What a nice surprise!” he said. “How's that computer going?”

  “Oh, great.” In truth I had forgotten all about it.

  “You know why e-mail is like a penis?”

  I shook my head and braced myself.

  “Play with it too much and you'll go blind!” he chortled.

  I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't even sure how someone got e-mail.

  “Say, you got time to come in for a drink?”

  “No, I better not, Charley. It's too hot for the girls to stay in the truck.”

  He nodded. Along with computers, Charley also understood dogs and knew that his pack wouldn't be thrilled if the visitors got out.

  I handed him a sheet of paper with Ste
lla Ahil's name and license plate number on it. “More homework. I thought I'd stop in and see if you had any luck with that other stuff I gave you.”

  “Oh yeah. I dropped the paperwork off at your office this afternoon. Stuck it in that old mailbox.” He was referring to one I'd put on a post for people to leave things in. “I've still got some queries out.” He scratched the bald spot on top of his head. “But there were a couple of things I thought you might really be interested in. That football player …”

  “Bobby Bangs?”

  “Yeah, that's the one. That trouble with the NFL?”

  I gave him a hopeful look.

  “Wife battering. Big-time. Cherry Bangs spent ten days in ICU in Brooklyn. Then declined to press charges.”

  “Cherry's his wife?”

  “Ex.”

  I should have been incensed, but instead I felt relief. My client wasn't the only one with a history of abusing women. Although from what Tommy Renner and even Jackie Doo Dahs told me, J.B. had acted more in self-defense than out of malice. But what case could be made for a man putting his wife in intensive care for ten days? Could Lateef Wise have turned that vile temper on Abby?

  “After that, he found Jesus, left professional football and bummed around, preaching where he could. He finally struck gold in a church out in San Francisco. It's all in the report.”

  “The good reverend told me he was there when Abby was killed. Can you check that out for me?”

  “Okey doke. Should be easy, assuming he flew.”

  “Anything interesting turn up on J.B.?”

  He shook his head. “Not much. Lousy credit until about six months ago. Surprise. No police record or outstandings. Same for that Peter guy.”

  “Van Thiessen.” Charley, a computer wizard, sometimes had trouble remembering people's names. “I wouldn't expect him to have bad credit. Nothing suspicious there, eh?”

  “Not so far. Loaded with dough, a fine upstanding citizen, charitable giver, avid runner, does a lot of marathons, never married, but dates a lot. He was devoted to his sister.”