Rode Hard, Put Away Dead

by Sinclair Browning

  Although it had to be close to six o'clock, it was still blistering hot. But not too hot for the flies who buzzed around the dead dog and were now acutely aware of our arrival and the fresh meal I was offering on my back.

  “Walk toward the fence,” Peter demanded.

  He was coming around the car now and I knew that if he saw the back of my T-shirt, he'd see the blood and find the knife. My brain kicked into gear and I formulated a quick game plan.

  A huge mesquite tree was next to the car and a large flat boulder was nestled under it.

  I backed away from him and sat on the boulder. “I …I have to sit down,” I said. “I'm not feeling well.”

  My news meant nothing to him.

  Keeping my back straight, I held my head in my hands, being careful not to touch my throbbing chin as I willed him to come closer.

  I stared at the ground until I saw his Topsiders through my fingers and then looked up. As I did so, instantly there was a cold, raw fear in the pit of my stomach.

  Peter Van Thiessen, dressed in his spiffy Ralph Lauren shorts and polo shirt, held the treacherous stun gun in his left hand.

  And in his right, a small, sleek, deadly .22.

  47

  “LET ME GUESS, YOU WERE THE ANONYMOUS CALL ON THE KE-tamine, weren't you?” I swatted at the flies hovering around my face.

  “I had to do it to protect myself.”

  I knew it wasn't just that. He'd been covering his bases from the beginning. Otherwise, why would he have even used the veterinary drug? He'd planned on setting J.B. up. It may have been a just-in-case scenario, but it was a setup nonetheless.

  “I guess she was terrified, huh?” I asked, wishing I could see his reaction behind his mirrored shades.

  “I'm not a murderer, Trade.” He sounded almost apologetic.

  “You must have loved her very much.” With my swollen lip, the “very” sounded like “berry.”

  “Loved her?” He laughed. “She was everything to me. When Momma Mad locked us up in the closet Abby told me stories to keep me from going crazy and gave me her water. I don't think I would have made it without her.”

  “You had a rough childhood.”

  “You have no idea. No one does, except Abby.”

  “No, no one could know.”

  “And then when she found out she was sick, everything just fell … apart.” He wiped his moist face with the stun gun hand and I couldn't tell if he was smearing tears or sweat.

  “She was very afraid, wasn't she?” I asked as gently as I could.

  He nodded. “She didn't want to get old and ugly.”

  “It must have been horrible to see Madeleine's cancer disfiguring her. To see her live with that lingering illness. That's been part of your life for a long time, hasn't it?”

  “It didn't bother me as much as it did Abby. Sometimes she had to clip Momma Mad's toenails and help bathe her.” He shuddered and I suspected he was more affected by his mother's illness than he was willing to admit. “She didn't want anyone having to do those things for her.”

  “No, I suppose she didn't.”

  “She talked to the doctors. We had the money.”

  “But there wasn't a cure.”

  “No. And having the money when you're faced with that doesn't mean a damned thing. Not one damned thing.”

  “Did she help you plan it?” I asked softly.

  “God, no.” He was horrified. “She didn't want to know. Not how, not when. She just wanted it done unexpectedly.”

  “Why now?”

  “I was in Silver City for a marathon when I got the call about the trip.”

  “From Gloria?”

  He nodded. “It seemed like a perfect opportunity. They were in a remote spot, there'd be no witnesses, easy in and out.”

  “But there was a witness,” I reminded him.

  “Which is why we're here now. I need the name.” He was slapping the stun gun against his muscle-corded thigh, seemingly oblivious to the flies that were landing on him.

  “I don't have it. He was with an Indian woman camping out near the stock pond.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  The flies were buzzing around my back, landing on my shirt, attracted by the blood. They were mean, biting my arms and legs.

  “It's the truth. The man is from Mexico and was in this country illegally. There's a strong possibility that he won't testify at all.”

  Peter took a step toward me. “And the woman's name?”

  “Stella Manuel.” The lie came easily off my lips. Sometimes it's easier if you combine it with truth as I'd just done with the real Stella's first name. “She works at the public health department.” I was on a roll.

  “But the lawyer knows her name?”

  “No.” I continued the lie. If I couldn't get out of this, there was no reason to jeopardize María López Zepeda.

  “She's working on the immunity thing and I didn't want to give her my source until that was settled.”

  He shook his head and I couldn't tell if he was buying it or not.

  “How'd you do the bull prints?” I asked, swatting at the flies. A couple of red ants were trudging across the dirt and I moved my feet out of their way.

  “Padded fabric shoes. Custom-made.”

  “By Gloria.”

  His mouth twitched in surprise. “How'd you know about that?”

  “Three months ago, some very large sums started appearing in her private checking account. They had to come from someone with money. You were one of the candidates. As for Gloria, the prints were the size of Brahma bulls, and Gloria could have gotten the pattern from Double Indemnity. Trouble was, the land where you killed Abby was leased to a rancher with smaller cows.”

  “I didn't think of that.”

  “Why would you? You're not a cowboy. Neither is she.”

  “Gloria deposited that money?”

  I nodded.

  “I told her not to. She shouldn't have done that.”

  From what I'd seen of Gloria I doubted that she would have paid much attention to anything Peter said to her.

  “Maybe she didn't want to leave it in her house.”

  “José doesn't know about any of this.”

  “I didn't think he did.”

  “If we'd had decent laws in this country …”

  “But we don't.”

  “They convicted Kevorkian, did you know that?”

  “That was a little close to home, wasn't it? That whole bit with the video on TV?” I hadn't watched the 60 Minutes show, but I'd read enough about it to be pretty sure of my ground. “That guy he killed had Lou Gehrig's, didn't he?”

  Peter took a deep breath, but didn't answer me.

  “That must have really gotten your attention, with Abby's diagnosis. And that's what this is all about, isn't it? The lengths you've gone to to save your own ass.”

  “You don't… don't understand, Trade.”

  “Oh, but I think I do.”

  “I can't go to prison for this.”

  He was terribly mistaken; in fact, he could definitely go to prison for this. But I knew that wasn't what he meant.

  “Which is why you killed Dr. Mullon.”

  “God, I had no choice. He was the connection, don't you see? The link between Abby and her disease …no one else knew.”

  Interesting that Abby had told both Clarice and her brother about the Lou Gehrig's disease, but had also told each of them that they were the only ones who knew about it. She'd been abusive in her own way, for each one had thought that they were her only confidant.

  “And if Mullon talked, your mercy killing would have been discovered, is that what you thought?”

  He exhaled sharply. “It's been hell.” He used the stun gun hand to remove his sunglasses briefly and I saw a nervous tic under his right eye. He swiped his arm across his face before replacing the glasses. “You have no idea what it's been like.”

  “Killing your sister?”

  “Killing both of them.
I never thought about her doctor, but driving home that night, I knew that it had to be done.”

  “You must have thought about it some, you knew where he lived.”

  “Only because Abby and I were there for a Christmas last year and I remembered the house. I didn't preplan that, Trade.”

  He was getting agitated, as though it were really important that I believe him. He fidgeted and looked at his watch.

  “And you waited for him to come home?”

  “No. He was already there.”

  I was surprised I didn't know this. There'd been nothing in the newspaper about it, and Uncle C sure hadn't shared this inside information with me.

  “I called him from the alley on a cell phone I picked up with fake ID and a fake name.” He was pacing; his left hand held the stun gun to his ear as though it was a phone. “Told him that Abby was having a problem and we needed him at the ranch. He was very good that way, about making house calls.”

  Another little detail Uncle C hadn't shared with me, for surely the cell call had shown up on Mullon's phone records.

  Peter was mumbling into the imaginary phone, not paying much attention to me. My hand drifted to my back where the knife was, but then he looked up. I pretended I was scratching my hip.

  “I waited for him to come out.” He pointed the stun gun at me and jerked his hand twice as though he were shooting me.

  I was glad it was the stun gun hand as I wondered how far he was going to take his reenactment.

  It seemed like he was starting to cry, while at the same time trying not to let me see that he was. “God, it was just awful.”

  Tiny gnats had moved in, joining the flies in attacking my eyes, nose and bloody mouth.

  “Not as easy as drowning your sister?”

  A muscle twitched above his left cheek. “You'll never understand. That wasn't easy. It was the beginning of my descent into hell.”

  “And was it just a coincidence that you took a hotel room at the El Mercado, a couple of blocks away from Mullon's house?”

  “You're really not going to believe this.” He laughed, but it wasn't sincere. “But it was. When I checked in I hadn't thought about killing Sam.”

  “So you parked the car, walked over from the hotel, put a couple of slugs in him, went back to your room and went to bed.”

  “Not exactly. That's not my car.” He nodded in the direction of the Bronco.

  “You said that.” A gnat flew into my mouth and I choked on it.

  “It belongs to a neighbor of Gloria's.”

  My heart sank. Even with my fingerprints all over the car, the police would probably never find it. “Nice of him to lend it to you.”

  “He doesn't know. Gloria borrowed it because hers is on the blink.”

  “Or because she didn't want you using hers.”

  He gave me a sly grin, as though I'd just solved a complex part of a puzzle.

  “She's been manipulating you, Peter. She's the guilty one.”

  “Is not! Don't you say that!” His lips curled back and his teeth looked like they wanted to bite me. “We didn't want anything traced to her.”

  “Which is why the ketamine was planted in J.B.'s bull riding gear.” I'd already figured out that Gloria had planted the drugs in J.B.'s and Abby's whiskey. Why their plan worked so well was that different drugs had been planned for each of them. J.B.'s to totally knock him out; Abby's to make her woozy, but still awake enough that even after the ketamine injection she could help her brother carry her off.

  He nodded, a little bit calmer now.

  “And you conveniently removed the doctored Jack Daniel's bottle and replaced it with a clean one.”

  “I was just covering all the bases. I really didn't want J.B. to get arrested.”

  “But if it was between him or you …”

  “I hoped it would be seen as an accident. Abby wouldn't have wanted people to know she was murdered.”

  “Because she wouldn't have wanted you to be caught, Peter,” I said as gently as I could. Suddenly Abby's logic made sense. She didn't tell Clarice that Peter knew because she wanted to protect him after he killed her. On the other hand she didn't tell Peter that Clarice knew because she didn't want him to be afraid to do it.

  “How'd you know which night they'd drink it?” This was a question that had been bugging me all along.

  “It didn't matter. If they'd had some Friday night they would have slept it off and had a couple of good hangovers the next day. I figured I could pick the night I could do it.”

  “Why Saturday?”

  He gave me a look that said, how stupid are you ? “I was running in the Silver City marathon Saturday morning.”

  Jesus, he really was a sick puppy, planning his sister's death around his running schedule. “It was a good alibi.”

  He smiled.

  “How'd you know about the stock pond?”

  “Topo maps.”

  It made sense. He was a runner who trained on country trails. Reading a topo map wouldn't have been any great trick for him. As for acquisition, Gloria could easily have gone into Tucson Map and Flag and picked one up.

  “So you used the neighbors's car and then what?” If I was going to die out here in the hot Arizona desert, I at least wanted to die with the full story that had killed me. And for some reason, I sensed that Peter wanted to tell me everything. I straightened my back and was amazed to feel my T-shirt feeling a little stiff. Had I stopped bleeding? I sat very still, not wanting to break things open again or increase the pain I was feeling.

  “I left my rental at the hotel, ran to Gloria's where I grabbed the Bronco. Then I went out to the Baboquivaris, came back, dropped the Bronco off and ran back to the El Mercado. Got the .22 out of the rental car that was parked in the garage and then went over to the doctor's.” He shuddered, as though the memory of killing Mullon really bothered him.

  “And if anyone saw you in your running clothes, hot and sweaty, they wouldn't have thought a thing of it. Nice plan.”

  “Just another nighttime jogger,” he said with a sad smile. “I checked out, drove back to Silver City and was in my room when the call came about Abby.”

  “Very neat,” I said.

  “But you know …” There was a catch in his voice.

  “Do you know the worst thing of all?”

  I shook my head.

  “Giving her that shot.” He was crying again, making no effort to hide it from me this time. “When she was a little girl, she hated shots. It was the only thing I really did better than she did.” In spite of the heat, he was beginning to shake. “I was always a brave boy when it came to shots.” There was a faraway wistful tone in his voice. “Wasn't I?”

  “Yes, Peter, I'm sure you were.”

  “And you know the other bad thing about all this?”

  I could think of several bad things, but kept my mouth shut.

  “Is that I can't talk to Abby about any of this, not anymore. She can't help me decide what to do.” He sounded puzzled now, as though he didn't have a clue what his game plan was. I didn't know whether to be alarmed, or relieved.

  “How about Gloria?” I asked softly.

  “She was a bad girl,” he said. “She made me light those matches, I knew it was a naughty thing to do.”

  “The fire in the closet,” I whispered.

  “Uh huh. She was wearing Momma Mad's gloves and poof! They just caught on fire.”

  “But you saved her, Peter. That was a very brave thing to do.”

  “That was, wasn't it?”

  “Yes it was.”

  “She never told on me …”

  Something was crawling on my foot. I looked down to see a red ant creeping across my flesh just above the strap of my Birkenstock. Without thinking, I leaned down to brush it off before it bit me.

  Immediately Peter was thrust out of his reverie. He lurched forward. “What's that … ?”

  He'd spotted the bloodstain. I straightened up quickly and thankfully the knife re
mained in place. My right hand flew around to my back, and I reached up quickly and pulled down, retrieving the survival knife cleanly from my clothing. As I did so my back ripped open again and I was aware of a fresh gush of blood coming out of my tortured body.

  Peter realized too late what I was doing and was backing up as I instinctively slashed the knife hard against his shins. He shrieked and faltered, but his left hand came down with the stun gun in an effort to zap me.

  The son-of-a-bitch wasn't going to get his chance as I dropped and rolled on the ground, coming up underneath him as I slashed upward into his armpit. He shrieked and I was immediately rewarded with a bright gush of blood. Still he held both guns, and in a further effort to disable him, I slammed the knife hard into his left thigh as he collapsed in the dirt, screaming. He dropped the stun gun as both hands, including the right one, which still held the .22, clutched his thigh. The rubber haft of the knife trembled from my effort.

  Standing now, I snatched up the stun gun and pressed it into his neck.

  “Now we're going to start being kind to one another, aren't we, Peter?”

  The blood was gushing out over his hands and I wondered if I'd severed an artery. Could there be one on the top part of the thigh? Why didn't I know that? Maybe there wasn't. Still, it seemed like an awful lot of blood. But then again, I'd also slashed his armpit; maybe some of it was from that.

  Keeping the stun gun in place I reached around the front of him and pried his fingers off the .22. “Give me the gun, Peter.”

  His fingers were slick with blood as he loosened his grip on the pistol. Before I traded weapons I needed to be sure the gun was properly loaded, so I stepped back from him. Since I was fairly handicapped with my wounded back, and not wanting to set the stun gun down, I fired the .22 at a prickly pear several yards away. A clean hole appeared in the slim green tuna pod of the thirsty cactus.

  “This will do,” I said, pointing the gun back at him.

  “You went right through my goddamned muscle.” Peter's voice had raised an octave and it came out sounding like he was whining. He was still on the ground, bending over his leg and trying to stanch his bleeding with the shank of his right arm.

  “Uh huh.” It seemed as though my back was throbbing in tune with my heart and my shorts felt like they were also filling with blood. I ran my tongue over my parched, dried lips. The tip probed the crusted blood of my lower lip, the one that felt like a water balloon. “I think we'd better leave the knife in there. If we pull it out, you'll probably bleed to death.” I had no idea if that was the case or not, but his leg seemed to me like a good place for the knife to stay. “Take your shirt off and wrap it around your thigh.”