Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112)

by Simonson, Sheila

  Rob made appreciative noises. What Meg said was interesting, but Mack was going to pull the plug on further investigation any moment. That took the bloom off the rose.

  She ventured a cautious question about Meek’s death, so Rob told her about Todd’s emotional crisis.

  “Oh, poor Todd. Are you sure he’s all right?”

  “I stopped by his apartment this morning. He was eating a breakfast pizza with pepperoni.”

  Meg laughed.

  “I think he’ll survive.” He added, “It’s hard on him, though. I told him to take a couple of days off.”

  “What about Chief Thomas?”

  Rob groaned. “Look, Meg, I need to get back to work. Can I drop by later?”

  “Sure. I’ve got our dessert in the freezer.”

  “Cold comfort food?”

  He liked her laughter, the right music on a blue day. He hesitated, lost for a moment in a pleasant reverie, then shook his head to clear it and rang off.

  Phyllis Holton. He found the number for Tichnor Realty and dialed it. The woman who answered put him through to Ms. Holton without a quibble. Rob identified himself.

  “Latouche County? I suppose this is something to do with Mr. Tichnor’s property up there. How can I help you?” The voice was professionally pleasant.

  “I’m calling in connection with the murder of Harold Brandstetter, Ms. Holton.”

  “It’s Mrs. I’m a widow.”

  “Thank you. When we examined Brandstetter’s telephone records, your home number came up repeatedly.”

  Silence. Mrs. Holton cleared her throat. “I met Commissioner Brandstetter only the one time. He called to leave messages for my employer, Vance Tichnor.”

  “I see. What was the nature of the messages?”

  “I’m not sure that’s your business.”

  Rob said, “I’m conducting a homicide investigation, ma’am. Anything Harold Brandstetter did in the last twenty-four hours of his life is my business. He called your home. Why was that, Mrs. Holton? Mr. Tichnor informed me with some heat that he’s a businessman and has not one but two cell phones. With message service, I imagine. Why would Brandstetter call your home?”

  Again, a hesitation. “Both Vance and Brandstetter were a little paranoid about cell phones—”

  “Hal called from a cell phone.”

  “I suppose he thought he’d be able to catch Vance at my place,” the woman said wearily.

  “Is that usual in the real estate business?”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic, Lieutenant. Vance and I are old friends. Why am I engaging in euphemism? Anyone who knows us will tell you that Vance and I are lovers. We have been for many years.”

  “So his wife suggested.”

  “Ah, poor Moira.” She sounded rueful rather than catty. “Our Moira is a little childish, I’m afraid. She’s twenty years younger than Vance. A trophy wife. I suppose you know the expression.”

  “It has wended its way upriver.”

  She laughed. “She’s expensively slim and expensively educated and expensively clothed. She looks great on public occasions. Mama approves of her taste.”

  “I see,” Rob murmured by way of encouragement.

  “Thick as a plank,” Phyllis Holton said without evident rancor. “Moira may well have been in love with Vance when they married. God knows he’s an attractive man, and I know he lusted after her. I don’t want to suggest there was no emotional attachment, but I’m afraid they bore each other. She doesn’t get his jokes, and he doesn’t like opera. What can I say? She’ll take him to the cleaners one of these days, and he’ll deserve it. When he wants comfort, he comes to me.”

  “Then you know him very well. What can you tell me about his collection of Native American art?”

  “His—” She broke off, coughing. “Sorry, frog in my throat. I don’t know what art you’re talking about. Vance is a compulsive collector. I suppose at some point he may have collected pots or arrowheads, but, if so, he moved on to other things. Right now he’s buying a vintage Daimler.”

  So much for that gamble. Rob thanked Mrs. Holton and hung up.

  There was no serious doubt in his mind that Vance Tichnor had acquired the Lauder Point artifacts, perhaps even commissioned the theft. Probably at a later time, he had stored at least some of them in his grandfather’s garage. There was no way Rob could see of implicating him in the murder, however, and no way to be sure that the loot had been taken to his new lodge.

  Tichnor was influential. The speed with which his plans had been approved by the county commissioners, commissioners other than Brandstetter, indicated that Rob would have to walk warily. He did not yet have grounds for a search warrant, and Mack was about to close the case.

  Frustrated, Rob shoved his chair back and stood up. Time for another visit to the courthouse. The plans for Tichnor’s lodge would be on file—and the names and telephone numbers of the principal contractors. He’d already spoken to Akers about the trailer at the campground. Akers claimed not to know William Meek. He had given a key to Hal Brandstetter, whose politics he admired.

  ROB showed up at the happy hour, though he didn’t look happy. He presented Meg with a bottle of Laphroaig. She wondered whether single-malt Scotch went with chocolate ice cream, but she didn’t hesitate to pour.

  Though her living room was more or less in order, they sat in the kitchen anyway. She was making soup again. It was soup weather.

  The Scotch rolled on Meg’s tongue and slid down her throat to the nerve endings along her spine, radiating a gentle Caledonian warmth as it went. “Good stuff.”

  “It is. My grandfather prescribed a tablespoon of whisky in a glass of hot water for most ailments including the pangs of puppy love.”

  “Wise man.” The lid of the soup kettle rattled.

  Rob cocked an eyebrow. “What’s that? Smells good.”

  “Split pea soup with ham hocks. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  He opened his mouth as if to say no, looked at her, and grinned. “You have to stop feeding people. Jeff told me about the killer chili. Did you ever want to be a chef?”

  “Of course I did. Do you know what good chefs make in Southern California?”

  “More than good librarians?”

  “You got it.” She took another exquisite sip.

  “What kind of chef?”

  She looked at him. “Vegan. Stop stalling. I want to hear about the investigation.”

  He clenched his eyes shut and opened them. “It’s a sorry mess. Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Toobad. Ido.”

  “You’re a hard woman.”

  A hard woman? A hard man is good to find. She almost said it out loud, caught herself, and blushed.

  A slow grin touched Rob’s mouth, as if he had read her mind, but he refrained from comment. He was flushed, too, she noticed. They both looked away and the lid rattled.

  “Uh, all right.” Rob’s amusement leaked from him like straw from an effigy. He looked tired. The bruise on his cheekbone was turning green and sliding south. “The investigation. I’ll give you the sheriff’s version first. William Meek and Hal Brandstetter did the Lau der Point job ten years ago. Hal stored the loot in Emil Strohmeyer’s garage with the old man’s permission. Never mind that we haven’t found the lost key in there with the rest of Hal’s keys. He sold some of the swag and used the money to establish himself as a public figure.”

  “Just like that?”

  Rob grimaced. “It took awhile. Meek went back to Montana and did Montana things, like drilling with militia groups and beating up his girlfriends.”

  “I think you’re traducing a great state.”

  “Probably. I’m not traducing Meek, though. He was nasty. Hal and Meek kept in touch. In August, Hal decided to move the rest of the artifacts from the garage because you were coming.”

  “Considerate.”

  “He was a sweet guy.”

  “What about the murder?”

 
“Eddy Redfern had tailed Hal to the garage from a big swap meet at the Pacific International Exposition Center in Portland. We know Hal attended the meet, and Eddy told his friends he was going to. Eddy surprised Hal and Meek while they were moving the petroglyphs. Hence your fragment of The Dancers.”

  “He surprised them and they killed him? Just like that?” Meg swallowed Scotch.

  Rob nodded. “Hal or Meek, we don’t know which but the sheriff likes Meek, bashed Eddy’s head with a crowbar they tossed in the river later. They left Eddy lying in the garage overnight. They tried to bury him the next day, but rigor had set in and they couldn’t fit the lid over the cavity with his body in it.”

  “Ew.”

  “So they dug up the area behind the garage and used the dirt to conceal their victim, leaving the lid propped against the back door.”

  “And then?”

  “Meek went back to Montana and Hal went on with his life, voting no when the commissioners met, loosing Towser on the general public, and battering Tammy.”

  “And then?” Meg repeated, relentless.

  He made a face at her and took a sip of Scotch. “You drove up from California, opened the garage, Towser found the corpse, and the jig was up.”

  She smiled. “Do people say that?”

  “I doubt it. I’m trying not to be sarcastic, but I’m only human.”

  “Goon.”

  “Hal panicked and called Meek, who flew down from Montana Friday. They got together for a heart-to-heart on Hal’s deck, quarreled, and Meek shot his good buddy with a .357 magnum double-action revolver, which he just happened to have in his jacket pocket despite having come straight from the airport. Somehow he had also acquired a newish van, which he then drove away from Brandstetter’s house with the lights off.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Someone did. Towser barked. Kayla Graves, who lives across the street, heard the dog and looked out in time to see the van leave. She thinks it had Oregon plates. She didn’t see Hal’s body because of the big rhododendron at that end of the deck. Towser shut up and Kayla went back to bed with her boyfriend, who didn’t waken on account of drinking too much beer.”

  “True?”

  “That part’s true. On Sunday, having dumped the mythical van somewhere, Meek stole a Datsun pickup. He lurked outside the hospital waiting for me to come out.”

  “Why?”

  His mouth twisted. “Because I was such a threat to his well-being, of course. When I left by the side door, he trailed along Birch Street, spotted me talking to Mrs. Crookshank, sped up, and fired shots at the two of us. I cleverly avoided being hit by rolling over the lawn sprinkler. Meek abandoned the pickup in the Safe-way lot, where he had parked his rented Subaru.”

  “What Subaru? I thought he was driving a van.”

  “Maybe he had two cars. The van has evaporated. We know he rented the Subaru at the airport branch of Rent-a-Wreck, even though Hal met him. Meek drove it out to the River Road Campground, where he had been staying since he shot Hal.”

  “What?”

  “Before the legendary quarrel, Hal gave him the key to Akers’s small travel trailer, which is parked at the campground.”

  “Huh.”

  “So there Meek was, camped with a passel of hunters. He brooded about his failure to kill me and Mrs. Crookshank over three cups of coffee and a Twinkie, became disconsolate, and shot himself in the face with the aforementioned .357, also shooting out the window of the trailer. Am I leaving anything out?”

  “That’s too dumb for words.”

  “My humble opinion, too. I conveyed it to Sheriff McCormick, in somewhat more tactful terms, and will take a day of well-earned comp time tomorrow while we wait for the autopsy results. Mack can’t close the case until the ME has spoken. My sergeant, Earl Minetti, will be happily occupied doing the paperwork while I drive up to Tyee Lake to winterize my cabin. Do you want to come along?”

  “I…sure. You mean that’s it?”

  He took a hearty swallow of Scotch. “No, I’ll poke away at the theft on my own time, the way I have been for ten years, but the official investigation into the murders will be closed.”

  Meg brooded. She sipped Scotch and got up to stir the soup. “What about the Tichnors?”

  “What Tichnors?”

  “They’re involved. I know they are. For God’s sake, why are they here?”

  “Vance is overseeing the last housekeeping chores before the lodge is finished. Carol is cheering him on.”

  “Fudgsicles.”

  “Do people say that?”

  Meg didn’t even smile. She gave the soup a vicious stir and began pulling bowls and glasses from the cupboard. “Okay, that’s the sheriff’s version. What about yours?”

  “Mine still has a lot of question marks.” He got up and helped her set the table. “Do you have crackers?”

  “Saltines? Yes.”

  “I like ‘em with split pea soup. I don’t know why.”

  “De gustibus,” she said and rummaged in a cupboard for soda crackers.

  “No fair. English clichés only. Chacun à son goût.”

  “Make the salad.” Meg turned back to the soup. “I will pick apart the sheriff’s scenario. Starting with the Lauder Point robbery, which is not the starting point. I can believe Brandstetter and Meek did it, but why? Meek was a pothunter, but he apparently made a living from arrowheads and other items from his own neck of the woods. Brandstetter… “

  Rob washed his hands at the sink. “Hal inherited his father’s arrowhead collection. Otherwise, nada. And he had no taste.” He took a package of presorted, premixed greens from the refrigerator and poked some of them into two bowls. “That was easy.”

  “Onions. Tomatoes.”

  “Right.” The refrigerator door opened again. “Go on.”

  Meg said, “The question is why two yahoos like Hal and Meek would think of breaking into the county park building at all. They had to have a client who was willing to pay them to take the risk.”

  “Some risk.”

  “I’ve been reading about pothunters.” Meg took a spoonful of soup, blew on it, and tasted it. “Yum.”

  “And?” He had found her French knife and was slicing green onions rapidly.

  Meg admired his technique. “Don’t cut your fingers off.”

  “No chance.” He divided the onion slices between the two bowls.

  “Good phrase. Most pothunters take no chances. Their quarry, so to speak, is way out in the tules.”

  “The what?”

  “Cut it out. You lived in California for a while. Out in the woolly wilderness with nobody around to interrupt them or question them. County parks, on the other hand, are patrolled at least some of the time, and are often full of nonlarcenous citizens. Why take the risk?”

  “Money.”

  “Right. Somebody whose name both of us know paid Hal and Meek to steal the artifacts.”

  “Vance Tichnor,” Rob said gloomily.

  “I still favor Charlotte but she seems less and less likely. Vance. He’s swimming in money. He collects only high-quality stuff. He once took anthropology classes.”

  “Right.”

  “His mother said so. She also said he’s impatient. He wouldn’t want to chug along collecting one little item at a time. Buying the whole shooting match would suit his temperament. Also, he knew Hal Brandstetter, and what Hal would and would not do.”

  Rob was hunting tomatoes. He found one in Meg’s vegetable crisper. “This is not a tomato. It’s a simulacrum made of Styrofoam dyed pink.”

  “I know. Set it on the window ledge to ripen and forget tomatoes. There’s oil and vinegar here.” She tapped a cupboard door.

  He took the condiments from the cupboard and began dressing the salad without instruction, olive oil first, then balsamic vinegar. He found her supply of hulled sunflower seeds and sprinkled them over the bowls. Meg approved. She began ladling soup. She had already cut bread. Analysis languished while they sat down an
d addressed their meal.

  “Charlotte Tichnor has a notable collection of netsuke,” Meg murmured. She speared a bit of lettuce. “Only the best. She keeps them in a special room with special security and only shows them to close friends.”

  “Hmmm.” He crumbled a soda cracker into his soup.

  “Vance wouldn’t have been able to display his goodies.”

  “Of course he would. To select friends and clients, the kind who wouldn’t ask inconvenient questions. He would get a kick out of the risk of exposure, and it wouldn’t have been very large.”

  “How so?”

  Meg stirred the soup in her bowl. “Once the furor over the robbery died down, most people would forget the details, if they ever registered. Only police officers, archaeologists, and Native Americans from the area would continue to care—”

  “And they aren’t the kind of people Vance hangs out with?” He spooned soup, sounding thoughtful. “His clients have to be business executives, corporate lawyers, dope dealers. The cheapest house he sold last year racked up three-quarters of a million dollars. His friends, with notable exceptions like Hal Brandstetter, would be drawn from the same circles.”

  “Lawyers and MBAs.” Meg nodded.

  “Bean-counters,” Rob said, crushing another cracker. “Anthropologists, archaeologists, and art historians are noted for their poverty. They would not be clients. So Vance could show his loot privately to a few friends at a time, and brag about the great deal he got at a swap meet. All without serious fear of exposure.”

  “Corporate executives collect art as an investment,” Meg offered. “They think of it that way, most of them. And Vance would gain prestige points for his taste.”

  “From those with pretensions to taste, like his wife.” He grinned, started to say something else, and apparently changed his mind.

  Meg scowled. “I’ll lay any odds you like he showed the petroglyphs to his mother.”

  “I defer to your superior knowledge. I still haven’t spoken to the lady.”

  “She made my blood run cold.” Meg jabbed her salad. “Do you know she made Vance get rid of his comic book collection when he was small? I bet she made him burn them.” She chewed vigorously.