Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112)

by Simonson, Sheila

  “No, no. You’ve got it…I didn’t enter the garage.” She finished her drink and went to the phone. “I’m calling my lawyer. Get out.”

  “You didn’t enter the garage. Did Vance? Maybe it was Vance who panicked.”

  “Get out,” she screamed. “Now. Both of you.”

  “Or you’ll call the cops?” Rob walked over to the cherrywood table. “Interview terminated at ten thirty-eight.” He hit the Stop button. “Maybe you’re wise to call a lawyer, Ms. Tichnor. You were keeping something in the garage, something you had to protect. Edward Redfern was killed because he found out what it was. If your brother calls, tell him to come in to my office. If he won’t, tell him from me we’ll bring him in.”

  He looked at Meg and jerked his head. Let’s go. She stood up, expelling a long breath.

  Carol was tapping out a phone number. She listened impatiently, pressed another. “This is Carol Tichnor. I need to talk to Oliver right now. It’s ten-thirty Tuesday night. He knows where I am.” She hung up.

  Someone scratched at the door.

  Rob, with Meg at his heels, swung the door wide. “Well, I’m damned, it’s Mike Calhoun. How you doing, Mike?”

  A chunky man in full resort regalia gaped at him. “Neill? What the hell? Carol, honey, you okay?”

  “Get out,” Carol said through her teeth. “All of you. Get out. Leave me alone.”

  The chunky man beat a fast retreat down the hall.

  When Rob and Meg got back into the Accord, she said, “Weren’t you a little hard on Carol?”

  He fastened the seat belt. “Hard? No. She’s an accessory to murder. I should have taken her down to the courthouse for a six-hour session without the drink tray handy. I’m too tired for that tonight. Tomorrow.”

  Meg started the engine and the inevitable windshield wipers. When she had backed around and driven from the lot, she said, “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

  “To question me? Nonsense.” He sounded preoccupied.

  She drove for a while, mind turning over the three interviews.

  Rob said, “I’m a maverick, as it happens, doing short interviews. It’s standard procedure to go over everything at least twice. You almost always catch something the second time around.”

  “I see. Did they help?”

  “The interviews? Of course. With Carol, you know, I was just stirring the sludge with a long stick. I want her to have nightmares.” He chuckled. “I’ll bet we gave old Mike a nightmare or two.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Local Romeo. He’s married to a nice grade-school teacher, but he’s been romancing guests at the Red Hat since it opened.”

  “Just worked his way around to Carol?”

  “Or vice versa. They seem well suited.”

  “Is that a catty remark?” She glanced at him.

  He was grinning. “Probably. Mike was president of my senior class in high school. Most likely to succeed. Dated the cheerleaders.”

  “It’s been downhill from there?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Maybe children should be protected from social success in high school.”

  “Willow is doomed.” He touched her hand, the gear-shifting one. “How are you, Meg?”

  “Full of energy and confusion. Thanks for trusting me with the tape recorder.” She pulled into his driveway, backed around, and drove forward to her usual parking spot. “You ought to go home and get some sleep. I saved your Scotch, by the way.”

  He was silent for a moment. She was afraid she’d offended him by suggesting he needed rest more than sex, but he turned, smiling in the dim light. “Why don’t I come in, drink a toast to your bright eyes, and then go home?”

  “Okay. But you’ll have to let me know what’s happening tomorrow or I’ll perish of anxiety. I take it we’re not going to winterize your cabin at Tyee Lake.”

  “We’ll see. First thing in the morning, I’m going to pry a search warrant out of Judge Meyer.”

  Meg led him into the kitchen and took the glasses out of the cupboard without turning on the overhead light. It was too bright. She removed the plastic wrap.

  Rob took his glass. “At least you didn’t stick it in the refrigerator.”

  “I’m not a barbarian. Sláinte.” She raised her glass.

  He touched it with his. “Cheers.”

  “What about Todd?” The whisky went down hot.

  He grimaced and took another swallow. “I can’t call Chief Thomas at this hour.” It was after eleven.

  “Do you think she knows where he is?” She set her glass on the counter.

  “She’d better not,” he said grimly and finished his drink. He took her face in his hands, which were cold from the chill outside and from the glass, and kissed her with slow deliberation, tasting of Scotch. “To be continued?”

  Meg nodded. Her mouth tingled. She didn’t smile at him, but she saw him out.

  AT nine Wednesday morning, Rob walked to his office. He had taken muffins and lattes to Meg’s around six-thirty—and apologized again. She was a forgiving woman.

  When he called Jake from home after seven, the deputy told him Todd was still missing. That triggered a round of fruitless phone calls to Todd’s friends and relatives. His mother sounded worried. Rob couldn’t reassure her. He called Judge Meyer’s office, too, and left a message on the machine that he’d be asking for a search warrant.

  He called Vance Tichnor’s cell phones and left messages. He called Ethan Tichnor’s numbers and rejected calling Carol. Moira Tichnor wasn’t answering. Neither was Phyllis Holton. Rob began to feel as if his phone were attached to his ear, so he took a hike to the courthouse.

  The walk lasted about twenty minutes. Time to reflect. Time to figure out a strategy for dealing with the principal chief of the Klalos. When Rob reached the department, his mind was so focused on Madeline Thomas, he almost walked past her husband, Jack Redfern, without seeing him.

  Jack sat in one of the plastic chairs outside the bullpen with Sergeant Howell looking down on him from the booking desk. When Rob appeared, Jack got up in stages like a much older man and started the ceremonial warm-up.

  Rob greeted him gravely and with relief. Given a choice of dealing with Jack or Jack’s formidable wife, he would take three Jacks any day. They shook hands. Rob stopped only to ask Reese to hold his calls and send in some coffee. Then he led Jack into his office.

  They spent time, as was polite, discussing the weather and the steelhead run. At last, Rob thought it was safe to venture a question.

  “I have a missing deputy, Jack. Your nephew, Todd Welch. Does Maddie know where he is?”

  Jack looked sheepish and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, hey, she talked to him.”

  “Yes. I told him to call her after William Meek’s body was discovered.”

  Jack was silent. Rob waited. The office intern, a high school boy, brought bad canteen coffee. Rob considered asking him for a pack of cigarettes, but that would have caused a major scandal. The boy left.

  “Maddie went off,” Jack said when he had sugared his coffee and taken a sip.

  Rob waited.

  Jack swallowed coffee and grimaced. “I’m worried.”

  “Me, too.” Went off where? When?

  Jack shot Rob a look he couldn’t interpret. Another silence.

  At last, Jack sighed. “Lila’s making war.”

  Rob groped in his memory. “Your sister-in-law?”

  “Eddy’s mother,” Jack said heavily. “Feel like I’m living in a combat zone.”

  When Rob didn’t comment, he added, “You gotta know, Madeline is a leader but she’s never been Lila’s chief. Lila don’t understand. She’s Nez Perce and not real traditional. She says Maddie stole her son from her. It wasn’t like that.”

  Rob thought Lila was probably on the right track.

  Maybe Jack read his mind. “Madeline can’t help it. She has that power over people. She never told Eddy anything she didn’t tell the others.” />
  “Searching for the artifacts in Emil Strohmeyer’s garage was his idea?”

  Jack’s jaw set in a stubborn line. “She never sent Eddy on no secret mission.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Maddie told me she didn’t. She don’t lie. Not Maddie.”

  Except to herself, Rob thought sadly.

  “But Lila keeps at her. And now she’s gone, Madeline, I mean. She was gone when I got up this morning.”

  Rob said, “Gone. I’m trying to understand. Do you mean she’s gone off to think about what happened or she’s gone off to do something?”

  Jack scrubbed his face with his hands. “Off to do something. She meditated. She’s been meditating since we found out about Eddy. This time, though, I think she had her a vision. You know what I’m talking about? Damn.” He started to rise.

  Rob said, “I’ve been studying.”

  Jack sank back on his chair.

  “She was asking for a sign?”

  “Yeah.” He said something in Klalo, shook his head, looked at Rob. “You’re not laughing?”

  “No. It’s not a laughing matter.” In the silence that followed he could hear Jack breathing. At last Rob made himself take the gamble. “I’m about to ask Judge Meyer for a warrant to search Vance Tichnor’s property on Tyee Lake for the Klalo artifacts that were taken from Lauder Point. Do you know any reason I shouldn’t go in there with a team of armed deputies?”

  Jack stared at him. “How’d you know?”

  Rob said, “You’ve got to be open with me, Jack. That’s a dangerous man.”

  “There’s an old burial ground up there.”

  “Show me.” Rob got up and went to the map of Latouche County on the wall behind his desk.

  Jack stood up in stages again. A lot of fishermen developed rheumatism. He walked to the map and stood looking at it. “It’s up on the hill. I can’t show you exactly. That wouldn’t be right.”

  “Okay. Here’s the boundary between Vance’s land and his brother Ethan’s hillside. It follows the creek.”

  “Yeah. The burial ground’s on Ethan’s property, looks down on Vance’s.” He didn’t touch the map.

  Rob did. “Vance’s new house sits here in this meadow.”

  “Camas meadow,” Jack interrupted with an edge of anger.

  Rob waited. At one point, the camas bulb had been a staple food in the area. Women passed knowledge of good camas meadows from mother to daughter, as they also did of huckleberry patches and the stretches of forest floor where chanterelle mushrooms grew. The harvests were intelligent.

  Jack walked back to his chair and lowered himself into it. “Old Man Strohmeyer was careful where he put his still, and he always let the women gather camas. And Emil, he was okay, too, and his son, Pete.”

  “But not Vance.” Rob sat, too.

  “Bastard brought in bulldozers. He didn’t even ask. When Maddie talked to him, he offered to pay.”

  “He missed the point?”

  “Damn right. So she’s been watching him.”

  It was one of Rob’s deeper convictions that the universe operated on irony. Madeline had been watching Vance Tichnor. For her own reasons.

  Rob said with care, “I think Tichnor paid Meek and Brandstetter to steal the Lauder Point artifacts.”

  Jack shot him a sidelong glance. Enigmatic.

  “Did Madeline have Vance in mind as the collector when she was sending her young people out to find the artifacts?”

  “She never said.”

  Rob held onto his temper with an effort.

  “Not at first. Not ten years ago.”

  “That’s a relief.” And it was. So much so that Rob felt almost lightheaded. There was no point bawling out Jack Redfern for concealing information. “When did she start to suspect him?”

  “August, for sure.”

  “When Eddy disappeared?”

  “Before that. It was something one of the construction crew said about the house.”

  “A vault?”

  “There’s a place in the house where he could hide stuff. She looked up the plans.”

  “So did I,” Rob said grimly. But not until yesterday.

  “And there’s a security system going in. One of them big electronic webs with lasers and shit.”

  “It’s not in place yet?”

  Jack shook his head. “Todd has a cousin on the finishing crew, one of the Welch boys.” Not a Klalo.

  A spy, though. Another spy. “Madeline ought to be in charge of Homeland Security.”

  Jack laughed aloud, subsiding into wheezes and wiping his eyes. Rob’s cell phone rang.

  “Robert Neill,” he said, watching Jack master his amusement.

  “Ethan Tichnor returning your call.” The doctor’s voice rang higher and lighter even than it had during the interview. “You said it was urgent.”

  “Yes. Very urgent.” Rob covered the mouthpiece. “Please excuse the phone call, Jack. It’s Dr. Tichnor.”

  Jack nodded, still grinning, as Rob rose and walked from the room. He ducked into the empty office Earl and Thayer shared. Earl was waiting at Meg’s for the testing kit to arrive, and Thayer was taking another look at the disturbed area behind the garage for something to do while they waited.

  “Right, Doctor,” Rob said. “I’m about to search Vance’s house at Tyee Lake for the Lauder Point loot. I’ll have to trust you not to warn him.”

  “That’s—”

  “Will you listen? What do you know about DDT?”

  A startled exclamation from the other end assured him he had Tichnor’s attention.

  When Rob had paraphrased Meg’s article, Ethan said heavily, “Then Vance will show a level of DDT consistent with exposure to the organic items?”

  “If he’s been handling them over the years, yes.”

  “In the fatty tissues.” Tichnor sighed.

  “I need your help, sir.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “Yes, sir, he is. And you could hang up right now, phone him, phone your mother, phone your lawyer. But don’t you think it’s time to bring a halt to Vance’s obsession? He may have killed three men to protect his hoard. That’s sick. You’re a doctor. Surely you’ll agree that your brother needs help.”

  A long silence. “You say three men?”

  “Edward Redfern, Harold Brandstetter, William Meek. I think Eddy Redfern surprised Vance, and that the first killing was almost accidental, but the deaths of Brandstetter and Meek were carefully executed, and executed is the right word.”

  Tichnor said something under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “You have no proof.”

  Rob gritted his teeth. “I have enough proof for a warrant to search for the stolen items. As for the murders, I don’t have sufficient evidence yet to ask the judge for a Probable Cause to Arrest order, but I do have some proof. More will come in. Vance used his van, the Windstar, the night he shot Brandstetter. It was seen in Brandstetter’s driveway by at least two people at half past two in the morning.”

  He heard Tichnor inhale sharply.

  “Your brother is no genius, Dr. Tichnor.” Thank God for that. “He’s already slipped up a couple of times. Hiring Meek to take a potshot at me is just one example.”

  “Now wait—”

  “Please hear me out. I want you to come out to the lake with me and talk your brother into surrendering. If you won’t try that, I’ll have to take a team of deputies into his compound. There are construction workers in there. It could be dangerous to them and to us. And dangerous to Vance. Will you give it a try?”

  Tichnor said sadly, “He showed me the dagger.”

  Rob held his breath.

  “You’ve got to understand. Vance never grew up. He was always looking for approval.”

  “From your mother?”

  “At first. Latterly, from anyone he respected. Maybe a year after the Lauder Point theft, he showed me a ceremonial knife with an obsidian blade. The bone handle
was inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I admired it, of course I did. It was beautiful. He never would tell me where he got it, just looked mysterious. Protecting his sources, he said. I didn’t think about Lauder Point. The news stories had all talked about the petroglyphs.”

  That was true. They hadn’t gone into much detail about the organic artifacts either. Another nice irony.

  Tichnor said, “It wasn’t until after I talked to you Sunday that I looked up the Lauder Point case. I saw a picture of the dagger on the website.”

  Rob had scanned that photo with his own hands.

  “So then I knew.” Ethan sounded as if he might burst into tears.

  Rob thought Tichnor was sincere but there was no guarantee. “Will you come out and talk to him?”

  Another pause. “Yes. I’m on my way.”

  “Please don’t call your mother, sir, or your sister.”

  Tichnor gave a shaky laugh. “Believe me, they’re the last people I want to talk to. Carol and I were supposed to keep Vance out of trouble.”

  Carol? Rob swore silently.

  As if he had read Rob’s disbelief, Tichnor said, “Carol used to be able to wind Vance around her little finger, but lately the roles have been reversed. I’m afraid my mother doesn’t understand the extent of Carol’s drinking problem.”

  “But Vance does?”

  “Yes. He manipulates Carol. I try to protect her. I’m coming now because I have to protect her from Vance.”

  “She knows too much for her own safety?”

  “I fear so,” said Ethan Tichnor. “I’ll meet you at your office within two hours.”

  Rob said thanks to a dead telephone. He asked Reese Howell to send Dave Meuler to the Red Hat to check on Carol. Just in case.

  When he returned to his office, Jack was looking at his map of the county.

  Rob apologized for the interruption and explained.

  “That doctor’s going to try to get his brother to surrender?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack heaved a huge sigh. Of relief, Rob thought. “That’s good. I don’t want Maddie caught in a fire fight.”

  “And Todd?”

  “Not Todd either.”

  “Is he out there with the construction crew?”