The Egret

by Russell Hill

  This body didn’t bother me any more than the body of Winslow’s wife. He was a hired thug, and he would just as easily have killed me. There was no right or wrong about what the egret killed. It stabbed at whatever it needed to ensure its own survival. And that was what I was doing. I covered up the rocks that were piled on the giant’s body, tamped the dirt down and made my dinner, a can of beans that I opened and leaned against the coals, and two hot dogs that I put on sticks and roasted over the coals. Hot dogs and beans. Basic food. Probably not something on the menu at 221 Carmel Drive in Ross. But at 221 Carmel Drive in Ross, Earl Anthony Winslow was eating alone. Just as I was. I had taken the giant’s gun from his body and his wallet and keys. There was a driver’s license in the wallet and some cards that told me he worked for a detective agency in San Francisco. The gun was more complicated than mine, and I had taken the holster as well. I tucked them both under the driver’s seat of the Range Rover. I took the Glock that I had used and tucked it, too, under the seat. I would dispose of it later. I had a new weapon and no one would be able to connect me with the killings I had done. I broke camp, packing my things neatly on the back of Winslow’s car.

  How appropriate, I thought. This one probably cost as much as that fancy Mercedes that I had blown up. Had he bought a new one? Or was he driving his wife’s little yellow Porsche? There was the distinct possibility that the giant had told someone where he was going and when he didn’t check in, someone would be sent out to check on him. So I didn’t have any time to lose. I left the keys in the Explorer. When the rancher found it, he might very well simply appropriate it, which would simplify my life. I would drive Winslow’s Range Rover to Elko and then beyond, into the Great Basin, and end up in Colorado. I would abandon the car and get myself a new used car and, once again, disappear. Only this time there wouldn’t be anyone to put a tracking device in the chassis of the car that I bought. This time I would be careful to pay only cash. This time I would, like the egret, find a new marsh where there weren’t any coyotes and Winslow would continue to eat alone.

  CHAPTER 35

  In Elko I had a meal in a Basque restaurant, the lamb spilling over the edge of the plate, more food than one person could be expected to eat. The bartender, a young woman, told me that her grandfather had been a Basque sheepherder who had walked the thousand miles with a thousand sheep over the Sierras from Los Angeles. She made me a really good Manhattan, and I slept on the far side of the railroad tracks that bisected Elko, comfortable in the roomy rear of the Range Rover.

  The next morning I went south on Highway 229, over what was called the “Secret Pass.” The Ruby Mountains were to my right, rising pale and indistinct in the morning light. I passed through low-lying hills, grasslands, sagebrush, and in the early morning light it was more than beautiful. I stopped midmorning at a point where the road crossed over a small stream. I got out of the Range Rover and stood on the bridge, looking down into the water. I still had the giant’s pistol and I realized that if they caught me with it, it would tie me to his death. Even so, my car was still back at that campground and it wouldn’t take much for them to discover his body. Still, I had my Glock and I didn’t need his pistol. I went back to the car, got the gun out from under the driver’s seat and went back onto the bridge. I threw the gun into the deep water beneath the bridge, got back into the car and drove on. I threw the giant’s wallet out into the sagebrush on a long stretch, and it disappeared.

  At noon I ate the rest of last night’s meal, saved in a small cardboard carton. I opened the windows of the Range Rover and lay in the back and slept. When I awoke, it was beginning to get dark. I drove further toward the Secret Pass, and suddenly was stopped by a huge herd of sheep that covered the highway. Dogs ranged at the sides of the herd, nipping at them, and they flowed like a white river across the road. At the rear was a small pickup truck towing a boxy wagon. The driver waved at me, and when he swung onto the road, his arm came out his window, and he waved to me again. At first I thought he was waving me on, but then I realized he was motioning me to follow him.

  He pulled off the road, stopped, and climbed out of his truck. He whistled, and the dogs dashed to the front of the herd, slowing the sheep, ranging back and forth until the flock was stopped. The dogs sat at the perimeter, pausing only to get up and nip at a vagrant sheep. The man motioned to me to join him.

  “I am Diego,” he said. “These are my sheep, but I suppose you figured that out. Join me for supper, unless you are in a hurry to get to some destination.”

  Why not, I thought. I watched while he unhitched the boxy trailer and opened it up. It was a caravan with a bunk inside, shelves filled with cooking utensils and foodstuffs.

  “You will have dinner with me,” he said. “It is a welcome thing to have dinner with someone else. All the company I have is four dogs and a thousand sheep. My father and I walked sheep from Hallelujah Junction. Do you know where that is?”

  “It’s over on the California border. That’s a long way.”

  “Yes, if you are driving to see your grandmother. But to us, it is just one day after another.” He set up a portable stand that held a grill, brought wood from a bin at the side of the wagon and started a fire.

  “We will have lamb for our meal,” he said. “I will pick sage to flavor it. It will be just like my father made for me. And no doubt what his father made for him.”

  I watched while he tended the fire and when it was going well, he brought out two folding chairs.

  “I have some scotch,” I said. “Would you like some?”

  “An improvement over the Spanish wine that I have.”

  He got out two glasses and I got the bottle of scotch from my duffle bag.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have no particular destination.”

  “You have a fine machine to travel in,” he said, motioning with his glass at the Range Rover.

  “Actually, it’s not mine. I’m simply using it.”

  We drank silently and the sun went off the Ruby Mountains, sliding down over the westward ridge, leaving the tops of the Rubies in light and then they were grey, and his face was lit with the glow of the burning coals. He took a package from the trailer, unwrapped it, and rose to strip some sage leaves. He rubbed the sage onto the meat, rubbed some salt and pepper and said, “It cooks slowly, which is best.” He took two large potatoes, cut them in half and doused them with olive oil, laying them on the grill next to the meat. “In the morning,” he said, “I make bread.” He whistled and the dogs assembled out of the darkness.

  “The sheep will stay where they are. Sheep are not adventurous animals.” The mewing sound of the sheep echoed in the darkness.

  “What is the most pressing thing in your life?” he said. “That is a question I ask everyone.”

  Perhaps it was the scotch. Or the isolation. Or the easy-going manner of this old man. For some reason I wanted to tell him what I had done.

  “I have killed people,” I said.

  There was a silence.

  “Were you a soldier?” he asked.

  “No. I was not a soldier. But I pulled the trigger to make them die. I planted a bomb. The last one was a huge man who wanted to kill me. But I killed him instead,”

  “We have all killed people,” he said. “Sometimes in the old country, sometimes here, perhaps someone who has designs on our sheep. And sometimes it was not known to us that somebody died because of our carelessness. You are not alone in this affair. “We sat in silence, the sound of the sheep punctuating the darkness. I dozed off, woke when he whistled at the dogs. They scattered into the dark. “They will gather the sheep into a tight knot,” he said. “They will stay that way during the night unless something comes at them, perhaps a coyote. The dogs will know about it.”

  He lifted the piece of meat, cut off a slice with a knife that he withdrew from a scabbard at his belt. He offered it to me. It was delicious.

  “The sheep,” he said, “They do not demand much. If I find
a sheep that the others will follow, then it is easy. My dogs are faithful and I do not have very many thoughts during the day.”

  He had said nothing else about my admission.

  “Are the sheep ever silent?”

  “Sometimes. When that happens, the dogs and I are on alert. Something approaches.”

  “Sort of like a silent alarm? And then what do you do?”

  “I listen. I listen for words that come to me, words that tell me that I am doing what I should do. Words that say, yes, you can tend these creatures and protect them from the vagaries of the world. That is all I require. Sometimes you do the things that are required. You do not seem to be a man I should be afraid of.”

  “I have no grudge to settle with you.”

  “But you had one with someone.”

  “Yes.

  “I will not judge you. It is enough that I bring the sheep back to the owner in the fall without too much loss. Some of them die. But death is part of what I do.”

  After that we did not speak of what I had admitted. We finished eating; I crawled into the Range Rover and slept. I did not wake and I did not dream.

  I slept well and in the morning I watched while he baked bread in a Dutch oven propped next to the rejuvenated fire. We ate the bread with honey from a small jar that he produced and there were bits of the succulent lamb from the evening meal. I asked him if he had a gun.

  “No,” he said. “I have the dogs. They are enough.”

  I took out the Glock and held it out to him.

  “Take this,” I said. “You can do with it what you want, sell it, keep it, use it. Throw it off in the sagebrush. It makes no difference to me. I want nothing else to do with it.”

  He contemplated the weapon, and when I placed it in his hand he continued to look at it, detached, as if it were a piece of meat or a slice of bread, something that had no more significance that the biscuits we had for breakfast.

  When I left he wished me luck. The sheep had spread out over the hillside.

  It was just outside Lamoille that the Nevada highway patrol cruiser came up behind me and turned on his lights. In the rear view mirror I could see the throbbing blue lights and I thought, have I been driving too fast? Did I do something to attract his attention? The voice from his cruiser came from a loudspeaker. “Get out of your vehicle. Keep your hands visible. Turn and face the vehicle and place your arms on top of the vehicle, hands flat on the surface.”’

  An officer stepped out from behind the driver’s wheel, leaning over the open door, a pistol in his hand, aimed at my car. I thought briefly of jamming my foot on the accelerator, outrunning him, but I knew, immediately, that it wouldn’t work. I was fucked. Just as the note on my windshield had said.

  I opened the door, stepped out and the officer shouted, “Slowly. Hands where I can see them!”

  I did as he asked, turned and faced the car and, put my face against the smooth black surface, put my hands up on top of the car, palms down. He approached carefully, a step at a time, and when he was behind me, he told me to bring my hands down behind my back and suddenly I was handcuffed.

  CHAPTER 36

  At the California state line there was a Marin County sheriff’s cruiser waiting, a plain white Ford Crown Victoria with a green stripe down the side. Detective Fuller stepped out and came to the Nevada cruiser where I was being held.

  He leaned in the window and said, “You thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?”

  I did not reply. He motioned to the officer that sat next to me and he slid out, reaching back to pull me out of the car.

  “Did you think you could get away with it?” he asked again.

  I did not reply. There was no point. Somehow Fuller had marshaled all of his forces, found me, and now I was at his mercy. He had broadcast the description of Winslow’s car and it had been my downfall. I had seen egrets at the side of the highway on the Central Valley, struck by cars. Their bodies lay, a white blot beside the road, and I knew that I would, too, become one of those white, lifeless bodies.

  I was put in the back seat of the cruiser. Fuller sat in the front passenger seat and a young deputy was the driver. Once inside, Fuller leaned over and spoke to me through the wire grid that separated the front seats from the back.

  “I’ve got you dead to rights. I’ve got the desk clerk at the Tomales Bay Lodge who tells me that David Lansdale came to the lodge and asked for your address. And I have you registered at the lodge the day Winslow went into the ocean. I have Winslow telling me how you forced him at gunpoint to go into the water. I have the receptionist in Sacramento who remembers you posing as a contractor, asking about blowing something up. And her boss says he talked to you on your phone. And there’s a missing detective who was driving that car you were driving. I will find that gun of yours and I will match it to the slug we took out of the Landsdale kid’s head and you will end up on death row.”

  But he didn’t have my Glock gun. It was in the hand of an old man surrounded by sheep, away from that campground and there was very little chance that anyone would ever find it.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “His agency traced him by GPS. And when his car left the campground and your car stayed there, they put out an alert to find his car. That’s when Winslow called me. You traveled south and that was all they needed. My guess is that you left another body behind. Which we’ll find. You’re under arrest for the murder of David Lansdale and for the murders of Pamela Winslow and Arthur Ferris. I’ll add the other stuff as I go along. You have the right to remain silent. If you do speak, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, an attorney will be provided. Do you understand those rights?”

  I nodded.

  “Say yes or no,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He turned to face the road ahead. “Let’s go,” he said to the driver and we set out over Donner Pass. Fuller didn’t speak to me again during the trip. It was evening when we got to the Marin County jail. I was booked into the jail, my belt and shoe laces were taken along with my wallet and watch. I was given a one-piece orange jail suit to wear and put in a cell. YOUR FUCKED, the note had said. There was no doubt about that.

  CHAPTER 37

  Things moved like clockwork. They offered me a public defender but I hired my own lawyer, a smooth-faced man who made a habit of defending people who were, as I was, fucked. He visited me at the jail and asked me if what they were charging me with was accurate.

  I said nothing,

  “You must understand,” he said, “that whatever you tell me is privileged.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I prefer not to say anything.”

  “If I am to defend you, I need to know everything. Things you keep back make it impossible for me. I have to create a story that will cause doubt or cast a different light on what you did. But refusing to tell me the details puts handcuffs on me. I will be as shackled as you are,” he said, pointing at the chains between my ankles.

  So I told him. He took notes and when I was finished, he said, “What they have is circumstantial. Make no mistake, people get convicted on circumstantial evidence. But they don’t have anything that will directly connect you to those crimes. They have no witnesses. They have no physical evidence. What they have is a chain of events that points a finger at you, All it would take is one juror who decides that it isn’t conclusive. Beyond all reasonable doubt. That’s what the judge tells them. But they have your attempt on Earl Winslow. You forced him into the sea at gunpoint, but he didn’t drown. They have no direct evidence of any bomb, no fingerprints, no residue to tie you to that explosion. Yes, you bought the same caliber gun as the one that killed two men. But thousands of people buy such a gun. Yes, you showed up at a place where explosives are stored and there was a subsequent break-in, but no one saw you steal dynamite and there’s no physical evidence that the theft was yours. You were arrested driving the vehicle of a m
an who was shot to death. It’s possible that you came across the vehicle and exchanged your worn out car for his. There’s nothing to connect you with his death, other than a suspicious coincidence. Your actions are suspicious. But you can’t get convicted of suspicious actions.”

  He paused. He tapped his pen on the table, then said, “I take that back. A jury could decide that it was you. I would believe it. The chain of circumstances is believable. Juries do that sort of thing. They sometimes even defy logic. So it’s not a slam dunk for the DA. But he knows what I will do with this, and he knows what happens when a juror decides that it isn’t ironclad. and my guess is that he’ll go for what he can easily get. Which is why a bargain is possible.”

  “What kind of a bargain?”

  “422 PC, threat of bodily harm. It’s either a misdemeanor or a felony, but he’ll go for felony. That way he can put you in prison. The threat to Winslow was real, sustained, certainly not vague and he had reason to fear for his safety. The fact that he was a good swimmer is irrelevant. You didn’t know that. You forced him into that dangerous surf with the intent that he drown, and under those circumstances, it’s a reasonable assumption you wanted him dead.“

  “So I’ll ask for that. As a felony, it’s four years, plus one for the gun. If you keep your nose clean, you won’t do the full five years. The other deaths remain open cases, so if they ever find direct evidence, they’ll charge you with those deaths. But right now, they’ll go for what they can get. Five years for sure is better than a hung jury.“

  “Doesn’t it bother you that I would skate on four deaths?”

  He tapped the pen again, a kind of Morse Code that only he understood.

  “I don’t get bothered by anything any more. I’ve dealt with shitbags who make you look like Mary Poppins. But these other cases will remain open, and there’s no statute of limitations on them. Fuller is a pit bull; he’ll clamp onto your leg and chew until it comes off. And there’s nothing I can do about that. You’re going to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. You’ll find Fuller in your rear view mirror no matter which way you turn.”