by Rex Burns
He told her what had caused Tom to come to him in the first place.
“Just rumors? That doesn’t sound like much to be suspicious over.”
“You’ve done barrel racing; you’ve been around these people. How many times did one of them come up and tell you what you ought to do for your own good?”
“Well …”
“Not once. They mind their own business, and they’re proud of it. And somebody like Tom—just like his friends—would get pissed at anybody offering advice that wasn’t asked for. No matter how good or how deserved or how well-meant.”
“They are independent. Or like to think so.”
“Which means that a hint would be enough for whoever told him. But Tom listened, and he didn’t tell that whoever to mind his own business. He took it seriously, and I should, too.” Especially since he didn’t at first, and now Tom was dead.
“Why you?”
“He was a friend.”
“And you don’t think the sheriff’s office is doing enough?”
“They don’t know what Tom told me.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“They believe it was a robbery, and that’s the way they’re approaching it. Any other theory’s going to need hard evidence to back it up.” Wager too drank a bit of wine. “And they might be right.”
“What did Tom tell you after he went out to the ranch?”
“That everything was OK. That I shouldn’t go asking around about the boys anymore.” He pushed his salad aside to make room for the dish the waitress brought, saying, “Careful, that’s hot,” as she set it on the table. “But it wasn’t what he said as much as how he said it. He sounded worried, not relieved.”
“So everything wasn’t OK?”
“That’s another thing to find out.”
Jo studied the heaping mound of spaghetti and sauce that steamed on the plate in front of her. “Well, if that’s the only way you’ll take your vacation, I suppose it’s worth it.”
The first thing he felt was a smothering pressure across his mouth and then the unfamiliar softness of a body next to his. The warmth of an almost silent whisper moistened his ear: “Gabe—wake up. Gabe!” His eyes stared into the alien black, and then he placed where he was: a motel in Leadville, and Jo lay tensely beside him with her hand over his mouth. “Somebody’s trying to get in. Are you awake?”
He nodded, and the hand pulled away. Wager eased silently out of bed, recalling the room’s layout—the dresser with its large mirror and the suitcase racks across from the foot of the bed. Bathroom to the left. To the right, a low table and chairs under the curtained window; right of the window, the door to the walkway, where he heard the stealthy scrape of a tool probe for the latch. What he could not recall was if he had set the security chain. Behind, Jo moved in a rustle of sheets, and from the table beside the bed came the loud tick of his wristwatch. Feeling through the dark, Wager brushed lightly against the chair back where his holster hung; his fingers slid down the strap to lift the heavy weapon from the cool, worn pocket of leather. Toes gliding across the carpet, he edged toward the window and peered through a tiny gap in the thick drapes. The light over the door was gone, and in the shadows he made out only the back of a head and a shoulder as a man leaned close to work the lock.
With a sharp click, the latch tongue sprang back, and the noise seemed to make even his wristwatch hold its sound. Then, after a long ten seconds, the pale glimmer of the door eased open and a silhouette hung listening at its crack. Wager, his pistol held steadily at the poised shape two feet away, breathed silently. The door moved again, testing for the snug jerk of the safety chain, but there was none, and the silhouette moved quickly to slip into the room.
Wager said, “Freeze,” and for a split instant the shadow did, then something leaped out to thud wildly against Wager’s head, and he grabbed for the swinging arm and slashed his pistol barrel like a whip into the paleness that was the man’s face. A breath of garlic and beer and tobacco grunted something, and then the figure kneed at Wager, the sharp bone catching his thigh with a numbing gouge, and twisted away from his grip. Wager swung again, happy to feel the weapon rake against the taut flesh over a skull and the man cursed and swung something that swished thinly through the air just in front of Wager’s eyes. Wager’s pistol came down on bone once more, and the man, gasping loudly now, pulled away with the clatter of something dropped and sprinted down the walkway, a staggering checkered shirt that flickered under the last two doorway lights and disappeared through the hedges at the motel’s corner. Wager started through the door.
“Don’t, Gabe—don’t go out there like that!”
He paused, nude, then pulled the door shut. “You’re right. I don’t have my badge.”
In the sudden glare of the lamp that Jo switched on, he picked up an open switchblade and placed the chain firmly in its slot.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Jo, breathing rapidly, poured them both a glass of ice water from the bedside pitcher and sighed deeply.
“I didn’t know if he was armed. Besides”—he wiped the snag of flesh from his pistol muzzle—“think of all the paperwork.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. And I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. I don’t think I could have kept from shooting.”
Wager studied the switchblade, then pressed the release with his thumb and folded the long, grooved blade back into its handle. It was a good one, well designed, not one of those sold across the Mexico line to high school kids who bought them for the chance to feel tough. This one had blood grooves and a small guard that sprang out to keep your hand from sliding down the blade if you struck bone; it had a checked handle which would mask any fingerprints and offer a better grip if it was slick with blood.
“Did you see him? Do you know who it was?”
“No.”
“What do you think he wanted?”
“Money. Whatever he could find.”
“Do you think he was just a thief?”
He looked at her, but it wasn’t fear that brought the question; her eyes were stretched, but with excitement and interest. “What’s your guess?”
“Well, we’ve been asking a lot of questions.”
“It wasn’t one of Tom’s sons. This guy was too tall. And he was wearing sneakers, not cowboy boots. I think he was just a thief. They’re bound to be up here with all the tourists.”
“But why us? Why this room?”
“I think he was going down the row and found somebody dumb enough to leave the chain off.”
“Oh.” It made sense, and she liked it better than the idea that the Sanchez brothers were somehow involved. “I guess I shouldn’t have thought what I did—I think I’m getting paranoid.”
“A little paranoia keeps a cop alive.”
“Thanks … but I’m glad you’re alive. That knife—he tried to use it, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t have a chance to.” Wager grunted, bending his leg and rubbing the soreness as he climbed back in bed. “He wasn’t too good with his knee, either.”
Jo’s eyebrows lifted. “He didn’t!” She looked under the cover and then back at him. “Did he?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Sex and violence? Is that all you’re interested in?” She laughed and pulled him to her. “I guess it’s too late to call in a report anyway.”
“Too late and too much trouble. Up here we’re civilians, remember?” Her arm tightened across his chest as he turned out the light.
The slow stroke of fingers up and down his stomach stopped. “Do you really think it was a burglar?”
“Sure I do.” But as he played over the brief struggle with its blurred images, a vague memory began to emerge—a man with a curving mustache and a long fringe of hair curling up on the back of his neck.
CHAPTER 7
MOLLY WHITE HORSE—or, as someone had named her, Molly Pitcher—sat with her lawyer at the oak table in front of the spectators’ benches. Across the aisle at t
he second table sat Deputy District Attorney Kolagny rustling through his sheaf of papers. It was a preliminary hearing, so the jury box was empty except for a guard and three men in the dark jumpsuits of the Detention Center. They were waiting for their arraignments to come up, and their faces held the blankness of inmates paraded before the public. Kolagny, with his usual arrogance, had ordered Wager to be present at the hearing as his advisory witness or else. Wager came, less because he was ordered than because Kolagny always needed any help he could get. He sat on one of the blond wooden benches and tried to stifle the yawns that kept surfacing through the drowsy heat of the courtroom. Outside the wide-open windows, the rush and clatter of traffic below increased the stuffy feeling, and Wager found himself wishing he could have bottled the icy wind of Leadville and brought it down with him.
“All rise!”
A brisk swirl of black robes, and the judge entered through the door leading to his chambers. He sat, and the bailiff began the hear-ye’s and then called Molly White Horse. Her public defender, a short and pockmarked man with a full mustache, answered, “The accused is here, your honor,” and patted the small, rounded shoulder under the dark dress with its splashes of scarlet flowers. His name was Parry, and there were always jokes made about him parrying the prosecutor’s thrusts. But even if the jokes weren’t very good, Wager thought the man was; and Kolagny would have to outdo himself just to stay even.
“Would counsel approach the bench, please. Mr. Kolagny … Kolagny—aren’t you a counsel?”
“Yessir, your honor, coming.”
Wager heard only a buzz of muted voices from the three men peering at each other across the barrier of the judge’s bench, but he had a good idea what was being said: the judge asking if there were any grounds for settling this quickly, and of course the defense counsel would say no. No one whose client was up for murder ever gave an inch. Wager guessed Kolagny didn’t give anything, either, because the judge nodded curtly and adjusted his glasses and the two lawyers strode back to their tables.
Kolagny argued that the evidence was strong enough for second-degree murder and asked that the charge be upheld. In the middle of the presentation, Wager felt a hand pat him on the shoulder and looked back to see Fred Baird, the lab technician, settle down on the empty bench behind him.
“You here for Molly’s case?” Fred’s sour breath cut through the heavily perfumed odor of his chewing gum.
Wager nodded.
“You think there’s enough for second-degree?” he whispered.
“Hell, no. She didn’t know she was killing him—there’s no way Kolagny can show that Molly knew she was killing him.”
Baird nodded once; the fluorescent lights in the high ceiling glinted off the streaks of scalp that shone through his thinning hair. Wager had not noticed before how fast Baird was losing his sandy hair, or how tired and gray the man looked, either, as if his vitality were being drained off somewhere to let his flesh slowly collapse.
Then Baird shifted on the bench and the shadows disappeared, taking with them the haggard look and the little tinge of mortality that Wager had felt: Baird’s and his own. “Did you tell him that?”
“Once. He didn’t want to hear it,” said Wager.
“Yeah. I thought manslaughter would be the max. Well, what the hell, I didn’t have much to do today. Not much more than three months’ work, anyway.”
“Jesus, the state is really after this vicious criminal!” Gargan slid along the shiny wood toward Wager. “Bringing out all the big guns—I’m surprised you’re not asking for the death penalty.”
“She’s not my candidate for that,” said Baird.
“Hello, Gargan,” said Wager. “Goodbye, Gargan.”
“It’s a democracy, Wager. I know it tears you up to hear that. And if you really want to get pissed, think about the First Amendment.”
Wager sighed. Kolagny in front of him, Gargan beside him, and over his shoulder the fragrance of Baird’s breath.
The lab technician was called to testify to the cause of death. At the trial, the medical examiner would be the one to detail the technical facts, but at a preliminary it was cheaper and quicker to use the police technician’s statement rather than pay for a doctor’s time. Baird half shrugged as he came back to his seat. Kolagny reminded the court that self-induced intoxication was not a defense to this charge and returned to his desk. The defense counsel took his turn and asked that the judge rule the death accidental and that any and all charges be dropped entirely on the grounds that Molly White Horse had neither the intention to kill nor the knowledge that she was doing it—not because of self-induced intoxication but because she did not know the beer was entering the deceased’s lungs. It was self-evident, Parry said, that this uneducated woman who lacked medical knowledge had no idea of the extent of the victim’s wounds and therefore was not acting with intent, with criminal negligence, nor recklessly.
“You hear that, Wager? You people shouldn’t have brought that poor woman to trial.”
That wasn’t what he was thinking. As sometimes happened in the heat and the drone of voices, Wager’s tired mind had a tendency to drift to those areas of thought that usually stayed at the edge of sleep. Right now, he was comparing court procedure and rodeo, the way they both tried to place rules and assessments on the chaotic flow of violent behavior. Here, the rules of evidence and procedure were played out in front of a judge who would declare either Kolagny or Parry the winner; in the rodeo arena, the judges applied rules to the fight between rider and animal and then said who won the most points. In both shows the animal was an excuse for the performance as well as a participant, be it horse or cow or Molly sitting there with her hair twisted up into some kind of braid that looked far younger than the curve of her slumped back and the narrow slope of her shoulders.
When Parry finished, the judge called a recess. “Time for his midmorning piss,” muttered Baird. “I’ll see you later, Gabe. Maybe I still got some time to get something done today.”
Kolagny turned and beckoned Wager to his table. “We’re going to get a trial out of this. You going to be ready to go?”
Wager looked at the man. He had been testifying in court before Kolagny had even sweated his application to law school. “I’ll be ready.”
“She saw the knife in that other guy’s—Robert Smith’s—hands, right?”
“That’s what she said.”
Kolagny was convincing himself more than Wager; but like a lot of lawyers the man needed an audience for his thoughts, and Wager guessed that was the real reason he had to give up his morning’s sleep. “The most you’re going to get out of this is criminally negligent homicide.”
“Who the hell asked you, Wager? Who in the hell’s got the law degree around here? You just get the facts; I’ll handle the cases—that OK with you?”
“I’m your advisory witness, Kolagny. That’s my advice.”
“You keep your fucking advice until I ask for it, you hear?”
“You need more than my advice anyway.”
The bailiff signaled the end of recess, and the judge, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, reentered as everyone stood and then sat back with the shuffle and rustle of papers.
“Well.” The judge hunched forward and looked at Molly. “A man’s been killed. That’s a highly serious action, and the charges are serious too. The defendant is apparently the cause of that death. Do you understand that, Miss White Horse?”
The back of the head nodded.
“That being the case, I feel there has to be a careful and considered weighing of the state’s evidence. A man’s death is not something to be shrugged off lightly. Therefore, I am ruling sufficient cause for a trial.” He beckoned to his aide, who bent over and murmured. “Trial is set for … September fourteenth. I remind the defendant that she is still under bond to appear in court.” The gavel dropped, followed by a general scuffling of feet and shifting of positions as Kolagny and Parry gathered their papers and left the desks, and the ne
xt lawyers came forward for their cases. Wager glanced at his watch: 10:30, and Sam Walking Tall’s ghost had just been told that he had more respect from the state when he was dead than when he was alive. Wager yawned more widely. With luck, he could be in bed by noon and get his other four hours’ sleep before his next tour.
His apartment did not have air conditioning, and the morning’s heat lingered in the rooms as he opened the sliding glass door to his balcony and cranked out the bedroom window to trap any stray breeze. Ten stories below, Downing Street was quiet after the noon rush of office workers speeding toward various restaurants, and Wager could even hear the pad-pad-pad of a jogger cross the shimmering pavement at the intersection and head back under the canopy of leaves. The quiet stillness meant no breeze, and Wager, still sweating from a workout on his rowing machine, dragged the cold bottle of Killian’s across his forehead. The exercise stretched and loosened those muscles that had tightened while he sat in court and especially as he listened to Kolagny. The beer was supposed to do the same thing for his mind so he could get the rest of his sleep. But it didn’t seem to be working.
He thumbed through his green notebook for the telephone number and poked the little tune that rang the Chaffee County’s Sheriff’s Office. It took a minute or so for Detective Allen to be called to the telephone.
“This is Detective Wager up in Denver. Did the Sanchez boys get down there to claim their father’s body?”
“Yes, they did, Detective Wager.”
“Did they say anything about a funeral? Where and when?”
“I didn’t think to ask them. Here’s the local mortuary number if you want it—maybe they know about it.” He read it to Wager. “Say, I found out why the hospital didn’t notify you about Sanchez’s death—I guess you stepped in shit over there with the hospital administrator, or something. Anyway, the nurse was going to call you and he told her not to, at least that’s what she says. What the hell happened?”
Wager told him a little of it.
“All right. I guess she didn’t have much choice if he told her not to. He’s a foreigner, you know; kind of an asshole sometimes.”
