“I'm not in any trouble. I could tell you a few who are if I wanted to, but not me. You had me scared at first, showing up like this, but you don't really know what's going on do you? You think I've got something to do with all this? You're nuts! I told him to stuff it. If you want to know what I think, we should get out of here. I was just getting ready to leave. If you came in your own car we should use it and not wait on the taxi.”
“Told who?”
Iverson opened her mouth, looked over Goodnight's shoulder then closed her lips, looking suddenly very young and vulnerable.
“She told me, Mr. Goodnight.” Goodnight rose, looked over his shoulder, and there stood Westby, wearing a black wide brimmed western hat and fancy ostrich skin boots, decked out like he was going to a rodeo. He was taller than Goodnight recalled, with a hard lean body. The aw shucks manner was gone, so too was most of his accent. He was holding a long barreled revolver in his hand, a .357 magnum Colt Python from the looks of it. “You have a lot of questions, don't you? But first stand very still as Juan gets your car keys and checks you for weapons. No, Jodi dear. You just stay where you are.”
Juan came from behind Goodnight, removed his keys, then patted him down expertly for weapons. “Nada,” he said backing slowly away. He had a gun in his hand now, a large automatic, this one a nine millimeter, and was pointing it at Goodnight's stomach.
Westby slipped the revolver into his waist band. His teeth flashed but his dark eyes revealed not a trace of emotion. “The airline wouldn't let you take one with you? Sit down. Both of you. I see my ruse worked, Mr. Goodnight. I think we should have a talk anyway, just to make certain all the loose ends are covered. I need to know for certain how much you know and who you've told it too. From the questions you were putting to Jodi it doesn't sound like you know much.”
“I'll admit I couldn't see Jodi as Lana Dahl,” Goodnight said. “To play that role meant she had been in this with Leah Swensen, but strange as it seemed it wouldn't have been the first time an unhappy mistress and wife worked together to punish the same man. It was possible, and enough's been going on lately that anything seemed likely. I came here for answers.”
“Sit quietly and you'll have your answers, then I have a few questions I need satisfied before you and Jodi call it a day. Sit down!” His anger flashed without warning.
“I'm getting out of here,” Iverson said now on her feet. “This has nothing to do with me. I think you're a psycho, Gerry.”
“Juan!”
The big Mexican stepped forward and struck Iverson on the side of her head with a downward blow of his gun. It wasn't enough to knock her off her feet but the impact stunned her and she sat down heavily holding her hand to her head, looking very sick to her stomach.
“Both of you stay put. The next one who rises gets shot. You heard that, right Juan?”
“S, mi jefe.”
“Let's be civilized about this,” Westby continued. “That will be best all around. Where was I? Ah yes. I met Leah Dahl at SMU. I was in law school at the time, she was a sophomore. I was her first so of course she thought she was in love for a time then decided I was a bastard. She liked to put on airs about being this good Christian girl but she was hard as nails, and I think, has always been just a little crazy. After she moved to Arizona she still stayed in touch. I always figured she was looking to use me for something someday. I was out there one time and we went to dinner. I told her about an insurance scam one of my clients had pulled. She was impressed with how easy it was. I told her with a good lawyer to act as a shield insurance fraud was the easiest way to real money. About two years ago she flies out to see me. She tells me she's going to fake her death and disappear. She wants to punish her husband for cheating. I told her to divorce the bastard and screw him good, but she says no, she's worked that part out. Now she needs a good lawyer so she can get four million in insurance.
“Now you have to understand my position to see why I went along with this. I've had tax trouble for years, too many shelters disallowed, bad real estate investments, this ranch which is a money loser. When you get down a little people turn on you. Once word gets around all the doors slam shut.” He laughed bitterly. “I was in deep, too deep to get out without a big score. I knew Leah was a tough nut, I'd seen her punish her other boyfriends before, and I knew she'd keep her mouth shut. I think she even considered punishing me when I broke it off in college but was afraid to try it. I had her run over the plan with me and it seemed O.K. I thought it had too many loose ends to work in the long run, especially with such a large insurance payoff, but I could see it lasting long enough to get the money. So I told her how to establish a new identity and get a passport, where to set up an off shore account. I was out nothing if it blew up. She wasn't going to implicate me for giving her a little advice and if she did, it would have been impossible to prove I had done anything improper.
“So it worked better than I thought. I told her to forget using that Dinelli broad, that was just someone to rat on you if the pressure got to be too much, but she was already in it.” Westby shifted his gun in his waistband.
“Did you know you were going to kill her from the beginning?” Goodnight asked.
Westby grinned, but his eyes never changed. “That was the only sure way and, yeah, I thought about it. This was all very simple from my perspective. Once the money was paid out I could either get Leah to settle for a small amount or I'd have to kill her.”
“Why not kill her from the beginning?”
“I considered it, but frankly I was hoping there was some way to avoid it. Too many risks. You see, regardless of who ended up with the money, Leah had committed insurance fraud. The only way she could blow the whistle on me was to implicate herself. My plan was simple. I pretended I had a client named Lana Dahl – Leah laid enough of a trail to cover me in case you ever checked that out too closely – then once the money was paid to me I wired it to my off shore account. If Leah was good I'd give her some of it, if not...”
“You'd kill her quietly and leave Jack Swensen in prison.”
“Spare Jack your sympathy. He's up to his neck in this. But if it came to that I couldn't risk Leah being buried by a foreign government. Because of the damn cat she had to travel as an American so the embassy would have been involved when she died. She had told me that her fingerprints were on record and I couldn't risk the remote chance someone would figure out who she really was.”
“Because if she was identified as Leah Swensen so long after her husband was supposed to have murdered her, he'd get the money. There'd be a lot of pressure on you to retrieve it, to prove where you wired it, who your client was.”
“Exactly. More pressure than I could risk. I tried to stop you. First with that rinky dink outfit you work for but they think you walk on water so I had to take matters into my own hands. I never saw an old man move so fast, I'll give you that. I considered getting out of the car and finishing you off but I guessed you'd be armed. So I went to plan 'B.' I missed you by a day at the state prison. Officially I was there with his lawyer's permission to dissuade Swensen from filing any lawsuit to delay payment to my client, offer to make a small payment to his lawyer. Can you figure it out now, Mr. Goodnight?”
“You were afraid I'd find Leah and you'd always had doubts she'd settle for a lot less than the full amount. You told Jack you'd kill Leah and make sure her body was discovered in such a way that she was identified as his wife. In that eventuality he gets out of prison and he gets the money. You and he were splitting it. How much did Swensen settle for?”
“He got revenge and a million bucks. Not a bad deal for complicity in murder. It wasn't a hard sell. He was salivating at the offer. Jack thought Jodi here would help me out. I was thinking of her taking you out in some way, maybe sex or something, and knocking off Dinelli, but I didn't like the looks she was giving me as I hinted around.”
“You're slime, Gerry. You know that?” Jodi said, still looking pretty unsteady. “I don't know why I ever came
here.”
Westby grinned with the same unchanging eyes. “For my boyish charm, and fat bank account.”
“When Jodi wouldn't bite you flew to Portugal ahead of me,” Goodnight said, “met with Leah, told her I was hot on her trail, and said you'd kill me for her.”
“Perfect, Mr. Goodnight. I didn't like thinking you were as dumb all the time as you've acted these last ten hours. I called your supervisor and told him I might need to send you something and he gave me the name of your hotel in Lisbon. I had Leah write the note.”
“Then you killed her.”
“She was very surprised. The maid was a necessity. Once you start down this road there can be no half measures. I had the note delivered to your hotel then caught the next plane out.”
“You can be traced to Portugal.”
“No. I flew to Bonn, Germany, where I cleared passport controls. I have a business reason for making the trip. Then I took an internal European Union flight to Lisbon, paid cash. No passport checks. No record. I flew back to Bonn the same way then on to Houston. Simple. Instead of flying to Austin I didn't even leave the airport before boarding a commuter flight from there to Phoenix. Paid cash. Again, no record of me.”
“To kill Dinelli.”
“Right. I couldn't be certain how much Leah had told her. Then back here. I've been a busy boy. Another attempt on your life in Phoenix was too risky. I thought I lured you here quite convincingly. Describing Jodi was a master stroke, wouldn't you say?”
“Me? I'm not involved in any of this.” Iverson's head was bleeding slightly and she had defiantly taken one of couch arm covers and used it to blot the blood. Westby had watched her but said nothing at the time.
“Mr. Goodnight correctly believed that Leah Swensen was pretending to be a mythical sister, Lana Dahl. I threw him a convincing curve. I already had you safely here to use as bait, then described you to get him here. Nicely done, I thought.”
“Does Jack Swensen get his million, or does he die as well?” Goodnight asked.
“I understand he gets out in two days. The streets of Phoenix are demonstrably dangerous. Now it's time for you to answer some questions.” Outside a horn sounded. “What the hell is that?” Westby pulled out his revolver and leveled it at his prisoners. “Juan. See to it.”
Goodnight eyed the revolver until Juan was back to tell Westby in Spanish there was a taxi here for the woman. Westby shot Iverson a look. “Where the hell did you find a telephone?” She didn't answer and he crossed to her with his revolver raised to strike.
“In the barn,” Goodnight answered. “She said she found one that worked in the barn.”
“Shit! Goddamnit Juan! I told you all the phones. Get out there and tell the driver there's a mistake. No one here called for a taxi. Try and do it right for change.”
Westby stood silently with the revolver trained on them until Juan returned and said the taxi driver had gone off complaining. The incident with the taxi had obviously rattled the lawyer. “Tie these two up,” Westby ordered. “We're moving them to the line shack until I've got my answers. Maybe the broad called someone else too.”
The Mexican nodded. “O.K. boss,” he said in English.
~
Juan helped both Iverson and Goodnight into the rear seat of the Jeep, handling them like bundles. He tied their hands behind them and explained that if either of them spoke he would be most unhappy. Westby approached the vehicle. “Drop them off then come back here. I want to drive this rental to the airport before anyone else drops by. Then we'll go up to the shack and finish business at our leisure. Understand?” Not once did he so much as glance at his prisoners.
“Si.”
Westby walked back into the house as Juan climbed into the Jeep and fired up the engine. The trip took half an hour and moved them towards low hills made almost entirely of granite boulders. Goodnight estimated they rose about 800 feet in elevation and it was noticeably cooler as they were pulled from the Jeep then pushed into the line shack as Westby called it.
It was unlike any structure he had ever seen before on a working ranch. Usually line shacks were a bare single room structure with a cot, a pot belly wood stove and some canned goods. The line riders checking and repairing the barbed wire fence, the line, stayed in these when they were working too far from the bunkhouse. There were usually a series of them, mostly empty the year round and showing the neglect.
Goodnight would describe this as a vacation cottage, western style. It had two bedrooms, electricity and running water, a large fireplace, all the comforts. It was well built and not as old as the main ranch house. He caught a glimpse of a corral in back with a small barn and decided they stocked a few horses here as well.
It was less ostentatiously Western in design but there was a set of branding irons decorating one wall and over the fireplace was a flintlock musket crossed with a Civil War rifle. Beneath them was a Civil War era Colt Navy revolver, the one with five shots, each chamber laboriously loaded separately before it would fire. The one Goodnight had hefted once must have weighed 15 pounds.
Juan checked their binds then snugly tied their feet before leaving. He never spoke a word and though he had several opportunities he never once laid a lascivious hand on Iverson. Goodnight listened to the retreating sound of the engine before asking if she was all right.
“My head hurts. It keeps bleeding too. I feel very sick to my stomach.” She sounded frightened.
“You may have a minor concussion. Don't let the bleeding bother you. Head wounds act that way. We need to get untied. You understand Westby intends to kill us? The only reason we are still alive is because he needs to know who we have talked to.”
“I've figured that much out, but I don't think I can be any help. I've lost the feeling to my fingers already these are so tight.”
Goodnight was no more optimistic. They had about 90 minutes he figured. Working the knots earlier had done nothing and like Iverson he was losing the feeling in his fingers. “Move so I can see your hands, please.”
Iverson squirmed a bit and Goodnight rolled back and forth until his eyes were at her wrists. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I'm examining the knot. It looks like clothes line, not nylon and that's a break. Maybe one of us can chew one open but I don't think it’s likely from the looks of it. That Mexican knew what he was doing.”
Goodnight positioned himself with some effort then examined the room in detail, starting to his left. He went through it meticulously. Nothing.
“John? That's your name, isn't it?”
“That's right.”
“I'm really afraid.”
“Time for that later. Right now we have to get out of here before they come back.” This time he started to the right and worked his way left. Still nothing.
“My hands are numb,” she said, “and I feel really light headed.”
“Stay awake now, ma'am. I'm going to need you before this is finished.”
“'Ma'am' Nobody ever called me a ma'am before. You know what really frightened me? It was the way Juan handled me. It was like I was a sack of potatoes. I'd think better of this if he'd copped a feel. And Gerry. He had eyes like a lizard when he was talking to the beaner by the Jeep.”
Left to right, up and down this time. And there it was by the front door. An antique boot scrapper. When cowboys came in off the range they scrapped their boots by the door. It was supposed to be outside the house, but someone had placed it against the wall inside the house beside the door as a decorator piece.
Goodnight rolled over and over, corrected himself, then hesitated a moment to catch his breath, surprised at the effort this took. He rolled again. “Where are you going?” Iverson asked.
“There's something here that will help, I think.” He wriggled and squirmed, finding it much harder than he expected to locate the boot scrapper. Finally he sensed it more than felt it. It took several minutes to position himself just right, to get the rhythm of it. Rub, rub, rub, rub. It was very ti
ring and he stopped to rest more often than he thought wise.
“Are you done yet?” Iverson asked several times. “Do you think it will work?” She was sounding increasingly frightened. Goodnight could understand that. He was getting concerned himself.
Rub, rub, rub, rub, rub. Rest. Rub, rub, rub. He could sense no end to it.
“Do you think they'll hurt us? I mean before they...” Iverson asked.
Goodnight didn't answer. Yes lady, he thought, I think they are going to hurt us real bad if we don't get the hell out of here. Rub, rub, rub, rub. Rest. It was infuriating. Rub, rub, snap.
There was no give but Goodnight sensed something had changed. Rub, rub, rub. Faster now. Rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, snap.
He wiggled his wrists and felt the give. He worked his hands and wrists some more. Now his hands were on fire, the circulation coming back. It burned worse than any flame he had ever experienced. Rub, rub, rub, rub. God it hurt. Rub, rub, rub, rub. His hands broke free.
“I've got it,” he said calmly.
“You're loose?”
“Soon enough. You just hang on now.”
He could almost feel his hands now and when he told the fingers to move they responded, weakly, but the ones he wanted to move, moved. He got to his feet then hopped as if he was in a gunny sack race towards the kitchen. All the drawers were locked. He hopped back into the living room and yanked a branding iron from the wall then back to the kitchen. The first drawer he opened was no help. The knives were in the second drawer.
Once they were both free he told Iverson just to sit on the couch and wait for the circulation to return. It was going to hurt but there was no permanent damage. They hadn't been tied up long enough. Outside it was late afternoon. Goodnight looked in the direction they had come and listened closely. In the distance was the river, a strip of dark green snaking through brush and dry grass, with occasional pinpoints of trees. He heard nothing and could not see the ranch house from here.
He walked to the corral and saw half a dozen horses. This wasn't like any ranch he had ever seen. It was more like someone playing at being cowboy.
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