The Daughters Of Alta Mira (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 4)

by Michael Wallace

  After rising for a little over three miles, the road entered a lush valley, shaped like an oval, and came to a fork. Bob gestured left, and Gordon, driving, proceeded. The road, paved, but with no center line, skirted the perimeter of the valley, with pine forest on the left and lush grassy meadows behind barbed wire fences on the right. A mile up the left fork, the pavement ended at the entrance to a ranch, while the road continued as a dirt track.

  A wooden archway with a sign reading “Blue Moon Ranch” sat over an electrically operated gate. Bob jumped out of the Cherokee, moved to a keypad on the right-side post and punched in four numbers. The gate swung open inward, and they proceeded along a well-maintained gravel road that took them through a meadow, over a one-lane wooden bridge traversing the river, and to a large gravel parking area at one side of a splendid ranch house, built log-cabin style with a large covered veranda facing the meadow and wood smoke wafting from its large river-rock chimney. It was still a bit chilly and there was a coating of frost on the meadow, but in the sunlight, it was beginning to feel comfortable.

  They were immediately approached by a middle-aged man, heavy but not soft, wearing jeans, boots, flannel shirt, and a white straw cowboy hat creased in the crown and sharply curled upward at the sides.

  “Mister Bob,” he said, extending his hand. “They said you were coming today.”

  “I never turn down an invitation to the ranch, Jesus. How’s everything going?”

  He paused. “A bit better. You need anything?”

  “We’re good thanks. Jesus, these are my friends, Gordon and Sam.” They shook hands all around, and Bob asked if any of the Brinkleys were in. Jesus nodded toward the house.

  A woman was standing on the veranda now, drinking a cup of coffee and watching them. She wore a tasteful gray plaid skirt, black stockings, sensible flats, and a wool sweater with a hint of white blouse peeking over the top of the crew neck. Her legs were long, her hair was jet black and cascaded down over her shoulders in a tumble of curls, and her body language suggested confidence and self-possession. The men walked over, and as they got closer, Gordon realized that she was younger (mid-thirties) than he had guessed at a distance, had immaculately done crimson nails and was wearing no ring.

  “Glad you could make it, Bob,” she said.

  “Thanks for having us. Diane, I’d like you to meet Gordon and Sam. Gentlemen, this is Diane Brinkley. Chief Deputy District Attorney Diane Brinkley.”

  She shook hands with both of them, holding Gordon’s a bit longer than Sam’s, and looking up at him.

  “You’re tall,” she said in a husky voice. “I’ll bet you played basketball.”

  Bob guffawed. “Come off it, Diane. I’ll bet you were listening to the show yesterday. And if you weren’t, somebody at the office told you about it.”

  The corners of her mouth moved slightly upward in a mysterious, Mona Lisa smile, and she shrugged her left shoulder almost imperceptibly.

  “I make a point of knowing things, Bob. Just like you. Does it matter how I know?” He had no answer, and she continued. “Anyway, it’s a bit chilly so I’m going back in, but I’ll be here if you need anything. Have a good time, guys.”

  Back at the car, as they were getting their rods ready, Sam, glancing sideways at Gordon, said, “The rancher’s daughter seems to be a friendly sort.”

  “She can be,” Bob said after a pause, “but she’s not someone you want to cross. Diane Brinkley is the odds-on favorite to be the next District Attorney of Plateau County.”

  THERE ARE DAYS when the fishing gods smile upon an angler, and this was one of them. On those rare days there is generally a combination of decent weather (though it’s not essential) and a good place to fish. The weather came in the form of an autumn day that featured bright sunshine and an intermittent cool breeze that never became severe enough to put the fish down or make casting difficult.

  The stream ran clear and slow through the meadow, with undercut banks and enough weeds to provide insect food for the trout. Above the ranch house, as it came into the meadow from the mountains, the Big Hole had a number of pools and riffles. Downstream, water was diverted into a pond, about 300-by-400 feet, with productive weed beds and large cruising trout visible in the clear water. At Bob’s suggestion, they walked to the pond and started there. Fish were rising intermittently when they arrived, and Sam and Bob decided to work dry flies. Gordon decided to stick with a small nymph under an indicator. He took up a position by where the water flowed into the pond and cast a few feet into the current, letting out line so the fly could drift with the flow into the pond. Twenty-five feet from shore, the indicator went under water as a fish mouthed the fly, and Gordon raised his rod to set the hook. For a second, he felt something solid, as though the submerged fly had hooked a log.

  It was no log. The fish that had taken the fly raced toward the other side of the pond as Gordon’s reel screeched and all the fly line went out, leaving only the backing on the reel. He tried to turn the fish, but something snapped, and the line went limp. He reeled it in and saw that his fly had been broken off. Bob had been watching from the bank to Gordon’s right.

  “I hear there are a couple of fish in here that are almost ten pounds,” he said. “I think you just got one, Flyboy. Next time, bring him in.”

  They each caught and released several good fish in the pond, and after an hour and a half moved down to the stream, where the fish continued to be obliging. All day long, the three men worked the stream (with a mid-afternoon detour back to the pond). Wherever they went and however they fished, none of them went more than 15 minutes without a bite, and many of the fish were Rainbows and Browns in the 14-to-20-inch range. It was a day of fishing they would remember the rest of their lives.

  At 4:30, the sun was behind the mountains and the breeze had gone from cool to cold. They decided to call it a day and trudged contentedly back to the ranch house. As they got there, they saw a sheriff’s car parked not far from Gordon’s Cherokee. Bob came to attention like a bird dog on a scent.

  “I guess some deputy’s on official business,” Gordon said.

  “Not just a deputy,” Bob replied. “That’s Car 17 — the one the sheriff herself drives. That tells me something big is going on.”

  He leaned his fly rod against the Cherokee.

  “Follow me, gentlemen. We’re going to exercise the public’s right to know.”

  BOB RAPPED ON THE DOOR three times, and a moment later, Diane Brinkley opened it, the sheriff behind her, both of them looking a bit sheepish. For several seconds, no one said anything, then Chris spoke first.

  “I should have known you’d see my car, Bob. I’m still not used to the fact you can’t go anywhere in this county without being seen.” She turned to Diane. “Should we invite them in?”

  Diane looked briefly at Bob, at Gordon for several seconds, and gave Sam a quick glance. Without saying a word, she gestured toward the inside of the house with her head and turned around. They followed her in.

  To the right of the spacious entrance area was a large living room, with hardwood floors, high-beamed ceilings and a river-rock fireplace with a cheerful blaze. A couch wide enough to seat four people faced the fire, with two chairs flanking it on either side. The couch and chairs were in a Western style, with gnarled wood framing above the cushioned areas. It’s a hard look to achieve without being kitschy, but the furniture hit the right notes. In front of the couch was a long glass coffee table with two glasses of wine on it, one of them with a smudge of lipstick on the rim, corresponding to the color of Diane’s lips. Above the fireplace was a large landscape painting, showing what looked like one of the local mountain ranges at twilight, with a vast expanse of sagebrush in the foreground shadows. Gordon looked at it intently.

  “A Macondray?” he asked.

  Diane nodded. “I think it’s the only thing she’s sold in this county.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, “she sold another one two days ago. I saw it go down.”

 
Diane looked at Gordon again, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile.

  “I respect your taste. Can I offer you something to drink? We just uncorked a nice Merlot.”

  “Thanks,” Gordon said, “but it’s a long drive back to town. I’ll pass.”

  Bob and Sam looked at each other and shook their heads. Bob leaned forward.

  “Now, ladies, I don’t want to interfere with official business, but it seems to me a couple of questions are in order. First and foremost, what the heck is going on?”

  Diane turned to Chris and shrugged.

  “Your call,” she said.

  Chris took a sip of her wine to buy time, and leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. Finally, she sat up straight.

  “All right, Bob. I’ll give it to you straight, but before I do, I need to explain it’s a touchy situation. Will you sit on it for 24 hours and give us a chance to sort it out?”

  Bob leaned forward and brought his hands, fingers together in a prayer position, to his mouth. After half a minute, he exhaled loudly.

  “I don’t like holding back the news, but I’ll give you the 24 hours, but with the understanding that if anything else happens to push the story out in the open, I’m going on the air with it.”

  “Fair enough,” Chris said, looking everyone in the room in the eye before continuing.

  “Another student’s gone missing from Homestead College.”

  IT SEEMED AS IF THE TEMPERATURE in the room dropped by 20 degrees. Bob tried not to show it, but it wasn’t what he was expecting. I glanced over at Gordon and saw him lean forward slightly, his body tensing the way it does when he suddenly gets interested in something. It’s about his only “tell,” and I don’t think anyone but me notices it.

  Bob spoke first. “Who? When?”

  The sheriff picked up a steno pad at the side of her chair and opened it.

  “The name’s Jessica Milland. She was doing some tutoring at the writing lab Thursday afternoon and left about 3:45. She has a dorm room on campus, a boyfriend with an apartment in town, and a mother who lives in Big Piney, so it’s not unusual for her to be away for a night. Which is why her roommate wasn’t worried when she didn’t come home on Thursday”

  “Wait a minute,” Gordon said. “Dorm room? At a community college?”

  Chris set down her pad. “Not something you see in the Bay Area, but our college serves three counties, and a lot of the students come from a long way off. And some of our college athletes come from all over the state for a chance to play. Plus, some days in the winter it’s tough sledding getting the two miles from town to the college. Hence the dorms. Anyway, if I can continue, what Jessica doesn’t have is a car. When she has to get anywhere, she bums a ride with a friend or hitchhikes. Like the other two who disappeared.”

  I noticed that Bob had buried his face in his hands and was shaking his head.

  “You OK?” I asked.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” he said. “I had Jessica in my radio class last spring. Really sweet kid. Tell me this isn’t happening.” He sat up and put his hands on his thighs. “But I’ll tell you something. Of all the students I’ve ever had, she was the least afraid to challenge the teacher. If anyone tried to abduct her, she’d have fought and fought hard.”

  “Good to know,” Chris said, “but this is the first time a missing student has been reported in less than 48 hours. Jessica’s roommate worried when she was away for two nights in a row without calling. This morning she checked with the mother and the boyfriend, and when neither of them had seen her, sat on it for a couple of hours before letting us know this afternoon.”

  “What are you going to do?” Bob said.

  “I’ve got Howard checking into people at the college, and I was thinking of calling out the posse for a search tomorrow. I don’t know where to start looking, but we should at least try.”

  There was a pause in the conversation, and I decided to put in my two cents’ worth.

  “You say the student disappeared Thursday afternoon? Gordon and I were fishing on Powder Creek then, and just before sunset, I heard a gunshot.”

  Diane fixed me with a cool look that said she wasn’t impressed. After several seconds of dramatic silence, she said:

  “So?”

  “Well,” I stammered, “an hour after the student disappears, there’s a gunshot in the mountains not all that far from where she was last seen. It might be worth looking into.”

  Chris smiled. “If we were back in Sacramento, Sam, I’d agree with you. But around here, gunfire is as much a natural sound as the wind or the birds singing. Probably just somebody taking target practice.”

  “I’m afraid she’s right, Akers and Pains,” Bob said. “But it does raise an interesting point. There’s a lot of country around here. Where do you start looking with the posse, and what are you looking for?”

  “Aside from the body? If I knew that, Bob, I’d be looking now. What we really should do is an aerial search, but …”

  “But Crawford’s out of town,” Bob said.

  “Exactly.” Chris turned to Gordon and me. “Dick Crawford is a private pilot who holds the contract to do aerial searches for the county. We budget for three a year, and he has one left on budget, but he’s visiting his sister in Arizona. Won’t be back until Wednesday.”

  I was still smarting from the women’s dismissal. I mean, target practice? Who takes target practice and only fires one shot? But this was too good a chance to pass up.

  “I have a plane,” I said. “I flew it up here. I’d be happy to be pilot for the search.”

  I could see the wheels turning in the sheriff’s head, but I knew I had her at the first four words. Finally she said:

  “You’re not an approved vendor, and it could take a while to get you paid back …”

  I looked at Gordon.

  “We’re good for it,” he said. “Pay us back if and when you can. The important thing is to do the search as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very generous.”

  “The only condition,” I said, “is that Gordon comes along.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The other person in the plane should be a trained law enforcement officer.”

  “My plane’s a four-seater. You can send two trained officers if you want.”

  “Then we have a deal. Can you take us up in the morning? What I’ll do is assemble the posse, but have them hold off on going anywhere until we’ve looked around.”

  “Great!” I said. “So we fly at dawn?”

  “Let’s not get carried away. Make it nine o’clock. That way the eastern slopes won’t be in such deep shadow.”

  “Who are you sending up?” asked Bob.

  “I have to send Howard, since he’s done more aerial searches than anyone else on the force. If there’s room for one more, I’m coming, too.”

  “To keep an eye on him?” murmured Diane.

  “You said that, not me.” She turned to Gordon and me. “Let’s meet at the airport at 8:30. I’ll talk to some people tonight and get an idea where we should look, and we can go over the flight plan before we take off.”

  “Fine by me,” I said.

  Glances were exchanged all around, then Bob slapped his thighs and stood up.

  “Unless you find something or call me off sooner, this goes on the air at five o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for leveling with us, and we’d better get going now. Brenda’s expecting us for dinner in 15 minutes, so can I use your phone to call and tell her we’ll be a bit late?”

  Chris was grinning.

  “What?” said Bob.

  “I should have known you’d come up with a pilot.”

  “Mountain Bob gets the job done,” he said. “Don’t ever try to put something past me.”

  He made the call, and a couple of minutes later, we were outside. It was completely dark by now and colder than I expected. I pulled my jacket around me, but it didn’t help much. I was
glad it was dark, though, because Bob and Gordon couldn’t see me smile. The sheriff can come up with any flight plan she wants, but the airplane goes where the pilot flies it. And we’re not going back to the airport tomorrow until I’ve flown over the area where Gordon and I were fishing Thursday.

  I know what I heard that night.

  BRENDA HASTINGS handled the late arrival of Bob and his friends with a mixture of stoicism and calm efficiency. It was hardly the first time, after all. She had already fed the daughters and sent them to watch TV, but they were called in again for introductions.

  Gordon was immediately struck by the change in Eileen. When he last saw her four years ago, she was ten years old, less than five feet tall, and very much a little girl. Now she was a coltish five-seven and very much a young woman with reddish-brown hair pulled up in a bun and a bit of attitude. After shaking hands with Gordon, she looked him in the eye and said:

  “Dad says you used to be a pretty good basketball player.”

  “I think he still is,” Bob said.

  “Want to play some one-on-one tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Gordon said. “When I play basketball, I tend to throw elbows.”

  “So do I.”

  “Well, let’s wait and see. I have to be somewhere tomorrow morning. Maybe in the afternoon.”

  “You live in San Francisco,” said Sarah, the younger daughter, shaking her blond curls. “It must be fun to live in San Francisco.”

  “I like it. But it’s nice being up here, too.”

  “Can I stay with you the next time I’m in San Francisco?”

  “Sarah!” Brenda said. “That’s quite enough.”

  “I have an extra room in my place,” Gordon said. “You’re welcome to stay there as long as your mom or dad comes with you. Maybe you could get down this summer.”

  “Hard for me to get away, Gordon,” Bob said. “But thanks.”

  Eileen and Sarah retreated to the TV room, and Brenda began putting dinner out. After offering to help and being shooed away, Gordon watched from a distance. She was five-six, a year or two younger than Bob, with short, light brown hair and glasses. She wore jeans, a long-sleeved pale-blue blouse, and a necklace with a sapphire charm around her neck. Her movements were economical and effortless, conveying a pleasantly domestic sense of a woman in control of her kitchen. Presently the food was on the table.