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

by Michael Wallace

  “Not at all.”

  She returned with it a few minutes later, and he took a sip. Fortified, he started on what he had to say.

  “Look, Elizabeth, I owe you an apology. At dinner tonight, when you said you were moving to San Francisco, well, it really took me by surprise, and I’m afraid I froze up.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea. It’s really exciting, and I’m really glad it’s happening. I want it to happen. Please understand that.”

  A flicker of a smile crossed her face. He continued.

  “When will you be moving?”

  “I have to turn in grades for this semester Friday December 17. Sandy’s going to ask for the weekend off, and if she gets it, she’ll help me drive the U-Haul to the city on Saturday.”

  “So five weeks from now,” he said.

  “If you start the countdown tomorrow. Do you think you can be faithful until then?”

  He was silent for several seconds.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Five weeks is an awful long time.”

  She smacked him with a pillow, and they both started laughing. She stopped first.

  “One more crack like that, Gordon, and we’re going back to Antioch Rules.”

  “No. No. Anything but that.”

  Saturday November 15

  TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY OF TROUT SEASON on the streams of California. Gordon and I had been planning on seeing it out in style on the waterways of Plateau County, but that clearly isn’t going to happen. There’s a certain irony in what’s happening to Gordon. The fisherman has become the fish, and the fish knows it’s hooked good and proper. The expression on Gordon’s face last night at dinner, when Elizabeth announced she’s moving to San Francisco, was — well, priceless, especially given his usual poker face. I’d love to know what’s going through his head right now, but he’ll never tell me.

  With all the stimulation from the game and the dinner repartee last night, I had a hard time falling asleep, but finally drifted off some time after midnight and woke up a little after six. It goes without saying that I had the place to myself, and I tried to enjoy the elbow room as I got up, shaved and showered. There was a little coffee pot on top of the dresser next to the TV set, and I made myself a two-cup pot after the shower. I was finishing the first cup when Gordon called and told me to meet him at Kemper’s in half an hour.

  It was still overcast, dark and cold when I stepped out of the front door of the hotel. The clock on the bank said 37 degrees, but it felt more like 27 as I slogged to Kemper’s. It started raining just as I got there.

  It was warm and smelled sweet inside, which was what I needed. I got a lemon Danish, along with my second cup of coffee of the morning, and got us a booth in one corner. In another corner, I could see Coach Geiser sipping a cup of coffee and reading the early edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. The place was half full, and from time to time, someone would go up to him with an attaboy about how well the team had played the night before. I doubt it was what he wanted to hear, but he seemed to be taking it as well as could be expected.

  Elizabeth came in by herself a few minutes after I claimed the booth. When Gordon didn’t immediately follow her into the establishment, I deduced they had driven down from her place in separate cars. Sure enough, he came in a few minutes later, took her order, and returned with pastries and coffee for two.

  “Did you sleep all right, Sam?” he asked.

  I decided he didn’t want the long answer, so I said, “Yeah. Pretty well.” I almost followed it with, “How about you,” but realized the question would have been tactless.

  “Things are beginning to break,” he said in a soft voice. “They’ll be looking at that car this morning.”

  “And while they’re doing that,” Elizabeth said, “Sandy and I will be going down to Blue Moon Ranch to have another talk with Alicia.”

  “Do you really think she’ll drop the complaint?” Gordon said.

  “I hope not. We need to keep her in a positive frame of mind, and after the team lost last night, she’s probably going to be blaming herself.”

  “What for?” I asked. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You and I know that, Sam,” she said, “but we’re not the ones who have to go back to that high school and face the other students. That wouldn’t be easy for her if there were an open and shut case against Burnett and Jarrett. With Diane hitting a wall on the case, there’ll be even more peer pressure on her. It’s a heavy weight for a teenage girl.”

  Gordon’s phone rang. I looked at my watch. It was nearly eight o’clock, later than I realized. The pervasive gloom outside made it seem as if the sun had not yet risen. A gust of wind came up and blew raindrops against the bakery window. I could only hear his end of the conversation, which consisted mainly of grunts and monosyllables. He ended the call in less than a minute and set his phone on the table.

  “Chris says they’re starting the examination of the car now,” he said in a low voice. “We can come by the courthouse at 11:30 if we want an update on how it’s going. You in, Sam?”

  “Why not?” I said. “All my other engagements have been canceled.”

  We finished our food, and Elizabeth took off for her rendezvous with Alicia. Gordon and I started back to the hotel, but when we got there, he turned right, rather than left.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Just checking something,” he said.

  He drove to the school at the edge of town. Despite the rain and cold, the girls’ soccer team was out practicing on the athletic field. John Armstrong, wearing a waterproof windbreaker and a baseball cap, was on the sideline shouting encouragement. I looked around quickly and saw that there were several cars in the parking lot, with moms waiting for their daughters, who were probably safe for the moment. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath until I exhaled.

  “Gives you pause, doesn’t it?” Gordon said.

  “A lot more than a pause,” I said.

  RAIN WAS FALLING INTERMITTENTLY, as it had all morning, when Gordon and Sam reached the courthouse. Because it was Saturday, and the office staff was home enjoying the weekend, Chris and Diane met with them in the sheriff’s office.

  “Did you find what you expected?” Gordon asked.

  “I expected squat,” Chris said. “We did better than expected. He’s giving it one more look-see, but we have a pretty good outline.”

  Gordon nodded, and she continued.

  “Either the CHP cleanup crew is careless or that car has hauled a bunch of shedding suspects in the last few days. We found six hairs in the back seat, and they appear to belong to two or three different people. No way of telling how long they’ve been there, but even though it’s a long shot, we have to bust our budget and run DNA tests on them all. I’m still waiting to hear from Ponderosa if they even have a DNA sample on file for Tiffany. Wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t.”

  “So all you came up with was a remote possibility?” Gordon asked.

  “That wasn’t all we came up with. I was saving the best for last.” She opened a desk drawer, removed a sealed plastic bag, and set it on the desktop. It contained a woman’s ring with a stainless steel band and a purplish gem in a setting. “This was found under the driver’s seat.”

  The men leaned forward.

  “What is it?” Sam finally asked.

  “It’s an amethyst,” Chris said. “That happens to be the birth stone for February. Tiffany Reese’s DOB is 2/10/78.”

  No one said a word for a full minute. Diane picked up the baggie and looked at the ring.

  “The amethyst has a long tradition in mythic lore,” she said. “It’s supposed to make the wearer clear-headed and quick-witted. I wonder if Tiffany was quick-witted enough to realize she was in trouble, and to try to leave a clue.”

  “We can hope,” Chris said. “I’d love to go for a warrant to search Armstrong’s house right now, but D
iane says we don’t have enough.”

  “Not nearly enough. The ring hasn’t been definitely tied to Tiffany, and we don’t know specifically what we’re searching for. As galling as it is to be patient at a time like this, it’s better than having the search overturned.”

  There was a rap on the glass door to the office, and Chris motioned Howard to come in. He opened the door and stood in the doorway.

  “I have some news when you’re free,” he said.

  “Is it about … ?”

  He nodded.

  “Come on in, then. We’ll trust Gordon to keep it under his hat.”

  He retrieved a chair from a corner, placed it next to Gordon, and took a seat.

  “I got hold of Barkis, the deputy commander in the Valley district where Armstrong worked before coming up here.” Howard said.

  “Was Barkis willing?” Gordon asked.

  “Willing to help. We go back quite a ways, and he told me a lot about our Johnny Armstrong. Good reviews on the job, solid professional attitude, considered a bit of an eager beaver, but they usually grow out of that. Interesting enough as far as it goes, but the real kicker was why he left the area to come here.”

  He looked around and saw that he had the full attention of all present.

  “His wife left him.” He looked around again.

  “For another woman.”

  “That could knock you off the rails,” Gordon said.

  “Sounds like it did for him. Barkis said Armstrong was pretty worked up over it and after three months applied for a transfer. Plateau County was as far away as he could get.”

  After another uneasy silence, Gordon said, “I don’t suppose you asked Barkis if there were any missing female college students while Armstrong was there.”

  “I may be a hick, Gordon, but I’m not stupid. I asked that very question, and Barkis said there was a female community college student who went missing and didn’t fit the usual profile. She hasn’t turned up yet. Only problem is, he can’t say for sure whether she disappeared while Armstrong was still there or after he left. It was two and a half years ago. He said it would take him a while to look into it, having to deal with the police department, which handled the case, and it might be Monday or Tuesday before he had an answer for me.”

  “Everything’s wait, wait, wait,” Gordon said.

  “That’s the nature of law enforcement. Plodding and waiting,” Howard said. “Oh, and one more thing. I checked into Armstrong’s house, 214 West Fifth Street. It’s a Pinelli.”

  The line drew vacant looks all around, and Howard continued.

  “Bob’s house was a Pinelli, too, Gordon. What do you remember as its key feature?”

  “The windowless basement,” Gordon muttered.

  “That’s right. Now if I recall correctly, it was Loretta James that handled the sale when Armstrong bought the place … “

  “Honest to God, Howard,” Chris said. “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “Well,” he said, “I always thought knowing what’s going on in town was a big part of rural law enforcement. But then, I’m old school. Anyway, I got a call in to Loretta to ask her if she remembers whether Armstrong specifically asked about the basement when he was looking. She’s out showing some houses to a young couple and won’t be done for a few hours. Plod and wait.”

  “Good work, Howard,” Chris said. “And I mean that. Let me know when you find out more.”

  He took the hint and left.

  When Howard was out of earshot, Gordon turned to Chris and Diane.

  “All right,” he said, “let me ask a question. You don’t have enough to get a warrant to search Armstrong’s house, right?”

  Diane nodded.

  “Well, four women have gone missing in the last five or six weeks,” he continued. We know one was killed, and we’ve been assuming the others have, too, but what if they’re still alive? What if they’re being held captive in that Pinelli basement at Armstrong’s house, maybe on the edge of death as we speak? Don’t we owe it to them to go in now?”

  “Sorry,” Diane said. “If we’re on the right track, we owe it to the victims and the public to nail this guy, and to do it in a way that no appellate court will argue with. Any search has to be airtight.”

  “Even if a couple of young women are languishing near death in that basement?”

  “We don’t know that, Gordon, and I think it’s unlikely. And the wait may not be that long. If we can get a definite ID on that ring, with the right backup, I might have enough to ask for a warrant.”

  He sat back, clearly agitated. After a period of silence, he went on.

  “I’m pretty torn up about this, and part of it is I want to see the son of a bitch who killed Bob get put away. Can I ask a hypothetical question?”

  “If you want a hypothetical answer,” Diane said.

  “Let’s suppose, hypothetically, that a private citizen were to break into Armstrong’s house, and, just by chance, discover something horrifying and call it in to the sheriff’s office. Would that give you grounds for going to the house and looking around?”

  Sam turned to Gordon and said one word: “Clancy?”

  Gordon nodded. “You see, I have a client, a professional athlete whose name you would probably recognize. He has a bodyguard named Clancy, who was a childhood friend. For the last three or four years, Clancy has been clean and sober and a model citizen, but before that — well, let’s just say his life tended to revolve around drugs and theft. Now that he’s gainfully employed, he came to me a few months ago and asked if I could help him set up a retirement plan.

  “He wasn’t starting with much, and my ordinary fee would have eaten a quarter of it, so I suggested he could pay me in kind. My fee was four lessons in how to pick a lock. For some reason, that’s always fascinated me, and under his tutelage, I’ve gotten to be pretty good at it. I’m pretty sure I could get into Armstrong’s house, and if I found nothing unusual, get out again without the entry being detected.”

  He sat back with a triumphant smile. Chris and Diane looked horrified. Diane spoke first.

  “All right, for starters, I was in the ladies’ room when you said that, and I never heard it. And I never said what I’m about to say. Speaking hypothetically, you’re crazy, Gordon. To be perfectly frank about it, I think coming up with the Wheaties clue has gone to your head, and you need to stop thinking you can run the investigation by yourself. Oh, and by the way, if that hypothetical burglar got caught, he’d be lucky to get off with three months at the county prison farm — and that’s with a squeaky clean record.”

  “Three months? I could do that standing on my head.”

  “A lot of criminal defendants say that, but they usually lose their positive outlook on life when the judge slams the gavel down and they’re being led away to be fitted for an orange jumpsuit. Forget it. End of discussion.”

  Gordon turned to the sheriff.

  “What do you think?”

  Chris tapped the edge of her desk with a pencil three times.

  “What she said. We’re getting close. Promise me before you leave, Gordon, that you won’t do it. You couldn’t even try until dark. Armstrong is working swing shift tonight. By six o’clock, we might have a hit on the ring. Back off.”

  “All right,” he finally said. “I’m abandoning the idea.”

  “Thank you,” Chris and Diane said in unison.

  “For now, anyway,” he said under his breath.

  AROUND TWO IN THE AFTERNOON, Gordon drove to Bob and Brenda’s house. The sign on the bank showed that it was 42 degrees, which ended up being the day’s high temperature. He made the short drive between rain showers, and entered the house perfectly dry.

  A different woman, from the church, was with Brenda, and he wondered if Brenda ever got tired of company and just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. The woman went off to make coffee, and though he had drunk too much already, he welcomed the chance to be alone with Brenda.

  “How are
you doing?” he asked.

  “OK under the circumstances. We’re planning Monday’s service now, and it gives me something to concentrate on.”

  “I guess that’s good.”

  “But then I automatically want to run it by Bob, and I lose it.”

  “Could be a while before that stops.”

  “More than a while, I’m afraid. Can I ask you a question?”

  He nodded.

  “Our pastor was by this morning with a suggestion, and I just don’t know. He’s concerned that our church may be too small to hold the crowd. It seats 250, and it’s never full on Sundays, but he thinks there may be a lot more people than that turning out for Bob’s funeral. He said he’s talked to the high school principal and they could hold the service in the gym at three o’clock Monday afternoon. I just worry that we may be putting on airs.”

  “How many people does the gym hold?”

  “Eleven hundred, the pastor said. I can’t imagine that many people would turn out. What do you think?”

  Gordon didn’t answer immediately, and when he did, he chose his words carefully.

  “From everything I’ve seen and heard, Bob was well known, universally liked, and the fact that he died shockingly and suddenly is likely to make a lot of people want to come out and pay their respects. It’s just my opinion, but I think even the gym might not be big enough.”

  “That’s kind of you to say. Maybe I’ll do it then. I have to decide by the end of this afternoon.”

  The coffee arrived, and the church woman retreated to the kitchen on another pretext.

  “I’m changing gears emotionally,” Brenda said. “Ever since Monday I’ve been in shock and denial, but now I’m getting angry. It seems like the sheriff isn’t getting anywhere with the investigation, and I’m hearing grumbling from the people who are visiting. I know it’s not easy, but …”

  “I think the sheriff is getting closer to something that can be acted on. But it has to be done right, or the killer could go free on a technicality. No one wants that.”

  “You’ve been talking to her. Isn’t there something you could do? Bob had such a huge admiration for your ability to …”