by R. P. Dahlke
When the rope went slack, I held my breath and listened. Their conversation was muted by the rock walls, but her calm voice was all I needed to know that she was satisfied with his condition. We’d get him out and I’d take him home. He was exhausted, and I’m sure he was hungry, since he missed out on lunch.
While I waited, I did some of the deep breathing exercises Karen said would help me adjust to the altitude, reminding myself to look around for snakes, coyotes, and any stray emus. There was nothing to mar the clear blue sky but a red-tailed hawk circling overhead, his broad tail flicking while it caught another rung on the ladder in the rising thermals.
Arizona was so different from California, yet in many ways familiar. With the Dragoons and the Huachuca Mountains on the east and west, the valley pointed north almost to Tucson. I did expect to see cactus, but there were none of the grand saguaros from the pages of Arizona calendars and tourist maps. There were plenty of ocotillo, the spindly spiked plants were everywhere, which only went to prove, Dad said, that gold filled quartz veins were right under our feet.
It was also quiet. Even though our ranch near Modesto, California was officially in the county, suburbia had been eating up all the vacant land until my dad’s place was the odd bit in a sea of houses, traffic and shopping centers. All he had to do now was put up a For Sale sign and his property would disappear under the weight of progress.
I was jerked back to the present when I heard my name called. Unclipping the two-way radio from my belt, I answered.
“He’s all right, Lalla,” Karen said. “I’m coming up with the keys.”
With the keys in hand, I moved the Jeep closer to the hole, and using the winch remote, I lowered Karen down into the pit again to retrieve my dad.
“Bring him up now,” she said. “Slow and steady.”
I put my finger on the remote control and the cable started to roll onto the winch. There was a quick shudder when the Jeep gripped the extra weight, but then Dad’s gray head popped out of the hole. I stopped the remote and he scrambled over the ledge, rolling out onto the ground.
Karen’s radio piped up again. “Lalla? How’re you doing?”
“Let me get him out of the harness and I’ll send the cable for you.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
I handed my dad a bottle of water. “You okay for a minute while I get Karen out?”
“Sure. She tell you about the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“Never mind. Get her out and we’ll talk.” My dad upended the water bottle, effectively shutting off any further questions.
While the winch lowered the cable down to Karen I noticed a dusty whirlwind coming our way. As it came closer, the maelstrom became two county sheriff’s patrol cars. One of them peeled out of formation and stopped. A deputy got out and, thumbs in his belt, strolled over to where my dad was slouched on the ground.
Slope-shouldered with eyes so deeply set that I couldn’t quite decide if there was intelligence in there, or not, said, “This is private property. What’re y’all doing here?”
My dad mumbled something and the deputy scratched at his cheek in a way that made me think, rookie. Then he ambled over to where I waited, controller and remote in hand.
Without speaking to me, he peered down into the hole, cursed, and backed away, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.
I decided to ignore him and called to Karen on the two-way. “A sheriff’s deputy is here.”
“Yeah, I see him. Who is this clown anyway?”
“I have no idea. Are you ready?”
“Yes I am. Hoist away.”
The deputy caught Karen under her arms and yanked her clear of the hole. When she brushed his hands away, I saw a blush rise under his soft round face.
“Why didn’t the other deputy stop?” Karen asked.
The deputy stiffened under the apparent criticism. “We got a 9-1-1 call for a break-in at the art compound.”
“It’s okay, Karen,” I said, “my dad’s fine.”
“Wait,” Karen said. “There’s another thing.”
I flicked a quick glance at my dad. He shrugged, letting Karen explain.
She squinted at the hand printed name taped on his pocket. “Deputy…?”
“It’s Abel. Deputy Abel,” he said, slapping a hand over the nametag.
Karen’s lips twitched. “You’re new in the Sheriff’s department?”
“Not that new. I lost my name tag is all.”
“Okay. I called the sheriff’s department and told dispatch I would be out here tracking this gentleman at the request of his daughter. He’s okay, but we also found human remains below.”
“Ancient burial ground?” I asked looking from Karen to Dad.
The deputy’s face went one shade redder. “Probably another damn mule.”
At my perplexed look, Karen said, “I’ll explain the term later, Lalla. You need to know, Deputy, that it’s not a Mexican down there, it’s Wishbone’s police chief.”
I gasped. “You mean to tell me there’s a real body down there?”
The young deputy’s notebook slipped out of his hand and dropped to the ground. “Are-are you sure?”
“How’d the police chief get…?”
“I’m sorry, Lalla. I decided it best to wait until I got your dad out of the pit to tell you. As for your question, Deputy, I’ve met him several times before; the most recent was at a fundraiser for the K-9 troop, so yes, I’m sure.”
Deputy Abel retrieved the notebook and smacked it against his trouser leg. “He’s supposed to be on a fishing trip in Wyoming. How the hell did he get down there?”
He turned and glared at my dad. “I told you this was private property. What was the old guy here doing down there with him?”
I’d had enough. “Now, wait a minute, Deputy. I own this property, and my dad drove out to look around and—”
“I can speak for myself, thank you very much,” Dad said. “I saw a truck parked here. It sped off when I got closer, so I thought I’d take a look. I saw the body below and went down to see if he was still alive.”
The deputy stuck his thumbs in his gun-belt and squinted suspiciously at my dad. “Uh-huh. Can you describe the truck, sir?”
My dad’s jaw twitched—I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking it myself—damn whippersnapper. “It was white. A truck. Too far away to tell the make or model.”
The deputy mouth puckered in disgust. “Old people.”
Karen put her hand on my dad’s arm to stop the retort on his lips.
“What the deputy means is,” Karen said, “because of the sun, most cars and trucks in Arizona are white.”
“How was I to know it was going to be important?” Dad said. “It took off. I went down, the rope broke on me, and there I stayed until my daughter and this lady found me.”
I shook my head. “The rope didn’t break, Dad, the knot came untied. Why didn’t you use the winch? The remote and controller was coiled up on the back seat.”
A blush rose under his dirt-smudged face. “I—I couldn’t figure out how to use the damn thing.”
The deputy looked at my dad’s fancy new Jeep and snickered. “Like I said—old people.”
I heard teeth grinding. I think it was Karen, tempted to give the deputy a piece of her mind. Instead, she turned her attention to my dad.
“You did the right thing, Mr. Bains,” she said.
Deputy Abel lifted his notebook to read his notes. “Mm-mm. Since this appears to be a potential homicide, I’m going to have to, ah, secure the scene and get everyone’s names.”
His radio bleated and he jerked like he’d been shot, then lifted it off his belt and held it to his ear. “Oh, yeah? That so. Okay, I’ll be right there.”
The deputy fastened the radio back onto his belt. “Looks like we have another homicide.”
“At the art compound?” I asked, looking uphill at a distant line of trees anchored to a hillside. “Who?”
“It’s under investigation and that’s all you need to know.”
He stuffed the notebook back into his shirt pocket. “I have to get up there now, secure the area for Homicide and the M.E.”
He turned to leave, then circled back to us, rubbing the back of his neck. “Dang it! What was I thinking? How am I supposed to secure a murder scene in another place when any of you might be suspects in this one?”
Visibly bristling at the insult, Karen said, “I can vouch for Miss Bains and her dad, Deputy, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
He squinted at her. “But who’s going to vouch for you?”
“Dumb-ass,” Dad mumbled under his breath.
Karen, who had clearly been in charge of her temper a minute ago, now lost it. “Who the hell you think you’re talking to? I’ve been working with the sheriff’s department longer than you’ve been shaving.”
I wanted to high-five Karen. Whippersnapper, indeed.
“Is that so? Well, until Homicide or the sheriff says otherwise, I go by the book. And since I can’t take the chance that y’all won’t go running off the minute my back is turned, you two get in the back seat and Karen and her dog ride up front.”
Spreading his arms wide he herded us to his patrol car. “Hurry up now, I haven’t got all day. Oh, and I’ll take your wallets and cell phones. We’ll check your identities, and then maybe you can go home. Or not.”
“Dumb-ass,” my dad muttered again.
Deputy Abel got into the driver’s side and started the car.
“Deputy,” Karen said, “if I hadn’t been out here looking for Mr. Bains, no one would’ve known where to look for the chief, much less find him.”
The deputy nodded, starting the engine. “Got that right. Not when the man was supposed to be on his way to Wyoming. We wouldn’t have started looking for at least another week.”
“He was dead when I found him,” Dad said.
“Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. Either way, Homicide is going to have a lot of questions for you folks. Everyone buckle up now.”
Dad and I looked at one another, thinking the same thing—weren’t we glad my fiancé, Sheriff Caleb Stone, wasn’t here to see us in trouble again?
Deputy Abel gunned the engine and the patrol car bounced over the rutted road and up the hill. I was curious to see what an art compound would look like. Would it be some sort of hippy commune with farm animals and babies in the same crib? As we crested the hill, the blades of a colorful windmill caught the light like a child’s whirligig.
We turned onto an unpaved road, passing a collection of Do Not Enter and No Trespassing signs, and finally stopped next to a big white two-story house. The house sat a hundred feet or so across from three small cabins set in a stand of poplars. Equidistant between the cabins and the house was a huge barn, the doors open, a bright acetylene torch telegraphing the message that someone was hard at work.
Putting on the brake, Deputy Abel hopped out and trotted over to the other deputy, and they both disappeared into the house.
I said what we were all thinking. “What’re the chances that the dead body here and the one my dad found are totally unrelated?”
.
Chapter Five:
My dad, exhausted from his six hour ordeal in an abandoned mine pit, had fallen asleep, his soft snores filling the patrol car.
Karen’s Blue Heeler had taken over the driver’s seat and was perusing the yard for something more interesting than my dad’s snores.
“Since it appears that we’re to wait,” I said to Karen, “can you tell me what the deputy meant by mules leaving dead bodies in mine pits?”
“Wishbone and Cochise County have always been a corridor for immigrants out of Mexico and Latin America, but in the last few years we’ve seen a real uptick in drug-dealers using them to backpack the stuff across the border, hence the term mules. If the border patrol spots them, they will abandon their packs and run. But every once in a while, we find one of them murdered and dumped in a mine pit.”
“That’s awful.”
“The sheriff’s department gets weekly calls for human remains in the desert, too. The county tries to repatriate the bodies, after all someone is missing them and it’s the right thing to do. But it isn’t always possible.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“The coyotes lift cash, wallets, ID’s, anything of value before they abandon the body to the elements.”
I glanced over at my dad slumped against the door, his eyes closed. He had exhausted the last of his reserves.
“Karen,” I said, “my dad has a heart condition. Do you think when the EMTs get here they could take a look at him, check his blood pressure or something?”
At the mention of his heart condition, he awoke. “Now don’t go making a fuss, Lalla. I’m all right. I’m just a bit tired.”
Karen turned her head around to look at me. “I think it’s safe to say that we can’t count on Deputy Dumb-Ass. I’d call someone, but Dumb-Ass took all of our cell phones. Oh well, service isn’t worth a damn out here anyway.”
A light winked on in one of the cabins, and from this angle I could see the man in the barn. He held a welding rod and torch, and he was working on a bronze sculpture of a horse.
“That’s odd,” I said. “There appear to be people here, yet no one seems to be curious as to why there are deputies outside?”
Karen looked up. “What? Where?”
“Well,” I said, pointing, “there’s a man working in the barn, and someone’s in one of the cabins, but no one’s interested as to why two county deputy cruisers are parked outside?”
She blinked at the scenery. “Yeah. That doesn’t seem right. Which reminds me, my husband’s going to be home from work soon and wanting his supper. Still, it might be fun to watch Deputy Dumb-Ass get his comeuppance.”
I leaned forward resting my arms on the backrest. “What do you mean?”
“Ian Tom is chief homicide detective with the county. He’ll sort this mess out soon enough,” Karen said, crossing her arms over her chest.
The doggy smell and cramped space in the back seat was beginning to get to me. “I’d like to stretch my legs.”
“Uh?” Karen said, rubbing at her eyes. “Oh, sure. Dumb-Ass putting you in the back like you’re the criminals. What the hell, let’s all get out. We’ll take Matilda for a walk, and if the idiot shows up, I’ll tell him she was about to pee on his front seat.”
Dad grunted his disgust at the locked door, then seemed to remember that he was in a patrol car. He stretched and yawned, and thanked Karen for letting him out.
I shivered in the cooling air. We were higher up, closer to the mountains and quicker to become shadowed.
“I’d offer you my coat,” Dad said, putting an arm around my shoulders, “but I think I left it in the Jeep.”
“I’m okay,” I said, watching Karen’s heeler intent on a new target.
“I’m not sure what she’s after,” Karen said, “but let’s check it out.”
She gave the dog a command and Matilda lurched forward, weaving back and forth on her lead.
“Don’t you want to let her go, Karen?” I asked.
“She’s also fond of chasing rabbits, so probably not a good idea.”
Matilda circled around and headed back to the house, then angled off toward the cabins. She leaned forward, panting in her eagerness to get to the target.
“There!” I cried. “There’s something on the ground by that tree.”
Karen patted Matilda, gave her a treat, and stared at the item. It was a padded jacket, turned inside out, the flannel lining dirty and ripped.
Karen stopped my dad before he could pick it up. “Wait. This could be an important piece of evidence. Detective Tom will want to see it where it is.”
My father looked confused. “It looks like—”
We all turned at a man’s deep voice. “Karen? Is that you?”
“Ian Tom,” Karen said. “I’m so glad
to see you. Lalla, Mr. Bains, this is chief homicide detective for Cochise County, Ian Tom. Lalla Bains owns the old Bains place now, Ian.”
The man looked to be in his mid-forties. Bronzed skin and epicanthic folds at the inside corner of his eyes hinted at a distant Native American ancestor. He was also tall, maybe six-three, his big shoulders and flat abdomen under a neatly pressed dress shirt said he did more than sit behind a desk.
He shook my dad’s hand, and I was pleased to see he wasn’t one to assume my dad was anything other than what he said he was—a retired crop duster from California.
I thought it odd when the detective’s gaze landed on my hands. They were, as always, chapped, nicked from working, with short, unpainted nails and only my engagement band with the single diamond to mention my single or not status. Then again, was he looking to see if these were the kind of hands that could kill someone? When my eyes came up to meet his, I saw humor, as well as speculation, as he worked around the how and why I might be involved with this murder case. I had to agree with Karen, this was a man who could put two and two together and know what to do about it.
Introductions over, he asked about the jacket on the ground.
“Matilda led us to it,” Karen said. “I thought it might be a clue, since we started out looking for Mr. Bains. Of course, we also found the police chief.”
He shook his head, frowning. “The police chief? Back up a minute. What’s this have to do with the police chief?”
“Deputy Dumb-Ass,” my dad muttered.
I nudged him before he could add an expletive and said, “A sheriff’s deputy.”
I started from the beginning, ending with Karen’s identifying the body in the pit as Wishbone’s police chief.
“And the deputy got your particulars and took your statements?”
“Not exactly,” Karen said. “He was interrupted by a call to come here and secure another crime scene.”
The detective heaved a sigh and took out his notebook. “Let’s start over again. Karen, you said you and Miss Bains tracked her father to a mine pit where you also found the body of the police chief? Where exactly is this pit?”
