Ice and Stone

by Marcia Muller

  “Yeah, like them. They’ve got a hand in dirty jobs all over the county.” Jake paused, frowning. “Didn’t you tell me you ran into those two?”

  “Yes.”

  “They hassle you?”

  “No. What kind of dirty jobs?”

  “Debt collecting—there’s a lot of gambling in these parts, both legal and illegal, in and out of the casinos. Smacking people around when they get out of line.”

  Setting a deadly fire if they were ordered to?

  I didn’t give voice to the thought. Instead I said, “You’ve lived here nearly your whole life, Jake. What makes this county so valuable to rich people like the Harcourts? Mining? Oil? Natural gas? Other resources?”

  “There’s never been much of that to exploit. Silver, at one point, but those mines played out early last century.”

  “And the two women who were killed—what connection is there between them and the powers that be?”

  He was silent for a time. “Don’t know that either. I understand what you’re trying to do. But what happens now? You can’t go up against people like the Harcourts and Peter Hellman and Abe Hope unless you’ve got proof one or more of them’s a murderer.”

  “Finding the necessary proof,” I said. “That’s what happens now.”

  5:10 p.m.

  Dr. Williams pronounced me fit to leave the clinic. I would have gone anyway, but I was glad to have his okay. I unwrapped the clothes Allie had brought: undies, narrow-legged jeans, a warm sweater, and a fleece-lined jacket. I dressed and went to the admissions desk to check myself out and to pick up the pouch containing my ID and .38 as well as the keys to the vehicle the Sisters had provided. It was a somewhat dinged Jeep Cherokee at least a dozen years old, but it ran and handled well, and the gas tank was full. Before following Allie’s directions to Easy Street, I detoured to the airstrip to get the sectional charts from my plane.

  Hal was glad to see me up and around. He said, “I called Hy this morning and filled him in on what happened last night, told him you were okay—I’d called the clinic earlier to verify that. He wanted to fly up here, but I discouraged him.”

  “That’s good; he’s got enough on his plate, given the shooting at our agency.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, do the two of you ever get to spend any time together?”

  “Not as much as we’d like.”

  “But when you do…?”

  “It’s terrific. Hal, did anybody come around the airstrip inquiring about my plane?”

  “Sure did,” he said. “Paul Harcourt. I claimed I didn’t know you or the plane, and all the time it was sitting safe and sound in that little hangar. Us guys who stray a little to either side of FAA regs got to stick together.”

  “Could he have snuck a look inside the hangar?”

  “I suppose he could have.”

  And gotten the registration number if he did, which would give him access to all sorts of information.

  “By the way,” Hal said, “there’s been a good deal of air movement up at the Harcourt ranch the past couple of days. Planes coming and going. Must be a big conference of some sort.”

  “Any idea where the planes are coming from?”

  “At least one from out of state that I saw.”

  “Interesting. Keep on top of it, please.”

  “Happy to do so.”

  6:01 p.m.

  Jane Ramone’s house was a white A-frame of the type that had been popular in the 1970s. A row of eucalyptus sheltered it from the prevailing winds. As I approached the door, a series of yips told me that I was about to encounter a very formidable canine.

  “Shut up, Cassie,” a voice inside said.

  The woman who opened the door was short, with unruly dark-brown curls, and was clad in a purple floor-length dress. In her arms she held a wriggling ball of blond fur.

  “Hey, Cassie,” I said.

  The dog stopped wriggling, and its black shoe-button eyes stared at me.

  I patted its head. “Friends?”

  “Yip!” Cassie licked my hand.

  “Friends,” I said.

  “Yip!”

  The woman, Jane Ramone, set the dog down. “Good to meet you, Ms. McCone. I see you’re a dog person.”

  “An animal person—all kinds.”

  “Are you hungry, thirsty?”

  “Famished and dry.”

  “Come this way.”

  She led me down a long hallway where the walls were hung with intricately woven tapestries.

  “Yours?” I asked.

  “My favorites, yes. The ones I can’t bear to part with. I’m a weaver, have a shop in town, but I keep myself poor by being unable to part with the work I like. Sit down. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  While I waited, I called Hy on the new cell Allie had brought, and he answered immediately. “McCone, I was hoping you’d call,” he said. His voice was strong, steady, and it braced me.

  “Are you back in the city?”

  “Yes. At the agency assessing the damage. Hal told me about the fire up there. Sure you’re okay?”

  “Good as new. But it was pretty scary. I kept thinking of when my house on Church Street burned.”

  “You’re lucky you got out in time. Listen, maybe you’d better give up on this case before there’s another attack on you. It should be in the hands of the feds anyway.”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem they’re interested. At least, I haven’t seen any three-piece-suiters pussyfooting around here. Only the sheriff, and he’s too fat to pussyfoot.”

  “Why haven’t the feds been called in about the fire? It was on Native land.”

  “But not reservation land. There’s a difference. Anyway, I’m not giving up. I’m making some headway, but another woman’s gone missing.”

  “You want me to come up there and give you a hand?”

  I did and I didn’t. “You’ve got the reconstruction at the agency and the investigation into the shooter’s motive to contend with. I can handle things here. And I’ll be extra careful.”

  Long pause. “Okay. But I’m going to put in a call to Ike Blessing at the FBI, have him contact you on your cell.”

  “Service is spotty up here. He can also try me at the place where I’m staying now.” I gave him Jane’s number.

  “Jesus, where are you? The end of the earth?”

  “You remember what it was like when I first started going over to see you at your ranch in Mono County?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “That bad.”

  Jane returned after we ended the conversation, carrying a platter of little sandwiches, a bottle of wine, and two glasses. “Meruk’s finest,” she said as she poured.

  I tried not to gobble, but it was impossible. Jane smiled benevolently and stirred the logs in the fireplace.

  “So you’re here about our poor lost ladies—my terminology,” she said.

  “Yes. The Sisters hired me.”

  “Allie Foxx told me. They’re good people, and Allie’s an effective leader. I got my degree in political science from Sacramento State, worked in government down there for as long as I could stand it. When I came back here—after divorcing my obnoxious lobbyist husband—the Sisters took me in, made me a part of their group.”

  “Have you lived in Aspendale long?”

  “Fifteen years, ever since I came back to the county.”

  “What can you tell me about people in the village, whites and Native Americans both? Jake Blue, for example.”

  “We’re all people, aren’t we? About Jake…” She hesitated. “Jake can be…problematical. He’s an angry man, but also curiously passive. I’ve known him my whole life, but I’ve never been able to get a grasp on what motivates him.”

  “His sister’s murder—”

  She shook her head. “More to it than that. Have you had any dealings with him?”

  “Yes, and I share your feelings about him. What can you tell me about the missing girl, Sasha Whitehorse?”
/>   “A lovely child. I pray she hasn’t been harmed. She’s smart, graduated at the top of her class. Her home life was bad—mother abandoned the family when Sasha was a baby, father’s a drunk. Sasha holds things together, works hard, wants to get out of here. But lately she’s gotten involved with the folks at Hogwash Farm, is living with some boy out there.”

  “Hogwash Farm? What’s that?”

  “An old farm on Roblar Road east of town. The man who owns it lets a group of unemployed young people live in his barn in exchange for doing chores.”

  “What sort of young people?”

  “A mixed group of Natives and whites. Some of them—Sasha included—are conscientious. Others drop in for brief periods, do nothing, and leave. I understand this is typical for these communes.”

  “It’s a pattern that’s existed for at least fifty years—more, maybe.”

  “Well, with one or two exceptions, the young folks at Hogwash are foolish and won’t last out one of our winters.”

  “I thought this was winter.”

  “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet. Come February…”

  I made a mental note to check out Hogwash Farm. “Any other local residents you can tell me about?”

  “Well, there’s Henry, but you know him. Sally Bee—talented little thing, came up here from the midcoast to do some work, met Henry, and decided to stay. Miz Hattie—she’s a nutcase. Harmless, but crazy.”

  “What’s your opinion of the Harcourts?”

  “The princes on the hill? I only know them by reputation. They’re snooty, wouldn’t lower themselves to visit a Native weaver’s studio.”

  I tried to stifle a yawn, but it forced its way out. “Sorry,” I said.

  “You’re exhausted.” Jane got up from her chair and led me down the hall to her guest bedroom. “Sleep tight,” she said—something I hadn’t heard since my mother used to tuck me in as a child.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 13

  8:10 a.m.

  I sat at Jane’s kitchen table poring over a sectional aviation chart for northern California and southern Oregon. Sectionals—an informal term derived from their propensity to fall apart along their fold lines—are fascinating documents. Among other things, they tell you terrain elevations; airports; landmarks such as buildings, lakes, and rivers; navigation routes; and airspace restrictions. Flight computers are standard now, but for those of us who enjoy maps, a sectional is a thing of joy.

  I moved my finger along slowly, tracing small ranch roads and larger arteries, noting peaks and valleys. The territory I was interested in showed no restricted areas for military installations, no sensitive areas for nesting birds. Small strips abounded, but the chart showed most were not open to the public, as was the case with the one I was looking for: SupremeCourt, a play on the name Harcourt. Elevation 2,701.

  Now I scanned the land around it. There was a high mass marked “Peak” and a lower land rise not far from the strip to the west, elevation 2,902, in a section marked “Ranch.” The Harcourt property. The land rise would provide an excellent vantage point for keeping track of what was going on at SupremeCourt, if I could get to it.

  A main road—Highway 9, where Sally Bee had been dumped—passed about a mile below the peak. Another road intersected with the highway and meandered up to the high mass; in between was open, hilly land. The highway was at 1,912 feet. Could I climb up across the area between the road and the peak lugging the equipment I needed to take? I doubted it.

  I called Jane at her shop and described what I was looking at.

  “Your map doesn’t accurately reflect the other side of Sheik’s Peak,” she said. “There’re hiking trails, but you have to know the territory to find them. We used to hike all around there when we were kids.”

  “Sheik’s Peak. Odd name.”

  “It’s been called that for a century or more. Nobody around here seems to know why.”

  “Do any of the trails extend onto the Harcourt property?”

  “I’m not sure, but that’s posted land if so. No trespassing.”

  “Who would know for sure?”

  “Jake Blue. Nobody knows that country better than Jake.”

  9:02 a.m.

  I continued to study the sectional, then finally picked up my felt-tip and drew a circle around the land rise overlooking the Harcourts’ airstrip, some two hundred feet higher and two miles away.

  My next move, I decided, was to make a reconnaissance flight over the Harcourts’ property and airstrip. I drove to the airport, and within an hour I was airborne in my Cessna, through a light fog that dissipated as I gained altitude.

  Aspendale looked tidy from high above, buildings arranged on a grid that ended abruptly at flat, winter-brown pasture where cows grazed. I spotted part of the silvery Little White River snaking through forestland to the east, and to the north the rugged peaks of the Meruk Range, jutting up dark and threatening. There was a reservoir, its ripples winking in the pale sunlight, and beyond it a flat bluff and the buildings of the Harcourt cattle ranch.

  I made a descending turn and flew toward the bluff.

  The main ranch house was a sprawling white stucco structure with satellite dishes on the roof. There were galvanized iron barns and outbuildings and a hangar at the airstrip, all the roofs painted rust red. The airstrip had a well-paved runway—9/27—taxiways, gas pumps, and a small terminal. A few single-engine planes and one small jet were tied down near the terminal. There were no people out and about in the area that I could see.

  I picked up my microphone and tried to get through to a UNICOM. Nothing. Why not, with all the other conveniences?

  Jake Blue had told me the ranch was maybe forty-five thousand acres; scattered herds of cattle grazed on the long stretches of open pastureland below the bluff, but not as many head as I would’ve expected. Maybe the cattle were a hobby—or a cover.

  I ascended and circled over the land again. Besides cattle graze, some of it was covered in forest, mostly pines. To the north a massive stone formation, some hundreds of feet tall and wide, dominated the high ground, a remainder from when volcanic activity had spewed such masses upward into the deserts. This was Sheik’s Peak, as I remembered from my sectional.

  1:20 p.m.

  When I got back, I asked Hal for directions to Roblar Road and Hogwash Farm. It was a short distance outside Aspendale to the southwest, and I found it easily enough.

  The ranch house was clapboard that had long ago turned gray. A dilapidated swing with many of its slats missing rocked on the porch in the faint breeze. I knocked at the door, and after a few moments a series of thumping noises came from within. The door opened with a creak, and an old man with a long white beard looked out at me. His face was sculpted by the wrinkles that come from long exposure to the sun, and his freckled head was entirely bald, as if all of his body’s energy had gone into creating the beard. When he spoke his voice was gravelly.

  “You must be looking for the kids,” he said.

  “The kids?”

  “Them down at the barn.” He gestured to my right.

  “Sasha Whitehorse and…?”

  “Yeah, them. Sasha and Whitney and Gloria and Daniel. They run the farm for me, and I let them have the barn in exchange.”

  “Oh, right. Jane Ramone told me about your arrangement. Is that the barn over there?” I pointed to a structure even more dilapidated and graying than the house.

  “Nah, that’s an old wreck. Where they live is a prefab they put together themselves. What you do is go through those pines and you’ll find it in the clearing.”

  I thanked him and went through the dense trees, batting away branches. The wide space beyond was full of dead weeds flattened by the rain and snow. A bright-red barn sat on its far side, smoke coming from a stovepipe chimney. I braved the weeds, occasionally slipping into the mud beneath them.

  A tall, skinny man with long blond hair answered my knock. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Whitney.” Two other shapes appeared in the dim light behind him.
“And this is Daniel and Gloria. Come in.”

  I wasn’t used to just showing up and being asked in—not in my line of work, where my appearance wasn’t always greeted cordially. “Did the man at the farmhouse phone you?”

  “Right,” Whitney replied. “He always alerts us to visitors.”

  Why was that necessary? I wondered. Probably they were growing dope or cooking meth.

  I entered, studying the three people in front of me. Daniel was medium height and stocky, with thick black-rimmed glasses. Gloria was short and overweight, with a cascade of blond curls.

  “Have you heard from Sasha?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Whitney said, “but she’ll show up.”

  “Which one of you is her boyfriend?”

  Whitney silently raised his hand.

  I sat down on the oversize pillow he offered me, drawing my legs up like the others. There were no furnishings in the room, except for the cushions and a blue hearth rug in front of the blazing woodstove.

  Gloria asked, “Would you like some tea? It’s brambleberry, infused with nutmeg. Our special blend.”

  “Oh, no, thank you. I can’t stay long. You don’t seem particularly worried about Sasha. Did she say when she’d be back?”

  “She doesn’t have to,” Whitney said, “we’re all free to come and go as we please.”

  “Sounds like a very comfortable way to live.”

  Daniel smiled. “The world outside—it’s too hung up on time. Watches, appointment calendars, date reminders on the computer screen. We left all that when we came here.”

  “There’s not a clock in the house,” Gloria said.

  “So you have no idea when Sasha left?”

  Headshakes. Whitney said, “Our world is come and go. No one keeps track of anyone.”

  I suddenly felt as if I’d slipped into some time warp to the sixties, to days of freedom and peace and love and—from this vantage point—a fair amount of bullshit.

  I asked, “How did Sasha seem before she left?”

  “Seem?” Daniel looked surprised.

  “As in her emotional and mental state?”

  “Oh, that,” Gloria said. “She was just like always.”