Miss Pink Investigates- Part Four

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘The Finger Lakes,’ she repeated, suddenly feeling tired. ‘Buy the map.’ She nodded pleasantly and went up to the apartment where, to her amazement, she found Sophie ensconced at the window and drinking brandy.

  ‘I was about to call down,’ she said. ‘Came in the back way but I couldn’t face the bar although I knew you were there. Heard your voice.’

  ‘Is it Byer?’

  ‘Yes. And he’s been shot.’

  There was a long silence. ‘Suicide?’ Miss Pink asked brightly.

  ‘No. That is, I doubt it. A rifle shot — in the chest? No powder burns. And no exit wound so the bullet’s still there. They’ll find out tomorrow with the autopsy.’

  ‘How do you know all this? They wouldn’t show you the chest, surely, only the face.’

  ‘I called Seaborg. He found out. He would, of course.’

  ‘Why “of course”?’

  ‘He’s our lawyer. Byer was the family’s employee. We’re involved.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking just.’

  They regarded each other wordlessly, then both looked away, over the town roofs.

  *

  ‘You knew him,’ Hilton said.

  ‘Hundreds of guys knew him,’ Skinner protested. ‘And hookers. He wasn’t particular. Ask me, someone was waiting for him in a parking lot, followed him home. Some fight over a woman.’

  ‘What was the pick-up’s registration?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘You knew the guy.’

  ‘That don’t mean I know his registration! It were new; I mean, he’d just changed the model.’ Skinner looked sullen but they could smell his fear.

  They hadn’t waited for the autopsy. It was obvious that Byer had been shot and already they knew that, outside his employment, Skinner was the closest person to him, not that anyone was really close, but there was gossip about poaching and the two men drank together. Shortly after Sophie Hamilton had identified the body in Irving, Hilton and Cole followed her to Ballard. They’d found Skinner hitching a horse trailer to his pick-up. He said he was planning on helping his ex-wife with her pack-trip tomorrow. He was sweating hard as they questioned him but the sun was hot and the air humid down there by the river, and hitching up a trailer is heavy work. Yes, he said, he had caught the newsflash, which was why he figured they’d need an extra hand either at Val Jardine’s place or at Glenaffric. It was when Cole pointed out that the murder of his buddy didn’t seem to bother him that he’d protested that plenty of other guys knew Byer, not to speak of hookers.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Cole asked.

  Skinner thought about that. ‘I can’t remember. Weeks, I guess, maybe a coupla weeks. I saw him in town one Saturday, in a bar. I had a drink with him.’

  They stared at him and he shifted his feet. ‘So which bars did you drink in?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Me?’ The astonishment was overdone.

  ‘You and him.’

  Skinner’s mouth opened and closed. ‘He favoured the Sage Grouse and the Maverick,’ he said grudgingly.

  Hilton glanced at Cole who retreated to the police car. ‘So that’s where you’d expect to find his pick-up,’ Hilton said, ‘at one of those bars?’

  ‘‘Less someone followed him home.’ Skinner’s eyes were wide, watching Cole. ‘A rifle shot would be loud in a parking lot.’

  ‘Who said a rifle was used?’

  ‘What else would it be? Guys don’t go to town carrying a handgun. Everyone has a rifle on the rack.’

  ‘So we’ll find his vehicle between Ballard and Bear Creek, right?’

  Skinner glared at him, the sweat running down his forehead. He wiped his eyes with his hand. Hilton looked past him to his ramshackle home, the door closed. He pondered. ‘Want to look inside?’ Skinner asked. ‘It’s all yours, man.’

  Hilton studied him, then shifted his gaze to the two horses in the makeshift corral. He grinned. ‘Don’t leave town,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be back in the mountains tomorrow.’ From somewhere Skinner dredged up a spark of belligerence.

  Hilton sketched a shrug and walked to the car. He glanced at the guy’s pick-up as he passed but it told him nothing other than that Skinner was packed, ready to leave. There was a pile of clothing on the front seat, his saddle in the back.

  ‘Check with Val Jardine,’ he told Cole. ‘Find out if Skinner arranged to help with her pack-trip tomorrow. Did you contact them in Ballard, tell them to check the parking lots at these two bars?’

  ‘They’re on their way.’ Cole found the homestead’s number in his notebook and dialled. After a long time Clyde Gunn answered and told him to wait while he spoke to his sister. He came back and said no, there had never been any question of employing Skinner. Cole lowered the mobile and looked from Hilton to the man’s trailer. ‘No,’ he said.

  Hilton inhaled deeply. ‘He might just be telling the truth. Check out Glenaffric to be sure.’

  Cole went through the motions. There was no movement from inside the mobile home but they knew they were being watched.

  Cole stiffened. ‘Edna,’ he mouthed at Hilton. He introduced himself boyishly and asked if she were about to take on Paul Skinner since she would be short-handed. He listened, raised his eyebrows in surprise at his boss… ‘When would he start?’ he asked, and: ‘Would he bring his own horses?’ After long moments during which he fidgeted impatiently, he cut her off with an emphatic, ‘Thank you, ma’am, you’ve been very helpful’ and lowered the phone.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She’s employing him from tomorrow and he’s using his own horses.’

  ‘Shit. Get down to Ballard, see if we can find that pick-up.’

  This wasn’t going to be easy on Sunday evening. At the Sheriff’s Department they learned that although Byer had a number of motoring offences (driving under the influence and without insurance) the registration that the police had was for his old pick-up, and the Transportation Office in Irving wouldn’t be open until Monday. In any event there were no unclaimed pick-ups in the vicinity of the Sage Grouse or the Maverick so it was decided to abandon further search for the vehicle until the morning.

  The detectives were about to leave Ballard when a boy of twelve and a large man in work clothes walked into the station. The man was carrying a rifle and he looked stiffly angry. The boy had the wide-eyed stare of a terrified youngster trying to appear cool. They were shown into the sheriff’s office where Hilton and Cole stood aside, eyeing the rifle with professional interest that intensified with the man’s first words.

  ‘My boy found this,’ he said, laying the gun on the desk. The sheriff didn’t touch it. He glanced at Hilton. ‘Where?’ he asked.

  The man nudged his son who croaked, cleared his throat and whispered, ‘In some willows.’

  This time the sheriff looked hard at Hilton who was deadpan. ‘Which willows?’ the local man asked.

  ‘Upstream a ways,’ the boy said. ‘We didn’t steal it, we found it there’ — a long pause — ‘laying in the reeds and we couldn’t leave it, could us, not for little kids to find?’

  ‘Is it loaded?’ Hilton asked kindly.

  The boy stared at him. ‘It’s not loaded,’ his father said. Hilton looked out at the sky. ‘It’s still daylight. You’d best show us where you found it.’

  On the way the man explained a little more. His boy and a friend had been hunting a coyote they figured was stealing the wife’s chickens and they’d come home with this rifle, that was all. Hilton guessed from the man’s restrained anger and the boy’s terror that the father had discovered the rifle by chance, that the kid had thought he might retain possession of it, but he said nothing. None of that mattered for the moment, the priority was to discover where it had been found.

  Sitting in the front of the police car the man directed Cole to cross the river. In the back beside the boy Hilton was expressionless. This was the road to Glenaffric and to Byer’s house.

&
nbsp; ‘Take a right,’ the man said, while they were still on the bridge. Cole’s eyes met Hilton’s in the mirror. It was the way to Skinner’s place.

  On the left now were one or two small frame houses and, to the right, the thick belt of willows and cottonwoods that lined the river bank.

  ‘You can park here,’ the man said as they approached the second house. A heavy-set woman watched them from the porch as they left the car. Neither father nor son acknowledged her but it was evident from her interest that she was the mother. The man laid a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him towards the lush undergrowth and the start of a narrow path.

  It was a well-used trail, the kind that had been made and frequented by small boys who had grown up here and played in this sappy green world until they were old enough to own cars and travel to the real forest. Hilton was familiar with such places. Every country boy had his personal territory, which he knew like an animal, every inch of it. They walked about a quarter-mile before the boy stopped and pointed to a patch of flattened grass. ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘How’d the grass get laid?’ Hilton asked.

  ‘We stomped around, Elmer and me.’ His terror was back.

  ‘A coyote was laying up here,’ Hilton said calmly. ‘You can smell him. Where’s this trail go now?’ It seemed to continue, black and muddy as it neared the river. They could see reed beds beyond the willows and a coot called nervously.

  ‘I dunno,’ the boy said.

  Hilton looked at the father who said tightly, ‘It runs a half-mile or so to a fishing hole.’

  ‘On the river?’

  ‘There’s a side channel where we find catfish.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The boy said something to his father. ‘No!’ the man exclaimed. Hilton looked cheerful as they resumed their walk in single file. Cole cast a puzzled look at the flattened grass and hurried after them.

  After a while the trail widened and became more soggy. The reeds took over on their right and they were so tall that they almost obscured the pick-up until they were within a few yards of it. Beyond the pick-up was a turning circle and a Jeep track.

  ‘Someone fishing?’ the father said. ‘What’s he doing here, off the road?’

  The boy stared at the truck as if it were alive.

  Hilton pushed past the two of them and glanced in the cab. He could see nothing to frighten anyone, neither there nor on the back, only the absence of something. He turned to the boy and beamed. ‘You thought the truck was scrapped,’ he said. ‘And they forgot to take the rifle and it would make a nice present for your dad, right?’

  The father gaped at him, then turned on his son. ‘You took it from here? Off of the rack?’

  The kid hung his head and started to snuffle.

  ‘It’s mired.’ Cole appeared round the back of the truck. ‘He got in deep and couldn’t get out again.’ He pointed. The pick-up’s nearside wheels were axle deep in black mud.

  They removed the documents, sent the father and son ahead of them and followed, careful to walk to the side of the track as far as the turning circle, but they could see no footprints other than those made by kids’ trainers. The rain had erased any fishermen’s tracks.

  ‘No keys in the ignition,’ Hilton observed, ‘but the documents left. Apart from a guy not being able to shoot himself in the chest with a rifle —’

  ‘It could be rigged —’

  ‘There’d be powder burns. Unless it was a very complicated mechanism and I don’t think Skinner’s a clever guy, do you? This’ — he gestured back towards the truck — ‘this is a stupid guy, or one in a panic: rigging a murder to look like a suicide.’

  ‘Why in hell did he leave the pick-up so close to home?’

  They were walking along the road now, the willows on their left and, up the slope on their right, the roofs of the bright brown ranch-style houses. ‘The truck’s mired,’ Hilton said. ‘He couldn’t move it. If he tried to winch it out some nosy housewife up there coulda come out to see what the commotion was about.’

  ‘This guy’s in the clear?’ Cole indicated the man walking ahead.

  “Course he is, he came in voluntarily. No, it’s Skinner we want.’

  They were not to find him that evening. When they reached his place it looked just as they’d left it: the horse trailer, even the horses still in the corral, but the unlocked house was empty and the pick-up was gone.

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Cole said with certainty. ‘He left the horses.’

  Hilton snorted. ‘He couldn’t make a run for it towing a horse trailer. And those two animals: I wouldn’t give you a thousand for the pair of ‘em. Jeez! He musta followed us to Ballard soon as we were out of sight.’

  ‘He can’t be gone far. We can set up road blocks —’

  ‘Man, he has three, four hours start on us. He’ll be out of the state; he could be in Canada!’

  ‘At least we have his registration —’

  ‘And you figure he’s still driving the same vehicle? First thing he’ll do is change it.’

  ‘He won’t have the cash — and no way will he use a credit card.’

  ‘How d’you know he’s no cash? And what’s to stop him stealing a car — stealing a car and killing the driver? He’s murdered once’ — Hilton’s eyes were wild, he was beside himself, goaded by the memory of the lost opportunity: a few hours ago they had the man in their hands — ‘maybe twice,’ he grated. ‘Who killed Charlie Gunn?’

  *

  Miss Pink was in bed and deep in Cornwell’s Cause of Death when there was a knock and the door opened a crack. ‘I saw your light,’ Sophie said excitedly, ‘and you have to hear this.’ She came into the room in her robe, her face shining with moisturiser. ‘Russell just called. They found Byer’s truck — and now Skinner’s missing.’

  Miss Pink marked her place with a leather bookmark. ‘You’re saying there’s a connection?’

  ‘The pick-up was on the river bank close to Skinner’s trailer.’

  ‘How close?’

  ‘Less than half a mile I’d say. Remember where you come down from the Bobcats past that sub-development, you turn parallel with the river? Near where you turn there’s a place that people park to fish. The truck is there, mired. I said thieves fall out, didn’t I? And Skinner left his horses behind and the trailer — which is worth more than the horses.’

  ‘He could hardly move his house.’

  ‘I mean his horse trailer.’

  ‘Why do they think he’s missing, then?’

  ‘Because Hilton and Cole interviewed him and he was sweating blood. When they went back after finding the pick-up, Skinner had vanished. Oh, there was a rifle in the pick-up, but it was — what’s the term? Liberated, that’s it — liberated by some kids, until one of the dads found out and hauled his son to the station, with the gun — which I guess is how they came to find the pick-up. What happened was Skinner shot Byer and put his body in the river.’

  ‘And left the pick-up there?’ Miss Pink was incredulous. ‘Right by his house?’

  ‘He must have tried to turn it but it was bogged down. It could have been dark.’

  Miss Pink frowned. ‘Hilton told Russell this?’

  ‘Oh, no. But Russell knows everyone and the chief reporter from the Irving Chronicle was downstairs in the bar. He’d followed Hilton and Cole when they came to town earlier. The media had Irving’s police department staked out ever since Byer’s body was found. I guess someone in the mortuary talked about the gunshot wound. The police can’t play it close to their chests, anyway, there’s an alert out for Skinner’s pick-up. Why are you looking so puzzled, Melinda?’

  ‘I was wondering what could make this particular pair of thieves fall out to the extent of murder.’ She lied; she was trying to recall something she’d heard recently, something relating to Byer? Or to Skinner? Or both? She sighed. ‘I’m too tired,’ she protested.

  Sophie was contrite. ‘I thought you’d be interested. I wouldn’t have come
in, but your light was on.’

  ‘I wasn’t complaining. It’s merely that I’m too tired to take it in.’

  ‘And we’ve a hard day tomorrow. Odd about Skinner, though; I wonder how Val will feel: her ex turning out to be a killer.’

  19

  On the Monday morning Jen and Bret were to move their horses from Benefit to the improved pastures at Glenaffric. Sophie and Miss Pink had agreed to assist them once they had seen Val’s pack-trip on its way. In the bustle of early rising, of packing food and other necessities for a long day, there was no opportunity to discuss Sunday’s events, not that they were of much concern to the family anyway, except for the thefts, and they weren’t momentous. Pretty objects, certainly, but insured and not in the same class as, say, priceless paintings.

  At the homestead the yard was full of expensive 4 x 4s, and men and women in casual designer clothes. Horses were tied to rails while finishing touches were being put to the loads on the pack-mules.

  At the last moment Miss Pink approached Sophie, who was adjusting the tarpaulin on a mule, and begged to be excused from herding Benefit’s horses. Sophie was concerned, was she unwell? Just feeling the need for a quiet day, Miss Pink confessed, a gentle amble perhaps — smiling ruefully — not galloping after wild horses.

  ‘You don’t mind if I go to Benefit?’ Sophie asked anxiously. ‘They could do with more than two riders. Look, why don’t you ride out with the pack-trip a short way, take it easy, then turn back after a mile or so?’

  ‘What a good idea.’ Miss Pink looked tired but amenable: an old lady bothered about being a nuisance, ready to fall in with any alternative suggestion.

  Val said absently that of course she could tag along; she was far too preoccupied with overseeing the departure to worry about an extra body who wasn’t even her responsibility. She saw her dudes mounted and, leading the way with a pack-mule, set off down the track. There was some jostling and then the customers fell in behind, Miss Pink towards the rear and in front of Clyde, who was leading the second mule.