by R. P. Dahlke
I turned and saw Damian and Pearlie in the parking lot. I waved back and cupped my ears to hear what she was trying to say. Why didn't she just call me on her cell? And why was Damian with her? I looked at my cell—oh. No bars, no cell phone service. I took a step in their direction and felt the business end of a gun stick into my side. "Keep your hands where I can see them and don’t try anything."
My hands instinctively jerked into the air while Pearlie's hands dropped down to her sides.
I turned and looked at the man with the gun. The grubby old fisherman I'd surprised was Wade Hamilton. He was thin to the point of emaciated, unshaven and looking every bit as if he'd been living rough. The shock of seeing him here didn't do much for my attempt to deceive him. "Mr. Hamilton? Where have you been? People are looking for you."
Wade reached out and shoved me toward Pearlie and Damian. "Shut up and keep moving." He walked me along the edge of the road, keeping me in front of him and Pearlie in his line of sight.
"Wave to them. Smile," he said.
I did as I was told, but changed tactics. "Your wife will be thrilled to hear that you're alive, sir. You can call her with my cell, if you like."
"My wife is the last person I'd want to talk to right now," he growled. "Besides, reception sucks."
He had that right. "Then why are you hiding out here?"
Wade's high-pitched cackle was pretty far off his usual swaggering TV persona, but a week without decent food or shelter could do that.
"You really don't know, do you? She followed you here. I saved her and this is the thanks I get. We'll take your car."
I looked to where Pearlie and Damian stood waiting. Pearlie had her hand in the zippered compartment that held her pistol. Wade would have to be delusional if he thought my cousin was going to let him get the better of her.
"You don't have to be afraid of your wife, Wade."
"Shut up and walk," he said, shoving the handgun into my ribs again. There was no mistaking his anxious need to keep moving.
With my eyes on Pearlie and Damian, I was hoping for a way to distract him so that Pearlie could shoot him in the leg, or shoulder―as long as she didn't shoot me, but then I heard the sharp report of a rifle.
I felt Wade stumble against me, his eyes wide as he grabbed for me. I tried to shove him away, but he wouldn't let go.
We fell off the path and rolled downhill toward the deep end of the lake. Seeing the water come up on us, I grabbed a lungful of air, squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the impact. I kicked and flailed to get him off, but Wade's heavy body stubbornly remained on top, driving the reserve out of my lungs, forcing us under. Deeper and deeper until I felt the useless air slip out of my mouth. I fought to stay conscious, but my limbs were now numb and my vision was closing into a small circle of light. I struggled to get my feet under me so I could push off, but I was so weak. A Tecate can lay next to my hand and above me a dead man floated away.
That's when I heard the old Apache speak to me. "Save the boy."
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Chapter Twenty-seven:
Someone was beating on my chest and calling my name, but when I tried to tell them to stop, it all came out in a rush of water. I rolled over on my side and threw up again and again, relieved laughter following the purge.
"It's rude to laugh at a drowning victim," I muttered.
Pearlie snickered and pulled me up into a sitting position. "Good thing Damian was quick to dive in and pull you out when he did. His CPR ain't so bad, either."
Damian. The boy. Three words. The words I couldn't get right, Save the boy. That's what the old Apache said as he went over the cliff, and Damian was the old man's grandson. Ironically, I didn't save the boy, the boy saved me.
"Wade," I coughed. "Where is he?"
"Over there," Pearlie pointed to where Damian, in T-shirt and white Jockey shorts, was tugging Wade's heavy body up onto the sandy bank.
I shivered and clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. "D-did you shoot him?" I asked.
"I'm good with a pistol, but not at that range. It had to be a rifle and it came from behind those trees. And don't bother to ask if we saw him, we were too busy trying to save you."
Damian looked up and waved.
I pushed my wet hair out of my eyes and struggled to get on my feet.
"Easy does it," Pearlie said, giving me a hand up. "You almost drowned, you know."
"But I didn't," I said, wrapping my arms around myself to keep from shivering. "Wade said she followed him out here. I thought he meant you."
"About the same time I got your message, Damian showed up at the office and I decided to bring him along. I was thinking you might be looking for Wade," Pearlie said, "but it never occurred to me that he'd find you first. Someone else was looking for him, too?"
"Yes," I croaked and coughed. My voice was painfully scratchy from my near drowning.
She looked over her shoulder at the trees behind us. "Bet you five bucks it was a rifle."
"Yes. I thought so, too." The pieces were starting to come together. "Steve said they're the best trackers in the West."
"You are not making any sense. Did you crack your head when you went under?"
"Wade said he saved her and this was the thanks he got. I think Wade Hamilton is the deputy who shot Damian's father, thinking he was protecting a woman and a child running for their lives."
"You talking about Ian's sister, Naomi? What makes you think she's the shooter?"
In spite of the warm day, I was still wet. That and the shock of discovery was making my teeth clack like castanets. "I-I'll tell you later. N-no time. Call 9-1-1, then Caleb."
"You're shivering. Come with me to the Jeep and get warm."
"N-not yet. Bring back a blanket to cover the b-body. I have t-to talk to Damian." Seeing she was about to argue, I gave her a shove. "No time. Go. I'll meet you in the parking lot, I promise."
Pearlie reluctantly agreed, stopping long enough to congratulate Damian on a job well done, then fast walk for the main parking lot and a clear cell phone signal.
Damian had managed to pull on dry pants over his wet legs, but he had his cross-trainers in one hand. "We heard the shot that got him," he said. "Who did it?"
If Wade hadn't fallen into me, forcing both of us into the lake, she might've chanced another shot. I would have to keep my suspicions to myself a while longer. I certainly couldn't have Damian think he should go after the shooter. "My cell phone went into the water. Can I borrow yours?"
Damian looked at Pearlie disappearing around a bend. "To call the cops? I thought that's what Pearlie went to do."
"I need to get someone to bring out my air scent dog to track the shooter."
"Your dog can do that? That's cool, can I come too?" I still had to work out how to get him out of the way. This was not the time to tell him I thought his mother was a cold-blooded killer.
He reluctantly handed over his cell phone. "You're not going to call my Uncle Ian, are you? I'm supposed to be at the gym today."
"He'll need to come get you, but I'll explain that your CPR saved my life," I said, holding his cell phone to my ear. "There's no reception out here and I need to bring a blanket back for the body. Stay here and keep the curious away from the body until someone relieves you. Think you can do that?"
"Sure," he said, spreading his feet and crossing his arms over his chest.
"Good. By the way, have you seen your mom lately?"
"I haven't talked to my mother in a week or so. Why? Pearlie said that the man who had the gun on you was one of the suspects." Damian's main interest was on the murder case, not his mother.
"Yes, Wade Hamilton. He confessed to killing your father."
Damian stared down at the body. "Really? Then it's finally over. Uncle Ian and my mother will be glad to hear it."
I patted him on the shoulder. "Just promise me you'll stay here until you're relieved by a sheriff's deputy or the EMTs."
"Okay, but tell 'em to hurry. I’m not c
razy about hanging out here with a dead body."
"I'll be back as soon as I can and trust me, Damian, he's not going anywhere."
Dead bodies aside, I would do just about anything to keep him away from the conversation I was going to have with Ian Tom about his sister. Knowing Damian, he would go ballistic and run off to try to find his mother, adding another innocent person to the mix.
There was only one problem with my plan. At the parking lot, Pearlie's Jeep door was open and her purse was on the driver's seat.
My heart rate spiked. No. No. Don't go there. She'll be back in a minute. Probably went to the bathroom. And leave her purse on the seat and the door unlocked? Damn!
I should've known better. Naomi was no fool. She'd backtracked to the parking lot and waited for one of us or all of us to show. She knew her son was with Pearlie. Was she hoping she could work some fairy tale on him to get his help? Or maybe she preferred one of us women, thinking we would be easy to intimidate. Even without her own weapon, my dimpled, chubby little cousin would be a handful, looking for a weakness, some way to get an advantage over her captor.
I looked up at the hills behind the lake. Wade may have been able to sneak into the showers at night and fish during the day, but he had to be sleeping somewhere close by. The rangers would check overnighters for their paid camping tags, so he couldn't stay in the park. He had to have someplace safe but near the lake, and if Naomi took off on foot it was because she knew about Wade's hidey-hole.
I used Damian's cell to make the 9-1-1 call that Pearlie obviously didn't get to make, then called Caleb and told him everything, including my theory that Naomi shot Wade Hamilton. "I only wish I'd confided my suspicions about Naomi to Pearlie before she was kidnapped. We'll need Hoover, so bring something of Pearlie's. No, wait. Bring Harley Aldrich too. Yes, I know what I'm saying."
Even with their sirens blazing a trail through traffic, we would have an hour's wait until they got here and I had Damian, aka the loose cannon, just itching to do something. This could go wrong in so many ways.
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Chapter Twenty-eight:
I trotted back to where Damian stood guard over Wade Hamilton's body and after we covered it with the blanket, I turned to field questions from the crowd of fishermen and boaters. The minute I held up my hands for quiet, cell phones instantly appeared to video whatever gaff I might commit. I would have to remember to do the same the next time a law enforcement officer did something dumb.
"My name is Lalla Bains," I said, choosing my words carefully. "I'm a private investigator. The authorities have been called and they are on their way."
Questions punctured the air. I held up my hands again. "It is not my job to discuss this case with you. That will have to come from the sheriff's department and I sincerely doubt that you will hear anything else today. As a matter of fact, right now y'all are just in the way."
I felt a lump rise in my throat; dropping Pearlie's Texas drawl into my sentence made me even more fearful of the outcome. If cornered, I had no doubt that Naomi would use Pearlie as a human shield in order to escape. We had to find them and somehow talk Naomi into releasing Pearlie. I sincerely hoped Caleb was able to locate Harley. I suspected that before the day was over, we would need both dog and man.
Someone in the crowd said something about a siren and then I heard it. A deputy sheriff must've been in the area and was now responding to my 9-1-1 emergency. I reminded Damian against answering any questions, then told him it would probably be best if he just didn't talk at all, excused myself and trotted back to the parking lot.
Ian Tom was talking to the park ranger, but when he saw me he broke off and hurried over. "Lalla, are you all right?" he asked, taking me by the shoulders. "Your 9-1-1 call said someone had been shot."
"I’m fine, fine, but Wade Hamilton is dead."
Ian's expression told me he wasn't the least bit surprised. "I have deputies and the M.E. on the way. Can you tell me how it happened?"
"First, you need to tell me if your sister's car or truck is in this parking lot."
Ian's head snapped up. "Was she here? Have you seen her? What'd she say?"
"I haven't seen her, Ian, I just know that someone used a rifle, probably with a scope, to shoot Wade. And I think it was to keep him from telling us the truth about your sister's involvement in these murders. Now tell me, what does she drive and do you see it in this parking lot?"
His heavy sigh told me everything I needed to know. Until this minute, I suspected that Ian Tom might have been responsible for these recent murders. But now, I understood that his secret had more to do with his own suspicions about his sister.
"That's it, over there," he said, pointing to a Ford F150.
I nodded then said, "How'd you know I'd be here?"
"Your secretary told me where I might find you," he said.
"You suspected your sister but didn't consider sharing with us?"
"I didn't put it all together until today, okay?"
"Then fill me in while we wait for the troops."
"All right," he said with a heavy sigh. "You know I got phone taps on the suspects. Wade was getting calls from a burner cell. I couldn't trace the number, but today he got a two-minute call that pinged off a tower on top of the Dragoon Mountains. That's near enough to my sister's home for me to guess she was in contact with him and I knew this was the last place Wade Hamilton had been seen alive, so I decided to come out and try to find him, or her."
"What put you onto your sister in the first place?"
"I left Arizona as soon as I could, which in retrospect was a selfish thing to do because I left my younger sister in charge of our crazy dad. Don't get me wrong, I loved my father, but after Mom died, he went overboard with this shaman thing. So I didn't hear that Naomi was married and had a kid, or that her husband had been shot until I moved back here and got in touch with her. She and Damian were living out at our dad's place and she's got all this expensive jewelry making equipment. When I questioned how she could afford it all, she told me she had a benefactor, someone who wanted to see her happy. I figured I deserved the verbal slap and shut up about it. Then Damian graduated from high school and got work in Vegas as a welder, my wife got cancer and life went on. I didn't see or think about Naomi until Damian came back to train for American Ninja Warrior and he said his mother was paying for a P.I. I had to wonder why she wanted to dig up the past."
"And you thought by giving us three possible suspects, we'd hurry this along?" I asked.
"Actually, I was rather hoping I would be wrong. But when Jesse Jefferson was murdered with the same MO as Ron's, the blunt instrument to the back of the head, I got this itchy feeling that she was orchestrating all of it." He stopped to look at Naomi's truck. "She'll be hell to find if she's on foot."
"Why do you say that?"
"We're Chiricahua. My father taught both of us how to track and hide the Apache way."
"That well may be but Caleb is bringing trackers and here he comes."
Harley, unable to wait for Caleb's SUV to come to a stop, leaped out and ran over to me. "How long has she been gone?"
Harley's interest was zeroed in on one person only and that was Pearlie. I looked at my watch. "Half-an-hour?"
"We still have enough light, let's go," he said, shrugging into his daypack.
Caleb came around the side of the SUV and pulled me into a tight embrace. "Harley's up to speed on the problem and he seems to think he can find Pearlie even without your dog."
"But you brought Hoover, didn't you?" I asked. Harley might have a heightened sense of smell for a human, but nothing beats a trained air scent dog for tracking missing people.
Caleb stepped back and nodded for my dad to get out with the dog. He clipped the leash on Hoover and handed him over to me. I didn't have to tell Hoover that he was here to work. The dog's muscles quivered, his tail beat the ground, eyes on mine, waiting for the command to search. All I had to do was hold the cloth in front of his nose and say the word.
But I handed the leash to my dad and told Harley to give us a minute.
Harley looked up at the sun heading toward the west. "A minute is all you'll get."
I patted Harley's tensed cheek and agreed to the necessity for speed, then dragged Caleb over to Ian. "Ian and I have been talking. I think Naomi shot Wade Hamilton."
Ian's eyes shuttered against the painful truth. "I didn't think it would go down like this, or so fast. I had my suspicions, but now…"
"Don't even think about backpeddling on your sister, Ian. She's taken my cousin Pearlie as a hostage," I said through clenched teeth. "So where would she go?"
Ian sucked in a quick breath and looked up at the mountains behind the lake. "We used to hike all over these mountains with our dad looking for petroglyphs and pot shards. If I remember right, there's a cave she could get to, but it's a hike. I see you brought your dog. Good thinking."
I motioned for Harley and my dad to join us. "Pearlie will do everything she can to slow down Naomi, but we have Hoover and Ian thinks he knows where she's going. Ian, Damian is standing guard over Wade's body. If you need to be there for your nephew, Caleb and I can take the dog and Harley to search for them."
Ian's jaw tightened with new resolution. "I'm going with you. I'll leave a couple of deputies to stay with my nephew until the M.E. gets here. It's starting to cloud up. We need to hurry if we want to get ahead of the rain."
If anyone had an alternative plan, I didn't hear it. I took Hoover's leash, signaled to Harley that we were ready, put the cloth in front of Hoover's nose and told him to search.
It took Hoover a few minutes to zigzag onto a trail, but when he found it, he surged forward, eager to find his lost people and get his reward.
An hour later, a strong breeze was blowing against us, bringing heavy dark clouds and a cooling effect on our hot skin. All the same, we halted every fifteen minutes to drink water. I poured out some from my bottle into a cup for Hoover, then straightened to look over the brown hills, the dry grass waving us forward.
