“I think the army planted it. I didn’t like McGurk from the moment I met him. I wouldn’t put it past him to have us followed.”
“Followed—and shot at?”
“Maybe.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora hesitated. It seemed far-fetched almost to the point of being paranoid. Corrie had an overactive imagination, and she’d taken an unreasonable disliking to McGurk. “It doesn’t make sense,” she told Corrie. “Think about it. What’s his motivation? Killing a fed—that’s a huge step to take. It would trigger a firestorm of attention. And planting the photo? How did he know you’d look behind that picture, that you’d find it, that you’d figure out the location it displayed, and then decide to check it out? How did he know when? I haven’t noticed anyone following us. And finally, if that had been an army sniper up there, we’d be dead. He was only a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty yards away. But those shots were at least ten feet wide of us. It could have been a myopic hunter, for all we know. Or maybe the person who was digging those holes—trying to scare us off his ‘claim.’ Or simply a nut. There are plenty of those, you know, hiding in their own little pockets of the wilderness.”
Corrie was silent. “Those are reasonable points. I guess I just don’t like the general. He seems…I don’t know. Too nice, in a way.”
“Would you rather he was an asshole?”
Corrie shook her head.
“Are you going to report this to the FBI?” Nora asked.
“God, no. It would open up a can of worms—and get me into trouble for coming out here on my day off, unauthorized, with a civilian.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Corrie pursed her lips. “I’m going to ask Sheriff Watts to come out here. He’s an expert tracker, or so he says. Maybe he can figure this out. He’s been pretty useful.”
Nora smiled. “He’s also pretty cute.”
“Oh, shut up,” Corrie said, and added sarcastically: “You can come, too—as my chaperone.”
30
THERE DIDN’T SEEM to be anyone in the outer office, and the inner office door was almost, but not quite, shut. Corrie led the way and knocked.
“Come on in,” came Watts’s strong voice.
Corrie opened the door and stepped in. She hadn’t actually been in Watts’s office before, and she was surprised. The outside of the building was nice-looking, if a bit sterile, but the sheriff’s office itself was more like a cabin in the mountains, with knotty pine walls hung with a couple of small Navajo rugs and the head of a bull elk over a bricked-up fireplace. The desk was neat as a pin, and filing cabinets lined one wall.
“Now, this is a pleasant surprise,” Watts said, standing up. “Special Agent Swanson. And Dr. Kelly, too. On a beautiful Monday morning, no less. You’re just in time—I was about to head out to lunch. What can I do for you?” He ran his hand through his curly hair. “Oh, sorry,” he added. “I should be offering you a seat.”
“Thanks,” said Corrie. They sat down, and he did likewise.
“Any developments?” Watts said.
“Yes,” said Corrie. “But…well, can this be kept confidential for now?”
Watts nodded. He folded his hands and leaned forward, an expression of interest and attentiveness on his face.
“Are you familiar with Anzuelo Canyon?”
“I’ve heard of it. Out by Pie Town?”
“That’s right,” Nora told him. “There’s a pueblo ruin above the canyon called Tziguma.”
“Never been there.”
Corrie hesitated, then removed the photo from a manila envelope and placed it in front of Watts. “That’s an aerial photo of the area.”
Watts picked it up. “Looks old.”
“We’ve dated it to roughly 1940.”
“So this is Anzuelo Canyon?”
“Yes,” Nora said, pointing at the photo. “And that’s the location of the old Tziguma mission church. Destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt.”
He nodded. “Where’d you get this?”
“I got a warrant to search the Gower farmhouse,” Corrie told him. “It was tucked behind an old picture.”
“Interesting.”
“So yesterday afternoon,” Corrie continued, “we went there.”
“Find anything?”
Corrie swallowed. “We didn’t have time. We were shot at.”
Watts almost stood up. “Shot at?”
Corrie told him the story. Even before she had finished, Watts had gotten up from his desk and was reaching for his hat. “Let’s go.”
“What about your lunch?”
Watts waved this away. “You saw where he was shooting from, right? You can bet he left tracks and maybe other evidence, as well. We need to get out there while the sign is still fresh.” He fitted the hat to his head, lifted his revolvers and holsters from a hook, buckled them on. “We’ll take my vehicle.”
They arrived at the edge of the canyon as the sun passed the meridian, casting small puddles of shadow below the rock formations.
Watts examined a digital map on his cell phone. “We’ll approach indirectly, above the canyon. It’s a little longer, and a bit of a bushwhack, but safer.” He took off hiking along the rim, while they followed, circling around through the sparse piñon and juniper scrub. After half a mile he suddenly stopped, spreading his arms to halt the others.
Slowly, he knelt and examined the ground. Then he gestured for them to come over.
“See that?” he said, pointing to fresh marks in the sand. “Someone came through here. Large foot: maybe size eleven. A man. Heavy. These are no more than twenty-four hours old, probably less.”
“So you think it’s the shooter?”
“Let’s follow the tracks and see where they go.”
He moved forward, keeping to one side. The sections in sand were easy to see, but Watts seemed able to follow the footprints across areas of hard gravel and even bare rock.
Even Nora was impressed. “How do you do that?” she asked.
“It’s sandstone, so a walking man leaves faint abrasions. Here, take a look.”
Corrie dropped to her knees and looked, with Nora peering from the other side.
“I can’t see anything,” Corrie said.
Watts ran a finger lightly over the sandstone surface. “There are loose grains here, but not here.”
“I still don’t see it.”
“It’s not hard when you spent half your childhood looking for lost cows.” He laughed. “That’s why I became a cop instead of a rancher. I don’t ever want to track a cow again.”
The man’s trail followed the top of the canyon, circled around past the slot, then climbed up the back side of the mesa, arriving at a rimrock plateau.
“That’s it,” said Corrie. “Over there is where he was shooting from.”
“You two stay back,” Watts said. “I’m going ahead. I’ll call out when I’m finished.”
Bent over, Watts followed the tracks until he disappeared behind some boulders. Five or ten minutes passed, then they heard him shout. “Come in!”
They followed his trail around the boulders. He was standing to one side, taking photos with his cell phone.
“Circle around here and let me show you something.”
They came over.
“Okay, here’s my reconstruction. The man came in here the way we did—there are his prints. He’s got a rifle—you can see where he set it down temporarily, leaning it against that rock, where the rifle butt made a mark in the sand. He was here for a while—just hanging out, it seems. Then he took the rifle up again, walked to that other spot, and knelt. He then fired seven shots.”
“Seven shots.” Corrie thought back. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“Seven casings. See them, stuck in the sand?”
“Right,” said Corrie, embarrassed she hadn’t noticed them herself.
Watts went over and bent down, picking one up with the tip of a p
encil. He fished a Ziploc bag out of his pocket and dropped it in. “Going to fingerprint these,” he said as he picked up the rest.
“Those are big casings,” said Nora.
“Damn right they are. It’s a .56-.56 rimfire cartridge from an old Spencer repeating rifle.”
“Wasn’t that some kind of Civil War weapon?” she asked.
“Exactly. It was a heavy-caliber, short-range rifle that fired a low-velocity round. It’s a terrible weapon if you want to kill someone from a distance.” He tucked the Ziploc bag away. “So then, after firing, he stands up and walks back over that way, and leaves. Goes back a different way than he came, I think, because I only saw ingoing prints, not outgoing.”
“Why would some crazy guy be taking potshots at us with an antique rifle?” Nora asked.
Watts shook his head. “I think it’s a lot more likely this was just some jackass plinking in the mountains without a proper backstop. He didn’t see you.”
Corrie stared at him. “Are you kidding? The rounds were hitting all around us!”
“How close?”
“Like ten feet.”
Watts smiled wryly. “Ten feet? Come over here.”
Corrie came over, and Watts said: “Here’s where he was kneeling when he fired. You kneel down right here, too.” He placed his warm hands on her shoulder and steadied her as she knelt. “Now, hold your arms up like you’re firing a rifle and sight down to the ruins.” He helped adjust the re-creation with his hands, arms around her back. “Like that. Now: What do you see?”
Corrie looked toward the ruins. “Not much but that pillar of adobe.”
“That’s right. He was shooting at that pillar, which makes for a prominent target. You just happened to be hiding behind it, out of sight.”
“Bullshit. He was shooting at us.”
Watts turned to Nora. “What do you think?”
Nora hesitated. “It’s hard to say.” It was clear to Corrie the archaeologist didn’t want to openly disagree with her—but it was also clear that she saw Watts’s point.
“That Spencer,” said Watts, “holds seven rounds in a tube magazine. He shot seven rounds. Seems like he came out here to try out the gun, fired a full set of rounds, then left. Those antique rounds cost thirty-five dollars each. You can’t buy them new. This guy was a serious gun collector, not a sniper.”
“Do gun collectors often fire their weapons?”
“Oh yes. A true collector buys working weapons and wants to fire them at least once, just to have the experience. That’s part of the romance of collecting a fine old weapon. Maybe I’ll get lucky with the prints. Unless you want to take them to the FBI lab?”
“God no,” said Corrie. “I don’t even want them to know I was out here. And getting shot at by some dumbass cowboy firing a gun?” She shook her head.
Watts grinned. “So you’re coming around to my point of view?”
“I guess so,” said Corrie grudgingly. “But if he was such a serious collector, why didn’t he take the shells?”
“They aren’t worth anything.”
“But you’d think he’d collect them, if only as souvenirs. Unless he wanted us to find them.”
Watts shook his head. “You’re overthinking this, Agent Swanson. If you don’t mind me saying so.”
Corrie did mind, but she said nothing. Just then, her cell phone rang.
“Amazing to get cell coverage out here,” she said, pulling it out and seeing it was Morwood.
“Corrie?” Morwood’s voice sounded wrong. She was instantly on the alert.
“Yes, sir?”
“We’ve just gotten a report: Huckey’s body was found up in High Lonesome. At the bottom of an old well. It looks like an accident, but we’ve got the ERT up there.”
“What was he doing?” Corrie asked, amazed.
“It seems he was, ah, looting the place.” Morwood paused. “I’m heading up now. Meet me there as soon as possible.”
31
IT WAS A long, bone-rattling drive from Anzuelo Canyon to High Lonesome. By the time they arrived, Corrie was heartily glad to get out. It was already late in the day, and the sun had sunk into a pile of distant thunderheads, turning them into towers of blood and casting a strange reddish light over the landscape. The entrance to the ghost town had been blocked with crime scene tape, and several cars and vans were parked just outside.
Beyond the vehicles, the place was swarming. Corrie could see Morwood talking to the Evidence Response Team, standing around the well. As she approached, she could hear his voice—uncharacteristically loud. When he saw her, he broke off and came over.
“What’s this?” he asked with annoyance, staring at Nora and Sheriff Watts. “I was hoping to keep this incident under wraps!”
Corrie was surprised by his vehemence. “Sir, when I got the call, we were investigating an unrelated aspect of the case. It would have required a major detour, and delay, to drop them off.”
Morwood didn’t reply to this, but it seemed to mollify him somewhat. He looked at the group. “This is all strictly confidential.”
“Understood,” said Nora.
“Come with me,” he told Corrie. Then he glanced at Nora and Watts. “You might as well come, too.”
Morwood led them to the site. A winch with a bloody stretcher dangling beneath it was still hanging over the well. The wooden well cover, old and worm-eaten to begin with, was broken in half, and next to the well, stretched out in an unzipped body bag, lay Huckey’s corpse. His head was covered with a folded plastic sheet.
“Smell that?” Morwood said, gesturing at the body.
Corrie hesitated. Smell what—the dead body? This was an odd request.
“Come closer.”
When Corrie did so, a movement of air brought the sudden strong smell of alcohol to her nostrils.
“Was he drinking?”
“He stinks of it, doesn’t he?” said Morwood. He gestured over his shoulder. “He was camped over there. The spot was littered with Southern Comfort miniatures, with more in his damn pack. We’ve taken blood to find out just how impaired he was.”
“How was he found?” Nora asked.
“He didn’t show up at work this morning. His wife was frantic, said he was supposed to be home Sunday night. We triangulated his cell phone pings. Hell of a job, too—the signal keeps cutting in and out this far from civilization; we were lucky to do it.” He turned to one of the ERT techs. “Tom, where’s that stuff you found on him?”
“In the evidence locker, sir.”
“Take a look at this.” Morwood went over to the locker. Inside, laid out in compartments, were several evidence bags. “We found all this in his pockets.” He pulled up some bags. “A gold coin, a ring, some old keys. The larger stuff is at his campsite. The guy was looting everything he could get his hands on. He had a metal detector and was digging holes all over.”
Watts shook his head. “Why did the FBI keep a guy like this on payroll? I knew from the first he was bad news. He came in here, breaking down walls, no respect for the place.”
Morwood turned to him. “Keep your opinions to yourself, Mr. Watts,” he said acidly.
Watts coolly removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and fitted it back on. “That’s not my style, Agent Morwood.”
Morwood turned away brusquely and said to Corrie, “Come with me.” He headed away at a fast walk. Corrie followed, Nora and Watts tagging along. God, she hoped the sheriff wouldn’t make any more antagonizing remarks. She had never seen Morwood in such a state.
The wall of a small outbuilding had been freshly knocked down, and Huckey had dug several holes under the adobe foundation of the small church. As Corrie looked around, she could see that while he had done some damage, fortunately he hadn’t had time to cause any real destruction before he fell down the well. They continued past the church to an area outside the town, peppered with holes.
Nora knelt among the shallow holes. “This area,” she said, “was probably the garbage dump
of the town—judging by all the broken crockery and bottles.”
“Let’s check in with Alfieri and hear the latest.” Morwood charged across the old main street to where Alfieri was just stepping out of his Tyvek suit, red-faced and sweating.
“Fill us in, Milt.”
“It’s pretty straightforward,” Alfieri said. “The evidence seems clear that Huckey came up here alone. He had a metal detector and was sweeping the ground, locating objects and digging them up. Drinking all the while, it seems. We found his empty miniatures lying almost everywhere. At some point, judgment impaired by alcohol, he walked across that covered well. The rotten cover gave way and he fell a hundred feet to his death. We think it happened at night, because his broken flashlight was found at the bottom with him.”
“The well’s dry?” asked Corrie.
“Yes,” said Alfieri. “Dry as a bone. He, ah, struck the bottom headfirst.”
No wonder they covered his head with a sheet, Corrie thought. “Where was he camped?” she asked.
“Follow me,” said Morwood.
Huckey had pitched his tent in the lee of the wall of the old church. There was a small circle of stones where he’d built his campfire, a cooking pot, an empty can of Dinty Moore beef stew, more Southern Comfort minis, cigarette butts, and other trash. Lined up on an old plank were the other things he’d evidently found: a horse bit with silver engraving, a brass Spanish stirrup, old bottles, a china plate, a few pieces of flatware, locks and fixtures pried off doors, ivory piano keys, more coins.
Nora, who had lagged behind, now appeared as they were looking the campsite over. She knelt to examine the evidence.
“Could I please have a pair of nitrile gloves?” she asked.
Alfieri handed her a pair, which she snapped on. She picked up one of the old bottles. “Rich and Rare,” she said, reading off the bottle.
“That’s the same brand Gower had in his pack,” Corrie said.
The Scorpion's Tail Page 17