Dead Point (Maggie Blackthorne Book 1)

by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

  “Did you find the truck key on either man?” I asked.

  The doc wiped blood from her boots. “Damn it. These are practically brand new. And no, their pockets were completely empty. Not even a candy wrapper.”

  “Why would someone take the key but not the vehicle?” I wondered aloud.

  “The shooter might have come alone. Possibly planned to come back for the truck and trailer later,” Bach proffered. “Sergeant, you took photos of the shell casings before we arrived, correct?”

  “Yes, Detective.”

  He removed a camera and a set of long tweezers from his pack, stepped tentatively around the bodies, and retrieved the four shell casings. “Please shine your flashlight behind the men, Sergeant.”

  As a result of Ray’s examination, Dan and Joseph were now slumped forward and away from the wall. I aimed the Maglite beam behind them. Bach photographed the four slugs buried in the rusted metal siding and then used the tweezers to carefully remove the fragment of each bullet.

  He placed the small plastic bag of slugs in the palm of his hand. “Nine millimeter.”

  We heard Sam Damon pull up and honk. I stepped outside and guided the hearse through the gate toward the wigwam burner. Sam and I placed the slain men in body bags, moved them onto separate stretchers, and carried them into the cold night air. The storm of purple had dispersed, and stars pricked the sky.

  4

  Late Night, February 21

  After the bodies had been loaded in the hearse, Sam offered to say a few words out of respect for the deceased. All of us stood in the night’s showy brilliance as he delivered a benediction of sorts, one from a man simultaneously sickened by yet wholly dependent on ill-timed death. An aroma of dank pine and alkali drifted over us, along with the lingering fetor of blood and gunpowder.

  As Sam drove away, the rest of us moved back inside the burner.

  “What do you think happened here?” Ray asked.

  “Something to do with beef cattle,” I said.

  “Well, there’s definitely a lot of cow shit everywhere,” she said.

  “I would have suspected a drug deal gone bad, if it weren’t for this.” I nodded toward the Ram 3500 and livestock trailer.

  “If we’re talking about rustling, what’s the link to our two victims?” the detective asked.

  “I don’t have a handle on any of it, including how they wound up with that expensive truck,” I answered.

  Bach started gathering up the items he’d removed from his pack. “Any known enemies?”

  “Like I mentioned earlier, they probably acquired more than a few along the way. But no one in particular comes to mind at the moment.”

  Dr. Gattis collected the trash from her exams and placed it in a waste container. “Maggie, my guess is, Al will rely on you quite a bit during the investigation.”

  This was my first murder case, and solving homicides was not something I’d ever aspired to.

  “That’s a bit of pressure to put on a sergeant essentially operating on her own out here.”

  “And you’re damned lucky you won’t have to rely on that Sheriff Doofus person. Isn’t that what you called him?” Doc Gattis asked.

  I noted the wee smile from the detective. “Who’s your district supervisor, Sergeant?”

  “Jeremy Lake.”

  “What? The lieutenant up in La Grande?” Bach was incredulous. “That’s more than a hundred and twenty miles from here. Asinine budget cuts. Politicians eliminate police positions but keep the same expectations for law enforcement.”

  “I know that dude. Lieutenant Lake—short, body-builder type, right? I was the responding ME when some old geezer fell through a rickety mine shaft. I found Lake to be about as cocky as they come,” Ray said.

  The good doctor certainly had that right.

  “Let’s gather up our gear, Ray,” Bach said, reloading his pack.

  She adjusted her wool scarf and lifted her exam kit. “Now, where the hell can I find a good steak and a stiff drink when we get to town?”

  I eyed my watch. “I’m not sure about that steak. Things close down early around here. Except the bars. I’d recommend Club Paris. A block from where you’re staying. Mack’s Motel, right? Also a little classier. Even has a pretty good bartender.”

  “You’re welcome to come along if you’d like.”

  “Thanks, but I need to wait here for the tow trucks and deal with the Rottweiler. Plus there’s still notification of the family,” I said.

  “I’d appreciate you taking charge of preliminary evidence for the night, Sergeant Blackthorne. We’ll meet you back at the station at zero seven hundred tomorrow morning.”

  “Jesus. Seven a.m.,” Dr. Gattis said. “Today’s been a long day, Al.”

  She had read my mind.

  A raw wind flogged the wigwam burner’s rusted metal siding and carried the scent of snow falling in the distance. Squatting near the soot- and manure-covered ground, I welcomed the gusts wafting through the open access doors. I’d been grappling with the Rottweiler’s hundred-pound-plus carcass for several minutes in an attempt to remove it from under the livestock trailer. By the time I managed to place a tarp under the dead canine and drag it to my SUV, Whitey Kern had arrived.

  Wielding my Maglite, I guided Whitey through the open gate and inside the burner. He hoisted the Nodines’ diesel pickup onto the bed of his wrecker, the one he used to rescue disabled bulldozers and farm equipment. I helped him secure the red truck and handed him the permit authorizing transport to the State Police evidence warehouse in Bend.

  “My gal Olive’s on her way from Prairie City to pick up that cattle trailer,” he said.

  Whitey had the outsized face of an aging bulldog. Translucent skin exposed the blood vessels of his jowly cheeks and prominent nose, giving rise to a fierce countenance. But his gentle manner and easy laugh made him a man beloved throughout the county. “I’ll help you load that poor old pup into your rig.”

  “I’d sure appreciate it.”

  We moved outside to my Tahoe. I opened the cargo door, laid a second tarp over the floor mat, and together we lifted the Rottweiler.

  I covered the animal with a muslin game bag. “Don’t suppose you ever spotted Dan and Joseph Nodine out and about in that vehicle?”

  “I don’t believe so, Maggie. But I did give ’em a tow last week. Their jeep broke down along Dog Creek Road.”

  “Were they living up there?”

  “Not sure, but you might ask Ariel. She was with ’em.”

  “Ariel Pritchett?”

  He nodded and climbed inside the cab of his idling tow truck. Last night at the Rifleman Club, I’d neglected to ask Ariel directly if she knew where the Nodines lived. And she hadn’t volunteered the information either.

  Whitey inched the wrecker and its four-ton load through the burner’s access door, across the weedy concrete, and onto the roadway. I had known Whitey my whole life, too. He’d had nothing to say about the murder scene. Always friendly, but he tended to mind his own business. What with his tow company, Whitey had seen it all, including the head of his own son plopped down on hard pavement after a night of Hennessy, crystal meth, and fuck-all driving.

  After Whitey’s daughter Olive had come for the livestock trailer and I’d loaded the portable lighting towers in my Tahoe, I drove to Lynn Nodine’s. The lights were out when I arrived. I knocked and called for her, watched for a lamp to switch on and for Lynn to emerge. I rapped on the front door and called her name a second time. I attempted to turn the knob. Locked. Same with the side door. No answer. Locked.

  The blinds were shut, the curtains drawn. I shined the Maglite through the leaded glass window of the front door and into the darkened living room. The beam refracted off Lynn’s antique mirror, rolled across her armoire and velvet-upholstered divan, and illuminated the flower-print wallpaper.

  I directed my flashlight toward the wide-open garage. The orange VW bus was gone.

  Aching with cold and a familiar sorro
w, I sat on the top porch step and waited. Close to midnight Lynn turned into the driveway and parked.

  “A second visit, Margaret? What the hell?” she said, moving up the walkway. “Like I said last night, I’m not in contact with my sons. On purpose. Do you plan to bother me every day about them poaching that damn deer?”

  “Mrs. Nodine. Lynn. Sorry to bother you so late, but I need to speak with you.”

  “What is it, Margaret?”

  “Please, can we go inside?”

  Lynn walked up the steps to the front door and turned her key. I followed her into the living room, which shined with polish and carried the faint fragrance of rosewood, teak, and lime.

  She settled into the divan, and I took the rocker across from her. “Are they in jail?” she asked. “Because if it’s bail money you’ve come to talk about, I won’t pay it. They can sit there and take it. Just like all the other times.”

  “No, that’s not why I’m here, Lynn. I’m sorry to bring such terrible news.” I gazed directly into her fiery eyes, an effort to borrow some of her spark and light up my own courage to say what had to be said. “Dan and Joseph are dead.”

  The mantel clock softly sounded out the seconds. “Did they wreck that old jeep?”

  “I’m afraid they were shot to death.”

  “Murdered?” she whispered. “Murdered?”

  “Yes, dear.” I leaned into the space between us. The flame that burned from Lynn Nodine’s core had been extinguished. She sat dazed and silent for several minutes, finally asking that I call her sister Beth over in Mt. Vernon. I offered to bring her a glass of water, some wine, but she stared at her hands folded in her lap until her sister arrived twenty minutes later.

  “Thank you for coming to tell me in person, but you should leave now, Margaret,” Lynn said.

  I stood and put on my police Stetson.

  “Have you been to see their dad yet?” she asked.

  “I’m on my way to do that now.” I briefly rested a hand on Lynn’s upper arm. “I’ll be in touch in the next day or two, but let me know if you need anything in the meantime. I’m so sorry it all came to this.”

  Driving to the Rifleman Club sometime after one a.m., it occurred to me that my parting comment to Lynn—I’m so sorry it all came to this—was an odd expression of sympathy, as if Dan and Joseph were simply unlucky and ill-fated, not in command of their own destinies and always bound to end up in a dark place, murdered in cold blood being the darkest place of all.

  I informed Farley Nodine of his sons’ deaths standing in the dusty back room that served as the tavern’s office. The news was but another sad weight placed on his slumped shoulders.

  “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” he said and moved back to the bar and set about mixing somebody’s Moscow mule.

  Ariel Pritchett stood stiffly in the middle of the barroom. She plucked a cigarette from her apron pocket and lit it, inhaled deeply. “What is it? What’s wrong, Farley?”

  “No smoking in here,” he said.

  She shifted her harried look toward me. The room was steamy with heat from the oil furnace and a full regiment of drunkards, but her hands were trembling. “Maggie? Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “It should come from Farley.”

  Ariel dropped her cigarette and ground it out with the heel of her worn sneaker. She dabbed her nose with the back of a hand, took in the musty air. “Joey’s been staying at my place most nights. We didn’t have a fight or anything, but I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning. We’re supposed to go to Winnemucca next week and get married.”

  “Let’s step into the office, okay?” It occurred to me that Farley might object, but he turned his back and poured a beer from the tap. I followed Ariel into the back room, closed the door, and placed my hat on the cluttered desk.

  “You’ve got to tell me, Maggie, please. I really do love him.”

  “Dan and Joseph were murdered tonight.” We both flinched at the severe edge to my voice, that move-your-motherfucking-ass-out-of-the-car tone I often resorted to with late-night inebriates. Which is why I lurched forward and clumsily wrapped my arms around her. “I’m sorry, Ariel. It’s a terrible thing.”

  She quietly wept and slowly withdrew from my awkward embrace, pressed her red fists over her hazel eyes. Dishwater-blond tufts dangled from her loosely tied ponytail. “I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “Joey and me, we really got along. And him and Danny were working on some deal that was supposed to set us all up for good.”

  Sorrowful moment as it was, I needed to press her for details. “What kind of a deal?”

  “I don’t know anything more than that. Danny was mad Joey told me that much.”

  “And you never saw them driving a brand new red Ram pickup?”

  “You asked me about that last night. I don’t think they could’ve traded their old jeep for a new rig. Besides, the jeep still belongs to their mom.”

  The twins owned no vehicles and hadn’t bothered with driver’s licenses after their stint in prison. Thus the lack of DMV addresses for either man. Must have been their way of staying on the down low. Which made the fact they were riding around in that snazzy one-ton even stranger.

  Ariel fished in her pocket for another cigarette. “What happens now, Maggie?” she asked, lighting her Marlboro.

  “We’ll conduct an investigation and find the killer.”

  She took that under consideration.

  “There’s one thing you might be able to help me with. We need to search their belongings,” I said.

  She endeavored to compose herself. “Joey took his duffel bag with him when he left yesterday. That’s all he ever brought with him to my place. Don’t think he owned much of anything.”

  “A relative told me they were living near Seneca?”

  “I’ve never been there, don’t even know where it is exactly. Didn’t seem like it was very homey, though.”

  “How long had Joseph been staying with you most nights?”

  “About three months.” She began to cry softly. “Danny would drop him off and then go to his girlfriend’s house.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. He’d been seeing Kat McKay.”

  Duncan McKay’s sister. That caught me by surprise. “Did he stay overnight at Kat’s?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. Either there or the place near Seneca, I guess.”

  I touched her upper arm, in much the same way I’d placed my hand on Lynn Nodine’s a half hour before. “Okay, Ariel. I appreciate you talking to me. I know this has been hard.”

  Between drags on the cigarette, she chewed at her lower lip.

  “I’ll need to follow up with you in the next few days,” I said. “Can I give you a lift home?”

  “Nah. Thanks, though. Farley will need taking care of.”

  We found him sitting at the bar nursing a tall tumbler of whiskey. He had closed the Rifleman Club for the night and was embarking on a path to grim inebriation.

  I left Ariel and Farley to their grieving and drove to the station. Animal Services was closed at that hour of the night, so I had no choice but to wait until later in the morning to deal with the Rottweiler carcass. I stored the tagged items collected from the murder scene in our evidence locker, checked email, and listened to voicemail on my desk phone.

  Lt. Jeremy T. Lake had made several attempts to reach me. Every one of his messages contained some version of contact me ASAP. It was past two in the morning, and I wasn’t in the mood to email J.T. an apology for not being at his beck and call. Besides, for some reason he hadn’t tried my cell phone, which left me wondering what asshole maneuver he was angling at this time to get me demoted or fired.

  Back at my apartment, I unbuckled my holster and placed it on the dinette table, draped my peacoat over the back of the lone kitchen chair, and removed my boots and uniform. After tending to Louie and taking a long, hot shower, I shifted the stack of folded laundry from my bed to the dinette
table, shut off the single bulb hanging overhead, and climbed between the ice-cold sheets.

  Dorie’s lights had still been on when I’d climbed the stairs up to my apartment. I’d considered stopping by, letting her know that Dan and Joseph were dead, yet there were procedures, a process to follow. Informing my landlord wasn’t on the list. I knew Dorie was one of Lynn Nodine’s few friends and would want to take over as the woman’s caretaker, maybe call together a prayer circle. But there would be many dark days ahead for all that weeping and begging God almighty for solace.

  Sleep, when it came, dragged me through the night until the electronic drone of my phone alarm sounded. I inhaled a turkey sandwich I’d purchased at Gas-n-Snacks some time back, dressed, and tied up my limp hair.

  My first official task of the morning involved some torturous bureaucracy at County Animal Services. It was of little concern to folks that the State Police homicide unit was formally requesting the use of one of their deep-freeze lockers to store the Rottweiler killed at the scene of a murder. There were hoops to jump through, legalities to accommodate, and time to waste. Still, I managed all of it with a smile, and in the end, a couple of stocky workers even assisted me by removing the dead dog from the back of my Chevy Tahoe.

  When I arrived at the office, I found a state-of-the art police vehicle, even newer and sleeker than Detective Alan Bach’s Ford Interceptor, parked in my usual spot. Apparently, J.T. Lake had decided to pay a surprise visit. I straightened my shoulders, adjusted my badge, and opened the door to my trooper station.

  “What the hell, Blackthorne?”

  Standing almost as short as me in his extra-wide police Stetson and sickly mustache was Lt. Jeremy T. Lake, my supervisor and, it pained me to admit, my second ex-husband.