“I hear you. But we could slap it all up on the wall and build a digital version. Because you do know you’ll run out of room on that chalkboard, right?”
I nodded. “Do we need more categories?”
“Nah. It’s a good start. Might make sense to come up with more later on.”
I filled Hollis in on the theft report Duncan McKay had filed and told him about the cattle prod found in the Nodines’ truck. He snared a piece of chalk and entered the info in the Possibly Related Events section, but only after writing, Jess Haney Bennett / Guy Trudeau / cattle truck (Frank Sylvester Trucking).
“That’s the spirit.” I retrieved the keys to my Tahoe. “I’ll be at McKay’s Feed and Tack. I want to find out more about those cattle prods. Back in a half an hour or so.”
I passed Lynn Nodine’s place on the way. Her driveway and the street next to it were lined with cars, including Dorie’s old Toyota Corolla, one fender covered with rusted primer, same as always. Prayer circle convened, check. Food enough for an army, check. Front room gossip, check. Cycle of life, check and double-check.
An electronic cowbell announced my entrance through the front door of Duncan’s store. The odor of leather and grass seed mingled with the tang of oats, hay, and dry pine. He kept the establishment at exactly the same temperature as the out of doors—just this side of hypothermic.
His nephew, Rain, stood at the service counter dressed in a seriously overstuffed down coat; its fur-lined hood, snapped tightly under the chin, framed the kid’s ruddy face.
“Good morning,” I said. “Is your uncle available?”
The boy passed me a dark glance and bounded through the open door behind the service counter. Duncan emerged moments later carrying a laptop.
“Can I help you?”
Was this the same friendly guy who made a point of saying hello last night at the BM Lounge? “Did I interrupt something?”
“Sorry. I’ve been inventorying stock in the storeroom all morning.”
“How’s that going?”
“It’s a pain. But I haven’t found anything else missing yet.” He nodded toward the shelved merchandise in the sales area. “I’ll know more after going through the rest of it tomorrow.”
“Well, I might have some news. First I’d like to know if there’s a way to track those stolen cattle prods? Some kind of unique identifiers?”
He chucked at his chin whiskers the way he had last night. “I’m not sure.”
“Because an unopened prod, same make and model as the two stolen from your store, has turned up. I suspect it’s yours, but is there a way to figure that out?”
“We attach barcoded labels to all our hard goods, and those are registered in the inventory system.” He held up his laptop. “If I had access to that prod you’re talking about, I could scan it and tell whether it’s from my store.”
He was wearing the same plaid wool shirt—loden green and black—he’d worn the night before and three nights ago standing in my police station. His version of a feed and tack uniform, I guess.
“I don’t have possession of the prod, but if I could get a photo of the barcode, would your system read it?”
“It should, as long as it’s from my inventory. Let me test it. I’ll take a shot of some other label and scan the photo. But even if that cattle prod is from my store, where’s the other stuff?”
“Only the one prod so far.”
“Does it have any connection with the killing of the Nodine brothers?”
“I’m not sure what it’s connected to yet.”
Seemingly over his earlier irritation, he grinned. “That’s a pretty good cop answer.”
“It’s the only answer there is right now.”
Again I noticed the color of his eyes, nearly a match for the deep green of his shirt.
I picked up a can of snuff from a boxful on the counter, laid it in front of him. “Here, take a picture of the barcode label. See if your system reads it?”
“I don’t tag small items like chewing tobacco or those pepperoni sticks over there. We enter that kind of thing by hand.”
“How about the carton of jerky you reported stolen from your storeroom?”
“Oh, that. Turns out it wasn’t missing after all.”
“Damn good thing I didn’t broadcast a statewide stolen jerky alert.”
He almost laughed at my lame-ass joke before removing a set of pig snout pliers from a nearby carousel and photographing the barcode. He swiped the face of his phone across the register’s scanner. “Yep. It picked up our price and merchandise info.”
“I’ll work on getting a digital shot of that cattle prod label to you later today. It might be tomorrow, though.”
“I’m closed on Sundays, remember? But I’ll be right here checking the front shelves for possible missing inventory. Just call or give a knock.”
Rain reappeared, head down, gaze directed toward the floor. He eased a box of new sheep shears around the counter and behind me toward the front of the store.
“Don’t set out any more than five packages of those, son,” Duncan said.
I lifted my police Stetson from the counter. “Have a good day.”
“You too, Maggie.”
Despite a cloudless sky of sapphire and the promise of spring on the horizon, Arctic air rolled off the Aldrich Mountains and howled through the canyons and basins along the river. A cold pall held our valley in its polar vise. Which made me all the more grateful Hollis had stoked up the heat and turned our office into a cozy den.
I hung my coat and hat on one of the hooks by the door. “What’s new?”
“Lil went into labor before I could check out Frank Sylvester or Seth Flynn, the manager of Sylvester’s trucking business in Burns.”
“Okay.” I suspected I might be in for one of Holly’s long, convoluted discoveries.
“Turns out Sylvester is a bedridden quadriplegic who can no longer speak. He’s been set up with home health care. Apparently his wife’s dead, and he has no children.”
“Where’d you learn all this?”
“Oh, some stellar sleuthing on my part.” He tapped a pointer finger on the office phone at his desk. “I called Flynn at the trucking company. He used to drive for the old guy but started managing the business eighteen months ago after Sylvester drove his three-wheeler down a cliff at his place out in Wagontire. Broke his neck. He’s not expected to live much longer.”
“Jesus.”
“And before you ask, an accountant in Portland manages the financial side of the business. Flynn is the operations guy, and he let me know the accountant watches the profit and loss margins like a hawk.”
“This accountant have a name?”
“I called her office. She’s closed on the weekend.”
“What did you think of Seth Flynn?”
“He was pretty open and genuinely surprised when I asked about the red truck. Said he knew nothing about it, complained that his company vehicle was a bucket of bolts, not some fancy mega cab pickup. Anyway, I verified Sylvester’s condition with Sergeant Brown in Burns. No matter what, Sylvester’s not our murderer. And Flynn seems far removed from the murder victims, even if the Nodines were cousins with one of his truck drivers. Speaking of Jess Bennett, I called her too, and she seems pretty skittish.”
“Oh yeah, she’s got a twitchy edge to her all right.”
“We’ll get a chance to question her in person. She’s dropping by our office on Monday after the Nodines’ funeral.”
“So I’d say you tied up all those loose ends. Go on home to your wife and baby.”
“Will do, Sarge, as soon as I check on one more thing. I pulled the VIN for the Ram 3500 from your report. I want to figure out where it was sold, but mostly, who bought it. If Sylvester’s been a bedridden quadriplegic for a year and a half, it wasn’t him.”
“You can be sure it wasn’t one of the knucklehead brothers.”
While Hollis rooted around on the internet, I put in my first call
of the day to Bach.
“Good morning, Maggie. Let me put you on hold while I close my door.”
I waited, listening to Hollis in the background, the undulating drum of his keyboard being typed at maximum velocity.
When Al came back on the line, I mentioned the reply email I’d sent to him last night regarding Duncan’s theft report.
“There’s got to be a connection between the stolen cattle prods and the one my people found,” he said.
“Absolutely. McKay’s Feed and Tack is the only place this side of the state selling those. I’d like to arrange to get a photo of the barcode label so I can verify that’s where it’s from.”
“Wait a sec.” He tapped away on his keyboard in Bend, pretty much in harmony with Holly at his desk in our office. “Okay, done. I’ve ordered the photos.”
I passed along the information Hollis had put together this morning. “Right now he’s working on identifying who actually bought that red truck.”
“Send me the State Police ID numbers for you and Trooper Jones. I can get you temporary access to OSP’s higher-level security networks. Once in, you should be able to locate whatever info you need.”
It was possible Hollis had already bypassed any firewall and searched said networks, but I let that thought go.
“I plan to make a trip back your way on Monday or Tuesday,” Al said.
“The funeral is Monday. Were you thinking of attending?” It was hard for me to imagine Al Bach fitting in at one of our country-bumpkin funeral affairs.
“No, but you should.”
“I intend to.” Despite my eternal dread of the stoic singing of hymns and touching of caskets at one more goddamn gravesite.
“Good, and you’ll want to strap on your cop antennae. Cases like this, especially in a small town, murderers often make an appearance at a victim’s service. Mostly to avoid drawing attention to themselves by their absence.”
“I did wonder about that.” For instance, would Kat McKay show up? Or Guy Trudeau?
Bach was also adamant we needed to find whatever tent, cabin, or hovel Dan and Joseph Nodine had been living in part-time, where they stashed their shit and parked their jeep. “Find the place and the vehicle.”
“I’ve already gone on one wild goose chase after Jess Bennett told me they lived somewhere around Seneca.”
“There’s got to be someone who knows exactly what everybody living within a hundred square miles is up to or where they’re hiding out.”
“Probably a few folks, but in this case, that’s likely Cecil Burney. He owns the only gas station in Seneca, so he’s generally the one source of fuel for miles around. And now that I think of it, there was talk of bad blood between the Nodine brothers and him.”
Cecil had supposedly been in a long-running spat with Dan and Joseph—over what, only the three of them had known. I hadn’t actually seen him since my own father’s country-bumpkin funeral. But I knew everything he’d been up to lately, thanks to Dorie’s senior membership in the county rumor mill.
“Go interview him today, Sergeant.”
“I’ll head there right away. Don’t know why I didn’t think of talking to Cecil before.”
“Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re relying on your instincts, and that’s a good thing. Just don’t let that get in the way of looking at obvious sources.”
That kind of oversight couldn’t happen again. What if I’d stopped by Cecil’s gas station two days ago? He might have gladly told me where to find Dan and Joseph, and maybe I could’ve gotten to them before the killer. On the other hand, Cecil had always been an alcoholic dickwad, someone who disliked the authorities more than anybody he might’ve had a vendetta against. A person like that never willingly told a cop a thing.
“Sergeant. Are you still on the line?” Bach asked.
“Yeah. Just mulling over some what-ifs.”
“Well, stop that right now. The chance of you preventing these murders was next to nil.”
“I’ll call you this evening, report back on whatever I get from Burney,” I said.
“Use my cell number. Oh, one more thing. The murder weapon. Ballistics folks ID’d it as a Kel-Tec PF-9.”
Ah, cheap. And deadly.
I added the automatic pistol details in the Lab Analysis section of our murder board and wrote, “Who killed the dog with a shotgun?” under Unknowns.
I collected my keys. “I’ll be back out in Seneca talking with Cecil Burney.”
“Who’s that?” Hollis asked.
“The crotchety drunk who’s owned the Seneca gas station since forever.”
“Oh yeah. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Burney a few times. He’s a big, big fan of the police. Black officers in particular.”
“He’s a peach all right.”
“I plan on going home to Lil and Hank after I finish my report. But you won’t like what I’ve discovered so far. Records show Frank Sylvester purchased that Ram 3500.”
“How’s that possible in his condition?”
“I don’t know how Mr. Sylvester bought it, and I don’t know how the Nodines ended up with it.”
“Maybe this will help. Bach is arranging our access to higher-level security networks.”
He turned toward me. “Well, Maggie, I already have access to those higher-level security networks.”
Just as I had suspected. “To make me feel better, when he sends us clearance, repeat your search. Officially, this time.”
He nodded and flashed a guileless grin. “Sure.”
I retrieved my coat and hat. “Give Lil and Hank my love.”
“I’m supposed to invite you over.”
“Sounds good. And go home.”
He fake-saluted me. “Yes, Sarge.” I turned off all the office lights, stepped outside, and shut the door. I could hear Holly chuckling.
I found no early signs of spring driving up Canyon Mountain and into Bear Valley, which sat at a much higher elevation than John Day and received, on average, more than three hundred and fifty feet of snow a year. A nasty tempest buffeted my Tahoe, drubbing the sidewalls and forcing the vehicle to buck along ice-sheen pavement. Still, navigating through wild weather didn’t keep Frank Sylvester’s supposed purchase of the Ram 3500 from nagging at me.
Somebody else had to be acting on Sylvester’s behalf. Hollis said Seth Flynn was surprised about the new diesel truck, and I doubted the accountant was authorized to spend 50K on a fancy rig. But maybe a court-appointed guardian could—technically, anyway. For the time being, though, the only choice I had was to leave the conundrum sitting in the back of my brain.
The day had pulled past noon by the time I parked next to Cecil Burney’s gas station. His front office stunk of engine oil, vomit, and something else god-awful. I found him sitting next to an ice chest in the corner, fiddling with paperwork, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, and drinking Milwaukee’s Best. His eyes looked to have reached their serious state of glassy much earlier in the day.
“Afternoon,” I said, standing at his cash counter.
He barely looked up. “Remind me who you are?”
“Sergeant Margaret Blackthorne. State Police.”
“Thought you was some kinda teacher in the Willamette Valley somewhere.”
He drew more liquid from his beer can, spilling some on his oil-stained shirt, a loud-colored Pendleton knock-off. Like Farley Nodine, he appeared to hardly bother with the state of his appearance or the thick white hairs protruding from his nostrils and ears and God knew where else.
“I taught elementary school years ago. I’ve been an officer stationed in Grant County for a while, though.” Something I was sure he already knew.
“Well, teaching’s an honorable thing, you ask me.”
Cecil had probably disliked every educator he’d ever come across almost as vehemently as he hated the police. He was more of a vigilante libertarian sort of crackpot. A dime a dozen out here in Dogpatch west, where you trusted no one’s authority and only c
alled the law if the other guy had more weaponry than you and was aiming to harm you. Or something you cared about, such as your animals or your pickup tires. Outlaw pragmatism at its most virtuous.
“I’ve got a couple of questions,” I said.
“Too bad about your dad. He was one of the good ones.”
It was true, time virtually stood still in my county, but Tate Blackthorne had been dead more than twenty years.
“You happen to see Dan or Joseph Nodine the last couple of weeks? Maybe they bought gas, got a tire changed?”
“No, but I did hear somebody killed ’em.” He spat out a tuft of tobacco. “I would sooner’ve sold gas to the devil himself.”
“Maybe you saw them drive by your station?”
“No. And I’d tell you if I had. You can trust that.”
I knew it wasn’t smart to trust Cecil for anything. “What exactly was your beef with the Nodines?”
He pulled down the rest of his Milwaukee’s Best. Belched loudly, the odor of which entered the chamber of horrid smells nearly undetected. “You can’t live on the wind without paying your debts, is all I’m saying. There’s bridges you can’t burn behind you and still live a full and happy life.”
“Explain what you mean by that.”
“Them boys probably crossed too many enemies the wrong way. Maybe some friends, too.”
“Is there something you know? Something you’re afraid to tell me?”
“I ain’t afraid of shit, and what I know is this—nobody gives a rat’s ass they’re dead. Except maybe their poor mama.”
“I heard they were living somewhere around Seneca. I thought you might know where.”
“Like I said, they was living on the wind.”
It might have been his momentary consideration of Lynn Nodine, but he had backed off the harsh tone some. Cecil’s way of showing sympathy, no doubt.
“But I got no idea who murdered ’em.”
“Seems to me you pretty much have a finger on all the comings and goings around here, what with your gas station sitting along one of the two real highways in this county. Plus my daddy used to count on you for all the gossip. All the news too, like who was cheating on their woman, who was robbing who blind.”
Dead Point (Maggie Blackthorne Book 1) Page 8