by Lakota Grace
“Her name is Allie. She comes from Indiana, and both her parents were German. She doesn’t know a word of Spanish.”
He reddened but recovered.
“Good to see you, too, Quincy. Ready for lunch?”
He took my arm to move me into the rapidly filling dining room. I jerked my arm just enough to dislodge his grip.
“Brought my appetite with me. How about the window booth?”
I slid into the coveted wall seat, that cop-preferred restaurant-viewing location. I honored him with a Southwestern-hospitality smile and made a sweeping gesture toward the opposing bench.
“I’ll let you have the view side to enjoy the red rocks.”
I was pleased to see the momentary discomfort pass over his face as he sat awkwardly with his back to the restaurant. He covered his upset by opening his menu.
“Have whatever you want. Compliments of the Coconino County Sheriff’s office.”
“Thanks, I will.”
I scanned the page in front of me.
“I’ll have the Rocky Point fish tacos,” I told the waitress. “And a Javelina margarita made with Anejo tequila, if you will.” The addition of expensive liquor was a payback for the arm thing.
“No cocktail for me,” Cooper said. “I’m on duty.”
Like I wasn’t. His sanctimonious tone likely made him either a teetotaler or a heavy drinker trying to convince me he wasn't. I’d make it my business to determine which. That knowledge would be critical if we were to work together to clear Thorn and find another suspect for his murder case.
“Give me the combo plate,” he said. “Make that extra hot.”
“Are you sure?” the waitress questioned. “We use New Mexico chilies in our salsa.”
“Pour it on,” he said.
My little ears perked up. This should be interesting.
I dipped a corn chip into the red salsa filling a small bowl designed to look like an old-world metate. I avoided the other stone dish with the green salsa. It’s concocted from those New Mexico chilies, too.
Cooper and I made casual conversation. How I was from Tennessee, recently settled in the Verde Valley and living in the mining-turned-tourist town of Mingus. How he was missing the flatland and the ocean beaches of Florida. That about exhausted my supply of small talk, and I was grateful when the waitress arrived with our food. Time to start the real business of this get-together.
“How is the investigation going?” I asked.
“Depends. I heard you were assigned the family liaison work.”
Oops! I choked on the fish taco.
“Musta been a bone,” I said. I pulled an imaginary something out of my mouth and onto my napkin to give me a second to figure out what the heck to say.
“The department caught me unawares when they asked,” I said. “I have no problem being objective.”
“Conflict of interest,” Cooper countered. “Thorn Malone is a prime suspect.”
“But she’s not the only suspect, surely.”
He took a healthy bite of the enchilada on his combo plate and I watched, fascinated, as his eyes bulged. He grabbed for his water glass.
“Dos Equus beer is good for that,” I said.
“Oh, what the hell.” He signaled for the waitress and ordered one.
Not a teetotaler, then. And it was time to make the connection between Thorn and me more distant.
“She usually lives with her mom in Colorado,” I said. “I don’t know her that well.”
“You were hiking with her,” Cooper pointed out.
“Playing taxi, actually. She needed a ride.”
“Into West Fork?”
“Well, that was part of the deal I made with Shepherd.”
“So you have a connection with the father,” Cooper said.
This wasn’t going exactly the way I had envisioned.
“Shepherd and I worked together for a year, that’s all. He’s retired now.”
“You think he’ll cause trouble in this investigation?”
“Shepherd? Nah, he wouldn’t do that. Once a good law officer, always a good law officer.” I bit my tongue as I uttered that blatant lie. Shepherd would move every single red rock in Sedona to get his kid out of this case. But that wasn’t Cooper Davis’s business.
“What about that knife?” I asked. “Anything significant there?”
Now it was Cooper’s turn to choke. His head jerked up, and he looked at me directly.
“How’d you find out?” he asked.
“Departmental Grapevine.”
“Figures. Works the same, no matter where you live.”
But then he kept digging like a badger hollowing out a new tunnel.
“So we don’t have the knife as evidence, just Thorn Malone at the scene. Did you happen to save her clothes?”
“No. She forded the creek and then stood in the rain for an hour or two waiting for a ride. Not much blood trace left after that dunking.”
“I’d hate to see both of our careers ruined over a set of unfortunate circumstances.”
Was that a warning? I didn’t bother to mention he’d lost a prisoner that was in his custody. Or, on the other hand, the tiny fact that Thorn did have a motive, having been fired. Why ruin this good rapport we developed?
Cooper shoved his plate with the chili-hot enchiladas to the side and took another liberal slug of his brew.
“Not going to finish your lunch?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“Nah, my stomach is a touch upset. Must be the change in altitude.”
“Must be,” I agreed.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He leaned his elbows on the table.
He offered his hand across the table, not realizing I was the arm wrestling champ from my class at the Academy. I passed on the opportunity. I could beat him anyway.
“You’ve got a deal.” I pulled out my book and flipped to my interview notes.
“Here’s my contribution," I said. "I met with one Claire Marks, Jill’s sister. Early 30s, one kid, Ralphie, about eleven. He was brain injured at birth and has the mental age of a six-year-old.”
Cooper was scribbling in his own notebook as I read him off what I had discovered.
“Claire Marks and her husband Gary run a pecan farm out in Camp Verde. She hasn’t seen her sister Jill for years, or so she says.”
“You believe her?”
“No,” I said. “She acted like she was hiding something. I thought I may have seen her and her son Ralphie at West Fork but she denied it. Claire said her husband could confirm she’d been at the farm all day.”
“Convenient,” Cooper grunted.
“Right. She warrants another interview I think. What have you turned up so far?”
He flipped back a few pages in his own book.
“We’ve got a forensics team re-investigating the kill zone, but nothing yet. A lot of peripheral foot traffic in the area.”
That was possible. There had been tons of hikers on the trail into West Fork, and more cars lined up to get in when I was there.
“Did you talk to Silas Wooster?” I asked.
“That guy’s been giving the ranger a hard time? The investigating officer says he’s an ecology nut, hates the overrun of tourists in West Fork, but no obvious tie-in to the deceased. Why? You think there’s a connection?” Cooper asked.
“I don’t think he killed Jill Rustaine if that’s what you mean. But he might have seen who did. The guy knows those forests.”
“Worth a recheck,” Cooper agreed.
“And that ranger wasn’t there when Thorn and I parked. Somebody else was on duty.”
Cooper hesitated and then flipped to an earlier page in his own notebook. He paused, and gave his head a short nod, as though he was making a decision. He was playing square, and my opinion of him went up a notch.
“I visited the Jil-Clair Industries this morning,” he said. “Lotsa desks but few people. They had high security thoug
h.”
“A shell operation?”
“That’s what I thought,” he said, absently picking up a tortilla chip.
I steered his hand to the cooler red dipping sauce.
“I met with Malcolm Vander, the chief financial officer,” he said. “A fair amount of tension between him and Ms. Rustaine’s executive assistant.”
“Harriet Weaver,” I said.
He looked up at me and our newfound comradery cooled.
“And you were planning on telling me you knew her, when?”
“I haven’t actually talked to her in person.”
“And you better not,” he warned.
“Thorn mentioned Harriet’s name in passing.”
“Anything else the girl might have mentioned, in passing?”
“She didn’t do it, Cooper.”
“So you say.”
We’d reached an impasse. I needed this fragile truce between me and Cooper Davis to last until I found out who really killed Jill Rustaine. And that better happen soon.
“Sorry, Cooper. I’ve got to run. I’m sitting in on the meeting that Thorn Malone and her attorney are having in an hour.”
“Make sure she’s in my office by the end of the day for official questioning. And stay out of this case in the future. I mean it.”
“Thanks for lunch,” I said, dodging his implication. “I enjoyed sharing hot sauce with you.”
And then I dashed for the door before I said something that would get Thorn in worse trouble than she already was. Cooper had tunnel vision on this one. Thorn couldn't have killed Jill Rustaine.
CHAPTER 14
I hit the accelerator as I zipped out of the restaurant parking lot. I’d have to scramble to make the big meeting. Myra’s Lexus was parked in front of HT’s house when I arrived. No surprise. She’d be early to her own funeral. I didn’t see Shepherd’s car, and for that I was grateful. He should be here soon, but I hadn’t broached the subject of his presence to Thorn yet.
I’d been putting it off because I wasn’t sure how father and daughter would get on. After their argument, Shepherd turned the tables on Thorn’s 911 call and let them take her to jail. Yet she had been disappointed Shepherd hadn’t shown up at the jail the next day to spring her. No wonder the kid was confused.
I’d been a straight-laced teen, didn’t do drugs or get into trouble much. It was hard for me to understand somebody like Thorn. On the other hand, there were times I wanted to shake Shepherd. His daughter deserved his support.
My grandfather HT wasn’t in the room, either, when I opened the door. HT, short for Horace Tewksbury, had been the main male in my life when my father had deserted the family. Then we’d drifted apart when my mother and grandmother had their awful falling out. It was only now that I’d moved back to Mingus that we’d been able to reconnect. And sometimes we tried too hard. Being in a family was hard work, with a lot of imperfect edges. Maybe Shepherd was feeling a little of that right now.
Myra stood in the kitchen doorway, talking to Isabel.
“Peg, you need to get the recipe for these lemon bars. Absolutely scrumptious.”
Myra’s demeanor, brittle steel at most trial depositions, melted in the presence of a good cook. Of which I was not one.
“Old family recipe?” I asked Isabel to be polite.
“Martha Stewart,” she said.
“That counts,” I said, encountering the bright tartness of lemon in my next bite. Myra was right as usual.
“Isabel, how has Thorn been doing?” I asked.
“She didn’t come down until noon and then made a mess of my kitchen.”
An unforgivable sin in Isabel’s opinion.
“How long she’s going to be here?” the housekeeper demanded.
“Soon. She’ll be leaving soon,” I promised. “Thank you so much for watching her.”
Thorn hadn’t built many friendships in town. Her stuck-up attitude didn’t go over well with most of the local kids. In fact, the only one I’d seen her with had been Ben Yazzie, my former assistant.
The door banged, and Shepherd arrived. Shepherd had lived in the valley for years. He and my grandfather had interacted socially over the years, and both had lent a hand when the other needed it. Shepherd grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on one end of the couch, his knee jiggling nervously.
Perhaps he and Thorn should have met before the official sit-down with the attorney, to get things straightened out. On the other hand, Myra could act as a buffer if conflict between Shepherd and his daughter turned ugly. She was good at that even if she and Shepherd had this love-hate thing going on.
“That clock accurate?” Myra asked.
It showed 2:15 p.m. and Thorn had not descended from the loft.
“Isabel, did you tell her about the meeting?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And did you tell her who would be here?”
She nodded. Oops. Maybe that was the problem. Thorn might be reluctant to meet with her dad.
“Let me see what’s keeping her.” I ducked out and pounded up two flights of the outside steps. Then I knocked on the loft door.
“Thorn, it’s Peg. You ready yet?”
There was no answer. The door was ajar, so I pushed it open. The loft with light sifting through the windows was empty, but I heard water running in the shower. Thorn’s duffle bag lay on the bed, open. The bathroom door opened and Thorn came out. She was fully dressed. That was good. When she saw me there, she hesitated. Then she put her hairbrush and some toiletries in the bag and zipped it closed.
“Is my dad downstairs?” Her expression was resolute.
“Yes, he just arrived.”
“Would you give him this?” She thrust an envelope into my hand.
“Why don’t you give it to him yourself?”
“I can’t. I just can’t!”
With that, she grabbed her bag, whirled, and darted out the doorway and down the outside stairs.
A motorcycle’s engine revved on the street below. It sounded like the green Ducati Ben Yazzie rode. I dashed onto the balcony in time to see Ben disappear down the switchbacks out of Mingus, Thorn Malone clinging tight to his waist.
I ran downstairs and into the living room. “Thorn just left on the back of Ben Yazzie’s motorcycle.”
“Doesn’t she know about this meeting?” Myra asked. “I take it she’s not going to be joining us.” She gathered her materials and repacked her briefcase. “No client, I’m out of here. I have important things on my agenda.”
She shook a finger at Shepherd. “You’ll get my bill.”
“Why?” he protested. “You didn’t lawyer anything.”
“Portal-to-portal.”
She sniffed and disappeared out the door.
My grandfather HT emerged from his bedroom, hair tousled and shirt rumpled as though he’d been napping. How could anybody sleep through this? I gave him an absent-minded hug.
Isabel came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel and crossed over to HT.
“Sit. I’ll bring you some coffee, wake you up.” She brushed hair out of his eyes with a curiously tender gesture.
Isabel and my granddad? Okay, my grandmother had been gone five years, but still. Sort of like discovering your folks actually have a life when you’re not around.
“What’s that?” Shepherd asked.
“For you.”
I thrust the envelope into Shepherd’s hand, and we all waited while he tore it open.
“What the…”
He handed the note to me. It was written in violet ink with hearts over the I’s.
I’m going away with Ben to figure things out. He says I can stay on the Reservation for a while. He calls it a Vision Quest. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I love you, Dad.
Thorn.
I dropped the note on the table. That meant she was not only missing our meeting right now. She was supposed to turn herself in this afternoon to Cooper Davis in Flag. And that wouldn’t happen eithe
r.
“Did you see which way they went, Peg?” Shepherd asked me.
“Down the hill, toward the freeway to Flag. You want to try to intercept them?”
“No, that’s exactly what she wants me to do. Chase after her.” He wasn’t angry or upset. Instead, he seemed a little sad and defeated. “It’s too late. Maybe too late for both of us.”
“Shepherd, that’s not true.” I hated seeing my friend like that.
“I think we all need to take a step back,” HT said.
I looked up in surprise. I’d forgotten he was here.
“Maybe my friend Armor knows where they’re going. The Reservation is a big place.”
Armor Brancussi, Ben Yazzie’s Uncle. He’d taken the kid under his wing when the kid’s parents had been killed in an auto crash.
“What’s his number?” I asked.
“I have it around here somewhere.” HT patted one pocket after another ineffectually.
I looked at my grandfather with alarm. He and Armor had known each other for decades, even before the copper mines closed. They called each other several times a day. HT should know Armor’s number by heart.
“Isabel probably knows.” Shepherd rose and went into the kitchen. There was a phone conversation, and then he returned to the living room.
“Armor says he’ll be here in a minute. I told him about the meeting scheduled with Myra and he just about didn’t come.”
When he arrived, HT stood up to greet him.
“How you doing old buddy?” Armor asked him.
They patted each other on the back in a half hug, and then Armor sat down.
“That evil attorney lady gone?” Armor looked around in mock apprehension.
I nodded.
“Good!” He settled deeper into the old couch, its sprung cushions accommodating his bony rear. “How can I help?”
“Thorn’s in trouble,” I began.
“For that West Fork deal. Yeah, heard all about it down at the bar. Big news, that Rustaine woman being murdered.”
Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bikers from up and down the state frequented the Spirit Bar where Armor worked. In fact, there was special parking in front of the bar reserved for the Harleys. They had a better gossip line than the cops did.