Packard frowned. “Christ, what is happening to us?”
“That, I’m afraid, is a whole other subject.”
The log pages again. “What if – what if---” He was interrupted by a voice from behind:
“So – any thoughts about what might’ve killed our mystery person?” Fran Jeeter had just emerged from the Sheriff’s office, peeling foil from a crudely-wrapped object. V.J. Toland accompanied her.
Quinn reached into his backpack. “Real hard to say. Heart attack, exposure to extreme heat or cold. Terminal illness, even. Or none of the above. But the amount of blood he’d have lost from the round we took out of him, that would’ve been minimal.” He handed a sheaf of papers to V.J. “Post mortem on - um - Miz Brady.”
Fran’s object turned out to be an overstuffed sandwich on rye. She took a bite.
“You ready to let me take your prints, Professor?” V.J. was notably chilly.
Fran, chewing, annoyed: “I tell fumno mm-yo mmfa nevum lissums.”
“That’s why I’m here, Sheriff.” Packard tried to avoid looking at the Coroner’s report.
“God, he is so exasperating.” She reacted testily to the others’ mystified looks. “You don’t understand English? I said ‘I tell him mustard-but-no-mayo and he never listens.’” Fran re-wrapped the sandwich, shoved it into her fanny-pack.
Quinn saw Packard’s confusion. “She means her father.”
Packard continued: “Look, Sheriff, I know this isn’t exactly my table, but George and I were kicking around the possibility that whoever did this – that maybe it isn’t what it seems – that they might’ve wanted us to think it was a transient?”
Packard immediately wished he’d waited till he and Toland were one-on-one before commenting: in addition to whatever else was bugging V.J., the young man was discomfited not-to-mention-irritated at being put on the spot so publicly. Fran was expectantly watching V.J., a tiny smile betraying her approval of the question.
V.J. glowered. “Yeah, Dr. Packard, it crossed my mind. Except then you hafta ask yourself ‘why?’ Any ideas about that over at your table?”
Packard decided not to pursue it. Besides, V.J. had a point. If it was about the sixteenth man – what the hell would it be? Was the man a fugitive, a felon...what? And why would the unearthing of his remains motivate a brutal murder now, all these years – whatever their number – later?
Emboldened, V.J. went on: “I’ve been meaning to ask – those uh phone numbers you gave me and Miz Jeeter yesterday – they were for what – your home and office?”
“One was my office, I believe. And the other’s my wireless number. Why?”
“I was just thinkin’ – when Fran rang you up this morning – youknow to tell you what happened up in the canyon – you said you were home in bed. Only, if it was your cell phone – well, no offense, but the fact is you could’ve been almost anyplace...” He let it hang, eyes fastened on Packard’s. Then he turned, headed for his office.
Packard was pleasantly surprised. V.J. seemed to be growing into his responsibilities. Maybe enough to get to the bottom of this---
The log-pages. What was it about the log-pages? Oh, right. What if – they didn’t blow away? What if the killer took them – was looking for – for something he figured might have been excavated? Something – buried with the sixteenth man...?
* * * * * *
Santo DiMartini cupped the phone, looked past Alex Moffat’s shoulder, caught his houseman’s attention. “Something bland, Lewis. Toast. And tea.” His stomach hadn’t been right for nearly twenty-four hours. He shifted focus to Alex who was seated on the edge of the adjacent chaise.
Alex stopped waving the oval bamboo fan, held it – and his gaze – as steady as he could. Imploring.
DiMartini relented, called out to Lewis: “And a bourbon and branch water for Mr. Moffat.”
The intense afternoon sun glinted off Lewis’s brown-black pate as he gave a slight bow, headed for the house. Alex’s shoulders relaxed. He resumed fanning himself. He’d removed his jacket. Sweat soaked his shirt at the armpits, his collar beneath his polka-dot bow tie and under his suspenders. Rain had been predicted but instead they were getting a dose of oppressive humidity.
Though DiMartini spent a lot of the organization’s money on state-of-the-art equipment and technicians who daily ensured the security of his telephones, the old assumptions did not die easily. He removed his hand from the phone mouthpiece, toweled his bare chest, chose his words. “Look, the fact that it isn’t on anybody’s list – or anyplace you’ve looked – that doesn’t mean they didn’t find it...”
This was not the first call of the day from Moab. Earlier DiMartini had been contacted by the individual who alerted him yesterday to the discovery of the bones, this time telling him, in the usual code, without naming names, about the bloody death up at the dig site. Just as elliptically the caller added that the measurements and other characteristics of the odd skeleton made it even more likely that it was “the party in question,” although, the caller lamented once again, unfortunately there was nothing to conclusively nail it.
DiMartini recalled the fire all those years ago that destroyed the dental records. Supposedly. In his mind, the timing of the blaze had always pointed directly at Fair Oaks. Or a few miles north, to Langley. Or...
Cross-purposes. Wheels within wheels within wheels.
DiMartini shared the present caller’s discomfort over the early morning violence in Muleshoe Canyon. But for different reasons. Very much of The Old School, Santo DiMartini deplored doing harm to those outside the organization – unless of course they were necessary targets. It had nothing to do with morality; such incidents tended to become spin-problems – and worse. Tedious. Expensive. And harder than ever to suppress in these days of instant news, of the web, and TV stations desperate to fill time with reports of that sure-fire, inexpensive-to-cover audience pleaser, criminal violence.
On the other hand DiMartini of all people knew that such acts were sometimes unavoidable. He had already conceded, albeit with some reservations, that in this instance his nephew, Thomas Vercelli, had made the correct choice.
In reporting the incident a few moments earlier, Tommy had vindicated DiMartini’s decision to send him on such a critical assignment, revealing to his uncle a reassuring toughness. Not that Tommy hadn’t proven himself on any number of occasions during the five years he had been with the family, but those were in the area of business, of negotiation. DiMartini’s fear from the beginning was that, beyond the young man’s obviously quick, inventive mind, there might be, at some crucial push-to-shove point, too much veneer – too much Choate, Harvard, yachting and tennis at Newport and the Cape and the Vineyard. Too much of the dilettante who would find such measures overly coarse. Which was why DiMartini had provided him with proven, dependable assistance in the persons of Emile Beauchesne and Desi Matanza.
As always it was difficult for DiMartini to relinquish control. But with some luck they would find what they were looking for and be long-gone by tomorrow with, given the remoteness of the place, no one the wiser. And finally be done with the matter.
“The point is, the items have got to be there – someplace.”
“If they still exist.”
The arrogant condescension caused DiMartini’s throat to tighten. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I said---”
“I heard you. Alright?”
“Splendid. Then you understand that you simply have not found them yet.” DiMartini was aware that much of his antipathy was resentment of the very privileges he had financed, out of obligation to his favorite sister, if not to her bum of a husband. But at bottom DiMartini could not recall a time when he felt any fondness for the boy. On the other side, however, was blood.
“Call me.” Santo DiMartini disconnected, laid the phone on the side-table.
The previous afternoon before Tommy’s departure for Utah, DiMartini painstakingly briefed him – though of course short of telling the entire s
tory. Which angered young Vercelli. But there was no need for him to know all of it. Not yet anyway.
For the old man it was also a means of avoiding an argument about the scant likelihood of recovering what they were after. In the absence of concrete proof that the objects in question had been destroyed, it must be assumed – as it had been since long before Tommy was born – that they still existed.
DiMartini focused his black eyes on a point beyond the pool. Many years beyond it. On a decision he’d made. When he finally spoke, his words were angry/sad: “Those bones – that has got to be the sonofabitch that...” He did not want to hear himself say the rest of it, to feel the pain, his voice breaking as it always did. Nor did he wish to confront his profound disappointment that his most cherished goal would never be realized. It had been a vision for so long – one that in large measure sustained his will to live, enabled him to overcome cancer, heart irregularities, thyroid imbalances, to work through periods of depression that lengthened, deepened with the years – the picture – imagined and re-imagined so many times that he could almost taste it – of his glorious, almost erotic satisfaction as – hands clamped on the man’s throat – he would watch the motherfucker die.
Alex Moffat stopped fanning himself. “Santo, you can’t---”
DiMartini overrode him. “No, dammit. I know it’s him! You know it’s him.”
“All I meant was – you can’t do anything to him now.”
DiMartini was about to re-light his cigar, looked at his friend for a long moment before speaking. “Yes, but he can kill us.”
“That’s what I mean. Suppose someone’s already found them.”
“And figured out what they are.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A couple of possibilities. Either our friends from D.C. will visit us, or we’ll be executed. Or both.” DiMartini lit his cigar. “No great loss at this point.” He picked up his Wall Street Journal, returned to the stock tables. After almost a minute he became aware that Alex hadn’t moved. DiMartini glanced questioningly at his friend.
Moffat looked as if he wished he were somewhere else. “Nothing.”
“What?”
Moffat fidgeted.
DiMartini tried to ignore it, could not. He knew what it was about, spoke gently. “Alex, he’s had a life. We all have...”
Alex Moffat looked away.
Thomas Vercelli pocketed his phone, inspected himself in the mirror. He adjusted his vest, the knot of his Sulka necktie. And scowled. He wanted to kill Lari. He’d told her dozens of times how he hated it when his hair made those little out-curling wings over the top of his ears. He knew he should never let her near him with her scissors after 11 AM. That’s when her mind would begin to wander. All that compulsive fitness shit, the organic diets and jogging and marathon running.
It was clear when he phoned Beautour that, who-knows-how, his uncle already knew about the bloody business up in the canyon. Vercelli felt two ways about that. First, it irritated him that he was being tested, that DiMartini had watchdogs monitoring his performance. Second, it still angered him that he wasn’t trusted enough to be told the truth about what he’d been sent all the way to East Jesus to retrieve. Third, though, he had to admit he admired the old bastard for still being on top of his game at such an advanced age.
Vercelli turned to the two men he’d let into his room during the phone conversation. “So?”
The tall one, Beauchesne, was slouched in a chair, spread his palms. “Nothing. Quinn’s house is clean. The garage, everything.” He threw his partner a brief glance. “And his car.”
“Hey, whaddya want? I did it your way.” Which meant Desi Matanza had – reluctantly – not cut up the car’s interior. The surly, slightly built Cuban thumbed his sunglasses up onto his forehead, rubbed his moustache. “Now what?” It was a challenge.
Tommy Vercelli sighed, looked out the motel room window at the La Sal Mountains rising above Moab. In the few hours since the incident at the dig site they had searched the Sheriff’s offices as well as George Quinn’s office and home.
“It’s gotta be over there in Colorado.” He grabbed his suit jacket and attaché case, headed for the door.
Beauchesne unfolded his long frame from the chair, winced as he straightened his left knee. “You know this is insane.”
“Emile...” Vercelli held the door open for the pair.
“Hey. All I’m saying is – it makes haystack needles look like fucking elephants.”
TEN
1963
Thursday, November 21st
The shot pinged as it hit the metal target support.
One of Joe Bob’s arms was around Marjorie, his hand helping her steady the rifle. His other hand was kneading her breast. She giggled, kissed him, then squeezed off another round.
Cute.
From behind one of the long line of eucalyptus trees that bordered the Fairview Rifle Range Charlie pressed the Pentax’s shutter release, advanced the film and shot another. Not great stuff. Certainly not the money pictures Stan Brodax was looking for, but okay. They at least demonstrated that the pair weren’t brother-and-sister. And that Joe Bob was probably going to make himself more available tonight. He was no longer wearing the neck-brace.
Marjorie handed him the rifle, sat on the stool and leaned forward, her open jacket revealing a lot of cleavage as she eagerly sighted through the target scope to see where her bullets had gone. Her glum expression as she pulled back from the eyepiece said it all. At fifty-or-so yards Charlie couldn’t hear their words, but Joe Bob mouthed a few that, accompanied by his oily used-car-dealer leer and a pat on her ass, were probably sympathetic. If not downright carnal.
Yeah. Definitely a guy looking to get laid.
Charlie re-framed through his 300 millimeter lens, sharpened the image. Joe Bob propped the rifle-barrel in the notched support and urged Marjorie to try again. He guided her aim, copped another feel.
Given Charlie’s years of observing people who didn’t know they were being watched, he had long ago lost the capacity to find anything surprising about human behavior. People biz.
But this – I mean what asshole on a cold November afternoon in Texas instead of wrapping himself up in his nice warm girlfriend he decides instead to show her how to shoot his fucking rifle?
On the other hand, check-in time at most motels isn’t till around three, so I guess why not?
Back in Amarillo it had still been dark when Charlie positioned the Chevvie a block down from the Panhandle Inn, with a clear view of the parking area. It was a good thing he’d resolved to get there by 5:30 AM because exactly three minutes later – before he’d taken the second bite of his bear-claw – the red pickup, with Joe Bob at the wheel and Marjorie beside him, rolled out onto Third Street.
Shit. Still wearing the goddam neck-brace.
Charlie trailed them at a suitable distance, scribbled an entry in his surveillance log. Near the edge of town they pulled into an I-Hop. He parked across the road, downed his bear-claw and coffee while they breakfasted inside, and then followed them south through Plainview, on out of Lubbock. If they made him, they gave no sign.
Just past Lamesa the couple stopped for lunch at a roadhouse Charlie figured passed for upscale – no eighteen-wheelers in front and only a few burnt-out lights in its beer sign.
The chilly wind came up again as Charlie huddled at an outdoor Tex-Mex stand within sight of the place. By the time he’d eaten half his bean-and-cheese burrito-with-onions-and-hot-salsa his stomach was making negative comments. He belched, climbed back into the Chevvie, popped several Tums. And waited. Presently the subjects came out of the roadhouse, laughing, touchy-feely, and took off, stopping twenty minutes down the road at the Fairview Rifle Range.
There were a half-dozen or so shooters spaced out beneath the long, rusting, tin-roofed ramada. Charlie’s digestive tract was still protesting when he positioned himself behind the stand of trees and watched Marjorie and Joe Bob emerge from the little office. The
cowboy was carrying his rifle and several boxes of ammunition he’d presumably purchased inside after paying the one dollar fee. They’d taken up a position several slots from the far end.
Good. Harder to see me.
Charlie lined up his next shot.
Better. A lot. Joe Bob was now standing behind Marjorie, bracing the rifle with his left hand while his right was snaked around her hip, massaging her crotch. Marjorie was laughing, halfheartedly trying to brush it away, but the cowboy---
Ohforchrissake.
Some new customers were moving in between the couple and Charlie, interfering with his view. One, a heavy-set fellow with his rifle slung over his shoulder, helped a smaller, slightly-built shooter take off his windbreaker, which the big guy then shook out like it was a toreador’s cape – effectively obscuring the action in the vicinity of Marjorie’s private parts. The third member of the group, a paunchy type with aviator sunglasses, rolled up his sleeves and prepared to fire his weapon. The fourth seemed to be unarmed. He removed his black topcoat, revealing a dapper gray business suit. And decided to lean on the railing, further messing up Charlie’s sightline. As the three with weapons prepared to fire, Charlie moved to the next tree, about ten feet to his left.
He squinted through the viewfinder, refocused, snapped several pictures in rapid succession, then had to reposition himself again in order to find a semi-clean angle on Marjorie and Joe Bob. And when the shutter finally made that peculiar half-thunk sound that told him he was at the end of the roll he was relieved. Save it for tonight.
Charlie squinted, coughed, a half-burned Camel between his lips, head cocked in a failed effort to keep the smoke out of his eye. Using a loupe and his flashlight, he was re-examining a contact sheet of that afternoon’s rifle range photos. The only other illumination was the pink glow of the darkened laundromat’s neon sign. He looked out over the Chevvie’s steering wheel. Down the road the Longhorn Lodge blinked Deluxe Rooms - King Size Beds - Free TV. Vacancy was lit. The sky was dark, overcast. Not much traffic. Still no sign of the red pickup.
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