by Lakota Grace
Waiting for him, I noticed something taped to the front window. I took a closer look, thinking it might be a notification of a service call.
“Eviction Notice,” the paper declared. “You have ten days to vacate this property.”
What the hell? It wasn’t much of a place—I was subletting from the bank that had gotten it from an estate sale. But eviction? That didn’t make sense. I paid the rent on time, most months, usually.
I’d held my irritation in check for hours. First that miserable old man at the Spine Ranch--being subjected to Shepherd’s bossing all day--the car troubles. Now this! I kicked at the front door frame. Its solid oak didn’t budge, but I felt my toe wince from the impact.
I hobbled inside in pain and tossed the notice on the entry table. If they wanted me out, they’d just have to send somebody from the sheriff’s office to evict me. Ha! I was somebody from the sheriff’s office.
I grabbed the notice again and squinted at it in the hall light. Ten days’ notice. That was over a week. I’d call the bank in the morning and find out what was up. I limped up the interior stairs to the apartment, Reckless tripping on my heels.
Later that night, I listened to the coyotes announcing the full moon in the hills around me. Priorities. That was what Shepherd drilled into my head. Put the important things first. Right now I had to solve the mystery surrounding Gil Streicker’s death. And that would start with my first arson investigation in the morning.
Chapter 3
Reckless got me up at dawn. After a quick run up mountain paths to keep us both in shape, I showered and readied for work. I dropped the dog at HT’s house so that my grandfather could babysit him and hiked up to the Mingus sheriff's office at the top of the hill.
Mingus, nestled in the Black Mountains, had been a copper mining town at the turn of the century. Now it was an artists' colony and tourist destination, with 400 good citizens needing law and order.
Shepherd was in early, working on a crossword puzzle in his office. That routine hadn't changed. But since the budget cuts, my former assistant, Ben Yazzie, had elected to take a sabbatical and enrolled at Yavapai College, studying for his viticulture degree.
Ben was half-Italian, half-Navajo and depending on the day, he was either learning herb lore in his quest to become a Shaman or fighting with his uncle over his Italian roots. But either way, the degree in growing grapes seemed a good fit for him. Ben told me he was going to be the best wine-grape grower in Arizona, and I believed him.
These days, he pounded away at research on his computer rather than playing video games in the reception area. I missed him and his famous Blue Mountain Coffee. I didn't like change and my life seemed full of it lately.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and wandered into Shepherd's office. The room was hot, even for this early on a summer day. I peered at the wall thermostat. No wonder! It was set at 85 degrees.
I reached for the dial, and Shepherd scowled at me. “Don't touch that. Need to conserve energy, spend less.” He peered with disapproval at the bottle in my hand. “Enjoy that. I’m not ordering any more. Too expensive.”
“You okay, Shepherd?” I asked. It was unusual for him to be grouchy this early in the day.
He fidgeted in his seat and scowled at me. “I’d got to attend a hearing on that Porsche driver we nailed the other day. He’s contesting the ticket.”
That explained it. Nothing crankier than my partner facing a court date. Shepherd was meticulous about his paperwork, and nothing was less controversial than a motorist—especially a sports car driver—claiming he wasn’t speeding when he was.
As a result, nine times out of ten the judge ruled in Shepherd’s favor. Nuisance hearings were a waste of the court's time, too. But Shepherd hated getting up in front of people. He told me he’d had the problem since third grade when he threw up all over a new pair of shoes the day that the teacher forced him to recite the Gettysburg Address.
And his nervousness had worsened with age. Anytime the man was near a witness box, he broke into a cold sweat. I’d once mentioned there were counselors who could help him get over his anxiety, and he just glared at me.
On the other hand, perhaps this would be a cut-and-dried testimony. I didn’t like that Porsche driver either, and not just because his car was red and expensive.
I offered to attend the hearing with Shepherd, but he waved me away. “Nah, I’ll be fine,” he said. “Drop me off at the courthouse on your way to play chimney sweep.”
***
The charred smell of burned lumber hung in the air as I parked my Jetta near the burn site at the Spine Ranch. Ash from the fire and muck from the firefighters' hoses had turned the area into a quagmire. I ducked under the sheriff’s barrier tape and approached the arson investigator.
He was a tall lanky man wearing a yellow hard hat. He tapped a clipboard nervously against his leg as he waited for me.
“Shepherd told me you'd be coming. How's the old bastard doing?”
He handed me another hard hat with a disapproving stare. “Thought he'd have told you to wear old clothes. Fire makes a mess of uniforms.”
“I'll manage. What’re you looking for?” I asked, trying to be sociable. “They send you the photographs from yesterday?”
“I don't need those pictures,” he snapped. “I take my own.”
“And then you'll be looking over insurance records and financials to see if there's a motive for setting the fire?”
“Shepherd didn't tell me you were a rookie.” He peered at me with disdain. “I only determine cause, not motive. I leave the law enforcement to the experts.”
His tone indicated I wasn't included in that category. The guy must have had a fight with the missus before he left home. He’d cut himself shaving, too. A tatter of Kleenex stuck to his chin.
He saw me staring and plucked it off. “Let's get started. Don't touch anything. Burn sites are unstable. Liable to come down on your head.”
I clamped my mouth shut and followed meekly behind. First, he walked around the outside of the entire burned structure. Checking for perimeter damage?
He saw me crane a look at his clipboard and sighed. “All right,” he said. “I'm getting a sense of how effective the ranch's fire protection was.”
“How’d they do?”
“Not too bad,” he admitted grudgingly.” They're on well water here, so they've run a filtered line from that pond over there. See the dry hydrant? And their electrical box is set away from the front exit. Good. Means it wouldn’t be the first thing to go up in smoke with a fire.” He made a check on his clipboard.
“Two exits front and back.” He crossed another item off his list and then peered into the barn. “The center aisle is wide enough for two horses and handlers at a time. Probably why they got all the horses out—get away from that!”
I jumped back as a timber crashed to the floor. I didn't touch the thing; I swear it moved all by itself. I swiped at my sweaty forehead and left a smear of soot.
“I'm going inside the barn. Follow in my footsteps,” he barked.
Half the stable had disintegrated into blackened rubble, but the fire left a small arch of timbers standing by the back entrance. I brushed away cobwebs that draped from one support. The inspector snatched them from my fingers.
“Evidence,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Sloppy maintenance. A broom is the best fire prevention aid in a stable there is.”
“But cobwebs?”
He looked at me with scorn. “Dust and straw accumulate in the webs. They can spread a fire across a barn in minutes.”
His tone said everyone should know that. Well, now I did.
I pointed to a fire extinguisher on the wall. “So why didn't they use that?”
“Probably didn't know how. Have you ever used one?” He didn't wait for my denial. “Anyway, it's only a five pounder. Would have lasted ten seconds at best. Only good for spot fires, not anything fully engaged.”
I pointed to a light bulb on the wall that was bulging in an odd fashion. “Fire does weird things to glass.”
He pounced on my comment. “And why might that be important?”
What was this, Twenty Questions?
He assumed a professorial pose. “Glass is one of the primary indicators of direction of fire. The inert gases inside cause the bulb to bulge in the direction of the hottest blaze. Which in this case would be—here.” He pointed to the edge of the one remaining wall of the barn office.
I remembered the day I’d talked to Gil Streicker and Amanda Riordan. Then, the office had been an oasis of calm in the midst of a thriving concern. Now, it was just a jumble of charred wood.
We crunched over broken glass and entered the space. The greasy imprint of what might have been Gil Streicker’s body streaked the bare cement floor. Switching on his flashlight, the arson inspector traced the wall in a standardized search pattern.
Finally, he pointed to a sharp triangular flare pattern following blackened wires that led to a charred electrical outlet box. That answered why the alarm didn't trigger. No power.
“There it is,” he announced with satisfaction. “Not usually this apparent. Rodents, probably. Always rats in a barn, feeding on the grain.”
I thought of the pregnant barn cat Amanda had worried about. Was it still around? No mice to eat here anymore.
Just for the sake of argument, I asked, “Are you sure it was rodents? Couldn't it be man-made?”
“That's your job.” He touched the tip of his pencil to the sooty flare on the wall. “Got your evidence case ready? Snip that piece of wire off and send it to forensics,” he ordered.
The man’s superior tone grated my nerves. Surely he had brought an evidence kit of his own? Or maybe it was more fun to make the rookie do it. I trudged back to my car, retrieved the evidence box from my trunk, and returned to the barn.
After the inspector had photographed the burned wire, I snipped it at both ends and gently put it in a box for the trip to the lab. I tried not to disturb the soot on the outside of the wire, hoping for latent fingerprints underneath.
The forensics folks were like archaeologists on a dig, laboriously removing layers, a fragment at a time to discover treasures underneath. The painstaking efforts sometimes yielded evidence that solved a crime. I hoped we’d get lucky this time around.
The inspector closed the metal cover of his clipboard and turned to leave.
“So, how are you going to call it?” I asked, waiting to see if he'd go for mice or men, rodents or potential murderers.
“Undetermined!” He chortled triumphantly.
Definitely in a better humor than when we first met earlier this morning. His wife should hire me.
I'd seen enough. Leaving him to photograph the scene, I walked up to the big house.
Marguerite, Heinrich Spine’s daughter, greeted me at the door. “We're about to sit down for a light lunch. Would you like to join us?”
It seemed an unusual invitation to make to a police officer, but I never turn down free food. Marguerite showed me to the bathroom where I washed up and then joined them at a table set for four.
There would be me, Marguerite, her daughter Amanda. That was three. Rosa would be serving and the nurse, Fancy, would probably have lunch upstairs with Heinrich. Who else was coming?
Marguerite’s face brightened as a man entered the dining room. “Raven, I was so hoping you could join us.”
“My dear, I wouldn't miss it.”
I turned in my chair to see a man, mid-forties, dressed all in black with dark hair flowing to his shoulders. I stood and his height matched my own. His eyes were a brilliant blue and had that particular intensity gained by opening them even a little wider. A crystal amulet hung around his neck.
“You must be Peg. I've heard about you. I'm Raven LightDancer.” His handshake was soft. I sensed unease about the man and my alertness went up a notch. Past history with the law? Some former convicts I'd known shared his hesitant manner.
Amanda joined us, and Marguerite rang a silver bell. “Rosa, you may serve us now.” The woman brought in plate after plate of cold dishes for summer fare. Sparkling apple cider with mango. A mango lassi, that sweet Indian drink made from yogurt. Mango quinoa salad. I detected a pattern here.
“Nice lunch,” I commented. The mango cider was tasty.
“You like it?” Raven seemed genuinely pleased.
“It's for my diet,” Marguerite explained. “Raven thinks that I'll become more spiritually aware if we alter what I eat.” She patted his arm. “Raven is my CAM consultant.”
“CAM?” I asked.
“Complementary and Alternative Medicine,” she said with a social smile as she picked at her salad. “The medical doctors don't know everything.”
“Bunch of crap,” Amanda muttered under her breath.
Raven put up his hand like a traffic cop. In a sotto voice, he intoned, “Negativity interferes with the vibrational field.”
Like a good family liaison officer, I turned to Amanda to sooth the negative vibrations. “Are you attending college?”
She shoved black-rimmed glasses back on a snub nose. “I want to be a vet, but I'm taking a little vacation from school right now.”
“Dropped out. Why don't you tell her the truth,” her mother said.
The overweight girl ducked her head as though warding off a blow. She put an extra scoop of mango on her plate. “I'm helping grandfather with the ranch business.”
“Feeding the horses. Mucking out the stables!” Marguerite exclaimed. “Is that proper work for a Riordan?”
Amanda gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles white. “Heinrich promised me a salary as soon as I learn how the system works.”
“Call him grandfather, dear. He is paying for your room and board.”
“And your alternative medical expenses, too. Don’t forget that.” Amanda said under her breath.
Marguerite looked at the plate that Amanda had heaped. “Do you really need to eat that much food? Portions, dear, portions.”
Raven intervened. “Please, Marguerite, Amanda. We have a guest.”
Mother and daughter ignored him, intent on skewering each other.
“I don’t know why you didn’t inherit my genes instead of your father’s.” Marguerite flung words at her daughter like shards of broken glass. “Keeping your figure is important if you ever hope to...” It sounded like an argument they’d had many times before.
Amanda glared back. “If I ever hope to what? Marry some loser like dad?” Her eyes filled with tears. Abruptly she shoved her plate aside, untouched. She rose, tipping over her chair as she rushed from the room.
There was a moment of uneasy silence, and then Marguerite spoke. “Well! I am sorry you had to witness that. I don’t know what got into my daughter. You understand, I’m sure, with that family therapy business you’re in.” She gave me one of those smiles that are all teeth.
I shifted back from her fixed stare. “Family liaison officer, Ma’am,” I corrected. I doubted the mother heard me. Somehow, she didn’t seem the empathic type.
Raven righted Amanda’s chair and addressed Marguerite. “After lunch, don't forget, we've got crystal bowls therapy.” His voice was authoritarian.
“No, I won't forget,” Marguerite said, chastened.
I made my excuses and left the dining room, not staying for dessert. It probably would be something like mango mousse, anyway.
Outside, I passed the ruins of the barn and tasted bitter ashes in my mouth. I would wait for the results of the autopsy, and then I'd be back. Murders were often committed by those close to the victim. Here, that might be Heinrich Spine or some other family member.
My cell phone buzzed as I got into my Jetta. It was Charlie Doon, one of the other deputies, and his voice was somber.
“Suicide, out Lake Montezuma way,” he said. “Meet you there.”
Charlie Doon was everything that I wasn’t as a cop—
early to work, late to leave, well connected with the right crowd. Every comment he made was spit-shined for maximum effect. While I stalled in my FLO job, rumor had it he was on a fast track for promotion to detective. Maybe I needed to cultivate Doon’s perfect smoothness. I contemplated it for a slow moment, then discarded the idea. Not even for a promotion, would I turn into a Charlie Doon clone.
Chapter 4
About a half hour later, I pulled into the drive of a small white house with blue shutters. Charlie Doon was getting ready to leave, and we positioned the cars nose-to-tail for the briefing.
We rolled down our windows and Charlie consulted his notebook for the interview he'd just taken. His shirt still had crisp creases from the cleaners. I glanced down at mine, wrinkled from the heat and bearing a smudge of ash. I scrubbed at it and the motion caught Charlie’s eye. Rats.
Charlie’s notes were precise and well ordered. “Deceased is one Johnny Miller—age 18. History of depression. Looks like an overdose. Single mother, one Mrs. Janet Miller. No husband. Another little kid in the house.”
It didn't take him long to give me the basic circumstances of the boy's death. It didn’t take him long to leave, either. His car tires made a gravely sound as he backed out of the drive. Dealing with grieving mothers was not on Charlie Doon’s list of promotion-yielding activities.
I knew the statistics and they weren't pretty. Suicide was the third leading cause of death among teens, following accident and homicide. Males were four times more likely than females to succeed, and if there was a history of other suicides in the family, then the risks skyrocketed.
Dealing with people in crisis was part of my job as Family Liaison Officer. Caring and help at the right moment made it easier for folks to get through the tough times. At least that’s what I told myself, preparing for the visit ahead.
The Millers’ house was a peaceful place, or would have been before the events of this morning. Cicadas started up in the mesquite tree at the edge of the yard, and a mourning dove cooed. But as I approached, the EMTs loaded the gurney with its black plastic bundle into their van. One tech gave me a compassionate glance as I climbed the porch steps to the front door.