by Lakota Grace
“What about extracurricular activities?”
Amanda’s fingers stilled on the horse’s neck. “Like what?”
“Alcohol, drugs, that sort of thing.”
“Gil used to drink, but said he stopped when his little girl asked him to.”
“Did he attend AA?” I asked.
“He went to meetings in town for a while. Then he quit going.” Amanda’s head lifted proudly, in defense of the man. “Gil said he could do better on his own without some fool poking through his business.”
More likely the man had secrets he didn’t want to share. “What about drugs?”
“After Gil stopped drinking, he said he treated his body like a temple.”
A temple he shared freely with female acolytes? I thought back to the play he’d made for me when we first came to the ranch. “What about girlfriends?”
Amanda hesitated. “Well, you'll find out about this sooner or later. Gil and I were...”
“Lovers?”
She reddened and then lifted her chin defensively. “No.”
I tried again. “What about boyfriend-girlfriend?”
The girl nodded slowly. “We couldn't tell anybody about our love, because of Heinrich.”
The horse stamped a foot impatiently. Amanda untied another hank of long black hair and combed through it with gentle movements.
“Heinrich…” I prompted.
“I'm due to inherit when Heinrich dies. Gil said we'd wait a little. Well, you know.”
So Amanda was due to inherit, not her mother? Something I'd need to check out.
“Other than that, did Gil and your grandfather get along?”
“Not exactly,” Amanda admitted reluctantly. “Heinrich threatened to shut down the horse operation and raise cattle. Cows, instead of horses! Gil set him straight on that point, for sure.”
“They argued?”
Amanda’s mouth clamped shut. Interesting. I’d run that bit of information by Shepherd.
I tried another topic. “We were called out here the day before Gil died. What can you tell me about the argument?”
“That Serena Battle! Who cares about those stupid irrigation ditches, anyway? There's plenty of water to go around. That brother of hers is just plain creepy. Gil said if he ever saw him around here again, he'd...”
“He’d what?”
“Never mind. Gil just wanted to keep me safe.” Her eyes welled with tears.
I was getting a broader image of the ranch manager, volatile in temper as well as passionate about the opposite sex. It would be easy to make enemies that way.
I pulled the picture out of my pocket. “Know this little girl?” I handed it to her.
“Veronica!”
“Who?”
“Veronica Streicker, Gil's daughter. See the resemblance?”
She flashed the picture at me, but I couldn’t match Gil’s masculine appearance to the little girl. Maybe a loving parent could. Was Gil that sort of father?
“Gil left her back East when the family split up,” Amanda said. “He wanted to bring her here, to live with us after we married. That will never happen now.” Her tears spilled over.
“Can I keep this as a remembrance?” She clutched the picture to her chest.
I held out my hand. “I'll make you a copy.” Reluctantly she surrendered it.
“If you want a good suspect, there's always Raven,” she said. “His name isn't LightDancer. Never has been. Everybody knows that except Mother.”
Her voice held contempt, and I wasn’t sure whether it was for Raven, her mother, or both. Tension there, and it sounded like a lot of back history.
Amanda unhooked Black Onyx from the restraining lines and snapped on a lead. I jumped out of the way as she backed the large animal out of the grooming stall and went down the center aisle of the barn toward the paddock.
There, she loosed him into the pasture. Onyx hip-hopped once and then broke into a canter that lengthened to a gallop, his black mane and tail flying. Beautiful, wild, and free. And tangling all that black hair into more knots for Amanda to unsnarl.
I had a few worry knots of my own, starting with the death of Gil Streicker and then Shepherd’s curious reluctance to investigate it. My partner was stalling and I wanted to know why.
Chapter 8
The next morning, our small office was empty—no sign of Shepherd. So I drove over to the far side of the Verde Valley and finished distributing the sheriff’s burglary brochures. Then I stopped by the side of the road and pulled out the notebook I’d started on Gil Streicker’s death. It wasn’t a murder book yet—my partner Shepherd would have to make that call—but it was a start.
I examined the storage receipt from Gil Streicker’s desk. The rental was close, and I figured I’d drop by. I plugged the address into my GPS, but when I arrived at the location, a building-free lot crowded with sunflowers greeted me.
Sighing, I pulled out the storage receipt and dialed the main number. A sad day when you couldn’t trust a smart phone’s Google Earth. The man who answered the phone gave me the directions—turn left, not right at the four-way stop. He said I couldn't miss it.
Ten minutes later, I drove into the yard. The rental place was a single-story orange edifice that proclaimed in big letters, “Skeet's Rental. Cheapest in the Verde Valley.” The facility was surrounded by a chain-link fence to deter theft, but the front gate was wide open. The front office could monitor the gate, if anyone was there, which they didn’t appear to be. A big sign on the front door said, “Back in five minutes.”
I turned off the motor and dialed Shepherd. “You call the sheriff? He’s looking for you.”
“It'll be fine. What you got for me on the Streicker case? You been out to the ranch?”
I told him about finding the storage receipt in Gil’s quarters. “I'm at the front gate of the rental place now.”
“I'll check in with Sheriff Jones. Meant to do that anyway. Hey! Did you know the Peace Store had a great deal on night binoculars? I picked up a pair.”
Night-vision binoculars? The tight sheriff’s department budget didn’t allow for such extravagances. Which meant Shepherd might be planning some off-the-record surveillance. He could persist to the point of mania when tracking the solution to a puzzle, and I wondered which one he was working on now.
Once he had me searching night and day for a missing shoe. I wore out a uniform on that one, climbing in and out of dumpsters. But the recovered footwear led to a break in a case, and a bad guy was convicted.
I remembered his disappointment about the court hearing on the Porsche driver. Was that the issue causing this sudden interest in night-view binocs? I hoped not. Surely, Shepherd had better sense than conducting an off-the-grid stakeout that could get us both in trouble.
He said we’d talk at lunch and I could bring him up to speed. We set up a rendezvous at Beto’s, a Mexican restaurant in Camp Verde specializing in authentic home-cooked food.
Before I could question him further, Shepherd cut the conversation short. “Got to go, things to do. You can tell me what you find in the storage unit at lunch.”
He rang off before I could respond.
I frowned. Conflict with colleagues was difficult for me. Yet I had to confront Shepherd on his faulty sense of priorities before it was too late. I needed this job, meager as the pay was.
***
I waited for another ten minutes outside the storage company office. Still no sign of the clerk and the interior of the car was heating up in the summer sun. I buzzed up the windows and got out. Time to investigate on my own. At least I could find out where Gil’s unit was.
Comparing the number on the receipt with the numbers on the storage roll-down doors, I worked my way toward the rear of the complex. Gil's unit was in a far back corner of the fenced-in area, unobservable from the front office. Although the corrugated door to his unit was closed and padlocked, the round safety lock swung free, its hasp severed with bolt cutters. No key needed.
I debated returning to my car for a pair of gloves but spotted a half brick by the corner of another unit door. Somebody had the same problem. I grabbed the chunk of brick, wedged it under the rim of the door, and hoisted upward with my shoulder.
The roll-up lifted in a screech of metal. The bolt-cutting thieves had stripped the unit. The entire eight-by-ten-foot space was empty, except two items in a far corner: a stained corrugated box, its top flaps ripped open, and a child's sled tilted forlornly against the wall.
I crouched down and shined my flashlight level with the cement floor. At that extreme angle, a jumble of undistinguished footprints and the narrow-wheel tracks of a dolly appeared in the beam of light.
The missing contents of the unit had undoubtedly been scattered to yard sales across the valley, proof of ownership gone. This practice made items impossible to trace unless you had serial numbers and sales receipts. And the honest folks who had purchased an item in good faith would put up resistance to returning it. That’s why insurance companies paid claims without question, and people reluctantly replaced lost items. A lesson, there, about having too much stuff to take care of.
I bent down and examined the contents of the cardboard box. Children's books— Alice in Wonderland, The Little Engine That Could, The Poky Little Puppy. I riffled through the last one. It had been one of my favorite books as a kid—drove HT crazy reading it to me, over and over. Even then, I loved the rule-breakers in life, especially in puppy form.
All of the children’s books were inscribed, “From Daddy to Ronny.” He had saved them all this time. Maybe they reminded him of what he had lost in the divorce. At the bottom of the box was a kindergarten report card for one Veronica Streicker. I opened it. She made all As except for a C in deportment. A summary comment read, “Does not play well with others.” Way to go, Veronica. I didn't either.
And that's when things shifted in my mind. My father abandoned my mother and me when I was about the age of this little girl. He sent checks and cards for a while, and then they stopped coming. I wondered where he was or what he was doing now. Perhaps he was no longer living.
Gil Streicker’s little girl didn’t need to be like me. She deserved to know what had happened to her daddy. I'd do the best I could to find out, even if it meant bending a rule or two.
I shoved the contents back in the box and refolded the flaps. Then I hoisted it to one shoulder and grabbed the sled. I’d return these to Veronica, with news of her father, as soon as I could. I walked out of the unit, set them down and yanked the metal door down, ignoring my blistered fingers. I’d reexamine the contents in a cooler location.
Then I walked to the front of the complex to put the sled and box in my car trunk. The sign had disappeared from the window. When I entered the main office, the clerk wiped greasy fingers on a napkin. He held a McDonald's cup in one hand and took a hasty sip as I approached.
“I must have just missed you. Across the street. Morning break,” he explained. From the look of his ample belly, he and Mickey D kept good company.
I showed him my ID and the rental receipt, told him about Gil Streicker’s death, and asked about the unit.
The clerk swiveled and opened a metal file cabinet behind him.
“Streicker, Streicker…Here it is.” He pulled a slim manila file from the drawer. Opened it and looked at the contract.
“Mr. Streicker always paid a year in advance. Not too many of our tenants do that.”
“Did he visit the unit often?”
“Can't say.”
When I told him about the break-in, the man was apologetic. “I'm not always at the front office. Have to make rounds, you understand.” Then he admitted this wasn't the only unit theft. There’d been a rash of break-ins recently.
My irritation rose. The truth was, security at the place was non-existent. Whatever Gil had stored there had vanished into the underground economy. Perhaps even with the complicity of the overweight clerk sitting in front of me.
“Still had six months to go on the lease,” the clerk said. “What should I do with the refund?”
I told him to mail it in care of Amanda Riordan and gave the address. Maybe Amanda could donate it to a humane shelter in honor of Veronica. Gil might like that. I told the clerk he could re-rent the unit if he wanted. Streicker wouldn't need it anymore. When I left the office, he was rummaging in the paper sack for spud rubble hiding in the bottom.
***
It was time for lunch. Beto's Corner in Camp Verde was off the beaten path, and that's why I liked it. I turned east at the Middle Verde exit off I-17 and curved through the roundabout at the Cliff Castle Casino.
The casino parking lot was filled with tourist buses and the big sedans that some retirees favored. Casinos had been a mixed blessing for our Native American communities in Arizona. The gambling centers brought needed wealth, but also a dimension of unhealthy living that was tough to explain to the Native kids I met.
This one was run and operated by the Yavapai Indian tribe, which means the law enforcement at the casino fell to them, too. I’d had dealings with the Yavapai Nation Police before and found them to be competent and cooperative. Unlike my partner, Shepherd Malone. My stomach tightened at the conversation with him that lay ahead.
I turned left into the Beto's Corner parking lot. A big “Open” flag fluttered in the warm breeze. My stomach rumbled as I stared at the menu written mostly in Spanish that hung over the order window. I knew what I was going to have, but stared anyway. It seemed the right thing to do.
The owner took my order. He had been a miner in the southern part of the state until he was injured and had to retire. I was happy that their business had prospered. I liked their tequila lime burritos much better than fast food hot dogs. Even though it was Taco Tuesday, I ordered the burrito anyway, with extra hot sauce and an iced tea to cool it down.
When my order was ready, I walked to a group of picnic tables shaded by old cottonwood trees to wait for Shepherd. It was quiet, before the lunch crowd hit, a good place to organize how I wanted to confront my partner.
Shepherd arrived, stared at the menu board just like I had, ordered a combo plate with a glass of water, and slid in across from me at the picnic table.
“How's the day going for you, Quincy?”
“The sheriff called again. Have you talked to him?”
Shepherd frowned at me. He had dark, baggy circles under his eyes, and his hands shook as he sipped the water. My determination to call him on his derelict behavior dissolved, and my family liaison officer empathy surfaced instead.
“Everything okay?” I asked. “You don't look so hot.”
“I'm fine,” he snapped. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”
The server interrupted us with Shepherd’s food, and we unrolled plastic ware and napkins. I took a bite of the burrito and wiped lime salsa from one corner of my mouth. Something had put Shepherd in a foul mood.
“What's up?” I asked.
“Remember that red Porsche we caught speeding?”
I nodded.
“His fancy lawyer filed an appeal. He’s claiming discrimination and profiling.”
“That’s ridiculous! The judge denied it, right?”
“Nope. Rescheduled the case, for further consideration.”
I nodded sympathetically. “What's their claim? Was the driver Hispanic?”
Since the Arizona legislature passed tightened immigration laws, we’d had allegations of pulling people over on spurious stops to check for legal status.
Shepherd pounded his fist on the table in frustration, spilling his water glass. I handed him a bunch of napkins. Then I waited while he mopped up the mess.
“Neither,” he said. “Would you believe it was because he wa
s driving a Porsche? I was picking on him because he’s a rich dude.”
“Discrimination by auto. That's a new one. Who's the attorney?”
He mumbled something.
“What? Can't hear you.” Then I hooted. “Myra. Bet it's Myra Banks, right?”
Myra was Shepherd's nemesis, ever since she represented his wife in divorce proceedings. Old defeats never die.
“Suing you, are they? Have you notified the sheriff's office?” I asked.
Shepherd squirmed. “Not yet. If I can track him, prove he's guilty, maybe I can still get him put away.”
He took a large bite of chilies rellenos. “Driver like that’s not safe on the streets. He was speeding near a school zone.”
“I was with you. Nowhere near a school zone. Apologize to the man and let it go, Shepherd.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” He scowled.
I glared back. “Yeah, well somebody needs to. What about Gil Streicker’s death? While you’re out running around after this drunk, a killer may be loose. That’s part of your job, too.”
“My job is none of your damn business. This thing with the Porsche driver is personal. I can’t let it go, Peg, I just can’t.” His eyes appealed for understanding.
“Yeah? Convince me.”
He sighed. “All my life I’ve been a by-the-books cop. Compiled good evidence, seen case after case tossed out. Guilty criminals back free on the street endangering innocent people.
“Just once, before I retire,” he said, “I want to nail one of those sons-a-bitches, put him behind bars for so long even his mother forgets him.” His fists clenched until the knuckles whitened.
“But the situation out at the Spine Ranch…”
“You’re doing just fine on the Streicker thing. It hasn’t been declared a homicide and maybe it won’t ever be. He could have tripped over something, hit his head.”
“What about that stripped wire?”
“Points to arson, serious, but not homicide.”
My jaw set. Shepherd was wrong.
“You want to be a detective?” he asked. “Now’s your chance. Detect, if you are so determined. Leave me along to handle this problem and then I’ll be back. Another couple of days, tops. Trust me on this one.”