by Lakota Grace
I tucked in my wrinkled shirt and rolled down my window as he approached.
“License and registration please.”
I flashed my cop's ID.
He leaned down further and gave me a look over the top of his mirrored sunglasses. “Peg Quincy. What, you speeding? You know I'm always behind the Gecko Insurance billboard this time of the afternoon. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were propositioning me.“
“Don't I wish. Too bad you're a happily married man.” I gritted my teeth and flashed what I hoped would pass for a charming smile. “I was thinking about a case. I'll slow it down.”
“You know, Peg, that we set an example for the people we serve and protect. If we aren’t law-abiding citizens…”
Charlie let his pompous voice trail off. I kept my face neutral. Blah de blah blah. When Charlie had a few too many at P.J.s, a favorite sports bar in the Village of Oak Creek, he’d drive his own car home afterward, good law-abiding citizen that he was. Pot and kettle.
He waited to see if I would grovel a bit more and when I was silent, finally let me off the hook. “You watch that speed now. Little kids around.”
I gave him a two-fingered salute and he did the same. He sauntered to his patrol car and I signaled to pull back out into traffic.
One of the curses of living in a rural area. That humiliating traffic stop would be all over the sheriff’s department lunchroom by the shift’s end. Maybe I could report in tomorrow with a bag over my head.
I set the cruise control for two miles under the speed limit. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out some gum, popped it into my mouth, and chewed hard. It was hard to stop thinking about cases when the workday was done, but not fun to be on the receiving end of a traffic stop, either. It was unsettling to live in a world with no room for error 24/7.
With the shorter days, dark shadows crisscrossed the road as my Jetta whined up the last steep grade into Mingus. Shepherd paced back and forth in my driveway as I pulled in.
“Figured I’d stop by and check on the Streicker case,” he said.
About time he was coming to his senses. I was tired of doing this by myself. I needed my partner back.
I popped the car trunk and retrieved the sled and box of children's things from Gil Streicker’s storage unit.
“Need some help?”
“Take the box, I'll handle the sled.” Shepherd followed me up the interior stairs, lugging the carton. Reckless pushed past both of us in his eagerness to be first. He stood at the top of the steps, baying, urging us forward.
“That dog does have a mouth on him. How're your neighbors handling it?”
I set the sled down near the closet and motioned Shepherd to put the box next to it. “Not so good,” I admitted. “I need to think about moving.”
“Somewhere here in Mingus or down the hill?” Shepard asked. “Some nice places around where I live.”
“That would accept a dog like Reckless?”
“Good point. That bay of his carries.”
“And the bank’s been after me, too,” I admitted.
“Saw the eviction notice on the table downstairs. I heard they were planning to tear down this old building, put up some condos.”
Why was I the last person on earth to find out these things?
I shoved a pair of underwear under the bed with one foot and tucked my sleeping T-shirt further under my pillow. Awkward, entertaining men in a studio apartment.
I grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet and a dark T-shirt., my get-free-popcorn from the local theater. Last year's model, so I was trying to get some wear out of it. Waving Shepherd toward the coffee pot in my micro-kitchen, I went into the bathroom to change.
Shepherd hollered through the door, “What's with the sled? Second childhood?”
“Just a minute.” I hung my holster on the bathroom hook, yanked off my uniform and pulled on my casuals. I opened the door to an enthusiastic greeting from Reckless. You'd think I'd been gone for days.
Shepherd was sitting on the couch drinking from my favorite coffee mug. I poured coffee into my second-best mug, the one with the crack in the lip, and told Shepherd about the break-in at Gil Streicker’s storage shed.
“Nothing left after the thieves pulled out,” I said, “just this sled and a box of kid stuff. Do you think they found anything of value to steal?”
“Streicker was divorced. Sometimes, what the guy gets at the end of a marriage isn't worth spitting at.” His tone was bitter and I remembered he’d had been through an unpleasant divorce, similar to mine. Shepherd was pretty much of a loner. So was I, come to think of it.
Reckless laid a satisfied head on my bare foot, his soft breath tickling my toes while I brought Shepherd up to speed on my visit to the Spine ranch, including the bulldozing of the fire-damaged barn.
“What’s worse,” I continued, “Amanda cleaned Gil’s place, right down to washing his undies. If his death was more than an accident, those folks sure have taken the steps to destroy the evidence.”
I waited for Shepherd to acknowledge we should have been more proactive, but he ignored my hint.
So I continued my report. “I found a key hidden at Gil’s room and visited the bank this afternoon.” I told Shepherd about the bank teller’s story of the missing contents of the safe deposit box.
“You thinking Streicker was hiding money there?”
Shepherd gave me a shrewd look. “What else would it be—diamonds? Not likely, here in Arizona. But where would a ranch hand find that much cash? Drugs, you suppose?”
“If you want to believe Amanda, she said Gil was substance free. Regular AA attendance for a while. Could be blackmail, though.”
“Folks get upset when they are paying to have secrets kept. Murder would silence him permanently.” Shepherd leaned down and scratched Reckless’s ear.
“Shepherd, you ever think about getting another pet?” He’d had a black-and-white kitty for a while, at total odds with his tough-guy persona. I wondered if he was lonely since his daughter took it with her.
He snorted. “Watching you with Reckless is entertainment enough, thanks.” He got up from the couch. “I got to be going. Things to do tonight.”
A shiver ran up my back. “Shepherd, I can’t keep covering for you forever.”
“Didn’t ask you to. This is my business, not yours.” His lips tightened at my rebuke. “You keep following up on the blackmail angle on Streicker. Do some more talking to those folks out at the ranch. When we get the medical examiner’s statement, I’ll make a decision whether to label it a homicide, not before. Did you check in with the ME’s office like I asked you to?”
That was Shepherd. Always a comeback that put me on the defensive. “No, but I will.”
“Good. See that you do. I’ll expect you to call me with regular updates,” he ordered. His preemptive tone indicated he had returned to a supervisor role, with me being the underling.
Fine. I could live with that. But if Shepherd got into trouble, it was on his shoulders, not mine.
The loose board by the landing creaked once as Shepherd turned the doorknob to let himself out, then the house was quiet. Too quiet. The episode with Charlie Doon and this continuing feud with Shepherd left me too frazzled to sleep.
I snapped a leash on Reckless and we went for a late night stroll. The streets were silent in the darkness, palpable warmth still emanating from the old brick buildings. The ailanthus trees waved ghostly branches against the summer moonlight as I stretched tight leg muscles on the steep hills. Reckless pulled at the leash, his nose discovering nighttime creatures.
My mind returned to the mystery of Gil Streicker’s death as my feet adjusted to the cracked and broken sidewalks of the old mining town. If we declared his death a murder, the sheriff’s office would assign more manpower. That would mean folks nosing around our part of the woods, which would shine a spotlight on Shepherd's extra-curricular activities—which could be a bad or a good thing, depending. My partner-loyalty warred agai
nst my instinct for self-preservation.
Reckless stopped to investigate the smells of trash left out for early morning pickup, and I gave the leash a yank. The theft at the storage unit was probably a crime of opportunity, or was it?
And there was the possible illicit money stored at the bank. Who at the Spine Ranch had secrets worth paying for? Perhaps that Raven LightDancer, or whatever his name was, for one. Heinrich Spine? He was an unpleasant sort of a guy, but old enough to have been active in World War II. Perhaps chemical warfare then—or after. His daughter Marguerite? Or even her absent husband?
Too much to consider. As my mind started spiraling in worn circles, I headed for home. When we arrived at the apartment ten minutes later, the front door was ajar. My mind flashed to my service revolver, hanging on on the hook in the bathroom where I’d left it. No help for it now.
I loosed Reckless’s leash as we entered the building. “Search,” I commanded.
With an excited bay, the dog leaped up the steps.
Chapter 11
Reckless barked incessantly from the floor above, but not the wuff-wuff-wuff of a coonhound’s announcement chop at discovering live game. Maybe whoever had been there was gone. At least I hoped so.
I scrambled up the remaining stairs and dived into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and grabbed my revolver belt from beneath my bathrobe. I paused a moment catching my breath, cursing my carelessness at being unarmed.
Reckless paced back and forth outside the room, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor. Drawing my Glock out of the holster I slowly opened the door. Silence. I walked into the one-room apartment and checked the closet, with Reckless crowding my shins. No evidence that anyone had disturbed the box of Streicker’s belongings.
That left the outside. When I opened the back door, my dog pushed past me and dashed into the small yard. The moon had risen, casting long tree shadows over my back shed and the small patch of grass beyond.
“Anything, Reckless?”
He tested the breeze, tail waving. Other than a woof of acknowledgment to the neighborhood stray cat perched on the back fence, Reckless didn’t move. I relied on his keen nose more than my own night-dim senses and breathed easier when he didn’t sense human danger.
I jiggled the hinged padlock on the storage shed. It seemed secure. We walked to the rear of the yard, and I opened the gate to the street beyond. At this time of night, no traffic. A barn owl hooted in the big Aleppo pine and late-night crickets chirped in the bushes. No scrape of boot heels on the asphalt of the street, no brush of leaves by something passing by.
I closed the gate again, walked to one side of the house, and shined the flashlight down the side yard. Then I paced to the other end of the house and did the same. Still nothing.
We returned to the house, and Reckless dashed into the apartment, ran around once for good measure, and leaped up on the bed. For once, I didn’t even argue. I propped a chair under the door handle. Tomorrow I'd get the locksmith out and redo the master lock.
Had it been a casual thief looking for valuable items to fence for drugs? He’d have slim pickings here. I didn’t even own a television. Or could it be they were looking for something more specific?
I crossed to the open closet door and picked up the sled. I turned it over, carefully examining the bottom. Unless there was gold under the rust, nothing there. The tattered Kraft box held kids’ books—nothing that would be worth a burglary. But maybe they didn’t know that…
Stop it! I chided myself. Quit inventing things that don’t exist.
But, too charged up to sleep, I reheated a cup of coffee in the microwave and walked out onto the front balcony, Reckless padding behind me. I sat in the old rocker, listening as an underpowered car labored up the hill toward town.
The full moon illuminated the foothills below and reached to the red rocks near Sedona on the far side of the valley. Finally, I tossed the dregs of the coffee over the railing and walked back inside. Three hours of sleep, if I was lucky.
***
Reckless woke me at dawn, and I did a slow jog in the hills above the mining town, while he ran three times as far, hunting for varmints. I stood for a moment on the ridge catching my breath and looked down on the empty space where the grand Montana Hotel had once stood before fire destroyed it, and farther, into the mining pit where the man had died the first week I came to this town.
Mingus had a history of violence from the mining days, and I carried my own ghosts with me as well. People I'd been too late to help, and one person I'd sent to the hereafter, who would be waiting when I arrived. The memory of that shooting never faded. It haunted my midnight dreams and even returned on sunny mornings like this.
I returned to the house to prepare for work. An incoming phone call vibrated my cell as I walked dripping out of the shower. I grabbed a towel, and draped it around the strategic places. It was Shepherd’s ID.
“Yeah?”
There was traffic noise behind his voice, so he wasn’t at the office.
“Sorry I barked at you last night. This is my affair, not yours. I shouldn't have pulled you into it.“
“What partners do,” I grunted.
Niceties finished, he went on to the real purpose of the call. “The medical examiner's office called this morning. Said you'd ordered a heavy metal test?”
I braced, waiting for criticism of budget expense. His reaction surprised me.
“Good call. There were traces of arsenic.”
“Does that mean we're investigating a murder?”
“Not sure. Don't know if there was enough in Streicker’s body to kill him. With these drought conditions, many of the shallower wells in the valley have elevated arsenic counts. There was enough to make him awfully sick, though.”
“So he could have been impaired when he went into the barn?”
“Could be. But another way of looking at it, he might not have been the intended victim,” Shepherd said.
“Meaning?”
“You know how sometimes a person wanting to commit suicide will make hesitation marks first?”
I made the connection. “You mean somebody was looking for the optimum killing dosage but hadn't reached it yet?”
“Poison is premeditated, not a crime of passion. But it's still filled with risks. Sometimes the wrong person gets hurt.”
So was Gil Streicker the intended victim or just a stand-in? I shivered.
“Shepherd, there was an attempted break-in at my apartment last night.”
“They take anything valuable?”
“You know I operate on a shoe-string.”
“Getting the lock repaired?”
“Yeah, they're coming this morning.”
“Good, although it seems like a waste of money, seeing that you’re leaving that place anyway. Talk to Bettina Schwartz,” he ordered. “She’s good for Mingus real estate, knows what will be coming available.”
For somebody that was AWOL himself, Shepherd was doing a lot of none-of-his-business supervising my personal affairs.
“Anything else?” My tone was sharper than I intended.
“No, that's it.”
“And you're going to be back on the job when?”
“I've got your back. Talked to the sheriff this morning. Everything’s fine.”
It was strange to hear a defensive tone in Shepherd’s voice. Then he quashed it.
“Anyway, don’t forget the case hasn't been declared a homicide yet. I’ll tell you when.”
Saying he had my back didn't help much when he was miles away doing unauthorized surveillance. I closed the connection with a little more force than necessary.
How much longer would Shepherd be conducting this vendetta? More importantly, how long would I choose to be his unwilling accomplice?
Chapter 12
When the locksmith finished and the studio apartment was again secure, I dropped my dog at my grandfather’s house and continued up to the sheriff’s station. The office was empty, She
pherd nowhere in sight.
I tried his cell and listened to the phone ring eleven times. Finally, I received the message, “Party out of range; please leave your message after the beep.” I hung up without leaving a return voice mail. What was the point?
The fax machine’s idiot light blinked that it was out of paper. I stuffed some in, the machine geared into action, and sheets spilled onto the floor. No way to tell if any of it was important. And no telling how long the machine had sat there, unattended.
The hair on the back of my neck tightened. Shepherd knew I’d be late with the lock problem. His job was to be here, providing coverage, manning the office.
I stacked the spilled paper into an untidy bundle and started to read. The first batch was from Solemn Sidney at the medical examiner’s office. Sidney’s report spelled out in exacting detail what Shepherd had mentioned this morning. At least my partner had to sit through Sidney’s lame jokes this time, not me.
I skimmed through the report. Inconclusive signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, so the man may still have been alive when the fire swept through the barn. Traces of arsenic: Possibly chronic, from the physical signs—Mee's lines on the fingernails, redness of the cheeks. Bruising to the back of the head, perhaps sustained in a fall. Again, inconclusive.
The report ended with a hand-written note from Sidney suggesting we search the premises for arsenic. Sidney liked to get in on the action whenever he could—Worse than Shepherd at poking his nose in.
The message-box-full indicator on the station phone blinked accusingly. I punched the play-back button and worked through the stack. The first two messages were from the sheriff, asking Shepherd to call him. My partner’s problem, not mine, since he said he’d made contact already.
Another message invited us to the annual town barbeque. Nice. I wrote the date on our lunchroom calendar. I deleted the next three calls that offered an assortment of roofing deals, screaming mortgage rates, and upcoming sales at the local discount store—didn’t those folks even know what number they were dialing?
The last message was from the forensics lab. I called back, and the agent on duty picked up.