The McHenry Inheritance (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 1)

by Michael Wallace

  “Yup. Just go back and knock.”

  Gordon went through a swinging door, walked past the receptionist and three other desks, two of them vacant, to a door with a frosted-glass window. He rapped on the glass, then went in when bid to do so. The sheriff was looking raptly at a large color computer screen, but when he saw who his visitor was, he stood, and extended his hand.

  “What took you so long to come by? You’ve been up here since Monday.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “It’s my job to know what’s going on. I can tell you where you’ve been fishing every day, and if you weren’t on vacation I’d warn you against drinking beer in saloons in the middle of the afternoon. It’s driven a lot of men to ruin. Have a seat.”

  Gordon sat down and took a good look at Baca. He was a large man, standing six-four, with a stocky frame. His hair was just perceptibly grayer than when Gordon last saw him two years ago and was a bit thinner on top, and the mustache was almost completely gray now. He wore khaki uniform pants and a matching short-sleeve shirt with an open collar that revealed a white undershirt beneath and left his heavily tanned arms exposed. His solid features were accented by the aviator glasses he wore, and his trademark white Stetson lay on the desk at his side.

  “Am I catching you at a bad time?” Gordon asked. “You were looking at that computer pretty seriously.”

  “If the truth be known, I was going through yesterday’s box scores on Compuserve. It’s amazing what you can do with a computer these days.”

  “That one looks brand new.”

  “Law enforcement has to keep up with the times,” Baca said a bit defensively. “This is how we handle information now.”

  “Well, if you’re looking up the box scores, business must be slow.”

  “Except for one thing, it's been blessedly slow since Labor Day. How are things with you?”

  “Pretty good.” Gordon paused. “I was hoping you could fill me in on a little local color.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Well, yesterday afternoon, when the thunderstorm chased me off the river, I stopped by the courthouse and watched a little of the action in Superior court.”

  Baca raised his eyebrows slightly. “Interesting, wasn’t it?”

  “Very. I gather that it’s quite the talk of the town. I was wondering if you could give me a little background.”

  “It’s a sad story, really,” Baca said. “Frank McHenry had one of the most beautiful cattle ranches in the state of California, put it together piece by piece starting just after the war. He was an older man when he married, and from the day his boy was born he dreamed of passing it on to the son. But as time went on, it didn’t look like it was going to work out. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but as things turned out,” he paused, “Dan McHenry was queer.”

  “So that’s the unspoken element,” said Gordon. “But he could still run the ranch.”

  “Doesn’t want to. Or maybe I should say didn’t until the last year or so. He’s been living his own life in San Francisco pretty much since he went off to college.”

  “When did the family find out?”

  “He told them about five years ago. He waited until his mother had died, which was kind. I think they had an idea before that, and I’m sure Ellen knew. I will say that Frank took it pretty well. He was a devout Catholic and a very conservative man, but he accepted his son for what he was.”

  “Frank McHenry never remarried?”

  Baca smiled. “That was one of the town’s most interesting little stories. A couple of years after his wife died, Frank took up with Kitty Stevens who owns Mom’s Cafe.”

  “Oh, sure. I’m one of her best customers.”

  “Anyway, they were pretty seriously involved, but since she was divorced, Frank wouldn’t marry her. Contrary to church doctrine and all that. But they did everything together, and she became like a second mother to Ellen. He left her a handsome bequest in his will to put her daughter through college, and it should do that all right.”

  “Well, this makes things a little more clear. I take it, then, that the gay scene in San Francisco is what his sister meant when she said he’d fallen in with a bad crowd.”

  “Oh no no. That’s the rest of the story.” Baca leaned forward across the desk. “Does the name Rex Radio mean anything to you?”

  Gordon whistled. “The talk show host Rex Radio? The one who got fired for making hate remarks on the air?”

  “The same. You might also remember that one of his running themes was that people should form their own posses for self-protection and take the police power away from the state. Well, apparently he’s been acting on his own advice and putting together a highly armed group of his own. Dan McHenry got drawn into that crowd.”

  “This gets stranger by the minute,” Gordon said. “How do you suppose that happened?”

  “With something like that, it’s hard to say. He grew up here, where almost everybody’s white, so he never had much exposure to minorities. In his first quarter in college, he was in San Francisco one night and got mugged and beaten up badly by several black kids. Even as a kid, he always remembered an insult, and the family thinks he may have nursed his grievance over the mugging until it consumed him.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Then when he was up here a year ago he made a real scene at a barbecue at the ranch. He’d had a few drinks, but that’s no excuse for the language he was using. He said we had to arm ourselves against the quote —niggers and Mexicans — unquote or they’d murder us in our beds. And he came up to me and told me that I was illegally in possession of police power as an agent of the government and that a people’s posse would be taking over for me soon.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked him if he or anybody in his so-called people’s posse had ever gone before the voters and won an election. He didn’t appreciate that and stomped off. But I don’t mind telling you I was upset. I don’t like hate and anger, and there was a lot of it in his talk.”

  “So you think that’s why Frank McHenry disinherited his son.”

  “No doubt in my mind. He was a tightfisted, stubborn, conservative old man, but he wasn’t a hater. I really think that’s what did it.”

  “This is fascinating. But why would a group like that take in a gay man? You’d think that would be high on the list of things they dislike.”

  Baca laughed. “They’d sign up a Democrat if they thought it would give them a shot at controlling something like the McHenry ranch. You see, a base of operations would be really valuable to a crowd like that. A place where they could keep a lot of men and weapons and practice whatever sorts of war games it is they practice. I suspect that’s why Dan McHenry and his boyfriend, a fellow name of George, are part of that budding posse, and I think Frank McHenry and his daughter were just beginning to realize where it was all going when Frank had his fall.”

  “So there’s more to this than a dispute between brother and sister.”

  “A lot more. Rex Radio hired that San Francisco lawyer to challenge the will, and from the look of things, he might succeed. He and his entourage have taken over Sullivan Meadows on the West Buchanan and are waiting out the verdict there.”

  “That explains it,” Gordon said. He told the sheriff about his trip to the meadow that morning and the reception he had received from the representative of the encampment.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” said Baca. “They’ve scared off just about everybody who goes up there, and the way they do it is all perfectly legal. A veiled threat or two, then when they start their quote unquote target practice, not many people want to stick around.”

  “Do you have any idea who I was talking to?”

  “From your description, I’d guess Hart Lee Bowen. He was an all-conference linebacker at Arizona State a few years ago, and now he’s Rex Radio’s personal bodyguard.”

  “You must be staying on top of that group.”

  Baca turned to the co
mputer at the side of his desk. “Do you remember I said business was slow except for one thing? That one thing is Mr. Radio and his friends. As soon as I get in every morning, again after lunch, and again at the end of the day, I check the e-mail in this baby. I’m sending almost daily reports to an FBI agent who’s been tracking the Posse Comitatus for the last five years. And there’s an agent named Bill Boyd at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who wants to know how many guns those people are moving. Almost every time I look in the computer, there’s something here from one or both of them.”

  “So you’re playing cat and mouse until the trial’s over?” Baca nodded. “Do you think Dan McHenry can win?”

  “He’s got the better lawyer,” said the sheriff, “and that always helps. Bosso got Judge Courtney disqualified and Judge Hawkins from Fresno to hear the case. And from what I understand, Ellen McHenry said and did some things when the old man was dying that don’t look too good now.”

  “Do you think she did anything wrong?”

  “Me? No, only from the sake of appearances. But it’s how it appears to the judge that matters.”

  “She seems like a strong woman.”

  “Oh, she knows her mind, all right. And she’s doing a bang-up job of running that ranch. Speaking of which, what time did you leave there this morning?”

  “About seven o’ clock. Why?”

  “Then this will be news to you. At seven thirty, Ellen McHenry went into the main barn to feed the horses. When she pushed the barn door open, a sixty pound bale of hay that had been balanced on top of it fell down and missed her by an inch.”

  “Good God!”

  “She was lucky. She had to push the door harder because of the weight of the hay, and she ended up moving off to her right just a bit. If the door had opened in the usual way, the hay would have hit her on the head. She could have been killed.”

  “Could it have been an accident?”

  “Not unless bales of hay have learned to walk across a barn and elevate themselves to the top of a twelve-foot door. And I’ll tell you something else. There’s not much doubt it was aimed at her. Anybody who knows the routine of the ranch could tell you that she goes into that barn every morning to feed the horses and that she’s almost always the first one through that door.”

  “Who …” Gordon was unable to finish the question.

  “I think you’ll find the answer to that in Sullivan Meadows. I can’t prove it, of course, but it looks to me that someone is impatient with the speed at which the wheels of justice move and decided to bring matters to a conclusion here and now.”

  The two men sat for a moment in silence, which Gordon finally broke. “I’m just wondering. Suppose the challenge to the will succeeds …”

  “Or there’s another ‘accident.’”

  “Or there’s another accident and that crowd takes over the ranch. Once they have it, what are they going to do next?”

  Baca smiled. “Well, I’m up for re-election next year. I expect I’d be their first target.”

  • • •

  After lunch, Gordon drove back to the ranch to check on Ellen McHenry. He knocked on the door of the ranch house and was surprised when Kitty Stevens opened it.

  “I’m sorry. I was looking for Ellen.”

  “Gordon, right?”

  “Yes. I just heard about what happened this morning and I wanted to see if she’s all right.”

  “She’s all right and she’s not here. Won’t be back until sundown. Would you like to come in and have a beer?”

  He wavered a moment, remembering Baca’s temperance counsel, then said, “Sure.”

  Kitty vanished into the kitchen and returned a minute later with two bottles of Miller Genuine Draft. She handed one to Gordon and bade him sit down on the large couch facing the fireplace. She sat in a comfortable padded chair perpendicular to him. She was a large-boned, full-figured woman in her early fifties with tousled grey-gold hair, large eyes, large mouth and a casual, impertinent manner that lent itself to sassing back the teasing customers at her cafe. The large eyes were fixed on Gordon as she took a pull of her beer and swallowed.

  “You’ve been taking an interest in my Ellen, Gordon. That shows good taste on your part, but I like to know something about that kind of man.”

  “Really,” he said. “I’m a guest here, albeit a paying one, and I think it’s just common decency to inquire after my hostess when she’s narrowly avoided a bad accident.”

  “So you don’t deny it. Good. Now let me see if I can tell you something about yourself. You’ve had breakfast at my cafe three out of the last four mornings. I’ve always said that you can learn more about a man from the way he eats breakfast than you can from talking to him for a month. Do you want to know what your breakfast says about you, Gordon?”

  “If you eat at Mom’s, that says you’re well-fed.”

  “Thanks, but let’s get back to you. You walk into the cafe in the morning, and the first thing you do is look around very carefully. Then you always pick out the table that’s the most isolated. It’s obvious you want to have your own space. You’d buy a box of corn flakes at the grocery store and eat them in the parking lot before you’d sit at the counter with a stranger on either side of you.”

  Gordon moved uneasily in the couch.

  “When you get to the table, you open your newspaper or whatever you brought to read and start right in on it. You read all the way through the meal and pay no attention to what’s going on around you. The fact that you’re reading and are so focused about it tells me you’re smart and have remarkable concentration. I suspect that serves you well in the business world.”

  He tilted his head downward and to the side in acknowledgement.

  “You also crack a smile from time to time when you’re reading, which tells me you have a sense of humor. You drink your coffee black, which is the sign of a no-nonsense man. Every morning you order scrambled eggs and hash browns, but you change the meat. Bacon Tuesday, sausage Wednesday and ham today. It’s almost like you’re in denial about being in a rut, so you change one thing every day. And you eat your food separately, but move back and forth between items so the portions grow smaller at the same rate. That suggests meticulousness.” She paused for a second. “Frank used to do that, you know. By the way, I’m dying to know if you go back to bacon the next time or skip sequence and go for the sausage.”

  “Your sausage is very good. Do you mind if I ask where you get it?”

  “A market in Reno that makes their own. They’re very good. And finally, you tip 20 percent. That shows you’re not cheap and have some sympathy for a poor working waitress.” She took a long draw on her beer and looked at him with a playful smile.

  After ten seconds of silence, Gordon replied, “I wonder what you could tell about me from a four-course dinner.”

  “We’ll find out tomorrow. You’re coming to the barbecue, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course. Ellen said she was going to invite you but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The second Saturday in September is the McHenry roundup barbecue. It’s quite an event. There’ll be a couple hundred people here at least. You will come, won’t you.”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  “And the last thing you just showed me is that you’re a gentleman. You don’t see too many of those these days.”

  “I try.” Gordon finished off his beer and stood up. “Thanks for the beer and please tell Ellen I called.”

  She walked him to the door. As he turned to say goodbye, she stepped close to him.

  “Listen, Gordon. Ellen’s going through a lot right now.” She jabbed her forefinger into his chest. “She’s a girl who feels things deeply and she really appreciated your talking to her the other night. But don’t rush her.”

  He walked across the open space to his Cherokee. As he got in, he instinctively put his hand on his shirt to reassure himself after that discussion that he had not, indeed, been sitting naked i
n front of Kitty.

  • • •

  Gordon spent the rest of the afternoon driving aimlessly around the county, checking out the condition of the streams and lakes. At one or two of them he stopped and fished for a few minutes, but his heart wasn’t in it. At five o’clock he drove back to Harperville and stopped at the Sportsman for a drink at the bar before repairing to the dining room.

  The Sportsman (Established 1925) was a Summit County landmark. The one frosted window near the door let in a small quantity of late afternoon light, without seriously brightening the comforting gloom within. A long bar took up most of one side of the room, the left side for those entering by the front door. Across from the bar, near the opposite wall, were two pool tables and in the middle of the floor was an open space for dancing. A few tables lined the wall to the right of the entrance. The decor was simple and unpretentious. On the wooden walls, stained dark by years of accumulated tobacco smoke, hung the stuffed and mounted heads of 14 bucks with impressive antlers, along with a hodgepodge of press clippings and faded snapshots of hunters and anglers posed with their kill. About three dozen bras were tacked to the acoustical tile ceiling.

  Nursing a scotch and soda, Gordon found himself in conversation with a divorced teacher, who was trying to forget about her husband and the first week of school with the help of vodka and tonic. Gordon was suspicious of vodka drinkers and tried to limit his response to general murmurs of assent to the propositions that her ex-husband was a bastard and that third-graders were becoming more ill-behaved with each passing year.

  He was looking at the doorway leading to the restaurant and wondering how he could politely extricate himself when four men walked through the door. One was Bowen, the man who had accosted him at the West Buchanan that morning, and another was Dan McHenry. The third was a man in his late twenties with a delicate face, partially hidden by a neatly trimmed beard the same sandy color as his thinning hair, who clung to McHenry’s side as if welded there. He was the first to speak.

  “Let’s get that table over there,” he said, motioning to the far corner. “We can talk there.”