The McHenry Inheritance (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 1)

by Michael Wallace

  Thursday September 16

  Gordon got up in the middle of the night and stepped outside to find that the wind had died down and the clouds had cleared. As he looked up into the night sky, a shooting star fired across it, east to west. He vaguely remembered a childhood story about a primitive tribe that believed shooting stars were a portent of a significant occurrence within two days. But it was cold outside and pleasant inside, so he hurried back in and didn’t think too much about it.

  They were up at first light. As cold as the previous day had been, Gordon was surprised that there was no frost in the meadow, though it was still chilly. He got a fire going, while Ellen fixed coffee, bacon and eggs. Gordon noted that she had brought the bacon and eggs with her in the cooler, which indicated an element of premeditation with regard to the previous evening.

  Something had occurred to him as he went to get water for coffee, and he mentioned it as they ate.

  “I should have thought of this sooner, but there is one more thing I might be able to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The gun. That missing deer rifle is at the center of all this. Baca even said as much the night before last. Without the murder weapon he can’t make much of a case against anybody. With it, there’s an obvious suspect.”

  “Could it be in the mine?”

  “I doubt it. Whoever shot your brother got out of there in a hurry. We know that because Sam and I heard the car go by just a few minutes after the shot was fired. And why make a special trip back to put it in the mine when Radio’s camp is full of rifles and it would blend into the scenery?”

  “That’s not very helpful. Do you think he’s just going to let you ransack the camp?”

  “Of course not. But if Sam or I can get up there on some pretext or other, we might be able to do a little discreet looking around. Tell me, what does the gun look like?”

  “It’s your pretty basic deer rifle, a Winchester 30.06, bolt action, and oh!” She put her hand to her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sheriff Mike told me not to tell anyone what caliber the gun was.”

  “That’s all right. He’s already told me. Keep going.”

  “Anyway, it has a bolt action, a six-shot clip, and a Bausch and Lomb 6X scope on the top.”

  “Does it have any distinguishing marks at all?”

  She nodded. “Dan’s initials are carved into the left side of the butt, and you couldn’t miss them. He got the gun as a birthday present when he was 12 and he was so happy about it that he wanted to mark it right away, so he carved them in with a pocket knife. A block D above a block M. Dad was ready to kill him. He was planning all along to take it back to the sporting goods store and have that done professionally.”

  “It’s something to go on, anyway. Now all I have to do is hope that someone leaves it lying out at camp with the initialed side up.”

  “Isn’t that a pretty remote possibility?”

  “We got lucky with your mine,” Gordon said. “Maybe lightning will strike twice.”

  • • •

  When Gordon arrived in Harperville at mid-morning, his first stop was at the sheriff’s office. Baca looked up from his computer with a knowing smile.

  “I won’t ask where you were last night, since it’s none of my business, but you missed out on the excitement at the ranch.” Gordon raised his eyebrows. Baca’s smile dissolved into a frown as he continued.

  “This is getting serious,” he said. “I mean, it’s been serious all along, but it’s getting worse. Someone tried to incinerate Ellen McHenry last night.”

  “Good God.”

  “They might have succeeded, too, except for two things. A., she wasn’t sleeping in her room last night,” here he paused for dramatic effect and looked at Gordon over the rims of his glasses, “and B, your friend Sam arrived just as the perp was about to act. That probably threw him off just enough to save the house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sam pulled in around ten thirty, and as his pickup was coming up to the house, his headlights hit a man who was standing about ten feet outside the window of the master bedroom. That’s where Ellen usually sleeps. The second that happened, the man threw something through the window and ran past Sam’s truck to the main gate. There was apparently a vehicle of some sort parked there, and it took off as fast as it could go. Sam decided to stay put and called me.”

  “Did he get a good look at the man’s face?”

  “Oh, he was able to identify it beyond a shadow of a doubt. You see, our firebomber was wearing a mask that’s been selling pretty well at the local five-and-dime. He was trick-or-treating as Bill Clinton.”

  Baca paused to let that sink in, then continued. “He was using a crude, but effective molotov cocktail that depended on some holes in the lid for oxygen. The lid was a rotating cover that exposed the holes when you aligned it just so. It appears that the lid was turned to cover the holes, which makes sense, and that when Sam showed up unexpectedly, our man panicked and threw it in without twisting the lid open and giving it any oxygen. If he’d remembered to do that, the house would be a smouldering cinder right now.”

  They were silent for a moment, then Gordon said, “Did you pay a call on Rex Radio this morning?”

  “This morning? Hell, I was up there last night. I wanted to at least interrupt those bastards’ sleep. Of course they didn’t know anything, and, no, they wouldn’t let me look for a Bill Clinton mask, and, oh, the righteous indignation about the unwarranted intrusion into their privacy.” He smiled wryly. “Which, technically speaking, I suppose it was. But I wanted to make them sweat a bit.”

  Baca turned to his computer, punched two keys, and a few seconds later the laser printer near it began whirring. “I have something to show you if I can trust you to keep quiet about it.”

  “Trust me.”

  The printer ran off four sheets of paper, which Baca pulled together, stapled, and handed to Gordon.

  “This looks like an inventory list for Guns ‘R Us,” Gordon said, flipping through the sheets.

  “That’s about right. I had two men in that mine yesterday logging every item into a laptop. As you can see, some of the semiautomatic weapons are missing serial numbers, which, in itself is something to go on. Bill Boyd from ATF is coming by this afternoon to talk about this.”

  “Are they ready to move now?”

  “No, damn it, but they’re taking precautionary measures. A team of sharpshooters is flying into Reno tonight, and they have the use of three helicopters if they need them.”

  “This sounds serious.”

  “Yeah, well they don’t want another Waco.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It could be. Radio doesn’t have all those guns and explosives in the mine for target practice or dynamiting tree stumps. I’ll tell you something else. There’s a case of nitroglycerin in that shaft that’s old and unstable as can be. It could just about go off if you sneezed too loud. I don’t want you or Ellen McHenry going back in there. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not to worry. You couldn’t pay me to go back in that place again. Do you have someone guarding it?”

  Baca shook his head. “I may be wrong, but I don’t think that’s necessary. That stuff’s been put in there over a period of time, probably with the idea that they’ll win the challenge to the will and take possession. We can look in on it every couple of days or so to make sure it’s still there. After all, I have a murder investigation going on, and all my men are pretty busy.”

  “And how is that investigation going, if I could ask?”

  “None of your business,” Baca said.

  • • •

  Gordon swung by Kitty’s for an early lunch. It was a bright, sunny day, and already it was getting warm in town. He ordered a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy, and picked up a copy of The Summit County Echo, the county’s weekly paper, which had just come out that morning. The murder of Dan McHenry was the t
op story, of course, but he held off reading about it until he flipped through the rest of the paper. Before he could get back to the front page, Kitty brought his meal and sat down at the table.

  “Do you know where Ellen is?” she asked. “I tried calling her all last night and early this morning, and she wasn’t in, and after I heard about what happened last night, I’m really worried.”

  “You can probably get her there now. She decided after the wake yesterday that she wanted to get away from the ranch, so she went up to Costello Cattle Camp for the night.”

  Kitty looked at Gordon intently for a few seconds. “I see,” she said.

  He banged his fork on the plate with irritation. “Don’t the people around here have anything better to do with their time than nosing around in everybody else’s business? I’m amazed that anybody could have killed Dan McHenry without it being discussed at the grocery store before the killer even got back to town.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “This is a small town, after all. You don’t have to live a blameless life. I certainly haven’t. But you have to be comfortable with what you’ve done, since everybody’s going to know about it.”

  “I don’t know if I could live in that kind of goldfish bowl.”

  “You’d get used to the pleasure of watching the other fish. There’s always that.” She stood up. “Be good to her,” she said softly.

  He watched her go back to the kitchen, her walk brisk and economical, and her parting words, which he felt carried the moral authority of Ellen’s dead father, reverberating through his mind.

  • • •

  He reached the cabin at the ranch shortly before one o’clock, feeling increasingly guilty about having deserted Sam the night before. Gordon was enough of a man to know when he hadn’t a leg to stand on, and his conscience was pricked further when he saw on his bed a piece of paper, folded over once. He picked it up and read it:

  Gordon: You rat. You invite me up to go fishing with you, then leave me to myself most of the time. Last night was the final straw! I waited for you at the Bamboo Garden until nine fifteen, and finally had to order dinner because they were closing. If you care (which I doubt) and if you want to do anything about it (which I doubt even more), I’ll be working the East Buchanan this afternoon. Having wonderful fishing trip; wish you were here. Sam.

  Gordon smiled. The scolding was deserved, but he knew his friend well enough to realize that putting it on paper had gotten the spleen out of Sam’s system. He began crumpling the paper, then stopped, deciding to save it as a tonic that could be applied whenever he might be feeling too pleased with himself. He also realized now that his unmannerly behavior had been the proximate cause of Sam’s arriving at the ranch later than he otherwise would have, and hence, by sheer chance, preventing Ellen’s house from burning down. He paced restlessly around the cabin for a moment. This had been the third attempt on her life, and it was considerably more bold and overt than the previous two. In view of the direction his relations with her had taken, he was unwilling to leave matters to chance or wait for the federal agents to move against Radio and his men. That could take days and leave Radio with an opportunity to strike again. A course of action had been forming in Gordon’s mind all day long, and this settled it.

  But first there were amends to be made to Sam, so Gordon set out for the East Buchanan. The river runs generally parallel to the state highway, sometimes just below it and sometimes as much as two hundred feet below, depending on the terrain. He found Sam’s car parked in a turnout where the road had begun to climb above the water. A heavily rutted dirt path led down to the river 60 feet below, where he could see Sam flogging the water. After putting on his waders and vest, Gordon picked up his favorite fly rod, took two cold beers from the cooler, and started down to see his friend.

  By now it was warm in the shade and hot in the direct sunlight. He reached the river and walked downstream to where Sam was fishing a riffle, his back to Gordon and the road.

  “Any luck?”

  Sam turned around. “Nice to see you for a change,” he said sarcastically. “So glad you could make it.”

  “I asked how the fishing was.”

  “Not bad. I’ve caught a couple.”

  “How big?”

  “Ten, eleven inches.”

  “That calls for a celebration.” Gordon held up the beers. “Care to join me?”

  Sam paused long enough to satisfy himself that he had appeared uninterested. “Why not,” he said.

  He waded ashore and joined Gordon in the shade of a pine tree. Each man took a couple of swallows of beer before Gordon finally spoke.

  “Look, Sam, I don’t suppose it’ll do any good to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging here, but things just kept happening and finally there was no way I could get hold of you.”

  Sam took another pull at the beer bottle. “I see,” he said.

  “I apologize. I really do.”

  “Don’t start blubbering, man. The apology’s accepted.”

  “Thanks. It’s good to have you on my side again, because I’m going to be needing your help.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but I’ve never been a best man before.”

  “That’s not what I meant — at least not yet. No, I want you to come with me tonight to Radio’s camp after dark and help me find the rifle that killed Dan McHenry.”

  Sam, who was taking a sip of his beer, gagged and aspirated. He stood clutching his chest and coughing violently from its depths. Gordon pressed on.

  “It’s the only way to get to the bottom of this. Baca’s said himself that the gun is the missing piece in the picture. If the rifle that’s missing from the McHenry house is with at Radio’s camp, it’ll prove that Ellen didn’t kill her brother and that one of them did. There’s close to a full moon tonight, so we can park a mile or so from the camp and kind of sneak up on it. When they turn in, we can look around to at least see where it might be. It’s a long shot, I know, but it’s the best chance I see right now.”

  Sam, who had finally stopped wheezing, stared at Gordon with his mouth open slightly, then looked at the label on the beer bottle.

  “This stuff must be affecting my thought processes,” he said. “Let me tell you what I thought I just heard. It sounded to me as if you were suggesting that you and I go up to a group campsite inhabited by heavily armed psychos in the middle of the night and risk our health, if not our lives, poking around looking for something that may not even be there. Surely that’s not what you said.”

  “Sam. I thought I could count on you.”

  “Up to a point. But when you get beyond reason, deal me out. That’s crazy and dangerous, Gordon, and I’m not going to do it. Period, finito, end of discussion.”

  “Then I’ll go alone.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic.”

  “I will.”

  Sam stood up and finished his beer. “You know something. It’s been over 48 hours since you and I have been fishing together. That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? Let’s get some fishing done and pick up this discussion again at the end of the day.”

  “Fair enough,” Gordon said after a pause. “Are we keeping count to decide who buys dinner?

  “I suppose.” Sam sighed. “Though I don’t know why. You always win.”

  “I’ll spot you the two fish you’ve already caught.”

  “You’re on.”

  “What are you using?”

  “Pheasant Tail nymph.”

  Gordon shook his head. “That’ll catch you some fish, but in this fast water, with no weed beds to speak of, a large golden stone nymph would be better.”

  “So show me.”

  • • •

  It was a fine, warm afternoon, and both men thoroughly enjoyed their time on the water. Each whooped with delight when he caught a fish, and the other applauded as it was brought in and released. At three o’clock, a caddis hatch began, and they fished dry flies for an hour. They broke for the day at five. Gordo
n had caught ten fish to Sam’s six (two of them while Sam was drying off from having fallen into the river after stepping on a mossy rock) so even with the head start, Sam was on the hook for dinner.

  Gordon called Ellen and was pleasantly surprised when she agreed to join him and Sam for dinner at the Stage Stop. The three of them settled in at the same back booth Gordon and Baca had shared two nights earlier. Once dinner was ordered, Gordon laid out his plan for a visit to Radio’s camp. When he finished, there was a moment of silence.

  “Isn’t that the craziest thing you ever heard in your life?” asked Sam.

  “I’m coming along,” said Ellen. Both men protested, but she waved them off. “My stake in this is bigger than either of yours, and I know the territory better. Besides, I’m willing to try anything to dispel this cloud hanging over me. Deal me in.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said.

  “It’s very gallant of you to do this,” she said, then, looking at Sam, “and particularly you, since you came up here to go fishing and your friend sort of dragged you into it. But if the rifle that killed my brother is at that camp, I’d be letting down everything my family ever stood for if I didn’t move heaven and earth to find it. So I’m coming with the two of you, and that’s that.”

  “The two of us,” Sam moaned.

  They continued discussing their plans for the evening over dinner in the hushed voices of conspirators, and by the end of the meal Sam was getting into the spirit of the occasion. When he reached for the check, Gordon grabbed it instead.

  “It’s the least I can do,” he said with a smile. “This could be your final meal.”