by Dave Balcom
“I’ll be in Mineral Valley on Wednesday, putting the paper to bed. I talked to Julie, and things are going pretty well with the story. I’ll finish that today from here… would you mind editing it for me?”
“No problem, send it on.”
“Then you’re really coming to see me?” Her voice did that changing thing again. “I’d really like that.”
“I’m dealing with the police tomorrow at noon, and then I’m looking at how long it will take me ... I might not be there until Thursday.”
“I can wait until Thursday.”
“How is Lawton going to keep you safe while you are in Mineral Valley?”
“He’s assigned a young trooper and his canine partner. They’ll even sleep in my house at night while other troopers keep an eye outside. I think I’m pretty safe.”
“It would be hard to stage an accident in that kind of situation,” I agreed. “But it depends on how committed they are to an accident scene.”
I changed the subject slightly, “Did you send me those notes from your courthouse research? I didn’t see them this morning.”
“No, I freaked a bit with your message, and took off with my computer in tow for Cadillac. I’m kinda glad you’re an old lady about my safety.” Her voice was doing that changing thing again. “Do you want to talk about yesterday? How are you doing?”
“I’m going to be fine, it’s just... I don’t think there’s anything more to tell you about yesterday. The whole thing only raised as many questions as it answered.”
“What are you going to do today?”
“If you’ll send me those notes, I’ll look at them. Then I’m going to clean up this house, figure out travel plans, go for a walk and try to sleep. I was up late last night with Jack Nelson. He has discovered Boodles gin.”
“Is it special? Is it hard to come by? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”
“No, it’s not hard to find, but in a world with a million gins clamoring for a guy’s attention, unless you go alphabetically, you might not hit on Boodles for a while. I’ve never seen an ad for it.”
“Is it good?”
“If it’s cold enough, it can almost drown out the taste of burning cordite. We gave it a good run last night, but now I need to take a long shower.”
“I was up late too. Lawton told me everything about your fight. I couldn’t help but think of Indiana Jones when that guy in the market comes after him with his swords, twirling them…”
I interrupted her. “I saw that movie, and I can tell you it never came into my mind when that punk violated the first rule of combat and gave away his advantage. I just did what I had to do, nothing more. No comic relief; no Hollywood.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. I wasn’t trying to be crass. It’s just…”
“Yeah, I know. Sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’d have to cry. I haven’t cried yet, but I know I sometime will. I always did… Look, I’ll call you when I know a concrete itinerary.”
“Be safe. I’m looking forward to seeing you.”
I took a shower while the coffee perked. With coffee in hand, I went upstairs, checked my email. I hadn’t received her notes yet. I knew I was dithering, spinning my wheels and I knew it wasn’t helping me cope. I gave up on the notes and went for more coffee. As I poured it, I heard the “ping” of new mail upstairs.
I opened her message and hit print on the notes just as I heard someone quietly walking in the front door. I listened but didn’t move. The police had taken my Tack Driver. I hadn’t replaced any of my long guns since the robbery. I was without a weapon.
“Jim?”
Shirlee’s voice gave me a chance to exhale. I found her looking around the living room. “This isn’t so bad,” she said, gesturing to the floor, “I have just the stuff to clean up this hardwood. I wonder why they took your rug; will they bring it back?”
“Not if I have any say, they won’t. It’s ruined from my point of view. But it’s good they took it, because that really made clean up simpler, I think.”
“I thought you might let me take care of that,” she said. “I think you should be out of here for a while today.”
My phone interrupted us. It was Liske. “I thought you were camping at Wallowa,” I greeted him after I heard his voice.
“You sound pretty chipper today. Anyway, I’m in the Joseph police department, and they’ve let me check my email before the parade. I think that’s a good idea about Crocker, and the press. I’ll make that happen. And, I talked with our stenographer, and she has the tape and said she’d have the statement typed up by nine a.m.”
“In La Grande?”
“That’s the place. We’ll see you then.” And he hung up. A no-nonsense cop, I thought.
Shirlee was pouring some kind of goop on the floor and had a mop pail from the garage and my big mop in it.
Randall Albright was all smiles seconds later as he climbed out of his Suburban. “Jim,” he called out as he saw me. “I was just hoping you’d be here today.”
“What’s up?”
“I want to hunt mushrooms. I have a cooler full of beer and two big steaks, and I thought you might take me up the hill and show me some morels. Then I figured we could come back here and put those steaks on and watch the sun go down.”
I motioned him to follow me. “Shirlee. You and Jack have dinner plans tonight?” I intercepted the look from Shirlee to Randall.
“No… Oh, hi, Randall.” Her eyes flickered from my face to Randall’s and then quickly away.
I decided not to let on that I’d read her duplicity in that look. Hell, I thought, I could use the relief. “Why don’t you plan on coming up here for steak and fresh morels.”
“You’re going to hunt mushrooms?”
“And drink some beer,” Randall tossed in.
“I think that’s a dandy idea. You go ahead. I’ll bring a salad and some of Jack’s special bleu cheese dressing. What time?”
“Let’s plan martinis at six, dinner to follow.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said with a smile. “Randall, you take good care of him, he’s a little crispy around the edges right now.” And she patted me on the shoulder.
46
I was literally running when I hit my front door, and I dashed upstairs to my workroom, grabbed the phone, and started dialing.
“Rick?” I asked as he answered at his end.
“Jim? How in the hell are ya, bud?”
I thought, “Oh shit, he’s lit up.” “Rick. Can you talk?”
“Jesus, Stanton. I go years without a word, now I’m about your favorite guy back here. What’s goin’ on?”
“Rick, who the hell is Seth Buchanan?”
“Mickey’s kid by Ginny. Some kind of genius, to hear Mickey tell it. I think he’s in law school some place.”
“Were he and Mickey close, you know, before Charlotte?”
“Oh, yeah, big time. It was like Mickey was trying to make up with Seth for bad acts with Phillip.”
“Rick, where are you?”
“Sportsman’s Club. We have an annual Memorial Day party here. Wendy went home, pissed again. Pissed ’cause I’m pissed.” He giggled. “Shit, Stanton, you sound like you’re scared… oh, shit, nobody’s ever supposed to make you scared.”
He perked up. “Jim, did somebody scare you? Are they all right?” And then he laughed some more. I hung up as he was laughing uncontrollably.
Albright came walking into the house. “Jim? Everything okay?” There was concern in his voice.
I had been quiet, letting the events of the last few days run through my mind as we drove down from a 5,000-foot trail head. We had a bag full of great fresh white ’roons, and we’d had a few beers and a nap. It had been a refreshing day.
About the time we drove through La Grande, I remembered what Deputy Davis had said about the first property ID, Mickey’s number representing property owned by Mickey and Seth. Bells and alarms started going off in my head, and I had jumped out of Albright’s truck
without a word as he put it into “park.” In my driveway and rushed up to my workroom in a lather.
“I’m sorry,” I called out to him when I heard him come into the house. Something I had seen earlier had just exploded in my brain like a firecracker. I stood at my desk and looked through the notes Jan had sent me earlier.
She had processed that number along with all the rest, and had noted the plat book coordinates with each listing. Then she had listed the owner’s name, their business address, the address of the property and then a physical description of the land in rods and acres, followed by any notes of deed restrictions.
As I scanned across the notes looking at the owners’ names, I saw Charlotte Davis, Frank Santiago, Richard Santiago, and then all those Mickey Buchanans, on and on, and then, at the end of the list, like an after thought, I saw “Mickey’s number.” I hadn’t memorized it, but it really stuck out. The middle number of all those other IDs was 500. The last five digits of the other numbers were all 008- and then a series of numbers ranging from 01-19. But in Mickey’s number the middle number was 396, and the final digits were 006-01.
It wasn’t his home place as I had assumed it to be!
I called Jan’s cell and heard her message. I called Lawton’s cell and heard his. I left the same message in both cases, call me. Tonight.
“Jim,” Albright called out from downstairs, “You okay?”
I went out to the landing and smiled down at him. “I’m a bit jumpy.”
“No wonder,” he replied. I had told him the bare bones account of my Sunday excitement. He had been sympathetic, and had taken it as a personal goal to make me escape into the woods. I had, too.
I shook off my nerves, focused on my center and went downstairs. “Let’s start on dinner,” I said with a smile.
We cleaned up the mushrooms in the deep sink in the garage, and I made sure the meat course was thawed out, while he was in the shower. I mixed up a batch of gin martinis; put them in the freezer minus one I had for him, and took my turn in the shower.
Shirlee and Jack arrived on the porch just at 6, right on time. Jack was in charge of the grill; Albright assumed the martini operation as I went to answer the phone.
“Jim?”
“Jan? You all right?”
“I am, but you sounded really spooked on your message. I’m at the paper; Miles is on the other line, I’m going to conference him in.”
“Miles, you there?”
“I’m here. Jim? What the hell happened to you today?”
“Nothing bad, but I have seen something in the notes Jan took that really nailed my attention. I guess I overreacted a bit.” I explained the Seth Buchanan entry and told them what I knew of him and his relation to Mickey.
When I was finished, there was a long silence. Finally Jan spoke up, “I guess I hadn’t seen all that, but I don’t think it warranted calling out of the National Guard, Jim.”
I admitted that was probably true. “I think I can be better under control when I’m out there. I’ll let you know when I arrive.”
They let me go without too many recriminations, and I went back downstairs. When I arrived in the kitchen, it was apparent I had interrupted something. It took me a second in my current state to realize they’d been talking about me.
“Don’t let me spoil your conversation.”
Randall and Jack eyed at each other. Shirlee spoke up, “We represent just a few of the people on this planet who care deeply about you, Mr. Stanton. We’ll talk about you behind your back when we think it’s in your best interest and you will not make us feel guilty about it. Clear?”
“Crystal.” I smiled sheepishly at her. “Are we out of gin?”
“God, I hope not,” Jack spoke up. “What was that, it was immaculate!”
“Just plain old Beefeaters, Jack. I look around and look around, and I always end up back at the classic.”
I had talked while going to the kitchen. Albright piped up, “There’s a reason they’re called classics; you do understand that, don’t you?”
While I mixed another batch of “marts” they resumed their hushed conversation. I chose to ignore them. When I opened the freezer, I found a batch already in there. I traded my batch for the other, and headed for the porch.
“Whoever did this, God loves you no more than I…”
After the Nelsons wobbled back to their house, Albright and I sat on the deck and watched the stars break out in their seasonal splendor. While spring and fall could be pretty wet in the Blues, summer would be a dazzling combination of sparkling days and shimmering nights. We might go months between cloudy nights, much less showers.
I told Randall I wanted to catch a 2:19 flight to Michigan in Boise the next day, but I needed to be at the State Police post in La Grande at 9 a.m.
“You drive to La Grande, and when you’re done with the OSP, just drive out to the airport, and I’ll take you to Boise. We’ll be there for lunch if you don’t waste too much time with the cops.”
And that’s just how it worked. Albright is one of those rich guys who just don’t understand people who can’t make things work just as they need them to work. The world needs more of that attitude.
47
I drove down the river road from M-66 in the rental SUV, and I could see the glow and the flashing strobes in the sky while I was still miles away.
I glanced at the dashboard clock; it was just 11:30. I was driving 60, and didn’t dare speed up, but I couldn’t take my eyes off that glow, either.
As I came around the curve above Jan’s house, I was met with a barricade of emergency vehicles, all flashing their strobes. From my perspective I could see beyond the first cruisers to the flickering of a fire that had burned to the foundation, with beams still glowing and sizzling under the attention of the volunteer fire fighters.
I pulled up to the first cruiser, and rolled down my window. A sheriff’s deputy approached. “You’re going to be stuck here for a while, Mr.. You’d better back up and park on the shoulder…”
I interrupted. “I have a friend, Jan Coldwell, who lives there. I’m coming to visit her. Is she all right?”
“You…” He pulled his notebook out of his pocket and checked a page. “You Mr. Stanton?”
“I am.”
“Park over there, and I’ll walk you into the scene.”
“But is she all right?”
“I’ll walk you in.”
I backed up and hooked the Bronco around so it was mostly off the road, nosed into the bushes. I then trotted to the deputy. He had just finished talking on his radio. “This way,” he said, and moved out at a quick step toward the fire.
He led me past the final embers of Jan’s home, and then into a crowd of emergency vehicles, and there was Jan, sitting on the tailgate of an EMS truck. She saw me, too, and bounced off the truck and into my arms.
I savored the feel of her in my arms, said a little prayer of thanksgiving, and then held her away from me so I could look her up and down.
She was wearing a ratty old bathrobe, gym shorts, and a ragged tee shirt I figured she slept in. She was dazzling me with her smile.
“How you doin’?” I asked. “Anybody hurt?”
“No. That’s the great part of it. They snuck past the trooper on the road, and set the fire, but as they were pouring the kerosene around the place, the canine officer sensed them and woke up Trooper Hansen. He heard them, and roused me, and we snuck out the front door just as they came in the porch door.
“We ran like hell to the car. The troopers called for help and guarded me, but the sonsabitches didn’t come for me. Just torched my place.”
“But you guys were all right?”
“Whoa, Jim, tune in; everybody’s unhurt. The dog’s fine. You need that once more?”
“Nope, I think I’m tracking now.”
“You’re sweet, but we didn’t catch them, either. They must have had a boat. We didn’t hear a motor in the whoosh of the fire, but they must of; they didn’t drive
here.”
“And you didn’t see anyone?”
“No. Nothing.”
Lawton approached, and Jan made a quick introduction. “Good to see you, Stanton. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve garnered some information on that land description you noticed today. I called the Register of Deeds and had them identify the location on the GIS map. You and I can go out there tomorrow.
“There’s nothing more to be done here, Jan. You have anywhere to stay tonight?”
She waited for me to speak, and I could feel her anxiety. “I have a room at Big Mike’s,” I said. “You can bunk with me if he doesn’t have another room. Let’s go find out.”
She was silent as I woke Mike Robertson, explained the situation, and asked if he had a bed for Jan.
The consummate inn keeper, Mike assumed command. He borrowed a nightgown from Rhonda, found a toothbrush and a hair brush, took Jan up to the Barron Room, and then returned to me.
“Scotch?” he tilted his head in question, “or would it be bourbon for you?”
I followed him into the kitchen, and he put a couple of fingers of bourbon in a glass. He held it out with a questioning look. “One cube, if you would,” I said.
He made a face as he put the drink in front of me. “I’ll put you in a bed downstairs. It’s a family space in the basement that we don’t use often anymore, but it will be perfectly comfortable for you for tonight.”
It was. The drink had me almost asleep before my head hit the pillow, and, as usual, there were no dreams.
48
Jan went off to the paper to see if anyone had art from her house fire. She was in a temper. “I can’t believe I snuck out of that house without my camera, sat there in that police car and watched my house go up in flames, and never thought to ask if the trooper had a crime scene camera on board; talk about your rookie, boneheaded, publisher stunts…”
I held off on my smile until she was out the front door, beating herself up and down. Lawton and a couple of troopers were at the Santiago compound to question anyone there, and then he was going to pick me up and show me Seth Buchanan’s property.