Pete, letting him rattle on, responded, “How do you keep up with the newest research?”
“Can’t. I try. If I were a young man in med school I would specialize in this area. I don’t know if you know, Deputy Meadows, but each year, every physician in Nevada must take and pass thirty course hours. You can select them—such as a weekend course in San Francisco on air passageways. Just about anyone in ER would try to attend that. As a doctor, one is always learning—that is, in addition to what you learn from your patients and from other doctors.”
“Did Bob have your curious nature?”
“Actually, he did,” Bert replied in a strong voice, happy to remember their shared traits. “Not about science or math. Just hated them. He liked business, obviously, but he also really liked conservation. If he had it to do over I think he would major in environmental studies but that wasn’t offered when we were in college. I don’t think it existed.”
“Dr. Dalrymple, you’ve been a great help. Getting a sense of someone’s character is as important as getting the facts. Any other interests, say, something that developed as he got older?”
“Now that you mention it, yes. Just recently, he really got interested in politics, which only escalated with the banking crisis. He swore the crisis had started in Washington, though he admitted the banks didn’t do themselves any favors. That crisis is still everywhere: Ireland, Greece, Portugal, all of the EU nations will be dragged down. And Bobby swore things weren’t all that great with China’s banks, either. He said we’d never ever get the truth about China. You know, he became so passionate about this that he offered his services to a fellow running for Congress—Wentworth.”
“As a consultant?”
“Yes. He offered to explain the crash, the buyouts, the bailouts, and what Bobby thought would happen next. In the past, my brother kind of went with the flow. I don’t say that in a critical way but this crisis finally provoked him to think for himself. Painful as losing his job was, it might have been a good thing.”
“Was Wentworth interested in what Bob had to say?”
“Didn’t care. Didn’t understand any of it. Bobby said his whole focus was drugs, illegal prostitution, stuff like that. Emotional issues. He said that man was too stupid to apply himself to economic issues.”
“I see.”
Back in the squad car, Pete turned to Lonnie. “What do you think?”
“I think Bert loved his brother.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We have no suspects at this time.” Pete, never relishing TV interviews, particularly disliked this one since the reporter was his ex-wife, who looked fabulous.
“Thank you for your time, Deputy Meadows.” She smiled, turned back to the camera, and said a few closing words.
When the camera was off, Lorraine waved Pete over. “Thanks. Someone is banging on the station about the Dalrymple murder. It’s been a week … you’d think the police were doing nothing.”
“Lorraine, no one builds a political career praising the Sheriff’s Department.” Pete half smiled.
“Or anything else. Find a fault or make one up, then promise to fix it.” She flashed her megawatt smile. “Hey, I wouldn’t have a job without this media manipulation. I shouldn’t complain.”
“We both have, um, distinctive jobs.”
She changed the subject. “You doing okay?”
“Sure. How about you?”
“Okay. It’s good to see you looking so well.” She climbed back into the mobile van. He watched her drive off.
Once in the squad car, Pete exhaled, “That wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be.”
“I never saw her in person before.” Lonnie whistled. “She’s more beautiful than she is on TV.”
Lonnie had become Pete’s partner after his divorce.
“Pretty is as pretty does.”
“You get the lookers, Pete.”
“What I’d like to get is any kind of lead on who killed Dalrymple. I’m willing to bet you five bucks that thanks to Patrick Wentworth there’s going to be more violence on Yolanda Street. He’s poking around in a snakehole.”
“He doesn’t have to deal with what crawls out.”
“That’ll be our job. Meanwhile, municipalities and counties are cutting budgets because the economy’s in the toilet. We can’t be everywhere.”
Lonnie slumped down, looked out the window as the wind kicked up a swirl. “I’ve been thinking about the department’s tight budget. If they lay people off, I’ll get a pink slip. I haven’t been on the force that long.”
“No use worrying about what might not even happen,” Pete advised. “The sheriff will freeze hiring but it’s another thing to lay off trained officers.”
“Hope you’re right.” Lonnie sat up straighter.
That afternoon, Babs Gallagher visited Howie Norris at the hospital. Years ago at the bank, he’d given her a leg up when she bought her business. Afterward she steered her clients to Reno National, as it was then called. Babs would forever be grateful that Howie had lent her the money to buy Benjamin Realty.
Thirty years ago, few commercial loans were made to women in Reno—or anywhere else, for that matter. Miles Benjamin, the founder of Benjamin Realty, recognized Babs’s gift and drive. As Miles aged, she became his primary broker. When he passed, he left his heirs the terms by which he wanted to sell the business to Babs. They were good terms and his progeny had no desire to work as hard as their father.
Babs had gone to two banks. The only way they would give her a loan was if her husband co-signed. John Gallagher would have done so but Babs, enraged, refused his offer.
When she called on Howie, he’d already heard about her visits to the two larger banks. He listened to her proposal before carefully poring over her paperwork. Within two days, he made her the loan.
The president of the bank raised his eyebrows at providing that sum to a woman, but he didn’t question Howie. The man had a sterling record and the best business minds know that if you’re going to hire someone you’d best trust his judgment. If not, get someone else.
Howie pushed forward a number of entrepreneurs in Reno. He recognized talent both within the bank and without. The heyday of personal banking was also his heyday.
Asa Chartris, another of Howie’s past protégés, was sitting at his bedside when Babs entered the hospital room.
“Babs.” Asa rose and kissed her on the cheek.
“If anyone should be kissing good-looking women, it’s me.” Even flat on his back in a hospital bed, Howie beamed at the sight of someone he liked immensely.
Babs leaned over and Howie kissed her cheek.
“You don’t look so bad,” she said.
He grinned. “Figured if I was on my butt I might as well beautify myself. Got my haircut, got a shave. I’m ready for action.”
“Dizzy?” Babs asked.
“No, I never was. The wound stings but it doesn’t hurt. I had a headache because I hit my head, hard when I fell. I was just telling Asa about it.”
“What a bizarre thing.” Babs pulled up another chair so she and Asa both sat beside Howie, who was propped on his pillows.
“I’ll be released later today. Jeep’s picking me up. She won’t let me stay by myself, though. Says she’s putting someone in the house with me. I’ll be fine.” He pursed his lips, then said with surprising force, “I didn’t have a stroke. I know that’s what’s running through some people’s minds. I’m old. All I remember is the sound of gunshot, a terrible sting to my head. I don’t remember falling.”
“Jeep’s right.” Asa nodded. “It’s best to be cautious after hitting your head, to say nothing about being shot.”
“Maybe it knocked some sense into me.” He smiled.
“Did Jeep tell you of our project?” Babs wanted to get Howie thinking about other things.
“No.”
Babs explained the Spring Street project.
Howie smiled, reaching for her hand. “Smart. You just might rest
ore some value to those homes. Better an asset than a liability.”
“Babs, it’s a good idea and like all good ideas it will be met with resistance.” Asa smiled grimly, his handsome face framed by steel-gray curly hair. “When you’re ready with more concrete proposals, come talk to me. If we put our heads together, we can make a more effective presentation to the board. They’ll need to see improvements and stability. I’m all for what you’re doing. After all, my department is foreclosures and it’s been hell.”
“That’s just it, Asa, these people have no services. They’re living in cold rooms using only the fireplace. They have camp stoves. No water. They’re doing the best they can. They can’t possibly improve the properties.”
“Not without jobs.” Asa’s brow furrowed.
“That’s the bitch,” Howie blurted out. “Maybe I can get some hired for the school bus expo.”
“Jeep and I want to approach SSRM regarding the power and gas services. We think that will be our biggest fight, getting those turned back on before the inhabitants have work. They won’t be able to pay for a while.”
Eyes now bright, Howie pointed his finger in a friendly way at Asa. “Reno National had what I always called a slush fund. Can’t imagine Reno Sagebrush United doesn’t.”
“There are some emergency funds, so to speak.”
“Well, if the bank pledges a small portion of that to pay the difference in service rates then the utilities can reduce their rates until people are employed.”
Asa considered this. “Let me see what I can do.”
By the time his visitors left, Howie’s mind was fully engaged and whirring. His cheeks glowed with color.
Help someone else, you always feel better about life. Howie suddenly felt as though he had a purpose, and being an old man with a bullet’s crease on his head was irrelevant to it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
March in the Northern Hemisphere can be an explosion of color if one lives in Charleston, South Carolina, or silent with snow if one lives in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Reno tended to follow a pattern similar to Medicine Hat’s, although in latitude it was closer to Charleston.
This night, a lack of cloud cover allowed the earth’s heat to escape. Black as the Devil’s eyebrows, the sky, crystal clear, curved over the Peterson range and all the small spur ranges to the east. In the main, the earth in Washoe County looked like an accordion pulled wide apart. Low ridges had small or large valleys between them only to fold back to more ridges.
The early settlers, depending on their money and their line of work, set their homes with the backs to the wind or just under the lip of a rise in the land. While they hoped it would offer protection from the wind, very often it didn’t. The winds of the northern desert have a way of finding you no matter where you tuck up.
Horses and cattle would walk single file at sundown to their sheds or barns, content to be inside shelter. Birds, feathers and down warming them up, would build sturdy nests, many with high sides. At sundown they’d nestle in, the wind skimming over the top of their nest.
Snug in their dens, coyotes and ground squirrels successfully manage to escape the chill winds. Den dwellers drag in hay, bits of blanket—whatever they can find to fluff things up. Hay and straw prove good insulators. Coyotes will hunt at any time but they prefer the night, less commotion, less people. Returning to the den after a night hunting was indeed a pleasure. The wearied animal would curl up, tail around its nose, and fall asleep, often to awaken to a den entrance snowed in. Digging out usually took little time unless a storm was fierce. But being prudent, most coyotes had alternate entrances in different directions. Naturally, one wouldn’t get as much snow blown in as the others.
This March night a single male, called Ruff, weighing about thirty-five pounds, walked near Jeep’s house. Sometimes the lid on the garbage cans could be removed if not tightly secured. The treats were worth the risk of venturing this close to the house.
Carlotta had bought new heavy rubber cans, which were stashed behind a low palisade to hide them. She was careful about what she threw out, what she put in the compost pile, and what she recycled. Even so, there were always goodies left over for these garbage cans. While the coyote couldn’t read which cans were marked for metal, glass, etc., Ruff could certainly smell which ones contained dog food cans, chicken bones, and bits of gravy. Ah, the heady scents!
Since King and Baxter would devour fowl bones left in the compost pile, Carlotta put them in the cans. As to T-bones, Jeep and Mags, when finished, gave them to the dogs out on the back porch. King and Baxter would gnaw to their complete delight. What could be better? Sooner or later they’d forget the bone and drop it somewhere. Ruff especially enjoyed those bones.
Two big bones rested on a mat on the back porch. Boldly, he hopped onto the porch and picked them up.
Jeep slept with a window cracked about an inch, so King heard him as he slept on the rug by the bed, the bedroom facing the back. She believed fresh air, no matter how cold, was healthy.
King tore down the stairs. Baxter heard the claws click on the stairs, so he left Mags’s bedroom to rush after the big dog.
King bolted through the door in the mudroom off the kitchen. Ruff heard him coming across the wooden kitchen floor and was already loping toward the cattle shed.
King flew after him with Baxter on his heels.
The coyote had a head start. They chased him to the top of the ridge, where all three creatures stopped. Ruff dropped the two steak bones that he’d been able to carry, thanks to a long jaw.
“If I catch you again on my porch I’ll kill you,” King threatened.
“Yeah.” Baxter growled.
Ruff blinked his golden eyes, viewed Baxter and laughed, little puffs of air escaping him, laughing just as other canines do. “One bite, worm dog. Lunch.”
Baxter bared his fangs, crouched, and crept forward.
King blocked his path. “Get over it.” The powerful shepherd mix, bigger and heavier than the coyote, looked at the intruder. “It would take you more than one bite. He’s scrappy.”
Thrilled at the praise, Baxter came around to stand next to King.
The coyote was amused by this odd couple. “You eat good at the ranch.”
“We do. How many of you in your pack?”
“Only me. I don’t have a mate yet. There are females north that I know but they’re all taken.”
“Young?” King inquired.
“I am. Up where the old man lives, dens everywhere. Clever girls, too.” The golden-eyed fellow meant Howie Norris. “I’ll find a mate. Takes time.”
“That’s what my human says,” Baxter piped up, intrigued to be talking to a wild animal—not something he’d ever done in Manhattan except for chattering squirrels.
“About coyotes?” The young wild animal was curious.
“No, about herself.”
Ruff laughed. “I don’t understand human mating.”
“I don’t, either.” Baxter laughed as well.
Chiming in, King believed he had the answer. Maybe this time he did. “They think too much.”
“Or not at all,” Ruff replied. “Look what they’re doing to our home. Moving us out with all their houses, sucking up water. They’ll kill us all and then themselves. That’s what I think, anyway. When I have a mate, I wonder what she’ll think.”
Baxter said, “Where I lived with my human, there are nine million people from about five in the afternoon to nine in the morning. Then people come in from surrounding states to work and it’s about twenty-two million people.”
“That’s impossible.” Ruff sniffed the air for a moment. “There’s no way to feed that many people.”
“The humans truck in food and they even fly it in. Really.” Baxter sat on his haunches.
At first resistant to the little dog, King now knew that Baxter was truthful and he actually liked him.
“All that food?”
“Even your kind is moving in.” Baxter meant coyote
s were coming to Manhattan.
“City life is bad. I’m happy with two big bones and all this land.” The young canine smiled. “I can kind of imagine nine million ground squirrels or bugs, maybe. But people. It’s insane.”
“Is kinda,” King agreed.
“They really will kill us all.” Ruff sighed.
“You especially. If they see you, they’ll shoot you. Not Jeep, though. If you don’t kill any calves or snatch the barn cats, she’ll let you be. She believes we all have a right to live and your kind was here before her kind,” King stated with pride.
“Is she the old lady with the baseball caps who walks funny?”
“That’s my human. She’s really really old but she’s tough and she loves all animals.” King sat down, too.
“Mine is young and beautiful. Truly beautiful.” Baxter boasted.
“And she doesn’t have a mate?” Ruff was incredulous.
Baxter’s ears dropped a little because this worried him, too. “No.”
“Young, beautiful. Alone. I never will understand humans. I don’t even understand how they walk.” He picked up his prizes. “I’ll see you again.”
The two domesticated canines watched him start off.
The coyote stopped for a moment and dropped his bones again. “I’m Ruff. Who are you?”
The domesticated animals gave their names. He smiled, picked up his bones again, and loped away.
“Cold. Let’s go home,” King announced. “Do you ever miss where you used to live?”
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