Murder Unleashed

by Rita Mae Brown

  Pete gently placed his hand on her forearm. “It is. Obviously, Robert put a great deal of effort into this.” He paused. “Try elected officials.”

  She typed that in and the names that appeared were state and county officials, including Patrick Wentworth.

  Without being told, she clicked on Patrick’s name. Information came up about his seat in Carson City, as well as his campaign for a congressional seat and his focus. His address and various phone numbers were listed, as well as email.

  When she clicked on other officials, similar information came up.

  Lonnie, hand dangling down, felt Velcro sniff it. “Emma, try Norton Wentworth.”

  “He’s not on the official list.”

  “Run a search. See if his name pops up anywhere.” Lonnie urged.

  When she did, a page appeared with foreclosure information. There was also the dollar valuation of various homes that might be acquired should they fail to sell on the courthouse steps.

  What riveted all three of them was a single line: “Potential funding available for items identified with asterisk in this list: five-point-five million dollars.”

  “What?” Emma exclaimed.

  “Emma, thank you. We’ve got to get to Norton Wentworth right now.” Pete was already heading for the door.

  Lonnie was also on his feet. “Emma, how’d you find it?”

  “It was all in a file password-protected with Big Guy.”

  He put his forefinger to his forehead as a salute and hurried to follow his partner.

  In the squad car Pete tore out of the underground parking, tires squealing. He hit the lights and sirens. They pulled up at Norton Wentworth’s fifteen minutes later.

  Pete had the presence of mind to cut the lights and siren two blocks from Norton’s house.

  Knocking on the door, they were greeted by Norton’s wife.

  After identifying themselves, they asked to see Norton.

  “He’s not here. He left for Las Vegas yesterday.”

  “Did he say how long he’d be gone?” Pete asked.

  “No, he said not too long.”

  “Has he called you today?”

  “He called earlier to say it was warmer down there than here.”

  “Would you mind giving me his cellphone number? It’s important.”

  She grabbed a notepad off the hall table and scribbled a number.

  “Thank you.”

  Back in the squad car, Lonnie punched in the numbers as Pete pulled away. No one picked up so Lonnie left a message with his name, not identifying himself as a police officer, and asking for a call back.

  “You’re getting smart.” Pete smiled.

  “No point tipping him off. Of course, if he calls his wife again, she’ll tell him we were there. We can hope he doesn’t call.”

  “He’s scared.”

  “And maybe guilty.”

  “Maybe both.”

  “You think he killed his brother?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet he has a good idea who did. I’m also willing to bet the murderer is smart enough to find him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  This is the day in the Middle Ages that people felt Noah left the Ark. Land ho.” Jeep slipped her arm through Howie’s. “I bet the ark wasn’t as big as that giant school bus.”

  Howie, feeling like a kid, spouted statistics. “That’s a Type D, the biggest of the buses. Has a weight of over thirty-six-thousand pounds. Some are lighter but I tell you what, this is a beast. The body mounts on a separate chassis—unique among all these school buses.” He swept his arm over the assembled vehicles. Many were still rolling in. “The entrance door is mounted forward of the front axle.”

  “How do you remember all that?”

  Beaming, for he loved praise as do we all, Howie said, “How do you remember the cockpit of those cargo planes you flew, the D-Threes or the P-Forty-seven fighters? You remember what gets in your blood.”

  “Bones.” Zippy glanced up at her human.

  “Full of rich marrow.” King sighed. “They don’t like it. How can they get excited over school buses? Big ugly metal things. They’re yellow, too, which is so awful.”

  “Easy to see,” Baxter pointed out.

  Fascinated by all the activity at the large parking area, Toothpick commented to Zippy, “Does he always get excited like this?”

  “Poppy loves to make things happen. This is the twentieth year for his expo. He tells everyone. It brings money to town. Poppy cares about that.”

  The huge lot just north of town near many of the warehouses was owned by Peterbilt Motors company. A large garage in a steel Quonset hut gleamed. All the hydraulic lifts, the tires hanging on the wall, the tools, everything gleamed. Oil stained the concrete floors, but those floors were as clean as possible.

  Peterbilt, known for its reliable engines and sumptuous cabs, was owned by an old friend of Howie’s. Well, now it was owned by his daughter.

  Originally, twenty years ago, Howie wanted to gather the buses before the parade in the large parking lot where the Washoe County school buses were kept. The education department, at that time, thought this unwise. They couldn’t completely protect the buses from vandalism, a problem then because neighborhood urchins would crawl over the fence and graffitti the buses. And one county commissioner feared that if all the locals saw all those shining buses next to theirs, they’d want new ones. He kept a tight rein on the budget, which for the most part was a good thing.

  Howie looked elsewhere and found the perfect place. At Peterbilt, the school bus manufacturers, bus drivers, and the salesman hit it off, all of them kindred spirits. The gearheads popped hoods, including those of the Peterbilts.

  Jeep liked engines well enough, but her passion was plane engines—the kind before jets. Still, she could appreciate excellence and wondered what the history of the world would be without the invention of the diesel engine.

  “How many people can the D carry?” Jeep looked at the long bus with its flat face.

  “Anywhere from fifty-four to ninety, depending on how big,” Howie answered. This was a passion of his, clearly. You see the Cs over there, again, depending on size and engine, they can haul thirty-six to seventy-eight. When most folks think of a school bus, that’s what they think of: that boxy nose. It’s versatile. We don’t think about it, but school enrollment fluctuates. Counties have to consider that when they purchase anything. Just think what it was like about ten years after the war. All those kids. Guess we’ll never see numbers like that again.”

  “Will we ever see confidence and hope like that again?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Howie said. “Well, it’s always easier to be pessimistic, isn’t it? If you go around claiming doom and gloom, you can always say you saw the hard times ahead.” He playfully punched her with his right fist. “Not you.”

  “Never. Well, is there anything I can do down here?”

  “No, I just wanted you to see the big boys rolling in. Parade’s tomorrow. And those crazy guys from High Point, North Carolina, are going to decorate their buses.”

  “How?”

  “They aren’t saying but, of course, word leaked out to the other manufacturers that they’re up to something, so now everyone’s on a beautification program. Indiana, Illinois, right next door in California, New York, Ohio, all of them are cooking up something.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  Puffing out his chest, he said, “You tell me what other city has a school bus parade?”

  “If they do, they’re copying us.”

  “Right.” Howie looked over at Mike and Milton on the other side of the garage. “Those two already look better. I see they brought the dog.”

  “So did we.”

  “We love getting out of the house but the diesel smell is awful.” King complained.

  “Even they can smell it,” Baxter noted.

  Although he was fattening up, Toothpick still had to wear his deep turquoise sweater when outside.
Each day the handsome dog’s spirits improved, too, but he still missed Brad. He probably always would.

  “Wonder how Tookie stands it?” Toothpick said.

  “Milton has to stick near the one who has fits.” King felt a slight breeze pick up his heavy ruff.

  While Jeep, Howie, and the dogs observed the activity at the Peterbilt lot, Darryl Johnson announced to the media, the gas company, and the electric company, that SSRM would be turning water back on in those occupied homes on Spring Street. He made clear that the fees for that water would be paid by “a consortium of concerned citizens” for one month until, and if, the other utilities followed suit, and the banks made up the difference when a reduced rate was announced. SSRM’s reduced rate would be sixty percent of the normal rate. He emphasized that this was not free water, those paying the full rate were not being taken for granted.

  Darryl knew that some residents would try to get the reduced rate, which is why SSRM was doing this for one month, to see how it would work.

  The “concerned citizens” had been organized in one night by Lolly after she learned the approximate service cost for water from Darryl. Given that only thirty-eight families had been identified as possible benefactors to the policy, this turned out to be relatively modest.

  The wives of the bank presidents, the utility presidents, the heads of all the charities that happened to be women—the ladies who got things done in this and every other city—enthusiastically got on board, meaning they opened their purses.

  It wouldn’t be long until their husbands followed suit although the process, thanks to boards, reports, arguments, and counterarguments, would take longer.

  And the argument that this was for one month carried weight. The effort to find employment stepped up.

  The bus expo had been a godsend for their project.

  Phone calls and text messages about the Spring Street initiative flew all over Washoe County. No one had ever seen anything like this before and mostly people felt pride that their county and city was actually doing something substantive. Then again, the history of Nevada was the history of overcoming hardship.

  One call being made was to Norton Wentworth.

  “You should come home. Good things are happening. Really good things.”

  “I’m not that stupid.” Unlike Patrick, Norton realized the cleverness of the person on the other cellphone.

  Soothing, reasonable, the voice almost crooned, “I don’t know why you ran. What are you afraid of?”

  “That you’ll kill me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Why did you send me a one-hundred-dollar bill soaked in blood with Ben Franklin’s eyes cut out?”

  A long silence followed this. “When did you get that?”

  “The day before I left.”

  “Why would I be so stupid to warn you if I wanted to kill you? It doesn’t make any sense. Your brother and his campaign offended many people. The entire episode with him kicking that topless waitress probably set off somebody.”

  “Maybe, but I still have no reason to trust you,” Norton said.

  “You have no reason not to. The longer you stay away, the less convincing your business meeting excuse is, the more you look like a suspect yourself. Norton, your brother was about to blow the millions we’ve been working for. We’re so close. That man was an idiot.”

  Angry but knowing this was so, Norton grunted. “He was still my brother.”

  “A brother that would cost you the future—just like that idiot Robert Dalrymple. Stupid people are more dangerous than intelligent ones.”

  “I never thought Dalrymple was stupid.”

  “Up to a point. When he wanted a bigger percentage, that was stupid.”

  Norton replied, “He didn’t threaten us.”

  “He didn’t have to, Norton. The threat was implicit: more money or I talk.”

  Another long pause before he mentioned his wife. “Two men from the Sheriff’s Department visited Dory.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “You’d better come back to Reno for a lot of reasons. Right now everyone is distracted. The school bus expo is here, the big parade’s tomorrow. And here’s the fabulous news, better than I had hoped: SSRM is turning the water back on. I’ll give you the details later, but Spring Street looks good. So I’ll be buying all those foreclosed homes while everyone is looking somewhere else. Within a year, that area and some others will be climbing back up. Maybe not to their former values, but up. And we’ll own them.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “I didn’t have to make this call, you know. I could have let you run and kept all the money for myself. But you’ve kept your word, worked for our project. But, hey, if you want to walk away from it. I’m not paying out if you do.”

  “If I come back, how do I know I won’t be picked up?”

  “Why should you be? Fly in tonight, go home like everything is normal. If they come by, so what? You haven’t done a thing and, really, you haven’t. Yet.”

  Late that same night, the humans asleep, Ruff came back on the porch, scrounging for bones and scraps.

  King smelled the coyote, ran downstairs, and blasted out of the dog door. Within a minute, Baxter followed, as did Toothpick.

  “Another one?” Ruff examined the Manchester terrier. “You need groceries.”

  Toothpick bared his teeth. “Get out.”

  King took over. “Tooth, it’s okay. We know him.” He then said to the coyote, “I left my bones in the barn. You can have them if you do something for us.”

  Baxter edged closer to King, wondering what King wanted. Whatever it was, he’d back up his friend.

  “I can take the bones anyway,” the handsome young coyote bragged.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Baxter growled. “King’s really smart. If he offers a deal, you should listen.”

  Amazed that King and Baxter talked to this clever predator, Toothpick sat next to Baxter, his black ears forward, his eyes wide open.

  “All right.” Ruff lowered his head slightly, then raised it. “What’s the deal?”

  King, his voice deep and low so as not to wake any humans, said, “Peterson Ranch has a gyp with three cubs. You know where that is, north of here about two miles if you go straight back up over that ridge.”

  “Tell me more about it.” Ruff’s curiosity rose.

  “Old house, lots of Baldie cattle and an old man who runs them. He has an Australian kelpie, kind of your size but more squat, Zippy. She’s a good cattle dog, she told us about the gyp and about her strange den. Zippy’s kind of friends with the gyp. She said she carries bones out for her but the coyote needs lots of food,” King informed him.

  “Oh, I know the place.”

  “The coyote has no mate. We sniffed all around her den—”

  “I stuck my head in!” Baxter bristled.

  “That was stupid.” Ruff chuckled undiplomatically.

  “That’s what I told him but back to the female. No male. We would have smelled him so she’s alone, has to feed her cubs. They’re about seven weeks old. If you help her, bring her food, she might be yours.”

  “How does that help you?” Ruff wondered.

  “Find her another den. Move her and the cubs. If she trusts you, she’ll do it and she’ll trust you if you feed her. So go to the barn, take my bones and whatever else you find, and go to Peterson Ranch.”

  Baxter, appreciating King’s plan, added, “She’s pretty. We want to show the humans the den, what’s in the den. If they know she’s there, they’ll kill all of them. They think the coyotes will kill the newborn calves.”

  “That’s only true if there’s nothing else to eat,” Ruff confessed.

  “There’s lots to eat. We’ll make sure Zippy always leaves stuff out,” King promised.

  “What’s in the den?” Ruff’s golden eyes brightened.

  “Wooden boxes and old leather saddlebags.” King shrugge
d. “Junk, but it will make our human and the old human there so happy.”

  Baxter said, “Really happy.”

  “Why do you care?” This puzzled Ruff.

  “We love them.” King smiled.

  “They saved me,” Toothpick spoke up.

  Ruff thought a bit. “I don’t know if humans are worth loving but you all have been fair to me and if I can win a mate doing this, I’ll be happy so I’ll try to do what you ask.”

  After Ruff left the porch, the three dogs slipped back into the house through the dog door, which flapped behind them until the magnetic strips on the bottom caught.

  Glad to be inside since it was still cold at night, Toothpick said, “When I was a stray, his kind ate a lot of us.”

  King nodded. “Coyotes would, especially when in packs.”

  “If we traveled together, we’d be pretty safe but then the humans would get us and haul us to the pound. Either way someone ended up dead.” Toothpick said this matter-of-factly.

  “How’d you survive?” Baxter nuzzled the still-skinny fellow.

  “I had hiding places too small for the coyotes to squeeze in. Had them everywhere. Sometimes I’d duck in and there’d be a cat or two in there and we’d all huddle up. Brad let me sleep with him at night. We tried to keep each other warm.” Then Toothpick added, “At the end, I think he wanted to die. He’d given up hope. He was so hungry he really couldn’t think. I miss him but I am glad to be here and I am learning to trust the two ladies. Still, I think about Brad not wanting to live. I want to live!”

  “I don’t understand it,” King said.

  “I can understand going off to die or knowing it was my time but I can’t imagine wanting to die.” Baxter pondered this. “When Mom’s career ended, her friends, not a lot, but people she knew took poison, jumped out of windows, some hung themselves. Over money. Mom said they couldn’t live with the shame, with failure.”

  “I’m glad I’m a dog.” Toothpick smiled.

  “Me, too,” Baxter agreed, with warmth.

  “I love my human, I’d die for my human.” King mused. “But I wouldn’t want to be a human.”