Tortoise Soup (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

by Jessica Speart

  We reached the top of a butte, where we stopped the horses to look out over hundreds of acres below. Dotted with creosote and the occasional cactus, there couldn’t have been any more desolate land.

  “Ain’t it beautiful?” Harley asked, reveling in the harshness of the desert spread out before us. “This is what life is supposed to be. That’s the problem with you easterners and those gobbledygook bureaucrats back in D.C. You think you’re roughing it if you can’t walk out your front door and see a Circle K or a 7-Eleven. But this is enough for me.”

  He was right about one thing. What we saw before us was well on its way to becoming a bloody battlefield where everyone—miners, ranchers, and realtors—was scrambling to stake their own claim without regard for the land or its critters.

  Harley chewed on his tobacco in silence before turning to me. “Things got out of hand the other day.”

  I felt that was putting it mildly.

  “You don’t really believe that environmentalists are dumping tortoises on your land, do you?” I prodded, hoping Harley would admit to the absurdity of the notion.

  “Damn right I do,” he responded. “Not that I blame you personally. Hell, Fish and Wildlife has been paying those wackos to dump the critters ever since they were placed on that damn pinko endangered list to begin with.”

  It was nice to know there was something Harley didn’t blame me for. But this was the first time I’d heard that this had been going on for years.

  “What makes you think this has happened before?” I asked.

  Harley looked at me as though I’d just dropped in from the moon. “This ain’t the first time that damn Center’s been broken into, you know. How else do you think we got these damned four-legged cabooses all over the place?”

  I felt sure he’d been fed this line by someone with an interest at stake. “Who’s been telling you all this?”

  A smug look spread across Harley’s face as he realized the information was news to me. “Ed Garrett. And that’s at the risk of losing his job, you know. Garrett says Fish and Wildlife has been salting our land with lots of endangered things.

  “That’s why we’ve finally drawn the line in this old desert sand. The Foundation told Garrett that something has to be done, and he agrees. He stands by us ranchers and by God, we’re gonna stand by him. We’re gonna make sure the county commission is the highest law in this land.”

  I looked around, realizing that I had yet to see one tortoise so far on our ride across the range.

  “So when do you usually spot all these tortoises?” I asked Harley.

  “What are you talking about? They’re around here all the time,” Harley replied indignantly, boosting himself higher in his saddle.

  “Then why haven’t I seen one the entire time we’ve been out here?”

  Harley’s eyes narrowed and his lips compressed into a thin, straight line as he stared at me, his mind working overtime to come up with an answer.

  “It’s because they’re smart,” he finally sputtered.

  “You mean they know I’m here and they’re hiding?” I questioned.

  “Could be,” Harley spat back, not looking in my direction. His face was a mass of red blotches as he worked hard to control his anger.

  I leaned over to give Terminator a pat on the neck and nearly fell out of the saddle. I quickly pulled myself back up, hoping that Harley hadn’t noticed. “Maybe they’re afraid I’ve come to take them back to the Center. Do you think that could be it?”

  Harley whirled his horse around to face me, one hand twitching above the .45 holstered on his hip.

  “Goddammit, Porter,” he exploded. “You damn well know that they’re being dumped here so that you can swish your fanny onto my land and tell me I gotta stop grazing my cattle. But I got news for you, lady: we went and got ourselves a smart lawyer who’s gonna sue the pants off your goddamn agency. If I were you, I’d start looking for another job real fast.”

  Harley didn’t wait for my retort as he nudged his horse and began to move down off the butte. But it wasn’t the same way we’d come up; as I watched in horror, Harley disappeared straight down over the vertical side.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I muttered, my heartbeat pounding into overdrive.

  I could opt for the slow and easy way down, but I had the feeling that Harley wasn’t in the mood to wait for me—which meant that Pilot and I would be left to aimlessly wander the range. I held tightly onto the saddle horn, the reins clenched in my fists, took a deep breath, and followed Harley over the edge.

  Pilot leapt ahead of me, nearly tumbling down the hill before regaining his balance. Mustering his dignity, he looked back at me and then bounded off to catch up with Harley. I now understood how Kim Novak must have felt in Vertigo. I shut my eyes tight and clutched Terminator’s neck for dear life, hoping he didn’t get fed up enough to toss me off. By the time we reached bottom, my clothes were soaked, more out of fear than the heat. When I opened my eyes, I found Harley waiting with Pilot, a maddening grin plastered across his face.

  “Have a nice ride?”

  I didn’t bother to answer. Harley would never have to resort to violence to keep his ranch. All he had to do was drag the big boys in Washington down off their thrones and onto a horse for the ride of their lives. They’d end up giving him whatever he wanted.

  We rode together for a while, the quiet of the desert repairing my ragged nerves.

  Harley finally broke the silence. “This visit was a one-time deal, Porter. My word still stands as far as federal agents coming onto my land,” he warned.

  I studied him, wondering if a showdown was in my future.

  “Would you really shoot a federal agent?” I quietly asked.

  “Like LuAnn said, whatever it comes down to. Whatever it takes. The only way I’ll be taken off this land is in a pine box.”

  I watched Pilot jump back from a whiptail lizard that was standing its ground.

  Harley looked me in the eye. “I’m warning you, Porter. Try to seize our cattle or land, and there’ll be ranchers here with guns to blow you away. You don’t stand a chance. Give it up and head on home.”

  I had no intention of packing and running. Not on someone else’s terms. Not to please Harley or Garrett or Monty Harris or Holmes. What I did have was a final question for Harley. I let go of the horn and finally began to relax in the saddle.

  “By the way, Harley, who’s footing the legal bills for this lawyer of yours? He must be costing a bundle.” It had to be more money than Harley and the other ranchers could afford.

  Harley was silent for a long moment. He chewed on his stash while watching the sun begin its descent for the day. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Porter.”

  Maybe not. But I had a gut feeling that whoever was shelling out the bucks had a big interest at stake.

  “I don’t see why you can’t tell me, unless something underhanded is going on,” I prodded. “Could it be the reason I haven’t seen any tortoises on our ride out here is because you’ve been rounding them up to sell in Pahrump?”

  Harley snorted at me in contempt.

  “It would certainly be one way to pay off your legal bills,” I added.

  I watched as Harley’s face turned a deep red.

  “You’re crazy, Porter.”

  “That might be,” I agreed. “But I could always start an investigation in order to find out what you’re up to. Of course, that would mean federal agents coming onto your land. You’d get to have your showdown, Harley—ready or not.”

  Harley shrugged his shoulders, knocking off a fly that had attached itself to a drop of perspiration on his neck. “Lots of folks are helping us out. Mostly members of the Foundation.”

  It made sense that the local county supremacy movement would be kicking in money. But I wanted specifics.

  “Sorry, Harley. Not good enough,” I told him.

  Harley stared at me as if pondering whether to kill me now or wait till later. “Alpha Deve
lopment Corporation. Heard of them? They’ve been helping us out. Ain’t anything illegal about that, is there?”

  Nothing illegal, but definitely intriguing. It was also becoming obvious that Garrett was cleverly pulling Harley’s strings. As a director on Alpha Development’s board, Garrett could only be interested in one thing—kicking the feds out in order to build on public land. If Harley wasn’t careful, he might have a 7-Eleven outside his door sooner than he could have ever imagined.

  Eleven

  By the time I left Harley’s, my stomach was rumbling and my stash of junk food was dangerously low. Pilot and I stopped at the Mosey On Inn, where Ruby took pity and fed us both meatloaf for dinner.

  “Make any headway on those runaway tortoises yet?” Ruby inquired as she wiped off the counter with a brown, scummy rag.

  “Not a bit,” I admitted. I had no desire to explain that so far, my major discovery was a can of neon-green spray paint.

  “Word has it that a big shipment of those critters landed in Pahrump,” Ruby revealed. “But don’t get all riled up to hop on over there. Those four-legged Volkswagens have already been scooped up.”

  “How do you know that?” I wondered if Ruby had somehow been involved in the deal.

  “Heard there was some big-ass Chinaman’s festival over around Fresno a ways. A wedding or something. Those torts were on special order. At least, that’s what I heard. The evidence has probably all been eaten by now.” Ruby threw a dollop of thin, gray gravy over a hard lump of instant mashed potatoes on my plate. “By the way, I could use a can of hairspray the next time you’re around.”

  I knew exactly what she liked: the kind of lacquer that would keep the Empire State Building from falling down.

  When I finally headed back out, it looked as if someone had thrown an assortment of tempera colors into the sky, fingerpainting the sunset that appeared before my eyes. I pulled out a map, along with Lizzie’s piece of paper, and took off to track Dee Salvano down.

  Night had closed in quickly by the time I found the wooden sign for Feather Lane Drive. I swung onto the dirt road and turned on my brights, dodging rocks and sneaky ruts along the way. Every once in a while a pair of eyes would flash in front of me, burning into the night with the intensity of meteors ablaze. Surprised by the intrusion, their owner would quickly scamper away. After a few minutes I spotted a glimmer off in the distance, smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

  I approached to find the light emanated from a squat concrete structure with a battered red pickup out front. I pulled up next to it and studied the house. An array of colored bottles, all sizes and shapes, was perched on the windowsills. A wooden signpost pointed the way to Hong Kong, London, and Paris—the kind of places most people usually dream about going. A movement caught my eye as one of the window curtains, pulled slightly aside, quickly fell back into place.

  I left Pilot in the Blazer and navigated the rocky path up to the house. I was just about to knock when the door was yanked open. Dee stood with a shotgun in hand, bathed in a pool of light. She took a quick glance around and then reached out to grab me. Pulling me inside, she shut the door.

  Her mound of brown hair was askew, as if a rabid coon had been trying to claw its way out, and her eyes verged on bloodshot. There was the unmistakable scent of beer on her breath.

  “You got a hell of a lot of nerve coming here, Porter,” she glared at me. “Maybe you don’t give a shit about your own ass, but now you’re putting my life on the line.”

  I hadn’t expected this kind of outburst. After all, Dee had been the one who had tipped me off about the mine to begin with.

  “It’s kind of hard to get you on the phone for an in-depth conversation. I felt face to face in private would be best,” I responded.

  “You take an awful lot for granted, then,” she snapped back.

  “What do you think? That there’s someone outside spying on you?” I joked.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Don’t you know who you’re playing against, Porter? Nobody screws around with the mining industry in this state. Especially not Golden Shaft. Hell, they just gave NDOW five hundred thousand dollars for being good boys and keeping their nose out of the way,” Dee groused.

  I imagined that with five hundred thousand dollars you could buy an awful lot of fax machines—and a good deal of cooperation.

  “Hell, if they’re out there, they’ve seen you by now. So you might as well sit down and have a beer.” Dee turned and walked over to the fridge.

  The place was a lot homier than its outside would have led me to believe. Every spot was filled with knickknacks, as if a carnival had just passed through town, unloading its wares. Small stuffed animals dominated most of the space. I picked up a toy tortoise as Dee flipped me a Coors.

  “My husband bought me those,” she commented, popping open a can.

  “Does he work for the mine, too?” I asked.

  “Used to.” Dee held the cold can of beer to her face. “He died three years ago. His first job was to pick up dead wildlife on the grounds and throw their carcasses into shafts in order to get rid of the evidence. Felt so bad about the whole deal that he’d go out and buy me a stuffed animal each time. I ended up with a hell of a lot of them.”

  Dee plucked a toy dog from the pile and hugged it to her breast. “You got that dog of yours out there in that truck?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, bring him the hell in. No sense in him sitting out there, either,” she said, putting the toy back in the pile.

  I went outside to get Pilot, looking to see if I could spot anyone. But the desert was quiet and dark. Pilot trotted into the house, where Dee gave him a bowl of water and a dog biscuit.

  “Have you got a dog, too?” I asked, surprised not to have heard any barking.

  Dee gave Pilot a pat on the head and then straightened up. “He was shot. Got onto the mine grounds, where one of the guards killed him.”

  I started to say I was sorry, but Dee cut me off.

  “Hell, Golden Shaft got my husband, as well,” Dee sighed. “He fell into a mine shaft one day. Usually you can survive that sort of thing, but he broke his neck on the way down.”

  I opened the Coors and took a sip. “I’m surprised you still work there.”

  Dee stared at me a moment. “Like I told you before, there ain’t much choice out here. I’m too old be a stripper and the 7-Eleven don’t pay near as well. What the hell else am I supposed to do? You gonna give me a job?”

  Silence descended, broken only by Pilot lapping the water.

  “Tell me, why is wildlife even kept in the freezer if no autopsies are done?” I finally asked.

  A sly smile stole across Dee’s face. “Nice touch, ain’t it? That’s so a few can be handed over to NDOW every now and then. They do some kind of slapdash look-see. And sure enough, it always turns out that the critters died of natural causes. Funny about that, huh? Never seen so many things just keeling over dead in one place.”

  Dee wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. Putting down her beer, she took a plate of stew out of the oven.

  “A few autopsies a year by NDOW seems to keep you feds from snooping around, and business goes on as usual.” Dee sat down at the table, kicking out a chair for me with her foot. “You had supper yet?”

  I looked at the plate of grisly meat and bones, and thought about the dead critters piled up in mine shafts. “I’m fine, thanks. Is the mine giving money to anyone else that you know of?”

  Dee thought for a moment as she chewed on a piece of mystery meat. “There’s the county commission. They get a nice chunk of change. The mine calls it community relations. I call it more like greasing the monkey, if you know what I mean.”

  “I met Ed Garrett the other day. He certainly didn’t seem too concerned about winning my vote,” I informed her.

  Dee wiped up some greasy stew with a slice of bread and stuffed it into her mouth. “Garrett’s twenty-five percent jerk, seventy-five percent slime and a hundred perce
nt asshole. But he sure as hell has been stopping by the mine a lot these days.”

  “Any idea why?” I asked.

  “Sometimes the management calls a meeting of all the employees, hoping to get us riled up about federal restrictions. It’s all because of Garrett’s agenda for county supremacy. But I can tell you that Garrett’s got a lot of backing from workers at the mine. Mining is Nevada’s gravy train and anything that gets in the way is bound to get run over.”

  Dee wiped a trickle of gravy from her mouth and put her plate down on the floor, where Pilot promptly lapped up the leftover bits of meat and gravy.

  Dee grinned at me. “Betcha didn’t know that Golden Shaft has filed a patent to purchase all the land they have claims on.”

  She was right: it was news to me. Brian certainly hadn’t mentioned it. What I did have some knowledge of was the Mining Law of 1872, also known as the Eleventh Commandment. It allows mining companies to purchase public land they have claims on for just five dollars an acre—making it private property on which they can do as they please. One company had recently purchased twenty-seven hundred acres, containing 15.8 billion dollars’ worth of minerals, for a paltry sum. Some in Congress called it highway robbery and were working hard to change the law. I mentioned as much to Dee.

  “That’s why Golden Shaft is pushing to get this patent through as fast as possible,” she explained. “They don’t want Congress screwing things up.”

  My guess was that Golden Shaft’s next best hope lay with Ed Garrett and his resolution to force the release of all public land in Clark County.

  “Do you know if Golden Shaft purchased any of Annie McCarthy’s claims?” I probed.

  She shook her head. “Nope. Haven’t seen a thing on it. But it shouldn’t be too hard to sniff around and find out.”

  I pulled out Annie’s quit claim deed that had been signed by Anderson, and showed it to Dee.

  “Is that Brian Anderson’s signature?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “Well, it says Brian Anderson, don’t it?” Dee stated, pouring two cups of coffee.

  “But does it look like the real thing?” I persisted.