___
Dalton and Tanner walked in from the road. When they got to the place, they ducked under the yellow police tape that was held up with bamboo poles and took stock of how little was left of the single-wide. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, and what remained looked like it had been bled of its color. Dalton kicked through the ashes and the toe of his boot tinkled against a blackened knife and fork, then he found the springs of an easy chair. As his eyes adjusted, he found an upright refrigerator and an oven. There were some twisted lengths of conduit, too. Everything else had burned or fused itself to something.
Tanner followed the concentric rings of destruction outward past the carport and the gnarled cottonwoods until he came to the edge of the property itself. None of the neighboring land looked damaged, though it was a close call. The burn became a crosshatch in the tan grass at about thirty feet. The nearest structure was a green-and-white travel trailer on blocks with the windows bashed out. A sign on it said FOR SALE 50 BUCKS.
“It’s a shame the fire didn’t clear out some of this other crap,” Tanner called out.
“Careful what you wish for,” Dalton called back.
Dalton and Tanner questioned the neighbors, who said two brothers lived here, but they’d been scarce lately. They kept to themselves, so there wasn’t much to say. One of them had been away for a while. The tall one had been around more. On the phone, the Mohave County sheriff told them the utilities were all in the name of Lonnie Ashdown.
To the south and west, clouds gathered into a massive gray shadow, the force of the rain evident in the acute angle of the squall line. Rain, if it got this far, would turn everything into a slick black mess, washing away any evidence that might be left. Dalton kicked the sooty ground again and shook his head.
Tanner circled back and joined up with Dalton. “What do you think the fire marshal’s going to say about this?”
Dalton took off his hat and dusted his thigh with it. “He’ll say it’s no accident.”
“I mean, it could be. Doesn’t take much work to start a fire out here,” Tanner said.
“These Ashdown fellas don’t come across as the kind of folks partial to working.”
“They aren’t.”
“I haven’t heard much about them since they moved over to Cane Beds. I pulled them over a couple days ago for out-of-date tags. They’re out of my county now and out of Utah. Not my circus, not supposed to be my monkeys,” Dalton said.
“What did the Arizona report say?”
“Byron’s the older one, been all through the system. Petty theft, possession of meth with the intent to sell. Recently it’s been cars. Seems like he took the fall for an operation out of Reno. It doesn’t look like they honored his sacrifice. The other day he was worried I was going to violate his parole.”
“Still no honor among thieves?”
“I was a couple years ahead of Byron in school. He wasn’t much of anything back then. We weren’t friends. His file says the Army wouldn’t take him, and that’s when the trouble started,” Dalton said.
Tanner lifted his eyebrows. “I mean, if the Army won’t take you,” he said.
“Apparently he couldn’t pass the vocational aptitude test. Didn’t finish high school.”
“What about the brother? People say he’s kind of slow, or something,” Tanner said.
“He’s clean. And he’s a known quantity, I guess. Doesn’t cause much trouble. Apparently, he spends a lotta time at the library.”
“Libraries keep a file?”
“No. LaRae says she sees him there, in the back. Reading.”
“Reading?”
“That’s what she says.” Dalton walked past the black outline of the trailer and went far enough toward the mailbox to get to where the burned marks ended. He stooped, pulled off his sunglasses, and squinted at the tire tracks. After a minute, he stood and put the glasses back on.
“After I got out of the service,” Dalton said, “I started working here. Had the same job as you. A situation came up with this guy named Wes Carnaby. He was a little bit off like these two. Lived with his sister. She was a lunch lady for the middle school. One day, about a week after Thanksgiving, we get this call from the library. They said Carnaby was asking for information on where you can and can’t bury human remains.”
“He was asking for a friend, right?”
“Yeah, right. Librarian told him he might have some luck checking the county code. It was Raylene Cluff told him that, just for the small world of it all. Apparently, Carnaby didn’t like the idea of looking something up for himself. He threw a fit, and she suggested he ask a funeral home.”
“You gotta love a librarian.”
“He stormed off to a table and started scribbling in a notebook, holding on to the side of his head, talking to himself. Swearing. She asked us to come down, but by the time we got there, he was gone.”
“I can see where this is headed.”
“Maybe not,” Dalton said. “We paid him a visit, and he was right in the middle of the driveway, loading the sister’s body into the back of his pickup, pulling her up a ramp he’d made out of a plywood Dr Pepper sign. She was rolled inside a piece of carpet he’d tied up with twine.”
“Dammit.” Tanner’s mouth shrank.
“When he saw us, he stopped and asked if we were going to just stand there or if we could lend a hand. We asked him what was in the carpet. He told us it was just carpet all the way through. We asked him if he wanted to amend his answer, and he told us it was none of our business. We told him we thought it was maybe just a little bit of our business, then he up and ran off, straight through the backyard. Threw himself over the fence, or he tried anyway. He popped up on the other side and limped through the vacant lot. Came out on Ninth East, then we picked him up.”
“They always run.”
“Well, he was just walking. Told us later that he found her like that.”
“In the carpet?”
“No, dead. We asked him why he didn’t call us, and he said he didn’t want us thinking he did it. We asked him if he was worried about it because he did kill her, and he said he didn’t but he wanted to.”
“This is not the way I thought it was going.”
“We kept him in jail until the autopsy came back. She died of a stroke. So, we opened the door, told him he was off the hook, and we let him go. On the way out, he stopped and stared at a plate of cookies somebody brought in for something, a birthday maybe. We told him to help himself. He took the whole plate, just dumped it into his coat pocket. Then he walked out. Didn’t say anything. And he left the plate.”
“He left the plate?”
“Set it right back where it was.” Dalton kicked the dirt and spat. “Maybe what we’re looking at here is an accident or a mix-up. Maybe it’s sinister. Maybe worse. Did these guys kill Bruce and steal his pots? I don’t know. Thinking about what people are capable of can really mess up your week.”
Dalton walked back toward the ruins of the carport, where more things remained intact. He sized up a collapsed fifty-five-gallon drum and a metal tool chest. “Part of me hopes all of this is connected, then it’s only one villain at a time.” Dalton lowered himself down and took an interest in the ground.
“I see what you’re saying, but how would that work? These guys break in, planning to steal pots from Bruce. He’s there. They kill him and just take the pots. Nothing else. Then they make it look like suicide, come back and burn down their own house to cover their tracks? It doesn’t make sense. The criminal element around here didn’t grow up playing chess.”
“Yep. They’re barely thinking about their last move.”
“Sometimes there’s no thinking at all.”
“That’s right.” Dalton pulled a Leatherman from his belt and opened it up and used it to flip over a board that had been pressed down into the mud, revealing a two-foot strip of unburned ground underneath.
“You find something?”
“Nope.”
Tanner took off his hat and reshaped the crown. “Maybe there’s something to what Stan Forsythe is saying, you know, about Feds moving in, confiscating people’s collections. Maybe they were onto Bruce, and the event you’re investigating was a preemptive strike.”
“That sound like Bruce to you?”
“White males have pretty much cornered the suicide market around here.”
“Doesn’t explain these Ashdowns.”
“Maybe this place was full of pots.”
“Pots have been fired before. We’d see something left in the ashes if they were here.” Dalton inched closer to the ground that hadn’t been scorched. “If Cluff’s house had been the one to burn, I’d think you were on the right track. Can’t figure out why here.”
“Maybe they pissed off the neighbors.”
Dalton stood and turned slowly in a semicircle. “One of these pissed-off neighbors called it in.”
“I need a nap,” Tanner said.
“Come here,” Dalton said, taking Tanner with him down toward the mailbox end of the driveway, where they both squatted down. “These tire tracks. It’s a truck with a trailer. They come out from where the carport was, head through the burn, then go out to the road.”
“Okay.”
“These other tracks . . . they’re coming back in and sit right on top of the others. See how the front wheels turn? And one of these front tires is a spare. The passenger side up front is skinnier.”
“Somebody came in after the Ashdowns left?” Tanner said.
“That’s the story I’m telling myself,” Dalton said.
“So, looking for cars driving on a spare?”
“It’s a start.” Dalton stood and stamped his boots and looked toward the southern horizon. The cluster of clouds in that wedge of sky had grown darker, turning deep purple, and the angle of the rain had sharpened. The rest of the sky was belted in gray nimbostratus, and the temperature had dropped. They could both feel it.
“Afghanistan taught me there’s no winners.” He started toward the vehicle. “Let’s take some pictures before that storm gets here.”
___
Scissors dropped eight quarters into the car wash control box and dialed the toggle switch to PRE-WASH. The machinery engaged and the nozzle hissed. He unsheathed it and began to rinse the Sebring systematically from top to bottom. He spent extra time on the wheels, stopping to check the condition of the spare he’d been driving on for the last day and a half. It seemed to be holding up. After the pre-wash, he applied the suds, rinsed, and sprayed on a finish he knew wouldn’t do anything, but there were forty-five seconds left that he couldn’t let himself throw away.
When he was done, he drove the rest of the way into Kanab and stopped at the China House restaurant. There were a few other customers spread throughout the place. When the waiter brought him a menu, he held up his hand and said, “A bowl of hot-and-sour soup, kung pao beef, and iced tea. No rice, please.”
“Really? No rice?” the waiter asked.
“I’m trying to watch my figure.”
“We all should,” the waiter said, then dismissed himself.
When the man was gone, Scissors took out his phone and dialed.
“It’s been two days,” Frangos said.
“Yes, ma’am. It has.”
“When were you planning to fill me in on this carnival of errors?”
Scissors looked around and straightened the two bottles of soy sauce in front of him. “I was hoping to wait for good news, but that’s been in short supply,” he said, then he began reorganizing the sugar packets by color. “I’ve had bad weather, a flat tire, some cat and mouse with local law enforcement. Somebody was in that house before I got to it. Not the cops.”
“Not the simpletons?”
“I don’t think so. It wasn’t a pro, but he was more careful than these yahoos. He moved all kinds of things. Maps were out of place, an upstairs window was jimmied, footprints on the siding. I still think the Swallow Valley map is with Dumb and Dumber, though.”
“Tell me more about this other thief,” she said.
“I didn’t see him or anything.”
The waiter brought Scissors his soup and iced tea. He nodded a thank-you.
“I can’t say I like the addition of this variable.”
“The whole thing has turned into a goat rodeo as far as I’m concerned.”
“Then we have some common ground. People on my end don’t want to move until I can assure them that Swallow Valley should be part of the rollback. That can’t happen without the map. Bruce Cluff was one of the last people who even knew how to get there, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
Scissors blew on the soup, then tasted it.
“Do you think these mooncalves have the resources to get themselves to Swallow Valley?”
“No,” Scissors said. “Did you say ‘mooncalf’?”
Frangos ignored the question. “I want them out of the picture before they get caught.”
“I’m looking for them, but there’s a lot of places they could have gone. We’re talking about a million acres.”
“A million is not a large number for everyone, Nicholas.”
“This place barely has roads.”
“Get a horse,” she said.
The waiter slid the kung pao in front of Scissors, and he pantomimed a request for chopsticks.
“All of this matters a great deal,” Frangos said. “You have done good work for me in the past. I’d like to keep you around.”
“That’s a kind sentiment,” Scissors said.
“Everything we are doing is time sensitive. Critically so.”
“Since when does government move fast? I mean, they’re not known for it. I’ve had an inside look.”
“As have I,” she said. “Do you think our stooges were stupid enough to have destroyed the map, perhaps to spite you?”
“It’s hard to say. I don’t think either of them did too well in school.”
“Were you a savant of some kind, Nicholas?”
“No, ma’am, but it was for different reasons.”
“Don’t tell me you were a restless spirit.”
“Independent is more like it.”
“An autodidact, then?” she said.
“That’s right. One of those.”
The waiter set the chopsticks next to Scissors, who picked them up, slid off the paper, and split them apart with one hand.
“So, what is your assessment of the situation?” she asked.
“I think they’re just trying to double-cross us,” he said, taking a bite. “Me, really. I don’t think they even know you’re part of this.”
“And it needs to stay that way. The window of opportunity will close on us without notice,” she said.
“Can you buy us some time?”
“I’m already doing that, but at some point, my people in Washington, D.C., will have to stop looking the other way. When that happens, you cannot be out there. If you’re not gone, you’ll be on your own.”
“Like Mission Impossible?”
“I’ll do more than disavow my knowledge of your activities. You’ll go under the bus. Isn’t that how one says it?”
“I’ve always come through,” Scissors said, taking another spoonful of soup. “It’ll be the same this time.”
“I expect as much. This isn’t meant to be a pep talk.”
“Didn’t sound like one.” Scissors waited for her to say something else, and after a moment he looked at the phone and saw that the call had ended. He pocketed his phone and took another spoonful of the soup, then looked outside at the Main Street of this tiny town. By tomorrow, he figured he will have tried all of the restaurants, and he wanted to be done before he had to start doubling back.
Day Seven
An easier way to make money : Dynamite : Inauthenticity : There’s people in here : Pok-pok-pok : With winged boots : Vexations : Plan D
The sheriff’s deputy returned Reinhardt’s driver’s licens
e and the rental car’s registration papers. “That German license doesn’t give you diplomatic immunity, Mr. Kupfer,” he said.
“No, of course not, Sheriff—” Reinhardt looked up at the man’s name tag. “—Sheriff Tanner.”
“Deputy. It’s just deputy.”
“It is very difficult to obtain a German driving license, but I understand you, and I will slow down.”
“That sign isn’t a suggestion.”
“I understand.”
Reinhardt watched Tanner return to his car, then he continued following his phone’s instructions to a diner for breakfast. He drove past the Kanab Chamber of Commerce until he came to a sign with three large columns of orange rock surrounding the name HooDoo Diner in red neon.
The waitress told him to sit wherever he wanted. There was a man in the first booth with a plate of eggs, link sausages, and hash browns covered in ketchup. Alongside his meal was a gray laptop, and he was reading the newspaper as he ate. Most of the other tables were taken, so Reinhardt took a booth near the back. As he sat, the waitress showed up with a tall, red glass of ice water. She asked Reinhardt if he’d like something to drink. He asked for coffee, and she set down a menu. “Specials are on the board,” she said.
There was a Belgian waffle for $5.99 and a Navajo taco for $6.50. When she returned, he asked about the Navajo taco. “We don’t serve that until 11:30, hon,” she said.
He chose the Denver omelet and biscuits, then took out his phone and started going through his photos. There was one of the kid at the rental car place giving him the peace sign with his two front teeth protruding from under his top lip, a picture of the black Mustang he rented, then blurry pictures he should not have taken while driving from Cedar City to Kanab.
There were pictures of towering sandstone walls and smaller minarets. Travel trailers and small clusters of cattle. There were many images of old buildings, contrails crossing the open sky. Thunderheads on the horizon, and the massive storm cloud he’d seen yesterday while driving from Cedar City as it opened up to the south on the monument, the dark tatters of rain localized and intense. On either side of that storm was calm blue sky as far as he could see. Next was a picture of his own two feet plunged into the blue waters of the Virgin River, then photos of vivid Indian paintbrush and pale sage. He was looking for the one image he could use to announce that he’d reached escape velocity and left the oppressive tour. None of yesterday’s photos were right. They looked like loafing.
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