Reunions Can Be Murder: The Seventh Charlie Parker Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  “You’re impossible,” I told him.

  I put on my robe, gathered the tempting chicken bones, and wrapped them tightly in the wastebasket’s plastic-bag liner. I set it out in the hall with everyone else’s room service detritus.

  “There. No more.” I showed the dog my empty hands and he finally settled down to sleep on the carpet.

  The ibuprofen I’d swallowed before stepping into the steaming shower were finally beginning to take hold and I drifted off, reaching for the TV remote as I slipped off the edge of wakefulness.

  Getting out of bed the next morning was no easy feat. Every muscle in my lower body was screaming at me. I did more pain killers and another hot shower while letting the little in-room coffee maker do its thing. I stepped from the shower in far less pain and with an idea.

  Pulling the telephone directory for the metro area’s East Valley, I looked up Rocky Rhodes.

  “Mornin’ there, Charlie,” he greeted. “Did you make it out to Willie’s mine?”

  “How did you know?”

  He chuckled easily. “Just sorta guessed it. By the way you were askin’ questions, I knew you’d want to find it.”

  “Well, I didn’t have any trouble finding the markers. They were right in place. Just ran out of time,” I told him. “I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to do it next time. Any suggestions? You said you’d been out there yourself?”

  “Oh gosh, years ago,” he said. “We always took some horses or mules. Course we were staying awhile and had some gear with us.”

  “Would you like to come with me?” I asked.

  “I ain’t really in shape for it now,” he said. “Or I’m just gettin’ too blame lazy.”

  “I guess you’re right about the horses,” I said, hiding my disappointment. “Where would I go about getting one?”

  “I suppose most places that rent them wouldn’t let you keep one out overnight unless they sent a guide with you,” he said. “Don’t know. Guess you could ask ’em.”

  I flipped to the yellow pages while we talked. There were a couple of stables in the area.

  “Used to know a guy who took horses up in the hills all the time. Don’t know if he still does, though. Suppose I could give you his number,” he offered.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.” I wrote down the number of his friend, along with the places in the phone book.

  Before I could dial one of them the phone rang.

  “So, are you two enjoying a nice lazy vacation?” Sally’s usual cheerful voice came through.

  “Well, not exactly.” I told her about Drake being called away and my dilemma about going back into the mountains a second time.

  “You may want to check with this guy first,” she said. “A Randy Buckman from White Oaks. He sounded a little excited when he called here. Said something about an explosion.”

  Chapter 14

  “An explosion? Literally?” I asked as soon as I got Buckman on the line.

  “In one of the mine shafts on the west end of town. Cause is still under investigation, as is the identity of the two bodies.”

  “Oh, god. Two?” My mind spun forward to the possibility that one might be Willie McBride. “Any ideas about who they are?” I asked.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I can’t say either way. Got some crime lab people coming down from Albuquerque. They’re the only department in the state with sophisticated enough equipment to read this scene. It’s a mess.

  “We may have some ideas in a few hours. The bodies are charred beyond recognition, but we may be able to take a head count here in town to find out who’s missing. It’s a starting place anyway. Mainly, I was trying to get in touch with you to see if you’d found McBride elsewhere. Would at least help us eliminate him.”

  “No, I haven’t. Not really any proof that he’d been here since he went missing from home either.”

  “You can check back with me later in the day,” he offered. “I may have some answers by then.”

  I hung up feeling very unsettled. The sheet of paper with the riding stables’ phone numbers sat by the phone. There wasn’t much point in my going back up into the Superstitions if Willie’s body was lying charred in a mine shaft in New Mexico. I’d just be wasting time and resources and putting myself at risk in the unfamiliar environment. I made a snap decision.

  The rental agency agreed to let me return the car in Albuquerque, so I hastily jammed our stuff into the bags and packed it all into the trunk. Rusty watched me bustle about, cocking his head, staying near enough to the door to be sure he wouldn’t be left behind. Consulting my road map, I figured the quickest way to White Oaks would be to take Interstate 10 to Las Cruces, then up through Alamogordo. By ten o’clock we were on the road.

  White Oaks was curiously quiet when I pulled into town, just as the sun dipped below the hills. My aching joints screamed at me as I slid from behind the wheel after spending hours in one position. I’d hoped to find Randel’s café open but it was dark.

  I let Rusty take a much needed run in the empty lot beside the café while I tried to decide what my next step would be. Finally decided to see if I could reach Randy Buckman. He answered with a weary voice after the third ring.

  “I’m in White Oaks again,” I told him, “but it’s really deserted-looking here.”

  “It’s been a long day,” he said. “Everybody’s probably getting tucked in for the night. I was just about to grab some dinner in Carrizozo, the place at the main intersection. If you want to join me I’ll fill you in.”

  Food sounded good. I told him I’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  “Well, we’ve got an ID on one of our victims,” he said after we’d ordered—meatloaf for him, open-faced roast beef sandwich for me. “Rory Daniels.”

  My face must have registered the appropriate surprise.

  “Looks like it’s drug related.” He watched for my reaction to that little bombshell.

  “What! In White Oaks?on.

  “Know what you mean,” he said, shaking his head side to side. “Took me by surprise too. And in a small community, that’s not easy to do.”

  Our food arrived just then. I buttered my roll and took a forkful of mashed potatoes with brown gravy.

  “Looks like Rory was part of a big export operation. We don’t think he was actually making the stuff out there in the mine. Probably just storing the chemicals. Usually with these meth labs, it’s the lab that blows up, when they’re cooking up a batch. But I guess some of those chemicals are pretty unstable and if two things get mixed together, bam!”

  “So, the Albuquerque lab people figured this out?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It’s not really my for-tay, as they say. We got the DEA in on it now. They’ll eventually find out who Rory was working with and where they were actually cooking up the stuff.”

  “So, if Rory Daniels was one of the bodies, who was the second?” I asked.

  “Still don’t know. Now that we know about the drug stuff, my guess is it’ll be somebody involved in that.”

  “But you called my office this morning,” I pointed out. “Is there still any reason to think it might be Willie?”

  “Ordinarily, I’d say not. And I wouldn’t have called you at all, except for one bit of evidence.” He paused to take a bite of his meatloaf and to drag out the suspense for me. “McBride’s wallet was lying not twenty feet outside the mineshaft opening.”

  My brain went into a spin.

  “But, the whole area was searched earlier this week. Why didn’t anyone find it then? Was it burned? Do you think it means Willie was in the mine with Rory when the explosion went off?” I was having a hard time picturing the old prospector involved with a drug ring. Nothing was coming together.

  “Wasn’t burned,” he answered. “But it wasn’t there earlier in the week either. I’m real certain about that. Those searchers combed every inch of that ground.”

  “Then why didn’t they find the chemicals in the mine?”

&nb
sp; “We’re calling a couple of them in for questioning to find out. Could be Rory had the stuff hidden down a small shaft, or maybe he’d disguised it somehow and they just missed it. I don’t know the answer to that one.”

  “So how did McBride’s wallet get there,” I mused, drawing tine-marks in my remaining potatoes.

  His radio squawked just then and he pulled it off his belt. A voice that sounded as if it were being spoken through a sieve said something I couldn’t understand and Randy gave it a 10-4 in return.

  “Gotta go,” he said to me. “Here’s my share.”

  He dropped a ten dollar bill on the table and picked up his hat from the seat beside him. I watched his trim form saunter to the door, with a small salute to the waitress as he left.

  I fiddled with my food but found I wasn’t hungry any more.

  Although the idea of being back home in my own bed tonight had enormous appeal, I couldn’t face nearly another four hours of driving. I got a room at the motel connected to the diner and, after placing a call to Drake’s cell phone to let him know about the recent turn of events, fed Rusty some of his food and crawled between the sheets. Sleep came almost immediately.

  My eyes came open suddenly and my heart pounded as my brain registered only the conscious thought, where am I? Relaxing my rigid muscles, I turned my head to one side. A yellow square of light framed the window at the far side of the room. Red numerals glowed 3:15 on the nightstand clock. Another motel room. This one in Carrizozo. I finally remembered. Shit, I just wanted to go home.

  I stretched out my limbs, my muscles crying out about the abuse I’d given them over the past two days, and rolled to my other side. After fifteen minutes I rolled back the other way. My eyes wouldn’t close and my brain wouldn’t stop.

  Was Willie McBride still somewhere around White Oaks? Was his the second body in the explosion? If he had indeed gone to Arizona, why was his wallet here? If Willie’d become separated from his wallet weeks ago, why did it turn up now and who’d had it all that time? Had Willie used his ATM card or had someone else?

  At 4:45 I gave up. There was no way I was getting back to sleep. My eyes squinted shut against the sudden light as I switched on the lamp at my bedside. Rusty raised his head questioningly. One side of his face was squashed upward and his tongue peeked out, a tiny sliver of pink against his distorted reddish muzzle. His eyes weren’t any more open than mine.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom. He got up, shook himself, and looked ready to go for the day. It would take a little more than that with me. I always hate it when some early riser in a motel starts flushing and thumping about before daybreak but this time I had to be the one. Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

  Twenty minutes later I emerged from the shower feeling almost human. Slipped into the same clothes I’d taken off and tried to be fairly quiet about getting myself and my dog out the door. I left the key on the dresser and thunked the door shut as quietly as I could. The motel office was dark but I’d given them my credit card the night before. They could figure it out.

  The early morning air was chilly, stars clear in the black sky, a tiny sliver of moon low in the west. Even with my light jacket on I shivered as I scanned the parking lot. No one moved in the little town and the only lighted establishment was a twenty-four hour convenience store across the road that catered to truckers. I started the car and headed for it.

  Coffee. It was my only coherent thought as I parked in front of the store. An eighteen wheeler with diesel engine rumbling was parked in an open dirt lot to the west, its driver nowhere in sight. A set of jingle bells tinkled as I entered the store, bringing a dozing clerk to his feet behind the counter. I followed my nose to the rear corner where I poured black, sludgy coffee into a large Styrofoam cup. I added an overdose of creamer and sugar to it, hoping for the best. At the counter I topped off my nutritious breakfast with a package of Twinkies

  “Guy’ll be here about six with fresh donuts,” the clerk offered helpfully.

  “That’s okay, I’m in kind of a hurry.” At this moment I couldn’t imagine what would make me want to hang around another forty-five minutes for a donut. I handed over a couple of dollars and pushed the door open with my hip.

  The coffee tasted every bit as bad as it looked, but I sipped at it gratefully anyway. I let the car idle while I opened the Twinkies, with Rusty hanging over my shoulder watching my every move. I handed him one, which went down with hardly a smacking of the lips, and put the gearshift into reverse as I took a nibble from mine.

  “Back off!” I told him. “Not my fault you ate all yours. This one’s mine.”

  He sat back on the seat but didn’t relax until he saw the last bite of Twinkie disappear into my mouth.

  I was beginning to get a nice little high from the infusion of sugar and triple-strength caffeine. The road was deserted, the sky beginning to lighten behind me, and all was well with the world. By the time we reached Socorro, I was jittery from my previous excesses and decided I better balance it out with something nutritious. A fast food drive-thru yielded a ham-egg-biscuit combination and a large orange juice, all of which I ate one-handed as I hit the Interstate again. By ten-thirty I’d argued with a clerk at the car rental agency, called Sally to come pick me up, and was sitting on the curb at the Albuquerque airport, my dog and bags beside me like a homeless person. It felt great.

  On the way back to the office Sally briefed me on everything I’d missed.

  “Tammy’s given notice,” she said. “Decided it just isn’t her thing.”

  “Guess she expected something more glamorous working in a private investigator’s office.”

  “Anyway, tomorrow will be her last day, she says. I’d take up some of the slack,” Sally offered, “but with the baby . . .”

  “That’s okay. You only signed on to work part time anyway. We’ll get someone else.” Or I’ll end up back full time, I thought grudgingly.

  “When you get back, you should probably call Rick at Hastings and Ellison,” she continued. “He’s all hot right now because Ron hasn’t returned his calls for a week. Even though Tammy and I have both told him Ron was out of town. At first he said that was okay, no hurry. Now, suddenly it’s a big hurry.”

  “Have we heard anything from Ron?” I asked.

  “Back on Wednesday. He swears he’ll come into the office in the evenings and catch up on paperwork so he can start right in on some client work.”

  I muttered once again, but tried to keep it from Sally. It really wasn’t her problem that I’d had only half a night’s sleep. I asked her to take me home so I could drop off my bags and get my own car. I had a feeling it would end up being a long day.

  Chapter 15

  By three o’clock I was actually feeling a lot more upbeat. Maybe it was a second wind, maybe I was just operating on overdrive, I don’t know. After dropping my bags off at home and making sure everything looked undisturbed there, Rusty and I had piled into my Jeep and headed for the office.

  I’d decided to take Tammy’s resignation as a good thing. If a person’s unhappy with their job, you really don’t want them around anyway, I decided. She looked a little surprised that I didn’t seem to care about her leaving, but oh well. I called Rick and soothed the client. It was one of the bigger law firms we worked for and I knew we’d miss them a lot more than we’d miss Tammy, so it was worth some butt-kissing to pacify them. I told them I’d be happy to start work on the case (although I wasn’t sure how I’d work it in) or Ron would start on it first thing Wednesday. Wednesday was good enough.

  After all that, I opened a huge stack of mail that had accumulated, sorting it into piles of Bills to Pay, Letters to Write, Computer Entries to Make, and Circular File—I’m not very patient with junk mail. By five, I’d paid all the bills and drawn up Tammy’s final check, which I’d give her tomorrow. My energy was lagging again when the phone rang.

  “It’s Dorothy Schwartzman,” Tammy announced over the intercom.<
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  I took a deep breath and tried to bring back my earlier perky feeling. “Hi, Dorothy.”

  “I haven’t heard anything from you in a few days,” she said, her nasal whine making my teeth grind.

  “That’s because I’ve been out of town, Dorothy. Remember I told you I was following up some new leads about your father?”

  “Did you find him? What new leads?”

  I hated admitting that I didn’t have Willie in hand yet, but I briefed her on the little bit I did know, leaving out the part about the mine in Arizona. For some reason I felt protective of that information. I hadn’t shared it with Randy Buckman either.

  “You may have heard something on the news about a mine explosion at White Oaks,” I told her, not knowing whether the news had covered it or not. “I should let you know that there is a possibility that one of the people killed there was your father.”

  “Oh dear,” she said neutrally.

  “The only thing that ties him to the spot was his wallet, found outside the mine. It may not mean anything. The crime lab people have determined that the cause of the explosion was chemicals used in manufacturing methamphetamines.”

  “I’m not following you here, Charlie. Surely you’re not saying my eighty-four year old father was doing drugs.” Her voice had become sharp.

  “Not at all. He may have simply chosen the mine as a hiding place and was unlucky enough to be there when the explosion happened.” I had a half-dozen reasons why that was probably unlikely, but I didn’t tell her that. “I just wanted to prepare you for the possibility that you could get a call from the authorities.”

  “Well, I appreciate that, Charlie, but I don’t appreciate the insinuations about his character. I hope you haven’t been spreading this to the news media or anything. Believe me, I’ll have your license if this family’s name is dragged through the mud,” she snarled.