Murder, Sonoran Style

by Kathy McIntosh

  What had happened? Who was it? He stepped closer and some of the flies flew off.

  Gabe chewed his lip and moved close enough to see the man’s face. Everett Poulsen. Oh, Christ. Everett’s face was grayish-purple, his lips pale, his fingertips almost blue. Blood covered a rock beside him, so much that it clumped on the surface, an ugly umber paste, covered with ants. The source of the blood was Everett’s chest, a chest now covered in dried blood. Gabe turned away. He trotted a few yards from the body and retched into a bush. People—buddies and enemies—died in Afghanistan, relatives and friends in hospitals back home. He shook his head. Not a death like this—gory and unexpected and out of place. He stuffed a fist to his mouth and puffed out, closing his eyes.

  What had happened?

  A predator? Cougar? That mysterious jaguar everyone spoke of?

  Something within him told Gabe that Everett’s death was caused neither by nature nor by accident. He forced himself to draw closer and take a long slow survey. His chest had repeated incisions, gashes through his cotton shirt into the flesh of his upper body. A knife? A hiking stick? Something sharp that could penetrate a man’s skin. He looked higher, at Everett’s head awkwardly turned to the side. Saw a gritty gash at his temple that extended back into his hair.

  Another wave of nausea hit. He had to report the death as soon as possible. What would happen to Everett’s body once he left? The flies and ants would be followed by larger scavengers.

  Okay. Given the fairly obvious cause of Everett’s death was another human, the scene should remain as untouched as possible. Even entomologists watched CSI. He could, however, cover him, maybe stave off some predators, if not the insects, for a short while.

  He had to go for help, but before that he had to make sure the fire was totally extinguished.

  First things first. He trudged to the fire, grabbing a nearby branch to stir it so the hot coals would cool. As he stirred he noticed small pieces of fabric in the fire. He pulled those away from the ashes. When he did that, he uncovered something more substantial beneath the ashes. Something metallic, stained dark, either from the heat of the fire or—He staggered backward, one hand on his chest. Oh holy crap. It couldn’t be. It could and was. His skinning knife. His body went cold. Thoughts fled his fuzzy brain like scattering moths. What the heck did he do now? And what would have happened if he hadn’t stumbled on this before someone else?

  He moved back to the fire, used the branch he still clutched to spread the coals. He dragged his knife from the coals so it could cool. What other clues lay there? Someone had tried to frame him and now, now, he had to figure out who. The why could come later.

  A few scraps of paper lay to one side of the fire, as if they’d floated away on hot air. He nudged them with the toe of his boot, trying to make sure they remained uncharred and undamaged. He squatted and snatched one piece up by a corner. It crumbled at his feet. Maybe not consumed by the fire but so scorched that it fell apart when moved. Nothing.

  The fabric pieces proved too tiny to identify—maybe denim, maybe lighter cotton. Someone had stabbed Everett Poulsen, using Gabe’s skinning knife, leaving the knife to be found by the authorities later. Implicating him. A man drummed out of a teaching position, accused of assaulting another professor. A man new and fairly unknown in the community.

  He stirred the ashes more but found nothing. He had to report this, but what about his knife? No one but the killer knew he’d lost it. Gabe would be in for a world of hassle, arrested for pretty darn certain, if the cops found it. Only one solution. He reached down and grabbed the knife. He jerked backward, dropping the knife and falling on his butt in the dirt. The knife was still hot.

  He sucked his burned hand. Now he’d totally messed up the crime scene plus burned himself. The ashes had been warm when he’d arrived, the knife buried deep among them. So that might have been a major clue as to when Everett died. What’s more, any intelligent law officer could probably identify his butt print next to the fire.

  “Oh, well.” He stood, being careful not to mess up more of the ground around the fire, shuffling his feet over where he’d landed on his ass. He squeezed his eyes shut. Anyone examining the fire would notice the scraps of fabric and deduce—hell, conclude without a moment’s thought—that someone had been messing in the fire. And that person’s next conclusion would be that Gabe had been the first person on the scene, other than the murderer. The next question—why, and what had he found?

  “Damn, hell, triple damn.” He’d never been much of a liar, hence he’d gotten into trouble more than most, the easy scapegoat for the crimes of his older brothers. He breathed. In, out, in, out. Even great liars know to stick as close to the truth as possible. He’d do the same. What would be logical?

  His taut shoulders slumped. No worries. “I knew I couldn’t leave the site without making sure the fire was out, so I stirred the ashes and spread them out. Hated to mess with evidence but better that than a wildfire.” Pretty good for a dress rehearsal, but better not to mention that stuff about evidence. What was it his activist friends said? Stop when you’re ahead and say as little as possible to all figures of authority. He used his handkerchief to pick up and wipe his skinning knife and replaced it in its sheath.

  Gabe covered Everett’s body with the sleeping pad from his pack and anchored them with rocks. Sure, it messed with the crime scene, but at least it provided a reasonable chance that the man’s body would remain intact until help arrived. It also lightened the weight he carried so he could travel faster to the casita and the SAT phone.

  He looked around the now tidier scene. An involuntary shudder crept over the skin of his back and neck. He’d messed with evidence, broken the law without doubt. But at least he wouldn’t become the first immediate suspect. That is until Everett’s wife told the cops about their argument at the casita. Crap. He was in deep, knife absent or not. Someone wanted him to be the fall guy.

  “Dammit, I’m not going to take the blame for this. Lots of people hated Everett. I didn’t like him, but jerk or not, he didn’t deserve to die. Not like this.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Show and Tell Time

  B efore he left Everett’s body, Gabe made certain he knew the fastest route back to the casita. He checked his map and his compass and the notes he’d made. He had to know how to return here, so he could guide the sheriff or whoever came for these kinds of emergencies.

  He took a few minutes to circle the site, scouting for tracks and for a vehicle. His own boot tracks were easy to find. He found a faint print of the heel of a different boot, but no toe, so no chance to guess at its size. The other human prints he could make out were scuffed and barely discernible.

  He scanned the area with his binoculars but still didn’t locate a vehicle. What was Everett doing here? Where was his car? Obviously he met up with someone, or that someone brought him out here, and quite logically it was that person who’d killed him and framed Gabe. The developer left the casita grounds early the previous morning, shortly after Tripp sent the trainees out. Granted, he was pissed off and wanted to stop them, but Everett was no fool. Once he realized he’d been too late to call a halt to the training finale, he would have hightailed it home or to work. He knew he’d get nowhere with Tripp, despite his threat to go straight to him. His anger seemed almost intentionally overdone. Kate’s attack, vicious as it was, was only words. Surely he’d endured worse as a developer.

  His encounter with Gabe—and Gabe’s fist—was only yesterday. What had happened since to draw Everett back out here?

  Gabe shook his head. He could speculate forever, or get help before the scavengers did their thing on Everett. And before all traces of who might have killed him disappeared. Who knew what or who might tamper with the evidence?

  He strode off toward the casita, pacing himself so he’d get to Madrone as fast as possible but not arrive and fall into her arms, gasping. That image lightened his mood. Not that much earlier this morning, Gabe hoped Madrone would offer him breakfast. No
w he longed for her stability, her calm reassurance that they’d get through this.

  He and Madrone had hit it off since he’d arrived in Arizona, but would she want to help him with this humongous problem? Naah. The problem belonged to him. Someone stabbed Everett Poulsen with Gabe’s skinning knife and set him up as the killer. If he’d not found the knife, the cops would love the easy answer and be happy to throw his ass in jail without another thought. Now that Gabe had found his knife and eliminated that possibility, what would he—or she—try next? And how did he stay one step ahead of this killer?

  Someone had targeted Gabe, made it personal. Someone who maybe didn’t realize that Gabe Ramsay had established himself as one excellent researcher. He’d find out who did this. Somehow.

  What’d he know so far? Someone had stolen his knife and stabbed Everett. Someone very angry, given the number of wounds. Gabe had the knife when they arrived at the casita. He’d checked the contents, then left the pack lying on the ground all morning before he left. With the packs of the other five guides in the same haphazard pile by the casita door. Any of them, or Madrone, could have stolen his knife.

  Since then, Frances had tracked him down, met up with him, despite Tripp’s rules of the game. She could have eased his knife from its sheath on the outside of his pack while they talked about her worry about Kate. He rolled his shoulders to get rid of some of the aching tightness that set in when he considered Frances as a cold-blooded, premeditating murderer. Frances was too old, not strong enough to take on a man Everett’s size. Don’t kid yourself. An outdoor woman, she was plenty strong. The wound on his head might mean someone had knocked him out before stabbing him. Frances hated the developer, but she didn’t hate Gabe. Did she? He liked the woman, respected her gutsy attitude. Ah, hell, what’d he know? Delving into people’s minds was not his strength. Maybe she’d had it in for him since they were introduced and had jumped at a chance to frame him.

  Bugger it. Nothing for it but to get back to the headquarters and hope to hell the minions of the law were smarter than Gabe, or at least better at detecting.

  Adrenaline and a boatload of wild speculation made him forget pacing. The sun, now high in the sky, was doing the thing it did so well in Arizona. Heating up the day like tamarack wood under an iron skillet. He could handle this, just like he’d handled the heat in Afghanistan in June, for God’s sake. He staggered down a small rise into a clearing ringed by salt cedar trees, woozy. Possibly from hunger, but his head ached like someone had taken the missing knife to it. He skirted a fallen, broken, prickly pear that had become dinner and a mat for a sleeping javelina and forced himself up the next hill, concerned he’d lose sight of the landmarks he’d focused on to lead him to the casita.

  Gabe’s tongue felt like the fur on a tired old dog. That made him think of the family coon hound, Beater, still raising havoc in Colorado. Beater and Gabe’s oldest brother Andrew were inseparable. The dog had bad taste, for sure, but he had that loyalty thing that so many humans lacked.

  He shook his aching head. “Focus, man. One footstep after the other.”

  When he finally neared the casita, he called out, “Yo, the cabin,” in a strangled slur. “I mean casita.” He stood and watched, rapt, as Madrone came out the casita door, a book in one hand. Light sparkled around her like a halo. Her thick hair curled around her face, a lovely face that bore a puzzled expression. She smiled. Hell. Madrone might have been naked, rubbing lavender-scented oil all over her voluptuous body, arms beckoning him to her and he would have passed her by for a drink of cool water.

  “You look like a javelina stomped on you.” She walked to him, put one hand on his forehead. “Stick out your tongue.” She swiped a finger against it. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She trotted into the casita and he followed. She handed him a cup of water.

  He drank deeply. “My head is splitting, and I’ve got a raging thirst.”

  “Slow down. Small sips. You’ve ignored the one thing Tripp and I reminded you of at least forty times—you haven’t stayed hydrated.” She took the bottle from him, walked to the shelf that held spices and added a tiny amount of salt to it. She handed it back and pointed to her chair. “Sit. Sip this—slow and easy— and tell me what’s got you so riled up you forgot the basic rule of desert life.” She grabbed his hand and turned it over. “Then tell me how you got this burn.”

  “Finding a dead body can put the rules at the bottom of your priority list. Way below water.”

  CHAPTER NINE: Calling in the News

  M adrone stood atop a pile of rocks and closed the SAT phone. She’d left Gabe at the casita, resting on a cot, to hurry to phone Tripp about Gabe’s awful discovery. She left a message to call her ASAP, telling him it was an emergency but not giving him any details. How do you leave a voice message saying, “Oh by the way, somebody found a dead body not more than six miles from here?” She’d stifled her immediate question of who it was to summon help, but surely Gabe would have told her if it was one of their team. Maybe the body was beyond recognition or a total stranger. Guilt flickered over her with the hope that no one she knew had died out there. Someone had, and she needed to call for help.

  The call to the sheriff had been easier, except the part where the 911 dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line until the deputies arrived. Even NASCAR driving like most cops loved, it would take them at least half an hour to get to the casita from Benson. The dispatcher had reluctantly agreed it wouldn’t be a great idea to run down the battery on the phone and that, given the victim was a good hour and a half hike’s distant, danger didn’t seem imminent.

  She scrambled down the hill to the clearing in front of the casita, and saw Gabe pacing back and forth, one hand wrapped in a gauze dressing. Her joy that he felt well enough to be up and outside drained away when she saw his pale, anxious face.

  She paused a yard away from him, unsure what to say, what to ask. Deciding actions speak more clearly than words, at least, her words, she moved closer and put out both arms. After what he’d seen, she figured he needed comfort. Come to think of it, so did she. She shivered. Someone had died nearby.

  Gabe looked up. He hesitated and then moved into her open arms. It felt good to hold Gabe, to be held. She smelled the dust on his shirt and the sourness of his sweat and the bitter smell of the nearby creosote bushes. Her stomach ached with emptiness. Her pulse throbbed and she felt herself warming. He held her closer, rubbed his good hand along her back. What began as an effort to comfort her boss and friend transformed into something compelling, urgent.

  She wanted to be close to this man, as close as only sex could bring them. My god. Someone lay dead a few miles distant and she wanted a romp in the hay. Can you say funeral sex? She could blame the biological instinct to couple in the aftermath of violence and death, but somehow knew that wasn’t it, at least not all of it. That kind of urge would apply to anyone, but with Gabe, she felt . . . safe? Stronger?

  She wrenched herself away from him. “It’s funeral sex! Before the funeral. And we don’t even know whose. My god, we can’t do this.”

  “Seemed like a good idea to me.” Gabe gave her a tiny grin, tinged—she could only hope—with shame.

  Madrone fussed with her clothes and brushed herself off as if they’d been naked and had sex on the rocks, never a good idea in Arizona. “The sheriff could waltz in here anytime. Not my idea of fun to be discovered with our bare asses in the air. This is a very bad idea,” she said. Her damp panties and heavy breasts belied her words.

  Gabe’s raised eyebrows and sexy smile told her he doubted her statement.

  “We’ve got to get you cooled down.”

  He grinned. “Funny way of trying.”

  She flushed. “I’m serious, Gabe. You were heading toward hyperthermia when you staggered into the casita. I told you to stay in there and rest while I phoned for help, and the next thing I know you’re out here.”

  “And in your arms. Seemed a good treatment to me.”

  She fl
apped a hand at him. “Stop. Come back inside and I’ll get some ice on you. Should have done it before I made those calls.”

  “Dead bodies might take priority.”

  “Not when I’m trying to prevent another one.”

  Inside, Madrone urged Gabe to lie on her cot while she placed cold cloths on his head, chest, and wrists. “Okay, I called the sheriff and Tripp, even though I wondered if you might have been hallucinating from dehydration. Tell me again what you found.”

  Gabe paled even more. Had she underestimated his condition? Had he been hallucinating? He kept taking small sips of water, but it began to look like he was stalling rather than hydrating.

  Madrone sat beside him on a stool she’d pulled up. Waiting for his reply.

  CHAPTER TEN: We'll Solve This Together

  M adrone’s pillow smelled of rosemary and some other herbs Gabe didn’t recognize. If only he could close his eyes and drift off, forgetting the scene he’d come upon that morning. Just lie here and chat with Madrone, maybe reignite the fire they’d started moments earlier.

  Then the image of his knife in the fire near Everett, and another of the developer’s ravaged form, extinguished all thoughts of flirtation with Madrone. And then—Oh, hell, why hadn’t he remembered this before?—he remembered Flicker’s not-so-subtle hint that Madrone had been Poulsen’s lover, or at least hooked up with him. How was he going to tell her? What should he tell her? He’d found not just any dead body, but the body of her dead lover.

  He pushed up on his elbows and looked into Madrone’s deep brown eyes. “I wasn’t hallucinating. I did find a dead man.”

  Her eyes widened. “Could you recognize him? Had he been dead . . . long?”

  “Not long. And yes, I recognized him.”