Murder, Sonoran Style

by Kathy McIntosh

  She assigned Flicker the task of frying bacon and only had to tell her once that microwaving it was not an option. She sliced bananas and set them to soak in orange juice, then sautéed some chicken sausages she’d dug out of the freezer and set them in the oven to remain warm. She often made her own sausage by hand, but playing Nora to Gabe’s Nick took time away from homemaking. Besides, she’d rather invest time and love into cooking for those she truly cared about, not those she was investigating for murder.

  The thought caused a flicker of guilt. Only one of the guides was a killer, the others innocent bystanders trapped in an uncomfortable situation. They deserved her best culinary efforts. She shook her head. This was her best effort. She was multi-tasking: Googling all the guides, frying sausage, managing meals for a houseful of people.

  “What can I do?” someone croaked from the doorway. Frances’ normally vigorous appearance seemed as wilted as her formerly booming voice. Her deep blue eyes squinted beneath gray brows that needed a trim. Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

  Flicker turned from where she stacked cooked bacon between sheets of paper towels. “Whoa, woman, you look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”

  Frances stepped into the room and leaned against the island where Madrone worked. “I wish. Thanks for your accurate but unflattering assessment.” She directed a questioning look at Madrone. “Set the table? Buffet style?”

  Madrone swallowed her objection and nodded. “Yes. Just set up the dishes on the sideboard.” She wanted to order Frances back to bed, but she knew her sympathy would be unappreciated and ignored.

  “There are warming trays under the buffet in the dining room. I keep forgetting to tell you,” Flicker said.

  Nice time to let me know. Madrone kept her annoyance hidden. It was clear that when Flicker was one of the breakfast chefs, she wanted things to be at their best. Oh, well. Everyone benefited by the newly announced warming trays. “That’ll be great. Why don’t you bring them in here, Frances?”

  Flicker directed her curiosity on Frances when the older woman laid the three trays on the island. “So what kept you up last night, Frances? You no doubt missed some beauty sleep.”

  “You are truly a snarky little bitch, Flicker,” Frances said with a sweet smile. “If I thought you gave a flying fig, I might tell you.”

  Flicker smiled nastily. “Way to piss off the boss’s good friend, old woman. Not too smart.”

  “I doubt Tripp lets you influence business decisions.” She made a trip to the dining room and returned with two large platters that she placed on the warming trays. “You and Tripp are probably the only ones who weren’t awakened last night by the commotion.”

  Flicker’s face lit with interest. “Commotion in the middle of the night? Tell me all.”

  “You two must have been making your own noise to miss what went on upstairs,” Frances said, curling her lip.

  Flicker paled. “I take sleeping pills and Tripp—” She put her hand to her mouth as if she’d already said too much. Made Madrone wonder if Tripp was even here last night. If not, where had he been? Flicker crossed her arms and gave Frances a beady-eyed stare. “What went on? This is my house, you know.”

  Frances just stared at her, wide-eyed and innocent. “And all along I thought it was Tripp’s.”

  Not a battle worth fighting. Someone would tell Flicker and Tripp soon enough. Madrone pulled the French toast from the refrigerator and gave Flicker a very short version of the great scorpion attack.

  “Can you imagine that? I wonder where Ben might have been going?” Flicker knew as well as any of the guides exactly where Ben had been headed.

  Madrone had to agree with Frances’s assessment of Flicker—snarky bitch. No one was off limits to her nasty innuendos. Neither she nor Frances acknowledged her comment. Poor Frances had probably been awake the rest of the night worrying about her granddaughter carrying on with Ben. Although she had little to worry about for the next few days. If Ben’s reaction to the scorpion sting was similar to most adults, he’d have a numb foot and extreme pain, possibly shooting up his leg. In no mood for romance, for sure.

  Hiding a smile, Madrone finished cooking the French toast and placed it on a platter on a warming tray. She carried both trays to the sideboard. Meanwhile Flicker had filled three pitchers, one with orange juice, one with cranberry juice and a third with apple juice and placed them on a tray that she hefted to her shoulder and carried to the dining room. Whoa. She’s not the weak little thing she pretends to be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Kate's Confession

  F rances walked into the kitchen weaker than an over-dunked teabag. Even so, she immediately sensed the tension between Flicker and Madrone. She’d seen the two clash before. She took a few jabs at Flicker, mostly for fun but also to keep her from Madrone’s throat.

  Despite the teasing, she wasn’t up to bickering with Flicker today. With anyone, for that matter. It would drain energy she didn’t have and she’d yet to talk to Kate about Ben.

  Maybe if she told her granddaughter that she and Ben were first cousins? Long lost half-siblings? Hard for Kate to swallow and unlikely to keep the two apart if hormones ruled the relationship. Of course both were lies. Cruel lies, given all that Kate had faced since their arrival at Tripp’s. Still. She chuckled. Frances, old girl, face the music and talk to her as if she were an intelligent adult. Which by the way she is.

  Okay. After breakfast she’d talk to Kate. Listen to her. Tell her about their financial situation and her hopes for some share of Everett’s estate for her granddaughter. Surely today there’d be some time for the two of them to spend together. Maybe a hike into the Catalina Mountains that lay practically at Tripp’s back door.

  She busied herself with brewing coffee and boiling hot water and filling the big urns for the sideboard. She spared a few seconds’ thoughts for Ben. He’d be hurting today. Not gracious or charitable of her to be grateful to the scorpion. She really didn’t wish pain on Ben, she simply didn’t want him to hurt her baby girl. He’d grown up rodeoing and everyone knew rodeo riders were the love ‘em, leave ‘em, no commitment type. Right now Kate needed some stability, some loving kindness. But Frances wasn’t fool enough to share that opinion with Kate, especially now, when Kate remained furious with her for not telling her years earlier about Everett.

  At some point Kate might recognize that Frances had her best interests at heart in distancing herself and her granddaughter from Everett. A man who’d made clear when her daughter Melody announced her pregnancy that he wanted nothing to do with an unwanted child.

  With nothing else to occupy her hands and distract her from worry, Frances decided to sip her coffee and relax. What was it some old TV actress had said? Sip the music and face the coffee? Naah. She was probably making that up. She poured herself a mug of coffee. Eating would calm her better than caffeine. She served herself from the many offerings on the sideboard and sat. Within moments, she was joined by Madrone, Flicker, Jesse and Heather.

  “I’m so sorry to oversleep,” Heather said to Madrone. “I promise to help and then I don’t show up.”

  “No worries,” Madrone said. “Flicker came in early and helped out.”

  Both Jesse and Heather stopped filling their plates and stared at Flicker, eyes widening. She sent them a tight smile. “I’m more than just a pretty face.”

  Jesse smiled at that. “Well, you’re definitely a pretty face.” He turned to take another plate. “I’m taking my breakfast and another plate up to Ben. He’s feeling a bit shaky.”

  “And embarrassed, too,” Flicker said. “I heard about what happened.”

  Heather chuckled as she seated herself beside Frances. “There are no secrets in this group.”

  The young woman was mistaken, but Frances said nothing.

  Jesse focused his dark brown eyes on Madrone. “The ice helped last night and I’ll take some more when I bring the dishes down. He could probably limp down here, but like Flicker said, he’s embarr
assed for causing an uproar. As if we didn’t have enough problems.” Frances reflected that when Jesse’s face became animated, he was quite attractive. Generally he remained quiet and solemn, and could easily be taken as boring.

  When the room fell silent soon after Jesse left, Frances looked up to see her granddaughter entering. The girl had been avoiding Frances, and had more cause now since last night’s misadventure, but dammit, they had to talk.

  Madrone spoke first. “Good morning, Kate. We have French toast this morning.”

  Kate smiled. “You definitely know my hot buttons.” She strode to the sideboard and picked up a plate, then spun around and faced all of them seated at the table. “I guess I owe you all an apology for last night’s kerfuffle, as Gran would call it. Believe me, it didn’t go as planned. And I wasn’t even sure what the plan was.” She smiled again, and Frances felt the last sentence had special meaning for her. Her shoulders relaxed. With luck, no one noticed, Kate especially.

  Gabe and Tripp entered shortly after Kate’s apology. She left her plate beside Frances’s and moved to speak quietly to Gabe, then Tripp. Frances wished she spoke louder.

  When Gabe and Tripp had settled into chairs, Kate cleared her throat. “There doesn’t seem a good time for me to say this, and I wish Jesse and Ben were here, too. But I’ve got something to tell you all and it’s been weighing on me for a while.”

  Frances inhaled. Kate laughed. “No, I didn’t kill Everett Poulsen, Gran. That would be a real Greek tragedy, though, wouldn’t it? What I have to share is, I guess, good news. At least it’s something all of you should know.” I saw something when I was out there on the desert. Something important.”

  Oh, cripes, not a vision. Surely not. She’s not the kind. That would be something Melody would do.

  Kate put a hand on Frances’s knee, as if to calm her. “You know how Tripp suggested we all keep our eyes open for anything that might stop the development?” Kate looked at each person seated at the table. All eyes were on her, despite the lure of Madrone’s cooking. Frances’s stomach growled, doggone inopportune. Kate’s lip twitched just enough so that Frances knew she heard.

  Kate gripped Frances’s hand and Frances realized her granddaughter was more nervous than her calm voice hinted. “I saw a yellow-billed cuckoo on Everett’s property.” She added nothing. The announcement itself landed like a cockroach dropping into a soup tureen.

  After a moment’s empty air, voices filled it. Loud questions. “Are you sure it was a cuckoo?” “How can you be sure it was on Everett’s land?” “Where?” “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” “Did you get a photo?”

  Frances stood and whistled. Her whistles rocked, sharp and loud and definitely attention-getting.

  The room quieted. Frances put one hand on Kate’s shoulder. “Peace, folks. We’re all on the same side here. Kate told us. Kate knows birds, as you are aware. Bird calls and bird identification. So I’m comfortable with assuming she saw a cuckoo.”

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Thing is, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going to need proof, and GPS coordinates, and photos. Not just Kate’s word.”

  Kate’s face fell. “It flew before I could get my camera out. But I know where it was.”

  “This is a good thing, for sure,” Tripp said. “But we’ll need more to go on. Maybe you can take some of us out there to do RECON.”

  Heather moved to the coffee urns and refilled her mug. “Maybe it won’t be necessary. You know, now that Everett’s—”

  “Dead?” Kate said in her blunt style. “That was my thinking until Lorraine announced that Mountain Shadows was still on.”

  Gabe fiddled with his silverware, moving it around his plate. “Do we know what Lorraine’s stand is on the environment?”

  Tripp snorted. “Close to her husband’s. The ridiculous conviction—or at least the pronouncement—that there can be good development. Maybe there can and maybe some people are doing it. But Mountain Shadows was a lot more about marketing hype than about caring for the ecosystem it would destroy. No matter the marketing hype, bringing that many humans and their homes into an ecosystem will destroy it. Especially one with a sketchy water table. That’s why it has to be stopped.”

  “Don’t get too passionate, Tripp,” Frances warned. “You’re giving yourself a darn good motive for murder.”

  “Everett was a friend of mine. Misguided this time and not thinking about the consequences.”

  “Certainly not when the consequences turned out to be murder,” Madrone said.

  Madrone had the same blunt approach Kate did, but she was old enough she ought to know better. Unless she was angling for a reaction. Frances heard some nervous giggles but couldn’t pinpoint their source.

  “Back to the cuckoo,” said Gabe, ever the peacemaker, “one of us ought to first let Lorraine know about it. If it doesn’t give her pause, then we’ll need to document where you saw it. Maybe go back out and see if we can track it down.”

  Tripp pushed back his chair. “I’ll talk to Lorraine. Try to do some gentle persuasion.”

  Frances laughed. “Gentle? What happened to the Tripp I met two weeks ago?”

  Kate chuckled beside her and Madrone and the others joined in. Tripp smiled but Frances thought it seemed forced. “I can be tactful. Before we break up, let’s give Kate a hand. A cuckoo is big, really big. Good job.”

  The guides all joined Tripp in applauding Kate. Frances tilted her head to see Kate’s flushed, smiling face. That’s my little Katie.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Adventure Calls

  G abe waited for Tripp in the outdoor living room set up in Tripp’s backyard. Plush upholstered furniture surrounded an amazing fire pit of stone and metal, filled with colorful glass stones. Gabe had disappointed his father when he chose not to join the family construction company, but his passionate interests were alive—bugs and nature. He’d never played with the building blocks and Legos his brothers had gone through like potato chips in a dorm room, never enjoyed the building projects their father had come up with in their teens. He cherished no desire to set up a ‘man cave,’ or to build or buy a home, but he coveted this backyard.

  Typical of Tucson, it had no grass, and the plantings that scattered the graveled yard were native grasses and succulents. Much of the ramada, or patio, as Coloradans would call it, was covered to protect it from the Arizona sun and the summer monsoons. The yard beyond it led to open space that led up to the Catalina Mountains beyond but was well-fenced to keep out roving javelinas, coyotes and rabbits. The rabbits would make quick work of any greenery. The javelinas would lay waste to the cactus, and the coyotes would cut down on the rodent population along with snapping up small dogs and cats. Hence the good fences. At dawn and often later in the morning, you could see coyotes and javelinas trot by on the other side of the fence and catch sight of rabbits frozen in place, hoping to remain unseen. When the day warmed a bit, the yard filled with lizards of all kinds.

  Sitting here, Gabe released much of the past week’s tension in a long sigh. He needed to share his discovery of the petroglyphs, but when? Maybe Kate’s discovery of the cuckoo would make it unnecessary and the little canyon could remain undisturbed. If Gabe shared his find, geologists, archaeologists, photographers and all kinds of government officials would descend, destroying the private little Eden. Who knew? The little canyon might shelter mountain goats, bighorn sheep, even a jaguar. He did not want to open their private territory to human invaders and it was inevitable if word of the petroglyphs got out.

  Of course, if they couldn’t find the cuckoo or excellent evidence of it, the development would go in and the scent, sounds and structures of men would soon chase the animals away. What constituted excellent evidence? Could cuckoo crap be identified by its DNA? Wait. That would mean one of them would have to find the bird dung and recognize that it came from a yellow-billed cuckoo. Better find the real thing.

  He sipped his coffee. He’d give the petroglyphs a little more time, see what
happened with the great cuckoo hunt.

  “There you are.” Tripp’s voice boomed, startling Gabe into slopping some coffee on his jeans and the sandstone beneath his chair. He bit back a curse.

  “Hey, Tripp,” he said.

  Tripp placed his coffee mug on the broad rim of the fire pit and pulled a chair around to face Gabe. “Sure as hell hope that sheriff gives us the go-ahead for the trips next week.”

  Gabe tilted his head. “He pretty much assured us we’d be able to go ahead, unless one of our planned guides is arrested.”

  Tripp winced. “How reassuring.”

  “I was thinking. If we make a map of where you sent everyone on the scavenger hunt, we’d know who was closer to the site where Everett was killed.”

  “Already gave that info to the sheriff. Let’s leave them to what they do best.”

  “Dammit, Tripp, I found the guy. I’m their best suspect. If I can deflect their thinking away from me, I want to. If that map might help, I want to see it.”

  Tripp shook his head. “It’s not gonna help. I thought of that first off and even though it seemed a big area, the whole game didn’t span much more than ten square miles. Any of you could have made it to your caches and then killed Everett.”

  “Any of us?”

  “Well, you’re the guy who punched him out. You’re the guy who beat up someone else in Durango.”

  Gabe leapt to his feet and faced down at Tripp. “Number one. Understand this: I did not kill Everett Poulsen. Maybe someone who did wants the cops to think I’m a killer. Granted, I threw the first punch with Everett, but the guy deserved it. He insulted Madrone, belittled his wife, and generally pissed me off.” Gabe’s insides were bubbling up inside him, yet his mouth was dry as a lizard’s skin. He bit on his tongue to tamp down his rage. After a moment, he continued. “FYI, the guy in Durango came at me in a fury that nothing but my fists could stop. He took the first swing, and the second and third. A tiny fact the college doesn’t want me to share.”