Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1)

by Mark Stevens

  Nobody moved. A few sat down on the pavement, linked elbows. Ellenberg sat down, crossed her legs.

  Applegate didn’t feel like sitting. The scene went slightly hazy, unfocused. Sandstrom looked calm, unconcerned.

  “We have an announcement on this very matter,” said Sandstrom.

  Kirkwood snapped his fingers and his cameraman, who had been taking close-ups of protesters on the highway, spun around. Sandstrom apparently knew to wait for the cue.

  Applegate had the urge to slip away, start running. “We have a suspect,” said Sandstrom.

  A gasp went up. Somebody whistled. Another started clapping. “It has taken lots of hard work by the staff, but we have a suspect,” said Sandstrom.

  “How about an arrest?” The voice was shrill, female.

  “Yeah, an arrest.” This voice was half growl and male.

  “We can make that happen,” said Sandstrom, but only loud enough for those in the front row to hear.

  Sandstrom stepped out from the phalanx of uniforms. Applegate’s legs said spring. His heart and mind said the same but he stood there. Climb over the guardrail and dive into the river? His legs flinched to go. Ellenberg stood up.

  Sandstrom took three steps to Applegate. They were nose to nose.

  “Dean Applegate,” said Sandstrom.

  Ellenberg stepped closer, looped an arm around Applegate’s elbow.

  “You are under arrest—” Cameras were in his face.

  “Dean,” said Ellenberg, “what is going on?”

  “—on suspicion ... of first degree murder in the death of—”

  “Dean?”

  “—Ray Stern.”

  Sandstrom spun him around and clamped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

  Applegate manufactured a serene look of confidence and leaned down to whisper in Ellenberg’s ear. “Don’t worry. It’s a mix-up.”

  “What?” said Ellenberg. “What do you mean?”

  “It was Fishy’s rifle that killed Ray Stern.”

  “Who?” said Ellenberg. “What?”

  ****

  A whirling series of dire possibilities spun through Allison’s head. She imagined Slater doing business with the man who had chased her down, killed Bear and tried to kill her. The same man who probably had something to do with the death of Mr. Deer Suit and Rocky.

  She piled up clothing as she fought the tears. She opened the closets and dug under the bed, winging things into a laundry basket as she went, wanting every scrap of her belongings out of Slater’s trailer. And her life.

  She found a beer, took four long pulls. She started combing through the rest of the place. Pictures, letters, phone numbers— anything might help. She wanted to find the obvious thing she had missed, evidence that had been right under her nose all along.

  Allison had swung by 101 East Creek, the address on the label. It was at the edge of a relatively empty street. 101 sat off by itself, a few city blocks from any trailers, tucked down in a stand of old-forest aspens. There were no trailers, just one prefab concrete building thirty yards square with a light green exterior, no signs or windows. Just “101” in cheap stick-on lettering on the door and a large plastic storage bin propped out front. There were three boxes inside the bin, labeled and ready to go: two for Hong Kong, one for Taipei. Waiting for UPS.

  The building stayed with her as she went to Slater’s trailer and dug around: a stack of letters in a straw box; bills; gas station credit cards; phone, electric, Visa statements; a few scraps of paper with names and numbers. Nothing sinister. In the bedroom, she dug through the built-in dresser, four drawers in a stack. All clothes and no surprises. She had met lots of hunters in the camps and out on the trail. His type was rare. Too soft, right? Too with-it, right? Too complex. No. She had mistaken terse for complex. Boy Scout? Right.

  She ripped through a closet, thinking back to whether she’d been manipulated and remembering times he’d talked about his philosophy. She’d been duped. She started to cry, frustrated by her failure to have seen the real David Slater.

  In the kitchen, checking the cupboards for the hell of it, she fought the compulsion to bolt. Trudy had said she would follow in an hour, after swinging by to check on the cats. But how long would she really be? What if she had a seizure? What if George found her?

  Allison found a round paper tag the size of a quarter dangling on a nail on the inside of a cupboard. “101” was written in pencil, and a key was attached.

  Allison was back inside her car without remembering how she got there. Her world was doing that flippity-flop thing again, and she thought she tasted saltwater. She took a quick breath and tried to bring things back into focus.

  David Slater. A screwed-up ranger. She had heard stories about antler dust, rumors that you could move the stuff if you wanted, rumors that you could pad your income. But nobody really knew how or where. It was one of those whispers in the wind, nothing she had ever tried to pin down. Jesus, the money. Where were the profits stashed? Why the cheap trailer housing?

  The key fit into the lock. The room was dark. Her fingers groped for the light switch along the cool concrete wall.

  The interior was like somebody’s messy basement, except for the scale of the operation. The work area was confined to a corner of the interior. Tall steel shelving defined the space on one side. Stacks of empty boxes, not much bigger than those needed to mail wristwatches, were stacked on the shelves. She found spools of twine and other threads, straight needles and round ones, and a series of knives and heavy-duty scissors. She squatted down in the middle of the room and picked up a clump of brown hair. Straight hair, tipped white. Deer fur.

  In the middle of the workspace stood a piece of industrial machinery with a motor at the bottom of a huge steel bowl, like a bread mixer. Through a fist-sized hole at the bottom of the bowl, two gears with sharp teeth were hooked to the motor. Below the bowl, a collection bin. Light tan dust coated both the bowl and the bin. In the other corner there was a shelf full of plastic vials, nothing special. Also empty. There was a giant plastic bag full of Styrofoam peanuts, strung upside down from the ceiling. A flexible tube at the bottom of the bag worked as a dispenser. She kept getting whiffs of her high school biology class: formaldehyde. She realized Slater saw more profits in the pieces than in the whole. Her head buzzed with fury. Equipment went toppling and flying. Her vision blurred with tears and anger.

  ****

  “You found a rifle and it isn’t mine,” Applegate said.

  “We’ve also got Mr. Marcovicci willing to testify that he sold it to you three years ago during one of your annual trips up here. Where were you on the day Ray Stern died?”

  Sandstrom had his foot hitched up on a chair. Another cop stood by the door.

  “Off on a hike,” said Applegate.

  “Oh right,” said Sandstrom. “All the other boys are cooling their heels in the tent and you decide to go out and take a stroll. We’re supposed to buy that one, special discount for stupidity? You didn’t take a rifle along just in case? What if your luck changed while you were out there and you saw this good-looking animal and you didn’t have your rifle? What then? You’d feel kind of silly, wouldn’t you?”

  They had been at it for over an hour, in an empty office near the building where the parking-lot protest had been held. A plain metal table separated him from Sandstrom, who was working up a good rage. The trip in the police car to this place had been a blur. He couldn’t wipe Ellenberg’s puzzled look from his mind.

  The rifle was supposed to have been in the barn. Now the police had it? Or said they did. He wanted to look relaxed, but couldn’t begin to find that gear.

  “I took a hike,” said Applegate. It sounded good, but he didn’t hear the level of confident assertion he wanted.

  “We got everybody else accounted for at the time Ray Stern was killed, about noon. He was shot before it started snowing. And the route he took, it must’ve taken three or four hours for him to get from his tent to there. It ain’t li
ke auto mechanics, figuring this stuff out. So we got everybody else accounted for, every other person in Ripplecreek, except you. And you’re out for a stroll.”

  “Except Grumley.”

  Sandstrom stopped, straightened up, hitched up his belt, walked around in a small circle and leaned back against the wall.

  “And how exactly do you know this?” he said.

  “He left that morning too.”

  “And didn’t come back?”

  “Nope.”

  “At all?”

  “No—”

  “But you’re off on a hike smelling the pine cones.”

  “I ran into him.”

  “Where?”

  “On the main trail.”

  “What time?”

  “It was snowing pretty good by then, two or three maybe.”

  “And where was he going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or coming from?”

  “Farther up on top, I suppose.”

  “And what difference does any of this make?” said Sandstrom.

  “He seemed agitated,” said Applegate. “Very.”

  “Okay,” said Sandstrom. “We’ll talk to the world-class hunter and see what he knows.”

  “No, really.”

  “Look,” said Sandstrom. He opened the door, disappeared for a count of no more than five, stepped back into the room and swung the butt end of the rifle around so it was an inch from Applegate’s face.

  “We got Marcovicci’s testimony,” said Sandstrom. “He sold it to you.” Sandstrom glowered. He stared and waited. Applegate said nothing while his mind raced away, looking for a way out.

  “All the guys in the tent remembered,” said Sandstrom. “George Grumley uses a different caliber rifle, a .270. The caliber on this Sako matches exactly the caliber of the bullet we pulled from Ray Stern’s body. The bullet was resting against his spine. It plugged. It matches. You gave us this yarn about walking with your rifle back up the hill and tossing it off an unknown cliff. Pure bullshit.”

  Sandstrom tossed the rifle down on the table. The noisy clatter made Applegate jump.

  “Fucking wasted our time,” said Sandstrom. “Your whole charade. Joining the animal rights bozos because you had a change of heart? How about the guilt factor bursting your head?”

  From deep inside him, the stored-up fear was unshackled. It floated up from a dark interior holding tank, an underwater cave where the air bubbles had fought for years for a path to the surface.

  He couldn’t prolong the inevitable any longer.

  He had done what Ray Stern had fully intended him to do.

  It wasn’t cold-blooded murder. More like entrapment or assisted suicide. He knew that.

  But now, the embarrassment.

  “Okay,” said Applegate. He started to blubber. “Can we make a deal?”

  ****

  No question that Allison had taken the Sako from the rifle rack. Grumley couldn’t figure out why her nose had to be shoved so far into it. Was it a thrill? He couldn’t imagine that she would return to her A-frame any time soon. The Sako was already in the hands of the cops.

  Time to go. All-the-way go. He should have put the screws to Allison when he had a chance. And Applegate. And Popeye. Like he did with Alvin.

  His own house was too depressing, with Trudy’s cats in charge. The chorus of meows was nonstop. He couldn’t believe he had bothered to check to see if they had enough food. It pissed him off to see that their bowls were topped off. By whom? When?

  He needed the fucking banks and his lawyers to get the properties sold, to liquidate. The thought of all the fucking paperwork was a headache, the government making it so complicated, sticking their mitts fucking everywhere. Grumley picked up the phone and dialed his lawyer. He waited through two whole songs and part of a third. How could his own bootlicking lawyer put him on hold?

  “George?”

  Finally.

  “I don’t pay you for the privilege of listening to elevator music on the fucking telephone.”

  Bennie Murdock was small-time, barely legal and on a tidy retainer to advise him on the side about shady transactions.

  “Sorry,” said Murdock. “Practically everybody down here’s been watching the activity up in the canyon. Complete cluster fuck. News footage going viral.” Murdock’s office was above a restaurant near downtown. “Looked like something out of the goddamn movies. Don’t see that too much.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They busted this guy out in the middle of the highway, this big traffic jam, I guess it was some sort of animal rights protest. The cops busted one of ’em and carted his butt away.”

  Applegate. Gone. And he’d be singing soon.

  “It’s time,” said Grumley. He’d have to swing by the barn and grab his favorite rifles.

  “Time for what?”

  “Bennie—”

  “Oh man, punch-out time?”

  “Gotta go.” There was an old Winchester that had been very reliable.

  “All the account numbers the same? Nothing’s changed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Prices?”

  “I could get more for the store, of course, if it was on the open market. But a deal’s a deal.”

  “I’d give it 120 days for the money to show up in the accounts, once all the deeds get recorded. And then there’s the closing dates, all that stuff.”

  “And you can sell the house, too,” said Grumley.

  “Your wife going with?” said Murdock, no different than if he was planning a vacation at the beach.

  “She’s got her own plans,” said Grumley. “Besides, to you it doesn’t matter where I’m going, right? I could be right here watching you the whole time, a member of the ethics panel of the Colorado Bar Association, here to make sure you ain’t fucking your clients.”

  Grumley heard a snort-like laugh, a cautious one.

  “And how will I know I’ve got the right buyer?” said Murdock.

  “Because he’ll walk in one day soon, probably within a week. His checkbook will be wide open and he’ll know the exact price. He’ll be the only one. I guarantee it.”

  “Well, safe travels.”

  He slammed down the phone, dialed another number and told whoever answered, as calmly as he could, to get David Slater.

  “Can I help you?” answered Slater.

  “Hey little buddy, you fuck.”

  “Always nice to hear your voice, Grumley. Did you hear that your good friend, the animal rights prince, got picked up?”

  “Yeah, yeah, what’s he saying?”

  “I’d have to be a cop to know the answer to that one.”

  “Thought you had access.”

  “Only when I need it.”

  “The kid’s clueless.”

  “What did you have against Rocky Carnivitas?” said Slater.

  “He was going to blow my fucking head off. Thought he was standing up for Trudy, for Chrissakes, and he wanted a piece of the action for his troubles. Totally self-defense.”

  “I’m sure the world’s a better place.”

  “Where’s my wife?” said Grumley.

  “Wouldn’t have a clue,” said Slater. “So you’re out of here?”

  “See Bennie Murdock in about a week. Money goes into the right accounts, it’s all yours.”

  Slater would be king, thought Grumley. He would inherit all the custom hunts, all the hot shots, all the antler traffic. He would control the market.

  “Is Sandstrom cool?” said Grumley.

  “I should think so,” said Slater. “He’s got his plum. The media boys have the picture of the sheriff collaring his man.”

  Grumley thought about mentioning how pissed off he was at Slater’s little buddy, Allison Coil. But let him find out on his own that she was piecing things together. By then, he’d be trading in his plane for scrap in Spokane, Alaska-bound.

  Grumley wildly packed clothes in a big laundry bag and dug out a small stash of twentie
s from a cigar box. He’d been building up a supply for years. The last time he checked it was fifteen thousand dollars, enough to keep him liquid for a few months, pay for plane fuel and cover whatever else would come up. He climbed into his truck and sped first to the barn and next to the airport. Only a matter of minutes now, he told himself, and he would be soaring above this mess.

  He bolted through the doors to the tarmac, hustled out, but could see from a distance that the cowling was up and wide open to the sky.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  Back to the terminal. The asshole, that meek little airport man, stood by the door quaking.

  “Your best mechanic. Now.”

  “It’s his day off.”

  “Now,” said Grumley.

  “He doesn’t live too far—”

  “And I’m leaving a pile of stuff here. I want it loaded when he’s done. I’ll call in a couple hours when it’s finished.”

  “Couple?”

  “Yeah, two. Couple. One, two. Who fucked with my plane?”

  “Nobody. Your wife came by, wanted to show it to this other woman. I didn’t know you had it for sale.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “I’ll be back in two hours,” said Grumley. “An extra hundred for you if it’s working by then. Whatever it takes. Fix it. Good as fucking new, okay?”

  Back in his pickup he concentrated on the loose ends, imagining Applegate talking and wondering if anybody would make anything of it. And who was there to hear it?

  At some point, Applegate would think clearly enough to hire a decent lawyer and offer a trade of information. Even Applegate would have to take that bait, tell ’em how his old pal George helped eat the dead guy’s lunch and took the Sako off his hands.

  His truck skidded and bounced as he flew. He would leave it all behind, that was for sure. At a gas station Grumley slammed the truck to a stop near a phone booth. He put two quarters in and dialed.

  “Slater, please.”

  “Just left. Can I take a message?”

  He crunched the phone back in the cradle, dug for more quarters, dialed Slater’s number, listened to it ring and the voice mail beep.