Wild Wild Death

by Casey Daniels

  “Old friends.” It seemed sufficient. “He sent me a note and said he was coming to see me and—”

  “Pepper?” Caridad popped out of her chair, hurried to the other side of the desk, and grabbed my hand to give it an affectionate pump. “But of course, I should have known instantly. Dan, he has spoken of you many times.”

  Any other situation, I might have blushed appropriately and said something about how I hoped everything he said was complimentary. This didn’t seem like the time or the place.

  “I’m Caridad.” Like I’d forgotten—or I should have known more than I did—she pointed one finger back at herself. “Dan, if he was in touch with you, he must have told you all about me. Dan and I, we were married last spring.”

  So this was the news Dan was coming to Cleveland to tell me!

  I sat for a moment, processing it, trying to decide if I was royally pissed Dan hadn’t spilled the beans, surprised he’d found another woman to share his life with after the pain he’d gone through thanks to Madeline, or just plain disappointed. While I did, Caridad did an elegant little two-step in front of me, barely containing her excitement. “He said he was going to speak to you and convince you to come here. He told me that’s why he went to Cleveland. I did not know you arrived. But that means…” She scanned the excavation site. “But Dan, he must be here with you as well.”

  She didn’t know about the kidnapping. Of course she didn’t know. What wife would be out here playing in the dirt if she knew her husband was being held for ransom?

  This news I was going to leave up to Jesse.

  He told her. Unemotional, plain and simple. He told Caridad her husband had been kidnapped and that I was there in New Mexico because I had attempted to save him.

  “Thank you.” When she grabbed my hands again, there were tears staining Caridad’s cheeks. “He said you were a good friend.”

  Apparently not good enough to hear the news of his marriage until months after it had taken place.

  I wiped the sour thought away and concentrated on the matter at hand. “If we knew more about what’s happening out here, maybe it could help us find Dan,” I suggested.

  She shook her head. “There is nothing I can tell you, nothing I know. If I did, I would most certainly do all in my power to bring Dan back.” She was not the hand-wringing type. I knew that even though I’d only known her for only a couple minutes. That didn’t keep her from clutching her hands together at her waist. Her bones were fine and sharp, like a bird’s, and against the red T-shirt she was wearing with jeans, her hands looked as fragile as her composure.

  It didn’t take a detective to pick up on the vibes. It did, however, require a little woman’s intuition. Good cop or not, I knew this was one area where Jesse wasn’t going to be able to help. I slid him a look, and when he ignored it, I got up and pointed out to where I saw Pete walking along the face of the pueblo.

  “Olivas is calling you,” I said.

  “I didn’t hear him,” he grumbled. “Besides…” He homed back in on Caridad. “We have a lot we need to talk about.”

  She nodded and, on shaking knees, made her way back around the table. There was a bottle of water nearby and she took a drink and pressed a hand to the small of her back. “I was digging yesterday,” she said. “Perhaps a little too much.” She sank into her chair. “It was Dan’s idea,” she said. “To excavate here. He told me…” For a moment, she dropped her head into her hands, but apparently, Caridad was something of a realist. She knew we wouldn’t disappear. Not so easily or so quickly. When she raised her head again, she looked directly at Jesse.

  “My husband,” she said, “believes in some things that are… how shall I even begin to explain this?… things that are out of the intellectual mainstream.”

  “He’s a paranormal researcher.” Jesse nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  “And this site…” Caridad looked beyond the walls of the tent. “There are stories of spirits who visit the kiva, and legends of rituals and ceremonies.”

  “Rituals and ceremonies that are sacred to my tribe.” Jesse’s words were as brittle as his composure. “You have no business here.”

  I wound one arm through Jesse’s and swung him around to face the mesa. “You’re not going to get anywhere hitting her over the head like this,” I managed to mumble from between clenched teeth. “She’s scared to death.”

  “She deserves it,” he muttered. “They all do. And besides, that’s the whole point.”

  “Not if you’re looking for information that might actually help us figure out what’s going on.” My message to him delivered, I raised my voice. “See, you heard Pete that time, didn’t you?” I gave him a nudge out of the tent. “They obviously need to talk to you about something.”

  “Yeah. I…” Jesse stepped out of the tent. “I’ll be right back. And don’t think we’re not going to continue this conversation,” he said just to make sure Caridad didn’t think he was going to let her off the hook.

  Once he was gone, I strolled back into the tent and sat down opposite Caridad. “Sorry,” I said. “Cops are pricks.”

  “That one…” Her gaze followed Jesse across the rocky mesa toward the kiva. “He does not seem so bad. And I am sure he is only doing his job, but…” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture and gave me a watery smile. “I am usually not so emotional. I apologize.”

  “Give me a break!” I waved away her concern. “You just found out your husband…” Yeah, I choked on the word a little, but I recovered in a heartbeat. “You just found out Dan’s been kidnapped. Of course you’re upset. You’d think a cop would understand, but hey, you know how they can be. Hardheaded and hard-hearted.” I didn’t want to overplay the good cop/bad cop shtick so I decided to change the subject.

  “What’s really going on out here?” I asked her.

  “I thought it was simply an excavation. But now…” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “I did not know. You must believe me. Dan, he has been obsessed with this site for some time now. You are his friend. You know how he can be. He talks about it day and night. He is the one who begged me to arrange the excavation. He said… he promised me he had all the proper paperwork. There must be some mistake.” She turned pleading eyes on me. “You know he is a good, honorable man.”

  “I do know that.” I wasn’t bullshitting her. Not this time. I’d known Dan for years, and although he had the tendency to be too focused on science at the risk of neglecting the really important things in life like haircuts and basic fashion sense, he had never been dishonest. Well, unless the fact that he had kept his most recent marriage a secret from me counted.

  Another wash of acid raced through my system, and I told myself to get a grip.

  “We both know he’s a stand-up guy and as trustworthy as all get-out. He’d never do anything underhanded,” I said. “But then, how do you explain that phony paperwork? And what was he doing here in the first place? Dan is all into ghosts and stuff. This whole archaeology bit, that doesn’t seem like his thing.”

  “He assured me this place was important to his work. And Dan…” For a heartbeat, a smile touched Caridad’s lips. “He is difficult to say no to.” I was glad she didn’t look to me for confirmation because, if she had, I would have remembered that motel room outside Chicago where I was all set to say yes, yes, yes to Dan, and would have, too, if not for the fact that the creepy ghost who was his first wife swooped in and stole my body before I could.

  “So Dan, he was the one who pushed you to excavate here?” I waited for her to nod to confirm what I’d said, and when she hesitated, I pushed. Just a little. “The cops are going to find out, Caridad. I’m sorry, but you know it’s true. I understand that you’re trying to protect Dan, but those Taopi Indians out there, they’re plenty pissed. They’re not going to let this rest. Not until they get to the bottom of things. And if you’re keeping secrets from them, and if all this has something to do with Dan getting kidnapped… well, don’t you see? If you don’
t tell us everything you know, you might be putting him in danger.”

  “Yes. Yes. I understand.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I will try to help as much as I am able. But I do not wish to get Dan in trouble.”

  “He’s already in trouble. The kidnappers have him and they’re waiting for me to find some bones so I can exchange the bones for Dan. Only somebody stole the bones, and I’ll tell you what, I’m afraid if we don’t do something soon…” I didn’t have to elaborate. Caridad’s breath caught on the end of a sob.

  It took her a minute to compose herself. “I am an anthropologist,” she said around the tears that clogged her voice. “I am not nearly as imaginative as Dan. I came to this place for the science, not the parascience. And now you’re telling me that because of something we’re doing… of something that’s going on… you say that is why Dan has been kidnapped?”

  “We’re not sure,” I said, because leaping in with the story of the baseball fans would only muddy the water. “The cops are doing everything they can to find out. That’s why we need your help. Caridad, when was the last time you saw Dan?”

  She considered it for a moment. “Two weeks or so. Yes.” There was a calendar on her desk and she stabbed one finger toward a date a couple weeks back. “He was here, putting the final touches on the entrance into the kiva.” After all Jesse had told her about the phony permits and the sacredness of the site, Caridad’s cheeks got dusky.

  “And when you didn’t see him for two weeks… didn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

  “He told me he was going to Cleveland. To see you because… You must forgive me, Ms. Martin, I know this sounds bizarre, and as I said, I am a person of science. But you know Dan, so you will understand. You know he has a tendency to not only think outside the box but to sometimes not even know where the box is. He told me he needed your help on this project because you are able to talk to the dead.”

  This didn’t seem like the right moment for me to mention that the talent had deserted me, so I went on with my questioning. “I’m going to guess the kidnappers haven’t exactly given him access to his cell phone. Didn’t you think it strange that he hadn’t called?”

  Another lift of those delicate shoulders. “Dan is a genius. You know this. He doesn’t always follow rules. If he needed me, I knew he would call. If not… then I knew I would see him when he came back here to the mountain. Only now… now you tell me…” Her voice broke and she got up and went over to the camp bed and the small table next to it where there was a box of tissues. She dabbed one to her nose. In an elegant sort of way, of course. “Do you think this has something to do with the bones of Goodshot Gomez?” she asked.

  I jumped out of my chair. “You know about Goodshot?”

  “I see I have touched a nerve.” Caridad swept back across the tent. No easy thing considering it was so small and the two of us pretty much filled it up. “Dan, he always told me that here the spirits could be called forth with the bones of one of the members of the tribe who…” She passed a hand over her eyes. “I am sorry. I do not remember very clearly except for this odd name, this Goodshot Gomez. When Dan speaks of the paranormal, I am afraid I do not always pay as close attention as I should. There is a legend about a sacred silver bowl with healing powers and the people who were once entrusted with the secret of its hiding place. This is the story Dan was drawn to, for the legend says spirits guard the bowl and they can be called forth by those who know how and that this, it has something to do with the bones of one of the old ones. I do believe he thought you were the one who would know how to make this happen. Perhaps it is true since you know about the bones, too.”

  “I was the one who brought the bones here to New Mexico. To ransom Dan.”

  “So the kidnappers…” Caridad’s brow creased. “They know about the bones and about the ceremony to call the spirits? And they want to perform this ceremony so badly, they are willing to kidnap Dan to do it? It makes no sense.”

  She was right. It didn’t. It didn’t explain about the baseball curse. Or Norma’s murder. Or why Arnie had been gunned down right before he could talk to me.

  I told Jesse all that later when everyone was off the mountain and he was leading the way back to the car.

  We’d just passed out of the narrow passage and he said, “I dunno. It actually makes plenty of sense to me.”

  By that time, it was nearly dark and I stepped carefully around the jagged rocks in my path. “Come on. You weren’t listening to everything I told you. It really doesn’t.”

  He was standing at the driver’s door and he looked at me over the roof of the SUV. “Think about it, Pepper. Everything falls into place. That is, if your friend Dan is the one who forged those papers. And faked his own kidnapping.”

  It was bad form to argue with a guy who’d just gotten out of your bed—and had made the last few hours pretty spectacular.

  That didn’t stop me.

  When Jesse walked out of the bathroom, showered and dressed, I was ready to pick up the conversation he’d started right before he went in there, the same one we’d had on our way down the mountain a couple evenings before.

  “You’re nuts.”

  Big points for him, we were on the same wavelength and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. “Mine is a valid theory,” he said.

  “Yeah, if you’re nuts.”

  “No, if you’re not so involved with the suspect that you’re unwilling to admit it’s possible he could be a suspect at all.”

  “Except Dan and I are not involved.” I emphasized that last word, just like he had. “We’ve never been involved.”

  “But you are friends.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Sure it does. You can’t see the forest for the trees. You think Callahan can’t be guilty because—”

  “Because he’s Dan. And he can’t be guilty.” I crossed my arms over my chest and the plaid shirt I was wearing with my no-name jeans.

  Since that’s exactly how Jesse was standing, we must have looked like a pretty pair. Apparently he realized it, because he’d left his boots by the side of the bed and he went over to slip them on. “Callahan’s fingerprints are all over those forged papers,” he said, and that wasn’t exactly fair. He’d already dropped that bombshell the day before—two days after we’d visited the pueblo on the mesa and shut down the excavation there—and he didn’t need to keep reminding me. “And you know what the workers from the site told me when I brought them into the station for questioning. There was never any doubt at the site about who was in charge of everything from who worked there to where they were digging—Dan Callahan.”

  “Of course he was in charge. Dan is smart. Smarter than anybody I know. If somebody was going to be in charge—”

  “In charge of an illegal excavation on lands that belong to the Taopi nation.”

  I huffed. There wasn’t anything I could say. Not about that.

  Time to change the subject. A little, anyway. “But Dan was kidnapped weeks ago!”

  Leave it to a cop not to be swayed by the passion in my voice. “There’s no evidence to support that.” He stood up. “You know that as well as I do. Come on, Pepper, look at the facts.”

  I’d tried. Honest. In the last couple days, I’d listened to every piece of evidence Jesse and his officers presented. To me, none of it added up.

  Not the lack of anyone’s fingerprints but mine or Dan’s on the watchband that came with the ransom note.

  Not the hunting cabin the pueblo police had found far out in the wilderness that looked like it had been recently occupied, but not like anyone had ever been kept there against his will.

  Not a body. Thank goodness, not Dan’s body.

  It was frustrating. And confusing. And I groaned. “But why would—”

  “Callahan fake his own kidnapping? To get the bones, of course. When you talked to her, Dr. Valenzuela told you that, more than anything, he wanted to excavate that site on Wind Mountain, right?” I guess Jesse took
pity on me, because after staring at me for a heartbeat and knowing I wouldn’t give him an answer because I didn’t want to be forced to admit the truth, he barreled on. “She told me the same thing when I talked to her yesterday. Callahan knew the bones were an integral part of a sacred ceremony. He knew that ceremony called the spirits. That all checks out. The shaman confirms it. Follow the logic here, Pepper. If Callahan is as obsessed with the paranormal as everyone says he is, and if he needed the bones to call the spirits of the ancient pueblo—”

  “Then why not just give me a jingle and ask me to come out for a visit and, oh by the way, bring a dead guy with me?”

  “I guess he knows you’re more honest than that.”

  As compliments went, it was a good one. Too bad Jesse didn’t cut his losses and stop right there.

  “Callahan knew you needed a really good reason to break into a mausoleum and haul away a guy who’d been buried there for more than a hundred years,” he said. “He found one. And I’m sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but I guess you’re just not getting it. He played you. If you thought he was in danger—”

  “Then what about Norma, huh?” A good question, and I gave him a sort of aha look along with it. “There’s no connection between Dan and Norma.”

  “Number one, there’s no connection between them that we know of. And number two, the sheriff here in Antonito is working that angle, and so far, he hasn’t found anything. For all we know, Norma’s murder may have nothing to do with any of this.”

  I had to give him that. Even if I didn’t have to admit it. I lifted my chin. “Then what about Brian? You can’t tell me it’s just coincidence that he’s in Antonito, Colorado, when I’m in Antonito, Colorado. I saw him at the grocery store, remember. I followed him and he flattened the tires on my car. I saw him at Norma’s that one afternoon, and he’s probably the one who whacked me on the head and knocked me out. Brian and Dan—”