by Robert Greer
“Did you talk to her? Get any kinda confirmation on where she was headed?”
“No. I doubt she even saw me. You sound concerned, Ms. Benson. Is there a problem?”
“No problem. Was she alone?”
“As a matter of fact, she wasn't.” Looking as if he'd stumbled onto the answer to a thorny problem, Hogan asked, “Are you and Alicia and Damion here looking into the Shandell Bird murder case?”
Flora Jean responded with a quick “Yes.”
“Sorry about your friend,” Hogan said sympathetically to Damion.
“Thanks.” Damion paused momentarily before asking, “Now, what about that other person who was with Dr. Phillips? Did you know them?”
“No, I didn't, but I can tell you this—she was attractive. Smallish, short hair, and sort of athletic-looking. And pretty well-endowed, if you know what I mean.” He looked at Flora Jean as if hoping he hadn't offended her.
“Go on,” said Flora Jean.
“That's it. I'm sure I've seen the young lady here before, but I can't give you a name.”
“Think it mighta been Connie Eastland?” Flora Jean asked Damion.
“That would be my guess. The description's right on.”
Damion slipped his wallet out of his back pocket, took out a plastic bifold filled with photos, and held one of the photos up for Hogan to look at. “Is that her?” he asked, pointing to Connie in a photograph of her, Niki, himself, and Shandell at the Sweet Sixteen regional NCAA basketball tournament the previous spring.
“Sure is. Looks like you were all having fun.”
“We were.” Damion's voice, tinged with sadness, trailed off. “So you think they're headed for Dr. Phillips's ranch?”
“I don't know about the young lady, but it's more than a safe bet that Alicia's headed for that ranch just like she does every Monday. If she could live out there full time and never set foot back on this campus, I know she would. And you know what? There's some of her wistfulness in all of us. If I could've, I'd have been a fighter pilot myself.”
“I'd be a little wary of them F-16s if I were you, Professor. They've been known to get shot outta the sky,” said Flora Jean.
“That's why they make ejection seats,” said Hogan, but his look said he wondered what if anything the tall, buxom woman actually knew about F-16s.
Looking the man up and down, Flora Jean found herself thinking, You know what, maybe you could handle an F-16. “Do you know how to get to that ranch?” she asked, turning to Damion.
Damion shrugged. “No.”
“No problem,” said Hogan. “I've been out there half-a-dozen times. I'll be happy to give you directions, but first you've got to tell me if you think that woman in the photo is tied to the Blackbird killing.”
“She may be,” said Damion.
“Good gracious. Do you think she might harm Alicia? Maybe we should call Alicia and warn her.”
Aware that they had offered Hogan too much information, Flora Jean flashed Damion a look that said, Need you to be quiet for a second here, Blood. Looking back at Hogan, she said, “Of course not. So can we get those directions?”
Sounding relieved that Alicia apparently wasn't in harm's way, Hogan said, “Yes, I'll write them down for you.”
“Appreciate it,” said Flora Jean. “And who knows? Keep on dreamin’, and one day you just might get your chance to fly that F-16.”
The arched entryway to Alicia Phillips's Lazy 2 Lazy U Ranch was nearly identical to the one at the Montana ranch she'd grown up on. Remarkably the same. She'd used the same six-inch-diameter drill-rigger's pipe that her father had used to fashion the uprights and crosspiece. She'd set the uprights in identical four-foot-deep holes and flanked each with a row of three ponderosa pines. The Lazy 2 Lazy U cattle brand, which her family had first registered in Montana 120 years earlier, swung lazily from the middle of the crosspiece in the eastern Colorado plains breeze.
Wind gusts had been kicking up all day, sending dust devils, tumbleweed spores, and a constant mist of pollen into the air. Connie Eastland's hay fever had shot into overdrive the moment she and Alicia had arrived at the ranch. Now, as they sat in matching wicker chairs in the screened-in breezeway that separated the main part of the ranch house from the garage, Connie's eyes were red and puffy.
Sneezing and looking miserable, Connie asked, “Can't we go inside? I'm feeling worse by the minute.” She sneezed and finished off the last of a tall glass of lemonade.
“Sure, sure,” Alicia said, clearly distracted. “Just let me see if that colt of mine can hold his own with the old broodmare over there in the south pasture.” Alicia rose and fixed her gaze on three horses about forty yards away. “I dropped a bucketful of grain into an old tire next to that dead cottonwood in the middle of the pasture.” She pointed toward the gnarled old tree. “I want to see if the colt will go up against that mare for the right to it.”
Connie wanted to ask Alicia why she'd set the horses up to battle over food, but she didn't. She understood that it was simply Alicia's way. She'd seen Alicia pit animal against animal before, and athlete against athlete. Alicia, she had learned, enjoyed watching man and beast alike struggle to maintain superiority.
“The colt's nosing the old mare off! See it? See it?” Alicia said, her voice charged with excitement. When the colt flicked its head assertively and pawed at the ground with a front hoof, Alicia screamed, “Good boy.” As the mare slowly ambled away, she yelled, “Serves her right. From now on she'll have to wait her turn.” She eyed the colt with admiration. “Good boy, Thunder.”
Sneezing and rubbing her eyes, Connie asked, “Can we go in now, Alicia?”
Without answering, Alicia stared past the horses and down toward the bend in Little Owl Creek, the quarter-mile-long stretch of stream that more or less cut the ranch in half. Turning to go inside, she glanced back toward the stream, paused in the breezeway door, smiled, and said, “Sure.”
Looking up from the vantage point of a perfect location for a kill shot and camouflaged by a clump of creekside cottonwoods, Alicia Phillips's coconspirator smiled and thought about the fact that the time had come for a solution to their thorny problem. A shot to the head or perhaps the chest would do it—plain and simple. A perfect takedown in a sea of grass in a cluster of cottonwoods in the middle of nowhere. The cottonwoods would muffle the sound of the shot, and it would all be over in an instant.
In contrast to Alicia's blasé attitude toward it, killing wasn't something that came naturally to the shooter. But like so many other things in life, it was a learned skill. One that could be perfected, much like dribbling a basketball.
The sound of the breezeway door slamming shut in the wind gave the shooter a start. Glancing down at the barrel of the .30-06 lying on a blanket in the grass a few feet away, the shooter muttered, “Should be easy,” and waited.
Chapter 27
Weld County Road 126, narrow, winding, and worn pretty much down to road base, wound its way northeast for fifteen miles into the short-grass plains east of I-25 before taking a straight shot across Little Owl Creek and turning back to the south toward Fort Collins. Bucking a headwind, kicking up a rooster tail of dust, and squeaking out a plea for new shocks, Flora Jean's Suburban was the lone vehicle on a seemingly endless stretch of county road.
Deep in thought, Damion lurched forward in his seat as Flora Jean skirted a prairie-dog hole and said, “I've been thinking about what makes people tick.”
“Well, when you figure it out, be sure and let me in on the secret, sugar. Never been able to figure it out myself.”
“I'm serious.”
“Never said you weren't. So what have you come up with?”
“Now, follow me here, okay?”
“I'm followin’.”
“Suppose you had the world by the tail, and everything you'd ever dreamed of was about to be yours. And to top it off, you were idolized and adored and praised at every juncture. Suppose that with all that going for you, you had a deep, dark,
potentially dream-scuttling secret. A secret you couldn't tell even your closest lifelong friend for fear that letting it out would destroy you. What would you do?”
“Easy. I'd keep the secret to my damn self.”
“Exactly. But suppose you were being blackmailed by someone who knew your secret? Someone who was threatening to broadcast it to the world? What would you do then?”
“I'm not sure, Blood. Maybe I'd just have a long, serious talk with that broadcaster.”
“That's an answer. But not the one I'm looking for. The one I'm looking for is what would Shandell have done.”
“So whatta you think he'd have done?”
“I think he would've gone to somebody he trusted for help, and since for whatever reason he didn't come to me, I'm thinking perhaps Coach Horse or Dr. Phillips very likely filled the bill. I think he chose Dr. Phillips. And from there I'm thinking things got sticky. He had no way of knowing he was sharing his secret with someone who had her own agenda. Now, what do you suppose Shandell would have done if he'd found out he was being used?”
“He'd have slam-dunked somebody for sure.”
“Absolutely. Except that Dr. Phillips and maybe even Coach Horse weren't the only ones who knew his secret. I'm betting that muckraking reporter Grimes and Garrett Asalon and that stooge of his, Theisman, along with Connie Eastland and Wordell Epps, knew Shan-dell's secret. Especially since, as it turns out, at least one of Connie Eastland's sorority sisters had inside dope. So in the end, Shandell's secret had plenty of potential to take a trip around the world.”
“And your point is?” Flora Jean asked, focusing her gaze on a lone farmhouse in the distance.
“My point is that we're missing something here, Flora Jean. Something that's the key to telling us exactly who it was that killed Shan-dell. Something akin to that forest-and-trees analogy everyone seems to be so fond of reminding me about. We've, or at least I've, spent too much time focusing on gambling and point-shaving and drug dealing, and you know what? I don't think any of that really matters. I'm beginning to think that what matters most is what was going on inside Shandell's head when his world started to crumble. In the end I think he was a lot like that character I mentioned to you on our way up here, from A Morning at the Office. Frustrated enough to say, To hell with it; go on and tell the world.”
“So you think he'd reached the point that he was sayin’ to himself, Can't hurt me no more, no matter what?”
“Yes. Just like Horace Xavier, he'd had enough. Enough of being blackmailed and used and probably even threatened.”
“I'd say those are good enough reasons for us to have a real long talk with the lady who was more or less his shrink.” Flora Jean nodded toward the now clearly visible ranch house and set of corrals before them. “Pretty little valley. Let's hope Dr. Phillips is in and that she has some answers for us.”
Damion stared down the gently sloping county road toward the Lazy 2 Lazy U compound. He could now see that it included not just an alabaster-white ranch house and corrals but a barn, a machine shop, and an implement shed. “Uptown,” he muttered. “And she's there. See that black crew-cab pickup parked near the corrals?”
“Sure do, sugar.”
“The truck's hers. No question. I've ridden in it before a couple of times with Shandell. Let's go get some answers,” Damion said boldly.
“No need charging down San Juan Hill,” Flora Jean said, scanning the landscape and letting her military instincts kick in. “Let's pull over and stop right here for a second.” She turned off the road and nosed the Suburban toward a stand of cottonwoods. “I'm thinkin’ we should probably get the lay of the land first.”
“Okay,” said Damion, wondering what it was that had Flora Jean spooked. When he noticed the glimmer of something in the cotton-woods that lined the far side of the creek meandering through at least a quarter section of fenced-off property, he understood.
Alicia and Connie strolled leisurely toward the bend in Little Owl Creek, blind to the fact that Flora Jean had a set of navy binoculars trained on them. Looking nervous and a bit unsettled but no longer sneezing, Connie drank in the picturesque creek-bottom landscape. “Sooner or later the police are going to figure things out, Alicia. They're not stupid. And if they don't, Damion will.”
“Then let them.”
“You don't seem concerned at all.”
“I'm not. Things will work out in the end. How's your hay fever?”
“Not as bad as it was when we were sitting in your breezeway.” Looking frustrated, Connie said, “Are you listening to me, Alicia?”
“Yes, I am. Just let me check on that head gate that's been giving me fits all summer, and we'll talk this through.”
“Why'd you decide to write that book anyway?”
Alicia eyed the wide expanse of rolling hills surrounding them before answering. “See that fence line over there? The one running up along that ridge from the creek bottom?”
“Yes.”
“It marks the boundary of my property. It's where I start and stop. And you know what? I don't want to start and stop there. We should never be limited by a fence, or a city's need for water, or some developer's condo dream.”
“But your place is beautiful, Alicia. What do you need with more land?”
“When we get down to that head gate, I'll show you. Let you in on why it's so important to never have limits.” Alicia glanced toward the stand of cottonwoods that had shaded the bend in the creek for more than a hundred years. For a brief moment she thought she caught a glimpse of something in the sunlight—a flicker of light in the trees, perhaps. She couldn't be certain. It could just as easily have been a low-hanging tree limb swaying in the breeze, or a bird on the wing, or a squirrel scurrying from tree to tree. But she knew one thing for certain. Whatever it had been, it was still there.
Flora Jean adjusted the focus on her field binoculars and leaned out the rolled-down window of the Suburban. “There's somebody down there in the cottonwoods standing a few yards away from a vehicle, Damion. Straight across from that dogleg in the creek.”
“Where?” Damion asked excitedly.
“About fifty yards away from us and just off to the right.” Tapping the top of the binoculars against the window jamb, she suddenly sounded concerned. “Shit; the SOB's got a rifle, and Connie and Dr. Phillips are headed straight that way.”
Flora Jean handed Damion the binoculars. “Look straight at the bend in the creek and a little bit to your right. Whoever it is is decked out in camouflage. The nose of the vehicle's peekin’ out of a cluster of willows ten yards or so from where the shooter is.” Realizing she needed to do something fast, Flora Jean reached over the seat back and slipped her 9-mm out of her purse.
“Damn, they're perfect targets,” Damion said, adjusting the binoculars’ focus.
“Yeah, I know.” Flora Jean stuck her left arm out the Suburban's window and fired three rounds into the air.
Unsure where the shots had come from, and with Alicia and Connie suddenly sprawled on the ground, the shooter turned and fired two shots in the direction of where the rounds seemed to have come from.
“What's going on?” Connie screamed as Alicia rose and turned to run.
Deciding she was too far away from the two women to do much good, Flora Jean laid her weapon on the center console and put the Suburban into gear. Before she could take off, Damion grabbed the 9-mm. Screaming, “Go after Alicia and Connie!” he jumped out of the truck and charged downhill in an all-out sprint toward the creek. The will and athleticism that had propelled him from fourth grade peewee basketball to the brink of an NBA career soon had him zigzagging his way between cottonwoods and willows, closing the gap between him and the shooter.
The willows and trees were too thick for Flora Jean to follow in the Suburban. Beside herself for having been separated from her weapon, an unconscionable mistake for any marine, she mumbled, “Damn it, Blood,” and aimed the nose of the truck straight at Connie and Alicia.
; Aware that the shooter's vehicle was more strategically important than anything else right then, Damion worked his way between fallen cottonwoods, through a thicket of willows, and finally past a stand of chokecherry trees toward the shooter. All he could make out as he closed in on the vehicle was a chrome bumper. In the rush and confusion that had followed Flora Jean's shots, he'd never actually seen the shooter, and he wondered whether the shooter had seen him. When two shots, very obviously from a rifle, slammed into the ground a few feet from him, he knew the answer. He dove for cover, aware that his life was on the line and that he'd have hell to pay when Flora Jean finally caught up with him. He realized he'd better not make a mistake.
Convinced that it would be difficult for the shooter to get off an accurate shot in a thicket of downed tree limbs and underbrush, Damion kept as much tree protection between him and the shooter as he could. He was fifteen yards from the vehicle when he heard a car door slam. Telling himself, Damn the protection; it'll be even harder for the son of a bitch to get off a rifle shot from inside a car, he burst from his protective cover and raced for the car. He was only yards from the vehicle when he realized that he was closing in on Wordell Epps's Honda.
Unsure what to do next, uncertain where Epps was, and suddenly aware that Epps could have a handgun as well as a rifle barrel aimed at him, Damion knelt behind a cottonwood stump and shouted out the first thing that came to mind. “We've got cops on the way, Epps. Best come out.”
Before he could say anything else, two more bullets slammed into the tree stump. Looking up, he realized that the Honda was headed his way, with Epps at the wheel and a rifle barrel poking out the window.
Final game, final second, final shot, was all he could think as he squeezed off four quick shots at the Honda's windshield. The safety glass crumbled as one bullet found its mark, ripping into a howling Epps's shoulder, shattering his collarbone, and clipping off a silver-dollar-sized piece of shoulder blade before lodging in a back-seat armrest. Out of control, the Honda high-centered on the stump just as Damion jumped out of its way, and a .30-06 came flying out the window and hit the ground. Looking terrified as Damion carefully approached the car, Epps moaned in pain, “Don't shoot, Madrid. Don't shoot!”