by Joseph Flynn
The tip at the Civic Auditorium hadn’t been more than a second old before Ron had popped up and told the caller he’d get right back to her. Then he quickly stepped over to the phone monitor’s desk and broke the connection. He knew from experience that the phone numbers of all incoming calls at town meetings were noted and recorded by caller ID. The reporters present who’d already leaped to their feet and tried to shout out questions to the caller had bellowed complaints at Ron. This drew a partisan response from the crowd, catcalls instructing the media to let the police do their job without taking a lot of crap from them.
The mayor had to restore order with the deadliest whispered, “That’s enough,” Ron had ever heard. The way he did that, above the tumult, making himself heard and obeyed, impressed the chief that the mayor was both one fine actor and a genuine force of nature.
Then there’d been the problem of Special Agent Horgan trying to horn into the investigation. Clay had dispatched him quickly, too. He’d been told that thanks to the Goldstrike PD, Horgan had been given a tip on church burnings and a defendant in a hate crime. If that wasn’t good enough for him — if he didn’t include himself out once and for all — the mayor had some markers with someone even higher than the attorney general of the United States. He’d call one of those markers in and make sure Horgan’s career ended before he could drive down out of the Sierra.
After that display of raw power and ruthlessness freed Ron from the FBI’s shadow, he got back to the caller, asked for her address, told her to sit tight and not talk to anyone else about the hammer. He called Oliver and Benny Marx, the department’s crime scene specialist, and now the three cops looked at the hammer.
“You see that?” Benny asked, shining his flashlight on the striking end of the claw hammer. “That’s more than just blood.”
All of them squatted for a better look. They saw strands of hair — kinky black hair — caught in the dried blood. “At a guess,” Benny offered, “we’ve found our murder weapon. We’re awfully damn lucky the tree kept the rain from washing away the tissue residue.”
“Yeah,” Oliver commented. “Unless that hammer was used in another, more recent killing. Say, somebody else is avenging Terry Castlewood. Leaving us a body we don’t know about yet.”
Officer Marx looked aghast at the speculation.
“Don’t even think like that,” Ron told Oliver. “Benny, I’m going to send two units out here. You stay with them, and secure the area until it’s light enough for you to do a proper job.”
“You mean watch the area from inside the patrol units, right, Chief?”
Ron nodded. He wasn’t going to expose any of his people to the possibility of a lion attack in the dark. It was a danger of which the tipster, Gwyn Reese, had also been aware. She said she’d gone out with her son, Kieran, to walk their dog, Barkley. Kieran Reese had the dog on a leash, and his mother watched over son and pet with a flashlight and a .45. Kieran had called out when he saw the hammer, and he’d later told Ron that Barkley had sniffed at it, but otherwise it had remained undisturbed. Now, Ron and the others had to leave the area before their clomping around obliterated any evidence.
Benny waited for his backup in Oliver’s unit while the chief and his second in command talked in Ron’s Explorer.
“I don’t see the Reese family as being our perps, do you?” the chief asked.
“Unh-uh.”
“So we ask ourselves, if this hammer did kill Isaac Cardwell, how did it get there?”
“And we both know we’re not all that far from a certain service station where that informant — what was his name again?”
“Buster Lurie.”
“Yeah, Buster. The fella who was changing his oil and saw Jimmy Thunder on the night of the killing. We’re not too far from there, are we? Jimmy might’ve just stopped at the side of the road right where we are now and flung that hammer clean over the Reese house. How’s anybody gonna connect it to him then?”
“Fingerprints?”
“We can always hope.”
“But we’re not forgetting about Colin Ring, either,” Ron said, “not after what we learned about him. Or even Texas Jack, for that matter.”
“Yeah,” Oliver replied, dryly. “Just maybe it was a white guy who did it.”
Ron snorted. “How’d the situation with Danny work out?”
“He’s not ready to join the Black Muslims, but it put his nose seriously out of joint anyone would look down on him or his friends because of their color.”
“His first time?”
Oliver regarded Ron coolly. “Yeah.”
“Glad he’s got parents like you and Lauren to see him through.” Ron moved on to another subject. “You feel like maybe taking an hour, seeing if we can put our hands on Mr. Ring?”
“Can’t. I gotta get home. Gotta be up early and go lion hunting.”
“The state might come through with someone to relieve you tomorrow.”
Oliver shook his head.
“If you’d told me that a couple hours ago, I’d have said, ‘Amen.’ But after watching that town meeting, hearing that old guy, Ezra Tilden, talking about shooting mountain lions on sight, I changed my mind. That man’s attitude made me think of the bad old days. You know: just keeping plugging niggers ’til you get the right one.”
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“Then you don’t know.”
Oliver went back to his unit and sent Benny Marx to wait with Ron.
The chief considered debating Oliver’s point with him further, but a call came in from the car stationed outside Jimmy Thunder’s estate. Two unfamiliar subjects, a blonde female and a black male, had just entered the property in a black Porsche. The cops on duty were passing the word along in case the chief was interested.
He was. He asked Officer Marx to presume on the hospitality of the Reese family for a few minutes until the relief units came. Then he drove off to see what was happening at Jimmy Thunder’s.
The two cops on duty, the ones who’d called Ron, were Santo Alighieri and Divine Babson. The same pair who’d found Isaac Cardwell’s abandoned car in the supermarket parking lot. They were beginning to impress the chief as especially alert cops.
He pulled in behind their unit, and the two patrol officers got out of their 4x4 to meet him, and to stretch their legs. Working a stakeout, Ron remembered, could leave you with stiff legs and a very tired ass.
“What’ve we got?” he asked the two patrol cops.
They repeated the description of the subjects and started to elaborate.
“The woman was driving. The dude was riding shotgun,” Alighieri said.
“The woman saw us parked out here, and looked like we made her nervous,” Babson added. “But I also got the feeling she was just about tempted to call out to us for help.”
“Yeah, me too. But she didn’t call, so we didn’t help. We didn’t want to step in a pile of shit, cause anybody any hassle.”
“But we thought you ought to know.”
Ron asked, “Did this guy look anything like your flyer of Didi DuPree?”
Both cops shook their heads.
“Darker skin,” Babson said.
“Shaved head,” Alighieri added.
Babson said, “He looked over and saw us, too. Gave us a big shit-eating grin. We were tempted to go over there and talk to him just for that.”
“It sounds like they didn’t drive right in,” Ron said.
“They didn’t,” Alighieri responded. “There was some discussion over the intercom before the gates opened, but we were too far away to hear it.”
“Got the license plate on the Porsche, though,” Babson said. “S-C-R-P-L-A-Y. Registered to a Gayle Shipton. Addresses in L.A. and right here in town on Wildcat Lane.” Then with a grin, Officer Babson commented, “Santo even says he knows her.”
Ron looked at the other cop. Alighieri was clearly embarrassed.
“I don’t know her, Chief. I said I know of her. She wrote Deadly N
ightshade. I thought it was a pretty fair movie.”
“Awful dialogue,” Divine Babson interjected, drawing a look from her partner.
“Anyway, I like to do a little writing myself. So when a guy I know pointed her out to me one time, I just thought I’d keep her in mind. If I ever had a script that was ready to show, you know.”
“Santo writes much better dialogue, Chief.”
Ron sighed inwardly as Officer Alighieri stared daggers at his partner. He estimated, at a minimum, eighty percent of his cops, even the better ones, were star-struck by Goldstrike’s celebrity residents. Well, at least this one didn’t want to be an actor.
He wondered if Gayle Shipton’s appearance at the Thunder estate was Marcus Martin’s doing. Maybe Martin had it in mind to make Jimmy Thunder a movie star. Tell his life story — right up to the point where the racist chief of police makes Reverend Thunder’s life a living hell.
Officer Alighieri curbed Ron’s wandering attention. “Chief, I didn’t like this guy Ms. Shipton was with. He looked wrong in every way.”
Ron looked at Officer Babson. She nodded her agreement.
“Of course, maybe he was just her agent,” she offered, repressing a laugh.
“But he didn’t look like Didi DuPree?” Ron repeated.
Again, both cops said no.
“But I think if he comes back out soon, we ought to follow him,” Alighieri said. “Have another unit take our place here.”
Ron respected a good street cop’s instincts … but he wondered how much this one’s hunch was being influenced by a sense of melodrama. Did he imagine the woman was in trouble when she wasn’t? Did he imagine himself riding to her rescue … and having her launch his Hollywood career?
Then there was the question of throwing Sergeant Stanley’s orderly manpower assignments out of whack. Ron was sure he’d already created some dislocation by stationing two units outside the Reese house. Doing any more juggling might not be wise.
He shook his head.
“No. You two stay right here.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Do you have a camera in your unit?”
“Yes, sir,” Officer Babson said.
Ron looked at the gated entrance to the estate. A floodlight stood sentry at either side of the driveway. Plenty of candlepower to get a nice clear picture. The chief turned back to his cops.
“Whoever is the better photographer, do a paparazzi ambush of the Porsche if it comes back out. Get me a picture of this wrong dude. I want to have a look at him for myself.”
Didi DuPree vanishing and this new guy showing up was just too much of a coincidence for the chief to abide.
Chapter 47
When Ron pulled into his driveway, he saw Corrie Knox’s 4x4 parked there. The warden herself was sitting on his front porch. He didn’t overlook the fact that she had her hunting rifle leaning against the porch railing within easy reach.
Ron got out of his unit and sat in the chair next to her.
“Didn’t know if I’d find you here,” he said. “With your friend from the state not needing the motel room any more, I thought you might be back there.”
Corrie said deadpan. “Water pressure’s better here. I can get all the shampoo out of my hair.”
“That’s certainly important. You wouldn’t want to get dandruff.”
“No way.”
They sat in silence for several minutes just unwinding from the day, looking up at the stars and the moon, glad to have each other’s company.
Then Ron asked, “You think you might need that rifle sitting here?”
Corrie looked at him. “In a word, yeah.”
“I thought you said mountain lions hunt at dawn and dusk.”
“Normal mountain lions. This one, I’m not making any bets what he’s going to do next.” She sensed Ron’s uneasiness at her remark, and laughed. “Relax. I’m not getting flaky on you. It’s just that this animal is into some extremely idiosyncratic behavior.”
“Maybe we should send a shrink out with you,” Ron offered.
“Ha-ha.”
“I didn’t get to ask earlier, how was Oliver?”
“Stalwart but not stealthy. Kept flicking his cigarette lighter.”
“Cops don’t get much ninja training. He wants to get right back at it tomorrow, though.”
That surprised Corrie. Ron explained Oliver’s reasoning.
“That’s kind of ironic,” she said. “I thought he might have felt the other way. I know old Ezra “Shoot on Sight” Tilden gave me some mixed feelings.”
“What do you mean?” Ron wanted to know.
“Well, given my job and my education, I think the indiscriminate slaughter of wildlife is both abominably stupid and environmentally unsound.”
“But?”
“But I think Mr. Tilden raised quite a good point: Who are the people in big cities to determine what’s right for the people in the mountains? I thought maybe the deputy chief might feel something like that. You know, who are the white folks to determine what’s right for the black folks?”
“If you carry that logic all the way out, who is anyone to determine what’s right for anyone else? That line of thinking makes society impossible and anarchy inevitable.”
“Whew!” Corrie smiled. “The thinking man’s cop.”
“Didn’t go to college for twelve years at night for nothing,” Ron said with a tired grin.
“You think we’ll be as content to follow the rules, Mr. Philosopher, when us white folks aren’t the majority any more? That’s the way all the population experts say things are going.”
Ron was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I know what the projections are, but I don’t think they’ll hold water.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know of any country anywhere, at any point in time, where the majority population simply allowed itself to lose its dominant status.”
“So what do you think will happen? White folks will make some last ditch stand, guns blazing?” Corrie asked her question in a joking tone, but Ron answered seriously.
“I think we’re seeing some of that already. White supremacists camps like Elohim City, Oklahoma; those jokers who tried to set up the Republic of Texas a couple years back. People with simple minds and a lot of firepower are trying to reconstitute the country, or at least their piece of it, the way they see fit. Most of those folks don’t exactly embrace the idea of the brotherhood of man, either.”
“But you don’t condone those groups,” Corrie said.
“No. I just try to understand them. A lot of people think they’re just angry white trash, but fear of the outsider — the old tribal mindset — is pretty universal. Cuts right across racial and ethnic lines.”
“You mean in this country?”
“Around the world.”
Corrie gave the idea a moment’s rumination, then asked, “What about South Africa? The black people there were brutalized by apartheid for decades, but the black government has formulated policies of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
“That’s true,” Ron agreed. “It was also Nelson Mandela’s doing. He’s been both noble and smart. Along with the U.S., South Africa is about the only multiracial country in the world that places a premium on civil rights for all of its citizens.”
“Why do I feel there’s a ‘but’ coming?”
“There is,” Ron answered, rubbing tired eyes. “The ‘but’ is that South Africa has such an overwhelming black majority it has room to be noble. But how do you think the government and the black majority of that beautiful, sunny, resource rich country would feel if, say, millions of white people fleeing dead-end futures in Central and Eastern Europe started pouring across their borders? How do you think they’d feel if their population experts told them they’d be a minority in the foreseeable future? How do you think they’d feel if their social institutions were threatened by all sorts of strange foreign languages and cultural influences? You think they’d accept that complacently?”
Corrie said, “You put it like that, no. I can’t see anybody standing by passively. So what does it mean? Pretty soon we’ll all be right-wing, racist crazies?”
“Insofar as mankind is still a tribal species, we’re all racists already. I’m just one of the few who’s been publicly exposed. I’m the subtext of what we’re talking about here, right? Or am I thinking a little too highly of myself?”
There was a moment of embarrassed silence as Corrie marshaled her thoughts.
“No, you’ve got it right. I want to know more about you, and I thought I could be subtle about it. Apparently, I’m pretty lead-footed in my interrogation techniques.”
Ron laughed. “You as an interrogator, Oliver in the woods. Apparently, we all have our weaknesses. But even Emily Post might get stuck for the right way to ask someone if he’s a racist.”
Now, it was Corrie’s turn to laugh. “When Tucker asked me if you were, I said you were in recovery. You are, aren’t you? In recovery?”
Ron sighed deeply. “Most of the time. I think.”
He told her the story about his father and DeWayne Michales.
Then he continued, “Now, you’d think a guy who’d seen his father almost beat his best friend to death because of his skin color would have learned a lifelong lesson. Something to the effect: if somebody’s a good person, what does his skin color matter? If somebody’s a bad person, what does his skin color matter? In short, what the hell does skin color matter?”
Ron chewed the insides of his cheeks for a moment, as if reluctant to speak, to confess, what was on his mind. Corrie recognized they were in sensitive territory here. She wanted to tell him he didn’t have to bare his soul to her, but before she could, he told her what he’d never told anyone else.
“There are some black people, certain individuals, who if I don’t hate outright, I come pretty damn close. I tell myself it’s because of what they’ve done, not what they look like. And I believe that. Believe it completely. After all, there are a number of white people I include in that same category. But with the black people, because they’re not my color, I wonder if I wasn’t just a little quicker to feel animosity, and there are times when I ask myself if I don’t feel that dislike just a bit more intensely.