by Susan Slater
“Glad to see you’re following doctor’s orders.”
“Have to. Won’t get this thing off for awhile.” He held up his right hand with the cast already encased in a plastic bag sealed off with two rubber bands.
“Kind of a sexy outfit for the shower. But you’re missing a bow.” Elaine pointed.
“Ah, you’d just tell Carolyn. After you.” Dan held the shower door open.
The shower felt good but it felt even better to just lean against Dan, her arms around his back, her head on his shoulder. He’d removed the bandage from his head and she could see the ten or so stitches at a diagonal above his right ear. But it was the bruising that made her pull back. Most of his right side was a dark blue-black beginning that attractive slide from puce to puke-green that denotes healing.
“Hurt?” She lightly touched a bluish-green welt on his shoulder.
“Looks a lot worse than it really is. I took the brunt of it on my right side—went through the windshield at an angle and collided headfirst with something.”
“You were lucky.”
“Yeah.”
He bent down and kissed her, pulled back, and murmured, “God I’ve missed you,” before pulling her into him again. “What if I wanted to take a rain check on that mountain climbing and just take a nap? Would my reputation be ruined?”
“I’d say that Superman was probably human.” She kissed him again. “I’m planning on having lots of second chances.”
They slept until four, ordered in, and watched a movie on HBO.
“I know it’s probably back to work tomorrow.” Elaine wasn’t quite ready to give up having Dan all to herself. She slipped another piece of pizza out of the box between them and sneaked the crust to Simon.
“Yeah, I need to look up that sheriff—Howard didn’t you say?”
“Mora County. His office’s in Las Vegas.”
“I’ll give him a call in the morning.”
***
The gold lettering on the door said Sheriff Lewis Howard. Dan paused, then knocked. He had been dreading this. Obviously, he hadn’t known the old man who had given him a ride but still, he certainly hadn’t wished him harm. It hadn’t been any solace to know that asthma had brought on the coughing fit, but being pinned by the truck had killed him. Dan wished he’d been able to do something.
He was startled by the yell “Come in.” It certainly didn’t lack in volume. The man who got up from behind the desk was a big man—not fat, just a gym-induced solidness that made him intimidating. Something from the brick-shithouse genre that seemed to get people hired in this sort of job out here. He instantly thought of a certain lawman in Tatum.
But this man seemed to have some things going for him, according to the pictures on the wall. The sheriff with grade-schoolers at a soccer tournament handing out a trophy, sheriff at the fairgrounds crowning Miss Mora County, sheriff with a group of uniforms standing in front of new cruisers. Must be about ten years his senior, Dan thought. Ought to be staring retirement in the face. He idly wondered if someone like Lewis Howard would stay close or take off for a cabana by the sea. Dan was pretty sure he knew what he’d do in the same situation. It was tough to adjust to one-horse towns. He dreaded the “where should we live?” discussion that he’d have to have with Elaine one of these days.
“Have any trouble finding me?”
“No, your directions were great.” Dan shook hands, took the proffered chair in front of the desk and waited for Sheriff Howard to return to his.
“First of all, I want to say I’m happy to see you up and around. There could have been another outcome.”
“I’m all too aware of that. I was sorry to hear about Chet Echols.”
“Yeah, his eightieth birthday was coming up in February. Shame. He had some good years left. Sheriff Howard blew his nose on a red square of material that he pushed back into a center drawer of the desk. Dan ruled out any emotion in favor of allergies. He waited while the man took a small spiral-bound notebook out of another drawer.
“Let’s get started by you telling me what happened that afternoon.”
“Anything in particular?”
“How ’bout lapse of time from when the Cherokee gave out and Chet showed up with a ride.”
“Probably not more than five minutes. One-thirty to one thirty-five. I considered myself lucky to get a ride so quickly. There’s a lot of empty highway out there.”
The officer looked up from his notes. “You’d never met Mr. Echols before?”
Dan shook his head, “Funny, Chet seemed to think I should know him. That his name should ring a bell.”
“It didn’t?”
“Still doesn’t. Who was he anyway?”
“An old stunt driver—right out of Hollywood. Back in the forties and fifties, he was the best. Lots of articles on him over the years…enjoyed some minor celebrity. Big in this part of the country—born in Roy. Performed in state fairs until a couple years ago. There aren’t a lot of celebrities from out this way unless you include Tommy McDonald. Remember the running back for the Philadelphia Eagles? There was a deserving Hall of Famer if there ever was one. A real Roy High School Longhorn. Lived up to all our expectations.”
Dan was sitting forward, “Wait, you said Chet was a stunt driver? Just don’t tell me his specialty was rolling cars.”
“Actually, it was.” The sheriff paused to study Dan. “I don’t want to suggest any conclusions that might be false—premature, that is. But let me just level with you and tell you what we’ve got.”
Something told Dan this wasn’t going to be good, but he leaned forward, the elbow of his good arm on the corner of the desk.
“About a tenth of a mile past the accident site coming back toward town, the ambulance driver reported seeing a ramp—”
“What kind of a ramp?”
“The kind you drive a vehicle up onto in order to roll it.”
“You’re saying if he hadn’t rolled the truck when he did by passing out, he would have a little ways down the road anyway?”
“It appears so.”
“Suicide?”
“We don’t think so.”
Dan waited. What a weird twist. He was thinking how nervous Chet had seemed. Preoccupied would be the best word. “Suicide makes sense,” he said, more to himself.
“Until you realize he appeared to be following you, possibly waiting for the cut hoses on the Cherokee to strand you.”
“Come on. Cut hoses? You’re saying I was set up to be maimed or killed?”
“That’s certainly one interpretation we’re considering.” Sheriff Howard got up, walked to an office fridge and took out a Diet Dr. Pepper. “Anything?” He pointed to the fridge but Dan shook his head.
“You stop for gas in Roy?”
“No, just lunch.”
“Eat at the Chill an’ Grill?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember where you parked?”
“On the street, along the east side and a couple doors down.” He waited as the sheriff sat down and made a note, then popped the tab on the Dr. Pepper and took a long swallow. “Guess I don’t have to ask if you noticed anything suspicious or unusual?”
“Nothing. Empty street when I came out of the restaurant. But why me, as the saying goes?”
“I think you’ll need to help me with that.”
Dan sat back. He was drawing a blank. It made no sense. Unless the investigation—someone wanting him out of there or to slow him down…afraid he might find something. Plenty of people knew he would be in town on Monday—bank personnel and his client, for starters. But who knew he’d be coming along the back way? Up from an early morning meeting in Hobbs? And at that particular time?
“It could be work-related. I have no way of knowing. I haven’t had a chance to even begin the investigation.”
“And that would be investigating the robbery at Wagon Mound? The bank over there?”
“United Life & Casualty,” Dan held out a card, “insured a necklace that was lost in the robbery…for a Ms. Gertrude Kennedy. Yes, that’s what brought me out this way.”
Sheriff Howard shook his head, “Whole thing’s weird—you hear how they did it?” Dan nodded. “Got Feds swarming all over the place. But I don’t think anyone’s come up with any answers. Not yet, anyway.”
Dan remembered that Chet had thought no one would. Thought it was an inside job. But Dan decided he’d just keep that tidbit to himself. He looked up to find Sheriff Howard staring at him.
“Anything else you want to tell me about that afternoon?”
Dan paused, “The old guy seemed nervous, kept looking behind him. He was apologetic having to wire the door shut on my side. If it hadn’t been for that, I might have had a chance to jump clear.” Dan left the impact of that fact hanging in the air and changed tactics. “But he seemed proud of the old truck…even in its condition. Said he was the original owner—”
“He said what?”
“To quote him exactly, he said they’d been together since birth…I think he meant the truck’s. I took the truck to be a fifty-something Ford—hard to tell, there were some mismatched parts and others, like the bumpers, just missing.”
Sheriff Howard opened a manila envelope and shook the contents onto his desk. It looked like a bunch of receipts and maybe a bank statement, Dan thought.
“When we towed the truck in, one of the guys who works in our impound area recognized it, or I should say parts of it. You’re right, the truck was a composite—built from scratch at a chop shop here in Vegas and not that long ago. I think they started with the chassis and that was about it.”
Dan let out a low whistle, “Who paid for that?”
“Good question. Chet himself, according to these receipts, but a Social Security check doesn’t cover that kind of work. Finished product came to over ten thousand dollars.”
“What about where it was done? What do the shop guys say?”
“That’s another tough one. Shop’s owned and run by bikers—not your Honda touring class types, if you’re following me, but a few one-percenters.”
“One-percenters?”
“Yeah, the hard core. Ninety-nine percent of all bikers in the U.S. are law-abiding citizens…then there’s the one-percenters.”
“And you’re saying the chop shop is operated by…outlaws?”
The shrug said more than words. “We’ve adopted a ‘live and let live’ attitude. Everybody calls it a chop shop, but that’s just because they ride choppers. I honestly don’t think they’re up to anything illegal. I’m a little understaffed to hassle them—besides, in twenty years we’ve never had a problem.”
“Until now.”
“If they’re even involved.”
“Have you talked to them?”
“Yeah. According to Jeeter Ferris—he’s the owner—payment was made in advance. He gave some guy an estimate over the phone…just a ballpark…and then the rest of his dealings were with Chet. I understand Jeeter’s boys at the shop did all the work.”
“So you’re saying they built the truck ground up with Chet giving directions?”
“Something like that. I guess Chet had some pretty narrow specs he wanted them to follow. But he wasn’t lying—he and that truck had been together since birth.”
“Sounds like he’d done it before.”
“No doubt. I should also mention that Chet had ten thousand dollars in his bank account. Don’t know if it was part of some kind of payoff or unused truck money. But his grandson says he knows his granddad didn’t have anything extra…nothing tucked away…lived from payday to payday like most of the community.”
“When was the deposit made?”
“Originally twenty thousand was put in first week in August. Increments of ten.”
“August? More than a month before the heist? Except for the cut hoses, it pretty much rules out having anything to do with me—no way they’d know there’d even be an insurance investigation—no way they knew the heist would be successful.”
“’Course that tunnel coulda been half finished by then…or more. Personally I think that tunnel’d been there for awhile. But it’s a puzzler, for sure.” Sheriff Howard paused. “Two many unanswered questions. I’m not trying to tell you your business, but I’d be careful. I’ll keep you in the loop and would appreciate the same.” Sheriff Howard leaned forward to shake hands.
Meeting over. Dan had a distinct feeling it wouldn’t be the last with the Mora County sheriff.
He took the elevator down to ground level and walked out into the sunshine. Elaine was waiting for him about a hundred feet away and he had just that amount of time to decide what he wanted to tell her. Keep the details to himself or run the risk of alarming her?
“How’d that go?” She closed the novel and put it in the console as he climbed into the passenger’s seat.
“Not sure. I think I left with a lot more questions than I had going in.”
“Such as?”
He took a breath. Didn’t he believe that honesty was the best policy in relationships? Well, usually anyway. But he found he wanted to share. Maybe she needed to be careful, too. And that made him angry. If anything happened to Elaine—
“Dan, what’s wrong?” She’d turned to face him squarely.
And then he started at the beginning—didn’t leave anything out about Chet and the truck and the rollover, ending finally with what Sheriff Howard had said.
Elaine was silent.
“Thoughts?”
“I’m canceling the descansos.”
“What?”
“Not important. I’d just thought of honoring the spot where this Chet died. You know, one of those roadside crosses and some plastic flowers. But that was before I knew he attempted murder. What are you going to do?”
Dan flinched. Strong word “murder” but true, he guessed. “Be careful but not let anything that’s happened get in the way of the investigation. Go in with an open mind.”
“I thought you’d say that. And the first step, Sherlock?”
“I take it Watson is going to stick it out?”
“As long as you need a driver.” She leaned across the console and kissed him. “And maybe even longer.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that,” He grinned. “I guess we need to go into Wagon Mound this afternoon. See if you can find us something to rent for two or three weeks and I’ll look up Ms. Gertrude Kennedy and get this show on the road.”
It didn’t take long to check out of the motel, gather up clothes, Simon’s food and bowls, and repack the SUV. This was turning into quite the adventure and he could do with less of that. Still anything was better than the hospital.
Chapter Five
Wagon Mound was laid out like a rogue Monopoly board—Wood Avenue, Railroad Avenue, mixed with Stonewood, Bond, and Rich streets connecting to Park Avenue with a smattering of Aguilar and Romero streets thrown in. All this beneath the mammoth natural stone edifice of a Conestoga wagon pulled by a six-up team of oxen. Well, this last demanded a little imagination but the image was probably apt for one of the last great landmarks on the Santa Fe Trail.
Dan read out loud from a guide he’d picked up at LJM’s Travel center—one of two gas station/convenience stores at the edge of town. “‘At this very point, travelers a hundred years ago and then some could cross from the Cimarron cutoff to Fort Union. This arm of the Trail was called the Mountain Branch. In 1850 ten men riding guard on the express mail wagon were killed by a band of Jicarilla Apaches.’” Dan looked up. “Sounds like it wasn’t far from here—where I-25 passes along the edge of town. Impressive. This is a real slice of the old wild west.”
Elaine didn’t comment but eased the SUV across t
he highway and turned right at the first street, Railroad Avenue. Dan continued, “Looks like the town started out as a railroad center—Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe—been serving the ranchers in this area since 1881.” Dan turned a page, “Listen to this. ‘At the turn of the last century, this area produced the bulk of the pinto beans grown in the state. One Hijinio Gonzales started the festival by cooking up beans in wash boilers behind the schoolhouse to feed the community. There’s been a Bean Day celebration ever since.’”
Dan put the brochure on the dash and looked at the town as Elaine drove. It was obvious that it’d seen better times. He was struck by how many empty and boarded up homes and businesses there were. Old adobes stood crumbling in the sun next to neat little white houses with bright metal siding and roofs. One old building on a hill could have been a school or even a hospital but was now just a three-walled, cavernous shell with warnings of do not trespass.
Main Street, if that’s what it was, consisted of several businesses—all boarded up. “I haven’t seen a restaurant, have you?”
Elaine shook her head. “No grocery store, no restaurant, no commerce at all—but there’s a great-looking high school and middle school on the way out of town. And I think I’ve found a boarding house—at least there was a rooms for rent sign in front of that two-story adobe on the corner.”
“I’d like to take a look at the bank, Nolan and Railroad avenue… sort of get my bearings before I chat with Ms. Kennedy.”
“Nolan’s coming up on the right.”
Elaine turned onto the street and stopped opposite the First Community Bank of Wagon Mound. She put the SUV in park and they stared through the windshield.
“Quaint.” Elaine offered.