Dead Dry

by Sarah Andrews

  The technician who had torn open the pants spoke. “I’ve checked the rest of his pockets. Nothing but one bit of gravel.”

  Michele said in her matter-of-fact way, “Then the killer has never been to the hot springs with him, or he’d have given him a buttectomy, too.”

  I said, “Does he have a hand lens around his neck?”

  The tech asked, “What’s that?”

  “It would be on a cord around his neck. He was that kind of geologist. Never took it off. It’s a ten-power magnifying lens, what a jeweler would call a loupe.”

  The technician lifted the collar of the shirt. “No cord, but there is a line in his tan, or I can kind of make one out.”

  I said, “Well then, the killer knew that much about him. Knew the lens was a symbol of his profession.”

  Michele said, “You say he’s from Denver?”

  “Last I saw him. But it’s been years.”

  The technician pointed at the tatters of silver hair that were still attached to Afton McWain’s crushed head. “This gray hair is consistent with his age, then?”

  “He was somewhere in his mid-fifties,” I said. “He was already an established hotshot when I came to Denver. Already had more money than God from the oil he found back during the boom.”

  Michele said to no one in particular, “Well, it’s off to the office for me. Time to make a few phone calls.”

  “Let me call the—the widow,” I said, forcing my mouth around that final word. “I’ve known her since college; we took most of our geology classes together. She won’t have suspected a thing yet. If her—that,” I pointed at the remains of her husband, “if he’s only been dead since sometime after this quarry closed yesterday afternoon, she won’t know he’s missing yet.”

  People were staring at me.

  I said, “Not hearing from him one night won’t necessarily seem out of the ordinary.”

  They continued to stare.

  I began to feel defensive of my fellow geologists, a band of leave-me-aloners if there ever was one. “Either way, it’ll be a terrible shock,” I insisted.

  In the continuing silence, I knew that my mouth had moved faster than my brain. It had been my intention, in getting a real job at the Utah Geological Survey and by starting to hang out with nice guys like Fritz, to become less of a loner myself and to build a life with more of the good times and less of the stress. But I’m a slow learner. “In fact,” I said, “I have a friend who’s flying to Denver this afternoon. I’ll hitch a ride and tell her in person.”

  THREE

  MARY ANN NETTLETON SAT AT HER KITCHEN TABLE in the home she and her husband had bought in the Jarre Creek drainage southwest of Sedalia, Colorado. She stared at the estimate the water-well driller had just dropped off, unable to move. Thirty thousand dollars to drill a new well? And for what? Why should she have to buy something she already owned? And where had the water in the existing well gone? When you buy a house it comes with water, doesn’t it?

  She didn’t have the money for a new well, and she didn’t know where she could borrow it. Just six weeks earlier, the undertaker had taken all of her available cash to give her husband a decent burial. The burial insurance just hadn’t been enough, and Mr. Entwhistle at the bank had explained that her husband had borrowed against his other life insurance to make the down payment on the house. Next to the well driller’s estimate lay the latest mortgage statement, and it was not good. The banker had seemed so helpful when he explained that her mortgage had several payment options, allowing her to make a minimum payment, but that meant that she would be adding to what she owed on the principal. Money came from her husband’s annuity, but that wasn’t paying as well as it had back when he announced that they could afford to retire to this dream house. He had been so delighted at the deal he had gotten on it—a steal! And now he was dead, and she was alone in a nightmare that had three bathrooms, a kitchen, a wet bar, and an indoor laundry, but not a drop of water in its pipes.

  Again and again her mind went back to the same spot and stalled: Why should she have to drill a new well in the first place? The existing well had water in it when they bought the house a year and a half ago, so it should be there now—shouldn’t it? When Henry fell in love with the house she had not thought to ask where the water came from. That was a man’s concern. Water had always been something that simply came out of the faucet when she turned it on.

  Her head spun with a mixture of anxiety and indignation that was quickly mounting into rage. Within the dizziness of these emotions, she remembered a man who had come to the house predicting that the well would run dry. Henry had given him a beer and visited politely and when he left called him a raving utopian, an idiot with a Ph.D. But in the last months of his illness, as the daily yield of the well had indeed dwindled, Henry had asked him to return.

  Mary Ann had remained politely in the kitchen while the men conferred in the living room. What had they discussed? And what was the man’s name? McWherter? No, McWain. Alfred? No, something odd. Afton, that was it.

  Well then, she’d invite this Dr. McWain to visit again. Ask his help. After all, he had offered to help Henry before he’d become too ill to listen, and she wasn’t too proud to admit that they had misjudged him.

  She opened the telephone book and searched for his number. There was no Afton McWain listed. She called information, but he was not listed there, either. How on earth could she get in touch with the man?

  Mary Ann suddenly recalled the file of notes her late husband had made as he sat there in the living room, his oxygen cannula strapped to his waxen nose, listening to McWain. Perhaps he’d written down the man’s phone number.

  She opened the file and turned over one page after another, trying to find it, but the only phone numbers Henry had written down were for their real-estate agent, banker, and a lawyer. Then it came to her: Dr. McWain had no phone. No phone, no power lines, no sewer. He had said that he lived “off the grid”—bragged, even, as if that were some badge of honor—beyond the reach of the wires that bound the rest of humanity in sensible electronic communion.

  Mary Ann began to look through the notes, turning the pages more slowly now, looking for notations that might make sense to her. The first page concerned their real-estate agent, Hugo Attabury. Mr. Attabury was such a nice man; he’d worked so hard to get them that loan from the bank so that they could just squeak in on their fixed income and afford to move here.

  And there was the banker’s name on the second page of notes: Wayne Entwhistle. Mr. Entwhistle was very earnest. Mr. Attabury had guided Henry to choose Castle Rock Savings and Loan because it was right there in Castle Rock. And Henry wouldn’t have it any other way. Dear departed Henry had always liked to do business with local enterprises, and Mr. Entwhistle’s bank had a nice, modest look to it, not like those big banks up in Denver that didn’t give such personal service. And Mr. Entwhistle hired such nice girls to work at the counter.

  The third page was headed with another name and profession: Todd Upton, real-estate lawyer. Mary Ann hadn’t met Mr. Upton, but she could see how a lawyer might come in handy if she indeed had to go forward with drilling a new well. She shifted that page a bit to the right, so it would be easy to find again.

  The next page listed a name she certainly did recognize: Bart Johnson. He owned a ranch nearby. Henry had explained that Mr. Johnson used to own the parcel that had been subdivided to build their home and the other lovely homes around it. Henry had commented that Mr. Johnson didn’t seem to work his ranch anymore. He had a health problem of some sort, poor man.

  Why was there a page in this file for Mr. Johnson? She tried to make out her husband’s cryptic notes. “Beef down, land up, arthritis,” he’d written. That much she could make out—though she was not certain of its meaning—but some of the other terms Henry had dutifully inscribed below that were completely foreign to her, or at least the way they were put together: “Aquifer. Alluvial fan. Recharge. Mining.”

  Tears began to
well up in Mary Ann’s eyes, and not just because she missed her wonderful, intelligent, companionable husband. How wretched that Henry wasn’t here to explain it all to her, to protect her and their investment, to make it all better. He had tried to explain the finances to her, because he had known he was dying. Luckily he had set things up for her with the bank so that at least the major bills were getting paid on time, like the mortgage on this house.

  Would she be able to keep the house?

  What would she do if she couldn’t?

  One thing was clear, either way she’d have to drill this well, because without water, she could not continue to live here, and no one would buy this house from her. Having water delivered by truck was getting ridiculously expensive, especially for washing dishes! She had to take her laundry to the coin-op in town. That did not fit within the dream retirement she and Henry had planned.

  Laundry. She felt stupid; no, selfish. Even with no water in her pipes, she had so much more than most people in this world. But then again, if she had to sell the house at a loss, there would be no other house, and she had no children to take her in; she and Henry had simply not been blessed with heirs, and that was why it had seemed reasonable to spend so much on this house. “We can’t take it with us,” he had told her, “and we have no one to leave it to, so let’s spend it!” It just wasn’t fair!

  The whirl of grief over her lost dream of a long, happy retirement with her husband rose up again and slapped Mary Ann’s brain into motion. The tears dried on her face. She picked up the telephone and began to dial the numbers her husband had so neatly annotated beneath each name. Attabury. Entwhistle. Upton. Surely one of them could put her in touch with Afton McWain.

  FOUR

  MICHELE LIKED MY IDEA OF VISITING McWAIN’S widow. “Let’s go to my office and make plans,” she said and, without waiting for my acquiescence, added, “Are you going to ride with me, or are you stuck on Ray?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got my truck right here.”

  As I followed her car, I phoned Fritz on my cell phone to make sure I could tag along with him to Denver. I explained my errand.

  “Sure,” he said, “as long as you don’t mind pretending you’re my copilot. I’ve got to keep up appearances with my paying passenger. You can’t actually take the controls while I’m flying for hire though, not until you get your twin-engine rating and your commercial license.” He chuckled. “But that day will come.”

  “What time?”

  “Can you make it by noon? Faye’s getting back early, and the client’s ready and raring to go. He wants to get into the air before it gets too choppy.”

  “Weak stomach?”

  “No, just nervous. Hard-charging young exec. Type-A personality.”

  “You mean he likes to be in control. Bouncy air suggests to him that he is not.”

  Fritz chuckled again. “You said it, not I. So, noon?”

  “Ah … sure. Yeah, I have nothing pressing after I get some evidence samples into the analysis pipeline.”

  “Good. We can have dinner together.” When I didn’t answer immediately, he added hastily, “That is, if you’re in the mood after your conversation.”

  I paused. “Well, ah …”

  “Ship’s Tavern, Brown Palace Hotel. Prime rib.”

  “That’s hard to pass up.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Okay. Thanks, I’d like that.”

  “Done. I’ll tell Faye you need to borrow one of her flight uniforms.”

  “It would never fit! I’d have to roll the pant legs up a yard!”

  I broke off the conversation to the sound of Fritz’s appreciative laughter. Michele was pulling into a parking lot.

  The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department occupies modern buildings at the corner of 3300 South and 900 West. Once ensconced in the jumble of coffee mugs and case files that was Michele’s office, I used her computer to look for a phone number for Julia McWain. The McWains’ home number wasn’t listed, but she wouldn’t be at home, anyway. I selected the number for McWain Geological Consultants on Court Street. Memories of my oil-patch days started to flow back as I remembered the offices she and Afton kept in a funny little building in downtown Denver, above an Irish bar called Duffy’s. I used to get a green tongue from drinking beer at Duffy’s on St. Patrick’s Day and danced in the narrow hallways of the offices upstairs, in which a tribe of renegade geologists like Afton held forth.

  Using Michele’s phone, I punched in the number and took a couple of deep breaths while it rang. Michele lifted an extension to listen.

  Julia picked up on the second ring. “McWain Consulting,” she said crisply.

  “Hey, Julia, you’ll never guess who this is.”

  “What? I’d know that cowgirl twang anywhere. Em Hansen! What the hey! It’s been years! You ran off to Utah with that cop—what’s his name? Ray somebody?”

  I turned a shoulder to Michele so she couldn’t see my face, which was beginning to feel hot. “Uh, that was then, this is now.”

  “Well, I should have known,” Julia said. “The last of the great holdouts. Marriage is too good for you, girl. What’s up? Are you in town or something?”

  “No, but I will be. I was wondering if I could drop by your office.”

  “Sure. I’ll be here until five. Hey, it’ll be great to see you!”

  I hurried off the phone before my voice began to waver.

  Michele punched a button on a recording machine and played the conversation back, her eyes blank as she listened intently.

  “Hey!” I said. “I didn’t know you were recording that!”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think to trip the record button until it was already ringing. Don’t worry, it’s not admissable as evidence.”

  “You think Julia McWain would kill her own husband?”

  “Never met the lady. Would she?”

  “Never. Afton was a handful, but not that kind of handful.”

  “What kind of handful was he?”

  “Aw, shit, he had an ego the size of the Ritz. You saw that tattoo. He was brash and opinionated and didn’t care whose toes he stepped on, but he was good to Julia.”

  “Was he?”

  “Well … I never heard otherwise. They led a charmed existence, really.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have lived with him, but he was the big catch. Back before Julia and I got into the game, he made huge oil discoveries in the Denver Basin, and he had a royalty on every barrel produced. I don’t even know why they kept working. He was rolling in it.”

  Michele listened intently. When I was done with my explanation, she said, “I’d like to have you record your visit with her.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a digital voice recorder.

  “I—” I stopped with my mouth open, catching flies, as my mother used to say. “Record a conversation in which I tell a woman her husband has been brutally murdered? No way.”

  “Then I’d better come along,” she said.

  My stomach felt like I’d just taken a bungee jump. “No.”

  Michele glanced at her watch. “I can catch a noon flight. Would you prefer I spoke with her first?”

  “No … .”

  “Well, then. I’ll meet you … where?”

  I glared at her.

  She gazed back at me, impassive.

  Through tight jaws, I said, “In the lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel. It’s across the street from their office.” For a moment, I considered backing out of the whole deal. Let Michele be a jerk all by herself. But I knew I had to go. Julia was a friend. I could comfort her, perhaps soften the impact of having a detective walk into her office and announce the death of her spouse.

  Michele said, “Something the matter?”

  I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but changed my mind. Better to just ride it out. I told myself: Talk to Julia, ditch Michele, and then meet Fritz for dinner. How bad can it be?

  I STOPPED BY MY OFFICE
AT THE UTAH GEOLOGICAL Survey just long enough to explain where I’d been, sign out for the rest of the day, and leave my car in the lot. Michele swung by and gave me a lift the rest of the way to the airport, which is just a few miles west of the UGS, and dropped me outside of Fritz and Faye’s place of business before continuing around to the main commercial terminal on the other side of the airport.

  Fritz and Faye run an FBO, which is pilot-ese for “fixed-base operation.” Theirs was a fledgling operation, to use an apt metaphor. There’s not much more than a desk, a couch, a flight computer, and, outside on the ramp, a string of airplanes. They have two Katanas they use to teach flying, two Piper Aeros and a Beechcraft Duchess to rent, and Faye’s big twin-engine Piper Cheyenne II turbine, which they use to fly charters. Fritz’s prototype sits out there, too. It also has two engines, but one is in front and the other is in back. He lets me fly it sometimes, after we’re airborne and before we land. I am only licensed to fly single-engine craft, but he’s a certified instructor, and the fore-and-aft in-line configuration of the propellers on his craft make it relatively easy to handle.

  Fritz grinned when he saw me. “Em! You’d better get rigged up.”

  I was right, Faye’s uniform pants were way too long for me. She about busted a gut laughing at me when I pulled them on. I was standing on four inches of fabric but my butt filled the seat.

  “Em,” she said, “you’re such a clown.”

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  She bent to the floor and began wrestling the excess. “Here, I’ll tuck them under. Get off the cuffs, you’re getting them dirty.”

  I lost my balance and began to fall over against the sink.

  Faye’s toddler, Sloane Renee, started to giggle. “Auntie Emmy funny,” she said.