by Susan Slater
***
Dan had checked the house after Elaine left then took another turn around the grounds. He had distinctly heard the sound of a body hitting the deck when they had been in the study. It was muffled by closed windows and drapes, but still not a sound that could be easily confused. He hadn’t wanted to alarm anyone. He couldn’t very well say he knew that Eric had been snooping at the window.
But there was nothing—no footprints—the ground was hard and unyielding from a lack of rain. He checked the barns and accidentally awakened Hank, who had just gone to bed. He’d been working in the clinic and hadn’t heard anything suspect. Dan felt uneasy. Some feeling of dread that he couldn’t shake. Elaine called around midnight. There hadn’t been any hitchhikers on the way back and no phone messages. She shared his uneasiness.
He went to bed but couldn’t sleep. He got up, dressed and grabbed a flashlight. This time he made a larger circle of the property: house, barns, the corrals immediately to the south, then the county road that flanked the property starting at the end of the circle drive. At the point where the county road angled closest to the house just behind a stand of poplar, he thought there were tire tracks. Longer axle width than a car, bigger tires. A truck or van, probably.
But it might not mean anything. Whoever it was had backed into an entrance to the field in knee deep weeds that covered any footprints. Could have been a farm truck. He had seen some hands working over this way earlier in the day on a faulty irrigation pipe. They would have used this entrance to the field, too. At best a few tire tracks were inconclusive. Eric had simply vanished—with or without help.
It was the why that Dan didn’t want to dwell on. At least knowing his whereabouts had given Dan a sense of security. Eric believed that he could better handle the investigation alone, on his own, that Dan knew. And didn’t Dan feel his vindictiveness had already gotten in the way? Whose idea had it been for Elaine to show up to play twenty questions?
Actually, he couldn’t blame her. She was trapped by this man and probably just wanted to help. And wasn’t he also interested in the answers? Only, he’d just about decided that Billy Roland couldn’t have had anything to do with the cocaine on Eric’s plane. But how could he get Eric to listen? Maybe this J.J., Jorge and Dona Mari link would prove helpful. He could hope anyway. Dan walked back to the house.
It wasn’t until three twenty the next afternoon that Dan knew exactly what had happened to Eric. He knew the minute the federal marshals pulled up, fanned out, guns in hand, waiting for Roger to give orders to search and confiscate. Roger and Tom seemed to have gained new importance poised against a backdrop of heavies. Dan noted more than a little swagger as Roger approached the front door.
Dan walked down the hall to the study and told Billy Roland that the feds were on the front lawn with a fistful of search warrants. Dan didn’t try to explain, tell Billy Roland what he thought had happened. How could he? Eric Linden was supposed to be dead. He just followed the old man back down the hall.
“Mr. Eklund, I’ve got a feeling that this doesn’t surprise you. Must have been expecting our visit.” Roger stood at the foot of the front steps, smug, crew cut standing perfectly straight, the sun reflecting off the distortion-free, optical-quality gray lenses that masked his eyes.
Billy Roland looked shell shocked, Dan thought, and suffering from a migraine. He was in a bathrobe and slippers. He shuffled forward stopping at the top step, shaded his eyes and surveyed the army of uniformed men in the drive.
“What’s this here all about?”
“Let’s just say we have reason to believe that crack cocaine has been discovered on your property and there’s a strong indication that we’ll find more.”
Billy Roland swung around to Dan. “You promised, son. You said you wouldn’t use it. It was just our little secret about Miss Iris.” His voice mixed disbelief with hurt and Dan felt like he had been stabbed. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. Maybe the less said right now. Billy Roland’s words hadn’t been lost on Roger, either, who bounded up the steps, shoved the papers into Billy Roland’s hands and proceeded into the house after one smirk at Dan.
And that’s when the screaming started. Later it would seem funny but at the moment, uniformed men pushing into the house struck terror in the hearts of a dozen Mexican workers—probably all without papers—who ran yelling “Policia Militar,” scattering in a dozen directions, the troopers on their heels. Out the front door, around the sides of the house; it was like turning over a beehive.
Roger tried to get his men organized, but no one could hear above the bedlam. Roger collided with the cook in the hallway, who clung to his leg begging him to spare her children. It took Tom to peel the woman away only to have her grab him around the waist and continue to shriek hysterically while immobilizing Roger’s right hand man.
The marshals didn’t know whether to chase down the Mexican nationals or begin the search of the house. Most stood outside the barns uncertain without orders what they were supposed to be doing.
“Tom, damn it, where are you?”
Roger pushed past Dan to look in the study. Dan could see Tom pleading with the cook to release him, the two of them entangled just inside the kitchen door. By now they had run out of what few words of English they had in common.
“Get over here.” Roger stuck his head out the door of the study and had caught sight of Tom. “Now. What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
Roger ducked back into the room, obviously relishing the fact that he had the prime location all to himself, Dan thought. Dan couldn’t see where Billy Roland had gone, but he decided to go down to the barns, get out of the house.
“Sorry, pal, nothing I can do.” He pushed past Tom and the cook.
He had just reached the back steps when he heard the explosion and within seconds saw the flames. The office or the clinic. He couldn’t tell which. Maybe both were on fire. The first barn of horses was bedlam. He paused to slip a halter on Baby Belle, then grabbed the lead ropes of two other horses tied in the breezeway and ran with the three outside. Others were pounding against their stalls and whinnying in that shrill high-pitched call of alarm.
A nearby corral was open, and he unsnapped the leads before he turned them loose and ran back to the barn. A number of stable hands, Dan thought he counted five, were working as a team and emptying the barns of livestock. Dan helped with two geldings, and was almost trampled by their eagerness to escape the tendrils of smoke that seeped through an air duct and hung in the still air above the stalls.
The corrals closest to the barns were filling up. In the distance Dan could see calves and adult cattle being herded into the surrounding fields. As he headed toward the clinic, he fleetingly thought of Shortcake Dream and hoped someone would be with her. But, for now, he had to help with the fire. Hoses attached to mini compressors were already pumping water in a steady stream both on the inside and the outside of the building, directly onto the clinic.
Dan stood back as Hank ordered a group of men to take axes to the outside door and then cut holes in the roof. Aluminum ladders had been dragged from somewhere and now each leaned against the building. The smoke continued to billow outward and upward, but there were no flames.
“What happened?” Dan asked Hank, who stood next to him, his eyebrows singed off and streaks of soot in his hair.
“Iris used to do a little free-basing. I was going to destroy the evidence, tipped over a bunsen burner. I had some chemicals on the counter. The place just went up.”
“Jesus.” Dan didn’t say more. This was just fodder for Roger. He’d jump all over a suspect fire in a clinic and if he found any traces of drugs….
“Look, I’d do anything to protect that old man. He means everything to me. He gave me a chance, a lot of responsibility right out of school.”
“I know. I feel the same way.”
Dan and Hank moved back to make room for two men pulling a hose to be handed up to those on the roof. He knew they wouldn’t have long to wait bef
ore Roger was on the scene. Dan watched as Roger gave orders to a man standing outside the kitchen then trotted toward them. Showing academy form, Dan noticed, elbows tucked, landing on the balls of his feet.
“What’s going on?” Roger was out of breath.
“Everything’s under control,” Hank said.
“That isn’t what I asked.” Roger swung to face Hank. “What the fuck was on fire?”
“The clinic.”
“You in charge?”
“Yeah.”
“What started it?”
“Carelessness. Moving some volatile chemicals from a cupboard to the counter.”
“You responsible?”
Hank nodded.
“You know what kind of trouble you’ll be in if we so much as find a whiff of drugs in that mess?” Roger gestured toward the blackened interior of the clinic, smoke still rolling out through the battered door. “Ever hear of tampering with evidence?”
Hank just stood there. Roger, infuriated, pushed Hank against a support post.
“Don’t jerk me around.”
Hank’s face was completely impassive, Dan thought. Then Hank broke Roger’s grasp. Not roughly, but with authority.
“If you have something to discuss, come find me. I’m not going any place. I have an apartment next to the clinic.” And then he walked off. Left Roger fuming and staring at what he undoubtedly thought was a cover-up. Dan had to smile. Roger was flunking search and seizure. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Dan walked through the barn to check on Shortcake Dream. The stall was empty. He questioned one of the workers, who pointed to an adjoining outside corral. Dan could see the subdued-looking heifer in the far corner. Scared, but safe. Billy Roland would be relieved.
And, then it dawned on him. He hadn’t seen the man, not since the encounter on the front steps. It was unlike Billy Roland not to be involved. He should have been out here. Migraine or no, he’d be checking on Shortcake Dream at the very least.
Dan turned back toward the house, and was just crossing the drive leading to the screened-in porch when he heard it. As quickly as his brain registered what the sound was, he refused to believe it, but started to run, tearing at the back screen door when he reached the porch—the shotgun blast echoing in his ears.
Chapter Nine
The door to the study was closed. Dan hesitated; a moment of trepidation slowed him from throwing it open. He swallowed, took a deep breath and willed himself to reach out and turn the knob. Locked. He twisted it again. Then raced for the front door. He hadn’t locked the window to the study last night, just shut it. Hopefully, it was still open. But he knew all the hurrying, all the panic, would not change what he would find.
He pulled the window up, threw a leg over the casement and eased himself into the room. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the cool darkness. And then he saw what he had expected to see but the shock of it wasn’t any the less powerful. Expectation didn’t negate horror. He leaned against the back of a chair, took a few deep breaths before slowly walking to the front of the desk. Even the top of the chair had been blown away by the blast. He could hear someone pounding on the door. The noise seemed far away.
He just stood there, thoughts jumbled, trying to think clearly. Trying to form thoughts of “No, not now. It’s not what you think….” Billy Roland’s words running through his mind: “You promised…said you wouldn’t use it…just our little secret.” Dan closed his eyes and turned away.
The one typed sheet was on a chair. Dan hadn’t noticed it at first. He walked over and picked it up.
“I can’t stay in a world where my friends, even my loved ones, betray me, suspect me of wrongdoing, ruin my reputation…I want my Premier Exhibitor’s banner draped over my coffin….”
Dan couldn’t read any more as tears welled up. The pounding at the door was now accompanied by shouting. He walked over and unlocked it. Roger burst into the room followed by Tom and two other agents.
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Who let this happen? Tom, why weren’t you with him?” Roger was truly beside himself. Because an old man committed suicide? Or because it would put a serious crimp in his investigation, and someone might insinuate that he’d blown it. Dan guessed the latter.
“I don’t have to tell you how this looks. Just as good as a signed confession. I knew it. Could smell it. The old codger had guilty written all over him.” Roger was gingerly picking over papers on the desk, sliding a couple out from under the body with the eraser end of a pencil.
“Looking for this?” Dan offered the note he’d found on the chair.
“Damn it. You know better than to touch anything at the scene. I’ve had it with you, Mahoney.”
Roger had slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. Must be standard issue for field work, Dan thought sarcastically.
“Tom, I want a team on that clinic soon as it’s cool enough to get in there. Sift everything. Go over every inch and have a couple of the guys question that vet.”
Roger was in his element. Giving orders, gleefully surveying what he termed a cop-out. Dan overheard him describe Billy Roland as someone who just “couldn’t face the music.” Then Dan left, had to leave, get away to think, mourn in his own way; he walked out to the porch swing. He’d asked Tom about Eric and found out he was in Milford. Even locked up he could wreak devastation. If it hadn’t been for Eric, that old man would have lived out his days enjoying the Double Horseshoe, Shortcake Dream, and the Cisco Kid….
“You know where the wife is?” Tom stuck his head out the study window.
“Gone.”
“I know that. When’s she coming back?” Roger had pushed Tom aside and leaned out, hands on the sill. His need for control was unbelievable, Dan thought.
“She isn’t.”
“You want to explain that?”
No, Dan thought; but I’m probably going to have to. He sighed. “Iris Stuckey-Eklund was asked to leave by her husband after it was discovered she may have attempted wrongdoing in order to collect on an insurance claim for several hundred thousand dollars.” That sounded vague enough but business-like, and it was the truth.
“I’ll be dipped. He ran off the little woman. I’ll need your statement. In the meantime, you know where we can find her?”
“No.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”
“Believe what you want.”
“You know, before you get too carried away being uncooperative, I should tell you Eric Linden will testify that you failed to report a cache of contraband drugs, left it to him to turn over the evidence, and then you told us you found it in a truck.”
Dan didn’t say anything.
“That sound about right? How it happened?”
Dan shrugged; he could barely contain his irritation at this man, at the situation, the lies and deceit.
“You know of any other places we’ll need to look? Besides the hangar? To find any little surprises that you might know about. Like another glove compartment in a truck.”
“There should be a small container of crystals of unknown origin in the wall safe in the study.” Dan imagined there was a look of surprise on Roger’s face, but he didn’t turn around to see.
“Should I know how they got there?”
Dan ignored the sarcasm. “I believe they were planted by Eric Linden to do exactly what he’s done—get you guys involved.”
“Or expose a drug operation that’s been in existence for a number of years.”
“As I said before, believe what you want.”
“I don’t think I need to tell you not to disappear.” Roger went back into the house.
***
The rest of the afternoon was bedlam. He couldn’t leave but called Elaine from Hank’s phone. She wanted to drive out. He didn’t want her to be interrogated, but thought everything would be settled down by late evening. He needed to see her, be with someone who knew he hadn’t caused this, hadn’t gone back on his word to Billy Roland. She said she would be there
by nine.
“Want a beer?” Hank stood in the middle of his pullman kitchen with two cans of Coors.
“Sure.”
The two of them walked back into the ten by twelve living room that barely held a couch, TV, and coffee table and smelled of smoke.
“Any idea what will happen to all this? The land and stock.” Dan was curious. He believed Billy Roland when he said that Miss Iris wouldn’t get anything—but nothing had been said about after Billy Roland’s death.
“If he hasn’t changed his will in the last year, the Double Horseshoe will become an Ag station.”
“Ag station?”
“Yeah. Agriculture test area. Run by an extension of New Mexico State.”
“That’s great. Neat idea.”
“Take a look.”
Hank walked back to the kitchen, pulled a legal-looking document out of a drawer, and handed it to Dan.
“I’m executor.”
And the director of a multi-million dollar project for as long as you want, Dan thought to himself as he scanned the first page of the will. But it was fitting. Hank was the right choice.
“This is perfect for the ranch. I’m glad to see it go this way.”
“Miss Iris gets the Wings of the Dove, but only if she stays clean. Has to be tested every six months, three consecutive times a week apart, different labs.”
“He thought of everything.”
“Left the Lear to that Linden guy. Guess that will go to his wife now.”
“How much is it worth?”
“The Lear? A few hundred thousand without much fixing.”
Why did Dan feel a rush of elation? It wasn’t two million but maybe enough for Eric to start over….
Elaine pulled into the drive a little before nine. There were still agents standing guard, but the body had been removed and some of the household help were cleaning up the study. Word had gotten out when the body reached the funeral home in Roswell, and the first flowers arrived around six-thirty. Judge Cyrus had called and offered his assistance. Dan had thought to call Carolyn and Phillip. They were shocked. But then, everyone was shocked. Billy Roland had seemed exempt, somehow beyond something as mundane as dying. He should have lived forever.