“Maybe somebody could blame Nick, but his actions weren’t personal.”
“At least Melba’s a lead.” He put the paper in his briefcase and snapped it shut.
Cindy returned, carrying a tray with a glass of water, a stainless steel carafe of coffee, and a plastic basket brimming with fresh blueberry muffins. After she’d left, Dorbandt poured his coffee, adding two sugars and creams to the steaming caffeine brew before stirring slowly.
Ansel watched Dorbandt. His motions were always fluid, as well coordinated and efficient as his police demeanor. For the first time, she noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, only a gold college ring with a red-faceted stone. If Dorbandt had a girlfriend, what did she look like, and how in the world could she put up with his overbearing cop attitude?
“I may have some other leads for you,” she volunteered.
Dorbandt glanced up, his face unreadable. “Such as?”
“I know what fossil Nick scanned into the museum computers.”
Dorbandt sipped his coffee and reached for a muffin. “What?”
“Urvogel,” announced Ansel. “In German it means ‘first bird.’ It’s an Archeopteryx.”
“How do you know?”
“Evelyn saw the phrase HMN-1880 in Nick’s research notebook. I remembered that’s the catalog number for an Archaeopteryx fossil found in Solnhofen, Germany, in 1861. HMN stands for the Humboldt Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, where the specimen is housed. The fossil’s famous because it’s a remarkably well preserved and complete specimen with a head. The first one discovered didn’t have a skull.”
Dorbandt finished his muffin in three bites. “That’s important? It’s just a bird.”
“No. Archaeopteryx is a small, feathered reptile that lived during the Upper Jurassic one hundred and fifty million years ago. It’s believed to be the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and modern birds. Have you ever seen a picture of Archaeopteryx?”
Dorbandt nodded. “Ugly-looking thing. Reminds me of a prairie chicken with fangs and claws. If they weren’t already extinct, I’d shoot them on sight.”
Ansel almost smiled. “Right. Archaeopteryx was a pigeon-sized dinosaur with bird-like feathers, wings, perching feet, hip bones, and a wishbone. The long bony tail, scaled snout, sharp teeth, and three claw-like fingers positioned midway down the wings are reptilian features.”
Dorbandt’s breakfast arrived. The waitress set down a cattleman’s spread consisting of two eggs, hash browns, and a sizzling T-bone steak.
Cindy grinned. “Anything else?”
An air-sick bag, thought Ansel desperately. The smells of cooked bird ova, fried spuds, cow muscle, and grease assaulted her digestive tract with a vengeance.
Dorbandt gave her a gracious smile. “Nothing, thanks.” He speared his steak with a fork, then spied Ansel. “Don’t heave on me.”
“Very funny. Where were we?”
“Old bird. Big choppers.” Using a wicked-looking steak knife, he lopped off a large chunk of blood-tinged meat and pushed it into his mouth, chewing heartily.
Beneath the table, Ansel clutched her stomach. Was he taunting her or just ravenous? “The point is, Nick was a paleobotanist. It makes sense that any new research he did on Archaeopteryx might be connected to his new interests in amber inclusions.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not sure,” Ansel admitted. “I do know that Nick had research material concerning pyrolysis in amber. Pyrolysis is the destructive action of heat. Amber is a poor conductor of heat, and it oxidizes when exposed to extreme temperatures. This changes its natural physical and chemical properties.”
“Sounds pretty thin to me. You may never know what Capos was researching.”
“Well, I know that experts have claimed that finding Archaeopteryx in lithographic limestone was the paleohistorical equivalent of finding the Rosetta Stone. If Nick found some new trace fossil evidence relating to Archaeopteryx and amber, specifically DNA materials, it could be the equivalent of finding the Ten Commandments.”
“Just speculation. I can’t use it.”
“Wait. I have something to show you.” Ansel removed the bracelet from her black purse and placed it on the table.
Dorbandt’s pupils transformed into cold pinpricks of black. “Where did you get that?”
“The jerk who attacked me left it behind.”
Dorbandt set his fork down. “Impossible. I examined your trailer, remember?” He pulled out his leather notebook and flipped it open.
“Sorry, but you missed it,” Ansel lied.
He slid his notepad across the table. “Benchley wore a necklace with the same design.”
Surprise widened her eyes as she looked at his utchat drawing. “You’re sure it belonged to her?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I watched her autopsy from body bag to Y-cut. She was killed by a dart filled with enough strychnine to stiff a cow, so quit yanking my chain. When did you really find the bracelet?”
The shocking image of Evelyn on an autopsy table with the detective observing every medical debasement hit home hard with Ansel. And Evelyn had been murdered with strychnine, too. Bile rose in her throat. “Right after I was attacked.”
“You mucked up potential fingerprint evidence, and then didn’t tell me? That’s not only stupid, but suspicious behavior.” He shoved both the notebook and the bracelet back into his coat pocket. “What’s the matter with you, Ansel? When are you going to trust me?”
“Why should I? Nobody trusts me because I’m...” She clamped her mouth shut.
Dorbandt nodded his head as the revelation hit him. “So the big bad, white world is oppressing the little misunderstood Indian girl. That’s your excuse? Did I ever give you any reason to think I’m prejudicial because you’re half Indian?”
Ansel stiffened. “You have no right to sit there and label me as some paranoid female.”
“Then don’t label me as a male bigot. Tell me everything you know about this case right now, or I’ll haul your pretty hide down to the Sheriff’s Department and let Captain McKenzie browbeat you for a day or two. Maybe that will teach you the difference between my investigative techniques and extrajudicial racism.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life ain’t fair and death don’t care.” He crossed his arms and gazed at her, eyebrows cocked.
Ansel glared back. Neither of them spoke for a full minute. Finally she snorted in exasperation. “All right. I’ll level with you.”
Dorbandt picked up his fork. “Get to it.”
“I visited a warlock and learned the charm is called an utchat. It represents the Eye of Apollo. Ancient Greek religions believed the utchat brought good luck. There’s a rich Greek, Dr. Athanasios Stouraitis, living in Lustre. He’s an oracle who runs a New Age group called the Avis Arcana. They’re reviving the old Greek religion of augury, foretelling prophesies by using birds. This bracelet may connect Stouraitis, the cowboy, Evelyn, and probably Nick together. And Stouraitis would probably be very interested in a half-bird reptile like Archaeopteryx.”
Ansel stopped and took a big breath. She also gulped down a few swallows of water. Dorbandt had shoveled eggs into his mouth until she finished. He still looked angry.
“A warlock and a Greek oracle. You’ve been busy.”
“I’m not done. Lydia Hodges told me that she overheard Nick talking on a Bowie College pay phone before he was murdered. Nick mentioned a ‘Griffin.’ I thought Griffin was a person, but now I don’t think so. When the first headless Archaeopteryx was found, it was given the temporary name of Griphosaurus, which is a taxonomic description that literally means ‘the problematical griffin lizard.’ Nick might have used the term ‘griffin’ to refer to Archaeopteryx.”
“A griffin, too? Anything else?”
Ansel ignored Dorbandt’s sarcasm. “Yes. That paper on pyrolysis and caustobioliths I mentioned was written by Leslie Maze. Nick used the paper to blackmail him over an old scandal at Yale. Nick found out that Les
lie and a man named Jack Kittredge had stolen research material from a Harvard researcher, Carolyn Ryes. They used it to pad their own research data and got it published first.”
“Jack Kittredge?” Dorbandt considered. “He’s a researcher at the Cooperative.”
“Really? So that’s how Nick found out about the scandal. Oh, I also found out that Shane Roco is Leslie Maze’s grandson.”
Dorbandt pushed his near empty plate away from him. “Finished?”
“Yes. Are you going to check out Stouraitis?”
“I’ll be going out of town for a bit first.” Dorbandt waved to catch Cindy’s notice.
“Are you checking out Melba?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Will you come to the Beastly Buffet?”
“Don’t think so.”
Damn. She’d really messed up with him. He was shutting her out. Time to move on. Ansel gathered her sunglasses and purse. She waited while he paid the bill. Then they walked out to the hot parking lot in silence. Dorbandt escorted her promptly to her vehicle.
As Ansel handed him the eleven by fourteen pencil sketch of the cowboy’s face, her eyes met Dorbandt’s. “May I ask you one question, Lieutenant?”
His piercing stare was all business. “What?”
“Do you really think I have a pretty hide?”
Dorbandt blushed and Ansel savored his discomfiture. The perverse pleasure was almost as satisfying as blowing off Moose Drool bottle necks with her Colt .45.
Chapter 24
“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.”
Indian Proverb
Ansel arrived in Butte by three. Born from a bonanza silver camp, the industrialized city sprawls across the “Richest Hill on Earth,” which yielded treasure-trove quantities of copper, silver, and by-product gold and metals from one thousand acres of mines.
As she passed steel architectures, lighted tennis courts, flower gardens, picnic grounds, swimming pools, and a landscaped baseball diamond, she wondered what Old West desperados would think of the changes. The Plummer gang, who ran amok through early mining towns until vigilantes hanged them, probably wouldn’t believe their eyes.
And what would Chief Joseph think had he lived to see the World Museum of Mining, the Cooper King Mansion, Berkley Pit, and the ninety-foot-high statue of Our Lady of the Rockies set atop the continental Divide?
Ansel parked the truck beside the huge aluminum-sided warehouse called Rockheads, Incorporated. A gigantic, phallic-looking logo shaped as a rose quartz crystal with googly eyes and a sappy grin was emblazoned across the panels. She chuckled. Seeing that tacky cartoon figure made the long trip worthwhile in spite of her hangover.
A surprised gasp escaped Ansel’s throat when she walked through the door. Rockheads bulged from seam to seam with towering metal shelves, glass cases, and a maze of narrow rows packed with wooden bins offering a myriad of high-quality gems, minerals, rare metals, lapidary supplies, and jewelry.
Ansel felt like a kid in a candy store. She pulled off her sunglasses. On one immense shelving unit she spied rows and rows of upright rock slabs displayed on metal stands. The fossils exposed on their surfaces resembled finely drawn etchings rather than prehistoric flora and fauna trapped between silt and dirt during the processes of decay. She experienced the same sense of wonder she’d felt when her mother gave her the blue copper-carbonate sea urchin.
Once these mineralized copies of creatures and plants had existed as organic matter. They grew and reproduced. Lived and died. The miraculous process of fragile life preserved as timeless imagery never failed to humble her. Touching a fossil meant touching the past. If such wondrous artifacts could be reduced to collectibles, she reasoned, they were art by God.
Ansel reached a long, glass case where an obese man wearing navy twill coveralls finished ringing up a girl’s purchase of a six-inch slab of malachite. She waited patiently, staring into the display below her with pure lust. A breathtaking selection of luminescent minerals resting on black velvet cloth vied for her attention. Beneath small ultraviolet lamps, rock chunks of all sizes fluoresced with fiery blue, red, orange, green, and yellow hues.
The man gave a hearty farewell to the teenager, then grinned at Ansel with bright, white teeth. “I’m Gunther Osgoode,” he said with a good-old-boy twang. “What can I do for you?”
“My name’s Ansel Phoenix. I’m acting on behalf of Mrs. Nicholas Capos. I’ve come to discuss a fossil collection belonging to her deceased husband. You called her the other day.”
Osgoode scratched a stubbled, doughy cheek and eyed her suspiciously. “Deceased?”
Judging from Osgoode’s distrustful appraisal, Ansel wondered whether it was her formal black apparel or her mixed-blood heritage that had the shopkeeper buffaloed. Maybe both.
“Yes. I’m a close friend of the family.”
“How’d he die?”
“An unexpected tragedy.”
“Man, that’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ansel gave him a deprecating smile. “Thank you. If you want to verify I’m representing Mrs. Capos, I have her number in my purse.”
Osgoode shook his head, the wattles beneath his chin shaking. “Naw, that’s not necessary. I sold his fossil collection.”
“He placed the collection up for sale here?”
“Oh, yeah. Put the whole kit-n-caboodle in the store over a year ago. Fantastic stuff. His fossils and tools were top quality. Never saw such great petrified woods and fossil seed pods. Books and magazines went, too.” Osgoode squinted at her. “You saying Nick’s wife didn’t know about it?”
“No. She didn’t. Do you know why Nick sold it?”
Osgoode shrugged and skin jiggled beneath his ballooning coveralls. “For money.” He grinned. “I pulled in over thirty grand for him with quick sales, minus my commission, of course.”
“Are there any items left?”
“Just a used orange pick hammer back in aisle seven.”
Sadness coursed through Ansel as she listened to Osgoode speaking about Nick’s beloved artifacts, tools, and reading materials as articles of barter. He stared at her with beady gray eyes cushioned within folds of baby-pink flesh.
“Can you get the check, please?” Ansel asked, hoping to move things along.
“Sure.”
Osgoode waddled from the counter on trunk-like legs and disappeared through a curtained opening. Ansel searched for aisle seven. She found it toward the rear of the store. On her left, large rock cutting and spool polishing machines occupied floor space. The other side of the aisle held a pegboard wall which contained new and used tools organized in neat, well-labeled rows.
Various brands of picks, chisel hammers, and gad pry bars hung on metal clips. Ansel didn’t look long before locating Nick’s Estwing rock hammer. The fluorescent orange paint made it impossible to miss.
Ansel pulled the hammer down. She read the white tag hanging from the twenty-two-ounce head, immediately recognizing Nick’s writing. The leather grip was sweat-stained and the neon paint sprayed on the neck and head looked atrocious. He had listed a ten-dollar sale price.
She knew Nick had painted the tool so he wouldn’t leave it on an outcrop where dull colors of rock and dirt could camouflage it. She ran a finger across the cold, smooth surface of the strike edge. Ansel remembered kidding Nick about the orange monstrosity during a fossil-hunting trip. He had proclaimed that as long as he had the hammer in his hands, he’d never get shot by hunters. Something much worse had happened to him.
A loud, metallic sound startled Ansel from her reverie. What in the world was that? She looked left, then right. A person at the end of the aisle jetted across the opening. She caught only a split-second glimpse: bright red and green shirt, dark pants. Male or female she didn’t know, but the movement was furtive. Was someone watching her?
Ansel paced to the aisle opening, clutching Nick’s hammer in her right hand. De
termined to locate the person skittering past, she turned right. She passed several deserted aisles. A few customers in rows much farther away caught her attention, but none wore the shirt she’d seen.
Ansel went toward the front. Maybe the mysterious patron had moved in that direction. She rounded a corner and almost ran head first into Osgoode’s elephantine chest.
“Been looking for you. Here’s the check.” A blue paper flapped in his sausage fingers.
“Thank you, Mr. Osgoode. I’m sure Mrs. Capos appreciates all you’ve done.” Ansel took the check, looking over Osgoode’s shoulder. “Have you seen anyone with a red shirt?”
Osgoode’s face turned quizzical. “Hmm. Haven’t paid any attention, ma’am. Tell the widow I’ll be glad to sell any other fossils or minerals she doesn’t want. Even amber.”
Ansel’s head snapped toward Osgoode. “Amber?”
“That’s right. I figure if her husband asked where to buy it, he probably did.”
“When did Mr. Capos ask?”
Osgoode shuffled toward the checkout counter, coveralls swishing as he gained momentum. “Last summer.”
Ansel tagged behind step for step. “He bought amber from you?”
“Naw, I didn’t have anything but small pieces. He wanted something big.” Osgoode walked behind the register and hefted himself onto a rickety stool. “I sent him to the board.”
“What board?”
“Bulletin board. Outside.” Ansel bolted away. “Ma’am, you gonna buy that hammer?”
She stopped short. She’d forgotten about it. Ansel set the tool on the counter. “Yes,” she said, hurriedly digging in her handbag for a twenty-dollar bill.
“Can’t get a better pick. Too bad it looks like a Halloween toy. This for you?”
“Uh huh.” Ansel passed him the money.
Osgoode made change and dropped the tool into a bag. “You’re a rockhound?”
“Uh huh.” She grabbed the sack. “I’ll see you. Thanks.”
Mesozoic Murder Page 19