Widow's Run

by TG Wolff

  I imagined how Jessica would feel which, as intended, brought a blush to my face. “We don’t exactly have a meeting scheduled. I worked with your secretary to meet at your office, but it didn’t work out. I learned you were here today and, well, I took a chance.” Cue irresistible grin.

  Buford took a small carrot from his pocket and fed it to the ass. “Who likes her carrots? Does Buttercup like carrots? Yes, she does.”

  “I realize this is…unconventional—”

  “Young lady, it’s downright rude. I have an office specifically for the purpose of conductin’ business. I have a home specifically for the purpose of livin’ my private life. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you off my property?”

  Plan B. Cue pathetic eyes. “I’m a freelance writer, just starting out. American Science Quarterly is interested in my article, but I need you to be able to finish it. You’re right, it is rude of me to just come here. But I’m a desperate woman.”

  “What is your article about?”

  “It’s called ‘Old Mother Earth’s Cupboard,’” I spoke fast, the way people do when they’re overly excited about something. “Get it? Like Old Mother Hubbard from the nursery rhyme? So, it’s about how, with global warming, our food-producing capabilities are not going to keep pace with population growth, especially in desert climates. I did a lot of research on Professor Gavriil Rubchinsky’s work in the field. You sponsored his work…so you must have supported it. I have so many questions and you’re the only one who can answer them.”

  Winston stroked Buttercup’s long nose. “Why aren’t you talkin’ to Professor Liu? She took over the work.”

  Good question. “I did, but she didn’t…she explained the science but not the, you know, humanity of it.” Oh God, I was talking like Dixon.

  “No. She couldn’t.” Winston measured me up, head to toe. “You look as out of place as a fish riding a bicycle.”

  Cue smile number two. “I would have worn jeans but, you know, wanted to look professional. Because I am professional, I mean a professional writer. Not like a professional professional.”

  “I know a lot of folks who think being professional is about the way they dress. What watch they wear, what golf clubs they own. A professional does what they do for the better of the society they serve. Put on your jeans, Ms. Fielding, and we’ll talk about feeding the world.”

  Winston showed me to a bedroom in the ranch house. Spacious rooms blended one into the other, giving a sense of freedom and space matching the Oklahoma setting. The bedroom was designed to make a guest comfortable. I made use of the attached bath to relieve myself of the previously mentioned coffees, then dressed in jeans and a performance tee. A lightweight jacket hid my holster and the 9mm it carried. A knife slid into my ankle sheath and covered with bootcut denim. Fully attired, I rejoined Winston in the main room.

  Winston ended a call when I walked in.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Your call I mean. I know, my just being here is an interruption.” I hoped he was enjoying my impression of an insecure neophyte. For myself, I think my IQ dropped a few points.

  “More comfortable?”

  I nodded, queueing smile three. “Much. The suit comes with the job. But this is the real me.”

  He nodded. “Where you from, Miss Fielding?”

  “Please, call me Jess. I grew up outside Chicago.”

  “Cubs or White Sox.”

  “Cubs. Twenty-seventeen was just the start. I see a dynasty in our future.”

  “Ah, the relentless optimism of a Cubs fan.” Winston headed toward French doors, opening to his rear acreage. “You shoot, Jess?”

  “A little. I once had a boyfriend who enjoyed shooting. I went with him a few times. Why?”

  “I was going to take target practice before you rolled in. We can chat out there.”

  Perfect.

  The back of the house had a wide deck sectioned by purpose. There was the eating area with tables and chairs for twelve. There was the cooking area with a grill, smoker, and two burners. There was the sunning area with six lounge chairs, cocktail tables set in between. Finally, there was the pool area with a small zoo of inflatable animals. None of them were mules.

  “You have a great house,” I said as I followed Winston down the steps to the grass. “You must have great pool parties.”

  “Pool parties? I don’t know about that, but the grandkids do enjoy it.” Winston climbed behind the wheel of a golf cart. “The shooting range is on the other side of the ranch. We’ll get there faster this way.”

  I rounded the cart to the passenger seat, noting the cases for handguns already stowed in the cargo area. Winston took us out to the road, down a quarter mile, and onto a dirt path with ruts custom made for the vehicle. Winston and I didn’t speak on the drive. The chugging of the golf cart and crackling of the gravel made conversation at a casual decibel impossible. I studied the big bastard. He had the look of a hardworking, good old boy. Someone who grew up getting his hands as dirty as his boots. He didn’t look like the player he was.

  We bounced over ruts until we reached a mound of earth three times as tall as me with targets line up across the front. Some were purchased, probably made somewhere in China and shipped here for rich folks to put their money into. Most were random. Tree stumps worked as pedestals holding objects of various shapes and sizes. Glass. Plastic. Ballistic material. Half a desk lamp. An old car door with a white number 8 in a blue circle. A scarecrow with no arms and one leg. The space was a cross between a graveyard, a junk yard, and a hot mess.

  “So, ask me your questions.” Winston slid out of the cart and began moving the gun cases to the table set permanently in front of the shooter’s position.

  My question? Why did you kill my husband, you son of a bitch?

  I went through the list of reporterly questions I had developed on the plane. When did you become interested in the food shortage crises? What were your goals in funding a project such as Professor Rubchinsky’s? Were you satisfied with the progress?

  I asked a question. I fired. He answered a question. He fired. Gradually, I brought the topic to what mattered.

  “I understand you were there, the night Professor Rubchinsky died.” Bang, bang, bang.

  Winston sighed heavily. His shoulders sagged for an instant then he brought his hands up. “Yes.” Bang, bang, bang. “One of the worse nights of my life.”

  Right there with you, buddy. “What happened? What really happened. I read the police reports but, well, there has to be more.” Bang.

  “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks.” I had been careful to miss the target, shooting like the rookie I claimed to be. But I’d been focused on his answer, not my cover, and nailed the bull’s-eye.

  Winston transferred his gaze from the target to me. “You read the police reports? In Italian?”

  Something in those sharp eyes made me swallow hard. “In English. Translated. My Italian is limited to mozzarella and fettuccini.” I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m thorough.”

  “I bet you are.” Bang, bang, bang. “I was there alright. Drank a beer with a leech who wanted to attach to my wallet. One minute, Gabe was enjoying a drink, the next, he’s dead in the street.”

  Gabe? GABE? Oh, no he did not.

  “The leech died that night, too.”

  “Professor Thelan? He was hitting you up for money?”

  Winston chuckled as he reloaded. “Nothing so nefarious, Jess. He wanted his own project grant funded. His concept wasn’t bad, but his scope was too limited. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the man was as cheap with his ideas as he was with his money.”

  “Why did Professor Rubchinsky leave the hotel?” Bang. “I’m out of bullets.”

  “Good. Now tell me who you really are.”

  Winston held a .44 capable of making a hole in me big enough to see daylight through. He was a big man, an old man. I could outrun him but not the bullet. I
slowly raised my hands, empty gun and all. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  He cocked his head. “You don’t want to lie to me. You’re not a reporter. Not with a magazine or anyone else. You’re not as young as you pretend to be. Not as stupid, either.”

  “It’s not what you think.” I feigned scared. Then I roundhouse kicked the gun out of his hand and landed in a shooting stance with my barrel aimed at his heart.

  “I take it you have one bullet left? You’re full of surprises, aren’t you Jess.” He shook the sting out of the hand I’d kicked.

  “The name is Diamond.” With the ruse gone, I spoke in my voice, letting the cold show in my eyes. “I know you killed Gavriil—”

  “I did NOT kill, Gabe.” Armed or not, Winston was dangerous. Those thick hands flexed as if ready to break something or someone in half. “Let’s get that straight between me and you right now. Didn’t kill Thelan either.” He turned his back on me, as if he didn’t have a loaded and deadly weapon trained on him. And I wasn’t talking about the gun.

  “After you two butted heads, did you send him a drink?”

  He snorted as he turned. “If that’s the best you got, go back where you came from.” He stood his ground, as I stood mine. “Who do you work for?”

  “His wife.”

  Winston lowered his eyes. Emotion drained from his face until only a brutal sadness remained. “Gabe was one of my best friends. He was passionate about his work. He was passionate about his wife. How is she?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh. No.” He staggered, catching the table for support. “When? How?”

  “A week or so ago. She fell asleep and a candle fell over.” There wasn’t a need to finish the thought.

  “This may sound wrong, but I’m glad Gabe died first. The way he loved his woman, he wouldn’t have survived her passing on first.” Grief carved new lines in Winston’s full face. There was nothing laughable about the curve of his mouth. His red eyes had been trampled by crow’s feet. “If she’s dead…why are you here?”

  I lowered the gun and put Jessica Fielding away. “Because I made a promise.” As Winston stared, I removed the wig and the netting containing my own dark hair. “You knew he was killed. Why didn’t you press the Italians to investigate?”

  “I did. Damn near ended up in jail myself.” It likely was the scene Ilsa had witnessed. “They were so focused on Thelan they wouldn’t listen. Never made sense to me. Why him? Nobody kills mediocrity. It’s its own punishment.”

  “The cocktail Thelan drank was served to Gavriil. When he left it behind untouched, Thelan helped himself.”

  “The cheap bastard would be alive today if he’d bought his own drinks.” He swore under his breath. “Why was Gabe killed? Do you know?”

  It should have been easy to stay hard-ass on Winston, but he was so pissed off, it took the edge off me. “I was hoping you could tell me.” I laid out what went down, in general terms.

  His face turned beet purple. I thought he was having a heart attack. As I was trying to figure out how to find his sternum for CPR, he stalked back to the table, picked up two guns, and unloaded them into the rest of the scarecrow. Casings flew in a scene straight out of the freaking old west.

  When both clicked empty, he turned to me.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  “For all the good it did.” His face was back to human color, though his heavy brows were still pushed down. “Let’s go to the house. I have some things you need to see. Those last few weeks, Gabe was acting bipolar. We’d chat, and he’d be normal. Then he’d send me an email completely out of the north pasture. We got into it a few times. I’ll admit it, I went cowboy on him, but he went all Russian on me.”

  The emails recovered from Gavriil’s account showed few emails to Winston. It surprised me, but if they spoke as regularly as Winston said, they would email less. Gavriil had been frustrated by Winston those last few weeks, getting as loud as Winston had just done. He was angry Winston was losing confidence in his work and put the blame squarely on Winston’s shoulders.

  “Were you going to pull out of the project?”

  “No.” Candid. Definitive. I believed him. Then Winston removed his hat and ran a hand through thinning hair. “I may have threatened it but just to sober him up. Gabe was nearly finished with the first phase and we were getting ready to move into field testing. It was just…he’d come out of left field with ideas. Costs would double, maybe triple. The money didn’t exist, and the benefits couldn’t justify the extras.” His fingers danced over the keyboard. “Read this. You’ll see what I mean.”

  Winston brought up an email I had never seen before. The “from” stamp had Gavriil’s email address. The subject referred to the grant project. The body of the email was formal. It referred to specifics of plant data and projections and made demands on modifying the scope for the next phase.

  The word choice was off. My husband used a very formal English in emails, one reflecting a textbook education in the language rather than growing up in it. There were a few exceptions. He used the word “chat” for “talk” and said the word in the same accent Winston just did. I had wondered where it came from. He used the word “on” instead of “about.” He would think on, talk on, dream on, etc. There were other examples, nuances of language that pointed to the author’s identity. “Gavriil didn’t write this.”

  Winston raised an eyebrow. “Know him well enough to be sure?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I scrolled down the email. “Are there others like this? I want to send them to my guy.”

  “I’ll bring them up.”

  While Winston worked his computer, I called Dix.

  “Andrew Dixon’s phone.” The voice wasn’t Dix’s but someone older, more cynical.

  “Ian?”

  “Diamond? How’s Missouri?”

  “Oklahoma. Where’s Dixon?”

  “He’s here. Hold on.” Ian screamed for Dix at the top of his lungs. “He’s coming.”

  “Holy hell.” I shoved the phone arm’s length away. “Jeeze, Ian. I was using that ear.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You doing better?”

  “Yeah. The kid knows a thing or two about treating bumps and bruises. He can cook, too.” He snickered. “Heats up a different can of soup for each meal and makes these monster sandwiches. Damn, but the kid can eat for a skinny shit. Did you know his birthday was a few days ago? He wouldn’t say, but I think his old man gave him the black eye.”

  “You’d be thinkin’ right.”

  “Hell of a way to grow up. Here he comes. I’m putting you on speaker.”

  “Hey Diamond.” Dix sounded a kind of happy and carefree his life didn’t have. Or maybe it was in spite of what his life didn’t have.

  “Hey Dix. I hear you’re making a pretty good nurse. Don’t let Ian talk you into wearing a uniform.” They groaned and chuckled. “Dix, I need you to dig back into the emails. I’m here with Buford Winston. He exchanged emails with Gavriil, but they weren’t in the ones you gave me.”

  “Give me a few dates.” Dixon was all business, taking the dates and the subject lines.

  Winston leaned toward the microphone. “Well, boys, it was a series of emails called ‘Quinoa Phase 2 Scoping.’” He read the dates of the email exchanges. “There may have been a few others, but those got me hot and bothered.”

  The clicking of computer keys came through the speaker. Dixon grunted, then Ian. They chirped in geek at each other over whatever they were seeing.

  Finally, Dix spoke in English. “The series isn’t here, Diamond.”

  My mind flipped through possible solutions. “Could you have missed it in the download?”

  “No. I didn’t pick and choose the files, I snatched the whole enchilada.” Dix turned away from the phone. “Oh, let’s get tacos for dinner.”

  “Guys? Focus. How can Winston have emails with Gavriil’s address, but they did
n’t come from his account?”

  “We need the emails,” Ian said. “I have a few ideas, but we are going to need the emails to get behind them.”

  “I can link into Winston’s system and download them,” Dixon said. “I’ll get everything from Doc’s to run a comparison to what we already have.”

  “Now, hold your horses, boys.” Winston held out his hand as if my dynamic duo could see him. “I have confidential information in my email. I can’t have you just rooting around like a pig for truffles.”

  “What’s a truffle?” Dixon asked but plowed forward without waiting for a response. “Candy, right? A kind of chocolate? I bet they would go great with tacos. I can be in and out in like…ten minutes.”

  Winston scratched his head. “Is he talking about truffles, tacos, or emails? I can’t keep up with the boy.”

  “Few can,” I said. “Dix, remote into this computer and identify only emails from Doc. You hear me? I come home and find anything else and your ass is dropping three floors the fast way.”

  Winston raised a brow in my direction. “Those boys live with you?”

  “Yes,” they answered simultaneously.

  I tried not to laugh and failed, the tension I hadn’t noticed fell away. “They’re like cockroaches. They stay, no matter what I do.”

  The twinkle came back into Winston’s eyes and he let Dix have his way with his computer. From what I could see, Dix minded his manners and didn’t take more than he was supposed to. The four of us worked past dinner time. I left them to the emails and tacos and joined Winston on the deck for steak. Serenaded by crickets and cicadas, we drained a fine bottle of bourbon. As the moon rose, I came to accept Buford Winston not only wasn’t an ass, he was a friend.

  Damn it. I needed another suspect.

  That’s SWAT I Call Awesome

  My five a.m. flight out of Tulsa landed in DC around eleven. Well, I assume it did. I wasn’t on it. I woke up with the sun solidly above the horizon and some jackass deciding now was the perfect time to hee-haw at the top of his lungs. I stumbled out of bed wearing the clothes I’d worn last night, parts of which were fused into skin and bone. Extraction was an outpatient procedure performed without anesthetic.