A Nose for Justice

by Rita Mae Brown

  In the cozy living room with Jeep, Mags, and the dogs, Carlotta looked up quickly.

  Jeep, too.

  They heard the urgency in his voice.

  “Living room,” Jeep called.

  He knocked the snow off his feet in the kitchen, leaving two white clumps incised with his boot tread.

  Carlotta rose. “What is it?”

  But Enrique was looking at Jeep. He said, “Mom, can you get your gear on? I’ll drive you to the barn.”

  She didn’t question him. Jeep rarely wasted time like that. She’d find out when she got there. Perhaps this as much as anything else distinguished her from those under fifty who existed in a constant information/conversation swirl, whose continual observations on whatever it was they were seeing or hearing were not necessarily based on reality.

  “Honey, you stay here,” Enrique ordered his wife. He looked at Mags. “Walk behind us. Take your mind off Wall Street.”

  Mags, who regarded Enrique as an uncle, took her cue from her great-aunt and kept her mouth shut. The two women quickly bundled up as Enrique grabbed a large nine-volt flashlight from the pantry. Carlotta followed, her eyes full of questions.

  “I’ll tell you later. It’s nothing to worry about.” He hoped this was true.

  Once outside, the cold hit Jeep and Mags in their faces. Bitter, bitter cold. Whoever said dry cold wasn’t as bad as moist cold, East Coast cold, was a barefaced liar.

  On the ATV, Jeep wrapped her arms around Enrique’s waist as he put it in gear. In a pair of old mukluks Carlotta had unearthed, Mags trotted down the path behind them. King followed her and Baxter followed King, not at all happy with the view.

  Given how slick the packed-down snow was, Enrique kept the ATV in second gear.

  King stopped a moment to relieve himself along the side of the path.

  Baxter observed, then drily said, “Where’s the hydrant?”

  While that made King chortle, it didn’t mean he was going to like the fuzzy sausage.

  Once at the barn, Enrique dismounted, but Mags reached the double doors first, and with effort, swung one out. He rolled the ATV in and cut its motor. After the dogs scooted inside, Mags closed the door behind them.

  Jeep followed.

  “Look. Look at this!”

  The two dogs sniffed first.

  “Nothing worth chewing.” King pronounced his judgment.

  “I’ve never smelled bones this old,” Baxter said.

  “You’ve never smelled real bones. Bet all you’ve chewed on is moccasins and Milk-Bones,” King sarcastically replied.

  “Pissant,” Baxter half snarled.

  King stood over him, his ruff raised.

  Jeep sharply cut through their bull. “Enough!” She knelt down herself and ordered Mags. “Hand me the torch.”

  Mags did as she was told.

  Enrique knelt down next to Jeep. She carefully shined the yellowish light over the exposed part of the skeleton.

  “It’s human all right. We won’t know if it’s a man or a woman until we get to the pelvis.” Jeep half whispered.

  “Shouldn’t you call the sheriff?” Mags wondered, standing at the end of the stall.

  “In this weather? No. Furthermore, this person has been here a long, long time.”

  “Maybe the barn was built over a small burial ground.” Mags thought out loud.

  “Not a chance.” Jeep shook her head, deep in thought.

  “What about Paiutes?” Mags said. “I mean, we aren’t far from an old Indian site and maybe where Fort Sage once was.”

  Enrique, realizing Jeep’s tolerance was fading as her fascination increased, gently said, “Mags, no one has ever found Fort Sage. It’s supposed to be west of here. And I don’t think the Paiute laid out their dead like this.”

  She was only trying to be helpful, but it reminded Mags that her great-aunt didn’t welcome interruption or personal opinion when riveted by a problem or political exchange.

  The blackened ring caught Jeep’s eye as it had drawn Enrique’s. She handed the flashlight to her son. He held it steady. Mags and the dogs watched intently. Jeep slid off the ring—the distal and middle phalanxes came off with it, but did not disintegrate. She replaced the finger bones.

  Jeep looked down before studying the ring. “Good heavy bones, whoever this is—was.” She rolled the ring around between her thumb and forefinger. “Silver, a silver horseshoe with the Star of Guard on it. Enrique, got a hankie, anything?”

  He reached into his breast coat pocket and pulled out a sullied handkerchief. She spit on it and vigorously rubbed the inside of the ring. A faint glow of interior gold rewarded her. She put the ring almost to her eyeball.

  “Yes!”

  Mags, driven to distraction, asked, “Yes, what?”

  Jeep stood up and Mags helped her out of the three-foot-deep area. “Let’s go back to the house and I’ll show you. When the storm’s over I’ll get Pete out here. In the meantime, we’ve got work to do.”

  “What kind of work?” Mags’s green eyes questioned her great-aunt.

  “Tomorrow after the chores, the three of us are going to free what remains of this body from its prison. Now come on.”

  Back in the house’s kitchen, Jeep handed Carlotta the ring and asked her to shine it up. By the time Jeep and Mags had peeled off their layers, Carlotta had already restored the ring, quite a unique one.

  Enrique, coat off, gloves off, boots off, dropped to a chair at the big table. All that digging was fatiguing.

  Jeep sat at the head, her son on the right, her great-niece on the left of the table. “This is from the Nicholas School of Cavalry, an elite school in Czarist Russia founded by Czar Nicholas I in 1823. It was quartered in St. Petersburg, a fabulous place to be as a young fellow.”

  “Mom, how do you know this?” Enrique asked.

  Sitting next to her husband, Carlotta leaned forward, as eager for the report as the other two.

  “I’ve seen this distinctive ring twice before. The first time was during the war when I found myself with an old, beautifully mannered Soviet colonel. I’d flown a plane to our base in Montana. He always kept on his gloves except once, inside the base’s makeshift bar, he took them off. That’s when I noticed his ring.” She paused. “Sometimes the Russians would come to Montana to pick up planes. They were our allies. Given that he was a colonel, I knew he was here for more than a plane. You knew never to ask.”

  Mags, a good student of history, held out her palm. Jeep dropped the ring into it. “But Aunt Jeep, if this is the ring of an elite Russian school, wouldn’t the Soviet colonel have hidden it? I mean, the royals and aristocrats were killed after the Russian Revolution.”

  “Most were, but a few threw in their lot with the Reds or possessed such critical skills even Lenin and his bizarre henchman, Trotsky, didn’t dare wipe them out.”

  “I thought Trotsky was a good guy.” Mags, who’d read Isaac Deutscher, frowned.

  “None of them were good guys. You don’t kill millions and come out as good guys no matter how well you write.”

  “Point taken.” Mags hadn’t thought of it that way. “The ring is lined with gold.”

  “Yes. That, too, reflects the ethos of the aristocrats at their best: Hide what is most dear. And to a graduate of this rigorous school, the gold represents one’s heart. Nobility, not of birth, but of spirit. Inscribed in Russian is ‘Soldier, coronet, and general were eternal friends. 1887.’ I can read a little Russian. The colonel I met was Timofev Nilov. Like all the graduates, he was proud of the Nicholas School. It was an even stronger pride than West Pointers have, I think.”

  Enrique studied the ring. “It’s a very simple design.”

  “So, it was a man?” Carlotta chimed in.

  “Couldn’t he have given it to a lover, his wife, a daughter?” Mags inquired.

  “Highly unlikely.” Jeep drummed her fingertips on the table. “Many graduates were buried with their ring or it was kept as a family treasure, but y
ou only wore it if you earned it. The last czar himself could not wear this ring since he had not graduated from the school. Some grand dukes had. And, of course, there were other elite cavalry schools, but the Nicholas School was the oldest—divided into those who would become Cossack units and those who would become light cavalry, like Hussars. I can tell you two things about our skeleton. One, he was likely one hell of a horseman. Two, he had courage, possibly great courage.”

  “What in God’s name is he doing in your barn?” Mags asked.

  “Wasn’t my barn when he was laid in it. Was the Ford brothers’ barn. He could even have been buried before the barn was built, though I doubt it. I don’t know why, but I doubt it.” Jeep turned to Enrique. “If we can carefully exhume him, we may find out how he died. Dollars to donuts, his was not a natural death.”

  Mags eyes widened. “And why not?”

  Jeep took back the ring and slipped it onto the third finger of her left hand. “Odd. It fits perfectly.” She took it off. “I don’t have the right to wear it.” Then she suddenly slipped it back on. “But I will.”

  The Star of Guard stood out on the flattened silver nailhead. Jeep felt as she had felt before flying a mission: a sharp current of excitement, laced with an undertow of joy. Once she and her copilot were strapped in, if flying a big bomber to its last stateside destination, once she cranked the great engines, she always turned to Laura and said, “Tits to the wind.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They started at six in the morning on December 8, the birthday of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1542. Jeep kept a calendar in her head of such events. Enrique and Mags finally exposed the entire skeleton by one that afternoon. While it remained embedded in the soil, the entire human figure could be clearly seen. Jeep feared if they tried to pry him loose, they might destroy the bones or damage something that could later provide a clue to his identity.

  Carlotta helped by feeding the cattle, chopping ice, and checking and feeding the horses.

  Jeep, her beloved Hasselblad in hand, took careful photographs. She had learned about photography while in the service, though she’d been so poor upon discharge she couldn’t exactly afford it as a hobby. Many of the WASPs, when mustered out, had to pay for their own bus tickets home. That ticket from Texas to Nevada had depleted her little nest egg. Still, she had built her own darkroom to help with costs, taking great pleasure in snapping what she called “Nevada-scapes”—especially from the air. She flew an old World War I Curtiss JN-6H, called “the Jenny”—a plane she shared with Danny Marks, another young World War II vet. You might even say it was because of this hobby that she made her fortune. It had been her day to crop dust over Lassen County, California, a far more fertile area than around Reno. That day in 1949, Jeep had just enough fuel left to indulge herself and laze over the Kumina Peak area. A seam of land caught her attention.

  Later, the large two-inch images taken by the Hasselblad further intrigued her. She drove to the desolate area in her old truck, along the way every filling in her teeth rattling. She then pinpointed what she had seen from the air. Even more barren than the usual high desert acreage, the land was privately owned. Quietly, not even telling her folks—still alive and hardworking back then—she investigated. An elderly widow, living in Sacramento, owned five thousand acres. The adjoining pieces were also privately owned. One by one, Jeep tracked down the owners of these properties. Ultimately she pieced together ten thousand acres of what was considered pure trash. Without a cent of her own, but enormous drive—the same drive that sent her into rolling thunder in the skies—she pushed onward. She sold the old truck, sold anything she could, except her one-eared dog, a many-times grandmother of King. No one would have wanted Daisy anyway. She borrowed from friends who had a bit put away, making them wealthy, too. Not that anyone knew that then. Jeep never forgot a favor nor forgave an insult.

  Not one of the owners wanted to hold on to their land. When she offered a modest sum, in one case offering only to pay back taxes, Jeep became the proud owner of what most folks would have considered nothing. Even Danny, who knew her well and loved her, was shocked when she showed him her recently acquired land deeds. He shook his head in wonderment that such a smart woman could be so dumb.

  The land—now called the Reed tract—contained a deep vein of gold with many offshoots, some of which contained silver. As methods of harvesting had improved by the 1950s and continue to improve, the find was monumental. That was only the beginning of her fortune, but it gave notice that Magdalene Reed was ready to take more than physical risks. Funny, though, how some people think. Jeep, ignorant about mineral extraction, studied and made a deal with a mining company. She owned the land and took thirty percent of the profits. The mining company paid an annual rent. Once operations began, it took two and a half years for profits to materialize. Jeep was often discounted because she was young, quite pretty, and feminine. Rather than become overtly angry at this treatment, she used it to her advantage. Over the decades she got even with those who’d insulted her. Conventional thinkers can usually be defeated by unconventional thinkers. Jeep was unconventional.

  She piled Pelion on Parnassus. Once she had money, she founded, with Danny, a salvage company called Marks and Reed. She graciously put Danny’s name first. He put up sweat equity. Marks and Reed dismantled defunct mining sites, tore down wooden buildings—dismantled anything useful. Then they bought a few acres near Reno, Carson City, Virginia City, and Elko. People flocked to the salvage yards for below-cost, good materials. A recession followed the war. Everyone was looking for a bargain. By 1955, double-digit millions in profit showed on the books of Marks and Reed.

  In Nevada people began to say, “The Reed touch” instead of “The Midas touch.” By 1960, no one thought to discount the slender, still very attractive Jeep born in 1924. Most people liked her. Those who didn’t were generally those who had been stupid enough to belittle her way back when. And people being loyal to their own tragedies, bewailing of their fate—a fate they created but would never accept responsibility for—became part of the family jewels, so to speak. Every one of the Filberts, Isadores, and Larsons hated her. At least now they had sense enough to fear her. Good thing.

  The war taught Jeep Reed that anyone who acts like an enemy is an enemy. Kill the enemy. That’s the job of a soldier, sailor, airman, marine. Remove the threat to your people. That kind of thinking is now considered antiquated, but Jeep still believed it. She wouldn’t kill her enemies physically but she crushed them otherwise.

  Peering down at the skeleton before her, she thought, This man had been someone’s enemy. Three ribs on the left side bore distinct, smooth, deep incisions. He’d been stabbed twice by someone powerful. The deceased had heavy bones, was around five foot ten inches tall, and symmetrical in form with large good teeth.

  He lay faceup.

  “Must have had a killer smile.” Jeep steadied the camera box with both hands, focusing on his skull.

  “If he graduated in 1887, he would have been what, twenty-one or twenty-two at graduation?” Mags, like Jeep, was falling under the spell of this long-dead man.

  “Somewhere around that. To make it easy, let’s say twenty.” Jeep placed the camera on the broad, cold seat of the ATV parked next to the grave. “He was probably in his thirties, at the most early forties, when he met his Maker. His teeth are all there. Given the time in which he lived, most people lost a few or all by the time they reached middle age.”

  “Here’s the thing.” Mags looked down, then at the surrounding earth where the other stalls once stood. “When a body decays, it blows up full of gas. He was only three feet down. Why didn’t the earth swell up? And dogs would smell him down there. We can’t, of course.”

  King, laying near the heater, raised his head. “She’s not so dumb.”

  “I trained her.” Baxter barked on the other side of the heater.

  In his four years of life, King had somewhat gotten to known Mags on her visits, which were usually just long weeken
ds. He liked her just fine but he figured she was like most of her species: limited senses, limited sense, and appallingly self-centered.

  From down below in the hole, Enrique considered Mags’s point. “Well, the horse, shod, moving around in the stall, that would keep tamping the earth down. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

  Jeep knelt at the edge of the grave for another shot. “The boys should be back to work tomorrow. Roads have to be a little better now that the storm’s passed. I’ll call Pete. I imagine at this point we’ll be low on his to-do list, but that’s fine with me.”

  “Wouldn’t be fine if it was a crisis.” Mags teased her.

  “Then I’d be number one.” Jeep smiled back.

  “Whoever killed this guy laid him out with respect.” Enrique stepped up and out with a hand up from Mags. “He wasn’t dumped facedown or rolled onto his side. He was laid flat, faceup, legs straightened and arms by his side. Respect.”

  “Curious.” Jeep sighed.

  Mags studied her old great-aunt for a long moment. “You’ve seen so much death. Isn’t this just one more body?”

  Enrique looked at his mother. He’d never really thought of that.

  “You get used to death as you age. Doesn’t mean I like saying goodbye, but I’ve learned to celebrate the lives of the departed. Do the same for me when my time comes.”

  “Mom, don’t say that.” King loved his human.

  “I guess we should enjoy the interludes between goodbyes,” Mags said.

  “They seem fewer and farther between as you get older, but grab what you can, Babycakes.” Jeep looked at these two people whom she loved beyond measure, even when saddened by them at times. “Here I am, about two years older than dirt and I can’t tell you why but I feel young; I feel this incredible rush.” She looked down at the skeleton. “He speaks to me. I must find out who he is.”

  “What does he say?” Enrique felt a pull, but not as strong as Jeep’s.

  “Find my killer.”

  “Well, his killer is long dead, too.” Mags stated the obvious.