“Elias,” I said, drizzling the stones back into their soft pouch. They made deliciously solid clicks, like a slow game of marbles heard from a distance. “Just because I missed most of Lulu’s parties doesn’t mean I’m going to miss any of Richard’s and mine. And you won’t be an escort, you’ll be a baby-sitter. I swear to God I’ll be there.”
Elias shook his head. “Sorry. You have virtually no credibility in this department. Besides, we’ll have fun. I’ll be your driver.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“You mean right now? I just got here. What about the coffee and doughnuts and everything?”
“I’ll tell you what. For today, I’ll just call in every hour. How’s that?”
“Yeah.” Elias popped two tender, glazed, deep-fried morsels into his mouth. “I suppose that’ll be okay for today. We’ll start tomorrow.”
I headed for town, winding through Little Squaw Canyon at a higher rate of speed than Wade, because I passed him about five minutes later. The convertible was pulled over on the side of the road. His head was pushed into the red-leather headrest. His mouth was open and his eyes were closed. I supposed that if my windows had been down I could have heard him yelling. Only the back of the blonde’s head was visible, submerged as she was in the depths of Wade’s Cerrutti gabardines.
“That guy is worse than a dog,” I said aloud.
My lookout, Baby, stood with her front paws on the Jeep’s dashboard and didn’t give him more than a blink. She was searching for bigger game than Wade Gilhooly.
Mrs. Van Buren was ecstatic to recover her sapphires, which had been lifted from her neck in a suite at the Grand Hotel during an evening rendezvous, a little piece of action torn off furtively at the Arthritis Foundation annual benefit. To complicate the matter further, it was the foundation honoree, the Man of the Year, she had met in the suite, and since time was limited, he’d had to return to the ballroom before the house detective arrived, which kept his skirts nicely clean. In the meantime, Mrs. Van Buren sent a message to her husband that she had suffered a sick spell and was waiting for him at the front door, where he found her, the million-dollar sapphire necklace ostensibly safely snuggled beneath her velvet scarf and fur coat.
I had known Nell Van Buren all my life; she was only a few years older than I and was notorious for messing around on her husband. There are many things I’m old-fashioned about and fidelity is one of them. God knows, I’ve had more than my share of married lovers, but did I trust them? Are you kidding? Not a chance. They were cheaters. I suppose that’s why I’ve always taken marriage so seriously: I figure a promise is a promise and playing around on your partner is simply not a go. Otherwise, who can you trust? That’s the way it works on the police force anyhow, and that’s good enough for me.
Her large check was safe in my pocket, my skill, silence, and discretion paid for in full, as I turned out of her tree-lined driveway across the street from the Roundup Country Club. I decided to call Richard and see what he was up to. See if he still loved me.
“He’s over in the theater,” his secretary told me. “They’ve got a Così rehearsal until noon. Do you want me to transfer you?”
I loved going to opera rehearsals. So much happened, so much motion and talking and music. Lighting people stood right in front of the tenor while he sang and made sure the spots hit him just right while the wardrobe mistress tugged on the back of his uniform jacket to make sure it didn’t bunch up during that particular aria where he’d have to wave his arms around, and in the background the director moved the rest of the cast here and there and then descended into the front of the house to examine his work like a painter, and then motioned to the movement trainer that the ladies should be doing little dips and twirls with their fans, “Like this,” not big swooping ones, “Like this,” and all the cast members who weren’t singing would laugh at his exaggerated antics, and then he called out to the stage manager, who was having a conversation in a normal voice with his assistant about the lighting cues, that Yes, that was just right, and all the while the orchestra was booming along at full pitch. The incredible thing to me was that everyone always seemed to be on the same page, because at some point during all this turmoil, the conductor would give his baton a little ding on his music stand and all would come to a complete and silent halt and he would say quietly, “Okay, fine. Let’s try that again from the …” and I never could figure out what he said at that point but everyone else could and always went right to the perfect spot. Sometimes it even seemed they started right in the middle of a note. And they kept on like this for hours every day, for weeks, when finally the music, the voices, the costumes, the lights, and the action all melded together into an opulent spectacle. To me it is miraculous.
“No, that’s okay. Just tell him I’ll drop in later and see if he can grab a quick lunch.”
I decided to pay a visit to the crime scene.
NINE
A squad car blocked the brick gateway that marked the entrance to the Gilhooly residence across the road from the tenth green. Two patrolmen—one younger, one older—leaned against the black-and-white in the warm late-morning sunshine sipping coffee and talking, no doubt about the Colorado Rockies and their bid for the pennant. One more win and everyone was sure they’d go all the way to the Series. I flashed my badge.
“Good morning, Marshal,” the older patrolman said. “Did Chief Lewis clear you in?”
“Sure did,” I lied.
“Fair enough.” He signaled for his partner to back their car far enough for me to pass.
“Thanks,” I said and headed down the gravel drive. Wade’s Eldorado was visible in one of the bays of the four-car garage, while a white forensics van and another squad car were parked at the front door. Directly behind them sat a bright red Jaguar XJR-S convertible, its passenger seat stacked with expensive canvas luggage. A uniformed patrolman was eyeing the car enviously.
“Good morning,” I said. “Nice wheels.”
“Morning, Marshal.” He smiled. “Too rich for my blood.”
The Gilhoolys’ gray-pine front door was open and just inside, a gigantic, wildly ornate, white-wrought-iron Victorian birdcage sat in the entry hall like a snowbound jail cell, a stuffed bald eagle perched on the bird swing. The more I saw of this place, the worse it got. The house was quiet. Wade was nowhere in sight.
“Ridiculous thing, isn’t it?” A cultured English accent startled me from behind, and I turned to see a tall, tan, handsome man, whose ruggedness reminded me of Richard’s, but whose sea-green eyes had a Me Tarzan–You Jane attitude that made me feel like a heifer at a cattle sale. An old scar curved down his cheek, from the corner of his eye to just below the corner of his mouth, which was chiseled and square, and he was rakishly dressed in khaki safari gear, meticulously tailored to show off his flat stomach and tapered waist. Knee-high, tight leather boots strained over his muscled calves. I felt as if I were looking at Indiana Jones. He was too glamorous to be true.
Two heavy-looking, oversized canvas ski-carriers, same style as those in the Jag, were slung over his shoulders, and he put them down with a solid clunk and stepped forward.
“Kennedy McGee.” He extended a knotted, rough hand. The Great White Hunter.
“Lilly Bennett.”
“Pleased to meet you. It’s you who was at the party last night with all the police and whatnot.”
“Yes,” I answered, curious about what was in the carriers. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet. Are you leaving?”
Kennedy nodded. His face hid a million secrets. “I’m just on my way up to hospital to see Alma before I make my way to Jackson. I have a client there. They have a large ranch outside of town.”
“Everybody in Jackson has a large ranch outside of town,” I said.
“Yes.” He smiled uncertainly. “Quite.”
Here’s the deal with ranches around here: If you’re an actual Westerner, as I am, you consider anything up to a hundred acres a yard and any
thing between a hundred and five hundred acres a farm or feedlot or something like that. It’s possible to have a small ranch with a thousand acres, but you’d better have some pretty fine real estate and some pretty fine cattle or sheep on it to call it a ranch, and even then, you call it one with an aw-shucks attitude: “It’s really too little to call it a ranch,” you apologize. “We just call it that. It’s really more of a small property.” From there you move on up into real ranch territory until you get to spreads like the Circle B, which at two hundred thousand acres is bigger than some national forests. There are only a handful of places like ours left in the country, so I don’t expect everyone’s ranch to be the size of ours—anything over a couple of thousand acres is certainly respectable ranch property—but when I come across outsiders (usually New Yorkers) who say they have a ten-acre ranch in Jackson, I can’t help laughing right in their faces because they sound like idiots and they’re just parroting what their stupid developers and People magazine have told them.
“May I ask what’s in the ski bags, Mr. McGee?”
“Skis, of course,” he said lightheartedly. I heard the bravado in his voice. “Alma has been storing them for me.”
“May I see them?”
“They’re just skis.”
“And what else?”
“Nothing that would be of any interest to you. Just some personal trophies.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling the navy-leather wallet from my purse. The United States Marshal badge glittered like brass knuckles. “I should have started with this. Unzip them, please.”
“Oh, I forgot,” McGee delivered his most beguiling smile. “Alma told me you were a sheriff or something. I’ve always loved women in uniform. Don’t you need some sort of paperwork, some sort of warrant to search my luggage?”
I gave him my most beguiling smile. “You think this is a game. That I’ll handcuff you and lock you up and maybe even spank you or talk dirty to you until you do what I tell you. Just like all your girls out there in the Serengeti, or whatever you call it.”
McGee laughed, a big, hearty bellow. His teeth were white and straight. “Oh, you are truly delightful, Miss Bennett. I’m so sorry your fiancé met you first.”
“But alas, Mr. McGee,” I concluded, “I’m not playing. I am a real marshal, and I want to see what’s in your bags. It’ll be easy enough for me to get a warrant—might slow you down a little—but if that’s what you prefer.” My heart was thudding, racing. I was afraid I knew what the bags hid, and I dreaded being right. My fingers rested lightly on the weapon in my pocket as the smile left McGee’s face. He wiped sweat from his hands on his pants legs before kneeling to unzip the first carrier.
I wanted to throw up. I wanted to shoot him. I wanted to cry.
The elephant tusks screamed like the skeletons of Auschwitz. Ghastly, gruesome, deathly, savage.
“Oh, Mr. McGee,” I said, losing my breath. “How can you sleep at night?” I went to the open door to signal for the patrolman to join us, then I read the animal his rights. “Kennedy McGee, I’m placing you under arrest for possession of contraband. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”
“These aren’t actually mine,” he said easily. “They’re Alma’s.”
“Do you understand what I’ve just said?” I approached him and snapped a handcuff around one wrist.
“Yes, of course I do. But I’d like to explain.”
“I understand that for someone in your business lying becomes a way of life.” I led him over to the birdcage and snapped the other handcuff around one of the bars. “But don’t say another word to me unless you want to incriminate yourself further.”
“Do you want me to take him downtown, Marshal?” the patrolman asked.
I looked Kennedy McGee in the eye. I wanted to say, “No, I want you to take him out behind the house and shoot him,” but said instead, “No thanks. He’s in federal custody. This is a federal matter. I’ll take it from here.”
“They’re Alma’s,” McGee insisted.
I called my deputy, Dwight Alexander, the handsome, stupid, sexy U.S. Marshal Service poster boy, and told him to get his pants on and get on over to the Gilhoolys’ to transport a prisoner back to the little jail in Bennett’s Fort, and if the prisoner put up any resistance or was disrespectful, to feel free to shoot him (I looked Kennedy McGee in the eye as I said this). Then I called Jack Lewis.
“Chief Lewis,” he yapped.
“Jack, it’s Lilly. I’m at the Gilhooly residence, where I’ve just arrested a fellow for smuggling elephant tusks, and I wondered if there were anything you’d like me to check out while I’m here.”
“Excuse me?” he said. “Do we have a bad connection? I think I just heard you say you were at the Gilhooly residence.”
“Yup.” I grinned. I could picture him perfectly. At the sound of my voice he’d jumped to his feet and was now standing arrow-straight at his desk, white-knuckled hand gripping the phone. “I am. And, as I’m sure you know, Alma Gilhooly’s not going to survive, so you’ll have a murder investigation on your hands and it doesn’t look like anyone’s out here working on it very hard.” I loved sticking it to Jack.
As I explained the circumstances, the postman drove up and handed me the mail. “Here you go, Mrs. Gilhooly,” he whispered. “Nice to meet you finally.”
“You, too,” I mouthed back while Jack ranted and raved and laid down the terms and conditions of our cooperative arrangement of Alma’s homicide investigation. I flipped through the large stack of letters and bills. Nothing too earth-shaking, except two items: an agenda for the Annual Stockholders’ Meeting of the Rutherford Oil Company addressed to Alma as chairman of the Executive Committee of the board, and a typed letter addressed to Alma R. Gilhooly from the Freedom Wyoming Coalition, our own homegrown militia wackos. They’d be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.
Dwight arrived shortly, and after placing large evidence stickers on the canvas bags, we loaded them into his white government Suburban with the blacked-out windows. Then he shoved Kennedy McGee into the backseat.
“I swear to God, these are not mine,” McGee was clearly frightened. He’d lost his color. A little tremor appeared in his hands, and a little sweat appeared around his brow and stained the back of his starched shirt.
“It’s really too bad,” I said through the open car door. “You look like a man, but you act like a girl. Next you’ll probably start crying. Where were you when Alma Gilhooly was shot?”
“I don’t know. With Mrs. Bromley, I suppose.”
Velma Bromley was one of Roundup’s richest widows: a perfect mark for a Great White Hunter.
“At the party?”
“No.”
“You were not at this party last night?” I repeated.
“No. I’m staying at Mrs. Bromley’s. We were probably having dinner or something.”
“You were not at Alma’s party and you did not have a conversation with Mercedes Rutherford?”
“Never.”
“We’ll see.” I knew he was lying.
I slammed the car door. “That’s it, Dwight. Take him to the Fort.”
“I don’t know anyone here,” Kennedy wailed. “At least give me the name of a lawyer.”
“Call Paul Decker,” I shouted as the Suburban pulled away. “Dwight’ll give you his number. He’ll have you out in a day or two. You shithead.”
I was just about to go back inside, find Wade, and tell him good-bye, when a pearl-gray Cadillac Seville barreled down the driveway and slid to a noisy stop in the gravel by the garage. The car door flew open and a man in a yellow-plaid sport coat and green slacks jumped out and raced through a side door. I decided to follow him.
He was about halfway down the hall when Wade’s voice called from the study, “I’m in here, Jim.”
I stopped outside and leaned against the wall.
“I just heard about Alma,” Jim said. “I can’t believe it. This is terrible.”
“I know,” Wade answered. His voice sounded tired, slightly incredulous. “I can’t believe it either.”
This was followed by one of those long, uncomfortable, self-conscious pauses so typical of men trapped in emotional circumstances. “How are you feeling, boss?” Jim asked. “You don’t look too good.”
“Like hell. Doctor said if I don’t get any better in the next few days I’m going to have to go in for some tests.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Jim asked.
“I’m counting on you to run the operation for the next few days. I know it’s just a matter of hours for Alma, and I need to get her funeral and stuff worked out. I hired that cookie, Lilly Bennett, to look into whoever shot Alma. She’s supposed to be pretty good.”
Cookie. Huh.
“Help yourself to a drink. I have to go find my briefcase. I think I left it in my car.” Ice clinked into a glass. “Vodka’s in the freezer.”
Jim poured what sounded like a lot.
“You’re booked on the three o’clock.”
“You want me to go back to Billings?”
“Yeah,” Wade said testily. “I want you to go, and I’ll tell you when I want you to come home. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
I slid around the corner and concealed myself behind an armoire as Wade headed down the hall in the direction of the garage. Once he was gone, I let myself out the front door.
Richard was sitting about halfway up in Bennett Auditorium listening to the stage manager, lighting designer, and director straighten out the garden scene between Fiordiligi and her sister Dorabella, two of Così fan tutte’s three divas. Unlike the new breed of glamour divas, these two were a couple of tanks, but they were the only set of identical twin sopranos in the world, which, according to Richard, was what the guest conductor and director wanted. I slipped in beside him.
“Hey,” he said, and took my hand. “What a nice surprise. Come on, let’s go grab a sandwich. This is going to drag on for hours.”
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