Coyote's Regret

by Rich Curtin

  Previous Manny Rivera Mysteries by Rich Curtin:

  Artifacts of Death

  February’s Files

  Trails of Deception

  MoonShadow Murder

  Deadly Games

  Death Saint

  The Shaman’s Secret

  Author’s Website:

  www.richcurtinnovels.com

  COYOTE’S REGRET

  A MANNY RIVERA MYSTERY

  Rich Curtin

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual incidents, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Design by Berge Design

  Copyright © 2019 Rich Curtin

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 9781796754766

  COYOTE’S REGRET

  1

  GRAND COUNTY DEPUTY SHERIFF Manny Rivera was unaccustomed to feeling nervous, but on this Valentine’s Day morning, as he drove his pickup south from Moab, Utah, toward his destination of Abiquiu, New Mexico, his stomach was unsettled. He was about to do something he’d never before attempted. And the final outcome of his quest was uncertain. What if Gloria Valdez rejected his marriage proposal? He reached down and felt the outline of the black, velvet-covered box in his pocket, making sure for the tenth time that he hadn’t forgotten to bring the engagement ring he’d bought. He was preoccupied with the nagging thought that maybe he should have discussed all this with her before buying the ring. He was sure she loved him—she’d told him so often enough—but it was possible she had no interest in marrying, having once been the victim of a brief and abusive marriage.

  The more he dwelled on it, the more he wished he’d discussed the matter with her in advance. He knew that’s what most modern couples did—talk about marriage, having children, where they would live, what kind of ring she might want—but no, he’d decided he would propose just the way his father and grandfather had done it. Drop down on one knee, present the ring to the lady, and ask for her hand in marriage. Romantic, but risky. And maybe foolish. An opportunity for colossal disappointment and embarrassment. He drew in a deep breath and let it out. Too late to change course now. He’d already told Gloria he was bringing her a present. By the end of the day, he’d have his answer, one way or the other.

  The buzzing of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at the display. The caller was Millie Ives, the Grand County sheriff’s dispatcher. He wondered for an instant why she would be calling him—she knew he was on leave for a week and he’d confided in her the delicate nature of his mission. Maybe she was calling to wish him good luck.

  “Hi, Millie.”

  “Manny, we have an emergency. Sheriff Anderson has cancelled your leave. What’s your twenty?”

  “I’m on U.S. 491 about ten miles south of Cortez.”

  “Turn around and head back. There’s an urgent situation that requires your attention.”

  Rivera had experienced this kind of reversal in his personal plans before. In emergencies, leaves were cancelled. That’s just the way it was in the law enforcement business. But this time, the usual annoyance was accompanied by a mild sense of relief. He’d received a respite from the tension he felt all morning. He pulled over to the side of the road.

  “What’s the emergency?”

  “Sheriff Zilic just called Sheriff Anderson and asked to borrow you for a special assignment. Emmett Mitchell normally investigates all San Juan County capital crimes, but he was in an accident early this morning and isn’t available. Sheriff Zilic has no one else who’s experienced enough to conduct a murder investigation. He specifically asked for you.”

  “What happened to Emmett? How serious is it?”

  “His unit was T-boned by a pickup early this morning in Blanding. Drunk driver ran a red light. Emmett’s in the hospital with a broken leg, several cracked ribs, and multiple cuts and contusions. Doctors say he’ll be fine in a few days. Hard to believe someone would be inebriated so early in the day.”

  Rivera was relieved to hear the prognosis. Mitchell was one of his closest friends. They’d often met for breakfast at the Rim Rock Diner in Moab and discussed their personal lives and the cases they were working on. Mitchell was fifteen years older than Rivera with a wife and four children. During Rivera’s early days as an investigator, their discussions had made the young deputy the beneficiary of Mitchell’s law enforcement experience and wisdom.

  “I’m glad to hear he’ll be okay. What’s the special assignment Sheriff Zilic wants me for?”

  “A married couple was found dead in the backcountry about twenty miles southeast of Blanding. She was shot in the chest and he in the temple. A revolver was found in the dead man’s hand. Sheriff Zilic said it looks like a murder-suicide, but he can’t be sure. He wants you to handle the investigation.” She read off the GPS coordinates. “It’s near Montezuma Canyon. Sheriff Zilic is waiting for you there.”

  “Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Rivera had known Sheriff Anthony Zilic for six years. He had worked with him on several cases where the crimes involved activities in both Grand County and San Juan County, the two adjacent counties which formed the southeast corner of Utah. One collaboration involved the illegal growing of marijuana on federal lands in the LaSal Mountains. Another involved the search for a man on the FBI’s most wanted list. Rivera had a high regard for Zilic and considered him a dedicated and competent law enforcement officer.

  Rivera studied his maps for the shortest route. Heading back toward Cortez and driving west through McElmo Canyon into Utah looked like the best bet. From there to Zilic’s location would be a circuitous route of mostly unpaved back roads. He recognized from the maps that he was headed for one of the most unpopulated parts of the Utah backcountry. Rivera waited for a break in traffic, then made a U-turn and sped off.

  He called Gloria and gave her the bad news. Her tone of voice revealed her disappointment, but she said she understood. As a deputy sheriff of Rio Arriba County in New Mexico, she’d faced the same situation many times herself when duty called. He promised to reschedule the trip as soon as his current assignment was completed. Rivera wondered if any of his previous girlfriends would have been so understanding about a last-minute cancellation of plans. He decided they would not have.

  After passing through McElmo Canyon, he drove the back roads through canyons and across rolling mesa land, consulting his map and his GPS receiver as he drove. He headed north on the road through Montezuma Canyon, then turned east on a lonely gravel road marked BLM Route 347. He saw a few head of cattle grazing on each side of the road and a number of pump jacks—not surprising since this area was part of the great San Juan Basin oil and gas play.

  Rivera continued down the gravel road, dodging potholes and ruts along the way. No need for speed limit signs on these roads, he thought. Anything over forty miles an hour and a vehicle would skid off the road and end up in a ditch. The road set its own speed limit.

  For miles, he saw not a living soul or vehicle. Then he surmounted a rise in the terrain and spotted in the distance a cluster of vehicles parked on the right side of the road. He drove down the incline and pulled to a stop next to a four-foot high sandstone hoodoo in the shape of a mushroom. Parked nearby were a San Juan County sheriff’s department pickup truck, an empty Buick sedan with California license plates, an oil tanker truck with a driver standing next to it, and a second sheriff’s vehicle wi
th a young-looking deputy sitting inside talking on the radio.

  Rivera spotted Sheriff Zilic waving and coming toward him. Under the cream-colored Stetson pushed back on his head, Zilic’s pink face wore a look of concern. He was a large man, six feet tall and weighing about 230 pounds. At age sixty, he’d served the people of San Juan County for nearly twenty years. His large belly hung over his belt, yet he moved with a surprising agility. Rivera hopped out of his vehicle and the two men shook hands.

  “Manny, I’m glad you’re here. I need some help. You’ve heard about Emmett?”

  “Yes Sir, the dispatcher filled me in. Sounds like he’s going to be okay.”

  “The doc says he’ll recover just fine, but right now he’s in no condition to conduct an investigation.” Zilic gestured for Rivera to follow him. “Manny, I got a situation here I don’t rightly understand. C’mon over here and take a look.” He handed Rivera a pair of disposable latex gloves.

  They walked toward an old wooden shed with several of its vertical planks missing. A rusted fuel tank stood on supports nearby. Rivera noticed a tattered wind sock hanging from a pole. It was then he realized that he was standing at the end of a rudimentary grass airstrip which ran in a southwesterly direction out across the undulating mesa land. The bodies of a man and a woman were sprawled on the ground not far from the shed. Yellow crime scene tape had been strung around the area.

  The woman was lying on her back with what appeared to be a surprised look on her face. There was a bloodstain in the center of her chest. A few feet away, a man lay on his side with a wound to his right temple. He was gripping a .38 caliber revolver with his right hand. The couple appeared to be in their late sixties.

  Rivera squatted next to them as he pulled on the gloves. “Who found them?”

  Zilic pointed. “The driver of that oilfield tanker truck spotted them as he was passing by. He called it in. I asked him to wait in case you want to talk to him.”

  “Did he touch anything?”

  “He said he checked their pulses, realized they were dead, and then notified us. Said he didn’t move them or touch anything else.”

  “Has the medical examiner been here yet?”

  “Yeah, he just left. He pronounced them dead and said the gunshot wounds were the probable cause of death. Both have powder burns so they were shot up close. He said they’ve been dead three to six hours. We’ll do a preliminary autopsy at the mortuary in Blanding, extract the bullets for analysis, then ship the bodies to Salt Lake City so the State Medical Examiner can do a final autopsy. But the cause of death is pretty obvious.”

  “Do we know who they are?”

  “I checked the man’s wallet and the lady’s purse for IDs. Their names are Matthew and Wilma Mason. From San Francisco. Both sixty-eight years old. One odd thing though, there was a baggy containing a half-dozen marijuana joints in the lady’s purse.”

  “We’re only a few miles from the Colorado border. Maybe they bought them in Cortez.”

  “Yeah. Could be.”

  “Has the family been notified?”

  “I found a laminated card in the man’s wallet giving a name and phone number to call in case of an emergency—a daughter who lives in Tucson. I called her. She was very distraught, of course. She said she’ll be driving up here later today and will come by the office first thing in the morning.”

  “Any idea of a motive?”

  “None. There were about eight hundred dollars in the wallet and a few hundred more in the purse. If this was murder, the motive wasn’t robbery.”

  Rivera stood up and scanned the immediate area. The surface of the ground was too rocky for finding clear footprints.

  “I assume the vehicle with the California plates is theirs.”

  “That’s right. My deputy ran the plates. The car is registered to Matthew Mason.”

  Rivera studied the corpses. They looked like anyone’s grandparents except for the way they were dressed. The woman was wearing a peasant dress and sandals. Around her neck was a twine necklace with a hammered-copper medallion in the shape of a peace symbol. A bouquet of plastic wildflowers decorated her gray hair. The man was wearing bell-bottom jeans, a puka shell necklace, and a faded, psychedelic-colored T-shirt that read Property of Haight-Ashbury. A large gold earring hung from his left earlobe. Rivera recognized the style of clothing they were wearing—it was from the 1960s. He shook his head, wondering what a 68-year-old couple from San Francisco was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. And why in the world were they dressed like hippies?

  2

  THE SUN WAS overhead now and dazzling, white cumulus clouds floated across a dark blue sky. The cool air was warming as Rivera used his cell phone to photograph the victims and the surrounding area. He felt a bit odd working on a case while wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and a windbreaker instead of his tan deputy’s uniform. Sheriff Zilic stood nearby with his arms folded and watched.

  Rivera thought about how unlikely the situation was. An older married couple dressed like hippies from the 1960s drives from San Francisco to one of the most remote parts of southeast Utah, then terminate their lives with a revolver. It looked like a murder-suicide, but was it? And why this place? With all the world-class sights to see in the Four Corners area, what drew them to this isolated, unpopulated, rarely-visited corner of Utah backcountry?

  Rivera removed the revolver from Matthew Mason’s hand, noticing as he did the bruises on the dead man’s right wrist. He flipped open the cylinder and sniffed it, smelling burned powder. It had been fired recently. He checked the bullets and saw that four had been fired. One bullet in the man and one in the woman. He wondered what had become of the other two as he bagged and tagged the revolver. Perhaps a couple of the shots had missed their intended target, though that didn’t seem likely. He emptied the pockets of both victims, bagging each item for later analysis. Nothing he found was unusual. He slipped the man’s car keys into his pocket. Then he bagged the wallet and the purse. He would inventory their contents later.

  He stood up, hands on hips, and surveyed the general area, wondering if the landing strip had anything to do with the killings. It wasn’t unusual for drug runners moving merchandise in the Four Corners area to use abandoned backcountry airstrips in order to avoid the eyes of the law.

  The deputy who was talking on his vehicle radio now exited his pickup and walked up to Zilic and Rivera.

  “I checked the victims for wants and warrants,” he said. “They’re clean.”

  “Manny,” said Zilic, “meet Nick Lathrop, one of my deputies. Nick, this is Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera from Grand County. He’s agreed to handle the investigation for us.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Rivera, extending his hand. The deputy nodded and forced a smile. His grip was firmer than it needed to be. Rivera judged Lathrop to be in his mid-twenties. Trim and six feet tall, he had a handsome face with dark eyes, dark hair, chiseled features, and a closely trimmed mustache.

  “I’ve got to get back to Monticello now,” said Zilic. “There’s a meeting of the County Council that involves the Sheriff’s Department budget for next year, and a couple of the members think we should be able to get by on a little less funding. I need to be there to dissuade them of that foolish notion. I’ve notified the mortuary people that you’ll be calling them to come fetch the bodies. Nick will stay here with you and help out. Manny, when you’re done, c’mon by my office.”

  “Will do, Sheriff.”

  Zilic hustled back to his vehicle and drove off.

  “Sheriff Zilic said you were some kind of hotshot investigator,” said Lathrop.

  Rivera laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve had a few years experience.”

  “I also heard you were on leave,” said Lathrop.

  “Yeah. I was headed to New Mexico for a few days.”

  “Well, they shouldn’t have cancelled your leave. I could have handled this myself.”

  Rivera nodded. Made no comment.

  “So what
do you think about the way these two are dressed?” asked Lathrop.

  “Hard to say. Maybe they always dress that way or maybe they dressed that way today just for fun. We need to learn more about them. Let’s go talk to the driver of that tanker truck and then take a look inside their vehicle.”

  “Sure, but you don’t seriously think this was anything but a murder-suicide, do you?”

  Rivera smiled, looked at Lathrop as they walked. “I don’t know what to think yet, Nick. I’m just getting started. Might have been a murder-suicide. Might have been something else.”

  Lathrop’s eyebrows rose a quarter inch. “You’ve got to be kidding. There’s no doubt in my mind it was a murder-suicide,” he said. “Look at their clothing. They must’ve decided to end their lives in some ritualistic way. Otherwise, why would they be dressed that way?”

  Rivera considered the young deputy. In some ways, Nick reminded Rivera of himself when he’d first begun doing investigative work. Back then, he too had a tendency to jump to conclusions. But his mentor, former Grand County Sheriff Leroy Bradshaw, had taught him that an inferential or factual error early in an investigation starts the investigator down the wrong logical path, taking him farther and farther from the path that leads to the correct conclusion. Just gather all the facts available, Bradshaw would say, and only then postulate a sequence of events. Get the chronology right and then consider the motives of all the players.

  “It looks that way, and maybe that’s exactly what happened, but we can’t be sure just yet.” Rivera looked at the young deputy for his reaction.

  Lathrop rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  They arrived at the tanker truck and it was obvious the driver was irritated. He was a short, wiry man in his fifties, his skin weather-beaten and wrinkled, his arms folded across his chest. He wore faded jeans and a plaid shirt, and his hair was dark and greasy. He was chewing on something.