by Joseph Flynn
Tall Wolf smiled. “I’m pretty sure both of us were born in this country. Makes us both Native Americans, if you ask me.”
In that moment, Ron decided he’d like to hear John Tall Wolf and Oliver Gosden have a conversation about personal identity. He also chose to give the big fed the benefit of the doubt.
“Special Agent, the truth is I’m up to my eyeballs in work right now. My deputy chief left town for a week this morning right before everything went to hell. I should be on my way to a murder investigation right now, and I will be in a minute. Given your experience, I’m thinking of asking if you’d like to come along and offer me the benefit of your judgment, unofficially of course.”
“Of course,” Tall Wolf said. “I’d be happy to help.”
“Great. For the next thirty seconds or so, why don’t you tell me what brings you to town?”
Tall Wolf was concise. “I’m here to check out a possible case of domestic terrorism.”
Ron stiffened in his seat. Tall Wolf didn’t miss the response.
The federal agent took a sheet of paper out of the case that held his laptop computer. Slid it over Ron’s desk to the chief. Ron took in the diagram on it at a glance.
“That’s a copy,” Tall Wolf said. “The Environmental Protection Agency received the original. It’s described as a detonator, a plastic explosive charge, C4 to be exact, and a payload of ten kilograms of Cobalt 60, highly radioactive medical waste. Put all those things together, you’ve got a very dirty bomb. Word is it’s coming to your town. Question is whether that’s an empty threat or a real one. What do you think, Chief?”
Ron shook his head. It was no empty threat.
“That bomb is my other big case right now. I found it less than an hour ago.”
Chapter 4
Helios “Sonny” Spaneas was the first person out the door of the Renaissance Hotel as soon as the cop car cruised by and announced people were free to go outside again. The cops didn’t say what had been going on, but they let everyone know they were sorry for the inconvenience. Cops with manners, Sonny thought. What was the world coming to?
As part of their announcement, the cops also said the mayor would be speaking on public access television at noon. Maybe he’d explain all the hubbub. Sonny knew who the mayor of Goldstrike was, of course. Even illegals who just sneaked across the border knew that.
Clay Steadman, badass movie star.
Sonny wondered how tough the old geezer really was.
The day was still beautiful, just as Marjorie Fitzroy had said a couple hours ago, but by now Sonny was anxious to get his business done. He had his car brought around, tipped the valet and drove straight to the bank at the top of the list Marjorie had given him, Sierra National. The first desk he came to had a placard on it, home equity loans. Showed a family admiring their new boat.
Seated at the desk was an older woman who reminded Sonny of one of his aunts.
“Pardon me, ma’am, I know it’s not your job, but can you tell me who I’d see to rent a safe deposit box?” Sonny asked.
“That would be Marian. She usually sits right there.”
The woman nodded her head at an empty desk.
“Her daughter gave birth to Marian’s first grandchild two days ago. She went to help out. That being the case, I’d be happy to help you. My name is Darla Winstead.”
Sonny liked that name, Darla. Could be your grandma, could be your cupcake.
Minding his manners, he said, “Thank you, Ms. Winstead.”
“What size box would you like, Mr. …”
“Kolovis. Theodore Kolovis. Something big enough for, say, a bowling ball.”
Darla smiled. Looked as if she wanted to crack a joke. Like they didn’t have many bowling balls on deposit. But she kept her thought to herself. Just walked over to the empty desk, got a form for him to fill out, looked at the phony Nevada driver’s license he showed her, accepted a cash payment for a year’s rental and took him to his new safe deposit box.
He asked for and got a moment in a private room.
Sonny was sure there were all sorts of things tucked into safekeeping at the bank. Most of it had to be ordinary stuff. Life insurance policies. Deeds. Passports.
Not that a few customers wouldn’t hide bundles of cash from their spouses, business partners or the government.
He’d bet, though, he was the only one stashing his kind of treasure. He opened the attaché case he’d brought with him to the bank. The glow of the object inside made his heart race. That was foolish, he knew. In terms of sheer monetary value, he’d had bigger paydays. He’d walked away from a job with stacks of hundred dollar bills it took two hands to hold.
But when it came to an honest-to-God, heart-squeezing thrill, you just couldn’t beat a nugget of pure gold that was bigger than your fist, and Sonny had quite a pair of meat hooks.
He picked up the nugget. Felt heavier than the twenty ounces the digital scale had shown. That morning’s price of gold was $1,768 an ounce. The value of the nugget at that moment was $35,360. But no dollar amount could measure the way the nugget made Sonny feel. He turned it this way and that. There was no angle at which light struck it that it didn’t gleam, and no two surfaces that shone the same way. He could spend hours just looking at it.
Fucking thing was hypnotic.
Best of all, he felt certain there was more to be had.
Ron Ketchum told John Tall Wolf, “You can come closer, if you want.”
The special agent stepped up next to Ron. Regarded the mortal remains of Hale Tibbot.
“Anything in particular strike you?” Ron asked.
“Unless the body was positioned post mortem, the man died looking out his window. He’s still in rigor mortis. My opinion is he died right the way he is. There was a full moon last night. If it was shining down on the lake out there, it must have been quite a sight.”
“Enough to keep him from hearing somebody sneak up behind him?”
“Sure,” Tall Wolf said. “Some people can get lost in staring at the moon, and other people can move without making a sound.”
Ron wondered if the BIA man was referring to Indians being good at skulking.
Recovering bigot that he was, he knew better than to ask.
He simply said, “There’s something wrong here. The whole scene is too damn neat. The guy bled out but all the blood was sopped up. You cover the puncture wound in the guy’s neck with some makeup, put a little bronzer on his face, give his eyes a squirt of moisturizer, you’d think he was still alive.”
“Maybe,” Tall Wolf said, “if the guy was known for a ramrod posture even while sitting.”
“Huh,” Ron said. “Hadn’t noticed that. Didn’t know him well enough to say if he sat tall or slumped down.”
“Maybe he was pulled up into that position. Somebody stuck him so neatly, it’d make sense that the killer held him just so. Make the target area easily accessible. If the killer went in helter-skelter, he might have stuck the victim in the throat. Painful but not necessarily fatal. Might have missed the neck altogether and broken the point of his weapon on the jaw or clavicle.”
Ron thought about that. Seemed sensible to him but …
He leaned over Tibbot’s body, looked for any sign of bruising on his face or neck.
“There are no marks to indicate the killer grabbed him first,” Ron said.
“Yeah, but he got into some kind of tussle. Look at his right hand.”
Ron squatted for a look. Two knuckles were swollen. The skin was split and traces of blood were visible. “He got a good shot in at someone. If it was the killer, though, there should be some of that guy’s blood around. But my crime scene man didn’t find anything.”
“The mystery deepens,” Tall Wolf said. “Another thing? Your victim didn’t foul his pants.”
Ron sniffed the air, said, “No urine or feces.”
“Could mean the killer waited until he saw the man use his bathroom before he acted.”
Even in L.
A., where homicidal maniacs revered their eccentricities, Ron had never heard that one before. But if you thought about it …
“No urine, feces or blood,” he said. “Looks like the guy could have a signature.”
“Might be a hemophobe,” Tall Wolf offered. “Maybe avoids all the nasty stuff.”
“Yeah, could be. If there are other killings like this on record, we ought to be able to find them and make comparisons.”
“You agree this is a professional hit?” Tall Wolf asked.
“A pro with a kink or twelve, yeah.”
Tall Wolf inclined his head at Tibbot and asked, “This man have any enemies you know of?”
Ron’s mind returned to the first suspect he’d considered, Clay Steadman.
John Tall Wolf saw the grimace on the chief’s face. “If it’s as bad as all that, I’ll leave it to you to handle.”
“Yeah, I have to.”
“You want me around when you talk to the housekeeper?”
Glynnis Crowther was waiting for Ron in a patrol unit outside.
“Yeah, but don’t say anything, okay? Just watch.”
Special Agent Tall Wolf nodded.
Ron fetched Glynnis Crowther from the patrol unit and sat across a circular glass-topped table from her. They were on Hale Tibbot’s patio. The view of Lake Adeline and the mountains behind the opposite shoreline deserved a happier topic of conversation, but working cops more often dealt with life’s blunt force traumas.
Shootings, slashings and puncture wounds, too.
As it was, Glynnis got in the first question.
“Who’s he?” she asked.
A tall man with a copper complexion wearing sunglasses was bound to attract notice. John Tall Wolf had positioned himself just aft of Ron’s right shoulder. He remained on his feet, looking down at Glynnis, not saying a word. Ron had set the stage. Not exactly good cop, bad cop but Tall Wolf was an imposing presence. The chief felt Ms. Crowther, an unknown quantity to him, would be more forthcoming with Tall Wolf looming over her than if she faced a solitary, seated local copper.
“He’s a federal agent,” Ron said.
Ron left it at that, feeling Glynnis was unlikely to guess said agent was from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
She glanced up at Tall Wolf, then turned to Ron.
“I don’t know anything, really.”
“How long have you worked for Mr. Tibbot?”
“Four years, would have been next month.”
“Your responsibilities were?”
“In old-fashioned terms, I was his housekeeper.”
“And in contemporary terms?”
“I managed the house. It wasn’t just a matter of keeping it clean. I hired and oversaw the household staff and the tradespeople who came in as necessary.”
“Plumbers, electricians, like that?”
“Yes.”
“Groundskeepers?” Ron asked.
“Yes.”
“How about catering or party-planning, did you oversee that?”
“No.”
Glynnis Crowther’s cold tone said she could have handled those responsibilities well, if only they’d been entrusted to her. With an air of resentment, she gave Ron the name and phone number of the woman to whom the glittering moments of Tibbot’s life had been bestowed. One Meghan Grace.
“How about security for the house,” Ron asked, “was that your responsibility, too.”
“Yes.” A sense of pride returned to Glynnis Crowther.
Ron got the name of the security company. Pinnacle.
You lived in the mountains, people liked to remind you of the elevation.
Pinnacle, Ron knew, had cornered the market on high-end residential security in Goldstrike. They’d earned it. They were pros. Their employees had all their references double checked, going back to high school. They were bonded. The company’s electronics were the newest technologies available.
Pinnacle was also the company that protected Clay Steadman’s house.
Glynnis Crowther could not be faulted for choosing that security company.
Still, one thing bothered Ron.
“Did you work yesterday, Ms. Crowther?”
“I have Sundays off.”
“Saturday then.”
“Nine until noon.”
“Pinnacle, as I understand things, always posts a sign on the front lawn or some other obvious place stating that they protect the premises.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So you saw the Pinnacle sign when you came to work on Saturday?”
“Of course, I …” She stopped to review her memory. “I think I did, but I couldn’t swear to it. You know how it is when you get used to seeing something all the time.”
“You take it for granted,” Ron said.
“Exactly.”
“Did you notice the sign when you came to work today?”
Glynnis looked flustered, her agitation not agreeing with her at all.
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Because I didn’t see a Pinnacle sign when the special agent and I arrived.”
“That’s just wrong,” Glynnis said.
“You mean I’m incorrect?”
“No, I mean it should be there, if it’s not.”
Ron thought so, too. He looked up at Tall Wolf, seeing if the fed would know what he wanted without hearing it. Was there anything else he should ask before Glynnis lost her composure completely?
Tall Wolf nodded. He’d understood. He pointed a finger at his chest.
Ron nodded, giving the special agent permission to speak.
Special Agent Tall Wolf asked Glynnis, “Did Mr. Tibbot have friends who spent the night here?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Glynnis said.
Both cops, local and federal, knew that was a lie.
The woman had been honest until then. Now, she’d earned a degree of suspicion. They’d see what it meant when they found a way to catch her in the trap she’d set for herself.
After leaving the Tibbot estate, Chief Ron Ketchum saw residents of Goldstrike traveling the public ways, both on foot and behind the wheel. The town was no longer under house arrest. Sergeant Stanley had to be the one to give the all clear, but the order hadn’t come from Ron.
Clay Steadman must have declared the general amnesty.
Before Ron could think through the implications of that, John Tall Wolf had a question for him. “You think we could talk about my case for a minute, Chief?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you call me Ron?”
“Okay. I’d say call me John, except we might sound like a singing act.”
“Ron and John?” the chief said with a grin. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good. I’ll call you special agent.”
“And I’ll call you chief, no double entendre intended.”
Smart man, Ron thought. Had a sense of humor, too.
Not at all your cookie-cutter fed.
“So what’d you do with the bomb you found?” Tall Wolf asked.
Ron gave him the run down of what he’d done earlier that morning and where the bomb was now, minus the detonating device that he’d thrown into the lake.
“The timer malfunctioned with three seconds left on the clock?” Tall Wolf asked.
“Yeah.” The memory sent a shiver through Ron.
“You have a history of being that lucky?”
“Once or twice in tight spots, but hardly a history.”
“Huh,” Tall Wolf grunted.
“Something doesn’t seem right about my being alive?”
“It’s not a matter of being right, more a question of what are the odds.”
Put that way, Ron had to think the special agent had a point.
He should have been the first victim on a long list of casualties.
Before Ron could dwell on that, Tall Wolf asked, “You mind if I call some people in to take the bomb off your hands? Check it out. Dispose of any radioactive material for you.”
/> “I’d be greatly relieved. Thankful, too. But you’re not talking about the FBI, are you?”
John Tall Wolf looked at the chief and smiled.
“What, you don’t get along with those fine fellows either?”
“It’s not just me?” Ron asked.
“We get all this sorted out, give Darton Blake another call. He can tell you. But no, I didn’t have the FBI in mind just now. I was thinking of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with an assist from some of your state cops.”
Ron pulled into the driveway of Goldstrike’s Municipal Complex, stopped in front of police headquarters.
“I can live with that. So what’s your story? You work for the BIA but you’re doing a job for the EPA. And you have contacts with other federal agencies. I don’t get it.”
“It’s like this,” Tall Wolf said.” A lot of the people who’ve been here in North America from the very early days think they’re going to reclaim the land by and by. When they do, they want it to be in good shape. So they can go back to the old ways. Given that point of view, the BIA lends my services out where they’re needed. Sometimes to the EPA. Sometimes elsewhere. But I’m not supposed to talk about most of it.”
Ron gave his new colleague a look. “Okay, but the FBI is still known to bigfoot cases, and they don’t give a damn whose toes they step on.”
Tall Wolf nodded. “They might drop in on us. But they’re wary about the BIA in general and me in particular. My boss has more clout in Washington than you might think. And I’d bet your boss holds some sway, too.”
Great, Ron thought. The guy just hit town and he already knew how things were wired.
“Yeah, he does, and I have to go see him now.”
He didn’t have to say he needed to go alone. The special agent got out of the SUV, but he looked back in and said, “We’ll keep in touch?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
The first thing Ron noticed as he turned onto Clay’s driveway was the Pinnacle sign. It was both an overt warning and subliminal advertising. It said to people, “You’ve got a nice place with nice things? You want to keep them that way? Give us a call.” Ron had a comfortable modern cabin with a mortgage subsidized by the town government. He depended on good locks for his security.