by Joseph Flynn
It was heading back to the police dock.
The other boat would be heading out upon its return.
The cops were being careful. They didn’t want to make any mistakes. Have two boats out on the water at the same time. Wind up shooting at each other. So, for a short time, there was a window to violate the curfew and not get caught. At the moment he considered the most opportune, the man started his boat and took it quietly onto the lake, running without lights.
Sonny didn’t say a word. He was obsessed by the nugget, even though there wasn’t much to see by starlight. Maybe his experience had become a tactile one, the man thought. The thug from Las Vegas was enthralled by the feel of gold.
Keeping an ear cocked for police radio traffic, the man guided his boat to the middle of the lake and shut the motor down. Sonny’s head came up as he noticed the lack of forward progress. Maybe he saw the miner’s pick slashing down at him, maybe he didn’t. Surely, he didn’t feel more than an instant of pain as the steel spike punctured his skull like a ripe melon.
To the killer’s dismay, Sonny’s arms and legs shot out as if he’d been electrocuted. Not only did the killer get a sharply barked shin from Sonny’s right foot, but the nugget of gold flew from Sonny’s hand in an arc over the lake. For a mad moment, the killer almost lunged for it.
He restrained himself just in time. Had he fallen into the frigid water and his boat drifted even a few yards away, he’d be done for. As it was, he had a lot to do in a very short time. Working quickly, he strapped a weight belt, the kind scuba divers used, around Sonny’s middle. He yanked the pick from Sonny’s head and dropped it overboard. He wrapped Sonny in the plastic on which he’d died, taped him in tight and rolled him over the side.
The burble of voices from his radio informed him the second-shift lake patrol boat was leaving the police dock. With the lead he had, the man knew he’d be able to reach an islet near the eastern shore. He’d go where the large boats couldn’t and hide.
He’d motor home at dawn, pull his boat and put it in the shed behind his house.
In time, he’d sell it on Craig’s List. To someone who boated on another lake.
Special Agent John Tall Wolf was having breakfast at the Marriott when a sixty-something Native American man stepped up to his table and told him, “You wear your hair short.”
Tall Wolf got to his feet and looked down at the man, who stood a good six inches shorter than him. “Can’t say the same for you, but the traditional look suits you. Are you Herbert Wilkins?”
The man nodded. He wore a plaid shirt, new jeans and well-kept cowboy boots.
“Care for breakfast?” Tall Wolf asked. “I’m buying.”
Wilkins gave a nod and sat down. The waitress stopped by and Wilkins ordered a bowl of shredded wheat with berries, hold the milk. He looked at the orange juice Tall Wolf had in front of him and asked if it was fresh. Tall Wolf nodded, and Wilkins asked for a glass.
When they were alone, Wilkins looked around and saw they had the corner of the room to themselves. “Marlene told me you’re not like most of us.”
Tall Wolf smiled. “And she is?”
Wilkins snorted. “No, I can’t say that. You always wear those sunglasses?”
“Marlene didn’t tell you why I wear them?”
Wilkins shook his head. John told him his story.
Being raised by a Caucasian father and a latina-india mother.
“Any of that mean you don’t care to help me?” Tall Wolf asked.
“Depends on what you want.”
The waitress came by with Wilkins’ breakfast. They waited for her to leave.
“What I want to know is simple. Where’s the gold deposit the Native American woman showed to Timothy Johnson in 1849?”
Herbert Wilkins shook his head.
Then he told Tall Wolf, “It was 1850 by then, and somebody else came looking for me just yesterday. A white man with yellow hair. I’m figuring he wants to know the same thing.”
“So you do know?”
“I know my people’s history, that’s all.”
John took a sip of his orange juice.
“You don’t want to tell me where the gold is, I can understand that. I haven’t told Marlene yet why I wanted to talk to you. I think the gold is tied into the trouble there’s been around here lately. You’ve heard about the bomb, the one the chief of police found?”
Wilkins nodded. Clay Steadman’s announcements got wide distribution.
Tall Wolf said, “It was meant to kill Lake Adeline, maybe contaminate the whole town, too. Who’d want to see that?”
Wilkins’ frown said he wouldn’t.
More than a few Native Americans thought the white man’s presence on their lands was a transient thing. The time would come when the People would have primacy again and all the old traditions would be restored. Having their land blighted by radioactivity when they got it back didn’t figure into that scenario.
“You can’t kill a lake,” Wilkins said. “Not one like Deep Waters. It is too strong.”
Tall Wolf asked, “Do you think the weather is changing? There are many white people who deny it, but the summers have grown longer and hotter. The wild fires burn hotter, longer and larger, too. Storms grow fiercer with more snow and rain. The very heavens have grown angry at the pain they are suffering. But you think one mountain lake can stand up to being poisoned? I talked to scientists from Washington this morning. I was told if the bomb had gone off no one would drink from this lake again for a thousand years.”
The special agent was lying, but that was a cop’s prerogative.
They were like politicians in that way.
Taken in, Wilkins seemed as if he might scream in rage.
But he looked around the restaurant and saw all the tourists present.
Decided an honest display of emotion wouldn’t be well received.
In a harsh whisper, he said, “How would knowing where the gold is help anything?”
“I don’t know yet, but I can tell you I don’t want it for myself and I won’t give it away to any white businessman. You have connections. Ask about me. See if I’m lying.”
Tall Wolf could see Wilkins thought he’d just been trapped.
The special agent asked, “How do you know a white man wanted to find you?”
“A friend told me. He misled the man, had him think my friend didn’t know me. Wouldn’t want to know me because we’re not of the same tribe.”
Tall Wolf smiled. “Prejudice is a terrible thing, but so easy to imagine in someone else.”
Wilkins snorted again.
“Did your friend describe the man to you beyond the color of his hair?” Tall Wolf asked.
He had and Wilkins shared it.
“I’ll find this man and ask what he wanted from you. We’ll talk again. Unless you refuse. Then I’ll tell Marlene what I wanted from you, and you know how persuasive she can be.”
Wilkins grew anxious at the thought of dealing with Marlene.
Maybe he knew she was Coyote, too.
Tall Wolf said, “Look, there she is now … and who’s that with her? Mayor Clay Steadman?”
Herbert Wilkins flinched, as if he might bolt from the room.
Coyote could have that effect on people. Clay Steadman could, too.
Tall Wolf put a hand on Wilkins’ arm.
He said, “I haven’t told her yet. I won’t screw you and your people, if you’ll help me. So do what I told you. See if I’m someone you can work with.”
The man who killed Sonny Sideris parked his SUV in his garage and opened the interior door to his house. Something fell on him from above and he was immediately drenched. It took him a moment to clear his eyes and see that the liquid that had doused him was blood. Some of it had dripped onto his lips. He spat it away, spraying blood and saliva farther into his house.
He took a step toward the downstairs bathroom, but he stopped to look down at his foot. There was blood on the floor and he had already starte
d to track it into his house. He froze in place. He could feel the blood saturating his hair, find courses through the follicles to make its way to his forehead and down the back of his neck. He watched in thrall as a drop fell from the tip of his nose and splashed into the pool on the floor.
That miserable bastard, Sonny, the man thought. He was behind this horrific mess.
The thug from Las Vegas hadn’t been satisfied with the fee — the nugget — he’d been paid to kill Hale Tibbot. He wanted more gold. The man had foreseen that might be the case, had been willing to give Sonny the second nugget, the one lost to Lake Adeline. But even that wasn’t enough for him; he wanted an equity position.
Having met resistance on that point, Sonny had called to tell the man about the arrows he’d painted with Tibbot’s blood. Directional arrows. Pointing the way to the man’s house. Sonny had said he had enough blood to paint a red X on the man’s front door if necessary.
That had left the man with the gold no choice.
Sonny had to go, and the man had found a simple way to get rid of him.
He’d followed Sonny and had seen him go into the New York Shock Exchange only to come out a short time later. The brevity of Sonny’s stay at the club had struck the man as odd. He’d tailed the Las Vegas killer to Truckee. Sonny had done a fine job killing Hale Tibbot, and he might have been more watchful in an urban setting like the one he called home, but on the mountain roads of the Sierra with their sharp turns, steep descents and precipitous drop-offs, the Las Vegas killer drove like a little old lady. Keeping his eyes on the road, two hands on the wheel and a heavy foot on the brake.
Sonny never thought to look for someone following him.
The man had seen the fruitless day Sonny had spent trying to find someone at a house in Truckee. After that and making the scary drive back to Goldstrike in the gathering darkness, the man thought Sonny would have needed more than a few minutes to ease his frustrations.
He went into the New York Shock Exchange and asked the bartender if he’d seen his friend, giving him a description of Sonny. The bartender said he had, of course, and when the man said he was sorry he’d missed him, the bartender told him Sonny had said he’d be back later.
The man expressed his regrets that he wouldn’t be able to wait. He asked what Sonny had been drinking and smiled when he heard the answer. He gave the bartender three hundred-dollar bills, one for himself, the other two to buy drinks. Told the bartender to give Sonny shots of his best stuff, Booker’s if they had it. The bartender said they did. The man told the bartender to say the drinks were on the house; he’d let Sonny in on the joke later.
The big tip bought compliance.
Thing was, the standard alcohol load in, say, Jack Daniels was forty percent.
In Booker’s, it was sixty-two percent. More than half again as much, but oh so smooth.
A bump like that would hit hard, and it had.
But not as hard as the man wanted to hit Sonny at that moment. He wanted to make the miserable prick suffer. If he had it to do again, he’d hit Sonny just hard enough to stun him, roll him out of the boat and into the lake. Let him feel the water’s bone-chilling cold. Have Sonny try to swim back to the boat and rev the motor just enough to stay out of reach. Let the horror of his situation penetrate his alcoholic haze. Make him realize he was going to die.
And it was such a long way down.
But, damnit, he had made it too easy on Sonny. He was probably dead before he knew it. Hadn’t minded sinking to the bottom of Lake Adeline at all. Shit.
Now, the man covered in blood was the one who needed water. Hot water and lots of it. He’d have to clean himself off. Clean his house. He was certain the blood soaking him had belonged to Hale Tibbot. Just as it had been used to paint the red arrows.
The man couldn’t leave a trace of it anywhere in his house.
But the first thing he had to do was minimize the mess he was going to make.
He didn’t have any idea of how he was going to do that.
Caught up in his predicament, it never occurred to him that Sonny might have placed a pint of Tibbot’s blood at the back of the man’s freezer, hiding it behind a leg of lamb that had months of frost on it.
But that was just what Sonny had done.
The killer from Las Vegas was no end of trouble.
Chapter 16
Ron Ketchum stood at the stove in his kitchen making breakfast.
Keely said, “I should’ve known you could cook.”
“How could you have known?” he asked.
“You told me your ex didn’t like to do it.”
“Not entirely true. Once a year, she’d do a mean kalua pua’a in an imu, a pig cooked in an underground oven, at a luau. Lots of food, dancing and fun.”
“Should I look for a grass skirt?” Keely asked. “The wahines out there in the islands don’t bother with anything up top, do they?”
“Depends on how much they’ve had to drink. You applied a little Coppertone, consumed a pitcher of mai-tais, you’d fit right in.”
Ron plated two breakfasts of bacon, eggs and toast. Keely fixed the mimosas.
She said, “You’ll have to regale me with those stories another time.” She sampled Ron’s cooking, gave it a nod of approval. “I had an idea about this guy your dad told you about. Well, not the one who died in County Jail, but the one who looks like him.”
Ron had told her about Nikos Sideris and his in-town lookalike as they’d showered together that morning, having saved any conversation about police work until they’d gotten out of bed. The blush was still on the rose.
“What’s your idea?” Ron said.
“First, you find the guy. Then you bust him on any plausible charge you can, being a mope in public, whatever. You do a hand-scan for his prints and —”
“I compare the scan to the bruises on Hale Tibbot’s head?”
“Yeah, just like that. When did you think of it?”
“When I was washing your back, I believe.”
“You were washing more than that.”
“True, but that was when I was thinking of my job.”
Keely smiled and topped off their glasses. They finished their morning meals, emptied the bottle of champagne, did the dishes and took a thirty-minute walk to burn off the calories and the alcohol.
Ron got into uniform. Keely dressed in a fashion she thought appropriate for a retired L.A. detective out for a day of leisure in a resort town. Tennis shoes, stonewashed jeans, peach polo shirt, linen sport coat the color of wet sand. Semi-auto in a holster at the small of her back, covered by the coat.
“You have paper for your weapon?” Ron asked.
“Got my CCW license before I left LAPD. I don’t go anywhere unarmed.”
Ron nodded. “If you’d like to get in any range practice here, just let me know.”
“I still shoot better than you do, I’ll bet. I won’t take out any citizens, if that’s what worries you.”
“You’re a citizen, but it’s good to know you’ve kept up your skills. Are you going to let me know what you’ll be working on today?”
“Not yet,” she said and gave him a kiss. “I’ll see you when I know something new.”
“You’re going to get together with Tall Wolf?”
“Later. First, I’m going where no man should ever tread.”
John Tall Wolf was sitting in front of his laptop when Keely Powell called.
“You care to check out a women’s hair salon with me?” she asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Didn’t think so. Just called to be polite. You working anything new this morning?”
Tall Wolf said, “I’m going to see if I can get together with Tibbot’s housekeeper, Glynnis Crowther, for a few minutes. She lied to Chief Ketchum and me when we questioned her on Monday.”
“What kind of lie?” Keely asked.
“I wanted to know if Ms. Crowther knew about any overnight guests Mr. Tibbot might have entertained. She said
she wouldn’t know anything about that. She’d been truthful as far as I could tell before that.”
Keely said, “Overnight guest, huh? Our phantom hair comber. Our possible witness.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” John asked.
“You’ve got something on Ms. Crowther you didn’t have the other day? Something that might get her to cooperate.”
“I do.”
“Mind if I come with you?” Keely asked.
“You want to be the good cop or the bad cop?”
Keely laughed. “Let’s play it by ear.”
“I’m at the Marriott, if you want to swing by.”
“You’ll be the big guy in the sunglasses?”
“The big modest guy in the sunglasses.”
Keely laughed again. “Yeah, I keep forgetting that part. See you soon.”
John clicked off his phone. He looked back at the e-mail he’d received that morning from the late Hale Tibbot’s personal accountant. David Kaufman had provided the special agent — who’d queried him — with a list of the household help who’d serviced the material needs of Tibbot when he was in residence at his home in Goldstrike.
Being a man of some sophistication, Tall Wolf had opted to call Tibbot’s personal chef first. Dana Parisi had been pleasantly cooperative. Mr. Tibbot had been wonderful to her, had matched her salary dollar for dollar with money she could use to open her own restaurant. They’d been halfway to her goal when he … Well, she’d be happy to help law enforcement catch his killer.
Tall Wolf’s questions of her were simple. Had she ever prepared, say, late night snacks for Mr. Tibbot and a friend? She had, Ms. Parisi said. Did she know the names of any of Mr. Tibbot’s friends, the ones who spent the night under his roof? She was sorry, she didn’t. Did Ms. Glynnis Crowther know that Mr. Tibbot had overnight company at his Goldstrike house? Of course, she did, Ms. Parisi told him.
“I doubt anyone sneezed in that place without her knowing about it,” Ms. Parisi elaborated.
“Would it be reasonable to think Ms. Crowther knew the names of anyone who sneezed there?”