Under the Killer Sun: A Death Valley Mystery

by Kirk Mithchell

  Carl Kincannon had argued that the earth is subject to unpredictable forces and Yucca Mountain is no exception. He had maintained that it should never become a high-level nuclear waste repository, that hot and corrosive water had percolated up through its bowels in the past and would do so again in the future. Given geologic time scales, it was a sure bet.

  Now Kincannon was missing. That was suspicious in itself, as there were heavyweight interests—such as the U.S. Department of Energy and the nuclear power industry—that would’ve liked nothing better than for the geophysicist to go away. Even better, for him to be discredited. If not scientifically, at least personally. The other side in the Yucca Mountain tug-of-war, the State of Nevada and the environmental movement, would find it awkward, to say the least, if their best expert against the site had to testify at congressional hearings in prison orange. And that was supposing Kincannon could be extradited from an unfriendly nation like Cuba.

  Michael checked ahead for Edna Boskovich’s red Pontiac. It was still speeding north across the Amargosa Desert. They were now almost an hour out of the Pahrump Valley, and not once had the woman deviated from what was a beeline to the brothel.

  He kept hoping for a new insight, another way of looking at that metaphorical chair in the darkened room. Often, successful investigation relied on revisiting the familiar with new eyes.

  Admittedly, he was too lowly placed an investigator to take on either the DOE or the nuclear industry. That would require a briefcase full of subpoenas and warrants an Inyo County judge would hesitate to issue. Washington offices and corporate headquarters were Higgins’s bailiwick. But wasn’t the FBI also the government’s first line of defense, its gatekeeper, and how eager would the agent be to take on Energy and its private-sector allies?

  Michael’s foot slid off the pedal—Edna’s tail-lamps had come on and her right blinker was going. She was braking for the mini-mart in Lathrop Wells. It was a crossroads pit stop different from others along the main Reno-Las Vegas artery only in that it had an adult book store claiming to be the last one before Death Valley. The only bookstore in the valley was the one inside the NPS visitor center.

  Michael parked on the shoulder and got out with his binoculars, confident she couldn’t see him with the naked eye. He thought maybe she would use the restroom after her early start from home, but Edna went no farther than the store porch. She stood beside the pay phone and had nearly finished a cigarette before it finally rang. Michael couldn’t hear it but watched as she picked up the handset and answered. Her expression was lost over the mile distance, but her body language said that she was taking the conversation seriously. Did she have a cell phone, or had she been told to keep off the airwaves by the caller?

  After about five minutes, she hung up and scurried back to the Pontiac.

  Michael no sooner got back inside his cruiser to follow her again than the phone on the passenger seat rang, something it had never done before.

  “Hello there,” Michael answered, checking to make sure Edna stayed northbound on U.S. 95 before giving his attention over to the caller.

  “Been hanging around any cemeteries lately, kiddo?” Carson asked casually.

  “Nope, but then again I haven’t had much time for anything other than work.”

  “No rest for the wicked.” Not a hint in his tone of voice about his skulking around Dulcie’s trailer Saturday night. “So what’s up?”

  “Like I said in my message,” Michael said, “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to your offer. Is it still on the table?”

  “Of course.”

  “Trouble with offers, sometimes it’s hard to figure out how sincere they are when you talk to the messenger.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When it comes to switching horses mid-stream,” Michael replied, “I prefer looking the new horse in the eye before I commit.”

  “So when you mentioned face-to-face in your message, you meant my boss?”

  “Yes. What’s the soonest he can get down from Carson City?”

  Silence, then the man let out a big breath. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Long Shore—he’s interested in what you can bring to the table, especially now, with everything going to shit. But we’re talking about a busy man here, not some cow-county sheriff like Gorman.”

  “If he’s truly interested, he can make a forty-five minute flight to McCarran International. I’m willing to meet with him in his plane on the tarmac.”

  Another pause, then Carson said, “I’ll see what I can do. Hang tight.”

  Michael tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat.

  He knew that the governor of Nevada, if he were the stranger’s boss, would never agree to a direct meeting with Michael. Not only would it be an affront to his dignity to bargain with a cow-county deputy, the lack of a buffer would strip him of deniability.

  Ahead, Edna was still streaking north as if she had no doubt where she was going. Odd how much a person could telegraph by the simple act of driving a car. Edna, obviously, was on an errand.

  She wouldn’t be an easy interview. He could lean on her, but that would only make her demand her attorney. Perhaps she’d done a favor for Jimmy, but it was also possible that the warning had been given to his brother so he could cover his own ass after the fact, when law enforcement applied pressure on anybody and everybody to find out why one of its own had been killed.

  A ringing made Michael jump a little, if only because it came unexpectedly from his own cell in his pocket. Higgins in Los Angeles, according to caller ID. “Morning, R.J.,” Michael said. After his talk with Gorman at the inn, he hadn’t expected the FBI agent to deal directly with him again. Did that mean the sheriff had taken him off the do-not-call list for outside agencies?

  “Morning, Michael. Hey, I had a message waiting for me from our legat in Mexico City. You ready to be amazed?”

  “Maybe,” Michael replied.

  “Carl Kincannon actually married that little hooker you mentioned. The marriage is legal and valid in Mexico, so it’s recognized in the U.S. Which means we want—”

  “Wait just a sec...” Edna had come to the turn-off to Carrara, the quarry above, and Michael wanted to see if she betrayed the slightest hesitation as she passed the ghost town. Nothing. She kept to the same seventy-mile-an-hour clip. “Sorry, R.J., as you were saying.”

  “We need two things. Number one, a gander at Kincannon’s revocable living trust. We know he has one out there someplace, but it’d be useful to see the succession plan for his firm in the event he passes or is incapacitated.”

  “Is being a fugitive the same as being incapacitated?”

  “No, mainly because he could still secretly work the strings from hiding.”

  “Well, good luck. I already brought this issue up to AEI and was warned it’s going to be an uphill battle.”

  “We’ve got this master key called national security that opens even the most stubborn locks,” Higgins said optimistically. “Number two, I’d like to talk to the sweet little thing. What’s her name again? I’ve got it somewhere here in the mountain of paper on my desk.”

  “Dulcie Kincannon. And she is a sweet little thing.”

  “Right. I’d like to interview her personally, but for convenience’s sake I’ll have one of the guys out of Vegas office tootle up there. He’ll need directions.”

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  “I guess.”

  “Let me prepare Dulcie. I’ve built a kind of rapport with, and you’ll get more this way, believe me.”

  “Well, all right, if that’s how—”

  “Excuse me again, but I’ve got to take this call.” The other cell was ringing again.

  “How many phones do you have?” Higgins asked.

  “Too many. I’ll get back to you today. Promise.” Michael switched phones to talk to Carson again. “So what’d he have to say?”

  “You m
ust live right or something, Long Shore. The boss man said yes to meeting with you.”

  “Today?”

  “Today. Not before four or five, though. He has some commitments he can’t get out of ‘til late afternoon, but we can meet at the airport, like you suggested...”

  Michael could tell that the man was in his vehicle on a rough road. Through an open window came the sound of gravel or small rocks pinging against the wheel arches. And there was a shuddery quality to Carson’s voice, as if he was driving over a washboard surface.

  “You still there, Long Shore...?”

  “Yes. So you were telling me your boss can’t get out of Carson City until late?”

  Carson chuckled uneasily. “Quit with the Carson City shit, okay already? One of the qualities my boss is looking for is discretion...” A new sound in the background came over the air: a dog barking, running to keep pace with the car. “Now, if you’re already in southern Nevada, what do you say if the two of us get together for lunch? I’m flexible, so what’s your schedule?”

  If he joined Carson for lunch instead of heading of heading for Eureka Valley by early afternoon, he wouldn’t have much daylight to locate the spot where the lime-green Hummer had parked on the playa. He could almost feel the man trying to delay him. Still, Michael asked, “Where’d you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be in town. There’s a small casino in Indian Springs with a nice coffee shop.”

  Indian Springs, another nondescript pit stop, was about fifty miles north of Las Vegas along U.S. 95. “Is that convenient for you?” Michael asked.

  “Not a problem.”

  Nor was meeting with the governor of Nevada a problem. It was never going to happen. And Michael recalled that Indian Springs stood across the highway from a deactivated Air Force base. Empty housing and hangars. The perfect place for Carson to eliminate a growing nuisance.

  The man had picked up on his hesitation. “Look, Long Shore, you choose the joint for lunch. Leave it nice and spontaneous, if you like...” His second use of the word; he was selling nice. “Just give me enough of a heads-up to arrive there at, say, one o’clock. A deal?”

  “All right, I’ll get back to you.”

  “Looking forward to it, kiddo. You won’t regret this.”

  Then, glancing through the windshield, Michael whispered to himself, “Merda.” The Pontiac was no longer in sight, and he wondered if, during his preoccupation with the conversation, Edna had turned off into a mesquite thicket, unnoticed.

  But soon the huge quail reared up out of the brush. He was approaching the Bobwhite Ranch. Slowly, he debated how best to do this. One option was to pose as a customer until he got in the room alone with Edna. There, beyond the scrutiny of her madam, Michael could question the redhead for as much time as his fifty dollars allowed, and Edna would be hemmed in, reluctant to call attention to the fact that she had drawn a cop to the establishment. It just might work.

  But then Michael saw that the issue was moot.

  The Pontiac was not among the few vehicles parked in the brothel’s lot. Neither was Dulcie’s Toyota. Yet, dust was rising into the sky from where the unpaved road wound up into the arroyo.

  Michael decided to hang back a few minutes, actually giving Edna time to get ahead of him now. Unless she’d befriended the owner of one of the other mobile homes scattered throughout the wash, she was on her way to Dulcie’s single-wide. Already, he was going to have to sweet-talk the prostitute into sharing whatever she knew. Realizing that she’d been shadowed from her home in Pahrump wouldn’t leave her in a cooperative mood.

  So he waited, counting the minutes by his dash clock, hoping to make his dropping by Dulcie’s place appear coincidental.

  The day was already hot enough for him to keep his windows powered up and the air-conditioner on. Sheriff’s department radio traffic back in Inyo County was brisk, the usual Monday morning calls to businesses that had been burglarized over the weekend, a traffic fatality north of Independence.

  Running the length of the ridge to the south of the arroyo was the scar of another dirt road. Had Carson left his vehicle somewhere up there Saturday evening and been hoofing toward it after being discovered outside Dulcie’s trailer? Michael hadn’t seen this distant byway Sunday morning, having left for Furnace Creek before first light. Sensing that the road he was using eventually wound up to it, he made a mental note to check it out later, if he had time before continuing north.

  The longer route via U.S. 95 was usually quickest from Furnace Creek to Eureka Valley. The gravel roads within the park itself were agonizingly slow, if not impassable due to flashflood damage that could occur at any time. With Gorman’s deadline looming, every minute today counted. Tomorrow would be even more hectic.

  “Enough,” Michael muttered after fifteen minutes.

  He slipped the shift lever into drive and followed Edna up the rutted road. Along one stretch, his tires kicked a flurry of loose pebbles up into the wheel-wells. He wouldn’t have thought anything of the noise, except that then an Australian shepherd charged his cruiser from the yard of a mobile home. The dog kept pace with the Ford until the vehicle crossed some invisible line out of its territory.

  Then it hit Michael: Carson had come this same way within the hour. Again, the man had beaten him here.

  He punched the accelerator.

  The sun crested the nearest mountain to the east, blinding him. He grabbed his dark glasses, but even they didn’t help. If he drove the rest of the way up the wash, he’d have to approach the trailer squarely into this dazzle. Plus, Carson would hear his engine coming.

  Michael pulled off at the next wide spot in the road. Bailing out, he took his shotgun from its rack in the cargo area and made sure it was loaded. Carson would be armed. He’d admitted being so inside the columbarium. And he’d fight if he saw no other way to get the job done for his boss, who now most certainly wasn’t the governor of Nevada. These were the big questions now—for whom was Carson working, and did his contract include murder-for-hire?

  Before setting out on foot, Michael grabbed the cell phone the man had given him, just in case this somehow bogged down in negotiations. The danger now was that Dulcie could become a bargaining chip. Why else had the stranger returned to her neighborhood this morning? Beyond using her as a pawn against Michael, what conceivable use would the man have for Kincannon’s wife?

  Michael began jogging.

  A few hundred yards off in the distance, an elderly neighbor had stepped out onto his side porch. He was standing there inquisitively, as if something unusual had drawn him outside. The barking dog?

  Dulcie’s single-wide showed through the scattered salt cedars. Her Toyota was in its usual spot, and Edna’s Pontiac was parked behind it. Unlike the other night, the front door was closed.

  Again, however, the TV was blaring.

  Michael remembered the tin cans just as he closed the last few yards to the mobile. He leaped over the tripwire. He passed up the door and, ripping off his sunglasses, instead checked through the living-room window. The television screen was lit up with CNN news, the volume deafening. A spot of glare on the window glass forced him to shift slightly for a wider view inside. As he did, a shock of red hair became visible at cushion-level on the couch. Edna was slumped on her left side, although the soles of her shoes were still flat to the floor. A fist-sized bloodstain on the back-rest revealed where she had been sitting upright before someone shot her through the upper torso.

  Turning, Michael racked a shell into the chamber of the shotgun and made sure the safety was off. The front door was unlocked. He flew inside and swiveled the muzzle around in search of Carson.

  Edna was alone in the living room.

  He turned off the TV, only to be amazed by how loud the thumping of his pulse was in the silence that followed. His mouth was almost too dry to form the word: “Dulcie?”

  No answer came from the back rooms.

  Keeping his shotgun trained on the ha
llway that led from the kitchen to the bedroom, Michael crossed to Edna and touched two fingers to a carotid artery. She was warm but had no pulse. Her hair had fallen over her face. He parted it and grimaced when he saw that she was still wide-eyed. Despite the size of the exit wound, there was very little blood. That told him she’d gone swiftly. But just to make sure, he pressed his thumb against her right eyeball. The normal pressure was gone, the tissue soft and mushy. All doubt was removed.

  He ignored several small zip-lock bags of white powder on the cocktail table and worked his way toward the back of the trailer, throwing open the doors to the pantry and any cabinets large enough to hide a man. A closet held the stuffed animals Michael recalled atop the table on Saturday.

  Clearing the bedroom, he was pivoting with the shotgun toward the adjoining bathroom when his heart seized in his throat—deep red blood was trickling out from under the shut door and fanning across the linoleum. He flung it open with his free hand. “Jesus!” he cried out, despite himself, “Jesus!”

  The commode was tucked in an alcove of the tiny bathroom, and sprawled on its lid was Dulcie. She was being held upright in a loose-jointed sitting position by the side walls.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Michael had only to dial 911 and Independence dispatch would transfer his call for a backup to Nye County Sheriff’s Department. Help was only minutes away in Beatty. But he didn’t take out either of the two cell phones clicking together in the front pocket of his Levi’s as he ran from the trailer and out into the arroyo.

  He wanted no witnesses when he caught up with Carson.

  At first, Michael tried to track the man. But the ground was more rock than sand, and the stopping and kneeling was too much for his anger. He relied on instinct, guessing that under pressure Carson would do as he had Saturday evening, cutting southeast across the wash to wherever he had left his vehicle. The fact that the man had driven up from the brothel along the same road Michael had used implied that it connected to the ridge.