Under the Killer Sun: A Death Valley Mystery

by Kirk Mithchell

  Gorman asked, “Are you telling me that prick from the Nevada Investigation Division shot you?”

  Michael shook his head. He knew he had to be careful, but an anesthesia hangover and probably a painkiller IV drip weren’t helping.

  “Listen, Long Shore—try to concentrate. Try to remember everything that happened. Let’s go back to the minutes before you got to the Kincannon woman’s trailer house, all right? This is how the Nye County sheriff laid it out for me. Monday morning, a neighbor looked out his kitchen window because his dog was barking at a passing truck. A dark brown Chevy pickup. Two men inside. The neighbor could see the passenger, the bald subject, but he was blocking a clear view of the driver. Later, he saw that the truck had made it all the way up onto the ridge. Next, he saw you driving past in your cruiser—”

  “Where is my...?”

  “At the FBI’s impound yard here in Vegas. They had it towed. Stay with me, Long Shore—the neighbor had already heard what he believed to be two gunshots from the direction of the woman’s trailer. He was about to call the sheriff’s office when he saw you heading that way with your scattergun. Figured you to be a Nye plainclothesman, so he held off phoning the Beatty substation ‘til all hell broke loose some minutes later. But before that, he saw a bald, middle-aged white male—the passenger, he was sure—bolt from the trailer house and head for what he referred to as the ridge road. Where the neighbor had last seen the brown truck. Is all of this making sense to you?”

  “Yes...except Dodge black.”

  “Whatever. Does this sound like the subject who contacted you about Nevada’s interests while you were down in L.A.?”

  “Was him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happened to him?”

  “I killed him.”

  Gorman’s eyes pinched smaller as the import of this sank in. “Can you guarantee that?”

  Weakly, Michael held up two fingers as if being sworn in as a court witness.

  “Okay, okay,” Gorman said, “this explains the blood and tissue found on some willow switches.” Then the sheriff lowered his voice. “Did you talk to him, prior to the gunplay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then keep the content of that little chat between you and me for the time being. Say nothing to no one. Did he admit who his boss is?”

  “No.”

  Gorman scowled. “Did you try to find out? And did you get a plate number off the truck?”

  Then Michael held up a hand to say that he’d had enough. He could no longer keep up, and going over Monday’s events was filling his already aching head with violent pictures. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to escape those pictures.

  “A moment more,” the sheriff insisted. “If this cocksucker didn’t wound you, who did?”

  Michael shrugged his shoulders.

  Then, mercifully, a male voice interrupted from the far recesses of the room: “What’re you doing here?”

  “Sheriff Cole Gorman—glad to make your acquaintance, doctor.”

  “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “I didn’t want to bother my investigator, but I had to check to see if a dying declaration was in order.”

  “Well, he’s not dying, so please get out. I’ll decide when he’s ready for visitors.”

  As he drifted off, Michael chuckled phlegmatically to himself. Dying declaration and impound yard were terms ordinarily used in reference to suspects and their vehicles, not cops. How telling. Michael was still on the bubble, either a hero or a dog depending on whom Carson turned out to be.

  * * *

  The fact that Higgins was not wearing a tie with his blazer convinced Michael that it was after 5:00 P.M. The FBI man had not awakened Michael, that had already been done fifteen minutes earlier by a nurse whose sole source of enjoyment in life seemed to be keeping him from sleeping soundly. At this time, Michael saw that he’d been moved out of ICU into a sunlit private room. Now, through the half-drawn curtains beyond Higgins, he could catch Sunrise Mountain, the peak just to the northeast of Las Vegas. It was comforting to be oriented again, although now there was a new problem: vague but persistent nausea.

  Higgins patted his shoulder. “How you doing?”

  Again, Michael needed a sip of water before he could speak. “Okay, R.J.” At least he felt more lucid and talkative than he had been during the interrogation by Gorman. “Did you go through the visitors lobby on your way here?”

  “Yes, waited there while they transferred you to this room. Thank God for the Blackberry—caught up on my emails. I flew in from L.A. yesterday afternoon and been busy ever since.”

  “Any native people out in lobby?”

  “You mean like Indians?”

  Michael nodded.

  “No, not that I noticed,” Higgins said. “You concerned about your personal security? I can ask Metro to post a guard outside this room, if that’s what you want.”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Are you up to talking?” Higgins asked.

  “Bit.”

  “Damn you, Michael, you were flying solo again, weren’t you...?” When Michael didn’t rise to his own defense, the agent just sighed. “At least try to help me put my head around all this. Our Vegas people are already working with Nye County, but everybody’s in a fog. First off, what were you doing at Dulcie Kincannon’s residence yesterday morning? If it was personal, I’ve got less of a problem with that than if it was business.”

  “Business.”

  “Great.” Not the answer Higgins had wanted. “Then why were you tailing the two subjects in that brown Chevy truck the neighbor observed?”

  “It was a black Dodge,” Michael repeated. It seemed like the dozenth time.

  “How do you know that?”

  “It was parked on the ridge above Dulcie’s trailer,” Michael replied. “I wasn’t following the pickup prior to the shooting. And I didn’t have a clue there were two subjects in it until the survivor shot me in the leg.”

  “What do you mean by survivor?” Higgins asked.

  “I shot and killed the subject the neighbor described as being bald and middle-aged...” Despite a queasy stomach and a left calf muscle that was throbbing, Michael focused on Higgins’s face. He needed to see how the agent reacted to mention of Carson, non-verbal cues especially. By now, Michael was positive the man hadn’t worked for Nevada at the time of his death. Had that been the case, another Investigation Division detective would’ve already broken down the door to Michael’s hospital room and Mirandized him. However, a past link to the FBI was still possible. Had Higgins known, even worked with Carson?

  Higgins took the chair at bedside. “Then what happened to the body?”

  Michael waited for a wave of nausea to pass, then shut his eyes to mentally replay his last few minutes of consciousness on the ridge before he passed out. A siren wailed in the distance, the approach of the Nye deputy who probably saved his life—have to thank him. Michael relived being down on his belly, unable to rise. Firing two or three shots to keep his attacker, the survivor, at bay. A grunt from the direction of the truck below, like that of a man lifting something heavy. A door slamming, followed by a repeat of the sound. The first slam could have been after Carson’s body was dumped in the backseat of the crew-cab. The second came after the survivor got in behind the steering wheel. “This is from what I heard,” Michael finally explained. “I couldn’t see much at that point. I think the survivor stuffed the DB in the backseat before peeling out.”

  “What makes you sure the bald guy was dead?”

  “You don’t take that many thirty-two caliber shotgun balls to the head and survive.” Michael paused. Unwittingly perhaps, Gorman had given him the excuse he needed to put off the FBI until he could think things through with a clear mind. “Look, R.J.. my lawyer would have a fit if I talked to you about the shooting without him present. Wouldn’t be surprised I’ll be dragged before both Nye County’s and my own D.A. I should clear an
y interviews through my sheriff.”

  “No, no, no—I don’t want you to feel any pressure. And we sure as hell will respect your chain of command. I just thought—”

  “I might help you out a little.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Higgins said hollowly.

  Michael dropped his voice. The door was open, but he wasn’t worried about being overheard from the corridor. He wanted to sound as if he was offering confidential information as a personal favor to Higgins. “I don’t know the ID of the man I killed in self-defense. I’d really like to know, if only for my own peace of mind.”

  “Naturally.” The agent was now speaking low too. “That’s understandable.”

  “Monday morning, I was tailing Edna Boskovich.”

  “The victim found in the living room of the mobile home?”

  “One of the two victims inside the trailer. It was a double homicide, not a murder-suicide.”

  “Interesting, you seem to have the same problems with the crime scene our techies do. Do you feel comfortable going over that?”

  “Later.” Michael didn’t want the conversation to wander all over the place. He didn’t have the stamina right now to keep up with a fishing expedition. So he zeroed in on Edna again. “I followed Boskovich from her home on Wagon Wheel Lane in Pahrump. That’s still in Nye County, so the deputies here can direct you there, if needed.”

  Higgins had already produced his pad and was taking notes. “Pahrump, got it. Go on.”

  “There was a white male in his forties at her house yesterday morning. Seemed like he’d spent the night, so I’m surmising he’s Edna’s steady. He got her car going for her, the Pontiac you probably recovered.”

  “We did. We’re storing yours as well. Just give the Vegas office a jingle when you’re discharged from here, and a clerk will drop it by.”

  “Thanks. The boyfriend had outlaw biker written all over him, and there was a chopper parked on the porch. If there’s a connection between Edna and the guy I shot, the boyfriend will know about it. He’s your lead.”

  “Do you think he’ll still be at the house in Pahrump?”

  “Not a chance,” Michael answered. “Not if he figured out that their bald friend whacked Edna and his own head will wind up on the chopping block next.”

  Higgins asked, “Then how can I find him?”

  “My cruiser in your storage yard. Hunt around the front seat for my pad. I jotted down the plate number to the bike. I didn’t have time to do a registration check through Carson City.”

  “Okay.” Then the agent lowered his pen. “As far as you know, was Dulcie Kincannon Hispanic, even part?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Did she speak Spanish?”

  Michael took a moment. “Probably not. At our first meeting, she said the Mexican authorities made Kincannon and her sit through a planned-parenthood lecture to get the marriage license. She said it was in Spanish, but they still had to suffer through it. Why’s that matter now?”

  “Ah, just filling in the boxes,” Higgins said, writing again. “She looked kind of Hispanic to those of us at the scene yesterday.”

  Michael blocked another visualization of that blood-splattered bathroom. Both his heart and his stomach weren’t up to it.

  Higgins came to his feet. “I’m going to let you rest, buddy. Promise to clear our next talk through your boss.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Alone, Michael shut his eyes. He was too exhausted to pick over everything he’d just said to the agent, checking for blunders. He’d just have to trust that he hadn’t revealed too much too soon. In one sense, he felt better about Higgins. The man’s interest in Edna had been exacting, worthy of a couple pages in his notebook. Had he already known about her and, more importantly, her ties to Carson, the agent’s attention would have been half-assed. Yet, the buddy aside, Higgins had just lied to him. His questions about Dulcie’s ethnicity and language skills had been more than filling in report boxes.

  Cuba, Michael realized as he teetered on the brink of another unsatisfying, drug-induced nap. Because of that ATM withdrawal in Havana, the FBI was trying to find somebody close to Kincannon with a tie to Cuba, someone who might have helped him vanish.

  Poor Dulcie, doubted even in death.

  * * *

  Michael was awakened by body odor so strong he almost gagged. A wraith-like silhouette stood in the light of the open door. He was holding something under his right arm, something round, and in his befuddled state Michael thought it might be a human head. “Michael, that you?”

  He held off answering right away. The voice was familiar, but he had trouble placing it.

  “Did I wake you? It’s Woodrow Bryant. Visiting hours go for another hour, but they weren’t going to let me past the front desk until I showed them my old CHP badge. Isn’t that a sad commentary?”

  “Sit down, Woody.” The smell from the lack of a bath anytime recent was explained. Thankfully, the hermit had added more buckskin articles from his wardrobe to his loincloth, and his leather jacket and breeches made soft whisking noises at the armpits and crotch as he came into the room and sat beside Michael. The decapitated head under his arm proved to be his motorcycle helmet. “Did you ride your Electra Glide all the way from Panamint?”

  “I did,” Woody replied in his gentle voice. “Lovely evening. My stars are back. The workers on the IED track shut off their floodlights and are on furlough until next Tuesday, when they’ll start pouring the concrete. I can finally hear myself think again. Do you want me to turn on the lamp?”

  “No, this is easier on my eyes,” Michael said, even though the man’s teeth and the whites of his eyes shone eerily from his sunburned face. “How’d you hear…?”

  “On the noon news. I listen to the radio for the weather report and then turn it off when the announcer launches into the meaningless bullshit. Or, as Schopenhauer put it—the turbulent stream of...” He left off with a rising lilt to indicate that Michael was to fill in the blank.

  “The turbulent stream of detailed existence,” Michael finished, surprising himself that this tidbit had survived all the shocks of the last day.

  “Out popped your name from the radio, Michael Long Shore recovering from a gunshot wound at University Medical. Is it bad?”

  “No. I was lucky. Shouldn’t even be left with a limp.” Michael realized that this news release would have been issued by the department, with Gorman’s approval. “Was there any mention of what I was doing when I got shot?”

  Woody scratched his beard—the front desk had probably feared lice. “Something about a lead in a missing-person case taking you into Nevada. Unknown assailant, et cetera. The Kincannon thing?”

  “Yes,” Michael said wearily.

  The good news was that Gorman was still providing him with administrative cover. During the sheriff’s visit this morning, there had been no further mention of the forty-eight-hour dead-line to ferret out Carson’s boss. Michael believed that his wounding had extended it, temporarily. In truth, he didn’t need goading from Gorman to search for this person, who would close the investigation. The rest would be paperwork and court overtime.

  Woody broke the heavy silence. “Any progress on the case?”

  “Not enough to justify all the wear and tear.”

  “What’s still bugging you?”

  “Coincidences,” Michael said, “more all the time. One player turns out to be tied to another player, and I don’t have a clue how.”

  “Remember? No such thing as coincidence, just links in causality we can’t grasp at first. So listen to Schopenhauer. Philosophy and logic are useless in solving some problems.”

  “Then what?”

  “Art. Study the motifs that are repeated again and again, and in that you’ll behold the hand of the artist.” Then Woody chuckled. “At least that’s what the old kraut thought. Anyway, last time at my place you asked me if I could think of any reason Carl Kincannon would have to disappear. I had to mull it over.”r />
  “And...?”

  “I mentioned that he’d gone sideways in his quest for enlightenment. You know, that business thinking he could change those troubled young women. But now I’ve had a chance to think more on this...” Woody leaned forward in the chair. “What I know of him, Carl might go sideways but he’d never go backwards. He’d never just cut and run. He thought too highly of himself.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A Shoshone day was different from a white day.

  Whites felt the need to fill every pause in a conversation, as if silence were hostile. So, Anglos—including many of Michael’s fellow deputies—insisted on offering a running commentary on everything, that stream of detailed existence, as Woody Bryant had quoted Schopenhauer four days earlier at the hospital in Las Vegas.

  Michael had now been with Horace Dock for an hour inside the government pickup truck, and they’d traded no more than a half dozen words. But when this silence was broken at last, Michael immediately realized from Horace’s tone that his cousin was trying to tell him something important: “You know, back when there was still folks living up here in this Saline country...” He was referring to the Saline Valley band of Shoshone, who’d been absorbed by other native settlements when the salt mines, which had employed them, shut down. “They had a story about Rat and Mountain Sheep. You heard it, Michael...?”

  “I don’t think so.” It was becoming apparent that his cousin, in the absence of anybody else stepping forward to fill this role, was evolving into the tribe’s storyteller. These were not fables. In the Shoshone view, there had been a time when animals were just like humans, behaving much the same as people do today. It had been a special era, much like the age of miracles in the Bible.

  “Anyways,” Horace said, glancing back and forth between the unpaved road and Michael, “Rat had himself a hole for a house up here some place in this country, maybe even on top of Last Chance Mountain. One day, he called out for all the Mountain Sheep to come join him for a circle dance. What Rat didn’t say was that he was hungry for meat. Everybody has to make a living, I guess...”