by Gwen Moffat
‘At night, without street lights, people run the risk of stepping on a rattler.’
‘Oh my!’ Pearl’s eyes were wide in mock consternation. ‘I never thought of that.’
‘Perhaps you were warning me not to go out in the dark.’ Pearl gave a feline smile. ‘I have to call Wayne Spikol,’ Miss Pink said, feeling that the conversation was out of control.
Spikol asked her if she would come to Palomares in the morning. When she put down the phone she suggested to Pearl that she might pick up her things at the motel and return to Regis for a few days. Pearl was delighted and gave her a shopping list. ‘Stay as long as you like,’ she urged. ‘You can ride either the sorrel or the pinto. I promise I won’t put you up on the bay again. I’d forgotten how rough he can be, although I’ll swear he’s got worse with age. He can go for bear-bait in the fall.’
‘Oh no! Sell him as a pack-horse; he’s so quiet he’d follow without having to be led.’
‘He couldn’t carry eggs, that’s for sure. You are a soft-hearted lady, you know that?’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I guess the English are all the same: stiff upper lip for people but marshmallows where horses and dogs are concerned.’
‘I’m soft on people too.’
‘Yeah, I noticed.’
‘It sounds like cadaveric spasm,’ Michael Vosker said. ‘He was dying and the coyotes moved in, he picked up the branch and lunged at them, and the effort killed him. On the other hand—’
‘More coffee, Miss Pink?’
‘On the other hand, his attacker could have been a man.’
‘Michael, you’re shocking our guest.’
‘I don’t think so. She’s had twenty-four hours in which to consider hypotheses.’
Miss Pink had been in the Voskers’ patio for half an hour and the warm night, the initial exchange of small talk and a good brandy had lulled her into a comfortable state where violence was only a technicality; she was mildly surprised that Marian Vosker should find the subject offensive. But then Marian was a woman of taste. Her old adobe was beautifully furnished, the patio lush with mown grass, the garden chairs padded. She was a large plain woman who exuded hospitality as if her life was dedicated to making other people comfortable: a worthy partner for a busy professor. Retirement to their former holiday home in the back-country must have produced culture shock after social life on campus, and discussion of a man dying of terror might indeed seem offensive to her, particularly over coffee and liqueurs.
‘Gregorio did leave,’ Vosker said, with just a hint of doubt.
‘Of course.’ Marian was soothing. ‘And he took Avril’s ring.’
‘It wasn’t worth much. Wouldn’t keep him for long.’
‘That’s not very kind, dear. It was a diamond.’
‘There was stuff lying around that was a sight more valuable. Herb’s good saddle, for instance.’
‘Gregorio had no transportation. A man walking along the road carrying a saddle would have been conspicuous. That’s the last thing he’d want when he’d stolen Betsy’s ring. I mean Avril’s.’
‘Who’s Betsy?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Ah.’ Vosker was pleased. ‘Something you don’t know. Betsy was Herb Beck’s first wife. When she died Avril married Herb. Avril had come to Las Mesas as the maid.’
‘Housekeeper,’ Marian corrected. Vosker glanced at her but all he said was, ‘So originally the ring was Betsy’s. That’s all.’
Miss Pink asked slowly, ‘Am I missing something?’
‘I don’t see how it could possibly interest her,’ Marian said, in the face of Vosker’s silence. ‘English people don’t have class prejudices any longer any more than we do.’
‘Housekeepers often marry their employers.’ Miss Pink poured oil on the water. ‘I mean, in those circumstances. It’s a gesture to the proprieties.’ She smiled; an anthropologist should know all about that. ‘You can’t have an unmarried man and an attractive spinster living under the same roof unchaperoned.’
‘She wasn’t—’
‘She wasn’t a housekeeper,’ Marian interrupted. ‘Not always. She came to the States when she was very young to work as a maid. But she climbed the ladder’ – she sounded indignant – ‘and she hasn’t had it easy: she had no experience of running a ranch. She can’t even ride.’
‘Ranch is a rather grand term for Las Mesas,’ Vosker put in.
‘You have to give credit where it’s due. She manages to make a living. It’s a hard country’ – Marian turned to Miss Pink, her face earnest in the soft light from the house – ‘even the big ranchers like Ira Markow are having a difficult time in the recession. Local people have to buy in their hay and grain, did you know that? We were in Montana for a time and the ranchers there grow all their own cattle feed. I’m sorry for Avril; it must be a continual struggle to make ends meet.’
‘She was able to employ two hands,’ Miss Pink pointed out.
‘Gregorio wouldn’t have got much more than his keep,’ Vosker told her. ‘I mean, look at his boots!’
‘You’re sure that was his boot?’ Marian asked anxiously. ‘Will Avril, be involved?’
‘I’m not saying it was Greg’s boot, not formally. I told Spikol he had boots like that because Spikol asked me. He can take it from there but he’s not going to follow it up; he’ll get a statement from Miss Pink, file a report, and that’ll be the end of it. It would be a different matter if Greg had gone missing from Las Mesas, but we know he left first and then went missing – I mean, if that is him, in the cliff dwelling.’
‘How do you know he left?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘This afternoon you were doubtful.’
‘I thought about it since. We know he left because the bunk-house was cleared of his gear, what there was of it, not to speak of the stolen ring – and then how could he have gone missing from Las Mesas? There was no way he was going to walk – what? – eight miles to the head of Rastus, not in those boots. He had to ride, and there are no horses missing from Las Mesas.’
‘All right’ – Miss Pink was unaware of Marian’s disapproval, caught up as she was in speculation – ‘it looks as if Pearl’s theory is the closest: that he reached Rastus from the top road, on a horse, but with a companion who removed the horse – and the truck and trailer which would have been left on the highway, or hidden near it.’ She frowned and added slowly: ‘That smells of premeditation.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Just that I don’t see the other man hanging around to kill a deer after he’d killed – no, after he’d immobilised Gregorio, so perhaps hunting was never the intention, only the stated motive for the trip.’ She paused, then added, ‘So the other man took Gregorio’s ammunition to prevent him firing his rifle to attract attention—’
‘Wait a minute; what makes you think he took the ammunition?’
‘Spikol didn’t tell you that? The rifle was unloaded and there’s no ammo and no spent shells around, not that we could see.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. She went on, ‘Then this other man rode back to the truck leading Gregorio’s horse, or rather, the horse he had borrowed from someone. From the other man? Why do I think it was premeditated? It could have been a spontaneous quarrel.’
‘You could be thinking that way because people had it in for Greg.’
‘Oh, that’s nonsense!’ Marian was incensed. ‘He was a charmer; he had beautiful manners. When he met a woman on the road he stopped his horse and took off his hat, just like a caballero. And he was always smiling.’
‘You talk about him in the past tense,’ Miss Pink remarked. ‘Who had it in for him besides the Scott family?’
‘I don’t think—’
‘So Pearl told you about that,’ Vosker interrupted. ‘Very unfortunate. I meant you might have the impression that people were hostile to Greg but when I think about it he had no rivals. All the men, that is, the others, they were circumspect with Veronica. She was ethereal, like a flower or a moth; she looked as if she would shrivel up i
f she got too near a flame—’ Marian’s jaw dropped as she stared at him. Miss Pink was fascinated. He was unaware of them, looking into the shadows beyond the light. ‘She was in another league from Kristen and Tammy and Pearl; they’re healthy animals with healthy appetites. And then, of course, no one wanted to mix it with Clayton.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Marian whispered.
‘Someone’s not much bothered now,’ Miss Pink murmured, ‘about mixing it.’
‘You’re right.’ Vosker grinned. ‘But if you knew Jay Gafford and you’d known Veronica, you’d realise that a relationship there was most unlikely. Jay needs an alpha woman, and he’s got one and Kristen’s more than enough for any man to deal with at one time, I’m sure.’
‘Nice evening?’ Pearl asked, turning off her radio. ‘Have fun? You missed Avril, she called in on her way back from Las Cruces to find out what happened. She’s quite sure it’s not Greg Ramirez up there in the ruin but then she would say that, she doesn’t want trouble. Avril’s a very respectable lady.’ She was deadpan.
‘She can’t get into serious trouble for employing an illegal alien.’
‘It’s not that she’s thinking of. And trouble’s the wrong word, embarrassment is more like it. Avril comes from a good family in England, her father’s a Sir Something or other; she’s not used to our rough ways. She never gossips, not with anyone, least of all with Fletcher or me. I never heard her say a word about Veronica’s death, except she visited with Ada, of course, that was only polite, but then everyone acted like she died of something, like cancer. Avril’d die of shame to think that one of her hired hands was responsible for Veronica’s baby, and then the drowning and all. That kind of thing doesn’t happen where she was raised.’
‘Well, not the drowning part,’ Miss Pink conceded. ‘Avril seems very refined,’ she added, and left it hanging. Pearl looked at her sharply but the eyes behind the thick spectacles were expressionless. Pearl’s mouth twitched.
‘She has her position to think of: rich rancher’s widow. Did I say rich? There are only two ranches here and she’s not in the Markows’ league but as I understand it, money isn’t as important in England as breeding. Thelma Markow may be wealthy but she’s got no background – and her kid works as my maid.’
‘Michael Vosker says Avril was in service.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Domestic service: an old-fashioned term for servants, never used nowadays unless one is disorientated.’
‘You’re not!’
‘I’m groping a little. As I see it Avril has worked her way up from skivvy to rancher. That seems very American: the rags-to-riches syndrome.’
‘That may be what you and I think, but not Avril. She can’t forget it, and she’d love to do just that: block it out and start over as the rich widow lady.’
‘You said her father was titled.’
‘She’s illegitimate. Her mother was a lady but she was brought up by a housemaid who’d been fired because she was pregnant, and then she lost her baby so the lady’s mother, Avril’s real grandmother – who was a countess – she gave Avril to the housemaid, make up for the dead baby, see? I got all this from Betsy Beck; they were quite close, her and Avril. Apparently Avril’s natural mother is still alive, she married into a family that’s related to Queen Elizabeth. What are you smiling at? You don’t believe it?’
‘Do you?’
‘It’s a romantic story. Live and let live, I say, and Avril never did me any harm. I don’t think she’s very happy; she never seems able to get her act together somehow. Her first husband was a Texan; she got her American nationality through him, but she paid for it. He knocked her about. I guess he drank too. Eventually she landed here; Betsy Beck had broken her hip and it never healed right so Herb had to advertise for someone to cook and clean, and take care of Betsy. And when Betsy died Avril up and married Herb, but she never got much joy of that neither; Herb was an alcoholic and drank himself to death. Some women are always attracted to the deadbeats. I don’t know if there was any money, but if there was he musta left it to his two sons, out in California someplace. He did leave the ranch to Avril so in the end she got to call herself a rancher, even though all she owns is a few hundred acres of desert with a creek that’s dry most of the time, and a tacky old house, another sheet of iron blows off the roof with every storm. And talk of the devil—’ the screen door had opened and – not Avril but her man Lloyd stood on the doorstep. ‘Had trouble?’ Pearl asked, rising smoothly. ‘You look like you could do with a beer.’
He sat down without removing his hat.
‘Good evening.’ Miss Pink was pointedly polite.
He blinked. ‘Evening.’ Pearl brought him a can of beer and he thanked her in the same tone of surprise. ‘You run into any bother?’ he asked, fixing her with those eyes which appeared the more intense for his obvious fatigue.
‘That was my question, Fletch. Not that it matters, but I can’t abide folk who answer questions with one of their own. It’s bad manners.’
‘Sorry. No, I didn’t have trouble. She came home fast because she had the new truck, and my radiator was leaking. Had to stop and top it up, and then I had to eat.’
‘There. I could have fed you.’
‘No sweat. What happened up there?’ He jerked his head, indicating the plateau, and Miss Pink had a sudden image of pale gravel and solid little trees under the brilliant stars. She drew in her breath sharply.
Pearl said, ‘Nothing, and we learned nothing we didn’t know before.’
‘She didn’t tell me much.’ He glanced at Miss Pink. ‘Just these bones had been found, like human bones, and a rifle.’ He was painfully shy; not only unable to pronounce his employer’s name but having difficulty in deferring to Miss Pink.
‘There was a boot too,’ Pearl pointed out.
‘She says it’s not Greg’s but she can’t know that. I doubt she’d recognise it. I might.’
‘The sole was coming off Greg’s boots.’
‘Yeah, he stuck it with duct tape.’
‘There was no tape on this boot.’
‘Only one, his other boot were all right.’
The women exchanged glances. ‘He could have ripped the sole when he fell,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Now if we found the other boot and that was mended with duct tape, identification is conclusive.’
‘What’re you talking about?’ It was startling in its harshness. Miss Pink stiffened but Pearl said calmly, ‘Most of us think that it’s Greg, what’s left of him.’
‘Who’s most of us?’
‘Fletcher,’ Pearl said to Miss Pink, as the tone got to her, prompting her to make some kind of apology for him, ‘is very possessive about his ranch and his boss—’ now his eyes were troubled rather than angry. ‘Most of us, sweetie, is me and Michael Vosker and Spikol, maybe Clayton— Did Scott think it was Greg?’ she asked of Miss Pink.
She cast her mind back. ‘He suggested two men could have come down from the highway, and quarrelled. He didn’t recognise the boot, not to say so.’
‘What made him think there were two men?’ Lloyd asked, and Miss Pink, pondering, starting to feel fatigue at the end of the day, dismissed the subject of a rifle without ammunition and stated the obvious: ‘There was no horse. But’ – she caught herself – ‘Scott did suggest that, after all, the dead man might have been alone because he could have come down from the highway on foot, meaning to carry out a deer on his back. In that case there has to be a truck somewhere. Spikol means to look for it.’
‘A truck means it can’t be Greg.’ Now Lloyd was so subdued that he could have been talking to himself. ‘He didn’t own one.’
‘And that,’ Miss Pink said, equally softly, ‘was when Scott pointed out that no truck would be found if two men had been poaching – and then someone’ – she didn’t look at Pearl – ‘put forward the notion of a quarrel, and we arrived at the traditional formula of accident, suicide or murder.’
‘Yes,’ Lloyd said in a
perfectly normal voice, ‘I been thinking along those lines myself.’
Chapter 5
‘There’s no vehicle on a five-mile stretch of that top road,’ Spikol said. ‘And there’s nowhere that you can get a truck off the pavement, either the pines are too close together or the ground drops away too steeply. If there ever was a truck it’s gone, and that means two men were involved – or more than two.’ He leaned back in his chair and regarded Miss Pink doubtfully. ‘That is, if he went in that way,’ he added.
Miss Pink sipped coffee from a Styrofoam beaker and wondered who laundered policemen’s shirts; did they send them to some superb Chinese establishment or had their wives trained as laundresses? And how did bachelors manage to look so clean and pressed, at least at the start of each day?
They were sitting in the diffused light of an office in the sheriff’s building, the glare of sunshine muted by plastic blinds.
‘Is it possible,’ she asked, ‘that he was on a long trip: staying out for days, working his way through the forests, not using trails? No’ – she answered her own question – ‘not a back-packer: wrong boots, and hikers don’t carry rifles. And he wasn’t on horseback because there’s no horse – ’
‘Unless, as Pearl Slocum said, his horse came down and was quietly appropriated.’
She studied his face. ‘You favour that theory?’
‘It seems the most reasonable, except we know he isn’t a local so he had to bring the horse in by trailer, and we’re back where we started. No vehicle.’
‘Gregorio Ramirez is a local,’ she said slowly. ‘In a sense. He lived locally. And he wore very old boots. He could have ridden up from Las Mesas without anyone being the wiser … No, when he left he took his possessions, and we keep coming back to the horse.’
‘He’s a stranger,’ Spikol said, with a hint of desperation. ‘You found some old bones and a rifle. It’s a hunting accident – as in poaching. We’ll circulate the information, wait for someone to claim the remains, or at least say they’re missing a husband or a son, whatever. Nothing else we can do.’