There was frost everywhere when I looked out the kitchen window in the morning. Frost so heavy it mimicked the snowcapped peaks of the mountains. I was glad Lark and I weren’t due at the Inyo County jail till two, when the day would have warmed some; cold-weather flying is something I prefer to leave to Hy.
I called the agency. Ted told me he’d taken matters into his own hands and was researching copy machines. He was fed up with calling the repairman for our present one, and had been lobbying for a replacement for months.
“I’m getting to know the repair guy so well, I feel like I should invite him to Thanksgiving dinner,” he added. “Speaking of which, are you and Hy gonna make it this year?”
Ted’s annual Thanksgiving party. God, I’d forgotten all about it! I glanced at the calendar on the wall by the fridge; I hadn’t changed it from October.
“Uh, when is Thanksgiving?”
Ted let out a despairing sigh. “Next week. What planet are you living on?”
“A very strange one. Count us in.” Even if I had to fly back for just the one day.
“Good. Is it okay to go ahead with the new copier?”
“Yes. But don’t finalize the sale till you okay the price with me. And now let me talk to Patrick, please.”
Patrick sounded tense. “Six new clients yesterday, Shar. All corporate. Derek and Thelia and I have split them up among us, but there’re other cases that’re backlogged. What with Mick in rehab…”
“Thelia needs an assistant.”
“I know.”
“Find her one.”
“Me?”
“You. First, call around to the agencies we cooperate with and ask if they have any recommendations. If not, run an ad. You know what kind of person we’re looking for. Then interview the most promising ones.”
“But I just can’t go ahead and hire-”
“By the time you complete the interviews, I’ll be back to make the final decision and negotiate salary and benefits.”
“Okay,” he said, “I can do this.”
“Of course you can. If you get really swamped with new cases, call on Rae. She delivered her latest book to her publisher last month.”
We discussed a few other matters, and by the time we ended the conversation, Patrick seemed more confident and in control than ever.
Way to delegate, McCone.
Next call: Mick. I hadn’t heard from him about his deep backgrounding on Trevor Hanover since Wednesday. There was no answer at his extension at the rehab center. Probably in therapy, I thought. But it wasn’t like him not to keep me posted, so I called Rae.
“Oh, God, I should’ve let you know!” she said. “Yesterday afternoon he had an episode of internal bleeding and they had to transfer him to UC Med Center to perform more surgery.”
“Is he okay?”
“He will be. I’ll tell you, this experience has taught him a lot. Us, too. We should’ve kept in closer touch after his breakup with Charlotte, given him the support he needed.”
“I should’ve, too. I was so mired down in my own situation I didn’t realize how bad off he was. When’s he going back to the rehab center?”
“This afternoon.” She paused. “Oh, I just remembered-before he went into surgery he told Ricky that there was some information on his laptop that ought to be forwarded to you. But Ricky forgot, and he had to go to LA this morning. He only called a while ago to tell me about it. Do you want me to go over to the rehab center and try to access it?”
“No, don’t bother. I assume when Mick’s back there he’ll send it along. Give him my love when you see him.”
“Frankly, I’d rather give him a good slap upside the head. God, I’m glad I never had children!”
“Yeah-and instead you became stepmother to six of them.”
“Independence traffic, Two-Seven-Tango, turning for final.”
“Two-Seven-Tango, Three-Eight-Niner. I’m still behind you. That’s a damn pretty plane you’ve got.”
“Thank you, Three-Eight-Niner.”
I glanced over at Lark. She had her eyes closed. She’d closed them when we’d taken off from Tufa Tower, then kept them rigidly focused on the instrument panel during most of the trip. She was capable of speech, however, and we’d discussed the scenario for our interrogation of Boz Sheppard.
Lark had spoken with her superiors and the DA in Mono County, and then the sheriff and DA in Inyo. Together they’d worked out a plan that would ensure Sheppard’s cooperation without either jurisdiction giving up very much. While we were aware that Sheppard-like any criminal or, for that matter, anyone who watched crime shows on TV-knew the good-cop bad-cop routine, very few of them failed to be rattled by it.
“Are we there yet?” Lark asked.
I leveled off, then set the plane down on the runway without so much as a bump.
“Are we-?”
“We’re there.”
“What?” She opened her eyes and looked around as I braked and turned off toward the tie-downs. “When did-?”
“That was one of my better landings. And since you had your eyes closed, you couldn’t tell where we were at.”
“No way! I could feel every motion-”
“I’ll demonstrate on the way back.”
“The hell you will!”
An Inyo County Sheriff’s Department car took us to the jail, and a guard led us to an interrogation room that was much smaller than the visiting area where I’d earlier spoken with Sheppard.
Lark pulled out a chair from the metal table and looked around. “The ambience is perfect. Very claustrophobic.”
“And scenic.” I nodded at an ugly water stain on the ceiling. “Where do you want me?”
“Stand over there by that big crack in the wall. Fold your arms and look relaxed.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Seconds later Sheppard was brought in. He looked pretty bad-drug withdrawal, I supposed. His face was pale and pinched, more like a lab rat’s than ever.
“Hello, Boz,” Lark said. “You remember me? And Ms. McCone?”
Sheppard grunted and sat down across from her.
“I’m going to be taping this session,” she said, activating the recorder on the table. “I’ve been talking with the authorities and DA’s offices down here and up in Mono. I can offer you a deal, depending on the information you’re willing to give up.”
Flicker of interest in his eyes. “Yeah? What kind of deal?”
Lark began ticking off the items on her fingers. “No charges in the Hayley Perez murder. No charges in the attack on Amy Perez-”
“Amy? She didn’t know I was the one-”
Snared. Snared and stupid. But Mono wasn’t giving up anything, because they had no evidence Boz had killed Hayley, and Amy really couldn’t identify him as the perp.
“Yes, she knows,” Lark lied. “And she’s willing to testify to that effect. On the other hand, McCone is willing to forgive you on the trespass on her ranch and assault charges. You tell us what you were looking for in Amy’s cabin, it all goes away.”
“… A letter from Miri Perez. Something Bud Smith gave Hayley. What this meeting the night she was killed was all about-the one she was gonna profit from. I tore the trailer apart, but it wasn’t there. So I figured she’d given it to Amy.”
“You have to beat up and cut Amy to search for it?” I asked.
Sheppard started. He’d forgotten I was there. “I didn’t know the little skank was in the cabin. She woke up and tried to hit me with a lamp. Real fighter, that one.”
“Don’t browbeat the man, McCone,” Lark said, glaring at me. She turned back to Sheppard. “Tell us about your history with Hayley.”
“What about the rest of my deal?”
“This information is to cement the deal with Mono.”
“Okay, okay. I met Hayley in Vegas. She was hooking.”
“And you were…?”
“Working in a casino.”
“Which one?”
“Same one she was.”
“The name?”
“I forget.”
I said, “He was probably dealing-but not cards. Or pimping. Were you her pimp, Sheppard?”
“Leave him be, McCone,” Lark said.
“He wasn’t doing anything legitimate in Vegas, that’s for sure.”
Again Lark glared at me. “Not relevant.” She turned her attention back to Sheppard. “Okay, you knew Hayley in Vegas. When?”
“When she was first there, I don’t remember how many years ago. Then I did a stretch for possession. I was railroaded.”
I said, “That’s what they all claim.”
“And after you got out?” Lark asked him.
“I decided to go to Vernon. I had connections-”
“Drug connections,” I said.
Lark gave an exasperated sigh. “You see Hayley in Vegas beforehand?”
“Yeah. I stayed with her a few days till my parole officer gave me permission to leave the state. She said she had family here and might visit me sometime. And she did-late September, I think. She needed a place to stay. She’d come up HIV-positive, was already feeling sick.”
So that was why she’d taken out the insurance policy with Amy as beneficiary. The county’s pathology reports hadn’t showed any evidence of her illness because they hadn’t been looking for it. Which meant the life-insurance policy benefiting Amy would pay off.
“And?” Lark asked.
“I let her stay. Next thing I know, she’s talking about cashing in on something, living out the rest of her life in luxury.”
“Something that was in the note Miri left for her with Bud Smith.”
“I guess.”
“Did Hayley own a gun?”
“Hayley? Jesus, no. What would she need a gun for?”
“Violent johns?” I said.
“McCone, I’m warning you!”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, Boz, do you own a gun?”
Silence.
“Part of your deal.”
“… Okay, I’ve got a thirty-two I bought off of a guy in Reno.”
“Where was this gun the night Hayley was killed?”
“… In the trailer.”
“So Hayley had access to a weapon of the caliber that killed her.”
“Yeah, she did.”
All three of us were silent. Then I said, “Don’t you want to discuss the deal you’ve got here in Inyo?”
He shot me a look of pure rage. “Who the hell’re you, coming in here and trying to take over from her?” He motioned at Lark.
“Somebody who thinks you’re pond scum. All right if I tell him about his deal down here, Lark?”
“Sure, be my guest.”
“There isn’t any.”
“But she said-”
“She said that she talked with the authorities and DA in Mono and down here. She said ‘I can offer you a deal.’ Not we-I.”
“You stone bitches!” He started to rise from his chair, but the guard, who had been standing by the door the whole time, stepped in quickly to restrain him.
Lark and I exchanged glances. Then she extracted the tape from the machine on the table, and we left Sheppard in the hands of the Inyo County authorities.
“Amazing!” Lark said. “I thought we were headed straight for Tufa Tower, but that’s June Lake down there. I didn’t even notice when you turned.”
“Because you had your eyes closed again. You didn’t notice that it was a steep bank, either.”
“No kidding.”
“Want to close your eyes one more time?”
“Uh, why?”
“It’d be interesting to know if you could tell when we were upside down.”
“No way!”
“Just one little spin.”
“Spin! Jesus, like a tailspin-?”
“Then I guess you’ll have to keep your eyes open and enjoy the scenery.”
Back at the ranch house, I found a message from Mick: “Call me ASAP. I’m at the rehab place and Nurse Ratched has confiscated my laptop. Says I can only speak to you for three minutes.”
I dialed, and a woman’s voice answered. I almost asked her if she was Nurse Ratched, then realized it was Charlotte Keim.
Well, well…
She passed me along to Mick.
“Charlotte’s forwarding you the information on Hanover that I accessed-she’s allowed my laptop-but I thought you’d want to hear this.”
“How’re you feeling?”
“Okay. But listen, they really mean it about the three minutes. What I found out is that Trevor Hanover owns property in Mono County. A lot of it-one thousand acres.” He gave me the parcel number, adding that a map was on the way via e-mail.
I booted up my laptop in preparation for Keim’s incoming file, while asking Mick more questions about his health. The nurse wrested the phone from him as the e-mail arrived.
The map showing the location of Hanover’s property didn’t really surprise me. I guess at some level I’d suspected it all along: Hanover was the owner of Rattlesnake Ranch.
A wealthy man from the East Coast, who flew to his private airstrip in his own jet. A man who had been a New York City bartender who happened to get lucky because of his ingratiating manners and impressive knowledge of finance. A man whose financial empire and private life were now crumbling.
A man who, under his real name, held a degree from a prominent Eastern business school. Who had ceased to exist shortly after attaining that degree because he couldn’t risk the future possibility of being named a rapist, if for some reason his brother decided to tell the truth.
A man who used to be called Davey Smith.
Time to proceed slowly and cautiously. Build a case that no high-priced defense attorney could tear apart.
I couldn’t confide what I knew to Lark. In spite of her elation at our handling of Boz Sheppard, the woman seemed on the ragged edge. In fact, she’d called earlier from her home to tell me her superior officer had told her to take a day off. Her voice had been slurred, and I’d heard ice tinkling in the background. I didn’t want her alcohol-impaired judgment to get in my way.
Ramon was at the stable when I went out there, cleaning King’s stall. I asked if Amy was still at his house. Yes, she was. I said I was going over there, I needed to talk with her.
Before I left, I slipped King the carrots I’d brought for him.
Amy was clad in a bathrobe that enveloped her petite frame; I assumed it was Sara’s. She sat on the living-room couch, listlessly watching a game show while her aunt bustled around in the kitchen. I turned the TV set off and sat down next to her.
“How’re you doing?”
She shrugged.
“I hear everything went well with Kristen Lark.”
“Yeah, I like her.”
“I understand Hayley gave you a letter for safekeeping.”
“More like a big, thick envelope.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
“One thing in the envelope is a letter Boz Sheppard was looking for when he came to your cabin and cut you. I think he was going to look for it here too, when he saw the light on in the stable, spooked the horse, and hit me. He didn’t find it either place. Where is it?”
“… At Mrs. Ivins’ house. Dana Ivins, who runs Friends Helping Friends. I knew it wouldn’t be safe at Willow Grove or here, so I snuck over there and hid it in her garage.”
“Why didn’t you entrust it to Dana?”
“She’s nosy. I knew she’d read it.”
“But you didn’t read it.”
“I told you no. Hayley asked me not to.” Her eyes welled up and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I was upset with Hayley when I found out she’d been hooking all those years, and when I found out she was living with that loser Boz I felt even worse. But I still loved her, I would never pry into her private business. Now I wish I had; maybe she wouldn’t’ve gotten killed.”
I didn’t tell her that Hayley probably would have died of AIDS anyway since she apparently had forgone treatment. Amy didn’t need that kind of memory of her big sister.
Instead I said, “The other thing that’s in the envelope is a life-insurance policy Hayley took out on herself, with you as beneficiary. Since she was murdered, the double indemnity clause goes into effect. Eventually you’ll receive a hundred thousand dollars.”
Amy stared at me, her mouth opening in a little O.
“It’s up to you what you do with the money,” I went on. “Blow it on expensive cars and clothes and bad boyfriends. Or use it to give yourself a much better life than your mother and sister had.”
For a moment she looked away at the blank TV screen, envisioning any number of scenarios. Then: “I could finish up my GED and go to college.”
“Yes.”
“I could do something that would’ve made Mama and Hayley really proud of me.”
“That, too.”
Amy put her hands over her face and shook her head. “Oh, God!”
“What?”
“Oh, God, I’m all of a sudden so afraid.”
“Of what?”
“I’m afraid I’ll fuck up like I have over and over again.”
I grasped her wrists and pulled her hands from her face, looked into her eyes. “You have Ramon and Sara. You have Hy and me. You can be sure if you start to fuck up, one or the other-or all four of us-will tell you.”
Dana Ivins opened the side door to her garage, snapped on an overhead light. I followed her inside.
“There’s the storage cabinet,” she said, motioning to a hulking white assemble-it-yourself piece of the sort you can buy at Home Depot. Its doors were misaligned: one was at least two inches higher than the other.
I went over and reached behind the cabinet. Wedged against the wall beams exactly where Amy had described to me was a thick nine-by-seven envelope.
When I pulled it out, Ivins said, “Why, for God’s sake, did she hide it there, rather than give it to me? I could’ve put it in my safe.”
I shrugged. “She’s young and she wasn’t thinking too clearly, I suppose. Or maybe she thought your safe was too obvious a place and this envelope’s presence might’ve made you a target.”
“Amy always was a considerate girl. I’m so happy she’s safe with her uncle. What’s in the envelope?”
And she’s right, you are a nosy woman.
“I don’t know. Amy just asked me to retrieve it.”
“Maybe, for her sake, we should open it.”
“No, it’s her private property.”
“But it could shed some light on these killings-”
“If it can, Amy will turn the information over to the sheriff’s department. She’s been talking with them.”
“About what?”
“I haven’t been in on the conversations.”
Ivins looked disappointed. For a person who insisted on her organization’s right to confidentiality, she certainly played fast and loose with other people’s.
I drove a couple of blocks along the main street before I pulled to the curb and opened the envelope, as Amy had given me permission to do. It contained the insurance policy Hayley had taken out with her sister as beneficiary, and a smaller pink envelope with Hayley’s name written on it in erratic, badly formed penmanship. It had previously been opened, then closed with the flap slipped inside. I slid the letter out.
Dear Hayley,
I know you never want to lay eyes on me again and I dont blame you. I been a bad mother and a bad woman but that dont mean I dont love you. Bud Smith has been good to me. So I’m leaveing this with him in case you ever come back home or he hears where you are. What you need to know is Jimmy Perez wasnt your father. I was raped when I was 13 by a bastard named Davey Smith. Thats Bud’s little brother. He got off scotch free because he was some kind of genius and Bud took the rap for him so he could go away to school. My family wouldnt let me have an abortion, but they treeted me real bad so I ran away and had you. And I kept you-thats how much I loved you. The other thing you need to know is Davey Smith is a rich man now. Goes by the name of Trevor Hanover and lives back east someplace tho he has a big ranch outside of Vernon. Rattlesnake its called. I found out from the woman who cooks for him when he’s there-Linda Jeffrey, she lives on Yosemite Street. You can ask her if you want to. The way she knew he was Bud’s brother is that Bud went there to dinner once and she heard them fighting. I guess Davey tried to give him money, but he wouldnt take it. Bud told him to put the money in the bank for you and hire a lawyer to help you out because you were bound to get in trouble in Vegas. I guess you must of kept in touch with Bud because he knew where you were. But baby, Davey owes you more than that. Talk to Bud and have him set up a meeting with Davey. Your his daughter. You have rights, you claim them. I know I’ll never see you again baby, but you deserve a good life.
All my love,
Mama
Okay-slowly, cautiously. First I’d talk with this Linda Jeffrey.
Her tidy home was in the center of one-block Yosemite Street. A TV flickered in the front window. I rang the bell. After a moment the porch light came on, and a tall, slender woman in sweats, whose gray hair was pulled back into a ponytail, looked out at me.
“Yes?”
I said my name, gave her my card.
“Oh, you’re Hy Ripinsky’s wife. You’ve been helping out the Perezes. Come in, please.”
The room she led me to was cluttered, but in a clean, comfortable way. Books and magazines stacked on tables, a hand-knitted afghan thrown carelessly over the large sofa, videotapes and DVDs piled high atop the TV. Jeffrey turned off the program she’d been watching and said, “Sit anywhere, but before you do, look for cats.”
The chair I went to did contain a cat-a light-gray shorthair, whose sleepy gaze dared me to move it. I did, picking it up and setting it on my lap; instantly it curled into a ball and started purring.
“They run our lives, don’t they?” its owner said, taking a place on the sofa and pulling the afghan around her.
“Yes, they do.”
“I figured you for a cat person. And I assume you’re here to ask about what goes on at Rattlesnake Ranch.”
Her statement surprised me. It showed, because she added, “I know who Trevor Hanover is-or was-and I’ve been debating whether to go to the sheriff’s department about him. Your visit has more or less resolved that issue.”
“Why were you only ‘debating’?”
“For two reasons. When Mr. Hanover hired me to cook for the family, he had me sign a contract with a confidentiality clause. I was not to talk about him, his family, or anything that went on at the ranch.”
“But you’ve already broken that agreement by talking to Miri Perez.”
“How do you…? Well, that doesn’t matter. I did it for Miri’s safety; it was only right that she know her real rapist had property so close by.”
“And the second reason?”
“I don’t really know anything-at least not about the times when Hayley, Tom Mathers, or Bud Smith were killed. The way my arrangement with Mr. Hanover worked, someone would call and tell me when the family would be there and what to prepare. But as far as I know, the Hanovers haven’t visited the ranch for five or six months.”
“Who else works there while they’re gone?”
“My neighbor: she did the housekeeping. But Mr. Han-over called her in October and told her her services would no longer be needed. He gave no reason, but did send a large severance check. She used the money to take a trip to Philadelphia to spend Thanksgiving with her daughter. And there was a gardener and handyman, but he recently moved to Arizona.”
“How recently?”
“A month ago. Around the time Mr. Hanover fired my neighbor. I don’t know who’s doing the outdoor work out there now.”
The timing was interesting. Another generous severance check?
“Did the Hanovers always arrive by private jet?”
“Always. He’s a pilot, you know.”
“Did you ever hear anything that would explain why he chose to buy a ranch here?”
“I once heard him tell his daughter Alyssa that he’d grown up in Vernon and had always loved it here, but then his family moved to Nevada and his life was never right again. He said he was happy to come back as an important man to the place where he was born.”
“But he bought the ranch in strict secrecy and never showed his face in town.”
“Probably afraid somebody would find out who he really was. And he seemed content sitting out on that big old terrace and looking down on Vernon. I guess it was enough for him.”
Until his daughter Hayley showed up and wanted him to acknowledge her.
“When did Bud Smith come to the ranch for dinner with Hanover?”
“Two years ago, the last Saturday in July. I remember because it was quite an evening…”
It had started out pleasantly enough, Linda Jeffrey told me. Hanover had been alone on the trip and in an expansive mood, ordering her to serve special hors d’oeuvres and wine on the terrace; the dinner menu was similarly elaborate. Bud Smith, who was Linda’s insurance broker, arrived about five o’clock and was given a tour of the property by Hanover. Bud called Hanover Davey, and Jeffrey assumed it was a nickname. The two men seemed reserved but were getting along well enough through drinks and hors d’oeuvres and the soup course of the dinner.
“Then their voices got louder. I was shocked to hear Hanover call Bud his brother. Hanover wanted to pay Bud half a million dollars for what he called ‘his trouble.’ Bud said he preferred to earn an honest living, that no amount of money could make up for those lost years in prison.”
Hanover then began pressuring Smith to take the money, and Smith blew up at him.
“He said he had been in touch with Izzy Darkmoon’s and Davey’s child from the rape, Hayley Perez. She called Bud periodically to ask him about her little sister, Amy. Bud told Hanover to put the half million in trust for Hayley and also retain a good lawyer for her, because she was a prostitute in Las Vegas and headed for serious trouble.”
“What was Hanover’s reaction?”
“He said he didn’t want anything to do with his trailer-trash bastard. That’s when Bud threw a glass of wine in his brother’s face. He told him he’d better establish the trust and retain the lawyer as soon as he went back to New York, and provide him with confirmation. Otherwise he’d go straight to the authorities over in Nevada and tell them the truth about the rape. And then he stormed out of the house.”
“What did Hanover do?”
“Wiped the wine off and called for me to serve the next course. He asked if I’d heard any of their conversation, and I said no, I’d been listening to my iPod. He believed me because there’s a light in the kitchen that flashes when somebody presses a button in the dining room, and a lot of times I do have my iPod on while I work. So I served him the roast. He didn’t eat much or ask for the dessert course. Afterward he gave me a hundred percent tip on top of my usual fee, which is fairly generous to begin with.”
“To ensure your silence, in case you hadn’t been listening to music.”
“Yeah.” Linda Jeffrey smiled wryly. “But me, I’m like Bud: I prefer to make an honest living. I wrote a check next morning to Friends Helping Friends for the amount of the tip, and then I went to see Miri Perez.”
So Linda Jeffrey hadn’t been summoned to Rattlesnake Ranch in five to six months. And the housekeeper had been let go and the handyman and gardener had suddenly moved to Arizona.
I had nothing if I couldn’t somehow prove Hanover was at the ranch on the date Hayley died.
Who would have the information I needed?
Amos Hinsdale. He practically lived in that shack at Tufa Tower. Monitored the UNICOM constantly. No one in a private jet could land in this territory without Amos knowing about it-even if the pilot didn’t broadcast to other traffic.
Now, if I could only get the old coot to talk with me…
“Canada Dry ginger ale,” the bartender at Hobo’s said. “Amos hasn’t had a drink of alcohol in his life that I know of. But he comes in here every Saturday night and always has three or four Canada Drys. Likes company and conversation that one day of the week. I keep a supply of the stuff on hand for him.”
“Would you sell me a cold six-pack?”
“Sure. You planning on seducing him?” He winked.
“If only what I have in mind were that simple.”
Hinsdale gave me a suspicious look when he opened the door of the shack at the airport. “We’re closed, lady pilot.”
What on earth could be closed? There were no avgas or mechanic’s services here, just the UNICOM and a rudimentary landing-light system that had ceased to work reliably years ago.
I held up the six-pack of Canada Dry. “I thought we might share a couple. It’s my favorite, and I hear it’s yours, too.”
Now he scowled. “I’d think a woman like you, married to Ripinsky, would prefer beer.”
“I like a brew sometimes, but not tonight.”
“So you decided to visit an old man and sip some ginger ale. Hard to believe.”
“Hell, Amos, you’ve nailed me. I need help.”
“Something wrong with that plane of Ripinsky’s? What did you do to it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with the plane. But something’s very wrong in this town.”
His eyes narrowed, wrinkles deepening around them. “What d’you mean-wrong?” But his downturned mouth told me he already knew the answer.
“Hayley Perez, her sister Amy, and her mother Miri. Tom Mathers and Bud Smith. And a private jet that landed at Rattlesnake Ranch around the day Hayley was murdered.”
His features seemed to fold inward, and his eyes grew bleak.
“Please, Mr. Hinsdale…”
He opened the door wider, motioned me in. “I’ll take that Canada Dry, thank you.”
Surprisingly, the shack was comfortably furnished, with two overstuffed chairs beside the table that held the UNICOM. Yellowing rental forms for Amos’ clunker planes, scribbled slips of paper, old newspapers and magazines, and even older aviation sectionals were scattered beside the unit.
I sat in the chair he indicated, opened two cans of ginger ale and handed him one. He sipped and stared silently at the opposite wall, where a framed photograph of a young man in a U.S. Navy flight suit was hung; he stood beside a fighter plane, his gaze stern, jaw thrust out aggressively.
Amos caught me looking at it and said, “Me. Down at Miramar before we shipped out for ’Nam on the Enterprise. December second, 1965.”
“You fly a lot of missions?”
“Yeah. I was one of the lucky ones: I lived to tell about them. A lot of my buddies didn’t.”
“My father was a Navy man-NCO. In fact, we lived in San Diego and could hear the planes out of Miramar.” The sonic boom from one had cracked our swimming pool so badly that my parents had filled it with dirt and turned it into a vegetable garden.
Amos nodded absently, sipped more ginger ale. “Wasn’t a private jet.”
“What…? Oh, you mean at Rattlesnake Ranch.”
“That’s what you’re asking about, isn’t it? That jet, I don’t even have to see it approach the ranch; I can hear it. You wouldn’t think my hearing could be so keen after all these years around aircraft, but it is. No, that day I was standing in the door trying to work myself up to cutting the grass alongside the runway when this Cessna 152 flew right over the field. Damned low, and the pilot didn’t even announce himself to traffic. UNICOM was dead silent. I watched the plane make its descent at the ranch.”
“You get the plane’s number?”
“I did. Was going to report it to the FAA, but”-he shrugged-“things get away from me these days.” His eyes strayed to the photograph on the opposite wall. “It’s hard to admit that you’re not as energetic or clearheaded as you used to be. But it’s a fact, you can’t challenge it.”
“It was clearheaded to take down the Cessna’s number. You still have it?”
“Somewhere.” He sifted through the items scattered on the table, came up with a blue Post-it note. He was more clearheaded than he gave himself credit for; I was willing to bet he knew where every item in that clutter was. “Yours,” he said, handing it to me. “How about we have another ginger ale?”
“Sure,” I said, surprised at how mellow he’d become toward me. I popped two more tabs, passed a can over to him.
“How’d you get interested in flying?” he asked.
“Ripinsky. I’d been at the controls of a plane a few times, years before I met him, when I was dating a Navy pilot stationed at Alameda, but I didn’t enjoy it all that much. He was a hotdog pilot and liked to scare people.”
“Guy was an asshole then. Ripinsky breaks a lot of rules, but never at the expense of a novice passenger.”
“That’s true. And he’s a terrific pilot. Once I got comfortable flying with him, I asked him to teach me-he’s got his CFI, you know. But he didn’t think it would be good for the relationship, so he found me an instructor near San Francisco. And I’ve been happily flying ever since.”
Amos pursed his lips; I suspected he was trying not to say something. But the desire to speak won out: “You been flying happily and beautifully. Nobody around here-male or female-makes the kind of landings and takeoffs you do.”
I was genuinely touched, but I said lightly, “Not even Ripinsky?”
“Not even him. And I’m not bad-mouthing your husband, because he admits you’re the better pilot.”
Somehow I-and Canada Dry-had won grouchy Amos Hinsdale over. I’d been promoted from “lady pilot” to just plain “pilot”!
From the FAA’s Internet site, I found the Cessna whose number Hinsdale had noted down belonged to a flight service in Fresno. I called the service, got a machine. By then it was nearly eleven. Hy hadn’t called today. No one had, except for Patrick and Ted with terse reports they’d left on the machine. Hy’s silence didn’t bother me; I could sense him urging me on.
I flipped the TV on to the national news. The recent happenings in Mono County had become a major story. Apparently they had been for nearly two days, when the media smelled links between the murders. Come to think of it, I’d seen a CBS van in town the previous afternoon, but had been too distracted to take much notice. Tonight’s follow-up said the sheriff’s department was searching for both Bud Smith’s boat trailer and the keys to his Forester, so far with little success.
After watching the weather report-more snow-I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to think.
Trevor Hanover-wherever he was-would be monitoring the news. He’d be aware of the interest the cases had generated. But would he suspect someone had also linked the events to him?
Maybe, maybe not.
I began to construct my view of what had happened.
Hanover had been intimidated by his brother Bud’s threat to tell the truth about Miri’s rape to the Nevada authorities. He’d retained the attorney for Hayley and probably put the half million dollars he’d offered Bud in trust. When Hayley returned to Vernon and took out the life-insurance policy, Bud gave her her mother’s letter. After reading it, she asked Bud to set up a meeting with her father; again the threat hanging over Hanover had worked, and he’d agreed. Perhaps he’d expected some kind of trouble, since he’d flown his jet to Fresno and rented a small plane that wouldn’t be recognized as belonging to him.
Still, I couldn’t believe even as cold and calculating a man as Hanover was reputed to be would have planned his own daughter’s murder.
An accident, then. Hanover refusing Hayley’s demands for money and recognition as his child. Hayley taking out Boz’s.32. A struggle, and the gun going off and killing Hayley. Happens all the time when irresponsible people untrained in the use of firearms have access to them.
Hanover left the scene, taking the gun with him. And someone saw him leaving…
Tom Mathers. T.C. had told me her husband had a woman friend in that trailer park-a woman friend who’d left to care for her supposedly ailing mother shortly after Hy and I found Tom’s body. Mathers could have heard the shot and followed Hanover. After that, he did some checking and made a phone call to the ranch, thinking he had a big deal going.
Blackmail-the fool’s crime.
From this point on, my thinking became more speculative.
Bud Smith knew as soon as he heard the news of Hayley’s death that his brother had killed her, but for some reason he didn’t go to the authorities. Lack of proof? Shock? The habit of lifelong loyalty and protectiveness? The hope he could persuade Davey to turn himself in? Family ties could be that strong: I’d seen it over and over again, in my own life and those of others.
Did Bud try to talk with his brother, but found himself unable to because Hanover had forted himself up at the ranch?
No way to tell.
On November second, a meeting between Hanover and Mathers at the lava fields. More demands on Hanover. His financial empire is crumbling, his wife has left him, he’s killed his daughter, and now this. He snaps, and when Mathers turns away from him, he shoots him in the back with Sheppard’s.32.
Premeditated? Yes. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the meeting to turn out that way, but the possibility must have been in the back of his mind, or he wouldn’t have brought along the gun.
Now he’s panicked. He’s in the lava fields with a dead man and two vehicles. He doesn’t want to leave the body there-the proximity to his ranch. He can put the body in its owner’s truck, drive it to some remote place, and dispose of it, but then how the hell does he get back?
The answer is the same as it always has been with the former Davey Smith: he calls on his big brother Bud for help.
Bud comes to the ranch in response to Davey’s plea, not even taking time to unhitch his boat trailer from the Forester. But when Davey tells him what he wants done, Bud flat-out refuses. Davey’s killed his own daughter as well as Tom Mathers, and Bud confronts him with the facts, threatens to call the sheriff’s department. Maybe he even goes to the phone.
It’s the first time Bud has ever refused Davey a way out. Davey snaps again, shoots his brother in the back.
Now he’s got two bodies on his hands. The one in the desert-which he’s zipped into a sleeping bag from the victim’s own truck-doesn’t matter, he decides, since the only other people who knew he was at his ranch are also dead. And the boat trailer provides a perfect solution for hiding his brother’s corpse: put Bud’s body into his-Hanover’s-own car, the car onto the trailer, drive the Forester up to a remote spot in Toiyabe National Forest, dispose of both. Hitch the trailer to his car-because a vehicle with a boat trailer and no boat would attract a lot more attention when found in the forest than the SUV of a hiker who apparently went astray-and return to the ranch. Then get the hell out of there.
If that was what happened, the trailer might still be at the ranch. Maybe the keys to Bud Smith’s Forester, too. Since Hanover had driven it into the woods, he might have pocketed them.
And the ranch house was a probable crime scene. There could be material evidence-blood, fibers, fingerprints…
So?
Check out the property from the air, make sure it was deserted. And then get onto it and into the house. Look for something that would give Lark probable cause to obtain a search warrant.
Of course, those actions were totally illegal. Trespassing, breaking and entering. I could lose my private investigator’s license, go to jail. And I didn’t want to hinder the authorities in building a case against Hanover. While Lark was willing to bend the law when circumstances merited it, no way she’d be able to get a warrant based on information gleaned during an illegal search.
Well, what if my plane’s engine went out, and I had to make an emergency landing on the ranch? Wasn’t able to make radio contact with anyone? Was forced to hike to the house to ask to use the phone? Found no one there, but looked through the windows and saw something suspicious? Left and reported it to Lark?
Lark didn’t know enough about planes to realize that when you had an engine out, it didn’t suddenly start up again. She’d assume it was like a car’s flooded motor. And the roughness of the landing could explain the loss of radio contact.
Thin, but Lark wouldn’t be inclined to ask too many questions if a multiple murderer was brought to justice as a result.
Okay. I’d sleep on it. But first I’d run a search for the license plate number of Bud Smith’s boat trailer.