Defiled: The Sequel to Nailed Featuring John Tall Wolf (A Ron Ketchum Mystery Book 2) (5 page)

Not at all your cookie-cutter fed.

“So what’d you do with the bomb you found?” Tall Wolf asked.

Ron gave him the run down of what he’d done earlier that morning and where the bomb was now, minus the detonating device that he’d thrown into the lake.

“The timer malfunctioned with three seconds left on the clock?” Tall Wolf asked.

“Yeah.” The memory sent a shiver through Ron.

“You have a history of being that lucky?”

“Once or twice in tight spots, but hardly a history.”

“Huh,” Tall Wolf grunted.

“Something doesn’t seem right about my being alive?”

“It’s not a matter of being right, more a question of what are the odds.”

Put that way, Ron had to think the special agent had a point.

He should have been the first victim on a long list of casualties.

Before Ron could dwell on that, Tall Wolf asked, “You mind if I call some people in to take the bomb off your hands? Check it out. Dispose of any radioactive material for you.”

“I’d be greatly relieved. Thankful, too. But you’re not talking about the FBI, are you?”

John Tall Wolf looked at the chief and smiled.

“What, you don’t get along with those fine fellows either?”

“It’s not just me?” Ron asked.

“We get all this sorted out, give Darton Blake another call. He can tell you. But no, I didn’t have the FBI in mind just now. I was thinking of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with an assist from some of your state cops.”

Ron pulled into the driveway of Goldstrike’s Municipal Complex, stopped in front of police headquarters.

“I can live with that. So what’s your story? You work for the BIA but you’re doing a job for the EPA. And you have contacts with other federal agencies. I don’t get it.”

“It’s like this,” Tall Wolf said.” A lot of the people who’ve been here in North America from the very early days think they’re going to reclaim the land by and by. When they do, they want it to be in good shape. So they can go back to the old ways. Given that point of view, the BIA lends my services out where they’re needed. Sometimes to the EPA. Sometimes elsewhere. But I’m not supposed to talk about most of it.”

Ron gave his new colleague a look. “Okay, but the FBI is still known to bigfoot cases, and they don’t give a damn whose toes they step on.”

Tall Wolf nodded. “They might drop in on us. But they’re wary about the BIA in general and me in particular. My boss has more clout in Washington than you might think. And I’d bet your boss holds some sway, too.”

Great, Ron thought. The guy just hit town and he already knew how things were wired.

“Yeah, he does, and I have to go see him now.”

He didn’t have to say he needed to go alone. The special agent got out of the SUV, but he looked back in and said, “We’ll keep in touch?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

The first thing Ron noticed as he turned onto Clay’s driveway was the Pinnacle sign. It was both an overt warning and subliminal advertising. It said to people, “You’ve got a nice place with nice things? You want to keep them that way? Give us a call.” Ron had a comfortable modern cabin with a mortgage subsidized by the town government. He depended on good locks for his security.

That and a sign of his own telling people who resided there.

Even the most demented burglar didn’t want the chief of police pissed at him.

Ron pulled up in front of the mayor’s front door. He picked up his department iPad and googled Pinnacle Security. The company’s website informed him that it operated coast to coast. It didn’t have offices in every state, but anywhere there was a significant cluster of real money, Pinnacle was nearby. There were several additional links that commented on the company’s services, pro and con, but before Ron could skim any of them, Clay Steadman opened his front door. Walt Ketchum stood at the mayor’s shoulder.

The old man had a bruise on his forehead.

Ron could hardly wait to find out what that was all about.

Clay ushered Ron inside and gave him a can of sparkling water, didn’t bother offering the chief a glass. Used to be Clay would have a can of domestic beer at brunch or anytime thereafter. Now, he was drinking water, too. Uncarbonated from a plastic bottle. Walt, showing he was made of sterner stuff, had ice tea. Ron couldn’t smell any booze in the glass.

The three of them could form an auxiliary to a WCTU chapter.

Ron took an easy chair opposite the sofa where the other two men sat.

He asked his father, “What happened?”

“Bar fight.”

“I thought I —”

Walt told his son, “I never threw a punch.”

“How about a bottle or a chair?”

The old man laughed and looked at Clay.

“The boy knows his father.”

The corners of the movie icon’s mouth rose a mirthful millimeter.

Turning back to Ron, Walt said, “Truth is, son, the only move I made was strictly defensive. I ducked a punch aimed at my nose. In the old days I could have slipped it completely. Now, the best I could do was lower my noggin and let my thick skull take the blow.”

It was Ron’s turn to smile, but he repressed it.

His father had taught him long ago that you hit a hard surface, like a forehead, with a soft one, like the palm of your hand. You hit a soft surface, like a nose, with a hard one, like knuckles. Doing the opposite in either case was asking for trouble.

If the fight had gone the way his father said, the old bastard was in the clear.

“How’d that work out for the other guy?” Ron asked.

“He howled and hopped up and down. That was any sign, not too good.”

“And who was the other guy, if you caught his name?”

“Oh, I know who he is … or was I should say.”

“The man died?” Ron did
not
like the sound of that.

“Well, that’s what Clay tells me you told him.”

Ron felt like someone had just hit him — with a baseball bat.

“You got into a fight with Hale Tibbot?”

“Only after he said he was going to fire you when he became mayor. Said he didn’t want some white-trash, red-necked cop from L.A. running his police force. He wasn’t speaking to me directly but he was loud enough that everyone in the place could hear him. At that point, I had to inform him that he wasn’t in charge of anyone’s police force that I knew of, and I was the white-trash, red-necked cop in the Ketchum family, and you were fair to middling reformed. I also said if he wanted to badmouth you some more he’d better take his comments elsewhere.”

“And?” Ron asked.

“Well, he must’ve thought I was just a foolish old man, couldn’t do him any harm. He came swaggering my way and I got up from my barstool. Must admit he stood about as tall as me, but I doubted he could play his eighteen holes of golf without riding a cart. I told him attempting any physical contact with me would be a worse mistake than zipping up before he tucked back in.”

For the first time in Ron’s memory, he saw Clay Steadman smile broadly.

The actor was seeing the scene play out in his mind.

Liked the dialogue, too.

Ron sighed and played his part. “Did he give you some corny reply first or just take his swing?”

“He threw what he probably thought was a straight right. Had a real wobble to it, though. I think the man had been drinking.”

Ron told his father, “You could’ve swatted the punch aside. Or just caught his fist and pulled a finger out of joint.”

“Might’ve,” Walt admitted. “But if I did that first thing, he might have been tempted to throw a left. If I did that second thing you just mentioned, me being an ex-cop and all, somebody might’ve accused me of doing more than I needed to. Filed a charge against me. Maybe a damn civil suit, too. So I just dropped my head and let him bust his hand on it. Hard to find fault with that, at least in a court of law.”

“You didn’t have to do anything at all,” Ron said.

“I didn’t want to see you lose your job, son, especially to some tub of pus like that. Of course, now that I’ve had some time to consider matters, if you think Clay Steadman might’ve had something to do with that prick’s death, maybe you’re not the cop I thought you were.”

Clay felt it was time to step out of his director’s role.

“No, Walt,” he said, “if I thought Hale Tibbot might actually have beat me in the election, I might have killed him.”

That admission led Ron to wonder how much Clay had liked his chances in the election.

Walt replied, “All right, I can see that. But if you want to go down that road, maybe
I
thought he might beat you. And I killed him to save Ron’s job.”

Ron wondered if the two old bastards had worked up this comedy act before he arrived or they were just ad-libbing.

Before Ron left, he told his father, “Get your head X-rayed. See if there’s any further brain damage.”

On the way back to his office, Ron pulled to the curb on Lake Shore Drive and looked through the chain link fence surrounding the construction site of the new Jade Emperor Hotel. The moneymen behind the project were Chinese out of Hong Kong. According to the story in the
Prospector,
the developers had to abide by Goldstrike’s building code which among other things said no structure could rise higher than five stories. Vertical prominence in town was reserved to the mountains.

The architect’s drawings that had appeared in the newspaper showcased a pleasing design with an emerald-cut hub and two wings flowing from it in subtle arcs that followed the shoreline. The landscaping was worthy of real Chinese royalty. There were gardens, a courtyard and a lakefront promenade that would be open to the public.

If the town was going to allow more commercial development, the Jade Emperor had certainly set the bar high. Thing was, the
Prospector
noted this was the first big project the mayor and town council had approved in fifteen years. It was almost as if the local power structure had advance word of the arrival of Hale Tibbot and knew he would run for mayor on a platform of large-scale development.

That and property tax relief.

Ron thought of other resort towns he’d visited. He’d made a handful of trips to the hotel zone in Cancun. The white beaches and the blue Caribbean were spectacular, but you could barely see them from the Boulevard Kukulkan, the hotel frontage road, because the high-rises were built cheek to jowl, jamming construction into every possible inch of waterfront.

The chief imagined such unbridled development along Lake Adeline.

The thought was enough to make him shudder.

Natural beauty would be blighted. Traffic on mountain roads with no room for expansion would become a nightmare. Air and water pollution would skyrocket.

Crime would climb alongside the other social deficits.

More people equaled more crime. It was that simple.

Even the Amish were having their problems lately.

The Jade Emperor was limited to two hundred and fifty rooms.

In mocking Clay Steadman’s “small-thinking stewardship” of Goldstrike, Hale Tibbot had said he wanted to open a “skyline” of hotels, each with ten times the number of the Jade Emperor’s rooms. He’d said with the new hotel revenues not only would residential taxes plunge, the locals would also get more and better municipal services and amenities.

The classic resort destination strategy of gouging visitors to the max would rule.

Ron put his patrol unit into gear and entered the flow of reasonable traffic.

He thought Goldstrike was much better off without Hale Tibbot.

Too damn bad he had to be the one to catch the man’s killer.

Especially if that guy turned out to be his father or his boss.

Sergeant Stanley met Ron at his office door.

He seemed excited, and it took a lot to ruffle the sergeant.

“Chief, I just took a phone call.”

“The FBI?” Ron asked.

“Someone claiming responsibility for the bomb.”

Ron looked at his watch: Eleven-fifteen. The mayor had yet to go on television and make his announcement. Word of mouth, originating from Roger and Brant Sutherland and, yeah, the cops who knew about the bomb, would have spread the news somewhat, but the majority of people in town still had to be wondering why they’d been kept indoors that morning.

“In my office,” Ron said.

They went inside and Sergeant Stanley closed the door behind him.

Taking his seat, Ron said, “Okay, Caz, what did you hear?”

“It was a man’s voice, electronically distorted. He said the bomb should have gone off. He said we wouldn’t be so lucky next time.”

“Just the threat, no demands?” Ron asked.

“There was one. All lakefront development has to stop immediately. If he sees that, no more trouble.”

“He’s in town?”

Sergeant Stanley said, “Call came from Truckee.”

The California town was forty miles away. Fairly close. But not a reach out and grab the guy distance.

“Disposable phone?”

“We’re checking the number, but that’d be my guess.”

Ron said, “The only major construction project going on now is the Jade Emperor.”

He and Oliver had discussed whether the Chinese-financed hotel would bring any Asian criminals along for the ride. Was that what the bomb on the lake was all about? Some rival of the hotel’s backers posing as eco-terrorists to cause problems for an enemy?

He’d have to ask Clay Steadman, one of his suspects, what he knew about the people financing the new hotel. The mayor wouldn’t have let them go forward without checking them out, would he?

Maybe. If he’d known Hale Tibbot was coming to town, and felt he had to show people what responsible development looked like. Five stories or lower. Beautifully designed and landscaped. With public access to the shoreline.

Then again, if Clay was involved in Tibbot’s death, the SOB might mislead him.

“Chief?” Sergeant Stanley said.

Ron emerged from his reverie. “Sorry.”

“I was just saying. If the creep on the phone was serious about more attacks, he wouldn’t have to set foot in town to see if work on the Jade Emperor keeps going. He could send a scout on drive-by and get the word.”

“You’re right. But put two of our people somewhere near the construction site anyway. If they see someone who looks suspicious, bring him in for questioning. I’ll talk to him.”

“No formal arrest?”

“Not without cause.” Ron paused and changed the subject. “The mayor told you to sound the all clear?”

Sergeant Stanley nodded. He knew it bothered the chief when the mayor went around the chain of command and spoke directly to any of his people. Gave cops orders. But both the chief and the sergeant knew who had the final word in Goldstrike.

Sergeant Stanley said, “Once I told him that no other bomb, cache of weapons or even propaganda material had been found in any public space, the mayor said do it.”

“Any or all of those things could be under someone’s roof,” Ron said.

The sergeant nodded. “Sure, today or any other day. But what can we do? Stop by everyone’s house on a daily basis? Stick our noses into people’s business?”

That would be pretty much what it would it take, Ron thought. There might be some cops who thought having a police state would be a fine idea, but most wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Only reason Ron had even made the comment was —

“Chief, what would you have done if you were mayor?” Sergeant Stanley asked. “If you were in Clay’s shoes and someone else was doing your job, would you be able to keep your hands off the police department?”

Ron smiled ruefully. “I’d probably get hip deep into public library policy.”

The sergeant laughed.

“But no way in hell am I ever going into politics,” Ron said.

Sergeant Stanley kept his own counsel on that subject.

All he said was, “We’re good, you and me, Chief?”

Ron nodded. Casimir Stanley was indispensable to the department.

And Clay Steadman was a force of nature. If Ron wanted to keep his job, he had to work under the prevailing conditions. Things got to the point he couldn’t do that, he’d move on.

He asked the sergeant, “Do you know if Special Agent Tall Wolf called someone about picking up the bomb?”

“It’s gone. He had a special truck from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission out here in nothing flat, like he had it waiting around a bend in the road.”

Maybe he had, Ron thought.

“A security escort from the CHP arrived and off they went.”

The chief said, “Happy to see our federal and state tax dollars at work.”

“Speaking about outside help,” Sergeant Stanley said, “after talking to Doc Ryman, I put in a call to the county medical examiner. She’ll do the autopsy on Mr. Tibbot tomorrow.”

“Was there any next of kin to notify on Tibbot?”

“Three ex-wives and a corporation counsel. I went with the lawyer.”

Ron said, “Smart. Did Benny Marx write up his report?”

“Just the summary so far. He said it was the neatest crime scene he’d ever seen or even read about. He’s checking the state and federal databases to see if there are any other cases where a killer poked a hole in someone and didn’t leave a drop of blood behind.”

“No vampires, please,” Ron said.

“I’ll make a note,” Sergeant Stanley said. “Will there be anything else, Chief?”

Ron asked if someone could get him a chicken sandwich and a soda. It’d been a long time since breakfast. He hoped he could get some food down and settled before the mayor came on TV and let everyone know that someone had tried to destroy the town that morning.

Had come within three seconds of succeeding.

The news would go viral immediately.

Could Tall Wolf, the mayor or anyone else keep the FBI out once that happened?

A second thought jolted the chief.

Would the mayor also reveal that Hale Tibbot had been murdered?

Odds were he would.

Maybe, Ron thought, his job had already lost its charm.