Dove in the Window (37 page)

“No ... yes ... well, sort of. You know the cops suspect Wade. I’m just trying to get him back home to his wife and kids and make sure whoever did this to Shelby pays.” I didn’t want to go into how I felt partially responsible for her death.

“The mister, he’s not likin‘ it, no, sir, I bet.”

“You’d win that bet for sure, D-Daddy. Thanks for your help.”

He stuck his hammer in his leather tool belt. “Don’t need no gun, me. Craftsman upside the head do just fine.”

I laughed and patted his arm. “Thank goodness it didn’t come to that.”

The rodeo grounds were only a mile or so up the road from the folk art museum. By the time I arrived, the dirt and gravel parking lot was so crowded with people that I didn’t worry for one moment about being alone. Miguel, one of Elvia’s brothers, and a young blond female officer I knew slightly, Bliss Girard, were stationed at the opening of the parking lot.

I rolled down my window, nodded at Bliss, and asked Miguel, “Where’s the action, Officer?”

“Lupe’s run out of tamales once already, so you’d better hotfoot it over there if you want any,” he said, resting his forearms on the window edge and leaning into the cab.
“El Patrón
is around somewhere.”

“I’ll find him. Have fun.”

“I will as soon as my shift ends at ...” He checked his large black watch. “Eight o‘clock.”

I stood outside the rodeo ring, studying the list of evening events—the trick riding show, the pig races, dancing by native Chumash Indians, and then a concert by a local band, The San Celina Range Riders. I wandered over to the carnival grounds where the smell of cotton candy; hot dogs; fried tacos; and barbecued tri-tip, a San Celina staple, seduced my tastebuds. The flashing lights of the concession booths, the cajoling shout of the carnival barkers urging me to win a faded stuffed animal with “one thin dime,” and the exhilarating screams from the people riding the neon-lit Tilt-a-Whirl and Haunted House rides brought back fond memories of when I was one of those teenagers grasping the worn metal bars, Jack next to me, laughing in my ear.

But the memories didn’t ache the way they would have six months ago. I glanced at my watch—five—thirty. In an hour I’d meet my husband at the tamale stand and sweet talk him into riding the giant Ferris Wheel with me where we could kiss when our bucket reached the top.

I was eating a corn dog and watching a couple of teenage boys try to win stuffed tigers for their girlfriends when Isaac and Dove walked up. She had her arm looped through his, something I was
almost
getting used to.

“How’re they doing?” Isaac asked, watching the boys toss the ping-pong balls into the fishing bowls.

I laughed. “So far all they’ve won is five goldfish.”

“Which will be dead by next week,” Dove said wryly. “I know. I’ve officiated at many a goldfish funeral myself.”

I grinned. “Hey, it was the only carnival game I could win. What’re you two up to?”

“Just taking in the sights,” Isaac said. “Anything new on the investigative front?” His face was anxious in the flashing carnival lights.

I hesitated, then decided not to tell him about the incident between me and Bobby or about Roland’s look. Telling them would serve no purpose, and I didn’t want to ruin their evening. “I think we’re at the point where we just have to wait for someone to show their hand. Gabe says sometimes it’s like that.”

“Then let’s just have some fun,” Dove said, glancing up at Isaac’s troubled face, then giving me a subtle look that said change the subject. “C‘mon, honeybun. We’ll make Isaac win us one of them useless stuffed animals. I want that polar bear there. Kinda reminds me of someone I know.” She smiled at Isaac and pointed to the prizes at one of the basketball toss games. “how good are you at shooting hoops?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Horrible. Let’s try something else.” He held out his other arm to me, and I slipped mine through it. “Better yet, How about I buy you a churro and a lemonade instead?”

We strolled over to the churro stand and while we were waiting in line, I glanced over to a Heritage Days history display set up on some portable walls. “Get me a churro, but no lemonade,” I told Isaac. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I walked over to a poster tacked up on one of the portable walls. The joint efforts of the Cal Poly history and art departments had produced an eight-foot-by-eight-foot poster using india ink and bright acrylic paint. It showed the mission plaza during the mid-1800s with burros and Franciscan fathers and Chumash Indians and Spanish women grinding corn for tortillas and hundreds of other people doing things common in San Celina County’s varied, multicultural history. To add some fun to the project and to encourage people to really study their work, a large banner was tacked across the top of the paper mural—
¿Donde esta Waldo
?—where’s Waldo?

I laughed and searched for the skinny cartoon man in his striped shirt, spit-curled hair, and funny hat. I was still searching when Isaac and Dove walked over with my churro.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the long, doughnut-like Mexican pastry from him. I licked the brown sugar that fell on my hand. “Isn’t this great?” I nodded over at the mural. “I haven’t found him yet. These things drive me crazy because he’s always right there in front of my face, and I never see him even though I look over the spot a million times.”

Then it hit me. Something so obvious that I could have kicked myself for not thinking of it before. The best way to hide anything.
In plain sight.

I grasped Isaac’s arm. “I know where the negatives are.”

17

HE THREW HIS churro on the ground. “Where?”

“Back at the museum. At least I think they might be.” I tossed my churro in a nearby trash can. “I’m going to go see.”

“Not alone, you’re not,” Dove said.

I glanced at my watch. “Shoot. I told Gabe I’d meet him at Lupe’s tamale cart at six-thirty, but I have to go see if I’m right.” I turned to Dove. “Look, Isaac can go with me to the museum to see if what I think is right. Would you go meet Gabe and tell him I’m going to be a few minutes late? I don’t want him to worry.”

“And what am I supposed to tell him about where you’re at?”

“Just tell him I had to go get something at the museum and that Isaac went with me. That shouldn’t worry him.”

She crossed her arms. “Only if you tell me what it is you’re going to get since I’m missing all the fun.”

I took a deep breath. “I might be shooting blanks here, but I think, I’m hoping, that Shelby hid the negatives in the photo album she gave me the day before Thanksgiving. What better place to hide the evidence of something illegal than with the police chief’s wife?”

Isaac nodded. “It’s exactly how Shelby would think. She loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries and watching
Murder, She Wrote
on TV.” He grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

“Y‘all be careful,” Dove said.

“We will. If anyone follows us, we’ll come right back and get Gabe. I promise.”

Isaac kept a close eye on the passenger side mirror during the half-mile drive to the museum. “No one’s behind us,” he said, his voice tense.

“I didn’t think there would be, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”

The museum parking lot was dimly lit by a single security light. I fumbled with the keys in the cold night air and finally opened the front door. Once inside, I quickly locked it behind us. “The album’s in my office.”

Inside my office, I opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out the handmade leather photo album.

“Just a minute,” Isaac said, taking it out of my hand. He stared at the album, running his hand over the soft leather, fingering the bones and feathers she’d carefully fashioned. He traced the lines of my brand. “She made this?”

I nodded silently.

He swallowed hard, then tightened his jaw. “Let’s see what’s in here.”

There were twenty-five pages with a photograph on each page. She’d mounted them in the old-fashioned way with those tiny triangular picture holders that filled all Dove’s photo albums.

We pulled out each photo, and on the twenty-second one we hit pay dirt. On the back of the photo was taped a strip of four negatives in a plastic holder. Isaac held them up to the light in my office, his gray eyes squinting.

“What do you see?” I asked eagerly.

He scanned the negatives. “One is looking through a window—it appears to be of a person painting. Looks like she took them with a telephoto. One’s of just some trees and bushes—nothing distinct. And one’s of a license plate. The last one of two people with some cows.” He shook his head and handed them to me. “My eyes aren’t as good as they once were, and I don’t have a magnifying loop to see them better. You take a look.”

I peered at the strips, but couldn’t make out any more details than he could. “I guess we’ll have to get some pictures printed.”

“I can do it if I have the right equipment. At least I can make a contact sheet. That would show more detail.”

I slipped the negatives back into the holder and leaned against my desk. “Probably I should just give them to Gabe to hand over to the Sheriff’s Department. If only I could be sure what was on them.”

Isaac looked at me soberly. “Are you afraid one of the people might be Wade?”

I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to answer. “I just want to know what it is we’re handing over to the police.”

“I want her killer caught,” Isaac said, his voice sharp.

“I know.” I looked at the strip again. The three people in one picture all wore Stetsons, but their faces were indistinct. “Too bad she couldn’t have gone that extra step and made prints for us.” I started putting the pages back into the album. Then an idea came to me, inspired by something Isaac had said about Shelby. Maybe it was just juvenile and silly enough to be right. I picked at the edges of the leather cover.

“What are you doing?” Isaac asked.

“You said she loved reading Nancy Drew books, right?”

“Yes. So?”

“So, I think she did make things easy for us. I think there are prints ...” I peeled back the leather cover. “And here they are!” Wrapped in protective plastic were four 5 x 7 black-and-white photographs. He crowded next to me, and we looked at the pictures.

Greer was the person painting. Shelby had apparently been taking photographs around Greer’s cabin and saw the opportunity to capture an artist working unawares. I peered closer at the paintings, thoughts of forgery dancing in my head. Was that how she was making the money to support herself, to keep her family’s ranch going?

But the paintings weren’t copies of Remington or Russell. They seemed to be her own original oils of ranch life. I looked intently at the picture of the license plate. It was a Montana plate—muddy and old—attached to what appeared to be an RV.

The third picture said it all.

“Oh, no,” I said, staring at the picture of Kip and Greer loading cattle onto a truck. “This is why Shelby was killed. Greer did it when Shelby told her about this picture.”

Isaac gave me a confused look. “Why? She’s just loading cattle onto a truck. She’s a rancher. Seems natural enough.”

I pointed to the side of one of the cows—a Hereford-Angus mix. “Sure, if the brand wasn’t mine.”

He looked up at me, shocked. “Cattle rustling? My granddaughter was killed for a bunch of cows?”

“Appears so,” I said, feeling a sadness at how life can spiral out of control. “Greer was stealing from her friends. That would certainly be worth killing someone over, because not only would it ruin her art career, she’d go to prison and humiliate her family in front of the whole ranching community.”

“Do you think her family knew?”

“No, they didn’t,” Greer answered from the doorway.

Isaac and I jumped at the sound of her voice. When we saw the .45 revolver in her hand, Isaac put his arm in front of me much the same way Dove used to when I was a child and she had to stop the truck quickly.

“How’d you get in?” I demanded.

“Benni, grow up. Keys to this place float around here like pollen.” She walked over and grabbed the photos out of my hands, looking down at the handmade photo album. “So that’s where she hid them. I didn’t even know she’d given you that album. Smart girl.” She nodded her approval of Shelby’s cleverness. “But not smart enough to keep what she saw to herself.”

I saw Isaac’s face start to redden and I touched his arm and said in a low voice, “Don’t.”

Greer calmly studied Isaac’s angry face, pointing the gun at his chest. “Listen to her, Mr. Lyons. I grew up using guns and I’ll shoot you, I swear I will.” Her voice trembled slightly.

Stay calm,
I told myself.
Words are all you have at this point.

“Greer,” I said softly, “why would you steal from your friends?”
Keep her talking,
I thought,
and pray that Gabe gets annoyed enough to track us down after Dove tells him where we went and why.

Framed in the doorway, dressed in old jeans and a brown Carhartt working jacket, standing straight and proud, her white hair a halo around her head, she looked like a figure in one of her own western paintings. Her lined face clouded with sorrow. “I had to, Benni. Bradley left me with nothing, and the ranch is going down fast. It hasn’t really made enough money to support any of us in years. I couldn’t expect my brothers to take care of me and I had to live. I had to buy paint supplies. Look, I didn’t steal from just one person—I spread it around. And I only took from the people who could afford the losses.” She explained it to us in a reasonable voice, not giving any indication that she comprehended how serious her actions were.