Killing Custer (23 page)

33

VICKY LA
ID OUT
her theory as they drove out of the parking lot: Deborah Boynton, the Realtor that Skip might not have completely broken up with, had made herself scarce. Left town, except for coming into the office to check messages once or twice. Hadn't returned Vicky's messages. She had been handling the sale of the ranch near Dubois that Garrett planned to buy, until he couldn't get his money from Skip. “The owners live in Virginia,” she said. Then she added: “It's just a hunch.” Starting to second-guess herself, he knew.

“It's all we've got,” he said. In the back of his mind was the white-sheeted figure of Colin Morningside on the gurney wheeling toward the steel doors. And Mike Longshot, scared out of his wits in a jail cell, waiting for the worst of it to come.

They took Highway 26, skirting through the northwestern part of Riverton and out across the wide, windy spaces that wrapped around occasional ranch houses and barns popping out of the brown earth. There were long periods where Vicky didn't say anything, and neither did he. It was impolite to interrupt someone else's thoughts and demand they turn their thoughts to you. He had turned the volume low on the CD player that sat between them.

Finally, Vicky said: “Skip and Deborah could both have left already. They would have taken her car. None of the police are looking for it.”

“Then Skip's car is in the garage or barn. If we can get photos, Madden will have to consider the possibility that Colin and Mike are innocent.”

They turned north. Rising ahead on the right were the red-rock formations that rose out of the plains and glowed in the afternoon sun. Everything in this land was a surprise, even the woman seated next to him. Holding back her hair in the wind, staring out the windshield.

He squinted against the brightness, looking for the milepost that marked the turnoff into the mountains. He had been to ranches in the area. Off dirt roads that threaded around the mountainsides and overlooked clear-blue lakes: Ring Lake, Torrey Lake. A beautiful, sequestered area ten miles from Dubois, miles and miles from everywhere else. The milepost flashed ahead. He slowed down, waited for an oncoming truck to pass, and turned onto a two-track that switched back and forth until it started up the mountain. A narrow and rutted road with only a couple of feet of shoulder ran along the mountainside on the right. On the left, a drop-off into a grassy valley crossed by a thin stream. The drop-off got steeper as they climbed.

Vicky pulled a sheet of paper out of her bag. She held the sheet against the dashboard and set a finger in the middle of a paragraph. “‘To reach the Stockton Ranch, stay on the mountain road for twelve miles,'” she said. “‘Turn left, cross a wooden bridge. A small brown framed building will be on the left. Continue on the dirt road that climbs past a small lake into the meadow where the ranch house, barns, and outbuildings are located. Ranch house has 2,450 square feet . . .'” She set the paper on her lap. “We should be getting close.”

Father John spotted the bridge as he came around a wide curve. He slowed again and moved as far to the right as he could to allow an oncoming pickup to pass. A rancher with a cowboy hat and a thick hand that waved in their direction. Father John swung left through the cloud of dust clinging to the hood and the windshield and drove toward the bridge. He had to turn on the wipers to clear a space to see through. He could see the small brown framed building. “How far to the ranch house?”

Vicky leaned over the sheet of paper. “Half a mile.”

“They'll hear us if they're here.” Father John pulled off the road and slid to a stop behind the building. “Wait here. I'll hike up and see if I can spot the car.”

Before he had gotten out, Vicky was out on her side. She didn't say anything, and he knew that no matter what he said, she was coming with him. They started up the dirt road, staying close to the right edge. It was quiet, nothing but the sound of the wind. Puffs of dust rose around their footsteps. The air smelled of dust and sage.

Beyond the rounded hill ahead, Father John spotted a peaked, green roof. “We'll go as far as the bend,” he said. “We should be able to see the house and cars from there.” An uneasiness had started over him, like brambles pricking at his skin. There was no telling what they could be walking into. They could come face-to-face with a killer. Even if Skip were gone, Deborah Boynton could be here, and she had been protecting him. What would she do to keep him safe?

Vicky had left her bag in the pickup, but she clutched a cell phone in one hand. She walked fast, and he stretched his legs to keep up. “We'll have to be careful.” He wondered if she had heard him, she was so lost in her own thoughts.

“What a scam Skip had going,” she said after a moment. “People clamoring to get into his private club, to be his special friend. It took a minimum of five hundred thousand to invest. He told a bartender in Lander to put his ten thousand in a bank. He wasn't rich enough for the club.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “People with a lot of money, greedy for more. Eager to join an exclusive club so they could tell themselves they were the elite, better than everybody else.”

“They'll lose their investments.”

“The money's already gone,” Vicky said. “Skip used new investments to pay on the old. I suspect he helped himself to what was left. A new house in Mexico. Condo in Jackson. Expensive car. No doubt there's more in hidden bank accounts. Investors will be lucky to get pennies back on the dollar. You know what's funny?” She took a deep breath. “Everybody loved him.”

They were approaching the bend. Scam artist, murderer. Skip Burrows would be a dangerous man to surprise, if he was at the ranch. Father John took Vicky's arm. “Let's slow down.”

She pushed ahead, pulling away from him, and he hurried to pass her before they came around the bend. He heard the faint, rhythmic thuds of metal against earth before he saw the woman. Tall, reddish hair, in blue jeans and yellow tee shirt, tapping a shovel against the dirt piled around a fence post. Behind her was a stretch of field that wrapped around a log house with a wide front porch and a couple of chairs and a rocker that moved in the wind. Beyond the house was a wood-planked barn. The double doors were closed. There was no sign of Skip Burrows's silver BMW.

She looked up. She was pretty in a fierce, uncompromising way. Perspiration glistened on her forehead. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Deborah Boynton? I'm Vicky Holden.” Vicky had stepped out ahead again and was walking toward the woman, hand outstretched, as if they had met at the shopping mall.

The woman jammed the point of the shovel into the dirt. She made no effort to take Vicky's hand. “The Indian lawyer and the priest from the mission. I've seen your photos in the newspaper. Crusaders for law and justice.”

“I've been trying to reach you. I've left several messages on your phone and with your broker.”

“I never responded. Didn't that tell you anything? I'm not looking for new clients, and I'm certainly not giving interviews. I suggest you turn around and hike out of here.”

“I believe you can help us.”

“I don't see how.”

“My client is the widow of Edward Garrett. She wants to locate the money he had invested in the Granite Group.”

Deborah Boynton shook her head and leaned on the shovel handle, as if to steady herself. Father John kept his eyes on her. The woman was as tense and coiled as a rattlesnake. He had counseled people like that. Backs against the wall. Ready to strike. She was shaking her head. “Why would that concern me?”

“You represented Garrett. He intended to purchase this ranch. He couldn't get his money from the Granite Group, so the deal fell through. You must have been very disappointed.”

“It is none of your business. Buyers come and go in real estate. Things don't always work out. There'll be another buyer. The place is an excellent investment. I've been spending time here tidying up a little. The living area is freshly painted.” She had slipped into a robotic patter she had probably given hundreds of times. Her hand looked welded to the shovel handle. “Notice the new barn doors. I've made sure the furnace and water heater are in tip-top condition.” She gave a quick glance toward the dirt road that ran past the barn and up the mountainside into a stand of stunted pines and sagebrush. “Unless you would like to make an offer, you had better leave.”

“You also represented Skip Burrows, the man behind the Granite Group. He purchased residential property some time ago.”

“You've done a lot of snooping. My broker told me you kept coming around. Let's cut to the chase. What do you want?”

Vicky took a moment before she said, “Skip Burrows.”

Deborah shifted her gaze between them, deciding. Father John could almost see the thoughts colliding behind her eyes. “Skip is a lawyer and a legitimate businessman. He was abducted from his office. I wouldn't know where he is.”

“You've been hiding him here.” Vicky bore in, Father John thought. A lawyer questioning a reluctant witness in court. “Burrows has money that belongs to my client and other investors that he has bilked.”

The woman curled around herself, face shadowed and eyes pinpricks of black lights. Father John moved in closer, between her and Vicky. “Burrows staged his own disappearance,” he said.

“You have no proof.”

“It's only a matter of time before Detective Madden shows up here.” He wished that were true. He wished they had let someone know where he and Vicky were going.

The woman was still gripping the handle, hanging on hard, as if the shovel might evaporate and she would topple over. “So Skip got into a little financial trouble. He needed time to straighten things out. He's very smart. He makes good investments for his clients, but they've been slow paying off. The economy is cyclical. It falls. It rises.” She lifted the shovel slowly, as if it weighed a couple hundred pounds and dropped it into the loose dirt, still gripping the handle.

Little clouds of dust rose over the pines on the mountainside. The quiet rumble of an engine mingled with the whoosh of the wind. The rumble grew louder, and a pickup the color of dirt sped out of the trees, disappeared behind the barn then came bouncing along the two-track toward them. A black Stetson bobbed over the steering wheel. Father John grabbed Vicky's arm and pulled her sideways just as the pickup swung off the road toward the barbed wire fence, tires churning the dirt and crunching sagebrush. The pickup stopped.

The driver got out. Face dark and indistinct beneath the low-tipped brim of the black Stetson. He turned toward the frame that held a rifle against the rear windshield, rammed a key into a lock, and removed the gun. Then he came around the back of the pickup. Chin thrust high, a band of sunshine across the center of his face. Father John could have identified Skip Burrows from the swagger in his walk, the confident, take-charge attitude in the way he gripped the rifle pointed at them.

34

SLIP BURROWS LOOKED
different, Vicky thought. Shorter, leaner, altogether a smaller man than the lawyer she had occasionally run into on Main Street, in a coffee shop, at a meeting of the local bar association. Skip Burrows had always seemed taller than his five feet ten inches, bigger than the narrow shoulders hunched around the rifle. Everything about him louder, consuming space. One hand gripping yours, the other gripping your arm or shoulder. A smile as wide and open as the plains.
How are your kids, your practice, your life? How are you and Adam Long Eagle getting along? Any plans to form a firm together again?
He knew about you, and he cared. Who wouldn't want to be Skip Burrows's best friend, a member of his private club?

“You shouldn't have come here,” he said.

“We came to talk to you.” Vicky marveled at the calmness in John O'Malley's voice, the way he seemed to look past the barrel of the rifle, the black bore that went on forever. “No need for a weapon.”

“I'll decide that.”

“I've told them the truth,” Deborah said.

“The truth?” Skip seemed to acknowledged the woman with the strands of red hair wafting in the wind, yet he gazed straight ahead. Staring at
them
. “You should keep your mouth shut.”

“I told them it's a mistake. You need time to straighten things out, that's all. They understand. You do understand, don't you?” Deborah Boynton threw a pleading look at Vicky, then John O'Malley.

“I'm surprised you're still here,” Vicky said. “I thought you would be in Mexico by now.”

“I'll be there tonight. Unfortunately you're both here now. It's a problem I have to deal with.”

“You didn't tell me we were leaving today.” A whine had come into Deborah's voice.

“
We
aren't leaving.”

“But you said you would take me with you. I've made plans. I've canceled meetings with clients, told them to find another Realtor.” For a moment, Vicky thought the woman might burst into tears. “I'm going with you. You know you need me.”

Deborah shifted toward Vicky. The top of the shovel handle rested against her chest. She looked scared, shriveled like a stalk of dried tumbleweed. “You're a lawyer. You know this will blow over. As soon as Skip recoups the money and starts getting the interest he expects, he'll pay off the investors. They know Skip. They know he'll do the right thing.”

“Your boyfriend had Edward Garrett killed,” Vicky said.

“That's a lie!” Deborah swung a half step toward Skip. “Tell them that's a lie. Everyone knows the Indians killed Garrett. What fool comes to a place where Indians live and brags about killing Indians? What did he think would happen? That Arapaho who thinks he's Crazy Horse is as big a fool as Garrett. Tell them! You didn't have anything to do with Garrett getting shot.”

“For the last time, Deborah, shut up!”

“You need me, Skip. I can help you. I can make them understand.”

“Garrett threatened to go to the police,” Vicky said. “He wanted his money back But you didn't have his money. You had spent it, right? Houses? Expensive car? Accounts in the Cayman Islands? You were setting yourself up for life. Garrett had to be stopped.”

The thick mountain quiet spread around them, the quiet of the sky interrupted by the sporadic hum of the wind through the brush. “It was not Colin Morningside you hired to kill Garrett.” Father John's tone was low and as steady and certain as steel. Vicky caught his eye for an instant and understood what he was about to say, could feel it in her bones. “Indians weren't the only ones who hated Custer,” he went on. “Benteen and Reno for starters. Custer refused to rescue Joel Elliott and his men at Washita. They all died. Elliott was their friend.”

Skip Burrows gave a shout of laughter. “You think anybody but the Indians cares about what happened a hundred and forty years ago? Benteen and Reno are dead.”

“What happened in Desert Storm?” Father John said. “Why would Osborne and Veraggi hate your commander so much that they were willing to kill him?”

Skip Burrows looked stunned, a little unsteady, the rifle weaving back and forth as if he and the rifle were caught in a windstorm. “You are going to die.” His teeth were clamped together, jaw rigid.

“No, Skip! They're taking a wild guess. Tell them it's not true. You couldn't have hired anyone to kill Garrett. The Indians did it, like you told me.”

“Garrett deserved to die.” Skip's voice sounded distant and disengaged, Vicky thought, as if Garrett had nothing to do with him. “Bastard led the men through sand dunes into an ambush. He didn't know anything about deserts, and he wouldn't listen to guys who had been out there. The arrogant sonofabitch did things his way, and damn the men under him. You know what it's like to live with the same guys twenty-four-seven? Listen to them cry out in their sleep with nightmares you were having? Watch the shadow of stubble grow on their chins? Smell their boots? We were the same. We were a single body. You know what it's like to watch yourself die? Feel the pain of the bullet that blew off the head of your buddy crouched beside you? Wipe the sand and sweat out of your eyes and look at your buddy's brains exploded all over you? Eight men died! Good men! But they weren't the only fatalities. We all died there. Only some of us stumbled back after the army helicopters arrived and started strafing the Iraqis. The helicopters got us out of that hellhole. The walking dead.”

“You hated Garrett,” John said. “Why keep up the old army-buddy routine? Why would Osborne and Veraggi be reenactors in the Seventh Cavalry with Garrett the commander, like Custer?”

“Revenge takes time.” Burrows made a loud sucking noise. The rifle was still moving back and forth, and Father John could see the tremor in the man's hand. “Taking that bastard's money was the most pleasure I've had in a long time. Invested it in a ten-thousand-square-foot house in Mexico. You're right about the Cayman Islands. Stashed some down there. Osborne and Veraggi? They wanted a different kind of revenge. They wanted him dead. Bided their time, waiting for the right moment for an accident to occur. That's what kept them going. Custer must die! I handed them the opportunity. Sooner or later they would have found it on their own.”

“My God, Skip. What are you saying?” Deborah was shouting, as if Skip were on the other side of the road, halfway up the mountain. “You hired them to kill Garrett ? Why? Why would you do such a thing? You lied to me! You told me you needed more time, and everything would turn around. Interest money would start flowing. My God! I believed you!”

“I'm sick of you, Deborah.” Skip spoke out of the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes from her, as if she weren't beside him, hunched over the shovel handle as if she might throw up. “Sick of your whining and nagging and your superior, know-it-all attitude. Sick of you understanding me. You don't understand anything. Garrett set a deadline. Either he got his money on Monday morning, or he went to the cops. The colonel giving the order, just like before. The arrogant sonofabitch. Forward! Over the sand dunes to destruction. Well, he was no longer in charge. He was no longer leading anybody. He had destroyed enough.”

“What about Angela?” Vicky struggled to keep her own voice steady. “What had she destroyed?”

“Angela! That Arapaho girl you were involved with? My God! You had her killed, too!”

“Shut up! I won't tell you again.”

“Angela loved you,” Vicky said. “She would have given you the flash drive. All you had to do was ask. You didn't have to kill her.”

“What? You did it yourself?”

“There was no way out for me. I thought there might be. I even tried to call you.” He gave a little nod toward Vicky. “The fact is, Angela knew too much.” Skip drew his lips into a thin, tight line. The same look of disengagement, as if he were somewhere else, crossed his face like a shadow.

“She didn't know anything,” Vicky said. “She prepared the phony statements you told her to prepare. She thought they were legitimate reports that your clients needed. Why wouldn't they be? She thought you were a god, a white god come to save her, take her away to Mexico and a dream life.”

“You killed that girl? You bastard!”

“Let me tell you what you're going to do, Deborah,” Skip said. “You are going to walk to the pickup and get the rope on the floor in back. You're going to bring it to me. Do it! As for you”—he pressed the butt of the rifle against his chest and looked from Father John to Vicky—“you are going to drop. Now. On your hands and knees, on your stomach, faces in the dirt. You won't be tied up long. Only as long as it takes us to dig your graves. Get the rope,” he shouted as if he were now aware that Deborah hadn't moved.

“You're going to kill them?”

“Get it!”

“Murderer!” The woman grabbed the shovel handle and swung it backward over her shoulder, a swift, smooth motion. Just as Skip turned sideways, the shovel crashed into his temple. He staggered forward, the rifle loose and bouncing in his hands. Stunned, glassy-eyed. Blood was running down his cheek.

“No!” Vicky heard Father John shout as Deborah swung the shovel into the back of Skip's head. There was the sharp sound of metal splitting bone. Skip dropped onto the dirt, collapsing like a tree uprooted in the wind, the rifle sliding against the fence post. Again Deborah lifted the shovel, but John O'Malley had grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulled her away from the man sprawled at her feet, spasms running through his body, the back of his skull bashed in.

Vicky stooped over, picked up the rifle, and carried it to the borrow ditch alongside the dirt road. She set it down below the edge, where it couldn't be seen, aware of John O'Malley leading the woman backward. Holding on to her with one hand, as if she might bolt toward the fallen man and slam the shovel into his head again, he pried the shovel from her. Vicky saw him toss it hard into a clump of sagebrush. Deborah had started shaking, as if she were coming apart, as if she had returned to sanity from wherever she had gone, and reality—the terrible reality—was buffeting her. He led her up the porch steps to the chair rocking in the wind and guided her into the seat. “Stay here,” he said. Then he came down the steps toward Skip.

He had stopped shivering. Stopped breathing, Vicky realized. She caught John O'Malley's eye as he went down on one knee beside the man.

Vicky crouched beside him. He kept one finger pressed against the side of Skip's neck. “I can't get a pulse,” he said. “He's gone. God have mercy on his soul.”

“Do you think there is mercy?” she heard herself say. An inanity. What difference did it make? Skip Burrows was dead. As dead as Edward Garrett and Angela Running Bear.

“There is always the hope,” John said.

Vicky got to her feet, conscious of the weight of his hand on her arm, guiding her upright. Then he was pulling his cell out of his shirt pocket. She felt dazed, almost weightless, half expecting the shivering to start inside her, the shovel and the rifle looming presences in her mind. They were the ones who could have been dead. Tied up, shot in the head, and dumped into whatever shallow graves Skip and Deborah managed to dig in the hard ground. And Deborah. She would also have been dead.

“Send an ambulance,” John was saying. Then came the directions: Stockton Ranch, ten miles from Dubois, the dirt road on the west, twelve miles up the mountainside. Man struck in the head. No vital signs. Woman in shock.

“Ask them to get Madden on the line,” Vicky said.

He repeated the request. “Vicky Holden wants to speak to Detective Madden. This concerns two murders he has been investigating.” He handed her the cell.

Silence on the other end, and for a moment Vicky wondered if the connection had been lost. “Vicky? What's going on?” Madden sounded loud and impatient.

“We found Skip Burrows. We found the murderer.”

Behind her, she heard the coughing noise of a motor turning over, the ratcheting of gears. She swung around as the pickup charged like a bull down the dirt road, rocking back and forth, Deborah Boynton hunched over the steering wheel. And John O'Malley running toward the pickup, waving both hands, shouting. “Stop! Stop!”

She heard the thud and watched him flying, flying, lifting into the air with the wind, and the terrible, scudding noise as his body dropped onto the ground and slid forward. Barely aware of the pickup speeding past her, the whooshing sound as the rush of air grabbed at her skirt. The pickup raced down the dirt road, the smell of exhaust filling her nostrils.

She dropped the phone and ran to John O'Malley.