Only Flesh and Bones (16 page)
Read Only Flesh and Bones Online
Authors: Sarah Andrews
P
OSSIBLE excuses to return to Douglas crowded my head as I hurried down the street to my bank to deposit Menken’s check. As with all links into small airports, the price of flying commercially from Denver to anywhere near Douglas (namely Casper, the only airport in the area with scheduled flights) on short notice is steep. I was certain I could about justify the hourly rental cost of flying there myself, thereby gaining two major cross-country flying legs for my pilot’s license. Accepting Menken’s money obligated me to do more for him, of course, but hell, I wanted to help Cecelia, and … and what?
OSSIBLE excuses to return to Douglas crowded my head as I hurried down the street to my bank to deposit Menken’s check. As with all links into small airports, the price of flying commercially from Denver to anywhere near Douglas (namely Casper, the only airport in the area with scheduled flights) on short notice is steep. I was certain I could about justify the hourly rental cost of flying there myself, thereby gaining two major cross-country flying legs for my pilot’s license. Accepting Menken’s money obligated me to do more for him, of course, but hell, I wanted to help Cecelia, and … and what?
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering at how easily Menken had reeled me in, the thousand-dollar windfall dragging at my pocket like a brick.
Give it back,
an exhausted little voice in my head pleaded.
Give it back and stay independent.
Give it back,
an exhausted little voice in my head pleaded.
Give it back and stay independent.
Right, stay out of a trouble I couldn’t quite name but knew must be waiting for me.
Give back all of it?
another voice countered.
He does owe you for the ninety-dollar shrink fee, after all, and your good old truck sure drank a lot of gas on the way to Douglas and back … .
another voice countered.
He does owe you for the ninety-dollar shrink fee, after all, and your good old truck sure drank a lot of gas on the way to Douglas and back … .
I started to walk again, promising myself that I’d sit down and do the math when I got home to Betty Bloom’s, figure out what Menken really owed me, and return the difference.
And what if some of these other shrinks want cash on the barrel head? Speaking of which
…
And what if some of these other shrinks want cash on the barrel head? Speaking of which
…
I picked up my feet and began to move. My next interview was only a few minutes away.
That appointment was another disappointment. While it was not as negative as the others, I found a lack of positives that was just as damning. The woman had a noisy problem with her adenoids, and looked anxious for a smoke, just the kind of authority figure a teenager could easily disregard. In her favor, she gave me half an hour of her time for free. After twenty minutes, I excused myself and left, figuring she could keep the change.
Next, I took myself back down to Sergeant Ortega’s office at the Denver Police Department. Once again, I found him eating, this time a takeout order of Mexican pastries. He looked up, deep-fried dough pocket running with honey halfway to his lips, and said doubtfully, “Sopaipilla?”
“Thank you, no,” I answered kindly. “I just dropped by to see if you’d had any luck with my little bag of excitement up in Wyoming.”
Ortega closed his mouth over his sopaipilla and chewed. “Em Hansen, you are like the dog who thinks sheep herding is too slow so he starts herding the other dogs. You are always snapping at my heels. You’re thinking the Denver Police Department has nothing better to do than chase some loco Wyoming
lobos
for you.”
lobos
for you.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, you are a lucky person, because in fact I do have something for you.” He set down his pastry and pulled open a drawer, produced a single sheet of paper, and smoothed it across his desktop with a greasy thumb. “Your lady died of a drug overdose.”
I just sat there, stunned.
Ortega shrugged his shoulders sympathetically and picked up another sopaipilla.
“But everyone says she was murdered,” I said numbly. I was not ready to find out that Miriam of the journals, this friend I’d never met, had been a reckless dope fiend. Well, okay, she might have been a reckless lover, but dope was another matter. Or was it?
“She
was
murdered.”
was
murdered.”
I knit my brow. “Quit playing with me, Carlos.”
Ortega looked up meekly and took another bite.
“Mil disculpas,”
he said softly. “It is a bad habit in my profession to be playful where we can. I thought you didn’t know this woman.”
“Mil disculpas,”
he said softly. “It is a bad habit in my profession to be playful where we can. I thought you didn’t know this woman.”
“Yeah, well, I
didn’t
know her, but I’m kind of
getting
to know her.”
didn’t
know her, but I’m kind of
getting
to know her.”
Ortega cocked his head, waited.
Oh, what the hell.
“I’ve got her journals.”
“I’ve got her journals.”
His eyes closed. “Ah.”
“Or some of them. This other woman has the most recent ones in her office and won’t let me at them, or at least not since I opened my big mouth and asked her about a man who’s in them.” I heaved a sigh. “I told you Miriam had been having an affair, and that a man was seen visiting at the ranch the day she died.”
Ortega opened another desk drawer, deposited the bag with the remaining sopaipillas into it, wiped his hands on a paper napkin, and pulled a pad and pen to the center of his desk. “She was murdered, Em. This lab report says she was dosed with unusually pure cocaine. I suggest it was not her choice, because there were signs of a struggle, and the woman tried to vomit it up. And yes, we can hear that struggle on the nine-one-one tape, and hear the woman calling for help, and hear her beg her daughter to run away from the man who was doing this to her.”
I put my hands over my face. A violent struggle. So this was part of the shock Cecilia had experienced. “Who in hell murders with cocaine?” I asked.
“Who indeed.”
“Not a common occurrence in Converse County, Wyoming,” I said feebly.
“No, I’d say not.”
“So that’s why there’s been no arrest. It’s not a local.”
Ortega shrugged his rounded shoulders. “The sheriff believes a local man named Arapaho Bradley killed her, just as you told me.”
“But how would Po Bradley get hold of pure cocaine?”
“Sheriff Duluth told me this Po Bradley keeps fast company. He told me he spends his weekends in Saratoga, like that should mean something to me. Where’s that?”
Saratoga. I was beginning to hear that town named too often. “It’s a town south of Rawlins. Used to be a sleepy little ranching community like all the rest, but in recent years the rich boys have moved in with their hobby ranches and golf clubs. They’ve bought up a bunch of the land just to keep their favorite trout streams to themselves.”
“Hobby ranch?”
“It’s the Wyoming nickname for a rich boy’s ranch. They buy an old family spread for a huge load of dollars so they can use it as a weekend getaway. They put up a cushy new ‘ranch’ mansion, install a rent-a-cowboy in the tumble-down old hut, run a small herd of Herefords across the place, and call it a tax dodge.”
“You sound like you don’t approve of such use of land,” Ortega said dryly.
I shook my head. “No. They aren’t dependent on the income from the property, but they like the tax write-off, so when it comes time to market the beef, they’ll take low dollar. That drives the price down for everyone else. Which in turn drives old Wyoming families to give up and sell to city boys with lots of dollars.”
“And this cuts to your bones.”
I looked up into Carlos’s dark eyes and suddenly wanted to bawl. “Oh, Carlos, here I am trying to find a job because I don’t have a ranch myself to run, and this morning I did a so-called information interview with this shithead who’d rather eat road apples than give this little cowgirl a job. There he sits making probably mid six figures, with bonuses every time he lays someone off, and I’m not even asking mid five. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, he keeps me waiting most of an hour before he chases me off, and who’s he in there wasting my time with? More of those six-figure Charlies who’re all
clapping him on his back and telling him to ‘Come on up to Saratoga.’”
clapping him on his back and telling him to ‘Come on up to Saratoga.’”
Ortega blinked.
I hadn’t realized until I said all this just how much the whole episode had bothered me. As it was happening, I’d been too busy trying to make a legitimate interview out of a mercy chat to notice exactly how rotten it had felt to have my begging bowl out. “Well, that’s where and what Saratoga is,” I said miserably.
“Ah.” Ortega had averted his eyes to his page of notes, studiously leaving me a shred of pride as I pulled myself back together. “Okay. So would these ‘hobby ranchers’ include maybe a drug dealer or two?”
My mouth sagged open as I quickly computed possible connections involving grim-looking hawk-faced characters who conferred with unhappy corporate executives who were close friends of men whose wives had been killed on rental ranches in Wyoming that belonged to playboy ranchers who spent weekends in Saratoga with corporate executives who kept time with hawk-faced characters. The world sure had a way of shrinking when you connected all the dots. “It could indeed. I take it I never heard what you just told me.”
Ortega nodded.
“Es correcto.
I never said it to you. But I do say this: cocaine is not a nice substance. Such pure cocaine suggests a dealer, or even a direct line to the overseas distributor. Whoever brought it into that house and forced it into that woman is not running in polite circles. I recommend with all my heart you drop this case right now.”
“Es correcto.
I never said it to you. But I do say this: cocaine is not a nice substance. Such pure cocaine suggests a dealer, or even a direct line to the overseas distributor. Whoever brought it into that house and forced it into that woman is not running in polite circles. I recommend with all my heart you drop this case right now.”
This seemed eminently reasonable. Hand back Menken’s check. Wave bye-bye.
Wait.
“What about Cecelia? If she was there, doesn’t this mean she’s in danger?”
Perhaps she remembers, but is afraid …
Wait.
“What about Cecelia? If she was there, doesn’t this mean she’s in danger?”
Perhaps she remembers, but is afraid …
“I don’t know. I got a transcript of the tape, and I’m thinking that whoever did this may not have known that Cecelia was in the house, or thought she was asleep. She’s a smart girl, right? Was there a phone in her room, so she could stay hidden?”
“I think so.” I thought of the layout of the house. Would
a struggle in her mother’s room have been heard over a phone in Cecelia’s? Or had Miriam’s phone been off the hook? Or had there been a third phone in the kitchen? I couldn’t recall. “If only we knew,” I said, my interest in finding the right psychologist increasing. Just how much had Cecelia seen?
a struggle in her mother’s room have been heard over a phone in Cecelia’s? Or had Miriam’s phone been off the hook? Or had there been a third phone in the kitchen? I couldn’t recall. “If only we knew,” I said, my interest in finding the right psychologist increasing. Just how much had Cecelia seen?
“It is not ours to know this much about this case.”
“Let me see the transcript.”
“No.”
“Carlos!”
Ortega’s eyes went as deep as wells. “Em, I apologize. I have indulged myself in talking to you about all of this. But it is not my case, and not my jurisdiction. And you are my friend whom I want to keep safe. I know the stupidest thing I can do is challenge you, but please,
please,
this time stay out of trouble, okay? This is not your fight. Leave it to men—people—who are trained to deal with this kind of stuff. Go on and get a job. Have a good life. Start saving for your retirement. Who knows, maybe you can make a lot of money and buy your own place under the sky.”
please,
this time stay out of trouble, okay? This is not your fight. Leave it to men—people—who are trained to deal with this kind of stuff. Go on and get a job. Have a good life. Start saving for your retirement. Who knows, maybe you can make a lot of money and buy your own place under the sky.”
I sagged back in my chair. Ortega was right, this wasn’t my fight, and it was time I began trying to have a future. I spread my hands in submission and said, “Okay.” .
Ortega eyed me carefully, pulling at his lower lip. “Good. So why not meet me back here about six. We’ll have dinner, keep you busy while you get used to this new Em Hansen,” he said. “And while we eat, you can tell me what you know from these journals. Get it off your chest. I’ll see that the information is treated as kindly as possible.”
I sighed and nodded. “Fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. There had been no mention of drug taking in Miriam’s journals. I had three hours to kill before Ortega went off duty, and Miriam’s unread journals called to me like the siren of the rocks. And he’d asked to know what was in them, right?
I called Julia’s office and was told that she was out. So
I phoned Cindey Howard. It was a gamble to go to her for information; she might have spoken with her husband since he had run me out of his office, and it wouldn’t do to seem like I was still snooping around his questionable doings.
I phoned Cindey Howard. It was a gamble to go to her for information; she might have spoken with her husband since he had run me out of his office, and it wouldn’t do to seem like I was still snooping around his questionable doings.
Cindey’s voice came on whispery and hoarse, as if she was answering a clandestine call. “Oh. Em. What do you want?”
“I want to ask you some more questions about Miriam.”
“What about her?”
“Well, really about a man she knew in college.”
Cindey didn’t say anything right away, but I could almost hear the wheels in her brain turning, slowly, cagily deciding what she would say in reply. When she spoke again, her voice was almost seductive. “Why don’t you come over?” she said. “Say in half an hour or so?”
I thought,
You want me in your house for some reason?
I pondered this, decided that she must not have spoken to Fred, as he had definitely given me the bum’s rush and would not, therefore, be asking his wife to invite me over for a social call. So it was okay to go, and if she even mentioned to him that I had dropped by—which seemed unlikely, given the little that she had to say to anybody—she would report the truth, that I was only asking about Miriam. Besides, I wanted to know what she wanted from me.
You want me in your house for some reason?
I pondered this, decided that she must not have spoken to Fred, as he had definitely given me the bum’s rush and would not, therefore, be asking his wife to invite me over for a social call. So it was okay to go, and if she even mentioned to him that I had dropped by—which seemed unlikely, given the little that she had to say to anybody—she would report the truth, that I was only asking about Miriam. Besides, I wanted to know what she wanted from me.
Forty-five minutes of thrashing through afternoon traffic later, I pulled into her driveway. Cindey answered the door wearing gray leggings and a velour tunic that featured white snowflakes on a field of maroon. The ensemble would have looked great on someone more Cecelia’s age.
“So Emily,” she whispered, peering at me through her unreadable little eyes, “what brings you to my door?” As if she hadn’t asked me to come.
I stepped in out of the cover of the imposing front entrance to the chill spaciousness of her front hallway. “I was hoping you could help me know a little more about your friend.”
“Miriam?”
“Yes. There are some gaps I need to fill in.”
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