R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (18 page)

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Chapter Twenty-eight:

With Pearlie pressed against my shoulder, Deputy Dick sped toward Sierra Vista and the
antivenom my cousin needed for the rattlesnake bite.

I looked over my shoulder at the mountains sheltering our property, the Dicks’, and Bethany Coker’s art compound. What seemed safe and welcoming when we first got here
, now looked dangerous and forbidding. And rattlesnakes aside, the idea that Mac Cocker was acquiring land along the backside of Red Mountain Road now appeared more than just suspicious. “What other places has Mac Coker been able to acquire through tax lien sales?” I asked the deputy.

“The two ranches on either side of us. The folks there were old and ready to retire anyway, but not my granddad. He thinks he’s keeping it for my inheritance. Damn
ed old fool.”

He looked over at Pearlie. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her breathing shallow. “He’ll be after your place next.”

A county zoning map might confirm it, but I would bet he was after property he could keep free of residents. Everything he could get his hands on that lined up from the border to the Coker place. Bethany’s art compound would become something else entirely. He’d boot the artists so he could shelter illegals, mules and itinerant workers. The barns and outbuilding could be turned into sorting and storage for the drug trafficking.

And he would need someone in law enforcement. I knew from my experiences with cops in Modesto that bribing a cop wasn’t out of the question.
The police chief took the time to answer a distress call from Mac Coker’s daughter instead of letting someone else do it. Or did he answer it because he was working for Mac on the side?

Then too, Deputy Abel Dick worked for the sheriff’s department and now seemed a pretty good time to ask him a question.

“Why’d you run me off the road the other day?” I asked.

His lips tightened into a thin line. “Nobody uses that road but me, and I didn’t know it was you driving. All I saw was a Jeep hogging the road.”

“That road ends at Bethany’s place.”

Something in Deputy Dick’s eyes flashed, but before he could answer
, Pearlie moaned and opened her eyes.

“It hurts. How much longer?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes,” the deputy said, flooring the gas pedal. “If we get DPS on our tail, at least we’ll have an escort to the hospital.”

He slowed only to tap his brakes and honk at the occasional slow moving motorist then sped around them, and I was very relieved to see the emergency entrance come into view.

In spite of his bulk, Deputy Dick hopped out and ran around to the passenger side. Yanking open the door he impatiently signaled for me to get out, then reached in and gently lifted Pearlie out of the cab and carried her into the ER.

With the attending physician seeing to Pearlie, I asked the deputy to wait while I gave Pearlie’s health car
e cards to the business office.

He shuffled his feet for a few minutes then mumbled that he needed to get back to work and
loped for the exit.

I shoved Pearlie’s health cards at the bookkeeper, and hurried after him.

When I called his name, he rounded on me, looking ready for a fight. “What do you
want
, Miss Bains?”

I took a step back. “I just wanted to thank you again for saving my cousin.”

“Are you going to tell Detective Tom?” he asked.

“About your granddad and his shotgun? Of course not.”

“You could, you know. On account of him, your cousin was bitten by a rattler. I’m supposed to be a lawman, and I can’t even protect folks from my own family.”

“Your granddad is under a lot of stress, I understand that.”

“Won’t make any difference if you do or don’t. He’s about to lose the only home he’s ever known, and I can’t do a thing about it. I doubt I’ll even last through this first year in the sheriff’s department.”

“I’m sure it will get better with time, Abel,” I said putting my hand on his arm.

He looked at my hand and tears filled his eyes. “All I ever wanted to do was be a sheriff like my dad and grandpa, but I don’t stand a chance, not with the bunch I work with.”

“Your father and grandfather were sheriffs, too?”

“Dick used to be a respected name in this county, and it helped when I was applying for the job, but I’m not light on my feet and I don’t react quick like I should, or so my sergeant says. I might as well quit now.”

Here was the opener I needed and I grabbed it.

“As far as I can see,” I said, “you’re a hero. You saved Pearlie, and you’re doing everything you can to save your granddad’s home. I think if we worked together, we could find Bethany’s killer, which also might give you the boost you need in the department, and if everything falls into place, maybe there could be some kind of resolution with Mac Coker too. What do you say?”

Abel’s brows scrunched up in thought. “Gee. I-I don’t know. Work on a case outside of the sheriff’s department—that’s against the rules, you know.”

I could tell him that working outside of the law was actually kind of fun, but then I wasn’t standing in this young man’s shoes, seeing my dreams of becoming a real lawman slip out of my grasp.

“Abel, think how grateful the department will be when you’re the one who breaks this case. Besides, I suspect Mac Coker doesn’t want any publicity, only Bethany’s killer. So what do you say?”

He slipped his hand into his pants pocket, brought out a package of gum, and offered me a piece.

Momentarily flustered by
this maneuver to side-step my question, I watched him unwrap the gum from its silver foil, fold it into quarters, and then insert it into his mouth. It was such a familiar gesture I had to look away to keep from laughing.

When my dad wanted to put a little space between a question and an answer, he did exactly the same thing. Unwrap a stick of gum. Fold it up. Chew.

If Abel’s sergeant and his peers thought him slow, perhaps it was only because they didn’t understand that he was simply evaluating the facts before making a decision.

“If I took what I know to Homicide,” he said, “they’d just make dirty jokes and that, well, it wouldn’t be right.”

I’d had enough of my own troubles with unsuitable remarks from police officers to agree.

“What would they have to joke about? Was it something you did?”

“Not me. It’s something I know about Bethany. I-I think it’s what got her killed, but you’d have to promise not to tell Detective Tom.”

He
would agree, but only as long as I didn’t tell the homicide detective? If he was lying, and was in Mac Coker’s pocket, I might be a mine pit’s next victim. On the other hand, what did I have to prove that Mac was a murderer? Nothing, unless I could enlist this young man’s help.

“If you’ll work with us, my cousin and me, and we find the
proof we need to get an arrest, you should be the one to take it to the detective.”

He chewed on his gum, rocking on his feet, heel to toe and back again.
“I wish it could be like that. But I’d get tossed out of the department sooner rather than later. No, it’s got to come from you, or no deal.”

He was waiting for me to say the one thing that would allow him to let go of a secret that could net us a killer.

“Why don’t you tell me what you know, and then we’ll decide what to do about together.”

I was not totally surprised to learn why he’d chosen to keep this secret from the investigating detectives, and it certainly explained Bethany’s very private lifestyle, and perhaps why her cell phone and
laptop were still missing.

Before he left, he said, “I’ll see that you get your rental car delivered to your home later today.”

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Chapter
Twenty-nine:

My cousin was asleep, her bandaged hand propped up on some pillows, an IV in the other arm. I nudged her shoulder. “Pearlie. Wake up. I have good news.”

Her eyes fluttered and opened. “I was peacefully dreaming, but now that I am awake, I can honestly say that I hate you.”

“Oh, please,” I said, readjusting the pillows behind her head. “It was your idea to visit Mr. Dick’s house, not mine. Besides, we have some help in the sheriff’s department.”

“Really?” she groaned at the effort to sit upright, and motioned for me to raise the back of her bed. “So who’d you get? Sheriff Tom?”

I hit the button on her bed control. “Better?”

“Oh yeah. I need my lipstick, please.”

I retrieved her purse and handed it to her.

“It’s Deputy Dick,” I said. “The poor kid is struggling as the new deputy in the department, and he’s willing to help our investigation.”

“What could that big goof possibly know that could help us?”

“That big goof saved your life. Or don’t you remember?”

“No. I don’t remember anything after that darn snake bit me. Is my Lady Smith still
in my purse?”

“Other than digging through your wallet for insurance cards, I haven’t looked and no one else has bothered it. I did notice the picture of Mad-Dog Schwartz
though. I thought you were over him.”

“I am, but I like to remind myself about the things that don’t work,
and I swear I’m running out of points to avoid. Aren’t there any good ones left?”

“Caleb—but you can forget it—he’s taken.”

“Not my type anyway.”

“And maybe that’s your problem. Your type always disappoints you. As for your Lady Smith, save your ammo, I’m not wasting time hiking around the hills looking for a rattlesnake when we have a killer to catch.”

“Thirsty,” she said, pointing to the water cup on the table.

I held the plastic container so she could
sip from the straw. She waved it away and asked, “So why is Deputy Dumb-Ass willing to help us?”

“You better start calling him by his real name, Abel Dick, and you’ll never guess why he agreed to help.”

“My head hurts and my hand is throbbing. Either tell me or go away so I can get some sleep.”

“Do you remember Jason and Reina telling us that Bethany had a talent for helping broken people?”

She blinked and yawned. “Dumb-Ass was one of them?”

“Now that he’s on our side, please refer to him as Deputy
Dick or Abel Dick. He worked his way through college installing TV’s and exterior routers for remote homes in the county. One installation was Bethany Coker’s house.”

“Go on.”

“He didn’t flinch or shy away at her deformity, and she saw through his awkwardness around women. So naturally when she had phone connection problems, Abel offered to help. But when he tested her phone line he came across something odd. Bethany had two lines; one went directly to an answering service, the kind that won’t confirm anything but a phone number. Abel, being the curious type, waited until he was off work and then called the number again. When he asked to leave a message, the service said that if he wished to be connected to
Collette
they would need his credit card number.”

Pearlie jerked upright. “Phone sex?”

“Make that live-on-the-Internet-sex and you have it.”

“But why? If she didn’t make enough as an artist, surely her rich daddy would pick up the slack.”

“Think, Pearlie. What has everyone said about Bethany? That she was so full of life, so vital, always upbeat and smiling, and in spite of her facial deformity, she was pretty. So what would a young woman like Bethany, who had little interaction with people outside of the art compound, be missing?”

“Love,” Pearlie sighed. “O
r something close enough so she could at least feel like a woman, wanted and desirable.”

“And the men who paid for the on-line experience wouldn’t think anything of a mask—she could say it was to hide her real identity.”

“We should add a mask to the list of missing items from what Homicide removed from her house. And Homicide doesn’t know about her secret job? What about Reina? Do you think she knew?”

“I don’t know, but I doubt her father
did.”

“This could be why she was murdered.”

“Well, Abel may never have had a real date, but he knew all about women willing to have a ‘date’ on the internet.”

“Abel, did he—?”

“He says he had too much respect for her.”

“What else?” Pearlie asked, her excitement growing. “Does he know who killed Bethany?”

“He has an idea, but that’s where it gets sticky. The day Bethany was murdered, he overheard the police chief bragging about having a date with his hot new girlfriend.”

Her eyes lit as she put it together. “Oh, I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Bethany. He was on his way to see his new girlfriend. Wait. Reina admitted to making that 9-1-1 call, but not to seeing the chief. Think she was lying about that, too?”

“Maybe. But i
f she admits that she and Julio were there, the D.A. will pressure her to testify against her boyfriend on a murder charge.”

Pearlie held up the fingers on her good hand to count off the evidence.

“Okay, so by the time Reina made that 9-1-1 call, the chief was either dead, or on his way to it. How did the police chief find out where Bethany lived?”

“The chief could get a judge and a warrant for the message center, tell them it was part of an ongoing investigation.”

“And when he found her, he must’ve been dumbstruck. She certainly wasn’t as advertised.”

“Exactly. Now what would a wife-beating misogynist like the chief do in a situation like that?”

“His ego wouldn’t tolerate the idea that he’d been having phone sex with a freak,” Pearlie said. “The chief’s history of beating on his wife says he’d be likely to eventually murder someone. She’d made a fool out of him, so he kills her. That accounts for one murder. Then who killed the chief?”

“Homicide,” I said, “is satisfied that the chief was simply the second victim of an intruder and it’s going to stay that way unless we can come up with the connection between the two.”

“We have to find the laptop. It will confirm if the chief was a client of hers and give Homicide a suspect for Bethany’s murder besides Julio Castillo.”

“You mean,
I
have to find the laptop,” I said. “You’re staying put until the doctors say so.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Pearlie said, examining
herself in her compact mirror.

“So is your doctor cute?”

“Short, with a little bald spot on the back of his head, but I think he’s sweet on me.”

“He’s not married?”

“Divorced. No kids, just moved here from Minneapolis and glad for a change of weather.”

I shook my head in admiration. Who else could turn a rattlesnake bite into a date but my cousin?

“There’s still the issue of who killed the chief. It had to be someone who knew he was
supposed
to be on a fishing trip,” I said. “He would be familiar with the area and know all the best places to dump a body. It would have to be a man big enough to haul a grown man down the stairs and ….”

The words dried up in my mouth. There was one person who fit that description perfectly. One person who was connected with both Bethany and the chief, and who had no trouble charging uphill with my cousin over his shoulder, and who could’ve just as easily carted the police chief’s body downstairs, out of the house, and knew a convenient place to dump a body
. Mac Coker held the lien on the Dick property and the deputy had no way of paying off the back taxes. Or maybe Mac Coker had offered Able a deal he couldn’t refuse.

“Deputy Dick,” I said, regret and disappointment echoing my words. “Damn it. And he knew all about the mapped mine pits in Cochise County.”

“First he’s a hero and now he’s dirty? Make up your mind, will you?”

“I-I’m not sure.”
Was he also Mac Coker’s stooley?

“You’re the one who said he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.”

“I did, didn’t I?” If Abel killed the chief, at least Julio Castillo won’t be indicted for murder.

“Okay,” Pearlie said, warming to the subject. “The Chief killed Bethany, and Deputy Dumb, sorry, Abel, killed the chief, swept up any evidence that might smear Bethany’s good name and dumped the chief in the nearest mine pit. It’s going be up to you to find out if Abel is responsible for killing the police chief. Think you can handle it by yourself?”

“Of course I can,” I said, hoping I was wrong. And to think I was actually starting to warm up to Abel Dick and his gun-toting granddad. I looked at my watch. It was five o’clock.

“Damn. I completely forgot Reina and she’s probably been released by now.”

“Don’t worry about it. Mac Coker called earlier wanting to know how we were doing on the case, and I assured him we were still on the job, but I did have to tell him I was in the hospital on a count of me being snakebit and all. He said not to worry about Reina, he’d take care of her.”

An uneasy feeling ran through me. Why would Mac Coker be willing to help Reina now, when earlier he’d been ready to kick her off the property?

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I said.

“Why not? He was real nice about it, me being under the weather and all.”

“Because he could be the one who’s moving drugs in and out of his daughter’s property.”

“Mac? They arrested Julio Castillo, and you heard Mac, he and Bethany wouldn’t stand for it.”

“No, Pearlie. He said
Bethany
wouldn’t have tolerated it. Mac Coker still has ties with the Chicago mob, and Abel says he’s bought the tax liens on several properties along Red Mountain Road, including the Dick property.”

“Maybe he wants it for a residential development,” she said with a shrug.

“Don’t defend him just because he hired us to find his daughter’s killer.”

I was beginning to think that Caleb had it right. Who in their right mind would hire Pearlie and me as private investigators? Maybe Mac Coker hired us to get inside information and he’d either pay us off, or finish us off.
Ohmygod. I couldn’t, shouldn’t go there, at least not without proof.

Luckily, my dad and Caleb appeared at the door and distracted me from my escalating suspicions.

Pearlie smiled at the men and whispered, “Let’s leave Mac Coker out of it for now, shall we?”

I had to agree with her. But the first chance I got I intended to let Caleb in on the whole story; the tax liens bought up by Mac Coker, the possibility that the police chief had murdered Bethany, and last but not least, that Abel Dick might’ve killed the chief in an attempt to save Bethany’s reputation.

While my dad laid a bouquet on the bedside table and asked how she was doing, Caleb pulled me out of the room.

“We have to go,” he said.

“Okay, but I’ve got something very important to tell you.”

“Can it wait? We have a problem at home.”

Looking glum, my dad joined us in the hall.

“He’s right,
Lalla. We sort of set a trap to keep thieves away from the Bugatti and—”

“A trap? What kind of a trap?” I asked.

Dad reached up and scratched his head. “Well, now, that’s the thing. We think Uncle Ed had plans to rig the light switch to electrocute any unauthorized entry. There was this sign next to the door that said,
Danger
with lightning a bolt across the words.”

“In German,” Caleb added.

“Who puts up a sign in German?” I asked.

“Your great
-uncle Ed,” the men chorused.

“If it’s nothing more than an electrical shock, why are you so worried?” I asked.

“Well now,” Caleb said. “That’s the problem. We got to thinking, with a valuable race car in the barn it should be more than just a shock.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “We found some fertilizer soaking in diesel fuel, and a small detonator wired in series with a battery, and since it was all just sitting there, we attached it to the light switch on the door. I put it on a three minute time delay so we could disarm it, but—”

“Three minute timer?” I asked, fear skittering down my neck at the potential disaster.

“We had every intention of disarming the thing,” Caleb said, “but
your dad was tired of waiting for you girls, so he called the Jeep dealership about a loaner, and they called back to tell us someone was bringing us a car about the same time you called about Pearlie and we completely forgot about disconnecting the whole thing.”

“I guess we got distracted,” Dad said. “By the time we dropped off the driver at the Chrysler dealership the security alarm started beeping.”