Tortoise Soup (19 page)

I found it interesting that Sam had never bothered to fill me in on that tidbit.

When Brian dropped me back at my vehicle later that evening, I worried about the defrosted tortoises, but my Blazer wasn’t giving away any clues.

“I had fun tonight. But now the pressure’s on for me to find some critter for you to save on our next date. There will be a next date, won’t there?” he asked softly.

I found myself nodding as Brian tilted my chin up and kissed me lightly, his fingers caressing my throat. My blood kept beat with my heart as his lips grazed my neck before working their way up once more to settle on my mouth. Then I felt the warmth of his breath against my ear, light as a feather.

“You like challenges, don’t you, Rachel Porter? We’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he whispered, the words drifting softly inside me.

I rode home in a state of confusion, not able to figure out who Brian really was. My body had a mind of its own where he was concerned. And the fact that he had not only given me a dog but tried to save a deer hit every weak spot I had. That was the problem. My defenses were down and I felt certain he knew it.

I was just beginning to catch a good whiff of dead tortoise by the time I arrived home. I unwrapped the reptiles and carried them into the house, trying to fight off Pilot, who was sniffing furiously away. There was no trouble fitting the smashed torts in my freezer. Nothing else was in there besides the thin layer of ice that was just beginning to form. It would be a good year before I’d have to worry about cleaning the space out with a hammer and chisel.

I walked back into my living room, where I discovered that the hand-me-down coffee table I’d recently purchased suddenly had only three legs. Pilot lay on the floor contentedly chewing away at the fourth, which now resembled a piece of abstract sculpture. Obviously it was my punishment for leaving him alone. Pilot raised his head with a sheepish expression. What the hell, I thought. It was time for new hand-me-downs anyway.

Tonight was one of those nights when I knew sleep was hours away. I could tell from the music blaring next door that Lizzie was still awake, too. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk about tonight’s date. Not until I had sorted it out in my own mind first.

Instead I dug out the rest of Annie McCarthy’s love letters, hoping for some insight into what makes relationships tick. But Annie’d had about as much luck with men as me. Letter after letter revealed little other than that her fiancé had succumbed to being one more stubborn old prospector who had refused to give up.

Feeling as sorry for her as I did for myself, I was about to put the rest of her correspondence away when a spanking-new envelope caught my attention. Opening it up, I read it through once, and then again, not yet comprehending what it was I’d discovered.

Buried among Annie’s old love letters was an application for a quit claim deed. My heart began to race madly, and I couldn’t quite catch my breath. The application spelled out the sale of all Annie McCarthy’s claims to Golden Shaft Mine. While the place for Annie’s signature was blank, the deed had been signed by Brian Anderson representing the prospective buyer.

I poured a glass of tequila and downed it in one quick gulp as I looked at the deed again. This time I noticed the date as well. If Lanahan was right about Annie having been dead for a month when she was found, then the deed had been signed and dated just two weeks prior to that. I poured myself another shot of tequila, my hand shaking as I brought the glass to my lips.

Brian had lied to me. Not only about the wildlife deaths at his exemplary mine but about Annie McCarthy’s claims as well. I could still feel his touch on my mouth, his body pressed against mine, as I saw Annie’s skeleton grinning mockingly at me. I’d been played for a fool.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth, trying to exorcise Brian. Low, throaty laughter swelled up from behind me as my skin grew prickly cold. I knew it was Annie, laughing at one more woman who had been so easily conned. Nevada was quickly becoming a place where no one could be trusted.

Thoroughly exhausted and confused, I wanted nothing more than a deep, dreamless sleep. I walked into the bedroom, where a single message flashed on my answering machine. If it was Duff Gaines again, I would scream.

But the call was from Santou.

“Listen,
chère
. I’m flying out. We need to talk. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

That was in two days. No “Hi. How are you?” Just “We’ll talk.” It had to be something important. I knew Santou hated flying even more than I hated being away from the pulse of the city.

I went to sleep dreaming of Santou and Brian until they merged into one.

Pilot woke me from
a sleep so deep that I felt I would never make it up to the surface. Licking my face, he pulled at the covers with his heavy paw until I was forced to face the day. I felt downright domestic as I got Pilot his breakfast, going so far as to fix a bowl of Cocoa Puffs for myself. But the sour milk I poured on it brought me to my senses. Rummaging through my bag, I came up with the three essential ingredients to start off any day: chocolate, caramel, and nougat, all rolled into one sugar-packed Milky Way bar.

Then I fished through my freezer and dug out yesterday’s catch. It was time to pay Henry Lanahan a visit.

Lanahan’s office was set apart from the Metropolitan Police building. Far apart. Outside of town, to be precise. Rough cinder blocks as gray and cold as a corpse’s skin composed the facade of the Forensics lab. All the place needed was a hearse out front as its official car. I parked in the lot and let Pilot out of the Blazer to roam the lab grounds while I attended to business.

The atmosphere in the building was quiet as a newly dug grave, befitting what went on there. I stopped a woman with pale skin and sad eyes to ask the way to Lanahan’s office. She wordlessly pointed a rail-thin finger down the hall and then crooked it to the left. I interpreted this to mean I should turn at the corner.

I found Lanahan in a room that was eerily cheerful. Large cut-out Halloween skeletons with movable arms and legs hung from one wall, creating a mural of dancing corpses. On his desk sat figurines of two skeletons dressed as bride and groom. The room had a central theme, you had to give it that.

Lanahan bounded up from behind his desk upon seeing me. “Hey, Rachel! Glad you’re here. You’re just in time to see something neat. Come and take a look at this.”

I followed Lanahan’s lanky figure down the hall, half-running to keep up with him. He swung a door open, and I found myself outside baking under the sun again as an odor like week-old roadkill smacked me hard in the face.

“What have you got out here?” I asked, trying to inhale as little as possible.

Lanahan took a deep whiff. “I call this Skunk Alley in deference to its highly noticeable aroma. It’s where I bring things to rot.”

I pulled out a tissue and held it to my face. “You don’t happen to have Brady out here by any chance, do you?”

Henry chuckled. “Are you asking or requesting?”

He led me to the testing area, where three dead cows were laid out several yards apart, all in different stages of deterioration. Lanahan pointed to the one furthest along, which had dried flaps of skin gingerly hanging from its bleached bones.

“This one is old Gracie. She’s the closest to the way we found Annie McCarthy. Gracie’s been dead for six weeks now, so I think we can pinpoint Annie’s demise at around the same time.”

This put a new light on the quit claim deed to Annie’s land. It appeared that Annie must have died around the same time that Brian had signed and dated the form.

“Have you come up with anything else on Annie’s death?” I inquired.

“If you mean, was it a suicide as Brady insists, yeah. I’ve got some information for you on that. I measured the angle at which the bullet entered her skull. It came from a good six feet away with the bullet penetrating at a downward angle.” Lanahan helped me swat a cloud of flies away. “All I can tell you is that she’d have to have been one hell of a contortionist to shoot herself like that.”

“What about the gun? Any fingerprints on it?” I asked, hoping for a break.

Lanahan shook his head. “Not a one, sport.” He grinned as he caught my morose expression. “What do you want? Things to be clean and simple? Whoever did it thought the thing out.”

The flies regrouped and buzzed past us, heading for a ripe carcass. I didn’t bother to wait for Henry’s lead. I made a beeline back to his office, having had my fill of rotting meat. Lanahan poured me a cup of black coffee without bothering to ask.

“What about drugs? Did you find anything there?” I wanted to make sure there was no mistake that Annie’s death had been a murder.

Lanahan poured a wallop of half-and-half into his coffee, which was immediately transformed into tiny curds. “There was no sign of barbiturates, but my concoction did make for an interesting milk shake.” Lanahan took a sip, curds and all. “I offered some to Brady, but he turned me down. I’m thinking of marketing it as a protein shake. What do you think? You can bet some numbskull in Vegas will buy it.”

I was busy thinking about Annie’s quit claim deed and all that it signified. If her death wasn’t a suicide, the case would have to remain open. That was the only way I’d ever hand over the papers I’d found. Even then, I knew it was dicey. If Annie had truly been killed in order to snatch her claims, then there was also a good chance that the deed would disappear once it left my hands. One lonely old prospector’s death didn’t add up to much against Nevada’s political landscape.

“Then Brady will be changing his report?” I asked, just to make sure.

Lanahan grinned. “He’ll have to, won’t he?”

Henry poured more expired cream into his cup, making me wonder if his olfactory senses hadn’t been affected by too much time spent in Skunk Alley. “Don’t expect much to happen, though. With the crime rate soaring every day in this county, the death of a hermit tends to rank low on Metro’s totem pole.”

The thought startled me. “Does that mean that no investigation will be done?”

Lanahan arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, there’ll be one. Maybe a quick look-see around the year 2002, if you can wait. Unless she had some relatives who care to put up a squawk.”

That didn’t seem very likely. As far as I knew, Annie didn’t have a single friend. Except for her dog, Annie had been as alone in this world as she now was in death.

“Sorry. Anyway, her death will officially be listed as a murder on the autopsy report, if that’s any consolation,” Henry informed me.

It wasn’t. I felt discouraged and was about to leave when I remembered why I’d come in the first place. Reaching into my bag, I placed the five frozen tortoises on Lanahan’s desk.

“I take it you didn’t grab these from some tourist scavenging a few souvenirs,” Lanahan remarked, eyeing the torts.

“Can’t say that I did,” I responded, knowing better than to say any more. “I was hoping you’d do an autopsy on them for me.”

Henry gave a sigh as he picked up one of the flattened reptiles, holding it like a frisbee. “Gee, I wonder what could have possibly done them in?” he drolly inquired. “Let me guess. You’re not chalking this up to suicide, either. Just what is it that you’re looking to find?”

“I’m hoping the lab can prove that the tread marks on the shells were made by haul paks,” I informed him.

Henry glanced up at me. “Haul paks, huh? Doesn’t that fall under NDOW’s job description? From what I hear, wildlife autopsies of this sort aren’t done without Monty Harris’s personal authorization. What with the mines being involved and all.”

“That’s what I hear,” I confirmed.

“So in other words I would have to believe that these tortoises were found someplace other than on a mine company’s grounds,” Henry continued.

“That would make sense,” I agreed.

“Because, God knows, you’re not the type of gal who would twist things around just to get what she wants,” Lanahan attested.

“Certainly not,” I concurred wholeheartedly.

“Right. Porter, you’re a pain in the ass.” Lanahan winked as he picked up the pancaked torts and walked out the door.

Back outside, I found Pilot digging a hole in the lab’s front lawn. I could only assume the dog had been bred with a miner’s gene.

Lizzie was next on my list, and I headed for the county building. I cut through a maze of industrial back roads, preferring to stay off the Strip at midday, when tourists are on the loose. Besides, passing Vegas’s string of hotels in broad daylight is like seeing a showgirl without her makeup on. Illusion is everything. Cruising the Strip at night provided me with my necessary quotient of glamour and glitz.

I parked next to some palm trees and let Pilot out to lie in the shade, with a warning not to uproot what little landscaping there was. Then I headed inside. Lizzie was ready and waiting when I got there.

“Here’s the information on your boy at the lab, William Holmes. Brace yourself. You ready?” Lizzie looked like the cat that just ate the canary.

“Should I expect some ground-shaking news?” I was low on blood sugar and in bad need of some food.

“Damn straight. I did a hell of a job digging this stuff up. You wouldn’t believe what a bitch it was,” Lizzie complained.

“All right! Here are your Ring Dings. What have you got?” I asked.

Lizzie tore into the pack. Catching my eye, she tossed me one. “Why don’t you ever buy any of these for yourself?”

“Diet,” I mumbled as I blissed out on the first bite.

“Okay, here’s the deal. It turns out that Billy Holmes is none other than Ed Garrett’s nephew. My guess is Garrett got him the job.”

Lizzie was right: the news
was
a shocker. Apparently nepotism was alive and well in Clark County. And how convenient. It left me wondering whether Holmes’s theory on the break-in had been initiated by his uncle, or the other way around. Since Garrett didn’t much care about the fate of tortoises, it was interesting to note that he’d set his nephew up in charge of them. So much for my plans to knock Holmes out of his job.