Trouble at the Red Pueblo (20 page)

Laurie helped Karam swivel around, so his legs could dangle over the end of the pickup as Spider pulled out his cell phone. “Maybe not in Gaza,” he said, “but—”

Karam grabbed Spider’s wrist. “If you had skin the color of mine and were Muslim, you would not be so sanguine about the police in America.”

Laurie’s brows creased. “Surely not!”

Karam looked at her. “You are so good. I know it is hard for you to think badly of anyone. I tell you, if they do not suspect me of being a terrorist, they see my dark skin and think I’m Hispanic. They will think I am an illegal alien.” He let go of Spider’s wrist.

Spider pocketed his phone and leaned against the tailgate. “I’m a deputy sheriff, Karam. I don’t have any jurisdiction here, but certainly my word would stand for something.”

“When they bring in Homeland Security, would your word stand for something against them?”

“I think that’s a little extreme,” Spider said. “But you’re the one with a goose egg. We’ll do as you say.” He drew a card out of his shirt pocket. “However, I am going to make one call.”

“Who to?” Laurie asked.

Spider was busy tapping in the number. He held up a hand for silence as he listened to the ringing on the other end. “Hello, Jennifer? This is Spider Latham. I was in to see Austin Lee yesterday. Yes, glad you remembered. Is he in?” There was a brief pause, and then Spider’s voice grew hard. “Well, I have a message for you to give him. Do you have a pencil? Good. Here it is. Tell him he needs a better class of goon to do his dirty work. Whoever he sent over here attacked my friend, not me. Tell Austin Lee that I’m coming after him, and I’m going to put him out of business.” Spider punched the
off
button and dropped the phone in his shirt pocket.

Laurie frowned up at him. “Was that wise?”

Spider pulled out his wallet again and put the card inside. “I don’t know, but it made me feel a whole lot better.”

Laurie patted Karam’s knee. “Are you doing okay sitting up like that?”

The young man nodded. “If I could get rid of the headache, I think I would be all right.”

“I’ve got Tylenol in the glove box.” She headed for the cab and was back moments later with two white capsules.

Karam took them with murmured thanks and downed them with a drink from the water bottle.

Spider held up his hands for attention. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go back to the hotel. Karam, you’ll stay in our room, so we can keep an eye on you.”

Karam shook his head then grimaced and put his hand on the sore spot. “I would prefer my own room. It is almost time for
asr
, for late afternoon prayer.”

“Are you sure?” Spider sounded doubtful.

“You can check on me all you want. I just need to be in my own room.” Karam reached out his hands. “Will you help me down?”

With Spider on one side and Laurie on the other, they supported him as he slid to the ground. Spider walked with him to the passenger side of the pickup and helped him in.

Laurie closed the tailgate and met Spider at the driver’s door with the fleece and pillow. Climbing in, she slid across to sit in the middle. As Spider got in and started the truck, she tucked the pillow behind Karam’s head as it rested against the doorpost.

“Thank you.” Karam’s eyes were closed again. "I am sorry I broke your car.”

“You didn’t break it.” Laurie patted his hand. “Spider forgot to tell you the gas gauge doesn’t work.”

“Ah.”

Spider drove across the parking lot and turned north on the highway. “We’ll get you settled, and then Laurie and I will come back and pick up the car.”

Laurie leaned closer to Spider and spoke in a lowered voice. “We need to go visit Matt and tell him what Karam found out about Tiffany.”

The corners of Spider’s mouth turned down. “Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.”

Laurie continued in the same lowered voice. “We’ll get Karam settled. If he’s doing okay, we can run out to the museum and catch Matt. I think he’s there ‘til closing.”

“I will be fine,” Karam said.

Spider rubbed his jaw. “We’d probably better let Matt know that Austin Lee reacted to my visit, so they can be on guard. It bothers me that he’s turned to violence.”

“Especially since he’s using hired guns,” Laurie said. “You don’t know where the next attack is going to come from.”

All the way to the hotel, Spider looked in the rearview mirror, checking to make sure there was no one behind them. When they arrived, Spider walked with Karam to his room and got him settled while Laurie detoured by the Latham’s room. She knocked on Karam’s door a few minutes later, and Spider let her in.

She entered carrying the box of cookies and some individual milk cartons. “I got these in the gift shop,” she said, putting them in the mini fridge. She set the box on the stand next to where Karam lay on the bed. Bending over him, she smoothed back his hair. “Look at me,” she said.

After gazing intently at his eyes, she went to the closet and pulled the extra blanket off the top shelf. She covered Karam with it and tucked it around him. “Rest and chocolate chip cookies,” she said, patting the box on the bedside stand. “Best medicine there is.”

“I will have some in a little while,” Karam said. “Thank you.” His eyes fluttered and then closed.

“You’ve got my cell phone number,” Spider reminded him. “We’re going to go talk to Matt Taylor for a little bit and pick up the Yugo on the way back. Call us if you need anything. We can be back here in fifteen minutes.”

Karam’s eyes opened. “You can tell him about Tiffany Wendt, but don’t say anything yet about the Goodman thing.”

“We won’t.” Laurie pulled the blanket up around his ear. “You just rest.”

“I’ve got your room key.” Spider patted his pocket. “We’ll check on you when we get back.”

Spider rested his hand on Karam’s shoulder, and then he and Laurie quietly left. They got in the pickup and stopped at a service station on the way out of town to buy a one-gallon can and fill it with gas. Then they headed south to Fredonia.

“ARE YOU WORRIED
about Karam?” Spider asked Laurie.

“His eyes look okay. You always worry about a bump on the head, though.”

Spider grimaced. “I feel so bad that he got pulled into this mess.”

Laurie turned toward him. “I tell you what I worry about. I worry that this whole thing is bigger than it seems. What if this is some Mafia-backed real estate grab.”

Spider shook his head. “I don’t think so. It has the feel of a small-time operator. I think that he’s been successful in all these scams, and now when someone is standing up to him, he’s resorting to violence.”

“But who was the fellow who attacked Karam? Was that Austin Lee?”

“Can’t be. He knows what I look like. I think he went to Rent-a-Thug and hired someone to work me over. Austin saw me driving the Yugo, so describing the car was easier than describing me.”

“You mean orange roller skate with black flames is easier than tall, dark and handsome?”

Spider smiled. “Something like that.” Coming down the hill after crossing into Arizona, he spied the red ochre dots that would grow in size and become the Red Pueblo Museum. “I’m not looking forward to telling Matt that Tiffany was lying to him.”

“Working with people is hard on the soul,” Laurie observed. “I prefer cattle any day.”

“Yeah, well…” Spider didn’t finish his thought. The site of the museum fast approaching set his mind to searching for words to tell Matt Taylor that he had been had. Minutes later when he turned into the driveway, he hadn’t come up with anything. Matt was on the far side of the Heritage Yard with a wheelbarrow and a shovel.

“Want me to come with you?” Laurie asked.

Spider parked in the shade of a tree and rolled down the windows before turning off the engine. “Probably not. No man wants spectators when he finds out how stupid he’s been.”

“I’ll wait here, then.”

Spider got out of the cab and ambled to the gate, passing through and crossing to where Matt was methodically taking out weeds with long strokes of his shovel. “Is this executive work?” he inquired when he got within speaking distance.

Matt leaned on the handle, breathing hard. “We may lose the museum tomorrow, but by golly, it’ll look good when we do. You got anything to report?”

Spider pushed the brim of his hat up. “I’ve got things to report. Whether it’s going to help remains to be seen.” He cleared his throat. How to begin?

“Well?”

“I went to St. George yesterday, and I visited with several people. I found some answers. Found some questions, too, that I want to talk to you about. But first—”

“Yes?”

Nothing to do but get it over with. “First, I need to tell you that Tiffany Wendt was lying. She doesn’t have a quarter million dollars to give to the museum.”

Matt didn’t move. He stood still as a statue with his hand on the shovel handle, his face growing ashen, eyes never leaving Spider’s face.

After waiting for Matt to say something, Spider forged on. “She’s divorced, just as she said, but her ex doesn’t own a software company. He’s a truck driver. The car is essentially stolen, and her net worth seems to be somewhere in the area of three thousand dollars.”

Matt’s eyes seemed to have sunken into his skull, and there was a blue shadow around his mouth.

Spider took a step forward. “Are you all right? Here, come sit on this timber.” He led him to the antique well drilling outfit, and Matt didn’t resist the pressure of Spider’s hand on his shoulder pushing him down. He leaned forward and let his head hang down, breathing in shallow pants.

After a moment, Matt sat up far enough to prop his arms on his knees and put his forehead on clasped hands. “I am such a fool.”

Spider leaned a shoulder against part of the rigging. “You’re a good man. You tell the truth, and you expect that others do, too.”

Matt shook his head. “I’ve made such a hash of things.”

“You’re not the first man to do something stupid where a woman is concerned,” Spider said.

Matt sat straight up and looked Spider in the eye. “I wasn’t in love with Tiffany, if that’s what you mean.”

Spider glanced at a pair of museum patrons drifting toward the drill rig and jerked his head toward the far side of the yard. “Let’s go over there where we can talk undisturbed.” He led the way through the native landscaping, continuing the conversation as they walked. “I never thought you were in love with Tiffany, but I do know you hurt Linda. Drove her to listen when a slick customer came along paying attention to her.”

“Guilty.” Matt picked up a rock and flung it at a fence post, missing by a hair.

“Did you talk to her about it? Tell her you were sorry for hurting her?”

Matt shook his head, picked up another rock and threw it. This time he hit the post with a resounding crack. “What’s the use? She went to Flagstaff to another interview today.”

Spider put his hands in his back pockets and examined the toe of his boot. Should he push Matt a little harder to talk to Linda? Somehow he didn’t think the younger Taylor’s love life was what Brick Tremain meant when he talked about trouble at the Red Pueblo.

Spider moved on to the next order of business. “I went to St. George yesterday. And Laurie and I went to Mesquite today, all on the trail of people who got mixed up with Austin Lee.”

“Austin Lee?” Matt frowned. “Why?”

“We found out his visit to the museum and his dating Linda was all part of a pattern.” Spider went on to tell Matt about his visit to Earnest Endeavors, to Annie Defrain, and to Dorrie Coleman. When he talked about Mary Defrain’s suicide, Matt gave a sharp intake of breath, and he muttered something that Spider didn’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

Matt shook his head. “I’d better not repeat it. If anything happened to Austin, it’d make me a suspect.”

“I imagine it fits the situation,” Spider said. “Especially when you find out that Austin moved into the Defrain’s house after he stole the whole development from them.”

“Somebody needs to do something to stop him.”

“Up until now, he’s been careful to operate within the law, and he’s been pretty much unhampered. I let him know we were on to him.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday. Today he sent a thug to beat me up— only he didn’t find me. He found a friend who had borrowed my car.”

“You’re a deputy. Can’t you arrest him?”

“I’ve got no jurisdiction in Utah. Besides, that’s not my job. My job is to protect the museum.”

“So far, you haven’t done much.” Matt immediately held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I realize we’ve been dealing with this turd for months, and we didn’t even know who it was until you came.”

Spider wished he could tell him what Karam had found about the Goodman genealogy, but he had promised to wait.

Matt flung another rock. “I can’t believe he used Linda like that.”

“Remember that he got a little help from you and Tiffany.” Spider glanced at the pickup and started edging toward the gate. “I gotta go. Laurie and I need to check on Karam.”

Matt grabbed Spider’s arm. “Wait. Was Karam the one that got beat up?”

Spider nodded. “We think he’s going to be all right, but we told him we wouldn’t stay away long.”