Wild Wild Death (24 page)

“My friend Dan’s.” He’d already walked into the house ahead of me and was greeting the sheriff and the deputies at work in there, so I don’t think Jesse heard either my mumbling or the sarcasm in my voice. Like I’d told him on the way from the pueblo back to Antonito, no way Dan was involved. And if Wil Kettle said he was, then Wil was just crazy. Or so eager to deflect any guilt away from himself that he was wil ing to point the finger at Dan. Or more specifical y, at Dan’s picture.

“I wasn’t planning on touching anything,” I said, stepping into the pint-sized living room. There was a middle-aged guy with a bushy mustache in there shaking hands with Jesse. He looked familiar, and I remembered the last time I’d been at Norma’s, the day I got conked on the head and ended up in the ER. Mustache Man was the sheriff, of course, and it wasn’t until he looked at me and shook his head in disgust that I realized I was holding on to the front door.

I dropped my hand and wiped it against the leg of my jeans. Yeah, like that would somehow magical y erase any fingerprints I’d already left.

“Don’t touch anything,” the sheriff said. Delivering the message, he didn’t sound nearly as menacing as Jesse had when he said the same thing. In fact, the sheriff sounded as if he’d had to give this sort of warning far too many times, and he was just plain tired of it. “And don’t go getting yourself knocked over the head again, Ms. Martin. I got too much on my plate to have to handle another assault report.

Why don’t you just…” He flattened his hands and pushed them, palms out, toward me. The way a trainer would who wanted a dog to sit and stay. “You just stay put and don’t get into any trouble while I show Jesse what we’re up to here.”

What they were up to was dusting for prints there in the living room and in Norma’s tiny bedroom with the magazine pictures of tropical islands pinned up on the wal s. I watched them for a while—hands in pockets—but let’s face it, I didn’t like to see anyone work more than they had to. And these guys?

“They’re wasting their time.” In the interest of not embarrassing Jesse, I kept my voice down, but I wanted to make sure he knew I wasn’t buying this Dan-as-guilty-party hogwash. “I could just save them the trouble and tel them Dan wasn’t here. How could he be if he’s been kidnapped?”

“Maybe.” Jesse’s arms were crossed over his chest. He slid me a look. “Maybe not. Either way, it would be irresponsible of them not to fol ow a lead.”

Since one of the deputies was bustling past, Jesse’s voice was just as low as mine. He stepped forward so that the deputy could sidle through, then stepped back the other way so another deputy with a case ful of fingerprint powder and brushes could get past us.

Whoever said three was a crowd must have been thinking of Norma’s house.

And I guess Jesse was, too. He looked toward the kitchen and the backyard beyond. “Maybe you should—”

“Go wait outside?” I wasn’t exactly as upset about this dismissal as I tried to sound. It wasn’t terribly cheery in there. Especial y when I thought about how Norma had been murdered there in her own home and how now the cops were hel -bent on trying to pin the whole thing on Dan. “I’l wait out back,” I told Jesse. “Only you’d better hope while I’m out there, no one hits me over the head and knocks out there, no one hits me over the head and knocks me out.”

I decided to believe that the sleek smile that was his only response meant he didn’t want me to get hit over the head, either, and I meandered through the deputies in the living room and walked into the kitchen. That’s when Norma’s bul etin board caught my eye.

It was one of those French boards, the kind that are covered with fabric and crisscrossed with ribbons. In Norma’s case, the fabric was a tropical print complete with pink flamingos and fiery sunsets, and the ribbons were yel ow, orange, and lime green. It wasn’t the colors that caught my eye, though.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the coast was clear and closed in on the board. There was a recipe for sloppy joes attached to one of the orange ribbons, and a coupon for some off-brand laundry detergent attached to one of the yel ow ones.

Smal , everyday things, and in light of what had ultimately happened to Norma, strangely moving.

Rather than get al slushy about it, I looked at what was hanging on to one of the lime ribbons.

A photograph. Or at least al that was left of a photograph. Most of the picture had been ripped away, leaving only one corner that was hardly big enough to reveal why Norma prized it. I bent closer for a better look and made out one little sliver of sky with something brown silhouetted against it that might have been a rock. Or a distant mountain. Or a bowl of chocolate pudding.

No way to tel where the photo was taken or what

—or who—might have been in the center of it. No matter. That wasn’t what made my detective instincts tingle. No, that was taken care of by the paperclip that had been used to attach the picture to the ribbon. The one bent into a weird, drunken figure eight.

Exactly like one I’d seen before.

“Hey, Jesse.” He was just walking past the door so it wasn’t hard to get his attention. But just to make sure, I grabbed on to Jesse’s arm and tugged him into the kitchen. “Look.” I pointed to the bul etin board and the scrap of photograph. “Brian was here. This proves it. And it proves he had a relationship with Norma, too.”

Of course he didn’t fol ow my logic, so I explained. About the first night I came to Antonito, and the aliens over at Taberna. About the one alien mask that had been held together by a weird, twisty paperclip.

When he stil didn’t look convinced, I stepped back, my weight against one foot. “Come on. You have to admit, it’s a good catch.”

“It’s a great observation. You’ve got a good eye.

But that doesn’t mean—”

“Of course it does. Brian was the one wearing that alien mask. It had to be him. You said it yourself, Brian was obviously the spokesperson for the group.” Too late, I remembered it wasn’t Jesse who’d said that at al , it was Quinn. No matter. It’s exactly what Jesse would have said if he’d been part of the conversation. Cop brotherhood and al that.

As if proving the point, Jesse launched into the same lecture I knew Quinn would have given me if he’d been there. “Even if it’s true that Brian was wearing the mask that day—and there’s no way to prove it, of course—al the paperclip tel s us is that Brian was here.”

Since that was my whole point, I perked right up.

Until Jesse shot my theory to the ground with, “Or that Brian gave Norma a paperclip. Or that Norma once saw Brian bend a paperclip a certain way and she liked the way he did it so when she needed to bend a paperclip, she did the same thing. See what I’m getting at here? No way this kind of evidence stands up in court.”

“But—”

“Like I said, great observation.” Something told me if he thought he could get away with it, he would have given me a pat on the head. Big points for him for knowing he couldn’t get away with it. “So weren’t you on your way—”

“Hey, Chief!” The sheriff stuck his head into the kitchen. “Got that cal from the crime-lab guys in Albuquerque.” Shaking his head, he tucked his cel into his pocket. “You’re not going to believe this.

They finished up examining the evidence, you know, from Norma’s murder. Turns out they found some skin under her fingernails. You know, like maybe she fought with her attacker. They ran it through a database and it’s Brian Reynolds’s DNA, al right.”

“That proves it.” It wasn’t polite to gloat, but let’s face it, I had every right. I did restrain myself, though, and didn’t give Jesse a boff on the arm. Not in front and didn’t give Jesse a boff on the arm. Not in front of his fel ow cops. “It’s just like I said. Brian must have been the kil er.”

“A kil er without a rap sheet.” Jesse wasn’t convinced. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Why?”

Whatever Jesse was going to ask, the sheriff apparently had the same questions for the guys in Albuquerque. He was ready with the answers and nodded knowingly. “Turns out Reynolds was down in Daytona Beach, Florida, back in 2008. There was a serial kil er on the loose down there, and the police were taking DNA swabs from everybody they detained. Reynolds wasn’t their guy, of course. In fact, he was picked up for nothing more than a drunk and disorderly after some spring training basebal game, and they never did charge him. But since the cops were swabbing everyone, they swabbed him.”

“He’s our kil er.” Yes, I sounded thril ed, as thril ed as I suddenly felt. And relieved, to boot. Maybe now Jesse would stop looking to prove that Dan was somehow implicated in this crazy business. “Al we have to do—”

“Is get our hands on him.” Jesse sounded certain, but not particularly pleased at the prospect. And the deputies never stopped doing what they were doing, which told me that though they knew they had a solid suspect in Norma’s murder, they weren’t completely convinced Dan wasn’t involved.

“Humph.” That was me, grumbling as I turned to push open the back door with one shoulder so as not to leave any fingerprints. I walked outside, and from where I stood, I had a clear view of the cemetery next door, and I ambled over that way. “Boy, Goodshot, I could sure use some help.” I waited for an answer.

Or a little twinkle of light. Or anything that might prove that some of the old magic was stil at work, and when I didn’t get it, I grumbled on. “They think Dan is involved. And they know Brian is for sure, only they don’t know where Brian is, and if you were around, I could send you out on a sort of scouting party and maybe you could locate him for me. Then Brian could admit the whole thing. You know, about kidnapping Dan and about the excavation at the pueblo…” A shiver scooted over my shoulders and I shook it away.

“Okay,” I said to the thin air around me, “so I don’t understand what the excavation has to do with Brian and it does sound like Dan was the mastermind there and I don’t know how the whole thing can be connected, but stil …”

I was getting no answers from the dead, so I kicked my way through the dust over to the lopsided building behind Norma’s house. Too smal to be a garage. Too big to be a toolshed. My guess was that she used it for storage and I had no doubt the cops had been through it the first time they came to the house to investigate Norma’s murder.

“You know, Goodshot…” Too antsy to stand stil , I kicked the toe of one boot against the door of the shed. “They’re being pigheaded about this. Even Jesse. I’m sure they’l look for Brian. I mean, now that they’ve got his DNA and al . But I think at this point, Jesse’s more worried about what happened over at that old pueblo than he is about Norma. I guess that’s his job.” I sighed. “Norma’s murder is the sheriff’s problem, but stil …”

I glanced over my shoulder to see if anything was happening in the house—anything that didn’t look like a Dan Cal ahan witchhunt, that is—and when there wasn’t, I made up my mind. The motel wasn’t far away, and my car was parked there.

“If they’re not going to start right now and look for Brian…” I said into ghost-less silence.

“Then you know what? I’l just find him myself.”

Just to show I meant it, I gave the shed door another kick.

And I guess that did the trick.

Because the shed door plopped open and I found what I was looking for when Brian’s body dropped into the dirt at my feet.

I

’m beyond screaming when I find a body. I mean, real y, been there, done that. But I’m human, after al , and I do have a certain sensitivity when it comes to things like bloated flesh and bulging eyes and gaping, bloody wounds.

I might have shrieked. A little.

Like anyone can blame me?

The result, of course, was that everyone who was in the house came running, and ten minutes or so later, they were engrossed with this new turn of events. For my part, I think it’s safe to say that I was just grossed out.

“How you doing?” I was standing at the wooden fence (badly in need of painting) between Norma’s property and the cemetery when Jesse came over.

“If you need to go back to your motel—”

I cut him off with a quick shake of my head. “Not the first time,” I confided. “Hope it’s the last.”

He fol owed my gaze over to where the deputies were emptying Brian’s pockets and searching the area around his body. “Every time, we hope it’s the last time. But finding that body…” He swung his gaze back to me. “That’s not what I was talking about.”

“But Brian, he’s dead and—”

“And you were out here trying to communicate with Spirit.” If it were me, I would have taken credit for a little hocus-pocus mind reading. The flush that darkened Jesse’s cheeks told me that as much fun as that would be, he was more honest than that.

“Norma’s house isn’t al that wel insulated,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone else was paying much attention, but I heard every word, loud and clear. Did you get an answer?”

Another shake of my head.

“So my question stands. Damn, Pepper, it’s such an awesome ability. To be chosen by Spirit for such important work…” He tipped his head back, obviously considering my Gift with far more reverence than I ever had. But then, he wasn’t the one who’d spent the last few years dealing with annoying people of the not-so-alive persuasion.