“It made this... this meaty sound, this thump when it hit her temple. She dropped straight down, straight down. She was dead.”
He was looking off into the distance now, seeing the night. “Just like that. Dead.
“I knew the Cimmarron Movie Ranch from my trips to the desert. Knew no one ever went there. So, I took her... took the body and buried it there. I drew out some cash, threw some valuables into my bag to dump on my next trip, told the police she’d disappeared. When they looked up her record, her criminal past, well, as I said, they reached the obvious conclusion.”
McGrath took another piece of paper from his file, slid it across the table. It was an aerial photo of the movie ranch.
“You dumped the body here, right?”
“I told you.”
“Care to show me?”
Cunningham looked down and, without hesitation, pointed to an alleyway running south of the single main street. “There.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me? You must be able to find out it’s her!”
McGrath shifted uncomfortably.
“Look, we appreciate you coming in and all...”
“What?”
“Things are at an early stage... We know where to find you...”
“No no no no no. I’m sorry. I’ve steeled myself for this. Resigned myself. I want this to be over.”
McGrath turned to his companion at the door, made a shrugging gesture.
“It’s her. I killed her. What more do you want?”
“Go home, Mr. Cunningham. See a doctor. Your wife running off... something like that does weird stuff to your head.”
“This is outrageous!”
“Like I said, if we need you, we’ll call.”
McGrath got up.
Cunningham thumped the table.
“No! I will not go home until this thing is cleared up!”
The echo of his shout seemed to hang in the air.
McGrath remained still for a moment. Then he turned and said, “Okay. Look. We’ve got some problems with your story, okay? There’s something doesn’t add up...”
“How can it not add up, you idiot!”
“Whoa, you are riled.” McGrath looked toward his companion. The other officer remained silent, impassive.
“I’ve got a suggestion. You don’t have to do this, it’s up to you, okay? You can call a lawyer, whatever...”
“For God’s sake, what is it?”
“Say we take a drive out there. To the ranch. Go over the scene.”
Another man might have hesitated, been reluctant to face the memories that waited out there in the desert. “Is that all? Then let’s get a move on.”
It was dusk when they arrived at the ranch. Instead of dreading it, Cunningham was relieved. The entire journey had been filled with McGrath’s constant prattling, asking Cunningham if he liked baseball, if he went to the movies. The man was a moron.
The other officer, who was called Jimenez, remained silent throughout.
Now they were pulling into the Cimarron Movie Ranch, driving past the excavations for the new highway project. In the fading pink light, the machines, abandoned for the day, reminded Cunningham of the dinosaurs whose bones he sometimes found among the rocks.
Although it was called a movie ranch, the Cimarron also boasted a false-fronted Western street with saloons, general store, and sheriff’s office. Back in the heyday of the B-movie Western, this would have been used as a location. The horses, trained to fall on cue or stand still when the reins were dropped, had been kept in corrals and stables back behind the fake street. The place had been abandoned since the fifties, as much a ghost town as the real settlements it had been built to resemble.
The unmarked police car stopped in the middle of the street and the three of them got out. The night was turning chill.
“Care to show us where you buried her?”
“But you know. You dug her up.”
Cunningham strode down the alleyway, eager to get this over, not because he was afraid, but because he wanted to wipe the doubt from that idiot’s face.
He stopped.
No excavation work had been done in the alley. The spot where he’d buried her was smooth and undisturbed. The world seemed to tilt crazily. He cast around, tried to find his bearings... This was the place. It was!
“But they found her body... the news...”
“See, that’s your problem, Edwin, you don’t watch enough TV.” Something about McGrath had changed. The empty-eyed, distracted air had disappeared. He came right over and stood in front of Cunningham. “If you’d have listened to the rest of the report, you’d have heard them saying that the museum people were visiting the site, cordoning it off. That they thought the woman was Native American, buried here maybe a thousand years ago. Some kind of ritual.” He pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb. “They found her back over there, beside the corrals...”
Edwin had rarely been speechless. He was now.
“But don’t worry. See, I believe you. Come tomorrow, I’m going to have our crime scene people all over this street. And I know we’re going to find her body. And then I’m going to take great pleasure in seeing you go down, you cold-hearted son of a bitch.”
Now McGrath’s face was right against Edwin’s. “Damn you, you talked about killing her like you’d just taken out the trash.”
Edwin was frightened. “I want a lawyer now.”
“You’ll get your lawyer. But I swear to you, you bastard, you’ll pay for what you done.” McGrath turned away and walked over in the direction of the abandoned corrals where the remains had been found, shouting. “Hey, lady, whoever the hell you were, thank you.”
He stalked off towards the car, leaving Edwin in the alley with Jimenez.
“I screwed myself, didn’t I?”
For the first time that day, Jimenez spoke.
“Totally,” he said.
Two Birds with One Stone
by Jeremiah Healy
I
The punk rock receptionist in the suite of law offices had scored another piercing since I’d seen her last. The new ornament was a stainless steel stud beneath her lower lip, and when she spoke into the little wand of a microphone attached to her headset, I had the disorienting sensation of watching a plastic Wiffle bat try to hit a silver baseball.
As I glanced out the window behind her toward Steven Rothenberg’s late October view of the Boston Common, the receptionist said to me, “Steve’s available now.”
“Keep your seat. I know the way.”
Down the short hallway, Rothenberg’s door was open. Inside the office, a suit jacket hung from a coat tree, and his tie was tugged down below that prominent Adam’s apple. His hair wasn’t so prominent anymore, but the beard did what it could to make up for it.
Rothenberg stood from behind a cluttered desk. “John Francis Cuddy,” the right hand coming toward me, “Good to see you again.”
We shook, and I released my grip. “Bad sign, Steve.”
“I’m sorry?”
I dropped into one of the two client chairs in front of him. “Your wanting to shake hands with me. It tells my cynical side that this is a bad one.”
Rothenberg sat back down. “I’ll have to watch that.”
Since the criminal defense attorney had asked the private investigator to come over, I waited him out.
Rothenberg sighed and lifted a manila file from the corner of his desk.
“I got appointed on Commonwealth v. Tinch.”
Unusual enough name, it stuck with you. “The rape case out of Calem?”
“Alleged rape. Fourteen-year-old daughter of a conservative, incumbent state senator and a respected superior court judge. Eighteen-year-old defendant, so he’s going as an adult.”