Hy had suggested I take Two-Seven-Tango. He didn’t have time to deliver me and was sure he wouldn’t need the plane for a while. I was more than glad to do so. As I set my course toward the Sierra Nevada, I fell into that strange state that I sometimes enter when flying: alert on one level, contemplative on another.
Contemplative about the new direction my life was taking. Contemplative about my current case. All other concerns slipped away as I planned what to do when I arrived.
As I passed the shack that served as Tufa Tower’s terminal, Amos Hinsdale gave me one of his “Female pilots-bah!” looks through the window. I waved cheerily in response.
I drove to the Ace Hardware in town and looked over their limited selection of answering machines. Hy had said to spare no expense, but I bought the cheapest. It would serve for the length of time I remained here, and before we came up again I could pick up a better one at a lower price at Costco.
When I reached the ranch I checked the old machine to see if it had somehow resurrected itself. Not even a peep out of the thing. I disposed of it in the trash bin, set up the new one, and called Kristen Lark for an update.
“Not much to report,” she told me. “My interview with Boz Sheppard went nowhere. I’m sure he knows more than he’s saying, but he’s stonewalling.”
“How about if I take a stab at him?”
“If you want, I can set it up. Tomorrow afternoon?”
“Sure.”
Otherwise Lark had nothing else to report. She referred to the cases as “dead ends.”
I knew otherwise.
I was checking my e-mail when my cell rang. Mick.
“Thought I’d let you know that I’m in this convalescent place Dad had me moved to. It’s posh-gourmet meals and pretty nurses and great therapy facilities.”
He’d mentioned them in the order I would’ve expected. “That was fast.”
“SF General likes to free up beds.”
“You sound good.”
“Well, I’m on these terrific pain meds. You asked if I’d have computer access here, so I assume you need something.”
“I’ve got a situation to run by you.” I told him about my interest in why a man like Trevor Hanover would hire a high-priced attorney to represent a Vegas hooker.
“Let me play with this awhile,” he said. “Back to you later.”
I felt restless, so I drove into town. Petals was open; the clerk told me Cammie Charles and Rich Three Wings were due home from a camping trip in the Toiyabe National Forest that afternoon. Cammie always let her know where they were going and when they’d be back, in case there was a problem such as their vehicle breaking down. When I asked for Charles’ home address, the woman gave it to me without hesitation. Small towns-you gotta love them.
The address was a cinder-block house two blocks down on the same street where Miri Perez had lived. An old Toyota with peeling paint and various dents sat in the driveway. I rang the bell, but no one was home.
It was a long drive to Rich Three Wings’ place at Elk Lake. I decided to wait a while, see if Cammie came home.
That left T.C. Mathers. Was I up to tackling her? Sure. I’d dealt with tougher, more hostile women in my day and come out with the upper hand.
The wilderness supply store was closed when I got there. Tom Mathers had told me they lived on the property, so I followed a dirt driveway around the store and across a barren acre till I spotted a prefab house nested in the shade of a grove of cottonwoods. A Ford SUV was pulled up outside.
I knocked on the door. For a moment there was no reply, then T.C.’s voice called, “Go away!”
“It’s Sharon McCone, T.C. I met you at the wilderness supply last week. I wanted to check and see how you’re doing.”
“The hell you say.” She slurred the words.
“That’s what I say.”
The remark seemed to confuse her. There was a silence, and then she opened the door.
Drunk, all right: her long reddish-blonde hair was tangled, her eyes unfocused, and there were stains on her sweatshirt and jeans. She reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She stared at me for a time before motioning me inside. I watched her stumble across the room to a sofa and flop down. She picked up a pewter mug from an end table and raised it to me.
“Welcome,” she said. “You here to tear my home apart like those fuckin’ deputies did?”
I shut the door and sat in an armchair opposite her. “I only want to talk. Tough time, huh?”
She shrugged. “I’ve seen tougher.”
“I don’t know. I was married last year, first time. I can’t imagine how I’d deal with having my husband murdered.”
“Tom? That asshole. I only married him because all the good guys were already taken.”
“Like Rich Three Wings?”
She drank from the mug, replenished it from a vodka bottle tucked beneath the table. “How d’you know about us?”
“In a place like this, everybody knows everything.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth? That Cammie-little Miss Priss-found out about Rich and me getting it on. Then the shit hit the fan.”
“I thought Rich was pretty much committed to her.”
“Pretty much, yeah. But she was pressuring for marriage, wouldn’t even move out to the lake to be with him unless they tied the knot, for Chrissake. He was starting to feel trapped and manipulated when I showed up to buy one of his rocking chairs. I wasn’t in any position to trap or manipulate him and he knew it, so he took me to bed. Again and again, till the silly little bitch caught on.”
“And so you confronted him and Cammie-”
“Give it a rest. I got a bad temper, but they’re both alive, aren’t they? And I didn’t kill Tom. He had another woman, you know. Maybe you should check her out. Lives in that trailer park where Hayley Perez bought it. Little mouse of a woman. I happen to know he was with her that night, they always got together on Tuesdays.”
“That make you angry, T.C.?”
“Annoyed, but I didn’t care enough about Tom to kill him over any woman.”
“This ‘mouse’-you know her name?”
“Judy Perkins. She works as a hair stylist at the Vernon Salon. Little skank, wouldn’t hurt anybody. And Tom came home alive and well that Tuesday.”
“Any other ideas about who might’ve killed your husband?”
“I don’t know. He was such a nothing. I can’t imagine why anyone would bother.” Her eyebrows pulled together. “He had something else going, though. Knew something he wasn’t telling me.”
“For how long?”
“Not very.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Tom wasn’t subtle. He’d been strutting around acting smug and arrogant, talking about all the money he was going to have, and if I was nice to him he’d share.”
“But you have no idea where this money was coming from?”
“Uh-uh.” She reached for the bottle, refilled the mug. “It must’ve been something big. But before he could collect, he went and got himself killed. Stupid bastard. Now what am I gonna do?”
I, I, I…
Me, me, me…
A prevalent mindset in contemporary society, and God knew I’d recently been guilty of it myself.
So Tom Mathers had had something big going. What, possibly, could that be? He was a wilderness guide; good money in that, and in the supply business, but it wasn’t going to make him rich-not unless he’d discovered Bigfoot or a vein of gold during one of those treks.
It sounded to me like blackmail.
There are three kinds of major-crime felons who are too stupid for words: bank robbers, kidnappers, and blackmailers. The first two because they almost always get caught; the last one because they are frequently killed by their own victims.
But who could Tom Mathers’ prospective victim be? A wealthy client who had committed some indiscretion on one of his wilderness tours? I’d like to get my hands on Tom’s calendar and invoices. Perhaps tomorrow when T.C. would-hopefully-be sober.