Watchman recalled the spelling from Sanada’s driver’s license. “Now one of them’s dead and the other two are here on the Reservation but I’d like to run R-and-I checks on all three of them, see if they’ve got records. I think Jimmy Oto helped engineer that jailbreak.”
“Not according to what I got,” Stevens said. He sounded a little pleased with himself. “I went down to Florence today. Joe Threepersons had a visitor. Twice. The day before the escape and the day of the escape. Fellow signed in under the name of William Jojolla.”
“Late twenties, big as a house, driving an old grey Ford pickup?”
“They didn’t say anything about what he was driving. But they remembered him because he was big. A big big guy.”
“I don’t suppose they keep fingerprints or mug shots on visitors down there.”
“No. But they’d have a couple of samples of his handwriting from where he signed in both times.”
“I’ll get a handwriting sample,” Watchman said. “Now the next thing, try to find out if the Pinal County Engineer had any customers lately for one-to-five-thousand scale maps of the northeast quadrant of Florence. Oto had one in his truck—maybe somebody bought it for him. They couldn’t have had that many inquiries about that particular quad.”
“This guy got killed just today? How do you know it wasn’t Joe Threepersons that did it?”
“It wasn’t Joe’s modus-O. Somebody hacksawed Oto’s tie rod, it broke on a mountain bend.”
“Christ.”
“Joe stole a three-seven-five magnum last night, ’scope sight. He’s got somebody to kill but it wasn’t Oto.” He glanced up as a car rattled by. It didn’t stop. He said, “Another item. Put out an all-points on a stolen ‘Seventy-one Toyota Land Cruiser, color forest green, noncommercial plates Arthur Bravo Seven Five Niner Seven X-ray. The Agency police had it this morning so it’s probably on the stolen car list already but I’m not much interested in the hot sheet. I’d like an APB, Joe Threepersons appears to be driving it.”
“Yeah? Then he could be in Wyoming by now.”
“I doubt it. It’s a four-wheel-drive, he’s probably back in these mountains right around here. First thing in the morning I’d like you to get an audience with Lieutenant Wilder and see if the department’s willing to spring for a couple of days’ helicopter coverage up here. It probably won’t spot the Land Cruiser but it might caution Joe into keeping his head down a little while until I can get at him. Will you try that?”
“Sure. He might get Captain Custer to go for it, if people are getting murdered right and left up there.”
“Put it to him that way,” Watchman told him. “Now what’s happening at your end?”
“Bits and pieces. I tracked down Maria Threepersons’ doctor. He never prescribed Seconal for her. Never gave her any kind of barbiturates. He said she never went in for that kind of stuff. She hated the idea of drugs. He says she was the type who liked to be at the controls herself. So that confirms one thing, she didn’t have a prescription and it doesn’t look like she’d have drugged herself.”
Stevens went on: “Then I went on down to Florence and asked around about Joe’s visitors. The screws remembered that big guy. He was there twice—I guess I told you that. The second time was two o’clock on the fifth, which is about three hours before they busted out.”
“And he had a map of the area in the truck,” Watchman said. “That’s not a coincidence.”
“Nothing is. Or so you keep telling me. Anyhow then I took a flyer, I drove on back up here and went to see Dwight Kendrick’s wife. You know, the one Charlie Rand was married to before. You were talking about her and I thought maybe she could tell me something.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
“How’d you find her?”
“Police radar,” Stevens drawled. “I looked it up in the phone book.”
Watchman grinned. “What did she say?”
“She’s not exactly demure.” Stevens’ voice was thin along the wires; there was interference in the circuit. “She looks like she’s run some pretty fast tracks. I told her about the case a little, got her talking about the old days. She sat there on a lawn chair, she kept snapping her thumbnail against her front teeth. I got vibrations from her. She kind of liked Joe Threepersons and she hates old Charlie Rand’s guts. I asked her about Ross Calisher. She said he was kind of a blowhard, always making muscles at girls. Big rodeo hero, all that stuff. She said she wasn’t impressed.”
“She said it. Did you believe it?”
“Yes. I did. Why should she lie about it? It’s all dead and over. She went to some pains to insist Calisher never touched her. He was too loyal to her husband, she said, and she said it with a kind of sneer if you know what I mean—as if anybody that loyal to Charlie Rand had to be too stupid for words. Having an affair with Calisher would have been bad taste, to her. He wasn’t on her level. That was the idea she put across.”
Watchman gnawed on it. “What did she say about her husband?”
“Which one?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“Well she hates Rand. She said he courts them like a royal prince and then as soon as he marries them he files them away someplace and forgets they exist. She got tired of being ignored, and looking at her you can understand that. She’s one of those hearty types, you know, probably drinks more than she needs to, kind of bawdy, I guess she’s a natural blonde. By the time Kendrick came along she was looking around for ways to get even with Charlie Rand. She said she thought about Calisher but he was just too big and stupid and crude to be believed. All he ever knew about was rodeoing and bossing crews. She met Kendrick on account of that water-rights case they were starting and she says she took up with him to spite her husband but after a while it got sticky because they both got serious about each other. Finally she divorced Rand and a little while after that Kendrick married her.”
Stevens paused. “I’m looking at my notes.” Then he resumed. “I asked her about the murder. She didn’t seem to know much about it. She sort of liked Joe Threepersons but he was just a hired hand. She hadn’t liked Calisher anyway, she thought it was good riddance and she’s not too bashful to say so.”
“She have any opinion? On Joe’s guilt?”
“I asked her. She said she just didn’t know much about it.”
“Rand never talked to her about the case?”
“Rand never talked to her about much of anything.”
“What about Kendrick?”
“I don’t know. She’s a little murky on that subject. She didn’t want to talk to me about him. Maybe she thinks it would be disloyal.”
“Did you get the feeling she thought she had something to hide?”
“Maybe. I don’t know, Sam. She didn’t say it in so many words but she left the possibility open. But hell she left any possibility open. She just didn’t say anything.”
“So the significant thing isn’t what she said, it’s what she didn’t say.”
“Could be. I’m new at this game, maybe I didn’t ask the right questions. She’s polite but she’s holding a lot back. I don’t know if that means she knows anything about the case. It could just be she doesn’t want anybody prying into her private affairs. You can’t blame her for that.”
“Okay,” Watchman said. “Have you got anything else?”
Stevens didn’t. Watchman reminded him about the helicopter in the morning. Stevens said, “First thing. Listen, shouldn’t we report on that Oto murder to Lieutenant Wilder?”
“Tell him in the morning. It’s a county case, we haven’t got any official business mixing into it.”
“But that map you found in his truck, on top of that description of him down at Florence—it ties him right in.”
“We’re not supposed to investigate murders,” Watchman said, very dry. “The assignment is Joe Threepersons. That’s what we’re doing. That’s all we’re doing.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.”
“When you get done talking to Wilder in the morning, drive on up here. I’ll meet you at the trading post around noon.”