Looking around her, she hoped Jim Bob was right; that Harold had “died with his boots on,” doing the work he loved. But there was something worrisome in the back of her mind, a stray thought that wouldn’t disappear no matter how much she wanted to stifle it.
The last time Joanna had seen Harold Patterson was two days ago, when he came to Milo’s office. He had seemed anxious and upset when he came looking for those change-of-beneficiary forms. He had talked about wanting to change the provisions of his policies from Ivy alone to someone else.
Those are the kinds of changes people don’t undertake without some reason prodding them to do so, marriage, a death, or, in this case, what seemed to be a change of heart.
Taken together, Harold Patterson’s policies didn’t add up to a huge fortune, but a cool quarter of a million dollars or even half that much couldn’t be overlooked as a possible motive for murder. If Harold Patterson had, in fact, been murdered.
Joanna racked her brain trying to remember the old man’s exact words. He had told her a story, a parable about his daughters, comparing them to two dogs pulling apart an old saddle blanket rather than sharing it. Did that mean Harold in tended to split the proceeds of his policies fifty fifty? It would be important for the investigators to learn whether or not those beneficiary forms had been properly signed and witnessed and a phone call to Milo Davis or Lisa would have answered that question in a minute, but Joanna was in her own car, with no radio and no kind of communications capability. How long would it take, Joanna wondered, for the new sheriff to have an official, properly equipped vehicle of her own? And how did she go about requesting one?
Deputy Hollicker had told her three miles. Dick Voland’s Blazer blocked the path at 2.5 in a spot where the road wound between two immense boulders. When Voland stepped up to the side of her car, he leaned down as if expecting her to roll down the window so he could speak to her. In stead, she turned off the ignition, opened the door, and stepped out of the car.
“What’s going on here?” she demanded.
Voland shrugged and glowered meaningfully at Joanna’s Eagle. “Nothing much,” he replied sarcastically.
“Ernie Carpenter asked me to limit access to the area until he can have casts made of all the tire tracks. As you can see, we’ve been driving on the hump in the middle of the road and on the shoulder to avoid messing up anything important.”
“So have I,” she answered crisply. “I do know how plaster casts work.”
A shadow of disappointment crossed Dick Voland’s face so fleetingly that Joanna almost missed it. Clearly the chief deputy had fully expected her to screw up her first time out, but she had managed to outmaneuver him. So much for Round One.
“Why wasn’t I notified when Harold Patterson’s body was found?” she asked, taking the offensive “Why wasn’t I called?”
“The man was already dead,” Voland answered.
“Deputy Hollicker, Detective Carpenter, and I had the situation well in hand through the regular chain of command.”
“Mr. Voland, are you or are you not aware that I was sworn into office as of two o’clock yesterday afternoon?”
“I knew about that,” he answered reluctantly, “but I saw no reason to drag you out of bed. It didn’t seem like that big a deal.”
“For your information, I was already up and working at the time the call came in. I haven’t yet had time enough to study all the policies and procedures, but tell me something. How would a situation like this have been handled under Walter McFadden’s administration? Chain of command be damned, would he or would he not have been notified?”
“Would have,” Voland conceded grudgingly. “Out of courtesy.”
“Then I expect the same courtesy.”
“But surely…” Voland started, then stopped abruptly.
“But surely what?”
“You don’t want to be called and dragged out of bed to every crime scene?”
“I didn’t run for office to be nothing but a glorified bureaucrat,” Joanna told him. “Did you think I broke my neck the last two months for the dubious privilege of overseeing departmental budgets and vacation schedules? I’m here to be a full fledged officer of the law. Possibly my presence won’t be necessary at every unlawful death scene in the county, but for right now I intend to make up my mind on a case-by-case basis. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly.” Voland’s reply was curt and sullen “Is there anything else?”
“I came to see the glory hole,” Joanna said.
The chief deputy spun on his heel and started back up the mountain. “This way,” he grunted “We walk from here. Stick to the shoulder.”
“So what’s the status?”
“Ernie’s about finished with what he can do up top. He’s rigging a rope to the come-along on his winch so we can lower him down into the hole itself. He wants to take pictures and gather evidence before calling in a stretcher and sling to drag Old Man Patterson’s body out.”
“What happened?”
“You’ll have to talk to Ernie. He’s not big on talking about what he’s finding. He’s his own one man show.”
“Who found the body?”
“Ivy, I guess.”
“How’d she do it? This is a long way from the house.”
“Like I said,” Dick Voland groused. “Talk to Ernie.”
At five-thousand-some-odd feet of elevation, the steep path soon took its toll on Richard Voland’s more-than-ample frame. Exertion made it difficult for the chief deputy to walk and talk at the same time, and Joanna soon regretted her own double layers of clothing. Removing her jacket, she slung it over her shoulder as she trudged along behind him on the rocky verge of the road.
They crested the top of a steep rise and entered a small basin. A fenced-off area in the middle surrounded the glory hole’s mound of tailings. Parked nearby was Ernie Carpenter’s crew-cab pickup and Harold Patterson’s much-used International Scout. Off to one side was a vintage decommissioned fire truck-pumper permanently positioned next to a metal stock tank. A length of hose led from a spigot on the truck’s tank to the one on the ground. Joanna surmised the truck was used to haul water to thirsty stock in the -Rocking P’s upper pastures whenever necessary.
From the desiccated cow pies littering the area, Joanna knew this section of pasture wasn’t currently in use.
Seated on the running board of the old truck was the red-haired, red-bearded giant Joanna recognized as Yuri Malakov. Two weeks earlier, he had come to church with Ivy. Joanna had seen him and assumed from things Marianne had told her that’s who the huge stranger had to be. But that Sunday had been right toward the end of the campaign. Instead of staying for after-church coffee and socializing, Joanna had rushed off to give a speech in Double Adobe.
Seeing him at first glance when they topped the rise, Joanna assumed the Russian was wearing a blue work shirt. As she came closer, however, she realized he was naked from the waist up. What she had thought to be blue cloth was actually ink.
Above a wide silver-and-turquoise belt buckle, Yuri’s massive chest was covered by a wild assortment of tattoos.
He was leaning against the side of the truck with his eyes closed, dozing. Joanna had never seen such a display of tattoo art. For several long moments, she studied the amazingly detailed patterns that had been inked into his skin.
Most of the pictures were surprisingly well crafted and artistically done, but the subject matter was anything but Russian. The picture covering most of the man’s chest showed a complicated bucking bronco complete with cowboy flailing a Stetson. Beneath that tattoo, lettered in English, was the caption COWBOY SAM.
Two distinct versions of coiled rattlesnakes were inked onto the bunched muscles of his biceps. One forearm featured a hangman’s noose, while the other pictured a single long-stemmed rose.