Chump Change (28 page)

There they were, right down at the bottom of the hole. A lower jaw and what looked like a couple of leg bones. The jaw made it pretty obvious, even to the untrained eye, that this belonged to a human, not a mule deer like the Keelers wanted to say.

The EPA boys set up banks of freeway lights and worked all night. Kept rotating fresh teams of the college kids in and out of the ditch until they’d sifted every ounce of dirt within twenty feet of where they found the first couple of bones. Found twenty-three pieces, altogether, including the top half of the skull, eye sockets and all.

According to Herbert, things got a little tense for a while between his people and the Keeler crowd. Shouts and recriminations were hurled back and forth. A little strutting and pushing went on, but no real violence.

About dawn, the eggheads from Boise State University showed up and took charge of the bones, boxing everything up and saying they’d have some preliminary findings in the next twenty-four hours or so.

By the time morning rolled all the way around, the EPA had slapped an indefinite hold on the project, saying nothing else could happen down there until they heard from the scientists, then declared the immediate area around the Future Home of the World Famous Eagle Talon Casino and Lodge off limits to any and all. Everybody outside the gate. Don’t call us; we’ll call you. Excavation party over.

He told me how Roland Moon’s big black limo had sat up there on the butte all night long. How he kept sending Sonny Boy and Tyler Bain down to the dig to keep track of developments, but never got out of the car himself. Not once. How everybody’d wondered where the Pawnee had gotten to, but how nobody on the Keeler end was doing any talking.

Once the Feds had locked them all out, tension once again reared its head. When the Indians started a ceremonial fire and began singing victory songs, the Keeler crowd took umbrage, instigating yet another round of shouting, pushing, and obscene invective, an outburst sufficiently worrisome to the EPA crew as to require stationing a pair of Lewiston PD cruisers on the scene, round the clock, for the purpose of keeping the peace, which was where things stood at the moment.

Needless to say, I was otherwise occupied when the discoveries took place out at the casino site. About as occupied as I could ever remember being. So occupied I completely forgot about my onerous collection of cuts and contusions. We came up for air about nine-thirty that evening, ordered just about everything on the room service menu, including a couple of bottles of champagne, and then headed for the shower together.

By the time the food arrived, we were squeaky clean, and Irene had snapped on the local news. KLEW 3. Your Action News Team in Lewiston, Idaho. First story out of the gate. EPA discovers human remains at the Future Home of the World Famous Eagle Talon Casino and Lodge. Project suspended indefinitely. But wait!

BREAKING NEWS
flashing in red on the flat-screen. Authorities now say that preliminary testing indicates the bones to be at least six hundred years old and are of Native American heritage. Cut to a plastic-pocket-protector guy from the Boise State University Anthropology Department, who says the same thing in twice as many words.

Irene looked over at me in utter disbelief. “This means it’s over?” she asked.

“Deader than a doornail,” I assured her. “The site has cultural significance now. Further construction would be a desecration of the Nez Perce tradition.”

“Hoooooooey!” she yelled.

Much as I would hate to admit I took advantage of someone’s moment of joyful vulnerability, that’s what happened. Matter of fact . . . several times.

So when the tapping on the door started again at eight-fifteen the next morning, first thing I did was to feel around next to me in the bed. I figured maybe she’d gone out to get coffee or something and locked herself out . . . but no, Irene was right where I left her last night, curled up next to my left hip.

I gave her a gentle shake. She opened her eyes and started to smile, when four very firm knocks rattled the motel room door. Irene was a quick study. She grabbed the bedcover and scooted for the bathroom, while I found my jeans and headed for the door.

Chief Nathan Wilder and Captain Quincy Morgan, looking all pressed and official in the
A.M.
“Howdy, gents,” I said affably.

They brushed by me and were eight feet into the room before Wilder asked if they could come in. I found my shirt on the floor and pulled it over my head.

“To what do I owe the honor . . . ?” I asked.

By way of an answer, Nathan Wilder pulled a file folder out from under his arm, walked over to the desk, and began laying black-and-white photographs faceup on the surface. Halfway over to have a look, I knew from his facial expression that whatever it was, wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Morgan looked at the bathroom door and then back at me.

“Occupied,” I said.

He gave me a smile thin enough to pass for a scar.

I looked down at the photos. The backseat of a stretch limo. Roland Moon and the supposed Mrs. Moon, Jeannie Palmer. Heads thrown back, mouths agape, each of them shot several times in the face and forehead. Wilder did the voice-over.

“Boulder City, Nevada, PD found them this morning about six
A.M.
”

He laid out two more pictures.

I threw a glance at the new images, but my eyes were repelled by the sheer barbarity of the carnage.

“Tyler Bain was in the trunk,” Wilder said. “From the condition of his remains, the Boulder City PD surmise that whoever did this got ahold of him first and . . .” He looked for the proper word. “Looks like they spent quite a bit of time
encouraging
Mr. Bain to tell them where they could find his employer.”

“There’s parts of him they haven’t located yet,” Morgan said.

“What about Rockland?” I asked.

“Nobody’s seen him since yesterday morning,” Wilder said. “I’ve had patrol go through all his usual haunts, but he seems to have gone to ground.”

“You want to tell us where you were last night?” Morgan asked.

“Right here.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got somebody who could confirm that.”

“Matter of fact, I do.”

I watched Wilder decide whether or not to take the high road. He must have had a pretty good idea who was in the bathroom. I mean . . . it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes. The PTA van was parked right outside the door, and Wilder was the kind of cop who knew who drove what in his town.

He looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe, so I answered the implied question, without being asked.

“Just lucky, I guess,” I said.

Long silence.

“I’d keep an eye out for Rockland, if I was you,” he said finally.

“I’ll do that.”

“Go home,” Wilder told me for the second time. “I see you anytime soon I’m likely to start inventing reasons why you shouldn’t be out on the street.”

I kept my mouth shut, followed them outside, and shut the door behind me.

“Chief,” I said.

They both turned in my direction.

“Could I have a word with you, Chie
f
?”

They passed a “What’s this idiot want?” glance, before Morgan walked off.

“What?” Wilder asked.

“You fill Rockland’s deputy job yet?”

“Why?”

“The young man I came to town with . . .”

“Keith Taylor.”

“Yeah.”

“What about him?”

“He’s got a degree in criminal justice. Used to be a cop.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do.”

“And you’re thinking . . .”

“Yeah.”

“Why would I do that?”

“How’s about cause he’s in love?” I said.

He very nearly smiled.

“Then how’s about because he was a good cop,” I said. “And he’ll do a good job for you.”

“Why’d he leave his last assignment?”

“Urban life didn’t appeal to him.”

He didn’t believe a word of it, so I went for the big one. What the hell? It worked with Rebecca.

“Besides which . . . you owe him,” I said. “He saved your bacon back in that alley.”

He gave me a look that would have wilted spinach, and then stalked off.

I stepped back inside the room and locked the door. Irene’s head was poking out the bathroom door. “Did I hear that right?” she asked.

I nodded. “Roland, Cassie, and Bain.”

“Jesus,” she said as she came back into the room, dragging the bedcover behind her. She sat down on the bed next to me, stark naked.

“Gotta be careful who you borrow money from,” I said.

We were silent for a moment.

“Well,” she said. “That’ll take the bloom off the rose, won’t it?”

“The rose was great,” I said.

She started rounding up her clothes and putting them back on. “Can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that, Leo,” she said as she pulled on the second boot.

She walked over and kissed me hard on the mouth.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Believe me,” I assured her with a grin, “the pleasure was mine.”

She bopped me on the arm. “See,” she said. “That’s why I was sorry I let you get out of town without sayin a proper goodbye.” She found her purse and looped it over her shoulder. “Mosta the men in this world . . . you show em a good time and they’re standing by your mailbox when you go to work the next morning, which really, really, really don’t work for me.”

“No white picket fence?” I asked.

“I think I’m
duration averse
,”
she said
.
“I mean . . . I like rollin around naked as much as the next woman, but that don’t mean I want to buy a couple of recliners and start watching
Dancing with the Stars
.”

“Then you’ll be pleased to know I’m going home,” I said.

She kissed me again, harder this time, and then walked out the door.

First day I was home, it rained buckets, so I just stayed in the house and licked my wounds all day. About quarter to five in the afternoon, I got a call from
BLOCKED
, which is nearly always some telemarketer trying to sell me some crap I don’t want, and which I never answer. For some reason—boredom, I suppose—on that particular day, I pushed the answer button. “Leo here,” I said.

“Waterman?”

“Yeah . . . who’s this?”

“This is Sergeant David Downing.”

I didn’t say anything.

“From—” he began.

“I remember.”

“What’s going on with Keith Taylor?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I got a reference request about him. From Asotin County. Seems he’s applied for a deputy’s job down there. They asked me for a recommendation.”

“You give him one?” I asked.

“Best I could, without getting fired.”

“Why call me?”

“He listed you as a personal reference.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“That’s not what you were saying the last time I saw you.”

“Things change.”

He thought it over and then asked, “What’s in Lewiston?”

“True love,” I said.

Downing barked out a laugh and hung up.

Took me another two days before I was feeling human enough to be social. By then, I’d spent so much time in the hot tub, trying to soak away the ache, my skin had taken on permanent prune-like puckers. I made a mental note to stretch.