Deadman (16 page)

The boat had giant inflated tubes, with a light aluminum frame strapped tightly to D rings mounted on the tubes. It featured comfortable padded seats for fishermen fore and aft, and it floated on the surface with stunning buoyancy, hardly settling in the water, despite the three men, the cooler full of beer and lunch, the extra gear. It was a marvelous contraption, and it slipped blithely through surging water with Johnny perched in a central seat wielding the oars. He deftly avoided most of the threatening rocks and was able to position the
raft, holding it on the edge of the current so that the anglers could cast to likely holding spots. Now, in this smoother section, it drifted as blissfully as Huck's raft on the broad back of the Mississippi. But ahead were canyons and more white water, an ominous roaring noise. Four exhilarating hours later Mulheisen felt like a veteran. He had caught a fish—only twelve inches, but a genuine wild rainbow—he had run more rapids, he had even been allowed to row for a stretch of calmer water. He had long forgotten the cool, brisk morning with the odor of pines and the slickness of mossy rocks where they had gotten into the river. They pulled the raft out in warm afternoon sunlight and loaded it on the Dodge pickup, which had been shuttled downstream for them by a gawky teenager. But the whole experience wafted back into his memory that evening when he laid his tired bones into the cool sheets at the Finlen Hotel. He imagined himself making a difficult cast toward the shore and just before he swept into dreamless bliss, he glimpsed a long-legged girl standing naked on the bank.

12

Tinstar

M
ulheisen went to St. James Hospital to look in on “Carmine Deadman.” The patient was in a private room, his head swathed in bandages. He was asleep. He was still on an IV, but Mulheisen was told that he was now taking food orally, broths and so forth. The bandages didn't hide all of the face, but what was visible was still puffy and swollen, distorted. The man had blue eyes, they said. Mulheisen didn't recognize him.

The nurse was very protective of him. “Oh, he's just the best patient,” Nurse Yoder said. “What a good boy!” She patted a foot gently but fondly.

Mulheisen went away but as he walked down the hall with Jacky he said, out of the corner of his mouth, “A nurse like that would have me up in no time.”

“I know what you mean,” Jacky said.

Out in the parking lot Mulheisen paused to look out over the valley floor below them, the blue snowcapped mountains beyond. There was a high thin wisp of cirrus, and the wind was brisk and cold in November. “Let's go see where you found Mario,” he said.

They took the highway east, sweeping up the mountainside toward the Divide. The great white statue of Our Lady shimmered in
weak sunlight, gazing benignly over the valley. Then they wound around and lost her, zooming up to the pass, effortlessly overtaking huge, lumbering semis and the occasional late tourist in a motor home. In the mountains there were acres and acres of bizarre cones and pillars of extruded rock—pipestone, Jacky called it.

On the other side was an immense valley, and you could see the road for twenty or thirty miles ahead, but they soon turned off and drove south, down into another valley. Here the mountains were not so large and there were farms and ranches. Eventually they came to a small place that proclaimed itself the town of Tinstar. It was just a crossroads. A gas station, a saloon called The Tinstar, a laundromat (closed), a little convenience store, and a few houses and trailers. Jacky gestured at it without comment and drove on through, as if to say, That's all there is to that. A few miles farther on, they turned off the highway onto a dirt road that crossed over a railroad track and then entered a private road that had a tall arch of huge ponderosa logs over a cattle guard. Miles of wooden fence ran off on either side. From the log crosspiece of the arch hung a wooden sign that had been carved or routed out to say
XOX—GARLAND RANCH
.

They drove up this long private drive across a big meadow filled with grazing cattle. In the distance was a barn and a corral and a collection of smaller buildings including a low ranch house, but long before they reached it another road ran off to the left and Jacky took that. The road curved around the side of Garland Butte, the small mountain that lay back of the Garland Ranch. They soon came to another gate, with a cattle guard, and a sign that said, simply:
PRIVATE PROPERTY. KEEP OUT
! Just beyond it was a sign neatly lettered, black on white:
IF YOU HAVE NOT CALLED AND RECEIVED PERMISSION TO ENTER, GO BACK NOW.
It did not give a phone number to call. Presumably, anyone who would be given permission to enter would know the number and the owner. On either side of the gate and at regular intervals along the barbed wire fence hung metal signs that displayed a bolt of lightning and the word
DANGER
!

“Mr. Humann is security conscious,” Mulheisen said.

“You don't know the half of it,” Jacky said. He got out and unlocked the gate, which had a police warning on it:
DO NOT ENTER/ CRIME SCENE.
The road continued around the mountainside, climbing higher and maneuvering through two switchbacks before it crossed another cattle guard and an even sturdier gate, steel and mounted on huge timbers that guarded the road. From the timbers extended a tall steel fence with a running coil of razor wire along the top, extending away around the hillsides, sporting the electrical warning signs. As before, the gate was closed and locked, with a police notice. Jacky got out and opened it, and they drove through. There were trees up here, but none in a wedge-shaped swath that led to the house. The phrase “field of fire” came to Mulheisen's mind.

The house was a very Western house, to Mulheisen's eyes. It was built of large, horizontal logs, and it was on a single floor. The roof was moderately steep, sheathed in dark green steel, and it extended out to cover a porch or deck that ran the length of the front of the house, with a wooden railing. Beyond the house, perhaps fifty yards, the pine forest reared up and clothed the top of the mountain, some four or five hundred feet higher and a quarter-mile away.

Jacky parked and they got out into the pale sunlight. There was a wonderful odor of pines, three or four large ponderosas having been spared to provide shade and a windbreak around the house. The lawn was not a lawn as such, just sparse grass and a lot of pine needles, otherwise bare earth and a few large, lichened rocks.

“Have you been inside?” Mulheisen gestured at the house.

Lee nodded. “Reasonable extension of a crime scene, especially since the ditch rider found a gun in the hot springs. We found more guns inside.”

“A lot more?”

“A couple of revolvers and a couple of sawed-off shotguns. I've got ‘em all down to the shop, if you want to see ‘em.”

“A sawed-off shotgun was used in the Carmine killing,” Mulheisen said. “Maybe we should look at them.”

“What can you tell from a shotgun?” Lee asked. “No ballistic evidence.”

“No, but in this case . . .” Mulheisen hesitated, recollecting the bloody scene inside Carmine's limousine. “There could be splashes of blood, fragments of tissue or bone, maybe fibers from clothing or upholstery. These things could possibly have adhered to the weapon, even if it was wiped off or cleaned later.”

Lee looked around the silent yard. “I don't think our forensic facilities are up to that kind of thing, Mul.”

“I could take it to our man in Detroit,” Mulheisen suggested. “But for it to mean anything we'd probably have to have the forensic crew sweep the house, Humann's clothes and Helen's.” He sighed. “What else did you find?”

“Quite a bit of money. Pert near fifty thousand dollars, in old bills, mostly fives and tens and twenties.” He detached a “Police Crime Scene” ribbon from across the door and unlocked it. They stepped inside.

It was an interesting house, Mulheisen thought. He liked it a lot. It was basically one large room with four small rooms arranged against the back: two tiny bedrooms, only one of them equipped with an ample brass bed but both with built-in closets; an equally tiny “spare” room where Jacky had found the guns (a kind of office, or study, it also had a personal computer, a desk, and a filing cabinet and its closet was filled with women's clothing, evidently a spillover from the other bedrooms); and a bathroom with a tiled shower stall and a large, sunken tub. The large main room had a kitchen on one end and a fireplace with a sofa and chairs at the other end. There were a couple of practical-looking tables, one of which, by the entry, had a telephone/answering machine on it. There were a few pictures on the walls, mostly nicely framed prints of Winslow Homer and Thomas
Eakins (a little odd, Mulheisen thought: no Western scenes, but Eastern scenes). It seemed a very livable, practical space.

Mulheisen pointed at the answering machine. A red light indicated it was on, and a zero appeared in the message slot. “No messages?” he asked.

“Just what's-his-name's voice, the greeting,” Lee said. “I left it on, just in case.”

Mulheisen nodded approvingly. “What did you do with the money?” he asked.

“It was in a desk drawer, loose. I put it in a box,” Lee said, “and I took it to the First Metals Bank in Butte and put it in their vault. I had one of the bank officers count the money and give me a receipt. Then I put the receipt in the Butte-Silver Bow evidence locker.”

Mulheisen raised an eyebrow. “That what the sheriff told you to do?”

“I didn't ask him,” Jacky said. “I just did it. I didn't want anyone saying I stole any of it, and I couldn't see letting it sit around the station house. I got Kenny Dukes, the other deputy, to witness what I did with it when I found it, and also Sally McIntyre, the ditch rider.”

“She came up here with you?”

“She showed me where she found the gun in the hot springs and then she came on up here.”

“Can I talk to this ditch rider?” Mulheisen asked.

“Sure. You want to see anything else in here?”

“I'd like to look at that computer some time,” Mulheisen said, “and the files. I'd like to know the legal considerations, seeing that Humann isn't under arrest or anything. Of course, possession of a sawed-off shotgun is some kind of criminal offense, isn't it?”

“I'm not so sure about that,” Lee said. “Is that a federal statute? I'd have to look up the Montana law. But, hey, you'll be interested in this.” He opened the door of what appeared to be a utility closet off the kitchen. He pushed aside the usual array of mops and brooms and
slid back a concealed panel revealing an assemblage of electronic gear: three small television screens, a reel-to-reel tape deck, various switches.

“I didn't check it out fully,” Jacky said, “but from this panel he can activate electric fences, lights, security TV cameras, tape conversations . . . who knows what all? The interesting thing is, there's no sticker from any electrician or electronics outfit. I checked around Butte, nobody there worked on this. It looks like Humann did it all himself. Far as I can tell, it all works. There's no labels on anything, so I wasn't able to figure out what it can actually do, but at least one of the screens shows the yard. The whole thing was turned off when I found it.”

Mulheisen glanced around. “Where are the cameras?”

“There's two of them down by the gates,” Jacky said. “There might be others. I haven't seen them.”

“I didn't see any cameras.”

“No, but you probably noticed a couple of bluebird houses on the fence posts,” Jacky said.

“Bluebird houses. I didn't pay any attention.” Mulheisen smiled. “My mother would be outraged. This guy isn't just security conscious, he's a nut.”

Jacky locked the front door and reattached the crime scene ribbon. Then he went to the Blazer and got on the radio, while Mulheisen strolled around the yard. It was extremely pleasant up on this mountain, Mulheisen thought. The wind soughing in the tall pines, the dry scuff of needles underfoot. He wandered up behind the house, along the narrow path that led over the ridge. A blue jay yelled at him and flitted away. It was too dark for a blue jay, he thought. Must be some Western counterpart of the Eastern blue jay. His mother would know.

Jacky caught up to him. “Sally's at home, in Tinstar,” he said. “It'd take her a half hour to get up here. You want me to ask her to come?”

“Why not?” Mulheisen said. “Or we could stop and see her on the way back to town. The hot springs is down this trail?”

Lee nodded. “Go on down. It ain't far. I'll see if Sally'd rather we came down to her place.”

Before Mulheisen reached the pool, Lee caught up to him, saying, “I couldn't raise her, she must have took off. We can stop by her place on the way down.”

They stood on the rocks overlooking the pool and looked down into the greenish blue water. It was very clear and the bottom was lined with old needles with patches of fine, gravelly sand showing here and there. You could feel the heat rising off, and in the cool autumn air there were periodic blossoms of steam off the rocks and the surface of the pond, quickly swept away by the breeze.

“Beautiful,” Mulheisen said.

Lee nodded. “Sally said she found the gun right out in the middle.” He stared out at the water, then sat down on a large flat rock that appeared to have been placed there for the purpose and shucked off his boots. Next came the complicated belt and holster and then his starched gabardine trousers, which he folded carefully. Mulheisen looked on with amusement. Jacky Lee's relatively short, skinny legs sticking out of khaki shorts seemed like mere props for his oversized trunk, still clad in shirt and jacket. He looked at Mulheisen. “Want to?”

“Well . . .” Mulheisen said, glancing around. It was as remote and lonely a place as one could wish. A few minutes later the two men were wading back and forth in the warm water, staring downward with arms clasped behind their backs, ostensibly searching for discarded weapons, but clearly enjoying the experience. No doubt they looked ridiculous, a couple of grown men in their baggy underwear with shirts and, in Mulheisen's case, a necktie.

“Wheww.” Mulheisen breathed out gratefully. “This is pretty fine.” He relished the soft flutter of sand between his toes and soon he
stopped to stare up at the circle of sky above them. The strands of gossamer still drifted high up. A raven flew into the top of one of the ponderosas and sat there, pointedly not looking at the ridiculous spectacle of the waders. It made a strange noise, almost like a wooden musical instrument—a Balinese xylophone, perhaps, Mulheisen thought—a rising “tick,” followed by three descending hollow “tocks.”

“Ah hah,” Jacky Lee said. He rolled up a shirt sleeve and stooped. He held up a shiny pistol, dangling it from the trigger guard with his forefinger. Encouraged, the two resumed their watery shuffle, but another half hour of feeling about with their feet, occasionally picking up pieces of quartz or old waterlogged sticks, convinced them that they had found what could be found. They were about to get out and dress when a laugh froze them in their tracks.

Sally McIntyre stood on the path. “I don't believe I have ever seen such a thing,” she said. “Mister Dee-troit Cop, I have to apologize for our local constabulary. It appears he has not told you the proper Montana way to use a hot springs.” So saying, she flung her sweat-stained Western hat aside and sat down to tug off her battered cowboy boots.

“Now, Sally . . .” Jacky Lee said, warningly.

The woman's eyes flashed as she stood up and unbuttoned her jeans. “Don't tell me an Indin deputy, who once told me that Indins have no false modesty, that they're simple, direct people who don't let the white man's foolish ways shame them . . .” she said, now unbuttoning her shirt.