Ground Money (13 page)

“The hospital can tell you which one.”

John nodded and moved to get up.

“There’s something else,” said Wager. “It wasn’t an accident.”

Both young men stared at him.

“He was beaten to death. He was hit with a blunt weapon.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a car that hit him?” asked James.

Wager tried to read his eyes. “What makes you think it was a car?”

“You told me it was an accident,” said John. “He was all the time driving, so we figured it was a car accident.”

“It wasn’t. The autopsy said it was murder.”

“Murder … You got any idea who did it?”

“I’m not on the case,” said Wager. “It’s the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office. They’ll probably want to talk to you.”

“What about?” asked James.

“Anything that might help them out.”

John said, “That won’t be much. We didn’t see much of him.”

“Can you think of any reason why he might be beaten up?”

“No.”

Wager sipped his beer. At the table next to them a half-dozen cowboys had settled in and were laughing loudly at something and flirting with the waitress. She grinned and said, “Anytime, cowboy,” and they laughed again. “He didn’t say anything to you?”

“What about?”

“He told me he was going to visit the T Bar M.”

“He might have visited us,” said John. “But we didn’t talk much. Just about the ranch and rodeo and such.” He drank deeply. “I thought you weren’t interested in this case.”

“I said I’m not assigned to it. I am interested—he was a friend.”

“Yeah, well, we appreciate that. But there’s not a damn thing we can tell you about him.”

“How long have you been working at the T Bar M?”

“Me? A couple years. Jimmy just signed on.”

“That’s over in Ute County? On the edge of Canyonlands?”

“Yeah. Why you asking?”

“I like that country. I was thinking about taking a vacation out that way.”

“There’s a lot of country out there.” John stood, James scrambling up beside him. “We’re grateful you told us about Daddy, Mr. Wager.”

“You don’t have any idea what he might have been doing up around Salida?”

“No. We were up in Wyoming then.”

“He worried about you two. He wanted things to work out for you.”

John looked down at his thick hands and picked at something under a thumbnail. “He lived the best he could, I guess. That’s what we all do, ain’t it?” He touched a finger to his hat brim. “Ma’am.”

Wager and Jo watched them thread their way between tables toward the group they had come in with. A voice or two called from the noisy crowd, and John lifted an answering hand in their direction, but he kept walking. Pausing at the corner table, he bent to speak for a few seconds, and then the two brothers went out quickly.

Wager said, “Be back in a minute” and worked his way over to the jukebox near the table. Four men sat with their heads close together. As Wager stood in front of the glowing record player, one of them turned to stare his way. He had pale red hair whose rough fringes dangled down his forehead, and a mustache cut to arc around a thin upper lip. Perhaps late twenties, early thirties; nothing else distinguishing that Wager could see in this light. But the man was interested in Wager. He stared until he caught Wager’s glance; then he turned quickly back to the now silent men.

Wager dropped a couple of quarters into the machine and randomly poked the buttons. A few seconds later a voice wailed, “I asked for her hand, but all I got was the finger.”

“What’s this about a vacation near Canyonlands?”

“We’ve been looking for an interesting place to go.”

“I was thinking of Europe.”

“I said interesting.”

“Europe is interesting!”

“Well, maybe. But why don’t you look in one of those vacation magazines of yours and see what they have around Ute County.”

They had finally gotten a seat in a restaurant and were looking over the menu, which was decorated with pictures of miners and a languid young blonde in Victorian dress. Beyond the plate-glass window that fronted the narrow, long dining room, automobile traffic jammed up between the two traffic lights of Leadville’s main street, and a steady procession of faces moved back and forth along the crowded sidewalk. On the wall facing Wager, an enlarged photograph depicted the town during the height of silver mining, and the present downtown section didn’t look all that different from the photograph. Beside it, the same blonde stared out over the room, and beneath her was a scrolled name, “Baby Doe.”

“Mind telling me why Ute County?”

“That’s where the T Bar M is.”

“That much I’ve figured out. What I don’t know is why you want to go there.”

“Tom’s sons weren’t exactly honest with us.”

“I wondered what was going on back there—those questions you kept asking.” She closed the menu and stared at Wager. “You were interrogating those boys! Even while you were telling them their father was dead, you were interrogating them!”

Wager didn’t see anything to get excited over. “It’s a homicide. Somebody murdered Tom.”

“But they were up in Montana, at a rodeo.”

“Maybe. Maybe they gave themselves enough time to swing through Antonito before they went north—it’s about a five-hour drive at most from Ute County to Antonito. That might explain why he went willingly with his killers and why the wallet was missing: the sheriff would need time to identify Tom, and by then they would be in Montana.”

“Oh, Gabe! You’re talking premeditated murder—those boys can’t be that cold-blooded!”

“I’m talking opportunity. They might have come by to visit and things got out of hand.”

“But why would they kill him?”

Wager shrugged. “Hatred, maybe. He was pretty well worked over before he died.”

The waitress came and apologized for taking so long to get to them. “Have you decided yet?” She shoved a lock of damp brown hair off her forehead and wrote down their orders. “Be a little bit—we’re really crowded today with the rodeo and all.”

“Do you really think either of them hated their father enough to do that?”

“That’s one of the things I want to find out.”

“You believe the murder might have been accidental—that perhaps the killer only meant to beat him up?”

That was consistent with the type of bruises on Tom’s face—a series of blows that were not meant to kill. But there were murders, and there were murderers, and there were some ill-fitting pieces, too: why Tom went with his killers, why his wallet was missing if it was supposed to look like a hit-run accident. Until better evidence showed up, nothing could be ruled out. Which is what he told Jo.

She sipped at her wine and poked around in her salad. “What would they lie about?”

He told her what had caused Tom to come to him in the first place.

“Just rumors? That doesn’t sound like much to be suspicious over.”

“You’ve done barrel racing; you’ve been around these people. How many times did one of them come up and tell you what you ought to do for your own good?”

“Well …”

“Not once. They mind their own business, and they’re proud of it. And somebody like Tom—just like his friends—would get pissed at anybody offering advice that wasn’t asked for. No matter how good or how deserved or how well-meant.”

“They are independent. Or like to think so.”

“Which means that a hint would be enough for whoever told him. But Tom listened, and he didn’t tell that whoever to mind his own business. He took it seriously, and I should, too.” Especially since he didn’t at first, and now Tom was dead.

“Why you?”

“He was a friend.”

“And you don’t think the sheriff’s office is doing enough?”

“They don’t know what Tom told me.”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“They believe it was a robbery, and that’s the way they’re approaching it. Any other theory’s going to need hard evidence to back it up.” Wager too drank a bit of wine. “And they might be right.”

“What did Tom tell you after he went out to the ranch?”

“That everything was OK. That I shouldn’t go asking around about the boys anymore.” He pushed his salad aside to make room for the dish the waitress brought, saying, “Careful, that’s hot,” as she set it on the table. “But it wasn’t what he said as much as how he said it. He sounded worried, not relieved.”

“So everything wasn’t OK?”

“That’s another thing to find out.”

Jo studied the heaping mound of spaghetti and sauce that steamed on the plate in front of her. “Well, if that’s the only way you’ll take your vacation, I suppose it’s worth it.”

The first thing he felt was a smothering pressure across his mouth and then the unfamiliar softness of a body next to his. The warmth of an almost silent whisper moistened his ear: “Gabe—wake up. Gabe!” His eyes stared into the alien black, and then he placed where he was: a motel in Leadville, and Jo lay tensely beside him with her hand over his mouth. “Somebody’s trying to get in. Are you awake?”

He nodded, and the hand pulled away. Wager eased silently out of bed, recalling the room’s layout—the dresser with its large mirror and the suitcase racks across from the foot of the bed. Bathroom to the left. To the right, a low table and chairs under the curtained window; right of the window, the door to the walkway, where he heard the stealthy scrape of a tool probe for the latch. What he could not recall was if he had set the security chain. Behind, Jo moved in a rustle of sheets, and from the table beside the bed came the loud tick of his wristwatch. Feeling through the dark, Wager brushed lightly against the chair back where his holster hung; his fingers slid down the strap to lift the heavy weapon from the cool, worn pocket of leather. Toes gliding across the carpet, he edged toward the window and peered through a tiny gap in the thick drapes. The light over the door was gone, and in the shadows he made out only the back of a head and a shoulder as a man leaned close to work the lock.

With a sharp click, the latch tongue sprang back, and the noise seemed to make even his wristwatch hold its sound. Then, after a long ten seconds, the pale glimmer of the door eased open and a silhouette hung listening at its crack. Wager, his pistol held steadily at the poised shape two feet away, breathed silently. The door moved again, testing for the snug jerk of the safety chain, but there was none, and the silhouette moved quickly to slip into the room.

Wager said, “Freeze,” and for a split instant the shadow did, then something leaped out to thud wildly against Wager’s head, and he grabbed for the swinging arm and slashed his pistol barrel like a whip into the paleness that was the man’s face. A breath of garlic and beer and tobacco grunted something, and then the figure kneed at Wager, the sharp bone catching his thigh with a numbing gouge, and twisted away from his grip. Wager swung again, happy to feel the weapon rake against the taut flesh over a skull and the man cursed and swung something that swished thinly through the air just in front of Wager’s eyes. Wager’s pistol came down on bone once more, and the man, gasping loudly now, pulled away with the clatter of something dropped and sprinted down the walkway, a staggering checkered shirt that flickered under the last two doorway lights and disappeared through the hedges at the motel’s corner. Wager started through the door.

“Don’t, Gabe—don’t go out there like that!”

He paused, nude, then pulled the door shut. “You’re right. I don’t have my badge.”

In the sudden glare of the lamp that Jo switched on, he picked up an open switchblade and placed the chain firmly in its slot.

“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Jo, breathing rapidly, poured them both a glass of ice water from the bedside pitcher and sighed deeply.

“I didn’t know if he was armed. Besides”—he wiped the snag of flesh from his pistol muzzle—“think of all the paperwork.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. And I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. I don’t think I could have kept from shooting.”

Wager studied the switchblade, then pressed the release with his thumb and folded the long, grooved blade back into its handle. It was a good one, well designed, not one of those sold across the Mexico line to high school kids who bought them for the chance to feel tough. This one had blood grooves and a small guard that sprang out to keep your hand from sliding down the blade if you struck bone; it had a checked handle which would mask any fingerprints and offer a better grip if it was slick with blood.

“Did you see him? Do you know who it was?”

“No.”

“What do you think he wanted?”

“Money. Whatever he could find.”

“Do you think he was just a thief?”

He looked at her, but it wasn’t fear that brought the question; her eyes were stretched, but with excitement and interest. “What’s your guess?”

“Well, we’ve been asking a lot of questions.”

“It wasn’t one of Tom’s sons. This guy was too tall. And he was wearing sneakers, not cowboy boots. I think he was just a thief. They’re bound to be up here with all the tourists.”

“But why us? Why this room?”

“I think he was going down the row and found somebody dumb enough to leave the chain off.”

“Oh.” It made sense, and she liked it better than the idea that the Sanchez brothers were somehow involved. “I guess I shouldn’t have thought what I did—I think I’m getting paranoid.”

“A little paranoia keeps a cop alive.”

“Thanks … but I’m glad you’re alive. That knife—he tried to use it, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t have a chance to.” Wager grunted, bending his leg and rubbing the soreness as he climbed back in bed. “He wasn’t too good with his knee, either.”

Jo’s eyebrows lifted. “He didn’t!” She looked under the cover and then back at him. “Did he?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Sex and violence? Is that all you’re interested in?” She laughed and pulled him to her. “I guess it’s too late to call in a report anyway.”

“Too late and too much trouble. Up here we’re civilians, remember?” Her arm tightened across his chest as he turned out the light.

The slow stroke of fingers up and down his stomach stopped. “Do you really think it was a burglar?”

“Sure I do.” But as he played over the brief struggle with its blurred images, a vague memory began to emerge—a man with a curving mustache and a long fringe of hair curling up on the back of his neck.