Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (29 page)

"Who?" asked Ruby Bee.

There was so much electricity in the air that Las Vegas could have tapped in and lit every lightbulb on the Strip. Even Harve was so absorbed that he hadn't noticed his cigar butt had gone out. A couple of glasses were midway to mouths. No one so much as flinched when a car backfired out on the road.

"Hayden McMasterson," I said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"That weenie?" Harve's sneer wouldn't win him any absentee votes from New Mexico.

"He lucked out," I said almost apologetically. "Jules and Lucy wanted access to the files, too, but McMasterson beat them to it. It didn't take much ingenuity or raw grit since his room key happened to work on the next door unit." I turned to Ruby Bee, who was not delighted with the drift of the discussion. "Is every last one of the locks keyed the same?"

"People are all the time running off with the keys. This way's a sight cheaper than calling a locksmith once a month, and it's not like someone has to worry about being burglarized or attacked."

"How about murdered?" I said. "That particular room is developing quite a track record. Next time you have it fumigated you might think about having it exorcised at the same time."

Rosemary fluttered her hands. "Are you saying that all three of these people wanted to pry into Arthur's private files? Why?"

I positioned a bowl of pretzels between Jules and Lucy since they both looked wan and I didn't want anyone passing out on me. "I'll get back to these two later. I'm sure they were disappointed when they saw a light in Sageman's room, but there was nothing they could do except hang around and wait for another opportunity. With his nemesis occupied across the way, McMasterson got busy with the computer. I would hypothesize that he wanted to find out if there was anything his opponent had discovered about the crop circles and sightings that could be used at the conference to blow holes in the ITH argument. Sageman might have interviewed witnesses whom McMasterson missed or found some obscure correlation with previous incidents."

McMasterson toyed with his crystal, then curled his lip and said, "Arthur was unscrupulous. In several instances he hoarded pertinent data until he could publish them in a book with much fanfare. This was hardly conducive to fellowship within the movement. We are all seeking the ultimate truth rather than petty personal gain -- "

"What about Estelle?" Ruby Bee growled at me.

"Let's move along," I said. "McMasterson knew how to access Sageman's files, and he was doing so when Sageman himself stormed into the room. The ensuing exchange couldn't have been pleasant, but for some curious reason Sageman returned to number two and resumed the session without even mentioning what had happened to Rosemary. Why didn't he? After all, she was one of his most ardent supporters. She would have condemned McMasterson's behavior. But he didn't say a word."

Rosemary thought for a moment. "No, and it is curious. His face was rosy, and I seem to recall he was somewhat distracted as he eased Dahlia back into a deep level of hypnosis."

I took the tape recorder from behind the bar and placed it on the bar. "Ruby Bee graciously agreed to listen to the tapes for me. I heard most of the first one, but I never got to the second one. Was it interesting?"

Ruby Bee gave me a confused look. "There wasn't but five minutes on the second tape. Dahlia rambled on about how these silver men had her paralyzed on a table and were threatening to do something real nasty. She screeched, but they didn't pay her any mind and were closing in on her privates when Dr. Sageman stopped the machine. Then he started it again and told her to let the picture fade until it was gone, talked real gently about how she'd remember what she'd said but it wouldn't upset her, and told her to wake up. That was the end."

"That can't be right," protested Rosemary. "There should be approximately four hours of testimony, two on each cassette. I was present the entire time. There was only a brief interruption when Arthur went outside."

"I could play the second tape for you," I said, "but I doubt anyone else wants to hear it. You'll have to rely on what Ruby Bee told us, which is that the session was nowhere near four hours."

Harve gave Rosemary such a dark look that she pulled her head into her coat collar as if she were a turtle. "Somebody's lying," he said. "That's for sure."

I wandered down the bar until I was in front of McMasterson. "Let's talk about what you found. Sageman was quite proud that he was a computer illiterate, and he relied on Brian to transcribe his dictation and keep everything on disks. This meant that Brian could use the computer for his own private files, too. One of them was likely to be an account of his scheme to humiliate you and Sageman. The media loves nothing more than a juicy story of duplicity. Brian would have been the featured guest on the network talk shows, hawking a book that exposed the ufology's leading authorities as naive and pathetically gullible. For pity's sake, look who was fooling you and Sageman: a moonshiner with a third-grade education, a punk destined for the state pen, and the Maggody town council. Marjorie can beat any of them in a domino game."

McMasterson began to weep. Ruby Bee found him a dishrag and murmured at him until he regained control of his volatile tear ducts. "Brian's book not only would have destroyed the ETH and ITH foundations but would have undermined the public's confidence in the entire worldwide UFO movement. The skeptics would go wild with glee. Even our most dedicated believers would have dismissed any future incidents as more pranks. Without our meticulous investigations into phenomena, the government would be free to continue its conspiracy to hide the truth from all of us."

I wiggled my eyebrows at Jules to let him know I hadn't forgotten him, then turned back to McMasterson. "I'll bet Sageman was ready to punch you in the nose until you showed him what you'd discovered. Somewhere in the file Brian must have crowed about his ultimate caper, wherein he intended to make a total ass of Sageman. With any luck you might have been treated to the same indignity. Earlier that afternoon Brian arranged for Reggie to deliver the note to Sageman. At some point before nine he abandoned his post and drove to the low-water bridge, donned the silver suit and helmet, and waited for Sageman to come rushing into the clearing. Sageman was desperate for an encounter of the third kind. He was going to get one he'd never forget."

"It was all in the file," McMasterson said in a low voice. "Arthur was aghast at Brian's treachery. It was the closest I'd ever seen him to tears. We shared a moment of intense spiritual communion."

Ruby Bee tried to grab my arm again, but I edged out of reach. "What about Estelle?" she insisted. "The longer you carry on, the likelier she's in worse danger."

"No, she's not." I went to the window and pushed back the curtain. "Hey, the rain's stopped. I was planning to finish my story here, but I think a field trip is in order. We can all use a little fresh air, don't you think? Harve, will you help with the transportation?"

I made Ruby Bee ride with one of the deputies in order to avoid a discussion of Estelle's whereabouts. I was 99 percent sure where she was, but I had to let the scene unfold if I was to get a confession. There was not one percentage point in hell that Ruby Bee'd keep quiet and go along with me if she could go galloping to the rescue and have something to lord over Estelle to her dying day. Not my mother.

We assembled on the shoulder of County 102 and I resumed the narrative. "There was an imperfection in Brian's plan. He couldn't have predicted that the note would be read and acted on by Cynthia Dodder instead of Sageman. He concealed his car behind the garbage dump and went down the path to the creek."

I motioned for them to fall into step, and like an orderly garden club, they did. I held up my hand as we approached the clearing. "Let's have some playacting, just so everybody can follow along. Rosemary, you talked about this with Cynthia. You take her role, and I'll take Brian's. The rest of you just watch."

"You shouldn't wade across the creek," Ruby Bee said. "Your feet'll get wet and you're liable to catch pneumonia, honey."

I ignored this outburst of maternal concern. "Now I want all of you, including Rosemary, to turn around and close your eyes. No pecking, you hear?" I adjusted a prop I'd left nearby. "Here we go," I continued. "Cynthia stumbles into the clearing, stops when she sees the burn marks, and then looks up as a silver alien comes walking across the surface of the water." I waved from the middle of the creek, where I was teetering on a narrow plank. I'd been damn accomplished at such antics twenty years ago, but at the moment I was precariously close to landing on my butt in several inches of water.

Everybody assessed the scene. Harve finally broke the silence, saying, "Maybe Les should have looked a little harder at the garbage dump."

The accused (who did not suffer fools gladly) tapped his superior on the shoulder. "I listed every last item there, Harve. It wasn't like that board was still wet the next morning." I completed my trip with only a minimum of water in my shoes. "To Brian's bewilderment, it was Cynthia who screamed and collapsed. He would have enjoyed embarrassing UFORIA along with everyone else, but I doubt he harbored any personal animosity toward her. All he could do was replace the plank and get out of the costume as quickly as he could. This was what he was doing when Sageman and McMasterson came down the path."

"But they didn't have the map," blurted Ruby Bee. "I had it in my apron pocket."

"Everything was in the file," I said. "They didn't need the map to know the location."

Rosemary was so agitated that her hands were a blur. "But I've already explained that Arthur never left the room again. I don't know what's wrong with the cassette, but the session ran four hours, and he couldn't have been here. Dr. McMasterson must have acted alone!"

McMasterson sat down in the wet weeds and slumped against a tree. He began to mumble under his breath, perhaps communicating with his subterranean chums about the necessity of raising bail in the near future. He didn't look capable of making any constructive contributions to my melodramatic presentation. Being pegged as a murderer has that effect on a lot of people.

"The logistics required two participants," I said to Rosemary, "and the two I mentioned had equally strong motives. Sageman needed to create an opportunity to sneak away to deal with Brian. He told McMasterson to wait, went back to number two, and put both you and Dahlia into a state of hypnosis so deep it was impenetrable. He'd hypnotized you so often that it was a snap, and Dahlia had already proven herself to be a cooperative subject. When he came back at eleven, he gave you a strong suggestion that the session had not been interrupted for more than a minute or two. What he couldn't do was fill the blank tape -- or your notebook. That's why he had to take it."

Harve discreetly gestured at a deputy to station himself near McMasterson. "So they arrived and caught Brian in the middle of taking off the costume. That doesn't ... " He shrugged.

I bent down and tweaked McMasterson's ponytail. "Brian wouldn't agree to back off, would he? He was still going to ridicule your mindless acceptance of the crop circles and the sightings."

"Arthur was the one who would suffer the most," McMasterson said dully. "Brian went on and on about discrepancies in the older files, how Arthur had distorted findings to suit his premises, how contradictory testimony had been rewritten or ignored, how unprofessional he'd been with mentally unstable subjects. Arthur stood here in the middle of the clearing, getting stiffer and stiffer, his eyes blazing, his anger so intense that his aura was crimson. Brian was laughing when Arthur suddenly banged him on the head with the helmet and knocked him cold."

"But he would regain consciousness and remain a threat," I said, still tweaking the ponytail to keep his attention. "So the two of you came up with a brilliant way to silence Brian and at the same time enhance the soon-to-be-legendary events at Boone Creek. You carried Brian back to the rental car, attached a hose to the tailpipe, and asphyxiated him, then brought him back and arranged his body in the center of the circle he'd carefully made earlier. It was as if he'd drawn his own coffin."

McMasterson grimaced. "Arthur mentioned that it was a nice touch."

"What about the hose and tape?" asked Harve.

"Sageman couldn't be seen at the SuperSaver, so McMasterson must have gone. I don't think it will be too tough to find a checker who remembers him."

Harve looked down at the sandals. "Probably not."

I released the ponytail and stood up. "After they packed up Brian's suit, Arthur drove the rental car back to the Esso station, with McMasterson following in his car. There was no time to dispose of the costume and other incriminating evidence, so they left all of it in the trunk to deal with when they had a chance. The chance failed to materialize when Sageman inadvertently left the car key in Rosemary and Cynthia's room. McMasterson didn't know that, so he was searching for it last night when I was playing hostess."

"I was hoping to find my notebook," Rosemary contributed. "I was a tiny bit suspicious when Arthur insisted on taking it with him. He often used my little sketches in his books, you know, and it was customary for me to refine them before giving him my notebook."

Harve stationed a second deputy behind McMasterson, but it was merely a routine gesture. "I have a question or two. Why did Sageman hang on to the tapes when he knew they'd incriminate him? He had Rosemary here bumfuzzled about the session. McMasterson sure wasn't gonna talk about it, and neither was Reggie Pellitory. Even if we opened the trunk of the rental car and found the suit, there was a good chance we might never prove for sure who put it there."