Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) (2 page)

Longarm realized he was leaning forward in his chair, eager to learn about this mystery. But he wasn’t one to be taken in easily, so he leaned back, puffed on his cigar, and said, “The new woman in my life is named Heidi…Miss Heidi Zalstra.”

“Irish?” Billy asked, trying to be humorous.

“No,” Longarm scoffed. “She’s a Scandinavian beauty.”

“A Swedish girl?”

“Dutch. I believe that is from Holland, where they have those funny windmills everywhere and lots of dikes to hold back water from the sea.”

Billy grinned. “Does she wear wooden shoes and say ‘Ya’ to everything you say?”

Longarm scowled. “Hell, no! She talks like the rest of us and hasn’t said ‘Ya’ to anything I’ve asked…but that is about to change starting
tonight
.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Billy said, clucking his tongue. “I just can’t imagine you and some poor Dutch girl having a lasting relationship. You’re not a bit interested in dikes or windmills…are you?”

“Of course not, but you can’t imagine me having a lasting relationship with
any
woman.”

“True.” Billy smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then abruptly changed the subject. “How do you feel about water?”

“It can ruin a good glass of whiskey.”

Billy didn’t smile. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then speak your mind plainly, Boss.”

“Can you swim?”

Longarm gave his boss a queer look. “Why are you askin’ me something like
that
?”

“Can you?”

“Yeah. In fact, when I was a country boy in West Virginia, we’d have a Fourth of July parade and then a picnic by the lake. I not only won the footraces, but I was always the fastest kid to swim across the lake and back. I kicked some kid’s ass for trying to pin on me the nickname the Flying Duck.”

“Yeah, I can see where that would be a bad one. But the fact that you are an excellent swimmer settles it,” Billy said with a look of satisfaction.

“Settles what?”

“You’re the only one that I’d feel comfortable sending on this extremely important assignment.”

Longarm was growing exasperated by Billy’s beating-around-the-bush tactics, but he knew better than to press the issue, so he bent his knee over his leg, leaned back in the chair, and smoked the excellent Cuban cigar as if it were the only thought on his mind.

“Well?” Billy asked. “Will you do it?”

“I told you I needed some time to rest up from that desert trip that damn near got my brains fried. Send someone else in the office. Send ole Jasper White.”

“Deputy White couldn’t even find his way to water, much less swim roaring rapids.”

“What about Clyde Hunsitter?”

“He’s afraid of water and he recently got his girlfriend pregnant. He’s going to marry Betty next week if she doesn’t drop it first. I can’t send him just now, and even if I did, he’d get himself killed on this assignment.”

“That dangerous, huh?”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “And you’re the only man in this office that has a ghost of a chance of success. Interested?”

“I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?”

“Because of that excellent cigar.”

“That too,” Longarm admitted. “So what is the assignment, or am I supposed to go out and find a swami with a crystal ball to tell me?”

“All right,” Billy said, lowering his voice as if someone could actually hear through his closed door. “This one is really, really important and special.”

“You always say that.”

“I know.” Billy held up his hands palms forward, as if making a big confession. “But this time it’s the truth.”

“Don’t matter because I ain’t goin’, but you can tell me anyway.”

“A federal judge and his wife are missing.”

Longarm just shrugged his broad shoulders. “Big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal! This particular federal judge is related to the President of the United States.”

“Then he’s probably retarded.”

“Dammit, Custis. Be serious!”

“I am.”

“Federal Judge Milton Quinn’s name is often brought up as a future member of the Supreme Court.”

Longarm scowled and blew a smoke ring. “Billy, I don’t care if he is the king of Siam. I ain’t goin’ anyplace for a while.”

“And,” Billy was saying, “he is rich and generous.”

“So now you’re trying to say that if I can find and save this Quinn fella and his wife, I will be richly rewarded?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t actually say that, but that’s what you implied. Billy, you know that we can’t take money as a reward or bribe.”

“There are many ways other than money that a man as important as Judge Quinn can reward those who help him, but I’ll not talk about that right now.”

“Good,” Longarm said, “because you’d be just whistling up a creek with me.” Longarm came to his feet. “Mind if I smoke this on my way to the barbershop so I can get a fresh shave for tonight’s date with Miss Zalstra?”

“You’re not going anywhere just yet,” Billy said, the friendliness leaving his voice. “Sit back down while I tell you where you are going as soon as we can make the arrangements.”

Longarm sat, but he wasn’t happy about it.

“Judge Quinn and his new wife, a much younger woman, have gone to the Arizona Territory…more specifically, to the headwaters of the Grand Canyon. To some place called Lees Ferry.”

“It’s an old Mormon Colorado River crossing. I’ve been there, and at this time of the year it’ll still be hotter than hell.”

“The judge and his wife’s intentions were to spend their honeymoon on the Colorado River of the Grand Canyon.”

Longarm removed the cigar from his lips and studied it a minute. “Are you trying to tell me that the judge and his bride were planning to
boat
through the Grand Canyon like Major John Wesley Powell and some others that came along afterward?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you,” Billy Vail said. “And guess what?”

“They capsized in wild rapids and drowned.”

“Partly right.”

Longarm sighed. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Billy?”

“Well, there isn’t much else that I know. It seems that the bride, one Mavis Henshaw now Mavis Quinn, was the daughter of a Mississippi River steamboat captain. She reportedly met the judge on a trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and they fell in love during the Christmas holidays.”

“How old is the judge?”

“Fifties, I’d expect, and his new wife is in her twenties and quite stunning. Anyway, Mrs. Quinn had early on developed a love of water and rivers, and she became quite enamored with the idea of running wild rivers. I understand that she had boated down some big rivers,
but the great challenge was always the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.”

“So she talked this lovesick fool of a judge twice her age to go with her on this crazy expedition?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t doubt that Mavis Quinn can be exceedingly persuasive.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. And I’ll bet the judge has had such a hard one since he met her that it has caused a lack of blood flow to his brain, so that is why he agreed to this foolish honeymoon trip.”

Billy allowed himself a faint smile. “There might be some truth in that. However, it should be said that there are now numbers of boats that regularly take tourists through the Grand Canyon, always wearing floatation devices, and the trips are incredibly expensive and dangerous. Just the sort of combination of dangerous but exciting adventure that would attract young and well-to-do people such as Mrs. Mavis Quinn like moths to a flame.”

“Only instead of the moth getting torched, these idiots drown.”

“Surprisingly,” Billy said, “very few do. I’ve been told on good authority that the boats that take rich tourists through the Grand Canyon are made for that river and handled by experts; they are far more suited to the rapids than Major Powell’s four inadequate wooden boats he used back in 1869.”

Longarm had never been down into the Grand Canyon, but he’d seen the Colorado at flood stage when it came out of the canyon, and he’d also seen it disappear into the great chasm up near the border of southwest Colorado. It was, he knew firsthand, a river not to be trifled with or taken lightly. It was a river that demanded great respect.

“Billy, what
exactly
would have me do?”

“I’d like you to go to Lees Ferry and find out if Judge Quinn and his wife actually got on a boat to take them through the Grand Canyon.”

“Didn’t someone reliable see them depart from Lees Ferry?”

“Apparently not.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, what I’m told is that the expedition was making ready for the perilous journey. Two boats, three experienced river navigators, and a half ton of provisions were being readied. But then, one morning, a boat was missing and so were the judge and his wife.”

“Just vanished?”

“Just vanished,” Billy said with a solemn expression on his round face. “There was no sign of foul play.”

“Were provisions missing?”

“Yes.”

“Then that crazy bride must have talked the judge into her madness and they went on alone,” Longarm reasoned.

“That could be the case. There could also be other reasons to explain the disappearance of such a prominent couple.”

“The reasons being?”

“The Quinns were wealthy. They probably had a lot of cash and some expensive gold jewelry. They could have been murdered and dumped into the river then an empty boat set free with a few provisions to make it look as if the couple had foolishly struck out on their own.”

“Hmmm,” Longarm mused. “That would be a possibility all right. How long have the couple been missing?”

“Approximately one week.” Billy leaned forward on
his desk. “Custis, the request to send my best man comes from the very highest sources. Right from the top of the political heap.”

“From the President himself?”

Billy nodded.

“Maybe you should go,” Longarm said. “It would be a real feather in your hat.”

“I can’t swim worth a damn,” Billy confessed. “And anyway my wife would have none of that. I’ve got three mouths to feed now.”

Longarm sighed. “I know. I know.”

“I’m asking you to do this as a personal favor. My career.
Your
career. The reputation of this office hangs in the balance. If you go to Lees Ferry and somehow find the couple still alive, it will be a tremendous boost to all of our careers.”

“And if I go and find out that they really were crazy enough to go down that river by themselves without an experienced riverboat guide?”

“Then that is something we have to find out.”

Longarm blew a smoke ring up in the air. “Boss, I have to tell you that the most likely outcome is bad. Either the couple was murdered…or they went off in a boat and soon drowned. In each of those cases, it’s damned unlikely that their bodies will ever be found.”

“I’m aware of that but hoping it’s not going to be the case. In any event, I’ve been ordered to launch an investigation from this office and you are the only one of us that can pull it off. Will you do it for me?”

“Billy…”

“Will you do it for not only me but yourself and the reputation of this office, and for Judge Quinn and his bride?”

“Ah, Billy, I…”

“And for a month’s paid vacation and a promise in writing that you’ll have both a raise and a promotion?”

“No matter what the outcome?”

“No matter what the outcome,” Billy promised.

Longarm came to his feet. He was a tall man and a strong one, but the idea of getting in a boat and going through the Grand Canyon seeking corpses washed up on some sandy shore was very disturbing.

“I’m going to piss off Miss Zalstra.”

“I’ll invite her to my home for dinner and fill her mind with heroic stories of the deeds you have done as a federal officer of the law.”

“You’ll tell her about the time I fought three men bare-handed in a bear’s cave in the Tetons and whipped them all?”

“Oh yeah, and I’ll tell them of the time you were in Monument Valley and had to track down six murderers and save that beautiful Mexican girl named…”

“Best not tell her about that one,” Longarm advised.

“I’ll tell her all the good stories,” Billy vowed. “By the time my wife and I finish, she’ll believe that you are a Nordic god and she’ll be panting with anticipation for your return.”

“Could work.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

Longarm jammed the Cuban cigar into his mouth. “A raise in pay. Promotion. You talk me up to Miss Zalstra?”

“All of those things I swear on my mother’s grave.”

“Last I heard she was still alive, Billy.”

“All right, on my father’s grave, and that bastard is definitely dead.”

“Fair enough!” Longarm extended his massive paw across the desk, and it dwarfed Billy’s small, soft hand. “We got a deal. Put it all down in writing and I’ll sign it.”

Billy’s broad smile faded. “In writing?”

“Sure! Any problem with that, Boss?”

“None at all,” Billy said weakly. “But I’ll want you to leave as soon as possible.”

“Tomorrow,” Longarm said. “Have my travel funds ready and waiting in the morning. Two hundred ought to do ’er.”

“Two hundred? That’s a hell of a lot of money, Custis. Lees Ferry can’t be that far from Denver.”

“Oh, it’s far enough,” Longarm said. “But if I need to hire a boat and boatman to get me through that monster canyon, I want to hire the best that’s available and that won’t come cheap.”

Billy, who was always tight on the office’s budget, sighed and said, “No, I suppose not.”

Longarm headed for the door. “Don’t forget to have those promises in writing and have the two hundred dollars in cash ready and waiting for me in the morning.”

“Have fun with Miss Zalstra tonight.”

“Damn right I will!” Longarm called over his broad shoulder as he hurried out the door.

Longarm got a haircut and went shopping for a few hours. He bought a box of chocolates for Heidi and then hurried to the Broadmore Hotel, where she was staying. It was one of Denver’s nicest hotels, in a very good neighborhood, and it reminded Longarm that Miss Heidi Zalstra seemed to have an unlimited source of income. She didn’t work and had only been in town a few weeks when he’d met her by chance one Sunday afternoon strolling alongside the banks of Cherry Creek. Although the day had been warm, their paths had fatefully crossed just when the sun was setting over the towering Rockies. The light had been fair, the evening beginning to cool, and folks were out enjoying a little exercise during the most pleasant part of the day.