On the Run (22 page)

Deputy Hamilton carried the stepladder in from the back deck and, starting at the left corner, searched the wall up high. I searched the lower section, partly on my hands and knees. I found a 1989 penny and a mean-looking spider, plus the knowledge that LOL knees are not meant for this type of sleuthing work.

“I think we can safely conclude there are no other bullet holes,” Deputy Hamilton said when we reached the far corner. He was standing on the floor now, and Koop was up on the ladder inspecting the situation.

“That’s good, I guess. I’m sorry we bothered you,” I added.

I was by now embarrassed that I had so quickly jumped to the conclusion that the bullet in the deer head would lead to some important revelation. Was I infected with that RHS malady common to mystery readers everywhere? Red Herring Syndrome. Seeing clues where none exist.

“That’s okay. I needed a break from murder and drugs.”

“No suspects in the nephew’s murder yet?”

“Oh yeah, there are suspects. But the more we investigate, the more rabbit trails we run into. And more drugs. Pot, meth, cocaine, even heroin. You name it and we’ve got it. The meth is mostly a local, do-it-yourself industry, but the other stuff is coming in from outside. We just haven’t found the pipeline yet.”

“But Eddie Howell was definitely tangled up in it.”

Without responding, Deputy Hamilton picked up the antlered head and started up the stepladder with it. Koop jumped down.

“Oh, you don’t need to bother. We can do that.”

“I just want to see—” He grunted the heavy head into position, then looked toward the far end of the room.

“Did the bullet come from back there where the sofa was?” I asked.

“Hard to say, but it’s possible. The trajectory appears to be coming from that direction and headed slightly upward.”

Which is what it would be if someone sitting on the sofa had fired at a standing person. Although that didn’t fit any scenario of suicide or murder that I could imagine. I thought about asking Deputy Hamilton if he was convinced the homicide/suicide conclusion was correct, but I knew he wasn’t going to confide doubts about an official position to an outsider.

So instead I detoured and asked, “How did they happen to test Jock Northcutt’s hand for gunshot residue?”

He bounced the bullet a few more times but finally said, “I thought the information might be helpful.”

Bingo! So he’d requested the test because he
hadn’t
been convinced the tidy, straightforward conclusion was the right one. Or at least he hadn’t been before the gunshot residue test reinforced the suicide scenario.

I made a cautious fishing trip. “Did you know Ute, the guy who worked here for the Northcutts for a while?” I asked.

“I stopped him once for no taillight on that old van of his.”

“I don’t suppose that warranted a background check?”

“Actually, I did run his name through the system,” he admitted. “But I didn’t come up with anything on him. Or on the buddy who was with him.”

“Buddy?” I was surprised. “Another of the shaved head variety?”

“No. Just an ordinary-looking guy. With an ordinary name. Joe Michaels. With a California driver’s license. Ute’s full name is Dave Uteman.”

“You have a good memory.”

“A cop needs one. Although in this case, maybe I remember them because something just didn’t seem right. They were both extremely nervous. I really wanted to search the vehicle, but I didn’t have probable cause to do it.” He sounded frustrated.

“Something didn’t seem right because . . . ?”

“Now, Mrs. Malone, you know I can’t make incriminating comments about people who did nothing to suggest they were anything other than your basic, upstanding, law-abiding citizens,” he chided.

“You just had this gut feeling the van might be loaded with drugs,” I guessed.

Deputy Hamilton neither confirmed nor denied that. “Ute was very polite and cooperative and said he’d get the taillight fixed immediately.”

“A prudent stand for someone with a van full of drugs,” I suggested, again to no comment. I took a new tack. “There were some hard feelings between Ute and the Northcutts. Their son was suspicious of him.”

“In connection with their deaths?”

“Well, only before he knew the circumstances of the deaths,” I had to admit.

“Was he satisfied with the official conclusion?”

“Yes, I think so.”

We looked at each other for a moment, and finally he tossed the lump of lead to me. “Then probably you and I should be satisfied with it also.”

I noted that he included himself in the advice, which suggested he might still have a smidgen of doubt, but I didn’t press the issue. I walked him out to the rear deck. He paused to survey the grounds. No sign of Abilene. I momentarily thought about mentioning our camper/skulker, but there didn’t seem much point in it now that the man had moved on.

“Thanks again for coming,” I said.

“You tell Ms. Morrison I hope she’s feeling better now, okay?”

“I’ll do that.”

It seemed the appropriate time to go, but he lingered. “I understand you were in church on Sunday.”

“Were you there? I didn’t see you.”

“No. Margaret Rau told me. She’s been after me to go for months now.”

“Maybe we’ll gang up and both nag you.”

He took another long look around, from the motor home to the emu shed to the old barn. No Abilene.

“Will Ms. Morrison be with you at church?”

“I’m hoping so.”

“Maybe I’ll do it one of these days.”

I didn’t think Frank Northcutt would be home during the day. I was prepared to leave a message on an answering machine so he’d call back later, so I was surprised when he picked up the phone himself. I explained the reason for my call.

“Sure, fine with me if your friend wants to park there. Probably good to have a man around. Everything going okay? Emus behaving?”

“The emus are fine. I don’t suppose you know anything about a bullet hole in that deer head over the fireplace?”

He surprised me by laughing. “No, but it sounds like something Jessie’d do. Maybe a fly was annoying her, and she just took a potshot at it. I once saw her break a cup going after a cockroach.” Again he sounded fond of his mother’s unconventional personality.

“There have been a couple of phone calls. I gave them your name and number.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t elaborate on whether anyone had called.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. He was sounding a little distracted even as we spoke. “I thought you’d probably be back at the post office by now.”

“I decided to take a couple more days off to go through these old checks and some other papers I brought home, and I’ve run into something . . . puzzling.”

I wanted to know what, but asking seemed too nosy, so I remained silent. Knowing even as I did so that sometimes silence can be even more effective than a question. And who could possibly interpret silence as nosy?

“It’s about some of these checks. Several of them are made out for large amounts of cash. I can’t imagine what Jock and Jessie needed it for. I mean, who walks into a bank and asks for forty or fifty thousand in cash? And does it several times?”

“All from the same bank?”

“No. They were using accounts at several different banks, spreading the withdrawals around. It all adds up to several hundred thousand dollars, maybe more. I never knew exactly how much they got out of their Hollywood Hills place, but it must have been a bundle, with a lot left over even after they bought the ranch and the Hummer and everything else.”

Puzzling indeed. And taking the cash out of several different banks suggested a calculated decision. One such transaction might raise eyebrows, but several such withdrawals at the same bank could well set off alarms. Which meant . . . what?

“Perhaps they needed cash to buy all these supplies and food,” I suggested. “There’s shelf after shelf of survival-type stuff in cans down in the basement. And that mountain of toilet tissue.”

“There are cancelled checks for all that. Some survival-food company was probably sending its executives on bonus trips to Hawaii, considering all the business Jock and Jessie did with them.” The words were on the sour side, but he still sounded more distracted than annoyed. “What I’m thinking . . .”

I let silence work again.

“What I’m thinking is that maybe they were being blackmailed.” “Blackmailed!”

“Although I have no idea by whom. It’s just the only reason I can think of for all that cash.”

“But blackmail wouldn’t be any motive for someone to murder them. Killing the people you’re blackmailing cuts off the source of income.” A question instantly bounced into my head. Could Ute have had something incriminating with which to blackmail Jock and Jessie? And when they’d finally said “no more,” he’d simply killed them to keep them from going to the authorities?

Frank was in a silence of his own for a few moments, perhaps thinking silence would encourage me to expand my thoughts, but finally he said, “But no one murdered them. They committed suicide, remember?”

My brilliant response was, “Ummm.”

“What I’m wondering now is if they did it because they just couldn’t see any other way out of a blackmail situation.”

What he said made a certain appalling sense. A ruthless blackmailer driving them beyond the limits of endurance. Although given what I’d heard of Jessie’s temper, her killing the blackmailer appeared a more likely possibility.

“And what I want to know is, who could have been blackmailing them? And why?” Frank sounded belligerent and angry now, but frightened too, and I suspected he must be wondering if this unknown blackmailer was going to come after
him
now. Make him pay up or they’d reveal some devastating or incriminating fact about his parents.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea what they could be blackmailed for?”

“Not a clue. Although I think it would have to be business connected, not some . . . personal indiscretion involving one of them, because sometimes one and sometimes the other signed the checks for cash. They weren’t concealing anything from each other. I used to think it was just paranoia when they hinted they had big enemies in Hollywood, but maybe they really did.”

“Look, I haven’t gotten around to trying to organize anything with their old files, but I’ll start right away. Maybe I can find something.”

“I’d appreciate that.” He paused. “If you do find anything, let me know directly, would you please?”

He didn’t say it in so many words, but I got the drift.
Don’t
pass the information through Mikki.

23

I wrapped the chunk of lead in plastic, labeled it, and put it in the drawer of a nightstand in the master bedroom for safekeeping. Then I called Mac again, told him Frank had okayed his parking here, and gave him instructions on how to find the Northcutt place. He said he’d get started first thing in the morning.

“I’m looking forward to peach cobbler,” he said. The first time I’d met him, I’d had a peach cobbler in hand. Interesting that he remembered.

I spent a frivolous amount of time that afternoon thinking about Mac, so it wasn’t until I was getting dinner—corned beef hash and green salad—that a totally different perspective on those big checks for cash popped into my head. One “industry” always dealt in cash. An industry known to be operating locally. An industry in which it might take a considerable amount of cash to get set up and started . . .

I made a roll call of possible characters in this industry.

Right at the top, Jock and Jessie Northcutt themselves. Not necessarily users but perhaps knowledgeable about the drug world from their Hollywood years. Maybe with useful connections to that world. Now dead. Had they horned in on someone else’s territory . . . and been eliminated?

Eddie Howell, the sheriff’s nephew. Probably both a user and dealer, now also dead. Were the Northcutts Eddie’s source?

Young man, name unknown to me but a friend of Eddie’s, also in the dead column. Killed in an unexplained rollover accident. A fatal connection or irrelevant coincidence?

Ute. Drug connection unknown but highly possible in his work with Jock and Jessie. Deciding he wanted all the action for himself and getting them out of the way with a murder neatly disguised as a homicide/suicide? If anyone was in a position to come up with genuine signatures and somehow turn them into a suicide note, it was surely Ute.

Our unknown camper/skulker. Perhaps a curious but innocent bystander fond of ramen noodles and an occasional barefoot stroll. But perhaps someone with a less innocent agenda. Possibly Ute’s buddy, working with information supplied by Ute about drugs or cash hidden in the house or sheds? The space behind the cans of survival food was empty—emptied by the killer?—but was there another hiding space,
not
empty, a space the camper/skulker was scheming to gain access to? Although, so far as we knew, the camper/skulker had picked up and moved on.

Confusing.

I’d pretty well eliminated Frank Northcutt from suspicion, but I know it’s a mistake to eliminate anyone until the true culprit is nailed down. So, even though he was down to bit-player status, he was still in there. And there were any number of unknowns. Old enemies of the Northcutts from Hollywood. New enemies in the drug world.