Out of Season (20 page)
“The wall hides the person from view, but his shadow extends out to the east. It’d be visible,” I said.
“That’s what I think.”
I pursed my lips and studied the photo. “Mrs. Finnegan said that the plane was flying east-west tracks.”
“That fits, sir.”
“What a photo,” I said. “But if Charlotte is correct, the aircraft was coming toward her when it reared up. If this is the shadow of a man, then either it’s of the gunman or of someone who was really close to where the gunman was standing. He would have heard the gunshot clearly…if he didn’t make it himself.”
“It would make more sense to make the shot on a return trip, when the aircraft was heading east. Maybe on the next leg, they flew slightly north of this site. Whoever it was, he could see the plane coming and set himself up.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know that yet, sir.”
“And we don’t know for certain that this tiny black speck is a shadow, either. Not for sure.”
“It’s pretty clear, sir.”
I leaned against the cool stones of the north wall and regarded the ground. “As rocky as this area is, we’re not going to find prints.”
“Are you up for a little stroll, sir?”
“Stroll? That sounds nasty. To where?”
She gestured up the slope. “I’d like to see what’s up there. It’s just enough of a rise that we’ll see…” She stopped and shrugged. “Who knows what we’ll see?” She opened the folder again and looked at the photo. “Nothing is centered in this,” she said. “It’s always possible that Martin was aiming at something else and just plain missed.”
An unkind remark came to mind, the sort of thing I would have cheerfully voiced had Martin Holman been alive. I shook my head.
“That’s easy to do,” I said. “Let’s stroll.”
As the crow flies, or even as the lizard scuttles, the distance to the top of the little mesa behind the block house was nothing at all—perhaps fifty yards. But most of it was at a significant slope, far steeper than it appeared in the aerial photograph, where the tricks of the camera flattened features and distorted distances. By the time I worked my way to the top, ever mindful of my precarious balance on the rocky footing, I was puffing like an old steam engine.
Estelle stood waiting on the rim, a study in patience. She’d had plenty of time to catch her breath—if she’d lost it in the first place.
The rise gave us enough elevation that I could see the slope-backed bulge a couple of miles to the west against which the Bonanza had pulped itself. As I gazed at that spot, a dust trail caught my attention, and if I squinted hard enough, I could imagine that I could see the small, dark dot that kicked up the plume.
“It looks like a parking lot over there,” Estelle said.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I replied.
“It’s too bad someone wasn’t standing right here when the crash happened,” she added. “They would have seen the whole thing.” She moved her hand in an arc across the sky, finally sweeping down to point over at the crash site. She then thrust her hands in her pockets and just stood quietly, looking out across the prairie.
“Suppose that the person who was standing behind that building fired the shot,” she said finally. “Suppose that’s what happened. What would be the most logical way for him to drive out of here?”
I peered back down the slope at the block house. “Right from there,” I said. “He’d drive out the same way that we came in and then hook up with County 9010. And then on out east to Forty-three. If that’s where he was headed.”
“Richard Finnegan would drive out that way to go back to his house. Johnny Boyd would have to turn west. And it’s possible that they could have driven due south, up the back of Cat Mesa.”
“Lots of choices,” I said. “Too many. It leaves us with nothing, except one big, glaring fact.”
“What’s that?”
“If he wasn’t familiar with the area, Estelle, he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. He couldn’t have known that the aircraft was coming over here. It’s that simple.”
“Assuming the shot wasn’t accidental.”
“Assuming that. And the simple logistics of it say that if the shot was fired from about here, then either the person left to the east, through Finnegan’s, or west through Boyd’s. That’s about the choice. If he took that road”—I pointed toward the north-south track—“and headed south, toward the back side of Cat Mesa, he’d have to know the roads really well to pick his way out of there once he got into the trees.”
Estelle nodded and pulled out the folder of photographs. “So far, we’ve identified two of these,” she said. “The windmill, and the block house.” She shuffled through the other pictures, frowning. “Before that truck gets here, I’d like to take a look at the fence line just north of us.”
I turned, expecting her to be looking off into the distance. Instead, she was still sorting photos.
“What truck?” I said, scanning the prairie.
This time she looked up and pointed to the south. “If you follow the road down from the back of Cat Mesa, you’ll see the dust. Right now he’s about a finger’s width below that dark belt of junipers, headed this way.”
The binoculars were in the truck, of course, where they always did the most good. But I shaded my eyes with both hands and concentrated, and sure enough, eventually a tiny portion of the distant terrain moved. I saw the dust plume first, then the speck.
“You’re right, Sharp Eyes,” I said. “And what fence?”
Estelle held up a photo. “Linda marked this as the next photo on the roll. It’s also the last photo that Martin Holman took. And I think this grove of trees”—she indicated a small blotch in the top right corner of the photo—“is right over there.” She turned and looked north. A hundred yards away, a stand of junipers was bunched near a jumble of boulders that marked the north edge of the mesa on which we were standing. “There’s a fence just over the crown of the hill.”
“Just around the next corner,” I said and grinned. “Lead on.”
I had no doubt that we’d find the fence. If I’d learned nothing else working with Estelle Reyes-Guzman over the past decade, it was that she didn’t make idle guesses. As we walked toward the junipers, she held the photo in front of her as if it were a witching rod.
“Just north of the rim,” she said. We circled around the grove of stunted, withered old junipers. They were skirted with mountain mahogany, making a dense brush barrier. But sure enough, after we picked our way through a jumble of rocks, we found our progress blocked by a livestock fence.
Estelle stopped and turned this way and that until she was satisfied that she had the orientation of the photograph correct. “We are here,” she announced, and used her pen as a pointer. “This fence goes east-west, and you can see quite a bit of it in this photo. Sheriff Holman snapped the shutter when the plane was still a bit west of here.” She turned and looked along the fence. “He was shooting ahead of the wing, and the shadows say he was looking east.”
“And if he’d swung the camera just a degree or two to his right, he’d have been able to see the top of the mesa, maybe even the back side of the block house.”
Estelle pursed her lips and gazed at the barbed-wire fence. “If we assume that Martin took a photograph of exactly what he
meant
to, then he was interested in this fence. Or at least in something in this area.”
The fence was not new, but it was well-maintained. The four strands of wire were tight, with two twist-’em wire stays spaced between each steel post. “This would be a boundary fence, I assume,,” I said. “There’s nothing temporary about it. If it is, then the Boyd land is on the other side and this is Finnegan’s. Or state property.” I shrugged. “Or federal. Who the hell knows? Maybe it’s just a section fence.” I put a hand on the top of one of the posts and shook it. “And it must have been hell getting these posts in the ground up here,” I said. “So what’s the big deal, I wonder. Why this fence, why now?”
“I don’t know, sir.” She replaced the photos in the folder and looked back the way we’d come. “If that truck that we saw earlier was Richard Finnegan, he’ll be just about to the windmill by now. Maybe he knows.”
The rancher’s dark blue Ford pickup was parked beside our county unit, and I could see the four-wheeler ATV in the back. As Estelle and I started down the rocky slope toward the block house, I scanned the area, looking for the rancher. It wasn’t until we were a dozen yards from the back corner of the structure that I saw Richard Finnegan taking his ease in its shade, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the cold-stone east wall.
“Howdy,” he said as we approached. “I saw your outfit and figured you must be up here somewheres.”
“We took a short hike up to the top,” I said. “Our daily constitutional.”
“I bet,” he said, but there was little humor in his voice. His posture said that he’d done all the walking he wanted for one day. “Can I help you find something?”
“Is this your property, or do you lease it from the feds?” I asked, knowing damn well what the answer was.
“I own it,” Finnegan said and took the cigarette out of his mouth. With deliberation, he curled his little finger around and nudged the ash off, watching the process as if it were the major fascination of the moment. And the tone of his reply added, “What do you want?” But he had the courtesy not to say it, even though I’d ignored his initial question and certainly given him cause to ask.
“Is that fence that runs east-west on the other side of the hill the property line between you and the Boyds?” I asked.
“Parts of it. On over to the west some.”
“If we were to follow it off to the west, how far would it run?” Estelle asked, and Richard Finnegan eyed her for a moment. “I assume it has to join a north-south boundary eventually,” she added.
Finnegan raised the hand with the cigarette and pointed with the butt. “Eventually it does,” he said, and then he glanced at me as if he’d just realized he didn’t sound overly helpful. “That fence runs down the back of this mesa, then maybe a quarter mile on.” He bent his hand. “Jogs to the south, runs along over to his Black Grass Tank, then west and then south again.” The crow’s-feet around his eyes crinkled. “Runs all over the place.” He took a deep draw on the cigarette and then ground it out on his boot heel. “Why the sudden interest in property lines, folks?”
“There’s some evidence that Sheriff Holman was interested,” I said. “We don’t know why. And Black Grass Tank? What’s that?” I asked.
Finnegan nodded. “One of Johnny’s cattle tanks. Like this one.” He indicated his windmill with a thrust of his jaw. “Only difference is he’s got water there.”
“And you don’t here?”
“Nope. She ain’t pumped for six, seven months now.”
“And so you’re planning to pipe water from the Forest Service spring, is that the plan?”
Finnegan glanced at me and his eyes narrowed. “That’s the idea,” he said.
“All the way up here?” I continued.
“Nope. No point in that. There’s another tank a mile or so south. We’ll pipe it there.”
“That’s expensive,” I said.
“Sure enough is.”
“Mr. Finnegan, is it true that there’s some friction between Johnny Boyd and you over where you want to run that water line?” Estelle asked.
“We got us a few things to work out,” he said. “Is that what the sheriff told you?”
“Did you have a chance to talk to him about this?” I asked. “To Sheriff Holman, that is.”
“Never met the man,” Finnegan said. He pushed himself away from the wall. “And what Johnny Boyd does, or what I do, ain’t nobody’s business but our own. But I don’t guess, what with a plane crash that killed a couple people, that you’re all that interested right now in what a couple of old ranchers do with a black-plastic water line.” He grinned and found another cigarette.
“No, I guess we aren’t,” I said.
Finnegan’s grin widened. “Let me walk with you on up there,” he said, indicating the mesa. “Give you a tour. You can see most places from there. Maybe give you a chance to ask whatever it is that’s eatin’ at you.” He stepped out of the shade and squinted up at the sky. “Hot day for spring,” he said. “It’s going to be a hot summer, for sure.”
He set out up the hill, streaming smoke from his cigarette. Estelle touched my arm. “I’m going to get my camera,” she said, starting toward the vehicles. “I’ll catch up with you.”
I nodded and hastened to join Finnegan.
“Quite a pretty young señorita,” he said. “She’s not coming with us?”
“She wants her camera,” I said. “What for, I don’t know.” That was only partly true, of course. We plodded along, the two of us watching our feet as we picked our way through the loose rocks and around the cacti that studded the hillside.
I would have liked to claim that it was my eagle-eyed vision that did the trick, but it was simply the habit of watching the ground so I didn’t trip and break my neck. Estelle had no trouble catching up with us. When she did, we were standing near a runty juniper, waiting for her about a third of the way up the mesa…less than fifty yards from the back of the block house.
I held up a hand so she wouldn’t walk past me, then pointed at the ground. The rifle cartridge casing wasn’t bright and shiny, but nevertheless, the contrast was stark against the earth.
Richard Finnegan bent down and damn near had the casing in his fingers before I could say, “Leave it.” He straightened up and his face was an interesting study in the dawning of an idea.
“What’s the matter? You startin’ to think that someone took a shot at that airplane, is that what’s goin’ on?” he asked. Neither Estelle nor I replied, and Richard nodded. “It adds up, you being out here and all. Are you going to tell me what happened, or am I going to have to wait and read it in the paper?”
“We don’t know what happened,” I said. “We’re following up on a few ideas, that’s all.” I put my hands on my knees and bent down, eyeing the casing. Estelle unscrewed the barrel of her ballpoint pen, removed the slender filler and slipped it inside the casing’s mouth.