Rollover (5 page)

Dan was sitting forward, “Wait, you said Chet was a stunt driver? Just don't tell me his specialty was rolling cars.”

“Actually, it was.” The sheriff paused to study Dan. “I don't want to suggest any conclusions that might be false—premature, that is. But let me just level with you and tell you what we've got.”

Something told Dan this wasn't going to be good, but he leaned forward, the elbow of his good arm on the corner of the desk.

“About a tenth of a mile past the accident site coming back toward town, the ambulance driver reported seeing a ramp—”

“What kind of a ramp?”

“The kind you drive a vehicle up onto in order to roll it.”

“You're saying if he hadn't rolled the truck when he did by passing out, he would have a little ways down the road anyway?”

“It appears so.”

“Suicide?”

“We don't think so.”

Dan waited. What a weird twist. He was thinking how nervous Chet had seemed. Preoccupied would be the best word. “Suicide makes sense,” he said, more to himself.

“Until you realize he appeared to be following you, possibly waiting for the cut hoses on the Cherokee to strand you.”

“Come on. Cut hoses? You're saying I was set up to be maimed or killed?”

“That's certainly one interpretation we're considering.” Sheriff Howard got up, walked to an office fridge and took out a Diet Dr. Pepper. “Anything?” He pointed to the fridge but Dan shook his head.

“You stop for gas in Roy?”

“No, just lunch.”

“Eat at the Chill an' Grill?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember where you parked?”

“On the street, along the east side and a couple doors down.” He waited as the sheriff sat down and made a note, then popped the tab on the Dr. Pepper and took a long swallow. “Guess I don't have to ask if you noticed anything suspicious or unusual?”

“Nothing. Empty street when I came out of the restaurant. But why me, as the saying goes?”

“I think you'll need to help me with that.”

Dan sat back. He was drawing a blank. It made no sense. Unless the investigation—someone wanting him out of there or to slow him down…afraid he might find something. Plenty of people knew he would be in town on Monday—bank personnel and his client, for starters. But who knew he'd be coming along the back way? Up from an early morning meeting in Hobbs? And at that particular time?

“It could be work-related. I have no way of knowing. I haven't had a chance to even begin the investigation.”

“And that would be investigating the robbery at Wagon Mound? The bank over there?”

“United Life & Casualty,” Dan held out a card, “insured a necklace that was lost in the robbery…for a Ms. Gertrude Kennedy. Yes, that's what brought me out this way.”

Sheriff Howard shook his head, “Whole thing's weird—you hear how they did it?” Dan nodded. “Got Feds swarming all over the place. But I don't think anyone's come up with any answers. Not yet, anyway.”

Dan remembered that Chet had thought no one would. Thought it was an inside job. But Dan decided he'd just keep that tidbit to himself. He looked up to find Sheriff Howard staring at him.

“Anything else you want to tell me about that afternoon?”

Dan paused, “The old guy seemed nervous, kept looking behind him. He was apologetic having to wire the door shut on my side. If it hadn't been for that, I might have had a chance to jump clear.” Dan left the impact of that fact hanging in the air and changed tactics. “But he seemed proud of the old truck…even in its condition. Said he was the original owner—”

“He said what?”

“To quote him exactly, he said they'd been together since birth…I think he meant the truck's. I took the truck to be a fifty-something Ford—hard to tell, there were some mismatched parts and others, like the bumpers, just missing.”

Sheriff Howard opened a manila envelope and shook the contents onto his desk. It looked like a bunch of receipts and maybe a bank statement, Dan thought.

“When we towed the truck in, one of the guys who works in our impound area recognized it, or I should say parts of it. You're right, the truck was a composite—built from scratch at a chop shop here in Vegas and not that long ago. I think they started with the chassis and that was about it.”

Dan let out a low whistle, “Who paid for that?”

“Good question. Chet himself, according to these receipts, but a Social Security check doesn't cover that kind of work. Finished product came to over ten thousand dollars.”

“What about where it was done? What do the shop guys say?”

“That's another tough one. Shop's owned and run by bikers—not your Honda touring class types, if you're following me, but a few one-percenters.”

“One-percenters?”

“Yeah, the hard core. Ninety-nine percent of all bikers in the U.S. are law-abiding citizens…then there's the one-percenters.”

“And you're saying the chop shop is operated by…outlaws?”

The shrug said more than words. “We've adopted a ‘live and let live' attitude. Everybody calls it a chop shop, but that's just because they ride choppers. I honestly don't think they're up to anything illegal. I'm a little understaffed to hassle them—besides, in twenty years we've never had a problem.”

“Until now.”

“If they're even involved.”

“Have you talked to them?”

“Yeah. According to Jeeter Ferris—he's the owner—payment was made in advance. He gave some guy an estimate over the phone…just a ballpark…and then the rest of his dealings were with Chet. I understand Jeeter's boys at the shop did all the work.”

“So you're saying they built the truck ground up with Chet giving directions?”

“Something like that. I guess Chet had some pretty narrow specs he wanted them to follow. But he wasn't lying—he and that truck had been together since birth.”

“Sounds like he'd done it before.”

“No doubt. I should also mention that Chet had ten thousand dollars in his bank account. Don't know if it was part of some kind of payoff or unused truck money. But his grandson says he knows his granddad didn't have anything extra…nothing tucked away…lived from payday to payday like most of the community.”

“When was the deposit made?”

“Originally twenty thousand was put in first week in August. Increments of ten.”

“August? More than a month before the heist? Except for the cut hoses, it pretty much rules out having anything to do with me—no way they'd know there'd even be an insurance investigation—no way they knew the heist would be successful.”

“'Course that tunnel coulda been half finished by then…or more. Personally I think that tunnel'd been there for awhile. But it's a puzzler, for sure.” Sheriff Howard paused. “Two many unanswered questions. I'm not trying to tell you your business, but I'd be careful. I'll keep you in the loop and would appreciate the same.” Sheriff Howard leaned forward to shake hands.

Meeting over. Dan had a distinct feeling it wouldn't be the last with the Mora County sheriff.

He took the elevator down to ground level and walked out into the sunshine. Elaine was waiting for him about a hundred feet away and he had just that amount of time to decide what he wanted to tell her. Keep the details to himself or run the risk of alarming her?

“How'd that go?” She closed the novel and put it in the console as he climbed into the passenger's seat.

“Not sure. I think I left with a lot more questions than I had going in.”

“Such as?”

He took a breath. Didn't he believe that honesty was the best policy in relationships? Well, usually anyway. But he found he wanted to share. Maybe she needed to be careful, too. And that made him angry. If anything happened to Elaine—

“Dan, what's wrong?” She'd turned to face him squarely.

And then he started at the beginning—didn't leave anything out about Chet and the truck and the rollover, ending finally with what Sheriff Howard had said.

Elaine was silent.

“Thoughts?”

“I'm canceling the
descansos
.”

“What?”

“Not important. I'd just thought of honoring the spot where this Chet died. You know, one of those roadside crosses and some plastic flowers. But that was before I knew he attempted murder. What are you going to do?”

Dan flinched. Strong word “murder” but true, he guessed. “Be careful but not let anything that's happened get in the way of the investigation. Go in with an open mind.”

“I thought you'd say that. And the first step, Sherlock?”

“I take it Watson is going to stick it out?”

“As long as you need a driver.” She leaned across the console and kissed him. “And maybe even longer.”

“Okay. I'll buy that,” He grinned. “I guess we need to go into Wagon Mound this afternoon. See if you can find us something to rent for two or three weeks and I'll look up Ms. Gertrude Kennedy and get this show on the road.”

It didn't take long to check out of the motel, gather up clothes, Simon's food and bowls, and repack the SUV. This was turning into quite the adventure and he could do with less of that. Still anything was better than the hospital.

Chapter Five

Wagon Mound was laid out like a rogue Monopoly board—Wood Avenue, Railroad Avenue, mixed with Stonewood, Bond, and Rich streets connecting to Park Avenue with a smattering of Aguilar and Romero streets thrown in. All this beneath the mammoth natural stone edifice of a Conestoga wagon pulled by a six-up team of oxen. Well, this last demanded a little imagination but the image was probably apt for one of the last great landmarks on the Santa Fe Trail.

Dan read out loud from a guide he'd picked up at LJM's Travel center—one of two gas station/convenience stores at the edge of town. “‘At this very point, travelers a hundred years ago and then some could cross from the Cimarron cutoff to Fort Union. This arm of the Trail was called the Mountain Branch. In 1850 ten men riding guard on the express mail wagon were killed by a band of Jicarilla Apaches.'” Dan looked up. “Sounds like it wasn't far from here—where I-25 passes along the edge of town. Impressive. This is a real slice of the old wild west.”

Elaine didn't comment but eased the SUV across the highway and turned right at the first street, Railroad Avenue. Dan continued, “Looks like the town started out as a railroad center—Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe—been serving the ranchers in this area since 1881.” Dan turned a page, “Listen to this. ‘At the turn of the last century, this area produced the bulk of the pinto beans grown in the state. One Hijinio Gonzales started the festival by cooking up beans in wash boilers behind the schoolhouse to feed the community. There's been a Bean Day celebration ever since.'”

Dan put the brochure on the dash and looked at the town as Elaine drove. It was obvious that it'd seen better times. He was struck by how many empty and boarded up homes and businesses there were. Old adobes stood crumbling in the sun next to neat little white houses with bright metal siding and roofs. One old building on a hill could have been a school or even a hospital but was now just a three-walled, cavernous shell with warnings of do not trespass.

Main Street, if that's what it was, consisted of several businesses—all boarded up. “I haven't seen a restaurant, have you?”

Elaine shook her head. “No grocery store, no restaurant, no commerce at all—but there's a great-looking high school and middle school on the way out of town. And I think I've found a boarding house—at least there was a rooms for rent sign in front of that two-story adobe on the corner.”

“I'd like to take a look at the bank, Nolan and Railroad avenue… sort of get my bearings before I chat with Ms. Kennedy.”

“Nolan's coming up on the right.”

Elaine turned onto the street and stopped opposite the First Community Bank of Wagon Mound. She put the SUV in park and they stared through the windshield.

“Quaint.” Elaine offered.

Dan looked at the L-shaped building of not more than eight hundred to a thousand square feet. Its front, probably a painted-over brick façade, sported plaster emblems like miniature coats of arms on every column—everything a solid tan, the density of color that only repeated thick coats of paint could give.

The building was flat-roofed of a period known as New Mexico colonial and probably was adobe, all but the façade. The wooden numerals eight-zero-one were attached to the building above the door and a repeat of the address in stick-on numerals on the glass in the door itself. There were no windows along the side that faced the alley, but seven foot tall windows graced the front street entrance, each encased in dark brown heavy wooden frames complete with a dark brown painted-over transom above each one. The architecture was definitely early 1900s.

“Looks vulnerable,” Dan concluded. Even if the walls were solid other than the front—and he suspected they were—there was enough glass across the front to warrant an open invitation to unwanted visitors.

“But didn't you say the robbers tunneled in? Through some cellar?”

Dan nodded. “I don't see a cellar from here. Let's drive down the alley and around to the south side.”

It always surprised him to find an alley in the Southwest. Alleys were a Midwestern phenomena—dirt “streets” that divided a block of houses and were fronted by backyards instead of front porches. Usually the place for garbage containers and utilities—poles and meters. And, come to think of it, cellars were not run-of-the-mill out here—another Midwestern touch.

The cellar in question on the west side of the bank was still marked off by tape. From their vantage point it looked like any cellar in a vintage home from Kansas to Indiana. Just odd to find one in New Mexico and underneath a bank. Wasn't that some kind of double-dare invite to try to get inside? Didn't seem like it'd been too difficult to hoodwink the bank's guards…or guard…there might only be one; he'd have to check—get an interview.

And he'd visit the bank later, but he'd bet anything that there was a marble counter upstairs, and an area for a couple of tellers all behind tasteful turn-of-the-century, fancy, black wrought-iron caging. Then the steel door with a combination lock leading to the room of safe deposit boxes. A couple offices, maybe a free-standing station with deposit slips, pens, and other paper necessities and that would be about it. That and the small walk-in vault, triple-reinforced and double-locked, needing a key and a combination for entry—the one the robbers didn't bother with. Just the necessities. A bank like a thousand others that appeared out this way a hundred years ago.

“Seen enough?” Elaine slipped the car in gear.

“Yeah. Think you can find Romero Street? Don't want to keep Ms. Kennedy waiting.”

***

Elaine pulled up in front of a nicely kept two-story adobe with what looked like a fresh coat of earth-colored brown stucco. White flower boxes below each of four front windows overflowed with purple, pink, and white petunias—attesting to the fact that there hadn't been a hard frost yet this fall. A white picket fence maybe three feet high stretched across the front and around both sides and sported a sparkling white gate right in the center of the cement walkway that led to the front door.

“You didn't tell me you were visiting the gingerbread family. This is too cute—out of some book I read as a child.”

“Hey, I have a good idea—why don't you come with me? Might make Ms. Kennedy feel a little safer.”

“Safer? Just because her interviewer is black and blue and swathed in bandages?” Elaine turned to look at him. “You know, maybe I should.”

The front door opened before they were halfway up the walk. The two women framed by the doorway were like peas in a pod—one younger but already a carbon-copy of what was probably her mother, the older with curly white hair, checked green-and-white wool flannel skirt, and matching green sweater, a starched white apron securely around her waist. The other woman, with graying brown locks just as curly but tucked under a scarf pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck, wore a solid tan wool skirt with a dark brown sweater over a crisp long-sleeved white blouse. And they were both as cute as their house, Dan decided.

“Oh my goodness, just look at you. When your office called to reschedule, they said you'd had a bit of a mishap.” The older woman stepped back to let them enter. “This is my daughter, Penelope, and I'm Gertie. You can call me Gertie. I prefer to use the shortened version of my middle name—my first name being Cornelia.” She paused and looked up at him over the silver rims of half-glass readers. “Well, what would you do? It was either Gertie or Corny.”

“I see. That does make for an easy decision.” Dan chided himself but for all the world this was exactly how he pictured Mrs. Claus—well, had pictured her as a child when Santa and his wife had been real entities in his life. “And this is Elaine Linden…my right hand until I get my own back.” He held up the cast.

“And to make introductions complete, this is Bitsy.” Gertie pulled a tiny long-coated Chihuahua from an apron pocket. Bitsy had the longest eyelashes Dan had ever seen on a dog. It crossed his mind that they might not be real. If a dog could wear a rhinestone tiara—which she was—why not false eyelashes? Then at the urging of her owner, Bitsy held out her paw for a shake.

He felt like an idiot but took the tiny paw between index finger and thumb giving it the tiniest wiggle up and down. “How do you do, Bitsy.” All in the line of work, he guessed, but he swore the dog looked smug and withdrew her paw after the shake, dismissing him.

“Do you have a dog?” Gertie tucked Bitsy in the crook of her arm.

“A wonderful dog.” Elaine spoke up and then briefly filled them in on Simon's heroics after the accident, how he defied death to guard his master's belongings. Mother and daughter nodded solemnly.

“That's such a wonderful story.” Penelope patted Elaine's arm, “You must love him very much.”

“Yes, I do.” She caught Dan's eye above the woman's head. “Very much.” Let Dan figure out if she was referring to him or Simon.

“Let's sit in the dining room. I have some pictures that your employer wanted you to see.” Gertie led them to a claw-and-ball-footed round table and waited while each of them pulled out a chair and sat down. “The necklace belonged to my grandmother—my father's mother. He gave it to my mother on their wedding day.” She picked up two pictures and handed them to Dan. “This one simply showcases the piece—it's the one we've used for insurance purposes but really doesn't do it justice.”

Dan studied the eight by ten glossy. The necklace was spectacular—sapphire and diamond “drops,” some ten in number with a two-inch drop in the center. The sapphire in this drop was at least five carats and heart-shaped—looking like a faceted, fluffy, deep blue pillow. All drops were anchored to a platinum chain with alternating bezel-set sapphires and diamonds—not one stone less than three-quarters of a carat. The earrings were two and half-inch drops on posts, each with two-carat center stones to match.

“Beautiful.” He handed the picture to Elaine and gave his attention to the other photo. Here, the necklace adorned a stunning young woman in her wedding dress. Even with the sepia tint to the photo, he could see the grandness of the necklace.

“And here's Mother on the deck of the
Titanic
.” Gertie slipped another eight by ten from the pile. “You know, she kept that necklace under her clothes all the time—pinned to her corset. She was so afraid of losing it…and to think that now…”

A stifled sob caused Penelope to lean forward with a hand lightly placed on her mother's arm. “Mother, we need to have faith and trust that Mr. Mahoney will be able to find it.”

Dan didn't correct her, couldn't quite bring himself to tell them that an investigator only concerned himself with the “how.” How something was lost and how remuneration would be paid—not much more. He had reason to believe that every jewel in the necklace had been popped out, bagged, graded, and dispersed—most of the larger stones probably weren't even in the country. And the platinum, a melted mass already sold.

“The necklace was made in 1900 by Tiffany. My grandfather helped to design it. My father inherited it when my grandmother died, and in 1912, gave it to my mother—his wedding gift along with the fateful honeymoon. Mother was twenty-two—Father's second wife—he was ten years older. But they both survived the
Titanic
. Both among the seven hundred survivors. Father, of course, because he had a clubfoot. Any man with a disability was placed in the boats with women and children. I thought for years that my father felt guilty that he'd survived. Hastened his death, I know it did.”

“Mother, you can't know that, but it would seem natural for grandfather to grieve with so many lost—over twenty-two hundred, wasn't it?” Penelope pushed back from the table. “What depressing thoughts—time to liven this party up. Would everyone like a cup of tea? It's ready to go.”

Elaine got up, too. “Let me help.” She followed Penelope to the kitchen.

Tea turned out to be quite the ceremony with brownish lumps of natural sugar and a plate of assorted sweets—all diminutive and looking like tooth-rattlers, Dan thought. Napkins were small with frilly edges and initials stitched in one corner, white embroidery against the slight yellowing of old linen. Dan's body was beginning to suffer sitting on hard, unrelenting wood. He shifted his weight to his left side and balanced the eggshell-thin china in his left hand. So far, so good. No spills, nothing to apologize for. But there was a lot to be said for a good cold bottle of Bud. A lot easier to grab hold of, for one thing.

“And I didn't come along for another thirteen years…” Gertie seemed to be on a roll or just enjoying an audience for what must be oft-told stories. Dan tuned back in, then shifted again, but never lost eye-contact as she continued. “In those days I was considered a late-in-life baby. My mother was thirty-five and my father forty-five. I wouldn't be late-in-life today. Did you read about that woman in her sixties giving birth? Sixties. Why, I can't imagine.”

“Nor can I.” Elaine filled tea cups, placing a beautifully ornate white china pot with gold trim on a trivet in the center of the table before sitting. “This is delightful. Is the pound cake homemade?”

“My specialty.” Penelope appeared to blush, Dan thought. And the little tea party was “delightful,” but he needed to guide Gertie back to the particulars—ask the questions he'd need for the investigation.

“Always hate to mix business with pleasure,” he gestured toward Gertie with his tea cup, “but I need to double-check some details.”

“Oh my, I have been rattling on. Of course, you just ask ahead. I have no secrets.”

Usually when people said that, a big red flag flipped up, but not with Gertie. She was leaning toward him with rapt attention—and the guileless expression of the perfectly innocent.

“How often did you remove the necklace from the bank's safe deposit box?”