Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (23 page)

"Oh, I didn't do Jack's out-of-town work," Denise said in obvious surprise. "He had other people for that. But I did his local stuff. He bought several pieces of land around here, you know, and then sold them to developers."

"So which ranch was he selling?"

"The old ranch. The Hollister Ranch, it's called."

"Not the Hollister Ranch. It couldn't be." This time it was my turn to look and sound surprised.

"Well, I don't know about that. He was certainly in escrow. And Redwoods Inc., that's the developers, aren't happy at all right now. It'll be years, I'm sure, before the whole thing's straightened out. There goes my commission," she added philosophically.

"You're sure it was the Hollister Ranch," I said, oblivious to her commission and other issues, following a track of my own.

"Sure I'm sure."

"And the deal was going to go through?"

"Oh yes. It
was solid. Jack would have had a lot of money coming in this week, if he'd lived."

"Oh," I said blankly.

Taking a quick leave of Denise, with a promise to come back promptly if her horse got worse, I climbed into my pickup with my head full of convoluted connections. The farther I drove the more complicated they got, until I patted the seat in an invitation to Blue. Stiffly he climbed up beside me and leaned into my body; I put my arm around him and rubbed him. Eventually I sighed, which caused him to turn his head and lick my cheek. "Nothing makes any sense," I told him. "Nothing at all."

TWENTY-ONE

Nothing seemed any clearer an hour later as I headed up Highway 1 toward the Hollister Ranch. I'd checked in with the office; there were no more calls. So, after some hesitation, and a sandwich from my favorite deli, I'd started out in this direction.

The ranch driveway appeared on my left; indecision washed over me. Should I or shouldn't I? Go on, I urged myself. Just find out what kind of alibis Travis and Bronc can give each other.

I swung the pickup into the drive, feeling committed. As I rolled slowly between silvery-gray skeletons of leafless cottonwood trees and green pastures fenced with weathered grape stakes, I wondered why in the world I was doing this. Someone had planted narcissus along the drive and their nodding heads were sharp yellow, cream, and orange against the brilliant green new grass, their very cheerfulness mocking me.

Afternoon sunshine lit the barnyard as I pulled in, reflecting off the whitewashed barns and fences, silvering the shingles of the employee houses. Everything was neat and well tended with the sort of quiet winter tidiness appropriate to February. I could see the now bare canes of what looked like climbing roses festooning the adobe-brick wall around the ranch house. I imagined it was a colorful sight in summer.

I sat there for a few minutes, not sure what I wanted to do. No one appeared; the barnyard seemed deserted. No Bronc. No Travis. I began to relax a little.

My eyes roved, noting the familiar elements. A big concrete water trough in front of the largest barn with a spigot steadily dripping into it, chickens scratching the ground in front of the smaller barn, a tractor parked in one of the open bays of the shop. A gray cat was hunting gophers on the front lawn of the adobe ranch house, and I could see two horses, a sorrel and a bay, grazing in the field off to my right. Business as usual.

Eventually I got out of the truck. Still no one. The place was quiet, in the way that nature is quiet. Not the hushed, mechanical hum of a silent building, but a stillness interspersed with gentle sounds. A soft breath of a breeze, the faint screech of a seagull in the distance, the cluck of the chickens, and occasionally, as the wind shifted, the muffled noise of the surf. After a moment, I was aware of something else-a rhythmic pounding, punctuated by louder thuds, from the bullpen on the far side of the yard. I walked in that direction.

The bullpen had eight-foot-high solid walls. I could hear that someone, or something, was inside, but I couldn't see who or what. Built for breaking colts, the pen was about thirty feet in diameter. The gate had a small square hole cut in it, so that one could reach out, from inside, and open or close the latch. It was this hole that I approached.

Peering through, I could see Travis, with his back to me. He was working a roan colt from the ground; Trav stood in the center of the pen with a long bullwhip in his hand, and the colt loped around him, one eye constantly fixed on the man. The noise I'd heard was the sound of the colt's galloping hoofs, with louder raps when he'd strike the boards of the pen.

Automatically, my eyes went to the horse, observing and evaluating him. Red roan with a blaze face, he looked to be at least three years old, big and stout, a horse of the same type, and possibly the same breeding, as Willy. He had a saddle on his back, and he was packing it calmly, but judging by the wary expression in his eyes and the way Travis was working him, he probably hadn't been ridden much.

Travis, for his part, looked calm and serene, his face, when he turned to follow the motion of the horse around the pen, more relaxed than I'd seen it since Jack's murder. He seemed wholly absorbed in the colt; occasionally he clucked to him when he slowed, but otherwise he simply stood and watched the horse travel, never moving the whip at all.

I began to think that I might pass unnoticed, but the colt gave me away. Scent, or something, alerted him to my presence, and he snorted and shied as he went by the gate, his ears pointed sharply in my direction.

Travis looked to see what had alarmed him, and our eyes met. In an instant, the serenity on Trav's face vanished, to be replaced by the closest approach to fury I could imagine on that young and normally friendly countenance.

For a long moment we stared at each other and I began to revise my opinion on whether Travis would actually murder me in broad daylight in the Hollister Ranch yard. Glancing at my truck, I curbed the desire to bolt over to it and lock myself inside.

He wouldn't, I told myself. Bronc must be around here somewhere.

"What do you want?" Travis was striding toward the gate. The roan colt coasted to a stop at the far side of the corral and watched us, his eyes big.

Despite myself I began to back away. Travis jerked the latch open and stepped out of the bullpen, still carrying the bullwhip. I checked him over carefully, but I couldn't see that he had any other potential weapon. His jeans and T-shirt had no place to conceal a gun.

He's not going to kill you with that whip, I told myself, but my hands clenched themselves into defensive fists and I kept edging toward the truck.

"What are you doing here?" Trav demanded again as he strode toward me.

"Where's Bronc?" I asked, too nervous to answer his question, thinking only of safeguards against murder.

"Out doctoring cattle." Travis spoke curtly; he was standing right in front of me now, his coffee brown eyes, so like Jack's, hard and angry. Despite the fact that I'm a tall woman, I had to look up at him, and I felt suddenly aware of how much physically stronger he probably was.

Forcing myself not to cower, I looked straight into his eyes as he demanded once again, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to see Bronc," I responded untruthfully.

"Leave the old man alone, why don't you? Isn't it bad enough that Jack's dead?"

"Bronc doesn't seem to mind me," I said firmly. "It's just you who's so upset."

"I know what you're doing." Travis shot back. "You're poking around making trouble because you don't want your friend to be arrested for murder. And you're not gonna pin it on me and Bronc. Or Laney," he added after a second.

"Is that why you're so upset?" I asked him. "Because I saw you at Laney's?"

"No." But for a moment he sounded a good deal less belligerent. "There's no law that says I can't date her. I didn't even know she used to be married to Jack when I asked her out," he added unnecessarily.

I waited, hoping he'd say more.

He didn't, though. He just stared back at me, his eyes still hot and hostile, but more controlled-looking. I was aware of the ranch surrounding us-the old barns and corrals like a silent audience. Travis had latched the gate to the bullpen, but I could hear the roan colt snort softly on the other side, as if he were listening, too.

"Did you know Jack was going to sell this ranch?" I asked.

No change in Trav's expression, just the same steady hostility he'd shown from the beginning. "Bullshit," he said.

"He was," I said mildly. "It's in escrow right now."

"That's bullshit. Jack left this ranch to the state, so that they could keep it the way it is."

"You want that, don't you?"

"Of course I do." Travis stared at me. "Why don't you just lay off?" he demanded. "You're not going to pin this murder on me or Bronc. We've got alibis. So does Laney. Pin it on Tara, if you want to pin it on somebody."

"I'd like to."

For a second Trav looked surprised, but the anger was back as quickly as it went away. "So go bother her, then, and leave us alone."

"Just what kind of alibi can you and Bronc give each other?"

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I was in trouble. Trav's eyes blazed up into fury and I saw his fist tighten around the bullwhip. "None of your damn business," he said as he raised the whip.

I have no idea if he would really have hit me; I grabbed the whip as it came up. "Goddammit, Travis, knock it off. If you hit me with that thing, I'm going straight to the cops, and I know you don't want that."

It stopped him. For a moment, we stood like a piece of sculpture, eyes locked, both gripping the bullwhip; then I felt the tension drain out of his arm and I stepped back.

"Get out of here," he said.

Keeping a wary eye on him, I walked to the truck and climbed in. He made no move to harass or follow me, just stood there in the barnyard, watching me as I turned the pickup around and drove out. Animosity was plain in every line of his rigidly still form.

I knew as I drove away that I'd made an enemy for life. Travis wasn't going to forgive me. Maybe Jeri Ward was right. Maybe I was in over my head.

TWENTY-TWO

Ten minutes later, I was halfway back to the office, as depressed as I could remember being. Talk about useless and inept. I'd learned nothing and alienated Travis completely. Why, why couldn't I come up with something helpful-the hit man who'd assisted Tara, maybe, or someone else with a reason to murder Jack?

Someone else. The words rang a bell. Redwoods Inc. Who the hell was Redwoods Inc.? The developer, Denise had said. I had wondered if someone stood to gain or lose on Jack's upcoming deal, and I now knew the name of "someone." Sort of.

Picking up the car phone, I asked for the number of Redwoods Inc. The operator plugged me right into the recording-sounded like a Santa Cruz number. Without thinking about what I was going to say, I dialed it.

"Redwoods Incorporated." The receptionist had the faintest of southern drawls.

"Uh, this is the IRS," I ad-libbed desperately. "We're doing a routine check of our files and we need to update your address."

"It's 355 River Street, suite L," the secretary said, clearly puzzled. "The same as it was last year."

"Thanks very much," I said quickly and hung up. Well, that was easy. And convenient. A right turn at the next stoplight and I was on River Street.

It took me a while to find 355, though, because River Street was a congested mass of urban development with a much less developed traffic system. Several huge warehouse-type discount stores, an indoor shopping mall, and innumerable strip malls created a consumer draw that the city streets were unable to deal with effectively. As a result, traffic always moved at a uniform crawl in this area.

Not being a big fan of retail therapy, I tended to avoid River Street like the plague, so not only did I not know exactly where I was going, I was unprepared for the abrupt lane changes, merges, and general maneuvering necessary to get from here to there. It took me a couple of passes through the worst of things to figure out which little strip mall bore the number 355, and by this time I was not in a good mood.

Barely restraining myself from flipping off an old lady who cut sharply in front of me with her Mercedes, I pulled into the parking lot of Redwood Village Shopping Center, with a muttered "Up yours." Silent cussing was allowed, but Jim would never forgive me for giving assholes the finger from the company truck.

I parked and got out, looking for suite L. Easier said than done. I discovered letters were alphabetically stenciled above each little business, but L was nowhere. There was K and then there was M. Where L should have been was just blank wall. I paced all the way up and down the place twice before I thought to go in and ask the clerk at a yogurt shop where L was.

"In back," she said. "That's the office."

Okay. I walked to the end of the mall for the third time and headed around behind it. Abruptly the superficially attractive veneer. of neat sidewalks and brightly colored awnings gave way to a strictly utilitarian asphalted alley, with a high cinder-block wall on one side and the huge, undecorated, unwindowed mass of the building on the other. The alley was punctuated by a series of Dumpsters, from which trash spilled out in generous quantities. A fitful breeze tossed the empty coffee cups and other bits of detritus up and down the gutters, and the thin visible strip of winter sky above me seemed dimmed and chilly.