Read R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi Online
Authors: R.P. Dahlke
Tags: #Mystery: Thriller - Action - Pilot - Arizona
R.P. Dahlke - Dead Red 04 - A Dead Red Alibi (21 page)
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At the crossroad to Highway 92, I kept my foot on the brake of Abel Dick’s Mustang and argued about which way Mac Coker went.
“He said he had a buyer for it and he has dealings with Mexican drug lords. He’ll take it to Mexico and Naco is the closest border crossing.”
Caleb shook his head. “Mac couldn’t possibly get the importation work done in the amount of time he’s had the Bugatti.”
“Have you seen the Naco border? It’s got one lone guard house. All he has to do is bribe a guard.”
Caleb, too weary from the pain to
fight with me, waved me onto the highway. “The Naco station it is, then.”
I turned onto the highway, exhaustion from this evening’s catastrophes finally catching up.
The only thing keeping me glued to this road was my stubborn inability to let go. Never mind that he was stealing my retirement fund, I loathed the idea that Mac Coker thought he could orchestrate so many murders and get away with it.
“Look!” Caleb pointed to an empty flatbed truck
parked by the side of the road.
In the light of the full moon, I detected the dusty tail of a car racing along
the dirt road. He was heading south for Mexico, all right, and definitely not stopping for a border check.
I turned onto the road and stepped on the gas
, determined to catch him before he got there.
“
Lalla, stop! It’s madness to follow now. He’s obviously arranged for a transfer at the border. The only thing we’ll get out of this are some cartel guns in our faces.”
“If we don’t catch up with him in another minute,” I said, hunching over the wheel and urging the Mustang to go faster, “I’ll drop back.”
“And how do you plan to make him stop?”
“I’ll run this baby right up his murdering, thieving, lying ass!”
I would’ve shoved it through hell if it meant that we’d catch him before he met up with the worst kind of criminals, the kind that would allow my race car to vanish into Mexico and Mac Coker to get away from the cold hard justice he deserved.
Caleb heaved a deep si
gh and sank back into his seat.
I had the gas pedal jammed to the floorboards, and
closed in on the wake of dust.
For a split second I saw taillights blink on
, then off and suddenly the Bugatti rose above the swirling dust, launched like a rocket ship.
But instead of keeping its course to the moon, i
t somersaulted and crashed to earth with a bone jarring racket.
We pulled up to the wreck, the wheels still spinning and the engine smoking. I pushed through the lung choking dust until I
could see the upside down Bugatti.
A single feather drifted down and landed on my nose. I brushed it away, and kneeled down to look inside.
The driver’s seat was empty.
“He’s over here!” Caleb said.
As I got to my feet I noticed movement in my peripheral vision.
I
swatted away the dust. Was the moonlight playing tricks on me, or was that what I thought it was? It’s long neck lunging forward, spindly legs churning hell-bent for safer ground, for a place in the desert without loud engines or hard metal.
As the
feathered apparition grew smaller and smaller, Karen Paquette, the Cochise County Search and Rescue team member’s words came back to me:
You hit an emu and you’ll get more than a mouth full of feathers, that’s for sure.
Caleb laid his good arm around my shoulders and squeezed. It wasn’t the kind that made me gasp for breath and giggle, but it was the thought that counted.
“Is he … ?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, glancing up at the stars coming alive above our heads “He was probably thrown before the car ever hit the ground. Wishbone Police Station is a ten minute drive from here.”
“Shouldn’t we move his body before we go?”
He waved his good hand to encompass the wide open space of the northern Sonoran Desert. “No one out here to bother it. At least not for the time it will take for the coroner to see where the body landed. What were you looking at out there?”
“Didn’t you notice the feathers?”
“What feathers?”
“Mac Coker’s escape was foiled by an emu.”
“An emu?” He looked at me and then at the moon. “Sweetheart. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, but I’m not hallucinating, Caleb.”
“That’s a pretty odd bird to be out here in the desert isn’t it? Aren’t they native to Australia?”
“Yes on both counts. Get in the Mustang and I’ll tell you about it on the way to the police station.”
.
We planned our wedding and the reception in November, giving us enough time to let Caleb’s shoulder heal.
The sale of the wrecked Bugatti made enough to pay for repairs to our new adobe home. The extra money also was enough for us to comp our good friends, Roxanne and Leon Leonard a room at the swanky Letson Loft Inn. They could relax, visit art galleries, do the mine tour and then join us at Café Roka for the wedding and reception.
We got the news from a relative of the Dick’s that
Abel Dick’s granddad’s health took a turn for the worse and he passed away a few days before the wedding.
We would never know if Jason had anything to do with Mac’s drug trafficking, but Jason did call 9-1-1 because by the time we arrived at Wishbone’s Police Station, Detective Tom and Jason
were gathering together a search party for us.
In a bittersweet twist of fate, Bethany had left a will with her attorney, leaving Reina in charge of a trust that would keep the property as a haven to artists for many years to come.
Reina and Jason came to the ceremony, but left before the reception since they were handling the delivery and sales for Bethany’s paintings as a way to fund the trust.
Afterward, they had plans to visit Julio Castillo at the Arizona State Penitentiary. The charges of double homicide had been dropped, but Julio pleaded to the lesser charge of drug trafficking and he would be in prison for another long sentence. Though Reina wasn’t giving up on him, she was going to continue with her own life and her art.
Mac Coker had indeed used his daughter’s deformity and her need for privacy to his own selfish and criminal purposes. Bethany’s laptop was recovered among Mac’s possessions and the chief’s phone number and credit cards verified his frequent visits via the internet to Bethany’s alter ego. But Caleb had it right, the official report was that the man had died in the line of duty, and he was buried with all honors. At least it gave Darlene some peace of mind as well as her police widow’s benefits.
Pearlie is still working hard at her on-line P.I. courses, and looking forward to relocating to Tucson, Arizona,
since she doesn’t think Modesto would be any fun without me.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Caleb was offered the vacancy for police chief in Wishbone, but after we spent another star-filled night on the roof of our adobe home, it became abundantly clear to us that in spite of everything that had happened this last week, Arizona should be our new home.
Karen Paquette was invited to our wedding, but had to decline as she had a prior commitment in Washington, D.C., but she did send a wedding gift with her card. It was an invitation to join the Cochise County Search and Rescue team. I just might take her up on it.
Dad will fly home to California to negotiate the sale of the ranch to the hungry developers who thought their persistence had finally worn the old man down. But Noah
Bains drives a hard bargain and the buyers will pay dearly for the privilege.
He’s already put a down payment on twenty acres between here and Wishbone, and he’s looking forward to the peace and quiet of high desert country.
But first, he has to do something about his new dog. Phantom, that darn dog, has taken to carrying off shoes and he’s just disappeared with one of Caleb’s new boots
The End
I would like to explain why I have chosen not to continue my stories with Lalla Bains in the crop dusting industry. As some of you may know, my son, John Shanahan, died in a work related accident while working as an aero-ag pilot in California. Though he left me with enough stories about the industry to complete two more books, after I finished A Dead Red Oleander I knew it was time to move on.
In 2002, my husband and I bought a summer home in S.E. Arizona while we sailed Mexico during the winter months. Then in 2005, I, and another artist, opened an art gallery on Main Street, Bisbee Arizona. I always knew that I would someday write a book featuring Bisbee, because for such a small town, it’s quite the hotbed of intrigue, some of it, okay a lot of it, is humorous.
And since most of the comments about my Dead Red series are centered around the characters and not the job, I decided that the crop dusting aspect would not be missed.
Wishbone, however, is not on any Arizona map. I made it up. For those of you who are familiar with Arizona, you may think this town looks a lot like Bisbee. Yep. So why the fictitious name? Because I wanted the option to change some physical locations, setting, and people, and I have plans to write more, a lot more about this area, and would like not to have to worry about locals taking potshots at me when I do it!
Lalla Bains-Stone, Caleb Stone, Dad Noah Bains, will again be joined by Pearlie in A Dead Red Miracle where Lalla, as newly minted Arizonian, will attempt to train her dad’s Australian Cattle dog as an air-scent tracker for the canine unit at SARS.
If you enjoyed this 4
th
book in the Dead Red Mystery series as much as I enjoyed writing it, I hope that you’ll consider leaving a favorable review on Amazon.
There are three more in the Dead Red Mystery Series, starting with:
#1-
A Dead Red Cadillac
http://getBook.at/B004QOAZO2
#2-
A Dead Red Heart
http://getBook.at/B004W9NIOU
#3-
A Dead Red Oleander
http://getBook.at/B008ALR6GC
Or get all three as a boxed set on Kindle:
http://getBook.at/B00GY8W5D2
And coming in 2015, A Dead Red Miracle.
Other books on Kindle by RP
Dahlke:
A romantic sailing mystery trilogy:
A Dangerous Harbor
http://getBook.at/B0062D4GM2
Hurricane Hole
http://viewBook.at/B00FT1EI1C
Coming
next in the trilogy – Dead Rise
Jump Start Your Book Promotions
http://viewBook.at/B00HZ2RM70
You can reach RP
Dahlke at her website
:
http://rpdahlke.com
Facebook
:
http://facebook.com/rpdahlke
GoodReads
:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18664399-hurricane-hole
I sort of fell into the job of running a crop-dusting business when my dad decided he’d rather go on a cruise than take another season of lazy pilots, missing flaggers, tes
ty farmers and horrific hours. After two years at the helm, I handed him back the keys and fled to a city without any of the above. And no, I was never a crop-duster.
I write about a tall, blond and beautiful ex-model turned crop-duster who, to quote Lalla Bains, says: “I’ve been married so many times they oughta revoke my license.” I wanted to give readers a peek at the not so-perfect -life of a beautiful blond. Lalla Bains is no Danielle Steele character, she’s not afraid of chipping her manicure. Scratch that, the girl doesn’t have time for a manicure what with herding a bunch of recalcitrant pilots and juggling work orders just to keep her father’s flagging business alive.
Other
books on Kindle by R. P. Dahlke