Tyrannosaur Canyon (16 page)

chimed as he entered and a young woman came clicking up on high heels, giving him a bright lipsticked smile.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Sure thing," he said, already hearing a drawl in his voice. "This sculpture here"-he nodded at the biggest one he could see in the store, a life-sized group of Indians carved out of a single piece of stone that weighed three tons if it weighed an ounce. "If you don't mind me asking, how much is it?"

"Blessingway. That's one seventy-five."

Maddox stopped himself just in time from asking, Thousand? "Do you accept

credit cards?"

If she was surprised she didn't show it. "We just have to verify the credit limit, that's all. Most people don't have that kind of credit limit."

"I'm not most people."

Another bright smile. He noticed she had freckles on her chest where her silk shirt was unbuttoned.

"I like to charge things whenever possible and get the frequent flyer miles."

"You could go to China with the miles on that one," she said.

"I'd rather go to Thailand."

"There, too."

He looked at her more closely. She was one good-looking woman, as she'd have to be, working in a place like this. He wondered if she was going to get a commission.

"Well. . ." He smiled, winked. "How about the price on that one?" He pointed to a bronze of an Indian holding an eagle.

"Freeing the Eagle. That's one-ten."

"I just bought a ranch out of town and I've got to furnish the damn place. Ten thousand square feet, and that's just the main house."

"I can imagine."

"Name's Maddox. Jim Maddox." He held out his hand.

"Clarissa Provender."

"Good to meet you, Clarissa."

"The artist is Willy Atcitty, an authentic, registered member of the Navajo tribe, one of our foremost Native American sculptors. That first one you were looking at is carved out of a solid block of native
New Mexico
alabaster from the
San
Andres
Mountains
."

"Beautiful. What's it about?"

"It represents a three-day Blessingway sing."

"A what?"

"The Blessingway is a traditional Navajo ceremony which is meant to restore balance and harmony in one's life."

"I need one of those." He was close enough to her now to smell the creme rinse she had used that morning in her glossy black hair.

"Don't we all," said Clarissa Provender, with a laugh, her sly brown eyes looking at him sideways.

"Clarissa, you must get asked this all the time, and if I'm out of line tell me
         

but how about dinner tonight?"

A bright, phony smile. "I'm not supposed to date potential customers."

Maddox took that as a yes. "I'll be at the Pink Adobe at seven. If you just happen to run into me there, I'd be happy to treat you to a martini and a Steak Dunigan."

She didn't say no, and that encouraged him. He waved a hand at the sculptures. "I think I'm going to take the one in alabaster. Thing is, I have to measure the space first, make sure it fits. If not that one, the other one for sure."

"I have all the specs in the back: dimensions, weights, delivery routine."

She clicked back and he watched her behind twitching in its little black dress. She came back with a sheet, a card, and a brochure about the artist, handing them to him with a smile. He could see a streak of lipstick on her left canine. He slipped them into his inside jacket pocket.

"Mind if I use the phone to make a quick local call?"

"No."

She led him to her desk in the rear of the gallery, punched a line, and handed him the phone. "This'll just be a second. Hello? Dr. Broadbent?"

The voice on the other end said, "No, this is Shane McBride, his associate."

"I just moved to Santa Fe, bought a ranch south of town. I've been looking to buy a reining horse. It's a paint, a beautiful animal, and I need a vet check. Is Dr. Broadbent available?"

"When?"

"Today or Saturday"

"Dr. Broadbent's not here right now, but he can do it Monday."

"Not Saturday?"

"I'm on call Saturday, and let's see ... I've got a slot at two."

"Sorry, Shane, nothing personal, but Dr. Broadbent came highly recommended and I'd be more comfortable with him."

"If you want him, you'll have to wait 'til Monday."

"I need it done Saturday. If it's a matter of his day off, I'm willing to pay extra."

"He's going to be out of town that day. Sorry. As I said, I'd be happy to do it."

"Nothing personal, Shane, but like I said . . ." He let his voice trail off in disappointment. "Thank you anyway. I'll call on Monday, reschedule."

He replaced the receiver, gave Clarissa a wink.

She looked back at him, her face unreadable.

"See you at the Pink, Clarissa."

For a moment she didn't respond. Then she leaned forward, and with another sly smile said in a low voice, "I've been in this job for five years and I'm very, very good at it. You know why?"

"Why?"

"I know bullshit when it walks in the door. And you're so full of it you're

leaving tracks."

8

THE HELICOPTER TRANSPORTING the forensic team had to land almost half a

mile down the canyon, and the team was forced to hike their equipment up the wash. They arrived in a ferocious mood, but Calhoun, head of forensics and always the wit, had turned it around with jokes, stories, slaps on the back, and the promise of cold beer all around when it was over.

Calhoun had run it just like an archaeological dig, the site mapped out with a grid, his men troweling down layer by layer, the photographer documenting every step. They ran all the sand through one-millimeter wire mesh and then again through a flotation tank to recover every hair, thread, and foreign object. It was brutal work and they'd been at it since eight that morning. Now it was
three o'clock
and the temperature had to be close to a hundred. The flies had arrived in force, and their droning sound filled the confined space.

Pretty soon, Wilier thought, it would be time for the "scoop"-that moment when a ripe corpse is rolled into a body bag, ideally without falling apart like an overcooked chicken. A lot happened to a body in five days in the heat of summer. Feininger, the police pathologist, stood nearby, supervising this particular operation. She seemed to be the only one who managed to remain cool and elegant in the heat, her gray hair done up in a scarf, not a bead of sweat appearing on her lined but still handsome face.

"I want all three of you on the right side, please," she said, gesturing to the SOC team. "You know how it works, slip your hands under, make sure you've got a good grip, and then, at the count of three, roll it over and onto the plastic sheet, nice and easy. All got on protective covering? Check for tears and holes?" She looked around, her voice ironic, perhaps even half amused. "Are we ready? This is a challenging one, for sure. Let's get it right, fellows. Count of three."

A few grunts as the men got in place. Feininger had long ago banned the SOC boys from smoking cigars, and instead each one had a big smear of Vicks VapoRub under the nose.

"Ready? One . . . two . . . three . . . roll."

With a single economical motion they rolled the body onto the open body bag. Wilier noted it as a successful operation, in that nothing came off or was left behind in the process.

"Good work, boys."

One of the SOC team members zipped it up. The body bag had been prepo-sitioned on a stretcher, and all they had to do was pick it up and carry it down to

the chopper.

"Put the animal head in that one," directed Feininger.

They duly placed the burro's head in a wet-evidence bag and zipped it shut. At least, thought Wilier, they had agreed to leave most of the burro behind, just taking the head with the gaping hole made by a 10mm round fired into the animal at point-blank range. The round had been found imbedded in the soft sandstone of the canyon wall, an excellent piece of evidence. They had uncovered the prospector's equipment, and the only thing they hadn't found, it seemed, was any indication of his identity. But that would come in time.

All in all a good haul of evidence.

He checked his watch. Three-thirty. He wiped his brow, pulled an iced Coke out of the cooler, rolled it against his forehead, his cheek, and the back of his

neck.

Hernandez came up beside him, nursing his own Coke. "You think the killer

expected us to find the stiff?"

"He sure went to a lot of trouble to hide it. We're, what, two miles from the killing? He had to strap the body on the burro, lug it up here, dig a hole big enough for the burro, the man, and all his shit.. . No, I don't think he figured we'd find it."

"Any theories, Lieutenant?"

"The killer was looking for something on the prospector."

"Why do you say that?"

"Look at the prospector's shit." Wilier gestured to the plastic tarp on which all the prospector's gear and supplies had been laid out. One of the SOC boys was lifting each piece of evidence in turn, wrapping it in acid-free paper, labeling it, and packing it away in plastic evidence lockers. "You see how the sheepskin padding on the packsaddles is torn off, the other stuff ripped or slit open? And you see how the guy's pockets were turned inside out? Not only was our man

looking for something, but he was pissed that he wasn't finding it." Wilier took a last noisy sip, chucked the empty Coke can back into the cooler.

Hernandez grunted, pursed his lips. "So what was he looking for? A treasure map?"

A slow smile spread across Willer's face. "Something like that. And I'll bet you the prospector gave it to his partner before the shooter could hike down from the rim into the canyon."

"Partner?"

"Yeah."

"What partner?"

"Broadbent."

9

IT WAS EARLY Saturday morning. The rising sun clipped tops of the ponderosa pines along the ridgeline above Perdiz Creek and invaded the upper valley, pencils of light shooting into the mists. The trees below were still wrapped in the coolness of night.Weed Maddox rocked slowly on the porch of his cabin, sipping his coffee, rolling the hot, bitter liquid around in his mouth before swallowing. His mind wandered back to the day before and he remembered the bitch in the art gallery. Rage suddenly swelled his veins. Somebody would pay.He swallowed the last bit of coffee, put the mug aside, and rose. He went into the living room and brought his knapsack out on the porch, laid it down, and began methodically lining up all the equipment he'd need for the day's work.First came the Clock 29, with two magazines, ten rounds in each. Next to that he laid his usual kit: a hair net, a shower cap, stocking, two pairs of surgical gloves, plastic raincoat, surgical booties, and condoms; next came pencil and drawing paper, cell phone (fully charged), Ziploc bags, buck knife, bag of gorp to snack on, bottle of mineral water, flashlight, handcuffs and key, plastic clothesline, gaffing tape, matches, chloroform and a cloth diaper ... He laid out the drawing of the Broadbent house and scrutinized it, visualizing all the rooms, doors, windows, locations of telephones, and lines of sight. Finally, he checked all the items off his list as he packed them into the knapsack, one by one, each snug in its own place.He went back into the cabin, dropped the knapsack by the door, poured himself a second cup of coffee, picked up his laptop, and came back out, easing into the rocking chair. He had most of the day to kill and he might as well make good use of the time. He leaned back, flipped up the laptop screen, and booted it up.

While waiting for the start sequence to finish he took a small pack of letters out of his pocket, undid the rubber band, and began with the top one, at random.

He worked through them, one at a time, translating the shit-stupid prison English into acceptable prose. Two hours later he was finished. He uploaded it and sent it as an attachment to the Webmaster who handled his site, a guy he'd never met, never even spoken to on the telephone.

He rose from the rocking chair, tossed the rest of his cold coffee off the railing, and went inside to see what there was to read. The bookshelf was mostly biographies and history, but Maddox passed by those to check out the small section of hardback thrillers. What he needed to kill the time was something he could really sink his teeth into, keep his mind from dwelling too much on his plans for the afternoon, which he had already mapped out in detail. He scanned the titles, his eye arrested by a novel entitled Death Match. He pulled it off the shelf, read the flap copy, leafed through it. He carried it out to the porch, settled in the rocking chair, and began reading.

The rocking chair creaked rhythmically, the sun slowly moved higher in the sky, and a pair of crows flapped up from a nearby tree and glided through the ruined town, cutting the air with a rusty cry. Maddox paused momentarily to check his watch. Almost
noon
.

It was going to be a long, quiet Saturday-but it would end with a bang.

10

WILLER SAT BEHIND his desk, his feet thrown up, watching Hernandez waddle back from the records department with an accordion file tucked under his arm. With a sigh he plumped himself down in an easy chair in a corner, the folder in his lap.

"That looks promising," said Wilier, nodding at the file. Hernandez was a hell of a good researcher.

"It is."

"Coffee?"

"Don't mind if I do."

"I'll get it for you." Wilier rose, stepped out to the coffee machine, filled two foam cups, and came back, handing one to Hernandez. "Whaddya got?

"This Broadbent's got a history."

"Let's have it, Reader's Digest style."

"Father was Maxwell Broadbent, a big-time collector. Moved to Santa Fe in the seventies, married five times, had three kids by different wives. A ladies' man. His business was buying and selling art and antiquities. He was investigated by the FBI a couple of times for dealing in black market stuff, accused of looting tombs, but the guy was slick and nothing stuck."