Fire and Ice

“The crime scene is out here in the dunes,”she told him. “If you like, I could send Ernie or Debra to come guide you in.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,”he said. “I’m perfectly capable of getting there myself. Just tell me where you are.”

Joanna turned to Ernie. “How far is it from the gate to where we turned off?”

“Three-quarters of a mile,”he said. “Give or take.”

Joanna returned to the phone. “All right,”she said. “Turn right on the gravel road and follow that for three-quarters of a mile. You’ll see where the tracks lead off to the left into the dunes.”

Joanna ended the call. “The M.E.,”she replied in answer to Ernie’s quizzical look. “He’s coming.”

For the next several minutes she took a backseat to her detectives while Debra and Ernie plied Margie for information about her brother. “How long did Les work here?”Ernie asked.

“Since he got out of treatment,”Margie said. “A little over a year. My two stepsons own the place, and they hired him as a favor to me. The ranch has been in the family—their mother’s family—for generations, and they inherited it after Monty died. Monty was my husband, you see. Third husband. The boys—Arnie and Chuck—have wanted to turn it into an ATV playground for years. Monty was against it, but once it belonged to them, they went ahead and did what they wanted.”

“Is there any bad blood between your stepsons and your brother?”Debra Howell asked.

“Between Les and the boys? Good heavens, no!”Margie exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “They’ve been good as gold to him, and to me, too. Just as Les was getting out of treatment, their previous caretaker quit. I asked them if they’d mind hiring him. He’d had to move out of his other place when he went in for treatment, and I knew the job here came with a place to live. I sure as hell didn’t want Les and his dog living with me.

“It was a huge relief for me when they hired him. That way I knew Les had a roof over his head, and he made a little money, too, enough to supplement his Social Security and keep him and Miller in food. Chuck and Arnie let him have that old pickup truck and the ATV to drive around here and use for chores, but the rule was, Les wasn’t allowed to take either one of them off the property or onto the highway. With all those DUIs on his record, he’d lost his driver’s license and couldn’t have gotten insurance on a bet. So I’d take him into town if he needed groceries and dog food. Or one of my daughters-in-law would. Like I said, Chuck and Arnie and their families were all as good to him as they could be, even if they did it because they were doing me a favor. They’re nice people.”

“Did Les have a girlfriend?”Deb asked.

Margie snorted at the very idea. “Not a girlfriend,”she said. “More like a drinking buddy.”

“Does she have a name?”

“LaVerne,”Margie said.

“Last name?”

“LaVerne,”Margie replied. “I believe her last name’s Hartley and I think she lives in Benson, but once Les sobered up, Old LaVerne gave him the brush-off. My reading is that if he was off the sauce, she didn’t want anything to do with him. Besides, she didn’t like Miller, and Miller didn’t like her. ‘Les,’ I told him more than once, ‘when it comes to women, that dog of yours has got way better sense than you do.’”

“Do you happen to have LaVerne’s phone number?”

“No. It’s probably in the phone book, but I doubt this has anything to do with her.”

Deb jotted a note, and Joanna knew that one of her detectives would be calling on LaVerne Hartley soon to verify whether or not that was the case.

“What about drugs?”Debra asked. “Was your brother mixed up with any of that?”

“I already told you. As far as Les was concerned, alcohol was his drug of choice—his only drug of choice. He wasn’t into meth or coke or pot or even cigarettes. Just booze.”

Joanna’s phone rang. “I’m stuck,”Guy Machett said when Joanna answered.

He sounded aggrieved—as though the fact that he’d gotten his vehicle mired down in sand was all Joanna’s fault. She turned and looked back over the path she and Ernie had used to drive from the gravel road to the crime scene. Debra had come in that same way, and so had Margie Savage. There was, however, no sign of the M.E.’s van.

“Stuck where?”Joanna asked.

“In the sand,”he snapped irritably. “Where do you think?”

Joanna covered the mouthpiece. “The M.E.,”she told the others. “He’s stuck.”Removing her hand, she spoke into the phone. “I’m looking back toward the road,”she said. “I don’t see any sign of you.”

“I didn’t bother with the road,”Machett said. “I ran into that woman from the truck—the one from the dog pound. She told me you were out this way. I didn’t see any point in following the road when the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

Not when you’re driving through sand, you jerk, Joanna thought. It turned out Guy Machett did need a babysitter.

“Where are you exactly?”she asked.

“Somewhere between the gate and where you are,”he said. “Can you come pull me out or send someone who can?”

“You need a tow truck,”Joanna said.

“Then call one for me,”Machett replied.

Months earlier, Joanna’s department had been forced to eat a five-thousand-dollar towing bill when a murder victim’s vehicle had crashed through a guardrail and come to rest on a steep mountainside. She didn’t want to fall into a similar trap. She suspected that if she or someone from her department called for the tow, Guy Machett would somehow find a way to have the costs come out of her budget instead of his.

“I’ll get you a number and call you back.”

“Come on,”Machett said. “That homicide cop of yours has four-wheel drive. I’ve seen it. Couldn’t you just send him over here with a tow chain?”

And get Ernie stuck, too? Joanna thought. Not on your life.

“He’s interviewing a witness right now,”she said. “And I don’t think our insurance covers DIY towing. If something happened to your vehicle or ours, the damage wouldn’t be covered.”

“Have a heart, Sheriff Brady,”he wheedled. “Help me out here.”

But on this matter, Joanna’s mind was made up. “I’ll get you the number,”she said.

She called Dispatch, got the names and numbers of several towing companies, and relayed them back to Guy Machett. Then Joanna called in to Animal Control and spoke to Jeannine Phillips. It was easier and faster to call on the phone than to work with the nonworking radio system.

“Have Officer Wilson take the homicide victim’s dog into custody and bring him back to Bisbee.”

“To the pound?”Jeannine asked. “Does that mean none of the relatives want him?”

“Not so far.”

“Natalie already asked me about this,”Jeannine said. “According to her, Miller seems to be a great dog. He’s been neutered, has all his shots, and is properly licensed. Instead of bringing him to the pound, she was wondering if she could foster him until we find out if the relatives give a final yea or nay. If they don’t want him, Natalie might take him permanently.”

Joanna felt a slight lightening in her chest. In the course of that tough afternoon, not having to lock up a grieving dog seemed like a good thing—a small but good thing.

“Great,”she said. “If you don’t have a problem with that arrangement, far be it from me to interfere.”

Call waiting buzzed, and Joanna switched over to another call. “I just talked to towing company number three,”Guy Machett complained. “They can’t be here in anything less than an hour. What the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime—waste my whole day?”

Of course Guy Machett wasn’t the only one wasting time. Until he made his appearance to examine the victim, Joanna’s detectives were also stuck in a holding pattern.

Joanna covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “The tow truck’s at least an hour away,”Joanna told Ernie. “Want to try pulling him out with the Yukon?”