Marcia Muller - Burn Out

He glanced helplessly at Sara. “What should we do?”

I said, “Do you have a lawyer?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s up to handling something like this.”

“Well, then, just make sure that she gets a lot of reassurance and a good night’s sleep. Chances are they won’t find Bud’s body till tomorrow-the light in Toiyabe was already bad when the sheriff’s people started searching. I’ll be back here around eight in the morning, take Amy to talk with the deputy in charge of the case. If she needs a lawyer, I can call one.”

Ramon asked, “What was this business with Boz Sheppard throwing her out of his truck?”

“On the way here we passed the spot where it happened. She told me he picked her up in town and came on to her, wanted her to go down to Inyo County with him. She refused, things got ugly, and he threw her out. I’d say there’s a good possibility that Sheppard was the one who attacked her in the cabin.”

“Did he rape her?”

“No.”

“But he cut her-the bastard!”

“If he’s the one who attacked her, he won’t get away with it.”

Two pairs of hopeful eyes looked back at me; Amy was all they had left of their family, and they needed me to sort this out.

Please help me. You can make this horrible thing right.

I don’t know what to do. Please help me.

I always wanted to say to clients, “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t.”

I always said, “I’ll give it my full attention. Don’t worry.”

There were various messages on my machine when I got back to the ranch house: Hy, Ted, Adah Joslyn, Ma, Patrick, Mick. I noted them down and began returning them in order of importance. Mick, since he’d said it was urgent, came first.

“I did a nationwide sweep on this Trevor Hanover, using some really sophisticated software Derek and I have worked up.”

“You’ve been creating sophisticated software on my time?”

“No, on ours. At night and on the weekends. Derek’s between women and, well, you know where I’m at. Anyway, today was the first time I’d put it through its paces and judging by its performance, I’d say he and I are due to make a bundle on the licensing. I’d’ve gotten back to you sooner, but the nurses keep taking my laptop away and telling me I should rest.”

“Well, you should. What have you got on Hanover?”

“I concentrated on the gap between when he was born and when he was rewarded with the cushy job for bringing the investment broker’s drunken daughter home. But Trevor Hanover-the one born in Tennessee-never lived in New York City or worked as a bartender. He and his folks died in an apartment house fire in Chicago when Trevor was thirteen.”

“The old stolen-identity trick. Our Trevor was in his twenties when he surfaced as a lucky bartender. Back then you could still easily get away with that kind of scam. Any details on the fire or the parents?”

“Typical tenement fire. Too many people, too many appliances, bad wiring. The father worked as a security guard. Mother described as a housewife. Trevor was in eighth grade. There’s not much information.”

“In short, they weren’t anybody, so no one cared.” Sad, bad truism of our society: we can cry over a movie star’s marital crisis, but we give scant attention when an ordinary family is wiped out in an accident that could have been prevented. “Anything else?” I asked Mick.

“I’m going to run a nationwide search on Hanover’s personal life as soon as Kelley here will return my laptop to me.” He paused, and then I heard him saying, “Kelley, please. Please, please, please. I’m going into withdrawal!” He came back on the line and added, “She’s relented, thank God. Talk later.”

Next I called Adah back. Only the voice mail at any of her numbers. I hoped her message meant she was seriously considering my proposition.

I decided to call Ma next, reserving Hy-the best-for last. The business calls could wait till tomorrow, after I’d taken Amy to Bridgeport to talk with Lark.

Lark was in her office when I called to say I’d located Amy and was bringing her in.

“I thought you’d be supervising the search in Toiyabe,” I added.

“Nope. That’s in good hands.”

“Anything yet?”

“No. So what’s the Perez girl’s story?”

“I’ll let her tell you in person.”

I left the sheriff’s department after delivering Amy into Lark’s hands, and started back toward Vernon. Halfway there my cell rang. Lark.

“We’ve located Bud Smith’s body,” she said. “Few hundred yards from his vehicle, in a ravine. Told you it’d be that close.”

“Cause of death?”

“Shot in the back. Same as Tom Mathers.”

“Estimated time of death?”

“A week at least, probably longer, the ME says. Body was badly decomposed. We tentatively ID’d it from a backpack that was lying next to it. Thing is, Smith’s wallet and a bottle of water were inside, but not his car keys or any of the other stuff you’d take along if you were hiking in such an isolated area.”

“I’d say whoever killed him wanted him identified and tried to make it look like an accident. He may have been shot elsewhere, then driven to Toiyabe and dumped.”

“How’d the killer get back to wherever he came from?” Lark asked. “It’s a long way out of there on foot.”

“An accomplice, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

Lark switched tacks. “The Perez girl was forthcoming about what happened to her. My guess is that Sheppard waited around till after dark, then broke in thinking she wasn’t there.”

“And tossed the cabin after she got away?”

“Probably. Before he came on to Amy in his truck, he was asking her about something Hayley might’ve given her for safekeeping. He didn’t know what it might be, but insisted it had to do with her sister asking him to clear out of the trailer that night.”

“She have any idea what it was?”

“She said no. That’s the only point where I felt she wasn’t being candid with me.”

“So now what?”

“I’m driving down to Inyo tomorrow morning, and taking my best interrogator along.”

“Good-cop bad-cop, huh?”

“Yep. And that interrogator is you.”

“Then you’re flying down.”

“McCone, I hate small planes!”

“As I recall, you appeared at the crime scene in the lava fields in a chopper.”

“I keep my eyes closed when I’m in one of those things. Really, we can drive-”

“You want to get this job done soon, or what?”

“All right, I’ll keep my eyes closed… again.”

When I got back to Vernon, I drove to Willow Grove Lodge and sat down at the end of the dock to think.

Remembered a night years ago when Hy and I had drifted there in a rowboat, sipping beer while I confessed to things I’d never told another living soul.

This past year, I almost blew two people away… Each time I really wanted to do it… I wanted to act as an executioner.

Our relationship, then so new and fragile, had saved me from those dark feelings. And given rise to the dedicated resolve to quell any and all such inhuman urges. To maintain control. To let go of the idea I could right every wrong and instead settle for righting only a few. So far I’d been able to keep my promises.

But at this moment there were a large number of wrongs that needed righting.

Hayley, all dressed up, offering a martini to her visitor and being shot in return.

Amy, brutally attacked.

Tom Mathers, left dead in the desert.

Miri, a suicide, as the inquest in Sacramento had determined, but equally a victim of the person who had killed her firstborn.