J. Jance - Dead to Rights

“Yes.”

“So she would have known about the whole thing-would have known that Hal Morgan had plenty of reason to see Bucky dead?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anyone else?” Joanna asked. “Anyone besides you and Hal Morgan and Bebe who might have wanted to see your husband dead?”

“I can’t think of anybody,” Terry said with a rueful smile. “But isn’t that enough? They say three’s a charm.”

“Yes,” Joanna said. Checking the time, Joanna started for the door. “They do.”

Terry followed her. “I’m still under suspicion, awn’ she asked.

Joanna nodded. “For the time being, everybody’s still under suspicion. It’s probably better if you don’t leave toun.”

“But what about the golf game with Peter’s friend?”

“When and where is that scheduled?”

“Sunday,” Terry answered. “In Tucson. He wanted to it tomorrow, but I told him I couldn’t on account of the funeral. That would look bad even for me.”

“Where in Tucson?”

“Peter and I are supposed to meet him out at the Westin La Paloma at noon. You’re not planning on having someone follow me up there, are you? It might screw up my game.”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “We’ll have to see. Once I give Ernie Carpenter this information, I’m sure he’ll want talk to you again.”

“I won’t be hard to find,” Terry said resignedly. “I’ll be around.”

Joanna got as far as the front door of the clinic before she remembered to ask one last set of questions. “On the morning Bucky died, what time did you leave the clinic?”

“Eleven thirty. Peter and I had a twelve-seven tee-time was almost late.”

“I talked to Hal Morgan yesterday,” Joanna said. “He claims that there was someone else in the barn with Bucky before he died. Some man. Did Bucky have any appointments scheduled for that time?”

Without a word, Terry slipped into Bucky Buckwalter’s private office. Joanna followed behind. It was a plain, minimally adorned place with an oak-laminate desk and a set of metal file cases. One wall held a series of diplomas. The most expensive item in the room was a two-by-three-foot oil painting of Kiddo, Bucky Buckwalter’s quarter horse gelding.

Terry picked up a desktop calendar, opened it, and handed it over to Joanna. A metal clip held the calendar open to the current week. “That’s Bucky’s personal calendar,” Terry explained. “Take a look. The clinic appointment book is out at the reception desk. I can get that one for you as well.”

While Joanna examined the first calendar, Terry returned with the other one. From eleven o’clock through two o’clock on the day in question, nothing at all had been scheduled. Without comment, Joanna handed both books back to Terry. “I guess I’d better be going,” she said.

Still holding the calendars, Terry Buckwalter followed Joanna to the clinic door. “I don’t know if you want my opinion or not,” she said, “but I still think Hal Morgan did it. What’s more, I hope he gets away with it.”

Joanna’s jaw dropped. “You do?”

“Think about it,” Terry said. “It’s almost like one of those old romantic stories of the knights of the Round Table. Hal Morgan really loved his wife. He loved her enough that he was prepared to kill for her. Bucky never felt that way about anybody, except maybe for that damned horse of his. Which reminds me. You don’t happen to know of anyone who’d be interested in buying Kiddo, do you?”

Joanna thought of Jenny and her approaching birthday. “How much?” she asked.

“Two hundred bucks,” Terry replied. “He’s worth more than that, but he was Bucky’s horse, not mine. I don’t even like him much, and I’ve got no way to ride him. All the saddles and bridles and currying equipment got burned up in the barn. The feed, too. The sooner I unload him, the better.”

Kiddo was no longer young enough for the racing circuit, but he was a good, line-looking horse. Joanna knew nigh about horses to realize Terry’s selling price was far lower than it should have been. Fire-sale prices. One step above dog-food prices. If Joanna offered to buy Kiddo for that, she’d be doing exactly what she’d worried about others doing to Terry-taking advantage of her misfortune.

“Jenny’s interested in having a horse,” Joanna said.

“I thought she might be,” Terry said. “Whenever she came here, she always seemed to have either a carrot or an apple in her pocket. That’s why I mentioned it.”

“Thanks,” Joanna said. “I’ll think about it and let you know.”

Out in the Blazer, Joanna was eager to tell someone what she had learned, but the long night had evidently taken its toll. No one she asked for was in or available-not Ernie Carpenter, not Jaime Carbajal, not even Dick Voland. Her original plan had been to drop by the department and pass along her latest tips. Now, though, she changed her mind.

Joanna’s interview with Terry Buckwalter had worked far better than she would have expected. The dynamics of two women talking had made it possible for her to emerge with more information than Ernie had been able to elicit in a full-court press of an interview. It was possible that the same thing would happen with Bianca “Bebe” Noonan.

Half an hour later, three and a half miles east of Double Adobe, Joanna turned right just beyond a battered, bullet-sprayed mailbox marked “R. Noonan.” The moment she drove in through the gate, she felt as though she had landed in a slum. The hundred yards or so of dirt road between the fence line and the collection of buildings were strewn with trash. Shards of broken beer bottles glittered, marking the edge of the road. Windblown papers clung to the bottom strand of barbed wire. Hulks of several wrecked vehicles in various stages of deterioration dotted the desert on either side of the road. When she reached the buildings, the cars she found parked there weren’t in much better shape than the junked ones she had passed earlier. Several of the tumble-down buildings seemed barely capable of remaining upright. In fact, the remains of what may once have been a barn had blown over on its side, leaving behind a knee-high stack of gray, tinder-dry wood.

The house itself was a ramshackle clapboard affair seemingly held together by little more than multiple layers of peeling paint. A sagging front porch teetered drunkenly to one side. The remains of a screen door, permanently stuck open, sagged on a single hinge. A long-legged mongrel dog lay in front of the closed front door. He sat up, scratched himself deliberately, then came to the edge of the porch, barking without much enthusiasm or threat. That changed, though, once the faded front door opened and a middle-aged woman in worn jeans and a man’s flannel shirt stepped outside. The trashy house, the weed-choked yard, the woman herself conveyed the same air of uncaring hopelessness and disrepair.

As soon as the woman appeared, the dog went through a sudden ominous transformation. His hackles came up. Now each deep-throated bark was accompanied by a threatening show of teeth.

Wary of the dog’s sudden change in personality, Joanna rolled down the window. “I’m looking for Bebe,” she said. “Does she live here?”

“Out back,” the woman answered. “Take this driveway and go on around to the back of the house. Her place is the trailer, not the bus. You go on ahead. I’ll keep Buddy here with me.”

Buddy, of course. That’s was exactly the name people like that would give to a vicious dog.

Following the directions, Joanna drove around the house. The Blazer’s passing sent a flock of chickens scurrying in all directions. Out back, positioned at either end of a no longer functional clothesline in a yard randomly punctuated by any number of dead appliances, sat a small camper/trailer and a converted school bus. Halfway down the side of the bus a stovepipe, belching smoke, stuck up out of the roof. From the looks of the moldering rubber tires, both formerly mobile vehicles had been marooned in place for a very long time.