Richard Greener - The Knowland Retribution

Before leaving St. John, he had called a nationally known, flamboyant attorney from Reno, Nevada who had once sought him out, and for whom Walter found and returned a wayward young son. As with so many others, the attorney was forever eager to show her gratitude. Many times she told Walter that she was at his service for any legal work, anything at all. Discretion was the ironclad bond between them, and no questions were ever asked. Walter’s infrequent requests were sometimes difficult but never impossible. What he needed now was a land search. From the attorney he requested data on land sales of parcels within a day’s drive of Las Vegas. This time it wasn’t easy. After turning up nothing for Leonard Martin, Evangelical Missions Inc., or EM Inc., Walter was sure Leonard had bought the land using another name, one totally unfamiliar to him. A dead end. His Reno client told him she’d look for quit claims filed between two and three years ago. She explained that property is often purchased by one party, and then transferred, or quit claimed, to another. This tends to obscure the transaction, but it cannot be entirely cloaked, because every quit claim deed must be filed with an appropriate state or county agency. You had to know how and where to look. Forty-eight hours later, Walter had a map showing 270 acres adjacent to the Kiowa National Grasslands, north of a speck on the map; a place called Albert, New Mexico. The property had been purchased by a North Dakota company (he should have known), quit claimed to EM Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina, and then quit claimed again to Evangelical Missions Inc. of New Mexico.

In Las Vegas he showed Leonard’s picture around-the same one that had been pasted across the front page of the New York Times and just about every other newspaper in America. But nobody had seen him and nobody cared. Walter was disappointed, although not entirely surprised. He doubted that Leonard had been to Las Vegas since his meeting with Isobel plastered his face on the nation’s screens and front pages. Walter did not expect to find Leonard waiting for him here. He had hoped a Pac-Mail employee might remember a very fat man with pudgy cheeks on a fleshy face, and a belly bulging deep and wide. None did. “What about a guy who looked like this,” he asked everyone. Cut his hair? Grew it longer? Changed its color? Even lost some weight? Still nothing.

“Never seen this fellow,” the clerk at the mail store said.

Walter asked, “How about a man who picked up packages, big ones. Do you get many of those?”

“How big? Do you mean like refrigerators?”

“Not quite that big. Long, perhaps, but not bulky.” He held his hands as far apart as he could.

“I wish I could help you, mister. I do. But we get so many deliveries like that. This is ski country, you know.”

“So you don’t remember anyone in particular who might have picked up packages looking like skis-maybe that long, maybe a little shorter, the size of a shotgun or something? About two years ago?”

“Two years?” said the clerk. “Why didn’t you say? Except for the regulars, I can hardly remember two months or even two weeks ago. Two years? I’m sorry.”

Walter got the name of two others who worked there part time. Before leaving town he looked them up and got the same response. Nevertheless, he felt a twinge of satisfaction, a sense of professional pride standing outside this Pac-Mail store in, of all places, Las Vegas, New Mexico, knowing that the rifles that killed Christopher Hopman, Billy MacNeal, Floyd Ochs, and Pat Grath had passed this way. Perhaps, he thought, Leonard Martin had parked his SUV in the same spot where Walter’s rental car was now parked. He pictured Leonard opening the back of his SUV, sliding the boxes into the vehicle, and driving away. Walter had a very familiar itch, an adrenaline rush he often felt when he was near.

Snow covered the ground and blew across the road. He was looking for a land parcel northeast of Las Vegas and about a hundred miles from Santa Fe. It looked like wilderness on the map, and close up too. No villages, towns, or houses. No filling stations or bars. He drove on small roads, long stretches paved with barely visible sand, oiled to harden in winter. Within the last hour, a pickup truck passed him, but nothing else moved his way. Three cars came from the other direction. The desert here was hilly and spare, less overgrown than near Santa Fe. His Buick handled the snaky white roads nicely. He hadn’t thought to rent a four-wheel drive. Just as well. The Buick got all the traction it needed. He slowed, consulted the map that the attorney sent him, and turned left onto an unmarked road shown leading to the parcel owned by Evangelical Missions Inc. The car-width trail took him twisting in and around hills. Frequent sharp turns forced him to break. After ten minutes the cabin popped up ahead, as suddenly as the sun had set the day before as he drove north from Albuquerque. It was built into the side of a large hill, looking down on the road. Fifty feet in front of the cabin, the bumpy road stopped and widened, providing space for one car to stop and turn around. Walter parked and got out. The cabin door swung in. He saw a flash of white. Whoever was there had to have heard the Buick crunching ice-might have known he was coming a quarter mile away, or more. The door opened wider and Walter felt disappointment set in. A man emerged with a torso as strikingly muscled and as hard as a kid’s. The man who faced Walter did heavy work for a living. He wore a clean white T-shirt, old jeans, work boots. His close-cropped gray hair and creased, sun-dark skin put him in his forties. The man wore shades, but used his hand to shadow his eyes against the white, glaring sun and the snow. He scratched his chin beneath a tight black and gray speckled beard. There could have been a pistol tucked at his back. Walter did not think so. He wasn’t threatened now, but being closer might be different. Then, if intuition failed, Walter could only hope he’d get to the Glock in his coat pocket first.

“Evangelical Missions?” Walter shouted across the fifty feet.

“Yes it is. What can I do for you, sir?” He strained to be heard. Had the wind not been at his back, he would have been inaudible.

“I’m looking for Leonard Martin.”

“Leonard Mart ee nez? He left two weeks ago.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will he be back?”

“Don’t know.” His soft voice carried the nervous regret of one who knew his place and wanted to give some kind of satisfaction. The measured rhythm of his speech suggested to Walter that he might be what is politely called “slow.” “I don’t hardly never see him. Never seen him but once or twice. He mostly has me come when he’s away. He has me work on the well pump. I like that.” He pointed west. “It works just fine now. He wants me to build him a fence. He lets me use the place if he’s not here. Honest, he does. I’m allowed.”

“Who are you?”

“Michael DelGrazo. I come by to work on the well pump and all.”

“My name is Walter Sherman. Some people in New York would like to talk with Mr. Mar-, Mr. Martinez. They want to talk about something very important. Will you tell Mr. Martinez I was here?” He covered the distance between them, reached inside his coat to the pocket of his shirt, produced a small, yellow sheet from an Inn of the Anastasia notepad. “Ask him to call this number to get in touch. Will you give him this?” Michael DelGrazo reached out and took the note in his hand. He looked at it for a long time.

“I’ll put the note on the table, but no telling when he’ll come back. Walter Sherman? From… New York?” He wrinkled his forehead, puzzling over the slip.

“No, I’m not the one from New York, but it’s okay. It’s all right there. Be sure not to lose it. Just see that he gets it, okay?” He watched Michael nod, all seriousness. Walter looked around, then said, “Use your bathroom?”