An Eye for Gold Page 10

  “Who found her?”

  “Fellah named Davis, and this other fellah named Steinhoff. They was working late at the mine, comin’ home to Lovelock.”

  “Any sign of foul play?” Latimer asked, giving me a barely perceptible wink.

  “Well . . .” Weebe drawled, regarding Latimer’s question with suspicion, “not the kind just anybody was goin’ to notice. Sheriff said it was an accident, pure and simple. Now, I met Pat a time or two, and she was a big ox and about as pleasant to deal with as an angry bee, but that don’t necessarily make her careless, does it?” He stared at us one at a time, as if we were the ones who had suggested that the death had been accidental. “No, it don’t So I been asking questions, and there’s a lot that don’t quite add up about this case.”

  “Such as,” I urged. It was great being along on the FBI’s coattails, introduced as a colleague. I could ask anything I wanted and expect an insider’s answer.

  Weebe stuck his thumbs into his belt just in front of his side arms, which made his elbows stick out over the tops of the pistol butts like a vulture trying to cool his wings. “Such as die fact of what she was doing. Sensitive work. Big money behind them mining companies. And then there’s this geologist for the company that’s gone missing. Name of Donald MacCallum.”

  “When’d he go missing?” I asked.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tom’s eyes sag almost shut.

  Weebe glanced at his watch. “Near’s I been able to ascertain, he was last seen yesterday morning.”

  “Could be anywhere by now,” I said conspiratorially.

  “Exactly,” said the deputy, pointing that pudgy finger at me. “And his guys that work with him are playing dumb.” With a flourish, he flipped a pad of paper out of his breast pocket and made a show of checking his notes. “One Kyle Christie said he didn’t know where he was, even though I’ve been given to understand that the two of them work together hand in glove. Neither did one Virgil Davis up there at the mine know where he was; the very same Virgil Davis as found the body. Both of ‘em worked with the missing person. You will note that the mine is in the Eugene Mountains, rah chere.” He stabbed a second spot on the map, about an inch above the place where Pat Gilmore’s corpse had been found.

  I peered at the map. “I heard a news brief over the radio as we were driving up here. It said she was driving home to Winnemucca.” I pointed at the network of roads that ran through the desert west of the Interstate. “All those roads out there are graded dirt, right?”

  Deputy Weebe nodded. “Yep. The county maintains all of ‘em except this one out to the mine, and Granville does that Real nice road. Amazin’ what you can do with money.”

  I was briefly distracted by thoughts of the cheap toupees that underpaid civil employees had to suffer, but shook the cobwebs out of my brain and stepped toward the map to take a closer look. I ran a finger along the road that led from the mine off to the west side of the Eugene Mountains. It dodged around the north sides of two buttes, and then junctioned with the road that ran south toward the spot where the wreck and Pat Gilmore’s body had been found. I tried to discern the logic she had used in choosing her route. After leaving the mine entrance road, she had not dodged north and turned east onto a road which ran straight east into Winnemucca, but had instead turned south. She had also foregone the opportunity to turn east onto a second eastbound road which would have put her onto Interstate 80 and likewise aimed her at Winnemucca over a slightly longer route. She had instead continued south, toward Lovelock. “What are these roads like?” I asked. “You think she might have detoured around some bad road? Like washed out, or washboarded?”

  Deputy Weebe favored me with a view of his teeth. “Nope. Both these other roads is the better roads. This one she was on ain’t nowheres near as smooth.”

  I nodded. “So she took a poorer road, and one that would have taken her another twenty miles farther south before meeting the next access to Interstate 80. So if she was really going home, she would have traveled about a hundred miles farther than she needed to. Which way was her truck pointed?”

  Weebe’s moustache stretched into a tight little grin and he took off his aviator sunglasses and narrowed his eyes at me in appraisal. “They say it left the road goin’ south,” he said, nodding. “You’re gettin’ it You’re gettin’ it And if she wasn’t goin’ home, where was she goin’? Somewheres else. And then she’s dead.”

  I peered into the deputy’s pale little eyes, searching for glints of the intelligence he had managed to bury underneath his dim-looking exterior. “And this geologist that’s missing, you’re going to tell me he’s with Granville also,” I said.

  Weebe pointed that finger at me again and nodded so sharply I feared his toupee might flip off his head. “Just so,” he said. “I met him once. . . .” He waved one hand next to his ear in tight circles. “Odd one. Laughing all the time. Made ya wonder. Not sure he was real bright, ya know?” Weebe moved to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and took out a collection of business cards bound sloppily with a doubled-up rubber band. After somewhat clumsily removing the band, he shuffled through the cards until he found the one he was looking for and showed it to me. DONALD PAUL MACCALLUM, GEOLOGIST, it read. It gave a suburban Denver address and phone number.

  I said, “What about the other guys who work for Granville?”

  Weebe held up Kyle Christie’s card. Then he held up Virgil Davis’s, which identified him as mine superintendant “This is the guy who reported the death. And this guy.” He held up one that read, JOHN STEINHOFF, METALLURGIST. “Them two brought the body in.” He finished his shuffling job by holding up a card that read LAUREL DIETZ, GEOLOGIST. “Nice kid,” he said. “She didn’t do it.”

  I said, “We met someone else this morning you might be interested in. You had any dealings with a Stephen Giles from the BLM?”

  Weebe thought for a moment “Seems as I recall that name. Real panty-waist kinda guy, right?”

  I said, “Well, I can’t imagine him off the pavement.”

  “Right” Weebe gave me a nod that said, We understand each other. He stared into space for a moment, then said, “He’s new.”

  “Big turnover in BLM agents?”

  Weebe shrugged. “You just get one broken in and they go and replace them.”

  My mind went wild with the image of Rhett Weebe breaking in Stephen Giles. “What is it you have to get them straight about?”

  “Oh, well . . . no offence, but we like to keep the federal intrusion at a minimum in these parts. We got our ways. Folks live here ‘cause they like to be able to get up and stretch in the morning without worryin’ about punchin’ their neighbor? in the nose.”

  “Give me a for instance.”

  Weebe thought. “Well, they got all these rules and regulations ‘fore anyone can even look for anything out there.”

  “You mean drilling permits and so forth,” I said.

  Weebe quickly warmed to his topic, apparently forgetting that I had arrived with two federal agents. “Yeah. How’s we supposed to have our quality of life if we can’t have our minerals? You know like they say, ‘If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined.’ Mining’s a big industry in these parts, and here the BLM comes in and acts like it’s some kind of sin these days to so much as pitch a tent out there. But let there be some tumble-down building or some hole in the ground that’s more than forty-five years old, they act like it’s a museum piece and you can’t touch it”

  “You’re talking about the ghost towns now.”

  “Yeah, your mining camps and such. We got some nice old folks live out there in some of ‘em without paying any rent, like, so’s their Social Security checks can stretch a little bit farther.”

  “Squatters,” I said.

  “You could call ‘em that. We all pay taxes on that land, can’t see as why we can’t make good use of it. Anyways, some of these new bucks like your Giles get to throwin’ their weight around, stickin’ to the letter and all, try to thro
w the old boys off like they’re violating one of Moses’ commandments. The smart agents just leave ‘em be because they know they’re the best caretaker you can ask for. Anything amiss out there, these old coots’ll take care of it for ya. Sure, once in a while one of ‘em loses control of the propane and burns an old building down, but what’s that when you got your freedoms to consider?”

  I glanced at Tom Latimer. He was looking elaborately patient.

  I said, “So but getting back to Patricia Gilmore. What do you say we all drive out there where they found the truck and take a lode around? We’re on our way to the mine where she worked, anyway.”

  Weebe answered abruptly, “Can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” I shot an anxious look at Tom, wondering if I’d just pushed things too far. Tom shrugged, as if to say, This is your bag of doughnuts, don’t look at me.

  Weebe sniffed, drawing my eye back to him. “Matter of public safety,” he said officiously. “The fire ain’t burned itself out yet. Matter of fact, you can’t get to that mine, either, for the same reason.”

  I shot my gaze back at Tom.

  He had turned toward the door, his mind already on the next task weighting his desk back in Salt Lake City. He said, “Sorry, Em. Guess I brought you out here for nothing.”

  I chased after him. “No, wait; there’s got to be another way out there. We can come in from the north, or we can—”

  “You heard what the man said.”

  “But—”

  “Get in the car, missy. We got one more stop to make, then we’re heading for Winnemucca and our ride home.”

  13

  AT THE SOUND OF A CAR PULLING TO A STOP, SHIRley Cook set down her soup spoon and listened, but did not rise from her chair at the kitchen table. The door through to the front room was ajar, and from there the front door stood open to the day, letting the vagrant breezes in through the screen door. Sure enough, the air carried the scent of exhaust, and she heard a car door open and then close. A second door crunched open. She heard deep voices, too low to make out, then the footfalls of a person coming up the walk toward her door, but only one. The second man had waited at the car. Why? And who was coming? The tension of her alertness raised her shoulders a quarter inch.

  The low iron gate swung open, emitting its customary squeak, which Shirley had purposefully neglected to oil. It served her better than a doorbell. Sighted people were not aware of such incidental noises, and hence did not know that they were giving themselves away.

  Shirley aimed her best ear carefully. A man? Yes, this was definitely a man coming. He took long, confident strides up the gravel walk, apparently unconcerned that his approach was noticed. She heard the porch steps groan as he neared the door, heard a cheerful knock-knocka-knock-knock.

  “Who is it?’ she called.

  ‘Tom Latimer.” The voice was affable, at ease, a bad sign considering the fact that she had no idea who he was. “I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He said this matter-of-factly, as if they’d just met at some civic event and she had asked what he did for a living. “Is your name Shirley?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Ah, good. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t given your last name.” The man waited for a while for Shirley to offer it, but she let him hang, unadvised, to see what else he would reveal of himself. He spoke again. “If I may, I’d like to ask you some questions about Patricia Gilmore and the work she was doing. I understand you knew her.”

  Shirley’s right hand closed instinctively around her table knife. She thought quickly. He said did, not does, past tense so he knows she’s dead. He’s with the FBI. The FBI! Did Patsy set something in motion after all? “Come in,” she said, releasing the knife and rising from the table, and added, cagily; “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Ah. That would be wonderful,” the man said, pushing open the screened door. “And may I invite in my assistants? Or they can wait in the car.”

  Shirley moved through the doorway into the small living room, walking softly so that she could pick up every nuance of the man’s sounds and scent His voice had come from a fair height; she guessed him to be six foot two or three.

  She stopped in the middle of the room and awaited his reaction to her scars. There was always a reaction when someone saw her face for the first time: a moment’s hesitancy, an intake of breath, the tiny kissing sound some made when their mouths dropped open in shock. She had learned to use this moment to her advantage, to gauge each newcomer just as surely as if she could see their faces. This one paused. She could hear a soft rustling of fabric, and guessed that he was stuffing his hands into his pockets. A man at ease, or a man in panic looking for something to do with his hands? Now shifting her attention to her inner senses, she gave herself time to evaluate how he felt Sympathetic, yet reserved. Abstracted. Had he been warned, or was he that imperturbable? “You can invite them in,” she said sweetly. It seemed the moment for her witless old lady act.

  The man stepped briefly back out the door, and an instant later she heard another car door open and the sounds of his assistants coming up the walk. Shirley waited, unmoving, ready to take in the resonances of these two additional entities. She would assert a slow pattern of proceeding, forcing them off their own rhythms. Unaware of how few limitations her handicap truly put on her, they would treat her like an invalid, giving her plenty of time to read them in fine detail.

  Footfalls sounded on her steps, the door opened, and the assistants stepped into the room. One sucked in breath, a low, spasmodic whistle. Male. Young. Tight. Chattery feel to him. An odd scent, too; an unusual lime after-shave laced with the souring pheromones of hours-old uneasiness. He probably deferred, doglike, to this ultra-calm Tom Latimer, who had preceded him. Feared him slightly. It would be easy enough for her to deal with this one. She turned her senses to her third visitor. She had only just decided that it was a female when Tom Latimer said, “This is Ian Walker, also with the FBI.”

  ‘Who’s the woman?” Shirley asked, expecting her knowledge to throw the first man off his balance.

  It did not. “This is Em Hansen,” Tom Latimer said calmly.

  “Are you with the FBI too, Em?” Shirley demanded, realizing angrily that it was she who was getting off her balance.

  Tom Latimer answered for the woman. “Em’s not with the bureau, ma’am, but she’s come with me today at my request. Sometimes I need—”

  “What do you do then?” Shirley snapped irritably, trying to focus on the woman. She could not. What a wretched day this is turning out to be, she thought darkly. First Patsy’s dead, and now this crew shows up.

  Tom Latimer laughed comfortably. “You said something about a cup of coffee,” he interjected.

  Shirley’s attention whipped back to him. Why was he answering for the woman? Was he protecting her? Keeping her down? Or was he in love with her? She couldn’t sort out the signals. She shouldn’t have let so many new people into the room at once. “I changed my mind,” she said abruptly. “State your business. And those two wait outside.” She pointed at Ian and Em as accurately as if she could see them. She heard them turn and shuffle out the door.

  Tom Latimer exhaled audibly. “We’ve been asked to investigate allegations regarding the work Patricia Gilmore was doing out by the Kamma Mountains,” he said soothingly. “We understand that she was preparing part of a routine Environmental Impact Report for a proposed mineral exploration project there. We’d made an appointment to interview her today, but sadly, as you may have heard, she died last night in a road accident”

  Shirley wanted to yell, That was no accident! but kept her mouth tightly shut. Instead, she gave herself a moment to think and then said, “I heard. What’s this got to do with me?” The second man still felt close. He had stayed on the porch. The odd chattery quality his space held had increased. She could hear his breath whistling ever so slightly. An asthmatic . . .

  Tom said, “Well, maybe nothing at all, but when Ian telephoned her yesterday to se
t up our appointment, she suggested that we speak with you, too. She went so far as to tell us how to find your house. She made quite a point of it, almost as if she was concerned that she might not keep the appointment herself.”

  Damn! Why didn’t she just give them a phone number, if she had to go and leave a trail of crumbs? Shirley thought angrily. Then she remembered that the biologist had only come there with the Paiute. She realized that Hermione must never have told the young woman anything more than was necessary to enlist her assistance. So someone had sicced the FBI on Patsy, and she’d been worried. No, outright scared. . . . As well she should be, messing with the pigs she served. Hermione had been correct to keep her on the edges of things. Wait! Had she named Hermione, too? “Well, I don’t know why she’d do that,” Shirley said cagily.

  “We don’t either, but we assume it had something to do with her work. The small mammals survey she was completing. For some reason she thought you’d know about it, too. Are you also a biologist?”

  “Hah!” Shirley barked, now simply displaying the angry old woman she was, the better to confuse him. ‘Try making it through high school with no eyes, then you think about college and graduate school!”

  “I was given to understand Ms. Gilmore herself had only a bachelor’s degree,” Tom said affably.

  Shirley’s mind moved from a slow simmer into a brisk boil, furious with Pat Gilmore for sending these men to her door and even angrier at herself that the conversation had gotten this far. Warbling back into her old lady voice, Shirley said, “Listen, gents, Patsy was a dear girl, and if you’ll excuse me, I want to be alone today, you know?” Unable to keep the sarcasm from creeping into her tone, she added, “A friend’s death can hit you that way sometimes.”

  After a pause, Shirley heard Tom Latimer laugh to himself, a brief, comfortable huh. “Well, I was going to give you my card so you could call me sometime when you’re feeling better, but that makes no sense. What system do you have for recording phone numbers?”