3 Swift Run (20 page)

Accepting the directions a few minutes later, Charlie let Huff walk her to the door.
She turned to face him, the weak sunlight streaming through the glass doors highlighting
skin damage on his face from too many hours, Charlie presumed, of marathon training
in the harsh sun of a Wyoming summer. “If you had to make a guess, would your money
be on Robert Junior or Amanda Two?” In her experience, cops frequently had strong
opinions about guilt, even if they didn’t have enough evidence to convince a DA to
prosecute.

Huff bit his upper lip and strained air through his teeth. “I’d have to flip a coin.”

*   *   *

From the parking lot, Charlie phoned Dan to let him know she was done with the sheriff.
Dan had opted to drive around Cheyenne rather than horn in on her meeting with Sheriff
Huff. “Three’s a crowd,” he’d said when he dropped her off. Hugging her navy peacoat
around her after ascertaining that Dan was less than ten minutes away, Charlie stared
at the city. At roughly six thousand feet, Cheyenne was the same elevation as Colorado
Springs, but postage-stamp flat, as far as Charlie could see. Broad streets stretched
flatly into the distance, and the landscape on the drive into the city had consisted
of tan plains pocked by fence posts and the occasional bovine. She was pretty sure
this part of the state was so flat she could see all the way north up I-25 to Montana.
She bent over and touched her toes, trying to stretch her buttocks and hamstrings,
stiff after the almost-three-hour drive. Dark hair spilling over her face, she held
on to her toes for a count of thirty, ransacking her brain for “flat” synonyms to
describe eastern Wyoming. She straightened when she heard a horn honk.

Dan’s truck pulled to a stop beside her. She jumped in and cranked the heater up a
notch.

“Did you get anything useful from the local law?” Dan asked, handing her a Wendy’s
bag that smelled temptingly of french fries. A similar bag gaped between his spread
thighs.

Thank God he’d known better than to get her a wimpy salad. Unwrapping the paper around
her burger, Charlie told him what Sheriff Huff had said.

“So we’re making a side trip to Thunder Basin?” Dan cast a look at the sky. “I was
listening to the weather report, and the storm’s moving in faster than expected.”

“We can spend the night, then,” Charlie said. “Play it safe.”

Dan shook his head. “I’d rather not. I got a call from a parishioner’s husband. She’s
been ill and isn’t expected to live out the night. She’s asking for me.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “We’ll do a hit-and-run at Eustis’s ranch and get on the road
back to Colorado Springs. If we leave Thunder Basin by six or six thirty, we can be
home around ten. With any luck, we can outrun the storm. If we have to stop in Fort
Collins or Denver, it’s no big deal and you’ll still get back sooner. Even if the
hotels are packed with stranded travelers and we have to share a room, I’m safe with
a priest, right?” She slanted Dan a grin and handed him the directions to the ranch.
A gust of wind rocked the truck, and Dan put it in gear.

Dan’s gaze held Charlie’s for a moment before he turned his eyes to the road. “I guess
that depends on your definition of ‘safe.’”

24

After all my worries about getting together with Patrick Dreiser, he refused to meet
with me.

“I’m tired of the whole damn thing,” he said, sounding more angry than tired when
I phoned him on his cell, using a number I’d gotten from Les’s files. After talking
to Hollis Sloan I’d gone home for a snack of leftover lemon cake and to find Dreiser’s
number. “I know damned well I can’t get blood from a stone or money out of you, sweetheart,
so I’m not going to waste my time talking about that criminal, defrauding, embezzling
ex-husband of yours. Why, my blood pressure’s gone up fifty points just talking to
you on the phone.” He slammed the receiver down.

Well! I might be a teensy bit afraid of Patrick Dreiser—I’d never much liked him even
when Les and I socialized with him and his wife, back in our happier days—but I was
determined to talk to him. If he wouldn’t agree to meet, then I’d have to use my summons-delivering
techniques to take him by surprise. I’d gotten pretty good at finding summons recipients
and handing over the paperwork they didn’t want to receive. I dialed Dreiser’s secretary.

Since Les ran off with Dreiser’s money, he’d been forced to let a lot of his staff
go. Apparently, his secretary was one of the casualties. A kid who didn’t sound any
older than Kendall answered the phone.

“Dad’s on a maintenance call,” she said. “Can I take a message?”

“Why aren’t you in school?” I asked, hoping that Dexter and Kendall were in class.

“I graduated last year,” the teen said, not sounding surprised or offended by my question.
“Now I work with my dad.”

“Oh. Great. Congratulations. Well, do you know where he is?”

“That gas station just off I-25 at Garden of the Gods.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up and headed upstairs to change. The soft blue sweater I had put on this morning
didn’t say “force to be reckoned with.” If I was going to take on Patrick Dreiser,
I needed a power outfit.

*   *   *

Wouldn’t you know it, there were several gas stations just off the I-25 exit at Garden
of the Gods Road, and, of course, I hadn’t asked Dreiser’s daughter which one he was
working at. I cruised through three of them, getting tangled up in traffic crossing
under the freeway, before I found Dreiser at a fourth station about a quarter mile
west of I-25. The vending machines—a soda machine and a snack machine—were outside,
adjacent to a men’s restroom that smelled strongly, even through the closed door,
of one of those scented cakes that goes in a toilet bowl to keep it clean. The front
of the drink machine was opened wide, and a pair of work-booted feet showed beneath
the door. I parked the Hummer in one of the slots in front of the convenience store,
next to a hatchback that was vibrating with the force of the rap music thudding through
it. The skinny woman smoking a cigarette in the driver’s seat, elbow resting on the
rolled-down window and seat reclined like she was waiting for someone, didn’t even
look at me as I hustled past. I ducked my head against the wind as I trotted around
the side of the building. Luckily, it blocked most of the wind.

“Mr. Dreiser?” Even though Les and I had gone out with Dreiser and his wife as business
colleagues a couple of times, I’d never felt comfortable calling him Patrick. He didn’t
like Pat. Mostly, I’d called him nothing.

He leaned back to peer around the open door. His iron gray hair stuck out from under
a Dreiser Vending baseball cap. It was inches longer than when I’d last seen him,
and I cringed to think that maybe he couldn’t afford a barber anymore. He wore a plaid
wool shirt under denim overalls and still had the paunch I remembered. At least he
wasn’t starving to death. He held a large wrench in one gloved hand. He’d always been
proud of being a “self-made man,” which I’d always thought was a silly term.

“You.” He scrunched up his face like he’d taken Robitussin or tasted spoiled milk.
“What are you supposed to be? Mrs. Claus?”

I guessed my power outfit of quilted scarlet vest over a cherry-colored turtleneck
paired with a shin-length red skirt and cream-colored high-heeled boots—I didn’t have
any red ones—wasn’t having the right effect. I felt let down; all the fashion magazines
said red was
the
power color.

Dreiser went back to working on the machine, wrench clanking against metal innards.

“Mr. Dreiser—” I edged around the door, having to step off the curb to get around
it, and stepped back up on the sidewalk on his other side. “I’m trying to find Les,
and—”

“How bloody likely is that?” he asked, pausing in his work to glare at me from under
brows that reminded me of a prickly hedge. “And if you were, why would you be talking
to me? I must be the last person on earth Goldman would get in touch with. Besides,
he’s in Costa Rica.”

“No, he’s here in town.” I knew I’d made a mistake when Dreiser stiffened. Straightening,
he turned to give me his full attention.

“Are you saying that piece of shit who wrecked my business and my life is here? In
Colorado Springs?” He was practically drooling, and his grip on the wrench tightened
so his whole arm trembled.

I stepped back. “Well, he was.”

A calculating look came into Dreiser’s beady eyes. “Look, Mrs. Claus, he screwed you
over, too. You’ve got to be mad at him. How ’bout we make a deal? If you find him,
you let me know where he is. I’ll get something out of him for both of us—you can’t
tell me he doesn’t still have the money.” He tapped the wrench against his thigh like
he was keeping a beat, but he was hitting himself so hard I knew he’d have a bruise.

I shuddered to think what he meant to do to Les. I was mad at my ex-husband, but not
put-him-in-the-hospital-or-a-coffin mad.

“Whaddaya say?”

Dreiser moved toward me, and I shrank away, finding myself cornered practically inside
the soda machine. Any other time, I’d have found it interesting with all the slots
and levers and the shiny aluminum cans stacked one on top of another and a metal container
holding coins. Now, though, I was only grateful there was no room for Dreiser to close
the door and lock me in there, which he looked crazy enough to do.

“Mr. Dreiser, I guess you haven’t seen Les and don’t know anything about Heather-Anne’s
murder, so I’ll just be going.” I tried to step forward, but he didn’t budge.

“Murder?”

Dreiser leaned close enough that I could smell a mix of coffee and alcohol on his
breath. Uh-oh. He’d been drinking. That might explain his bloodshot eyes.

“Yes. Les’s … friend was killed on Sunday.” Dreiser’s reaction was making me pretty
sure he had nothing to do with it.

“He did it,” Dreiser said with conviction, still uncomfortably close.

“He wouldn’t.”

“Hah!” Dreiser barked spittle onto my face, and I tried to push past him. “Not so
fast,” he said, eyes narrowing. His body penned me in. “I think you know where Goldman
is. I think you and he were in it together. You cheated me out of millions, cost me
my wife, my—”

I was scared by him, but angry, too. I didn’t cheat or steal. I got my hands between
us and shoved. I’d have had more luck moving Mt. Rushmore. “You think I’d be worrying
about how to pay my utility bill and working as a PI if I had millions hidden away
in some bank account? You think Les would have left town with that floozy if we were
partners? Get out of my way.” The metal innards of the vending machine cut into my
shoulders as I leaned back to give myself some momentum to propel me forward and,
hopefully, past Dreiser.

“Tell me where the son of a bitch is. I’ll get it out of you if—”

I heard a clicking sound, and a lever somewhere near my elbow sank down. A rumbling
came from the machine, and suddenly soda cans were spilling out the bottom, falling
to the sidewalk, and rolling off the curb and into the parking lot.

“Damn it!” Dreiser yelled, tucking the wrench under his arm to reach for a can with
each hand. “Now look what you’ve done.” He grabbed for more cans until he was juggling
an armload. One can rolled under the tires of a passing SUV and crunched open with
a gush of soda. I scurried away from the machine and Dreiser, sorry about the sodas
but happy to make my escape. The river of shiny cans had attracted attention, and
a couple of teens were trying to scoop some up while Dreiser ran at them, waving the
wrench and dropping the cans he’d collected. A can of lemon-lime soda rolled up against
the toe of my boot and began to hiss ominously. Before I could move, a crack opened
in the flip-top and warm soda jetted all over my power ensemble.

A blue van rear-ended a hatchback that had stopped suddenly to avoid running into
an elderly woman with a walker stooping for a Dr Pepper. Horns blared. A police car
turned into the small parking area. I tried to make my way toward the Hummer, but
my foot came down on a can and I fell to one knee, putting a hole in my damp tights.
I felt frazzled and couldn’t help but think this was at least partly my fault.

A shout came from near the gas pumps. “Hey, idiot, you didn’t hang the nozzle up right!”

The man was apparently talking to the teenager standing near me, holding at least
a dozen cans of soda. The kid whirled around, the long, pom-pommed tail of his knit
cap whipping past my nose. A gasoline odor drifted to us.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered and ran toward where his car sat, gas flap open. A stream of
gas trickled from the hose he’d let fall to the ground in his eagerness to round up
some free soda.

A couple more people chased after escaping cans. Dreiser alternated between picking
up cans and threatening people with his wrench. The police officer climbed out of
his car and lunged toward Dreiser. The cigarette-smoking woman parked next to my Hummer
jerked her head in time to the rap beat and made to toss her cigarette butt out the
window.

“No!” “Don’t!” “Run!” Half a dozen scared voices shouted at the woman, but she bobbed
her head to the music and kept her eyes on the store’s door. The cigarette butt tumbled,
in slow motion it seemed, toward the ground.

Everyone ran.

25

Charlie was tired and her ass hurt by the time she and Dan reached the Triple E Ranch,
where Robert Eustis Junior and his family lived. The road out of Cheyenne had been
fine, but they’d been on a rutted dirt road for at least ten miles, and the jouncing
was not speeding the healing process. As they bounced under the wrought-iron sign
proclaiming
TRIPLE E RANCH
, Charlie figured the
E
’s stood for Eustis Senior, Eustis Junior, and maybe a brother or sister she didn’t
know about. She wondered if they realized the words “triple E” brought to mind Victoria’s
Secret rather than prime rib.

“‘Here you come again, looking better than a body has a right to,’” Dan sang in a
Dolly Parton falsetto, making Charlie laugh as she realized they were thinking along
the same lines. “Shall I sit in the truck?” he asked, pulling up in front of a weathered
ranch house that looked as if it had once been white but was now the same dun color
as the surrounding countryside.