Carnosaur Crimes (17 page)

Parker leaned forward. “Let me see the rest of your papers.”

Ansel kept quiet just watching the show. The rest of the convincing-the-mark stage was done solely for Peter Georges' benefit and went very quickly. Billy produced a wealth of paperwork verifying the origins of the skull as having come from a ranch in Bonanza, Utah. There were legal papers of sale and transfer of ownership between a rancher named Henry Davis and William De Shequette of Accent on Antiquities.

The provenance of the Allosaurus skull was impeccable on the surface. There were permits and licenses. Contracts and sale receipts. Parker's false grin got wider and wider, while Billy's back-hinged, serpentine jawbone reached exponential proportions. Then he got to the discussion of price.

“And you're going to get this beauty for just a hundred-fifty thousand. Now that's a deal, considering a whole Allosaurus skeleton can go for as high as two million. So are you sold yet?”

Ansel sensed she should get to work again. She glared at Billy. “A thousand dollars per pound? That's too much.”

The toothsome orifice on Billy's face shrunk. “On the surface, I suppose I looks that way. However, as I mentioned before, Henry Davis paid to have the skull excavated out-of-pocket. Between the costs for equipment, travel fees, shipment, and paid labor, Mr. Davis has had an overhead of forty-thousand dollars. He needs to turn a profit, and I need to make a commission. I assure you that the sale price is fair market value under the circumstances.”

Ansel looked at Parker. “Honestly Peter, we could get an original 1900s vintage Remington bronze for that price.”

Parker shot her a fierce glance. “I don't want a sculpture. I want a dinosaur.” His tone was that of a petulant little boy who wasn't going to get the department store toy he wanted.

She shook her head. “It's still ridiculous.”

Parker ignored her and faced Billy. “I want it. What's the next step?”

Billy De Shequette didn't miss a beat. “I'll need a small deposit today. Say twenty-five thousand. It guarantees we'll hold the skull until you see it and make your final decision. Standard practice in the antiquities market. It's refundable. Will you pay by cash, check or charge?”

“Check.” Parker pulled his checkbook out and signed on the spot.

Ansel hunkered in her chair and pretended to sulk while the men concluded their deal. Inside she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd done her part. Now she could fly home and draw.

Billy gave Parker a receipt for the deposit and explained how he'd contact them within the next few days about setting up a meeting for viewing the fossil skull. It was all quite cloak and dagger: a special phone call to their home with specific instructions on how to identify themselves as the buyers to the mysterious rancher, Henry Davis. At least, she wouldn't be there. Finally Parker stood up, clasp envelope in hand, and shook Billy's palm. Ansel rose and stiffly nodded her farewell.

Billy opened the door for them. “Don't you worry about a thing. I'll call as soon as I speak to Mr. Davis. Here's my personal card for both of you should you need to contact me. Have a great day, folks.”

Claude led them to the front door, flipped the CLOSED sign over, and stepped aside as they left. They were both firmly ensconced inside the baking Lexus before either of them spoke.

“I'm glad that's over,” Ansel said.

Parker started the car, turned on the air, and shifted the vehicle into reverse. “You did great. You really got me with that bit about the yellow head not matching the paint scheme.”

“Thank you. I was impressed with your tantrum. ‘I want a dinosaur.' That was classic.”

“Well, I'm glad I'm not married to you. Angela Georges would drive me to violence.”

Ansel pulled off her wedding band and dropped it into a cup holder on the dash. “In that case, I'm divorcing you here and now.”

Parker grinned. “I guess marriage ain't what it used to be.”

Ansel took a chance. “Nope. So are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Married.”

“No. The Bureau keeps me busy. I'm not in one place very long.”

“Where's your home town?” She was on a roll.

Parker's smile evaporated. “Don't have a home town. Just the Crow Agency. I'm from the rez. You're half Blackfoot, right?”

Ansel could see that the reservation was a touchy subject, and she wondered why. “Yeah. I suppose Outerbridge discussed my file in detail with everyone. Nice.”

Suddenly the two-way, portable radio stashed on the floor beneath Parker's seat crackled to life. “Unit One to Unit Two. Over.”

Parker listened, then said, “Speak of the devil.” He pulled out the black, Motorola VHF radio and pressed the call button with one hand as he drove. “Unit One. 10-24. Over.”

Outerbridge's voice filled the car. “What's your 10-20? Over.”

Parker turned a corner and peered at the street signs. “10-8. Corner of South 24
^th
Street and King. Over.”

“Unit One, 10-25. Zero, zero, Midland. Over.”

Parker glanced at Ansel. “Unit One. 10-4.”

She noticed his odd expression and watched as he placed the radio on the console between them. “What was that all about?”

“We're going to meet him at the Rimrock Motel on Midland.”

“Why? I thought we'd head back to the airport.”

Parker avoided her gaze. “I guess not.”

Ansel smelled a rat. A big, fat, half-decomposed one. “Listen, I want to know what's going on. I signed on for a couple hours, remember? I fulfilled my part of the bargain.”

“Hey, we'll both have to see what the boss says. Besides, would being with me a little longer be such a bad thing?”

He turned and flashed her a beatific smile full of secret meaning, and his eyes were absolutely sparkling with mischievous intent. Ansel waded into those sexy, glistening brown pools with her bikini on. God, he looked knee-weakening adorable. When guilty thoughts about Dorbandt splashed cold water in her face, she simply dove away from them.

She was attracted to Reid, but he was hopeless. Chasing him would be an emotionally exhausting and unappreciated endeavor akin to stalking a person trying to dodge your every move. Life was too short. She wasn't a spring calf anymore.

Her expression softened. “No, I guess I could live with that.”

“Good,” Parker replied, staring ahead at the road. “Oh, give me Billy's card.”

Damn, she'd hoped he would forget it. “Card?”

“Nice try. His business card. In your purse. Hand it over.”

She opened the handbag, fished around inside, and pulled it out. She'd never even had a chance to memorize it. Parker snapped it from her hand before she could get a glance.

“Thanks, Ansel.” He quickly shoved it into a shirt pocket.

“That wasn't very sporting, Agent Standback.”

“Please, call me Parker. We've already been married and divorced. Just doing my job.”

Where had she heard that before? Ansel ruminated grimly. She settled back in her seat and speculated over what her new tortures would be at the hands of Agent Outerbridge.

Chapter 21

“Not westward, but eastward seek the coming of the light.”

Dakota

Reid slammed down his desk phone. “Damn it, Ansel. Where are you?”

Both Odie and another detective stared. Then Odie displayed an amused grin. He was still needling him about Chloe in his own companionable way. Danny Landstrom was another story.

“Female troubles, Reid?” the younger, blond-haired Landstrom jibed before nickering like a wheezing horse.

A tendril of acid curled up Reid's throat. Everybody in the department was aware of his ill-advised friendship with Ansel Phoenix, the woman whom his immediate supervisor, Captain Ed McKenzie, hated with a passion. McKenzie was a racist and always bad-mouthed the whole Phoenix clan because of the Indian associations. Not to mention that Chase Phoenix had butted heads with McKenzie years before over a murder investigation. Chase had almost gotten McKenzie, then a rookie cop, thrown off the police force. Landstrom was McKenzie's toady.

“Shut up, Danno,” Reid snapped. “Women aren't your strong suit. The only thing you've ever kissed is McKenzie's ass.”

“Ahhh, good one,” Odie guffawed, swiveling his massive, buzzed skull to stare at Landstrom with anticipation.

Landstrom's face turned bright pink. “Bite me, Dorbandt. You're lucky the Captain's gone.” He turned away and pretended to be immersed in writing a case deposition report.

Odie shook his head. “A disappointing retort from Landstrom. Zero points for originality and only one point for contextual impression. Reid, I salute you. You are still the Royal Rejoinder.”

A tiny smile edged across Reid's face even as he perused his monumental stacks of paperwork. A hundred loose veins on several current cases needed to be tied off before they bled out, and he didn't have the time to do it. The Cullen Flynn case had taken precedence, and nobody had the tools to cauterize that spurting artery. How could you fix what you couldn't find?

There was no sign of Cullen or his vehicle. The sheriff's department, the Highway Patrol, and the Big Toe police department had turned up zip, zilch, nada respectfully. Odie and he had questioned everybody they could rustle up in Swoln, asking if they saw a green Jeep go through town. Nothing. It was as if Cullen had driven into the sunset and evaporated like Clint Eastwood in
High Plains Drifter
. Was Cullen dead? His heart said no way. His head said yes.

Reid shifted paper mounds across his desk and picked up Cyrus Flynn's jacket. Flipping through it over and over hadn't led to any investigative inspirations. Cyrus' illegal substance abuse had included marijuana and methamphetamine. His drug sales had been loosely tied to a larger drug operation out of Billings which had possibly been protected by an even bigger Helena influence. Nothing was ever proven one way or the other.

Cyrus was a small-time junkie-dealer who couldn't apply his trade without getting caught. When he bombed at that, he sustained his existence by stealing private property and selling it on the sly. The slaughterhouse job was a career boondoggle for Cyrus. It was the first legitimate employment he'd ever held and he'd managed to keep it for almost a year.

Still something stank, and it wasn't just the packing house, Reid considered. Cyrus had a gun and he knew it. He'd checked federal gun registrations and nothing came back under his name, but cons had there own set of procurement rules. The shotgun wadding had gone to the state crime lab in Missoula. He expected it might not tell him much.

Odie interrupted his thoughts, appearing in front of his desk like an up-thrust mountain range, folder in hand. “Reid, I got the info you wanted on Swoln Stockyards.”

Reid closed Cyrus' file. “Tell me what you've got.”

“The stockyards are owned by a corporation called Allied Beef Exchange out of Helena. The packing house used to be privately owned, but sold out in 1987 because beef consumption in the U.S. dropped fourteen percent, and they were going bankrupt.”

Helena. A red flag slid up a synaptic pole in his brain. “Hokay, go on.”

“Cows going in as USDA choice sell for seven-hundred a head, about sixty-one cents a pound. The place processes up to seventeen-hundred cows a day with ninety two employees working one of two eight hour shifts. The current operations director is Frank Carigliano. I spoke with him directly. He confirmed that Flynn works there as the shackler Mondays through Fridays on the eleven-to-eight a.m. shift. Said Flynn was doing great. Never late for the job. Gets along well with everyone.” Odie passed him the file. “Flynn must work in a bubble suit because he's the cleanest shackler in the history of the beef industry.”

Reid grabbed the faxed papers. There was a completed application for employment, DOC prison release authorization, parolee employment agreement, and an employee performance review signed by a Swoln Stockyards foreman named Jessup Frost. They were all in order. It didn't mean anything.

“Carigliano's covering for Flynn. The question is why? Run a computer check on him, Frost, and Allied Beef Exchange through NDIC and Interpol. See if there's any drug connection.”

“Drugs? Where'd that come from?”

“Flynn's file. He dealt with pot and meth, and there was mention of some heavy hitters supporting a drug channel out of Helena that went through Billings where he got his street supply. Maybe he's found the perfect niche for himself. Like old times. He uses and cruises in a circle of fellow junkies that are part of a bigger picture.”

Odie's face was grim. “You think Chief Flynn stumbled into that?”

Reid ran his hand across his face. The prickly stubble of five-o-clock shadow surprised him. Another day had flown by, and he didn't feel like he'd accomplished anything. Cullen had been missing for four days. His trail was stone cold. Maybe this was the break they'd been waiting for, but a black hole formed in the pit of his empty stomach. He liked Cullen. Though he didn't socialize with the man, he'd worked with him on various cases during the last few years. Straight board-feet law officers like Chief Flynn were hard to find.

“I don't know, but he sure is git-gone. That's SOP with drug cartels that need to eliminate a problem.” He passed the file back. “Eventually we've got to visit Carigliano, but I don't want to tip him off that we're spotting the plant operations as well as Cyrus.”

“Got it, Reid.” Odie paced away.

Reid grabbed up the report on Hillard Yancy. No criminal record, court appearances or bad press. Yancy was from a rich family in New York so the question of his funding for the shop was a no-brainer. Despite the gold apron strings, Yancy had gone to college at Utah State for a degree in geology, then worked as a paleogeologist for Wonsits Valley Oil and Gas. He'd retired after twenty years and was now the proprietor of Earthly Pleasures.

He'd even looked at Yancy's glossy sales pamphlet which contained color fossil photos, long lists of indecipherable Latin names, and sequential catalog numbers. Before he could exhale his frustration, a shapely, uniformed file clerk dropped another sheaf of papers on his desk.

Dorbandt threw up his hands. “No more, Jasmine, please.”

The harried, auburn-haired woman barely gave him a glance. “And the beat goes on,” she sang in a Cher-like voice. “La-dee-da-dee-dee. La-dee-da-dee-da.” She sped out the division doorway. So much for fraternal bonding.

Reid dropped Yancy's file and picked up the six page lab report. He was surprised to see that it was the brief analysis from Trace Evidence concerning the foil tab Ansel had given him. That was fast, which meant that the object had been easily identified by one of the Missoula techies. He skipped the parts regarding the material evidence designation number, background recovery information, and the item's physical description.

Findings

The evidence from the crime scene (Case 04-08-29-H-0011) in Big Toe, Montana is consistent with TLD chip (Thermaluminescent dosimetry) badges, bracelets, and rings used to measure exposure to radiation due to x-ray, beta, and gamma rays.

The radiation passes through a thin layer of aluminum oxide and different filters. A circular TLD chip mounted on Kapton foil is further attached to a small aluminum disc containing a miniature, circular bar code with a six-digit number which is personalized for identification of each person. The TLD chip assembly is inserted into a disposable, plastic finger ring and protected by a clear teflon cover plate. This design is convenient to wear, comes in small, medium, and large finger sizes, and can be cold sterilized for multiple use in surgery.

For readout, the ring is opened by a semi-automated device and up to four bar-code discs can be inserted into a modified standard TLD card for automatic processing by Harshaw readers model 6600 or 8800. The reader contains a video bar code identification system based on a miniaturized CCD camera and image processing by special PC software. The circular bar codes are mathematically linearized and decoded directly from the enhanced grey scale picture obtained with optimized illumination by power LEDs.

Rings are usually issued on a 3-month, calendar-quarter basis and serve to distinguish between different types and levels of radiation exposure. They are worn at all times when exposure from ionizing radiations are likely and exposures to the extremities is a possibility Typically, these are issued to persons working with significant amounts of P-32 or other hard beta-gamma emitters.

TLD detecting elements are reusable and expensive. They are not waterproof and must be protected by plastic or latex gloves if immersed. Personal dosimeters are issued for use by the named person they are intended for. They are not to be used by any other person. If damaged, they must be returned for replacement. If lost, the person they belong to is usually charged for replacement costs.

“Wow.” Reid sat back in his chair. He had to think. If this TLD chip had belonged to one of the FBI agents as Ansel suspected, it meant that the feds weren't just chasing fossil poachers but something radioactive as well. And if the device hadn't belonged to the Feebees, who did it belong to? He wondered if there was a way to read the bar coded chip and find the person the dosimeter had been issued to. But did it matter where the original ring came from?

For all he knew, the chip could have come from some x-ray technician who visited the museum to take a gander at the dinosaur tracks. Just because Ansel said the agents were proficient at forensic recovery didn't mean squat. The wind was thorough, too. Given the heat boomers and dust blows going on the last week, a prairie gust could have blown that foil tab in from the next county.

“Ansel, where are you,” he whispered. He needed her. He'd left her phone messages all morning and afternoon. She'd better not have done something stupid like traipsing off with Outerbridge and not telling him about it.

Reid slipped the TLD report into the Indian poacher's file. Just looking at that gave him another harsh reality check. That case wasn't exactly being cross-whipped either.

Odie and he had gone to the bank and checked out his money machine theory. Yeah, the machine had a camera, and it did eyeball the door to Humpy's Grill across the street if the traffic was sparse, but the video was broken. Had been for a month. No one had bothered to have it repaired. The idea of too much government control was anathema to people in the heartlands, and one less Big Brother camera watching people's private, financial transactions and conversations was not a priority at the Swoln Credit Union. God bless, America.

Reid looked toward the exit door and wondered if he could escape just as Jasmine had. Then he saw Agent Adam Broderick pass by the opening. He'd never met the man, but he'd made sure to pull up everything he could about the guy. He'd been waiting for this moment since Ansel told him about her unpleasant encounter. He'd also pulled up Broderick's license photo from DMV records, and there was no mistaking that distinctive mug or taupe BLM uniform. Reid leaped from his chair in an instant and jetted past Odie's desk into the hallway.

Broderick had stopped to use the water fountain and was bending over in a most vulnerable position as Reid reached him. The urge to kick the agent's permanent-pressed butt was a powerful temptation. Instead he crossed his arms and waited until Broderick turned around.

The agent rose and started visibly upon seeing Reid face-to-face. “Sorry. Didn't know you were there.” He shifted his weight and moved around Reid. When Reid moved directly in front of him, Broderick stopped. His face tightened. Reid held his ground and smiled. They were pretty evenly matched in terms of height, but Broderick outweighed him by about thirty government pounds.

“Is there a problem,” Broderick said.

“I have a message for you.”

Broderick eyed Reid's I.D. card clipped to a shirt pocket. “Do I know you?”

“Leave Ansel Phoenix alone.” His stare bored into Broderick's widening eyes.

The hall was fairly busy with other cops, clerks, civilians, and office personnel. A few stopped in mid-stride to view this unexpected entertainment. Surprise wiped the smug expression off the agent's face, but he knew he was being watched and snorted through his nose.

“I don't know who you are and what you're talking about. Who's your supervisor?”

Reid pointed a finger scant inches from Broderick's pointy nose. “Leave her alone.” He turned and walked through the growing knot of onlookers and back into his department. Broderick could have followed but didn't. He didn't care. Nobody was going to steam roll Ansel as long as he was around.

Odie, oblivious to the confrontation outside, sat at his desk nodding into a phone receiver. When he spied Reid, he motioned wildly. Reid stepped toward him, still feeling his blood pounding like a hammer against his left temple.

“He's just walked in, sir. I'll put him on the phone.” Odie covered the earpiece and mouthpiece with one Herculean hand. “Bucky.”