Dead Man's Bones (35 page)

When we concluded our narrative, she gave her head an I’m-not-believing-this shake. “I know for a fact that Howie Masterson is planning to ask the grand jury to no-bill Jane Obermann in the shooting of Hank Dixon, on the grounds that she killed him during an attempted armed robbery.”

“Oh, lordy,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes. “Howie the Ding-Bat Masterson. I forgot about him.” Ruby and I are among those who have no respect for our new D.A.

“Yeah,” I said bleakly. “Howie’s probably looking forward to it. A made-for-TV production, starring himself as guardian of the Second Amendment and defender of every citizen’s right to self-defense.” Howie would go through the ceiling when Sheila put a revised list of criminal charges in front of him.

“Yeah, right,” Sheila said ironically. “So now you’re saying that I have to tell Howie to forget his plan to canonize Jane. Instead, I have to tell him that I want her indicted on three counts of murder.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “She hired a hit man to kill her nephew. She lured the hit man’s son to her house and shot him. And then she poisoned her sister to keep her from spilling the beans.” She paused for effect. “Anything else you two amateur sleuths want me to add to the list? A little embezzlement, maybe? Drug smuggling? Gun running?”

Ruby cleared her throat. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”

“As my father used to say, it is going to be tougher than a horny toad’s toenails,” Sheila replied grimly. “To make matters worse, Miss Obermann was a big political contributor this year. And Howie’s campaign spent one helluva of a lot of somebody’s money on those billboard ads—could’ve been hers.”

I had to smile at that, even though there was nothing funny about it. Howie’s billboards had shown up all over the county, featuring a twelve-by-twenty-foot photo of himself in chaps, leather vest, and a white Stetson, sitting behind the steering wheel of his Dodge Ram truck, equipped with a grill guard heavy enough to shove an elk off the road, mud flaps that looked like they belonged on an eighteen-wheeler, and a .375 H & H elephant gun slung in the rear window. The ad had a two-word caption: Texas Tough.

“I didn’t think about that,” Ruby said. “Politics is everywhere these days.”

“It’s not just politics, or Howie’s plan to set himself up as the Defender of the Faith,” Sheila said, sounding resigned. “It’s community reaction. Jane isn’t much liked, but the Obermann name carries a lot of weight. There’s the hospital, the library, the new theater—” She stopped, pursing her mouth. “None of which means that she’s safe from prosecution, of course. It just means that this won’t be an ordinary case. And the evidence against her is going to have to be pretty extraordinary—if only because the D.A. is not going to be anxious to try this case.”

To say the least. “I’m sure you won’t go to Howie until you have all the evidence lined up,” I said cautiously. “There’s this photo, of course, which documents Andy Obermann’s death—and probably has both Hank’s and his father’s fingerprints on it.”

I stopped, momentarily distracted. Where the heck was Sheila going to get Gabe Dixon’s fingerprints for comparison? Had he been in the armed forces, maybe? I took a breath and plunged on.

“You’ll probably want to request that Florence Obermann’s autopsy include several toxicological tests. Helen Berger’s list will narrow down the possibilities. And McQuaid will be glad to give you a statement about his interview with the women, and about that gun cabinet.” I frowned. There was something else. Now, what was it?

“You said that Gabe Dixon shot Andy Obermann from behind.” Sheila was looking down at the photograph. “Was the slug found? Does the sheriff have it?”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. “No,” I said, reaching for my purse, “the slug hasn’t been found—at least, not yet.” I took out the little plastic bag containing the casing that Brian had given me earlier that evening. “However, this is the casing.” I’d put it into my purse, intending to take it to Blackie in the morning. Now, it might be more relevant to Sheila’s investigation.

Ruby was staring at the casing. “Where in the world did you get that, China?”

“Brian picked it up in the cave,” I said, “before he knew that his caveman had been shot to death. He gave it to me tonight, when I told him what I’d learned from Alana Montoya. I was going to drop it off at the sheriff’s office in the morning.”

Sheila shook the casing out onto the table and peered at it. Without saying anything, she left the table and came back with a magnifying glass.

“It’s got
USCC
and the number
18
stamped in the base,” I said, “but I have no idea what they mean.”

“I do.” Sheila studied the casing through the magnifying glass. After a minute, she put it down. “The letters are military identifications. The number refers to the year of manufacture. This cartridge is a .45 caliber ACP, made in 1918.”

“1918,” I said slowly. “World War One.”

Ruby wrinkled her forehead. “What does ACP mean?”

“Automatic Colt pistol,” Sheila replied. “It was used longer in the military than any other firearm—adopted in 1911, and not retired until 1985.”

Ruby frowned. “So Gabe Dixon shot Andy with a bullet that was almost sixty years old? Isn’t that kind of old for ammunition?”

“Not if it’s stored correctly,” Sheila said. “There’s a lot of old wartime ammunition out there, both First and Second World Wars.” She slid the casing back into the bag and looked at me. “The gun I took away from Jane Obermann on Friday night, China—it was a seven-shot .45 caliber Colt automatic. Her father’s gun, if you’ll remember. And the ammo she used had been in the gun for some time, and it bore the same markings as this. Somebody in ballistics can compare the two casings, but they look identical to me.”

I thought about that. “You took the gun out of Jane’s hand. How many bullets were in the magazine?”

“Four,” Sheila said. “And there were two in Hank Dixon.”

“And one in Andy Obermann,” I said. “Four plus two plus one is seven.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Ruby said in a whisper.

“So it looks like Jane shot Hank,” I went on, “with the same gun—and the same ammunition—that Hank’s father used to kill Andy.”

“We have the slugs we dug out of Hank,” Sheila said. “If we can locate the slug that killed Andy, we’ll compare them. With luck, we’ll get a match.”

“But the same gun!” Ruby protested incredulously. “That’s just plain stupid—and Jane Obermann isn’t a stupid woman.”

“Maybe she never knew which gun Gabe used to kill Andy,” I replied. “Or maybe she just forgot. After all, it was a long time ago. Or maybe it was the only one of the three guns in the cabinet that happened to be loaded.”

“It was,” Sheila said quietly. “I checked. The other two guns, a Mauser and a Luger, were both empty. And there was no ammo in the cabinet.”

“And of course,” I added, “Jane had no idea that Andy’s remains had been found. She must have been feeling pretty secure after all these years. So even if she did know that Gabe had used that Colt, it might not have mattered to her.”

“Or maybe she thought it was poetic justice of some sort,” Ruby said darkly. “Somebody who is devious enough to invite Hank to her house and set up his murder so it looked like she was shooting a burglar—that kind of person is capable of anything.”

“What about the knife?” I asked Sheila. “If Hank thought he was going to get his payoff, it doesn’t seem likely that he would come armed—at least, not with a butcher knife. Is it possible that the knife is a throwdown? That it actually came from the Obermanns’ kitchen?” “Throwdown” is cop talk for a weapon that is planted at a crime scene.

“I don’t know,” Sheila said. “I’ll get a warrant and search the kitchen for similar items. Of course, the knife will already have been checked for Hank’s prints. But I’ll see that we get Jane’s prints, too, and have them matched against anything else that might show up on the knife.”

“So what’s left?” I asked. “Florence’s autopsy?”

Sheila nodded. “You say that you’re getting a list of those plants from the nurse?”

“First thing tomorrow,” I replied. “I’m thinking that oleander is a good bet. The bushes that line the path in the backyard—they’re oleander. It’s definitely toxic enough to do the job, and it matches Florence’s symptoms.”

“How would she . . . how would she have done it?” Ruby asked hesitantly. “Brew it up as a tea?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “From what I know of oleander, the toxins aren’t soluble in water. She might have chopped up the leaves and put them into something she baked.”

“Be sure I get the list as soon as it’s available,” Sheila said. “The M.E. down in Bexar County won’t have started the autopsy yet, so I’ll have time to talk to Doctor Mackey and amend the request.” She rubbed her fingers across her forehead as if she had a headache. “Got any other little problems I can solve for you?”

“Yeah,” I said regretfully. “His name is Juan, and he’s illegal.”

“Oh, hell.” Sheila looked at me. “I’m going to have to talk to him, you know. And if he really wants to clear Dixon’s name, he’ll want to talk to us. Where does he hang out?”

“I have no idea,” I said, giving Ruby a sign that I didn’t want her mentioning Taco’s Grill. If Juan was going to talk to the cops, it ought to be his call.

Ruby fielded my concern and raised one eyebrow. “Why don’t you discuss Juan’s situation with Justine, China? She’s handled immigration cases.” Justine is Justine Wyzinski, a.k.a. The Whiz, a friend who does a fair amount of pro bono legal work.

“Now, there’s a plan,” I said approvingly. “I should have thought of that. Maybe Justine can arrange for Sheila to get his testimony without endangering—”

Sheila stood up. “Listen, I know you two are all fired up about this, but I’ve had a rotten day, and it is just the beginning of what promises to be a really rotten week—especially if I’ve got to tell Howie that his favorite donor may turn out to be a three-time killer. I’m not making any promises on this Juan business. We’ll start looking for him tomorrow. If you know where he is, you’d better tell him to turn his ass in. Mucho pronto.”

Sheila might look like a sexy deb queen in her red silk pajamas, but she has the mouth of a cop. I got up and gave her a hug. “Thanks for the coffee, Smart Cookie. We’ll leave, and you can go back to bed. You’ll keep us posted on developments, I hope.”

“And if you need us, we’ll be at the shops in the morning,” Ruby said.

Sheila rubbed her arms. “Oh, don’t mention morning. I don’t want to think about it.”

We were on our way out of the kitchen when I happened to glance at the counter next to the sink. An empty wine bottle sat there, with two wineglasses beside it. One of the glasses had a lipstick smear on the rim. The other didn’t. I looked up and caught Sheila’s searching glance. I held her eyes until she colored and looked away.

Conscious of Ruby beside me, I said nothing. But the speculations lingered at the back of my mind, like snidely suspicious neighbors trading nasty gossip over the back fence. Maybe Sheila—in her sexy red silk pajamas, designer fragrance, and makeup—hadn’t actually been in bed when we called, after all. Or maybe she hadn’t been in bed alone.

I was right. It took quite a lot of talking and direct eye contact to convince McQuaid that my story of the night’s events—every enthralling detail of it—was a hundred percent true. But by the time he had absorbed the tale, he agreed with my assessment of the situation, and added his own little twist.

“I’m thinking back to the day I met with the Obermann sisters,” he said musingly. “Florence seemed distraught to me. When she left to go upstairs, Jane attributed her distress to illness. But maybe Florence was having second thoughts about the plan to kill Hank Dixon.”

“But nothing was said about her heart condition until she was out of the room? I think that’s what you told me.”

“Right. It’s entirely possible that Jane was laying the groundwork for a future ‘heart attack’.” Of course, neither of the women ever actually came out and named names. That is, they didn’t actually say it was Hank they were afraid of. But they said enough so that—after Hank was dead—I’d be certain to come forward and tell the police that they were hiring me to protect them from him.”

“And your testimony would substantiate the claim that he had broken into the house, intending to kill them.”

McQuaid’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “God, I hate to be used.” He shook his head. “I’ll bet Jane never intended to pay me a retainer, either. It was a setup.”

“I agree,” I said. I leaned over and kissed him. “But now that we know the full story—or we think we do—your testimony could be key to premeditation. Obviously, they were setting Hank up.” I paused. “I hope Sheila finds Jane’s prints on that knife. That would pretty well wrap up Hank’s case. Florence’s autopsy should reveal how she died. For Andy, there’s the photo of the corpse and the cartridge casing that Brian found—and with luck Blackie will locate the slug itself when he does a thorough search of the cave.”