Defiled: The Sequel to Nailed Featuring John Tall Wolf (A Ron Ketchum Mystery Book 2) (24 page)

Walt waved to everyone he saw on his walk into town.

Didn’t matter if he knew them or not. Most folks waved back.

Small town friendly. Who could have guessed he’d ever enjoy that?

Walt found an open café table at
Patisserie Leroux
and settled in. Didn’t want to
overdo
the exercise stuff. What with the horizontal bop he’d enjoyed that morning, it was time to replenish himself. He ordered a black coffee and a
tarte au citron.
Made him smile when he thought that he used to settle for donuts.

Walt stretched his legs, clasped his hands over his middle and sighed.

All was right with the world. His world anyway. He was finally at peace.

When the waitress returned, he squinted at her, felt a flutter in his heart and said, “Nora?”

After Veronika Novak picked Sonny Sideris’ photo — a frame taken from a security video shot at the Renaissance Hotel — out of a six-pack array, Ron told her he’d arrange for her to stay at a good hotel in Reno under an assumed name. A female officer would be her roommate. Sarita Levy, the owner of Locks & Bangs and Veronika’s boss, would be coached to say Veronika had gone to visit an imaginary relative in North Carolina.

“It’ll work,” Ron told the stylist. “You’ll be safe until we can arrest Sideris. We’ll keep you safe through the trial and then work out something long term after he’s convicted.”

“Like witness protection?” Veronika asked.

Ron sensed she was getting cold feet.

“More like relocation. From what we’ve been able to learn, Sideris isn’t mobbed up. He’s an independent contractor.”

“But he
is
a killer, right? If he doesn’t know other killers personally, he’d have a pretty good idea of how to find one. Send somebody looking for me.”

No one would find her before Sideris was convicted, Ron thought. But that would hardly be any comfort. Looking at Veronika, he knew there’d be no chance of BS-ing her.

“There will be some risk involved,” he said.

“Then there should be some reward, too.”

“That would seem fair, but there’s no bounty on Sideris.”

Veronika said, “I was thinking Hale would want to see his killer be punished … and his estate has
plenty
of money.”

And wouldn’t that be peachy, the chief thought. The murder victim’s estate paying for the testimony that convicted the man accused of killing him. Anyone ever found out about that, Sideris’ conviction would be set aside and everyone involved in the scheme would be looking at their own criminal charges.

None of that had occurred to Veronika or bothered her if it had.

“I have relatives in Europe,” she said, “but it’s expensive to live over there. I’d need more than a stipend. I’d need enough for a condo, a nice one. And a car. And, starting out, I want to be set up in San Francisco not Reno.”

Ron could see now why Hale Tibbot had been reluctant to get married.

He also thought maybe there was someone else who could pick up Veronika’s tab.

“I’ll see what we can do,” Ron said.

John Tall Wolf made the drive to Truckee and caught up with Herbert Wilkins when the Washoe council leader took his lunch break at the home improvement store where he worked. He caught Wilkins’ eye as the man stepped out into the parking lot with a brown bag in hand. For just a second, it looked like Wilkins might turn and run.

Then Wilkins must have thought: Where could he go that Coyote couldn’t catch him? Tall Wolf had been working on that his entire adult life. So far, his best answer had been to work where he could track Marlene Flower Moon’s movements at least some of the time. Yielding to the inevitable, Wilkins made his way over to Tall Wolf.

“How much time do you get for lunch?” the special agent asked.

“Forty-five minutes.”

Tall Wolf nodded to his car. “Get in. I’ll have you back in time.”

Wilkins fitted himself into the passenger seat. John got behind the wheel.

“Where are we going?” Wilkins asked.

“You talked with Marlene right? Promised full cooperation?”

Wearing a sullen expression, Wilkins said, “Yeah.”

“Then it doesn’t matter where we’re going. Being such a nice day, though, I thought we could talk outside. Which park would you prefer, Meadow or Shoreline?”

“Shoreline. Less likely to see anyone from work there.”

“Shoreline it is. You want me to stop so you can get a soft drink?”

Wilkins shook head, dropped his lunch bag between his feet.

“I’ll eat later. I’ve lost my appetite.”

Tall Wolf made his way to Shoreline Park, one of the sites he’d scouted earlier. The two men sat opposite each other at an isolated picnic bench. The special agent gave Wilkins the side with the view of Donner Lake. He figured it was unlikely anyone might sneak up on him in a canoe. But he didn’t put it past Wilkins to have some people watching out for him.

Tall Wolf had a clear view of the path from the parking lot where he’d left his car.

It would take some nerve on Wilkins’ part to both break a promise to Marlene and interfere with a federal agent in the performance of his duty. But gold could make people do strange things. If Wilkins did have some friends shadowing his movements, Tall Wolf would see them at the same time they saw him.

And the way Wilkins had his shoulders hunched up said he was tense about something.

Tall Wolf said, “I didn’t see anyone follow us here, but maybe you know some really sneaky people. It would be a terrible mistake for anyone to try and mess with me. Especially since I’m here to help you.”

Wilkins barked out a short laugh.

“I went to college,” he said.

Tall Wolf nodded. “So did I.”

“You know what Ronald Reagan said?”

“Mostly stuff other people wrote for him,” Tall Wolf replied.

“Reagan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ Of course, the first time anyone ever said that it was a white man talking to a Native American.”

“Probably was,” Tall Wolf conceded, “but times change.”

“You’re not going to tell me you’re a
red
man?” Wilkins asked.

“I have a copper complexion, but that isn’t what you mean. If you’re just stalling, waiting for help to arrive, it’s time to reconsider. If you don’t want me to help you, just say so. I’ll take you back to your job … and make sure someone else gets the gold.”

Wilkins’ head jerked back as if he’d been punched.

“Yeah,” John said with a nod, “I know where it is now. Not precisely, but close enough to make discovery inevitable.”

The special agent saw six Native American men step onto the path leading to the picnic area. He took his sidearm, a Beretta 92FS, out of its holster and put it on the table in front of him. Then he sighed.

“You try to be a nice guy.” He shook his head and told Wilkins, “Leave if you want. But if any of your friends tries to mess with me, the blood will be on your hands. The prison time, too.”

Wilkins held up his right hand and the six men halted their approach.

“You don’t know where the gold is,” Wilkins said.

Tall Wolf gave him the grid location as laid out by the county surveyor.

Told him the name of the estate that currently held title to the property.

Wilkins’ eyes bulged, looked like they might bug out of his head entirely.

Tall Wolf said, “That suggestion you gave me, to see who was suing Hale Tibbot before he got killed? That was all I needed to find the gold. Now, maybe you thought you could persuade Marlene to get rid of me. Maybe you thought I was too dumb to make my way through a bunch of court filings and find the one that was important. That’s more likely. You didn’t know I’d had a good education, too, until I just told you.”

Wilkins looked over his shoulder and called out to his friends in a language Tall Wolf didn’t understand. There had been over three hundred native languages spoken in pre-Columbian North America. He didn’t know any of them. Wilkins and the boys knew at least one.

They turned around, grumbling to themselves, and walked off.

Looking back at Tall Wolf, Wilkins said, “That gold should be ours.”

“Your tribe’s, you mean.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I agree,” Tall Wolf said. He put his gun back on his hip.

That was a step in the right direction, but Wilkins was still straining to take Tall Wolf at his word. “Why should I believe you?” Wilkins said.

“That’s for you to work out,” Tall Wolf said. He got to his feet. “Come on, I’ll take you back to work … and pretend I didn’t notice you have a gun in your lunch bag.”

Wilkins gave him a startled look.

Tall Wolf shook his head and said, “You dropped the bag in the car, remember? Month-old meatloaf doesn’t make a clunk like that when it hits the floor.”

“Didn’t think you were paying close attention,” Wilkins told him.

“I get people to underestimate me that way. I was just glad the damn thing didn’t go off accidentally.”

“The safety is on and the chamber is empty.”

The two men got back into Tall Wolf’s car.

Wilkins said, “You still want to know the
exact
location of the gold, don’t you? Save you the trouble of finding it.”

Tall Wolf looked at him. Lowered his sunglasses so the man could see his eyes.

“No, I don’t. I don’t care about the exact location. That’s not why I came to see you.”

He put his Ray-Bans back in place and started the car.

“So why’d you come then?” Wilkins asked.

“I want to know which party to the lawsuit over the land, if either, has found the gold.”

Wilkins told him which one.

“Has he been taking much of it?” the special agent asked.

“Enough that some people have talked about killing him.”

Tall Wolf said, “Hold off on that.”

“Why?”

“That help I was talking about giving you? I think I know a way you can get the title to that land legally.”

There was a minute of silence before Wilkins asked, “What’s in it for you?”

“I have my interests, but I don’t want any of the gold.”

Wilkins tried to understand that and came up empty.

But he remembered the look in Tall Wolf’s eyes, and hadn’t heard a lie in his voice.

He said, “You want to tell me what you’re thinking, I’ll listen.”

Ron Ketchum took Keely Powell out on Lake Adeline in one of the police department’s patrol boats. He used the prerogative of rank to give the officers who had been scheduled to start their shift another hour of paid lunch. The chief wasn’t just showing Keely a good time or the perks of running your own cop shop, he was trying to keep the town safe.

That and sort out his own future.

While keeping his eyes on nearby watercraft, looking for signs any of them was helmed by a zealot with malice in his heart, he asked Keely, “You think John Tall Wolf is smarter than you and me?”

“Well, you, sure. Me? It might be a nip and tuck race.”

Ron took his eyes off the search for evildoers and looked at his old friend.

His new lover.

“I’m the slow kid in class, huh?”

“Well, you’ll remember I made it through Loyola Marymount in four years, with honors, before becoming a cop. I’m pretty sure Tall Wolf took a similar path. You, I believe, took three times as long to get through UCLA in your spare time.”

Ron resumed scanning the lake. “Dogged determination doesn’t count for anything?”

“Counts for a lot. Shows you won’t let your shortcomings keep you down.”

She laughed before Ron could ask if she was serious. Then he had to laugh, too.

Keely said, “It’s been a long time since we’ve had any competition in the smart-cop department. If you think Tall Wolf has been a half-step ahead of us, remember that he hasn’t had to worry if maybe his boss or his dad was involved in a homicide. He isn’t distracted by a gorgeous woman from his past reentering his life. His take on things isn’t blurred by the emotions he feels for his new hometown.”

Ron spared Keely a glance. “You’re right; you are definitely smarter than me.”

Keely nodded. “It’s better you came to that realization on your own.”

Ron gave the wheel a sharp turn. Keely started to pitch sideways when Ron grabbed her, sparing her a fall. She growled at him and said, “You did that on purpose.”

“Yeah. Sometimes the best comeback isn’t verbal.”

He kissed her and let her go. She patted his backside. All was well.

“You’ve also been distracted by this idea of your becoming mayor,” Keely said.

“I’ve decided I’m going to go all out when I run for office.”

“Didn’t we used to hate pols, pretty much all of them?”

“We did. That’s why I’ll see if I can avoid most of the sniveling, sneaky stuff they trade in every day. I don’t have the star-power to
rule
the way Clay does. I’ll just try to play things straight … with one exception.”

“You’re not going to loot the town budget, I hope,” Keely said.

“No, but I’m thinking about enriching a friend.”

“Anyone I know?” Keely said, waggling her eyebrows.

“I’d like to take you up on your consulting detective idea, give you a five-year contract at a good rate of compensation with the perks we discussed.”

“Huh. This is where I have to ask: What’s the catch?”

“We’d both have to agree on who the new chief of police would be.”