Gray Ghost Murders (9781101606070) (15 page)

“The warrior believes the cartridge you're looking for is the .475 No. 2 Nitro Express. It's a rimmed cartridge developed in the early 1900s by W. J. Jeffery, a top-tier London gunmaker. Ballistically, the cartridge is similar to the better-known .470 Nitro, except shooting a bullet a few thousandths of an inch bigger around. Jeffery double rifles are highly sought after for African big-game hunting, particularly for buffalo and elephant.”

“There you go,” Sam said. “Four seven five numero dos.” He scratched the bridge of his crooked nose. Sean clicked off the search engine, Sam's computer reverting to a screen saver photo of a bikini blonde wearing hip boots, a rod in one hand and a salmon in the other, the fish days dead and the model's expression only slightly less so.

Sean rubbed the ears of Killer, Sam's big Airedale, who lay beside him on the upholstered booth seat in the kitchen nook.

“So are you going to tell me what this is about, or do I have to guess?” Sam said.

“I can tell you this much. The bullet was found with a metal detector on Sphinx Mountain, near where those bodies were unearthed. There's no proof that it has anything to do with the deaths, but we have to check it out. There's a guy in the valley who has hunted in Africa with rifles that are chambered for similar rounds.”

“Close but no cigar, you're saying.”

“No, not the same. But he's a collector, he might have a .475 No. 2. If he does, then he becomes a person of interest because these rifles are expensive and very rare.”

“Just ask the fucker if he owns one, that's what I'd do.”

“The man doesn't know we have the bullet. If he hears the caliber mentioned, he'll know we found evidence and get rid of the rifle.”

“Did you get DNA off the bullet? If you didn't, then you can't tie it to the body except by proximity. Proving it came out of a particular rifle will put this guy at the scene, but he can just say he was shooting at an elk.” Sam saw Sean's expression.

“What? So I've watched a few episodes of
CSI
. Who hasn't?”

“No, you make a good point.” Sean hesitated. He said, “I've already told you more than I was supposed to, but I'm going to go with my gut on this. Most crimes are solved because people can't keep their mouths shut. You're a guy who hears everything about everyone. But you have to promise, this is just between us.”

Sam held up his hands. “Never leaves the trailer, Kimosabe.”

“About the DNA, that's confidential. And I'm not at liberty to tell you anything specific about the bodies. But all along, the question's been: What were these men doing up there? Were they killed by someone? Or did they commit suicide and have someone bury them? These were older guys who were sick and weren't going to get better, so they may have deliberately been looking for a way out. It isn't out of the question that they died in some form of paintball warfare, but with bullets and not paint. That last is my own speculation. Nobody else seems to think much of it.”

“All right, I'll keep my ears open. Be an excuse to hit a few more bars than I already do. Can I run a tab with the department?”

“You wish. Let's boot up your computer again. There's something I'd like to Google.”

•   •   •

B
y the time he reached Martinique's, it was past midnight. He let himself into the darkness and felt one of the cats rub against his leg. Martinique had told him she had an anatomy test tomorrow and Sean had intended to sleep at the cultural center. But when he left Sam's, he'd hesitated only a moment before driving to the grain elevator. It had nothing to do with physical desire. He just wanted to be near her, had found that the studio only reminded him of how long he'd lived alone. Sleeping on his futon with the second-floor windows open, he'd listen for the distant trains and feel the loneliness of the other solitary sleepers to whom love was a faint murmuring of those who passed in the dark and might have been, if only you had met them.

At Martinique's, he lay down on the couch and drew up the Indian-print buffalo blanket. Toward morning he was awakened by her opening the back door, where the outside steps led to the loft. He heard her moving about, her feet padding into and out of the bathroom, then coming close. She took his hand and led him back outside and up the steps with the moon watching, and in the bedroom she wriggled back against him so that they lay like spoons. He placed his hand over one of the breasts that couldn't sell snow cones in the Sahara. When he woke up again, she was gone. Her note said, “Feed the cats.” A heart drawn in pen. The scripted initial “M.” He folded it into his shirt pocket, could imagine Sam seeing it, his eyes rolling.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charging Buffalo

“I
thought you'd forgotten,” Weldon Crawford said.

He handed Stranahan a pair of shooter's earmuffs. “Have a seat in back of the spotting scope. Focus on the fifty-yard target.”

Stranahan squinted into the eyepiece. Behind the target, a bank overgrown with sagebrush served as a backstop.

“You on it?”

Sean nodded.

“Okay, as soon as you see where the first bullet strikes, say ‘Got it.' Don't tell me where the bullet struck, just say ‘Got it.' After I fire the second barrel, then you can tell me where each barrel hit the target.”

The congressman's head jerked backward violently with the recoil from the first shot, violently again at the second clap of thunder. He opened the breech of the rifle. Smoke poured out of the twin chambers. He set the big double down and removed his headgear.

“How'd I do?”

“Your first barrel is one inch high of dead center. The second”—Stranahan slightly adjusted the focus knob—“is an inch and a hair high and an inch and half right.”

“Good enough is good enough. A bull buff is a ton on the hoof. You don't have to drive tacks. Here, you shoot the next two.”

Sean hadn't shot a rifle since he was a kid, when his grandfather helped him shoulder the heavy eight-millimeter Mauser that he'd confiscated from a dead German infantryman at the end of World War II. The Mauser had a reluctant trigger pull and when Sean finally got the sear to fall, the recoil had knocked him down.

“Don't crawl the stock,” Crawford said. “If you slide your head too far forward, the recoil will knock your teeth out.” Crawford coached him into proper form, reminding him to hold the butt of the rifle tight to his shoulder. When Stranahan pulled the front trigger, the comb of the stock smacked into his cheekbone and the barrels jerked up and to the right. He brought the sights back in line and fired the left barrel.

“She hits with authority, doesn't she?”

Stranahan grunted his affirmative. “It feels like I took a one-two from George Foreman.”

“Your bullets are three inches apart, but it's easy to hold steady when you're shooting paper. Now that you've popped your cherry, let's see how you do with something coming at you.”

Crawford led Sean to a pulley apparatus strung between two Ponderosa pine trunks. A life-size cutout of a Cape buffalo bull was wired to the rope cable. Crawford showed him how the pulley system worked to draw the buffalo forward in a simulated charge. He said, “I'll go first so you see what you're up against. When I say ‘Pull,' you haul on that rope fast as you can. I'll start with an empty rifle, load two cartridges as he comes, and see if I can get one in to stop him.” He held the rifle at port arms across his body, two gleaming brass cartridges protruding between the middle and ring fingers of his left hand.

“Pull!”

As the buffalo sped toward him in jerking starts, Crawford pushed the top lever to open the breech, dumped in the two cartridges, snapped the action shut, raised the double, and fired. He brought the barrels down out of recoil and fired again as the target swung in on him from only a few yards away. Sean stopped hauling and they examined the target. The first bullet had cut a hole in the buffalo's chest, just under the nose; the second had hit over the massed boss of the horns, where the neck merged with the swollen hump ahead of the shoulders.

Crawford nodded his satisfaction. “He would have stumbled at the first, gone down with the second so close I'd feel the earth shake. Think you're up to facing a charge?”

Sean wiped his palms on his jeans before taking the heavy rifle. He felt sweat crawling down his right armpit.
This is absurd
, he told himself,
it's just a poster stapled to a piece of plywood
.

Crawford had pulled the target back to its starting position thirty yards away. “Robert Ruark said a buffalo looks at you like you owe him money. You ready? Here he comes.”

Sean managed to open the rifle. He tried to fumble one of the cartridges into the breech and dropped it, tore his eyes away from the rushing target just long enough to make sure he chambered the second, threw up the rifle, and fired. He stepped to the side an instant before the target swung past where he'd been standing. He went down to one knee and fumbled for the cartridge he'd dropped.

“Too late,” Crawford said. “I saw where the bullet hit his boss. You gave him a hell of a headache, but he's trotting away with your guts hanging off his horns. Now are you still sure you want to hunt buffalo in Africa?” Crawford was standing over him, smiling down. But his eyes were not smiling and once again Sean felt the concentration of dark energy that seemed to lie just under the surface of the man's skin. An intensity that both attracted and repelled.

Stranahan got to his feet. He deliberately calmed himself. He cracked the breech open and blew a wisp of smoke from the barrel he'd fired. “Oh, I don't know,” he said. “That was my first time. Let's run it again.”

This time, he put two into the buffalo's chest before it had crossed half the distance that separated them.

Crawford grunted. “Not bad. A little off center but not bad.”

“I did some Internet shopping last night,” Sean said. “I searched a few of the gun websites—Champlin Firearms, Westley Richards, Cape Outfitters. Came up with three possibilities, a William Evans double in .450/400, a Cogswell & Harrison .470, and a Jeffery in an odd designation, .475 No. 2, if that sounds right.” He never took his eyes from Crawford's face and would have caught the slightest change of expression if there'd been one. There wasn't.

“I've owned double rifles in all those calibers,” Crawford said. “I'd tell you to get the .470 because you can buy cartridges over the counter and the other calibers you have to handload, but Cogswells are a mixed bag. Some good guns and some so-so. The .475 No. 2 is a great cartridge, but the Jefferys I've handled in that chambering run a little heavy to carry all day.” Crawford unjointed his rifle and fitted the barrels and stock into the gun case. He looked off into the distance. His voice was quiet.

“So those flies you were looking for, they're still missing?”

“Yes.”

“And you're looking out of what, the goodness of your heart? I ran into Willoughby. I know you're not a member of the club.” He fiddled with the straps on the gun case.

“I never said I was,” Stranahan said.

“No, but it was implied, wasn't it?” Crawford raised his eyes from the case. Frown lines had worked deep into his forehead. “When I'm here in the valley, Sean, I tend to let my guard down. I like to think I'm among friends. It's foolish of me. A man in my position can never be too careful. There's always somebody trying to turn a joke I shared with a receptionist into a one-night stand, or trying to twist my brother's promotion in the highway department into nepotism. Looking to unearth any skeleton to bring me down. Some men are wolves in sheep's clothing. I took you at face value. I'm a good judge of faces. Maybe I was wrong.”

“You weren't wrong. It was Willoughby who asked me to help find the fly. I'm friends with Kenneth Winston, one of the club members.”

“So why you?”

Stranahan had no idea what Willoughby had said and so had no choice but the truth. “I used to be an investigator at a law firm in Boston.”

“And you just happened to knock on my door?”

“When something's missing, you look at the people closest to the victim of the theft. Not just friends and relatives, but those who live nearby. I didn't suspect you. But you're wealthy. Your place is vacant a lot of the year. It's a cat burglar's Shangri-La. If you'd also had a break-in, it would help define the perpetrator, depending on what was missing. It was a long shot.”

“Then forgive my asking,” Crawford said. “I thought it was possible that you had worked your way into the confidence of the club to get to me. A reporter, or an investigator for the Democratic Party who could retain plausible deniability. I hate to think that way, but it's part of the hand you're dealt when you assume public office.”

“I understand.”

“Still friends?” Crawford held out his hand.

“Still friends.”

“If you decide to move on one of those doubles, let me know. Most dealers offer a three-day inspection period and I'd be happy to appraise the condition.”

Again, Crawford had surprised him, this time by what appeared to be genuine vulnerability. So Sean took the offered hand, and the irony of feeling like the heel in their encounter wasn't lost on him. The congressman might well have skeletons buried in his past, but Stranahan was having a harder and harder time believing that the bones of two men on Sphinx Mountain were among them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Resting the Trout

A
quarter mile down the draw, the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers clubhouse looked deserted, the two rental cars gone and all but one of the pegs where the members hung their waders unoccupied. Stranahan had looked forward to dropping in, perhaps having dinner, and flicking a CDC emerger into the slicks afterward, for it was a still, overcast day, with an emergence of mayfly duns a promise.

He walked around the side of the porch to get the hidden key off the meter box. He reached above his head, fingered the key from under the glass insulator, found the front door unlocked, and paused with the door half open. Something was ticking at his brain. Following his instincts, he walked back to the side of the porch. The members split firewood here and the floorboards were littered with chips and sawdust. His eyes mentally swept the floor, registering where the heavy chopping block had been pushed several feet to a position underneath the meter, then pushed back to nearly but not quite its original position, scraping the sawdust clear from its path. It had occurred so recently that the pollen from the cottonwood trees, which covered the other surfaces of the porch in a snowy dust, had yet to settle over the drag mark. The only logical reason someone would move the block, Stranahan reasoned, was to use it as a step to reach the key on the meter. Stranahan reached up to replace the key. He was a hair under six-one and it was an easy reach. The members of the club were of average height, but still, none would have needed the block. Only a small man or woman would have to make himself taller to reach the key. Or a child.

A tight smile flickered across Stranahan's lips. He went inside the clubhouse and glanced around. Nothing appeared to be missing, but if he was correct about the identity of the person who had used the key, he didn't think there would be any sign of obvious burglary. That the recent intruder was the same person who had taken the flies last week Stranahan had no doubt. He noted a couple fly boxes on the fly-tying table. An unfinished salmon fly was clamped in one of the tying vises. A Jock Scott, Stranahan thought, from the toucan feathers tied to the rear half of the hook. One of Polly Sorenson's five-hundred-dollar creations. The voice mail button under the telephone was blinking red. Stranahan punched it.

“Kimosabe, if you get this, meet me at the Palisades take-out at five. I couldn't get you on your cell, figured you might be here. I heard something guaran-fucking-teed to give you a hard-on. Adios.”

Stranahan scratched at his three-day beard. He found a scrap of paper in the kitchen with a grocery list written on it, rustled drawers until he found a pencil stub. He turned the paper over and scrawled.
I've got an idea who took the flies. I'll try to work out how best to retrieve them and get in touch. Sean.

He started to slip the note between the jaws of one of the fly-tying vises on the table, then on second thought crumpled it into his pocket. No sense raising heart rates until he was sure. He was turning to leave when the door of one of the bunkrooms opened behind him. It was Polly Sorenson, his hair disheveled.

“I'm sorry I woke you,” Sean said. “I thought the place was empty.”

“I heard the answering machine,” Sorenson said. He took his glasses from his shirt pocket and peered up at Stranahan. “I overdid the fishing this morning. A part of me still thinks I can do whatever I want. Father Time and Dr. Nesbitt assure me otherwise.” He walked to the table and sat before the vise holding the half-tied salmon fly. He folded down his magnifying lenses over his glasses.

“Can I get you anything, Polly? A glass of water, a cup of tea?”

“I'm fine.” He waved a hand. “Be gone with you. You were about to leave and I don't want to hold you up. I hope it's to see Martinique. Love is too often wasted on the young. Don't you make the mistake of taking her for granted.”

Stranahan wanted to ask Sorenson about his relationship with Weldon Crawford without appearing as if he was investigating the congressman. He took a chair at the table and asked if it was okay if he watched.

“Absolutely. I wish I had secrets to reveal, but I use the same tying techniques Kelson and Scruton pioneered in the nineteenth century.” He continued to talk as he married strands of turkey feather and kori bustard for the wing assembly. When he paused to rest his eyes, Sean saw his opening.

“I've just been up to Congressman Crawford's place on the bluff. He said you two had met.”

“That would have been last summer.” Sorenson spoke with eyes closed. “He was out for a walk and I was the only one here that week. A man that rubs you two ways at once. He invited me for dinner and I went, though I was less interested in the prospect of his company than I was in seeing the house. Impressive. The man, too, in his way. What were you doing up there?”

Stranahan told him.

Sorenson grunted. He opened his eyes and inspected the fly in the vise. “I'm afraid we've seen the last of them, the Quill Gordon and the Ghost.”

Stranahan sought to bring the conversation back to Crawford. He said, “What did you mean by Crawford rubbing you two ways at once?”

“I mean you like him and you don't.” Sorenson turned his attention from the fly to Sean. “The man's a blowhard. And he's a bully. But his interest in you seems genuine and you find yourself talking to him almost against your will. He noticed me breathing—I walked up to the house with him and even a short hike like that can be taxing some days—and he asked about it. And . . . I told him.” Sorenson glanced down, as if he was ashamed. “I hadn't told Patrick or any of the other members at that point. They thought I just suffered periodic bouts of bronchitis. After my doctors and my wife, this near stranger was the first person to know I had COPD. He asked me all kinds of questions about it, even told me he could pull some strings to get me seen at the Mayo Clinic. He'd pay the airfare and any medical bills my insurance didn't cover.”

“Did you take him up on it?”

“I would have if I thought it would help. And it might have, if I hadn't fallen climbing the bank of the Miramachi River ten years ago. I broke my ribs, punctured my right lung. Now there's scar tissue where the oxygen leaked out between the lung and chest wall. That puts a lot of strain on my respiratory system, not to mention my heart. You add it to COPD . . .” He shook his head. “I'm afraid the Mayo Clinic can't do much for me at this point.”

“He probed into my personal life, too,” Stranahan said. Crawford hadn't and Sean felt guilty for the remark, knowing he'd made it only to gain Sorenson's empathy. He pressed on. “I found him strange. He wanted to talk to me about an old short story called ‘The Most Dangerous Game.' It seemed to mean a great deal to him.”

Sean saw recognition come into Sorenson's eyes.

“Yes, yes,” Sorenson said. “Someone hunting people on an island. Man, the most dangerous game. He tried to get me to read it. I said it didn't sound like my cup of tea. He said that when his time came, he'd rather be carried out on his shield than die in a hospital. He wanted to lend me his copy of the book, told me he'd had it since he was a child. He wouldn't take no for an answer. So I took it to be polite. Returned it the next time I saw him. Never did read it.”

“Did he bring it up again this summer?”

“No. He knocked on the door here the day after I picked Patrick up at the airport. Patrick was out fishing, so it was just the two of us. I invited him in for a drink and haven't seen him since.”

“Did you show him the flies, the ones that were stolen?”

“I might have. I really can't recall.” For an instant, Sorenson glanced away. “But if what you're getting at is that he could be a suspect in their disappearance, I would disabuse you of the presumption. Weldon Crawford could buy the best fly collection on terra firma if he wanted; he has no need of ours.” Sorenson folded the magnifying lenses back over his glasses. “I'm sorry, Sean, but I have to get back to this fly if I'm going to finish it. At my age, I can't work without a lot of natural light.”

It was still two hours before he was supposed to meet Sam. Stranahan stayed in his chair. It was fascinating to watch a master tier like Sorenson. The livered, old-man hands that trembled holding a tin cup of bourbon were absolutely steady before the vise. The final touch was the horns, two matched fibers of blue macaw slightly crossing at the rear of the fly. Sorenson painted the head with lacquer and sat back and removed his glasses.

“My eyes are swimming,” he said.

“You tie a beautiful fly, Polly,” Sean said.

“It could be better. The underwing is about a millimeter off center, and it has to be perfectly vertical before you add the overwing or you're doomed.” He shut his eyes. “I'm doomed.”

Was he talking about the fly or himself? Maybe it was both. Sean's heart went out to the man.

Sorenson said, “I'd think twice before putting it up for sale with my name on it. But I won't have to, because I'm giving it to you.”

“No, I can't accept that, Polly.”

“You can and you will.” He blinked his eyes. “I'll apply several more coats of lacquer and it will ready for you the next time you come down. I'd say it was something to remember me by, but that sounds rather ghastly, doesn't it? Just accept the fly as a gift from an old man to a younger man, wishing him tight lines and loose women. I joke.”

Stranahan saw Sorenson's mouth tremble slightly and realized how hard it must be to turn a brave face to the world while the hourglass lost sand.

“Thank you,” Sean said. “I'll treasure it. Do you mind my asking you what your favorite river is? Someday I'd like to paint you into a picture.”

“It's the one outside this window. But if you ask what river made the deepest impression over the years, that would have to be the river Dee in Scotland. Jock Scott, the man who first dressed this fly, wrote about fishing the Dee. As legend has it, his original pattern included a hair from a Titian beauty. I fished the Dee once and it's as gorgeous as the day it was made. Unfortunately, I did not catch a salmon.”

“Who knows, Polly. Maybe you'll return.”

“That's kind to say, but I don't need to. I'm one of those lucky men who fish in their dreams. Some people have Paris. They shut their eyes and they have Paris. Others it's London or Rome. I have the river Dee.”

•   •   •

T
wenty minutes saw Sean to the Palisades boat take-out. The sun had worked through the clouds and was heavy on the nape of his neck. He felt a dull pain behind his eyes, the headache of the sleep-deprived. Too many hours on Martinique's couch trapped between cats. He glanced at his watch. Sam wouldn't show up for at least half an hour. He got a sleeping pad out of the Land Cruiser and found a shady spot under the riverbank willows. He lay on his side with his head on his old felt hat. A merganser with a late brood of brown fluff balls scooted across the river surface. One of the ducklings was perched on the hen's rump feathers, hitching a ride. The other three looked to be jerked along by colorless ropes. The sound of moving water was like a drug. Stranahan shut his eyes and fell asleep.

“Fucking A, would you look at that? This is what happens to a river when you let the riffraff on it.”

Stranahan opened one eye. He saw Sam towering over him. A few feet away, parallel shadows ended at the wadered feet of an older man; beside him stood a woman with Medusa hair in gray-blond ringlets. The couple wore matching straw cowboy hats with chin straps.

Sam shook his head. “This sorry sack of bones was a pretty fair fly fisherman once. Crawled down the bottle like a true Montanan. Urine must be running a hunnerd proof. Piss on your campfire and watch the whole forest shoot up in flames.”

Stranahan stood up. He walked to the river and splashed water onto his face. He came back and stuck out his hand. “Sean Stranahan.”

The man and woman each had hearty grips. A John and Lou Anne Callishaw from Solvang, California.

“I know someone from Santa Barbara who had a vineyard near Solvang,” Stranahan said. “His name's Summersby. He has a home up the valley, across from Slide Inn.”

“That's who we're staying with,” Lou Anne said. “Richard and Ann are old friends. Sam told us we'd be meeting you. We'd like to talk about commissioning a painting. We think the work you did for them is just outstanding, especially the watercolor of the Madison in the Bear Trap Canyon. So stark, but . . . beautiful.” She had intense green eyes that vibrated a little.

Stranahan made the appropriate self-deprecating remarks, ingratiating himself in his accustomed manner while inwardly shaking his head at his behavior. Selling yourself was the part he hated most about trying to brush out a living as an artist. The couple exchanged cards with him and made a tentative plan to meet Sean at the Summersby home upriver, a week from Friday. It reminded Sean that he still had to complete his oil of the Copper River in British Columbia.

Sam slapped Stranahan on his back after the couple had driven off, their car already having been shuttled to the take-out. “Thought I might bring you a little business,” he said, “you being such a fuckup as a fishing guide.”

“Well, thanks.” The money would be welcome but Stranahan felt let down. When he'd heard Sam's message, he'd thought that the big man had learned something that might help solve the riddle of the bodies on Sphinx Mountain. He told Sam as much.

Sam scratched at a new tattoo on his right upper biceps—Sylvester the cat licking his whiskers while eyeing a brown trout in a fishbowl. On Sam's left biceps was a fly fishing Mickey Mouse hooked up to a leaping rainbow trout. He rolled his waders to his waist—“
THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES
”
was stenciled on his T-shirt. He sat heavily on a cottonwood drift log on the bank.