Sundown on Top of the World: A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery (21 page)

“Damn!” Bart smacked a fist into his open palm. “We’ve arrested the old codger and he still won’t say a damn thing to save himself. He’s not the guy – I can feel it – but we can’t get him to give us anything else to go on.”

“His companion…,” began Hunter.

Bart swung around and pointed a finger at him. “Exactly! Who was the guy, and what kind of misguided loyalty won’t let Barstow give him up? It’s not like they’re gang bangers sticking to a club code of honor.”

“Is he afraid of this other man?”

Bart shook his head, frowning. “I don’t get that feeling. He’s so damn calm, seems so open and friendly, almost unflappable. Yet he refuses to cooperate in any way with us.”

Hunter rubbed his neck, then ran his hand over his eyes. He’d forgotten how tired he was.

“By the way, you look like hell,” said Bart.

“I could use a few more hours of sleep,” said Hunter. “Maybe eight or nine of them.”

Bart looked thoughtful, stroking his chin as if he had a beard. Then he went still, his eyes went blank, one of those moments Hunter had seen him have before, when he seemed to go somewhere outside his body before coming up with an insight or idea. Was Bartholomew Sam a shaman, like his father? If he was, he didn’t share that information with his RCMP colleagues. Hunter watched him closely but said nothing.

“I know what we’ll do,” said Bart, turning his eyes on Hunter.

Hunter barely noticed the ‘we’, but somehow knew that what was coming involved him.

“Hunter Rayne,” said Bart, with a sly smile, “you are under arrest.”

Elspeth was comfortably settled in the big recliner in her living room, sipping on a Coke and reading a secondhand Harlequin from the library book sale when the telephone rang. She groaned, thinking it was the driver she’d sent to Idaho calling for directions again. She had potatoes boiling and a pork chop in mushroom soup gravy simmering on the stove, and had hoped to be sitting down to dinner in about ten minutes. She cranked down the footrest on the recliner and got to her feet.

“Watson!” she said, without thinking. It was the way she always answered the phone.

“Is that the detective agency?” said an uncertain voice on the other end of the line.

El’s mouth fell open. “Yes, it is,” she said, hoping she didn’t have to remember the names she’d given the fellow in Michigan. “Can I help you?”

“Someone there was looking for me, or for someone with the same name as me. My maiden name is Corbett. April Corbett.”

El pumped her fist in the air. The fish was on the line. “Yes. Yes, we were.”

“Something about rescuing a dog?”

“What I told your brother was that a woman whose dog you rescued wanted to reward you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t recall the incident. Where was this exactly?”

El took a deep breath. She felt uncomfortable continuing the charade with the woman herself. “Actually, I don’t have all the details myself. My job was to locate you – get your phone number, essentially –so that the – uh – my client – could call you himself.”

“Himself? It’s a man? Who is it that’s looking for me?” The voice on the phone had gone from pleasantly curious to suspicious and more than a little anxious.

El didn’t want April Corbett to freak right out and refuse to give out her contact information, and she had promised Hunter – sort of – just to find a phone number, not to make the call. “Uh – he’s a middleman himself, I guess you could say.”

“Oh, my God. It’s my daughter. Is it? Is it my daughter? Is she looking for me? Then she’s alive?”

El was confused. This was going in a totally different direction from what she’d expected. “Your daughter?” April Corbett was supposed to be missing; Hunter said nothing about a daughter. “Are you the April Corbett who went to the Yukon in the early seventies?”

“Yes! Yes!”

El swallowed hard. She found it so interesting, helping Hunter out, and she would hate to screw up again. More than interesting, she felt so proud, so gratified, that he would let her play a role in something of such consequence, almost life and death. She really, really wanted to succeed this time. “I’m sorry, but I was never told anything about your daughter. But if you can leave your number with me –”

“What’s going on? Has something happened to her? If it’s not my daughter, who is it that’s looking for me?”

El heard a man’s voice in the background, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying. For sure, she didn’t want to give out Hunter’s name. Before she could say anything, she heard April say, “I don’t know, baby. They want my phone number but they won’t tell me why.”

Then a man’s voice came on the line. “Who is this? Is this some kind of scam?”

What could she say that wouldn’t dig her into a deeper hole? “No, sir. Believe me, it will be in her best interest –“

“In
your
best interest, no doubt. If you can’t be up front about it, I can’t see how it’s in my wife’s best interest.”

“But –,” El wished she could think fast enough to solve this before he hung up on her. “This is really important. I’m not at lib-…“

He interrupted her again. “There you go again. I’ll be the one to decide if it’s important. Just tell me exactly what it’s about.”

El hated to be interrupted. Many drivers had found that out the hard way. It was one of the few – well, maybe one of the many – ways to make her mad.

“Let me fuckin’ finish, asshole!” she bellowed.

The man’s response was a definitive ‘click’, followed by a dial tone.

“Did Orville ever see you?”

Hunter had never seen Orville, but the reverse might not necessarily be true. Orville had been around the first day he’d visited Betty Salmon’s cabin; Hunter had seen his old Ford truck, if not the man himself. But had Orville seen him, or seen him well enough to recognize him again? “He might have, from a distance. I should scruffy myself up. Got anything I could wear?”

Bart looked him up and down. “You’re not far off my brother-in-law’s height and weight. You remember that stuff we took out of the back of his Blazer?”

Hunter wrinkled his nose as he recalled the filthy clothing, steeped in mud and what smelled like motor oil. “So what’s my story?”

“You’ve got to have something in common with our Mr. Barstow, right?”

A few hours later, a disheveled, limping miner was escorted to a holding cell in the detachment lock-up. He wore a pair of cargo pants and a wrinkled olive drab shirt. One young constable unlocked the cell door, and another gave the miner a gentle shove with a pleasant, “Here you go, buddy. Make yourself at home.”

The miner resisted with a, “But he deserved what he got. I’m not the bad guy here.” He planted his feet outside the cell and grabbed one of the bars.

The constable gave him another shove – rougher this time – and said, “Tell it to the judge, buddy. No good talking to me.”

Hunter stood looking after the two constables as they walked away. The detachment building had been only five years old when he’d been a young constable here in 1972, and it was beginning to show its age. It felt so familiar on the other side of the bars. This side was a different story. He grabbed two bars and leaned his head against the door for a minute or two before turning around to examine the cell and its only other occupant.

“Welcome,” said a jovial looking older man sitting on a bench with his back against the wall. “It’s not the Hilton, but it’s clean and mosquito free.”

“Damn,” said Hunter, as if talking to himself. “I don’t get it. I just came into town for a restaurant meal, a hotel shower and to see what was holding up our supplies and I end up here in the lock-up. I should’ve stayed out on the claim and waited until that son-of-a-bitch got back.” He shook his head and exhaled loudly. “Assuming he was ever coming back.”

“No use crying over spilt milk,” said Orville, cheerfully. “Your partner screwed you over?”

“The SOB was supposed to buy supplies and be back within two weeks. Three weeks pass and I figure it’s time to hike out and see if he’s okay.”

“And was he?”

Hunter’s miner persona snorted. “He was happy as a pig in shit. He spent half the money on booze and broads – mostly booze from the smell of him – and probably would’ve spent the whole wad if I hadn’t showed up.” He shook his head. ”You work your ass off and don’t come out ahead.”

“How did you end up in here?”

“I beat the crap out of him and took all the money he had left –
my
share of it, or maybe less – and then the drunken son-of-a-bitch has the nerve to call the cops and say he was robbed.” Hunter rubbed a grimy sleeve across his nose and immediately regretted it. It took everything he had to keep from gagging at the smell. The shirt had obviously been rolled up dirty and wet, and now smelled like wet dog. He did his best to look sorry for himself for a couple of minutes, then walked over and sat beside Orville.

“How about you? What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this? You remind me of Santa Claus.”

Orville smiled, but didn’t seem in a hurry to reply, and that gave Hunter a flash of concern that Orville had recognized him, so he glossed over his question by adding, “I hope when Mickey sobers up he’ll get them to drop the charges. He’s not a bad guy when he’s sober.”

“I’m sure you’ll be out of here in no time,” Orville said.

Hunter had to agree with Bart. Orville Barstow didn’t strike him as a murderer, especially not one who would stick a knife under an old friend’s ribs, unless he was an extraordinarily talented actor. So what about Orville’s mystery companion? Who was he, and how could Hunter shift the conversation in a direction that would bring him into it?

“When he’s sober, Mickey’d give me the shirt off his back. He’d even take a hit for me.” Hunter began to rub at a black smudge on the bench between himself and Orville as a cover for watching the older man out of the corner of his eye. “Like he was my big brother, you know what I mean?”

“So he’s a true friend, then,” said Orville, in the same light and friendly tone. He, too, was idly watching Hunter’s finger stroke the bench.

Hunter kept rubbing away at the smudge. “More than a friend, I mean.” The witnesses said Orville’s companion was a younger, taller man. They’d been asked to describe him further, but the witnesses didn’t have much to add, except that he had the dark hair and sparse beard typical of a native. On a hunch, Hunter said, “Once he said I was like a son to him.”

It was almost imperceptible, but Hunter had years of experience in recognizing tells. Orville’s eyes flicked away from the bench and he raised his head slightly. He said nothing in response.

“I always wished I had a son myself,” Hunter said. “Must be nice to know you’ve left a piece of you behind in the world, eh?” He stopped rubbing the bench and leaned closer to Orville. “Sorry, I don’t know your name. Why are you in here, anyway? You seem like a real nice guy.”

Orville smiled. Sadly, Hunter thought.

“My name is Orville Barstow.” He took a breath and looked up, beyond the bars, into a distance that Hunter couldn’t see. “And I guess one could say that I’m here in jail because I won’t talk to the police.”

“That’s not a crime.”

“No. I don’t think it is.”

“Then why are you really here?”

“Ultimately, I guess it’s because I’m old and I’ve had a good life, and I wanted to protect someone dear to me.”

“So you got into a fight over a woman, eh?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.”

“Either I’m not very smart or you’re deliberately trying to confuse me.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I am being rather vague”

“So you want me to mind my own business. I can take a hint.” Hunter tried to look hurt, gambling that Orville Barstow was sympathetic enough to fall for it.

Orville held up his hands, as if giving up. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It’s not that, really. I guess I’m just uncomfortable with the idea that I’ve been arrested for murder.”

Hunter lifted his eyebrows. “Murder? Wow! I never would have guessed you were in for killing somebody. You’re just about the farthest thing from a murderer I’ve ever met.”

The old man shrugged. “I never would have guessed I’d be arrested for murder myself. I’d rather cut my losses and walk away from trouble than do something like that.”

“So you didn’t do it, then.”

“Of course I didn’t do it.”

“Then why did they arrest you?”

Orville seemed to be thinking it over. He leaned in close and spoke in almost a whisper.

“I don’t want to incriminate anyone else, you see? I guess a witness gave them my description, because I did talk to the fellow who was killed that night. I don’t know for sure what happened, other than what I heard on the radio the next day, but they seem to think it was either me or the fellow I was with. I don’t want to make trouble for him, this other fellow.”

“So you could get out of here if you gave up this other guy, but you’re being noble and taking the fall? Are you crazy?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Who is this other guy? Your brother?”