Tyrannosaur Canyon (3 page)

 

4

 

 

DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT JIMMIE Wilier sat in the back of the police chopper, tired

as hell, feeling the thudding of the rotors in every bone. He glanced down at the ghostly nightscape slipping by underneath them. The chopper pilot was following the course of the
Chama
River
, every bend shimmering like the blade of a scimitar. They passed small villages along the banks, little more than clusters of lights-San Juan Pueblo, Medanales, Abiquiii. Here and there a lonely car crawled along Highway 84, throwing a tiny yellow beam into the great darkness. North of Abiquiii reservoir all lights ceased; beyond lay the mountains and canyons of the Chama wilderness and the vast high mesa country, uninhabited to the
Colorado
border.

Wilier shook his head. It was a hell of a place to get murdered.

He fingered the pack of Marlboros in his shirt pocket. He was annoyed at being roused out of his bed at
midnight
, annoyed at getting Santa Fe's lone police chopper aloft, annoyed that they couldn't find the M.E., annoyed that his own deputy was out at the Cities of Gold Casino, blowing his miserable paycheck on the tables, cell phone turned off. On top of that it cost six hundred dollars an hour to run the chopper, an expense that came straight out of his budget. And this was only the first trip. There would have to be a second with the M.E. and the scene-of-crime team before they could move the body and collect evidence. Then there would be the publicity . . . Perhaps, thought Wilier hopefully, it was just another drug murder and wouldn't garner more than a day's story in the New Mexican.

Yeah, please make it a drug murder.

"There. Joaquin Wash. Head east," said Broadbent to the pilot. Wilier shot a glance at the man who'd spoiled his evening. He was tall, rangy, wearing a pair of worn-out cowboy boots, one bound together with duct tape.

The chopper banked away from the river.

"Can you fly lower?"

The chopper descended, slowing down at the same time, and Wilier could see the canyon rims awash in the moonlight, their depths like bottomless cracks in the earth. Spooky damn country.

"The Maze is right down there," Broadbent said. "The body was just inside the mouth where the Maze joins
Joaquin
Canyon
."

The chopper slowed more, came back around. The moon was almost directly overhead, illuminating most of the canyon bottom. Wilier saw nothing but silvery sand.

"Put it down in that open area."

"Sure thing."

The pilot went into a hover and began the descent, the chopper whipping up a whirlwind of dust from the dry wash before touching down. In a moment they had come to rest, dust clouds billowing away, the thudding whistle of the rotors powering down.

"I'll stay with the chopper," said the pilot. "You do your thing."

"Thanks, Freddy."

Broadbent piled out and Wilier followed, keeping low, his eyes covered against the flying dust, jogging until he was beyond the backwash. Then he stopped, straightened up, slid the pack out of his pocket, and fired one up.

Broadbent walked ahead. Wilier switched on his Maglite and shined it around. "Don't step on any tracks," he called to Broadbent. "I don't want the forensic guys on my case." He shined the Mag up the mouth of the canyon. There was nothing but a flat bed of sand between two walls of sandstone.

"What's up there?"

"That's the Maze," said Broadbent.

"Where's it go to?"

"A whole lot of canyons running up into Mesa de los Viejos. Easy to get lost in there, Detective."

"Right." He swept the light back and forth. "I don't see any tracks."

"Neither do I. But they have to be around here somewhere."

"Lead the way."

He followed Broadbent, walking slowly. The flashlight was hardly necessary in the bright moonlight, and in fact it was more of a hindrance. He switched it off.

"I still don't see any tracks." He looked ahead. The canyon was bathed from wall to wall in moonlight, and it looked empty-not a rock or a bush, a footprint or a body as far as the eye could see.

Broadbent hesitated, looking around.

Wilier started to get a bad feeling.

"The body was right in this area. And the tracks of my horse should be plainly visible over there . . ."

Wilier said nothing. He bent down, snubbed his cigarette out in the sand, put the butt in his pocket.

"The body was right in this area. I'm sure of it."

Wilier switched on the light, shined it around. Nothing. He switched it off, took another drag.

"The burro was over there," Broadbent continued, "about a hundred yards off."

There were no tracks, no body, no burro, nothing but an empty canyon in the moonlight. "You sure this is the right place?" Wilier asked.

"Positive."

Wilier hooked his thumbs into his belt and watched Broadbent walk around and examine the ground. He was a tall, easy-moving type. In town they said he was Croesus-but up close he sure didn't look rich, with those crappy old boots and Salvation Army shirt.

Wilier hawked up a piece of phlegm. There must be a thousand canyons out here, it was the middle of the night-Broadbent had taken them to the wrong canyon.

"Sure this is the place?"

"It was right here, at the mouth of this canyon."

"Another canyon, maybe?"

"No way."

Wilier could see with his own damn eyes that the canyon was wall-to-wall empty. The moonlight was so bright it was like
noon
.

"Well it isn't here now. They're no tracks, no body, no blood-nothing."

"There was a body here, Detective."

"Time to call it a night, Mr. Broadbent."

"You're just going to give up?"

Wilier took a long, slow breath. "All I'm saying is, we should come back in the morning when things look more familiar." He wasn't going to lose his patience with this guy.

"Come over here," said Broadbent, "looks like the sand's been smoothed."

Wilier looked at the guy. Who the hell was he to tell him what to do?

"I see no evidence of a crime here. That chopper is costing my department six hundred dollars an hour. We'll return tomorrow with maps, a GPS unit-and find the right canyon."

"I don't believe you heard me, Detective. I am not going anywhere until 1 ve solved this problem."

"Suit yourself. You know the way out." Wilier turned, walked back to the

chopper, climbed in. "We're out of here."

The pilot took off his earphones. "And him?" "He knows the way out." "He's signaling you." Wilier swore under his breath, looked out at the dark figure a few hundred

yards off. Waving, gesturing.

"Looks like he found something," the pilot said.

"Christ Almighty." Wilier heaved himself out of the chopper, hiked over. Broadbent had scuffed away a dry patch of sand, exposing a black, wet, sticky layer underneath.

Wilier swallowed, unhooked his flashlight, clicked it on.

"Oh, Jesus," he said, taking a step back. "Oh, Jesus."

 

 

5

 

 

WEED MADDOX BOUGHT a blue silk jacket, silk boxer shorts, and a pair of gray

slacks from Seligman's on

Thirty-fourth Street

, along with a white T-shirt, silk socks, and Italian shoes-and put them all on in the dressing room. He paid for it with his own American Express card-his first legitimate one, printed right there on the front, Jimson A. Maddox, member since 2005-and stepped out into the street. The clothes drove off some of the nervousness he'd been feeling about his upcoming meeting with Corvus. Funny how a fresh set of clothes could make you feel like a new man. He flexed the muscles of his back, felt the rippling and stretching of the material. Better, much better.

He caught a cab, gave the address, and was whisked uptown.

Ten minutes later he was being ushered into the paneled office of Dr. Iain Corvus. It was grand. A blocked-up fireplace in pink marble graced one corner, and a row of windows looked out over Central Park. The young Brit was standing at the side of his desk, restlessly sorting through some papers.

Maddox halted in the door, hands clasped in front, waiting to be acknowledged. Corvus was as wound up as ever, his nonexistent lips tight as a vise, his chin jutting out like the bow of a boat, his black hair combed straight back, which Maddox guessed was the latest style in London. He wore a well-cut charcoal suit and a crisp Turnbull and Asser shirt-collar buttoned down-set off by a bloodred silk tie.

Now here was a guy, Maddox thought, who could benefit from meditation.

Corvus paused in his sorting and peered over the tops of his glasses. "Well, well, if it isn't Jimson Maddox, back from the front." His British accent seemed plummier than ever. Corvus was about his own age, mid-thirties, but the two

men couldn't be more different, from different planets even. Strange to think that a tattoo had brought them together.

Corvus held out his hand and Maddox took it, experiencing the crisp shake that was neither too long nor too short, neither limp nor aggressive. Maddox suppressed a welling of emotion.

This was the man who got him out of
Pelican
Bay
.

Corvus took Maddox's elbow and guided him into a chair in the little sitting area at the far end of the office, in front of the useless fireplace. Corvus went to his office door, said something to his secretary, shut and locked it, and then sat down opposite him, restlessly crossing and uncrossing his legs until he seemed to get it right. He leaned forward, his face dividing the air as cleanly as a cleaver, his eyes shining. "Cigar?" "Gave 'em up." "Smart fellow. You mind?" "Hell no."

Corvus took one from a humidor, clipped the end, lit it. He took a moment to draw a good red tip on it, then lowered it and looked at Maddox through a turning veil of smoke.

"Good to see you, Jim."

Maddox liked the way Corvus always gave him his full attention, speaking to him like an equal, like the stand-up guy he was. Corvus had moved heaven and earth to free him from prison; and with one phone call he could put him back in. Those two facts aroused intense, conflicting feelings that Maddox hadn't yet

sorted out.

"Well," said Corvus, sitting back and releasing a stream of smoke.

Something about Corvus always made him nervous. He withdrew the map from his pocket and held it out.

"I found this in the guy's pack."

Corvus took it with a frown, unfolded it. Maddox waited for the congratulations. Instead, Corvus's face reddened. With a brusque motion he flipped the map onto the table. Maddox leaned over to pick it up.

"Don't bother," came the sharp reply. "It's worthless. Where's the notebook?"

Maddox didn't answer directly. "It was like this ... I followed Weathers into the high mesas, but he shook me. I waited two weeks for him to come back out. When he did, I ambushed him, killed him."

There was an electric silence.

"You killed him?"

"Yeah. You want the guy running around to the cops, telling everyone you jumped his claim or whatever you call it? Look, trust me, the guy had to die."

A long silence. "And the notebook?"

"That's the thing. I didn't find a notebook. Just the map. And this." He took the metal box with the switches and LED screen out of the bag he was carrying and laid it on the table.

Corvus didn't even look at it. "You didn't find the notebook?"

Maddox swallowed. "Nope. Never found it."

"He had to have had it on him."

"He didn't. I shot him from the top of a canyon and had to hike five miles to get to the bottom. Almost two hours. By the time I reached him someone had gotten there first, another prospector, hoping to cash in. A guy on horseback, his tracks were all over. I searched the dead man and his donkey, turned everything inside out. There was no notebook. I took everything of value, swept the site clean, and buried him."

Corvus looked away.

"After burying Weathers, I tried to follow this other guy's tracks, but lost him. Luckily the guy's name was in the papers the next day. He lives on a ranch north of Abiquiii, supposedly a horse vet by profession, name of Broadbent." He paused.

"Broadbent took the notebook," Corvus said in a monotone.

"That's what I think, and that's why I looked into his background. He's married, spends a lot of time riding around the back country. Everybody knows him. They say he's rich-although you'd never know it from looking at him."

Corvus locked his eyes on Maddox.

"I'll get that notebook for you, Dr. Corvus. But what about the map? I mean-

"The map's a fake."

Another agonizing silence.

"And the metal box?" Maddox said, pointing to the object he had retrieved from Weathers's burro. "It looks to me like there's a computer in there. Maybe on the hard disk-"

"That's the central unit of Weathers's homemade ground-penetrating radar unit. It has no hard disk-the data's in the notebook. That's why I wanted the notebook-not a worthless map."

Maddox turned his eyes away from Corvus's stare, slipped his hand into his pocket, and retrieved the chunk of rock, putting it down on the glass table. "Weathers also had this in his pocket."

Corvus stared at it, his whole expression changing. He reached out with a spidery hand and plucked it gently from the table. He retrieved a loupe from his desk and examined it more closely. A long minute ticked by, and then another. Finally he looked up. Maddox was surprised to see the transformation that had taken place on his face. Gone was the tightness, the glittering eyes. His face had