Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(46)

“I hope there’s another mews in one of the other buildings.”

“Or they aren’t here at all,” Geronimo said. Nate noted the slight elation in his voice. He obviously didn’t want to be done with their mission.



* * *



—

They looked in the windows of two other outbuildings. One was a smaller mews, but the crosses were just as empty. The other building was filled with typical ranch junk: broken-down pickups, a tractor with three flat tires, an old trailer wagon that had probably come with the place.

Nate was frustrated and angry. He said, “I think it’s time to pay a call on Smisek and Prentice.”

“Will they be armed?”

“What do you think?” Nate said. “They’re outlaws running two illegal operations: falcon smuggling and gunrunning. They’re hated by legit falconers and targeted by federal wildlife agents. They’re probably paranoid as hell.”

Geronimo checked the loads in his shotgun, even though he’d already done that before they’d left Nate’s van.

“Lead the way,” he said to Nate.



* * *



—

Nate approached the back door of the ranch house slightly from the side, moving from Russian olive bush to Russian olive bush. He kept his eyes open for movement from behind the windows and storm door and he swept his vision across the back of the house for trip wires or motion sensors. He didn’t see any.

He made his way across a flagstone patio toward the back concrete porch stairs. Geronimo stayed with him.

They pressed themselves against the brick wall on the back of the house and listened. There was a slight murmuring sound inside. Nate guessed it was from a television or radio.

He reached up and grasped the storm door handle. It wasn’t locked. He eased the door open and stepped between it and the back door. Geronimo held the storm door open so it wouldn’t slam shut on them.

Nate held his weapon next to his temple as he peered through the door’s window into the kitchen. He could see two plates on the table as well as silverware. A pot of something was on the stove and a red light glowed on the control panel.

“They’re home,” Nate mouthed to Geronimo.

Geronimo mimicked knocking on the door and raised his eyebrows in a question.

Nate shook his head.

The wooden door was unlocked as well. Nate turned the knob, pushed the door inward, went in, and moved to the side in a shooter’s stance. Geronimo navigated the storm door and let it ease shut behind him, then moved into the kitchen to Nate’s right.

He could smell roasting turkey from the oven and it made him salivate. Prentice and Smisek were cooking their Thanksgiving meal.

A radio on the kitchen counter next to the stove was playing classical music at low volume. Nate could sense no movement from any of the rooms in the house. He checked out the pots on the stove. One was filled with mashed potatoes and the other green beans. Gravy in a saucepan had been simmering on the burner for a while. It wasn’t yet fully congealed, but it appeared to be the thickness of wet plaster. He turned the burners off but kept the radio on so as not to alert anyone inside of their entry.

He lowered his revolver and pressed it against his thigh. An opening in the kitchen revealed a hallway leading to a sun-filled great room at the front of the house. Nate moved slowly and deliberately down the hall, ready to sprawl out or dart into a side room if necessary. Even as he did so, he noticed the framed photos on the walls of Smisek and Prentice. There were shots of them with falconers in the Middle East desert, sipping drinks on the beach of what looked like Mexico, skiing together, and embracing at what looked like a drunken wedding reception.

Nate smelled it before he saw it—the comingling of roasting turkey, gunpowder, and blood in the air.

He entered the great room following his raised weapon. It settled first on Ken Smisek, who was sprawled out in a lounge chair with his arms out and his head flung back. There was a dark-tinged hole beneath his chin and the top of his head was missing. Blood spatter and bone fragments covered the wall and ceiling. A heavy Ruger Redhawk .357 Magnum revolver lay on the floor under his open hand in a pool of blood.

Bob Prentice lay on his back on the floor in the middle of the room. He’d been shot twice in the chest, and the carpet below him had been dyed red by blood from the exit wounds in his back. His face was frozen into a grimace.

“Oh, man . . .” Geronimo said, sniffing. “This just happened. Murder-suicide?”

Nate nodded. “Or meant to look like it.”

Then he gestured to Geronimo that they should split up and clear all the rooms in the house to make sure no one was hiding out.

“Don’t touch anything,” Nate whispered.

There was no one in any of the rooms of the house, including the basement and attic. Nate was struck by how clean and orderly it was. Prentice and Smisek were meticulous housekeepers.

When they were alive.

Nate pushed open the door to a spare bedroom that also served as a home office. It had been ransacked. An extra-large gun safe dominated one wall. The door to the safe gaped open and it was empty inside.



* * *



—

When the two of them returned to the great room, they holstered their weapons. Nate kneeled down over Prentice’s body and pressed his fingertips to the man’s neck. He was surprised to feel a very slight and wavery pulse.