Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(70)

"They. As in two."

Grubb nodded. "Could be more. There were tire tracks down that way. FBI took some plaster mold footprints too. I don’t recall exactly what the story was."

"Cause of death?"

"Old boy got it right between the eyes at short range. Hell of a shooter. You know what a Sheridan Knock about is?"

".22 caliber single shot pistol," Maia said, almost absently. "Went out of production in ’62; only twenty thousand were made."

Grubb and Drapiewski gaped at her. In khakis and a white tank top, her eyes invisible behind large black sunglasses, Maia looked like a safari veteran. There was a single line of sweat running from her ear to her jaw. Otherwise the heat seemed to be having no effect on her. She’d been looking toward the deer blind until she noticed that she’d become the center of attention.

She shrugged. "Just a guess."

Larry grinned.

"A Sheridan," I said. "My dad had one, actually got it right after Korea."

Grubb was back to swabbing his forehead. "Sure. They were popular with a lot of the vets. Target shooters, mostly. Thing was, it’s a mighty strange gun to murder somebody with. Very clear striations on the bullet—easy to pin down. And by ’85 they weren’t what you’d call standard street issue."

I thought about a picture I’d seen in the Sheffs’ house—Dan Sr. as a young soldier, off for Korea. I thought about the box of .22 ammo in Dan Jr.’s office closet.

"And you said it’s a single shot."

Larry whistled silently. “You got to be pretty sure of your shooting to kill a man like Halcomb with a gun like that. Pretty damn ballsy."

“Or," said Maia, “you’ve got to be not really planning on murder. You might bring a gun like that along for protection to a dangerous meeting, if it’s the only gun you have. Or for a little leverage if things got rough. But probably not for a premeditated kill. Either way you’re not talking about a pro." She looked at me. "Not the mob. They’d come a lot better prepared."

Grubb looked Maia up and down one more time, a mixture of confusion and budding respect on his sticky forehead. "What’d you say you were again, honey? Chinese?"

To her credit, Maia left his face intact. She said dryly, "That’s right, Mr. Grubb. The ones who built the railroads. You remember."

I looked back at the cows and tried to think. The cows didn’t offer any suggestions.

"Is there anything else?" I asked Grubb.

The old deputy took his eyes off Maia, looked at me, and shook his head. "Just a dead end, son."

Drapiewski shrugged. He looked sorry, but not surprised.

I could’ve left then. I had something to go on. Our two law enforcement escorts were definitely ready to get back to the air-conditioning and the Dilly Bars of a friendly Dairy Queen. But after sweating in the sunshine and swatting the mosquitoes for a few more minutes, I started walking down toward the place where Halcomb had been shot.

There were more mesquite trees down in the hollow. The dry brush was so high we had sticker burrs as thick as fur on our pants by the time we got to the murder site. It was a small clearing barely accessible by two tire ruts that led off into the woods. It was the place in Beau Karnau’s photos.

"Not a bad place for a meeting," Larry said. "Very low-profile. "

He started picking the sticker burrs out of his crotch. Maia leaned against a dead tree. Grubb just looked at me, losing patience.

"What are you thinking, son?" he asked.

I wanted to give him an answer. I didn’t have one.

"Who owns this land?" I asked.

Grubb thought about it. "Right now, I don’t know. It was pretty much abandoned in ’84. Old Mr. Baker passed on and none of the sons would move back into the house. Then in ’86 the ranch burned down. It’s changed hands plenty of times since. Nobody uses it nowadays except the neighbors’ cattle."

"What neighbors?"

“Vivians on the north, Gardiners on the south."

Neither name rang a bell.

“A ranch house burned down?"

Grubb nodded. He told me about the big electrical storm they’d had back in ’86. Lightning had caused a dozen small fires, one of them taking the old ranch house up the hill. He looked at me suspiciously.

"I reckon you’ll want to see that too."

Drapiewski laughed.

"Why not?" I said.

It took a lot of compliments and the promise of a free dinner to get Grubb up that hill, but we finally made it. There wasn’t much left of the house, just a thin place in the grass where the foundation had been. I couldn’t figure out why it looked familiar. I made a complete circuit around the place.

"Is this gonna get us something besides a suntan, son?" said Drapiewski after a few minutes.

That’s when I tripped over something large and metal. Grubb and Drapiewski came up to see while I dug it half out of the dirt—a piece of black iron piping that had been shaped into cursive writing about three feet long and a foot high. It said "Lazy B."

“Yeah," said Grubb. "I remember that. The old gates to the place. What do you know."

It took me a minute to place the name. Then something else clicked.

" ‘Lazy Bastard,’ " I said.