Читать книгу MacAvity's Burning - Dan H. McLachlan - Страница 6

When Smoke retired from the Air Force, he came home in a beautiful black 1978 GMC pickup. Or at least some thought it was a pickup. I thought of it as a fighter jet he’d walked off with from a military air field. He certainly flew it like one. And no one seemed to know what he had done to it under the hood. All we knew was that it sounded like a very dangerous cougar purring, and was the hottest rig in town.

So it was no surprise that we were up and over Cup Hand Ridge and had landed within thirty minutes in the parking lot of the county courthouse. The attached sheriff’s office sat atop a basement full of prisoners accessed by a secured delivery ramp.

Barbara, Charley’s new dispatcher, buzzed us in through the bullet proof glass door and motioned for us to open the secure inner door leading to the deputies’ work room and Charlie’s narrow office.

He looked up when we came in and motioned for us to take seats in the oak captain chairs that lined both sides of a dining room sized table. He came around and joined us.

We liked Charlie. In fact there wasn’t a person in Ryback or anywhere else in the county that didn’t either respect him or fear him. He was one of the sons of a large family of boys that owned a huge ranch east of Ryback tucked away in the Bitterroot Mountains, so he knew the character of our people and how to treat us. And when Charlie finally let his brothers take over the ranch’s operation, he took himself to Denver to study and practice law enforcement before returning to the ranch to become our lawman. But he never gave up his cowboy roots. He still wore his felt Stetson in the winter and his straw in the summer, and still wore his Justin boots, jeans, and his tooled belt that held his shield and Colt XSE .45 Commander.

He sat down and looked us over, shaking his head in wonder.

We waited.

He put both his palms flat on the table top and studied them for a moment, then looked up again.

“What is it about Ryback that invites so much grief?”

We said nothing.

“Look, I spent the night, just like you two did, at the fire, and all morning I was at the church. By now Sherman Vics has Pastor Donnie Larken on his slab, our almost competent fire chief has called in the Idaho fire marshal from Boise since MacAvity’s was obviously arson. Deputy Dale Romsland is making sure the scene is secure, and Detective Ross Bender is at the church.”

He paused.

“Am I leaving anything out?”

“We’re here because of why?” Smoke ventured.

“I’ll get to that in a minute. But are you two privy to any grudges or issues that would prompt someone or someones to attack MacAvity and Larkin?”

I shook my head.

Smoke thought about Charlie’s question for a surprisingly long time.

Finally he looked up and leaned in towards Charlie.

“You know, Donny wasn’t loved by everyone, and Butte certainly wasn’t either, but there is an undercurrent of something that has people a bit edgy this year.”

Charlie nodded. “Any clues what might be causing it?”

Smoke shook his head. “No. But a few things have happened that no one has an explanation for.”

We waited for Smoke to continue. He sat back in his chair and held his chin for a moment rubbing his thumb along his jaw.

“For instance, last fall two white Dodge eight seater vans pulled up beside the ball field and about ten people got out, half of them women, and nonchalantly scattered throughout the town like tourist or sightseers.”

“So weren’t they?” Charlie said.

“Well, maybe. But they took way too many pictures. Particularly of the church, MacAvity’s, and the boarded up school. Butte and I were sitting out on his sidewalk bench taking in the sun and he told me they looked like a pack of over-washed barracuda looking to score a feeding frenzy.”

Now Charlie leaned back in his chair. I wondered mildly if I should join in and lean back in mine as well.

“They ever come back?”

Smoke looked at me.

“Remember how we’ve been getting the random visitor to the pub all last winter?”

I sat back.

“And this summer. Yeah, I do,” I said. “Men. And like you said, clean cut. Like car salesmen or real estate agents.”

“Do you think they’re land speculators,” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Doesn’t seem like it. But I don’t know.”

Charlie looked at Smoke who just shrugged.

He sighed and laced his hands on the table.

“OK. Well that’s something, at least.”

He hesitated.

“But the reason I wanted you two to come in to see me, and actually I wish MacAvity and Hammersmith could have been here too, is that Ryback has had a tendency in the past to take the law into its own hands from time to time,” he said.

Hearing this statement made Smoke’s eyes grow dangerously hard.

“You trying to say we’re vigilantes or militia, Charlie?”

Charlie didn’t flinch.

“You know damn well what I’m saying, Smoke, and I was there with you on that Magruder thing, and I suspect you guys were what brought Clifford Spreiter, that millionaire fuck to justice, and I took the heat for both of those events and damn near lost my job and was put in jail for them, too.”

He glared back at Smoke.

“The only thing you two old shits did right was putting the professor behind bars. Or don’t you remember?”

Smoke sighed. “All right. Cool your jets, Charlie. I remember.”

Charlie said nothing.

Smoke glanced at me then turned back to Charlie.

“What is it you do want us to do then?”

Charlie almost smiled.

“I want you two to help me find out who’s responsible for what happened last night without killing them. Can you do that?”

“Dammit Dad, you never let us have any fun,” I said.

“Oh, and get Hammersmith and Butte on our page too,” Charlie added. “I think Butte, particularly, is interested in finding out if the fire was hot enough to breach that concrete arsenal he has in the Pub’s basement that no one is suppose to know anything about. And I think he’d like to go blow up whoever torched his place.”

Smoke got up to leave. He reached across the table and he and Charlie shook hands. I did the same and followed Smoke back out into the noon heat and his pickup. The sun was not reflecting off the Jimmy’s hood, I noticed.

I didn’t point that fact out to Smoke.