Nothing But Trouble

Chapter Five

Up and ready to go at four a.m., Kerney checked the second bedroom for Johnny and found it empty. At the mercantile building the caterers had breakfast ready and Johnny and Malcolm Usher were sitting together, chowing down on scrambled eggs and bacon.

With his breakfast plate in hand Kerney walked toward an empty table, only to be waved over by Johnny. He sat down with the two men, both of whom had circles under their eyes and slack looks on their tired faces. “Long night?” he asked.

Johnny managed a smile. “You could say that, but we got a lot of good work done.”

Usher nodded in agreement.

“Why the early wake-up call?” Kerney asked Usher.

“We’ve got daybreak and early-morning scenes in the script,” Usher replied. “We can’t plan for them correctly unless we know what the light will be like at that time of day. The same applies to our evening and nighttime shoots.”

“We may be doing the rodeo scenes after all,” Johnny said.

“That’s good news,” Kerney said.

“If Charlie Zwick can find the money in the budget for it,” Usher cautioned.

“Will that be a problem?” Kerney asked. If Johnny got what he wanted, maybe he’d stop bitching about his story idea getting all screwed up.

“I think we’ve worked it so it won’t be,” Usher replied.

Kerney nodded. “If you’ve got a minute, can I ask how you plan to use me on the film?”

“You’ve read the screenplay?” Usher asked.

“Several times.”

Usher laid his fork beside his plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs and bacon. “Your job is to tell me what real cops would do. Anything that has to do with police procedure is your domain. If you see me planning to do something that’s completely screwball, tell me or my assistant director. Examples might be how the police would position themselves or restrain somebody-that sort of thing. The fewer glitches we have when we’re shooting, the smoother things will go.”

“That sounds easy enough,” Kerney said.

Usher downed the rest of his coffee. “But please don’t get upset with me if I don’t use every suggestion you make.”

“It’s your movie,” Kerney said. “I’m not here to argue.”

“How refreshing,” Usher said, giving Johnny a pointed look. “Enjoy yourself, Chief Kerney. I think you’ll find it fun to see how movies get made, although sometimes it can be real boring.”

Usher left and Johnny leaned back in his chair and broke into a big grin.

“You look pleased with yourself,” Kerney said.

Johnny drained his coffee. “If the rodeo scenes get overhauled the way Usher and I brainstormed them, I’m going to be a happy camper. Maybe you did me a favor yesterday after all. The more exposure my clients get in the film, the better the chances that I can get them bigger product endorsement deals and more acting jobs.”

“Are you trying to becoming a movie mogul?” Kerney asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Johnny replied. “There’s a lot of money to be made in motion pictures.”

“Well, you’ve got your foot in the door,” Kerney said. “But from what I’ve heard, making movies is a risky business.”

Johnny dropped his napkin on the table. “It’s no more risky than anything else I’ve done. Hell, you can’t get anywhere if you don’t roll the dice.” He pushed his chair away from the table. “Our first stop is at the ranch. It’s quite a spread. Old Joe has sunk a fortune into it. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“I was there yesterday,” Kerney said, “and had lunch with your parents and Julia.”

Johnny’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I haven’t had a chance,” Kerney said as he walked with Johnny out the door.

“Did the old man talk to you about me?”

Kerney shook his head. “No, he didn’t.”

“That’s just as well,” Johnny said with a laugh, “since he doesn’t have much good to say about me anyway.”

On the drive to the Granite Pass Ranch, Kerney sat in the backseat of an SUV with Charlie Zwick, the producer, who quietly wrote notes to himself. When Zwick put his pen away, Kerney asked what arrangements had been made for standby emergency personnel during the filming. Charlie explained that full-time medical services would be on-site and that the unit production manager, Susan Berman, would coordinate with the local volunteer fire departments for ambulance services to be made available. Private security officers would handle all traffic and crowd-control issues.

They arrived at the Granite Pass Ranch road, where the day’s work began. In the predawn light Kerney stood with the crew and listened as Usher sketched out what he wanted for two scenes that occurred early in the movie. The first one would be a shot of police vehicles on the road to the ranch house. Usher, his assistant director, a young man named Marshall Logan, and the cinematographer, a guy named Timothy Linden, talked about starting with an establishing shot that would show the police cars coming into view, and using a following shot as the vehicle passed by on the way to the ranch. They’d need a camera dolly and a crane to make it work.

As the first touch of pink coated the underbelly of the clouds on the eastern horizon, Usher had made his camera decisions and talked to his lighting specialists, Buzzy and Gus, about how he wanted the scene lit.

Interested to learn that exterior daytime shots needed artificial lighting, Kerney eavesdropped and found out that the angle and intensity of the sun created problems that had to be controlled in order to get the proper effect on film. In addition, lens filters might be needed to either heighten or dampen the sunrise effect.

While Usher was busy with Buzzy and Gus, Roger Ward, the transportation captain, staked out an area for the various equipment vehicles that would be brought to the location. He told Kerney at least a half-dozen trucks and the police vehicles to be used in the scene would be at the location several hours before the cast arrived, so the crew could set up.

After the art decorator and construction coordinator selected the placement for a wrought-iron ranch sign that would be erected, Usher did a three-sixty walk around the site. When the sun had fully crested the mountains, he assembled the group and asked if anyone saw problems that needed to be addressed.

“We’re going to have problems with dust on this road,” the photographer said.

“We can dampen it down with a water truck,” Susan Berman, the unit production manager, replied.

“Maybe we don’t need to do that,” Usher replied. “The dust could be a nice contrast to the serenity of the opening shot. Emergency lights flashing, cutting through the haze. Sirens wailing. The morning sun cresting the mountains.”

“They wouldn’t approach with lights flashing or sirens wailing,” Kerney said.

“Why not?” Usher asked.

“To retain the element of surprise,” Kerney answered.

“So how would the rancher know the cops were coming?”

“The dust would give them away,” Kerney answered. “Any rancher worth his salt always keeps one eye on the weather.”

Usher grinned. “Excellent.” He flipped through his shooting script. “Although I think we’ll keep the flashing emergency lights for dramatic effect. But instead of the rancher hearing the sirens, he sees the dust cloud from the road and emergency lights as the cop cars approach.”

“That would work,” Susan Berman said, checking her script.

“Okay,” Usher said, “let’s run through everything we need here one more time and then move on.”

What Kerney thought would take no more than a few minutes to accomplish took almost an hour. Usher’s attention to detail was impressive, as was the amount of work that would be needed to get a one-minute scene on film.

He asked the art director, a portly, middle-aged Englishman named Ethan Stone, if such thoroughness was normal.

“With Malcolm it is,” Stone replied in a clipped British public-school accent. “Some directors are far more freewheeling, of course. But no movie ever gets made exactly as planned. There are too many variables: cost, weather, equipment failure, the decision to improvise. You’ve seen The Wild Bunch?”

“Several times,” Kerney answered.

“Remember the scene where William Holden attempts to free a member of his gang? Sam Peckinpah shot that on the spur of the moment and it worked brilliantly.”

Ward, the transportation captain, waved everyone toward the vehicles. They were ready to move on.

“So, even with all this careful planning,” Kerney said as he walked with Stone to the cars, “the actual filming can change.”

“It’s bound to,” Stone replied with a chuckle. “But too much change will have Charlie Zwick tearing his hair out.”

At the ranch headquarters the group was met by Julia Jordan. Joe and Bessie did not join them, although Kerney caught a quick glimpse of a figure standing at the living-room window inside their house.

Before Usher started working on the next location setup, the catering vehicle arrived, and everyone broke for coffee. Julia, who’d glued herself to Kerney’s side, shook her head when he asked if Joe and Bessie were planning to come out and watch the goings-on.

“Dad wants nothing to do with this. It took Mom browbeating him for weeks to get him to let Johnny use the ranch in the movie.”

“Why is that?”

“Dad doesn’t like the fact that Johnny is using other people’s money to pay back a tiny portion of what he’s borrowed from him over the years. He doesn’t think it’s the same as paying the debt yourself.”

Kerney couldn’t think of a polite comment on such a grim assessment of the relationship between father and son. He watched Roger Ward take a folding card table and several chairs out of the back of a vehicle and set them up for Susan Berman and Charlie Zwick, who sat and busily got to work.

“Looks like you’ll be here for a while,” Julia said.

“All morning,” Kerney said, handing her his copy of the scouting location schedule. “Six different exterior scenes are to be filmed here, over a period of three days. For each sequence they have to map everything out and decide exactly what they need. Then they move on to the cattle drive.”

Julia scanned the schedule. “My, don’t you sound like an expert.”

Kerney laughed. “Hardly.” His cell phone rang. The screen flashed an unfamiliar number, and when he answered Flavio Sapian identified himself. “Hang on for a minute,” he replied.

“The wife?” Julia mouthed silently.

Kerney didn’t rise to the bait. “Will you excuse me?”

Julia frowned briefly, then grinned and stepped away.

“What’s up?” Kerney asked.

“We can’t ID the victim,” Flavio replied, “but the autopsy revealed that he was heavily sedated on barbiturates at the time of death. The pathologist says the vic was definitely unconscious when he was thrown from the vehicle.”

“I see,” Kerney said as he watched Johnny gesture to Julia to join him. She waved and smiled winningly at Kerney before hurrying off.

“Plus,” Sapian said, “he had ligature marks on his wrists, which suggests his hands had been tied prior to the time he was dumped.”

“Anything else?” Kerney asked.

“According to the autopsy the victim wasn’t a teenager, and probably not a Mexican national. The pathologist pegged him to be in his early to mid-twenties. Based on his dental work he was most likely either a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident. It seems like you were right, Chief, this was a homicide.”

“A premeditated killing with an interesting twist,” Kerney said.

“What twist is that?” Flavio asked.

“Why go to all the trouble to bind and drug the victim, only to throw him out of a moving vehicle to die in the middle of the road?”

“That makes sense if the killer wanted the body to be found,” Flavio replied.

“Or to send somebody a message,” Kerney added. “But what kind of message and who was it for?” The questions had been in Kerney’s head since yesterday, and he’d yet to come up with answers that made sense.

“Well, Mendoza is my only lead,” Flavio said. “I’ll do a little more digging into his personal life before I approach him. Maybe something interesting will pop up.”

“Good idea,” Kerney replied. He disconnected, fished out the business card Supervisory Special Agent Fidel had given him, and dialed his direct line.

Over by the catering vehicle Julia and Johnny had hooked up with Ethan Stone, and the trio were walking in the direction of the barn. When the agent answered, Kerney gave him the gist of his conversation with Sapian, and suggested that Fidel should be the one to get Flavio to back off on his investigation. Gruffly, Fidel agreed, told Kerney to stay in touch, and disconnected.

Somewhat piqued by Fidel’s attitude, so typical of federal officers who looked down their noses at local cops, Kerney put the phone away just as Malcolm Usher called him over. He asked a few questions about how cops would serve a court order to the rancher and, armed with the information Kerney provided, began talking to the cinematographer about the shots he wanted to use.

Johnny, Julia, and Ethan Stone had returned from the barn and were clustered around the construction supervisor, a man named Barry Hingle, who had the good looks and hard body of an actor.

Kerney joined them and listened as Stone told the man he wanted all the buildings to look weather beaten and dingy.

“Hardscrabble and impoverished best describes it,” Stone said. “This must appear to be the ranch of a man who is barely hanging on.”

“Daddy will absolutely hate that,” Julia said with a laugh.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” Stone said. “It’s all magic, smoke and mirrors. Barry and his crew will put every thing back as it should be once we finish.”

“You’d better,” Julia said teasingly.

Stone and Hingle moved away to inspect the buildings.

“Where’s the old man?” Johnny asked Julia, his gaze locked on his parents’ house.

“Dad is probably inside,” Julia replied. “He doesn’t get around as much as he used to.”

Johnny squared his shoulders. “I’d better go see him.” He marched off to the house and paused at the screen door to the porch for a long moment before entering.

“That should be interesting,” Julia said as she rested her hand on Kerney’s arm. “It always is when those two get together.”

Kerney wondered why Julia seemed so pleased about the tension that existed between her father and brother. He studied her expression, looking for an answer. All he saw was the face of a self-indulgent, attractive middle-aged woman. Although her eyes danced and her lips smiled, it was surface charm. The thought occurred to him that she was very much like her brother: both were vain, lacked empathy, and craved excitement. He took her hand off his arm.

Julia reacted with a teasing smile. “Oh, was I being too familiar?”

“As a matter of fact you were,” Kerney said.

“Come on, Kerney. We’re old friends. Don’t be so uptight.”

“Old friends, and nothing more,” Kerney replied.

Julia tossed her hair and gazed up at him. “Maybe we should change that.”

“Not likely.”

“Are you a happily married man, Kerney?”

“Indeed I am.”

Julia giggled. “I’ve heard that line before.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Let me know when you change your mind.”

He watched her walk away, hips swaying in tight jeans, her body toned and trimmed. Or was it that she’d been under a plastic surgeon’s knife, maybe more than once?

Johnny Jordan stood in the front room of his parents’ house, trying to force down the uneasiness that always overcame him when he was about to see his father. Except for the ticking of the ornate mantel clock above the fireplace, not a sound could be heard. On the bookcase that held his father’s prize collection of books by novelists, biographers, and historians of the Old West stood the Cattleman of the Year Award his parents had jointly won some years back.

Johnny had shown up late to the award ceremony, drunk and in the company of a blond, buxom woman he’d picked up after finishing in the money at a California rodeo. He couldn’t remember the blonde’s name or even what she looked like. She’d been just another anonymous buckle bunny, one of the many women who made themselves available to rodeo cowboys after the events were over and the partying began. But he clearly remembered the disgusted look on his father’s face when he’d walked in with his date.

He shook off the memory and pushed his uneasiness aside. Ever since the day he’d left home to become a rodeo cowboy, the old man had never given Johnny anything but grief about the way he lived his life, had never once shown any pride in Johnny’s success and accomplishments. All he got from his father was criticism and some money when he needed it. Except for the games he had to play to get the old man to open his wallet, that suited Johnny just fine.

He stepped into the kitchen, and through the window he saw his mother in the backyard tending the flower beds that bordered a flagstone patio shaded by several large honey locust trees. He watched her for a minute as she carefully pruned a butterfly bush and put the cuttings in a neat pile at her feet. She’d slowed down considerably since Johnny had seen her last, and her face looked tired and drawn.

He rubbed his eyes, stifled a yawn, put on a big smile, opened the back door, and said, “How’s my girl? Need some help?”

Bessie shook her head and removed her gardening gloves. “You wouldn’t know what to do.”

“I’d probably just make a mess of things,” Johnny agreed jovially, surprised that his mother made no attempt to hug him. “Where is he?”

“He left before you arrived to meet up with Walt down at the old Shugart cabin,” Bessie said. “That’s where they’ll be pasturing the cattle for your movie.”

“Why doesn’t he just leave that stuff to Walt?” Johnny asked. “After all, he pays the man good money to manage the ranch.”

“Because he loves doing it,” Bessie said, “and would probably die if he didn’t get up and go to work every day, even if it’s only for a few hours. It’s bad enough that he can’t ride a horse anymore.”

“Is he still not talking to me?”

Slowly, Bessie lowered herself into a patio chair and looked at Johnny with sad eyes.

“What is it this time?” he asked.

“A woman named Brenda called for you here last night, and your father answered the phone. Why did you tell her your father had had a stroke?”

“I never said that. I said he wasn’t getting around all that well. Brenda must have misunderstood. She’s a flake. Half the time I don’t even know what she’s talking about. Don’t worry, I’ll set things right with him.”

“You leave your father alone for now,” Bessie said sharply. “He doesn’t want to see you.”

“All because of what some woman who doesn’t know what she’s talking about said? That’s ridiculous.”

“Do you really want your father dead?” Bessie asked.

Johnny knelt down and patted his mother’s knee. “Come on, you know better than that.”

Bessie pushed his hand away. “You never mean any of your little lies, and you always try to sweet-talk your way out of them. Until you show your father the respect he deserves, I’m not going to stand up to him on your behalf anymore.”

She rose, reclaimed her gloves, and began snipping angrily at the butterfly bush with the pruning shears.

Johnny stared at his mother’s back. She’d been his strongest ally in the family, the person he relied on to mend the broken fences between him and the old man. He wondered what he could do to fix things with her.

It had saddened Bessie that her children had produced no offspring, although she rarely spoke of it. Would it help to tell her that she had a granddaughter? A girl that Johnny had fathered ten years ago? He decided truth telling would only backfire and get him deeper in trouble. He had no pictures of the girl, hadn’t seen her in years, didn’t even know where she lived.

He watched as his mother pruned the shrub, the twigs of the butterfly bush falling haphazardly around her feet. Figuring out a way to placate her would have to wait. Right now, there was Brenda to deal with. He needed to sweet-talk his way back into Brenda’s good graces. He wasn’t about to head back to Denver when the weekend was over without a place to stay.

As he left the backyard, he dialed Brenda’s number on his cell phone. Maybe if he told her his father had Alzheimer’s, that would do the trick.

After lunch the team drove in a convoy on a ranch road that wound toward the mountains in the direction of the Shugart cabin, where, according to the location schedule, filming of the roundup and cattle drive would take place. Julia, who had invited herself along, positioned herself between Kerney and Susan Berman in the backseat of their vehicle. During the drive she kept her leg pressed against Kerney’s while ignoring him and making small talk with Berman.

Over the course of the morning there had not been a lot for Kerney to do, other than watch Usher and his people in action. Johnny, who was riding in the lead car, had made himself scarce after leaving Joe and Bessie’s house, walking back and forth in front of the barn, energetically talking to someone on his cell phone.

After a bumpy thirty-minute drive the caravan arrived at the Shugart cabin, which turned out to be a partially collapsed line shanty marked by two old cottonwood trees that had died from lack of water. Behind the cabin stood a windmill missing half a dozen blades. Sagging chicken wire hung on listing fence posts enclosed the site.

About a quarter mile west, in a holding pasture of untrammeled grassland intermixed with clumps of blue-green sage, a small group of men were building a corral out of railroad ties, wire, and large poles. They were using a backhoe with a front-end bucket to dig the post holes and set the heavy crossrails.

The pasture rose to meet a rocky, vertical cliff face in the mountains that was broken by a sheer, narrow gap. Here and there on a jumble of outcroppings, an occasional juniper had gained a foothold, showing up dark green against gray stone etched with thin, pale-pink fissures.

Usher assembled his crew in front of the cabin and immediately got down to business. Johnny, who now seemed fully reengaged in the process, eagerly joined into the discussion of how best to film the opening sequence of the cattle roundup.

Kerney left the group and walked across the pasture toward the men who were building the corral. He was halfway there when Julia caught up to him, obviously unfazed by his earlier rejection. Kerney wasn’t sure what to expect from her. Would she be congenial or continue her seductive ways?

The day had heated up, and a fierce afternoon sun washed away the color of the grassland that waved gently in an intermittent breeze. High overhead a prairie falcon glided toward an inaccessible cliff shelf in the mountains, where some blackbirds set up an outcry and scattered into the sky.

“This is one of Daddy’s grass-bank pastures,” Julia said, as she matched Kerney stride for stride. “He burned two thousand acres three years ago, and it hasn’t been grazed on since.”

“It looks good,” Kerney said, his eyes fixed on the vehicles parked near the work site. A panel van, very much like the one that had passed him on the highway, stood out among the pickup trucks. In such a sparsely populated area, where most folks drove pickup trucks, he wondered what the probability of spotting another panel van might be. Perhaps not entirely unlikely, but certainly interesting nonetheless.

At the corral Julia introduced him to Walt Shaw, the ranch manager. Under his cowboy hat Shaw had the face of a man who’d called the open range his office for a lifetime. Probably in his late forties, he had a wide mouth, a long, broad nose, and a blunt chin.

Over the noise of the backhoe he greeted Julia warmly, pulled off his work gloves, shook Kerney’s hand, and smiled, showing a gap between his two front teeth.

“Where’s my father?” Julia asked.

“Took off some time ago,” Shaw replied.

“We didn’t pass him on the road,” Kerney said.

“Didn’t go that way,” Shaw said, nodding in the opposite direction. “He’s two pastures south, where we’re gathering the cattle.”

“Are you building the horse corral for the movie?” Kerney asked.

“Yep, but we get to keep it after you folks are long gone,” Shaw replied. “Bought and paid for by Hollywood. Can’t beat that, I’d say.”

“No, you can’t,” Kerney said, looking at the four men who were busy setting posts. Two of them were the cowboys who had stopped at the accident scene on the highway. “Is this your permanent crew?” he asked.

“They’re day hands I hired on for the job,” Shaw said. “My two full-time wranglers, Kent and Buster, are busy gathering. We’re planning to bring the cattle up here nice and slow.”

Kerney nodded and asked if the slot canyon through the mountains was Granite Pass, and Shaw allowed that it was, noting that the smelter sat one valley over, due southwest of their location.

Ranch raised, Kerney knew better than to ask about the size of the spread, which was akin to asking how much money the Jordan family had in the bank. But he did ask Julia how close the ranch came to the Mexican border.

“About twenty miles,” Julia replied. She went on to explain that the high country on the ranch was mostly leased state and federal land, while the valley land was all deeded property.

Behind Julia, twenty feet away, the two cowboys Kerney had seen yesterday were eyeing him and talking to their companions.

When Shaw turned to check on his crew, the men quickly broke off their conversation and got back to the job of securing a crossrail to a post.

With Shaw and Julia at his side Kerney walked to the corral, inspected the work in progress, and praised the sturdy construction to Shaw.

“It should still be standing here long after I’m gone,” Shaw replied.

Kerney nodded in agreement as he admired the handiwork and made a mental note of each of the workers, whom Shaw introduced by first names only. The two cowboys Kerney had seen on the highway were Mike and Pruitt, and their coworkers were Ross and Santiago.

On the way back to the cabin Kerney commented to Julia about the panel van. “You don’t see many cowboys driving one of those.”

“That’s Walt’s,” she said. “When the weather’s good and the roads aren’t muddy, he uses it as his portable workshop. Carts just about anything he might need in it: wire, pipe, tools, spare parts.”

“I didn’t see it at the ranch headquarters,” Kerney said.

“He keeps it at the Harley homestead that Daddy bought about twelve years ago. Walt uses the old barn there for storage and repair work. It’s centrally located and a lot more convenient than having to run back and forth to ranch headquarters.”

“Has Shaw been here long?” Kerney asked.

“Almost twenty years,” Julia replied. “He’s like family.”

“Does he have one of his own?”

Julia laughed liltingly. “He’s a confirmed bachelor, although he has been known to flirt with the idea of marriage every now and then.”

“With you?” Kerney asked.

Girlishly, Julia bumped him with her hip. “I knew you were going to ask me that. Walt gave up on that notion a long, long time ago.”

Julia had resumed her flirting full bore, but it seemed so disingenuous Kerney decided not to take it personally. He quickened his pace, wondering what dynamics in the Jordan family could have caused such arrested development in the two offspring.

During the remainder of the afternoon the crew moved from location to location, and the planning went smoothly until Charlie Zwick announced that actually filming a fifty-mile cattle drive would put the movie way over budget.

Quite simply, the problem was logistics. Johnny Jordan, who had done the initial location scouting, had assured Zwick that transporting equipment and personnel to the various sites on the ranch would be easy. In fact, some of the locations were barely accessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles. Getting the necessary equipment to the sites would be a slow, time-consuming process, add several days to the shooting schedule, and cost thousands of dollars in overtime pay.

Zwick explained all this to Usher as the production crew stood on a ledge looking down into the narrow canyon that cut through mountains. It had taken them a half hour to traverse the rough jeep trail and reach the overlook.

Usher nodded as he stood enchanted by the view. Below him the canyon walls were sheer and imposing, and the view toward the valley was vast and forbidding. He could visualize the cattle entering the canyon, pushed along by the cowboys, police vehicles streaming across the basin in hot pursuit, helicopters dropping low, stampeding the herd.

He turned to Zwick. “I want this location.”

“I’m not suggesting we drop it,” Zwick said. “But we could easily film the roundup and the cattle-drive sequences down in the valley near the cabin, and not have to move to three other locations that are difficult to reach at best.”

“Dropping those locations would screw everything up,” Johnny said hotly. “How in the hell can you film the roundup and the cattle drive in one place? It will look completely fake.”

“Not necessarily,” Usher said. “We can shoot the sequences from various directions. Use different angles, different shots. Focus on the actors, their horses, the cows. Believe me, on film it will look real.”

“Or like some cheap B Western,” Johnny replied.

Usher’s jaw tightened. “On film it will be just fine. Let me worry about what the audience sees.”

“I’ve got a say about what goes into this film,” Johnny retorted, “and the shooting script calls for a fifty-mile cattle drive.”

Usher pushed his new straw cowboy hat back on his head and smiled thinly. “And that’s exactly what you’ll get, done my way.” He turned to Zwick. “We’re finished here.”

Johnny kicked a rock into the canyon and stomped off. Kerney glanced at the faces of the crew as they dispersed toward the vehicles. None of them seemed the least bit upset by Johnny’s childish outburst.

At the vehicles Ethan Stone joined Kerney. “Not to worry,” he said gaily as he slid into the front passenger seat and waved a hand in the air. “These little catfights break out all the time.”

“That’s good to know,” Kerney said as he crammed himself into the backseat next to Julia, who’d kept up her tiresome coquettish behavior all afternoon. He’d decided she did it solely to entertain herself.

On the drive down the mountain a dust devil churned across the valley, lifting sand several hundred feet into the sky as it churned on its thin axis. Kerney tuned Julia out and turned his thoughts to Walt Shaw and his panel van.

Shaw seemed to be a good guy and solid citizen, but that was no reason to discount him as a person of interest in the Border Patrol officer’s death. However, Kerney decided it would be premature to point Shaw out to Agent Fidel as a possible second suspect until he learned more about the man. He would do some digging and if Shaw came up clean, he could drop the matter and avoid stirring up any unnecessary trouble for Joe and Bessie.

During the course of the afternoon the production team had traveled up and down the valley, and Kerney had learned a good deal about the lay of the land. With that, and what Julia had told him about the location of the Harley homestead, he felt fairly certain he could find his way to the barn where Shaw kept the van.

He’d come out to the ranch tonight, try to take a closer look at the van, and then decide on a course of action if one was needed.

They arrived at the copper smelter, the last stop of the day, right on schedule an hour before sunset. To the west the bare, blinding sand of the playas stretched like a ribbon on the desert floor, and the grim Animas Mountains sloped upward, craggy and inky black in long shadows that masked the eastern slope.

The warning beacon on the smokestack blinked faintly in the glaring light of a hot yellow sun, and the metal roofs of the smelter buildings reflected the sun’s glow in shimmering waves.

Usher and Johnny looked completely exhausted, and the remainder of the crew not much better. With bottled water in one hand and shooting scripts in the other, they followed Usher as he walked to the area he had chosen for the brawl between the cowboys and the cops. He stood on the rail spur near the ore delivery dock and explained what he wanted: cattle running loose among the ore cars, cowboys scattering as police cars careened over railroad tracks, vehicles overturning, cops on foot chasing mounted riders, cowboys roping cops-all of it to be filmed against the backdrop of the smelter and the mountains.

Fortunately for Kerney, Julia had elected not to accompany the production crew to the smelter. Freed from her company he gave his full attention to learning more about the intricacies of motion picture making, which in this sequence included some major stunts.

By nightfall the team had finished their work, except for Charlie Zwick, who continued talking on his cell phone to the mining company’s corporate attorney as he negotiated the details for using the smelter in the film. He was still on the phone, talking to somebody else about preparing a location lease agreement, when the weary crew wandered into the old mercantile store for a late dinner.

Kerney had hoped to eat quickly and then get back out to the Granite Pass Ranch for a surreptitious look at Walter Shaw’s panel van. But Susan Berman, the unit production manager, delayed his departure.

She’d approached him at his table with a slightly worried look on her pretty face, asked for a moment of his time, and explained that the county sheriff, because of staff shortages, had turned down her request to do background checks on all the cast and crew members before actual filming got under way.

Berman was a tiny, attractive brunette in her late thirties, no more than five two, with blue-gray eyes and a confident, businesslike demeanor.

“Since nine-eleven we’ve become much more security minded,” she said as she sat with Kerney, “and because Playas is now being used for antiterrorism training, we have to satisfy the government that there are no criminals, insurgents, fanatics, or terrorists working on the film. Thank God, they haven’t as yet told us to exclude hiring any bleeding-heart, progressive Hollywood liberals. That would totally shut us down.”

Kerney laughed. “When would you need the information?”

“After the cast, extras, and crew hiring has been done. About a week before we start actual production.”

“How many people?”

“Over a hundred,” Berman replied.

“Get me names, social security numbers, and birth dates, and I’ll have my department do a computer check for wants and warrants.”

Berman smiled warmly. “That would be great. I’ll fax the information to you in Santa Fe as soon as it’s complete. Did you have fun today?”

Kerney nodded. “The complexity of making a movie seems staggering.”

Berman laughed. “This is the mellow part of putting a film together. Wait until the cameras start rolling.”

“How does Johnny figure into the filming?” Kerney asked.

“His participation will be limited, but we’ll do our best to keep him happy. But as you saw this afternoon, it doesn’t always work out that way. Do you know him well?”

“Yes and no,” Kerney replied. “We go back a long way, but it’s been years since we’ve had any close contact.”

“Have you got any tips on how to deal with him?” Berman asked.

Kerney gave the question some thought as he looked at Johnny, who was sitting with Usher at another table. Usher was talking with his arms spread wide, as though he was framing a camera shot for Johnny to visualize. Johnny looked totally bored.

“I think Malcolm already has Johnny’s number,” he said. “Overwhelm him with technicalities and facts he knows nothing about while you stroke his ego-if you can stand to do it.”

Berman stuck the three-ring binder under her arm and smiled appreciatively. “That’s a no-brainer, Mr. Kerney. I started out in this business years ago as a script girl, and, believe me, I’ve got lots of experience feeding male egos.”

Berman left and Kerney soon followed, saying good-night to Gus and Buzzy on his way out the door. The dark sky was awash with stars, and a cool, downslope breeze rustled through the trees. At the ranch property he swung south on a cutoff dirt track near the rodeo arena that paralleled a pasture fence line. He passed through two gates, a dry wash, and made a wrong turn to a dead end before finding his way to the barn where Shaw garaged his van.

Kerney parked behind the barn and sat in the dark for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust before he circled the structure on foot. Built from scrap slat boards, the barn had a pitched tin roof, no windows, and a padlocked double door. There was no way he could get inside without leaving behind clear evidence of a forced entry.

He was about to leave when he saw two sets of headlights approaching in the distance. He hid behind a stone foundation of a cylindrical water tank that stood next to an empty water trough and watched as the vehicles arrived and stopped in front of the barn doors.

In the glare of a pickup truck’s headlights Walter Shaw got out of the panel van, unlocked the barn doors, and drove it inside. Then, with the help of the man driving the pickup, Shaw unloaded the contents of the van. When the chore was finished, he backed the van out of the barn and locked the doors. Shaw’s helper climbed into the van and it traveled south into the valley.

Kerney waited at his hiding place until the red glow of the taillights disappeared from view. Following the men wasn’t an option; he’d be spotted immediately. When the sound of the engine had faded completely away, he fired up the truck and drove in the opposite direction with the headlights off until he dropped over a small rise in the valley floor.

Back on the highway Kerney sorted through what he’d seen. Shaw had removed all his tools, equipment, and supplies from the panel van at a remote, secure location and then had driven away in the direction of the border. He could think of no legitimate reason to do that so late at night. Were Shaw and his helper engaged in smuggling? People? Drugs? Some other form of contraband? And who was Shaw’s companion? A rancher? A hand? In the darkness Kerney had been unable to get a good look at the man.

He’d memorized the license-plate numbers of both vehicles. Using his cell phone, he called the regional dispatch center in Santa Fe, asked for a motor vehicle check on the van and pickup, requested an NCIC wants and warrant check on Shaw, and told the dispatcher to call him back on his cell.

As he made the turn at Hachita on his way back to Playas, a small airplane flew overhead out of the south, its anticollision beacons clearly visible in the night sky. The sight of the airplane made Kerney’s excursion on the ranch all the more interesting. While he wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions about Walter Shaw and his unknown companion, his misgivings had been raised. Tomorrow he would find an excuse to break away from the production crew and pay another friendly visit to Joe and Bessie at the ranch to see what more he could discover about their ranch manager.