Double Homicide

6

Breakfast was a quick affair for the two detectives. Darrel had been the one to get up early and hit the computer. He’d found a recent address for Bart and Emma Skaggs.

“Over in Embudo. Got a unit number, so they’re in an apartment,” he told Katz. “Far cry from running cattle.”

“Embudo’s pretty,” said Katz.

“It’s an apartment, Steve.” Anger flashed in Darrel’s eyes.

“You don’t like our vic.”

Darrel stared at him. Pushed away his plate. “Let’s get going. The highway should be nice and clear by now.”

Embudo was fifty miles north of Santa Fe, right where the highway meets the roiling Rio Grande. Nice little greenbelt town, really more like an oasis in the high desert. Even when the drought was heavy, the river kept the environs lush and moist.

The Skaggs residence was a room over a garage out back of a roadside shop that sold vintage clothing and chilis and pickled vegetables and yoga tapes. The owner was a spaced-out white-haired woman in her fifties with some kind of middle European accent who said, “They clean for me and I give them a deal on the rent. Nice people. Why are you here?”

“We like nice people,” said Two Moons.

Katz examined a packet of chili spices. Blue ribbon prize at last year’s show.

“They’re good,” said the white-haired woman. She wore black yoga pants and a red silk blouse and twenty pounds of amber jewelry.

Katz smiled at her and put the packet down and hurried after Two Moons.

“Police?” Emma Skaggs opened the door and emitted a sigh. “Come in, I think we can find some room for you.”

The place was no bigger than Katz’s shack, with the same space heater, hot-plate setup, and a bathroom in the back. But the lower ceilings and tiny windows cut into what looked to be real adobe walls gave it a prison-cell feel. Some attempt had been made to warm it up: worn pillows on an old clumsy Victorian sofa, dog-eared paperbacks in a cheap bookcase, threadbare but nicely dyed Navajo rugs flung across the stone floor, a few pieces of Pueblo pottery on the kitchenette counter.

A photo over the bricked-up fireplace showed scrawny-looking cows grazing in a yellow meadow.

A toilet flushed in the rear bathroom, but the door stayed closed.

Emma Skaggs cleared newspapers off two folding chairs and motioned the two detectives to sit. She was a short, lean, sun-whipped woman who looked her age, with dyed-red hair and wrinkles deep enough to hide gemstones. Blue jeans stretched over hard hips and a knitted wool sweater. It was cold inside. Her chest was flat. Her eyes were gray.

“You’re here about Olafson,” she said.

Katz said, “You heard.”

“I watch TV, Detective. And if you think you’re going to learn anything valuable here, you’re wasting your time.”

“You had conflict with him,” said Darrel.

“No,” said Emma Skaggs. “He had conflict with us. We were doing fine until that bastard came along.”

“No love lost.”

“Not a flicker. Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks, ma’am.”

“Well, I’m gonna get some.” Emma made the two-stride journey to the kitchenette and poured herself a cup of black. Dishes were stacked in a drainer, cans and bottles and canisters were ordered neatly, but still the place was cluttered. Too much stuff for too little room.

The bathroom door swung open, and Bart Skaggs came out drying his hands. Bandy-legged and broad with a potbelly that hung over his rodeo buckle. He wasn’t much taller than his wife, with the same broiled, burnished look to his skin that comes from decades of UV abuse.

No doubt he’d heard the detectives’ voices, because he registered no surprise.

“Coffee?” said Emma.

“Yeah, sure.” Bart Skaggs came over, offered a sandpaper left hand, remained on his feet. A bandage was wrapped across his right hand. Swollen fingers extended from the gauze.

“I was telling them,” said Emma, “that they wouldn’t learn anything from us.”

Bart nodded.

Two Moons said, “Your wife says life was going along okay until Olafson came along.”

“Him and the others.” Bart Skaggs’s tongue rolled around in his cheek, as if dislodging a tobacco plug.

“The others meaning ForestHaven.”

“ForestHell is more like it,” said Emma. “Buncha do-gooders wouldn’t last two hours in the forest if you dropped them there without their cell phones. And he was the worst.”

“Olafson.”

“Until he came along, they were mostly talk. Then all of a sudden we’re getting court papers.” Her skin took on a rosy hue and gray eyes turned stormy. “It was so wrong that the poor kid who served us apologized.”

Bart Skaggs nodded again. Emma handed him a cup. He bent a knee, flexed a leg, drank. Over the rim, his eyes appraised the detectives.

Emma said, “If you came here expecting us to lie about being all choked up, you wasted your time.”

“We do a lot of that,” said Katz.

“Bet you do,” said Emma. “But we didn’t used to. Back when we were allowed to work an honest day. We stayed busy every minute, and it wasn’t ‘cause of no plans to get rich-you don’t get rich running beef. Any idea what they’re paying on the hoof nowadays? All those vegetarians lying about good, healthy meat.”

Yet another nod from her husband. Strong, silent type?

“But still,” she went on, “we liked it. It was what our families did for generations. Who were we hurting, grazing down weeds and plants that needed to be trimmed anyway for fire risk? Like the elk don’t do the exact same thing? Like the elk don’t deposit their manure right in the streams? That’s something we never did, no matter what anyone says.”

“What’s that?” said Darrel.

“Pollute the water. We made sure the herd always did its business away from the water. We respected the land, a lot more than any do-gooder. You want your healthy environment? I’ll give you your healthy environment: ranching. Animals doing what they’re supposed to be doing, where they’re supposed to be doing it. Everything in its place: That’s the way God intended it.”

Katz said, “Larry Olafson ended all that.”

“We tried to talk to him-to be logical. Didn’t we, Barton?”

“Yup.”

“I telephoned him personally,” she went on. “After we got the court papers. He wouldn’t even take my call. Had some snotty young snip answering the phone who went on like a broken record. ”Mr. Olafson is occupied.“ That was the whole point. We wanted to be occupied with our God-given jobs. He had other plans.”

“You ever reach him?” said Two Moons.

“I had to drive over to Santa Fe, find that art gallery of his.”

“When was this?”

“Couple of months ago, who remembers?” She snorted. “If you call that art. Occupied? He was hanging around, drinking foamy coffee. I introduced myself and told him he was making a big mistake, we weren’t the land’s enemy or his or anyone’s, all we wanted to do was bring our beef to market, all we needed was a few more years and then we’d probably retire, so could he please lay off.”

Katz said, “Were you really planning on retiring?”

She sagged. “No choice. We’re the last generation interested in ranching.”

Katz nodded sympathetically. “Kids have their own ideas.”

“Ours sure does. Kid, singular. Bart Junior. He’s an accountant over in Chicago, went to school at Northwestern and stayed there.”

“He does good,” said Bart. “He don’t like getting dirty.”

“Never did,” said Emma. “Which is fine.” Her expression said it wasn’t.

“So,” said Two Moons, “you told Olafson you needed a few more years before retirement. What did he say?”

“He gave me this look. Like I was a slow child. Said, ”None of that is my concern, dear. I’m speaking for the land.‘“ Emma’s voice had dropped to a baritone parody- the snooty voice of a sitcom butler. Her hands were balled into fists.

“He didn’t want to listen,” said Katz.

“Like he was God,” said Emma. “Like someone died and made him God.”

“Now he’s the one who died,” said Bart. Pronouncing the words quietly but distinctly. It was the closest he’d come to an independent statement since the detectives had arrived. They turned to him.

“Any ideas about that, sir?” Two Moons asked.

“About what?”

“Mr. Olafson’s death.”

“A good thing,” said Bart. “Not a bad thing at all.” He sipped coffee.

Darrel said, “What happened to your hand, Mr. Skaggs?”

“He got ripped by barbed wire,” said Emma. “We had some old rolls of it left over and he was trucking them off to the surplus dealer and he slipped and the edge caught his hand. Big rolls. I told him it was a two-person job, not a one-person job, but as usual he didn’t listen. He’s a stubborn one.”

“Like you isn’t?” Bart snapped back.

Two Moons said, “When did this happen?”

“Four days ago,” Bart answered. “Never ended up taking the wire to surplus.”

“Sounds painful.”

Bart shrugged.

The detectives let the room go silent.

“You’re making a mistake if you’re thinking he had anything to do with it.” Emma shook her head. “Bart never done a cruel thing in his life. Even when he slaughters an animal, he does it with kindness.”

Katz said, “How do you do that, Mr. Skaggs?”

“Do what?”

“Slaughter with kindness.”

“Shoot ‘em,” said Skaggs. “Right here.” Reaching behind his neck, he fingered the soft spot where stalk met skull. “Shoot ’em at an upward angle. You wanna get ‘em in the medulla oblongata.”

“Not a shotgun, right?” said Katz. “Too messy from up close.”

Bart looked at him as if he were a space alien. “You use a long gun or a large-caliber handgun with a Magnum load.”

Emma stepped in front of her husband. “Let’s be clear: We never did any big-time slaughtering. That woulda been against regulations. We ship the cattle to a processing plant in Iowa, and they do everything from there. I was talking when we needed meat for our own table. I’d tell him, and he’d run an old steer into the pen and put it out of its misery. We never took the good beef for ourselves. But even with tired old beef, you dry-age it a couple of days in the refrigerator, then you marinate it, in beer or something, and you got yourself a tasty steak.”

Bart Skaggs stretched his free arm. The gauze bandage had yellowed around the edges and was dotted with blood. “Jewish rabbis use the knife across the throat. I seen ‘em do that over in Iowa. If you’re good with the knife and the knife’s real sharp, it’s fast. Those rabbis cut good. They don’t even stun ’em. If you’re not good, it’s messy.”

“You stun ‘em,” said Katz.

“Just in case.”

“Before you shoot ‘em.”

“Yup. To quiet ‘em down.”

“How do you go about it?”

“You distract ‘em by talking to ’em, nice and low and comforting. Then you hit ‘em upside the head.”

“The medulla?”

Bart shook his head. “In front, over the eyes. To confuse ‘em.”

“Hit ‘em with what?” said Katz.

“A bar,” said Bart. “A sledgehammer. I had a piece of axle from an old truck. That worked good.”

“I’m trying to picture it,” said Katz. “First you hit ‘em from the front, then you run around and shoot ’em from the back?”

The room fell silent.

“Am I missing something?” said Katz.

Emma turned stony. “I see where all this is leading, and you’re really wasting your time.”

Suddenly, her husband took hold of her arm and drew her back so that she was no longer blocking him. She started to speak but thought better of it.

Bart fixed his eyes on Katz’s. “If you’re doing the shooting, you’re not doing the stunning. Someone else stuns ‘em, and when their legs buckle, you shoot ’em. Otherwise, the animal goes skittish and it can jump and you miss. That happens, you have to shoot ‘em a bunch of times and it’s real messy.”

For him a long speech. Warming to the topic.

“Sounds like a two-person job,” Two Moons stated evenly.

More silence.

“Yup,” Bart finally said.

“We used to do it together,” said Emma. “I used the hammer and Bart used the gun. Same way we did everything back when we were ranching. Teamwork. That’s what it takes. That’s why we got a good marriage.”

“Cows are big animals,” said Darrel. “To get leverage you’d need to stand on top of something, right?”

“Why’s all this important?” said Emma.

“Call us curious, ma’am.”

She glared.

Katz said, “Do you stand on a ladder, Mr. Skaggs?”

“The animal’s in a pen,” said Bart. “Tight so it can’t move around too much. The way we had it at the ranch, the pen was dug out lower than the rest of the yard. You’d walk ‘em down a ramp to get in there. And then we used benches on top of that so we were tall enough.”

A small man feeling big as he slaughtered, thought Katz.

“It ain’t rocket science.” Emma glared at them. “You oughta be ashamed of yourselves… making two old-timers like us feel like criminals.”

Two Moons shrugged. “All I’m saying is I’d be pretty sore at Olafson. The man took bread out of your mouths.”

“He did worse than that. He took bread out and burned it. Knowing we were barely treading water and making sure we drowned.” She waved an arm around the cramped, close room. “Think this is the way we want to live? The man’s dead and gone. True, I’m not shedding any tears. But we sure as heck didn’t harm a hair on his head. With him dead or alive we’re no better off. The court says we can’t run the herd, end of story.”

“Like you said,” Two Moons countered, “before Olafson joined the group, they were all talk. With him gone, couldn’t you go back to court?”

“With whose money?” She peered at Darrel. “You’re an Indian, right? I got Choctaw in me, from way back. Maybe that’s why I loved working the land. You should understand what I’m talking about. That man accused us of raping the land, but he raped us.”

“Revenge can be sweet,” said Katz.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Emma snapped. “Why would I ruin my life for him? I got my health and so does Barton.” Her smile was sudden. Vaguely poisonous. “Besides, I got a check from the U.S. government, rolls in every month whether I lie around in bed or get up. That’s heaven, right? That’s your promised land.”

The couple took the detectives outside, over to a storage shed behind the garage that looked ready to collapse. Freezing inside, the chill from the ground going right through your shoes. Bart showed the detectives the offending barbed-wire roll, along with other junk, including a towing winch. Big, heavy thing, rusted at some of the points. If there was blood there, the detectives couldn’t see it.

Without warning, Bart unwound the gauze on his hand and showed them the jagged gash, two or so inches long, that ran from the webbing between his thumb and his forefinger down to his knobby wrist.

It had been stitched together with the thickest surgical thread Katz had ever seen. The edges of the cut had begun to scab, there was some leakage around the sutures, and the skin had gone puffy and inflamed. It looked to be a few days old.

Katz asked the name of the doctor who’d done the sewing.

Emma Skaggs laughed.

Bart said, “You’re looking at her.”

“You, Mrs. Skaggs?”

“None other.”

“Are you trained as a nurse?”

“Trained as a wife,” said Emma. “Been patching him up for forty years.”

Bart grinned and brandished the wound.

Emma said, “I got veterinary needles and thread left over from the ranch. For him you need it, the big-gauge stuff. He’s got the hide of a bull. Got vet antibiotics, too.

Same stuff they make for humans, only for animals it’s a whole lot cheaper.“

“What’d you use for anesthesia?” said Katz. “On the other hand, maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Crown Royal, ninety proof.” Bart broke into loud guffaws. It took him a moment to settle down. “You fellows seen enough?” He started rewrapping the hand.

Darrel said, “Looks to be a little infected.”

“Little‘s the key word,” said Emma. “You can’t get hurt by a little of anything.”

“Unlike Mr. Olafson,” said Katz. “Know of anyone else who resented him?”

“Nope,” said Emma, “but if he treated others like he treated us, there had to be plenty more out there.”

Katz said, “Would you mind if we made an appointment for a print tech to come by to get both your fingerprints?”

“Wouldn’t mind a’tall,” Bart said.

“Treating us like criminals,” Emma muttered.

“It’s routine,” Two Moons answered.

“His got to be on file, somewhere,” said Emma. “From when he served in Korea. Mine aren’t, but suit yourselves. Must be nice to have all that free time.”

Darrel said, “Meanwhile, it would be good if you folks don’t take any long road trips or the like.”

“Sure,” said Emma. “We were just about to fly off to El Morocco, or wherever it is.” She turned to her husband. “That place where they gamble and wear monkey suits, like from the James Bond movies?”

“Monaco,” said Bart. “Sean Connery plays baccarat there.”

“There you go,” she said. To the detectives: “He was always one for the movies.”

On the drive back, Katz said, “Pour some whiskey down my gullet, Maw, and stitch away.”

“You like ‘em for the murder?”

“They hated him enough and they know how to deliver a good head smack, but if Ruiz is right about the angle of impact, they’re too short.”

“Maybe they brought a ladder.” Even Darrel smiled at the thought.

“And funny little clown shoes and a flower that spurts water,” said Katz. “If they were going to be that prepared, they’d have brought a weapon. The use of a pickup weapon says maybe it wasn’t premeditated. I guess art galleries do keep ladders around, for hanging pictures high, so theoretically there could’ve been one already out. Except the walls of Olafson’s place aren’t that high, and the idea of either of them scrambling up on a ladder to bop Olafson sounds pretty ridiculous.”

“You’re right,” said Darrel. “If those two wanted him dead, they’d have come ready to do it. What about the son?”

“The accountant in Chicago? Why him?”

“He didn’t like getting his own hands dirty, but he could’ve felt real bad about Mom and Pop losing the ranch. Maybe he figured as a white-collar guy he could have a one-on-one with Olafson. What if he flew out to meet with Olafson and Olafson treated him the way he’d treated Mom? One thing led to another, Olafson blew him off, walked away from him in that arrogant way of his, and Bart Junior lost it.”

That arrogant way of his. Like Darrel knew something Katz didn’t. Katz said, “Insult someone’s mother and you never know. Let’s check the son out.”