Prolonged Exposure

Chapter 21

I was walking across the foyer in my stocking feet when I heard the crunch of tires on gravel. I glanced out through the single slender window beside the front door and saw Martin Holman and Eddie Mitchell climbing out of a county car.

“What the hell would they have done if I’d stayed in Flint?” I said, and opened the door.

“We were in the neighborhood,” Holman said affably as he climbed out of the car. He was holding a clear plastic evidence bag and wearing another of his enormous smiles. His days were clearly marked by the joy of small individual victories. “I was hoping we’d catch you.” He held up the bag. “How about this?”

He handed the bag to me, and I took it by the closure. “Well, well,” I said. “Come on in.” I shut the heavy door with one hand, holding up the bag with the other. The revolver inside was a Smith amp; Wesson, a perfectly run-of-the-mill.357 Magnum, four-inch-barreled Model 19. The letters PCSO were engraved on the rightside plate, just under the manufacturer’s logo.

“Mine, I assume,” I said, and Holman nodded. I turned the bag and saw the deep scratch across the bottom of the left grip where I’d snagged a barbed-wire fence a year before.

“Where was it found?”

“Well, that’s the interesting thing,” Holman said. “You know Deann Black?”

“Sure. She runs that day-care center, over behind the hospital.”

“That’s right. She found this in her son Jason’s sock drawer.”

“Under the socks,” I said, and looked at the Magnum again. It was fully loaded. “Maybe that’s where I should have kept it. How old is Jason?”

“He’s ten,” Eddie Mitchell said, and I glanced up at the deputy. He was no taller than I was, and probably weighed nearly the same, little of it fat.

“A ten-year-old? Well, that explains the brilliant hiding place. Was the little terrorist in on the burglary, or what?”

Mitchell shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. His mother discovered the weapon this afternoon when she was sorting laundry. She called us right away. And she’s pretty smart. She didn’t move it, or touch it. Dispatch sent me over there. Then she went and checked her kid out of school so he’d be there, too.”

“What did the kid say?”

“He claims he found the weapon over behind Guilfoil Auto Parts on Bustos.”

“Sure, that’s likely,” I said. “And mom?”

“She’d like to believe him, but I don’t think she does. She gave me permission to search the kid’s room. I didn’t turn up anything else.”

“And the kid maintains that he just found the gun lying in the alley?”

“Behind one of the Dumpsters. Right.”

“Prints?”

Mitchell shook his head again. “I haven’t run anything yet. Might be interesting, though.”

“Unless the kid’s watched too many movies,” Holman said. “Then he’s wiped it clean.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “Eddie, in the meantime, give mom a call back and tell her that we want to have the kid come down to the office for a chat. Ask her to come along, as well. Who is Mr. Black, by the way?”

“They’re separated. He works over at Posadas General. I think he’s a custodian.”

“You might get ahold of him, too. Maybe the kid relates to him better than he does his mother. You never know,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “Set something up for three-thirty. That gives us half an hour. We don’t want this kid having too much time to think. It’ll be interesting to see how creative he can get.”

“By then, prints might tell us something,” Mitchell said.

“Were you going to go to the office today?” Holman asked. “I mean, other than at three-thirty?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Why?”

“There were a couple of budget matters I wanted to talk over with you, but they can wait. And by the way, Estelle’s checking out a report from Alamogordo about a youngster someone saw in a white van. Apparently the kid was in some kind of distress, and someone got suspicious and tipped off the police. I don’t know more than that.”

“Well,” I said, “we’re going to hear all kinds of things. She’s right to check it out, though. We can’t let anything slip by.”

“It’s interesting to see how it works,” Holman said. “There aren’t very many members of the search party who really believe that Cody Cole is up on that mesa.”

“Except Mrs. Cole,” I said. “A mother’s intuition is a powerful thing.”

Holman nodded, then held up an index finger. “I almost forgot. We got some really interesting information from the Wyoming Department of Fish and Game. Paul Cole is not on record as holding an elk license from that state, or any other kind of license, for that matter.”

I frowned.

“And I guess we should have expected that,” Holman added. “All the licenses are awarded in drawings, and those take place early in the year. It’s something he would have had to have been planning for months and months.”

“Maybe he has been,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “Remember what Camille said? It sounds like there’s some kind of war going on between Cole and his new wife. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.” I held up a hand in resignation and handed the bagged revolver to Holman. “Wherever he went, he didn’t go alone,” I said.

“How do you know that?”

“Because both his vehicles are parked in his driveway, Martin. When we find him, it’s going to be interesting to hear his story.”

“His wife’s going to be interested, too,” Holman said.