The Cowboy's Shadow Part 16

thought better of such unpatriotic behavior in front of a lawman.

"So that's last night's squeeze," Neligh muttered, staring after Ky, trying to untie the rope that held down the tarp without looking at the knot.

"A very good friend," Whit said.

"Good. Everyone'll be pleased. I'll tell Mary Lauber over at the county building you got a lady -- "

"You'll keep your mouth shut."

"But she'll be pleased to hear you're finally working through your grief."

"h.e.l.l, Neligh, a man doesn't 'work through his grief.' Grief ebbs and flows on its own and a man submits. Mary's been feeding you that psychology c.r.a.p. She makes excuses for the kids who set fire to shacks. They did it because their mamas have to work to pay the rent, or their daddies have lost their jobs, or their big brothers teased them about the size of their p.e.c.k.e.r when they were five year old."

Neligh grinned. "New furniture has nothing to do with the cute Miss Fetter -- "

"Rogers. No it has to do with my inheritance from Rod."

"Rod Harris left you his fortune?"

"No, his Remington, a statue of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. It requires a table and somewhere for people to sit while they admire it. Now you wait until I pull this end of the couch out. I'll do the walking backwards because I know where the steps are."

The sheriff shook his head. "You're crazy as ever. If you'll give me some good leads on Moira Chase, I won't tell Mary Lauber you're building a heathen temple to a blasted bronze cowboy."

"Tell her anyway. In a county this small, the mental health files are pretty skimpy. I'd hate to have her think I'm turning normal, threatening her job."

"Cheese omelet and fruit salad do?" Kyla called from the door.

"Fine."

"Experienced girl," Neligh said as he took the weight of the far end. "Knows both ways to a man's heart." Whit ignored the innuendo.

Kyla played traffic controller, directing them to the spot the couch was to occupy before they dropped it. "I'll get the coffee table," Whit said. He heard Neligh's boots clicking on the tiles, following him out.

"With that girl in the way, you'll not tell me everything," Neligh said when they reached the front steps. "Give me the raw parts about Moira Chase right now."

"She hasn't phoned from Vegas or Salt Lake City or Reno?"

"You know she hasn't, if I'm out here."

"Then in my opinion you're looking for a body. The gossip at Whiskey Dan's say that Moira turned down most of the men who offered to cuddle her buxomness, miners and ranch hands without gobs of money. Follow the money, you'll find Moira alive. Find out who she insulted, you'll trip over the b.l.o.o.d.y knife, or figure out whose hands still tingle from wrapping around her throat."

"You and Rod Harris got more money than anyone in the county, not counting absentee ranch owners and stockholders in the mines -- who don't hang out in Argentia anyhow."

"Rod's a week dead, and I had -- have -- no use for Moira Chase."

"Can see why," Neligh said. Whit lifted the coffee table out of the truck.

"Who's gonna get Rod's money?" Neligh asked at the front door.

"His sister already has it. Joint tenancy of all investments and property. Wait here, I got something to show you."

Whit dumped the table in the entry hall -- the tile on the top matched the floor perfectly -- ran to his bedroom and searched through the tumble of dirty clothes. He found the fake will mashed in the bottom of his pocket, probably by the energy of Ky's first embrace in the hotel.

"I'd appreciate you not making this public, but I found it in Rod's things," he said. "Dated two days before he died."

"Rod's handwriting?"

"I don't know. I haven't checked. Blast it! I boxed up all his papers and took them to Judith. There's no way to compare...Yes there is, if he wrote his name in his books. Rod collected Nevada history."

Dust had already settled on Rod's things. The two rooms smelled shut-up and abandoned. Whit selected a book from the second shelf.History of the Esmerelda Mining District.

"Luck's with us," Neligh said, smiling broadly as he pulled a thin sheet of paper from inside the books front cover. Rod's angular handwriting recorded where he had purchased the volume, how much he paid for it, and a brief description of its contents. Thin, costly paper, acid free, Whit supposed, so it didn't damage the book.

"Find another sample," Neligh ordered, sitting down at the desk. He shoved the will from one book to another, comparing. "Good try, but not good enough."

"What do you mean?"

"Look here! Rod hardly ever crossed final T's. Whoever wrote this does, and couldn't break the habit. If it can't get by an amateur like me, a handwriting expert will demolish it."

Neligh shoved the books aside. "Now, you tell me the truth. Why did Colton come out here last week, then turn in a vague report on damage to your irrigation equipment? When you ranchers lose a pump or a hose, you give a detailed description, down to the serial number, so I figure Colton's report concealed something."

Whit leaned against the door. "I'd rather it didn't become common knowledge, about Moira and Rod that is. Rod's sister is a religious sort." He stopped before he called Judith unworldly. Judith was stronger than most people, because she knew the world so thoroughly. She accepted the truth, that human beings were capable of great evil. She knew the weaknesses of men and women, and could forgive.

"Why does it make any difference if people know?" Neligh asked harshly. "He's dead and she's disappeared, maybe in danger. You gonna keep facts secret when they might save Moira's life?"

"I don't suppose it amounts to a hill of beans," Whit said. He summarized what he knew of Rod's relationship with Moira Chase, regretting every word. He didn't mention where they carried on their affair, lest Neligh be side-tracked onto the case of Andy Ferrill. Mary Lauber would love to get her hooks into the kid. Much better if the Fettermans absorbed Andy in a loose, informal guardianship, until someone tracked down his father, or the irresponsible fellow came home.

Whit stopped cold when he heard the tinkling of 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.'

"Dinner's ready," Ky called. Maybe he should reprogram the doorbell to play a love song, tell her subtly -- "I'd think that doorbell would drive you nuts," Neligh said as they instinctively marched across the yard.

"The light on the answering machine's blinking," Ky said.

Whit left the office door ajar, and noted that Ky tilted her ear in that direction, like a woman who has the right to listen to her man's conversations.

"Hi, Whit," Judith's voice said. "Score one for Kyla. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. You'll probably be hearing from the state health people. I told them there might be a second case down there, misdiagnosed."

Ky, in the act of putting a platter on the table, jumped like she had received a death threat.

"Second case?" Neligh asked.

Whit met Kyla's eyes, asking permission to tell the sheriff. What fun! Talking without talking. No wonder men and women stayed married for decades, for better or for worse. Ky gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"Carl Goulding," Whit said. "Chase diagnosed his illness as complications from the flu, but Carl's symptoms were almost identical to Rod's, and the information from the Center for Disease Control -- "What do you know about disease control?" Neligh asked.

"On the Internet."

"Guess I better get a home computer," Neligh grumbled as he sat down. "But it's bad enough having to fiddle with the thing in the office. And there, when things don't make sense, I can turn it over to the youngsters who understand that sort of c.r.a.p."

Chapter Eleven.

"We can't be of much help in finding Moira. It's time we got back to our own business," Kyla said over the rush of water from the kitchen facet. She handed Whit a wet plate, he fitted it into the dishwasher.

"Which agenda? Hantavirus or...um...personal?"

"Hantavirus." Whit, Kyla feared, was becoming more and more wrapped up in the s.e.xual aspects of their relationship, and neglecting the reason she had agreed to spend time with him in the first place. "For your own peace of mind, you must find out where Rod picked the stuff up. And we'd better figure that out soon, because if I'm around when the state people arrive, Dr. Chase will go after me for sure."

"Dr. Chase is totally absorbed in the case of his missing wife," Whit said.

"Lets get back to work, so we have hard information to offer the state health people. I'll get the folder out of the truck, we'll spread everything on the table and decide on the next venture. Maybe east to the park."

Kyla wiped the mahogany table carefully. The previous owners had not been careful with the top. Two scratches went all the way through the veneer, and in one spot the finish had worn through, leaving the bare wood exposed. Jenny's table. Jenny's taste in furniture. Under her direction the house would have shifted from western casual to a more formal European style.

Judith had prepared her, and for that Kyla felt grateful. Whit clung tenaciously to the memory of love, and any woman who tried to compete with Jenny's perfection would only hurt herself. Whit had relaxed his guard enough that he could enjoy a physical relationship, but beyond that? Kyla warned herself that she must never expect avowals of love from Whit, or the most tenuous of emotional ties. There could be no secret signs, no knowing one another's thoughts, no "our song." Unless you counted the doorbell.

Heavens, they had pa.s.sed right through Bishop and not stopped at the drug store to resupply. She had shaken the box this morning and found it close to empty.

They simply could not get enough of each other. Would s.e.x ever again be so exciting? Too bad, if it turned out that Whit spoiled her for future love affairs with men more suited as permanent lovers, or husbands.

Whit opened a folder and scattered papers on the table. He had emptied the truck of every sc.r.a.p, even the receipts for the couch and coffee table. He unfolded the map and pulled out the mock-up of the resort brochure.

"I think I'll call Jake," he said.

"Jake?

"The Flying Realtor. Any real estate salesman who's prosperous enough to maintain an airplane probably knows the status of every piece of Nevada real estate" He stirred the papers until a business card came to the top.

Kyla shoved the coffee table to its place in front of the couch, but after one experimental heft decided to leave the moving of the bronc rider to Whit. Except for the tinkle of falling water, the room lay silent. If Whit intended to leave the fountain running, the tank should be full. Well, she could take care of that. Kyla was making her third trip with the pitcher when Whit reappeared.

"There's a way to fill the tank automatically, through pipes connected to the water system somehow," he said. "But I'll have to read the notes I took six years ago."

That made sense, Kyla thought. Any house with motorized drapery pulls and a musical doorbell would certainly have a more convenient way to supply water to the humidifier.

"Jake gave me a lead on one ranch near Ely. His descriptions of the other two don't sound promising. He doesn't know who's promoting the Hole-in-Rock resort development, but he's certain they haven't actually bought Fellows Canyon Ranch.

Only an option to buy, which is why it's listed in the catalog."

"Move the statue to the coffee table," Kyla said. "I want to see how it looks."

"I've never seen the secret compartment," Whit said, tipping the statue far over. "Vince says there's a little sliding door." By stooping, Kyla spotted a rectangular depression in the center of the felted base. She explored with her fingertips, found a ridge, and with a slight pressure the door slid aside.

"How much room in that hole?" Whit asked.

"s.p.a.ce enough for a small jewelry box. The kind that hold a ring or coiled necklace." She ran her fingers the length of the cavity. "Whit, there's something in here. Something round, flat against the top." She withdrew her hand. Whatever was in the hidey-hole, it was not hers.

Whit carried the statue to the couch, where he could lay it on its side without risk. He fished about in the cavity. "I can feel the thing, but my hands are too big to get at it," he said, sitting back on his heels. "You try."

Kyla worked a fingernail under the edge of the flat packet, pulled, and it came away. "It hasn't been in here long. The tape's still flexible."

She dropped a metallic disk in Whit's palm. Their foreheads touched when they leaned over to stare. It was a trifle larger than an old-fashioned silver dollar, and gold in color.

Whit bounced the disk in his hand. "Too light to be solid gold." He turned it to catch the sunlight. "Betsy Allen's Jingling Silver Casino. Las Vegas. A casino chip." Whit snorted. "Impossible!"

"What's impossible?" Kyla asked, craning her neck to read the black letters.

"One hundred thousand dollars." Whit got to his feet, and as he was rising tossed the chip at her. It slid through Kyla's hands, rolled between her knees.

She finally corralled it against the baseboard. $100,000. Impossible. Casino chips did not come in such ridiculous denominations. She had never seen anything larger than...what, $10 or $20 maybe. A fake casino chip. She scratched at the number, half expecting it to peel away. "Why should Rod hide this chip if it's fake?" she asked. No reply. She looked up and found herself alone, the door to the kitchen still swinging. When she caught up with Whit in his office, he was already on the phone.

"The sheriff's got a radio in his car, doesn't he?" He did not allow time for an answer. "You get in touch with him and tell him to get back to Plum Sky Ranch.

And look in Moira Chase's file and remind him what casino she worked for in Las Vegas." He slammed the receiver.

"Whit, how do you know this thing doesn't belong to Rod? He might have had a successful night at the tables."

"Rod's a businessman. Was a businessman. His money didn't sit in a bank account, except when necessary, when he moved from one investment to another. Rod wouldn't let $100,000 gather dust in the bottom of a statue."

Kyla turned the chip over, searching for more information. For clues, but she found nothing. Not even the name of the manufacturer. She flipped the chip into the air, caught it in her fist. "Your call."

"Tails," he said, and patted her backside.

"But what's heads and what's tails?"

"That is the climatic question." His arms snaked about her before she had a chance to prepare herself. Only a few seconds, and every curve found its niche.

She dared a quick look at the clock. How long until bedtime?

"You don't think that chip's been in the statue long?" he asked.

"Tape turns brittle with age, and when you pull at it, it breaks," Kyla explained. She opened her hand, held it against his chest so he might see the chip and the flexible tape still dangling from the back.

"How long? A few months?"

"In this dry climate, a few weeks," Kyla said. "You think this is what Moira was hunting for in Rod's apartment?"

"I don't know what to think anymore." He pinched the chip between two fingers, wearing the expression he would use upon finding something spoiled in the refrigerator.

What was the strange whine? Maybe the pump on the fountain had overheated for lack of water. But she had filled...The whine turned into a siren that grew louder and louder.

"The sheriff didn't bother to close the gate," Whit said.

"He probably thinks you've found Moira in the front closet."