“Janice, you can do whatever pleases you. Don’t worry about what people think.”
“Neither Martin nor I were particularly religious. I guess you know that.”
“Yes.”
“He did tell me once that if anything ever happened to him, he’d like his cremains buried in the family plot with his mother and father.”
“That’s in Iowa, I believe,” I said.
“Drew’s Ferry, Iowa. I guess what I’d like is a quiet family memorial there. The girls said that would be fine with them.”
“All right. Is there any kind of service you want here in Posadas? Martin lived here for a long time…since he was in high school, as I remember. Thirty years or more. In fact, he went to at least one grade here with my oldest daughter. I’m sure there are many folks who would like the opportunity to pay their respects.”
“Something small and private,” Janice Holman said. “Just friends from the community. Maybe at the First Baptist Church. I like Jeremy Hines, the pastor there. No one else. And nothing ‘fraternal.’”
“If that’s the way you want it, it’s fine.”
“I don’t know why this is so important to me,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter why, Janice. It’s your call. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. Least of all, to me.”
She paused again and then said in a rush, “No uniforms, please. Can you promise me that?”
“Yes.”
“Will you say a few words?”
“Yes. Of course.” I chuckled. “That might not be the wisest decision you’ve ever made.”
She actually laughed, and the laugh ended in a short, gulping sob. “Bill, Bill, Bill,” she moaned, and then she found her solid self-control again. “Martin would probably have been concerned that you’d offend one of the politicians.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint,” I said.
“Tuesday at ten, then,” she said. “That will be all right with all of you?”
“Of course,” I said. “And I’ll call Sheriff Burkhalter right now, before I forget, or before he makes plans that are difficult to change.”
“Thank you, Bill. And please keep me posted.”
“Count on it. What are your sister’s plans, by the way? Has she decided on anything yet?”
“We’ve just now begun talking about it. She really doesn’t know. She’ll be flying back to Calgary, of course, and I suppose there will be some sort of service there. I just don’t know yet. Neither one of us is very good at this.”
“I don’t think anyone is,” I said, adding silently, “least of all myself.”
“I’ll tell her about the preliminary cause of the crash,” Janice said. “But you’ll remember us if you find out anything else?”
“Sooner rather than later,” I promised.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Leo Burkhalter was puzzled, but finally I could hear the shrug of surrender in his voice.
“Whatever Mrs. Holman wishes,” he said. “You don’t want me to call her?”
“If you want to make a brief call expressing condolences, that’s fine. You might tell her that you talked to me and that whatever she decides is fine with you.”
“Well, it isn’t fine with me, but I suppose I can do that. What I meant was, do you think I could talk her into something appropriate?”
I laughed. “What’s appropriate, Leo, is what Janice Holman wants. Not what you and I think she should want.”
“Did she say why she wouldn’t go for any formal contingent of officers?”
“No. And I didn’t ask. It’s none of my business. Or of yours, either.”
“God, I’d forgotten how grouchy you can get, Bill. All right, that’s the way we’ll play it, then. By the way, is the commission going to appoint you as interim sheriff?”
“I guess. They say that’s what they’re going to do. I told the chairman that I’d fill the spot until November.”
“They didn’t ask Detective Guzman?”
“Nope. They should have, though.”
“Damn right. No offense, but your county government’s got the brains of pissants. And while I’ve got you on the line…you’re listed as a supervisor on an application that we received not long ago, so I don’t see the harm in asking. Tell me about an officer of yours. One of your sergeants. Edward Mitchell.”
“Well, son of a bitch. He applied with you?”
“Uh-huh. He lists June first as a date he’s available.”
“He’s one of our best, Leo. And right now, I can’t spare him. Do me a favor and stall on that application for a while. Are you shorthanded?”
“Aren’t we always? Anyway, he’s my top choice. I got a bunch of applications, but they’re all either misfits, rookies just out of the academy, or halt, lame, and blind. I could use somebody with Mitchell’s experience and training.”
“So could I, Leo. At the rate things are going, we’ll have two people working come fall-me and the dispatcher.”
“You’ll survive. What the hell happens in Posadas, anyway?” Burkhalter said.
“Well, for one thing, the coroner dug a chunk of high-velocity brass out of the gentleman who was flying Holman’s plane. That’s why they went down.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“What, did Holman shoot him? As I remember, you did something like that once, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Nothing like that. The bullet came from the ground.”
“Christ. Just a stray shot, eh?”
“Looks like it.”
“What a goddam waste. Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you just holler.”
“Stop pirating my best and brightest, for a start.”
Burkhalter laughed. “He’s the one that applied. I didn’t recruit him. Do me a favor and cut him loose as soon as you can, all right?”
I promised all kinds of cooperation I didn’t feel like delivering, and when I hung up, I damn near cracked the plastic of the phone. With a curse, I pushed myself out of the late sheriff’s chair. “This is a really fine week,” I muttered, and yanked open the office door.
The darkroom was down in the basement, a cool fortress full of dust-covered pipes and endless cartons of obsolete documents. Where plaster had fallen away, the walls showed the old, square-cut limestone that formed the foundations.
I rapped on the darkroom door with a knuckle and waited. After three minutes, I was ready to rap again when I heard the door bolt draw back. Estelle looked out around the black-rubber curtain that hung inside the door as extra protection against stray light.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Linda still has a couple more to print, but let’s take the ones we’ve got,” she said.
“Do they show anything?”
“Well, that depends,” Estelle said, and I followed her back upstairs.
She spread the collection of eight-by-tens on my desk. With two exceptions, they were sharp and clear. “The camera moved on these,” Estelle said, handing me the first two. “From that distance, the focus would be set on infinity. Everything should be clear and sharp, but he couldn’t hold the camera still against the jouncing of the plane. They’re the first two on the roll, so he took them early in the flight and maybe didn’t use a high enough shutter speed. All of the others are clear. Like maybe he made some adjustments when he realized how rough the ride was.”
I picked up another photograph, a composition in muted shades of gray. “So what’s this? It looks like prairie.”
“It is,” Estelle said. “If you look right there, just to the west of the two-track, you’ll see a little area with what looks like livestock.”
“Sure enough. Pictures of cows.”
Estelle grinned and handed me another. “This is an enlargement of just that area, from the two-track west to the cows.”
“I’m surprised at the quality,” I said.
“A good camera and high enough shutter speed to compensate for most of the bouncing around,” Estelle said.
“And those aren’t cows, either.”
“No, sir, they’re not.”
“They’re antelope. See that one?” I pointed at one animal that had twisted its head around, probably at the sound of the airplane. “Nice set of horns, and its white butt stands out clear as can be. But so what? The range is full of them. Maybe Martin had decided to take up hunting and he was casing the place.” I handed the photo back to Estelle. “What else is there?”