The Eagle and the Fox (A Snowy Range Mystery, #1) Read online

  The cash register would be locked and devoid of cash. He made sure of that when he closed up. That left his office. Sensing Josh pacing quietly behind him, he made way for the man to approach the closed door first. Josh mouthed is it locked? Marcus shook his head no and watched his friend carefully press down on the latch. The door swung open, its ancient hinges creaking like gunshots. Marcus nearly peed his pants, but Josh simply oozed around the door jamb, a hammer in his right fist.

  The office was empty.

  Marcus moaned, “Fuck,” and had to brace himself against the frame to stay upright.

  Josh suggested, “Maybe you just forgot and left the door open?”

  It was possible, but not likely. He’d been living on site for nearly three years, ever since Tommy passed away. He had a routine. It wasn’t that he was obsessive-compulsive, but he did like to do things in a neat and orderly fashion. He’d schooled himself into small habits that made it easier for him to worry less about the small things like whether or not he’d locked this door or that one. He couldn’t afford to have an alarm system. Besides, there was no central service to monitor an alarm even if he wanted one. There wasn’t even a fire hall in town. Worst case, if you had a fire, you yelled for help and everyone who was within range came running.

  Josh walked into the main store and stood, hands on hips, considering the options. Finally he said, “Go on up and check on the girl. I’ll go out front and look around.”

  Marcus grunted agreement and pointed to the counter. “There’s one of those torchlights in the bottom shelf,” then raced toward the rear of the building and the wobbly set of stairs leading to the loft.

  The door was still closed, just as he’d left it. But in his gut he knew he wasn’t going to find Petilune still sacked out on his couch. After a quick tour that included him pulling the shower curtain that was the only thing affording some privacy in his primitive bath quarters, there was no sign of the girl.

  Looking around, he muttered, “Just how much did you overhear, Pet?”

  If she’d come downstairs looking for him, it would have been easy enough to skulk by the open door and listen in on everything he and Josh had been saying. Not that there’d been anything particularly damning. They’d mostly rehashed everything she already knew. But the one observation that might have set her off was them talking about the dark-haired teen with the braid who was coming on like a stalker. But even then, they hadn’t indicated they were ready to call the cops and start a manhunt to find the damn boy.

  All they wanted was to ask her some questions. So why run... though the more pertinent question was where would she run to? He doubted she’d have bolted for home unless given good reason. The fact her no good brothers and alky mother were MIA at the picnic indicated she might have given them the slip to go to the parking area to meet with someone. Under normal circumstances not a one of them would care, but this was far from a normal situation.

  Petilune wasn’t bright enough, or a good enough actress, to hide her involvement from her mother. Janice might be a conniving bitch, but she knew when she had a good thing going. The woman wouldn’t take kindly to having Petilune find a boyfriend who might put ideas into the impressionable girl’s head, nor would she tolerate her daughter risking her marketability to men who were in a position to provide supplementary income. Marcus cringed to think he was part of that ugly demographic.

  Scrubbing at his scalp, Marcus muttered, “Her date. She was sneaking off to see him again.” He wasn’t a betting man, but on that he’d lay odds he was right.

  Bouncing down the stairs two at a time, he raced to the front of the store to join Josh. He found him on the porch, leaning against the railing. The lights from the window fell on Josh’s bulk, casting a long shadow that extended far into the illuminated parking area. Marcus quickly scanned for vehicles but it appeared vacant.

  Marcus said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Might have.” He looked in the window, then at Marcus. “I suspect Petilune’s gone missing, right?”

  “Yeah. I think she overheard us talking about all the shit that went down. My guess is she went with the boyfriend, whoever the hell he is.”

  Josh puckered his lips, his expression unreadable. When he spoke, worry creased the corners of his eyes, drawing his brows in tight. “She’s not with him.”

  Marcus sucked air, surprised. “And you know this how?”

  “I know because he was just here. And he hasn’t seen Petilune since you took her away from the fight scene.”

  Marcus sputtered, “I’m sorry. Wait... what? Why didn’t you keep him here so we could talk to him?”

  Josh held up the torchlight and hissed, “Because his fucking gun was bigger than mine.”

  Chapter Six

  Boyfriend

  Josh followed Marcus inside, winding his way around displays, then clomping up the steps to the storekeeper’s sad excuse for an apartment. Settling onto the sofa with a sigh, he readily accepted a shot of whiskey, tossing it back so fast he barely felt it slide down his throat. The pack of cigarettes and lighter landed on an overturned plastic storage box doing double duty as a coffee table. He withdrew one, lit up and inhaled deeply, holding it in until the burn threatened to choke him.

  “You want something to eat?” Marcus looked rattled.

  Josh mumbled, “I could eat. Whadya got?”

  “Soup. Crackers. Peanut butter.”

  “If you got bread and some jam, I could go for a sandwich.”

  Josh had no idea how a man got by without refrigeration. Sure he’d done just fine in his military days, but after being a civilian for a few years, ice cubes and cold beer had moved to the top of his priority list.

  He watched Marcus assembling a stack of PB&Js. A pot on a portable propane stove that magically appeared from under the folding table promised hot soup. It wasn’t until he noticed the man’s hands trembling as he ladled the chicken noodle soup into bowls that it occurred to him Marcus might have been fazed by the notion of someone waving a gun around on his property.

  Marcus said, “Can you set up another one of those storage boxes? There’s not enough space on that one.”

  Josh stubbed out the cigarette and moved to arrange a sufficient number of upturned milk crates to fill in as a table. Marcus made three trips, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he was having trouble keeping control of his limbs. When he was finally satisfied they had everything they needed, he topped off the glasses with more whisky, then collapsed at the other end of the couch.

  They sat quietly, staring at the steam coming off the soup. Josh’s belly grumbled but he held off eating until Marcus made the first move. It seemed important for him to set the tone—to let Marcus keep some semblance of control—though if anyone asked for an explanation why, he’d be hard-pressed to come up with one that made any sense. Seeing Marcus in a dither like that made him feel guilty for even mentioning the incident. He just as easily could have made some excuse for not detaining the guy. There hadn’t been any need to bring up the gun pressing against his temple...

  With a shiver, Josh said, “Mind if we eat first? It wasn’t as bad as it sounded.” Marcus relaxed his grip on his knees, but only marginally, so Josh tried to redirect the man’s attention onto something less worrisome. “I know we thought things were complicated enough, but I think Kit’s story is gonna be key for us figuring out what the hell is going on.”

  “Kit?” Marcus perked up, turning to stare at Josh.

  Handing his friend a sandwich, Josh ordered him to eat first and then he would explain afterwards. When they’d finished, instead of shoving the crates out of the way, Marcus took his time clearing away the clutter and preparing a pot of coffee. Josh would have been happy enough to continue sucking down the tolerably good whiskey, but he couldn’t be sure Marcus was going to offer the use of his couch again. As it was, he’d drunk enough to be mildly tipsy.

  It was possible Marcus wasn’t the only one who’d been rattled, not
that he was willing to admit it.

  With mugs in hand, Marcus sat next to Josh and handed him one with the admonition, “Okay, dinner’s done. Now tell me what the hell happened. And who is Kit, for God’s sake?”

  Josh took a sip of coffee first. Instead of a buzz kill, it added to the mellowed out feeling he’d been nurturing ever since he’d sat down.

  Marcus prodded him. “You went outside to look around. What did you see?”

  “Not much. At least at first.” He balanced the coffee mug on the sofa arm, using his left hand to draw a diagram in thin air. “I worked the perimeter like you do, keeping out of the floods best I could. At some point I heard a car, but given you’re on the main drag, so to speak, it wasn’t enough to raise a red flag. Saw lights heading north toward the mountains.”

  He’d been coming around the east side of the building, shining his torchlight on the ground, making sure he could see the footing. Late in the day as it was, and given his activity earlier, he’d gotten to the point where the pain and stiffness damn near took over, driving away all thought but getting meds into himself and chilling. So he wasn’t paying attention to anything but the ground in front of his eyes and how he set his boots down, one foot at a time.

  Marcus asked, “Where was he?”

  “On the porch.”

  “Jesus H. Christ. Where’d he come from?”

  Josh shrugged. He didn’t know for sure but he had a guess. “I suspect his ride was parked down by the crossroad. I was behind the building for a time, looking around. He could’ve come up the hill and hid in the shadows.”

  “Or he coulda been inside.” Marcus shut his mouth with a snap, the possibility too strong to ignore.

  Attempting to relieve the man’s anxiety, Josh said, “Not likely. We searched. It’s not like you have all that many places to hide.”

  Marcus didn’t look convinced. “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t though.”

  “No, it don’t. I suspect if he was inside he was looking for Petilune. When he didn’t find her, he probably decided to hang around outside to see if anything popped so he’d know where to look.”

  The whereabouts of Petilune was a tangent they couldn’t afford to ignore, but Marcus realized they needed to take it one step at a time. Otherwise they’d be spinning wheels while the girl was getting herself into all manner of trouble. So he asked, “What did the kid do when you showed up?”

  “Well, he waited for me to come in front of the store. With the light shining out the windows and the door, it made it damn near impossible to make out his features.” Josh pursed his lips in irritation. “I’m thinking this ain’t the kid’s first rodeo.”

  “Not following.”

  “He knew how to position himself to put me at a disadvantage.” The muzzle to his temple tilted the odds in the kid’s favor too, but he wasn’t going to mention that to Marcus. Bullet to the brain or cold-cocking him, either way, the juvie had a clear bead on a getaway before Marcus could even process the sound and come out to investigate.

  “You able to ID him at all?”

  Josh closed his eyes, thinking on what he’d been able to gather in his peripheral vision. “I’m about ninety percent certain it was the guy I spied on Polly’s porch. Dark hair, pulled back. Couldn’t see a braid, but it don’t mean it wasn’t there. Jeans, tee-shirt. Usual uniform. Both dark, impossible to distinguish colors when he was in shadow.”

  He took the last swallow of coffee. Marcus took the mug and placed it on one of the milk crates, then egged him on. “So did he say anything? What did you do?”

  Other than mess my shorts?

  “It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. He asked... Where is she?... and I swear to God he was freaking out, like he was close to tears, his voice all choked up. At that point you were upstairs, and I had hope Petilune would still be there and hadn’t done a runner. So I told him that.”

  “And...?”

  “And nothing. He took his good old time making up his mind about something. When he finally spoke all he said was... Promise me you’ll take care of her.” The muzzle pressuring the soft spot below his ear lobe added emphasis to the request. “Promise. Or fucking hell...”

  Marcus interrupted. “Or what?”

  “We didn’t get that far in the negotiations. He heard you coming through the store and took off. Before he made it over the railing, he told me to tell Petilune Kit Golden Eagle was gonna take care of everything.” Josh sighed. “After that he was in the wind. Even without me being a near cripple, I don’t think I’d have had a snowball’s chance. He was a fast sumbitch. And a hella lot younger than me.”

  Marcus mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “Well, if I hadn’t shown up when I did maybe you could have gotten something out of him. Like why he’s here. How he met Petilune. And what the heck did he mean that he’s taking care of everything?”

  Shrugging, Josh took another tack and asked Marcus if he had a notebook he could borrow. When the man returned with a notepad and pen, Josh jotted down all he could remember about the teen, including the few words they’d exchanged.

  Mumbling to himself, Josh recorded as many physical characteristics as he could dredge up. The boy was around five-nine or -ten, slim build but not scrawny, and dusky-complexioned. And though the face had been cast in deep shadow, he could tell the boy had the high cheekbones and flat features typical of his race.

  In the margins, Josh jotted down Sig P226? It was most likely a tactical 9 mil since they were relatively easy to find. He still felt the imprint of cold alloy under his jawline.

  Marcus gawked at the notation, then opted to ignore it. Instead, he pointed to the boy’s name and asked, “You think he’s come down from the Wind River Rez?”

  “Possible, but...” Josh thought back to the rhythms in the boy’s speech patterns. Despite the tension and the obvious emotion coloring his words, there was an underlying accent that was just on the edge of familiar. Pursuing that thought he asked Marcus, “You met George, Janice’s no account missing husband, right?”

  Marcus nodded. “Unfortunately I’ve had the pleasure. Why?”

  “Well, when he wasn’t drunk or shooting up, if you listened to him talk, he had a certain way of pronouncing words. Like his last name.”

  “Yeah, Goggles, wasn’t it?”

  “Uh huh. Well, this kid sounded to me like he came from North Dakota, not northwest Wyoming. Certainly not from the rez.” After pausing to scratch at his itchy beard, Josh asked, “What the hell kind of name is Goggles anyway. Near as I remember he’s Northern Arapaho, ain’t he?”

  Marcus chuckled. “You can thank the government for that. Back in the day, when it came to taking a census, they used translations of Indian names. When I took on Petilune, I got curious about the family so I did some digging on the internet. ‘Goggles’ isn’t as unusual as it sounds. Initially it was put down as ‘Iron Eyes.’ But like sometimes happens, the records got destroyed so the Bureau just assigned random English surnames or rough translations when that didn’t suit. In George’s family tree, it ended up being what it was. No rhyme or reason to it.”

  Josh raised an eyebrow. “Am I wrong thinking maybe that child isn’t the fruit of those particular loins?”

  “It’d be a kindness if she wasn’t. That’s bad blood there, make no mistake about it. Those two brothers of hers are heading for trouble, sure as I’m sitting here. The further she stays away from that den of dysfunction the better off she’ll be.”

  And that brought them back to the fact they had no idea where Petilune had gone off to.

  “That child got any girlfriends she might hang out with? Anybody we can ask, see if they’ve seen or heard anything at all?” Josh stood and groaned from the effort. It had been a long, trying day and his body was ready to give up the ghost on him. He was clutching at straws, but they were out of options so he asked, “Should we go by Janice’s and see if by some miracle the kid decided to crawl in a window and is h
iding under her bed?”

  Although, to Josh, that seemed a reasonable thing to do, Marcus cautioned there could be problems with that idea. “It’s coming ten. Janice will be either passed out by now, or still awake but well on her way to being comatose. In any case, she’s a mean drunk and if Pet’s not there it’s gonna unleash a firestorm I’m not sure will help our cause.” He rubbed his palms on his thighs, a nervous gesture Josh recognized. “Us going there is a little tricky no matter how you cut it.”

  Searching for alternatives, Josh asked, “How about I go to the school tomorrow and talk with the principal? I hear she’s a pretty reasonable person and might be somebody to get on our side.”

  Marcus agreed but added, “I'm not comfortable waiting that long to find out if Petilune has surfaced, are you? She's just a kid, after all.”

  “I don't like it either. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. One thing I do know... I'm not gonna sleep tonight if we don't find out one way or the other.”

  Marcus muttered, “Shit,” and disappeared into the back recesses of the loft. When he returned, he had his keys in his hand. “How drunk are you?”

  “I can drive.”

  Marcus tossed the keys in the air. Josh swooped them into his hand and grinned. “Was that a test?”

  “Yeah, you passed. Now let’s go see if that crazy-assed girl is home. If she is, then all we’ll need is to find a way to get her to spill about this Kit guy. If she isn’t...”

  Josh let silence be their answer. They’d have to deal with whatever came, one piece at a time.

  ****

  “Well, that was fun.” Marcus slid into the passenger seat of his truck and attached the seat belt.

  Josh smirked. “I’d like to know how that coke head learned the word ‘indisposed.’ Guess we were lucky they were all high as a kite. Not sure I’d want to confront the oldest one if he was feeling cross about anything.”