Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) Page 4

  Ben had already scared them off, showing up at his gate with an AR-15 and his 9mm handgun on his hip. Although he never pointed either of them at the bastards, the threat he wanted to convey was implied. “You know how the EPA found out I was collecting water? They require sellers of cisterns to report the sales to them. We need to get rid of the EPA and the IRS.”

  “I know. You should see how they restrict us here at the winery.”

  Ben smiled and said, “You might have a bigger problem with ICE.”

  “Our workers are legal,” she complained.

  “As far as you know,” he said. “But I’m sure you don’t verify every ID.”

  “We contract out the pickers and pruners,” she said. “It’s that company’s responsibility.”

  Ben raised his hands. “Hey, I don’t give a shit one way or the other. They work their asses off in that vineyard. I sure as hell don’t want to do that work.” He hesitated, knowing he had brought peace to the middle east, if not his little piece of Cantina Valley. “Now, you were going to tell me how you happened upon the man in the picture.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to water board me for that information?” she asked.

  He stepped in a little closer and said, “Positive. But maybe I could restrain you and bring you to the point of climax a number of times.”

  “Tease. Don’t promise without action.”

  “I am nothing if not a man of action.”

  She gulped noticeably. “That you are.”

  Ben waited for her to answer.

  “I don’t know the man. But he’s come in here a number of times to taste and buy.”

  “Alone?”

  “No. With a couple of other guys. Rough characters.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling. They were scary.”

  She wasn’t being too clear. “Explain.”

  “A lot of tattoos.”

  Ben laughed. “You mean like everyone else in Portland and Eugene?”

  “Good point. But no.” Sonya held the crucifix around her neck gently with her right hand as if saying her contrition. “It was their eyes that bothered me the most. They looked soulless.”

  Her Catholic heritage rarely came up, despite the fact that she was devout in her beliefs. And Ben? His parents had raised him as a fundamental Christian, with heavy doses of Taoism and Buddhism thrown in to the gumbo pot.

  “Always the same guys with him?”

  “Yes.” Then her eyes seemed to beam with an idea. “They seemed awfully friendly with that Bigfoot hunter once.”

  “Marlon?”

  “Yeah. They sat at the end of our tasting bar for a long time talking last month.”

  “In October?”

  She nodded.

  October was one of the winery’s most busy months, with people trying to capture one more day of sun before the rains of winter came to Western Oregon.

  That was interesting, Ben thought. Why had Marlon lied to him?

  Ben put the photo back inside his jacket.

  “I’m confused,” Sonya said. “Why did this lawyer come to you for help?”

  He had never really told Sonya what he had done in the military. To the layperson he could just say he was retired military and leave it at that. Many thought the military was like a large mass of trained killers who only knew how to pull a trigger. They had no idea of the complexity of the equipment used, especially in the Air Force and Navy. Or even the tanks and helicopters in the Army.

  “As I said, my former commander sent her my way.”

  “What did you do in the Air Force again?”

  There was no again. This was the first time she had really asked this question. “I was an agent with the Office of Special Investigations. It’s like the Air Force’s version of the FBI.” And the CIA. But she didn’t need to know that part.

  Her eyes got round. “What? Wow. Is that why you still carry your gun everywhere?”

  “Partially. What did you imagine I did in the Air Force?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something to do with airplanes, I guess.”

  “Every career field is related to keeping the jets in the air, Sonya, from the cooks to the pilots. I made sure we had a quality force.”

  Sonya pointed a finger into his chest. “This isn’t over, Ben. I want to know more. But I have to get back to work.”

  “Yeah. I need to be moving on as well.” Back to Marlon’s house to find out why that Bigfoot asshole lied to him. “Why don’t you come by on Saturday. I’ll have some fresh smoked fish. You can pair a nice wine with that, I’m sure. Some pinot something or other.” He smiled at her, knowing she was cringing inside. His intent.

  “Sounds good. Six p.m.?”

  “No, let’s do eighteen hundred.” He confounded her constantly with military time. It was their thing.

  She glanced over her shoulder and then moved in and kissed him quickly on the lips. Then she turned and left. He watched her tight little butt in those yoga pants as she walked back to the office. He guessed she would look even better if she’d skip a day or two of running each week.

  Ben went out to his truck and sat behind the wheel. For a microsecond it looked like the sun threatened to poke through the clouds. But it was just a tease. Now the rain pounded down onto the heavy steel of his 68 Ford like it was punishing him for his carnal thoughts of Sonya.

  On his way back home he stopped by Marlon’s place, but the man wasn’t home. Or he just wasn’t answering the call at his gate.

  When he got to his own gate, a sheriff’s truck was sitting outside.

  Ben pulled up alongside the sheriff’s vehicle and got out.

  Deputy Sheriff Lester Dawson got out and spit some tobacco juice into the wet dirt. Then he extended his hand to Ben. They shook and stared at each other for a moment. The two of them had gone to high school together, but Lester had been two years ahead of Ben.

  “I heard you took over the place when your parents passed,” Lester said, and then shoved his tongue into the wad of tobacco under his lower lip.

  “Yeah, I had just retired from the Air Force,” Ben said.

  “You were an Air Force policeman, right?”

  “For the first four years,” Ben said. “Then I transferred to OSI.” When Lester gave him a blank stare, Ben said, “Office of Special Investigations. Kind of like the FBI of the Air Force.”

  Lester nodded understanding.

  “I’m guessing you’re here to ask me about a body found down by the bridge the other night.”

  The deputy’s eyes gazed at Ben’s gun on his right hip. “I see you still carry. Glock Seventeen?”

  “Roger that. You think I might have popped your vic?”

  Lester shook his head. “Not likely. I’m guessing if you had done it, you would have disappeared the body much better. Whoever did this just left the man alongside Cantina Creek.”

  “You ID the guy yet?”

  “Nope. Might not, either.”

  Ben thought about the photo he had of Maggi’s brother inside his jacket. Could the dead man be Tavis McGuffin? “What can you tell me about your victim? You have a photo?”

  “Not a chance,” the deputy said. “Someone popped the guy in the back of the head. Probably at least a nine mil, but maybe forty cal or above. Most of his face is gone.”

  “Race?”

  “Mexican or some other Central American country. Why?”

  “SOP. Just curious. What about age?”

  “Based on his skin and teeth, the ME thinks the guy is at least twenty-five. Maybe thirty.”

  “What about his hands?”

  “What about them?”

  “I’m guessing they’re pretty torn up. Probably from working the fields of the Willamette Valley.”

  “Good guess.”

  “You pull his DNA?” Ben asked.

  “That’ll take a while. Same with the dental work. But based on the preliminary exam, the ME thinks the guy grew up
somewhere in Central America.”

  “Yeah, dental work down there is pretty specific,” Ben agreed. “Anything else I can do to help you?”

  “Maybe,” Lester said. “I hear there was a black BMW in the area recently. You know anything about that?”

  He could deny that he knew Maggi, but Jim Erickson might have given the deputy her license number. “Just a friend of mine visiting from Portland.”

  Lester nodded. “All right. I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you do these days.”

  “Hobby farm.”

  “Right. I heard your eggs are amazing. Any chance of getting my hands on some of those? How much do you charge?”

  “I don’t,” Ben said. “I barter for other stuff.”

  “I’m guessing I don’t have anything you might want.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I heard you make your own beer.”

  “I do a little brewing in my garage.”

  “Then I think we can make a trade.”

  “Outstanding. How do I get in touch with you? I tried to find a number for you, but it seems that Ben Adler doesn’t have a landline or a cell phone.”

  “Guilty. Just drop by some morning and I’ll get you some eggs fresh from the coop.”

  Lester nodded his head and shook with Ben before spitting one more time and then getting into his rig and heading off down the road.

  Ben looked at the ground at the brown juice that the deputy had spit out, like a grasshopper does to ward off its predators. Nasty habit, Ben thought.

  6

  Ben spent the afternoon combining his trout and salmon chunks into a massive plastic container, covering it completely in a salt and spiced brine. He would leave the fish in this until the next day, Friday, when he would pull them from the brine and stack them into his large smoker that he had built about fifty feet from his house. To the casual observer, the smoke house looked like a three-holed outhouse with a wood stove attached to one side. Inside he had built sliding racks with a chicken wire type material. What fish and meat he didn’t can or jar, he smoked. He would do enough fish to last through the winter. Then, in December, he would smoke jerky from wild game or one of his butchered animals.

  On Friday he spent the day hanging close to home, since he needed to keep checking on the smoker fire to make sure the smoke continued to flow properly. Once all of the fish had been pulled from the smoker and cooled down, he shrink sealed them into single packages, keeping just enough for a few days out to eat and share with Sonya when she came over on Saturday.

  When Saturday rolled around, he had just gathered eggs, milked his cows and fed all of his animals, when he heard a vehicle and his gate open and close down the hill.

  Instinctively, he lifted his coat over the gun on his right hip. Then he saw the black BMW slowly roll up the hill toward his house.

  Maggi McGuffin parked next to his truck and got out. Instead of her normal business attire, she now wore tight blue jeans tucked into impeccably clean cowboy boots. Her top was covered by an off-pink Columbia jacket, which seemed out of place with her attempt at cowgirl.

  “You’re home,” Maggi said with a smile. She walked closer to him and added, “I closed the gate this time.”

  Ben gave her an affirmative nod. “Wonderful. What’s up?”

  She shuffled her boots, trying not to get them too muddy. “Can we talk inside?”

  Without saying a word, Ben led her to his house. Once inside they both took off their boots. He hooked her jacket on the rack next to his coat. Under her Columbia, Maggi wore an orange and black Oregon State T-shirt.

  “Nice beaver,” Ben said, trying not to smile.

  Not missing a beat, she said, “Thanks, I just had it waxed.” Then she smiled at him. “Are you a duck or a beaver?”

  “I’m more of a duck-billed platypus. I try not to pick sides,” he said. “Being gone from Oregon for twenty years, I didn’t get much time to go either way.”

  Maggi swiveled her head around the small living room. “You don’t own a TV.”

  “You know the government can track everything you do on those things.”

  “Isn’t that a bit paranoid?”

  “Paranoia is only irrational if there’s no basis for a possible truth.”

  “Freud?”

  “No, I just said it. The new TVs are worse. The manufacturer can sell your viewing statistics to both advertisers and the government. And they do. No good can come from that.”

  She gave him an incredulous gaze, as if waiting for him to smile. “You’re serious.”

  “Always. And don’t even get me started about computers. Not only do they know what you seek online, they directly market those items even if you happen to buy something. Because if you buy one, you must want more. Don’t go to a sex toy shop or all of your e-mail ads and sidebar ads will slap you across the face with dildos.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” she said. “Well, not with dildos, but other things. You know, like books and stuff.”

  “Right.” He gave her a mock glare of understanding. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

  “Sure.” She hesitated and then said, “All right. I know where it is.”

  “I’ve gotta change my pants. They’re full of chicken shit and mud. And I’m not sure which is which.”

  He went back into his bedroom again, but continued to watch her working in the kitchen. Ben wasn’t certain why this woman intrigued him, but she did. And it wasn’t just her physical beauty. Because Sonya had that same quality. Maybe it was the fact that Maggi had a particular level of vulnerability. She had cried and he had comforted her. He had never even seen Sonya shed a tear. Of course, Sonya’s brother wasn’t missing. In fact, Sonya only had one sibling, and that was a younger sister who was currently working on her master’s degree in Rome. Ben had seen pictures, but they had not met in person.

  He pulled on his house pants and clipped his gun to his belt. Then he wandered out to the kitchen.

  “Still have the gun,” she observed.

  “How do I know you aren’t an undercover IRS agent or EPA hack?”

  “Seriously? My father hated both of them. He’d kill me if I became one of those.”

  “I thought your father was a rancher?”

  “More like a hobby rancher,” she corrected. “His day job was also as an attorney. He represented ranchers in Central Oregon, and most of those cases were against the federal government overstepping their authority. Why do you think I came to you? My father and your former boss are kindred spirits. I’m guessing you’d get along great with my dad as well.”

  By now the coffee started to boil and bubble hard. Ben waited for the brew to hit the right color and then turned off the burner. He poured them both a large mug of coffee and they took seats at the kitchen table.

  “I’ve got fresh eggs just gathered from the coop,” Ben said. “I could make you an omelet.”

  “Sounds great. But I ate on the way down from Portland.”

  “Coffee and a scone from a hut isn’t breakfast.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You spilled some coffee on your Columbia jacket, which means you probably tried to drink and drive.”

  “And the scone?”

  “It was either that or a bran muffin. I flipped a coin.”

  They sat and sipped coffee, just like they had the other day. But he had a feeling the crying was over for her. She now seemed optimistic. He hoped he had not given her too much hope.

  “How does your father feel about your career choice?” he asked.

  “An attorney? What else would I have done with an English degree?”

  “Do you have a specialty?”

  “I represent a hospital group in the Portland area.”

  “Nice. So you have to protect the hospital against doctors who screw the pooch?”

  “Everyone deserves representation in this country.”

  “I agree. But it’s one of the reasons our healthcare system is so expensive. What’s with d
octors and lawyers? You practice both of them. Do you ever perfect it?”

  She smiled and said, “Now you’re just being a contrarian.”

  “Is that one of those big lawyer LSAT words?”

  Maggi changed the subject. “Tell me this. Why do you drive that old truck?”

  “I also have an old car in the garage. It’s a nineteen seventy Chevelle SS coupe.”

  “Three-ninety-six or four-fifty-four?”

  He hesitated, somewhat dumbfounded. “The four five four big block V8. How do you know this?”

  “My dad had one of those. He sold it to some rich collector from California years ago.”

  “Truthfully, I don’t know that much about the car. I inherited it. But it is cool and has a ton of power. Very sexy.”

  “It was your dad’s car?”

  “Actually, my mom’s. My dad rebuilt it for her. He drove the truck I drive.”

  “You don’t like new things, do you?”

  “I don’t like electronics in my cars,” he said. “One electromagnetic pulse and every new car on the road is toast. Nothing more than a hunk of metal and plastic.”

  She gave him one of those scrunched nose and forehead looks, as if he had just called her a pedophile. “Now I know you’re just messing with me.”

  He said nothing, and revealed less with his return gaze.

  She continued, “You worked for the Air Force. They control all the satellites sending and collecting data on people in this country and everywhere else on this planet. The smart TVs and internet couldn’t do what they do without the Air Force. Not to mention the fact that they probably have these electromagnetic pulse weapons already in their arsenal.”

  Now he gave her a half smile. “Why do you think I’m the way I am? I know too much.”

  “It’s just a cynical way to live,” she said, with considerable frustration.

  “I’m not a luddite,” he said.

  “Now that’s an SAT word.”

  He ignored her. “I’m a realist, Maggi. Technology is great in the hands of reasonable people. But a government out of control, without regard to our Constitution, is a scary prospect. Not everyone has benevolent intent. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

  “Orwell?”