Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) Page 5

  “Orwell was quoting his countryman Lord Acton, who wrote that in Eighteen Eighty-Seven.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  After considerable pause, Ben said, “Now, you drove all the way here to tell me something. Or ask me something.”

  “I was looking for an update,” she said. “I could have just called if you had a phone.”

  “Yes, life would be so much easier with a phone. For you. Not so much for me. Maybe I don’t want people to find me.”

  “That’s obvious.” She took another drink of coffee and then found the pot and topped off her mug. Without asking, she did the same to Ben’s cup.

  “You can learn a lot about someone over a cup of coffee,” Ben said. “And everything over several drinks of whiskey.”

  “You think so? What have you learned about me?”

  Ben studied her with a seriousness he had not conveyed so far in his encounters with Maggi. Then, finally, he said, “You need complete control in your life. And this is a great struggle for you, since you don’t work for yourself. You would like to have your own firm and do the type of work your father did, but you’re afraid to make the move. You’re not sure that anyone would take such a slight, young, beautiful woman seriously. So, you slave away for the man, selling your legal skills to your employer.” He hesitated briefly, waiting for her to complain. But she didn’t. So he continued, “In your personal life you have more control. You live in a Portland condo unit. Upscale. And I’ll bet you sit on the board of the owners’ association. That way you can control what happens in your environment. Am I close?”

  She crossed her arms over the beaver on her chest. “What about my personal life?”

  “That’s easy. You already told me you had been married once, which leads me to believe you aren’t willing to take that chance anytime soon. You left yourself vulnerable once and won’t let down your guard again. So, you hook up with men safely. Those who are not available to you on a permanent basis. Perhaps they’re married. Or young men who just want a decent lay.”

  “Just decent?”

  Ben shrugged. “Just a guess. I have no knowledge one way or the other.”

  She tightened her jaw as she considered her words carefully. “You know. You can be a real asshole.”

  “Why do you think I live alone?”

  “I know now.”

  “Now I’ve offended you.”

  “No. I just can’t figure out how I was so easy to read.”

  “I spent twenty years reading people,” Ben said. “Of course most of those were criminals or terrorists who were hiding nefarious activity. Which makes it much easier to read normal people.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “You’re never as good as people say you are, and never as bad as you think you might be.”

  “Another quote? Or is that a Ben Adlerism?”

  “That was me. Now, tell me why you’re really here? Does it have something to do with that disposable cell phone in your purse?”

  “How. . .”

  “I saw it when you put your keys in your purse on the way to the house.”

  She shook her head and found the cell phone in a hard plastic package. She set the phone on the table and said, “I bought it with cash. It’s not traceable. Only I will have the number. I need to be able to talk with you.”

  Ben glanced at the phone and then back at Maggi. “I don’t even get cell service in the area.”

  She pointed toward the front door. “You get service about a mile down the road. I can text you and you can call me when you can. It will save me a lot of miles on the road.”

  He picked up the package and shook his head. “Look at this packaging. It’s as if the Chinese are sealing nuclear secrets in here.” Ben pulled out a knife, flipped the blade open with one finger, and slit open the package. The phone resembled a flip phone from the turn of the new millennium. “I’m still turning it off at night,” he said.

  “Deal.”

  “I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  “Not at all. I’m so sick of passive men hiding their true feelings, if they even have them. It’s refreshing to have someone say what they really mean.”

  “I do hold back sometimes, Maggi.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I could have told you that I’m sexually attracted to you.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’d have to be blind and stupid not to be.”

  “And you’re neither.”

  “Some might disagree. But now we’re working together. Actually, I’m working for you. So, no matter how attractive I find you, I cannot act on it. I’m duty bound to the honorable.”

  “Do I have any say in the matter?”

  “You have all the say. You could fire me.”

  Now that Ben had gotten that off his chest, he hoped the tension between them would subside. He told her what he had found out so far, which wasn’t a helluva lot. Being lied to by a Bigfoot hunter was not exactly Earth-shattering. Ben guessed that Marlon had a lot hiding in that log home.

  7

  Maggi wanted to hang out with Ben on Saturday as he traveled about the area looking for her brother. First they drove out to visit Marlon Telford. The eccentric Sasquatch enthusiast unlocked the electric gate and Ben drove slowly up the driveway.

  “Let me do the talking,” Ben said. “This guy is a bit out there.”

  “He actually hunts for Bigfoot?”

  “He’s not alone. He’s part of a group in this area who spend time out in the woods. Marlon is a little more dedicated than most, though. He claims to have definitive proof.”

  “That would mean an actual corpse,” Maggi said.

  “Trust me. If Marlon had that kind of evidence, he wouldn’t keep it to himself.”

  Ben put the truck in gear and let out the clutch, pulling forward toward Marlon’s massive house along his perfectly-paved driveway.

  As Ben parked out front, Marlon stepped out the front door as always. This time he had actually put on clothes. He was dressed in chic western camo with his multi-pocket pants bloused military style. But Ben knew that this man had never served a day in anything more than the Campfire Girls.

  Ben stepped out of the truck into a misty morning that looked like it could have been heading into evening.

  Maggi came alongside Ben’s left side and whispered, “Is this guy all right?”

  “Not sure. Possibly harmless; possibly has women imprisoned in a dungeon.”

  “Good to know,” she said.

  Marlon the Bigfoot hunter smiled and said, “Welcome Earthlings. What can I do for my favorite neighbor and his hot redheaded friend?”

  Knowing how he wanted to play this, without implicating his sometime girlfriend Sonya, Ben pulled out the photo of Tavis McGuffin again and showed it to Marlon. “Could you look at this photo again,” Ben said. “Last time I was here it was early morning and you looked like the sandman was still messing with your eyes. Have you seen him?”

  Marlon barely looked at the photo. “You know, come to think of it, he looks like this fellow I met once at the winery up the valley.”

  “Springdale?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah. I think maybe it might be him.”

  “Was he alone?”

  Cocking his head to one side in concentration, Marlon finally said, “He might have been with a couple of rough-looking characters.”

  “Describe them?”

  “You know the type,” Marlon said. “Heavy on the tattoos. More muscles than brains.”

  “Bikers?”

  “No. More like military or former soldiers. You know, white kids who knew enough to put their hands over their hearts when they play the national anthem at football games.”

  Sounded like Ben’s kind of people. “Did you see what they were driving?”

  Marlon hesitated and shifted his eyes to an unknown spot in the sky above Ben and Maggi.

  “No, afraid not.”

  “When was this meeting you had w
ith them at the winery?”

  The Bigfoot man put up his hands in protest. “Whoa, dude. I said nothing about a meeting. We just happened to be at the same place at the same time. Like Karma. They left while I continued my assault on the wine.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Two weeks ago. Just a guess. But it was a Saturday, since that’s my day to go to the wineries.”

  “You look like you’re heading out after Sasquatch.”

  “Yeah, I am. We’ve heard about a sighting up in the Siuslaw National Forest. A hunter found a nice print. He covered it with his rain jacket.” Marlon pulled out his phone and brought up a dark image. Then he used his fingers to enlarge the image. “It’s not very good. It was almost dark when he took this last night. You wanna head up there with me?”

  “I’d love to,” Ben said. “But I promised this lady lunch.”

  “I thought you were. . .never mind. Not my business.”

  “All right,” Ben said. “Don’t let Bigfoot take you from behind.”

  “Wouldn’t that make headlines? First human to be screwed by Sasquatch.”

  Ben thought Marlon was actually considering that prospect with longing.

  Ben and Maggi drifted back to his truck and got inside. Without haste, Ben turned and drove slowly toward the front gate.

  “What do you think of our resident Bigfoot expert?” Ben asked.

  She let out a heavy sigh. Then she said, “He’s a little quirky.”

  “He’s a skinny little liar,” Ben said. “But I’m not sure if it’s a nefarious lie or something more innocent.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Three reasons. First, he met your brother and his two friends at the winery. Second, he knew what kind of vehicle they were driving. And third, someone else also described your brother’s friends as rough-looking, but didn’t mention anything about the military.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” He didn’t want to mention the fact that Marlon’s story had changed to mirror Sonya’s. But why?

  “Where are we going next?” she asked.

  “You mentioned your brother was hanging out in this area, but how do you know for sure?” Ben asked.

  “A girlfriend of mine checked on it for me.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Don’t get excited. A girl and a friend.”

  “I’ve got no problem with girl on girl,” he said.

  “I know that guys like that stuff, but she’s just a friend.”

  “Law enforcement?”

  “FBI.”

  “Nice.” But it made Ben wonder something. “She couldn’t help you find your brother?”

  “She did as much as she could without getting in trouble. We knew he was in this area because of his credit history. He’s used his debit card and visa a number of times around the region.”

  “He drives a four-year-old Ford F-150. Where is that?”

  Maggi shook her head. “No idea.”

  “What has he been buying? Other than the flight of wine at the Springdale Winery?” Ben glanced to his right and saw Maggi bite her lower lip.

  She finally said, “Mostly food, and things at a sporting goods store in the Eugene area. And another gun and ammo.”

  “What type of gun?” he asked.

  “A nine millimeter Glock.”

  “You said another gun.”

  “Yeah. He owns a number of guns, including an AR-15 and a tactical shotgun.”

  Ben thought she looked concerned. “You mentioned you went to his apartment. What did you find there?”

  She hesitated before saying, “It’s not what I found. It’s what I didn’t find. His landlord said Tavis moved out. My brother was staying in a one-bedroom furnished apartment in Beaverton. So he really owns just clothes, a laptop computer, a cell phone, and some military memorabilia, including a Bronze Star with Valor and the Purple Heart.”

  Ben had both of those, but he didn’t mention it to her. “Does your brother have a cap on the bed of his truck?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulled his truck to the side of the dirt road, with fields on each side of them. But he left the engine running. “So, he could be just about anywhere living out of the back of his truck?”

  Maggi turned her head away from him, glancing at either the wet field or the drops of rain on the window. “Maybe. For all I know he’s driving across the country visiting old Army buddies.”

  “Not likely,” Ben said. “He would still be in contact with you by cell phone. Plus, your FBI friend would have seen a history of his travel. Unless he pulled out a large chunk of cash and is paying for gas that way.”

  She turned quickly and said, “He hasn’t done that.”

  “How can you be sure?” he asked.

  “Because the only thing I could not check on my own was his Visa bill. I’ve been on his checking account since before he entered the Army. He kept me on his account so I could pay his bills during his deployment.”

  “Wow. You are close.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Ben pulled out the disposable phone she had purchased for him, and saw that he had a couple of bars here. There was only one number already programmed in the contact list, so he hit that and let it ring. First he heard a buzz. Then that was followed up with a pop diva singing some crappy song, which Ben couldn’t identify with a gun to his head.

  Maggi pulled out her phone from her purse and smiled. “Service. Awesome.”

  “Do you actually listen to that music?”

  “Maybe,” she said sheepishly.

  Ben shook his head and popped the clutch, lurching the truck down the muddy road. “I think I just lost a little respect for you.”

  8

  Although it was Saturday morning, Deputy Sheriff Lester Dawson had decided to work on his murder investigation. What other choice did he have? His almost ex-wife had his two young daughters this weekend, and it was either work or sit at home in a dark house and watch college football while drinking himself into a stupor.

  He had spent the last couple of days going to every resident in Cantina Valley showing them a enhanced version of an image of his victim. The ME had done his best to clean up the man’s face, and then a computer tech had done her best to smooth out the facial features blown all to hell. The image wasn’t perfect, but it was a reasonable facsimile of what they guessed the man must have looked like before someone put a gun to the back of his skull and pulled the trigger.

  By the time Lester had gotten to each of the valley residents, they had all heard of the murder. But not one of them could identify the man.

  Technically, the Springdale Winery was not part of the Cantina Valley, but was on the entrance to the valley and part of the greater Willamette Valley.

  Lester had gone to the winery on the first day of his investigation, but that had been before he had this photo. He sat now in his sheriff’s department rig and viewed the sprawling vineyards in the surrounding hills. He knew each vineyard required a lot of temporary workers, but most of those were used in the winter to trim back and prune the vines and during the fall harvest, which was already complete for the year.

  He got out and went toward the winery. Before going in, he spit out his wad of wet tobacco at the base of a dead flower bed, hoping it would work as fertilizer. He shrugged and wet into the winery.

  First he talked with the owner of the winery, who didn’t recognize the man in the photo. Her husband, the founder of Springdale, was at a conference in Italy, she said.

  Then Lester talked with that hot wine pourer, Sonya.

  “Do you recognize this guy?” Lester asked, handing the photo to Sonya.

  She looked at the photo with interest, her head shaking slightly. “I don’t think so. But it’s hard to tell. Is this a real photo?”

  Lester explained that the man’s face had been damaged significantly and one of their techs had fixed the image. “Photoshop, I understand,” Les
ter said. “But I don’t know how they made it look even that good. I was first on the scene, and it was not a pretty sight.”

  “It must have been horrible,” she agreed, handing the photo back to Lester.

  He stood like a school boy in front of a pretty girl, unsure how to proceed. He knew he needed to move on, but for obvious reasons he also wanted to continue talking with Sonya. He guessed this was a natural result of his newfound bachelorhood.

  “You can’t say this man didn’t work at the winery?” Lester asked.

  “It’s hard to say, Deputy Dawson.”

  “You can call me Lester.”

  “Okay, Lester. You see, we use a lot of people to pick and prune. My job is mostly in this office, although I do go to the cellar periodically to test batches. So, I don’t have a lot of contact with the field workers.”

  He already knew this from his first visit to the winery and from his personal observations during his frequent visits to wineries in the region.

  Just then the door opened and an older gentleman came in, rubbing his boots on the rug.

  “Carlos,” Sonya said. “Come here a minute.” She introduced Carlos Sala as the vineyard foreman. He was perhaps sixty, with dark, weathered skin and wrinkles across his face from long days in the outdoors.

  Lester showed the foreman the picture of the victim. “Do you know this man?”

  Observing the man’s hands, Lester noticed they looked much like those of his victim. They were the hands of a man who still worked hard.

  “I don’t know,” Carlos said, his accent less noticeable than Lester would have thought. “It’s not a very good photo.”

  “How many men do you have working now?” Lester asked.

  “Only a couple of part time men,” Carlos said. “It’s the down season. We hire more in January to prune and direct the new vines.”

  Lester narrowed his gaze and said, “All right. But think back to your harvest. Could this man have worked here then?”

  “It’s possible. But we have a lot of men here for the harvest. All temporary workers. And they seem to change each year.” Carlos handed the photo back to Lester.

  “Is your memory problem because you’re Mexican?” Lester asked.