A Nose for Justice Read online

  Mags held the lean, fierce old woman close. “I won’t be a burden, Aunt Jeep. I swear to you, I won’t.”

  “I know you won’t because I intend to work your ass off. Sweat and manual labor should help work free those toxins from Wall Street. I’ll fill you in on the details of my latest dream once you’ve settled in. It’s a big dream.” She stepped back. “Hang your coat up. You know where. Want help with those?”

  “Oh, no. I can manage.”

  As Mags hung her coat on the peg next to the front door, Aunt Jeep gave her the once-over. “I’m surprised. You didn’t turn to fat sitting on your nether regions all day.”

  “An hour in the gym every day. Five-thirty A.M. Otherwise, I’d be fat as a tick. Walking Baxter every morning and every evening helps.”

  Jeep’s warm brown eyes cast down at the intrepid little fellow. “You and I are going to be friends, Baxter. Did you hear that?”

  The little gentleman responded, “I like you already.”

  “You look like you always do.” Mags complimented her aunt.

  “When you’re older than dirt, nothing much changes.”

  “I think Momma would look like you do now had she lived.” Mags smiled.

  Jeep laughed. “Honey, your mother was one of the great beauties of her generation. She outshone all those Hollywood starlets vying for your father’s attention. If she had made it to eighty-five, she’d have looked better than I did at thirty.”

  Mags slipped her arm around her much shorter aunt’s still small waist as they walked toward the kitchen, heavenly smells drawing them down the center hall.

  “You always underestimate your looks, Momma used to say that.” Mags swallowed hard. “Aunt Jeep, I’m so grateful to you for taking me in and I’m so glad Mom and Dad aren’t here to see—me.”

  “Oh, shut up, Mags. First off, I love you. The moment Glynnis and John were killed on that awful Memorial Day in 1992, you and your sister became mine. Not only did I wish it, that was your mother’s will. Don’t fret about that mess on Wall Street. Most of us hit the skids once or twice in our lives and you know something, I feel sorry for those who haven’t. Think about your parents; your father wasn’t always on the top rung of the Hollywood ladder. He and your mom had plenty of highs and lows, but they loved every minute. What you learn, how you adapt, how you change inside, well, it may be a hard lesson but if you embrace it, you’re far better off than when you started. Weaklings ask for an easy life, Mags.” She turned toward her great-niece. “Failure is feedback for success.”

  Mags bent down to kiss the silken cheek. “Then fasten your seatbelt, Aunt Jeepers, I’m heading for one helluva success.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  As Mags entered the kitchen, Carlotta looked up from stirring porridge at the stove. She carefully laid the spoon on a small yellow plate, then rushed toward the younger woman.

  “Baby!”

  “Carlotta, oh, how good to see you.”

  Carlotta, bombastic in her affections, opinions, and dress and much loved for it, proudly held up three fingers. “Three.”

  “Three what?” Mags looked puzzled.

  “I am now three times a grandmother.” The middle-aged, well-padded Carlotta beamed, her black eyes sparkling, her black hair still shiny. No gray yet.

  “I thought Tommy just had two kids.” Tommy was her only son.

  Aunt Jeep wryly commented, “It’s a fertile family.”

  “October twenty-seventh. A girl. Finally, two boys and a girl.” Carlotta’s eyes darted to her porridge and she hurried back to stir. “We are all waiting for your turn, Mags.”

  “Oh.” Mags waved her off. “I am not getting married.”

  “Famous last words,” Jeep said, pointing to the table. “I’m sure you haven’t eaten and if you’ve eaten plane food, you need help.”

  “Didn’t.”

  “What about me?” Baxter politely inquired.

  “Touch my dish and you die!” King curled back his upper lip.

  “Ah.” Jeep opened a cabinet door, found a small painted stool, pulled it over, and stood on it to fish out a mid-sized, heavy ceramic bowl. “I’ve shrunk.”

  “That cabinet has gotten higher.” Carlotta smiled.

  Suddenly tired, Mags sat down at the farmer’s table.

  “Never occurred to me. That must be it.” Jeep stepped off the small stool, walked into a small pantry off the spacious kitchen, and returned with a bowl of crunchies for Baxter, which she wisely placed at the opposite end of the kitchen from King’s bowl.

  King’s ears shot up. “Did you give him something better than you gave me?”

  Baxter, famished, made a beeline for the bowl as Jeep shot King a stern look of warning.

  Two steaming bowls of porridge were now on the table, along with a loaf of wonderful-smelling fresh bread, a wooden cutting board, and a serrated knife.

  Carlotta occasionally ate with the boss, her mother-in-law, but usually returned to her own house, a smaller replica of this house, where she made lunch for her husband. Enrique Salaberry, fifty-eight, had been orphaned in the mid-1950s and then adopted by Jeep and the late Dorothy Jocham. Even after the formal adoption, Jeep had not changed Enrique’s last name to Reed. She’d preserved the surname of his unwed mother, a Basque.

  In one of her downward spirals, Catherine, Mags’s sister, had tried to get her great-aunt to change her will so that only she and Mags (as blood relatives) would inherit Jeep’s considerable estate. Jeep’s enraged response was to strike Catherine from her will entirely. She sent copies of the revised document to Catherine, Catherine’s lawyer, as well as to Catherine’s extremely handsome and extremely loathsome husband. That had been in 2000. A long, noticeable silence followed, and had continued ever since.

  Either Catherine stewed in Brentwood, a beautiful wealthy neighborhood of Los Angeles, or she was stewed. Ever the actress, she was always ready for another comeback. Catherine, being Catherine, was sure to turn up again sooner or later. She had a talent for picking the worst possible moments to reappear. What made it worse was that she was the spitting image of her mother, Glynnis, which always hit Jeep square in the heart.

  Mags carried her mother’s high cheekbones, and had that same lithe body, but you could also see her late father in her: the coloring, the piercing green eyes. Mags was wonderful to look at, but Catherine was drop-dead gorgeous. Such striking looks are so often a curse. In Catherine’s case, it was a big one.

  Jeep rarely mentioned her other great-niece. It wasn’t that her name was forbidden, only that the conversation inevitably grew somber. Sooner or later someone would say, “You know, Cath will wind up dead. Someone will wipe her off the face of the earth.”

  Carlotta leaned over the sink and looked at the sky out the window. Then she walked to the long row of paned glass windows overlooking the wraparound porch. “More is coming.”

  Jeep turned to look. “The weatherman said two days of snow, maybe a foot and a half or more should fall in the city. That means two or more here.”

  “Where’s Enrique?” Mags asked once she’d eaten a bit. She hadn’t realized how lightheaded she’d become.

  “The old barn,” Aunt Jeep answered. “I’ve said ever since I bought this place that I’d take it down to the beams and then build it back like the original. Well, it’s only taken me fifty-three years. Always one thing or another.”

  “That will be beautiful. You’ve sent me the photographs. I was very impressed you used a computer.”

  Jeep waved off the compliment. “People knew how to build back then. They built to last. For generations. Those hand-hewn beams get me every time I look at them. This ranch’s original owners did an incredible job. I can just imagine Ralph Ford and his brother, Michael, one in the pit, one on top, sawing through those huge tree trunks.”

  “Where’d the Ford brothers ever get the trees?”

  While various pines flourished in some spots in Nevada, not much else did.

  “Brought
’em over from California by wagon.” She shifted in her seat. “In a way, it’s my duty to bring the barn back to its origins. I owe it to the Ford brothers. Too much Nevada history has been bulldozed, burned, or smashed to bits.” She paused. “Bad as we’ve been out here, nothing’s touched the day Penn Station was destroyed in Manhattan.”

  “Oh, I bet if there had been a Penn Station around here someone would have said the land beneath it’s too valuable, let’s tear it down and put up a great big ugly box,” Mags critically commented.

  “No. Not anymore. We’ve all awakened on that subject. At least, I hope we have.” After a spoonful of the thick porridge, Jeep turned to Carlotta. “Perfect for a wicked cold day.”

  Carlotta smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Nobody cooks as good as you.” Mags meant it, having tired of food considered as art.

  Carlotta waved her be-ringed hand. “Poof.”

  A rumble stopped their chat.

  King barked. “Trouble.”

  Baxter lifted his head from his plate. He’d never before heard such a sound. He specialized in ambulance and fire sirens.

  “If those damned kids blow up my mailbox again, I’m getting out the shotgun.” Jeep slammed her hand on the table, stood up, and rushed to the windows at the front of the house.

  A brief gap in the snowfall revealed a black spiral of smoke, far from her mailbox, perhaps three miles to the northwest.

  Then, just as fast, the snow closed over it.

  Jeep scampered back to the kitchen in a rush, her footfalls reverberating on the old wooden floors. She preferred a landline to her cell since reception was spotty in Red Rock Valley. Wings Ranch sat in one of those spots.

  From the kitchen’s wall phone, Jeep called the Sheriff’s Department.

  “Lisa.”

  “Yes, Miss Reed.”

  “Get me Pete.” Everyone knew Jeep. Everyone would take her call.

  Mags listened intently, transfixed by the abrupt change—Aunt Jeep was suddenly a WASP, Women Airforce Service Pilot.

  Lisa patched her through. Pete’s deep voice came over the receiver.

  “Pete, there’s been an explosion, saw black smoke. I think it’s the pump just north of here off Red Rock Road.”

  He inhaled sharply. “Smart of them. This storm will cost us time. Too much time.”

  “Bastards!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Jesus Christ.” Lonnie Parrish grabbed the handle above the passenger door of the SUV squad car.

  “You’d rather have Him driving the car?” Deputy Peter Meadows quipped to his partner.

  “Well, I’ve seen you do some incredible things, but you ain’t yet walked on water.”

  “Yet.”

  Red Rock Road bore evidence of the sudden fury of the blizzard. The hard surface was slick as a cue ball—same color, too. A number of two-wheel-drive cars had slid off the road while the four-wheel ones crept along. Seeing the cops’ flashing lights behind them, drivers did their best to get over to the side. Sometimes a shoulder gave them room. No one particularly wanted to drop a wheel off the paved road, but the siren’s squeal would send any driver’s heartbeat skyward.

  Fortunately, traffic was light. The only times Red Rock Road jammed was when those folks who worked in Reno commuted the eleven miles back and forth. The eleven miles began at the southern tip of Red Rock Valley where the road connected with the Interstate. As it was two-thirty in the afternoon, Pete hoped people had paid attention to the Weather Channel and left work early or had the sense to stay in town. Born and bred in Red Rock and a graduate of Hug High School in 1993, he’d attended the University of Nevada at Reno. His alma mater had provided him with a good education. Sports media tend to focus on UNLV, but as far as Pete was concerned, Las Vegas wasn’t really Nevada so his school was the best in the state.

  He figured they’d be working all day and probably through the night, too. Law enforcement jobs should have regular hours, but anyone in it knows better. When the snow hits the fan, you stay on duty whether it’s your shift or not, if for no other reason than that your replacement may not be able to get in to work.

  Many of the officers in the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department had grown up here. They cared. Women, Hispanics, Basques, and gays wore the uniform. In the beginning, this was a jolt to the locals. Pete was too young to have been part of the fights to hire minorities. Sure, he’d grown up with prejudices, but not enough to impede his work. When you crouched behind your squad car and a meth-crazed lunatic was firing your way with an Uzi, any minor reservations you might harbor about the man or woman working next to you vanished. That didn’t mean a politically incorrect epithet wouldn’t now and then fall from his chiseled lips.

  A tight curve around a frozen pond caused the SUV to skid slightly. Huddled below, backs to the wind, some heavy-coated Angus looked as comfortable as could be under the circumstances.

  Pete checked his speedometer and took his foot off the accelerator. The long red needle dropped back to twenty.

  Passing ranch driveways through the snow, he glimpsed bundled-up folks firing up tractors or duallys with plow blades. First they’d work their driveway, then they’d help neighbors or folks who had skidded off the road. None of this was formally organized. With cellphones, anyone severely injured had a chance to get help as fast as possible given conditions. The flipped vehicles were the ones to worry about.

  Lonnie noticed the dipping right turn onto Dry Valley Road. “Four more miles.”

  “With all this snow, won’t be any tracks,” Pete complained.

  Upon receiving Jeep Reed’s call, Pete phoned Silver State Resource Management. If the explosion had damaged their equipment, they’d have a hell of a time doing repair work in these conditions. Pete said he’d call them back if this was the case.

  Twenty minutes later they turned left onto the snow-slick road to the pumping station. Up the grade, Pete kept a steady speed, ten miles per hour. A burst of speed would send them skidding down a sharp grade on either side. At the top of the service road, they pulled into an area large enough for service trucks. Pete turned the vehicle around to nose out.

  Both officers pulled on their gloves and flipped up their jacket collars.

  Smoke from the blown-up Pump 19 rose slightly, then dropped back down, pushed by the low pressure. The pump resembled a metal flower, petals outstretched and sharp. The pipe itself, twelve inches in diameter, hadn’t been damaged. Bits of light blue metal could still be seen in the nearby snow. Potable water went out in blue pipes. Reclaimed water flowed through purple pipes.

  An impromptu fountain shot upward from the bottom of the pump, ice already forming at the edges of the water on the ground. A sheet of ice would soon surround the pump.

  Standing at the edge of the growing puddle, Lonnie looked down. “Shit.”

  Neither man was a demolition expert but each had a basic knowledge of homemade bombs, starting with a Molotov cocktail and working up to more sophisticated devices.

  Because of the small gusher, Pete couldn’t see down into the remains of the machinery.

  “Call Silver State and tell ’em it’s Pump Nineteen. Find out how far away the nearest repair crew is and when they think they’ll get here. If it’s within the hour, we’ll wait. I’d like to see if we can figure out the explosive device used.”

  “Silver State will hire its own investigators.” Lonnie spoke as he headed back to the SUV.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Make the damned call.”

  Within minutes, Lonnie was back at the fountain. “Half hour. Big rig. New pump. Looks like Silver State was prepared.”

  Pete grunted and directed Lonnie to circle to the right of the damage. He’d go around to the left. Both men knew enough not to lose sight of the other. In storms like this, people could get disoriented, even lost, six feet away from a barn door and safety. That meant freezing to death.

  Every few paces, Pete scuffed the snow with his right shoe. A scrap of wet paper c
aught his eye. Kneeling, he nudged it with his gloved forefinger, then picked it up. The ink—ballpoint—was running. He could make out “mil” then below it “butt.”

  He glanced up and spotted Lonnie through shifting veils of snow. Lonnie looked his way and waved.

  Pete smiled. The kid was twenty-five. He showed natural ability for police work, but was still naïve about how the world really works.

  Pete walked another ten paces and saw a red bit of cloth against the snow. He picked it up from the frozen ground. Just a red piece of cloth, ripstop.

  “Hey, let’s go back,” Pete called out.

  The two met back at the pump. Pete motioned toward the car. They gratefully crawled in, unzipped their heavy coats, and pulled off their gloves. Pete laid his two tiny finds on the center console.

  Lonnie added a piece of paper he’d found. It matched Pete’s fragment. This ragged bit, fuzzed-up blue ink like Pete’s, bore the printed letters, “br.”

  “A shopping list?” The young man shrugged.

  “Looks like it. Might be nothing. Then again.”

  Hearing a deep diesel roar, they both looked up simultaneously into the rearview mirror.

  “They must have been close by. Let me talk to these guys.”

  “Always do.”

  “Yeah, but while I’m talking you study them. Pay special attention when we go over to the pump.”

  “Okay.”

  It took the huge truck pulling a short flatbed trailer another five minutes to make it up the hill. Chained on top of the flatbed was a replacement pump.

  Behind the rig lumbered a bulldozer, Jake Tanner at the controls, no warm cab to help him, either. The rotund Jake owned a nice spread two miles north of the pumpsite.

  Gloves back on, jacket zipped up, Pete stepped out of the car. The rig driver knew his business, swinging the trailer around so the new pump was close to the damaged one.

  Goggles on, Jake chugged up behind him, the big bulldozer tracks caked with snow, leaving compressed shards of it in his wake. He left the dozer running as he climbed down, freeing his long beard from his coat collar. “Officer Pete, Christ on a crutch.”