Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

“It’s Amy. You better get over here quick. They’re talking paintings and fingerprints and-”

Score hung up and headed for the basement cubbyhole that was Amy’s office.

As he closed his office door behind him, his phone rang.

He didn’t even hesitate.

“It’s-” began his receptionist.

“Take a message,” he interrupted curtly.

He shut the outer door, leaving the receptionist to handle an unhappy client.

Score didn’t care. He had his own problems.

The paintings are safe. Mother of all screw-ups.

Damage control would be a bitch.

BLESSING, ARIZONA

SEPTEMBER 16

2:33 P.M.

The boxes were coated with a red-brown dust that came from decades in the desert. Despite the looks of the boxes, the contents were mostly in order, filed by date and name. Sometimes the files were done by department, then date, then name. Sometimes by category of crime. Sometimes by a personal filing system that made little sense to someone else.

After a series of trials and errors based on various combinations of name, date, and department, Jill came up with police reports and trial exhibits of all ten criminal proceedings that had taken place the year Justine Breck decided to shoot Thomas Dunstan.

“Got it,” Jill said, then sneezed.

“Bless you,” Zach said. “What do you have?”

“State v. Justine Breck.” She waved an oak-tag accordion file and fought back another sneeze. “This place has less ventilation than a cellar.” She reached into her belly bag and scrounged around until she found a tissue that was almost as old as she was.

Zach took the files while she wiped her nose. He walked away, smacked the file against his thigh to get rid of some dust, and handed the whole thing back to her.

“Your family, your file,” he said.

Jill untied the bow knot in the cord that held the file closed. As the cord came undone, she spread the file wide and went through it quickly, looking for the kind of cards that held fingerprints.

It didn’t take long.

“Well, bless the sheriff’s upright old heart,” she said, pulling out two half-sheets of thick paper.

Zach managed not to grab them from her.

“Justine Meredith Breck and Thomas Langley Dunstan,” she said. “Arrested for D amp;D, ADW, and other bad choices. And yes, we have thumbprints!”

She held the papers out to Zach. The top of each half sheet was a form detailing name, age, date of birth, booking date, and all the other minutiae required for proper jail records. The bottom of each sheet was divided into a grid, five squares across and two down.

Each square of the grid was marked with a smudge of black ink.

Zach took the fingerprint cards and held them so that the light from the narrow basement window fell across them. “Score a few for the good guys.”

“You can use them?”

“Oh yeah. Hold the cards while I photograph them.”

“Both cards?”

“Before the case ever gets to court,” he said, “the lawyer in me wants to put paid to the argument that it might be the framer’s-or a lover’s-sticky thumbprints on the paintings.”

“Reasonable doubt?”

“Not really,” Zach said, pulling a camera out of his back pocket, “but who says people-especially juries-are reasonable? Think O.J. Simpson.”

“I’d rather not, thanks. Want me to hold the sheets?”

“Yes. Over there. I’ll use the macro setting and as much natural light as possible.”

“Why the photos?” Jill asked. “I thought St. Kilda was sending someone with a warrant to pick up the originals.”

“Think of it as fire insurance.”

The door opened and Sheriff Purcell walked in. “What’s this about fire?”

“Just an observation on how easily old papers burn,” Zach said.

“That’s why the sign says No Smoking.” Purcell shifted and looked at the file Jill was holding protectively. “See you figured out the filing system.”

No thanks to you, she thought grimly, or the dragon at the front desk. “It has a few odd kicks to its gallop,” Jill said, “but we figured it out.”

“What are you doing with those papers?” he asked Zach.

“Taking pictures.” Zach’s voice was pleasant, matter-of-fact.

Purcell frowned. “You didn’t say anything about pictures.”

“We didn’t want to go through the red tape for a full copy of the file,” Zach said. “Your people have better things to do than chase old paper for us. Don’t worry, we’re being very careful with the originals.”

“There’s a public copy machine on the first floor. Dime a sheet,” the sheriff said.

“Thanks for the offer,” Zach said, “but we can do it faster with a digital camera, and with less potential harm to the originals.”

Purcell watched for a few minutes in silence. “Mind telling me what this is about?”

“I’m afraid that comes under the heading of privilege,” Zach said easily, “and right now we don’t have any reason to think you’re involved in our research for this case.” He turned to Jill. “Just hit the high spots, darling. We can always come back if we need to.”

“No problem, sugar-buns,” she said, spreading out the documents she’d chosen on top of dusty cartons. “High spots and no detours.”

Purcell started to say something, then shrugged and walked out.

“Can you hold that letter real flat for me?” Zach asked. “Handwriting is tricky.”

Jill went to Zach’s side, carefully straightened and held down an old piece of paper, then waited until he told her to turn it over. Working as a team, they copied the documents in the file folder. Then they replaced everything, photographed the file back in its box, and photographed the dates on the outside of the carton.

Fire insurance.

BLESSING, ARIZONA

SEPTEMBER 16

2:56 P.M.

You drive,” Zach said, getting into the passenger side of the too-small rental car. Last-minute reservations were a pain in the butt. Literally.

Jill took off her belly bag and threw it in the backseat. The car had been designed for a planet where people’s legs were shorter than their arms.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Same airport we came from.”

“And then?”

“Depends on what I find in the files.”

While Jill left the town of Blessing in her rearview mirror, Zach transferred photos from his camera to the computer. Before he opened the first file, he copied everything and sent it to St. Kilda.

More fire insurance.

Then he began to read.

“Hello?” Jill said after a while. “I’m part of this dynamic duo, remember?”

Zach looked at her. “So far it’s just Breck family history. I figured you already knew it.”

“You figured wrong.”

Smiling slightly, he went back to the first document and began summarizing for Jill.

“Your grandmother, Justine Breck, and Thomas Dunstan were arrested by Deputy Joel Purcell near the City Tavern.”

“Where’s that?”

“Just outside Blessing city limits,” Zach said.

“Figures. It’s called the Watering Hole now. Canyon County is dry. Technically it’s a private club, because private clubs are allowed to sell booze. In the real world the entry fee you pay at the door is called a cover charge.”

He snickered. “Can’t figure out which chaps you the most-hypocrisy or patriarchy.”

“I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Seems like your grandmother and Dunstan had been celebrating the Fourth of July, but things went south.”

“What happened?” Jill asked.

“Well, according to the bartender-can you believe his name was Truly Nolan?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Zach shook his head. “Anyway, the bartender heard Justine and Dunstan arguing. A real shouting match.”

“Over what?”

“Didn’t make sense to anyone listening, but that’s the way it goes with a lot of drunken brawls. According to the bartender, Dunstan ‘took it’ for a bit. Then he hauled off and backhanded Justine across the mouth.”

Jill’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Sweet guy.”

“You know how those artists are. Real sensitive. He hit her so hard her chair fell over backward and she was tossed into another table’s drinks. Then he jumped on top of her and tried to strangle her. Things got real lively after that.”

“Strangle her?”

“Yeah. He lost it, big-time. This was in the days before air-conditioning, and something tells me it gets real hot around Blessing on the Fourth of July,” Zach drawled.

“Well over a hundred degrees. And that doesn’t include the wind, dry as sandpaper and hot as hell,” Jill said. “Wonder what they were doing in Blessing?”

“Besides drinking and fighting? Painting. At least that’s what Dunstan said, and his clothes had the stains to prove it. Seems he loved to paint the area around the Breck ranch, from Blessing to the canyon rim, Indian Springs to the places where sagebrush died and creosote took over.”

“Is that in the report?” Jill asked, surprised.

“It’s called reading between the lines. And some research I did while we were waiting to see if Frost would make it out of surgery.”

“Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné. You were reading it like it held the secret of life or death.”

Or maybe just sanity.

All Zach said was “Good old Truly Nolan broke up the brawl with the ax handle he kept under the bar. When the dust settled, Justine was gone. Dunstan took off after her. He was about fifty feet inside the city limits when she started yelling, ‘You’ll never hit me again, you son of a bitch!’ Then she shot him with a.22 rifle.”

“The Breck family snake gun,” Jill said. “Modesty still used it-when it didn’t jam, which was most of the time.”

“It didn’t jam that night. Justine fired and kept on firing until she ran out of bullets.”

“Or it jammed.”

“Other than burning Dunstan’s butt with a shot, she missed,” Zach said.

“Pity. If I’d been around, I would have given her my Colt Woodsman. Or I’d have shot the bastard myself.”

He slanted her a sideways look. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“Don’t worry. The family snake gun didn’t survive the fire.”

“It’s your Woodsman I’m worried about.”

She smiled crookedly. “I pawned it to get money for school books.”

He wanted to hug her. Instead, he kept talking. “Once Justine ran out of ammo-”

“-or the rifle jammed,” Jill said.

“-the deputy arrested her and hauled her off in cuffs.”

“What about Dunstan?” Jill demanded. “He was the one trying to strangle her.”

“Oh, they got around to arresting him, too,” Zach said. “Just as soon as the local doc finished pouring whiskey over the bullet burn and bandaging Dunstan’s butt.”

“Then what?”

“The patriarchy you know and love kicked in.”

“Meaning?”

“Justine was charged with attempted murder. Dunstan went down for public drunkenness. He got a night in the cooler.”

The knuckles on Jill’s hands showed white on the wheel, but all she said was “Strangling doesn’t count as attempted murder?”

“Not when she was a mouthy bitch who had it coming.” Zach’s lips twisted into something a lot colder than a smile.

“You sound like you agree with Dunstan,” she said.

“More like I’ve read one too many domestic disturbance reports. Makes me wish I had a time machine.”

“Why?”

“I’d finish what Justine started. I have no patience for a man who belts women around.”

The very neutrality of Zach’s voice made Jill’s stomach clench. She hoped he never used that tone on her.

She let out a long breath. “Sorry. I was taking out what I was feeling on you.”

The back of his fingers skimmed over her jaw. “It’s okay. I don’t wilt if a woman gets mad.”

“A lifetime of older sisters?”

“Real good training,” he agreed. He stroked her again, then went back to the computer. “When the deputy checked on Dunstan at breakfast, he was dead. Hung himself with his belt.”

“A great painter and a miserable human being,” Jill said.

“R.I.P.”

There was silence while Zach read more documents.