Drone: An Eli Quinn Mystery Read online

  “Dog comes at me, I shoot him, see?”

  “Dog look like he’s coming at you?”

  “Looks ready.”

  “That’s what I pay him for. Lasko, right?”

  “Sergeant Lasko.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “Don’t wise ass me. You got a detective license?”

  I pointed with my thumb at the framed license on the wall behind me. Laced my fingers behind my head again. We were a sight. Me kicked back and calm. Well, appearing to be calm. Him with arms crossed, sunglasses on indoors, looking tough as nails. And he probably was. Two tough guys not giving an inch. A real Western standoff. I hoped there wouldn’t be a shootout. Seriously, I really hoped there wouldn’t be.

  “Detective go sticking his nose where it don’t belong could lose his license real quick,” Lasko said.

  “Quickly,” I said.

  I saw his eyebrows furrow just above his sunglasses. He didn’t know what to make of that.

  “You think you know shit,” he said. “You don’t. So I’m gonna make this real simple, see? You put your nose back where it belongs, or I will.”

  “Mr. Lasko…”

  “Sergeant.”

  “Lasko, you’ve got a nice shiny badge, representing an institution I respect greatly. And despite your odd penchant for sounding like a forties gangster, I’ll do my best to give you whatever respect you deserve. But I’m still trying to figure out how much that is.”

  “Quinn, right?”

  “Detective Quinn. Not Sergeant yet. Working on it.”

  “Wiseass fuckhead Quinn.” He glared at me a second. Actually he just kept glaring. “I’m watching you,” he said. He actually did the two-fingers-to-his-sunglasses-to-me thing. Solo growled. Lasko’s head moved ever so slightly as he looked over at the dog. “Here’s the deal. You’re officially obstructing justice lately. And I can get you for trespassing, I need to.”

  “Curtain Lady tattle on me?”

  No reaction.

  “Mikey Smith call you?”

  Nothing.

  I was going to invoke Ted McCall, but I’d pushed enough buttons. He knew enough now to do something stupid, but not enough to do something smart.

  “You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, Quinn. I’m gonna let you off with a warning for now. But you get the hell away from whatever you think you’re chasing, right now today, or I swear I’ll hang you by your balls. I’m the kinda guy shoots first and thinks later, and I got my finger on the trigger, see?”

  I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d meet my demise, but it sounded gruesome.

  “That sounds like a genuine threat,” I said. “So I’ll respond genuinely: I know exactly which side of the law I’m on right now, and I’ll continue to abide by it. I’d advise you do the same. That includes not shooting any dogs that don’t need shooting.”

  “Fuck with me, you’re a dead man, Quinn.”

  He turned and walked out.

  I unlaced my fingers, swung my feet to the floor, took a deep breath and made up my mind to prove him wrong.

  Chapter 17

  The speed limit on I-17 was seventy-five, but the Jeep wasn’t made for speed, so I kept it at seventy as I wound through the foothills heading north. With the top down, the afternoon sun was brutal, but air at seventy miles an hour was comfortable enough.

  I’d left Solo at home. He didn’t like the heat so much, and I didn’t know how long I’d be out in it, surveilling. The big plan was for a covert stakeout. It went like this: I’d find a spot to sit and watch the McCall place from a distance, see if I could learn anything.

  A sign welcomed me to Yavapai County. No longer in the jurisdiction of Sheriff Horace Otto or Sergeant Lasko. Hmm. A few miles later I took the Black Canyon City exit, turned right on Coldwater Canyon Road into the less-populated part of the small town, and doubled back southward. I glanced at the note with Sam’s directions. In a quarter mile, I turned left on Deadman’s Drive. A ribbon of crumbling blacktop stretched due east, in up-and-down waves, disappearing into the mountains.

  Small, squat houses sat on oversized lots. The blacktop gave way to washboarded dirt. Front yards collected old cars and trucks on blocks. I couldn’t have been closer to a major city and further from modern civilization. A good place from which to conduct any manner of illicit operation.

  As I came over the next rise two men were standing just off the left side of the road, talking to each other across a barbed-wire fence that enclosed an acre or so with a small home in the middle.

  The man on the road side was old, tall, overweight, in jeans and a vast t-shirt. My detective’s acumen suggested he hadn’t walked far, probably lived in the home on the other side of the road, where a rocky driveway went up a slight incline to a modest home and then continued on up a ridge to the southeast. A rusted ’56 Ford pickup sat in his driveway, its bulbous front fenders enveloping headlights like droopy eyelids. His hair was longish and wispy, sans any color or consistency, like dust gathering above his head then lolling to one side when he turned to look at me. Huge droopy eyelids matched the ’56 Ford.

  The other man, inside the fence, was younger, thin and curved like a delicate question mark. Long black stringy hair, crooked teeth, dressed in black from his baseball cap to his boots, with a giant skull on his t-shirt and a matching one on the cap.

  They stopped talking as I drove by. Skeleton man crossed his arms. Mr. ’56 probably would have if he could have.

  I gave a friendly wave. It wasn’t returned. They eyed me with the sort of squints reserved for strangers.

  Now I wished I’d brought Solo.

  Sam’s map indicated a turn ahead about a hundred yards. The unmarked drive to the left disappeared quickly down into dry wash, then reappeared in the distance leading to a ranch style home whose rich browns and pale greens blended into the desert. Ted McCall’s place. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed the two men by the road still watching me. A bead of sweat formed on the back of my neck and rolled under my collar.

  Farther up was a fork in the road that peeled off to the right and headed up a ridge. I drove past the turnoff to McCall’s place and took the fork to the right. The road quickly deteriorated into two barely visible ruts, wheel width apart. I put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and grinded it up the steep incline, groaning over some large rocks and slipping on some loose soil, but never out of control.

  What was left of the road veered right to a flat spot just below and to the south of the ridge. I stopped and turned off the engine. The Jeep would not be visible from McCall’s ranch house, Deadman’s Drive, or anywhere but the next ridge to the south. I got out and walked the few steps north to the ridge I was on, took in an expansive view of a broad valley rimmed by mountains, a dry wash cutting through it all. From here I could see almost all of Deadman’s Drive. Mr. ’56 was gone. Skeleton man looked away, pretending he hadn’t been still watching me.

  The Jeep ticked a few times, cooling down, then went silent. I jumped when a covey of quail flushed from a nearby bush. I’m not usually jumpy. Next time I do a stakeout, Solo would have to come with, no matter the temperature.

  Deadman’s Drive was below. Beyond it was the ranch house, a modest interruption to an expanse of open desert. Out front was a black BMW. I wanted to pull out a notebook and write down “great big possible clue.” I didn’t carry a notebook.

  Behind the ranch house, five horses stood under a corrugated metal roof, hanging their heads and looking bored in the afternoon heat. No other structures were visible for a mile or so beyond. Closer to me, the southwest corner of the McCall land abutted Skeleton Man’s property.

  I turned around and looked south. The extension of Mr. ’56’s driveway would’ve been over the next ridge, out of sight, no more than a quarter mile away. That bothered me too, but I needed to find out what the hell was going on here, and that would involve risks. I accepted the risks.

  Another twenty yards up the hill and around a slight curve in the
ridge, a low mesquite offered shade. I hiked up and took it. I couldn’t see the spot alongside the road where the two men had been, or any of Deadman’s Drive to the west of that spot. But I had shade and a good view of McCall’s place without anyone there being able to spot me. I sat on a rock beneath the tree, began what I figured would be a long, hot, boring, stakeout. As it turned out, it was indeed hot.

  Chapter 18

  I’d been under the mesquite tree for twenty minutes. Nobody had come in or out. The black BMW hadn’t moved. Then a nondescript, medium-sized white commercial van with no signage rumbled down Deadman’s Drive and turned onto the narrow dirt road leading to Ted McCall’s ranch. It was maybe twenty-four feet long, two axels, dual rear tires, the sort that delivers furniture. Dents, scratches, and black smudges marred the side panels. The van was dirty, hadn’t been washed in months. If you passed it on the highway, you wouldn’t give it a second thought.

  The van was followed a few moments later by a white crew-cab, four-wheel-drive pickup truck. They were far enough apart so as not to appear together. That they both turned down McCall’s driveway was surely not a coincidence. Sun glinted off the white van’s windows, and the driver was on the far side from my perspective, so I couldn’t see him. The pickup had tinted windows that revealed nothing.

  The vehicles bobbed down into the dry wash, disappearing briefly and then reappearing. Dust billowed behind them.

  When they got to the ranch house, the van driver made a loop in the front yard and backed the van up to the garage, turned the engine off. The driver got out and went to the back. He was average height, thin, and that’s all I could determine from this distance.

  The pickup pulled in. Nobody got out. The garage door swung open. I heard somebody shout in Spanish, muffled sounds riding a slight breeze to my ears. It sounded urgent. I couldn’t see any detail in the shadows behind the van or inside the garage, but I could tell there was activity of some sort. Within less than a minute the garage door closed, the driver got back into the van, and the van and the pickup left.

  I considered following them. It’d be hard to do without being noticed. A red jeep on a dusty, deserted, ramrod-straight road. I decided to stay under the mesquite and watch the house a while longer.

  The house just sat there. I stood and stretched, kept my eye on it.

  Twenty minutes later, still standing there, someone grabbed my shoulder from behind and spun me around. A fist approached at high velocity. I rocked back reflexively and the punch landed on my right cheek and eye with slightly less force than intended. Enough to knock me to the ground, but not knock me out.

  I rolled back reflexively, using the momentum of the punch to execute a perfect reverse summersault, and I was on my feet, expecting to see Skeleton Man or Mr. ’56, as unlikely as that might seem. It was Lasko, and he was coming at me again. I stepped to the side and his second punch missed barely. I gave him a short jab into midsection with my left hand and he grunted but didn’t seem affected. He swung around and threw an elbow that caught me in the ribs, which were still sore from Master Choi pounding on them. The pain was sharp and deep, as though his elbow had gone between two ribs and into my chest cavity—but nothing seemed to be broken. I let the momentum carry me out of arm’s reach, got into the ready position with knees bent, left foot forward, fists in front of me.

  I breathed deeply, ignored the pain.

  Lasko was in plain clothes, jeans and an army green t-shirt that stretched over freakishly large muscles and protruding veins. Same buzz cut, no sunglasses this time. His eyes were cold, pale blue, more like ice than sky. He was taller and bigger and stronger than me. I’d need to keep some distance so this didn’t become a wrestling match. But he probably had a gun, so I’d also need to stay close, not let this become a simple execution from six feet away. I moved in a step. He took a step back and began circling, fists up like an inexperienced fighter who relies on overall bulk and strength too much.

  It seemed like a good time for conversation, so I asked: “How’d you find me, Sarge?”

  “Got a lot of friends.”

  “Neighbors?”

  “None of your fucking business,” he said. “I figured you might try something stupid. I told you to butt out. Now we end this, see?”

  I’d seen this movie before. Lasko’s ego was trumping training and judgment. Given his occupation—the legal one—I was pretty sure he had a gun, even while he was out of his jurisdiction and off duty. Given his other apparent occupation, which I didn’t understand yet, I was even more certain he’d have a gun. Maybe he didn’t want to fire a shot if he didn’t have to. Alert the neighbors. More than that, he probably just wanted to kick the shit out of me, kill me with his bare hands, and he figured he could. He was wrong about that. I hoped.

  All this made me wonder what was in the van. I was starting to get an idea. It didn’t make much sense. Then I considered the fact that I was in the middle of a fight to the death, decided I’d better concentrate.

  Lasko came at me with a big right hook. I blocked it with my left forearm and ducked to avoid his attempt to grab me with his left. He had a surprised look on his face, but quickly narrowed his eyes and came at me with a left hook of similar style and intensity. I wanted to compliment him on being ambidextrous but instead blocked the punch with my right forearm and, knowing his moves now and seeing his rib cage exposed, I delivered a front snap kick that sounded like it snapped a rib.

  The sergeant growled and cursed. Animalistic. He dug deep, surprising me with a left jab that got me squarely in the jaw. My lip burst and my head rocked back, but to a bystander it would’ve looked worse than it was. It was a punch from a big, strong puncher with a broken rib or two, and I didn’t lose my senses.

  I tasted the blood, like copper. That’s when he reached behind his back, and I knew what he was going for. Unfortunately for Lasko he was off balance, leaning forward, legs wide apart. I delivered an obvious right roundhouse kick so he’d try to block it instead of grabbing the gun, and while he was busy blocking that kick and I was still airborne, my left foot connected hard between his legs. It wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t something Master Choi had taught me, at least not that target specifically, and I would never have done it in a match, but in a real fight you take what’s given, and there they were.

  Lasko doubled over, dropped to his knees, and grabbed at his crown jewels with both hands.

  Half of me wanted to end it right there, and I knew I could. The other half of me really didn’t want to kill a sheriff’s sergeant just now. Sparing my knuckles, I took advantage of his incapacitated state and delivered a swift side kick to the side of his head, hoping it was just shy of deadly force. It was Lasko’s turn to go airborne. He collapsed like a rag doll, a really big rag doll, three feet away, facedown. Tucked into his belt, at the small of his back, was a revolver. I removed it, ejected the shells, and threw the gun down the ravine where he wouldn’t find it. Checked his pulse to make sure I hadn’t terminated him.

  I went back to the Jeep, looked at myself in the mirror. Lip bleeding all over my face, right eye and cheek swelling. I started the Jeep, turned it around and eased down the steep part of the ridge. The rocky terrain brought thuds of pain to my ribs. Bruised but not broken, I guessed.

  Lasko would wake before long, maybe already, but he wouldn’t have a gun, and I assumed he’d parked the white crew-cab somewhere on the drive leading up from Mr. ’56’s place, snuck from that ridge to this one. I’d have at least 15 minutes on him.

  All was quiet on Deadman’s Drive, the only dust my own. Skeleton Man and his oversized neighbor were nowhere to be seen. Lookouts, not fighters.

  I drove back to Coldwater Canyon Road then north to the I-17 interchange. I crossed over to a frontage road on the other side of the freeway and drove south through the main business district of Black Canyon City. I blinked a couple times and was at the Black Canyon General Store & Pie. I pulled into the parking lot, found a tissue in the glove box and wiped most of the
blood off my face, got out of the Jeep and went in through the general store entrance. The pies were in back on racks, still warm and smelling sticky sweet and crusty with hints of cinnamon and other spices. You’d have to try one to understand.

  The two women at checkout looked at me funny, but didn’t seem too surprised. I wasn’t the first person they’d seen who had been punched in the face. The diverse establishment had a bar, too, frequented by Harley riders from out of town and some of the rougher locals. I fit right in today.

  Peach, cherry, blueberry, and several others vied for my attention. I got apple. Sam’s favorite. The younger woman at checkout rang me up, tried not to look at me and didn’t say anything except “$17.95, please.”

  The older woman, in her sixties and maybe one of the owners, was smiling. “How’s your day going, young man?”

  “I think it’s just getting started,” I said.

  “I’ll pray for the other guy,” she said.

  Chapter 19

  “You look like hell,” Beach said, leaning back in his favorite chair on the outdoor patio, squeezing the red ball in his left hand.

  “I feel worse,” I said, my elbows on the table, fingers cradling my temples. It hurt to talk, and the words sounded like I’d been to the dentist. I hadn’t noticed the pain until after I’d bought the pie and got back on I-17. Lip stung with any movement, jaw was giving me a headache, cheek and eye throbbed constantly. Ribs were fine as long as I didn’t move. I knew it would all be healed in a few days, so I began to put the pain in a mental box.