Dead to Rights

Leaving Voland alone, Joa

Bianca Noonan was a slight, painfully thin young woman in her early twenties. Mousy hair, a slight overbite, and close-set eyes all combined to make her less than beautiful. She was crying. Her narrow, tear-stained face was smudged by smoke, with rivulets of tears cutting through the grime.

“Belie?” Joa

The young woman straightened up and shot Joa

“Someone’s dead,” Joa

“But it has to be him,” Bebe insisted. “I mean, who else could it be? Dr. Buckwalter’s van is here and he’s not. I a-ready looked through the whole clinic. He’s not in there. Not anywhere.”

“We won’t be able to find out for sure until the fire chief lets us go inside the building to check. Until we make a positive identification of the victim, it’s best not to speculate. Meanwhile, we’re going to need your help.”

Bebe nodded mutely.

“Chief Deputy Voland said you were the one who discovered the fire. Is that true?”

Bianca Noonan nodded again. “I also found the other man. When I went into the barn to get Kiddo, I stumbled over him. There was so much smoke that I couldn’t see. I fell right on top of him. At first I was afraid he was dead. The only thing I could do was grab him by one arm and drag him outside. Then I went back in for Kiddo. I saw the ambulance leave. Is the man all right?”

Joa

For several seconds, Joa

Bebe shook her head. “Nothing,” she answered. “As far as I could tell, everything seemed fine.”

The young woman shuddered and took a ragged breath. “I guess you could go inside and look for yourself, Sheriff Brady,” she offered. “I have the keys right here.”

“No, that’s not necessary,” Joa

The horse stirred restlessly. “It’s okay, Kiddo,” Bebe said, stroking the horse’s long, smooth neck. That action seemed to have as much of a soothing effect on the tearful young woman as it did on the horse.

“But I already told Deputy Voland everything I know,” Bebe objected.

“What about Mrs. Buckwalter?” Joa

Bebe sniffed and brushed away tears. “Like I told Mr. Voland, it’s Tuesday,” she said. “Terry’s pro’ly off playing golf. That’s what she does most afternoons.”

“Where?”

“At that new place out by Palominas-the Rob Roy. She plays there three or four times a week-for sure on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.”

Several years earlier, a wealthy and decidedly gay couple-motorcycle-riding California transplants with more money than good sense-had shown up in Cochise County prepared to buy a golf course. When their initial plan to buy one course was derailed at the last minute, they bought them-selves a chunk of cow pasture along the San Pedro River where they built a brand-new state-of-the-art course, starting from the ground up.

Locals who had grumbled and gritched and said it would never work had long since been proved wrong. Rob Roy Links-named after a gloomy biker-frequented bed-and-breakfast in Folkstone, England -had become a rousing success. Peter Wilkes, the younger of the two, served as the resident golf pro, while his partner of twenty years’ standing, Myron Thomas, along with Esther Thomas, Myron’s seventy-something mother, ran the food concessions.

The course was so well-maintained and the food so out-standing that the Rob Roy had become the county’s destination golf course and a popular watering hole/dining establishment as well. Not only had it attracted a loyal local following, it was also frequented by golf-crazy touring gays who sometimes stayed for weeks at a time in one of the Rob Roy’s five stand-alone casitas.

Over time even the most recalcitrant local golfers had been won over. Members of the two vastly divergent clienteles-locals and visiting gays-mingled together in tee-time forged foursomes under the same rule that applied to the armed forces: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” As Peter Wilkes liked to point out on occasion-the rule might be new to the army, but it was one of golf’s enduring traditions of etiquette.

“Do you want me to call out there and talk to Terry?” Bebe Noonan offered. “I could pro’ly get Mr. Thomas to go get her off the course to tell her what’s happened.”

Joa

Bebe nodded dully while a new cloudburst of tears streamed down her cheeks. “I understand,” she said.

“Sheriff Brady,” a man called from behind them.

Joa

“Detective Carpenter,” Joa

“The one who discovered the fire?” Carpenter asked, giving Bebe a quick appraising once-over.

When Bebe didn’t reply, Joa

Briskly businesslike, Carpenter looked around. “Is there a place where I could change clothes?” he asked.

This time the young woman nodded. “There’s a bathroom right inside the door at this end of the building.”

“Is it locked?”

“Most likely. I can let you in, though. I have a key.”

Leaving the tethered Kiddo on his own, Bebe led Ernie around the side of the building. Moments later she returned alone. “I still can’t believe any of this,” she said. “I’m from out in the valley,” she added. “Things like this just don’t happen out there.”

Joa

“Is Detective Carpenter the one you were telling me about?” Bebe continued. “The one who’ll be asking questions?”

Joa

“But why do I have to answer more questions?” Bebe wailed as more tears spilled down her forlorn cheeks. “Like I said, I already told the deputy everything I know.”

Joa

“It will probably seem to you as though the detectives do nothing but ask the same questions over and over. It’s cumbersome, but that’s how the process works. By gathering details from everyone involved, homicide investigators eventually pull together a picture of what really happened.”