The Threepersons Hunt

Watchman said, “There’s a lot you’re holding out. Right now I’ve got no leverage to pry it out of you but sooner or later I’ll get it. You could save us the time.”

“I’ve told you everything I know that’s relevant to the case. I’ve told you a whole lot that isn’t. I don’t think you’re entitled to any more than that, and besides I can’t think of anything else that would help. I’ve wondered myself, all these past six years, who it was that killed Ross. I even thought of hiring a private agency to look into it but I decided against it; the case was officially solved and if people started asking questions it could stir up trouble. From my point of view it was better to let Ross’s killer go free than ruin my own position.”

“Didn’t you make any guesses?”

“Of course. It could have been some irate husband. It could have been somebody with a grudge from Ross’ past. He had a pretty checkered life on the rodeo circuit. Maybe it was some woman he’d left at the altar somewhere, who knows. It could have been anybody.”

“But it wasn’t,” Watchman said. “Anybody like that, they’d have had no reason to kill Maria Threepersons.”

“I can’t answer that one, I’m afraid. I’m as mystified as you are.”

The telephone rang.

Through the first three rings Rand didn’t react to it; he was following some private line of thought. Then he jerked his head back. “Hell I forgot Wilma left for the day.” And reached for the phone. “Hello?” Then he waved the receiver at Watchman. “For you.”

Watchman crossed the room. “Hello?”

“How, red brother.” That was Buck Stevens. “Listen, I’m still in Whiteriver.”

“Didn’t you find Harlan Natagee?”

“Seems he’s in Oklahoma this week, something about an intertribal powwow, some Indian nationalism outfit he’s tied up with. They don’t expect him back for three, four days.”

“I guess that’s just as well. Keep him out of the line of fire.”

“What you want me to do now?”

“I think maybe—”

“Hey,” Stevens interrupted, “I’m in that phone booth at the trading post here? I’ve got Tom Victorio tugging on my sleeve, he wants to talk to you.”

“Put him on.”

Victorio came on the line. “Listen, I couldn’t talk before, I was on the office phone. I got to talk to you.”

“Go ahead and talk then.”

“It’s what I found and what I didn’t find last night. Dwight’s got two file cabinets there. They’re both locked. I’ve got a key to one of them, but I know he keeps the key to the other one in his desk so I got into both of them last night. You know those files on the water-rights case, the ones that were stolen?”

“What about them?”

“I found part of them. In the dead files, man. A whole bunch of my notes on precedent cases, they were in the case-closed file right down at the back of the bottom drawer. That’s part of the stuff that was stolen. If I’d known that stuff was there it would have saved three months of work.”

“Any idea how it got there?”

“You bet your ass. You know Lisa Natagee, the girl on the front desk in the council house? She’s the one who usually locks up the place at night.”

“She’s Harlan Natagee’s daughter?”

“She’s Frank’s daughter, he’s the chief. But she’s Harlan’s niece.”

“Would she have a key to Kendrick’s files?”

“She might know where he hides the keys in his desk. She does have keys to the offices, all the rooms in the building.”

“Is she the only one?”

“No, there’s a lot of people with keys but it looks fishy to me. I mean she could have slipped in there one night and just moved that stuff from the active file into the closed files and nobody’d ever think of looking down there.”

“I thought you said there were jimmy marks on the window.”

“There were. And some of the missing stuff’s still missing. But I still want to know how that stuff got there.”

“What about the trust fund?”

“There isn’t any trust fund,” Victorio said. “At least no records. I even looked under Maria’s maiden name. No file. The only file under Threepersons was the murder case. Now that ain’t like Dwight, he’s methodical, he keeps everything in triplicate just the way the Army does. I think he’s got every letter he ever wrote or received.”

“What about the checks?”

“Nothing in the check stubs, man. Nothing at all. No deposits, no checks.”

“Couldn’t they be in his personal checking account at home?”

“Sure. But this is a case, right? He’s a lawyer representing a client. There ought to be records where he billed the client, collected his fees, all that stuff. I didn’t find a thing. I mean if somebody hands you sixty-five thousand dollars to establish a trust fund you’ve got to show where the money came from and where it went. Otherwise the tax people climb all over you. But there’s no sixty-five-thousand-dollar figure recorded anywhere on the books.”

“It was a sensitive arrangement,” Watchman said. “He probably didn’t want it to show on the firm’s books. He could have done it privately with any bank.”

“I know that. But at least you’d think he’d show receipts for his fees. Unless he never charged a fee. And that ain’t like him, he never does anything without charging for it. Hell even the paper clips come off the clients.”

“All right,” Watchman said. “Then what do you make of it?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. This whole case is screwy as hell if you ask me.”

“Did you tell Kendrick about the files in the dead drawer?”

“No. You want me to tell him I’ve been burglarizing his office?” Victorio drew an audible breath. “What you figure to do now, Navajo?”

“Think a little, first. Put Buck Stevens on again, will you?”

In a moment Stevens took the phone and Watchman said, “I’m coming down there, Buck. Stay where you are.”

“What’s up?”

“Maybe we got ourselves a killer. Meet you at the trading post.”

When he hung up Charles Rand was staring at him through the specks of dust that twirled in the shafts of light slanting in through the window.

“What killer?”

“I don’t like to talk about guesses.” The new thought had grenaded into his mind while Victorio was speaking but he wanted to reason it out and see if it worked in all the right places.

“You came in here convinced I’d killed Ross Calisher. What changed your mind?”

“Did I say I’d changed my mind?”

“Come off it, Trooper, you know I’m not guilty.”

“You’re guilty of stupidity, Mr. Rand, and from that there’s no appeal. Now if I were you I’d get over to the bunkhouse and put a crowd around you for a while. Joe Threepersons is probably coming this way. It’ll take him a while to get here and he’ll take his time working up to the house but he’ll be here—tonight, tomorrow maybe. He was gu

Watchman walked toward the door but he stopped with his hand on the latch. “Joe can’t use the open roads getting here. It’ll take him a while. I’ve got business in Whiteriver but I’ll try to get back here before sundown. You keep your head down, hear?”

“Wait a minute. You said you’d got the killer.” Rand came around the desk. “I’m going down there with you.”

Watchman didn’t like it but it would be safer all around. “All right.”

“We’ll take my car.”

That was all right too. Watchman didn’t trust the Volvo more than ten miles at a time any more.

He got into the high leather seat of the Bentley and put his head back, thinking.

4.

It worked in his head. Joe was gu

It could just as well mean that a third party had carefully arranged the evidence against Rand in order to convince Joe that Rand was responsible for the deaths of Maria and the boy. Now if Joe carried his vendetta to its obvious conclusion it would result in Rand’s death but that didn’t prove Rand was the right man.