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I wasted no time in contacting Dr. Bagley and asking if I could pay her a visit.
She was back home, Roberta told me, and I could come and see her at her ranch just North of the village.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on Roberta’s back porch in a rocking chair with my second cup of coffee for the day cradled in my hand.
“Did Duke keep horses?” I asked after I’d inquired after Roberta’s welfare, and she’d said she was doing fine, which was clearly a lie. She looked like she’d lost ten pounds she could ill afford to part with and had spent a good portion of her waking hours sobbing her eyes out.
“Duke used to have horses,” said Roberta, “but after his accident—”
“Did he board horses up at this cabin?” I asked, just to be absolutely certain there was no chance the story about the dead horse Freddy had related could be true.
“Not many people knew this about him,” said Roberta, “but after his accident, he avoided all large animals.”
“I’m sure lots of Duke’s old friends called to give their condolences?” I asked as if to change the subject.
“Duke doesn’t have friends anymore,” said Roberta. “After the accident, he shut everyone out. I think he would have cut me off if I had let him.”
“I saw Crystal and Reba the day after—and they didn’t seem to know about Duke,” I said. “I’m surprised Julia didn’t say something to Reba at least.”
“Reba knows,” said Roberta. “She’s been filling in for me since Tuesday.”
I decided to let the subject of Duke go and produced the pamphlet featuring Dale Dundee, AKA Rex Popov, that I’d snagged from Hank.
“Do you recognize this man?” I asked.
“He’s much older than he used to be,” said Roberta Bagley, “aren’t we all? And I’ve never seen him with black hair, but I’d recognize Dale anywhere.”
“So you are certain that is Dale Dundee, your ex-husband? Duke’s father?”
“Absolutely,” Dr. Bagley said. “Why do you ask?”
“Does the contents of the brochure surprise you at all?”
“Not really. Dale was always getting involved in some wild scheme, even when we were young.”
“Had you heard about the ‘diamond detector’ scheme he roped Hank into promoting at the Curio Shop?”
Roberta said she’d overheard some talk about it, but as she never set foot in the Curio Shop and such things held no interest for her, she hadn’t paid much attention.
“It certainly never occurred to me that my ex-husband Dale had anything to do with it,” she said. “Although, he comes to visit his sons from time to time.”
“Dale visits Jimmy and Duke on a regular basis?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘regular.’ Whenever he comes around, he’s got some sob story about how he’s fallen on hard times,” Roberta said. “The boys should know better by now, but they keep giving him money.”
“Well, it probably never occurred to anyone else, either, that Rex Popov wasn’t Rex Popov,” I said, pointing to the lower-left corner of the opened trifold leaflet. “As you can see, he wasn’t going by Dale Dundee.”
“Rex Popov? Well, I never—”
“Unfortunately,” I said, “Rex Popov isn’t just a fabricated persona. Your husband Dale appears to have stolen the identity of a real live person. Jason and I tracked down the real Rex Popov at a rehab center in Albuquerque. He’s ninety-seven and in poor physical health but was sound enough of mind to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Dale has defrauded a lot of people using Mr. Popov’s identity. Unfortunately, a lot of those victimized by Dale have decided to sue Mr. Popov.”
“Oh dear,” said Dr. Bagley. “I heard Jimmy was promoting those detectors on his radio show. I’m sure his father talked him into it.”
“Is Jimmy the sort to swindle people?”
“I don’t know. He never has before, at least not that I know of. I suppose Dale stumbled on Hank Edwards and recognized a—”
Roberta appeared at a loss of how to describe Hank without insulting him.
“—vulnerable person,” I finished her sentence for her.
“I suppose Dale couldn’t pass up the combination of Jimmy to shill for him and Hank to take the bait. I wish there was something I could do,” Roberta said.
“There might be. I don’t think you’ll be able to help us get any of Hank’s money back, but you might be able to convince your ex-husband and his new wife to give up squatting in Mr. Popov’s house.”
“After stealing the poor man’s identity, Dale and Tilda are living in his house?”
“They are,” I said.
“I’ll think about it,” said Roberta. “Give me the address.”
After I left Roberta’s, I stopped by Freddy’s before going over to Marsha’s cottage to make sure everything was in readiness for the party that evening.
After-worship coffee hour was still in progress, but I managed to disentangle Freddy from the clutches of a passel of parishioners long enough to tell him that when he went up to Santa Fe, I’d like to go with him. I had a few things to say to the police myself.
It was mid-afternoon before Freddy contacted me, and we made the drive up to the Sheriff’s office in uncharacteristic silence.
“You really think they murdered him?” Freddy finally said after we’d been riding along for miles.
“Roberta Bagley swore to me that her son hasn’t kept horses ever since his accident,” I said. “I can’t think of any explanation for their muddy and bloody appearance other than Blake and Jimmy were disposing of a body; it just wasn’t a dead horse.”
“But, it was such a believable story,” said Freddy. “And Blake was so matter-of-fact about it.”
“It was a very believable story,” I said. “I’d have believed it too if I hadn’t known what I’d known.”
“Why would they do it?” Freddy said. “Why would they kill him?”
“That part we don’t know,” I said.
Although I had my ideas.
I’d phoned ahead and asked if we could speak to Officer Reyes, not that he’d be happy to come in on a Sunday just to see me. However, since he’d been the responding officer and was already involved in the case, it seemed counterproductive to speak to anyone else.
“Hello, Ms. Iverson,” Officer Reyes said as I walked into the small interview room, Freddy in tow. “What a surprise.”
Officer Reyes might have been less than thrilled to be conducting an unsolicited interview, but when Freddy made his statement about meeting Blake Vance and Jimmy Throckmorton coming down the hill from the mine just hours prior to the discovery of Duke’s body, he leaned forward in his seat and took a genuine interest.
When I made my statement about Roberta Bagley’s insistence that her son would have nothing to do with horses, much less own one, he got even more excited.
“I have a couple of possible motives,” I said and watched Officer Reyes visibly deflate.
Apparently, he put far more stock in direct observations and unambiguous statements than he did with theories about motives.
To his credit, as I told him about what Crystal had said about the snapshot missing from her purse and how I’d seen it on Duke’s coffee table, he took notes. I told him about seeing what I believed to be Crystal’s bloody boots in Duke’s closet.
“So, you’re saying Blake Vance may have killed Duke Dundee because Duke was framing his wife for attacking Reba?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said.
“Well, we already found the boots,” said Officer Reyes, “we got a search warrant for Duke’s place, but the snapshot is new information.”
“Then I’m sure you’re already aware of Jimmy’s possible motive,” I said.
“He’s a habitual offender, for sure,” Officer Reyes said. “But just because he’s stolen drugs before doesn’t mean—”
“The drugs would be irrelevant,” I said, “as well as the prior offenses if it weren’t so likely that Jimmy was the one who caught Duke in the act of attacking Reba.”
“How is that relevant?”
“If Jimmy was a habitual offender, wouldn’t another conviction for stealing drugs lead to a very long sentence, indeed?”
Officer Reyes conceded that it would.
“Well? Isn’t it possible that if Jimmy told what he saw that Duke might have returned the favor? I imagine that with both of them having something so serious to hold over each others’ heads, things could have gotten quite contentious.”
“I take your point,” said Officer Reyes, “but if there isn’t any other new information, I’ve got things to—”
I didn’t let him finish but instead rose to my feet.
“Thank you so much for your valuable time,” I said.
“Likewise,” said Officer Reyes and stood to his feet with a smile on his face that I think was genuine.
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled for news of arrests in the murder of Duke Dundee,” I said and sailed out of the room, Freddy in my wake.