The big turbo hanging from the wing outside his cabin seat provided a surprisingly quiet, constant and reassuring hum. There they were at thirty-thousand plus feet in the air in a shiny aluminum tube heading west toward the setting sun. Mostly west. Minneapolis to Salt Lake City is also a little south. Sure, there were other people on the plane. Including his principal companion of many years, Marjorie Kane. She was in the seat next to him smiling with, he assumed, a certain anticipation. Marjorie loved to travel. He knew that. She spent most of her misspent youth traveling. Sometimes just a step or two ahead of the law. Even so, she’d never got over her enjoyment of new experiences, new places, and new people. So, he assumed, she’s smiling this bright morning because they were going somewhere she’s never been before and it’s been a while since the couple had done any traveling at all. She would also get to reconnect with her cousin, Edie, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time. And that, despite the situation.
So, what were these two doing that bright summer day flying to, where? Right, Spokane, as in Washington State. After a brief stopover to change planes in Utah. Don’t ask. After they debark in Spokane, they’ll drive a rental east into the mountains to their ultimate destination, Grand Lac, Idaho. That’s French for big lake. Apparently.
This man, relaxing as best as possible, owes this adventure, starting with this not terribly comfortable airplane ride, to the lovely lady seated beside him.
And to an unsolved murder.
A quick bit of background. The man is a private consultant. No, not a P.I. His name is Alan Lockem. He lives and works mostly in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. That’s in Minnesota, for those of you who may be geographically uncertain. He’s unlicensed. That’s never been a problem. He has a rep because he’s good at what he does, although you won’t find any profiles of him in the tony magazines on display at the checkout counters. Or in the tabloids, for that matter. He’s particularly careful about that. Some of his law enforcement acquaintances back in Minnesota have less flattering labels for him. And that’s okay too.
Some people call him a salvage expert. Others say he’s the quintessential outsider. He doesn’t much care what you label him. When you do call him, it’s because something in your life has gotten out of hand, gone awry, maybe even crashed and burned. When he gets a call, it’s usually emotionally wrought, at least on the caller’s end. Sometimes it involves death, sometimes just serious chicanery. In any case, when, and if, he takes the case, somebody pays. Sometimes in cash, sometimes in other ways. Somebody always pays.
A couple of years ago he was at loose ends and a friend offered him a gig watching a table display of some fine jewelry while locals gawked and coveted and sometimes even bought pieces. Along about halfway through the evening, as he tells it, this lovely lady strolls by in her little black dress. Now this particular dress was floor length, strapless and showed a lot of well cared for flesh above her considerable bosom. Defined a nicely shaped bottom as well.
Now, this man, this gentleman named Alan Lockem, judging by outward appearances, considers himself a connoisseur of the female form, having once been a free-lance photographer. And at his age, well-above middle, you might say, ogling female flesh isn’t as frowned upon when the ogler sports a luxuriant head of hair and a well-trimmed goatee. Both silvery-white. And he hadn’t let his body go to pot, as it were. Advancing age forgives a good deal.
Well, this particular female got to chatting with the gentleman and one thing led to another so that after the jewelry gig closed they had a few drinks, some laughs and wound up the night in her large, very comfortable bed. It was there he learned that Ms. Marjorie Kane had once traveled professionally as a headline stripper named Kandy Kane. It was a moniker she hated but that didn’t stop her from perfecting a topnotch act that drew crowds and large venues and the big bucks. Because she took the trouble to perfect her dancing, Marjorie Kane made most of the nubile youngsters who were out there on the runways look like awkward gawky striplings. Of course, that’s what they mostly were.
When this gentleman met Marjorie, she was having a problem with her last ex-husband. Because he is a fixer, remember, and because he knows things, he was able to clear her calendar, so to speak, in pretty short order. Because they hit it off, after a couple of years of on-and-off contact, they mutually decided to de-complicate things by moving in together. By then, he was delighted to have discovered a sharp analytical brain under her thick, naturally blond, tresses.
That’s how they became a team, Lockem and Kane. He wanted to call them Kane and Lockem, but Marjorie insisted they’d do better if the male member was out front. And so, at an age when a lot of folks of their advancing years were settling down for their last decades, dreaming of placid sunsets and liquid diets, Lockem and Kane geared up for adventure.
Marjorie Kane had relatives out west, out where the antelope graze, in some mountainous spot called Grand Lac, Idaho. One of them was now accused of murder most foul and is soon to be tried in a court of law. If the relatives are correct, he’ll be railroaded to jail for something he did not do.
This relative, one Samuel Black, has been accused of shooting some local nimrod named Jack Ketchum, a rancher in the area. Both men are—were—avid big game hunters—only one is alive now, of course. Both men were handy with weapons, as apparently are a lot of folks in Idaho. Lockem had been given to understand that this was not an old-west-style shoot out, however. Mr. Ketchum apparently was scoped out and gunned down with a slug through the chest from some distance. Maybe a half-mile or even longer. That seemed to indicate planning and selection of the killing scene. So, premeditated murder.
Be careful out there, one of his cop friends told Lockem when he got word Lockem was leaving town, flying off to Idaho for a while. Lots of hunting out there. People with weapons. “Well, that’s all right,” Lockem said. “I’m something of a hunter, too. I hunt predators. I hunt in the forests and the arroyos of the city, where two-legged targets sometimes shoot back.”