The old Land Titles office was a two-storey brick building. Beth Mooney lived in an apartment on the second floor. Her doctor’s office was on the first floor. The basement was reserved for the county morgue. There was a panel with three buzzers near the front door. Each time Thumps came to call, he would start with the buzzer for the apartment and hope for the best.
Then he’d try the doctor’s office buzzer.
He did his best to avoid the buzzer for the basement.
When he was a cop, he had seen his fair share of bodies. But he had never gotten used to the idea of death. Especially violent death, where a life was ripped away, an existential snatch and grab. Accidents, manslaughters, murders, none of it made sense.
In each instance, someone’s child lost.
So, the button for the apartment first. If Beth was there, they could sit in her living room, and she could tell him, in an airy and civilized space, over a cup of coffee, what it was she had discovered.
Silence.
Okay. Thumps moved his finger to his second choice. Beth’s doctor’s office wasn’t as nice as the apartment, and it didn’t have a coffee machine, but it was preferable to the basement.
Again, silence.
Reluctantly, Thumps pressed the third button. There was a momentary twinkling of hope, and then the door clicked open.
THERE WERE TWO ways to get into Beth’s basement. There were the bay doors at the back of the building that opened onto the alley through which Beth could offload supplies and bring in bodies. And there was a set of metal stairs that ran down from just inside the front door.
There was no quiet way to come down the stairs. The steel treads echoed with each footfall, sounding for the world as though you were walking to an execution.
“About time.”
Beth was standing next to the stainless-steel table. Stan Greeley was lying on the table. Thumps had read any number of novels in which dead bodies looked as though they were asleep. Or at peace.
Greeley didn’t look at peace. He looked dead, his chest spread open, the top of his head cut away.
Thumps leaned against the pillar.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“If you pass out again,” said Beth, “I’m not picking you up.”
Thumps took several deep breaths. Which was the wrong thing to do. Morgues and hospitals had much the same smells. A cornucopia of cloying decay with a bright antiseptic aftertaste.
Thumps steadied himself. “Okay, what did you find?”
Beth wiped her hands on her apron, went to her desk, came back with several swatches.
“I’m going to paint the place, but I can’t decide on a colour.”
“You dragged me down here to help you choose a paint colour?”
“Gabby’s lobbying for the seafoam green.”
“It’s a morgue,” said Thumps. “Paint it black.”
Beth set the swatches down next to Greeley. “Just for that, you don’t get a vote.”
Thumps turned toward the stairs. “I’ll see myself out.”
Beth smiled. “There is one other thing.”
Thumps turned back. “Greeley was murdered?”
“Murdered?” Beth rolled her eyes. “No, the man wasn’t murdered. He died of a traumatic brain injury. Like I thought.”
“Okay.”
“And he also had serious cataracts.”
“Cataracts?”
“Not to mention severe myopia and macular degeneration.”
“He couldn’t see?”
Beth shrugged. “Not all that well. With the cataracts, he was, I imagine, seeing double most of the time.”
Thumps shifted from one foot to the other. “So, he’d have difficulty looking through a pair of binoculars.”
“Absolutely.”
“What about a rifle scope?”
Beth put her hands on her hips. “You going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Greeley had a sniper rifle,” said Thumps. “In the trunk of his rental.”
“And you want to know if he could see well enough to use it.”
“I do.”
“Well,” said Beth. “If someone was shooting at me with a sniper rifle, I’d want it to be our Mr. Greeley.”
WHEN THUMPS CAME out the door of the old Land Titles building, he paused to bask in the fresh air and bright sunshine. Such things, he reminded himself, should not be taken for granted. Beth could paint her basement any colour she liked. It would still be a creepy crypt awash in mouldering body fluids.
Thumps wondered if smells were toxic, if he was putting his health at risk each time he ventured into the morgue. Then again, it was probably no more hazardous than spending time with Cisco Cruz. The man from Pie Town had put him in any number of dicey situations, almost got him shot on at least two occasions.
Were there more than two?
Probably.
And now Cruz was back in town. This time with one Nora Gage in tow. A retired customs agent, if Thumps was willing to believe the story. Nora Gage, who rents a house, borrows a dog, and promptly disappears after Stan Greeley stumbles off a short cliff in the dark.
Stan of the bad eyesight. Stan for whom looking through a pair of binoculars would have been a chore. Stan of the sniper rifle, who wouldn’t have been able to hit the sky on a cloudless day.
Of course, there was nothing to say that the rifle was Greeley’s. Sure, it was in the trunk of his car, but the car was a rental. Maybe the renter before him had been a hit man who had completed his task, left the weapon behind. Jason Bourne? Agent 47? The Bride?
Get a grip.
Thumps took out his phone. Cooley answered on the second ring.
“Sheriff’s office. Deputy Peacekeeper Small Elk.”
“Deputy what?”
“Deputy Peacekeeper,” said Cooley. “Deanna figured that we’re probably the only sheriff’s department outside some of the reservations that has three Indigenous deputies.”
Thumps waited.
“So she thought we might want to get creative,” said Cooley. “I wanted to go with ‘Warrior.’ You know, Warrior Small Elk at your service. But Deanna said it sounded aggressive and blindingly male.”
“Okay.”
“She said ‘Peacekeeper’ sounded intelligent and considered. What do you think?”
“You run it by Duke?”
“Not yet,” said Cooley. “Thought I’d try it out on you.”
Thumps lay the phone against his forehead for a moment. “Greeley’s car rented from the airport?”
“It was,” said Cooley.
“Can you check with them, find out who rented that car before Greeley?”
“Before? Wait. You thinking it wasn’t Greeley’s rifle?”
“Just crossing the t’s.”
“Hey,” said Cooley. “Maybe it was John Wick.”
Nora Gage. Cisco Cruz. Nothing about the case made much sense. If it was even a case. Greeley’s death had been an unfortunate accident. A lot of forest and no trees.
Time to find a tree and shake it.
“Tell Deanna to keep on Nora Gage.”
“You want me to call you Sheriff Peacekeeper?”
“I do not.”
“Amazing,” said Cooley. “That’s exactly what Deanna said you’d say.”