The problem with shaking a tree to see what might fall out was that Thumps didn’t have a tree. Greeley was dead. Nora Gage was in the wind, and Cruz was his normal obstinate and irritating self. Trying to make sense of the flustercluck made his head hurt.
What was it that Ora Mae had said? That he’d be surprised who had bought houses in Ironstone River Estates? Was the woman bragging or was she offering him a clue?
Okay, maybe he’d start with a shrubbery.
AT ONE POINT, all public records were kept at the old Land Titles building, the building that Beth had bought and converted into an apartment, her medical office, and the county morgue.
Now, the county recorder’s office was on the second floor of the new city hall, in a nondescript room that smelled of flowers on the turn. There was a long counter that cut the room in half, a barricade of sorts to keep the public on one side and the keepers of titles on the other.
The man sitting at the desk reminded Thumps of a chubby owl. Glasses, large eyes, a beak of a mouth. Bow tie that hung under a double chin like a dead mouse.
“Yes.”
Thumps held up his badge. “I need some information on house sales.”
The man didn’t look up, stayed hunched over his keyboard. “Go to property.mt.gov, find the proper form, fill it out.”
The name plate on the desk said “Raymond Hooper.”
There was a name that rang alarm bells. “You related to Andy Hooper?”
Hooper looked up. Saw Thumps for the first time. “My cousin. Wait. You the guy cost him his job?”
Andy Hooper had been Duke’s deputy when Thumps arrived in town. Andy had been all blue skies and empty spaces. Local sports hero with the brains of a football. Thought the badge and the gun made him special.
“Police work wasn’t his calling,” said Thumps. “He still selling cars?”
Hooper stood, came to the counter. “He got canned from that too. Asshole has been mooching off me and my wife, living in our basement, eating our food.”
“Ah,” said Thumps.
“All he does is watch TV and complain,” said Hooper. “World’s against him. Nothing is his fault. Could I lend him a hundred.”
“So, he’s still in town.”
Hooper’s face broke into a grin. “Nope. I was saved by reality TV.”
Thumps put his hands on the counter and pushed. The thing was sturdier than it looked.
“Raggedy Andy started watching those reality shows on gold mining. Figured it looked easy enough, so he jumped in his car and headed up to Alaska.” Hooper began bobbing his head. “And you know what? I gave him the money for the gas.”
Thumps gave the counter another shove, felt it move.
“You want to stop that.”
“What happens when he returns?”
Hooper pushed the counter back into position. “You burn enough bridges, you don’t get to come back.”
Thumps suspected that these sorts of pronouncements were wishful thinking. Burn enough bridges, and the Andys of the world would just wade into the water and float home.
“Let me guess,” said Hooper. “You don’t want to fill out forms.”
“1492 River View Road,” said Thumps. “Save me a lot of time if I could take a quick look at the records.”
“Ironstone River Estates? Now there’s a can of worms.”
“Flood plain.”
Hooper shook his head. “That’s not going to stop the fat cats. They got too much money sunk into that hole. Flips will be worth millions.”
“Flips?”
“Some of the houses out at Ironstone were bought by individuals, retirees for the most part. Made a little money while they were working. Want their piece of heaven. But most of the properties were snatched up by corporations.”
“Corporations?”
“It should be illegal,” said Hooper, “but it’s not.”
“Okay.”
“So, one corporation buys a fancy house, and it sells it to another corporation for a nice profit, and that corporation turns around and sells it back to the first corporation for an even bigger profit. You keeping up?”
“The corporations sell back and forth between themselves.”
“Price keeps going up,” said Hooper. “Suddenly, that house in Ironstone that was selling for half a million is now going for over a million.”
Thumps took a long breath. “And along comes a buyer other than the corporation, who winds up paying the inflated price?”
“Bingo,” said Hooper. “Really screws up the economy for the rest of us. House prices go up in Ironstone, they begin to go up in town as well. Bubble swells, people mortgage their lives to buy a place, and then, bang, the bubble bursts, and the foreclosures begin.”
Hooper shook his head.
“And guess who buys up all the bankruptcies? Just in time for the cycle to begin again.”
Thumps thought about giving the counter a really good shove, but resisted. “How many houses in the development are owned by corporations?”
“You got two types. You got the big corporations. Insurance, hedge funds, private equity. They’re the real problem, the ones that manipulate the market.”
Hooper hit a couple of keys, pointed to the screen.
“Then you got the small corporations.”
“Cardoza Enterprises?”
“Dolores Cardoza,” said Hooper. “The insurance lady. These corporations are fairly easy to figure out. Bunch of sole proprietorships. For instance, Aegean AK is the bookstore guy.”
“Archimedes Kousoulas?”
“Owns that restaurant as well,” said Hooper. “And this one? BT Group? That’s our idiot mayor, Barney Tingle. Uses his own initials.”
“And the address I gave you?”
“That place is owned by VR Inc.”
Thumps stared at the screen. “We know who owns VR Inc.?”
Hooper pushed his glasses up his nose. “Imagine you can figure that out for yourself.”
“Shit.”
“Shit, indeed,” said Hooper.
Thumps set his hat on his head. “Thanks for the help.”
Hooper nodded. “Andy said when he strikes it rich, he’s going to buy me a new pickup. You think I should start looking?”
Thumps tried a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it. “You might want to wait for the new model year.”
“Yeah,” said Hooper. “That’s what I figured.”
SHADOW RANCH was a sprawling complex banked against the western slope of the foothills. No matter how many times Thumps had been to the resort, he was always surprised to come up over the rise and see it all alone on the prairies, looking for the world like the set for an epic western.
Or the long-lost city of an alien civilization.
The resort included a four-star hotel, a Las Vegas–style nightclub, a family water park, tennis courts, riding stables, a skeet-shooting range, along with a championship eighteen-hole golf course.
The only thing the place didn’t have was a casino. Vernon Rockland, lord and master of the manor, had been trying to get a gambling licence ever since Shadow Ranch opened its doors, but to no avail.
The tribe had the only casino in the area. Buffalo Mountain was on tribal land and technically not subject to the state regulations or oversight, and Rockland had argued long and loud that this was unfair, his favourite mantra being “a level playing field.”
Not that the playing field had ever been level.
But now that it had tipped slightly in favour of Native people, the Vernon Rocklands of the world, who had always enjoyed doing business on a slant, were irate to find themselves labouring across flat ground.
So, if you wanted to throw your money away on bad odds and fast dice, you had to drive up to Buffalo Mountain.
But if your idea of fun was chasing a little white ball over hill and dale, chunking it in and out of sand traps, losing it in water hazards and deep rough, then Shadow Ranch and the South Forty was for you.
THE U.S. OPEN qualifying tournament had drawn golfers and fans alike, and the parking lot at Shadow Ranch was filled beyond capacity. Thumps did one circuit, in case there was a space that had been missed, and then pulled the cruiser into the loading zone near the front door to the resort.
Official business had its privileges.
He walked straight through the lobby, past the hotel reception desk, down a long hallway with “Corporate Offices” stencilled on the glass.
“Welcome to Shadow Ranch.” The woman was all smiles. “How may I help you?”
There were offices off to the side, all with glass walls. Thumps could see people at their desks, people walking around, people on telephones. It was like standing in an aquarium.
Thumps nodded. “This all new?”
“It is,” said the woman. “We’re in a contemporary business world, and that world is a world of glass.”
“You can see everyone.”
“Transparency,” said the woman. “I am told the goal is transparency.”
Thumps took a moment to check the enclosures. “Don’t see Vernon.”
“Do you have an appointment with Mr. Rockland?”
“Official business.” Thumps showed his badge.
“The nature of the business?”
“Official.”
The smile faded. “So,” said the woman, “no transparency?”
“None whatsoever,” said Thumps.
VERNON ROCKLAND’S NEW office was behind panelled walls and heavy wood doors. The only glass in the room was the long window that looked out onto the eighteenth green.
“Just had a call from security.” Rockland held out a hand. “Said there was a police vehicle in the loading zone.”
“That would be me.”
“Wanted to know if they should tow it.” Rockland smiled. “I told them to leave it be.”
“Appreciate that.”
“How’s Duke doing?”
“Resting,” said Thumps. “Healing.”
“So, can we count on the sheriff’s office to help with tournament security?”
“Don’t have the manpower,” said Thumps.
“So, serve and protect doesn’t extend to successful businesses and major sporting events?”
Rockland’s desk was perched on a low riser, giving the man the impression that he was larger than life.
“Ah,” said Rockland, “you want tickets to the tournament.”
“Nope.”
“Good, because we’re sold out.” Rockland leaned back in the chair. “But I’m glad you’re here. Wanted to talk to you about the fall program.”
Thumps waited.
“Long and the short of it is, I may not be able to offer you a show this year. I mean your last show did fine, but architectural photography isn’t what it used to be.”
“I do landscape.”
“You know what’s hot right now?” Rockland made a sour mouth. “Cellphone photographs. Good friend of mine manages the Brown Palace in Denver. He’s been after me to give his niece a show here at the Ranch. She does cellphone photos of people walking down the street. Big blow-ups of their feet.”
“Feet?”
“And in colour.” Rockland held his arms out to show how helpless he was in the matter. “Who is going to buy a colour mural of feet?”
Thumps nodded. In some ways not having to put a show together was something of a relief. He hadn’t really done any new photography for a while, and the time it took to select and print and mat and frame each photograph for a show was daunting.
He wasn’t even sure that he still had the enthusiasm and drive. He suspected that he was a dinosaur. Landscape photography? Black and white? With a large-format field camera? Sheet film?
And while he was sure that cellphone photos of feet weren’t the answer, he was intrigued to see what another imagination might do with such a subject.
“I know that’s disappointing,” said Rockland. “But maybe we can put something together next spring.”
“Didn’t come about golf or photography.” Thumps waited a beat. “Came about Ironstone River Estates.”
“Ironstone?”
“You own property there, don’t you?” Thumps watched Rockland’s face. “VR Inc.? That’s you, isn’t it. Vernon Rockland Incorporated?”
Thumps waited another beat, and then kept going.
“A house. Nice place on the river. 1492 River View Road. But you’re not living there right now. I figure it’s an investment. Or maybe a retirement place.”
Rockland seemed to shrink just a little. “There a problem?”
“And in the meantime, while you wait for the powers that be to solve the flood plain issue, you rent the place out.”
“Sounds like there’s a problem.”
“Nora Gage. Cisco Cruz.”
Rockland opened his mouth. Thumps held up a hand.
“You’re probably going to say that you don’t know a Nora Gage or a Cisco Cruz. And you’re going to tell me this because Cruz told you that Gage was a matter of national security. Or something along those lines.”
“DreadfulWater—”
“But you see, I’ve got a dead body on my hands, and while it appears that my corpse died of somewhat natural causes, as an officer of the law, I have to do a complete and thorough investigation.”
“Look, if I could help you, I—”
“And as part of that investigation, I need to talk to Ms. Gage. But I can’t find her. She seems to have disappeared. Where could she have gone?”
Rockland sunk a little further into his chair.
“But then I realize that the guy who rented the house to Gage also owns a large luxury resort with many rooms. And I say to myself, maybe my person of interest has been moved to the resort.”
Thumps sat back, waited to see who was going to blink first.
“And since I only have two deputies, searching the place room by room could take a while. We’d do the search professionally, of course.”
Rockland came forward in the chair. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes,” said Thumps. “I would.”
“What if I gave you my word that your person of interest isn’t here?”
“We’d probably start with the condos and work our way to the main building.”
Rockland turned, looked out the window at the eighteenth green with its little flag and the prairie beyond. Then he turned back, picked up a pen. “You know,” he said, “I liked you a hell of a lot better when you were just a photographer.”