TWENTY-SIX

AFTER driving to the Cochise, positive that Jimmy Samson would now be back at the casino, Heather and Zack were informed that he was still not on duty, and so Heather asked to see Toby Jennings.

“What now?” Toby said as he entered the reception area and approached the two detectives.

“We’re still attempting to locate your boss,” Zack said.  “Has he been back to the casino since we spoke to you?”

“No.”

“Give us his address.”

“He has a company house in the grounds, next to the golf course.”

“Lead the way,” Heather said.  “Maybe he’s at home.”

Toby reluctantly led them out of a side door, across a staff parking lot and along a winding path through pine trees that brought them to an area next to a fairway that had more than a dozen properties situated next to it.

“It’s the fourth one up,” Toby said, and pointed at it.

Heather frowned.  There was a midnight-blue Merc parked in the driveway.  “You told us that he was driving that model Mercedes,” she said.  “I guess he’s at home now.”

Toby shrugged.  He didn’t give a fuck whether his boss was at home or not.

“You first,” Zack said as they walked up to the front door.  “Ring the bell, and when he answers we’ll inform him that we asked you to walk us down here.”

They heard the loud chimes in the hallway as Toby pressed the doorbell with his thumb, but no one responded.  Zack waited for perhaps twenty seconds before nodding for Toby to try again.  No luck.

“Are you positive that he left the casino in the Merc?” Heather said.

“I assumed that he had,” Toby said.  “He could have taken any of the fleet that are available for the use of high-grade employees.”

“Rule one, never assume anything,” Zack said.  “Let’s get back to the casino and you can check to see if he signed out another vehicle, and if he did, we want the make, model, plate number, and verification of who was with him.”

They drove away from the Cochise with new and hopefully correct details.  It was verified that Lester Perkins had signed out a metallic bronze Cadillac XT4 from the pool, and that he, Samson, Ben Reynolds and Yuma Mason had left for whereabouts unknown.

“Now do we put out an APB on the Caddy?” Zack said.

Heather shook her head.  “I think that Samson and the others will be back.  There’s no reason for them to believe that we suspect them of anything.”

“They’ve had hours to get back here.”

“Maybe they’re in some bar celebrating the fact that they ripped off the best part of a million dollars from Mitchell.”

“What do we do, just wait it out until tomorrow and see what we see?”

“Yeah.  At this point in time we have no proof that they went to the cabin and murdered anyone, or took any of the stolen money.”

“Samson had paperwork on Mitchell’s place.”

“That isn’t enough to charge him with anything.”

“What do you suggest?”

“A stake out,” Heather said. “We’ll park up nearby and wait for them to return, then move in and see what they have that they shouldn’t have.”

“You saw the state of the cabin.  They’d used semiautomatic assault rifles to do that much damage.”

“Samson isn’t stupid.  They’ll have dumped or probably buried them out in the desert.”

Zack hoped that Heather was right.  The thought of facing armed men with that kind of firepower was more than daunting, it came under the heading of suicidal.

“I reckon that they’ll use the side entrance into the staff parking lot and take the money into the casino at the rear,” Heather said.

“Could be a long night,” Zack said.  “There’s a Macs across the street.  We can see any comings and goings from there.  Let’s grab a sandwich and a coffee and have a base with restrooms whenever we need to use them.”

“Are you still planning on visiting your friend?” Will said to Logan.

“If I think that we’re in the clear, yeah.  I don’t want to risk bringing trouble to his door.  We’ll sit it out here till sunrise, so why don’t you drop your seat back and get some sleep.”

Will got comfortable and thought through the events of the last couple of days, until sleep took him into its embrace and he dreamed of being a six-year old, back with his mom and real dad, and of the good times he’d enjoyed before one after another his parents had abandoned him.

Logan dozed, but was still on a high level of alert.  He held the handgun he had taken from Ben loosely in his right hand.  Life had taught him to never feel completely safe.  He was always distrustful of strangers, especially when he thought that they considered him to be a risk to their wellbeing.  Being in the military, and then the NYPD as a homicide detective for so many years had conditioned him to be overly suspicious of his fellow human beings in general, that he viewed as an unknown quantity.  The men from the casino had obviously decided that he was a threat to their continued safety, and had gone to great lengths to hunt him down and kill him.

It was after sunrise when Logan started the Chevy and headed back to Camp Verde, after having first walked back the half mile to the highway and checking to see that there was no sight of the caddy XT4.

Stopping off for breakfast at a small diner in town, Logan asked the waitress if she knew where they could find the Big Apple Ranch that was owned by Rod Goulding.

“About five miles out of town on South Salt Mine Road you’ll come to a sign for Allen Canyon, and the Big Apple is about a mile down it on the left,” Carol Taylor said as she placed a large pot of coffee on the table, smiled broadly at Logan and went back to the kitchen to collect their order of ham, eggs over easy and grits.

“Why exactly are we going there?” Will said.

“No particular reason, other than like I said before, I thought I’d drop by to see an old buddy that I used to work with,” Logan said.  “You don’t always need to have cause to do anything, just the notion to do it because you want to.”

Will nodded.  He thought that it was cool to just go where your feet took you, without seemingly needing to have a particular reason to go there.  “Perhaps I’ll do what you do,” he said.

“Doing what I do isn’t being a vagrant as such,” Logan said.  “I put a lot of years in and have a couple of pensions and a healthy bank account, due in part to selling an apartment in New York City.  And I also had property left to me by family on Staten Island.  You have to build a life before you can opt out of it with the resources to do your own thing, without being a down at heel hobo with no future worth shit.”

“I don’t know what I’ll be able to do,” Will said.  “I feel as though I’ve got nothing going for me.”

“It’ll be OK, son.  We’ll sort it, and you’ll have to make big decisions before you move forward.”

“The police will be looking for me.”

“That’s a given.  You need to become someone else and carve out a new life.”

“Can you help me do that?”

“Maybe.  We’ll see what we can work out.” Logan said, slowing down as he came to a wide driveway with a cedar sign hanging by short chains between a pair of ten-foot posts.  Burned into the sign in large letters was ‘Big Apple Ranch’.  Checking his rearview, all Logan could see was an RV over one hundred fifty yards back, so he pulled in through the open gate and followed the winding dirt drive for a half mile, to break through a stand of willow acacias to be faced by a small ranch style house with a frontage very similar to the High Chaparral, that had become a famous property in an old western TV series of the same name, back in the late 60’s.

Logan parked up in front of the ranch, that had large cacti placed along the raised veranda in colorful hand painted pots.  He walked up to the door, and Will hung back to stop and shuffle his feet in the dirt as Logan grasped hold of a short chain attached to the clapper of an old cast iron bell that was screwed to the wall, and rang it.  After perhaps thirty seconds the door was opened by Ruth Goulding, wearing an apron that appeared to have a dusting of flour on the front of it.

“Lordy, Lordy,” Ruth said, smiling as she looked up into the craggy face of a man that she had not thought she would ever see again.  “As I live and breathe, if it isn’t Joe Logan.”

“Hi, Ruth,” Logan said.  “I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by and see how you and Rod were doing.”

“We’re doing just fine,” Ruth said as she removed her apron, draped it over the back of a carver chair in the hall and stepped forward to give Logan a hug.

Ruth had good reason to remember Logan.  Back in the day he, Rod and another bureau detective by the name of Arnie Newman had got a lead on a homicide suspect and called at his apartment on 182nd St in Queens.  Without any preamble the suspect – a twenty-three-year-old Latino by the name of Ramiro Garcia – had pulled a handgun from the waistband of his chinos as Rod had badged him.  It had been Joe who’d elbowed Rod aside as the wanted man had pulled the trigger, and Arnie that had put a couple of rounds in Garcia’s chest to end the confrontation.  The bullet from the killer’s gun had shaved bone off Rod’s left cheek and removed his ear lobe.  Ruth’s gratitude to Logan was undiminished.  He had without any doubt whatsoever saved her husband’s life.  And Arnie had put the shooter down, ensuring that he was no longer a threat to the detectives or anyone else.

Logan gently disentangled himself from Ruth’s embrace, for some reason feeling awkward at the close physical proximity.  He wasn’t used to it.  He took in her appearance.  It had been a few years since he had seen her, but apart from a few creases around her eyes she looked to be the same as he remembered.  She was still slim, had long golden blonde hair, and a radiant smile that was youthful, even though Logan knew that she was now probably sixty years old.

“You don’t look a day older than you did the last time we met at the retirement do for Rod at Emilio’s on the Upper East Side,” Logan said.  “I guess this out of the way location and the climate suit you.”

“It’s a different world to New York, Joe.  We eat better, go horse riding, and don’t have the stress that we used to have to cope with.”

“I can relate to that,” Logan said.  “In the main I enjoy the open road, big skies and the spaces between cities.”

“And who is this with you?  Introduce us.”

“This is Will Parker,” Logan said, moving to the side and beckoning Will to step forward.

Ruth put her hand out, shook Will’s and said, “Good to meet you, Will.  Come on in.  Let me brew some coffee and make you both sandwiches.”

Will liked the woman.  As far as he was concerned, she was down to earth, genuine and warm-hearted.

“Where’s Rod?” Logan said as Ruth set two mugs of strong coffee down on coasters in front of them on the pine table in the large kitchen.

“He’ll be home soon.  We have a few cattle, horses and other livestock, and he’s in his element helping the hands deal with them.”

“Sounds like an idyllic lifestyle,” Logan said.  “Any regrets?”

“None whatsoever.  We always had the notion to move out west when Rod retired, and now we’re here and doing it; living the dream.  What are you doing these days, Joe?”

“Drifting.  Going where the whim takes me.  I guess I’m not the kind to settle down in one place and call it home.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.  You always seemed to be a bit of a loner; somehow on the outside looking in.”

Logan hiked his shoulders and said, “We all have to do what paddles our canoes.”

“Too true,” Ruth said.  “I’m glad that your travels brought you here.  Do you plan on staying over for a day or two?”

“Yes, if it isn’t putting you out.”

“It isn’t.  Rod will be thrilled to see you.  He talks about you every now and then, and of some of the cases you both worked.”

Rod rode in with three other guys that he thought of as cowboys, not workers.  They herded the cattle with ATVs – all terrain vehicles – these days, and also fixed fences and did everything that needed to be dealt with.

When Rod put his key in the lock and opened the door, Logan was standing in the hall and said, “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”

Rod took a couple of steps back on the porch and shook his head as he faced Logan and said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Just checking in on you and Ruth.  Do you have a problem with that?”

Rod laughed, reached out and shook Logan’s hand, before going inside the house to meet Will.  He didn’t ask why they were traveling together. Logan would tell him in his own good time, or wouldn’t.  He recalled that his ex-colleague had never been what you would call verbose.  He was a quiet man and in the main kept his thoughts and beliefs as hidden as a poker hand.

“Joe and Will plan on staying a couple of nights,” Ruth said.

“Fine,” Rod said.  “We have rooms that only see guests once in a blue moon.”

“How’s your son, Eric?” Logan said.  “As I recall he was thinking of joining the NYPD.”

“Hard to believe that he’s over thirty now.  And he didn’t follow the family tradition.  After studying law at university, he passed his bar exam and now practices in Boston.  We see him a half dozen times a year.  He married another lawyer and they have a son by the name of Reece, which makes Ruth and I feel very old.”

“Yeah, time is the biggest enemy around.  Seems a lifetime since we were your son’s age, back on the mean streets.”

Ruth showed Logan and Will to their rooms on the second floor; “Settle in and freshen up,” she said.  “Dinner will be on the table in the living room at seven on the dot.”