chuckled. “My wife woulda killed me if I didn’t eat a salad every night. Now she’s gone and there’s no pressure.” He fell into one of the loungers. “You were right, Sal. High powered ammo. Something akin to what a military sniper might use. Full metal jacket. Clarise didn’t have a chance.”
We all went silent for a second. Being only a few feet away from someone’s life being snuffed out will do that to a person.
I pushed myself back into the chair. “Not something an angry ex-boyfriend would use. She was killed for some other reason.”
“Yeah, but what?” Sal asked.
“Has to do with us, I’m afraid.”
Lightfoot cocked his head. “With you? How so?”
“Every time we get involved with those gold balls and the Tree Man thing, someone gets hurt.” I took a long swig of Bud. “Clarise has been out in the open doing her life for more than a year since Littleton was in this neck of the woods. We show up and Clarise gets murdered. That could have happened anytime in the past 12, 18 months. No, it doesn’t happen till we show up.”
Lightfoot mulled it over. “Yeah, but who knew you were coming? Clearly the person who shot her hasn’t been hanging around Holly for a year or more. So he must have known you were here.”
“True.”
Sal chimed in. “Back home, the only people who knew where we were heading were Tatiana, Frankie, Cookie and Forte. I mean, yeah we filed a flight plan, but I can’t imagine anyone at the airport would say anything or care.”
“On this end,” I interrupted, “the only person who knew we were on the way was the Chief here.”
Lightfoot nodded. “And I didn’t tell anyone because there was no need and I wasn’t even sure why you were coming. I mean, my dispatcher knew I was heading out to the airport, but that’s all she knew. And Hank at the airport knew he was to expect a small airplane today that would need fuel and tie down. He had no idea where from and who you are or why you’re here.”
“We have to check out Clarise’s house tomorrow,” Sal said. The Chief and I nodded agreement. Lightfoot stood and walked to the grill. Swinging open the top, he took one of the utensils and forked the steaks over.
“Three more minutes, gents,” he said rolling the aluminum foil wrapped potatoes onto their sides. “Nick, in the fridge, there’s a tub of butter. Salt and pepper on the counter.”
Four minutes later, each of us had a rib eye on a plate and were cutting open the potato. The three of us must have used a pound of fresh butter. Sal even put a chunk on the beef.
The sky went dark and the only sound beside the crickets was that of three guys moaning their way through cold beer, sizzling meat and pure, lovely buttered potatoes.
One doesn’t associate a restaurant waitress with a Ponderosa-sized house. I was fully expecting a nice little bungalow in the heart of town. This wasn’t it.
“Holy crap,” I said as Lightfoot pulled the Jeep into a long, curving brick driveway. “It’s gigantus. She lived here alone?”
“Yup.”
He pulled the Jeep close to the front porch, a steep affair rising at least 8 feet to the front porch and 10-foot double doors. The house easily spread 120 feet across, the stonework leading to the entrance an intricate mix of tile and cut granite. To the left, a Portico with two-story white columns where, presumably, servants would unload household goods into the side entrance or a driver would pull the Bentley on a rainy evening for the lord and lady of the house to climb aboard without the bother of rain, wind or snow.
“What am I missing here,” I asked Lightfoot.
He chuckled, “Her last name is Holly. As in Hiram S. Holly, the rancher who came here in the 1870s and brought 1300 head of cattle with him. The ranch was handed down and eventually, like I said, became Clarise’s. She sold it for a bunch of bucks and bought this place. Cash on the barrel head.”
Sal asked, “Why’d she work?”
“Had nothing to do, really. Liked people. Still had a boatload of money in the bank she could have lived off of, but decided waitressing would be a way to wile away the time. If you hadn’t noticed, we don’t do opera or cotillions or orchestras ‘round here. She enjoyed just being one of the regular people.”
We climbed the wide hand-cut flagstone stairway to the front doors. The Chief pulled out a key and unlocked it. Walking through the entry, the foyer was as big as my entire house with a pair of sweeping stairways leading to the second floor. The walls were covered in bleached oak with mahogany trim. To the left, wide double pocket doors opened onto a formal parlor, this room in dark mahogany with the requisite Middle Eastern rugs, a marble mantel measuring at least 10 feet across above a virtually walk-in fireplace.
“Let’s separate and see what we can find,” I said.
Sal and Lightfoot took the stairway to the second floor, padding over thick pearl and red runners held in place with a mahogany dowels at each step.
It was hard to know where to start. Furnishings were dust free and polished, but on the wall opposite the fireplace stood an antique desk. I rifled each of the drawers finding little of interest and nothing to give a hint of why Clarise was shot.
Through another set of pocket doors, a dining room, a massive teak dining table with a dozen chairs surrounding its glass smooth surface. A sideboard, made of the same polished teak, held silver services, china plates, cups, saucers and linens.
The kitchen didn’t interest me much since few rich people hid important papers in this work center where hired help spent much of their day.
Back to the foyer and on the opposite side of the grand entry, a study with shelves lined with hardcover books, none of which looked as if they had been opened for years. In an age of Kindle and the Internet, an increasing number of folks were keeping old books for the esthetics rather than the content. It appeared Clarise was among them.
Another fireplace, this one smaller, was fronted by two armchairs and a pair of antique side tables. I opened the drawers of each. Again, nothing of interest.
I saved the large oak desk for last. Having worked in the woods, it was easy to recognize that this oak wasn’t the modern variety. Rather, the grain was tight and straight and easily from an ancient tree cut a century ago and transformed into a work of art.
Sitting behind its leather top, I began opening drawers, putting the contents on the desktop and pulling each out to check both the back and underside. Once out, I peered into the opening to see if there were hidden cubbyholes or unseen levers that might reveal a hidden compartment.
The top right drawer was the winner. It was perhaps six inches shorter than the others and deep inside the pocket was a small false front with a virtually impossible to see fingernail-sized notch. I pressed the compartment face then released it. The front dropped down. Reaching into the compartment, I scooped up two keys and a small photograph. I layed them on the desk top and shook my head in disbelief.
Sal and the Chief came into the den.
“Nicky, there were two people living here. One bedroom, clearly Clarise’s. The second belonging
