added, “So you’re thinking they knew of the back road over to Highway 95.”
Bruun nodded. “Exactly. They knew the only house on that road was vacant and the dust they were to throw up would not be visible at night even if someone from the highway could have been passing by just at that moment.”
He paused
“But, Smoke...it is Smoke isn’t it?”
Smoke nodded.
“What these two things, the arson and the murder, seem to be screaming is that what they have done was done by folks who have a clearly defined purpose, and know an awful lot about Ryback.”
He took his coffee back up, took a swallow and settled back into his chair, giving Hammersmith a nod.
Eric cleared his throat. “Before you two showed up, Charlie called to say he had you pay him a visit. From what you told him, Smoke, he suspects we--and that’s all of us, the whole town-may have seen the perps with our own eyes weeks ago.”
“The sightseers?”
That was me.
Everyone looked at me.
Finally Smoke said, “Yes, Paul. The sightseers.”
Bruun put on his faint smile.
“Oh,” I managed.
A dinger sounded in the kitchen and Ruthie got to her feet and went in with Shiela on her heels.
“You flew in, then?” Smoke was asking Bruun.
He nodded. “Yup. A Cessna Caravan. Belongs to my pal’s company, The Idaho Banner.”
Smoke and I stared at each other, then at Hammersmith and Butte.
“Um,” I managed, “Your pal wouldn’t be Billy O’Conner, would it?”
Bruun actually managed a deep chuckle. “Yup. ‘The world’s best investigative journalist’...or so he claims.”
“It’s true,” MacAvity said.
We all nodded.
Smoke pressed on. “And the rig outside. How’d you score that?”
“Billy woke up a Josiah Longbeach, who is Camus Tribal Police and has affiliations with the FBI under Bob Pfeffer.”
“We know both of them,” Smoke said.
Bruun nodded. “So that rig’s true ownership is rather sketchy, at best.” He gave a faint smile. “But it runs on money and has bullet proof windows. What’s not to like?”
I was beginning to understand this Robbins Bruun. If he hung out with Billy, he had to be OK. Billy had started his journalistic career in my office at the Confluence Tribune, “The Trib.,” and within two years left to rocket up through the ranks to be a near national sensation when it came to breaking stories wide open. He was instrumental in three different cases involving a drug cartel’s attempt to infiltrate the Pacific Northwest, and his detailed account had made national headlines. The death toll was twelve by the time everything was over. Amazing.
“So,” I asked, “where is the Irishman now?”
“Still in that traveling luxury suite and computer center he still claims is a plane. He’s trying to established if there are any parallels to what happened here last night.”
“Well, if there are, he’ll find them.” This was Butte, who had been almost immobile since we arrived.
A cell phone buzzed. Bruun took his iPhone out of the breast pocket of his gray Western cut jacket and looked at the screen as it buzzed again.
“Speaking of Billy,” he said. Then into the phone, “Anything?”
We waited.
Bruun continued to listen, nodding his head from time to time with a few “I see’s” thrown in.
Billy could be long winded when he was hot on a trail, so this was encouraging.
Ruthie looked out around the kitchen entry and signaled Hammersmith to come over. He got up and followed her into the kitchen. I could hear the three of them discussing something, plus I could smell garlic and a roast cooking.
“Okay then,” Bruun concluded. “We’ll meet you at the Red Lion in an hour.”
He slid the phone back and shook his head.
“Well, seems any parallels or precedents for last night are problematic at best,” he said. He stretched his back and neck like a cat.
“However, “ he resumed, “Billy has learned that there is apparently some kind of Evangelistic claim jumping going on in the Bible punching rackets racing for Northwestern territory.”
He shook his head again as if to say the world was going barking mad.
“But it may or may not mean a thing.” He paused. “Anyway, Billy has invited us to our hotel for, as he says, ‘some significant Irish whiskey sipping.’”
Hammersmith was at the kitchen entrance.
“Gentlemen, it’s time for some pork loin, homemade bread, and garden salad.”
We stood as one and filed in.
Chapter Five
The two lane highway that passed five miles west of Ryback dropped over the lip of the Bench and fell two thousand feet down to the Clearwater River. It had enough twists and hair pins to put a water slide to shame. And I never grew tired of the panorama it provided.
To the south, lifting from the horizon like a distant unknown continent were the snow capped Wallowa Mountains where I loved to mountaineer. And to the southeast were the Seven Devils that lifted like a mouthful of broken teeth. The Devils sat perched above an eight thousand foot deep river gorge called Hell’s Canyon. A little known fact was that it was much deeper than the Grand Canyon, but unlike the Grand Canyon, it was absolutely filled with big horn sheep, elk, deer, cougar, sturgeon, and salmon, and it was pretty much void of RVs, iPods, and camera toting throngs.
From a distance Smoke and I followed the white Expedition. We were facing the sun which didn’t reflect off of the hood.
I decided I wouldn’t mention that fact.
One thing on our side was that Robbins Brunn drove extremely fast and well, which had a calming effect of Smoke. Smoke was very edgy when it came to people driving the speed limit, or worse, below the limit. And as for old shits in little ratty two wheel drive Chevy Luvs or Mazda pickups poking down the road at the speed of cattle, he grew apoplectic. His contention was that they should be killed immediately and their “fucking shit heaps” crushed and tipped into land fills. He also said that permits should be given to armed citizens to thin out the population of any drivers over the age of sixty. He tended to overlook that the two of us were seventy and Hammersmith and MacAvity were eighty. Apparently, we were the exceptions.
In
