Burn Out Page 19

  “Yeah, I like her.”

  “I understand Hayley gave you a letter for safekeeping.”

  “More like a big, thick envelope.”

  “Did you open it?”

  “No.”

  “One thing in the envelope is a letter Boz Sheppard was looking for when he came to your cabin and cut you. I think he was going to look for it here too, when he saw the light on in the stable, spooked the horse, and hit me. He didn’t find it either place. Where is it?”

  “. . . At Mrs. Ivins’ house. Dana Ivins, who runs Friends Helping Friends. I knew it wouldn’t be safe at Willow Grove or here, so I snuck over there and hid it in her garage.”

  “Why didn’t you entrust it to Dana?”

  “She’s nosy. I knew she’d read it.”

  “But you didn’t read it.”

  “I told you no. Hayley asked me not to.” Her eyes welled up and tears spilled down her cheeks. “I was upset with Hayley when I found out she’d been hooking all those years, and when I found out she was living with that loser Boz I felt even worse. But I still loved her, I would never pry into her private business. Now I wish I had; maybe she wouldn’t’ve gotten killed.”

  I didn’t tell her that Hayley probably would have died of AIDS anyway since she apparently had forgone treatment. Amy didn’t need that kind of memory of her big sister.

  Instead I said, “The other thing that’s in the envelope is a life-insurance policy Hayley took out on herself, with you as beneficiary. Since she was murdered, the double indemnity clause goes into effect. Eventually you’ll receive a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Amy stared at me, her mouth opening in a little O.

  “It’s up to you what you do with the money,” I went on. “Blow it on expensive cars and clothes and bad boyfriends. Or use it to give yourself a much better life than your mother and sister had.”

  For a moment she looked away at the blank TV screen, envisioning any number of scenarios. Then: “I could finish up my GED and go to college.”

  “Yes.”

  “I could do something that would’ve made Mama and Hayley really proud of me.”

  “That, too.”

  Amy put her hands over her face and shook her head. “Oh, God!”

  “What?”

  “Oh, God, I’m all of a sudden so afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll fuck up like I have over and over again.”

  I grasped her wrists and pulled her hands from her face, looked into her eyes. “You have Ramon and Sara. You have Hy and me. You can be sure if you start to fuck up, one or the other—or all four of us—will tell you.”

  Dana Ivins opened the side door to her garage, snapped on an overhead light. I followed her inside.

  “There’s the storage cabinet,” she said, motioning to a hulking white assemble-it-yourself piece of the sort you can buy at Home Depot. Its doors were misaligned: one was at least two inches higher than the other.

  I went over and reached behind the cabinet. Wedged against the wall beams exactly where Amy had described to me was a thick nine-by-seven envelope.

  When I pulled it out, Ivins said, “Why, for God’s sake, did she hide it there, rather than give it to me? I could’ve put it in my safe.”

  I shrugged. “She’s young and she wasn’t thinking too clearly, I suppose. Or maybe she thought your safe was too obvious a place and this envelope’s presence might’ve made you a target.”

  “Amy always was a considerate girl. I’m so happy she’s safe with her uncle. What’s in the envelope?”

  And she’s right, you are a nosy woman.

  “I don’t know. Amy just asked me to retrieve it.”

  “Maybe, for her sake, we should open it.”

  “No, it’s her private property.”

  “But it could shed some light on these killings—”

  “If it can, Amy will turn the information over to the sheriff’s department. She’s been talking with them.”

  “About what?”

  “I haven’t been in on the conversations.”

  Ivins looked disappointed. For a person who insisted on her organization’s right to confidentiality, she certainly played fast and loose with other people’s.

  I drove a couple of blocks along the main street before I pulled to the curb and opened the envelope, as Amy had given me permission to do. It contained the insurance policy Hayley had taken out with her sister as beneficiary, and a smaller pink envelope with Hayley’s name written on it in erratic, badly formed penmanship. It had previously been opened, then closed with the flap slipped inside. I slid the letter out.

  Dear Hayley,

  I know you never want to lay eyes on me again and I dont blame you. I been a bad mother and a bad woman but that dont mean I dont love you. Bud Smith has been good to me. So I’m leaveing this with him in case you ever come back home or he hears where you are. What you need to know is Jimmy Perez wasnt your father. I was raped when I was 13 by a bastard named Davey Smith. Thats Bud’s little brother. He got off scotch free because he was some kind of genius and Bud took the rap for him so he could go away to school. My family wouldnt let me have an abortion, but they treeted me real bad so I ran away and had you. And I kept you—thats how much I loved you. The other thing you need to know is Davey Smith is a rich man now. Goes by the name of Trevor Hanover and lives back east someplace tho he has a big ranch outside of Vernon. Rattlesnake its called. I found out from the woman who cooks for him when he’s there—Linda Jeffrey, she lives on Yosemite Street. You can ask her if you want to. The way she knew he was Bud’s brother is that Bud went there to dinner once and she heard them fighting. I guess Davey tried to give him money, but he wouldnt take it. Bud told him to put the money in the bank for you and hire a lawyer to help you out because you were bound to get in trouble in Vegas. I guess you must of kept in touch with Bud because he knew where you were. But baby, Davey owes you more than that. Talk to Bud and have him set up a meeting with Davey. Your his daughter. You have rights, you claim them. I know I’ll never see you again baby, but you deserve a good life.

  All my love,

  Mama

  Okay—slowly, cautiously. First I’d talk with this Linda Jeffrey.

  Her tidy home was in the center of one-block Yosemite Street. A TV flickered in the front window. I rang the bell. After a moment the porch light came on, and a tall, slender woman in sweats, whose gray hair was pulled back into a ponytail, looked out at me.

  “Yes?”

  I said my name, gave her my card.

  “Oh, you’re Hy Ripinsky’s wife. You’ve been helping out the Perezes. Come in, please.”

  The room she led me to was cluttered, but in a clean, comfortable way. Books and magazines stacked on tables, a hand-knitted afghan thrown carelessly over the large sofa, videotapes and DVDs piled high atop the TV. Jeffrey turned off the program she’d been watching and said, “Sit anywhere, but before you do, look for cats.”

  The chair I went to did contain a cat—a light-gray shorthair, whose sleepy gaze dared me to move it. I did, picking it up and setting it on my lap; instantly it curled into a ball and started purring.

  “They run our lives, don’t they?” its owner said, taking a place on the sofa and pulling the afghan around her.

  “Yes, they do.”

  “I figured you for a cat person. And I assume you’re here to ask about what goes on at Rattlesnake Ranch.”

  Her statement surprised me. It showed, because she added, “I know who Trevor Hanover is—or was—and I’ve been debating whether to go to the sheriff’s department about him. Your visit has more or less resolved that issue.”

  “Why were you only ‘debating’?”

  “For two reasons. When Mr. Hanover hired me to cook for the family, he had me sign a contract with a confidentiality clause. I was not to talk about him, his family, or anything that went on at the ranch.”

  “But you’ve already broken that agreement by talking to Miri
Perez.”

  “How do you . . . ? Well, that doesn’t matter. I did it for Miri’s safety; it was only right that she know her real rapist had property so close by.”

  “And the second reason?”

  “I don’t really know anything—at least not about the times when Hayley, Tom Mathers, or Bud Smith were killed. The way my arrangement with Mr. Hanover worked, someone would call and tell me when the family would be there and what to prepare. But as far as I know, the Hanovers haven’t visited the ranch for five or six months.”

  “Who else works there while they’re gone?”

  “My neighbor: she did the housekeeping. But Mr. Han-over called her in October and told her her services would no longer be needed. He gave no reason, but did send a large severance check. She used the money to take a trip to Philadelphia to spend Thanksgiving with her daughter. And there was a gardener and handyman, but he recently moved to Arizona.”

  “How recently?”

  “A month ago. Around the time Mr. Hanover fired my neighbor. I don’t know who’s doing the outdoor work out there now.”

  The timing was interesting. Another generous severance check?

  “Did the Hanovers always arrive by private jet?”

  “Always. He’s a pilot, you know.”

  “Did you ever hear anything that would explain why he chose to buy a ranch here?”

  “I once heard him tell his daughter Alyssa that he’d grown up in Vernon and had always loved it here, but then his family moved to Nevada and his life was never right again. He said he was happy to come back as an important man to the place where he was born.”

  “But he bought the ranch in strict secrecy and never showed his face in town.”

  “Probably afraid somebody would find out who he really was. And he seemed content sitting out on that big old terrace and looking down on Vernon. I guess it was enough for him.”

  Until his daughter Hayley showed up and wanted him to acknowledge her.

  “When did Bud Smith come to the ranch for dinner with Hanover?”

  “Two years ago, the last Saturday in July. I remember because it was quite an evening. . . .”

  It had started out pleasantly enough, Linda Jeffrey told me. Hanover had been alone on the trip and in an expansive mood, ordering her to serve special hors d’oeuvres and wine on the terrace; the dinner menu was similarly elaborate. Bud Smith, who was Linda’s insurance broker, arrived about five o’clock and was given a tour of the property by Hanover. Bud called Hanover Davey, and Jeffrey assumed it was a nickname. The two men seemed reserved but were getting along well enough through drinks and hors d’oeuvres and the soup course of the dinner.

  “Then their voices got louder. I was shocked to hear Hanover call Bud his brother. Hanover wanted to pay Bud half a million dollars for what he called ‘his trouble.’ Bud said he preferred to earn an honest living, that no amount of money could make up for those lost years in prison.”

  Hanover then began pressuring Smith to take the money, and Smith blew up at him.

  “He said he had been in touch with Izzy Darkmoon’s and Davey’s child from the rape, Hayley Perez. She called Bud periodically to ask him about her little sister, Amy. Bud told Hanover to put the half million in trust for Hayley and also retain a good lawyer for her, because she was a prostitute in Las Vegas and headed for serious trouble.”

  “What was Hanover’s reaction?”

  “He said he didn’t want anything to do with his trailer-trash bastard. That’s when Bud threw a glass of wine in his brother’s face. He told him he’d better establish the trust and retain the lawyer as soon as he went back to New York, and provide him with confirmation. Otherwise he’d go straight to the authorities over in Nevada and tell them the truth about the rape. And then he stormed out of the house.”

  “What did Hanover do?”

  “Wiped the wine off and called for me to serve the next course. He asked if I’d heard any of their conversation, and I said no, I’d been listening to my iPod. He believed me because there’s a light in the kitchen that flashes when somebody presses a button in the dining room, and a lot of times I do have my iPod on while I work. So I served him the roast. He didn’t eat much or ask for the dessert course. Afterward he gave me a hundred percent tip on top of my usual fee, which is fairly generous to begin with.”

  “To ensure your silence, in case you hadn’t been listening to music.”

  “Yeah.” Linda Jeffrey smiled wryly. “But me, I’m like Bud: I prefer to make an honest living. I wrote a check next morning to Friends Helping Friends for the amount of the tip, and then I went to see Miri Perez.”

  So Linda Jeffrey hadn’t been summoned to Rattlesnake Ranch in five to six months. And the housekeeper had been let go and the handyman and gardener had suddenly moved to Arizona.

  I had nothing if I couldn’t somehow prove Hanover was at the ranch on the date Hayley died.

  Who would have the information I needed?

  Amos Hinsdale. He practically lived in that shack at Tufa Tower. Monitored the UNICOM constantly. No one in a private jet could land in this territory without Amos knowing about it—even if the pilot didn’t broadcast to other traffic.

  Now, if I could only get the old coot to talk with me . . .

  “Canada Dry ginger ale,” the bartender at Hobo’s said. “Amos hasn’t had a drink of alcohol in his life that I know of. But he comes in here every Saturday night and always has three or four Canada Drys. Likes company and conversation that one day of the week. I keep a supply of the stuff on hand for him.”

  “Would you sell me a cold six-pack?”

  “Sure. You planning on seducing him?” He winked.

  “If only what I have in mind were that simple.”

  Hinsdale gave me a suspicious look when he opened the door of the shack at the airport. “We’re closed, lady pilot.”

  What on earth could be closed? There were no avgas or mechanic’s services here, just the UNICOM and a rudimentary landing-light system that had ceased to work reliably years ago.

  I held up the six-pack of Canada Dry. “I thought we might share a couple. It’s my favorite, and I hear it’s yours, too.”

  Now he scowled. “I’d think a woman like you, married to Ripinsky, would prefer beer.”

  “I like a brew sometimes, but not tonight.”

  “So you decided to visit an old man and sip some ginger ale. Hard to believe.”

  “Hell, Amos, you’ve nailed me. I need help.”

  “Something wrong with that plane of Ripinsky’s? What did you do to it?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with the plane. But something’s very wrong in this town.”

  His eyes narrowed, wrinkles deepening around them. “What d’you mean—wrong?” But his downturned mouth told me he already knew the answer.

  “Hayley Perez, her sister Amy, and her mother Miri. Tom Mathers and Bud Smith. And a private jet that landed at Rattlesnake Ranch around the day Hayley was murdered.”

  His features seemed to fold inward, and his eyes grew bleak.

  “Please, Mr. Hinsdale . . .”

  He opened the door wider, motioned me in. “I’ll take that Canada Dry, thank you.”

  Surprisingly, the shack was comfortably furnished, with two overstuffed chairs beside the table that held the UNICOM. Yellowing rental forms for Amos’ clunker planes, scribbled slips of paper, old newspapers and magazines, and even older aviation sectionals were scattered beside the unit.

  I sat in the chair he indicated, opened two cans of ginger ale and handed him one. He sipped and stared silently at the opposite wall, where a framed photograph of a young man in a U.S. Navy flight suit was hung; he stood beside a fighter plane, his gaze stern, jaw thrust out aggressively.

  Amos caught me looking at it and said, “Me. Down at Miramar before we shipped out for ’Nam on the Enterprise. December second, 1965.”

  “You fly a lot of missions?”

  “Yeah. I was one of the lucky ones: I lived to tell abou
t them. A lot of my buddies didn’t.”

  “My father was a Navy man—NCO. In fact, we lived in San Diego and could hear the planes out of Miramar.” The sonic boom from one had cracked our swimming pool so badly that my parents had filled it with dirt and turned it into a vegetable garden.

  Amos nodded absently, sipped more ginger ale. “Wasn’t a private jet.”

  “What . . . ? Oh, you mean at Rattlesnake Ranch.”

  “That’s what you’re asking about, isn’t it? That jet, I don’t even have to see it approach the ranch; I can hear it. You wouldn’t think my hearing could be so keen after all these years around aircraft, but it is. No, that day I was standing in the door trying to work myself up to cutting the grass alongside the runway when this Cessna 152 flew right over the field. Damned low, and the pilot didn’t even announce himself to traffic. UNICOM was dead silent. I watched the plane make its descent at the ranch.”

  “You get the plane’s number?”

  “I did. Was going to report it to the FAA, but”—he shrugged—“things get away from me these days.” His eyes strayed to the photograph on the opposite wall. “It’s hard to admit that you’re not as energetic or clearheaded as you used to be. But it’s a fact, you can’t challenge it.”

  “It was clearheaded to take down the Cessna’s number. You still have it?”

  “Somewhere.” He sifted through the items scattered on the table, came up with a blue Post-it note. He was more clearheaded than he gave himself credit for; I was willing to bet he knew where every item in that clutter was. “Yours,” he said, handing it to me. “How about we have another ginger ale?”

  “Sure,” I said, surprised at how mellow he’d become toward me. I popped two more tabs, passed a can over to him.

  “How’d you get interested in flying?” he asked.

  “Ripinsky. I’d been at the controls of a plane a few times, years before I met him, when I was dating a Navy pilot stationed at Alameda, but I didn’t enjoy it all that much. He was a hotdog pilot and liked to scare people.”

  “Guy was an asshole then. Ripinsky breaks a lot of rules, but never at the expense of a novice passenger.”

  “That’s true. And he’s a terrific pilot. Once I got comfortable flying with him, I asked him to teach me—he’s got his CFI, you know. But he didn’t think it would be good for the relationship, so he found me an instructor near San Francisco. And I’ve been happily flying ever since.”