Thrill of the Hunt

  Tom didn’t look at the body. He’d seen her, and he didn’t need to see her again. “They’re the only ones we’ve found.”

  “They were both shot -.”

  “I just said that.”

  Rice frowned. “With a 30-30 rifle. They weren’t sexually assaulted.”

  Tom shrugged. “How can you tell? They’re both prostitutes so -.”

  “There isn’t any bruising and I didn’t find any semen in them, nor did I find any hair or saliva, so I don’t have anything to run for DNA to run through the network. I did find one thing that I thought peculiar.” Rice walked down to the girl’s feet and pulled the sheet back. “The pads of both their feet are bruised and cut from running through the desert bare foot.”

  Tom looked at the girl’s feet. “As if running away from something?”

  Rice nodded, “Or someone. Their clothing, I realize that they’ve been buried, but their clothes have been ripped. At first I thought maybe someone had torn their clothing on purpose, but through testing, I’ve concluded they’ve been torn from shrubs and cactus. When I started probing around on their feet, I pulled cacti type material from them.”

  Tom looked at the clothing lying on a table. He noticed a blouse lying on top had some of the buttons tore off. “They didn’t have any defensive wounds?”

  Rice shook her head. “None. Whoever it is, isn’t really a hands on kind of guy. These girls have family that’s going to be coming in to identify the bodies, don’t they?”

  “I told you, they’re prostitutes.”

  Rice glared at him. “They still have families out there somewhere. If one of them was your daughter, you’d want to know.”

  Tom frowned, “I have a daughter. And if she were one of these girls, I wouldn’t want to know.”

  * * * *

  Glen parked along the sandy roadway of Colton’s house and looked around. “What do you think?”

  Kelly looked at a chain link fence that separated Colton’s property from the road. The fence was lined with antlers and hooves of different species of animals. “I think he’s a long way out of town and this place is really creepy.”

  Glen looked through the wire fence as he got out of the car. “He has a lot of out buildings around here. Wonder what he keeps in them?”

  “We probably don’t want to know,” Kelly said, walking up beside him. “I don’t know about this, Glen.”

  Colton walked out from behind the house. “Glad to see you could make it! Come on in, let me show you the place.”

  Glen motioned toward the out buildings, as they walked behind a wood privacy fence that enclosed the back yard. “What do you have in all these buildings around here?”

  “Tools, taxidermy supplies, replacement parts and equipment, in case I have a problem at the café, grocery or locker. Lots of odds and ends. You know how junk collects.”

  “Yeah I guess,” Glen nodded. “Sure smells good.”

  “It’s been smokin’ all day. Come on in.” Colton motioned for them to follow him through a pair of sliding glass doors. “I asked my sister Nora to join us, but she has some kind of meeting to go to this evening and can’t make it.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” Kelly commented.

  “Nora Adams. I’m sure you’ve met her around town.”

  “Where’s she work?” Kelly asked.

  “Nora manages my grocery store,” Colton answered, as they walked through the kitchen and into the living room. “She does a good job too. Of course she has a degree in accounting and management, so she ought too.”

  Glen frowned. “I was told she owned the grocery store?”

  Colton motioned toward the taxidermy heads of various species of animals on the walls around his living room. “Who told you that, Moratelli?”

  “I don’t remember who it was. Seems like it just came up in a conversation I was having with some of the guys in town.”

  “Well whoever it was was mistaken.” Colton smiled as he looked at his collection of heads on the wall. “So what do you think?”

  Kelly looked at the heads. “You shot all these?”

  “They didn’t run in here and stick their heads through the wall,” Colton answered. “Of course I shot’em.”

  “You hunt a lot,” Glen commented, looking at the heads.

  “I’m a man who loves the sport, what can I say?”

  Kelly shrugged. “I don’t see any bear or cougar. You don’t hunt things that can hunt you?”

  Glen frowned.

  Colton smiled. “That’s an interesting thought, Kelly. But we don’t have anything like that around here, or I would.”

  “There’s cougar here in New Mexico.”

  “We call them mountain lion in this part of the country, and yes there are, but none around here close.”

  “I wouldn’t think that’d stop you.”

  Glen cleared his throat. “Everyone knows man is the ultimate hunter. Isn’t that right, Colton?”

  Colton nodded. “You sound like a hunter, Glen.”

  “Not me. I’m not interested in hunting defenseless animals.”

  Colton shrugged, “Why not?” He walked into the kitchen area. “A man has to have some kind of interest out here.”

  “I have other interest. Besides, I’m from Brooklyn. There’s not much game hunting back there, except those who break the law.”

  “So you’re a hunter, hunting a not so defenseless animal,” Colton said, stirring a pot of vegetables.

  Glen shrugged. “If you want to look at like that, then I guess I am, just like I’m hunting for a killer here.” He noticed a door off the kitchen with a padlock on it. “What’s in there?”

  Colton looked at the door. “It’s, just a freezer.”

  “This isn’t a freezer door.”

  “It’s behind that door. Anyone who thinks they’re going to get free meat is going to have to get through two locked doors.”

  Glen nodded. “I didn’t know we had that much crime around here.”

  Colton shrugged. “You’re hunting for a killer aren’t you?”

  “You need any help?” Kelly asked.

  Colton shook his head, “I’ve got it,”

  “Can I ask you about Chila Herendez and Lucy Handling?” Glen asked, watching Colton put the lid back on the pot.

  Colton turned his back toward him. “What do you want to know?” he asked, and opened the oven door.

  “You were the last one seen talking to both Herendez and Handling. I was wondering if either one of them said anything about having any problem with anyone around here?”

  “Not that I recall,” Colton answered, as he pulled a dish out of the oven and sat it on the stove top. He closed the oven door. “Mildred Chaplin was there when I was talking to Lucy.” He took the lid off the dish. “And I think she was there when I talked to Herendez in the café.”

  “You didn’t stop and talk to Chila Herendez or pick her up the afternoon that she was supposed to start working for you?”

  Colton frowned, turning off the oven. “No, I didn’t. Someone said I did?”

  “You didn’t see either one of them besides at the café?”

  Colton looked at him. “I invited you out for dinner. If you came out here to interrogate me, you can leave.”

  Glen shrugged. “I wasn’t interrogating you. They’re just questions I need to ask, since you were the last one to see either one of them before they disappeared. But then, I suppose Tom’s already talked to you.”

  “Moratelli isn’t interested in where those whores went or what’s happened to them,” Glen said as he took three plates from a cabinet. “You aren’t going to ruin my good meat by putting catsup on it, are you?”

  “No,” Kelly answered. “I -.”

  “Tom cares more about it than you think,” Glen said.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Glen. You don’t know him like I do.”

  Eleven


  Tom pulled up in front of Colton’s Place in a new, white, uniform, Chevy pickup. He walked through the door as Sandy turned the orange and black sign in the window too closed. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Sandy smiled. “You had things you had to do,” she said looking out in the parking lot. “It’s a nice-looking truck.”

  “Not as nice looking as you,” Tom said, taking hold of her.

  Sandy slid her hands up around his neck and kissed him. “You’re not late.”

  “I tried out the lights getting here, and it hit eighty pretty easy.”

  “You’re supposed to be careful.”

  “I was.” Tom kissed her, pressing her up against the door as he locked it.

  Sandy kissed him passionately. “I missed you today.”

  “I missed you.” Tom looked out the window of the door into the parking lot as a pickup pulled in and made a u-turn.

  “I saved our dinner. And I have a special for dessert.”

  “Here?”

  “We may as well eat on Colton’s dollar as our own. If I can put up with his rude remarks, he can give us a good meal once in awhile.” Sandy took his hand and led him to a table further back in the dimly lit area of the room. “Sit and I’ll be right back.”

  “The girls know you’re going to be off this weekend for your birthday?”

  Sandy glanced at him as she walked to the kitchen. “I reminded them. Mildred remembered.”

  “You’ve worked here long enough, she ought too.”

  “What did you find out in Santa Rosa?” Sandy asked, taking their plates out of the oven.

  “I think whoever killed them is hunting them.”

  “Hunting them?” Sandy came out of the kitchen. “Like some wild animal?” she asked as she sat the plates on the table. “These are really hot.”

  “Yeah.” Tom stood.

  “If I forgot something, I can get it.”

  “I’ll get it, honey. You’ve been waiting on people all day.” Tom kissed her. Walking to the refrigerator, he took a bottle of wine from it. Picking up a couple of glasses, he found the cork screw on top of the refrigerator then walked back to the table. “They’re not very romantic glasses, but they’ll work.”

  Sandy smiled. “Everything’s romantic with you, that’s why I married you.”

  “Don’t ever forget that,” Tom said, as he opened the bottle. “You think Colton will notice?”

  “He notices everything.”

  Tom poured two partial glasses of wine. “I don’t care.” He held his glass up to hers. “Happy birthday baby.” Tom kissed her then took a sip of the wine. “You’re as beautiful as the first day I met you.”

  Sandy smiled and kissed him, moving over to his lap, she sat astraddle of him.

  Tom brushed her hair behind her shoulder. “Maybe we should have taken dinner home?”

  “Maybe,” Sandy kissed him, running her fingers up through his hair, “we could -.”

  Tom shook his head, “Not here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Dinner’ll get cold. Later baby.”

  Sandy moved back to her chair. “So you were saying about your case?”

  Tom smiled. He liked teasing her. “The coroner said they were both shot with a 30-30 and had cuts and bruising on the bottoms of their feet like they’d been running.” He looked at the plate. “It looks good.”

  “It ought too; it’s the best sirloin in the house. Not that monkey meat Colton’s been serving lately.”

  “Monkey meat?”

  Sandy shrugged as she took a bite of the baked potato. “I don’t know what it is. Cheap meat I guess, but customers have really been complaining about it the last few months, and I think we’ve lost some business over it.”

  “I don’t recall getting anything like that in here.”

  “That’s because I always ask Virgil to fix you something else.” Sandy kissed him. “I have to take care of you. It’s part of my job.”

  “I like the way you do it.” Tom said, as he cut into the steak.

  “So who around here hunts with a 30-30?”

  Tom frowned. “Tory, Colton, there’s a few. But most everyone around here uses a 30-06.”

  “You don’t.’

  “No, I don’t. But I don’t use a 30-30 either.”

  “Honey,” Sandy cut into the steak, “you think Lucy Handling’s dead?”

  Tom shrugged as he took a bite of the steak. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good. This is your birthday. Let’s talk about something else? I’m really tired of this Lucy Handling mess.”

  Sandy nodded and took a sip of the wine. “There weren’t very many customers this evening, so Katie went home early.”

  Tom frowned. “You know I don’t like you closing by yourself. Someone can stay with you until I get here.” He swallowed. “They aren’t that busy they have to run home.”

  “I know. But they don’t like to hang around any longer than they have too.”

  “Typical employees. This is really good.” He took another bite. “Colton finds out we’ve been in his best steak and he’s going to be pissed.”

  Sandy smiled. “He finds out we’ve been in his wine, he’s going to be pissed.”

  “How’s Kelly working out?”

  “Good. She’s waitressed before, so it helps.” Sandy took a bite of the steak. “They went out to Colton’s the other night for dinner. Kelly said they had grilled elk.”

  Tom took another bite. “I’ll bet that was a learning experience for those city slickers.”

  “We were city slickers once.”

  “And we learned.”

  “So what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “What do I usually do on your birthday?”

  Sandy smiled. “You’re staying home with me?”

  “And make love to you all day.” Tom kissed her. “I’m not planning on changing anything. I don’t care how old you get.”

  Sandy kissed him. “I like that.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Glen knows you’re going to be off tomorrow?”

  “I told him he’s working the week-end.”

  “He’s okay with that, all week-end?” Sandy asked, cutting up the steak.

  “He doesn’t have any choice,” Tom took a bite of the potato. “Sunday evening, if I have enough energy left after you. I’m going hunting with the guys.”

  “Honey you just got an elk a couple of weekends ago. If you get another one, where are we going to put it? Our freezer’s full.”

  Tom nodded as he cut the steak. “Colton said if I got one he’d store it for us in one of his freezers. God knows he has enough storage and freezer room between the locker and his sister’s grocery store. And it’ll save us a lot on meat.”

  “I know it does. Those buildings out at his place, are those all freezers?”

  Tom shook his head, taking a bite of a baked potato. “Storage.”

  “Game warden ever comes around and he’s going to have a field day.”

  “Well hopefully that doesn’t happen.” Tom took a drink of his wine then pushed his empty plate back. “Colton isn’t the only one with a bunch of hanging meat. That was really good, babe. So what’s that special you have for dessert?”

  Sandy kissed him, rubbing her hand up his leg. “You want it here?”

  Standing, Tom took her hand and pulled her off the chair. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do in here with you?”

  “What’s that?”

  Backing her up against one of the tables, Tom pulled her skirt up and sat her on it. “Screw you here on one of these tables.”

  Sandy wrapped her legs around him and slid her hands up around his neck. “You want to do it now?”

  “You remember the second place we made love?”

  “In the back seat of your police car.”

  Tom looked at her, thinking.

  “Where did you think?”


  “I thought we were in the shower at the hotel room.”

  Sandy laughed. “That was the fourth place, after Diana kicked you out of the house.”

  “I would say it was a good thing she didn’t know about you, but the way she acted toward me, I doubt if she’d cared.”

  “She’d cared if it would have got her more money.”

  “Thank god she never caught us like your husband, who claimed to have a bank meeting that morning.”

  “Yeah, it was kind of embarrassing when he walked in and caught us.”

  “Kind of embarrassing?” Tom kissed her. “That isn’t how I’d describe it.”

  Sandy laughed. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re right. We both ended up broke and out here in the middle of nowhere. Only I wouldn’t have been quite so broke if your ex wouldn’t have shown up at my divorce hearing.”

  “I know, but you know what?” Sandy kissed him.

  “What’s that?”

  “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  “A little bit more money would be nice,” Tom said and kissed her. “You know, you’re the best wife I could ever ask for.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do. You’re a good cook, you keep a clean house, and you’re great in bed.” He brushed her hair back. “You’ve stood by me through everything, Sandy. The court hassles that Diane put us through for child support, the custody issues, lawyer bills, money problems, and now this crap with Kaylah and you’ve never said anything.”

  Sandy shrugged. “What can I say? They’re your kids.”

  “I’ve brought a lot of baggage into this relationship. Not very many women would have put up with it.”

  “You didn’t have any choice. And I didn’t either, because I wanted you.”

  “Well you’ve got me baby, better or worse.” Tom pulled her off the table. “Come on, let’s clean this place up and go home.”

  Sandy pressed up against him, rubbing his groin. “I thought we were going to do it right here?”

  Tom took her hand. “You’re tempting lady, but I don’t want to walk in here every day and see someone else sitting at our table.”

  Sandy kissed him. “It wouldn’t bother me,” she whispered running her tongue around his ear.

  “No wonder I couldn’t keep away from you. Come on.” Tom started cleaning off the table. “You’ll enjoy what I have planned for you more in bed.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” Picking up the dirty plates, he walked up to the counter with them. “Bring the wine and glasses.”