Paradise Ranch (Jack and Ashley detective series Book 2) Read online

“I want you to make up one of your special … party favors,” Elijah ordered. “You know what I mean.”

  “Precisely,” Johnson agreed. “Big?”

  “Very,” Elijah smirked. “Now, get it done. Leave me.”

  The pair scurried out the office door as Elijah con-tinued standing at the window. Hearing the door close, he fished his cellphone out of his pocket and pushed a button. He waited until a voice answered on the other end.

  “We’re moving up our plans,” Elijah announced. “Things are getting a bit too hot, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing, partner,” the man concurred.

  “But first, we’re going to cut our ties with Carlos,” Elijah noted.

  “We should have done that long ago,” the man agreed.

  “We’ll make a clean break,” Elijah added.

  “That’s the only kind,” the man declared.

  “I’ve got Johnson working on it,” Elijah revealed.

  “At the meeting?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Elijah confirmed.

  “I look forward to it,” the man said. “I’ll see you there.”

  Elijah couldn’t repress his smile as he ended the call. He was about to slide his phone back into his pocket when it rang. He looked at the caller identification and rolled his eyes.

  “Hello, Jessica,” Elijah said, trying to present a cheerful voice.

  “Don’t you hello me,” Jessica screeched from the other end of the line. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  Elijah sighed. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t play cool with me,” Jessica warned. “I’ve known you way too long for that.”

  “I’m sure I don’t have the slightest about what …”

  “I could care less about your little commune,” Jessica interrupted. “You can play messiah all you want out at your little ranch so long as you don’t mess with my business.”

  “But I …” Elijah began.

  “I have a reputation to keep up,” Jessica yelled. “Do you understand?”

  “Well, yes, but I …” Elijah stammered.

  “So, you keep your issues away from my motel,” Jessica ordered. “This is my place, my living.”

  “But I …” Elijah began.

  “Don’t bother lying to me,” Jessica growled. “I know it had something to do with you so you just see that nothing else happens at my motel. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I understand but …” Elijah replied.

  “One more thing happens and I’m coming out there to punch you square in the nose,” Jessica threatened. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Elijah lamented.

  “Good,” Jessica hissed. “Have a nice day.”

  Elijah shook his head as he slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  “Sisters,” he muttered as he dropped the shades to his window.

  Their canvas of New Hope continued until sunset, leaving both federal agents spent by the time they stopped in to Frank’s for supper.

  Despite the excitement of the night before, Ashley fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow – Jack’s pillow. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she didn’t put up a fight when Jack offered his bed, noting there is safety in numbers. Being a gentle-man, Jack pledged to sleep head to feet to keep things platonic. The smell of sweaty socks inches from her nose – Jack always slept in his socks she learned – didn’t delay her drifting into dreamland.

  After what seemed like only minutes, Ashley pressed her eyes closed as an orange hue invaded her sleep. She grabbed a pillow and pulled it over her face. It was no use. The morning sun was pouring through the window.

  “Jack?” Ashley rubbed her eyes, noticing her partner and his sweaty feet were no longer next to her.

  No sooner had she called out than she heard a key in the door. Moments later, Jack entered, bearing a tray of coffee and donuts.

  “About time you got up, sleepy head,” Jack smirked as he laid the tray on the bed. “It’s time to rise and shine. We have a big day ahead.”

  “We do?” Ashley asked as she took one of the coffees. “Another trip to the Ranch?”

  Jack took a swig of his coffee and shook his head. “Nope. We’re heading over to talk to the sheriff about Leland Whitaker.”

  “One case at a time really isn’t enough for you, is it?” Ashley bit into a donut, licking the glaze off her fingers.

  “Who knows, one may be tied to the other,” Jack noted thoughtfully. “One thing’s for sure. Elijah wanted us to know that name.”

  “Something tells me Sheriff Tubbs isn’t going to appreciate you insinuating he is a killer,” Ashley smiled as she polished off the donut.

  Her assumption was an understatement. One hour later she stood outside the sheriff’s office door, watching the sheriff’s animated outline through the milky glass. Jack had left her in the outer office, saying that the discussion about the sheriff’s involvement in Whitaker’s disappearance would be better man to man. Ash-ley bit her lip and humored Jack’s sexist suggestion, knowing that arguing with the pigheaded agent was a waste of time. She began her eavesdropping by pressing her ear to the door but soon found there was no need as the sheriff’s voice boomed around the entire building.

  “You have some gall!” Tubbs exclaimed, his outline standing up from behind his desk. “Coming into my office and making unsubstantiated allegations! Who are you to come into my county, dressed all in your fancy suit and call me a crook – a murderer?”

  “I never said you were a murderer,” Jack calmly re-plied, still seated across the desk from the sheriff. “I’m simply telling you what I’ve heard during the short time I’ve been in your town.”

  “Heard? You heard?” the sheriff yelled. “Well, you’ve heard wrong. I haven’t the slightest what happened to Leland Whitaker and anyone who says any different is a liar.”

  “Settle down there, Sheriff,” Jack urged.

  “I’m not going to settle down!” the sheriff continued in a loud voice. “I investigated his disappearance; spent a lot of time on it to be exact.”

  “And?” Jack asked.

  “And, I came to the conclusion that he left town,” the sheriff declared. “All of his stuff was gone. How do you explain that? If he had met with foul play, as you have suggested, then who took all of his stuff from his place?”

  A quiet settled inside the office after the sheriff’s rant. Ashley imagined Jack was giving the sheriff one of his “I doubt what you’re saying” looks where he lifted his right eye brow.

  “You don’t believe me; do you?” the sheriff spoke up, confirming Ashley’s assumption.

  She jumped as a hand fell on her shoulder from be-hind. She caught herself just before throwing a blow.

  “Ma’am, is the sheriff in his office?” Deputy Ward asked as he stepped by Ashley. She gave the young deputy a look, surprised that he hadn’t heard the shouting.

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t go in there just yet,” Ashley warned.

  “But it’s important, ma’am,” he insisted as he stepped past her and knocked on the door.

  “It better be,” Ashley crossed her arms. “Your boss is in a mood.”

  The deputy’s meek knock was answered by the roar of the sheriff’s voice. “This had better be important!”

  Kyle looked nervously back at Ashley as if silently asking her direction. Ashley shrugged her shoulders.

  “It is, sir,” Kyle’s voice shook.

  “Ward!” the sheriff shouted.

  The deputy opened the door apprehensively and stuck his head inside.

  “It’s very important,” the deputy confirmed.

  “Well?” the sheriff said impatiently. “Don’t just stand there looking stupid. What is it? Spit it out, son.”

  “A body,” Kyle blurted out. “They’ve found another body, in the desert, near where they found the woman.”

  Ashley stepped into the office beside Kyle. The sheriff and Jack exchanged
looks as Tubbs rushed from be-hind his desk.

  “Is the scene secure?” Tubbs asked as he reached and put on his hat hanging just inside the door.

  “The doc is out there, him and the people who found the body,” Kyle replied.

  Ashley noticed Jack move toward the sheriff’s desk and take something. She looked away, acting like she had seen nothing.

  “Mind if we tag along, Sheriff?” Jack asked. “We have our own car.”

  “It’s not like I have a choice,” the sheriff grunted. “You’d show up anyway.”

  “See you out there, then,” Jack patted the man’s shoulder as he nodded for Ashley to head to the car.

  The agents walked quickly out of the office, not waiting on the others. Upon exiting the building, Jack casually tossed a small item from his hand a few feet away into the landscaping.

  “What was that?” Ashley asked.

  “His car keys,” Jack shot back. “How’s that photo-graphic memory of yours? Think you can navigate our way back out there?”

  “I think so. Yes,” she answered, looking for a reason for his behavior.

  “I want a little lead time before they show up,” Jack answered the unasked question.

  Jack floored the old cruiser, sending dust spraying the sheriff as he stepped out the door, feeling for his keys.

  “You think he’s mad now?” Jack smirked. “Ain’t nothing makes me madder than losing my keys.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be Kyle,” Ashley shook her head.

  Jack turned on the blue lights as he sped from town, slowing only slightly as they passed the Halfway Inn to return a wave to Jessica who was standing outside the office.

  “How sweet,” Ashley scowled. “Is that where you got the donuts this morning?”

  “Continental breakfast,” Jack cracked.

  “Turn here!” Ashley yelled as they approached the turn. Jack cut the wheel, sending the cruiser into a power slide as Ashley pointed to a barely visible dirt path that turned off the main highway just over the Paradise side of the hill. Something went flying off the old car.

  “I hope that wasn’t important,” Ashley commented as the safety strap she was clinging to came off in her hand.

  “We’re still moving, ain’t we?” Jack dismissed as he tore through the scrubland.

  She continued blazing the trail, recalling their off-road trip two days before in detail, recognizing obscure landmarks.

  “There,” Ashley pointed. “Just over the rise.”

  Jack threw on the brakes as they topped the berm, giving them a look of the valley below.

  “Well, aren’t we going down?” Ashley asked, seeing the doctor standing over the body a couple hundred yards from where Jack stopped the cruiser.

  “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees,” Jack replied as climbed from the car and leaned against the front hood, surveying the barren bowl in front of him.

  “What?” Ashley wondered as she glanced nervously over her shoulder to see if the sheriff was approaching. “I thought you wanted to get out here ahead of them.”

  “We are here, sweetie,” Jack calmly replied. “Tell me what we know right now?”

  “Huh?” Ashley wondered.

  “Look at the scene from our prospective, sugar,” Jack gestured toward the valley before them. “What do we know based on what you see?”

  Ashley looked curiously at Jack.

  “Call it on-the-job training,” Jack clarified. “I’m giving you the benefit of my vast years of crime-fighting knowledge. Feel free to pick my brain.”

  “Please,” Ashley resisted. “I’d rather not. There’s no telling what’s in there.”

  Jack chuckled and again gestured toward the valley.

  “Okay, well, we have one victim – male – face down,” Ashley began as she strained her eyes, adjusting her glasses to get a better look. “Oh, he just has one leg.”

  “What else?” Jack asked.

  Ashley continued surveying the bowl below, giving another nervous glance over her shoulder.

  “We have the doctor and we have three people sit-ting on their four-wheelers about fifty yards south of the crime scene,” Ashley observed.

  “What’s that tell us?” Jack continued.

  “I’d say it was just like the first body,” Ashley pursed her lips. “They were out riding and came across the body. They called 911 but, as I found out, there’s no ambulance in Liberty County so they sent the doctor out here.”

  Ashley traced the trail leading from the four wheelers to where the body was being examined by the doc-tor.

  “They saw the man’s body and one of them got off and walked over and checked him out,” Ashley deduced from the scene. “That’s the brave one’s foot-prints leading back and forth. Then there’s the doctor’s footprints leading from his car to the body.”

  “Very good,” Jack nodded. “So, you’ve told me what we can see. Now tell me what is important about what we can’t see, darlin’.”

  Ashley gave Jack a curious look and returned to scanning the scene. She bit her lip reflectively before snapping her fingers.

  “Footprints!” Ashley chirped. “Aside from the people we can account for, there’s no footprints. How did the body get there?”

  “Maybe the prints got covered up by another one of your dust storms?” Jack wondered.

  “Nope,” Ashley said defiantly.

  “And, how are you so sure?” Jack quizzed.

  “The tire tracks,” Ashley pointed to a pair of tracks that ran just in front of where they were parked. “Those are the tracks we made coming out here a couple days ago.”

  “Are you sure?” Jack countered.

  “Absolutely,” Ashley confirmed. “They’re SUV tracks like the one Kyle was driving when he found us, plus I remember crossing this berm while we were being chased. We crashed about a quarter-mile that way. Kyle followed the same path when he drove us out.”

  Jack beamed at Ashley. “Wow. Don’t let this go to your head but I’ve got to admit that I’m impressed.”

  “About time,” Ashley quipped, her prideful smile suddenly disappearing from her face as she looked over Jack’s shoulder. “Looks like the party’s over. The sheriff is coming.”

  The sheriff’s SUV slid in beside them followed closely by Kyle’s cruiser.

  “I guess in the name of efficiency we could have car pooled,” Jack quipped as the sheriff glared at him from his vehicle.

  “Is there a reason you’re sitting here? The body is down there,” the sheriff observed.

  “Courtesy,” Jack replied. “It is your county, after all.”

  The sheriff rolled his eyes and spun his wheels, heading into the valley. Kyle gave the agents a faint wave as he followed his boss. Jack and Ashley followed the caravan into the desolate bowl.

  Ashley was relieved when Jack assigned her to talk to the people who had found the body, thus avoiding having to do another up-close with a corpse. It had be-come apparent upon closer inspection that the victim still had two legs - one was just folded up underneath his body.

  After making pictures of the scene, Jack and the doctor carefully turned the body over, exposing the de-formed face of a Hispanic male. Jack heard Kyle catch his breath at the sight of the carnage. The man’s arms were obviously fractured as they were folded under the body like his left leg.

  “Well?” the sheriff asked as he stood over them. “What’s the federal agent think? You going to blame this one on me, too?”

  Jack ignored the sheriff’s snide remark as he leaned back and took a picture of the man’s face with his cell-phone.

  “What do you think, doc?” Jack wondered as he continued snapping pictures from several angles.

  “Well, if you’re referring to time of death, I’d put it as sometime after midnight last evening,” the doctor revealed. “Based on rigor and the fact nothing has been dining on him yet.”

  “What about cause?” Jack asked.

  “Blunt trauma,” the doctor answer
ed. “Something broke every bone in his body.”

  “That’s 206 bones,” Jack quipped.

  “He’s got double that number now,” the doctor said, not missing a beat. “I mean, it’s like something crushed him. He looks as if he’s been hit head-on by a tractor trailer.”

  Jack looked around the barren crime scene. “Well, if it was a tractor trailer, it didn’t leave tracks.”

  “It reminds me of a case I worked back when I was an assistant in the coroner’s office in Las Vegas,” the doctor offered. “I worked the case of a guy who fell off a building, about twenty or so stories, from a worksite.”

  The sheriff stood up with a look of disgust on his face. “Well, there aren’t any buildings to fall off of out here. It’s flat as a pancake.”

  Jack tuned out the sheriff as he discovered he had a slight signal on his cellphone. He took advantage of the single bar to send the picture back to his field office with a question – “who is this?”

  “I can’t believe I got a signal,” Jack commented as he walked to meet Ashley.

  “It’s hit or miss out here, sir,” Kyle offered, over-hearing Jack’s comment. “This side of the hill is better than the other.”

  Jack immediately gave Ashley another chore after she reported her conversation with the off-roaders. The curiosity seekers had been looking around the area after hearing of the prior murder and happened upon the man’s remains.

  “Do a walk around the perimeter and over the other side of the berm, just to see if there’s anything,” Jack ordered. “This guy had to get here somehow. He didn’t just fall from the sky. Oh, and watch out for scorpions.”

  Ashley gave Jack a snarl.

  “Too soon?” Jack winked, feeling the heat of her scorn from his wisecrack.

  Jack ventured back to the body where the doctor had recruited a reluctant Kyle into helping him put the deceased man into a body bag. The sheriff sat leaning on his car, smoking a cigarette, watching his deputy per-form the grim chore.

  “So, you going to solve this one?” the sheriff blew smoke out of his nose as he flicked his ash. “I can’t begin to describe how lucky we are to have a detective like you here to save us.”

  Jack rolled his eyes, not caring for the sheriff’s tone.