In the Moon of Red Ponies: A Novel by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke [Burke, James Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780743466646
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2004-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

DURING THE NEXT few days the federal and county investigations into the murder of Seth Masterson produced evidence that seemed to aim at only one conclusion: Johnny American Horse’s odyssey into the Garden of Gethsemane was just beginning.

The AR-15, the civilian equivalent of the military-issue M-16 rifle Darrel McComb had found on the hillside, was stenciled with Johnny American Horse’s fingerprints. In addition, the call made to Seth Masterson’s cell phone, supposedly by Amber, was traced back to Johnny’s house. There was another problem, too—Johnny had no alibi.

He claimed to have been building a chimney of river stones for a rancher, up the Blackfoot, at the time of Seth’s murder. But he had been working by himself and he could provide no witness to corroborate his story. His explanation about the presence of his fingerprints on the AR-15 presented other complications. Johnny told both the FBI and the investigators from the sheriff’s department of the man who had tried to sell him an AR-15 out of a panel truck. But the two boys who worked for him could not identify the kind of rifle Johnny had been handed by the driver of the truck, and neither of them remembered Johnny picking up an ejected shell from the dirt, which was the only explanation—provided Johnny was innocent—for the fact that a latent on a .223 cartridge fired from the murder weapon was Johnny’s.

By Wednesday of the following week he had been questioned at least five times by federal agents. He came into my office just before noon, wearing frayed jeans and a black shirt with silver stripes in it, his coned-up straw hat clenched in his hand, his face pinched with anger.

“You okay?” I said.

“Two agents just rousted me in front of the courthouse. I told this one guy he puts his hand on me again, he’ll wish he stayed in college.”

“You told that to an FBI agent?”

“I don’t know who he was. Just get them away from me.”

“Make a stop at the watering hole this morning?”

“So what?”

“It’s what your enemies want you to do, Johnny. If you want to really tie the ribbon on the box, punch out a federal agent.”

“I told them the truth. A guy tried to sell me the AR-15. Somebody got in my house and used my phone to set up this guy Masterson. These guys can’t figure that out? Nobody’s that stupid.”

“You’re not under arrest. That means they haven’t reached any conclusions. Give them a break. Maybe they’ll surprise you.”

Wrong words. “Why would I kill an FBI agent in my own house? What if Amber had been there? She’d probably be dead too,” he said.

“Sit down,” I said.

He started to argue again, his eyes hot, a smell like fermented fruit on his breath. But I cut him off. “All this goes back to that research lab Amber and your friends broke into,” I said. “Seth Masterson went to your house to try to persuade you and Amber to give up the computer files that were stolen from Global Research.

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