South Country by John Stonehouse

Author:John Stonehouse [Stonehouse, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-10T23:00:00+00:00

The doctor from the ME’s Office, Estrella Tirado, pulls off a pair of blue surgical gloves. She eyes the burial site—young-looking, with an angular face.

“Man’s been missing eleven days,” Whicher says.

The doctor steps out of a disposable zip-suit—dressed in chinos and a short-sleeve shirt. “Probably been here about that long…”

“Three gunshot wounds?” Sheriff Torres says.

Tirado nods. “Common pistol caliber, 9mm, maybe a little bigger. There are two exit wounds to the back, so one round must still be in him.”

The CSI, Reece Donovan steps across. “I’ll go take a look down in the field. See if I can find the slugs that passed through, or any frags.”

“You know where the dog picked up the scent of blood?” Whicher asks him.

“The handler showed me.”

“Did you find his phone?”

Donovan shakes his head.

Whicher looks to Doctor Tirado. “Are you going to move him?”

Tirado glances at the two zip-suited excavators, still sifting through the site. “There’s no reason not to. We preserve evidence better that way. We’ll go through everything here, make sure nothing is missed.”

Sheriff Torres studies the corpse. “You see anything that doesn’t fit?”

The doctor shakes her head. “Somebody shot him to death at close range; it’s a pretty tight grouping. Most likely with a semi-automatic pistol. He was facing his assailant. We’ll take him in, autopsy. Who’s investigating?” She looks from Whicher to the sheriff.

“I am,” the marshal says. “Until further notice.”

Tirado inclines her head, moves off to her vehicle.

Torres catches Whicher’s eye. “This has narco hit all over it.”

“We don’t know he was mixed up running drugs.”

“Who else is going to kill a guy like Cardenas? A farm hand?”

“We’ll find out what happened,” the marshal says.

“DEA say they’re seeing more traffic moving through the county.”

The marshal scans the desolate-looking country beyond the worked fields.

“This morning,” Torres says, “we had another report of a disturbance at a property—a woman living off-grid, out at the edge of the Rim Rock. Just twenty miles from here.”

“You know what happened?”

“Garcia left out for there, I came here, I haven’t spoken to him.” The sheriff looks toward the body in the shallow grave. “But for sure, we’re seeing activity on the rise…”

“This woman’s property is where?” Whicher asks him.

“Out by the head of Pinto Canyon. Not real far.”

“That’s what—around ten miles from the Mackenzie Ranch?”

“Something like that. The woman reported an intrusion, overnight,” Torres says. “She went inside her house, locked all the doors. She was too scared to move. In the morning she made a break for it.”

Whicher takes his phone from his jacket, finds the number for Deputy Garcia.

He presses the key to send, eyes the distant line of the Sierra Vieja.

Garcia picks up the call, his voice faint.

“Yeah, this is Whicher, I’m out at the Zimmerman place. Sheriff says you went to a report of a disturbance? Out near Pinto Canyon?”

“Right,” Garcia says, “I’m still here…”

“You know what happened?” the marshal says.

“I’m not real sure, mano. I’m still here looking around. But I think your truck thief might be back.”

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