The Voxlightner Scandal by Don Travis

Author:Don Travis [Travis, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery
ISBN: 978-1-64080-926-0
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2019-08-19T05:00:00+00:00

GENE GOT a search warrant for the former Voxlightner property on Sandia Peak by noon the following day. An appointment with the police chief to discuss his promotion left him unable to serve the paper himself. Det. Roy Guerra welcomed Paul’s and my company the next day as we drove up the back of the mountain in his departmental blue Ford.

The present owners were a family named Gillis who waved away the need for a warrant and invited us to search wherever we wanted. They were the second owners following the sale of the tract by the Voxlightners, having been in residence only two years. They had never seen abandoned cars and certainly not stray human bones.

After our exhausting search showed nothing, we came off the mountain frustrated, but I was unwilling to let it go. Wick wouldn’t have parked the cars in the woods. He’d have hidden them someway. A Chevrolet Blazer and a Ford Crown Victoria concealed somewhere on the mountain held what was left of Barron and Walther. I knew it and was determined to prove it.

The next day I began my search in earnest. A few people I knew held privately owned plots in the Cibola National Forest, and on Sandia Peak in particular. Several phone calls developed some interesting information. The man everyone pointed to as being most knowledgeable about the Sandias was Foxy Slight.

Foxy was not easy to find. Reclusive and described as about halfway hostile—which I read as loopy—he lived in a board cabin in a small canyon a mile or so off the paved Sandia Crest National Scenic Byway, the road running to the top of Sandia Peak. Apparently he could hear a car approaching from half a mile away and was never home when Roy, Paul, and I arrived. After the third try Roy stopped at the nearest neighbor’s place to ask about Foxy. The man about laughed us off his place but in the end agreed to get word to Foxy some folks wanted to talk to him about the old Voxlightner place. He suggested we not mention one of us was a badge-wielding lawman.

As we came off the mountain yet again, Roy asked why I was so set on locating a character who went by the name of Foxy. “That name oughta tell us you can’t trust his word.”

“If we approach him right, I’ll wager we can get a load of information from him,” I said.

“Vince is a history buff,” Paul volunteered. “From all we’ve heard, it sounds like this Foxy is one too. If so, Vince can communicate with him.”

“What are we looking for?” Roy asked.

“Old mines,” I said.

“Mines?”

“Mines or mining shafts. I know there are some up there, but I can’t find a sign of one on any of the maps.”

“Sign?”

“You know,” Paul said. “A crossed pick and shovel on the map.”

“I didn’t know they mined anything up there. I know about the coal at Madrid, but that’s a long way from the Voxlightner place,” Roy said.

“Uh-oh.” Paul made no effort to hide the sigh in his voice.

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