Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [114]
Every year the residents of Virden celebrated their Mormon ancestors’ trek to the Gila River Valley after being forced to flee Mexico in 1912 because of the revolution that made Pancho Villa famous. During one such celebration, while the villagers were at the annual picnic, Shaw sneaked into Elder Ralph and Sister Elizabeth’s house, found their last will and testament leaving everything to a Mormon clinic in El Salvador, destroyed it, and loosened the gas line to the bedroom wall heater.
They were dead by morning, and after a lengthy probate hearing, Shaw inherited the farm and immediately leased out the land. Although the money from the leasehold agreement gave Shaw a steady income stream, with land prices skyrocketing it was far from enough to buy a good-sized ranch of his own, even if he sold the farm outright. But soon he would never again be somebody’s hired hand.
As he watched Julia and Hingle, Shaw decided she hadn’t screwed him yet. She was still playing her cunning little seductive game with him, acting enchanted by everything Hingle said, as though he alone could delight her. It was such bullshit the sight of it almost made Shaw laugh.
His attention switched when he saw Kevin Kerney get out of his truck on the other side of the fence and walk toward the movie types clustered at the cattle guard. They were surrounded by cameras, lights, electrical equipment, and some metal frames covered in a black fabric that were used to shade sunlight.
The damn cop was a snoop. When he’d been down here last, Kerney had taken a solo tour of the ranch. Shaw had backtracked on Kerney and found evidence that he’d been to the barn at the old Harley homestead and tromped around the landing field on the Sentinel Butte Ranch. Shaw didn’t like people butting into his business, and although he had no reason to believe the cop was onto him, he was wary nonetheless.
He watched Susan Berman, the pretty woman who always had a notebook or clipboard in her hand and a harried look on her face, break away from the group, greet Kerney, and give him a manila envelope.
The two chatted for a time and Shaw lost interest. The stock had been gathered at the Shugart cabin for the cattle-drive movie scenes, and the horse wranglers for the film company would be trucking in the remuda this afternoon. The new corral was finished, and Shaw’s day hands were hauling feed to the site in preparation for the arrival of the horses. It was time to check and see how far along they were with their chore.
He pulled himself into the cab of the truck and headed south, kicking up dust on the ranch road and wishing Hollywood would just pack up and go away. He had a shipment arriving soon and he didn’t like the idea of transporting contraband with a movie crew and a police chief parked under his nose.
When Susan Berman rejoined Malcolm Usher, who was running over the setup for the establishing shot of the ranch, Kerney paused to look around. As promised, Ethan Stone, the set designer, had turned Joe and Bessie’s pristine ranch headquarters into a hardscrabble, weather-beaten movie set. The exteriors of the houses and the barn were painted a dingy, sun-bleached gray, and a rusted water tank and an old windmill had been planted squarely in front of Joe and Bessie’s house along with two large, dead evergreen trees. The construction crew had added a rickety porch to the front of the house with a roof that seemed about to collapse. Several old, wrecked vehicles that looked like they’d been hauled down from vacant lots in Hachita were scattered around, and a pile of scrap metal had been dumped next to the barn.
There was no sign of Joe, Bessie, or Johnny, but Kerney noticed that Julia and Barry Hingle were looking pleased with each other. He smiled at the prospect that Julia might have found someone more receptive to her advances.
He opened the manila envelope. It was from the SFPD and inside were the NCIC wants and warrant reports on the cast and crew that his department had run. The name of one crew member, a transportation