Death in Copper Town: A small town police procedural set in the American Southwest (The Pegasus Quincy Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  DEATH IN COPPER TOWN

  Other Books by Lakota Grace

  Body in the Mining Pit 1

  Peg meets Ben Yazzie 2

  Conflict with the Mayor 3

  Possible Witness 4

  Domestic Violence Call 5

  Alice Confesses 6

  Death Notification 7

  Pickup Breakdown 8

  Ben and the Rez Dog 9

  Stolen Antique Pistol 10

  Crucifix in the Rat Midden 11

  Birthday Party Disaster 12

  Cowboy Boot Evidence 13

  Peg's New Home 14

  End of an Argument 15

  Jake Bean's Story 16

  Armor at the Marijuana Patch 17

  Woodchute Picnic 18

  Ben Goes Missing 19

  Emergency Room Crisis 20

  Too Many Suspects 21

  Theft in the Gun Room 22

  Gravel Road Hairpins 23

  Fired 24

  Planning the Heist 25

  Cracking the Safe 26

  Murderer Finds Alice 27

  Painful Aftermath 28

  Surprise at the Town Hall 29

  A Day of Ashes 30 Sneak Preview: Blood in Tavasci Marsh

  Other Pegasus Quincy Mysteries

  Author Note to Readers

  DEATH IN COPPER TOWN

  by Lakota Grace

  Version 1.2 – July, 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by Lakota Grace

  Discover other titles by Lakota Grace at www.LakotaGrace.com.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Other Books by Lakota Grace

  PEGASUS QUINCY MYSTERY SERIES

  Death in Copper Town

  Blood in Tavasci Marsh

  Fire in Broken Water

  Peril in Silver Nightshade

  Silence in West Fork

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this novel to my daughter, Heather, because her awesome writing skills are a continual source of inspiration; to my sister, Kay, for her unwavering support; and to my granddaughter who first introduced me to Nanowrimo—way to go, Kaia.

  And to those who cannot be named, who have seen me through every step of the way with persistence and love—you know who you are. Thank you!

  Body in the Mining Pit

  1

  I'D BEEN EXPECTING a quiet summer writing traffic tickets in the small mining town of Mingus, but all that changed the morning the fire chief called me.

  “Hello, I’m trying to reach Deputy Quincy.”

  “I’m Peg Quincy. Go ahead.”

  “We may have a problem.”

  As he described the situation, it quickly became apparent that problem was an understatement. His hotshot crew was fighting an out-of-control campsite fire on Black Mountain. One of the men spotted a body in an old mining excavation several hundred feet below their mop-up activity.

  That excavation had to be the now-closed copper mine William Clark had carved out years ago on the outskirts of Mingus. That location was smack dab in the middle of my jurisdiction, so I went to investigate.

  When I arrived at the open-mine pit, locals and tourists milled about the chain link fence securing the front entrance. Layers of sulfur-yellow rock had been blasted back like an inverted ziggurat, forming a semicircular cliff hundreds of feet high. Oil-slick water pooled in the center of the semi-circular opening. Behind that, next to the cliff, was a dark crumpled mass.

  A sunburned tourist in Bermuda shorts pointed through the fence. “Is that a body? I've never seen a dead body before.”

  Neither had I. Maybe seasoned veterans could view a corpse with no problem, but I was a rookie, barely a month out of the police academy and on temporary summer assignment in this small Arizona mining-turned-tourist town. I hadn’t even been in town a week, and now this.

  I pressed my lips together and talked my stomach into staying where it belonged. Then, while I awaited the arrival of the mine employee to unlock the fence gate, I canvassed the crowd. Nobody had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.

  A late-model Lexus braked to a stop, spattering my uniform pants with mud. It was Roger Heaton, the vice-mayor of Mingus. He opened the door of his Lexus and stepped into the same mud puddle he’d splashed onto me. Too bad.

  “What's going on?” he demanded.

  My red hair bristled at his sharp-edged manner. His damp handshake probably came from nerves or ulcers, but I still didn't like his attitude. My six-foot height had two inches on him, which ought to count for something. Maybe not.

  “Body in there.” I gestured. “I’m waiting for access from the mining company.”

  “Need help? Or you got it under control?” His voice dripped with condescension.

  Sharply aware of my position as the only law enforcement officer on duty, I swallowed my pride. “Thanks. I could use you to stand at the entrance to control ingress when we get the gate open.”

  A few moments later, the mining official arrived, puffing at our mile-high elevation. “Sorry, I'm late.” He wore a khaki shirt with a pocket protector, but no I.D. badge. Perhaps he was an engineer for the mining company.

  “We usually keep this area fenced and padlocked,” he said. “Don't want any amateur prospectors breaking a leg in here.” He stared at the shape inside the fence.

  I've noticed two types of people—those that are attracted by death, and those that are repelled by it. The engineer must have been the second, for after he opened the gate he didn't stick around long.

  With Roger Heaton fending off the curious spectators, I paced the parameter of the death scene. The dead man lay sprawled face down, with his head canted at an unnatural angle, and one arm pitched beneath him. He wore a stained white shirt, soiled khakis, and cheap loafers with no socks. The neutral colors of his clothing contrasted against the dark red and blue gravels of the mine tailings.

  I gagged at the foul mixture of smells—the man hadn't bathed for a while and had soiled himself in death. And an another odor was instantly familiar. A smashed bottle of Scotch lay next to the body: Cutty Sark, my mother's brand of choice.

  The man appeared to be in his late twenties, with dark hair worn long in front, but ragged in back, as though he’d cut it himself. Death had robbed the face of all expression, the features gray from blood drainage after death. I glanced up at the mountain cliff, already in late afternoon shadow. Did he trip and fall under the influence of too much alcohol? It might be an accident, then. That would make the case easier to close.

  I shot digital pictures of the corpse from all angles and then centered in on a head shot. No one I had interviewed thus far had knowledge of how or why he got there, so photos might be essential in making a positive identification.

  When the medical examiner arrived, he concurred with my initial findings. “I'll have to do an autopsy to be sure, but it looks like a simple accident to me.”

  “Approximate time of death?”

  “He's not been here long. From the liver temp, probably sometime after midnight.”

  “Okay if I roll the body?” I asked.

  “Sure,
I'm done for now. Let me give you a hand.”

  It was the first dead body I'd ever moved. We put our weight into it, and the body plopped over, rigor mortis already setting in. Heavier than I’d expected.

  The fall had mushed the side of the man’s face into a bloody mask. It didn’t look human, and the view made me light-headed. I clenched my jaws together again. No way was I getting sick in front of all these witnesses.

  I slipped my hand into the dead man’s shirt pocket. Then searched the pockets of his pants looking for any sort of ID. Nothing. The gestures felt like a violation of the man, somehow. The body was cold, no warmth left, and I hurried my motions.

  From the condition of his clothes, the dead man might be homeless, belonging to no one. Or maybe he had a family—I tried to imagine kids waiting someplace for a father who’d never return. Hard to think about that. I shifted back to the present.

  Unless he had served in the military or been arrested, there was a good chance he might not even be in the national identification system. Nevertheless, I made a note to press the medical examiner for a quick fingerprint scan. If that didn’t turn up anything, we’d have to go the dental identification route and hope that he was local.

  Green flashed from the hand that had been wedged beneath the body. Bending down for a closer look, I discovered a fragment of silk in a striking emerald hue. I photographed it, tagged it, and put it in an evidence bag for the lab. Nothing else appeared in the immediate vicinity of the body, and the hard gravel surface surrounding the body revealed no footprints.

  I glanced upward. If the man had fallen from the campsite above, there might be signs of a scuffle. If so, this case could change from a simple accident to a homicide. I’d best go up there and check it out. Did I want the complication of a murder investigation? Part of me, the conservative side, protested, “no way,” while the ambitious side shouted, “hell, yeah” inside my head.

  After the medical examiner left with his loaded van, I relocked the mine fence to secure the area and stuck the key the mine official had given me in my pocket. I sat in my squad car finishing my notes and then made some follow-up calls.

  The fire chief was apologetic. “I'm sorry, Deputy Quincy, if we disturbed stuff up there. We just wanted to put the fire out, before it started to spread. Too late now to do anything about it, I guess.”

  Too late for the dead man, anyway. What had the man been doing up on Black Mountain? Was his death a tragic misstep or something more sinister?

  The fire chief gave me road directions to the burned campsite above the pit. I said I’d be by later to interview the firefighters.

  When I called the sheriff to report the dead body, he wasn’t happy.

  “No trouble for years, and then you show up.” His voice roughened. “I'm attending a commissioners' meeting this afternoon, a budget meeting. Do your investigation of the accident and write the report. I don’t need complications up there.”

  His budget concerns weren’t my problem. Inexperienced or not, I’d take a close look at the situation before I ruled it an accident. Sometimes that habit of standing my ground got me in trouble. I still carried the scar over one eyebrow from when my mother's then-boyfriend took offense at my smart mouth. But in this case, I was closer to what happened in Mingus than the sheriff was. He’d just have to trust me.

  Slamming the door of the old Crown Vic, I cranked the engine and did a U-turn, then headed out of town. Navigating a series of sharp switchbacks on Highway 89a, I climbed from the mile-high elevation at Mingus to the top of Black Mountain, over two thousand feet higher.

  When I reached the cut-across road at the top of the mountain, I turned right. The squad car bounced on worn shocks as I drove down the dirt trail to the burned campsite. A yearling mule deer raised its head at my approach and then returned to browsing on purple thistles nestled among the Ponderosa pines that thrived at this higher elevation.

  At the far side of one meadow, I saw an old pickup—it looked like my grandfather, HT Tewksbury’s, truck. I narrowed my eyes for a closer look. Fuzzy dice on the rear-view mirror and one fender, primer gray—his truck all right. What was he doing up here?

  I looked around the clearing, but there was no sign of him. Instead, two strange men emerged from the shadow of the pines. The first was dark-eyed with black hair pulled back in a knot at the base of his skull. He looked to be Italian, or maybe part Native American. It was hard to judge his age because of his small stature, perhaps a skinny seventeen.

  The second man was a big hulk of a guy, his height diminished as he leaned forward, one arm supported by a steel crutch. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, with longish gray hair and the blotchy complexion of a heavy drinker. Both men looked uneasy at my approach. However, when I pulled to the side of the road and got out to meet them, their attitudes changed.

  “Hey Peg! I'm Armor Brancussi, a good friend of your granddad.” The big man projected a forced cheerfulness. “And this here is my nephew, Ben Yazzie.”

  “Where's my grandfather?”

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “I'm borrowing his truck for the afternoon,” Armor said. “He lets me do that sometimes.”

  Ben picked up the story line. “We're just looking for peresia. It's a plant.” He launched into a description of the desert herb: how it served as a styptic to stop bleeding and as an aid in childbirth. His uncle stood silently behind him.

  My B.S. antenna cranked up a notch at the lengthy explanation. Was the young man dodging the real reason they were up here? Might it have anything to do with the dead man on his way to the morgue? I needed to interview them, but I also wanted to examine the site of the man’s fall before dark set in.

  Signaling for them to wait a moment, I pulled out my phone and called my grandfather’s house. He wasn’t there, but his housekeeper Isabel confirmed the truck loan. That settled it. I’d go up to the campsite first and question these two later. Mingus was a small town. I knew where to find them.

  I waved a hand in the boy’s direction, cutting his explanation short. “I need to get to the top of the cliff that overlooks the old copper mine.”

  “You'll want to head this way.” Armor pointed to the left fork in the road ahead.

  “But it looks like the fire truck went there.” I extended my hand to the right where tire tracks were clearly visible.

  Armor shook his head, challenging my statement. “Landslide up there. This way peters out a quarter mile in. Go left.”

  I took their phone numbers and addresses and said I’d be in contact. Then I walked back to the squad car. Shifting into low gear, I turned left. The old chassis groaned as I crept down the rutted lane and across several washouts. The car tilted one direction and then the other, almost high centering. The Crown Vic hadn’t been made for this type of terrain, even in its good years. The oil pan grated across one sharp rock and the brush closed in on either side of the car, as the road narrowed. Rough chaparral brush scraped desert pin striping on the side panels of the cruiser.

  Finally, the path vanished in front of an old cypress tree. To the right, the view opened up across the Verde Valley. I stopped the car and yanked on the emergency brake for good measure. Then I switched off the ignition and rolled down the window. The odor of burn and char filled my nostrils. The campfire site had to be close. I got out of the car and walked over to the cliff for a look. The town spread below me, the old mine forming a rough open patch at the far end. I triangulated on it to locate the edge of the cliff where the burnout should be located.

  It looked to be about five hundred feet ahead of me. Gingerly dodging prickly pear and yucca, I walked to the top of a large knoll. I once again peered over the edge of the cliff. I was close. Far below me, the police barrier tape stretched out in a yellow square and the last of the sun glinted off the tailings pond.

  Up ahead, smoke marks on still standing tree trunks increased. It looked as though the fire had spread outward from the campsite, igniting the lower manzanita brus
h and then leaping upward to char the shaggy-bark junipers.

  The crew had countered by drawing backfire lines in the dirt and clearing the underlying duff. They had managed to hold the fire to the size of a large vacant lot. I broke into an open area and in front of me lay the makeshift campsite. No fire or smoke remained, but the ground was trampled and sooty. The bare outline of a tent flapped in the breeze, mostly destroyed by the fire. No sign of a vehicle. Had the man hiked to this location?

  A few feet beyond the tent, the cliff dove straight down several hundred feet to the gravel pit below. The soil was crumbly and disturbed near the edge of the cliff, but that could be from the men fighting the blaze. I peered over the edge, holding onto a juniper branch. The earth sank beneath my feet and I jumped back. A long way to fall. I picked up a handful of dirt and rubbed it between my fingers to cut the stickiness of juniper pitch.

  It wasn't an official crime scene yet and might never be if the commissioners' budget had anything to do with it. Indeed, the fire crew had trampled much of the crime scene, if it were such. Still, I was curious. My life goal in joining the sheriff’s department was not pounding the street writing tickets. I was destined for bigger things, like homicide detective.

  What better way to prepare for that future than gain a little surreptitious practice, out of the watchful eye of my superiors? The good angel urged caution, but the dark angel was performing a victory dance. Here, in the solitude of this late afternoon forest, I could practice my ultimate goal of becoming a CSI expert with nobody looking over my shoulder.

  I performed a visual grid search of the area near the ruined tent. Nothing obvious. Then, using the tent as a pivot point, I walked a spiral search pattern out from the center. It was a dusty business. My boots crushed the black ash sending up clouds of flume, and I coughed as the particles entered my throat.