I prodded her with my boot. “Edith, get up. We need to talk.”
It took a few more prods but she finally sat up. She was holding her head. “Mike, you hurt me.”
“I should have killed you.”
She began to weep. “I didn’t mean any of this to happen.”
“Yes, you did. Now, Edith, the only way you’re going to get out of this is to tell me the truth when I ask you some questions. Will you do that?”
Sniffing, she nodded and I asked, “Tell me about the helicopter. What’s the plan?”
“It belongs to the buyer,” she said. “I don’t know his name. Cade and Toby set it up. Some rich Mexican.”
“OK. Who are the bully boys below?”
“You know who they are.”
“Well, tell me, anyway.”
“Russian mob. Cade owes them a lot of money from when he made movies. Toby came to collect. He had worked with Cade on the movies and liked him. Rather than beat him up or kill him, he tried to help. Toby was very interested in everything and said he was an avid amateur paleontologist. When I showed him a copy of Ray’s paper that I got off the school Web site, he thought it would be a great idea to sell dinosaur bones to off set Cade’s debts. So they started looking around the Net and found out about Pick. He was not only a respected paleontologist, but they found evidence that he sold fossils from time to time. So Cade sent him an e-mail. It didn’t take long for him to respond.”
“What was Ted’s part in this?”
She looked away for a moment, then said, “He wasn’t part of it. I asked him to give Pick a permit and he agreed. Then he got all bent out of shape about his precious BLM. He just couldn’t leave it alone.”
“Did Ted kill Toby?”
She smirked. “I told you my husband doesn’t kill men.”
“Where’s Ted now?”
Her expression was distant. “Swimming with the walleyes.”
I felt a cold chill down my back. My questions seemed to be bringing out another Edith, one I had never known. “Did you kill Toby?”
Her eyes bored into me. “I found him on his knees in front of my husband. Call me a jealous wife. Anyway, I just wanted to do it. I got a hammer, used it on the back of Toby’s skull.” She smiled. “Ted took off running. I wasn’t going to kill him, the fool. I still needed him or at least I thought I did. Anyway, I got a hacksaw blade and sawed open Toby’s throat, then put that note on him just to throw you off track. Yeah, I figured you’d start investigating. You’re no cowboy, Mike, just a cop in cowboy clothes.”
“How did you get Toby into the lake?”
“I told Cade what I’d done. We waited until the dance was over and dragged him to the lake. We thought he’d sink but he didn’t.”
“Did you kill Ted, too?”
She shrugged. “Well, after he started threatening to tell the police I’d killed Toby, Cade shot him. Then I cut his throat.”
I still couldn’t believe this was the same Edith I’d cared about. “How did you get mixed up in all this?”
I guess she figured she didn’t have anything to lose by telling me more. She said, “Cade said if we got enough money, we’d leave here and go to Mexico. There is a very big man there, the one buying the bones, who would take care of us, set us up.” She looked at Jeanette. “I would do anything to get out of this county and away from these ranchers. You’re a bitch, Jeanette. You always have been. But you ended up marrying Bill Coulter and climbed on top of the pyramid. Me? I was just mayor of a shithole married to a prick.”
“You killed my bull,” Jeanette said. “And cut my fence.”
At this, Edith started to laugh. It was a harsh, mean laugh and I knew now that she was insane. Completely and utterly. “You see, Mike?” she said. “She cares more about that damn bull and her fences than people. Cade, Toby, and I decided to throw everybody off track by killing more cows and cutting more fences, leaving behind that stupid Green Monkey note. Ranchers are all paranoids. I knew exactly how to sucker them.”
“It’s time to be quiet now, Edith,” I said.
Edith made a sudden grab for Amelia’s pistol. Amelia pulled back in time, but Edith vaulted over the sandstone and ran down the hill, screaming for Cade. I don’t know how many bullets struck her. She fell, then rolled until she hit the sand at the bottom.
32
“They’re leaving Mayor Brescoe where she fell,” Ray said, peeking around a sandstone boulder.
“How about Cade?”
“He’s just sitting over by the tents. He’s got a bandana wrapped around his leg. The men have moved about a dozen of the bones into the net, but now they’ve stopped.”