Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) (9 page)

Maggi pulled out her phone from her purse and smiled.
 
“Service.
 
Awesome.”

“Do you actually listen to that music?”

“Maybe,” she said sheepishly.

Ben shook his head and popped the clutch, lurching the truck down the muddy road.
 
“I think I just lost a little respect for you.”

8

Although it was Saturday morning, Deputy Sheriff Lester Dawson had decided to work on his murder investigation.
 
What other choice did he have?
 
His almost ex-wife had his two young daughters this weekend, and it was either work or sit at home in a dark house and watch college football while drinking himself into a stupor.

He had spent the last couple of days going to every resident in Cantina Valley showing them a enhanced version of an image of his victim.
 
The ME had done his best to clean up the man’s face, and then a computer tech had done her best to smooth out the facial features blown all to hell.
 
The image wasn’t perfect, but it was a reasonable facsimile of what they guessed the man must have looked like before someone put a gun to the back of his skull and pulled the trigger.

By the time Lester had gotten to each of the valley residents, they had all heard of the murder.
 
But not one of them could identify the man.

Technically, the Springdale Winery was not part of the Cantina Valley, but was on the entrance to the valley and part of the greater Willamette Valley.

Lester had gone to the winery on the first day of his investigation, but that had been before he had this photo.
 
He sat now in his sheriff’s department rig and viewed the sprawling vineyards in the surrounding hills.
 
He knew each vineyard required a lot of temporary workers, but most of those were used in the winter to trim back and prune the vines and during the fall harvest, which was already complete for the year.

He got out and went toward the winery.
 
Before going in, he spit out his wad of wet tobacco at the base of a dead flower bed, hoping it would work as fertilizer.
 
He shrugged and wet into the winery.

First he talked with the owner of the winery, who didn’t recognize the man in the photo.
 
Her husband, the founder of Springdale, was at a conference in Italy, she said.

Then Lester talked with that hot wine pourer, Sonya.

“Do you recognize this guy?” Lester asked, handing the photo to Sonya.

She looked at the photo with interest, her head shaking slightly.
 
“I don’t think so.
 
But it’s hard to tell.
 
Is this a real photo?”

Lester explained that the man’s face had been damaged significantly and one of their techs had fixed the image.
 
“Photoshop, I understand,” Lester said.
 
“But I don’t know how they made it look even that good.
 
I was first on the scene, and it was not a pretty sight.”

“It must have been horrible,” she agreed, handing the photo back to Lester.

He stood like a school boy in front of a pretty girl, unsure how to proceed.
 
He knew he needed to move on, but for obvious reasons he also wanted to continue talking with Sonya.
 
He guessed this was a natural result of his newfound bachelorhood.

“You can’t say this man didn’t work at the winery?” Lester asked.

“It’s hard to say, Deputy Dawson.”

“You can call me Lester.”

“Okay, Lester.
 
You see, we use a lot of people to pick and prune.
 
My job is mostly in this office, although I do go to the cellar periodically to test batches.
 
So, I don’t have a lot of contact with the field workers.”

He already knew this from his first visit to the winery and from his personal observations during his frequent visits to wineries in the region.

Just then the door opened and an older gentleman came in, rubbing his boots on the rug.

“Carlos,” Sonya said.
 
“Come here a minute.”
 
She introduced Carlos Sala as the vineyard foreman.
 
He was perhaps sixty, with dark, weathered skin and wrinkles across his face from long days in the outdoors.

Lester showed the foreman the picture of the victim.
 
“Do you know this man?”

Observing the man’s hands, Lester noticed they looked much like those of his victim.
 
They were the hands of a man who still worked hard.

“I don’t know,” Carlos said, his accent less noticeable than Lester would have thought.
 
“It’s not a very good photo.”

“How many men do you have working now?” Lester asked.

“Only a couple of part time men,” Carlos said.
 
“It’s the down season.
 
We hire more in January to prune and direct the new vines.”

Lester narrowed his gaze and said, “All right.
 
But think back to your harvest.
 
Could this man have worked here then?”

“It’s possible.
 
But we have a lot of men here for the harvest.
 
All temporary workers.
 
And they seem to change each year.”
 
Carlos handed the photo back to Lester.

“Is your memory problem because you’re Mexican?” Lester asked.

“I’m Salvadoran,” Carlos said with pride.
 
“I came to Springfield to escape war in the eighties.
 
Me and my mother were sponsored by a Catholic church.
 
My father and two older brothers were killed in the civil war.”

“I’m sorry,” Lester said.
 
“Is there anyone I can talk with who might know this man?”

Carlos’s eyes shifted from the deputy to Sonya, before considering an answer.
 
Finally, he said, “This is the man found by the Cantina Creek?”

“Yes.”

“I would talk with Father Murphy in Junction City,” Carlos said.
 
“Most of the workers attend mass there.
 
May I go now?
 
I have work to do.”

Lester nodded.

The foreman left quickly, which was strange, Lester thought, since the man had obviously come into the office for some reason.

“Carlos is a good man,” Sonya said.
 
“He’s had a rough life.
 
But he’s a hard worker.”

“I understand,” Lester said.
 
“I’m just trying to find justice for this man shot in the back of the head and left to rot along Cantina Creek.”

“I know.
 
I hope you find the bastard who did this.
 
We don’t have murders here.”

Lester agreed nonverbally.
 
Then he wandered back out to his sheriff’s department rig and sat for a minute, trying to figure out where he should go next.
 
This Carlos had given him the name of a Catholic priest.
 
Perhaps a bit too quickly.
 
Although he wasn’t a detective, he knew a brush-off when he saw one.

Before driving away, Lester shoved a glob of tobacco under his lip and felt the pleasure of its freshness—like in his youth when he used to chew gum.
 
That first minute would make him salivate, and then the gum would lose its taste and he would spit it out.
 
Murder investigations were also like that, but he was determined not to let the freshness wear off.
 
He had to solve this case.
 
Not just for him and his relationship with the sheriff.
 
He now felt the importance detectives experienced, and how they had that drive to seek justice for the victims.
 
Lester was under no illusions as to why he had gotten the case, though.
 
This victim was a nobody.
 
And who spoke for these people?
 
Deputy Lester Dawson, he thought.
 
He had to give a shit or nobody else would.

9

Maggi sat in the passenger seat of the old Ford pickup, watching the front of a remote gas station along a country road about halfway between Corvallis and Eugene.
 
Her brother had purchased gas at this station about a week ago, so Ben had gone in to see if anyone remembered the transaction.

While she waited, she checked her phone for emails.
 
She had a bunch from work, which she ignored.
 
Although she was expected to answer questions even on the weekends, she could tell these were not that important.
 
She was part of the negotiating team for a new union contract with the nurses for one of their Portland hospitals.
 
Pay was not really an issue, since Portland nurses were some of the highest compensated in the country.
 
Now it was down to stupid stuff.
 
At least in her mind.
 
With so many people unemployed or underemployed in the country, Maggi thought the nurses were being unreasonable with their demands.
 
Like divas asking for certain candy in dressing rooms.

Somehow, she hoped that her brother, Tavis, had left her a text or email.
 
But he had not.

She glanced up and could now see Ben inside the little store section of the gas station.
 
He was using the disposable cell phone.
 
Interesting.

Maggi had to admit to herself that she was intrigued by this former military member.
 
She had always had a thing for strong men.
 
Then why, she had to ask herself, had she married such a wimpy man in her twenties?
 
Maybe she was trying to avoid the trap of marrying her father.
 
Her father was a man’s man, but he did have a soft spot and a heart of gold.
 
Especially for his little girl.

Ben Adler was different, though.
 
The man had an aura about him that left far too much to imagination.
 
He was a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
 
His old boss, Colonel Keyes, had warned her about Ben.
 
He had said that she would never know exactly what the man was thinking.
 
As far as the colonel knew, Ben never really opened up to anyone in the Air Force.
 
Part of that, he had said, was a result of Ben’s position in OSI.
 
None of them could really have friends outside of their own organization.

She saw Ben flip the phone shut and wave to the attendant behind the counter before walking out through the door into the light rain toward his truck.

Maggi stopped checking her email as Ben got in behind the wheel.

“Everything all right?” he asked her.

“Yes.
 
Just checking my mail.
 
Hoping to hear from Tavis.”
 
She hated to lie to Ben, considering that he was mostly doing this out of kindness.
 
It was true that she could get the IRS to back off, since they had no legitimate case against him.
 
But her work on that would take just a few hours.
 
The last thing the IRS wanted was a citizen with a pissed off lawyer.
 
“Did the attendant remember my brother?”

“He did.
 
He’s former Navy and they talked for a couple of minutes.
 
Tavis was alone and didn’t mention where he might be going.”

“Did you call your girlfriend?” she asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her, as if he intended to rip her head off.
 
Then he started his truck and said, “I found your brother’s vehicle.”

“Seriously?
 
How?”

“Don’t ask.”
 
He gave her an address and had her look it up on her phone.
 
“This burner doesn’t do that.”

She typed it into her map app and it immediately ran a jagged line from their current location to the address.
 
“Got it.”

“Let’s see.”

Maggi handed the phone to him and he furled his brows.

“What’s the matter?”

“I know where that is,” Ben said.
 
“We need to move fast.”
 
He handed her phone back and put the truck in gear.
 
Then he pulled out onto the main paved road and headed south.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Maggi said.

“You’re right.”
 
Ben shifted into third.
 
“I’m think you need to go back to Portland and let me handle this.”

“I won’t be dismissed,” she said.

He found fourth gear and settled the truck into a steady cruise on the wet pavement.

What was he hiding?
 
She needed to make Ben open up to her.
 
But how?
 
Honesty.
 
“I heard that you didn’t like to share or play with others.”

“Colonel Keyes tell you that?”

“He said you were the best investigator he had, but you drove him crazy with your intransigent personality.”

“Then he should have fired my ass,” Ben said.
 
“He could have had me transferred at any time.”

“He likes you, Ben.
 
He respects you.
 
Can’t you take yes for an answer?
 
Let me in.
 
If my brother is in trouble, I have a right to know.”

Ben stared off at the road ahead, obviously in deep thought.
 
Finally, he said, “The location of your brother’s truck could be a problem.
 
I don’t know for sure.”

She looked at the map location and switched from the map mode to the satellite view.
 
“It looks like a number of buildings.”

“Right.
 
Over the years that place has changed hands many times.
 
It was originally built in the 50s as a fundamental Christian school.
 
Those outbuildings were houses and other structures.
 
In the late 60s and early 70s, it was sold to a self-proclaimed guru, who turned it into an ashram.
 
But it had about as much to do with Hinduism as a local Indian restaurant.
 
Less actually.
 
The guru infused aspects of Taoism and Buddhism into his teachings.
 
But really he had built a cult, stealing all the possessions of pot-smoking college kids looking for some sort of salvation from their pedestrian lives.”

Maggi was wondering why she had not heard of this group growing up, but it was quite a distance from her home in Central Oregon.
 
Of course, she hadn’t even been born at that time.
 
So that made even more sense.
 
“What happened to the guru?” she asked.

“Our government picked him up and sent him to prison.
 
I hear he died there in the mid-eighties.”

“What happened to the place after that?”

“Hang on.”
 
Ben put his blinker on and turned right onto a smaller road.
 
Once he got the truck back up to speed heading right toward the foothills of the Coast Range and the Cantina Valley, he continued, “The late seventies through the eighties the place turned over a couple more times.
 
First another religious group, and then a commune with a collective farm.
 
They made some damn good honey and jam.”

“Then what happened there?”

“Well, the commune was not all love and peace.
 
There was too much wife swapping.
 
Jealousy.
 
In the early nineties, the leader was killed by a jealous follower who had bedded his wife too much.
 
He probably would have been alright with that, but the wife wouldn’t do it with him anymore.
 
So he also shot his wife before turning the gun on himself.”

“I heard about that,” she said.
 
“I was really young, though.”

“After that the place sat empty for years,” Ben said.
 
“I was in the service then.”

“And now?”

“I’ve heard rumors.
 
But I have no real knowledge.”

She checked her phone to see if she could check on the tax records, but by now they no longer had cell service.
 
“Let’s hear the rumors,” she said.

“In a community like this, where we’ve seen so many strange things come and go out there, you have to understand our apprehension.”

“I understand.
 
Is it that bad?”

“Rumor has it that the Compound is now being used by a militia.
 
But I don’t think that’s true.
 
Others have said the place is another cult haven.
 
Truthfully, I don’t think anyone has a clue.
 
I do know that many local businesses have sold them items that could raise flags.”

“Such as?”

“I really hate to bring it up, since someone could lump me into the same category.
 
And I hate to label people.”

Maggi said nothing.
 
She simply waited for him to speak.

“Doomsday preppers,” he finally said.

She actually used to watch a show on cable that dealt with these people.
 
Some of them were way off the deep end, but after watching hurricanes and other natural disasters over the past few years, she guessed a little preparation never hurt.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, winding through wine country back into Cantina Valley.