The detective pounced on him, and, sure enough, it was Grant. “Now what the hell are you up to?”
He spat on the ground. “You’re trespassing.”
“You’re a dead man,” Weston said carelessly.
Shambhala once again sat at Weston’s side but didn’t appear to want to go toward the man. Weston already knew Shambhala preferred Ginger to Grant, but still, most dogs had a relationship with both people in a situation like this. Shambhala could still prefer one but be friendly to both.
He looked at her and frowned. “Shambhala, you don’t seem to care about this guy.”
“Best evidence I’ve seen yet to say it’s not Grant,” the detective said. “My money says it’s the bloody brother.”
“Even if I am, what difference does it make?”
“It doesn’t. The place is probably yours once probate is done,” the detective said.
“Unless you killed to get it,” Weston said.
“I didn’t kill anybody,” he said.
“Somebody’s got to know if this is Gregory or Grant,” Weston said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” the guy said. “Maybe you’re just being fooled.”
At that, the detective stopped and said, “Are there just the two brothers?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a big grin.
Because he was being an asshole, Weston wanted to punch him for the sake of punching him. “Why don’t you charge him with murder one,” he said to the detective. “It’s obvious he ran his brother and his wife off the road anyway.”
The detective looked at him in surprise, then looked back at the man and frowned. “Did you?”
“Hell no,” he said. “What would be my motive?”
“This place,” Weston said.
“What about this place? Nothing’s here.”
“What were you doing in the woodshed?” Weston said, changing the subject.
“None of your fucking business.”
“What are you looking for on the property?” he asked. At that, the man stiffened, and Weston knew he was on the right track. “What did they do? Find a gold claim or something?”
“Were they running some other business, and you found out and came to help yourself?” the detective added.
“You don’t know anything,” he said with a sneer.
“No, I don’t,” the detective said, “but I know two people are dead, and you’re the hand behind it.”
“I am not.” He turned to look at the detective. “You’ve got nothing on me.”
The detective looked at Weston with a frown.
Weston said, “Take a sample of his handwriting and match it up against the threatening letter.”
“Oh, shit,” the detective said. “You know what? I’ve been really worn out, working with half my team gone. Otherwise I would have picked it up sooner. You’re the one who threatened them, aren’t you?”
“And what did you do, cut the brake lines or something?” Weston asked.
“Under the circumstances, nobody looked hard for forensic evidence because the vehicle was so badly smashed and burned,” the detective added.
“Which explains why this guy here, with his rifle, was shooting at me earlier today when I got to nosing around the accident vehicle.”
The man just glared at both of them.
“We still don’t know if you’re Grant or Gregory,” Weston said. “I’ve been asking around town to see if one of you had any distinguishing marks, but, outside of a couple broken bones and whatnot, it doesn’t seem there’s a whole lot of difference. The X-rays will sort it out though.”
At that, the man before them frowned, as if trying to recall what breaks they were talking about.
“We can surely get a warrant to have him X-rayed, can’t we?” Weston asked the detective.
“Yep. For suspicion of murder, we can. I still don’t understand what his motivation was,” the detective said. “There is this place, but it won’t fetch a whole lot of money.”
“Not sure it was even about money as much as a place to disappear.”
“You don’t even know who I am,” he said. “Until you do, you’ve got no motive, and you’ll never get a warrant.”
“Maybe,” Weston said, turning to study the area. “But we’ll find it if we start digging.”
“No, you won’t,” he said.
Just then Weston’s phone buzzed. It was Badger. He looked at the message. “Oh, look at that. Gregory’s got a record in Las Vegas for cheating, stealing, not to mention, breaking and entering.” Weston whistled. “And look at this—suspicion of manslaughter.” He glared at the guy. “You got yourself in a shit ton of trouble, didn’t you?” He turned to the detective. “You better get those files out of Las Vegas pretty damn fast, I’d say. Guess we won’t need the X-rays after all. This guy’s been fingerprinted plenty of times.”
The detective turned to look at the man. “That’s it. I’m taking you in for questioning.”
“I’m not going,” the guy said, stepping back. “I’m not the one responsible for all that shit.”
“So you’re either Gregory or you are Grant then, and we’ll know the truth sooner or later.”
“Crap,” he said, and he seemed to sag in place.
However, that was just a decoy because, as the detective turned and relaxed, the man pulled out a handgun from his back waistband and held it on Kruger.
“Whoa, son, take it easy now,” the detective said, backing out.
“I won’t take it easy. That’s my brother who died down there, but he didn’t die hard enough. He brought that shithole of a loan shark up here with him. They’ve been hassling us for a long time, but, no, my brother wasn’t happy enough with that, he had to go and get my bloody wife pregnant too, didn’t he?”
“I have no idea. Did he? Do we need to do an autopsy on her and find out for sure?”
“There shouldn’t have been any more than a few crispy critters left after that fire,” he said. “But the damn thing wouldn’t even burn on its own. I had to go down there and light it on fire.”
“Why? Because he was screwing your wife? Did you really hate your wife that much?”
“Nobody likes to be made a fool of like that,” he said.
