as rocks. He frightened me. Just the thought of him still does.
When I told him I was leaving him, he threatened to kill me if I took Cory and Phil with me. He forced me to my knees, put a pistol to my head, and made me promise to leave the boys with him.'
'How terrible,' Molly groaned.
'Wasn't there someone you could turn to for help?'
'No one. Eugene kept me isolated from everybody.
After I had his children-my sons-I was nothing but a maid and a prisoner.'
She patted the book in her lap.
'All I had when I left was the clothes on my back, my grocery money for the month, and his father's diary. After some time had passed and I was far enough away, I copied pages from Calvin's diary and sent them to Eugene.
I told him if he ever came near me again I'd make his father's diary public. It's been the only protection I've had over the years.'
Louise held out the book.
'Read it for yourself.
The interesting entries are marked. It won't answer all of your questions. Only Eugene and Edgar can do that. But I'm sure you can piece together part of the puzzle.'
Jim reached out and took the book from Louise's outstretched hand, and with Molly looking over his shoulder, they read excerpts from Calvin Cox's diary.
'You're a pretty good detective,' Molly said.
'You're not too bad yourself,' Jim replied.
Stiles drove while Molly sat next to him. She had taken off the new boots and socks and put her bare feet on the dashboard. She wiggled her toes, and Jim decided that even her feet were beautiful.
Molly gave him a winning smile.
'If we get married…'
'Pick the date,' Jim.
'I said if.' Molly poked him gently in the ribs with a finger.
'Anyway, if we get married, you'd better not turn into an asshole like Gene Cox.'
'That's unlikely,' Jim replied.
Molly nodded in agreement and stared out the window, thinking about Louise Cox. The heat of the sun and the windblown sand rolling off the desert distorted the distant Superstition Mountains into vague, shimmering shapes.
'What a sad, sad lady she is,' Molly said with a sigh.
'If someone put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if I walked out on him with my kids, I'd shoot the son of a bitch myself.'
'I believe you would. How many kids would you like to have?'
'That's not the topic under discussion, but the answer is two.' She took her feet off the dashboard and faced Jim.
'What do we know for sure?'
'We know that Edgar and Eugene went to the meadows together. That they were sent there by their father, and that Edgar brought Gene home badly wounded. Also, that Calvin bribed the doctor, who was a drunk, to change the date that he treated Gene for the bullet wound, and that the same doctor later ruled Don Luis Padilla's death was accidental, for which he received an additional sum of money.'
'Which means that Calvin Cox engaged in a cover-up,' Molly added.
'So who killed Don Luis?' Jim asked.
'And shot Gene Cox?' Molly added.
'And rustled Padilla's sheep?' Jim noted.
Molly nodded.
'At a place called Mexican Hat, that nobody can find?'
'We're down to two suspects. Who do we start with first? Gene or Edgar?'
'Good question.' Molly put her feet back on the dashboard and wiggled her toes.
'Do you think Louise has been milking money out of Gene over the years as a payment for her silence?' Jim asked.
'It's possible. She didn't act like a woman who had moved on with her life and made her own way.
And that house she lives in certainly isn't a low-end little retirement cottage.'
Jim gave her an agreeing look.
'We need to find Kerney and fill him in.'
'There's a lot of horses under the hood,' Molly replied.
'We'll get back to Reserve a hell of a lot faster if you goose it a little. Besides, creeping along at the speed limit is boring.'
Omar turned east on the paved state road that led to the picnic grounds at the Catwalk National Recreation Trail and stopped at the side of the road when he reached the old mine that jutted out of the hill on the far bank of Whitewater Creek. Cars traveling in both directions slowed as they passed his patrol unit.
He waited a good fifteen minutes before a truck pulled in behind him.
Omar unlocked the passenger door and Phil Cox got in, his long legs bumping up against the dash.
Omar moved the bench seat back.
'What took you so long?' Phil demanded.
'I thought you were going to talk to Amador right away.'
'I had to find him first,' Gatewood answered.
'Which wasn't easy. He was in Silver City helping the family make funeral arrangements for Steve.'
'What did he say?'
Gatewood grimaced and looked out the side window at an RV that slowed as it passed by.
'He ratted me off to Kerney, the little fucker. Told him everything.
I almost kicked his ass in the parking lot at the funeral home.'
'Did you get him to agree to stay out of town?'
'That's not a good idea,' Omar answered, turning back to Phil.
'The funeral service for Steve is tomorrow. Wouldn't look right if Amador wasn't there. I've got a deputy covering him.'
'That's not what you were told to do,' Phil snapped, his gray eyes narrowing.
'Save the orders for somebody else, Phil,' Gatewood said wearily.
'It's your daddy we elected commanding officer of the militia, not you.
I'm still the goddamn sheriff and I made the call on this one.
Amador stays put. I don't want any more attention drawn to him.'
'Okay, Omar, relax.'
'I put a tail on your sweet little cousin after she left my office. She got Kerney released, dropped the murder charges against him, and took him home with her.'
Phil slapped the dashboard with his hand.
'Shit.'
'You said you would bring a plan with you, Phil. I hope it's better than your last fuckup that got us into this mess.'
'Don't lay that on me,' Phil retorted.
'Every ranking officer in the militia voted on the plan.'
'But Kerney's still out there walking around. You shot the wrong man and blew up Doyle Fletcher.'
'Fletcher was an accident, and I didn't shoot the wrong man.'
Gatewood snorted.
'Kerney was the target, not Stiles. It was your idea in the first place to whack somebody who worked for the Forest Service that nobody gave a rat's ass about.'
Phil laughed sharply.
'You need to listen more carefully to what people say. Kerney was discussed as a target, but the decision we
