Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

been born rough, but nobody ever said that boy was stupid. When he wasn’t sheriff, Ward was, and then whoever Ward’s handpicked man was. Rory Turner, that’s right.”
    Ian listened hard. If he interrupted to ask where Carl was going with all this, they’d never get there.
    “It was real useful to the family while I was there,” Carl summarized.
    “What was?”
    “Having Sheriff Morley Forrest in their pocket.”
    “Nothing new about wealth and ambitious politicians in bed together,” Ian said. “Common as house dust.”
    “Yeah, well, the Savoy family worked it like a cow at milking time. When Three—that’s the Savoy son—drove off a ranch cliff late one night, the coroner, who was also the sheriff, didn’t mention the fact that Three was higher than a kite when he died. ‘Mechanical failure’ was tagged as the cause of the accident.”
    “You’re saying there wasn’t much of an investigation.”
    “Much? Shit, boy, there wasn’t no investigation to speak of. Worst police work I ever saw. Same thing when some artist died a few days later on the ranch. The guy had a reputation as a drinker, a womanizer, and was one of Three’s pals.”
    “Artist? He died on the ranch?”
    “Yeah. He had a shack or a studio there.”
    “Would the artist’s name be Lewis Marten?” Ian asked.
    “Sounds about right. I can check.”
    “Don’t bother. What happened with the artist?”
    “According to the investigation, he was drinking and painting and smoking. Passed out and the place burned to ash, along with himself. Nobody claimed what was left, so the Savoy widow stepped up and did the decent thing and buried the remains.”
    “This was, what, a couple days after Three died?” Ian asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Must have been pretty hard on the widow, two deaths in such a short time.”
    “If gossip is true, it was damned hard on her. Not losing her husband particularly—hell, they never got along worth spit—but losing the artist. Rumor had it that he was her lover before she married. Some people say he was her lover after, too.”
    Ian’s eyebrows lifted. Nothing like a little adultery to piss a man off enough to think about violence. “How did Three feel about that?”
    “Didn’t much care. He was one of them men who only liked professional gals.”
    “Hookers?”
    “As ever was,” Carl said, chuckling hoarsely. “’Course, the amount he drank, it probably took a pro to get him up to the mark. That man was a nonstop party. Spent money hand over fist on his hangers-on.”
    “But Three didn’t mind if his wife got some sex on the side?”
    “Nope. The gossips were real disappointed there.”
    “So there wouldn’t have been any reason to dump good old Three over a cliff to make way for another husband?”
    “Widow never remarried,” Carl said.
    “Well, there goes that theory. How about lovers?”
    “None that lasted. Widow Savoy was real close to Morley Forrest, though. Made him her adviser. Some folks talked, but some folks have nothing to do except work their tongues.”
    “You don’t think she was Morley’s lover?” Ian asked.
    “Hell, nobody loved that son of a bitch. I think she was almost scared of him. He’d say ‘Jump,’ and she jumped. So did a lot of people. Morley was the kind of man even the devil would tiptoe around. Righteous, churchgoing, harder than Lucifer, and twice as ambitious. Even when Three was alive, Morley pretty much ran the county and the Savoy family money.”
    “Other than two badly investigated society accidents, anything else wrong with the local deputies back then?”
    “Three.”
    “Three Savoy?”
    “Three accidents. A few days before Gem Savoy announced her engagement to Ward Forrest, the old matriarch—the wife of the first Benford Savoy—got in a snit and raced off on her favorite hunter like she was sixteen instead of seventy-six. Took one jump too many and broke her skinny neck.”
    “Who was she arguing with?”
    “Her daughter-in-law, who was pushing for Gem Savoy—that would be Three’s daughter—to marry Ward Forrest, Morley’s son. The old lady felt the Forrests were beneath the Savoys, even though she’d depended on Morley since her own husband had died in a hunting accident.”
    Ian frowned. “A hunting accident?”
    “It was before my time. Bunch of drunks shooting pheasant. Benford the Second tripped and blew his fool head off. Stupid to mix booze and shotguns, but fools do it every year and some of ’em get