“I can relate to that,” said Sue, giving Ray a wry smile.

“I may be wrong, but I don’t think she’s involved in Moarse’s death. I believe her when she says that she didn’t come north again after we stopped following her. And we can easily check on her alibi if need be.

“Did you learn anything about Moarse that we don’t already know?”

“He didn’t like driving his Jeep during daylight hours.”

“Imagine that,” Sue laughed. “Hasn’t had an operator’s permit in years. Didn’t bother to update the tags on his Jeep, either.”

“Why should he?” said Ray. “Just a waste of good money.”

“I wonder how common that is?”

“More common than either one of us would want to admit. If you took a reasonable amount of care—not that most of these characters are particularly skilled at taking care of anything—I’m sure you could get away with it for years. But back to your initial question. Moarse, according to Rood, was some kind of builder who was crashing financially and had a major drinking problem. The one thing she told me that might prove to be of interest is an old friend Moarse reconnected with by the name of Ricky.”

“Last name?”

“She doesn’t think she ever heard it. But Moarse told her they were working a big deal.”

“Capone?”

“No, no Capone. Never heard of it.”

“So that’s it?”

“Well, almost. This Ricky has a large, light-colored car, perhaps an SUV that might be a Cadillac or Mercedes. No hint as to plate number or state.”

“Can we have the road patrol guys pull over every large SUV and ask the driver if his friends call him Ricky?” asked Sue.

“Only in Arizona,” said Ray. He sighed, stood up, and stretched. “I can tell we’re both way too tired given the direction of the humor. Let’s do some planning.” He lowered the whiteboard and retrieved the container with the markers.

“First, I’d like to see if we could establish the fact that Moarse was the killer of Vincent Fox. I’ll contact Fox’s daughter and see if she’s ever heard of him. We can also look through the surveillance tapes from the casino to see if he was lurking around the day Fox made the big hit. And, of course, did he act alone or did he have accomplices?

“Second, we need to know why he was murdered. Is it connected with the Fox crime or something else? We’re going to have to find out a lot more about Jim Moarse.

“And third, the phantom 911 call. Someone was watching this crime go down. They wanted to make sure we were directed to the murder scene. So why aren’t they coming in to tell us about it?”

“Okay,” said Sue. “This is how I would like to go forward. For the first item on your list, proving Moarse killed Fox: I’ll need to establish that the computer we found in Fox’s house actually belonged to Fox. That’s the easy part. Then I’ll search Fox’s house for evidence that placed Fox there or connects Moarse to his abduction. That’s the hard part.”

“Approach it like an archeologist, try to stay with the upper layers.”

“Ha ha. We also have to bring his Jeep in and go through the interior. I think we’ll get a match on the tires with the casts I made at Fox’s house. Just with that, there’s a lot of work to be done before we move onto the second part: why. I don’t even know what to say about your number 3.”

“Give me some time lines,” said Ray.

“The day’s going away, and I’m very tired. I’d like to start on the house tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” said Ray. “It can wait till Monday.”

“Tomorrow, not early, by about noon. The area’s got to stay secured until I’m done. Let’s run one road patrol at night and two during the day. That will give us someone every shift to protect the scene.”

“Okay.”

“If I could have some help…. Brett, he should be learning this stuff. We’ll need at least two days, maybe more for the house, barn, sauna, a good look around the property, and to process the Jeep. We’ll have to cover his shifts with people working overtime.”

Ray nodded in agreement. “Until Monday afternoon?”

“No, there’s too much to do. How about Tuesday afternoon?”

“Tuesday morning is better. How about your weekend guest?”

“I’ll see how he and Simone get on. She has a really good sense of character. In fact, she might save me a lot of trouble.”

43

Mackenzie was back in front of the screen, caught in another unrecoverable yawn.

“You still tired from the weekend?” Ken Lee asked.

“No, I’m okay. I slept about 12 hours last night and then got up early and went to TC for yoga. Good instructor. I hope I’m in that good of shape when I get to be 60-something. Ken Lee, I apologize about getting pissy yesterday.”

“No problem, I understand. Things have been….”

“Here’s what’s going on,” Mackenzie cut him off, “I don’t know what to do now. I’m back to not having a plan. I’ve made a couple of passes of the Moarse property. Looks like the local sheriff’s department is securing the scene night and day. On my last drive by, there were three vehicles, probably the crime scene team. The garage door was open with no Jeep in sight. They must have moved it to another location. I wonder what that’s all about?”

“Who knows what kind of stuff Moarse might have been into. I imagine the cops are trying as hard to figure this out as we are. And by now they’ve found the phantom phone. Bet that’s a real puzzler. What did you tell me the last major caper was up there—someone chopping down cherry trees? Lots of them?”

“Yeah, during the late winter. Made both the paper and TV. Some kind of revenge thing.”

“How’s the media covering this one?”

“Nothing yet. Not a peep. Local news seems to shut down during the weekend. Actually, I didn’t turn the TV on this morning, and there’s nothing in the paper. I imagine the sheriff’s department does a regular press briefing. I’ll watch the local news tonight.”

“I’m going to say it again. This would be a good time to say sayonara to all those pines and lakes you’ve been telling me about and get back to civilization. Let the local heat figure it out. Look at the facts. First, you’re breaking the law. You’ve observed a murder and not brought that information to the police. Second, Sabotny now knows that someone is watching him.”

“And I’ll say it again, too. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m invisible.”

“Are you? How invisible? You live in a little village. You’re new. In spite of all your precautions, people notice.”

“Like who?”

“There’s the mailman.”

“I get my mail in Traverse City or electronically,” she answered.

“Yeah, but the mailman drives by. He needs something for his brain to chew on as he covers his route. He notices the house is occupied. He sees you getting in the car. He wonders why you don’t get mail. He mentions it to his favorite waitress in town. She works at that cafe you go to; she recognizes you, and that night she tells her boyfriend…. Want me to go on? How about the UPS and Fedex drivers, the garbage man, the cop on the road patrol? How about the bag boy at the grocery who also sees what kind of car you climb into when he’s out collecting carts? How about the guys who upgraded your security system?”

“We hired a downstate company,” she countered.

“What if they farmed out some of the work to a local contractor?”

“Well, I don’t think so,” Mackenzie replied.

“Yeah, but you don’t know for sure. You don’t know anything for sure. I’m saying, you may not be seeing any of these folks, but some of them are seeing you. And now that Sabotny is tipped off, he’s trying to figure out who is watching him. Is it one of his neighbors? Someone with a view of his house?”

“Dozens of people have the same view I do.”

“And are all those houses occupied?”