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  SHADOWS of DEATH

  ALSO IN THE DESERT SKY MYSTERY SERIES

  Shadow of the Raven

  David Sundstrand

  •

  SHADOWS

  of

  DEATH

  MINOTAUR BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

  SHADOWS OF DEATH. Copyright © 2009 by David Sundstrand. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sundstrand, David.

  Shadows of death : a desert sky mystery / David Sundstrand.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Thomas Dunne book for Minotaur Books”—T.p. verso.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53758-6

  ISBN-10: 0-312-53758-1

  1. Animal rights activists—Fiction. 2. Animal welfare—Fiction. 3. Serial murder investigation—California—Fiction. 4. California, Southern—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3619.U563S55 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2008036121

  First Edition: March 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For the people of the Owens Valley

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  •

  Many thanks to the men and women of the Bureau of Land Management. Their tasks are many, their numbers small. I am especially grateful to Ranger Ron Stormo, lately retired from the Bishop Field Office. He was kind enough to read the manuscript before it went to press. The mistakes are mine, but due to Ranger Stormo’s careful reading, there are fewer of them.

  Once again, my thanks to all those who sat patiently while I read passages aloud to see if they sounded right and to check for drooping eyelids and raised eyebrows. You’re a tolerant lot. I owe an especial debt of gratitude to Shirley Barker, a fellow writer, who was kind enough to provide careful and candid critiques of my early efforts.

  Thank you, Fred, for letting me borrow your physiognomy. Thank you, Marilyn, for reminding me about Hobbes, and thank you, dear wife, for the research and unflagging support. Finally, many thanks to Cameron McClure, for her many readings, insights, and suggestions; she is an agent with the patience of Job.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  •

  On December 6, 2006, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa opened a diversion dam to restore water to the lower Owens Valley. Residents of the valley and dignitaries from Southern California gathered under a bright blue sky in the warmth of the winter sun to witness the flowing of the water. After almost a hundred years, it was something to behold, much as I described it in the final chapter of this book.

  The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

  —MAHATMA GANDHI

  SHADOWS of DEATH

  1

  •

  This time the dead animals were in human form. Frank Flynn stood on the side of the hill and looked across the Joshua tree flats at the place Lieutenant Dewey had described as the site of the murders. The crime scene investigators had come and gone, removing the bodies, the Jeep Wrangler, and the clues; not much in the way of clues. Dewey had said nothing had been found that pointed to the shooter or shooters. That’s why he’d asked Frank to look around, that and the grudging admission that Frank was really a part of law enforcement. Asking for help was an apology of sorts for past slights.

  From the way Lieutenant Dewey had described the murder scene, one poacher, the one with the rifle, had been hit in the back of the head with a high-speed round that had taken away a quarter of his face and blown out the upper cheekbone and left eye. If the forensics people were able to find anything, Flynn would bet on bits of silver or lead from an expanding round, probably the same kind of round that had killed the burros. He looked back at the road and beyond. The killer of men had hit the killer of burros in the back of the head, which meant that Frank was looking out over the part of the desert where the shooter had waited in ambush. A low outcropping of caprock ran along the crest of the far hill. It was a perfect place from which to take life without being detected, a sniper position.

  Flynn picked out a high spot that was in line with where the Jeep had been and started down the slope to the road, keeping the rocks as a reference point. When he reached the outcropping, he turned to look back at the murder site. The dark volcanic ridge commanded a view of the Saline Valley Road, from where the road cut through the caprock down to the dry wash that divided the two hills and up the far side. It was about six hundred yards before the ground dropped away onto the plateau. The killer had been skillful or lucky. Frank walked the ridgeline back to the road, a distance approaching two hundred yards, without seeing so much as a footprint. Returning to the beginning of his search, he moved along the ridge away from the road. He hadn’t gone more than fifty feet when he spotted an empty brass shell casing, glinting in the afternoon sun. Frank kept to the rocks so he wouldn’t create tracks or disturb the scene. If there was a scene, it didn’t amount to much.

  Two depressions in the sandy soil at the base of a gently sloping rock face were the only telltales of human activity. At this point along the ridge, a shooter could take a prone position and be as good as invisible from the road. Frank lay down on the rock and placed his elbows as if holding a rifle. Sighting along the imaginary barrel, he found himself looking at the murder site. Only problem, he kept slipping backward down the smoothness of the rock face, until his toes dug into the sand near the cup-shaped depressions where the toes of the shooter’s boots must have been. He pushed up. The shooter had to be six or seven inches taller than Frank, a very tall person. He scanned the ground. Nothing he could call footprints, but there were some foot-sized disturbances taking a path across the desert toward Hunter Mountain. A trail-wise killer. He’d wrapped his feet so there wouldn’t be any identifiable tracks.

  Frank examined the shell casing, a .270. One shell casing, two corpses. The killer missed picking up the empty from the first shot. Oddly careless. Frank picked up the empty shell by inserting a twig in the opening where the slug and powder had been and slid it into a plastic bag. The second casing was probably still in the rifle. Something about the killer’s actions made him uneasy.

  He’d have to take a run over to Hunter Mountain. Probably wouldn’t find a thing. Oh yeah, and he’d better get in touch with Lieutenant Dewey and give him the empty shell casing from the .270, nice flat trajectory, perfect for popping poachers. He felt the corners of his mouth lift into a smile.

  Three days earlier, Frank had discovered a wounded burro and her foal not far from the site of the murders. He had ended the jenny’s suffering by putting a .45 round into her head as she struggled to lift herself from the sandy soil. His attempts to catch the orphaned foal had been futile, a circular chase; the foal had kept a fixed distance between Frank and the lifeless jenny. There was no way to catch it by himself. He’d had to temporarily abandon the foal until he could come back.

  He’d returned the following day with Molly Shannon, a BLM biologist who shared Frank’s affection for the clever creatures, hoping that the foal would still be alive. It had worked out about the way things work out—without resolution. He and the biologist had found no sign of the burro foal. They assumed it was probably dead. Wandered off to be eaten by your neighborhood coyotes.

  Later a spiraling column of vultures ha
d shown them where another adult burro lay decomposing in the summer heat. Frank was somehow relieved by this animal’s death because it meant the foal might still be alive. There was still a chance to save it. If he couldn’t save the foal, he was determined to catch the poachers.

  The burro killings in the Mojave triggered a burning anger. Frank hated the mindless cruelty. The gun nuts were on a rampage, coming into the desert for a weekend of random slaughter, killing things for the pure joy of it. If there were a way to run the poachers down, he would spare no effort. He’d returned later with a metal detector to see if he could find the spent slugs in the corpse, something tangible he could send to the forensics lab in Ashland, Oregon, that would make him feel better. He had met with no success.

  As he made his way back to the road with his bagged .270 brass, he considered the death of the two poachers with grim satisfaction. Someone had decided to even things out. The late afternoon sun was approaching the back wall of the Sierra Nevada. Soon the high plateau country would be washed in shades of flaming gold before plunging into the deep blues of night. A line of poetry ran through his head, “Though every prospect pleases and only man is vile.” He was angrier than he knew.

  2

  •

  The suits stood in front of the chairs guarding the chief ranger’s desk. The presence of federal authority hung in the air like cigarette smoke, thick and unpleasant. The FBI had arrived to direct the efforts of the Bureau of Land Management rangers. Frank Flynn lounged against the wall, his eyes wandering to the window.

  Dave Meecham looked around the room. “Special Agent in Charge Peter Novak.” Meecham gestured to the shorter of the two men in front of his desk. “And Special Agent Andrew Ellis.” Ellis was tall and slim, clean-shaven, with fine blond hair, pink cheeks, and eager eyes. A tight smile flickered across his handsome features. “Make it Drew,” he said.

  Older than Ellis by fifteen or twenty years, Novak wore a rumpled, shiny brown suit. It was hard to imagine him in anything else. He flashed a friendly grin, crinkling sandy skin into a pattern of fine lines.

  As the BLM rangers seated themselves across from the FBI agents, Meecham made an effort to catch Frank’s eye. “Pull up a chair.”

  “Naw, that’s okay, been riding around in the truck.”

  Meecham cleared his throat. “The FBI has a special interest in the killings up on Saline Valley Road. I told them we’d help them in every way possible.”

  “You weren’t on the crime scene but came later, as I understand it,” Ellis said, addressing Frank without looking up from the notebook he had withdrawn from his suit pocket.

  “Nope, not much there by the time I showed up,” Frank said.

  Meecham had crammed mismatched chairs into his office. It was the best he could do. The FBI agents probably thought Ridgecrest was lizardville and the BLM lived in tents.

  Ellis droned on in a professionally impersonal voice. “Lieutenant Robert Dewey, Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, requested that you ‘take a look around.’ ” Ellis’s eyebrows raised. “Is that how you became involved in the investigation?” His eyes remained on the notebook.

  Frank was beginning not to like Special Agent Ellis. He waited to see if he would look up from his notes. Frank was hoping for some ojo a ojo, eye to eye.

  Novak cut in. “Dewey had good things to say about you, Flynn. Said nobody knew the country around here better than you.”

  Ellis shuffled some pages. “He also said that you know the people in this area, that you would be able to point out illegal or suspicious activities that might relate to acts of terrorism.” He turned his head and raised a challenging glance, checking out Frank’s reaction.

  Frank was gratified. See if he could find this in his notebook. “Well, yeah, that’s right, Drew. We’ve had a spate of terrorism. Back in the twenties, some ranchers tried to blow up the Los Angeles aqueduct, trying to get their water back. Then there was the Jackalope Conspiracy up in Jawbone Canyon, but I guess maybe that one slipped by you guys.” He eyeballed the ceiling in thought. “Outside of that, not all that much happens.” He brightened. “Unless you want to count body dumping. Desert’s a great place to dump a body. If all the corpses stood up at one time, we’d need crowd control.”

  Meecham winced.

  Ellis stared at Frank, his face expressionless. “Why didn’t you report the note?”

  Ellis’s question caught Frank off guard. “Didn’t find a note. Just the empty .270 casing.”

  Ellis nodded. “Spent, not quite empty. I guess you must have missed it.” He passed Frank a ziplock bag with a small slip of paper in it.

  Frank could feel his face reddening under the brown skin. “Can’t make it out.”

  “It says, ‘Ready on the left. Ready on the right.’ Any idea as to what that might mean?”

  “Yeah, sounds like range master’s commands. Then it’s ‘Ready on the firing line.’ What’s it got to do with the murders up on the flats?”

  “A man was killed in Long Beach, shot twice with a .22 hollow point, one in the heart and one in the eye. The killer cut his lips off, then left a note: ‘An eye for an eye. Sandman.’ ” Ellis gave Frank a probing look. “The note was tucked into the victim’s shirt pocket. He leaves notes. Long Beach PD found it. This time he left a note curled up in a .270 shell casing. Inyo sheriff’s department found it in the empty you passed on to Lieutenant Dewey.”

  “Why would someone do something like that?” Meecham said. “Cut someone’s lips off.”

  “The victim made the papers about a year ago for cutting the beaks off pelicans. He was a commercial fisherman. The judge gave him a nasty scolding and probation,” Novak said and rolled his eyes.

  Ellis continued. “The killer must have thought it didn’t seem fair. So he did the same thing to the victim for an object lesson. We think this killer is the same person who shot the victims out here.” Ellis looked back at Frank. “As I said, you must have missed it.”

  Frank didn’t bother to explain about picking up the shell casing so as not to smear fingerprints.

  “We should’ve filled you in before the meeting, Frank.” Novak’s square face wrinkled into a weathered smile. “You understand we’re anxious to get a handle on this organization, especially now that we know, for sure, that they’re killing people.”

  “Organization? As in more than one guy?” Frank said.

  “Fill us in,” Meecham said.

  “You know about animal rights terrorists, right?” Novak asked.

  “Some, not much. Out here it’s the other way around.” Meecham’s smile was without humor.

  “I’m talking about the groups that break into labs to rescue lab animals and ruin years of government-sponsored research. Crazies who run around throwing red paint on people with fur coats.” He paused, waiting to see how Frank would respond. More stone face. Novak looked down and studied his shoes. “What I’m talking about is people who take the law into their own hands, disrupt scientific studies, disrupt agriculture, harass American citizens who don’t happen to think the way they do, especially sportsmen who buy hunting licenses and engage in legal recreational hunting.” He met Frank’s stare. “You’ve heard about these people.”

  “Yup, I read the paper.” He looked from Novak to Ellis and back again. “So what’s all this got to do with the killings on the flats?”

  Ellis looked past Frank to Meecham. “We have definite proof that the murder of the hunters up there is part of a conspiracy. An act carried out by a terrorist organization calling itself MDG.”

  “What’s MDG stand for?” Meecham asked.

  “We’re not sure. Most likely, some terrorist acronym, like FARC or HAMAS,” Ellis said.

  Frank’s face filled with contempt. “The men killed on the Saline Valley Road were killing for the thrill of it. A long way from hunters. In fact, they were criminals in violation of federal law, killing protected animals.”

  “That’s not the point, Flynn. The point is two people were kil
led, and we know the killer or killers are connected to the MDG.” Ellis leaned forward, tapping his notebook for emphasis.

  “How do you happen to know all this, and who the hell is the MDG?” Frank said. “Pardon me for asking, but sometimes the dots don’t connect up in the same way.”

  The two agents glanced at each other, then over to Dave Meecham.

  “First we’d like to know what you discovered at the crime scene. Dewey showed us his report and the .270 shell casing and the note.” Novak slipped back into his folksy demeanor. “We can match the casing up to the rifle, if we find the rifle. Better yet, in possession of the shooter.”

  Ellis picked it up. “Also, we’d like to know how you managed to discover evidence that was overlooked by”—he checked his notebook—“seven law enforcement officers from two professional law enforcement agencies.”

  “What’s your point?” Frank said.

  “Why you? Seems like the note means someone expected you to find the empty. You trained recruits at Fort Ord”—the notebook again—“and you were a small arms instructor at Hunter Liggett.”

  Frank locked eyes with Ellis. He could feel the heat in his cheeks and the smart-ass things he wanted to say struggling to get free. He drew a deep breath in through his nose and released it gradually through clenched teeth. “What’re you trying to say, Agent Ellis?”

  “It seems like someone might’ve been sending you a message.”

  “When the crime scene investigation didn’t turn anything up, including the .270 brass, Lieutenant Dewey called and asked if I’d have a look around when it wasn’t so crowded.” He paused. “Check your notes there, Agent Ellis. I’m sure you must have indicated the time the professionals passed gas and departed for pavement and the Dairy Queen.”