CHAPTER 10

Matt entered the outer limits of Boulder City, Nevada at almost 5:00. He had been forced to sit on the highway for over an hour. When traffic started moving once again, he found out what had caused the problem: a semi had flipped over blocking not only the traffic headed south but also headed north. The rolls of steel that it had been carrying had dislodged during the accident and rolled into the north bound lanes, taking out two cars and causing several fatalities.

Glad to be past the wreck, Matt got off the highway and found a hotel and checked in, hitting the shower before doing anything else. As he put on a pair of trunks, he dialed the house. "Houston residence," Sheila answered.

"Well howdy, Miss Sheila." He hadn't talked to the nurse-turned-nanny in a couple of days.

"Well if it ain't the modern day Moses out wandering the desert." Both laughed. "Are you behaving out there?"

"Yeah, I guess so. There isn't too much trouble to get into…or maybe there is." He laughed. "But yeah, I've been a good boy. How are you girls doing?"

"Just fine. But I think there are a couple of ladies here who miss you." Matt could hear Catey jabbering in the background.

"I miss them, too…hell - I even miss you." He knew that would get her going.

"Uh huh, I just bet you do. Want to talk to CJ?" She was laughing.

"Oh alright, if I have to…" He could hear the phone being handed over.

"Hi, how's life in the desert?"

"Lonely, very lonely. You know you could have done something about that." He tried for a hurt sound.

"That'll make you just that much more eager to get back." She wiped spaghetti sauce off of Catey's chin. "Do you want to talk to Daddy?" CJ put the phone on speaker.

"Hey Lady Bug, how ya doin'?"

"Daddy!" Catey started babbling a blue streak but threw in a few more "daddies" for which Matt was grateful. They chatted for a couple of minutes and then CJ took the phone out by the pool as Sheila took Catey to give her a bath.

"So how is Daddy doing?" She smiled, knowing how much it meant to her husband.

"Like I said before – lonely. And getting fed up with the desert and this case." He sighed. "We sure need a break in it soon."

"So what is the plan as of now?" She sat down on a lounge chair.

"I was late getting to Boulder City so I'll be talking to them tomorrow, then I'll go to Vegas and then to Lone Pine. And if nothing else happens I'll be home tomorrow night."

"Good. 'Cause I've missed you, too. So what are you doing tonight?"

"I'm about to go for a swim. God knows I need some exercise. I've been riding way too much. Then I guess I'll find something to eat."

"And then I'll be getting another phone call."

"Probably." They both laughed. "Love you, Babe. Talk to you later."

"Love you. 'Bye." She hung up and looked down toward the barn where Cricket was fussing. She missed Matt as much as anyone else.

The PI found his way down to the pool and started doing laps, then gave up. There were too many folks lounging around on floats to bump into and after almost knocking off what had to be a three hundred pound cigar-smoking bald-headed guy on a Sponge Bob float, the private eye headed back to his room. He got dried off and put on a pair of jeans then dialed room service and ordered up a chef's salad. Reading through the information he had while eating, he remembered the bullet from the Shane Bracken case and called Bateaux. The agent answered on the first ring. "Hey, gotta question for ya, Fibby." Matt waited to see what the response would be and was glad when he heard laughter on the other end of the line.

"What's that?" Bateaux was still swimming in paperwork.

"The bullet recovered from Shane Bracken…did it get any hits?"

"Uhhhh….hang on." Matt heard him hitting keys. "Let's see…yeah it did. It came back as being connected to a gun that was used in three other murders…" The agent scrolled down. "Oh, holy hell!" He blew out a breath. "All of them were in the Mojave."

"Are any of them related to files we've already got tagged?"

"Hang on – I'm looking." Alex continued to pound the keyboard. "Yes!"

"Don't celebrate too much just yet." Matt snickered. "What was it related to?"

"The one in Lone Pine – the murder of a Jerry Maurice Loggenfelter. What's your email?" Matt told him. "Okay, I'm sending it now."

"Alright. Barring any unforeseen circumstances I should be in Lone Pine sometime tomorrow."

"Okay, just let me know what you get. Thanks again."

"Not a problem. See ya." Matt hung up and took a long swig of the iced tea that he had ordered up and checked his mail, finding the information that the agent had sent. He kicked back on the bed and went through the file.

Jerry Maurice Loggenfelter had been a real piece of work, spending some time behind bars for domestic assault and DUI. He had dropped off of the radar about four years earlier, but everyone who knew him apparently thought he had just left town and were too busy celebrating the fact to file a missing person's report. The body had been found just six months ago by a bunch of teenagers having a party in the desert area just to the east of Lone Pine. The investigation had been handled by the Inyo County Sheriff's Department which had a substation in Lone Pine.

Matt started searching for information on Loggenfelter and it wasn't hard to come by: there were two newspaper articles about the domestic assault. He had used his girlfriend, Sylvia Montrease, for a punching bag. The assault was ended by a man named Hugh Bronton who had knocked Loggenfelter out with a couple of well-placed punches.

The DUI had happened a couple of years later. Loggenfelter had been out of jail for less than twenty four hours when he was arrested with a blood alcohol level of .30. He had borrowed a friend's car and had wrapped it around a telephone pole. Charged while lying in a hospital bed, he remained there for over a month before being transferred to the jail in Independence. The conviction came soon after he refused the lawyer that had been appointed to him. After being released, he had moved in with the same friend from whom he had borrowed the car. "Some friend." Matt realized once again that he was talking to himself. He went back through the story again. The friend's name was Walter Lee King and the car had been a Porsche Cayman. Matt whistled, knowing that those didn't come cheap.

He got up and walked out on the balcony and thought. What kind of friend doesn't dissolve a friendship when you get drunk and total their Porsche? If Vince had borrowed a car from him and wrecked it, Matt wouldn't get upset, but if he had been drunk and done it? Matt would be upset for sure, but probably wouldn't have ended the relationship. It would have a big tear in it, but they would still be friends. Since he had more money than most people, Matt had a slightly different attitude from most folks. Going back inside, he picked up the laptop and moved to the table next to the window and began doing a search on Walter King, the car's owner.

Walter Lee King, age 47, lived just outside of Lone Pine. He came from a family with money that was earned by mining and renting property to TV and movie production companies. Many films and TV shows had shot in the area. The King family had large land holdings and had made out quite well over the years, starting with Walter's grandfather.

Matt did a little more digging. King was the only heir to the family fortune that was estimated to be $71.6 million. That's why the wrecked car didn't bother him.

Wondering how the two had met, the PI did more digging. Both King and Loggenfelter had attended school in Lone Pine and that was apparently how the pair had met. Their families were from totally different backgrounds. King's family had money while the Loggenfelter family was a totally different picture. Jerry's dad had been a used car salesman and had died when his son was fourteen. He had been murdered in the middle of his used car lot by a dissatisfied customer. Jerry's mother had died when he was eighteen from a drug overdose.

The private eye called room service once again, ordering a beer. Propping his feet up on the window sill he stared out at the sunset. What was the big draw? Why were the two men, who came from such different backgrounds, such good friends? Granted, he and CJ had been from different backgrounds in a way. Her dad had been a lawyer, but when both he and her mother had died, she had been forced to go live with her uncle, Errol Parsons – a thoroughly disagreeable and downright mean old bastard. Errol had shifted much of the work on his ranch to CJ, and Matt had spent the better part of eight years of his life helping his future wife with her chores to keep her uncle off of her back. But he and CJ were different than King and Loggenfelter. There was a love connection there, hard as the two denied it for years, but it was there. So what was the story with King and Loggenfelter? There were no indications that there was anything more than friendship between the two and Loggenfelter had lived with Sylvia Montrease for quite a few years.

Matt went to the door when his beer arrived, tipping the room service guy generously and taking the icy cold mug of beer out on the balcony where he propped his bare feet on the railing. He sipped the beer and thought about the reasons why he and CJ had hit it off. Obviously it was love at first sight, but there was more to it than that. They both loved being outside, horses, cattle, and of course fishing. As kids they had spent a lot of hours together on the water. Then coming back to his present problem, Matt needed to find out what Loggenfelter and King had in common. It certainly wasn't money.

After finishing his beer, the private eye decided to put the case on the back burner to simmer and pulled out his school books to study, then turned on the TV and flipped through several channels until he found an old western that was one of his favorites. His phone rang at 7:00AM Saturday morning waking him up. "Hello?"

"You were still asleep weren't you?" CJ was snickering. "You didn't call again last night."

"Uhhhh, yeah." He sat up on the side of the bed. "Guess I fell asleep watching TV." He grabbed the remote and turned it off, then stood up and stretched. "Is everything okay?"

"Yep…I just wanted to check on you."

"Well I'm glad you did or I might have slept the day away." He went into the bathroom and turned the shower on.

"Call me later. Love you, Cowboy."

"Love you, Babe. 'Bye." He hung up and yawned, then stripped out of the jeans and climbed into the shower to wake up. "God I need coffee." Chuckling as he realized that once again he was talking to himself, he thought about the day ahead.