Threepersons Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

bit of mileage in the papers.
    â€œAnd you really think he’s hiding out up on the White Mountain Reservation?”
    â€œI wouldn’t bet my badge on it. It’s just a hunch. What would you do in his shoes?”
    â€œI’d have to know something about him first.”
    â€œTalk to Wilder, he’s got the details. I’ll pencil you in and let him know you’re on your way over there.” Custis sat down, indicating that the interview was ended, reaching for a ballpoint pen. His face was screwed up in distaste but perhaps that was only the nasal agony of his summer cold.

3.
    Lieutenant Lloyd Wilder was a few years younger than Watchman, a hotshot with several university degrees in police science. Watchman had known him at a distance for several years and casually for six months, as one gets to know an official of a different branch who works out of the same small building. Wilder was amiable and up-to-date and had a very fast way of talking, like a salesman half afraid someone would try to interrupt his pitch.
    â€œHe was doing ten years for second-degree murder. The original charge was first-degree but his lawyer copped a plea. He’d served five and a half, he’d have been eligible for parole seventeen months from now.”
    â€œThen why bust out if all he had left was easy time?”
    â€œThat’s one of the questions I’d like an answer to. Okay, here’s as much background as I’ve been able to get on him—I may get more coming in, this is kind of short notice. I gather you never met him?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI did, once. When the county cops arrested him I happened to be on my way back here from Albuquerque. I chauffeured him up to the County Jail at St. Johns. I remember it because he was a curious character. Usually you arrest a man for murder he’s either morose as hell or violent as hell. This guy seemed as cheerful as if it was the first time in his life something had gone right for him.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean, Lieutenant?”
    â€œI don’t know what it means. All I can tell you is, I never saw a man quite so happy to go to jail.”
    â€œWho’d he kill?”
    â€œMan named Ross Calisher.”
    â€œWhite man?”
    â€œYes. Calisher was vice-president and operating manager of a big ranch up in Apache County where Threepersons worked as a line rider.”
    â€œHe was working there when he killed Calisher?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œWhat was it? Family dispute?”
    â€œSomething like that. It came out that Calisher was making time with Threepersons’ wife and Threepersons called him down for it. It wasn’t one of those unwritten law killings, it didn’t take place in the bedroom in the heat of anger. Calisher was killed in his own living room with his own gun, but Threepersons still had the gun in his pocket when they arrested him the next morning.”
    â€œNow that’s pretty stupid.”
    â€œNobody said he was a genius.”
    â€œWhat about Threepersons’ wife? You put surveillance on her?”
    â€œI would have if she were still alive. She died, just a few days ago. Ugly car accident on the Black Canyon Freeway at the Camelback intersection.”
    â€œShe died before or after the breakout?”
    â€œA day or two before.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why he busted out.”
    â€œIt’s possible—God knows how anybody’s mind works. She had their kid in the car, a little boy. Eight or nine years old.”
    â€œHe still alive?”
    â€œNo. Both killed instantaneously. She lost control of the car, went across the divider and hit a loaded semi head-on. The truck driver’s in the hospital with about forty broken bones and a fifty percent chance.”
    â€œI remember Buck Stevens talking about that one.”
    â€œI was talking to Stevens this morning at the briefing. You stand pretty high in his books.