Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?Where are you??

?I?m sitting in my office, the place you just called up for the third time.?

?No, like where are you on the map??

?You don?t need to be here, Mr. Dolan.?

?I?m supposed to play with my joint while this crazoid kidnaps my wife??

?Stay home, sir.?

?I?m getting in my car now. I?m on my way.?

?No, you?re not. You?re??

Dead connection.

Pam Tibbs tapped on the doorjamb. She had a legal pad folded back in her left hand. ?This is what we?ve got. A man using the name F. C. Dobbs had a Texas driver?s license two years ago but doesn?t have one now. His rent on his post office box in Presidio has lapsed. Ten years ago a man named Fred Dobbs, no middle initial, bought five hundred acres of land down toward Big Bend at a tax sale. There were four big parcels strung all over the place. He sold them six months later.?

Hackberry fiddled with his ear. ?Who owned the land before Dobbs??

Pam looked back at her notes. ?A woman named Edna Wilcox. I talked to the sheriff in Brewster. He said the Wilcox woman had been married to a railroad man who died of food poisoning. He said she died of a fall and didn?t leave any heirs.?

?What happened to Dobbs??

?The clerk of court didn?t know, and neither did the sheriff.?

?So we?ve got a dead end?? Hackberry said.

?The state offices are closing now. We can start in again tomorrow. Was that Nick Dolan calling again??

?Yeah, he said he?s on his way here.? Hackberry leaned back in his swivel chair. Rain was blowing against the window, and the hills surrounding the town were disappearing inside the grayness of the afternoon. ?Who did Fred Dobbs, no middle initial, sell the land to??

Pam turned the page on her legal pad and studied her notes. ?I don?t know if I wrote it down. Wait a mi

nute, here it is. The buyer was Bee Travis.?

Hackberry knitted his fingers behind his head. ?T-R-A-V-I-S, you?re sure that?s the right spelling??

?I think so. There was static on the line.?

Hackberry clicked his nails on the desk blotter and looked at his watch. ?Call the clerk of court again before the courthouse closes.?

?Has anyone ever talked to you about OCD problems?? She looked at his expression. ?Okay, sorry, I?m on it.?

Two minutes later, she came back into his office. ?The first name is actually the initial B, not ?Bee? with a double e. The last name is Traven, not Travis. I wrote it down wrong.? She glanced away, then looked back at him and held her gaze on his face, her chest rising and falling.

But he wasn?t thinking about her chagrin. ?Collins sold the land to himself. He laundered his name and laundered the deed.?

?I?m not following you at all.?

?B. Traven was a mysterious eccentric who wrote the novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.?

?Sell that one to Ethan Riser.?

?I?m not even going to try. Sign out a cruiser and pack your overnight bag.?

She went to the door and closed it, then returned to his desk. She leaned on the flats of both her hands, her breasts hanging down heavily inside her shirt. ?Think about what you?re doing. If anybody could figure out Collins?s aliases, it would be someone with your educational background. You don?t think he knows that? If he?s there now, it?s because he wants you to find him.?