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CHAPTER 22

      DRIVING BACK to Hood's place, Pritchard's face grew longer and longer until he looked angry enough to bite through barbed wire.

      Noreen seemed limp with exhaustion. "All in all, I thought it went pretty well," she offered hesitantly.

      Pritchard grunted. "We got a couple of thousand dollars. And quite a few pledges. But we could of done better if those two sonsabitches hadn't pressed us for more gold," Pritchard said.

      "It was a question somebody was bound to ask," Rand said.

      Pritchard looked at him with angry red eyes. "Vandergaard should have kept his goddamn yap shut. But he just had to jump in on it - even after he threw in his own money."

      "You don't think it's odd that Nick would throw all but two bars of the gold in the car and drive down to El Paso with it?" Rand asked.

      Pritchard shook his head in exasperation. "Knowing Nick, I could see it both ways. I could see him load everything into the car and take it down to that guy Soames for whatever reason . . . maybe to raise a little investor money. On the other hand, I could see him leave most of it here, stashed someplace no robber would look for it."

      "But he'd have stashed the other two bars, too, wouldn't he?" Noreen asked.

      "Honey, I got to tell you," Pritchard said, "I liked your husband, but there were times I just couldn't figure out what he was doing. He did things his own way, in his own time." When they got to the house, Pritchard parked the Packard next to Rand's car and unlocked the door. The old lawyer turned on the light in the kitchen and poured himself some bourbon, then splashed in some water and dropped in some ice. "Want some?"

      "I'll pass." The spudnuts lay heavy in Rand's stomach and the terrible black coffee had given him enough heartburn to last all night.

      "Well, I won't pass," Noreen said.

      Pritchard poured her some bourbon and they took the drinks into the living room and sat down. The lawyer leaned back in his chair and raised his glass. "Okay, Rand, you're the big city detective. You want to start lookin'?"

      "Sure," Rand said. He glanced doubtfully as Noreen. "I'll have to open up drawers. Get nosey."

      She shrugged. "Be my guest."

      He walked into the main bedroom, glanced around. There was a bed, a dresser, a pair of night tables, a half-open closet door. The bed was carefully made, and there was an elaborate window treatment with gauzy curtains framed by drapes that could be closed for privacy. The big closet was crammed with clothes.

      On the floor of the closet Rand found only shoes and a couple of suitcases. He hefted them, but they were empty. Nothing under the bed. He checked the shoes to see if any of them held gold bars, but they none of them did.

      The bureau drawers held clothes, man's underwear and socks, a box of costume jewelry, another box held spare change, paper clips, some assorted pins and nails. In a bottom drawer he found Masonic regalia including an apron.

      Drawers in the night tables held mostly reading material, geology journals, an empty hot water bottle, a folded towel. Under the towel was a pigskin case that contained a chrome plated .45 revolver, fully loaded. Half the houses in New Mexico probably had a gun in the bedroom night table.

      The second bedroom had been converted into an office. There was a desk with a goose-necked lamp on it, a comfortable chair. Along one wall was a pull-out sofa that could be converted to a bed. A big, rather crudely constructed bookcase dominated one wall. It held more mineral samples than books, and Rand recognized some of the more common ones - feldspars, jasper, iron pyrites, green rocks containing copper. Nothing was hidden behind the books.

      Hood's desk was littered with student exam papers, partially graded. Looking at them, Rand wondered how those college kids would get their grades.

      Rand looked at the photographs on the wall. Hood had been a little man, wiry, with thinning hair. His eyes were concealed by the glare on his glasses. In one of the photos he wore a big foolish smile and he was holding a good-sized striped bass. His free arm was around Noreen, who was wearing shorts and a halter top. The picture showed off her figure, but Hood's attention was clearly focussed on the fish.

      Rand went through the room and searched this second closet. He found a bolt action .22 rifle leaning in the corner, no bullet in the chamber. Twenty-twos were common in the desert where rabid dogs and skunks were not unusual, jackrabbits invaded gardens, and an occasional rattlesnake might come visiting. The .45 in the drawer was for protection against people.

      The house was built on a concrete slab and there was no crawl space where a box could be concealed. Nor was there any attic space. Rand took the lid off the toilet tank and checked to see if there was gold in it. There wasn't. He looked into cabinets, the hall linen closet, the kitchen cabinets and under the sink. The utility room had a washing machine with wringer rollers. No gold in the washing machine.

      Rand decided the last place he'd check would be the bottom of the swamp cooler, but for that he'd need a ladder.

      Back in the living room, Rand said, "He rode a horse into the mountains, but there's no horse in the corral out back."

      "We board it at a neighbor's," Noreen said.

      "Where do you keep your tack?"

      "In the garage. Nick was afraid somebody would steal it if he left it around."

      Rand went outdoors and Noreen and the lawyer trailed along behind him, carrying their bourbons with them. The garage was a separate building behind the house. The big doors were closed.

      When Rand hauled open the garage doors and switched on the light, they found Ross Vandergaard sprawled grotesquely in a pool of blood on the dirt floor close to the door. He had been hit in the head with a hammer - so hard that it was embedded in his skull like a tomahawk.

      The eyes behind his thick glasses were wide with surprise. Death gave him more expression than he had allowed himself when he was alive.

      Noreen gasped and shrank back against Rand. Visibly shaken, Pritchard kneeled by the body and put his head against Vandergaard's chest. After a moment, he looked up and said, "Noreen, you better call Joe Navarette at home and get him over here."

      She looked green, as though she might faint. "I - yes, I'll go get him. Call him . . ." then she hesitated. "What if the murderer's still here?"

      Pritchard got up, "I'll go with you." To Rand, he added, "You look around here. I guess you know what not to touch."

      He put his arm around Noreen, who was shivering despite the balmy warmth of the evening, and walked her to the house.

      Rand followed them a short way, then decided to circle the area. A shiny Ford, almost new, was parked behind the garage. Rand assumed it must have belonged to Vandergaard, but he didn't open the door because the killer's fingerprints might be on it. He lit a match and held it up so he could see through an open window. Inside, the car looked immaculate.

      Rand went back into the garage and stared at the body. Whoever had hit him had probably taken the hammer from the workbench.

      Rand lit a cigarette and crouched down by the body. He touched Vandergaard's jacket lightly and felt the bulge of a wallet in his breast pocket. Theft? Hardly; a robber would have taken the wallet - at least to see if the man was carrying money. Besides, Vandergaard was still wearing a gold ring with a large diamond. So who had killed him? And why? And why had Vandergaard been here in the garage, anyway?

      Rand thought about that last one for several minutes, and the only answer he could come up with was that Vandergaard had been looking for Nick Hood's gold. Maybe he had come here while the others were still at the library, winding things up. Maybe he wanted to make the gold disappear permanently - if he could find it. If Vandergaard had found it and carried it off before Pritchard and Noreen found it, it never would have been missed. It would have taken him about five minutes to search the entire house, and then, just as Rand had done, he would have headed for the garage.

      It also occurred to Rand that while he was there, he should continue looking.

      The ceiling bulb was dim and did a poor job of illuminating the walls of the garage and the workbench area along the back wall. On a rack along one wall were a dozen boards of varying lengths and thicknesses. Carpenters tools hung on the wall behind the workbench, and on the bench itself was a large woodworking vise.

      Rand looked under the bench and saw a box with a couple of cans of paint resting on it. The box was made of unpainted wood. It was about a foot by two feet in size, and about ten inches deep. The top was nailed on. Rand took the paint cans off and slid the box from under the workbench.

      The box was very heavy.

      Rand got a wood chisel from the wall behind the bench and worked its sharp edge under one of the board. When the top came off, Rand learned something: Nick Hood had definitely not taken all the gold with him.

      The box was almost half full of gold ingots.

      With a little difficulty because of the weight of the box, Rand picked it up and carried it into the house.

      Pritchard and Noreen were in the kitchen drinking black coffee.

      "Found it," Rand said.

      Pritchard made a whistling sound between his teeth when he saw the rows of neat little bars gleaming yellow under the kitchen lights. "I guess Vandergaard came out here to steal the gold while we were still in the community room," he said after a moment.

      "Only he never quite made it," Rand agreed. "Any ideas on who might have nailed him?"

      But none of them had any ideas.

      At that same moment, Petrie was in the pool hall, losing a little money and building his alibi. He made enough of a nuisance of himself to be remembered. Then he heard Diggs calling him from outside, and he set down the cue stick and went out. The man he was playing against lit a cigar and waited patiently. It wasn't often he had a pigeon like Petrie and he didn't want to jinx it.

      Diggs was smiling, oblivious to the blood splattered across his face and shirt. "Pay up," he said jovially.

      "You got him?"

      "Slick as lard through a goose. Give me my money."

      "Did he put up much of a fight?"

      "Not a bit. I was waitin' outside the house when I saw the light go on in the garage. I went over there just as he was comin' out and I said, 'I don't like rapists,' and I took a hammer off the tool bench and busted his head."

      Petrie moved further into the darkness. "Keep out of the light, will you. You're covered with blood."

      "Can't make an omelette without bustin' eggs," Diggs said cheerfully.

      Petrie reached into his pocket an pulled out the money Brennan had given him. He peeled $130 off the roll and gave it to the little man.

      Diggs said, "It's a pleasure."

      Petrie nodded. "Just keep your mouth shut." Diggs laughed and disappeared into the night. Petrie went back in to finish the game. He figured he'd play until after midnight. Even if he lost every match, it was worth it.

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