Page 9 of The House of Cross

“Uh-huh,” Butler said. “I suppose the nondisclosure agreement I signed doesn’t matter anymore, but I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t told the police already. He contacted me about a month ago. We went back and forth on a couple of ranches, big, big properties. But he liked the look of the Double T Ranch in the Independence Mountains, so we arranged to go see it.”

Bree said, “You drove up in his van?”

“No. We flew there from Elko in a helicopter he rented and piloted.”

“I didn’t know he was a helicopter pilot.”

“Had trouble getting in and out of it, but he was excellent once he was seated.”

Bree asked the woman what Malcomb had thought of the ranch. Butler said they’d flown all over it, and he’d loved certain aspects, like the high alpine meadows and timber. “But he was concerned it had been overgrazed,” Butler added.

“By the current owners? Who are they?” Bree said.

“A big beef conglomerate, own cattle ranches all over the world.”

“Why were they selling?”

“Who knows?” Butler said. “They probably couldn’t use it as a write-down anymore. That’s what usually happens. People come in, hold the land for ten, fifteen years, run cattle hard, take all the depreciation they can, then sell at a profit to wannabe gentlemen ranchers like Malcomb.”

“He went back up in his van,” Bree said. “Why?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Butler said. “He sure did not tell me he was going up there alone. I would have told him it was a bad idea in a vehicle like his with tough weather on the horizon. Patty Rogers said it was because he was from back east. You know, oblivious to the dangers out here.”

“Who’s Patty Rogers?”

“Elko County sheriff’s deputy. She was first on the scene.”

Bree thanked the real estate agent and hung up. She called the Elko sheriff’s office and asked for Deputy Rogers.

A few minutes later, a woman with a hoarse voice said, “This is Patty Rogers. How can I help you?”

Bree identified herself as the former DC chief of detectives, named her current employer, and again implied that Bluestone had been hired to look into Ryan Malcomb’s death.

“There’s nothing to look into,” the deputy said firmly. “He was an inexperienced driver on a road that is difficult on the best of days. There was two inches of wet snow on the ground, and black ice from a freeze-thaw we had about a week ago. It’s a tragedy, but he was in over his head and he paid for it.”

“I heard he was up there the day before in a helicopter that he flew himself.”

“True. With Mr. Malcomb’s physical issues and the kind of terrain involved, it’s not surprising that he wanted to view the site from the air. He would have been unable to see large pieces of the ranch otherwise because there was deep snow on the ground at higher elevations.”

“How long after the car crash was he down in the canyon before he was found?”

“Not long at all,” Rogers replied. “A guy from our county roads department was driving a dump truck and backhoe upthere to put in a culvert, and he spotted the smoke. He radioed it in. I responded. End of story. Now I need to go. I have to be on patrol in five.”

“You’ve been so helpful, Deputy Rogers,” Bree said. “Two more questions?”

She sighed. “Go on.”

“Is there a ranch manager?”

“They’re between managers, evidently. A caretaker lives up there during the winter, but he was visiting his ailing mother in Denver.”

“And, last question, who are the ranch owners? I heard it’s a beef conglomerate.”

“Correct. O Casado Cattle Company. They’re out of Brazil. They’ve owned the ranch a little over ten years.”

Something about that struck Bree as odd, but she couldn’t figure out what. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure. Can I ask who your clients are?”

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