In Cahoots with the Prickly Pear Posse (A Jackrabbit Junction Mystery--Book 5)

feel like I walked into a dust devil tonight.”
“Ha! I’ve been stuck in the middle of one since the first time I pulled Veronica over for speeding.” Grady glanced up at the television screen again. “How’s your aunt doing lately?”
“Busy. Jess created a website for the RV park that has reservations pouring in, keeping Ruby hopping.”
The sheriff’s brow wrinkled. “Is Jess’s dad still hanging around giving everyone grief?”
How did Grady know about that piece of shit? “He’s renting a room at the Sundown Inn in Yuccaville,” Mac answered. “Jess says he’s getting the weekly rate.”
“Hey, Sheriff Harrison!” A cowboy clapped Grady on the shoulder. “Dirty Dan is playing your song.”
The bar quieted, the crowd seeming to take a big breath.
The jukebox lit up. “I shot the sheriff,” rang out through the bar, the Eric Clapton version. A group of guys surrounding the jukebox raised their glasses of beer toward Grady and sang along with Clapton, “But I did not shoot the deputy!”
Grady grinned up at the cowboy at his shoulder. “Isn’t that sweet of Dan. I’ll have to stop by the bank Monday and tell his wife how much I like that new Browning Hell’s Canyon Long-Range rifle he bought behind her back.”
“Hooo-hoo! You’re screwed, Dan!” the cowboy hollered above the crowd. “He’s gonna tell your wife about your new gun!” The cowboy lightly punched Grady’s shoulder. “Good one, Sheriff! Your next drink is on me.” He swaggered back to his buddies, caroling along with them during the next chorus.
“Friends of yours?” Mac asked.
His eyes creased. “I make it a point to be friends with everyone I meet.” Grady returned to his beer, spinning the glass on the bar. “Is that archaeology team still sorting through old artifacts in your aunt’s mine?”
“They took a break for the holidays and returned to the university in Tucson. The lead archaeologist mentioned something about needing to head south to Mexico soon, so another group will be taking his place.”
“That reminds me. I ran into Dick Webber at the gas station a few days ago.”
Dick Webber was a rancher who owned the chunk of land next to Butch’s parcel. Mac had met him and his shotgun two different times because Ruby’s Humdigger mine was landlocked in the middle of Dick’s ranch. Getting to it required approval from the old guy or risking a backside full of buckshot.
“What’s Webber up to these days?” Mac had been heading up to the mine in the dark with Claire the last time he’d talked to the rancher. Webber had tried to convince Claire to leave Mac and take him on instead, offering a fancy new mixer as a bonus.
“Trouble, I’m guessing. He flat out told me that I wasn’t allowed to go on his land without a warrant.”
Mac frowned. “Why would he tell you that?’
“He seems to have some cockeyed idea that I’m going to go sniffing around a mine located on his land.” Grady finished his beer. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he got that idea, would you?”
Mac sighed. Unfortunately, he might. “Joe Martino owned a mine surrounded by Dick’s land that belongs to Ruby now by default. She found out about it from Joe’s ex-wife semi-recently.”
“Another mine, huh? Joe Martino sure had his hands in a lot of dirt.”
No kidding.
Ruby’s departed husband had claimed to be a traveling salesman when he convinced her to marry him way back when. In reality, Joe had been tangled up in the black market, moving stolen goods for big-ticket buyers and storing the pricey pieces in the mines he’d owned around Jackrabbit Junction until the heat cooled.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d been pilfering from his black market clients, skimming items here and there over the decades to keep for himself. Shortly after he’d decided to retire from his fake sales job and enjoy his golden years with Ruby, he had a stroke that left him mostly mute as he decayed in a wheelchair. By the time he’d died, Ruby had a shitload of medical bills and no life insurance to help with the debt he’d tallied, or even enough money to bury her husband.
“Joe Martino was one crooked son of a bitch,” Mac said, and proceeded to fill in the sheriff with what he’d learned about the Humdigger mine’s history. He included what Dick Webber had told him the last time he was out there about the “coyote” den, and then he wrapped up with Claire’s theory about the booby traps Joe had set to keep people out.
“Coyotes, huh?” Grady asked. “Does Dick Webber have any proof that the mine is being used by cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the country?”
“He claimed to have noticed signs of trouble around the mine but hadn’t actually seen any people. Claire and I found a chamber in the mine with a cot, some canned food, and a few other supplies when we were up there last. We heard some sounds from one of the drifts, too.”
“What was back there?”
Mac shrugged. “I didn’t want to put Claire at risk, so we got out of there. I’ve had enough so-called mine accidents lately to make me appreciate fresh air and blue skies more than finding out who is hiding in a mine.”
“I can understand that. Mines give me plenty of pause. I’ve had too many old-timers tell me tales of ceilings falling and men being buried alive.”
Right. Been there, done that, only Joe’s ex-wife had been the cause that time, not gravity. The chance of a cave-in happening again grew greater with every passing day, thanks to the Copper Snake Mining Company in Yuccaville being so blast-happy and rattling the earth all over the county.
Mac tapped on his empty glass. “I guess Dick Webber’s inflexibility means you can’t take a trip with me up to that mine anytime soon.”
“It’ll take time to get a warrant. I’d need some sort of proof. Something that hints at human or drug trafficking going on up there.”
Shit. That meant Mac was going to have