Winter Moon

decoratively stitched red-and-white Western shirt, revealing the lean,

limber figure of an athletic thirty-year-old.

Her snowy hair--cut short in an easy-care gamine style--wasn't brittle,

as white hair often was, but thick and soft and lustrous. Her face was

far less lined than Paul's, and her skin was silk-smooth. Heather

decided that if this was what life in the ranch country of Montana

could do for a woman, she could overcome any aversion to the

unnervingly large open spaces, to the immensity of the night, to the

spookiness of the woods, and even to the novel experience of having

four corpses interred in a far corner of her backyard.

After dinner, when Jack and Paul were alone for a few minutes in the

study, each of them with a glass of port, looking at the many framed

photographs of prize-winning horses that nearly covered one of the

knottypine walls, the attorney suddenly changed the subject from

equestrian bloodlines and quarter-horse champions to Quatermass

Ranch.

"I'm sure you folks are going to be happy there, Jack."

"I think so too."

"It's a great place for a boy like Toby to grow up."

"A dog, a pony--it's like a dream come true for him."

"Beautiful land."

"So peaceful compared to L.A. Hell, there's no comparison." Paul

opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and looked instead at the

horse photo with which he'd inoken off his colorful account of

Ponderosa Pines' racng triumphs. When the attorney did speak, Jack had

the feeling that what he said was not what he had been out to say

before the hesitation. "And though we aren't spitting-distance

neighbors, Jack, I hope we'll be close in other ways, get to know each

other well."

"I'd like that." The attorney hesitated again, sipping from his glass

of port to cover his indecision.

After tasting his own port, Jack said, "Something wrong, Paul?"

"No, not wrong ... just ... What makes you say that?"

"I was a cop for a long time. I have a sort of sixth sense about

people holding back something."

"Guess you do. You'll probably be a good businessman when you decide

what it is you want to get into."

"So what's up?" Sighing, Paul sat on a corner of his large desk.

"Didn't even know if I should mention this, cause I don't want you to

be concerned about it, don't think there's really any reason to be."

"Yes?"

"It was a heart attack killed Ed Fernandez, like I told you. Massive

heart attack took him down as sudden and complete as a bullet in the

head. Coroner couldn't find anything else, only the heart."

"Coroner? Are you saying an autopsy was performed?"

"Yeah, sure was," Paul said, and sipped his port. Jack was certain

that in Montana, as in California, autopsies were not performed every

time someone died especially not when the decedent was a man of Eduardo

Fernandez's age and all but certain to have expired of natural

causes.

The old man would have been cut open only under special circumstances,

primarily if visible trauma indicated the possibility of death at the

hands of another. "But you said the coroner couldn't find anything but

a damaged heart, no wounds."

Staring at the glimmering surface of the port in his glass, the

attorney said, "Ed's body was found across the tbreshold between his

kitchen and the back porch, lying on his right side, blocking the door

open. He was clutching a shotgun with both hands."

"Ah. Could be suspicious enough circumstances to justify an autopsy.

Or it could be he was just going out to do some hunting."

"Wasn't hunting season."

"You telling me a little poaching is unheard of in these parts,

especially when a man's hunting out of season on his own land?"

The attorney shook his head. "Not at all. But Ed wasn't a hunter.

Never had been."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Stan Quartermass was the hunter, and Ed just -inherited the

guns. And another odd thing--wasn't just a full magazine in that

shotgun. He'd also pumped an extra round into the breach. No hunter

with half a brain would traipse around with a shell ready to go. He

trips nd falls, he might blow off his own head."

"Doesn't make sense to carry it in the house that way, either."

"Unless," Paul said, "there was some immediate threat."

"You mean, like an intruder or prowler."

"Maybe. Though that's rarer than steak tartare in these parts."

"Any signs of burglary, house ransacked?"

"No. Nothing at all like that."

"Who found the body?"

"Travis Potter, veterinarian from Eagle's Roost.

Which brings up another oddity. June tenth, more than three weeks

before he died, Ed took some dead raccoons to Travis, asked him to

examine them." The attorney told Jack as much about the raccoons as

Eduardo had told Potter, then explained Potter's findings.

"Brain swelling?" Jack asked uneasily. "But no sign of infection, no

disease," Paul reassured him. "Travis asked Ed to keep a lookout for

other animals acting peculiar. Then . . . when they talked again, on

June seventeenth, he had the feeling Ed had seen something more but was

holding out on him."

"Why would he hold out on Potter? Fernandez was the one who got Potter

involved in the first place." The attorney shrugged. "Anyway, on the