Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) Read Free

and closed the gate behind him.   Then he drove up the hill toward his house.   The black BMW stood out in front of his ranch house like a banjo at a state funeral.
    He parked his truck next to the BMW and he tried to see who was inside, but the windows were tinted too dark to make out the driver.   His ducks and geese were making a fuss with the new car.   Ben guessed they didn’t like fine German autos.
    Getting out, he unzipped his rain jacket and tucked it behind his gun before approaching the driver’s side of the car like he had been taught as an Air Force security policeman.   He waved and yelled at his geese to shut up.   Once they saw who fed them, they did just that.
    The window slid down smoothly and he saw a pretty redhead behind the wheel, which quickly brought Ben relief.
    “Do you have shit for brains?” Ben asked the woman.
    She reacted with shock.   Then she recovered and said, “I don’t think so.”
    Ben pointed toward his front gate down the hill.   “You didn’t see my sign to keep the hell out?”
    “Yes, but. . .”
    “When you open a gate on a ranch, you close the damn thing after you go through.   I’ve got alpacas, sheep and cattle grazing around here.”
    “And foul.   I’m sorry,” she said.   “I didn’t think...”
    “Oh, I know that,” Ben said.
    She continued, “I didn’t see any animals.”
    “It’s November and the rains have started,” Ben explained.   “Most of them have enough sense to get the hell out of this crap and into their shelter.”   Except for the ducks and geese and sometimes the chickens and turkeys.
    “But you’re out in the rain,” she said with a smirk.
    Ben looked up to the sky.   “This isn’t bad.”   He cast his gaze upon the woman again and said, “What do you want?”
    “I’m Maggi McGuffin, an attorney from Portland,” she said.
    He pointed back to his gate again.   “Get the hell out.”
    “I was told you could be an ornery bastard.   I thought the colonel was kidding.   Now I know he was understating your condition.   You might be certifiable.”
    “I’m certain of one thing,” Ben said.   “I don’t put up with idiots from Portland.   Especially lawyers.”
    “I’m not here as a lawyer,” she said.   “Well, that’s not entirely true.   I do represent the colonel on a number of matters.”
    That was the second time she mentioned a colonel.   “Am I supposed to know this colonel?”
    “Lieutenant Colonel Walter Keyes,” she said.
    Yeah, Ben knew this man.   After four years as a security policeman, Ben had cross-trained into the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.   AFOSI investigated everything in the Air Force from drug crimes to murder.   They also worked counter espionage.   Lt. Col Keyes had been Ben’s last boss before both of them retired.   The main thing they both had in common was the fact that they were both native Oregonians.
    “What’s the Bull up to?” Ben asked.   Everyone called the man Bull Keyes, even the enlisted special agents like Ben, who had retired as a senior master sergeant.
    She wiped the rain from the black leather door and said, “Can we talk inside?”
    Glancing about his yard, Ben turned back to the redhead and shifted his head toward his house.   “All right.   But stay close to me.   I don’t want you to be attacked by my critters.   That’s fair warning that even a lawyer could understand.”
    The lawyer raised her window and then got out of her fancy car, her six-inch heels sinking into the muck of his driveway.
    Ben held out his hand to her, and she grasped on like she was dangling from a cliff.   “Like I said, stay close.”
    Instead of attacking, his geese and ducks scattered as Ben went from the muddy driveway to the concrete sidewalk.   He guessed they knew that he would make one of them into Sunday dinner if they didn’t shut up.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    3
     
    As soon as Ben got in the front door of his