For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Tuesday, April 18

A few minutes before nine the next morning, Henry walked to his car with the Colt and Glock in their cases while Charles was taking his turn at swimming laps. Pierre was running along beside him at the edge of the pool occasionally barking some encouragement. Henry put the gun cases in the trunk of the car; he didn't like having a weapon in the passenger compartment unless he had it strapped to his waist. He backed the car out of the garage and went down Mel to Avenida Caballeros where he turned right. He drove to Ramon Road, turned left and settled back for the long drive out to the Gun Club.

After a while he passed over the Interstate, and took a left on Varner Road. Out here, the area was mostly industrial or nothing but desert, depending on which checkerboard square of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation you were on. The Indians charged a lease to building owners for use of their property, so out here in the desert outside of town, the undeveloped squares were Reservation. Building owners just didn't want to risk the unknown of not owning the property under their investment. Over in the more developed part of Palm Springs, the checkerboard reservation continued, though you could hardly tell what Indian land was and what was not. The only difference was that some people had title to the land their house was on, and others paid the Indians a lease for their property.

But out here in the desert, it was more apparent, and developers tended to shy away from leased land for structures such as the Express package delivery building Henry just passed, or even the auto wreckers. Right across the road from those establishments was an empty, obviously Agua Caliente, square of land. The Palm Springs Gun Club was on one of these undeveloped squares of land. For the Club, the empty piece of desert was a perfect place for their pistol and rifle range.

Ordinarily, the range was not open to the public, but Wayne was the law enforcement liaison to the Club and as such had a key to the gate. The club didn't have many facilities, the bathroom was a portable outhouse, and refreshments were in the ice chest in the trunk of Henry's car. But there was plenty of space, there was no charge other than the Club's membership's dues, and on a weekday morning once a month, he and Wayne had the place to themselves. Most of the Club's activities were on weekends when they had match shootouts and something called a Western shootout, which Henry had not really figured out.

A couple of more turns took Henry onto an unpaved road, and within a couple of hundred yards, he was at the gate to the Gun Club's range which Wayne had already opened. The Crown Victoria with its exempt license plates was already parked up ahead, and Henry pulled his nearly twin Mercury Grand Marquis next to it. Wayne was setting up their targets and Henry got out of the car and walked back to the gate to close it.

He waved at Wayne as he walked back and yelled, "You never called me yesterday afternoon."

"You're right, and it's not because I forgot." Wayne smiled, putting the staple gun that he had used to attach the targets down at the pistol station.

"I figured it was because whatever you found out was inconsequential." Henry smiled unlocking his trunk and grabbing his gun cases and a couple of boxes of ammunition.

"Well, you may not think so, but it doesn't amount to much." Wayne said, opening the passenger door to his car and pulling out his hearing protectors.

"That's what you keep saying." Henry smiled, "What did you find out?"

"The lab tells me that the measurements of the mark are consistent with a picture frame with an eight inch side." Wayne said, "We didn't see it yesterday, but there was a second mark probably made by a support rest of some sort."

"So like an 8 by 10 frame set up in portrait format, for example?" Henry asked setting his gun cases down on the shooting rest.

"The lab guys say it could be an 8 by 10, but it could be an 8 by 8 as well, it's hard to tell exactly what size it was." Wayne explained.