Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1) by Trevor Scott Page B

memorabilia, including a Bronze Star with Valor and the Purple Heart.”
    Ben had both of those, but he didn’t mention it to her.   “Does your brother have a cap on the bed of his truck?”
    “Yes.”
    He pulled his truck to the side of the dirt road, with fields on each side of them.   But he left the engine running.   “So, he could be just about anywhere living out of the back of his truck?”
    Maggi turned her head away from him, glancing at either the wet field or the drops of rain on the window.   “Maybe.   For all I know he’s driving across the country visiting old Army buddies.”
    “Not likely,” Ben said.   “He would still be in contact with you by cell phone.   Plus, your FBI friend would have seen a history of his travel.   Unless he pulled out a large chunk of cash and is paying for gas that way.”
    She turned quickly and said, “He hasn’t done that.”
    “How can you be sure?” he asked.
    “Because the only thing I could not check on my own was his Visa bill.   I’ve been on his checking account since before he entered the Army.   He kept me on his account so I could pay his bills during his deployment.”
    “Wow.   You are close.”
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
    Ben pulled out the disposable phone she had purchased for him, and saw that he had a couple of bars here.   There was only one number already programmed in the contact list, so he hit that and let it ring.   First he heard a buzz.   Then that was followed up with a pop diva singing some crappy song, which Ben couldn’t identify with a gun to his head.
    Maggi pulled out her phone from her purse and smiled.   “Service.   Awesome.”
    “Do you actually listen to that music?”
    “Maybe,” she said sheepishly.
    Ben shook his head and popped the clutch, lurching the truck down the muddy road.   “I think I just lost a little respect for you.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    8
     
    Although it was Saturday morning, Deputy Sheriff Lester Dawson had decided to work on his murder investigation.   What other choice did he have?   His almost ex-wife had his two young daughters this weekend, and it was either work or sit at home in a dark house and watch college football while drinking himself into a stupor.
    He had spent the last couple of days going to every resident in Cantina Valley showing them a enhanced version of an image of his victim.   The ME had done his best to clean up the man’s face, and then a computer tech had done her best to smooth out the facial features blown all to hell.   The image wasn’t perfect, but it was a reasonable facsimile of what they guessed the man must have looked like before someone put a gun to the back of his skull and pulled the trigger.
    By the time Lester had gotten to each of the valley residents, they had all heard of the murder.   But not one of them could identify the man.
    Technically, the Springdale Winery was not part of the Cantina Valley, but was on the entrance to the valley and part of the greater Willamette Valley.
    Lester had gone to the winery on the first day of his investigation, but that had been before he had this photo.   He sat now in his sheriff’s department rig and viewed the sprawling vineyards in the surrounding hills.   He knew each vineyard required a lot of temporary workers, but most of those were used in the winter to trim back and prune the vines and during the fall harvest, which was already complete for the year.
    He got out and went toward the winery.   Before going in, he spit out his wad of wet tobacco at the base of a dead flower bed, hoping it would work as fertilizer.   He shrugged and wet into the winery.
    First he talked with the owner of the winery, who didn’t recognize the man in the photo.   Her husband, the founder of Springdale, was at a conference in Italy, she said.
    Then Lester talked with that hot wine pourer, Sonya.
    “Do you recognize this guy?” Lester asked, handing the