Drago #2a. Art LLC Spinella
Cubs management and the team manager as well as the initially skeptical players. She became “Big Sis” to the 20-somethings who asked for advice both personal and professional.
She loved it.
And now the team wanted her back for the close of what would be the Cubs’ most successful season in more than 100 years if things continued on the track they were currently following. For players and management alike, Cookie had become a goat-killing good luck charm whose even temper and enthusiastic understanding and passion for the club and the game seemed to provide an emotional balance in a sport dominated by testosterone.
So successful was Cookie’s influence, other teams were scouring the planet for another female baseball fan who might do for them what she did for the Cubs.
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Sal tells me Tatiana is heading back to Moscow.”
“Yup.”
“And that she doesn’t want him to pull some strings to keep her in the States.”
“She really misses her family and home, Nick.”
Nodding, “Well, I guess with the two of you gone, Sal and I will have to revert to eating pizza and cruising the dark nasty streets of Bandon at night in my pimpmobile.”
Cookie snorted. “After 9 you’d be the only car in town. Even the cops go home at 7. Can’t get into too much trouble.”
The thrashing of Sal lumbering through the wooded area between our properties ended our conversation. He and Tatiana broke into the clearing and joined us at the patio table. The two women hugged while Sal settled into a plastic lawn chair and dropped his travel mug of coffee on the table.
He looked at the remnants of the fire and what I assumed was supposed to be a Shakespearean tenor, “Alas poor Euric, I knew thee well.”
“Close,” I said, “but don’t give up your day job.”
“You have no culture, Nick.” Looking around, “Where are the donuts?”
Cookie said, “Inside, big guy. Tatiana and I are going to Eugene today for kicks.”
A puzzled look crossed the tall, Eurasian-looking Russian’s face. “Kicks?” with her Russian accent making it sound like “keeks.”
“Fun,” Cookie explained. “And some shopping.” To Sal, “I’ll bring the donut box.”
Tatiana smiled. “Da. Keeks and shopping.”
The two went inside while Sal and I stared at the smoldering heap of white ash.
“Small skull,” he said.
“Small.”
“People weren’t as big then as they are today.”
“Small feet, too,” I said, pulling from my coffee mug.
Cookie returned with the box of donuts, put them on the table, kissed my cheek and went back through the slider.
“Got some bar-b-q tongs handy?” Sal asked as he devoured a cinnamon twist in three bites.
“Yup.”
A moment passed. “Well, you gonna get ‘em?”
“Yup.” I took another swig of coffee, not moving.
“Today?”
“Nag.”
I climbed from the chair, opened the shed and found the tongs. Returning to the fire heap, I began rooting around the ashes for bones, Sal standing a couple of feet away. Piece by piece, I placed the still-hot bones on the adjacent lawn in approximation of their actual skeletal location. Sal called up a medical library on his iPhone and refined the placement by comparing the bones with an image on his screen.
In an hour we just about had it right.
Standing back, the two of us looked at the slightly charred remains. I leaned down and touched one of the thigh bones. “Cool enough.”
Sal took a series of pictures with his phone and we both returned to the deck chairs, poured more coffee from a carafe Cookie had placed on the table.
“Little guy. What do you figure, 5-foot-4 or so?”
Sal nodded. “He’s all there.”
Flipping open my phone I speed dialed Chief Forte.
“Nick. I was just going to call you. We got a problem.”
“What’s up?” I asked, punching the speaker button so Sal could hear.
“We found Jacob Cobb with a bullet hole in his head.”
Dread first, then an “aw shit” moment.
“Where?”
“At his home.”
“When?”
“Looks like he was shot maybe early this morning. Sometime after midnight for sure. He had a couple of small tree-cutting jobs after he left us at the golf course, finished up around 7 and went to the Arcade for a couple beers. We know he left around midnight to go home. At least that’s what he told the bartender.”
“Related to the tree man?”
“Don’t see how, but sure is coincidental, don’t ya think?”
“I think.”
“Could use you and Sal to give the scene a look-see if you’ve got the time.”
“Be there in 15.”
I stuck my head through the slider. Cookie and Tatiana were sitting at the dining room table laughing over something.
“Sal and I are heading to town. Someone shot Jacob Cobb this morning.”
“Oh, no,” both women said in unison. Jacob was a fixture in town who we often called to clear a dead tree or make room for new outbuildings. He and I worked together in the woods some years back so whenever I needed an extra hand to cull the shore pines at Willow Weep he’d help. He was a master with a chain saw and could drop a tree within inches of where he wanted it to fall.
Sal and I climbed into the Crown Vic and rumbled up to Highway 101, turned south and aimed the flames toward Bandon.
“What the hell is this about, Nick?”
“Got me. Jacob’s one of those guys who doesn’t make enemies. Trying to figure out how cutting down an old Madrone could possibly make someone angry enough to kill him.”
“Crazy environmentalist, maybe? It was a 120 year old tree.”
The Vic thundered across the Coquille bridge and we swung east on Highway 42. A quick right and up a gravel road where Cobb lived. Past a half dozen clapboard houses with “country lawns” and into a gravel driveway behind two Bandon cop cars. Shutting down the engine, the sidepipes ticked as they cooled.
“Let’s find out.”
Chief Forte and three patrol officers were standing on the porch of a freshly painted white salt box house waiting.
Forte met us at the car.
“He’s in the living room. Single shot in the back of his head. Close range, by the look of it. The doc says it was about midnight.”
“Was the front door open or closed?”
“Closed,” Forte answered. “Either he knew the person or at least didn’t feel threatened by him…”
“Or the killer already had the gun aimed at Jacob when he opened the door.”
“Position of the body indicates they were already way into the room. Want to see?”
Forte, Sal and I climbed the porch steps and the Chief pushed open the door with his knuckles. “The