Free For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series by Albert Simon

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