The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets)

by James, Harper

  Evan felt completely deflated.

  ‘Don’t you even think it’s worth looking into?’

  ‘Did I say it’s not worth looking into? Did I?’ She gave Evan an exasperated look. ‘I’m just not going to go jumping to conclusions before I’ve even started—unlike some people I could mention.’

  She put a hand on Evan’s shoulder and steered him towards his car.

  ‘If it was up to you, Hendricks would be in prison already. You ought to forget this detective stuff and get a job as a hanging judge.’

  Chapter 29

  EVAN WAS GENUINELY DISAPPOINTED he wasn’t going to spend the day afloat, catching fish and drinking cold beers with Faulkner. Apart from anything else, he now had an empty day to fill. While most people spend Monday to Friday wishing their life away and don’t want the weekend to end, Evan couldn’t wait for the working week to start again. Sadly, he was going to have to. He decided to give Jacobson a call to see if he had any news.

  ‘Didn’t you get my text?’ Jacobson asked him.

  Evan checked his phone.

  ‘No, there’s nothing.’ It reminded him it was time he bought a new one.

  ‘I spoke to the person I told you about.’ Jacobson said.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I told her what a nice young man you are. She can’t wait to meet you, and fill you in on five, ten, twenty years of local gossip, whatever you want.’ Evan could feel Jacobson’s smile on the other end of the line. ‘I’d allow three to four hours if I were you. You didn’t have any plans, did you?’

  Evan told him about his aborted fishing trip.

  ‘So what do you think’s going on? Do you think Hendricks, or whoever it was, is trying to shut Faulkner up?’

  It suddenly struck Evan that he didn’t know what he thought. He’d told Guillory that he’d overheard an argument, but he had no idea what it meant, or even if it had any bearing on anything he was doing. They could have been arguing about football for all he knew.

  ‘I’m not sure. I don’t really know what I think.’

  ‘You sound a bit despondent. Go and talk to Audrey Aubrey. Hell of a name, eh? Maybe some of the pieces will fall into place.’

  Jacobson gave him the address and a phone number. As soon as he’d finished with Jacobson, Evan called her and she said he could drop in any time.

  ***

  IF HE WAS EXPECTING Audrey Aubrey to be a matronly old lady with a blue rinse, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Her hair was cut short and it was gray, not blue. It would have been called distinguished in a man. He had no idea how old she was but he was sure she didn’t look it.

  She looked like she’d be in huge demand with the pension industry advertisers who targeted active seniors and put full page advertisements in the Sunday supplements—the ones with the seniors freewheeling downhill on their bicycles, their legs sticking out and huge grins plastered on their virtually wrinkle-free faces.

  She invited him in and got him settled in the living room and went off to make some coffee.

  ‘I hope you don’t want decaf,’ she called from the kitchen. ‘I wouldn’t have that crap in the house. What a complete waste of time that is. I like a good dose of caffeine to keep me regular.’

  That was a little more information than Evan felt was appropriate in the first two minutes of their acquaintance, but he liked his coffee strong too, so he said that would be just fine. She brought it in with a piece of cake the size of a shoebox.

  ‘This is my maple-pecan danish coffee cake,’ she said proudly as she put it down on the side table. He was sure the table dipped under the weight. ‘You look like you need feeding up.’

  He noticed she didn’t take a piece for herself but he dug right in just the same.

  ‘I don’t eat it myself,’ she said.

  Looking at her still-trim figure, he could believe it.

  ‘Tom Jacobson says it rots your teeth. Sugar, not just my cake, of course.’

  Evan was sure that if he listened closely enough he would actually hear the decay eating into the enamel of his teeth, like it was a competition—could he get through the cake before the cake got through his teeth?

  ‘I had a lot of dental work done,’ she carried on. ‘Look at this.’

  The maple-pecan danish coffee cake was heavy going so he let her prattle on about her dental work for a while longer while he worked on it.

  ‘Tom tells me you’re the go-to person for local knowledge around here,’ he said, feeling pleased with the adroit way he segued from Tom the dental maestro to Tom the flatterer-of-old-ladies.

  She smiled indulgently. ‘Tom’s full of shit, but he’s right, up to a point. I worked on the local paper for twenty-five years. There wasn’t much went on I didn’t hear about. But that was back then. Now I’m retired and I don’t really get out so much.’

  ‘That’s not a problem. It’s the background information that I’m interested in.’

  She leaned forward with her hands resting on her knees.

  ‘What is it you need to know? Tom wouldn’t tell me what this is about.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, really. Just something that’s been bugging me. There’s a farm a few miles out of town called Beau Terre—’

  ‘The Saunders place.’

  ‘That’s it. So you know it?’

  ‘I’ve been out to the house a few times. I knew Mary Saunders quite well, and her husband George. Before they moved away.’

  ‘Did they have a son?’

  The question seemed to throw her. She stood up and walked through to the kitchen.

  ‘Do you want any more coffee?’

  He was afraid it would come with another couple of pounds of cake so he said no. She came back carrying a refill for herself. He wasn’t sure whether she was buying time to marshal her thoughts, or whether she was just committed to her caffeine-keeps-you-regular routine.

  ‘There were two sons,’ she said carefully, ‘Pierce and Jason.’

  The look on her face suggested the memories of the Saunders boys weren’t all good. Either that or the caffeine was kicking in ahead of time.

  ‘Actually, the younger son was christened Leonard, but he always went by his middle name, Jason. I suppose he thought Leonard was very old-fashioned.’

  Evan nodded to himself. Leonard Jason Saunders, or L. J. Saunders as it was listed on the property deeds.

  ‘It’s Jason I’m interested in.’

  Once again, her face gave her away, told him she wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Then you’re in luck, because I couldn’t tell you anything about the older boy, Pierce. He was quite a bit older, got caught in the Vietnam draft. I don’t remember if he was killed or missing in action, but as far as I know he never came home again. There was never any what they’d call closure these days. Back then you were just expected to get on with your life.’

  ‘Okay. What about Jason? What was he like?’

  ‘He was a little shit when he was growing up,’ she said with unexpected force, ‘and made his parents’ lives a complete misery. I don’t think he was actually kicked out of school but it came pretty close. And he was no better when he grew up.’

  She leaned back and crossed her legs. Evan was treated to a view of her still-shapely calves. He was thankful she was far too old for there to be any risk of a repeat of the previous day’s events.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Luckily for everyone around here, he got a totally uncharacteristic attack of patriotic fervor and joined the army. He idolized his older brother, took it really hard when he didn’t come back. He was at an impressionable age—not that I’m trying to make excuses for how he turned out—but he was most likely trying to follow in his footsteps. Unluckily, he didn’t get blown to pieces in some godforsaken hell hole like his brother did. Or instead of him.’

  She looked down and picked imaginary pieces of lint from her white blouse. Evan was shocked at the intensity of her dislike for him. He wondered if there was any p
ersonal animosity but didn’t push it.

  ‘So he came back?’

  She looked back up at him and shook her head.

  ‘No, he didn’t come back, not here. Not so far as I know. He left the army with a dishonorable discharge and drifted around.’

  ‘What did he do to get a dishonorable discharge? That’s got to be pretty serious.’

  ‘I don’t know for certain. All I heard were rumors and I don’t want to spread them around—despite what Tom Jacobson thinks.’ She seemed keen to be able to claim some of the moral high ground from Jacobson. ‘Do you know, he told me that if patients start gossiping in the chair he drills a bit deeper?’

  Evan smiled. He made a mental note to look up the sort of offences that could result in a dishonorable discharge. He had no idea whether records of specific cases were in the public domain or not. Probably not, the U.S. Army wasn’t known for washing its dirty laundry in public.

  ‘What happened after he left the army?’

  ‘It gets better and better.’ She let out a short, harsh laugh. ‘He really was a son to be proud of! I know he spent some time in prison down in Texas. That much is fact. Again, I only heard rumors about why he was in there.’

  Evan would have loved to push her into disclosing the rumors she’d heard. It would have been interesting to find out if the crimes inside and outside the military were the same. Unfortunately, he could tell there was no way she was going to tell him. She desperately wanted him to go back to Jacobson and tell him that she wasn’t an idle gossip.

  ‘It completely destroyed George and Mary,’ she went on. ‘First, they lost Pierce. And then all the trouble with Jason. One thing after another. There were all these awful rumors flying around.’ Her face darkened and she fell silent as she thought back. ‘It got so they couldn’t bear to go out.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘They moved away. At their time of life, they had to leave that beautiful farm and move away.’

  She shook her head sadly, her mind full of the cruel injustices that lie in wait around every corner.

  ‘Do you know if they’re still alive?’

  ‘No, sorry. I might be able to find out.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Did you know they gave, or sold, the farm to Jason?’

  She sat up straight faster than if Evan had goosed her.

  ‘Well I never knew that. Some source of local information I turned out to be.’

  ‘I went to the County Recorder’s office and looked it up. That’s where I start to get confused.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The records show the last transfer was from George and Mary to Jason. It’s listed as L. J. Saunders, but it’s obviously Jason. There’s nothing after that.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The man who lives there now is called Carl Hendricks.’

  A slight frown creased her forehead.

  ‘That name rings a bell.’

  Evan explained briefly about the case he was working on and Hendricks’ job as the school bus driver.

  ‘I missed all that,’ Audrey said. ‘I retired right around then and went on a six-month world cruise. I’d always wanted to go. I vaguely remember hearing things when I got back but it had all died down.’

  ‘None of that is really why I wanted to talk to you. It’s just that I went out to Hendricks’ place and ended up thinking how come he was living there. The place must be worth millions. Tom thought you might know.’

  ‘I can’t help you I’m afraid. I didn’t even know Saunders came back.’

  ‘Tom suggested that Saunders might have changed his name to Hendricks. That makes sense after what you’ve just told me about his past.’

  ‘But there’s no way on earth he’d have got the job as a school bus driver with a criminal record like that.’

  ‘You’re right. It can’t be the same person and I’m back where I started.’

  A flashback of what happened after he found himself back at square one with Barbara crossed his mind. He stood up to go.

  ‘Even so, it’s worth checking to make sure. Have you got a picture of Hendricks?’

  Evan said he didn’t but he could get one.

  ‘Don’t bother; I know where I can get one of Saunders. I’ll email a copy to you.’

  Evan gave her his email address and got up to go, thanked her for her time.

  ‘I feel so sorry for his parents,’ she said again at the door. ‘It’s totally beyond me how, after losing one son, the other one could turn out so badly when you think how well their daughter did for herself.’

  ‘Their daughter?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you know? They had a daughter called Brenda. A lovely girl.’

  Evan didn’t know how he was supposed to have known. And while it was nice to hear that Brenda was a lovely girl and had done so well for herself, it didn’t have any bearing on anything he was interested in. She wasn’t living at the farm now. But he ought to show some interest to be polite.

  ‘What did she end up doing?’

  ‘She married the future Chief of Police, Matt Faulkner.’

  Chapter 30

  ‘ARE YOU FEELING OKAY?’ Audrey asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I’m fine, just surprised.’ He was anything but fine. ‘I’ve talked to Matt Faulkner quite a lot recently and he never mentioned that his wife grew up in the house Carl Hendricks lives in.’

  ‘Is that so unusual?’

  ‘I think so. I specifically remember asking him how come Hendricks ended up living in such a big place. He said he had no idea.’

  His mind was racing with the possibilities that were now opening up.

  ‘We’d talked briefly about his wife. You’d have thought he’d say No idea, but that’s the house my wife grew up in. We actually stood together and looked at a photo of her standing in front of the barns. Why wouldn’t you mention such a massive coincidence? The fact that he didn’t is suspicious, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason. Matt’s a good man.’

  Evan wasn’t interested in her platitudes.

  ‘There must be a reason he didn’t want to make the connection. If that house was in his wife’s family all those years, it’s just not possible he doesn’t know what happened to it after they moved away.’

  ‘His wife would have known for sure,’ Audrey agreed. ‘Her brother had just come back to town and was living in the family home. Even if they weren’t close, she would know if he sold it to this Carl Hendricks.’

  ‘Or if he was still living there but under a different name. And if she knew, Faulkner knew. She couldn’t keep something like that from her husband.’

  He couldn’t believe Faulkner had deceived him so badly.

  ‘What all this means is that Faulkner knows for sure whether Jason Saunders and Carl Hendricks are the same person.’

  As he said it, something went off in Evan’s brain. Audrey saw it in his face. ‘What is it?

  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t made the connection before.

  ‘Faulkner took me to a bar a few nights ago. That’s when this happened.’

  He pointed to his face.

  ‘Nice places he takes you. I didn’t like to ask what happened.’

  Evan wasn’t really listening to her.

  ‘We were talking about Hendricks and he said Jason. I’m sure of it. He passed it off saying I misheard him because the music was too loud. I’d completely forgotten. Probably because of this.’

  He pointed to his face again.

  ‘What happened?’

  She was peering closely at his face now that the topic was up for discussion.

  ‘I was attacked in the parking lot. The guy broke my nose and bit off a piece of my ear as well as kicking me in the . . . you get the picture. I’ve been worrying about the guy ever since and obviously buried everything else.’

  ‘All this,’ Audrey said, warming to the theme, ‘suggests that they are the
same person and he doesn’t want you to know.’

  ‘Exactly. If Saunders sold the house to Hendricks, what’s to hide? But if Saunders became Hendricks that means Carl Hendricks is—’

  ‘Matt Faulkner’s brother-in-law.’

  ‘And that’s something he’s hoping to keep quiet.’

  They were both quiet for a moment as their words sank in. As far as Evan could see, there were no innocent explanations for Faulkner wanting to keep it a secret.

  ‘It could just be that Matt doesn’t want any association with Hendricks,’ Audrey said. ‘After all, if he is Jason Saunders, he’s a bit of a scumbag.’

  Evan’s jaw dropped. Old ladies didn’t use language like that. He gave her a reproachful look.

  ‘Don’t be such a prude,’ she said, poking him gently in the ribs. ‘Anyway, it makes sense that the ex-Chief of Police wouldn’t want to be connected to a criminal. And now his wife’s dead, there’s no reason to be.’

  Evan was far from convinced. In his mind the possible explanations were far more sinister.

  ‘It could also be that he was protecting and covering up for Hendricks.’

  She sighed.

  ‘I suppose it’s your job to have a suspicious mind. Myself, I just can’t believe it. He was the best police chief this town ever had.’

  Evan was well aware he had a very uncomfortable conversation with Faulkner coming up. He felt slightly nauseous thinking about it. If it was true, it could blow Faulkner’s whole reputation out of the water.

  ‘I’m going to have to ask him about it, but before I do I’d like to have my facts straight. It’s got to be one hundred percent. I need that photograph of Saunders as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ll get right on it.’ She gave him a playful shove. ‘Cheer up. You’ve got a face like a smacked arse, as my dear old husband used to say. That was before he buggered off—another favorite phrase of his—back to England.’

  At least her language brought a grin to his face. But it didn’t change the ominous feeling that he’d bitten off a lot more than he could chew.

  Chapter 31