Death by French Roast

by Alex Erickson

  “Apparently. And not long after Cliff’s murder, Jay Miller showed up at my house, broke in, even. He warned me off investigating.”

  I might have been mistaken, but I was almost positive Larry paled. “Be careful, Ms. Hancock. You don’t want to mess with Jay.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.” Even though Larry hadn’t offered, I sat down across from him so we were at eye level. “Do you believe Jay could have killed both Wade Fink and Cliff Watson?”

  Larry looked away, but I don’t think he was trying to be evasive. There was a tension in his posture, a wariness that had me on edge.

  And I didn’t think it had anything to do with me.

  “Has he come to see you?” I asked, voice dropping to a whisper, as if I was afraid Jay might hear me. I guess a part of me was.

  Larry gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Jay doesn’t know how to do anything but threaten,” Larry said. “He’s always been imposing, and has always known how to use it to his advantage. If he doesn’t want you to do or say something, he has no problem letting you know. Usually, the repercussions for ignoring him are severe.”

  Like murder? I wondered. “Why would he come to see you?” I asked. “Do you know something about Wade’s death you didn’t tell me the last time we spoke?”

  Larry started to shake his head before his shoulders sagged. “Honestly, I don’t know. He warned me not to talk, but what was I going to say? I wrote articles on Wade’s murder. I knew his friends. And Jay and I . . .” He made a frustrated sound before going on. “We had a working relationship back then. He fed me information, and I would write an article that would, shall we say, skew things the way he wanted them to be viewed.”

  “Did he pay you for slanting your articles?”

  “Sometimes. Often, it was in favors. I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do, mind you. I was against Wade’s relationship then, and I’ll stand by my opinion on the matter now. Jay didn’t have to do much prodding to get me to write what he wanted in that regard.”

  If Jay Miller was against Wade and Rita dating, and decided to do something about it, could it have resulted in murder? I asked Larry as much.

  “He couldn’t have killed Wade. I think Jay is capable of such things, but he didn’t murder that man.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. He was with me when it happened.”

  I deflated. I’d been nearly certain Jay had something to do with Wade’s death, and now I was back to square one.

  “I wish I could tell you differently,” Larry said. “It took me years to realize what kind of man Jay Miller truly was, what he still is. I regret some of what he had me write for him. I even regret giving so much time and thought to him. But despite my less than stellar opinion of the man, Jay Miller did not kill Wade Fink.”

  I wanted to hold on to the possibility that Larry was wrong about Jay, but it would do no one any good. If Larry was telling the truth and Jay was with him at the time of Wade’s death, then I had to move on. That still left a solid group of suspects, any of whom could be responsible for both murders. Cliff had known something important enough to kill him for, which led me to believe it was likely one of his friends committed not just the first, but both murders.

  “It’s funny,” Larry said. “But after how Jay derided Wade for dating a younger girl as much as he did, it’s shocking he would up and do the same thing.”

  My breath caught. “Wait. Jay dated a younger woman?”

  “Married her, even. He made such a big deal out of Wade and Rita, and then, once that’s over, he goes out and finds himself a kid of his own. You can’t make this sort of stuff up.”

  Larry had little else to provide, so I left him to his now cold dinner. My head spinning as I tried to piece things together.

  Jay Miller was against Wade’s choice in women, asks the local reporter to write scathing articles about him after his death, but then turns around and dates a younger woman of his own, as if he was trying to be contradictory.

  Did that mean he was once interested in Rita, like Hue had been? Or did the controversy over Rita dating Wade create problems with his own relationship?

  I should have asked Larry when Jay started dating the younger woman, but I’d been so stunned by the news, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask until it was too late.

  I arrived at the Pine Hills police station just before dark. Pine Hills had a tendency to shut down pretty early—most of the businesses closed their doors by seven, sometimes an hour or two earlier—but the police station remained active all evening. I only hoped Chief Dalton hadn’t already called it a night, because I was desperate to talk to her.

  I parked and climbed out of my car, just as Patricia Dalton appeared. The top two buttons of her uniform were undone, and she looked as if all she wanted to do was take a hot bath and then crash into bed for a good night’s sleep.

  I almost regretted spoiling that for her.

  “Chief!” I called as she made her way to her car, which was parked on the opposite side of the lot. “Chief Dalton!”

  She turned, saw me, and her shoulders slumped. When she walked over to me, she did so under obvious mental protest. “Ms. Hancock.”

  “I’m glad I caught you,” I said. “I take it you were heading home?”

  “I’m off duty, so yeah. If this has something to do with an active police investigation, I’ll remind you that you aren’t an officer of the law, and that whatever it is you have to say can wait until morning.”

  She had me there, but I wouldn’t be deterred. “Have you talked to Paul lately?” I asked. “He went to see Jay Miller because Jay threatened me and I was pretty sure he was involved in either Wade’s or Cliff’s murder at the time. Now, I’m not so sure, and I was hoping that Paul might have talked to you and told you something of what was going on.” I stopped as I realized I was starting to babble. I did that when I got nervous. And tired.

  “He went to see Jay Miller?” Patricia asked, her entire demeanor changing. She stood up taller, tired eyes going sharp. “Alone?”

  “He was planning on asking him a few questions, that’s all,” I said, growing nervous by her sudden shift.

  “And you said Jay threatened you?”

  “Broke into my house and everything. He also threatened the reporter, Larry Ritchie. Larry says Jay didn’t kill Wade, but I bet he knows who did. Why else show up to warn us off talking about it if he’s innocent?”

  “When did Paul go see him?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d say it was about an hour ago, maybe a little longer?”

  She yanked her phone from her pocket and jabbed at it like it had offended her, before she slammed it up against her ear hard enough it had to have hurt.

  I watched her, trepidation growing. Everyone said Jay Miller was a dangerous man, but Paul could take care of himself, right? I mean, Jay was once a cop. He wouldn’t hurt a fellow police officer who was merely asking a few innocent questions, would he?

  “He’s not answering,” Patricia said, pointing her phone at me. “You try.”

  I jerked my car door open and fished for my phone, which was stuffed into my purse. My hands were starting to shake, and I felt like I’d made a huge mistake by telling Paul about Jay.

  I hit Paul’s number and waited. Four rings, and then voic email.

  “No answer.”

  Patricia jammed her phone back into her pocket. “Go home. Wait by your phone there. I’ll call you when I find him.”

  “Do you think Jay did something to Paul?” My voice might have come out as a squeak, but I’ll never admit it.

  “I don’t know. Go home.” She turned as if to leave me standing there, worried sick about the one guy I’d fallen hard for.

  There was absolutely no way I could sit back and do nothing.

  “I want to come.” I tried to make it a demand, but my voice had yet to resume its normal tone. I sounded like a terrified mouse.


  “No.”

  “Please. I can’t sit at home and wonder if I’m somehow responsible for Paul getting hurt. I’ll stay in the car, but please, take me with you.”

  Chief Dalton shook her head, but I could tell she was wavering. She was worried about her son. I was worried about him. Together, we’d stop at nothing to make sure he was okay.

  “If you don’t take me, I’ll just follow you,” I said.

  Patricia closed and rubbed at her eyes, but relented. “Fine. You’ll stay in the car and won’t say a peep until I’ve talked to Jay, understood?”

  “Completely.”

  We hurried over to her personal vehicle. I was forced to toss a half dozen empty travel mugs into the back seat before I was able to slide into the passenger seat. Chief Dalton had the car moving even before I was fully buckled in.

  “We might be overreacting,” I said, clutching at the dash and roof as she spun the wheel hard to turn onto the main road. I may have let loose a half scream, but once again, I would never admit to doing so.

  “Jay Miller was suspended briefly for assaulting another officer,” she said. “He was reinstated early and nothing I could find explained why. Albie Bruce acted like the command came from over his head, and regretted he was forced to act. I believe him.” She glanced at me. “I don’t think we’re overreacting.”

  “Oh.” I tried to dig my nails into the dash as she took a turn so fast I felt the tires try to lift from the road. It was taking all my self-control not to whimper.

  We sped through Pine Hills, and down a long road that alternated between gravel and some sort of pebbly pavement. A broken-down tractor sat at the side of the road, leaning precariously toward us. It looked as if it had been there for a few hundred years.

  Patricia spun the wheel hard at a driveway, and this time, I did whimper, as my mind imagined us rolling. Her tires didn’t squeal, but I felt them lose their grip on the road as she turned onto the driveway, which led to a house that wasn’t much bigger than my own small place. It was well tended, and despite how out of the way it was, it didn’t feel isolated.

  “No cars,” I commented as she pulled to a stop in front of what I assumed was Jay Miller’s house. “That’s a good thing, right?” Because if Jay shot Paul or was holding him captive, both their cars would be sitting in the driveway.

  Or so I hoped.

  Patricia didn’t answer. She left the car running as she got out and strode purposefully toward the front door. She used the meat of her hand to hammer on it, calling out to Jay, then to Paul. When no one answered, she hammered again, and then tried the door.

  It opened silently, yet my mind supplied the ominous creak anyway.

  She glanced back at me, and from the looks of it, she was more than worried now. I could almost read the “This isn’t good” expression on her face before she turned back to the house.

  After a few deep breaths, Chief Dalton vanished inside.

  I made it all of twenty seconds before my door was open and I was heading for the door. I kept imagining the worst, that Jay had attacked Paul, had shoved him into his own trunk, and then had driven him off. Or that Paul was left lying, bleeding, on the floor, and that Jay was miles away, safely in Paul’s cruiser, lights and siren blaring so that he could speed with impunity.

  I burst into the house, but came to an immediate halt when I saw what awaited me.

  A lamp lay shattered on the floor beside a couch that had been upended. The television had a fist-sized hole in it, as did the wall beside it.

  There was no sign of Jay Miller or Paul Dalton.

  Patricia stood in the middle of the destruction, scouring it with cop eyes. When she turned to me, there was a fire behind her gaze that just about singed my eyebrows. Then, slowly, she bent down and picked up a pair of items that had been lying beside the shattered lamp. I’d overlooked them in my first perusal of the room.

  In Chief Dalton’s hands were Paul Dalton’s phone and hat. There was blood on the both of them.

  24

  A strange sense of calm washed over me, burying the fear that had immediately welled up in my chest. I didn’t know if it was because I’d grown as a person, or if Chief Dalton’s own steadiness kept me from freaking out, but I managed not to scream or panic as she turned Paul’s phone over in her hand. The screen was fine, and when she tried it, it turned on, showing both our missed calls.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  Patricia didn’t answer. She took her time and scanned the room without touching anything but the phone and Paul’s hat, which she held loosely between two fingers. The phone, on the other hand, she clutched as if she was afraid that if she let it go, it would mean Paul would be gone for good.

  I remained where I was and let her work without nagging her for an answer. My involvement had only caused things to escalate, and I was afraid that if I were to poke around Jay Miller’s house, or distract Patricia from her job, I’d somehow trigger an explosion that would wipe Pine Hills completely off the map.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as calm as I’d hoped.

  Paul was in danger. If something happened to him . . .

  It won’t. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was positive he’d come out of this okay. I couldn’t imagine it otherwise.

  “There’s no indication as to where they went,” Chief Dalton said, returning to me. “Did Paul say anything the last time you talked to him?”

  “He said he was going to talk to Jay—that’s it.”

  She nodded. “Go back to the car. I’m going to call this in and then drive you back to your vehicle. From there, you’re going to go home and wait by your phone. I want you to call me the instant you hear from anyone who might know where Paul and Jay are.”

  “You think they’re together?”

  “I hope so. Now, go. I need to focus.”

  My instincts screamed at me to tell her that I wanted to help, that I would not sit on my hands while Paul was missing, but I realized I’d only get in the way if I did.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Patricia walked me to the car, and then returned to the house to make her call. Now that I was seated and didn’t have her eyes on me, I started to tremble. I picked up my phone and almost dialed Paul’s number, until I remembered that the phone was currently in his mother’s hands.

  I mentally ran down every possibility. If Jay attacked Paul and subdued him, where would he take him? I was sure there were abandoned buildings in Pine Hills, but for the life of me, I couldn’t bring any to mind. If Jay was working with someone, would he take an unconscious police officer there so the both of them could decide what to do with him?

  Of course, we were practically out in the middle of nowhere. We’d passed at least a dozen places where tire tracks led off the road, into fields and wooded areas where Jay could hide away and avoid detection.

  My mind refused to consider other possibilities of what Jay might do with Paul in the woods. He was going to come back home.

  The fifteen minutes it took before another patrol car arrived was the longest quarter hour of my life. Officer John Buchannan got out of the car and, surprisingly, came over to check on me before going in to meet with his police chief.

  “You okay, Ms. Hancock?” he asked. He was dead serious, not a hint of accusation in his eye.

  “Kind of.” Scratch that. I closed my eyes and took a deep, trembling breath. When I opened them again, tears blurred my vision. “Actually, no, not really.”

  He nodded as if that was exactly what he’d expected me to say. “We’ll find him.”

  Patricia motioned for him to join her at the house. Buchannan reached in through the window, gripped my shoulder briefly, and then joined the police chief inside Jay Miller’s house.

  I closed my eyes and fought back the tears. Buchannan’s gesture was meant to reassure me, but it had the opposite effect. I mean, John Buchannan sometimes felt like my mortal enemy, a man determined to see me tossed in a cell to rot away for the rest of my life. If
he was willing to drop every last grievance to try to make me feel better, then things were far more dire than I was allowing myself to believe.

  Another ten minutes passed and two more cruisers appeared, filling the driveway with flashing lights. Becca Garrison got out of one. She gave me a single nod before joining the other cops inside. Then, Patricia returned to her car and started the engine.

  “I could call someone to get me,” I said. “You should be here.”

  “I’ll take you,” she said. “I’ll do more good back at the station than here.” She gripped the wheel tightly. “I’ve already screwed up by picking up the phone. I need distance.”

  “He’s your son. No one will blame you for it.”

  She glanced at me. “I will.”

  We spent the ride in silence, each of us awash in our worries. I kept seeing Paul’s face the last time I’d seen him, kept playing over our last conversation in a futile attempt to find a hidden meaning in his words that would tell me where he was.

  When we got to the station, I got out of Chief Dalton’s car as if in a dream and wandered over to my own vehicle. It took three tries before the engine coughed to life. I turned on the lights since it was now dark, and then drove, car shuddering in a way that indicated that something was wrong, but I didn’t head toward home.

  Lights were on in the house Vicki shared with Mason and their cat, Trouble. I parked out front, started to open the door, and then reconsidered. I could see them through the window, eating a late dinner. They were smiling and laughing, with Trouble sitting on a chair at Vicki’s side, begging for scraps.

  Vicki was my best friend. She would know what to say. Her mere presence would make me feel better.

  But could I break up their good humor with my troubles? As far as I knew, Paul was perfectly fine, taking a well-deserved nap at home. Of course, that would mean dismissing his bloody phone and hat as nothing, which it most definitely wasn’t.

  I can’t do this to her. I tore my eyes away from the happy couple, put my car in gear, and this time, I headed for home.

  Misfit was waiting for me by the door. I scooped him up and carried him to the couch, where I held him tight. The clock ticked the seconds by. Minutes passed slowly, each one feeling like a lifetime. I watched the second hand make its rounds, wishing there was something I could do.