by Josh Lanyon
“I don’t believe—and you don’t believe—it’s good news.”
“We don’t know what it is. Yet. We will.”
Jason nodded. Because what else could he do?
For one halle-fucking-lujah of a moment he had thought it was over, and the relief had been…almost embarrassing. But it wasn’t over, and coming so close to deliverance merely made this part harder.
So he nodded again. “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up.”
Sam made a move toward him. “Jason—”
He managed a twitchy smile and stepped back. He could not afford to accept comfort, sympathy, at this point. “I’m okay. It’s better if I just get back to work. I need to focus on something else right now.”
The concerned understanding in Sam’s gaze almost undid him. Sam said gruffly, reluctantly, “All right, West.”
* * * * *
It turned out visiting the Bozwin Daily Chronicle had been a good call. Only the year 1926 had been digitized and was available online. The earliest years of the paper had been put on microfilm, but budget or interest had waned after 1935. Jason spent several hours poring over bound volumes of newspapers, starting his search with June 1944.
He hit pay dirt a few weeks’ worth of papers later, when Captain Roy Thompson wrote to his parents and siblings, describing the Normandy landing.
You can’t imagine the amazing sight of these tracers going up into the sky. The underbelly of clouds turned red like charred embers, a mass of red death to any plane within the circle of our anti-aircraft fire. It was a beautiful sight from our point of view, but a kind of beauty only a soldier can understand.
It was fascinating—and a little disconcerting—to read Thompson’s own words. Jason had not expected his thief to be so literate or lyrical. That was not common of the crooks he typically dealt with.
In January of 1945, Thompson wrote:
There’s a lot of snow on the Western Front these days, and the country looks like a Christmas card. The trees are like old queens stooping from under the weight of their ermine robes. The wires loop from pole to pole like tinsel on a Christmas tree, except where the weight of the ice and snow has pulled them down and the signal repairmen are patching them. Snow lies smooth on the hillsides—it’s beautiful. But I also have seen plenty of action and have just about had my fill. It’s pretty tough to take seeing some of your buddies getting knocked off; especially the ones who sweated it out together away, back in our training days.
He did not want to like this guy, did not want to feel sympathy for him. What Thompson had done was unconscionable, and then he’d made it worse by dragging Jason’s grandfather into it. But there was no question Thompson had gone through hell—or that he made an engaging narrator.
At noon, Jason took a break. He was not hungry, but his eyes were ready to fall out of his head. He needed to stretch his legs and smell something besides disintegrating pulp and ink.
He walked over to a small café and purchased an iced-coffee smoothie, which he drank on the patio while checking his phone messages.
Still nothing from de Haan.
Jason clicked on Contacts, clicked on de Haan’s name, waited for the phone to ring—and got nothing. Not even a message saying de Haan was not available.
Dead silence.
He hung up, tried again, and listened to that absolute void of sound with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why the hell was de Haan’s phone dead?
Even if de Haan had decided to leave the country—and no way would he give up that easily—he wouldn’t have gone radio silent. He and Jason had been speaking regularly for over a month. De Haan would not fly off in a huff, and even if he did, he would not stop communicating with Jason while so much of the case was still up in the air.
Something was not right.
He should have recognized it sooner, but he’d had so much on his mind that it had been only too easy to set aside de Haan’s uncharacteristic quiet as something to be dealt with later. But that was his mistake, because considered in connection with that strange hang-up call the night before—the call he had dismissed as a misdial—something was seriously off.
He phoned J.J.
“Have you heard from de Haan?”
J.J., sounding back to his normal self, said disinterestedly, “He’s your pen pal, not mine.”
“I haven’t heard from him since I spoke to him yesterday afternoon.”
“Count your blessings.”
“I’m heading over to Big Sky Motor Lodge to check on him.”
“If you want my advice, West, leave sleeping Dutchmen lie.”
“Yeah. I’ll be in touch.” Jason disconnected and went to find his car.
* * * * *
De Haan’s blue compact sat in the back of the parking lot of Big Sky Motor Lodge.
Jason’s heart sank when he spotted the familiar vehicle. It seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. And yet his worst suspicions made no sense.
He parked, got out of his car, and went to the frostily air-conditioned front office.
A gangling twentysomething scrolling through a—given the panicked way he clicked out and rolled his chair back from the computer screen—porn site, greeted him.
“Hey! Hi there! Welcome to the Big Sky Motor Lodge. What can I do you for?”
“Do you have a guest by the name of Hans de Haan staying with you?”
The kid’s freckled brow wrinkled. “The German guy?”
“Dutch. Is he still staying here?”
“Uh, I think so. I just got on duty.”
Jason showed his ID. “Can you ring his room, please?”
The clerk goggled over his ID and threw Jason a worried look. “Uh, sure. What did he do?”
“This is just a welfare check,” Jason said, as if the FBI went around verifying health and safety as part of their everyday duties.
“Sure, sure.” The kid picked up the phone and dialed de Haan’s room. Jason could hear ringing on the other end. He watched the kid glance uneasily out the front window at the row of upper-story rooms.
“I don’t think he’s in,” the kid said.
“His car’s in the parking lot.”
“Oh. Well, maybe he…” The kid trailed off at Jason’s expression.
“I think we should check on him,” Jason said.
“You do?”
Jason nodded.
The desk clerk replaced the handset reluctantly. “Maybe I should call my manager.”
“You can call your manager after we check on your guest.”
“Okay.”
“Now would be good,” Jason prompted.
“Right. Okay.” The kid slid open a drawer, removed a key, and proceeded Jason out into the blinding sunlight. They crossed the parking lot and went up the steps to the second level.
Jason noted the security camera positioned under the eaves at the end of the walkway.
“Does that work?” he asked.
“Uh, no. It’s just supposed to be a deterrent.”
“It would be more of a deterrent if it actually worked.”
The clerk had no response. They continued, footsteps thumping hollowly, down the walkway to room 224.
The drapes were drawn across the front window. The room’s air conditioner hummed noisily. A Do not Disturb placard hung on the door.
“Oh,” said the clerk hopefully. “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
Jason ignored him. He thumped on the dingy orange door—an official side of the fist bang to the face of the door. The Do Not Disturb fell off the knob and landed at their feet.
No response from within de Haan’s room, but the maid doing the next room hastily rolled her cart down the open walkway, where she watched nervously from a safe distance.
“Maybe he’s not in there,” the kid said. “Maybe he walked out to grab some lunch.”
“Maybe.” Jason pulled out his cell phone and rang de Haan.
He wasn’t really expecting an answer. De Haan’s phone had appeared to be dead e
arlier, but as they stood there silently waiting, de Haan’s cell started ringing from inside the room.
Jason swore quietly. He glanced at the clerk, who was watching him with wide eyes. “I need you to open the door and then stand aside.”
The kid hesitated, read Jason’s expression, and unlocked the door. His hands were shaking.
“That’s great. I’ll take it from here.” The clerk didn’t budge. Jason moved him to the side, and pushed the door open. “Hans?” he called.
It took his eyes a second or two to adjust to the dimness, but he didn’t need to see the motionless form on the bed to know the worst. His stomach rose in instinctive protest at the smell rolling out of the room.
Even the kid knew what that was.
He gulped. “Oh no! Is he dead?”
Jason nodded, found his voice. “Yeah. Call 911.”
For a moment the kid just stared at him, chest rising and falling, and then he stumbled away and ran down the walkway, his sneakers soundless as a ghost’s as he sprinted away.
Jason let his head fall back, drew a deep breath.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
How the hell— No, why the hell had this happened?
It made no sense.
Zero sense.
Unless… Why was he assuming that de Haan had met with foul play? Maybe it was a natural death. That wasn’t out of the question. De Haan was a middle-aged guy under a lot of stress, with a fondness for steak sandwiches. Maybe he’d had a stroke or a heart attack. These things happened a lot more frequently than murder.
Jason felt for his gloves. He slipped them on and stepped into the gloomy interior of the room. He took a moment to scan the layout of the possible crime scene, to consciously absorb his first impressions.
TV and lights were off. Air conditioner was cranked. De Haan’s cell phone rested on the table beside the bed. It was plugged in and charging.
A suitcase lay open on a wooden luggage stand, its contents neatly folded. De Haan’s closed laptop sat on the desk.
No obvious signs of violence. No obvious signs of any disturbance at all.
Jason studied the floor around the bed. Nothing on the carpet indicated…anything. A pair of balled-up socks rested at the foot of the nightstand.
He approached the bed.
Hans lay face up on top of the neatly made spread. He was not wearing his spectacles but he was fully dressed, down to his shoes and socks. The shoulders and front of his shirt were soaked with blood. The blood was brown and completely dried.
“What the hell, Hans…”
Jason bent down. Even without turning on the lamp, he could see part of the ghastly wound on the top of de Haan’s skull and deduced most of the damage had been done from behind.
He touched de Haan’s wrist. His skin was ice cold, advanced rigor was present, fixed lividity, the corneas of his eyes were cloudy. Jason straightened, stepped back from the bed, and considered.
You didn’t have to be a forensics expert to tell de Haan had been dead several—probably between six to eight—hours. He remembered yesterday evening’s phone call, which he’d dismissed as a misdial. That had come in around eleven, but then taking into account the temperature of this room… Yeah, maybe you did need to be a forensics expert.
He could still draw a few conclusions from this crime-scene-that-was-not-a-crime-scene.
Obviously, de Haan had not been in bed when he’d been attacked. No attempt had been made to stage the death scene. Had he even been in the room? Highly doubtful.
Where the hell had he been, then?
Jason squatted down and studied the well-worn soles of de Haan’s tennis shoes. It looked like bits of green-black something were stuck to the welt. Weeds? Moss? Grass? Again, not his area of expertise.
Their best bet would be to access his phone records to see if his cell had pinged off any nearby towers, but that would take time and a court order. And, despite the fact that de Haan had been his complainant, there was no their. This was not going to be Jason’s case. This homicide would go to local law enforcement.
Jason’s gaze fell on the framed photo of a smiling blonde woman in an oval rosewood frame. That had to be Anna, the art teacher who was waiting for Hans to finish chasing his lost treasure and settle down so they could raise a child together.
His stomach knotted. He shook off the reaction impatiently. De Haan had not been afraid to take risks. If he had known the potential cost of his quest, it was highly probable he would have kept right on. He had not been deterred by the shootout at Thompson’s ranch.
Even so, art historian was not supposed to be a dangerous profession.
But was de Haan’s death linked to his search for the Engelshofen Castle treasure?
His laptop was still there. His phone was still there. And now that the federal government was involved, the investigation he had initiated would not stop with his death.
Jason turned to study the room a final time and noticed the thin band of light beneath the bathroom door.
He drew his weapon, opened the door and, of course, despite the light left on, the small room was empty. There was a window over the toilet; one of those old-fashioned jalousies with glass slats—at least, judging by the remaining hardware. The slats and the strips of hardware had been removed, leaving a perfect empty square of an entrance. Not a large entrance. Though the window was wider than most found in motel bathrooms, it was probably not big enough to stuff a body through.
The sound of approaching sirens drifted through the opening.
Jason cast one last look around the bathroom, but there was nothing of note. Sink, toilet, and tub looked clean. De Haan had used baby shampoo, complimentary soap, and baking-soda toothpaste. The towels, including the ones crumpled on the floor, were bone dry, as was the used washcloth hanging over the shower-curtain bar.
Jason stepped out of the bathroom and froze. A black silhouette filled the door to the motel room. Even with sunlight shining in his eyes, Jason could make out the glint of metal buttons on a uniform and off the barrel of the weapon pointed at him.
The cop didn’t speak, and something in that stark silence raised the hair on the back of Jason’s neck. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man in the doorway was weighing whether to shoot him. He also knew without a shadow of a doubt who that man was.
“Seriously?” he said, and his voice shook. He was so furious, he almost forgot to be afraid. “You’re pulling your gun on brother law enforcement? If you’re aiming at me, you better pull the trigger, asshole.”
“I saw his badge,” the kid from the front desk said faintly from the landing.
After another second that lasted a year, the cop holstered his weapon.
“You’re no brother of mine, jackass,” Police Chief Sandford said. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“You know goddamned well what I was doing in here,” Jason snapped. He was still buzzing with adrenaline and mad as hell.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” Sandford said. “You don’t have any business here. You know goddamned well you should have waited for us before you entered. So, if you don’t want to be arrested for unlawful entry, interfering with a police investigation, tampering with evidence, and anything and everything else I can think of hitting you with, get the hell off my crime scene.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You really believe Sandford would have shot you if the desk clerk hadn’t been watching?” Sam’s tone was neutral, his gaze watchful.
“He was considering it. That I do believe.” Jason swallowed his Kamikaze and set the shot glass on the table. Though he’d had several hours to process his close call, he still felt rattled.
They were eating dinner at the Club Tavern and Grill. Jason had figured Sam would like the dark, retro steakhouse vibe of the place, and he was right. As for himself, he didn’t care where they went. He was too wound up to eat. As days went? First, there had been the news of the wrongful-death lawsuit, then word about Kyser, then his compl
ainant had been murdered, and then he’d nearly been shot by a goddamned cop. Not a great day. Not his usual workday Wednesday.
Even having spent the last few hours finding out everything he could about Police Chief Sandford, Jason couldn’t understand why things had nearly gone down the way they had that afternoon at the Big Sky Motor Lodge. Especially since there really didn’t seem to be anything sinister in Sandford’s personal or work history. Married twice—still married to the second wife—four kids, two in college, one mortgage, and the normal amount of debt for a guy in his position.
“That kid had to have told him I said I was an FBI agent.”
“It seems probable.”
“Which means he held that weapon on me knowing that in all likelihood I was another law-enforcement officer.” It still made Jason’s heart pound with anger and indignation remembering those horrifying seconds while Sandford had weighed whether to pull the trigger.
Sam said nothing.
“I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a little touchy when guns are pointed in my direction,” Jason said. “But something was going on there.”
“You’ve got good instincts.” Sam said it almost dismissively. “If you believe that was the situation, then I think you’re likely right. What I don’t understand is why.”
“You mean what would be the motive for shooting me?”
“That, yes.”
Was there another angle to this that Jason didn’t see? Knowing the way Sam’s brain worked, probably.
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to work that out all afternoon. I mean, he wasn’t charmed the first time we met, but I don’t think I gave him grounds to kill me.”
Sam made a sound more pained than amused.
“He’s been police chief for nearly ten years. His Yelp reviews aren’t great, but no one has actually sued him.”
“His…Yelp…reviews?”
“Yeah.” Jason grinned. “Even FBI Field Offices get Yelp reviews. You probably have Yelp reviews.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope. Anyway, there seems to be some connection between Sandford and the Thompsons. After the shootout at Big Sky Guest Ranch—and I can’t tell you how ridiculous I feel saying that aloud—Bert Thompson phoned Sandford, and despite the fact that the incident took place in another county, Sandford drove out there and tried to take control of the investigation.”