Jon's Spooky Corpse Conundrum

by A J Sherwood

  “Might as well go meet them while we wait on everyone else to catch up.” I hopped out of the Humvee and closed the door with a slam before coming around the hood to walk alongside him.

  I was curious—as outlandish as this situation was, Jon’s cases tended to be weird. It was actually within the realm of possibility something like this had happened before. “This has to be a first for you, right?”

  He snorted, glancing up at me with a half-smile. “Corpses don’t tend to go missing, babe. Fortunately. Well, I should say they don’t tend to go missing after the medical examiner gets…” He came to an abrupt stop on the grass, his eyes zeroed in on something ahead of him.

  I looked where he did, toward the porch and the three men sitting there. One of them slowly rose, and it took only a blink for me to put the pieces together. It was impossible to not see the resemblance. The same thick blond hair, the same lean build, and those eyes—those penetrating, clear blue eyes that seemed to see everything. The man was older, late fifties, but he had to be related to Jon somehow. And judging by how much it startled my lover? It could only be one man.

  “Dad,” Jon breathed in astonishment.

  Oh shit.

  I honestly wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing. This man had walked out on his family when Jon was seven years old, and to hear the others tell it, he didn’t try to contact them once after he left. I didn’t have a high opinion of men like that. I expected to see Jon rip him a new one, walk away, and demand someone else at Psy take the case. One look at his expression, so openly conflicted, told me he wouldn’t do that.

  Caleb Bane looked terrified, frankly. But he couldn’t take his eyes from his son as he came down off the porch and crossed over to us, stopping two feet away. He barely even registered me, his entire focus on Jon. They were of the same height, Jon perhaps an inch shorter, and other than the touch of grey at Caleb’s temples, it was like a mirror image. Not just physically, either. They both looked shaken.

  For the first time since I’d met him, my Jon did something completely against his nature. He didn’t look. He turned his face slightly away, eyes deliberately on a random patch of nothingness, and didn’t look.

  I’d known he harbored a lot of anger and distrust because of his father’s abandonment. I hadn’t known how deep that well ran until this moment, when Jon refused to even face the man. Shit.

  Caleb looked steadily at his son, a gamut of emotion running across his face. Hope, despair, regret, determination. He wasn’t looking away; he didn’t look embarrassed or caught out; he wasn’t trying to sidestep the awkwardness. I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

  Two other men stood on the porch, watching this play out. One trim and older, perhaps late fifties, with a badge clipped onto his belt that peeked out from underneath a leather jacket. He looked very, very concerned as he watched Caleb Bane.

  The other man walked over to us, thick with age and a bit of a beer belly hanging over his belt. He had the air of the man in charge, and his deep-set eyes kept flicking between Jon and Caleb in curiosity. But also with some understanding, which made me think he knew at least a little of what was going on.

  “I’m Randy Cain, captain of the Sevierville Police Department.”

  I really wanted to take a minute and haul Jon off to the side, talk him through this. Chaffing under the obligation of being professional, I offered a hand. “Donovan Havili. This is my psychic, Jonathan Bane. We’re a little ahead of the rest of our coworkers.”

  “So I see.” Cain definitely picked up on the surname and seemed quite curious as he glanced back and forth between the staring men. “Mr. Bane, pleasure.”

  Jon turned enough to shake the man’s hand, a false smile pinned to his face that looked so wrong it hurt just seeing it. “Captain.”

  “You, ah, know our medical examiner, Dr. Bane?”

  Jon’s tone was clipped and hard. “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Cain cleared his throat uneasily, but fortunately didn’t press the matter. He gestured toward the man still waiting on the porch. “That’s Neil Singleton, the detective on this case. He’s one of the people I need cleared. Jonathan—can I call you that? Thanks—I called you in because I first need my people cleared to work the scene. If someone here’s guilty of taking off with a corpse, I need to know about it. Then I need you to find that body.”

  “I can do the first, but not the second,” Jon warned him. “My colleague, Carol, she’s the finder. She’s on her way. I just got here first. I’ll start interviewing everyone on scene and clear them for you. It won’t take me long. I need someone to have a video camera set up and for you, sir, to play official witness during the interviews. An hour, max, and we can clear people to go back to work.”

  “Sounds good. Let’s move, then.”

  We moved. I dearly wished to pull Jon aside and talk to him about this. I didn’t know what he needed me to do in this circumstance. But he seemed intent on remaining professional, and aside from putting me between himself and his father, gave me little in the way of nonverbal cues. Caleb Bane looked pained at this, his mouth opening several times, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

  Since neither man could bring themselves to talk, I voted to solve the corpse problem first, deal with family drama later. And I’d stick with that plan until Jon told me otherwise.

  In an effort to keep things going smoothly (at least on the surface), I kept pace with Cain as we headed inside the house. “All we got word of was that a corpse had disappeared on scene and we needed to come question people to find the culprit. What actually happened?”

  “It’s strange altogether. You know the history of this place, Mr. Havili?”

  “Can’t say I do, sir.” Not sure I wanted to, either. Did I really want the knowledge of how haunted this place was in my head?

  “Wheatlands Plantation is an old place. It was established in the late 1700s and is the site of a Revolutionary battle, Battle of Boyd’s Creek. The house itself was occupied during the Civil War as a temporary base and winter camp. Lots of people died here, and there’s a graveyard of some seventy or so souls on property. They used to do ghost tours through here up until 2017, and then it was sold off beginning of this year. Sold for a song,” Cain said over his shoulder as we stepped through the front door. “No one in this area had the gonads to buy a haunted house. Or maybe they just had better common sense. Anyway, the deceased was the buyer of the property. His daughter found him dead in his bed this morning.”

  I winced. That sounded far from pleasant.

  The plantation house was a three-story affair with a two-story wing coming off the back, all of it in a rustic-colored brick. The house was in nice shape, the red roof relatively new, the white shutters on the windows freshly painted. Stepping inside, it was much dimmer, the quarters tight, as they typically were in old houses. The foyer was mostly eaten up by a staircase, the dark wood of the floors and stairs making the place feel even smaller.

  The rest of the house looked like something out of a period movie—elaborate white trim, fireplaces in every room, stained-glass borders in the windows, beams along the ceilings that had been painted white at some point. The house seemed quite in decent shape, if dusty and not fully furnished. It gave the impression of being half-moved in, and there were tools sitting near the baseboards, as if repair work was underway.

  “Dining room?” Jon suggested to the captain.

  “Sounds as good as any place. I don’t have a camera you can use to record video with, though.”

  “No, that’s fine, my colleagues will have one. They’re due any minute.” As we gathered in the dining room, Jon stood there for a moment, hand lightly resting on the table’s surface. To my surprise, he positively beamed. “I love this house.”

  “There’s basically nothing electronic in here; of course you love this house,” I retorted. The men moved past us, toward the far end of the room, and I ducked in close to whisper against Jon’s ear, “Babe?” />
  “I can’t,” he whispered back, pained. That bright smile slipped off his face. His eyes fixed carefully on me, not looking anywhere else. “I’m here to work. I can’t…I don’t even want to look at him as it is.”

  Yikes, okay. I really wanted to just wrap him up and haul him away, give him the chance to sit and breathe and process this. But the situation wouldn’t allow it. We had a corpse to find. People to clear so they could work the case. Every minute counted in situations like this, and we’d already lost at least five hours just getting on site. I knew it. He knew it.

  Jonathan Bane had a spine of steel. I saw it once again as he pulled his head up and forced his own emotions down, despite the shock that had to be coursing through his system. His hands clenched briefly into fists at his side as he fought his way to an equilibrium. Tilting his head, he gave me a reassuring nod.

  “I’ve got this.”

  I smiled down at him. “Even if you don’t, I’ve got you.”

  2

  Jon reentered the house with Carol at his heels as he filled in our colleagues. We only had Sho, Carol, and Jim with us. It was odd to not see Garrett—he normally found a way to work with Sho—but Jim tried to limit how many people he had working weekends. Sho had the camera bag in one hand, the tripod stand in the other, and I helped him set things up so he could focus on getting the protective phone cases passed out to people.

  I could hear Cain making introductions as we worked, everyone saying hi and shaking hands. I caught more than a few double-takes from our colleagues when they were introduced to Dr. Bane. But I caught their attention and shook my head no in a miniscule movement, asking them to let it lie. We’d no doubt get questions later, but they all silently assured me they’d leave it be for now.

  Along with the introductions came the usual warnings about letting Jon anywhere near electronics of any sort. Sho kept it brief and to the point. Hopefully no one goofed later.

  “Captain, how do you want to do this?” Jim asked, after everyone found dining room chairs to sit in. “Honestly, it won’t take Jon more than two minutes to interview each of your people. A single question will do it. But if you want, we can take a full interview of their whereabouts and get a timeline of where everyone was when the victim went missing.”

  “Keep the stories straight, get a timeline to work from,” Cain said approvingly. He slid off his jacket in concession to the warmer interior of the house and smoothed back his thinning grey hair, which had been ruffled by the cool fall breeze. “I like the way you think, Jim. Let’s do that. Jonathan, do you mind?”

  “Not at all, sir.” Jon pointed to the head of the table invitingly. “Were you on scene when it happened?”

  “I wasn’t,” Cain denied. “It was Neil, Caleb, and Victoria on scene. Victoria escorted our witness to the hospital—she’d fainted—but Victoria’s on her way back now.”

  Nodding in understanding, Jon turned toward his father. “Then let me start with…” He faltered, not sure how to address the man. Clearing his throat, he started over. “Let’s start with your medical examiner.”

  Amiable to this, Caleb moved to the opposite side of the table, well within the camera’s lens. He still wore the white protective coveralls, although he’d shed his gloves at some point. In this indoor lighting, he looked pale. It was a tossup who looked more tense and awkward. Caleb stared intently at his son, soaking in every detail. Jon tried very hard to stay professional, but the little tells indicated how uncomfortable he was. He sat at the very edge of his chair, fists clenched in his lap, and he stared just past Caleb’s right shoulder instead of directly at the man.

  “Alright, Jon.” Sho gave the go-ahead.

  Jon rattled off his license number. Caleb stated his full name and occupation, as well as the date and time. I stayed well out of the way, at Sho’s shoulder as he manned the camera. Everyone else in the room stayed quiet so as not to interfere with the camera’s mic.

  Normally, when Jon did a reading, his eyes constantly roved over a person. It was like reading a book for him—his eyes would move from one line to the next, never staying stationary. But after an initial look at Caleb’s lines—something there making Jon’s expression twist before he smoothed it back out—that’s exactly what Jon did. He fixated on one spot and didn’t look anywhere else.

  That…was really not good. He was literally refusing to read his father. Either he saw something he didn’t like, or he was still too mad and hurt to force himself to look. Damn, I wished I could pull him out of here.

  “Dr. Bane, walk me through the events of this morning.”

  “I was called to the scene of a homicide at roughly 8:00 a.m.,” Caleb started, voice calm and unhurried. His fists were also clenched in his lap, I noted, the strain channeled there. “I loaded my equipment into the ERV and drove here. Detective Singleton met me at the door and escorted me up to the second story. The victim’s daughter was in the next room, crying, and Officer Ware was with her, trying to calm her down. I took several photographs of the victim’s position on the bed before pulling the covers off of him. The victim had been cut in two places—at least on the front. I didn’t have a chance to examine the back. There was curiously not much blood—barely any, in fact. No spray, even though one of the wounds was along an artery. I took more pictures, as well as a sample of blood and a sample from the water glass at his bedside table. The victim was a large man, more than I could manhandle into a body bag myself, so I went back downstairs to ask Detective Singleton if he could help me. He agreed, and when we returned, the corpse was gone.”

  “How long did that take you? To fetch Detective Singleton?”

  Caleb thought about it for a second. “A minute? Maybe two? He was outside. I had to step out on the porch to call to him.”

  “And no one else was upstairs at that point except the two women?”

  “Correct. Well, no one that I know of. Clearly someone was, as they made off with the corpse—”

  A loud clang sounded behind me, causing us all to jump. It had a distinctly metal ring to it, and my first thought was that some piece of equipment had fallen. My ears tracked the source of the sound and I turned sharply, only to find it was something else entirely. The brush of a fireplace poker set had fallen, clattering to the wooden floor. We all stared at it, then at each other, confused.

  “Why did that fall?” Carol moved toward it, levering it up. “No one was near it.”

  “Legend goes that one of the family was killed by a poker,” Cain mentioned off-handedly. He stared downwards without more than a flicker of curiosity on his round face.

  I was distinctly unnerved by that information and wished, for my sanity, he hadn’t said that. “Here?”

  “No, parlor, I think.” Cain scratched his head absently. “I used to give the tour myself back when I was a teenager. Summer job, you know. Funny how things slip over the years. I used to have all this memorized. Don’t worry about the interruption. Go on, Mr. Bane.”

  I discreetly thumped a hand over my heart, trying to get my nerves to settle. I really hated this house. It was doomed to give me heart failure. I was equally glad Garrett was nowhere near us. He’d get so much mileage out of this, it wasn’t even funny.

  Jon seemed to find the interruption inconsequential. He picked the interview back up smoothly enough. “Dr. Bane, as far as you’re aware, is that the only staircase leading upstairs?”

  “Well, no, there’s a second one that used to lead to the servants’ quarters. It leads down into the kitchen now. But it’s beyond narrow and rickety. I honestly don’t know how you’d get a body down there, especially one weighing over three hundred pounds. I wasn’t sure how I’d get him down the main staircase, to be honest with you.”

  “I realize this question might be redundant, but please answer. Did you take the corpse?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No idea.”

  Jon nodded, satisfied. “Thank you. For the record, this wi
tness spoke complete truth throughout his testimony.”

  Sho hit stop on the camera and gave them a thumbs up. “You’re done, Dr. Bane. Next!”

  “It’s like an audition call,” Carol muttered under her breath.

  I snorted a laugh, glancing down at the woman standing next to me. “It kinda is.” Raising my voice a notch, I imitated a TV commercial. “Even you can be a corpse-thief. Just visit your local haunted mansion to audition!”

  She snorted a laugh and smacked me lightly on the arm. “Stop. That’s so wrong. But seriously, how did anyone move a body that heavy in two minutes, down narrow stairs, past three cops?”

  “It’s like one of those locked-room mysteries,” I agreed thoughtfully. I could move that much weight by myself, but it would sound like bragging to say so.

  Eyeing me from head to toe, Carol ventured, “I bet you could move something that heavy.”

  Fortunately, I had a Carol to say things like that for me. “Yeah, probably.”

  Of course Jon heard this and pitched in from the table, “He’s carried me down stairs before. Twice. I’m 150 pounds, so…two of me is within the realm of possibility. Gentlemen, no offense, but I don’t think anyone else here could do that.”

  “None taken,” Neil responded dryly, dropping into the chair his colleague had just vacated. He’d taken off his leather jacket at some point, revealing a shoulder holster with a Glock still in place. A lean and fit man, he carried himself confidently, even when being questioned. He settled into the chair like he owned the place. “Not many people can. Which means we’re likely looking at two people.”

  “Possibly three, depending on how strong they are. Dead weight’s harder to shift.” Cain did not look particularly pleased with this possibility. Then again, it didn’t reflect well on his department that they had lost a body.

  “Okay, Detective, your turn.” Jon rolled his head from side to side before giving Sho a nod to start recording. Caleb stood off to the side, unabashedly staring at his son with hungry eyes. Jon resolutely ignored him. The detective, interestingly enough, flicked a glance at Caleb in warning, waving his hand down near his thigh in a chill, man sort of gesture. These two men were at the very least close friends.