Jon's Spooky Corpse Conundrum

by A J Sherwood

  I had mixed emotions about this. I wouldn’t mind seeing the case through. But I also didn’t really want to talk to my father. Did I want to be stuck here for several more days?

  I didn’t just sit there twiddling my thumbs. When the last officer, Victoria, came back to the house, she was elated we’d found the corpse in her absence. As expected, she’d had nothing to do with its initial disappearance. She was a delicate thing, on the petite side, so there was no real question of her being able to move a corpse on her own anyway. I interviewed her for the sake of being thorough and little else.

  As I worked, I avoided my father as much as possible. Frankly, I harbored a lot of anger about being abandoned. I’d loved my father as a child—downright adored him. He’d been a great parent, up until the divorce. He used to take me fishing and camping all the time. We’d sit for hours with a tub of Legos and build things before staging battles to knock our constructed forts down again. It was why it had hurt so much when he abruptly disappeared. I’d been loved one minute, abandoned the next. Worse, I’d been stuck with Rodger as a poor substitute.

  Had something gone wrong? Was there some part of the story I was missing? His lines made me think so. The emotions coming off him promised a different ending than the one I’d been handed. It scared me. I’d let go of all hope to have this man in my life again. To be handed that chance once more….

  The last of the trace evidence he’d found was neatly put away into the ERV. Locking it up, Caleb hesitated and looked straight at me. I ducked around Donovan to avoid looking at him. I really wanted nothing more than to get out of here.

  Doing that put me face-to-face with Sho, and his lines practically shouted unease. I stopped dead and thankfully focused on something other than the mess of emotions in my own head. “Sho? What’s up?”

  He responded, but mostly he looked to Donovan as he did so, his dark eyes flicking between the two of us. “When you guys were out, chasing down the body, did you see someone in the woods?”

  “I thought I saw a shadowy figure in the woods, yeah. Wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, it was there and gone so quickly.” Donovan’s stance shifted, and it was one I recognized, that protective flare as his instincts kicked in. “Why? Did you see something, Sho?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I thought I did. Someone ran past the side of the house. I caught a glimpse through the window. I tried to follow it, but by the time I got outside, he was gone. You don’t think it was the murderer, do you?”

  Doubt flowed clear and heavy in his lines, which made me curious. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well…for just a split second I thought it was someone I knew. But I don’t know anyone in Sevierville, so it could have just been me seeing things. I really only got a split-second glimpse.”

  “Either way, we need to report this and be on the lookout for this guy.” Donovan also looked distinctly uneasy, and it tied into a fear I barely knew he had. Not that I could read what it was, precisely.

  This was getting curiouser and curiouser. Why did I get the feeling both of them weren’t telling me something?

  “Sho, did you report this to Cain?”

  “I did, yeah.”

  “There’s not much more we can do at this point, unfortunately. Let’s load up and go to the hotel.”

  I’d never been so happy to leave a crime scene and hopped on that suggestion with alacrity. I saw my father hovering next to the ERV, and he might have tried to call out to me, but I kept my face away from him. If he tried to speak, I didn’t see it.

  4

  I let Donovan drive to the hotel that evening. I was too distracted by the thoughts in my own head to pay much attention to the road. He did so quietly, not asking any questions, letting me think. My Donovan was good at that, letting me take things at my own pace. I always wondered if it was a natural ability or a developed skill he’d picked up.

  Right now, I felt lost in my own head. My emotions were so tangled together I really couldn’t figure out how to sort them out, or even prioritize them. Was I glad I’d seen my father again? Angry? Hurt at his abandonment?

  All of that, and more.

  Mostly I was confused on how to react to what I had seen. He’d felt guilty, yes, but happy to see me. Eager, even. And that brief glimpse I’d had of his emotions so thoroughly contrasted with the man I thought I knew, I felt stumped.

  Some instinct pried my mouth open to ask, “Donovan? What was your take on him?”

  He glanced at me, brows lifting in surprise. “On your father?”

  “Yeah. You’re good at reading people. Tell me your impressions.”

  If he thought my request strange, he didn’t let on. Donovan understood that because of my eyes, I didn’t see people the same way the rest of humanity did. He often caught things I missed because my eyes were on the meridian lines, and his were on body language.

  “He struck me as a man very, very happy to see his son. Lost on how to reach out to you, definitely wishing he could turn back time, but happy to see you. Hurt you wouldn’t talk to him, but understanding, too. Like he didn’t expect you to want to talk to him.”

  Shit. I didn’t doubt Donovan. All I saw when I looked at my father was guilt, because frankly, that’s all I really wanted to see. I was failing to use my talent fully. And wasn’t that a laugh?

  He slowed the Humvee to make a turn, and though he didn’t touch me, his voice reached out to me like a caress. “Babe, I know you’re really torn up about this. I can’t empathize. I just know what I’m seeing, and I know you. That man’s dying to reconnect with you, at least speak to you, but he’s also aware you’re too hurt and angry to talk to him just yet.”

  I leaned across the divide and put my forehead against his shoulder. He lifted his free hand to ruffle my hair, his palm warm and comforting over the back my head. “You think I should talk to him.”

  “Haven’t you always wondered why he left?”

  As impossible as it was, I tried to burrow into him further. “I know why he fucking left.”

  “Do you? You told me he couldn’t meet your eyes, that he was afraid of your ability and what you were seeing. But the entire time we were there, he never shied from you. He never tried to hide. He put himself in your path several times.”

  Was Donovan right? I’d been so busy trying to face any other direction, to not look, that I couldn’t be sure if he was or not. I trusted his observational skills, though. And if he was right, then that raised a whole new crop of questions.

  “Babe, I don’t know what went down back then. You don’t either. You’ve got your mother’s and sister’s takes on it, and Rodger’s, and none of them are exactly impartial witnesses. Don’t you want to see, with your own eyes, and get the truth from him? Even if you can’t forgive him for it, at least you’ll know. It might give you closure.”

  That did sound good. I was very tired of this painful scar on my heart. If I could heal it, or at least dull the pain to something I could ignore, that’d be blissful. Doing that required talking to him, though, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that.

  “I do think, if nothing else, you need to tell your sister you’ve seen him,” Donovan added.

  Picture a little hamster in my mind. It runs on a wheel. The wheel just stalled, and there’s a jam somewhere, and it won’t turn, and the hamster doesn’t know what to do.

  Just. What? “Natalie?”

  “Why are you using her name like you don’t know who I’m talking about? Yes, Natalie. Doesn’t she deserve to know you’ve seen him?”

  Well, yes, but, “She’ll ask me questions I have no answers for.”

  “That sounds like a Jon problem.”

  I smacked him with that flat of my palm.

  “Ow! Babe, I’m driving!”

  “You’re supposed to be loving and supportive,” I groused at him.

  “That does mean occasionally pushing you to do things for your own good, you know. And if you don’t call her tonight, I’ll text her.”

&
nbsp; I made a mental note to do something mean to him later. He was a deep sleeper, so the possibilities of ambushing him in the dead of night were good.

  Telling Natalie about today did not appeal to me one iota. I forced my mind close to that thought a few times, only to have it scream and shy away at the last minute like a nervous dog meeting a bath. Did Donovan have a good point? Of course he did. And if Natalie heard about it from someone else first, my life would be forfeit. She’d murder me herself.

  Utterly resigned, I sighed noisily. “At least feed me first.”

  “I wouldn’t stress you out that badly on low blood sugar. Give me some credit.”

  Good to his word, he did feed me. Donovan checked us into the hotel and threw our bags into the room. I stayed in the Humvee. Frankly, it was easier for him to navigate all those electronics without me there. Then he came back, we picked a good-looking restaurant from a Yelp review, and went back out.

  Dinner didn’t take nearly as long as it should have. We were back to the hotel within an hour. I curled up on the king-sized bed and looked around me, more carefully than I normally would have, trying to find an excuse to avoid this phone call. I was nervous about telling Natalie, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. The feeling hovered like a red-hot spiked ball in my chest, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have labeled it bad acid reflux.

  Unfortunately, the hotel room was utterly bland and unremarkable. White bedding, white curtains, that dark blue carpet hotels seemed to favor, and a single bland landscape on the wall. I sighed and gave Donovan a nod, like a prisoner to his executioner. I was ready for the axe.

  He seemed mildly entertained by my theatrics—the rat—although he didn’t comment. Pulling free his cell, he pulled up her number and got it ringing before setting it on speaker and placing it on a pillow in front of me. I stayed seated on the bed and carefully didn’t shift, so as not to upset the balance of the phone.

  Donovan headed for the bathroom, and presumably a shower, as the phone call connected.

  “Hi, Donovan,” my sister greeted cheerfully. I gave the cheer another three seconds before it disappeared like melting polar icecaps.

  “It’s, uh, actually me calling.”

  “Oh, hello my other brother.”

  “Other brother? Nice, sis. I feel loved.”

  “As you should,” she teased.

  Clearly Natalie was in fine form tonight. Shame I was about to spoil that. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to say it all in one breath. “Nat. I’ve got some news to share. Not sure if it’s good or bad. Isawourfathertoday.”

  Dead silence.

  The phone made weird noises, as if being jostled on the other end, and then I heard Aaron’s voice. “Donovan? What did you just say?”

  “Aaron, it’s Jon. Is Nat okay?”

  “It looks like someone just flipped a switch in her. She’s frozen solid and making croaking noises. I’ve literally never seen this reaction from her. What did you say?”

  “I saw our father today,” I repeated, wincing. Hopefully she hadn’t been doing anything semi-dangerous. I should have checked that first.

  Aaron let out a low whistle. “Yeah, that would do it. How, um, was he?”

  “I...really don’t know how to answer that question. He’s a medical examiner at the Sevierville PD. I’m out here for a case and ran into him while working. He’s…” I stopped, unsure of what else to say.

  Natalie found her voice again and demanded, “What? He’s what? Did you talk to him?”

  “Barely. All work related. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else to him. Or really look at him.”

  She digested this with another long pause that played havoc with my nerves. “You didn’t look at him.”

  I put both hands over my face and rubbed at the bridge of my nose, my head tight with building pressure. I’d get a stress headache at this rate.

  When Natalie spoke again, it was with a wealth of compassion, but also with the big sister tone she’d used against me most of my life. “Jon. I understand fully why you’d hesitate to face him. I get it, I do. But I need answers. We both need answers. And you’re the one next to him. I need you to look. I need you to talk to him.”

  After all she had done for me, I couldn’t deny her this request. Natalie so rarely asked anything of me, but she’d moved her entire world around for me when I was younger. She still did occasionally, when I needed the help. And she was right, we both needed answers. It required me doing something I really wanted to duck and avoid, but that was part of being an adult. Unfortunately.

  “Okay. Tomorrow, I’ll find a way to talk to him. I can’t promise I’ll ask everything you’ll want to know, though.”

  “That’s fine, I don’t expect you to. I’ll come to him and demand my own answers, if it comes to that. I just need you to look at him, properly look at him, and tell me if you see any remorse about how he left. I still remember a loving, supportive father. If there’s any part of that man left, I want to know.”

  She’d had more time with our father than I had. It was what made the betrayal worse for her. Of course she’d need answers, more than I did in a way. I didn’t remember Caleb Bane all that well, just the memory of his absence. “Alright.”

  “If this is too much, or if you want to pass it on to me, tell me. Get his number and I’ll call him,” she tacked on, tone filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry to put this on your shoulders. But I think you need to do this for yourself too.”

  “You and Donovan are both saying the same thing.” I breathed out in a steady stream of air, trying to relieve the stress. “Okay. I’ll try, at least.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  5

  Jim texted to say Captain Cain wanted us to do one more interview before we headed back to Nashville. None of us had packed more than a change of clothes, so we needed to head back regardless, at least temporarily. I hadn’t slept well the night before—hotel beds were always too hard for me—so it was a relief to get up the next morning. I’d been too worried about Jon to really rest properly, even if the beds hadn’t been torture racks in a previous incarnation. Jon and I were both foggy as we took showers, shaved, got dressed, and repacked.

  It took some shuffling around, but we eventually made it to the parking lot. Jim and Carol had already packed up and gone, but Sho was loading his equipment into the back of the Humvee, re-arranging things to make it all fit neatly.

  Jon went to him, keeping a careful three-foot distance from the case, and asked, “You don’t mind the quick stop at the hospital? The interview with the victim’s daughter shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.”

  “Sure,” he agreed readily. “I can ride with you back to Nashville afterwards, assuming you’re willing to stop by the office so I can get my car.” Leaning in, he asked, “How is it? Seeing your dad again after so long?”

  “Bit of an emotional rollercoaster,” Jon admitted frankly. “I haven’t talked to him properly, but I need to.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  Since parking lots were apparently the place to have a heart-to-heart, Jon pinned him with a look. “You’ve seen Roy’s car following you recently, haven’t you.”

  Sho stared back at him unhappily, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “I took a picture and reported it each time.”

  That made me feel better. “Good. And?”

  “Cops have tried the address they have on file for him each time, and the last reported work place, but he’s not at either anymore.” Sho rubbed at his forehead, grimacing. “He’s elusive, and because he hasn’t done anything, they’ve put him at low priority. If they catch him, fine. But him possibly stalking me isn’t enough to demand their attention. You know how busy the cops are these days. They’re always swamped with work.”

  I knew it. I had to wonder how many crimes went unsolved because the cops were overworked and exhausted. They just didn’t have the time or energy to track down clues and suspects the way it should be done. I didn�
��t blame them. They were human, after all. They needed rest like everyone else. But in circumstances like this, when my friend was the one in possible danger, it did rankle.

  “Dammit.”

  Something of a blush tinted Sho’s cheeks as his eyes dropped from ours. “Garrett’s been picking me up in the mornings and taking me home. Just in case. He said no point in giving the guy an opening to ambush me.”

  Sho’s fighting prowess lay in the realm of computers and technology. He was trained to use firearms—we all were—but still, I wasn’t sure if he had it in him to pull the trigger if he needed to. Knowing Garrett had already stepped in let me breathe easier. “Okay. Good. We can get Carol to trace his location—”

  He shook his head, cutting me off. “Don’t you think I’d already have requested it? But I need at least two people to track him down, and for her to do multiple readings, and you know how taxing that gets for her. She can’t comfortably do more than three a day, and we’ve been slammed recently.”

  Jon blew out a breath. “Yeah. That’s unfortunately true. Okay. We’ll just need to keep watch for him. We’ll find a moment to resolve this later, after this case is solved. And the next time you see that car, you call us. Donovan will help Garrett haul him out into the open and we’ll march him into the station ourselves.”

  Sho nodded, face bright with anticipation. “I will. Thanks.”

  Detective Singleton pulled up in his red pickup truck, parking right beside us. He got out and gave us a wave in greeting. “Morning. Ready to go?”

  “Sure.” Jon pulled out keys and headed for the driver’s side.

  Singleton climbed into the front with Jon to play navigator. None of us knew where the hospital was, and while I could GPS that, it was easier for Singleton to lead the way. He took a good look around the vehicle as he strapped in. I could tell from his expression his inner child was a little jealous. Jon got that reaction a lot from men. Some part of them wanted that hulking vehicle to play with.

  “Where to?” Jon asked, as Sho and I loaded up in the back.