Die Like an Eagle

by Donna Andrews

  “Someone swapped the porta-potties,” I muttered. “And I bet that someone is Biff.” I knew from Caroline’s tracking devices that after leaving our house Thursday night he’d made a brief visit to the ball field and then gone back to his scrapyard and, supposedly, stayed there all night—which made sense if he was currently living in a room there. Vern and Aida had seen way too much of him between ten and two for him to have been over at the ball field killing someone.

  But what if the murder hadn’t happened at the field—but at the scrapyard? What if Biff had run into Shep there and had an argument. Perhaps he’d caught Shep in the act of copying incriminating documents like the ones Gina had delivered to the chief.

  “What if he killed Shep, stuffed him in the porta-potty, and called nine-one-one to give himself an alibi.” I said it aloud to see if it sounded completely ridiculous. It didn’t. It sounded like the kind of brazen thing Biff would try to get away with. He’d have to hide the blood somehow—according to Dad there would be a lot of it. But given how huge and cluttered the scrapyard was, there were plenty of things he could put over it, and Aida and Vern would be looking for a live intruder, not a crime scene. Always a risk that they’d find the body while looking for the supposed intruder, but he’d be sticking to them like glue, making sure of his alibi, so in the unlikely event one of them was about to check inside the fateful porta-potty, he could find a way to warn them off or distract them.

  And at some point he’d come up with the idea of swapping the porta-potties. A crazy idea, because if anyone spotted him rattling along the back roads of the county at three or four in the morning in a truck with a porta-potty on the back, the odds were they’d remember it the next day when his own half brother’s body was found in a porta-potty. But he’d gambled, and it had worked. And the tracking device in his car had stayed put because he’d hauled the porta-potty in his truck—along with Shep’s Harley, no doubt, the one that had been found abandoned in the woods near the field. And he’d probably shed the jacket with the other tracking device in the pocket before tackling the strenuous job of loading and unloading the porta-potty singlehandedly.

  After all, it was a porta-potty. How had we all forgotten that?

  Maybe the chief hadn’t. Maybe he’d already figured all this out and was playing it close to the vest. Maybe that was the reason he was so convinced that Biff was involved in the murder. But just in case …

  I dialed the chief’s number. And got his voice mail. I wasn’t keen on trying to explain this whole thing to the official police answering service. I always imagined that it was waiting impatiently for me to leave a succinct, businesslike message. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s Meg. I just stumbled over something that might be an important clue to the murder. Give me a call, no matter how late.” And I rattled off my cell phone number just in case he was collecting his messages on a phone that didn’t already have a few dozen messages from me in its call history.

  I sat there for a few moments, hoping he’d call right back. And then told myself it was stupid.

  “A watched kettle never boils,” I remarked to nobody in particular. “And a watched porta-potty…” Invention failed me. “Anyway, I will wait for the chief’s call at home. I have already spent enough of my evening staring at a glorified outhouse.”

  I started the car and backed out of my parking spot in front of the porta-potty. But as I was turning around to head for the road, my headlights revealed another vehicle that I hadn’t seen when I’d first driven in, because it was parked at the far end of the parking lot, near the three Shiffley Construction porta-potties. A big pickup. My headlights bleached the color out of things, so maybe it was only my imagination that it was a bright red pickup. A pickup, at any rate, and one with visible damage to the left front side.

  The driver’s door was open and there was something falling out of it. Something that looked like a body.

  My first instinct was to slam on the brakes, leap out of the car, and run over to see what was the matter. I suppressed the impulse. Instead, I clicked the button to make sure my doors were locked, got my cell phone out so I’d be able to call 911 if the situation warranted, and drove over toward the truck.

  Yes, it was Callie’s truck. As I got closer, I could see the the glitter-covered CALLIE logo on her door sparkling in the beam of my headlights. And I was pretty sure it was Callie hanging head-down out of the truck door, her long, slightly luminescent mane almost touching the ground.

  I dialed 911, and while it was ringing, I parked my car about ten feet from Callie’s truck, with the headlights aimed at her, and hopped out, phone in hand, to check on her.

  She was still warm and yes, she had a pulse. The reason she hadn’t fallen all the way to the ground was that her neck had caught in the V made by the lap and shoulder straps of her unfastened seat belt. I couldn’t spot any injuries. But she reeked of alcohol. And from the way the seat belt was cutting into her neck, I was concerned that it might be interfering with her breathing. Probably a good idea to untangle her and ease her to the ground before it strangled her, but I didn’t think I could do it with one hand still holding my cell phone. And speaking of the cell phone, what was taking Debbie Ann so long to answer? I lifted the cell phone and saw that it was still searching for a signal. Damned rainstorm! But then a couple of signal bars appeared. I looked back at Callie, knowing that at any second I would hear Debbie Ann’s voice apologizing for the wait and asking me what was wrong, and—

  Someone grabbed at my cell phone and, at the same time, hit me hard in the back. I didn’t fall down but I stumbled, lost my grip on the cell phone, and had to scramble to avoid whacking Callie’s dangling head.

  When I turned around to see who had attacked me, I found myself staring down the barrel of the gun Biff Brown was holding.

  Chapter 27

  “Sorry, but I can’t let you report seeing me,” Biff said.

  “I wasn’t going to report seeing you,” I said. “Because until you jumped me, I didn’t even know you were here. I was going to report finding Callie either dead or unconscious here in the parking lot. Why don’t you go away, and I’ll get back to doing that?”

  “And blame me for killing her? Then sorry, that won’t work, because she’s not dead. Just dead drunk. Get over there and drag her out of the truck.”

  He jerked his head in the direction of Callie, but kept his eyes—and the gun—on me.

  “Why?” I inched a little closer to Callie, still keeping my eyes on him.

  “Just do it,” he said.

  “I’m doing it.” I had reached Callie, and put my fingers on her wrist. Her pulse was steady. “But why am I doing it? If you want me to drag her out of the front seat, throw her in the back of the truck, and drive her to the hospital, just say the word.”

  “I want you to drag her out of the front seat so I can use her truck to make my getaway,” Biff said. “I’m pretty sure they’ve put out a lookout for my car, but her truck should be okay. Drag her out. If you’re so worried about her comfort, you can put her in your own backseat.”

  He circled warily closer to my car, reached around to push the button that would unlock the backseat, and opened the door. He also grabbed my keys from the ignition before backing away a safe distance from me. I carefully untangled Callie from the seat belt’s stranglehold and managed to hoist her over my shoulders in my best approximation of a fireman’s carry. As I was staggering over to my car with her I realized that the boys’ car seats were going to make putting her in my backseat a little difficult.

  “I don’t suppose you could move my car seats while you’re at it?” I asked. “If I have to put her down on the ground, I might not be able to lift her again.”

  “Then she can lie on the ground for a while,” Biff said. “Won’t be the first time. It’s a warm night—neither of you will freeze by morning.”

  I decided not to push it. Biff might be rude and self-centered as usual, but he also see
med calm and focused on his getaway. And that bit about not freezing by morning was reassuring. Either he was doing a masterful job of covering up his homicidal intentions or he genuinely didn’t have any. Not that I was going to drop my guard. I had always found “hope for the best, expect the worst” a very sensible motto.

  I draped Callie across the trunk. I reached in to unfasten the car seats and moved them to the front seat. Then I heaved Callie up again and deposited her in the backseat. I couldn’t exactly say I was gentle—the angle was awkward, and Callie was no lightweight. But I managed to avoid banging her head on anything hard.

  “You got any rope in your trunk?” Biff asked.

  “Rope?” I echoed.

  “Rope, or duct tape. Something to keep the two of you from siccing the cops on me two seconds after I drive off.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hostage taking wasn’t on my agenda today. We’re out in the middle of nowhere—why not just take my keys and leave us here?”

  “Because I happen to know you live out here in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “What is it—four, maybe five miles down the road?”

  Actually, more like two, and I wouldn’t even have to walk that far if he left me untied—not unless he found and confiscated both the spare car key I kept hidden in my purse and the one in the magnetic case sticking to the car’s frame. So if I could just convince him not to tie us up, I could get help—and sic the police on him—fairly quickly.

  Then again, maybe I should just concentrate on staying alive. If Biff took Callie’s truck, he’d be pretty easy to track once the chief put out a BOLO for a red Ford Lariat with visible front end damage and the name Callie painted in glitter on the driver’s side door. Maybe I should help him take off before it occurred to him that my blue Toyota was far less conspicuous.

  “Search Callie’s truck,” he ordered. “Maybe she has some rope.”

  “So why are you running?” I asked as I headed for the truck. “Are you still afraid they’ll suspect you of the murder?”

  “No, I’m alibied on that, you know.” Biff sounded smug. “I was there at my scrapyard from nine p.m. until two a.m. I’ve got two deputies who can swear to that.”

  Maybe it would have been wiser to keep my mouth shut, but that smug tone irked me.

  “Yeah, you were there at the scrapyard,” I said. “And so was the porta-potty you hid the body in. I’ll hand it to you, it was quick thinking. You stuffed the body in the porta-potty and then called nine-one-one.”

  He was shaking his head.

  “Quick thinking and nerve,” I went on. “And it also took nerve for you to haul the porta-potty with Shep’s body over to the field sometime between when Vern and Aida left and dawn. You almost pulled it off. But sooner or later Chief Burke will realize that it doesn’t really take three or four workmen to shove a porta-potty onto and off that truck with the little elevator in the back and he’ll come looking for you.”

  Biff had seemed to deflate as I was speaking.

  “Yeah, I moved the body,” Biff said. “You’re right about that. But I didn’t kill him. I can see by your face you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth. I’ve threatened to a time or two—only in the heat of an argument—and if I’d known he was planning to turn over a whole bunch of incriminating documents to the cops, maybe I’d have lost my temper and made good on those threats. But you have to believe me, I didn’t kill him.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He scowled, and I was fully expecting him to say “what the hell do you care?” But then his face changed, and he seemed to be making an effort to speak calmly and civilly.

  “I was in a rotten mood when I came home after finding your team having an illegal practice. Illegal by my rules,” he added, forestalling my protest. “See how you feel when you make some new rules and people break them. I got back to my scrapyard, and I was about to go to bed when I heard Shep and Callie going at it, hammer and tongs.”

  “Do you mean arguing, or was there a physical struggle?”

  “Just arguing as far as I could tell, but it always starts that way, and usually he whacks her or she whacks him, and then they start throwing stuff around, and I didn’t want them breaking stuff in my office. Or worse, sometimes after they’ve trashed a joint they get it out of their system and start making up, just as loud. I damn sure didn’t want to hear that going on outside when I was trying to get some sleep the night before Opening Day. So I went out and yelled at them to shut up and told Callie to beat it. And I thought she did. I told Shep to close up and go home, and as far as I knew he was doing that. And then a little while after I got in bed, I heard more yelling, and then a couple of shots. I thought Callie had come back and was firing off that damned peashooter of hers again, so I called nine-one-one to report a disturbance and went out to tell Shep and Callie that the cops were on the way. I found Shep lying just inside the back gate with his brains blown out, and Callie was nowhere to be seen.”

  “Why not just tell the cops that?” I asked.

  “Didn’t figure they’d believe me,” he said. “So I shoved Shep’s body into a porta-potty and then I scattered a whole bag full of infield drying agent over the blood, to hide it and soak it up. Got that done just before the Caerphilly County deputies arrived at the front gate. And except for the part about finding the body and hiding it, I told the cops exactly what happened—even though I knew it might get Callie in trouble. Although I figured she was less apt to get in trouble if they found the body someplace else. Somewhere she didn’t have much reason to go. Like the baseball field.”

  “And that mattered to you?” I asked. “Not getting Callie in trouble?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess. I wasn’t thinking real straight. Shep was no angel. She put up with a lot from him. Plus I kind of already figured she was doing me a favor, in a way. Shep had been hinting that he knew some stuff I might not want the cops to know, stuff he could keep under his hat if I made it worth his while.”

  “He was blackmailing you.”

  “No, I wouldn’t call it blackmail.” Biff shook his head firmly. “Not really. Just trying to get a leg up in that old sibling rivalry, you know?”

  He was smiling, but he wasn’t selling it very well. Sibling rivalry or blackmail—no matter what you called it, I had a hard time imagining Biff sitting still for it.

  “So Callie killed Shep and did you a favor by doing so,” I said. “And all you did was hide the body in a place that would make it less likely that either you or she would be suspected of the murder.”

  “You got it,” he said.

  “And that machete that almost decapitated Mrs. Patel. You rigged that, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” he protested. “But I figured the chief would be less likely to try to blame me if I could convince him I was the target. I’m always the one who unlocks the Snack Shack, so everyone would assume it was meant to kill me. I figured I could pretend to spot it before I walked in, and then the chief would have more proof that someone was after me. How was I supposed to know that damned midget would duck under my arm and try to get herself killed?”

  “So why are you telling me all this?” I asked. Always possible that he was in the throes of an irresistible urge to brag about what he’d done and figured telling me was harmless because he planned to kill me in a few minutes. In the mysteries Dad was so fond of reading, murderers seemed particularly fond of doing this, even though any sensible person would figure out that the longer you hang around bragging about your crimes, the greater the odds that your intended next victim will manage to escape and tattle on you to law enforcement. And while I wouldn’t exactly call Biff sensible—even sane might be a stretch—there was something curiously nonthreatening about his manner.

  “I want you to tell my kids,” he said.

  “Can’t you just tell them yourself?” I asked.

  “No.” He shook his head, and his expression was sad. “Won’t be around. The cops h
ave it in for me. They’ll probably think I helped Callie do it, or put her up to it, or maybe did it myself after she left. I could stay around and fight it, but what for? You’ve taken away my league. Randall’s going to take away my business. My wife’s poisoning my kids’ minds against me. What have I got to stick around for?”

  “So I should tell your kids you didn’t kill their uncle Shep?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” He looked a little sheepish, and his gun drooped slightly. “If you can, try not to tell them that their auntie Callie killed their uncle Shep.”

  “You jerk!”

  Biff and I both jumped and whirled around to see Callie staggering to her feet behind us. Her upswept hairdo had completely fallen down in glittering Medusa-like coils and she was standing lopsidedly because one of her six-inch spike heels had broken off, but she was upright, and lurching our way.

  Make that lurching Biff’s way. I started slowly edging farther away from him.

  “You lying sack of—how dare you accuse me of killing my own husband.” Even before she got within range, Callie had started flailing at him with the leopard-print purse.

  “Ex-husband.” Biff was pointing the gun at her now instead of me, but he was also holding up a hand as if to ward her off. “And I didn’t say I blamed you.”