Devil's Pasture

by Richard Bannister

  Drinking alone was not something she did ordinarily. It made her introspective, and the bar's emptiness worsened the feeling. But after Matt's abduction, she needed something to settle her nerves and calm her jitters.

  The two other patrons were a man in workman's overalls sitting three stools away, and a heavy-set man with a bald head and a stubble beard seated at a table behind her. The workman looked like a permanent fixture there, but the bald man looked vaguely familiar and didn't seem to fit the clientele, although Kayla sincerely hoped she didn't either. Still, it gave her time to try to process what had just happened. Who on earth had Matt gotten himself involved with? He'd pretty much confessed to blackmailing someone powerful, which could have been the reason for his abduction. They'd only pick him up if they wanted to interrogate him; find out what he knew. If they wanted him dead, he'd have been shot in a drive-by.

  It was inconceivable that Beth, a respected journalist, and Ashley, the mayor's assistant, could have got mixed up in something as sordid as blackmail. Beth had reported on extortion cases and knew they always ended badly. So why had they been killed? It was possible that the men who bundled Matt into a car weren't connected to Beth or Ashley's deaths.

  Kayla hadn't seen anyone follow her to the bar, but the prospect of retrieving the USB flash drive, and feeding his cat filled her with apprehension.

  Maybe the files on the drive would supply some answers, but what if someone saw her, and she became their next target? On the other hand, no one was in a better position than her to get the inside story. Kayla needed advice, but the two people to whom she would usually turn were dead. Her most recent one-night stand had turned into a three nighter, which was strictly tops for her. One of Justin's downsides was the strong statements he made in support of strict policing and stiff penalties. His advice would be to take what she knew to the cops, ending her inside track. Anyway, she thought, after three nights, Justin needed to go on hiatus for a while.

  Max, The Examiner's editor, would tell her to stay the course. He'd repeat his adage, 'reporters watching from the sidelines never wrote great stories.'

  Her friendship with Ananda had grown recently, fueled by her wit and most importantly, their shared values. On an impulse, she picked up her phone and dialed. When her friend answered, she stepped into an alcove for privacy, and told Ananda about the abduction. Kayla instantly regretted mentioning her ambivalence about going to the police.

  "Thugs are holding Matt and doing who knows what to him. You need to talk to the cops. Don't you think he deserves that much?" Ananda said.

  "A couple on the opposite side of the street saw what happened, and I noticed the guy take out his phone as the car sped off with Matt inside. I bet they got the plate number," Kayla insisted.

  "You have to tell the cops anything you know that might help them rescue him. I can't believe you wouldn't do that."

  "You're right. I'll call them right away," she fibbed, hoping Ananda would let it go. In truth, Kayla was still on the fence.

  "Scott Prentiss, my boyfriend, is a detective, and he's working on the murders. You should speak to him."

  "Has he told you anything?"

  "They think Beth was murdered because she had some dirt the killer wanted to keep hidden. The guy trashed their house searching for anything which might incriminate him and killed poor Ashley because she had seen him. Couldn't stop stabbing her. Now they have Beth's phone, the cops hope it will give them some new leads."

  "Where did they find it?"

  "The old guy next door said he was fixing it. The cops believe him, but it sounds a load of bull to me. Oh, and get this—they found a hidden camera in the ceiling before the place went up in flames."

  "Do the cops think it's connected to the murders, or some pervert watching them?" The thought of someone spying on her with a hidden camera sent shivers up Kayla's spine.

  "They are trying to trace where the video was going, but apparently the fire made it more difficult."

  "I'd better get going and dial 911," Kayla said. 'I'll make an anonymous call. Please don't tell Scott we talked."

  She disconnected, and went back to her drink at the bar, feeling more cheerful. Through Detective Prentiss, Ananda had a direct line into the murder investigation and possibly Matt's kidnapping. She could be a valuable source for her articles. Together with the information on the USB flash drive, Kayla would have the inside scoop before anyone. But it would take skill to avoid writing facts that would expose her source. And she'd need to be extra careful in case the dirt, which got Beth killed, came from Matt. Another reason to not go to the cops and get her name connected to their investigation. More likely, she told herself, the dirt the police referred to was something Beth discovered on her own, and whatever was on the flash drive was entirely different.

  The distressing murder of Beth and Ashley had put a crimp in her writing, and this week's columns were way behind schedule, meaning a conversation with The Examiner's editor, Max, was overdue. With her track record, the promise of a series of exposé stories would get him off her back for now.

  Kayla downed her chaser in one, placed two dollars in change on the bar, and walked out into the sunlight. A narrow alley at the side of the building led to the shared entrance to the apartments. Matt had given her a key as he tried to keep the outer door locked, so the sight of it open and splintered made Kayla freeze. She called "Hello," before realizing her stupidity. Fortified with liquid courage, she climbed the stairs to the second floor and found the door to Matt's apartment in a similar state.

  The sickness, which Kayla had felt in the pit of her stomach when Matt was abducted, returned with a vengeance. Her legs felt weak as she stepped gingerly into the living room. All the drawers had been pulled out, and their contents were strewn on the floor. The mattress and the couch had been slashed, and the stuffing was everywhere, creating a bizarre snow-like scene. In the spare room, all that remained of Matt's expensive computers was a tangle of cables on the floor.

  After going from one room to the other calling Marmalade without success, she thought the cat must have fled. If the intruders had killed the animal, its body would surely be right there. There was nothing more to see, and she raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Kayla managed to hold the rising vomit until she burst into the daylight and bent over a flower bed.

  It took several minutes for her to stop shaking and feel able to resume her mission. She picked her way through shrubs and flower beds to the garden behind The Spotted Owl. Freshly fallen leaves from a giant maple tree were everywhere, and her level of panic rose at the possibility of not finding the flash drive. Kayla had not mentioned its existence to Ananda, fearful she'd tell her detective boyfriend.

  The bar owner, Brett, was into garden ornaments and there were more than a dozen sticking out of the carpet of leaves. It took no time to find the three-foot gnome holding a fishing rod. It was too heavy to lift, so she tilted it to one side and looked underneath.

  Nothing.

  Again, panic ran through her at the thought of failing Matt. Without the files, she'd never find who had abducted him. Once she knew the kidnapper's identity, it would be time to get the cops involved.

  Kayla laid the statue on its side, picked up a nearby stick, and started digging. By the time she hit the top of the jar, dirt had covered her hands and clothes. Feeling jubilant, she pulled it from the ground and retrieved the USB flash drive inside. It took no time to scrape the dirt back into the hole, re-situate the gnome, and pull the leaves around it to cover her tracks.

  When she was satisfied no one would be able to tell what she'd done, Kayla used her hands to brush off the worst of the dirt and hurried out to the street.

  CHAPTER 22

  UNBEKNOWN TO KAYLA, Security Chief Brickman had followed her to the Spotted Owl. He had no choice but to risk her recognizing him from the Bluebird Café if he was to discover whether she was involved in hacking the hospital mainframe and Lewis' personal computer. The security chief to
ok his Scotch to a table behind Kayla to stay out of her field of view. When she went into a corner to use her phone, he'd done his best to eavesdrop, but couldn't hear to whom she was speaking, or the reason for the call. He desperately needed to bug her phone.

  Brickman was still trying to come up with a ruse to get Kayla's number when the reporter stood and left the bar. He downed his whiskey and followed Kayla out to the street where he caught a glimpse of her disappearing into a side door.

  He went back inside and chatted to the barman, under the pretense of looking for an apartment for his daughter. Brett confirmed there was a vacancy on the third floor. When Brickman asked about existing tenants, the owner confided that a man in his thirties occupied the other apartment. Matt Baker! Brickman said he'd have his daughter check the apartment out when she was next in town.

  Back in the street, he found a hiding place behind tall shrubs across the way and waited.

  Ten minutes later, he saw Kayla re-emerge from the side alley and disappear down the street. Brickman tried to imagine what she could have been doing in the apartment without Baker. Did she access his computers?

  Matt's kidnapping was forcing Brickman to come up with a plan on the fly, something he usually eschewed. There were too many people in the street to grab Kayla right there and search her. But the bitch's time would soon come. He was starting to find her hot and had some ideas of what he could do to pry information from her.

  Once down the side alley, the smashed side door gave Brickman a bad feeling, which only worsened after he climbed the stairs and entered Matt's apartment. He stood in the living room and stared in dismay at the destruction. The other room was empty but for four computer monitors on a desk and a tangle of cables on the floor. He could see from indentations in the carpet where the computer towers had stood, and drag marks revealed what had become of them.

  Brickman searched the apartment fruitlessly for flash drives, memory cards, or disks. Whoever took the computers had also removed anything that could hold digital files. There was no way of knowing where Matt might have stored the damning information, he'd hacked from hospital CEO Lewis' personal computer. Brickman was less concerned about the patient information stolen from the hospital mainframe. If it surfaced, it would only get the CEO fired. But Lewis' computer held documents which could land them both in jail for a long stretch.

  Brickman didn't see Kayla Ellis carrying anything, though computer disks were easy to conceal. The apartment was obviously ransacked by the same people who'd kidnapped Matt, and he doubted they'd left anything for the reporter to find. But he needed to bring physical pressure to bear on her, just to be sure.

  The thought aroused him. Opportunities like that made his job worthwhile.

  Whoever these people were, they now had access to the documents describing what happened at the Devil's Pasture all those years ago. Would they recognize what they had? Might they turn to blackmail? The questions were too unsettling for Brickman even to guess at the answers. Any hope he once had of quickly putting a lid on the hacking had been dashed.

  I ENTERED A SMALL INTERVIEW room and placed Ashley's plastic-wrapped tote bag on the table before sitting across from Phil Wolfson and his court-appointed attorney, a Mr. Forbes. I had decided to question Wolfson first, before his girlfriend, Lori Draper. In leaving his handprint on the ATM where he'd tried to use Ashley Logan's stolen debit card, he had made a rookie mistake. Beth and Ashley were killed with ruthless efficiency. The scrawny junkie sitting across the table didn't seem to fit the part.

  I set my notes on the table and studied them for several minutes, while I considered Wolfson.

  "Come on, Detective. We don't have all day." Forbes was looking at his watch as if he needed to be somewhere.

  "Your client has all the time in the world," I replied. "We found him in possession of a murdered woman's property. He'll be going away for a long stretch. We have a video of him trying to use Ashley Logan's debit card at an ATM where he carelessly left his fingerprints. Then there's the problem of the coke and ecstasy discovered at the house he shares with Ms. Draper. She is willing to testify that your client brought them into their home against her wishes."

  Wolfson started to speak, but Forbes shushed him and pulled him into a whispered discussion.

  "My client will confess to possession of the bag and using the debit card, if we can make the other charges, ahem, go away."

  "We recovered his prints from the bag," I lied. Chris Andrews had warned me the mud on it might prevent recovering any physical evidence. "We have enough to charge your client with possession and fraud, without him saying another word. What I want to know is how he came by the bag."

  After conferring with Wolfson, Forbes said, "My client wishes to say he found the bag in a ditch near his property two days ago."

  "Where were you a week last Wednesday, between 8 and 9 a.m., when the assault on Ashley Logan and the bag theft took place?" I asked Wolfson.

  The attorney raised his hand to silence his client. After another discussion, he said, "My client's recall is not all it could be, and he is unable to answer that question at this time. Please allow me to make some calls and see what I can find out."

  "If he cannot come up with a solid alibi, at a minimum I'll charge him with assault, theft and drug possession. In that case, I'll be asking for his whereabouts last Monday morning at the times of the murders." I closed my folder and left Forbes speaking with a downcast Wolfson. I had enough leverage with him to not be in a hurry to talk to Draper, who was cooling her heels in another room.

  When I stepped outside, the air was warm and humid. I picked up a steaming cup of coffee and a jam donut from the truck. The station backed onto the river, and from the corner of the parking lot, you could see almost three miles upstream. The Main Street bridge was the nearest, and I watched the steady flow of afternoon traffic. My instincts told me Wolfson could have graduated from petty thieving to assault. But while he might stab someone in a fit of rage, murdering two people execution-style seemed implausible. And I couldn't see a motive for him to kill Beth. As much as I wanted him to be the perpetrator, and allow me to wrap up the case, my gut said this would be another day without significant progress.

  My phone rang. It was Forbes wanting to talk. I tossed the paper cup in the trash and rubbed my hands together to get rid of the sugar from the donut.

  Back in the interview room, the attorney appeared more chipper. "My client was in court at the time of the assault on Ms. Logan. He was summoned to appear on a DUI charge, and the court record shows him arriving at 7.40 a.m. They check photo IDs before signing anyone in. You can ask them yourself."

  "I certainly will." I had Turner's report on the assault on Logan in front of me. It put the time of the attack on Ashley Logan at 8.35 a.m. It went on to say she was not due in to work until 9 a.m. on that Wednesday. I phoned Jackie Orvar and asked her to call the clerk of the court to verify Wolfson's alibi. I said to Forbes:

  "Now, what was your client doing on Monday morning?"

  "I've spoken with Ms. Draper, and she will testify he was with her during the times of the two murders. They remember staying in bed late on the day in question."

  It was a weak alibi and something I'd tried to avoid by putting the suspects in separate rooms. But Wolfson's court date cleared him of the assault and confirmed his story about finding the bag. He was no more likely to have murdered the women than the next person.

  I picked up my things, and said, "After I have verified his alibi, I'll talk to the DA about what charges to file for the stolen goods and the drug possession. He's not leaving here anytime soon."

  CHAPTER 23

  FOUR DAYS AFTER THE MURDERS, I was sitting at my breakfast bar, washing down a corner of toast with coffee, and eyeing the letter in front of me with suspicion. The dog-eared oversize brown envelope, the misspelled address written in a juvenile script, and the missing return address were all clues this was no ordinary missive. Donning latex gloves, I ran my fingertips gin
gerly over its surface, feeling for any thickness or bulge, which could indicate an explosive device. Satisfied it held only a single piece of unfolded paper, I slit open the envelope with a kitchen knife and let the contents fall onto the tiled countertop. The words sprang off the ruled paper and hit me in the stomach like a punch.

  You killed Kidd Hildegard.

  Now I am coming for you.

  You will die slowly bitch.

  An electric shock radiated through my body. Dirk Hildegard! My mind rewound to four months previously. Dirk was still in the Highdale Bank when his brother ran out and shot my partner and lover, Jake. Murdered him. After I'd put Kidd down, Dirk was faced with overwhelming firepower and surrendered. He stared at his dead brother as I snapped the cuffs onto his wrists, then locked eyes with me and spat before the uniforms dragged him away. As far as I knew, he was safely locked away, awaiting trial—something I needed to verify at once.

  A call to the jail connected me to a civilian phone-answerer. I had to recite my badge number multiple times before the words: inmate threatening the life of an officer, penetrated his standard response. He put me through to the undersheriff who affirmed the prisoner was still incarcerated there, but he sent someone to do a visual check. Ten minutes later, Sheriff Williams himself called with profuse apologies and told me Dirk Hildegard was still in his cell and would remain in lockdown pending an investigation. He insisted there was no way the letter could have come from his prison and suggested that a third party must be involved. His words did nothing to calm my nerves.

  During the two months, I'd spent on medical leave following the shootings at the bank, I'd spent countless hours second-guessing my actions on that day. I mostly told myself I could have saved Jake. I was still having difficulty sleeping, and though the flashbacks had diminished in duration and intensity, they always returned at inopportune moments—like when I disconnected from speaking to the Sheriff.