Dead Air

by David A. Poulsen

  We stood facing each other for a few seconds before he spoke.

  “I guessed you might do this,” he said. He waved an arm to indicate the woods around us.

  Guessed, or followed me here?

  “I wanted to see it for myself,” I said, “although I’m not sure I’m anywhere near where the camp was. Or where Mr. Bones was found.”

  Hoping to let him think that I hadn’t uncovered any secrets.

  He looked around for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Close enough, I guess.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. He saw me looking at the rifle.

  “If I was here to shoot your ass, you wouldn’t have heard me coming, or seen me. There are animals out here. I figured a city boy might not think about that. Bears — a grizzly would be bad, especially a sow with cubs. But it’s cats you have to worry about. This area’s got lots of them. Cougars. You wouldn’t know one was tracking you until it had you.”

  He moved closer and I saw that he had something in his other hand — a six-pack of beer.

  “We better head back to the vehicles before it gets any darker. Even with the flashlight it’s hard to get through the denser stuff. Easy to trip and fall — break something.”

  He turned and started back up the path. He didn’t look behind to see if I was following. I decided an ex-sheriff with a 30-30 or something like it and a box of beer was more appealing than a cougar or mama grizzly and fell in behind him.

  Neither of us said anything until we were back to the clearing where I’d left the rental car. A white SUV was parked next to my car. Crombeen stopped once we were clear of the path and in this second clearing. He pointed to a fallen log that would work as a place to sit. He leaned the rifle against the log, sat, pulled two Moose Drool out of the box, and handed me one.

  “I would have pegged you for a Budweiser man,” I said as I sat and twisted the top off the bottle.

  “Was for years.” He smiled. “Took to drinking these dark ales a couple of years ago.”

  The night was pleasantly cool. He shut off the flashlight and we sat in the growing darkness, drinking. For a while neither of us spoke. I had the weird thought that if he was planning to kill me, at least I’d go out in fairly pleasing circumstances.

  He glanced at me, then looked straight ahead.

  “I think the kid figured it out.”

  “What?” I said.

  “That kid from the University of Wyoming.”

  “Shane Kent?”

  “That’s the name.” He nodded. “I spent the drive out here trying to remember his name. Anyway, I was bullshitting you when I said he got nothing. I think he figured out who John Bones was. And maybe who killed him. Of course he never told me that, but you been around as long as I have, you get so you can read people.”

  “How do you think he figured it out?”

  Crombeen shrugged. “Maybe something in forensics he learned at school that I don’t know about, or maybe he had an idea before he got here and found out just enough to confirm it. I don’t know. But I’m ninety-five percent certain that he had at least some of it worked out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “Think about it. I’m a cop. I was a cop all my working life. I worked my ass off on John Bones and I got nothing. Less than nothing. And some book-learned, barely-off-the-tit kid shows up and comes up with the answer. Yeah, that’s something I want the world to know.”

  “But there’s never been an arrest — or even a positive ID of the remains. If Shane had some answers, wouldn’t he have shared them with someone?”

  Crombeen pulled two more beers out of the box and we each took a couple of pulls before he answered. “I’ve thought about that, too. A lot. And I don’t know. Seems to me he’d be letting the world know what he knew, just like you said. Ought to at least get him a damn good mark in whatever class it was he was taking.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I would’ve thought.”

  The retired sheriff looked at me. “But what did you say? Four people dead. Someone had to kill them. Maybe it was him. Maybe he did it for revenge. Out here we call that vigilante justice.”

  “But he’d have to have had a good reason for wanting revenge.”

  “Like maybe some real personal stake in it,” Crombeen said.

  “Yeah … like that,” I agreed. “Can you remember Shane Kent well enough to describe him?”

  “Yeah, I damn sure can.”

  And he did.

  NINETEEN

  Judith Eng looked at me over the top of half glasses, which were the only aspect of her appearance that bespoke formal.

  She’d given every indication that she was both friendly and helpful, which was counter to my own experience with people in registrar’s offices during my academic years. The administration building of the University of Wyoming was part of an attractive campus that sits 7,200 feet above sea level on the Laramie Plain, between the Laramie Range and Snowy Range Mountains. (I’d learned that earlier that morning while reading a brochure and sampling coffee and a pastry at the Night Heron Books and Coffeehouse.) I’d been waiting outside the registrar’s office when it opened and been directed to Ms. Eng. I’d spent the past fifteen minutes pleading my case for a look at the records of a former student.

  “A murder?” She looked disbelieving, which caused me to rethink my strategy of laying my cards on the table. Maybe I should have lied.

  “I’m afraid so, ma’am.” I hoped that didn’t sound like a bad Joe Friday impersonation.

  “And you think a former student might be somehow involved.”

  “I can’t say that for sure, Ms. Eng, and even if he was it may have been strictly on the periphery. In fact, all I know is that he conducted his own investigation into a murder that took place near Buffalo. It was ostensibly for a class he was taking here — I’m guessing as part of your criminal studies program.”

  “We call it Criminal Justice.”

  “Right,” I said. “So what I’m hoping to learn is whether the school might have an address, perhaps a photo of Shane Kent.”

  “A murder near Buffalo? Is that a different murder? You mentioned a Mr. Hugg was killed up in Canada.”

  “Yes, ma’am, two separate but possibly connected murders.”

  “Nevertheless, the school has strict privacy regulations. We don’t divulge details about current or former students except in exceptional circumstances.” She wasn’t unpleasant about it, but firm. This was someone who knew her job and intended to do it.

  “Would the investigation of four murders be exceptional enough?”

  “You didn’t say anything about four murders. You’ve only mentioned two.”

  “We think the Buffalo killing may have been part of a string of murders, Ms. Eng.” I was trying to keep it simple. Wasn’t sure I was succeeding.

  She sat straight-backed now, her lips pressed tightly together, the friendliness not gone but definitely reduced. “But you said this student may not be involved at all, except on the periphery.” She seemed happy to repeat my word, which I now realized may have been a bad choice on my part.

  “Or he may have been. That’s what we need to know. I believe Shane Kent was here for the 2007–08 academic year and maybe more. Could you at least confirm that for me?”

  She adjusted the half glasses and swivelled to face her computer. I wasn’t sure if she’d just dismissed me or was checking records. I decided to wait it out. After a couple of minutes she swivelled back to me.

  “Well, that’s that, then,” she said.

  “That’s what, Ms. Eng?”

  “Shane Kent was never a student at this school.” She looked over her shoulder at her computer. “Landon Kent graduated from UW in 1969. Rory Kent in 1977. And Alicia Kent is a sophomore here now. There have been no other Kents enrolled here.”

  I star
ed at her for a long time. That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear.

  She appeared to sense my discomfort. “Perhaps there’s an unusual spelling of the name that I could check?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help.”

  “There is one more thing,” I said. “Do you have a list of people who have taken summer courses here?”

  “Of course. Every registered student is listed.”

  “The summer of 2011. A student named Shawn Beamer. Took a class in screenwriting. I wonder if you could —”

  “No, he didn’t.” She smiled.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, not understanding.

  “UW does not offer screenwriting, not even as a summer class. We have a creative writing program, but writing for film and television is not part of our offering. It looks like you’ve been misinformed about both these students.”

  I stood up. “Thank you, Ms. Eng. I won’t take any more of your time. I wonder, though, if you could tell me in what building I’d find the criminal justice program.”

  She told me and offered directions, as well, not unhappy, I surmised, to be seeing the back of me.

  I crossed the campus and found the building. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for — maybe a faculty member who might remember a student who conducted research for a class during the summer of 2008.

  I wandered the halls for a few minutes, feeling more and more like there was something going on, something I didn’t understand … yet. Shawn Beamer had lied about what, if anything, he’d taken, at the University of Wyoming during the summer of 2011. Shane Kent had lied too. Two people, two big lies. There had to be a connection.

  I saw a pop machine against a wall on the opposite side of an open common area and strode over, wishing the damn thing also dispensed rye. I settled for a Diet Coke and took a couple of burning gulps. Then I noticed the grad pictures on the wall. I thought, What the hell. I’ll look for Shane Kent’s name and picture. Maybe Ms. Eng had somehow missed it. I started with the 2008 grad group and went as far as 2011. No Shane Kent. Ms. Eng had not been mistaken.

  And had there been a larger group of grads I might not have seen it. A couple of rows above the K’s, where no picture of Shane Kent existed, there was a photo of someone I recognized.

  Shawn Beamer, social media handler at RIGHT TALK 700, had graduated from the University of Wyoming in Criminal Justice in 2011.

  I was a little late getting to the terminal at the Cheyenne airport and arrived at my gate just a few minutes before my flight was to board. I called Jill. Kyla answered with a perky “Hi!”

  “Hey, kiddo, it’s the handsomest man you’ve ever seen.”

  “Wow, Leonardo DiCaprio, how you doin’?”

  “Jeez, you really know how to hurt a guy, you know?”

  She laughed and I could hear her mother in the background calling, “Go, Kyla.”

  “Do I have any friends there at all?”

  “Well, you have two women who love you,” Kyla told me. “Does that work for you?”

  “You have no idea how much that works for me,” I told her. “Do you think I could speak to your mom, or is she holding out for Leonardo?”

  “I’ll check.”

  I could hear her handing the phone off with giggling accompaniment.

  “Hi, babe.” Jill’s voice still had an effect on me, roughly akin to looking out at the ocean and the peace those moments brought me.

  “I think it’s time we talked about reform school for the kid,” I said.

  “Sore loser.” I could hear the laughter in her voice — some of it I guessed might have been relief. I knew she’d been worried, though she’d tried to cover it up when I’d stopped by to let her know I was heading for Wyoming. “Tell me you’re on your way back to me.”

  “We’re boarding in a few minutes.”

  “How about a welcome-back barbecue?”

  “Wow, this is forty-eight hours — what do I get if I stay away a week?”

  “Replaced,” she told me. “We’ll see you soon.”

  My next call was to Cobb.

  “Morning,” he said. “How’s it going in cowboy land?”

  “Interesting, to say the least. We’re boarding right now, but there’s something I think you might want to do,” I said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Jud Crombeen checked missing persons when he was investigating John Bones’s case. But I doubt if he checked Canadians. I think we need to look at missing persons from 2003.”

  “Anybody in particular?”

  “Yeah, you might want to start with the last name ‘Beamer.’”

  I heard Cobb’s sharp intake of breath. “That’s Beamer as in …?”

  “Yeah, as in Shawn. Don’t get excited just yet. It’s just a guess. I’ll tell you the rest when I see you.”

  “Beamer. On it,” he said. “Can we meet as soon as you’re back here?”

  “I arrive at two-twenty, and yes, we can meet, but only if you’re buying.”

  “Okay, there’s a pub in Airdrie, the Toad and Turtle, probably fifteen minutes from the terminal. I’ll be there. And I won’t be buying, but I think your pal Buckley-Rand Larmer could be persuaded to take care of it.”

  “Even better,” I said.

  He gave me the directions to the pub and we rang off just as the first call for boarding was made. I was asleep before the flight crew had completed the safety demonstration.

  Halfway through our fish and chips, Cobb set his fork down, took a long swallow of Rolling Rock, and sat back in his chair. I’d been doing all the talking up to that point.

  “Okay,” he said. “So we’ve got Shawn Beamer getting his degree in Criminal Justice, which no doubt includes forensics. He takes one of his summers and goes off to Wyoming on a research trip using the name Shane Kent. While there, he investigates the discovery of unidentified human remains — John Bones, as he came to be known. The only identifying item on Mr. Bones is a poker chip with a number on it.”

  He looked at me for confirmation of what he’d summarized to that point.

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded.

  “And you think Mr. Bones might have been designated number fifty-three for the Proud event.”

  “Larmer told us they got poker chips with numbers on them. John Bones had a poker chip with a number on it in his shirt pocket. I’d say that puts him there, yeah.”

  “Beamer slash Kent, while in Wyoming, is also keenly interested in the Proud event that took place some years earlier in roughly the same area as the Bones remains were later found.”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Okay, what else have we got?”

  I downed a couple of french fries, chased them with beer. “A few months after Beamer’s graduation from UW, the killings start: two in the U.S., then a few months later, the Monday shooting in Canada.”

  “Okay, so the timing works.”

  I nodded. “I called Humber College and Beamer wasn’t lying about that. He started in January 2012, right after the two killings in the States and right before the first attempt on Dennis Monday’s life. Then a couple of years later he’s employed at the radio station during the time when another of the organizers of the Proud event, Jasper Hugg, is murdered.”

  “Okay, so we’ve got opportunity and a timeframe that fits. What we don’t have is concrete evidence, nor do we have a motive, unless the kid’s old man happens to be a missing person vintage 2003.”

  “What about travel records?” I said. “What if we can put Shawn Beamer in San Antonio and Fresno at the time of those incidents?”

  “That would help, for sure. Let me go to work on that.”

  We ate in silence for a while. Cobb pointed his fork at me. “You did damn good down there, Adam.”

  I grinned
at him. “I wasn’t so sure of that when I saw Jud Crombeen coming through the woods carrying a rifle.”

  “Yeah, that would have been a little jarring.”

  “Just a little. Okay, what do you need me to do next?”

  “How about you go enjoy a nice barbecue? You’ve earned it.”

  The waitress came by and both of us declined dessert. As she was moving away from our table, Cobb’s phone rang. He answered, listened for a while, then pulled out his notebook and a pen and started scribbling notes while firing questions at whoever was on the other end of the line.

  “How old was the guy …? Height …? And no sign of him …? Okay, thanks for this.”

  He hung up and looked at me, then read from his notes. “A missing person from August 2003. Thirty-nine years old, six-two, slim build. He worked for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, disappeared after leaving home to attend a conference in the Western U.S. Was never found or heard from again. Married, two kids, a son and a daughter. His name was Derek Beamer.” Cobb paused, then added. “Looks like we might have our motive.”

  “Does that alter our game plan?”

  Cobb shook his head. “I work on travel information tonight, see if I can place Shawn Beamer at crime locations at the right times. Tomorrow morning we have a chat with the young man.”

  Cobb and I parted in the parking lot, but before I got in the Accord, I opened the trunk and dug through Jasper Hugg’s planners until I came up with the one for 2003. I trooped back into the pub, and this time over coffee I went through the planner page by page, day by day. On March 14 I found a notation that he had been asked to co-chair the Right to Be Proud, Proud to Be Right conference. No details.

  On April 5 he noted that he had accepted the invitation and written in the dates for the event and that it would be happening in Wyoming. A conference call was scheduled for April 13, but the notation didn’t indicate who would be participating in the call.

  On the day following that call, I found what I was looking for … or at least hoping for. It was cryptic and would have been easy to miss had I not had some idea what I was looking for. It read: