by John J. Lamb
“We have to assume it’s connected with his death. The problem is, there’s no obvious link between them and Rawlins. We need more information.” I said
“Well, I could call Kurt Rawlins and ask if he’s heard of Sherri or Jesse.”
“And I could do an Internet search on our erotic executive,” said Ash. “Maybe she’s in some sort of agriculture-related business.”
“Both are good ideas, but I’d rather find the Saab. There’s just something so improbable about how the auto theft went down.”
“How so?” Tina asked.
“It was raining and chilly, yet Sherri parked her luxury car in about the most isolated portion of the parking lot.”
Ash shook her head. “It would have made more sense if her boy toy had dropped her off at the front door and then he parked it.”
“Exactly. Or had the valet park it.”
We all looked up to see Sergei approaching, carrying a pitcher of sweet tea. He refilled our glasses and then, at Tina’s urging, agreed to join for us for a moment. Sergei sat down on the bench beside Tina. Early in their courtship, the sheriff had decided it wasn’t appropriate for her to display affection in public while in uniform, so they didn’t hold hands. However, I did notice that they sat close enough together so that their knees were touching.
Sergei said to Ash, “Some of your teddy bear artists were in earlier this afternoon. They’re nice people.”
“Yes, they are. And did you get my message about the lunch tally? I’m going to need twenty-eight lunches for tomorrow.”
“I’ll deliver them at eleven-thirty.” Then Sergei turned to me. “You didn’t eat your pie.”
“It’s almost too sweet. Kind of like the idea of you riding the carousel at Disney World. But more on that later, my friend.” I gave him a beatific grin.
“Brad, you promised,” warned Ash.
“But that was before he gave me the post office wanted-poster treatment.”
“How in the name of God did he find out?” Sergei asked Tina.
Tina shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Somehow, he just guessed.”
“Look, I’ll drop it. I’m sorry, Sergei, and I hope you have a great time,” I said remorsefully. “But when you go to the character breakfast, could you get me Mickey’s autograph?”
“Getting back to the Saab,” Tina interrupted before our male ego melee could get under way in earnest. “We’ve got a statewide bulletin out, but we haven’t heard a word back.”
“What Saab are you talking about?” Sergei asked.
“The one that hit Ash’s patrol car last night. I told you about it.”
“Yes, but you didn’t say what kind of car it was. You just said there was a hit-and-run.” Sergei suddenly looked pensive. “Was this Saab dark blue with Georgia license plates?”
“You’ve seen it?” Ash demanded.
“This morning. But I didn’t know anyone was looking for it. When I left the house on my way in here, I noticed a Saab Nine-Five sedan parked behind the old Baptist church up in Thermopylae.”
Ash, Tina, and I all exchanged eager glances. Thermopylae was a thinly populated and secluded farming community located in a narrow valley between the Blue Ridge Mountains and a range of tall foothills. It was also only a couple of miles east of where Ash had lost sight of the Saab.
I asked, “Didn’t that strike you as an odd place for someone to leave a car?”
“Not really,” said Sergei. “I’ve often seen vehicles from out of state parked at the church. As far as old graveyards go, the cemetery is picturesque, and it apparently also attracts people looking for their genealogical roots.”
“And what time did you see it?” Tina asked.
“Around nine-thirty this morning.”
Ash stood up. “Maybe if we’re lucky it’ll still be there. Let’s go.”
“I’ll swing by the station and pick up the camera and evidence kit,” said Tina. She gave Sergei’s hand a surreptitious squeeze as she got up.
I used my cane to pull myself to my feet, and as Sergei and I followed the women, I began to quietly sing, “ ‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go’ . . . C’mon Sergei, you know the words. Or you will soon.”
Fourteen
Following Tina’s patrol car, we headed over to U.S. Route 33, where we turned eastward toward Swift Run Gap and the inky bulk of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We passed the town of Elkton, and not long afterward dense forest lined both sides of the highway. The one-lane road that led into Thermopylae was at the base of the mountains, just before the main highway entered Shenandoah National Park. There were no streetlights, and the quarter moon hanging low in the western sky provided only the weakest of illumination, so it was as dark as the future of good taste in commercial American television.
As I made the right turn onto Thermopylae Road, Ash said, “I hope it’s still there.”
“We’ll know in a couple of minutes,” I replied.
I steered the truck through a series of serpentine curves around the bottom of a hill, and then we emerged into the narrow valley. Off in the near distance were the lights of an isolated farmhouse.
Ash pointed to a yellow sign that said the road terminated in five miles. “If you’re running from the cops, why do you turn onto a dead-end road in the middle of nowhere? Why dump the car there?”
“At the church? Perhaps he was keeping the Saab-ath holy.”
“Or maybe he left it there for service,” Ash said solemnly.
“Baby doll, you have been hanging around me too much.”
Ahead, Tina’s patrol car slowed and the vehicle’s headlights illuminated the Baptist church. Standing on a foundation of brown stonework, the whitewashed and clapboard building wasn’t much larger than a two-car garage. There was a sign by the side of the road that read, THERMOPYLAE FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH, ESTABLISHED 1854.
Tina pulled off the road and onto a gravel driveway that looped behind the church. We followed, and Ash inhaled sharply when she saw the dark blue Saab sedan with Georgia license plates. The car was parked parallel to the old cemetery’s low stone wall, with the passenger side of the vehicle facing toward the road. The tinted windows prevented us from seeing inside the Saab, but it looked empty.
Parking her car so that it faced the Saab, Tina activated her cruiser’s high beams and both spotlights, which lit up some grayish-white gravestones in the near distance. I pulled up beside her patrol car and turned my bright lights on, too. Even with all the illumination, the scene looked a little spooky.
Ash jumped from the truck and turned her flashlight on as she joined the sheriff. Tina had her gun hand resting on her holstered weapon as the two women approached the Saab.
Meanwhile, I slowly climbed from the Xterra. It was chilly enough outside that when I exhaled, my breath was a little steamy.
Tina yelled, “It’s clear.”
“And come over and take a look at this,” called Ash.
I walked over to the front of the Saab, and the first thing I noticed was the large and ragged dent in the car’s left front quarter panel. I shined my flashlight at the indentation and saw streaks of white paint transfer on the fender that had undoubtedly come from Ash’s patrol car. However, I soon realized that Ash had something far more significant for me to look at than the collision damage.
Pointing toward the driver’s door, Ash said, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
I joined her and Tina by the driver’s door and saw something that hadn’t been visible from the opposite side of the car. The driver’s door window was mostly gone. Someone or something had smashed out the window, leaving only some small and fractured chunks of safety glass stuck in the window frame.
Taken at face value, it looked like your typical clumsy car clout. Then I noticed the broken safety glass on the water-stained leather car seat and also on the damp ground beneath the car door.
I said, “Interesting. Didn’t you say that you couldn’t see the driver because the window was tinted?”
“Add that to the fact we have broken glass on the ground, and it means someone broke the window here. But why?” said Tina.
“To fake a Grand Theft Auto so that the local yokels—that’s us, by the way—would buy the story about the car being stolen from the parking lot of the lodge,” I said.
“You think Sherri and her boy toy did this?” asked Ash.
“It would explain her unconvincing tale about parking the Saab in a secluded spot and then walking through the rain to the hotel.”
“And her sudden and debilitating headache when you mentioned the murder,” said Ash.
Tina gave me a puzzled look. “I’m not following. Why?”
“She never parked the car near the golf course on Thursday night. She—and I am inclined to think it was just her in the car—was driving the Saab when it sideswiped Ash’s unit.”
“Why?”
“Simple logistics,” I replied. “We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, at least ten miles from the lodge. Sherri looked like she was in pretty good shape—”
“Isn’t it amazing you noticed that about a woman,” Ash said teasingly.
“I’m a professional observer,” I said in a mock earnest tone. “But, as I was saying, she looked fit enough to have done the ten miles on foot, but she couldn’t risk being seen.”
“But couldn’t it have been the other way around? Maybe Jesse Hauck was driving,” Tina suggested.
“I doubt it. Based on what I saw of their relationship, Sherri might have shared her bed with him, but not her car.”
“How romantic,” the sheriff muttered.
“So Sherri must have called Jesse to pick her up, and he came out here in his VW to drive her back to the hotel,” Ash said. “Then they realized they needed a cover story and decided to claim the car had been stolen. But why wait until morning to call the cops?”
I said, “For the moment, we have no idea of how long it took them to get back to the lodge. Bottom line: Sherri had to say the Saab was parked someplace where no one could have seen it.”
Tina nodded. “Okay, I see. So that she could report that it was stolen and not have to worry about anyone saying otherwise.”
“It was a decent enough plan in theory, but it was poorly executed.” I directed the beam of my flashlight inside the vehicle. “Check that out.”
A small screwdriver with a yellow-and-black plastic handle jutted from the right side of the steering column where the ignition key slot was located. The crude attack on the ignition was another bit of proof that a professional car thief hadn’t stolen the Saab. I shined my flashlight on the screwdriver, hoping to see some evidence of latent fingerprints. But the handle looked clean. In fact, the tool looked brand-new.
“The ignition has been punched,” said Ash.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ve never seen an ignition punched with a screwdriver that small. You need one with a flat head big enough to break and then rotate the entire locking mechanism.”
Tina said, “But something doesn’t add up. This car has to have an antitheft system. Why wouldn’t it have gone off when the ignition was punched?”
“Yeah.” Ash glanced toward the distant lights of a farm. “Even this far away, someone would have heard a car alarm and called the sheriff’s office.”
“Which was probably something Sherri wanted to avoid,” I said, while perching my butt on the low wall to take some of the weight off my bad leg.
“So, if there was no alarm, it might mean they deactivated the security system before faking the theft,” said Tina.
“Makes sense to me.”
“How would you do that?” asked Ash.
I shrugged. “I’m no expert, but it seems to me that a security system needs a power source. If they unhooked everything from the battery terminals, it would probably kill the alarm.”
“Let’s glove up and take some pictures. Then we can take a closer look,” said Tina as we all headed back to her patrol car.
“Sounds good. You might also want to get a wrecker en route. We need to have this towed to the crime lab for processing, too.” I gestured toward the Saab with my cane.
Before Tina could answer, her cell phone trilled. She pulled the device from her pocket, scrutinized the tiny screen, and said, “It’s dispatch.”
As the sheriff answered the phone, I said to Ash, “I have to make a call myself, to the security office at the Massanutten Crest Lodge.” I retrieved the cell phone from my jacket pocket. “I need them to contact Linny Owen and have him call me ASAP.”
However, before I could make the call, we couldn’t help but overhear Tina’s voice suddenly grow gruff and loud, as she curtly instructed the dispatcher to tell Mr. Rawlins that she was extremely busy and that she would call him with an update later tonight. Then she snapped the phone shut and made as if to hurl it into the darkness.
“Don’t tell me. Kurt Rawlins?” I asked.
“It’s only the fifth time today he’s called demanding to talk to me,” Tina grumbled.
“Well, his dad was murdered,” said Ash.
“Look, I’m genuinely sorry his dad is dead. But between him, the CA, and the supervisors calling me continuously, they’re driving me freaking nuts. Do you know why my phone didn’t ring during dinner? I turned it off.”
“Good idea,” I said.
“Not really. I now have six voice-mail messages, all from people who probably want to tell me that I’m not doing my job properly. And for all I know, they’re right.” Tina sagged, and Ash rubbed her arm.
It upset me to see her so dispirited. I knew how she was feeling; I’d been there. One of the most aggravating parts of being a homicide inspector was dealing with self-important politicians and ambitious police administrators who wanted immediate results in murder cases. Mind you, none of those amateur sleuths could investigate their way out of an open paper sack with instructions written on the inside, but all felt comfortable telling me how to solve a murder.
Furthermore, such interference was a vicious circle. You devoted so much time to updating people that you couldn’t get any work done, which then meant having to tell the kibitzers you hadn’t made any progress. It was infuriating and also a battle you could never win . . . if you fought it by their rules. I scanned the sodden ground until I found what I was looking for.
I said, “They’re wrong, Tina, and you’re tired. But I think I know of a way to help. Is that a department phone?”
“Yes.”
“Could I see it for a second?”
“Sure, here.” She handed me the device.
I took the phone and limped over to a fairly large puddle of rainwater near the church. The phone began to trill again, and, without checking to see who was calling, I deliberately dropped the device into the water. There was a brief buzzing sound, and the phone’s LCD screen got bright for a second and then went blank.
I said, “Oops. I am such a butterfingers.”
“What the heck did you just do?” Tina demanded while Ash gaped at me.
“Officially, it was an accident. Unofficially, I just removed your electronic dog collar. How does it feel?”
A smile of relief slowly spread across Tina’s face. “Officially, I’m very upset because you should have been more careful using my department phone.”
“And unofficially?”
“I’m so damn glad that nobody can call me.” Tina bent over and retrieved the cell phone from the puddle. She shook the water from the device, pressed the power button several times, and giggled. “Yes! It’s dead. Thank you, Brad.”
“My pleasure.”
Tina tossed the defunct phone onto the front passenger seat of her patrol car and then used her portable radio to call for a wrecker. When she was done, she said, “Do you guys want to get started with photos?”
I replied, “Actually, I was about to call Linny Owen up at the lodge.”
“Before we can confront Sherri and Jesse, we’re going to need irrefutable proof that they lied to us.”
“Is there a chance we can get fingerprints from the screwdriver?” Ash asked.
“With all the wonderful training that the CSI programs have provided folks on how to avoid leaving evidence at crime scenes, I don’t think they’d make that mistake.”
“So how can Linny help?” asked Tina.
“Sherri said that she and her assistant returned to the lodge around six o’clock Thursday night and didn’t go out again.”
“Which we now know is a big fat lie,” said Ash.
“Agreed, but that can’t be proven, yet. We need Linny to review last night’s security video footage and hope it will show exactly when they came and went.”
“And if Sherri and Jesse were together,” Ash added.
“But I thought most of the cameras were inoperative,” said Tina.
“Just the ones in the parking lot. Fortunately for us, the lobby cameras are supposedly still working,” I replied.
“Then call Linny while Ash and I get started on the photographs.”
I flipped the cell phone open but was suddenly lost in thought. All of the talk about establishing a sequence of events and the modus operandi of faking the auto theft had reminded me that I’d almost overlooked a potentially important piece of evidence in the car. I snapped the phone shut again and said, “Ash, honey, would you be comfortable taking the photos yourself and riding back down the mountain with Tina?”
“I suppose. Why?” Ash asked as she pulled the camera case from the backseat of Tina’s car.
“Because I just realized that I have to go chase down a time-sensitive lead.” I glanced at my watch. It was 7:37, so I might still have time.
“You’ve lost me,” said Ash.
“Me, too,” said Tina.
“The screwdriver. It looks brand-new.”
“So?” asked Tina.
“We don’t know why Sherri went to Rawlins’s farm, but I think it’s safe to assume that she didn’t originally plan to fake the theft of the Saab, since there’s no way she could have predicted that Ash was going to show up at Rawlins’s farm. However, once Sherri sideswiped Ash, she decided to dump the car. But where did the screwdriver come from?”