by Tony Masero
“Sit down, Jason. You take the weight off, I get you coffee.”
Legrand stretched out his long legs gratefully and enjoyed the heat from a space heater on the floor before him. His trousers were still wet from the search on the hillside and he was glad of the chance to dry them out.
Jason smiled his thanks as he took the offered cup.
“We got a problem back there along Dead Fall Back,” he said.
“The dead girl, huh? The old man that come in to make the phone call, he tole me.”
“That’s it, Ben. I need to know who went through late morning to early afternoon. Anyone particular you might have seen passing or pulled in for gas.”
Gomez shrugged and hitched up his descending waistband.
“Not much go through today, Jason. One Walmart truck. Some ice cream van, I think. I don´t remember the name. A moving van. Some cars on the road, one or two maybe.”
“You still have that surveillance camera going?”
“Sure. You bet. You want to see?”
“Might be a good idea.”
Jason watched the stilted monochrome images jerk by on the TV screen and fast-forwarded through the blank spaces. He saw nothing that particularly caught his eye.
“Guess I better impound these CD’s, Ben. Take a look at them again back at the station, that okay?”
Gomez grinned. “You got it.”
Legrand gave Gomez a receipt for the CDs and took his leave, heading back to town and ready for a hot meal now that his shift had ended.
Chapter Five
The Lodrun police station was an ugly, single story, flat roofed block structure built in the sixties and it stood out like a sore thumb amongst the earlier old world buildings around it. It sat two thirds of the way down Main Street facing east.
Glass entrance doors opened onto the largest room, the front office, where dispatch and queries were answered from behind a waist high counter. A waiting area to one side had a rack of molded acrylic seating and a low table laid out next to a water fountain and coffee machine.
Posters patterned the neutral grey walls, warning of the danger of forest fires, terrorist attack and endangered species. There was little else. Two lockup cells, storeroom, bath and locker rooms, a few desks for the deputies and a small office set aside for the police chief.
Stoeffel sat at his desk and pondered on the evidence bag he had brought back from the burnt out cabin. He was alone in the station except for Ayleen who was doing a four to midnight shift. It was quiet. Off-season, the reduced population went to bed early in Lodrun and nothing much could be expected to happen after ten o´clock at night. Stoeffel twisted the remnants of the glass container in his hand under the desk light. He did not mind working late and often put in extra shift hours, after all what did he have to go home to? TV dinners and a game show.
Stoeffel buzzed the front desk. “Get me Jimmy Luke, will you Ayleen?”
“Sure thing. By the way, Chief, remember you still got that drifter down in the holding cell.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I´ll go get him. Hold the call for a minute will you?”
He needed a handle on the murder and a lot depended on Jimmy Luke´s limited forensic skills. He could send everything off to the Criminal Investigation Bureau on Jefferson Road in South Charleston, where they had forensic labs set up for this kind of thing and access to all kinds of experts. But he would see what Jimmy Luke had to offer first before he got in line on that treadmill. Stoeffel took the cell keys from his desk drawer and stepped out into the corridor. He opened the holding cell door, looking in on the man inside.
“You want to come on out of there while I ask you some questions?”
“You got it,” sighed the man slapping his hands on his thighs. “Anything to get out of here. Where you guys been? I´ve been in here for hours.”
Stoeffel shrugged. “Sorry, Mac. We´ve got our hands full at the moment.”
Stoeffel pointed the way to his office and the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat. You like a coffee, water or something?”
“No thanks, your lady out there has been very hospitable. If I have another cup I´m likely to drown.”
Stoeffel smiled. “Ayleen can get a little motherly sometimes, `specially when she sees someone that looks like they´ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.”
Stoeffel sat down behind his desk and took out a report form. “Okay, let´s have a name to start with.”
“It´s still Alex Summersby, like I told the other officer.”
Stoeffel looked up coldly, his eyes shadowed by the desk lampshade. “Favor me, will you?”
“Okay. Alex Summersby. I took a fall on my bike. Lost all my personal gear in a ditch full of water, so if you can rustle me up a tow truck you´ll be able to see all the ID you want.”
Stoeffel knew the type well. East Coast accent, probably Boston. Young and cocky. This one looked a mite sharper than most though even mud covered and sporting a bandage-covered brow.
“That where you tore your jacket and cut your head. In the fall?”
Summersby touched the bandage with his fingertips and nodded. “Right. The rest of it was climbing out of the culvert and walking here in the rain.”
The phone buzzed. “Chief, you want me?” said Jimmy Luke.
Stoeffel put his hand over the phone and looked at Summersby. “Excuse me a moment.” He took his hand away. “What´s the news?”
“Nothing more to it than what I told you already as far as the girl´s concerned. The knife wound killed her. Severed her jugular and windpipe in one slash. Hard and fast, whoever did it knew what he was doing. And had done it before, is my guess. No other signs of intervention on the body. The lamb toy thing though, now that is something else.”
“You found something there?”
“Well it may be something and it may not. I don´t rightly know. Just traces really. A chemical. Some sort of hydrochloride salt far as I can tell.”
Stoeffel frowned. “Hydrochloride salt. What´s that in English?”
Summersby looked up sharply and leant across the desk and pointed a knowing finger at Stoeffel.
“Cocaine,” he said.
“What?” snapped Stoeffel looking up at him. “What d´you say?”
“It´s a powdered salt form of cocaine,” obliged Summersby. “You snort it or mix it in water and inject it.”
“I know what you do with it. How...?”
Jimmy Luke butted in at the other end of the phone line “Chief. Let me do a web search and come back to you.”
“Hold on, hold on, Jimmy Luke. Give me a minute here, I´m getting the word from an expert.” He jerked his chin at Summersby. “Go on.”
“You can neutralize the stuff with acid or not as the case may be. If you leave it as a rock crystal you get crack. Heat the stuff and it crackles, hence the name. Suck the smoke and you get high, hence the popularity.” Summersby was looking at Stoeffel across the desk with a slight smile playing on his lips. “You want more?”
Stoeffel nodded slowly.
“Okay. Cocaine whacks your nervous system. It’s a stimulant that interferes with the reabsorption process of dopamine. That’s a chemical messenger you can better associate with pleasure and movement. The dopamine builds up and excites receiving neurons in your brain and then you fly. Downside is it can constrict your blood vessels, increase temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. You want a heart attack that’s the way to go.”
“Is this what you do?” asked Stoeffel. “You make this shit?”
Summersby leaned back and laughed aloud. “Man, could you be more wrong. Quite the opposite.”
“What then?”
“I work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I´m doing a study right now that kind of monitors for the future. Assessing the extent and perception of drug abusers in given age groups.”
“Hold on,” said Stoeffel turning back to the phone. “You get all that, Jimmy Luke?”
“Uhuh, the Word
from the Hand, huh?”
“Okay, I´m going to talk some more to Mr. Summersby here. One thing though before you go home to your nice warm bed. I´ll need you first thing in the morning. We have another place to go.”
“Where´s that?”
“Another body. Bones only this time. Right next to a burnt out cabin way back in the woods above the Link´s girl murder scene.”
“Hey, Chief. This is too much of a coincidence, isn´t it?”
Stoeffel rubbed his jaw in his hand, feeling the new stubble there rasp under his fingers. “I´m not so sure. The timing´s wrong. It happened some time back and may be unrelated. But I have to admit it´s kind of funny.”
“Okay, I´ll catch you in the morning. Meanwhile enjoy your company there, sounds like the boy knows what he´s talking about.”
Stoeffel hung up the phone. “So what is the score here, Summersby? How come you´re in this neck of the woods?”
“I was on my way over to the State Police Labs in Charleston, Toxicology and Trace Evidence section. Basically just a research trip. Check it out with the Director there or my boss at DHSS.”
“You always travel by bike when you´re working?”
Summersby rubbed his face in his hands and slouched down tiredly in the chair. “Uh, not really. This time it´s a kind of holiday-cum-field trip. I was taking it easy, having a look around and hoping to take a break in the Alleghenys on my way back. Say, look Chief. I´m beat. Could really use a shower and a change of clothes. Any chance of that?”
Stoeffel made his decision. “Okay, we have facilities here in the station. You take a shower and I´ll get Ayleen to sort out some spare clothing for you. Fair enough?”
“You´re a prince,” smiled Summersby.
Stoeffel showed Summersby to the squad bathroom and called in on Ayleen at the front desk on his way back.
Ayleen watched him come with a slow smile. She unclipped the one-piece headphone and mike from her ear, carefully readjusting her hair in the process. She blinked her long false eyelashes up at Stoeffel. They had never had a thing together but Ayleen had set her cap for Stoeffel a long while ago. Ever since her husband had run off with a cheerleader half his age. Since that embarrassment she had struggled to try and approach a physical standing equivalent to that of the younger girl. It was an unfair battle and doomed to failure.
“What d´you say, Chief. Nice looking kid, huh?”
Stoeffel grunted. “Check him out, will you? Says he´s with Department of Health and Human Services and on his way to the State Forensic Lab. Name´s Alex Summersby. Call in the Director´s office and see if they can verify. Also run a driver’s license check, I want a picture.”
She leaned coquettishly towards him. “That all you want, Chief?”
“No.” The come-on slightly irritated Stoeffel as he had no interest in the woman other than professionally, but he kept things cool. It made for a better atmosphere in the office and besides Ayleen was their local wizard on the computer and he needed her expertise. “Kid´s taking a shower now. If he checks out he´ll need some clean clothes, can you manage that?”
She nodded. “Sure. We´ll have something he can wear. The boys always keep spare stuff here in case they get messed up on the job. I´ll get to it.”
“Thanks Ayleen.”
“No problem.” She winked at him and fixed the headphone back in position. “Seems like he can take care of himself. Our boy there.” She nodded towards the shower room as she stabbed out numbers on the keyboard carefully with her long nails.
Stoeffel frowned. “What have you heard?”
Ayleen leaned away from the screen into her favorite gossip posture. Stoeffel took the blast of her excessive perfume with fortitude.
“Seems George tried some strong arm stuff on Mr. Summersby in the Low Down Cafe. Instead, he ended up red faced and having his empty weapon handed back to him,” she confided in a whisper, even though the front office was empty.
How Ayleen got all her information Stoeffel was never able to discover, she seemed to have a bush telegraph system that outdid even modern satellite technology.
“He did what?” he said disgustedly. “That dumb muscle-bound jock. I´m going to have to give him a real good talking to.”
Ayleen arched an eyebrow. “Okay, Chief. But you didn´t hear it here. Right?”
Stoeffel nodded and left her to it.
Chapter Six
Summersby felt refreshed after his shower and the earlier tiredness slipped away as he dressed in the mismatched overalls and sweater Ayleen had coyly left by the door. He wondered how much he should tell the Chief as he stood in front of the steamy mirror and raked his hair into place with his fingers.
Four years he had been working on this and the solitary exercise had made him cautious about disseminating information. He knew his cover story would hold up to scrutiny and maybe there was something to be had by being at the heart of local communication. He would have to think on it.
Stoeffel looked up from his desk as Summersby came back in.
“Better?” he asked.
“A lot.”
“Okay, you check out.” Stoeffel tossed the license printout across the desk.
Summersby twisted his lip wryly. “Not my best angle.”
“Look, I´ve got to eat. You want something?”
“No, I already did that. But I could sure use a beer.”
“Okay, come on then. We´ll go over to the Low Down.”
When they entered, the coffee shop was busy with late night supper customers and Stoeffel led the way through the throng to an empty cubicle at the rear. They passed an off-duty George lounging at the bar counter, where he was talking with a whey faced young serving girl. He turned as they walked by and grinned boyishly at Stoeffel but cast a quick careful sidelong glance at Summersby.
“Evening, Chief.”
Stoeffel looked at him hard. “You, I want to talk to. Tomorrow first thing, in my office.”
George lowered his eyes bashfully and Stoeffel went on by. Summersby slipped George an amused sympathetic smile as he passed and George glowered back at him.
“I´ll be right with you, Chief,” called the girl behind the counter.
“Okay, Iris,” Stoeffel answered over his shoulder.
They seated themselves and Stoeffel abstractedly straightened the checkered tablecloth. He said nothing, playing with the cloth until the serving girl arrived.
“I´ll take the usual, Iris. And a beer here for Mr. Summersby.”
“Okay.” She had a high, squeaky voice and jotted the order down with exaggerated care on her pad.
“What kind of beer would you like, sir?”
“Bud´ll be fine.”
“Coming right up,” she gave him a shy once over and brushed a strand of pale blonde hair from her cheek nervously before turning to leave.
“Not too bright but a good kid. Don´t know what she´s doing with George. Guy´s got his head up his ass most of the time. I heard what happened by the way.” Stoeffel jerked his chin in George´s direction. “The boy´s a fool but I need the manpower. Most of the time I keep him on traffic control but right now we have a little girl´s murder on our hands so he´ll be jumpy.”
“No problem, Chief.” Summersby recognized that Stoeffel was making an apology of sorts.
“They say you disarmed him.”
There was an unspoken question there and Summersby took his time answering.
“I was a military cop, Chief. Did my spell and learned the way of things before getting out. I enjoyed the statistics more than the rough stuff so I joined up with DHHS.”
“Yeah, I saw your sheet. More brain than brawn, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“They say you have a forensics degree under your belt, that right?”
Summersby nodded and Stoeffel leaned back as Iris arrived with an open bottle of Budweiser. Summersby thanked her and Stoeffel waited until she was out of earshot, and then leaned forward clasping his lar
ge hands on the table in front of himself.
“Any chance of you sticking around a while?” he asked quietly.
Summersby took a pull on his beer. “I need to get my bike up and running.”
“I can do that,” offered Stoeffel. “But it looks like I have some drug related incidents here and it might be your knowledge could be useful in the investigation.”
“I should say so. You know that you have a factory somewhere hereabouts, don’t you?”
Stoeffel watched him keenly. “How do you know that?”
“The evidence bag on your desk. You know what that glass shard is?”
Stoeffel shook his head negatively.
“It´s part of a test tube and my guess is you´ll find substance traces on it. I don´t think anybody out in the backwoods here will be playing with a kid´s chemistry set, do you?”
“You think they´re cooking the stuff here?”
Summersby nodded.
“What do you say then?”
“I´ll stick around, Chief. Until my bike is ready to go. How´s that?”
“You´ve got a deal.”
Iris returned with a loaded plate. Double decker cheeseburger and extra fries with a sad indication of salad on the side.
“Lord! You going to eat all that?” asked Summersby.
Stoeffel shrugged. “I need the calories. That a problem?”
Summersby sipped his beer. “Knock yourself out.” He set down the bottle. “I´ll need a place to stay.”
Stoeffel pondered around a mouthful of burger. “Mostly everything’s shut down for the winter now. There´s a motel out on the highway but it’s kind of a haul away. You´d better stay at my place, I have the room.”
Summersby raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the wedding ring Stoeffel still wore.
“What´ll your wife say on that?”
Stoeffel looked down at the ring and twisted it thoughtfully for a moment.
“Not a problem there. I live alone. My wife passed on a while back.”
Summersby scratched at the bottle label. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.
“How about you. Married?”