by Gregory Ashe
Somers considered the metal drawers for a moment and then turned towards Kamp’s desks. If there were any clues contained by the bones, Somers wasn’t going to be the one who found them. Hazard had already proved that he had more self-taught forensics than Somers, and if he hadn’t seen something on their first visit, there probably wasn’t anything to see. Instead, Somers dropped in Kamp’s chair and rifled the papers on the desk. Many of them were outdated cases—severely outdated, Somers though, as he gingerly set aside a stack of yellowing folders from the 1950s. Others were more recent, although that could mean anything as early as 1980. Dore County didn’t have that many suspicious deaths, and most of Kamp’s work had been a formality.
Under a teetering pile of bottles, Somers spotted a John Doe folder. He worked the folder loose, ignoring the clatter of glass, and spread it open on the desk. It looked like Kamp had sobered up long enough to do a small amount of work. Some basic information had been filled in: male, age estimated between late twenties and early forties, and for race Kamp had written Caucasian lightly in pencil and underlined it once. That, essentially, was the sum of the report. Then Somers noticed Kamp’s writing at the bottom of the page in the same uncertain, feathery pencil: Silver.
At that moment the door opened, and Hazard stepped into the room. No, stepped was too soft a word. Hazard crashed into the room. The door wobbled as it struck the wall. He didn’t look good, Somers realized. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t slept. For the first time since Hazard had arrived in Wahredua, his clothing was rumpled, his hair windblown, his whole persona giving off the vibe that this was a man who’d had a rough night and maybe an even rougher morning.
“Upchurch,” Hazard said, biting off the name as he stalked across the room. He held out a hand, and Somers passed him the folder.
“What do you mean, Upchurch?”
“Upchurch stopped me at the station. I’d gone in early to get Cravens’s report done—we forgot the second one yesterday, by the way, and she chewed my ass down to the bone, thanks a lot for that. At about five to eight I was getting ready to walk over here, and Upchurch showed up. Wanted to talk, he said. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Pinned me at the desk, kept going on and on about how he wanted me to come to his fucking retirement party.” Hazard scanned the report and threw it back onto the desk. “Silver. What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know. What did Upchurch want to talk to you about? Just the invitation?”
“Christ, what’s his deal? Do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
Hazard shook his head. “Kept going on and on about how important it was to have a gay cop on the force, how he hoped it was a good experience, how it meant a great deal to him personally. He even got a little teary about it.”
“You think Upchurch is gay? He’s married.” Hazard threw him a look that made Somers add, “Ok, fine, that’s not final proof. But—no, I really don’t think so. He gets emotional about everything. His wife’s always cleaning out the house, dumping stuff that she thinks they don’t need anymore, and half the time Upchurch winds up crying because it was the first tacklebox his great-uncle gave him or a packet of stickers from a really good day at Silver Dollar City, stuff like that. Sentimental. He’s really sentimental. It must just be getting to him, the fact that he’s leaving.”
“It felt like he was coming on to me,” Hazard said, turning and moving towards the metal drawers. He yanked open the one that held their John Doe’s remains. The black body bag was still there, and Hazard unzipped it in a smooth, practiced motion. Somers sauntered over to join him, resting on the end of the drawer with both arms. As the bag opened, it spilled the smell of burned hair and plastic and hot metal that still clung to the bones. Somers’s stomach flipped, and the pounding in the back of his head intensified.
“What did he mean, silver? Have you seen that before?”
“No idea.”
Hazard retreated to the desk for a moment, snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, and then sifted through the bones. He examined the bottom of the bag, running his fingers through the dust and ash collected at the bottom.
“There,” Somers said, gripping Hazard’s shoulder in a flash of excitement. He pointed to a long bone where something sparkled under the fluorescent lights. “What’s that?”
“The clavicle,” Hazard said with a dismissive glance.
“No, not that bone. What’s that on it?”
Turning over the bone in his gloved hands, Hazard held the bone up to the light.
“It looks like silver,” Somers said.
Hazard grunted.
“Do you think that’s what he was talking about? That’s the silver he meant.”
“I don’t know. He’s an inveterate drunk who can’t do an important job. I’m not sure one scribbled word means something.” But in spite of his words, Hazard was studying the bone closely.
“It’s jewelry,” Somers said.
With a nod, Hazard said, “A necklace, probably. Melted in the heat of the fire—really fine links, I guess, for part of it to have stuck to the bone like this. Pretty good catch.”
“For an inveterate drunk.”
Hazard carefully replaced the bone and zipped the bag shut. “Is that all we came here to see?”
“I thought Kamp would have more for us,” Somers said.
“So we wait for him?”
Somers considered the question; a part of him thought that would be a good idea, to wait for Kamp and see if the ME could tell them anything else in person. But part of him worried that Hazard would see waiting as a waste of precious time. After how Hazard had reacted in the Pretty Pretty last night, Somers didn’t want to give his partner another reason to complain.
“Let’s see that phone. The one Nico Flores gave you.”
As Hazard pulled the phone from his pocket, Somers slid the metal drawer shut, grateful that it closed off the worst of the burned smell. Hazard passed the phone to Somers, and Somers tapped the tracking app. A map appeared showing a winding path of red pins: a trail marking everywhere Chendo Cervantes’s phone had been in the last few days.
“The stuff in town,” Hazard said, pointing a big finger at the screen, “is a mess. Overlapping, weaving back and forth, even when I filtered the data by day.”
“He was busy before he left town.”
“Really busy.” Hazard hesitated; his eyes—those amber-colored scarecrow eyes—had gone soft and unfocused.
“What?”
“Was he trying to throw Nico off his trail? Did he not want a jealous ex tracking him down? I mean, he couldn’t have made it more difficult for us if he’d tried. Even if we split and only focused on the places he’d gone in town, it might take us a couple of days to check all of them.”
“Then,” Somers said, his eyes tracing the line of red pins, “he leaves town on Monday night and goes south. To the Lake of the Ozarks. He drives straight there, stays for a few hours, and then leaves. Heads southwest towards the state border.”
“And he’s well into Oklahoma, judging by this,” Hazard said.
“I think we should check out this spot,” Somers said, pointing to the pin at the lake.
“Why?”
“It’s strange. If he wants to get away, across a state line, then he should have headed straight for the border. But he didn’t. He goes out of his way to a remote part of the county. About as remote as you can imagine, actually.”
“To hide out.”
“But then he turns around and runs again? Why?”
“He realized it wasn’t a very good hiding spot. Or he got spooked when he saw another camper. Or he just wanted to lie low for a day and get his head straight. Lots of reasons.”
Somers was shaking his head. “I don’t buy it. He went there for a reason—just for a few hours—and then left again. That doesn’t sound like a change in plans; it sounds like an intentional stop. When he’d finished whatever he needed to do, he left again.”
“What did
he need to do in the middle of nowhere?”
Somers reached to clap Hazard on the shoulder. Hazard, smoothly and without changing expression, slid away before Somers could touch him.
Heaving a sigh, Somers said, “Let’s go find out.”
THE DRIVE TO THE LAKE OF THE OZARKS took Somers almost an hour and a half, and it was one of the most painful drives of his life. Hazard had, for some reason, completely shut down. He wouldn’t respond to Somers except in tight, controlled answers, and the rest of the time he spent staring straight ahead as though he were looking down a tunnel. After the tenth or twelfth failed try at conversation, Somers gave up and settled in behind the Impala’s wheel. Maybe it had been a fight with Billy; maybe that was why Hazard was acting the way he’d acted on Monday—like Somers was worse than a stranger.
Whatever the reason, there was nothing Somers could do about it, and so he waited for the aspirin to kick in and tried to enjoy the drive. As they got closer to the lake, the ground became more hilly, rolling and swelling, exposing bleached limestone bones where the road sheared along the bluffs. Instead of the checkerboard farmland that filled most of Dore County, dense woodlands paraded on either side of the road. Cottonwoods and redbuds, American elms, eastern white pines, and on and on. Everything was green, a dark, vibrant green, that contrasted with the dusty golden fields of wheat behind them.
Chendo’s trail led them to an unmarked service drive that was nothing more than two ruts worn into a weed-choked clearing. Somers eased the Impala along the path, wincing as the car rocked back and forth, its suspension vainly trying to accommodate the sudden shifts of the winding tracks. Reddish-brown dust drifted up and coated the windshield, and Somers flicked on the mister. He winced as thick red droplets clung to the Impala’s hood. It was a department car, but every time Somers felt his teeth click together, he was reminded that it was his ass on the paperwork, not Hazard’s.
After almost thirty minutes, the track gave out at the top of a swell of land. The trees thinned to a clearing that overlooked, some two hundred yards below, a stretch of slate-blue water: the lake of the Ozarks. In the middle of the clearing, three large tents—Somers would have guessed they were eight-person tents, maybe bigger—surrounded the embers of a campfire. Somers pulled the car to a stop. As he opened the door, the wet summer smells rolled in: the freshly-crushed grass under the tires, purple clover, the reddish dust they had stirred on the drive. Woodsmoke from the fire lingered. From the lake came the whine of a speedboat, and then, closer, a splash and a round of excited cries.
“Guess it’s not as isolated as it looks on a map,” Somers said.
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t stay.” Hazard was scanning the clearing as he spoke. “Hello. Is there anybody in there?” His hand went to the .38 in his shoulder holster. Somers pulled his own weapon, a Glock 22, from its holster at the small of his back. Chendo Cervantes had an accomplice: the second man, the fake Volunteer. Was he still here? Was he here with friends?
Hazard motioned for Somers to move left, and without waiting for confirmation, Hazard swept to the right. Somers moved as quietly as he could, but he was sensible of the grass and weeds crunching underfoot, of the dew staining his trousers and chilling his legs, of the slight movements of air that sounded like train whistles in his ears, making him afraid that he would miss a crucial sound of warning.
Somers mind processed, in intermittent blips, the information he had. Twenty-four men. At most, there might be twenty-four men staying at this campsite. At a minimum, three, although that number seemed low for the size of the tents. The campfire was still smoking, so someone had been here recently. Might well still be here. So where were the cars and trucks? Where had all the vehicles gone? Adrenaline still pounded through Somers, but he felt the same steadiness that he had always felt in these situations: a kind of counterpoint to the emotional chaos that put the slightest tremor in his hands.
As Somers came around the tent on the far left, an older man wearing long johns—and nothing else—hopped out of the woods barefoot. In the act of scratching his ass, he froze when he saw Somers. Then he grinned. It was Leonard Birt.
“John-Henry, you bastard. What are you doing?”
Somers let out a breath and holstered his gun. “Hazard, you can come over here.” Hazard trotted into view, his .38 held low but still visible. After a glance at Somers and Leonard, he holstered the weapon and threw Somers a questioning look.
“Who’s this?” Bint said. “And what the hell is going on here? Can’t a man take a dump without other folk showing him any decency?”
“Detective Hazard, this is Leonard Bint, a frequent guest of the Wahredua PD for public intoxication, public urination, public nudity, and poaching.”
“And those is my good qualities,” Bint said to Hazard, punctuating the comment with a laugh that exposed two jagged, yellow front teeth.
Leonard Bint had been the first man Somers had arrested, and he was a hard man to forget: he stood barely five feet tall, and he had a cloud of curly, silvery hair. His potbelly stretched out his long johns, and his bare feet were matted with coarse gray hair. That first arrest had been for public nudity; Bint had just finished reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and had elected to follow the Founding Father’s example of air baths. It had ended with Somers and Bint both falling into the Grand Rivere. Swinney had fished them out with a boat hook.
“Leonard, what are you doing up here? Do I need to call a game warden?”
Bint’s eyes showed, for a moment, a predatory calculation. Then he grinned, scratched his ass again, and sauntered past the detectives. Over his shoulder, he called, “Now, John-Henry, you’re going to give me a bad name. You know I’ve given up hunting just like I gave up drinking. They’re both sinful. Powerful sinful, you know.” He retrieved a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon from a cooler, popped the tab, and took a long drink.
“Just like he gave up drinking?” Hazard muttered.
“I think beer is more of a soft drink for Leonard,” Somers whispered back.
“Can I offer you gentlemen something in the way of refreshment?” Bint sketched a courtly bow, began to fall, and caught himself by landing face-first on a camp chair.
“This is a fucking joke,” Hazard said, not bothering to lower his voice this time. “Let’s go.”
“Give me a minute,” Somers said. He helped Bint up and settled him in the chair with a second beer in easy reach. Then Somers took a second camp chair and pulled it up alongside the old man. Bint belched, and it was such a forceful exhalation that the top two buttons of his long johns popped free. Bleary-eyed, Bint examined the damaged and then scratched the sweaty tangle of graying chest hair.
“You’re that new detective,” he finally pronounced, fixing Hazard with a look. “I remember you. Frank and Aileen’s boy.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“Oh, no. I don’t imagine you did. I had the devil in me back then. Knew your father all right. He was a good man.”
Hazard didn’t answer.
“Leonard,” Somers said, “how long have you been up here?”
“Just got here last night. The boys and I did a right honorable wiener roast. And today, breakfast like kings, only Davey forgot the eggs. Sausage, potatoes, even some of that cobbler from last night. You want anything? We still got some of that cobbler.” He rocked in the camp chair, trying to rise.
“No, no. We’re good.” Somers waved him back into the seat. “Last night? Don’t suppose you saw anything out of the ordinary? Anybody else here?”
Bint shook his head, and his long, curling gray hair drifted around his face. “Not a soul. Never been to this spot before, but it’s a good one. Off the beaten path. How’d you boys find it?”
“We had a map. You’ve never been here before? What brought you this time?”
“Oh, it was on account of a tip Davey got about these white-tailed—” Bint cut off, and his squinted eyes showed a furious attempt at thought.
“Never
mind that,” Somers said. “Who gave him the tip? I’m not looking to get anyone in trouble, Leonard. You know me. I’ve always been fair, right?”
“Never thought I’d say this for a Somerset,” Bint said, his beady eyes rolling with amusement, “but you ain’t got half the stick up your ass your daddy does. Not half. Not even a quarter, if I’m being frank.”
Somers grinned. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me. Now, we’re looking for someone who might be dangerous, Leonard, and I want to know who told you about this spot. That’s all. Right now, I’m not worried about anything else.”
Bint’s eyes showed a healthy amount of skepticism—and, Somers thought, an unhealthy amount of yellowing, most likely from all the hooch—and he didn’t answer. Before either man could speak, the sound of tires on gravel broke the silence, and a black panel van pulled up next to the Impala.
“There’s Davey now,” Bint said. “He gone to get eggs, but he’s back. You ask him yourself.”
The van’s door popped open, and a round man with lank, yellow hair stepped down. His hair wasn’t blond; Somers’s hair was blond, and he knew what blond hair looked like. This man’s hair was yellow, and it had obviously come out of a bottle, and the bottle had obviously come off a dollar-shelf at a convenience store.
“Davey, you get the eggs?”
“Yeah. Who’s these two?”
“This is John-Henry, my friend, and he’s police. That’s the new detective, the one everyone’s talking about.”
Davey’s eyes flicked over Somers without interest, but they lingered on Hazard. Somers felt a flicker of concern. He had heard some of the things people were saying about his partner, things that they’d been saying even before Hazard arrived, and he could guess what men like Leonard Bint and his friend Davey thought of having a gay detective on the force. Somers forced his best, guy-around-town smile, and tried to steer the conversation back to something productive.
“Davey, I’m Detective Somerset. I was telling Leonard that we’re looking for someone who was camped out up here a few days ago. Did you see anything when you got here last night?”