A Desperate Place for Dying

by Scott William Carter

  "First Star, Chuck speaking," a man said gruffly.

  "Hi Chuck," Gage replied cheerily, "this is Larry Malone here with Turret House B&B in Barnacle Bluffs. I got a bit of a weird situation. Somebody driving one of your cars stopped to see if we had any openings, but we didn't. Problem is, he left his iPad here and I didn't catch him before he took off. Guess he put it down when he was talking, and I didn't see it on account it was on the other side of the counter. But our security camera caught his license plate number. You think you can help me out and see if it's one of yours?"

  "Sure, I guess," the man said without hesitation. "What's the number?"

  Gage gave it to him and the man put him on hold. He wasn't at all surprised that the man had readily agreed to help him. Gage had long since learned that the more elaborate the lie—so long as it was convincingly told—the more likely people were to believe it without question.

  "All right, got it," the man said when he came back on, and Gage could hear the shuffling of papers in the background. "Lemme see . . . Yeah, Harry Sampson. That's the guy's name. Checked the vehicle back in last night. You want the address and phone, you said?"

  Gage told him he did. He was a little disappointed that the van had already been returned; he'd held out hope that if nothing else he could hightail it up to Portland and stake out the rental place until the van showed up. The clerk gave him all the relevant information—Sampson lived in St. Louis, Missouri—though he finally balked when Gage asked if he could have the credit number.

  It was just as well. When Gage got off the phone, armed with a name, address, and phone number, Alex had more than enough to start digging. Sadly, it didn't take more than a few keystrokes to discover that the Harry Sampson who lived at that address in St. Louis definitely wasn't the same man who'd shopped at Jaybee's on Wednesday.

  The man in St. Louis had died of a heart attack a month before.

  When Gage called the number, a woman named Karen Mansfield in Tallahassee answered. She didn't know Harry Sampson—or any Sampsons for that matter.

  "Identify theft," Alex said, when Gage got off the phone. "Disappointing, but not all that surprising."

  "Not leaving a lot to go on so far," Gage said. "They could have flown in from anywhere."

  "You get anything else from talking to Loren Sparrow? Some other lead?"

  "I want to talk to that P.I. he used out of Boston. He wasn't able to track them down before, but who knows."

  Alex smirked. "And he's not you, so he's got that going against him."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means that even if he didn't get that job done, it has nothing to do with whether you think you can get the job done. Come on, you've always had a certain amount of supreme confidence in your abilities that borders on megalomania."

  "Jesus. Now you're calling me a megalomaniac. I bring you donuts, and this is how you treat me?"

  "Hey," Alex said, "I didn't say your self-confidence wasn't justified. And more to the point, you didn't bring me any donuts today, and I have a short memory when it comes to donuts. Why don't you give me the guy's name? I'll call him for you."

  "Really? I wouldn't want you to think a megalomaniac like me is taking advantage of you."

  Alex rolled his eyes. "Will you quit? I know I'm right, and because I'm right, I know your ego can take the abuse. That's what being a megalomaniac means. Anyway, the only other thing I got planned is cleaning some hardbacks with some rubbing alcohol—got to get off all those messy fingerprints."

  It was when Alex mentioned fingerprints that Gage forgot all about being angry. There was a possible lead right in front of him—if he was quick about it.

  "What?" Alex said.

  "You still know how to dust for prints?" Gage asked.

  "Sure. Got the kit at the house. Why?"

  "If I'm lucky, I'll bring something by later." He started for the door, then turned back, scribbling the name 'John Ettel' on a sticky note and handing it to Alex. "I doubt you can do as good a job as me, since there's really no one on this planet that possesses my superior abilities, but I know you'll do your best."

  Chapter 14

  There was no way to know for sure whether the black faux leather King James Bible that Gage found on the top of the spinner at Jaybee's Grocery was, in fact, that same Bible Gage had seen picked up by the man in the security video, but since there were two copies there before and two now, he figured the chances were good. How often did a grocery store sell Bibles?

  The bubbly brunette in the green apron raised her eyebrows when Gage asked if it would be all right if he held onto it while she scanned the price, and probably thought it even stranger that Gage had worn his leather gloves while doing so, but he didn't care. There was no telling how many fingerprints were already on the Bible. The one thing he had going for him was that he'd seen exactly where the man had placed his thumb while checking the price—in the bottom right corner of the back—and he didn't want to take the slightest chance of messing up what might be a very good print.

  With the Bible wrapped tightly in a plastic bag and stored under his seat, he headed for the Bugle's office. He needed to have a few words with Carmen before dropping the Bible off with Alex. There was no way he could witness what he had seen on television, the effortless way she'd tossed him to the wolves, without saying something.

  It was going on toward noon when he parked outside her building, the oversized red Christmas stockings mounted on each of the light posts glittering under the bright overhead sun. Only stepping into frigid breeze did it seem more like winter on the Oregon Coast than a sunny day in southern California. He smelled grilled hamburgers on the breeze; the burger joint up the road in the full swing of the lunch hour.

  No news vans were camped outside her office. Ascending the stairs, holding his cane in one hand and gripping the side rail with the other, he didn't hear her talking to anyone inside.

  He found her staring at her wide monitor, her back to him. Even from across the room, he could see that she was designing the next issue of her weekly newspaper, narrow columns with lots of text. The gray trench coat she wore to the interview was slung over the swivel chair. She wore a parchment colored blouse and a crisp maroon skirt, an outfit he hadn't seen before.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Even with her blonde hair cut short, there was still a way the hair moved when she turned her head that drove him crazy. It was the little things like that he adored about her, even when he didn't feel much in an adoring mood.

  "Did you bring me lunch?" she asked.

  "What, you mean even the hotshots who work for CNN don't have it catered?"

  Her eyes were still bright and shiny, but her smile faded just a tad. "Ah," she said. "You saw that."

  "Bingo. So did you buy new clothes just for the occasion?"

  "What, this old thing?"

  Gage navigated through the maze of desks and filing cabinets, perching on the edge of the metal desk kitty-corner to her, setting his cane in his lap. Once the Barnacle Bluffs Bugle had employed a dozen people, but when Carmen bought it a few years back she had quickly realized that the only way the paper could survive in a dying industry was to run it as a one-person show. They stared at each other, the murmur of traffic outside like a passing river.

  "You're upset," she said.

  "Nah," he said.

  "Uh huh. Why is it I get the feeling you want to whap me on the head with that cane?"

  "I want to whap most people on the head with my cane. It's a constant state of being."

  She squinted at him with mock seriousness. "Come on, it's me. You're pissed because I told them about you, aren't you?"

  "I was a little surprised."

  "Garrison, what was I supposed to do? This isn't some local story. It's big. As soon as John mentioned your name, I could have played dumb but they would have seen that I wrote about you. Better that I try to control the narrative rather than be at the mercy of whatever they want to say about you. It's not like
I told them about us. And that's risky for me, too, because they will probably find out eventually."

  "Oh, and that's a bad thing?"

  "Garrison—"

  "We wouldn't want them finding out about us. A reporter sleeping with one of her sources. Tsk tsk."

  "Now you're just being a jerk."

  He shrugged. "Whatever. An old friend is dead. The man who killed my wife is in town. And when I go back to the house, I'll either have journalists or FBI agents waiting for me—maybe both. But yeah, I guess I should be nicer. Think positive. That's the ticket."

  The fire flared in her eyes. He waited for the blowback, the inevitable explosion that would result from all the kerosene he'd dumped on her. Across the room, the phone on her main desk started to ring, but she made no move to answer it. After five rings, it stopped. By then, the inferno had passed; she merely looked tired.

  "No," she said.

  "No? What do you mean, no?"

  "I mean, no, I'm not letting you do this."

  "I'm afraid I don't—"

  "You're deliberately trying to sabotage our relationship," she said. "Or maybe you're doing it subconsciously, I don't know. But I don't think you're really that upset about this, especially when you know I could have said a lot more. I think you're just looking for an excuse to try to drive a wedge between us. And I'm not going to let you do it."

  Gage drummed his fingers on his cane. He didn't know what annoyed him more—that she mentioned his name on national television, or that she could so quickly decipher his real intentions even when he didn't fully understand them himself.

  "Lunch?" he said.

  * * * * *

  They grabbed turkey sandwiches at the Subway down the street, getting her back to the office in less than half an hour. Her demeanor was a bit icy, but he felt it melting by the end of the meal. She was expecting a call from a reporter at the New York Times and didn't want to miss it. When she asked him if he'd learned anything new, he said no. He knew lying to her was a mistake, but he was afraid that if he told her about the insurance salesman in the white van, and the possible fingerprint on the Bible, there was a chance the information might end up getting revealed on national television. It wasn't so much that he didn't trust her. He was just trying to give her plausible deniability.

  That's what he told himself, anyway.

  Still, she held his gaze for an extra second when answered, so she obviously knew he wasn't saying everything. She didn't call him on it, but he got the sense he'd failed a pop quiz.

  Driving to Books and Oddities, he was on edge. The traffic had already picked up; even in winter, it was a Friday, and that meant tourists flooding into town for the weekend. With the coastal winter weather more mild than in the Willamette Valley, and whale watching season in full swing, there was still plenty to do. He kept scanning for Bruzzi or press vans or FBI agents. He was starting to wonder if his days in Barnacle Bluffs were numbered. Maybe he'd have to find a new refuge where he could sink back into anonymity. He could also join the circus. Or a cult. That seemed to be going around.

  His edginess turned out to be warranted. He didn't see Bruzzi's black Crown Victoria or any news vans gracing the gravel parking lot of the Horseshoe Mall, but he hadn't gotten a good look at the car the FBI agents had been driving the previous night at his house. If he had, he would have noted the silver-green Lincoln Continental parked in the corner instead of being surprised when he walked into the store and found Alex talking to his two new friends from the FBI, Agent Pantelli and Agent Wilde. Alex's smile looked as if it had been carved on his face with a dull knife.

  "Well, here's the man of the hour now," Alex said.

  Wilde, the slim paperback he was holding dwarfed by his big black hand, wagged the book at him as if he was planning slapping Gage with it. "You stood us up, buddy."

  "Yeah, I have a habit of doing that," Gage said.

  "What's that you got? Looks like a book."

  Gage held the Bible, wrapped in its white Jaybee's bag, in his left hand, his cane in the other. Since he'd obviously brought the book in from the car, he couldn't very well pretend he'd just bought it.

  "Just something I picked up at an estate sale," Gage said. "I wanted to use Alex's computer to see if it has any value."

  "If I was smart," Alex said, "I'd make my computer run on quarters."

  "Probably make more money than you make with this dump," Gage said.

  "Ain't that the truth."

  The whole time, Pantelli stared at him with her penetrating dark eyes. He couldn't tell if she was angry or amused. She had one of those faces that was hard to read, though he got the sense she was like a caged tiger—a lot of suppressed wildness wrapped inside a business suit. He also noticed, because her white shirt was buttoned low enough, that she wore a tiny gold cross on a chain. It was her only personal adornment—no make-up, no earrings.

  "Mister Gage," she said insistently, "we've come a long way to work on this case. We know you've worked with the FBI before, so I'm not sure why you're avoiding us now."

  "That was a very different life," Gage said.

  "This case is important," Wilde said.

  "Aren't they all?" Gage said.

  "But you were obviously meeting with Angela Wellman for a reason," Pantelli said. "We know she was briefly your teacher when you were in high school in Montana. Were you meeting because of that, or because of something else?"

  Gage was irritated, but he should have known they would have done their research. "We've maintained some contact over the years," he said. "She was in the area because of Sparrow and I asked her to swing by if she had time. We both love pinochle. You know how hard it is to find someone who wants to play pinochle with you? It's very hard."

  "It was very late to swing by," Wilde said.

  "Are you implying something?" Gage said.

  "Just sayin', it was late."

  "She was on her way to Eugene. It's all she could manage. We visited for an hour, played a quick game, then she had to hit the hay. Would have liked to visit with her more, you know, to reminisce, but she had to get up early."

  Pantelli glanced over her shoulder, as if ensuring no customers were in the store, which there weren't, then advanced a step toward Gage—close enough that he caught the scent of lavender from whatever soap she used. So she wasn't completely against a touch of feminine mystique. Good to know. He'd pegged her as more of a Dial sort of gal. Or whatever soap they put in the dispensers in public restrooms.

  When she spoke again, her voice was lower. Almost husky.

  "Did you have sex with her?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "It's a simple question. I'm hoping you'll give me a simple answer."

  "No! She was my former teacher, for God's sake."

  There must have been something in his voice that betrayed him, because Pantelli narrowed her eyes. Gage felt his defenses rising, the need to snap back, but he quelled the desire. If he got emotional, it would only confirm her suspicions.

  "And even if I had," he said evenly, "I'm not sure why it would be any of your business."

  "As long as the God's Wrath cult continues to kill innocent people," she said, "there's a lot of things that are going to be our business that shouldn't be. Did you have a relationship with Mrs. Wellman when you were in Montana? Is that the reason she left town so suddenly?"

  "She left town suddenly because she taught the truth in a place that didn't really want it. What is this about? Why are you digging through her underwear drawer anyway? I don't see how this has anything to do with—"

  "The preliminary autopsy report shows that she had intercourse the night she was killed," Pantelli said. "It will take a while to get a DNA test on the semen, and even longer to see if there's a match in any of the databases, but if you had intercourse with her, it could save us the trouble."

  For some reason, stupidly, Gage had never considered the possibility that they'd raped her. From what he'd read, they hadn't raped any of the women before no
w, so why Angela? The sandwich he'd had for lunch no longer seemed like a good idea. Any meal he'd had in the past few days no longer seemed like a good idea. Then, on the heels of the nausea, he felt his rage rising again. They'd left not even a scrap of her dignity intact.

  "Hey, pal," Alex said, "you all right?"

  "It wasn't me," Gage said hoarsely.

  Pantelli, still staring into his face with the intensity of a cobra, nodded curtly. "I'm sorry if this information comes as a shock. We were surprised, too, since it doesn't fit the pattern. It's why we also have to consider the possibility that someone wanted to make her murder look like a cult killing, when in fact she may have been killed for other reasons."

  "Wait a minute," Gage said. "Wait just a minute here. Are you saying you think I raped her, tortured her, left her naked and bleeding to death—and then tried to make it look like a God's Wrath killing to cover it up?"

  "It's nothing personal," Wilde said. "We have to consider all possibilities."

  "Fuck you," Gage said.

  "Now, now," Wilde said.

  "She was my friend, you asshole. And if you think, after the way my wife was killed, that I would ever be capable—"

  "Try not to get upset," Pantelli said. "You know you'd think the same thing in our position. There's just pieces floating around that don't make sense to us."

  "Well, it doesn't make sense to me either. That's why I'm going to find out who did this."

  "It would be better if you leave that to us," Pantelli said.

  "Oh, okay, since you asked nicely, sure." Gage snorted.

  "Why did you wait several days to tell the police that the man who killed your wife was in town and harassing you?"

  It was the second sucker punch of the past few minutes, but this one came as less of a surprise. He'd never doubted that Quinn would tell the FBI about Bruzzi. His only surprise was how fast he'd done it, especially since he knew how little Quinn—or any local police chief, for that matter—appreciated the FBI's involvement.