by Nat Williams
Janet lowered her head.
“Oh God.”
She suddenly looked up.
“You don’t think she’s involved somehow, do you?”
She didn’t bother to wait for an answer and Bachelor didn’t offer one.
“He would have fought. He wouldn’t have let anyone rob him. He was stubborn.”
She looked Bachelor in the eye.
“Did he put up a fight?”
Bachelor looked down at a folder he was holding.
“We’re not sure. We haven’t had much time. The investigation is just beginning.”
He quickly changed the subject.
“Did your father own any firearms?”
“He did, but I couldn’t tell you what. I know he had a couple of guns … long guns. Shotguns or rifles. He used to hunt.”
Bachelor knew this already. A Belgian-made Browning 12-gauge semi-automatic and Mossberg 88 pump were found in a closet, unloaded and undisturbed. Two boxes of birdshot shells were nearly full.
“Did your father keep a lot of cash at home? Any valuables?”
“I don’t think so,” Janet said. “Mom had some jewelry. She had some antiques.”
“We did find a jewelry box,” Bachelor said. “It didn’t look like it had been disturbed. We’ll take a full inventory and check it against the insurance company. You’ll be able to look at it and see if you think anything is missing.”
Janet appeared to be drained. She felt like slumping down in the seat and crying.
“Did your parents have cellphones?”
“Dad did. Mother used to. But … she couldn’t use it anymore, so Dad canceled the account and got rid of the phone.”
Bachelor asked for her father’s number and Janet gave it to him. He dialed the number, but the call went straight to voicemail.
“When was the last time you saw your parents?”
Janet grasped the arm on the chair, squeezing tightly. “Probably a week or so. It’s been really busy at the orchard. I talked to Dad on the phone the other day.”
“Where were you last night? And David?”
Her voice was weak.
“We were home.”
“All night? You and David?”
Janet wiped her eyes with a tissue.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“Lately, we’ve been kinda cohabitating. He comes, he goes. Same with me. We haven’t been sharing a lot of quality time.”
Bachelor pressed.
“You and your husband are having problems?”
Janet looked down. “My parents just got murdered! Does that really matter?”
“Everything matters in a murder case.”
She put her head in her hands, still looking down at the table.
“We haven’t been … intimate for a while. It’s been a rough year. You know, the orchard.”
“I understand.”
“This doesn’t seem real. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know. But I have a lot to do. I’ll need to make … arrangements.”
“Of course. Is Mr. Purcell around?”
“I believe he’s with Obie, working in one of the orchards. I called him, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message. I didn’t really know what to say.”
Bachelor rose up.
“Of course. Anyway, we need to talk to him. By the way, did your father have life insurance?”
Janet was nonplussed.
“I doubt it. He didn’t believe in it. Figured no one deserves something just because someone else … passes away.”
“We’ll need to know some things. Like their insurance company. Do you know who they dealt with?”
“That’s one thing I do know,” Janet said, regaining her composure. “Dad always did business with Foley Insurance. Jim Foley was one of his best friends. They played golf together. Jim and his wife, Martha, were very close to Mom and Dad. I remember when I was young. We camped together, had backyard barbecues, everything.”
The memories were helping push back the traumatic news of the past hour for just a little while.
“His policies would be there.”
“Where do they live?”
Janet shook her head.
“Oh, they’re not here anymore. I mean, they both passed away a few years ago. They were older than Mom and Dad. I believe their son runs the company now.”
Bachelor paused.
“We didn’t see a home security system at your parents’ house. Were you aware of that?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. But that makes sense. Dad didn’t worry about stuff like that. He always figured he could take care of any threats. And, you know, C-Camp is a pretty …” she almost broke down “… safe place.”
Bachelor stood up. He handed her his card.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. What else does one say in a circumstance like this? “I’ll let you know as soon as we have anything at all.”
“Thank you,” she said as she took the card and put it in her purse. “I’m ready to go back to my car.”
CHAPTER 12
David Purcell sat in the driver’s seat of his pickup truck, parked on a grass path between rows of apple trees. The engine was off, but the ignition was on accessory, providing battery power to operate the radio, among other things. It was keyed to WSSI, which was blasting Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s Takin’ Care of Business on the FM preset.
The head of Maria Juárez bobbed up and down in his lap, while David stared out the windshield, his eye catching a rabbit crossing the orchard in the distance. That got him to thinking about wildlife damage, another in a long list of problems that can turn a profitable orchard into a losing proposition.
Rabbits didn’t pose much threat. Browsing by deer – what Purcell and his fellow orchardists refer to as rats with antlers – well, that was another thing altogether. Raccoons got their share of free snacks. Even birds sometimes swooped down to take a punishing peck at a ripe fruit hanging from a branch. That’s all it takes. Damaged fruit is culled fruit.
But the deer were becoming a real problem since the state Department of Natural Resources had reduced the number of permits during the shotgun season. He wondered if maybe he should apply for a nuisance permit reserved for landowners.
His view was intermittently obscured by Maria’s head coming into his forward vision on her upstroke. Fortunately for Maria, her technique was good. So the task was as short as it was disgusting.
She despised him. But what could she do? Nada. Maria wasn’t exactly the poster child for the Me Too movement. She had a couple of felony warrants in her native Irapuato, in Guanajuato state. It started with petty theft. Soon she was abetting her brother and cousin in small-time strong-arm robberies. She got into the drug scene. Things gradually went downhill. Facing the Mexican drug dealers who had used her as a mule was a frightening prospect. They didn’t give her permission to leave. And they wouldn’t want to take the chance of her talking to the policía.
So Maria made her way to Illinois as a refugee on a worker run. A worker run is the transport of Mexicans to the United States to work in the farms, orchards, meatpacking houses and other businesses, performing jobs that not enough U.S. citizens wanted to do.
Years ago, many of the orchardists in southern Illinois began annual excursions to Guanajuato, to recruit residents looking to earn some money in Los Estados Unidos.
For a few – especially the younger ones - it was a grand adventure. An opportunity to see the USA. To flirt with the pretty blondes. To watch American baseball. For others, it was a way to climb out of the poverty that engulfed them. The few younger ones who hung around long enough soon adopted the perspective of the older ones.
The run had become routine to Purcell and others who farmed in southern Illinois. They made an annual trip to Mexico, where they would rent several buses, along with their drivers. The word went out ahead of them, so there were always prospective workers aware of when and where to apply
for jobs.
Purcell looked forward to the trip every year. He and some of the other farmers took the opportunity to let their hair down and give in to Bacchanalian pleasures. They usually headed south in February or March, when the weather in the Midwest could be unpleasant. The tequila flowed in the strip joints along the way, lowering the inhibitions of the chiquitas dulces in their embroidered dresses, who circulated among the clientes americanos with a perverse mixture of innocence and sexuality.
It was all legal. That is, most of it was. The workers were hired as part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s H-2A program, which allows employers to bring in migrant workers on a seasonal basis. Many remained through the off-season, landing temporary positions at lumberyards, retail stores and Mexican restaurants.
David had let Maria know that - if it became necessary - he would reluctantly let it slip out about her sordid past in Mexico, including her rap sheet and outstanding warrants. He would hate to lose a worker, of course, but it was important that he exhibit good citizenship and all. Justice was important to the wetbacks too, just like it is to real Americans.
He would miss his secret romps with Maria, but there would be others.
Just as she was finishing, the opening strains of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap blasted from the classic rock station. She was oblivious to the irony; Maria was into Diego Boneta. She was as unfamiliar with Australian metal as she was with inglés.
As David was zipping his pants up his cellphone rang.
The display said it was Janet. There had been a missed call. He made a cutting-his-throat motion to Maria with his index finger, then put it up to his lips. She didn’t need to know English to know what those gestures meant. Keep your mouth shut, or else.
David pressed the screen. “Hey babe, what’s up?”
From the other side of the cab – as far away as she could get from David Purcell – Maria could clearly hear Janet’s piercing wail. Something horrible had happened.
David put his hand over the phone and turned away from Maria. He virtually whispered.
“What do you mean?”
Maria, with her back to the passenger door, fantasized about being anywhere but here right now.
David ended the call, put the truck in gear and kicked up dust as he flew out of the orchard. He made a turn a bit too fast, heading east. The front-passenger tire dipped down in a ditch, shaking the truck and its inhabitants.
“I’m dropping you off at the camp,” he said in Spanish. “You’ll have to walk to your place.”
He quickly pulled off the blacktop into the entrance to the Southern Illinois Migrant Center and stopped.
“¡Vete!”
Maria threw open the passenger door and got out. David, who hadn’t even bothered to put the gear in park, peeled out and maneuvered the truck back onto the blacktop. He arrived at the house in just a few minutes.
Janet was standing outside, waiting for him.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Where have you been?”
“Working.”
She gathered herself.
“Let’s go inside.”
Once they were in the house she calmly recounted what little she knew of the death of her parents. How they had been shot. That there weren’t any suspects. That police didn’t have any idea why someone would want the couple dead. That Morella Watson had discovered the bodies.
“I can’t believe it!” she said. “I just can’t believe it!”
She shook her head and made short half-turns like she always did in stressful situations.
David put his arms around her and squeezed. She was shaking slightly, her breathing rapid and shallow, matching her sobs.
“I …” David couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t need to.
“Just hold me. I need you to hold me. Not yesterday. Maybe not tomorrow. But now.”
CHAPTER 13
Todd Kimmer sat in Bachelor’s office. He was a burly man with big hands wearing thick jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off, a la Larry the Cable Guy. You half-expected him to start off with a Git-R-Done! But he didn’t. Instead, he rubbed his hands on his jeans in what seemed to be an attempt to wipe away his nervousness.
Or it could just be a medical condition, Bachelor thought as he did his best to size up the man. He took a drink of coffee and offered Kimmer a cup. The nervous witness declined. Jerry Carroll, the deputy, followed him with his eyes.
“I understand you have some information about the Van Okin crime,” Bachelor said as he and Carroll took a seat.
Kimmer nodded and cleared his throat.
“I’m not from C-Camp. Went to school in Warrensville. I was on the football team.”
Bachelor looked over Kimmer’s bulky frame.
“Line?”
“Tight end. Pretty good, too. I wasn’t the fastest around, but I could block like hell and had soft hands. Snapped an ankle in a game against the Warriors. It was their homecoming. Dr. Van Okin was team doctor and set it. I think he screwed it up, ‘cause I never could run the same way again. There went any kind of scholarship. Anyway, I guess he did the best he could.”
“You said you had some information about the crime?”
“Sure. There’s a reward, right? How exactly does that work?”
Bachelor opened a drawer of a file cabinet, took out a sheet of paper and handed it to his dawdling witness. It spelled out the conditions for payment. The tip must provide police with information that leads to an arrest and conviction. The information must not come from any other source. There is a time limit to collecting a reward. There is even a line stating that the tipster cannot claim the reward if he or she is found to have been involved in the crime. Blah, blah, blah.
Kimmer gave it a cursory look.
“You can keep it. It’s a copy,” Bachelor said.
Kimmer folded the paper and put it in his back pocket.
“I work for Brewster’s,” he said.
“The bread company?”
“Yeah. Well, they don’t make bread there anymore. More like a wholesale place. I drive a truck. It’s a step van, actually.”
“You guys run an early shift, don’t you?”
“I’m usually on the road right after midnight, dropping off bread, snacks and things to grocery stores, gas stations, places like that.”
“And you were working Saturday morning?”
“Yeah. I usually pass by the Van Okin place. I didn’t think about it at the time, but after I heard about the murders, I remembered seeing something.”
Now he was getting somewhere. Bachelor, who had been leaning back in his chair, shifted forward and put his hands on his desk.
“Yeah? What did you see?”
Kimmer cleared his throat.
“Is there any way I could get a glass of water or something? I’m so scratchy I can’t hardly talk.”
Bachelor was beginning to think this was going to be a monumental waste of time, but he had already come this far. Carroll stood up and headed for the door.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Carroll returned with a bottle and handed it to Kimmer, who took a swig. He then finished it with another gulp. He really was thirsty, Bachelor thought.
“I was heading out of town, to Grand Ridge. I guess it was about one or so when I passed the Van Okin place. I saw a flash of light, which caught my attention. It was the headlights of a pickup. It was a flash, you know, like when the driver turns the lights on and off. The truck was in the drive.”
“A circle drive,” Carroll volunteered.
“Yeah. And the truck took out pretty fast. Kinda peeled out, you know. There isn’t much traffic that time of night, so you notice things like that. Still, I didn’t think much about it. Not until …”
He looked around the office, his eyes scanning the walls. There were posters listing fugitives sought by the FBI, a large calendar with a photo of the Gilbert County Sheriff’s Department surrounded by ads for local businesses,
and a notice from the Illinois Department of Employment Security stating the law concerning overtime pay and other issues pertaining to business and labor regulations in Illinois.
“Until you heard about the crime,” Bachelor replied.
“Yeah. Well, like I said, I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I do have a pretty good memory. I got second in the spelling bee in grade school.”
“The county spelling bee?” Carroll said, moving forward in his chair.
“Nah, it was just in my class. But still. I didn’t know what a lot of those words meant, but I remembered how to spell ‘em.”
Bachelor held up a notepad and clutched his pen.
“Did you get the color or make of the truck?”
“Yeah, I did. But I got somethin’ better than that. I saw the license plate.”
CHAPTER 14
“I’m all ears,” Bachelor said.
He was focused on Todd Kimmer, the bread truck driver who saw a vehicle leaving the Van Okin place at about one a.m.
“It was a small pickup. You know, like a Chevy S-10 or something. White.”
“You say you got the license plate number?”
“I didn’t get the whole thing,” Kimmer said. “But I remember it started with L34. I was looking at it in my rear-view mirror.”
Bachelor stood up at his desk.
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s about it.”
Bachelor extended his hand.
“Thanks, Mr. Kimmer. That’s a big help. Please, give me a call if anything else comes to you. I have your contact information.”
Which meant to Kimmer that Bachelor hadn’t forgotten that reward money may be involved.
Bachelor tore off the top page of a legal pad he had been holding and handed it to Jerry Carroll.
“You’re due for a bit of patrol anyway. Keep your eyes open for something that matches this vehicle description. I’m going to get on the horn with state and see if we can come up with anything.”
The sheriff’s notes described - in as much detail Kimmer could provide – what vehicle had peeled out from the Van Okin property early Saturday.