by Jason Deas
He wondered for a minute if anyone was home until he saw the front door swing open. Three dogs ran out and surrounded the car. They were angry looking German Shepherds. Cam had never been happier for good intel. After the dogs came a gruff looking man. He wore a green Skoal hat and had the blackest beard Cam had ever seen. The beard covered his tight mouth and protruded from his chin a good six to eight inches. He wore overalls with no shirt underneath and no shoes.
“Pen!” he hollered to the dogs. They ran to the side of the house and into a chain linked pen Cam had not noticed. The man slowly walked over to the dog pen, closed and latched the door. He motioned for Cam to get out of the car and walked back to the house. Before he could question the gesture the man disappeared into the house.
Cam exited the car and hurried to the front door. He knocked and a gruff voice told him to enter. He did. The inside of the dwelling was just as run down as the exterior. It looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, if ever. The black bearded man settled into an ancient lounge chair and packed a pipe with tobacco.
“They told me you might try to find me,” he said, as he finished stuffing the pipe. He picked up a pack of matches from a side table, lit a match, and sucked as he put the match to the bowl. Once the contents of the pipe were burning he dropped the match into an ashtray on the same table. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m investigating a murder.”
“Yeah, yeah. Billy Prescott was murdered. I don’t know what you’ve uncovered so far but I’ll tell you this, he was a no good son of a bitch.”
“That seems to be a recurring sentiment. Nonetheless, good for nothing son of a bitches deserve justice too, don’t you think?”
“No.”
Cam waited for him to continue. He didn’t.
“How do you know Billy Prescott?”
“Like you don’t already know. What’s your name by the way?”
“Cameron Caldwell. And you are?”
“Darren Prescott.”
Cam’s face fell.
“I see I’ve surprised the law man.” Darren’s voice was as gruff as he looked. It was the voice of thousands upon thousands of cigarettes—or pipes full of tobacco in Darren’s case. He laughed. “I guess I do have some tight-lipped friends over in Miner’s Bluff. Can I get you a beer?”
“That’d be nice.”
“They’re in the fridge in yonder,” he said, pointing. “Go ahead and get me one too while you’re at it.”
Cam walked into the kitchen. It was a disaster. Food containers lined the counters and the top of the kitchen table was hidden under a mixture of trash and additional canned goods, cracker boxes, and empty bottles. Opening the fridge, he found at least fifty bottles of unlabeled beer. A rotisserie chicken sat on one of the wire shelves. The chicken was not in any sort of container. It had almost been picked clean. He quickly grabbed two bottles and shut the door.
“The maid ain’t been here in quite some time,” Darren said, as Cam reentered the room. He reached into his pocket and Cam froze. Darren pulled out a bottle opener and said, “Take it easy, kid. If I wanted to harm you, you’d already be dead or dropped down on the floor.”
He popped the top on the beer Cam had given him and handed the opener to Cam. He opened his beer as he stood in front of Darren and handed the opener back to him. Darren set it on the table next to him.
“I have a feeling you’re a man who can drink more than one, so it’ll be here when you’re ready for your next. Don’t feel the need to ask or wait for me to offer. When you’re ready, just get up and fetch one. It’s the way we do it in my woods.”
“Thanks.” He brought the beer to his lips and downed half the bottle before his backside hit the chair underneath him.
“You’re my kind of man,” Darren said, puffing on his pipe. “Now, like I said before, what can I do for you?”
“I’m still reeling from your last name. I feel like I’ve been sucker punched.”
“The black sheep does it again,” Darren said, relighting his pipe. “Let me tell you something about Miner’s Bluff.” Smoke billowed from his pipe. “Mostly good folks live there. You play your cards right and you may be let into the inner circle. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed in town. Seems I burned a bridge or two.”
“How so?”
“Nobody told you?” Darren asked. For the first time he was animated.
“No. I didn’t know you existed until I had some of your Killer Creek beer. And when I started asking about you, people kept telling me they’d tell me about you later. Nobody ever said you were Billy’s brother.”
“Billy disowned me soon after our parents died. Momma died first. A year later Daddy died. Being the selfish asshole he is, or was, he wanted all the land. He paid me to go away and I did. I relocated here to Dahlonega. In his mind I could’ve been as far as Timbuktu. He probably wished I was farther. Anyway, I got out here and after two years of being away a sentimental bug bit me in the ass and I wanted to go home.
“I’d talked to Billy a couple of times on the phone in the two years I’d been away. We’d never been close so I didn’t take his disinterest personally. I just figured he didn’t care too much for me and that was fine with me, because I didn’t care for him too much either. Something in me just wanted to go into my parent’s old home and walk down memory lane one last time. When I told him I was coming to town he got belligerent. I found out why when I got there. He had sold the place and all the contents. He had an estate sale. The son of a bitch didn’t have one sentimental bone in his body.”
Darren got up out of his chair and to Cam it looked as though he was wiping tears away from his face as he vanished into the kitchen. He returned with two more beers. He retrieved the opener off the table beside his chair and removed the tops from both. He set one beside Cam and sat back down in his chair.
“He never told me he sold it. When I got back to town, I parked my car in the driveway, got out, and walked inside without warning. It was my family home. I saw a woman I didn’t know and she screamed bloody murder seeing me. We finally came to a mutual understanding with the help of an officer of the law.
“I told him who I was and he gave me my brother’s new address.” Darren puffed at his pipe and took a drink from his beer. “I immediately drove over there and set his house on fire.”
“You did what?”
“I did. I parked my car in the driveway, got out, and started rounding up pine straw. I piled a bunch of it in one of the exterior corners. There was a nice forty-five right next to the porch. The house looked like wood. I pulled out my lighter and struck a flame at the bottom of the pine straw. It lit up and turned the side of the house black, but that was all it did. The cops showed up and I didn’t resist. I did two days in the city jail before my brother came for a visit.” Darren finished his pipe and looked for somewhere to tap it out.
Cam hopped out of his comfortable enclosure and fetched an empty coffee can he’d seen on the kitchen table. Before leaving the kitchen, he poured his beer into the sink so he could drive home somewhere near the legal limit. Cam set the coffee can on the table beside Darren. Darren was still in another world.
“He threatened me across those bars. He told me if I ever came back that he would bring me up on charges for trying to burn his house down. He told me without a care for who else heard that he now owned the town. He even made me repeat that it was ‘his town.’ I did. I was scared. I believed him, and I wanted out of there. I would have said it as many times as he wanted me to.”
“And you haven’t been back to town since then?”
“Not in the daytime.”
“Did you come to town last week?”
“No. I didn’t kill my brother. If I did, I would tell you. I would be so proud of extinguishing his pitiful life, I would tell you. I would have to brag about my accomplishment.”
“What’s with the Killer Creek beer?”
“An unfortunate coincidence. As you probably saw, I took the l
abels off all of the other ones in the fridge that had the same label. I knew the law would be sniffing around sooner rather than later and I didn’t want to give them any extra ammo.”
“There might be somebody else come by, but I doubt it. If you’re telling me the truth I don’t think you’ll have any trouble.”
“Do one thing for me if you will.”
“If I can, I will.”
“I want permission to come to town for the funeral.”
“I thought you didn’t care about your brother.”
“I don’t. I just want to spit on his grave.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Cam made it back to town early in the evening. He wondered if Daphne would still be at the diner. She was. The door was locked and he knocked. She peeked her head from the back, saw him, and her face lit up.
“Where’ve you been all day?” she asked, opening the door.
“I drove over to Dahlonega.”
“Ah. You paid a visit to Darren?”
“Yeah. Why didn’t anybody tell me Billy had a brother? And for that matter, why did I just find out that Turner was Hank’s son?”
“Well, Darren basically doesn’t exist. He was run out of town after he tried to burn Billy’s house down. And Turner doesn’t like to be known as Hank’s son. He just likes to be known as Turner.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s a small town and people want to have their own identity. You grew up in a small town didn’t you? Did you prefer to be known as your father’s son or as Cameron Caldwell?”
“I guess that makes some sense.”
“And, for a long time, Hank didn’t claim him. Hank’s a Vietnam vet and feels like the country did him wrong. He won’t talk about specifics, but he holds a grudge for something that happened over there. When Turner turned eighteen and wanted to join the military, Hank just about blew a gasket. He forbade it. Turner joined the marines anyway, and Hank told him he was dead to him. They didn’t talk for the whole four years Turner was away. Whenever he’d call, his dad would hang up on him. He wouldn’t open his letters. Supposedly, he just tossed them in the trash.”
“Wow. Something really bad must have happened for him to turn away his son like that. What got them back on speaking terms?”
“Turner did his four years and moved back to town. He showed up at his dad’s gas station and again this is hearsay, but Hank threatened to have him arrested for trespassing. Turner broke down crying and told him he was right about everything he’d told him. Hank was getting ready to call the cops when Turner lifted up his shirt and showed Hank two places where he’d been shot. Evidently the wounds were a horrific sight and Hank began bawling too. And that was that.” Changing the subject she asked, “So what’d you think of Darren?”
“He’s certainly a character. I think he hated Billy enough to kill him, but I don’t think he did it.”
“Were you able to …” Daphne tried to find the words she was looking for. Not able to locate any she pointed to her eyes with two fingers and to Cam’s.
“No.”
“Maybe if you didn’t drink for a few days you could wrap this case up.”
“That would seem like the perfect plan, wouldn’t it?” Cam shifted his weight back and forth. “Can we sit down for just a second? I want to tell you something.”
“OK.”
“Last night after she left the crime scene, Blanca came by the house.” He looked at Daphne’s face for a reaction and swore he saw her relax. “We talked, had a few drinks, and apparently she’s a lightweight as she fell asleep on my couch.”
“I know. But thanks for telling me.”
“Claude told you?”
“No, Blanca did.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She came in right after I closed and told me. She felt terrible about it. She admitted to trying to put the moves on you before she thought better of it.”
“It’s true. She made sure to tell me that you’d told her you didn’t want anything to do with me either.”
Daphne patted Cam’s hand. “That’s not exactly what I said. No matter what you think about yourself, I think you’re a pretty good guy.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment as they’re hard to come by.”
“She said if I saw you to tell you she needs to talk to you.”
Cam walked into the Miner’s Bluff Police Department in search of Blanca. The officer at the desk pointed him toward her office.
“Knock, knock,” he said, at her half-opened door.
“Come in.” Blanca shuffled papers on her desk as Cam entered. She didn’t look up. Cam sat.
“I visited …”
“Shhh,” Blanca said, cutting him off. “I just got a fax I’m trying to decipher. This doesn’t make any sense,” she said to the room. Cam wanted to ask what didn’t make sense, but he held his tongue. “Hmm. What the fu …?”
Not able to hold it in any longer Cam asked, “What?”
Blanca looked up. “Fortunately, I have an old friend at the state lab who owes me a big favor. Although I don’t have anything solid yet, she just faxed me a report that shows two different blood types were found on Billy’s knife. I’m sure one of them is his, but who could the other belong to?”
“I know you’re not going to like my answer, but I’d have to guess it’s Chief Lee’s.”
Blanca’s face turned white. “My God. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Take a deep breath,” Cam instructed. She set the fax down. “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.”
She took deep breaths and pushed her chair back away from her desk, putting her head between her knees. “Do you really think it could be?” she said to the floor.
“If it’s not, I’ll never have another drink for as long as I live. That’s how sure I am. How good of a friend is this you have in the lab?”
“She’s almost like a sister. She said she’d push everything through as fast as she could. I can’t tell you how much better my life would be if we could close that case. I swear there are still people in this town who think I did it—thanks to Billy. I knew he was bad news, but I never dreamt he could actually be this bad. Something inside of me would never let me believe he could do something like this.”
Cam waited for her to breathe. “Are there any other preliminary findings?”
Getting herself together, Blanca said, “He didn’t have the map in his pocket. But I’m sure that’s what lured him there.”
“So, whoever did this cut his hand off out there and brought it back to town. Why do you think they did that?”
“God only knows. Did you get to talk to Darren and Alice today?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you find out anything pertinent?”
“No. I did find out that Darren is Billy’s brother. That information would have been helpful. I also found out what you were referring to about him.”
“Sorry. Yeah, believe it or not he tried to burn his brother’s house down in broad daylight. Didn’t try to hide it or anything. He’s dangerous. Even though Billy’s dead, if I ever see him I’ll arrest him and bring him up on the charges.”
“I need you to make one exception.”
Blanca raised her eyebrows.
“He would like permission to come to Billy’s funeral. It might do us a favor to see him interact with the others from town. I’ve pieced together more than one investigation at a funeral just by observing.”
“OK. Just this once.”
“I’ll let him know. They didn’t find anything else?”
“They haven’t let me know anything besides the fact he had something in his mouth.”
“What?”
“A piece of metal. Whoever killed him shoved a piece of metal in his mouth.”
“What kind of metal? What was it?
“She said she wasn’t sure but it looked like the knob off an old radio.”
By some strange miracle, Cam only had one more drink once hom
e and went to bed. He didn’t dream. Or if he did they were so deep he didn’t recognize the disturbance. Sleep for Cam was darkness. Not puffy dreams and clouds. The abyss.
“Good morning, sunshine!” Claude blasted when he entered the door the next morning. “I’m going to make your eggs over-easy this morning,” he said, entering into Cam’s room and throwing open the drapes.
Cam sat up in bed. “Really?”
“No. I only do scrambled.”
“I was starting to wonder if you’d been holding out on me.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Out of the shower, Cam found him hovered over the stove and as the frying pan sizzled Claude asked, “So what’s on the docket today?”
“I need to cross a few more suspects off my list. And I need to find Darren’s phone number so I can call him and tell him Blanca has given her permission for him to come to the funeral tomorrow.” Cam saw Claude shake his head. “He doesn’t have a phone?”
“Nope. If you want to talk to him you’ll have to go over there. Who were you going to try to cross off your list of suspects?”
“You.”
“Fine. I’ll ride with you.”
“How about you drive and I’ll pay for gas?”
“Fine, but I get to pick the music. And we have to make a stop at one of my favorite junkyards.” Cam asked why. “The beautiful pieces of metal for my sculptures don’t just show up on my doorstep.”
“That’s not how it works, huh?”
“No. And you have to promise not to get commode-hugging drunk.”
“Promise.”
After a quick breakfast the guys stopped by Daphne’s diner for a refill of coffee and to tell her where they were going. She asked them to stop by when they got back to town.
The junkyard filled the side of a massive hill and could be seen from the distance. A graveyard of cars filled the treeless area interspersed with mountains of metal. As they neared the entrance, Cam spied an orange caboose. “I thought they were red.”