Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  Although Skeeter was already snoring, I left the room brightly lit so he might wake before his relief arrived. I was a few paces from the main hallway when I heard a click behind me. Turning around, I saw the lights in the judge’s chamber had gone out. Maybe Skeeter had roused himself enough to turn them off.

  I continued down the courtroom aisle. When I neared the door, a whine and gunshot came so close together as to be one sound. A chunk of paneling splintered less than six inches from my head.

  I dropped to the floor and rolled through the doorway. A second shot shattered the milky white pane in the door to the D.A.’s office. I crawled clear of the line of fire, scrambled to my feet and ran for the safety of my jeep. As I crossed through the rotunda, I heard a third shot, muffled and echoing off the dome. No footsteps pursued me.

  The cold hit me like a wall as I burst out of the courthouse. My lungs ached as I sucked in the frigid air. My first thought was to call the police from the jeep, and then I remembered the Sheriff’s Department was right across the parking lot. I jogged along the sidewalk, careful to watch for icy patches.

  When I burst into the office, the night duty deputy looked up from his desk of paperwork. “Help you,” he asked out of reflex. Then his eyes widened at the sight of my bruised face.

  “My name is Barry Clayton,” I panted. “I’m a former Charlotte policeman, and I was just shot at inside the courthouse. You’re going to need backup. Someone should call Sheriff Ewbanks.”

  He stared at me like I’d beamed down from the Starship Enterprise.

  I heard the door to the outside open and turned to face Deputy Bridges.

  “Clayton. I saw you run in here. What’s up?”

  There wasn’t time to lose with a second explanation. I wheeled around and yelled at the desk deputy. “Move, man. There’s a killer in the courthouse.”

  I ran behind Bridges and two other officers, filling them in as I could gasp out the words. Bridges made me wait outside the courtroom while he and his men approached the judge’s chambers as if an armed suspect were still inside. One officer reached around and flipped on the lights while Bridges and his other partner stormed in. After a few seconds of silence, Bridges called, “Clear.”

  Skeeter Gibson still sat on the sofa where I had left him. The bottle of Wild Turkey had slipped from his grip, the few remaining swallows pooled in the folds of his lap. His service revolver was out of its holster and in his right hand.

  His head slumped at an angle against his chest, ringed by a halo of blood and brains on the sofa and painting behind him. A bullet hole in his right temple seeped a slow, thin trickle that flowed along the bridge of his nose and fell in red droplets to mingle with the puddles of whiskey. Skeeter’s final legacy—alcohol and blood and death.

  Chapter 15

  “So you came to talk with Skeeter Gibson and brought him a bottle of Wild Turkey?” Sheriff Horace Ewbanks asked the question without any effort to hide his incredulity.

  He sat across the table from me in a small, bare interview room in the Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Bridges stood behind him. The door was closed. A cassette tape recorder squeaked as it captured our voices.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I’d heard he liked a good drink.”

  “From the bartender at The Last Resort?”

  “His name is Mike.”

  Ewbanks took a drag on his cigarette. He’d lit it as he sat down, and although it was only half gone, the smoke filled the air.

  The sheriff had arrived within five minutes of our discovery of Gibson’s body. He’d said he’d been on his way to check the duty roster for the next day, and none of his deputies thought it odd he’d appeared so quickly on a Sunday night. Everyone thought it odd I’d come to the courthouse. From their perspective, I’d discovered Calhoun’s body, I’d been unexpectedly present at the first interrogation of Susan’s father, and now I’d been the last to talk to a man whose brains were splattered on county property. Horace Ewbanks had every reason to be suspicious.

  “You say you found Skeeter already drunk?” he asked.

  “He had a flask. It’s under the sofa.”

  “We found it,” interjected Bridges.

  “But you came prepared to get him drunk,” accused Ewbanks, dismissing the confirmation of my story.

  “I came prepared to be sociable.”

  “Sociable? With Skeeter? You came prepared to ask questions.”

  My temper flared. “Because someone I care about seems to be the only suspect in your investigation, an investigation that’s ruining an innocent woman’s reputation.” The words came out harsher than I’d intended.

  Bridges shook his head, cuing me to back off.

  Ewbanks’ eyes narrowed to slits. “And what do you know about my investigation?”

  “That it’s none of my business,” I admitted. “I wasn’t asking Gibson about your investigation. His name surfaced through Sammy Calhoun.”

  The sheriff pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it from the butt of the first. I coughed and took a drink from the iceless water glass I’d been given.

  “We’re too old to be playing games with each other,” said Ewbanks. “If you think my investigation’s in the crapper, then tell me what you’ve got. How’d you wind up at The Last Resort?”

  Before I could answer, a rap sounded on the door. Bridges opened it and a man in dress slacks and button-down blue shirt came in. He looked familiar.

  “For the record,” said Ewbanks, “the interview with Barry Clayton has been interrupted by District Attorney Darden Claiborne.”

  The D.A. reddened at the admonition. I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or angry.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Listen all you want,” said the sheriff. “Go ahead, Mr. Clayton.”

  I nodded to Claiborne as he stood beside Bridges. The D.A. looked grim. He didn’t like having both his window and security guard shot.

  I took another sip of water and cleared my throat. “As you know, Walt Miller’s sister Cassie is the news director at NEWSCHANNEL-8. She had employed Sammy Calhoun as an investigator in the past, and I asked her if Calhoun had been working for her at the time of his murder.”

  “That’s good thinking,” said Claiborne. “Was he?”

  “I believe Mr. Clayton was about to tell us that,” snapped Ewbanks.

  At this point, I decided to begin selecting what truth to tell and what to omit. “Not that she specifically recalled. But, Cassie Miller kept phone logs and she went back to the spring Calhoun disappeared. He’d called her several times, pitching a story idea. She gave me the return numbers and one of them was for the bar.”

  “And the bartender remembered Calhoun by name?” asked Ewbanks.

  “His face. I had a photograph.”

  “Did you bring it to show Skeeter?”

  I retrieved the picture from my jacket pocket and handed it to the sheriff. Claiborne leaned over his shoulder.

  “Isn’t that Dr. Miller with Calhoun?” asked the D.A.

  Ewbanks ignored him. “Mind if I hold onto this awhile?”

  I shrugged.

  Ewbanks passed it back to Bridges. “How’d Skeeter’s name come up?”

  “I asked if there was anyone Calhoun hung out with. The bar’s not user friendly to Yankees, and Calhoun’s accent must have sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Mike said Calhoun frequently bought drinks for the locals and Skeeter latched onto him.”

  Both Bridges and Ewbanks nodded at that truth.

  “What did Skeeter tell you?” asked Ewbanks.

  “Not much. He drank the Wild Turkey like it was water. I asked him about Calhoun, and he clammed up. All ghosts but one, he said. Any idea what that means?”

  No one answered me.

  “Then he passed out,” I said. “I left him on the sofa just where we found him.”

  “Take us through what happened then,” ordered Ewbanks. “After he passed out. Don’t leave out a sight, sound, or smell.�
�� He leaned over the table so far the smoke from his cigarette nearly gagged me.

  I stood up for clearer air and started talking. No one interrupted until I stopped with my entrance into the Sheriff’s Department.

  Claiborne immediately asked, “How do we know you didn’t kill Skeeter and then fire two more rounds to make it look like he shot at you?”

  I stared at Ewbanks and he nodded for me to answer the question.

  “Atomic absorption test,” I said.

  “What?” huffed Claiborne. “How’d you know about AA?”

  Ewbanks chuckled. “He used to be police. He knows all about blow back too, I’ll bet. Blood splatter flying back on the shooter. Gunpowder traces on his hand. Clayton knows if he fired the shots, an atomic absorption test will show residue on his hands. Same thing for Skeeter. I’ve already ordered a test on the body.”

  “I’ll submit to one voluntarily.”

  “You’ll be swabbed all right,” he assured me. “Though the damn lab’s not likely to get the results back till after New Year’s.”

  “I’ll put the pressure on,” said Claiborne. Then he looked back at me. “But you could have washed your hands.”

  “I’m having all the lavatories and sink traps checked,” said Ewbanks.

  My opinion of the sheriff’s thoroughness jumped up several notches. “How about blood tests on Gibson?” I asked.

  “Ordered,” he said. “I suspect they’ll show Skeeter was too drunk to unholster his gun, let alone aim at anything. And why turn off the lights before shooting at you?”

  That was the question I’d been asking myself. The point wasn’t lost on the D.A.

  “You’re saying this isn’t an attempted murder and suicide?” asked Claiborne.

  Sheriff Horace Ewbanks got up from the table. “I’m saying until I see proof otherwise, I’m treating it as a homicide. Mr. Clayton, we’ll get that AA swab now. That is if you’ve told me everything.”

  I let my gaze shift across the three men. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid everything may have died with Skeeter Gibson.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ewbanks sharply. “Your problems in this case are very much alive.”

  The temperature must have dropped another ten degrees since I’d run from the courthouse to the Sheriff’s Department. I zipped my jacket tight to my neck and walked alone to my jeep, glad to be shed of the questions and implied accusations, yet apprehensive that the night concealed a killer who wanted me silenced. I was halfway through the darkest area of the parking lot when I heard the sound of a car engine behind me. No headlights gave warning of its approach. I quickened my pace and glanced back over my shoulder. A black Crown Vic eased alongside and the passenger window rolled down.

  “Talk a minute,” said Darden Claiborne.

  “I’m talked out,” I said, never breaking stride. As far as I was concerned, the D.A. could have pulled the trigger of Skeeter’s pistol as easily as anyone else. Either that or he was about to offer me a plea bargain.

  “I think your girlfriend’s being set up.”

  “You’re the prosecutor. You do something about it.”

  “I will. If someone will help me.” He braked to a stop, letting me walk on.

  The bait was too enticing. I turned around and returned to his car.

  “Get in,” he said. “Let’s take a little ride.”

  I leaned in the window where I could see Claiborne in the glow of the instrument panel. Both his hands were on the steering wheel. He smiled and gave a slight nod.

  “I’m fine here.”

  “But I’m not. If I’m going to stick my neck out for you, I don’t want to do it publicly till I’ve got more to go on. There are too many eyes and ears around here.”

  I pulled open the door and the dome light illumined the plush interior. The putty-colored leather seats and wood trim were options not found on ninety-nine percent of the police vehicles manufactured by Ford. Claiborne wouldn’t be worrying about drunks puking in the backseat or junkies pissing on the floor mats.

  A console housing a police radio and mobile data terminal fit flush between the bucket seats. I heard the dispatcher trying to raise a unit.

  “Nice rig,” I commented, and buckled up before slamming the door.

  “It’s the way I heard about the shooting, in case you were wondering how I showed up so fast. On my way home from church. Had to drop the family at the Krispy Kreme.”

  Sunday night service. Baptist, I thought. Good religion for a southern politician.

  He drove the car slowly until we were a good distance from my jeep. Then he flipped on his headlights and pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Why don’t you want to be seen with me?” I asked. “Am I bad for your campaign?”

  “Unsolved crime is bad for my campaign. But not as bad as prosecuting the wrong person.”

  Claiborne steered his car down a side street and through a neighborhood bedecked with colored lights on the lawns and Christmas trees in the front windows.

  “I have to go where the evidence leads,” he said. “Ewbanks is providing that evidence. He works his own way and doesn’t want anyone interfering. I have to respect that he’s an elected official just like me. He reports to the voters.”

  “And if he sees you talking to me, he’ll think you’re meddling in his affairs.”

  Claiborne sighed. “I wish it were that simple.” He reached down and killed the radio, as if it could inadvertently broadcast his words. “I’ll cut straight to the point. Ewbanks doesn’t care for me. He thinks I’m a hotdog. Well, I’m a damn good D.A. and I’ll make this state a great attorney general. But to win a statewide election you’ve got to trumpet your own horn and get a strong organization behind you. That means the party has to believe you can win. Next spring we have the primaries and I need all of western North Carolina unified if I’m going to be the candidate.”

  “Solving a high-profile murder case makes a great spotlight.”

  “Yeah, that’s an upside, but if that same case uncovers a scandal in my own backyard, a scandal I should have known about, then the party will shun me like the bastard child at a family reunion.”

  “You think Ewbanks would hold out on you just to bring you down?”

  “I think something’s not quite right in the Sheriff’s Department and he would put protecting his men above pursuing justice.”

  Claiborne’s accusation merged onto the path I’d been blazing alone. The stakes in his game were high. He could lose two ways: confront Ewbanks and be wrong or ignore the possibility and look like a fool if it was true.

  “I hope you can appreciate my position,” he said.

  We rode in silence for awhile. Claiborne let me think about what he had said. I stared out the window. We had left the neighborhoods behind and now drove down the bypass. The Wal-Mart parking lot overflowed with Christmas shoppers hemorrhaging money.

  At last, I asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you connected Sammy Calhoun and Skeeter Gibson, something no one in the Sheriff’s Department was either smart enough to do or willing to let come out. Right now I don’t know which.”

  “Just because I got lucky doesn’t mean there’s a scandal.” I still didn’t trust Claiborne enough to reveal all my cards.

  “That’s right, and if this were the first time I’d suspected something I’d let it go.”

  “This isn’t the first time?”

  “No. About six years ago I fired an assistant D.A. for improperly handling pending cases. The guy’s name was Nick Garrett. He was dismissing charges even though we had sufficient evidence to prosecute. Small things, nothing like major felonies, but still well within the guidelines for what I recommended we take to trial.”

  “This would have been after Sammy Calhoun died?”

  “Yes, so I didn’t make any connection until you mentioned Sammy Calhoun led you to Skeeter Gibson.”

  “Why Skeeter?”

  “Because I’d seen Skeeter and Ni
ck talking around the courthouse and jail. Skeeter dealt with the prisoners day to day. Here’s the thing. All of these dismissed cases involved women. Younger women who still had their looks. Do I need to paint you a picture?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if I made a mistake it was that I fired Garrett for mishandling cases without looking into any sexual improprieties. Then I pushed Ewbanks to get rid of Skeeter, but the best he would do was assign his cousin to courthouse guard duty.”

  “You think Skeeter and this Garrett were having sex with female prisoners?”

  “Or letting others. Together they were in a position to do whatever they wanted. All I know is you started investigating and Skeeter got shot. If it’s suicide, fine. Maybe that ends it. But if it’s not, then someone else must have been involved and that someone will stop at nothing to avoid exposure.”

  “And you can’t trust Ewbanks to thoroughly investigate.”

  “And I can’t afford to have it blow up in my face while I’m sitting on my hands. It might not be anyone in the Sheriff’s Department at all. It could be someone with enough power and money to put outside pressure on Skeeter or anyone else involved.”

  We headed down Main Street back to the courthouse. I sensed Claiborne was winding up for his final pitch.

  “I can tell you’re not going to let go of this,” he said. “I think it would be good to have outside police experience working around Ewbanks’ department. But I can’t give you any direct help. I’ll be upfront about that. But any backdoor information I come across, I’ll pass along. I hope you’ll do the same. I don’t want to be blindsided.”

  “I’d say the first thing you need to do is check on the location of this Nick Garrett. Somebody killed Calhoun, and the discovery of his body has ratcheted the scandal from sex to murder. If that somebody is your former assistant D.A., then he might have come back to tie up loose ends.”

  “I’m afraid he has an airtight alibi. Nick Garrett died of pancreatic cancer a year ago. One thing I do know. A ghost didn’t shoot Skeeter. Watch your step.”