Summer People

by Aaron Stander

  “Now, Marc,” launched Lisa, “just because I am in the business doesn’t mean I like or approve of the way media is used to package politicians. But take Ray as an example,” she paused and put an arm on Ray’s shoulder, “his media image is important. It’s important that people know that he is bright and competent. If he weren’t projecting those qualities, it would be important for us to help him make those qualities apparent to the viewers. Fortunately, he does all the right things quite naturally.”

  Lisa turned to Ray. “Can you tell us about the victim? You were careful to say as little as possible on air ‘pending notification of next to kin.’”

  “As I said in the interview, the divers found the body. It was caught in some weeds at the mouth of the channel. Wasn’t a very pretty picture. The body was badly burned, with some deep lacerations from boat props. And his right hand was severed at the wrist. We didn’t recover the hand.”

  “Could you identify the body?” asked Marc.

  “We had a pretty good idea right from the start. The guy who manages the marina, Jack Harris, told us who owned the boat, and Jack thought the victim had been around most of the day. And the people whose boats were moored near his said they had seen him on the boat in the evening. Once we got the body out of the water, Jack and a couple of other people identified him.”

  “So you’re having a problem finding family members to notify?” asked Lisa.

  “Earlier we were, but I finally got hold of his brother in Chicago before I came over here. Wasn’t able to reach him until this evening—hate to give bad news by phone, but what can you do?”

  “So the victim had no one in this area?” asked Lisa.

  “Well, he did, and didn’t. His ex-wife lives in this gorgeous summer home on the top of Peach Bluff. I went up to see her first, and she gave me the victim’s brother’s name.”

  Lisa asked, “Did you have to break the news to her?”

  “No, I think she knew whenI called to ask if I could come up and see her. Most of the people around the marina knew. He was the only one not accounted for. Anyway, there’s a bitter woman. There was no sadness over his death, just hate and anger—not so much in what she said, you could just feel it. She told me the divorce took place three years ago, but given the anger, you’d a thought it took place yesterday. She indicated that ‘another woman’ was involved. She referred to this other woman as the ‘little airhead,’ the ‘little bitch,’ and the ‘bimbo.’ At the time the terms seemed out of context because the rest of Mrs. Bussey’s speech was very formal, very correct.”

  “Now that we have the marital history,” said Lisa, “who was the victim?”

  “Man’s name is Arthur Bussey, lived in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was about our age.” Ray made a gesture indicating he was talking about Marc and himself. “His wife said he’s been summering here since he was a kid. Strange that I’m asking the same question in two days. Did you know him?”

  “Arthur Bussey,” thought Marc, “Arthur Bussey, doesn’t ring a bell. Did he have blonde hair?”

  “Didn’t you all?” asked Ray rhetorically, lifting his eyebrows and showing teeth with a sarcastic grin. “But certainly not the last time I saw him.”

  “Oh, Ray,” exclaimed Lisa.

  “Arthur Bussey,” continued Marc, letting the last exchange pass, “No, the name is not familiar, and I’m reasonably good at names. If you had a picture—any old picture from when I might have known him—perhaps I would remember the face. Do you remember him?”

  “No, but all you city boys looked alike, dressed alike….”

  “Well, we’re back to the ‘townies vs. the fudgies.’ What’s happening with the murder case? This fire has really pushed it to page two,” said Marc.

  “So much the better, I wish it would push it off the back page. Other than the slug, which we’ve sent to Lansing, we have no physical evidence. Have you met Sue, my evidence person?” Marc and Lisa shook their heads. “She’s real bright and very thorough. She’s gone over the area with a fine tooth comb and hasn’t found anything.”

  “Has his wife been able to provide any help?” asked Lisa.

  “I just had one conversation with her, but I don’t think she knows anything—you can usually tell right away. I don’t think she has a clue. They’ve been married a few months. Seems to know little about his business and hardly knows his family or friends.”

  “How about the other people there that night?” Marc questioned.

  “I think they were there by chance. One of the men was an old fraternity brother, the other someone Randy knew at Cranbrook. They usually get together once or twice a summer to play golf. Both told me they had given up trying to pin him down on exactly what business he was in. They said he seemed to enjoy making it sort of mysterious—like it wasn’t quite legal. This doesn’t leave us with much.”

  “So what do you do now?” asked Marc.

  “I’ll talk to the wife again, and probably to the other two couples who witnessed the shooting. And I’ve requested data on the victim from the state and national information networks we use. I hope we get some useful information from these sources. But I’ve worked on cases where you don’t have much, and you don’t ever get much.”

  “What do you do then?” asked Lisa.

  “You try not to lose track of the case, but that sometimes happens when there are no further developments. About all we can do locally is to make sure that we have done as thorough a job as possible, investigated every lead, and collected and preserved any physical evidence. But if this turns out to be the work of a hired killer, the case may never be solved.”

  “Never solved?” Lisa looked incredulous.

  “Never. I don’t know what the exact figures are on contract killings, but it’s fewer than ten percent. You can’t connect the killer through any motive, and, if he’s a competent professional, when the job is done he’s gone without leaving any evidence to tie him to the crime. In the cities you never notice this because these murders make the news and then are crowded out by the next day’s gruesome happenings. Arrests for this type of crime are few and far between. Non-arrests don’t make the news.”

  “How do you go about arranging—contracting—for a murder?” asked Lisa.

  “I think it’s quite informal, but people with the right connections know how to get all sorts of things done. From what I’ve been told, the arrangements for a job like this are usually done at a great distance so the source of the contract can’t be traced. And the successful hit men are known for being dependable. In this case the killer most likely drove into the area and checked into the Hilton. The guy probably looks like a middle-aged businessman, not the kind of hoods you see in the movies. He plays eighteen holes at the Bear everyday, talks and dresses like everyone else at the Hilton. He would take time to study his victim and develop a plan to do the job and get away. One shot—the victim’s spine was blown away—the right professional, the right tools, the right outcome.”

  “The right outcome for whom?” asked Lisa.

  15

  The remains of the large sailboat lay on the concrete parking lot in the marina. Mike Ogden, the arson investigator, was waiting for Ray by the side of the boat. The keel and bottom of the boat were a soft blue. A ribbon of white, smeared with oil and blackened in places, marked where the water line had once been. The deck area was a mass of charred and melted fiberglass.

  “Did you find anything unusual?” Ray asked. “Unusual,” said Mike, a stocky redhead in his early thirties, with gray-green eyes and a freckle covered face.

  “For us, the whole damn thing is unusual. We spend most of our time investigating businesses that have been torched, usually by their owners. Occasionally we get something a bit more interesting like an arson-murder. I can only remember doing a couple of powerboats, but never a sailboat. This is terrific.”

  “So what did you find?”

  “Well, as you can see, the top of the boat is pretty well destroyed. Let me show you the m
ast first.” Mike led him over to the mast that lay in another part of the parking lot.

  “The bottom’s pretty well charred up, but from the top you can see it’s been melted by the lightning, must a been one hell of a charge. Looks like someone used a gigantic arc welder on parts of it. Now look at this,” he said pointing to a stainless steel collar that had cables attached to it. “I don’t know anything about sailboats, suspect these parts all have names. Look how the cables are welded to these rings. Some of the charge must have followed these cables to ground. There are other interesting things. Look at this.” He pointed to a small engine near the rear of the boat.

  “That must be the auxiliary engine,” said Ray. “What’s so interesting about that?”

  “Look closely. It’s a diesel. Cute little thing, isn’t it?”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “No point,” said Mike. “Not yet, anyway. I’m just trying to figure out what happened, the order of events. The other boat fires I’ve worked on were caused by a buildup of gasoline fumes in the bilge. They’re usually ignited by an electrical spark, like from a faulty plug wire, when the engine is started. So my original theory was that the mast took the hit. In the process of the charge going to ground, the fumes in the bilge exploded and gas from the boat’s tank fueled the fire. But diesel fuel isn’t very volatile, so you’re not going to have an explosion of diesel fumes. And there’s something else that’s interesting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know if you want to crawl in and get all messed up. You can see part of it from here.” He pointed into the cabin; most of its roof had been burned away. “You can see a burn pattern.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Ray.

  “You can see where a burning liquid flowed into the cabin. Looks like the stuff came through the door and ran to the lowest areas of the interior. You can tell from the size of the burn pattern that there was a substantial quantity of fuel.”

  “So you think that it was diesel.”

  “No, the stuff was a lot more volatile. It had to be gasoline.”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  “It doesn’t all quite fit, but then things seldom do. I would guess that the lightning hit the mast, and the charge came down the mast and those steel cables. There must have been a container with gasoline near one of them that exploded when it got hit by the current. He probably had a tank for an outboard. Don’t most of these big boats carry a dinghy or an inflatable?”

  “I suspect they do,” said Ray.

  “So,” continued Mike getting into his role as a raconteur. “This guy’s sleeping, see. He’s probably had a few. We found some gin bottles in there. This storm blows in. The lightning hits the mast and then a gas can blows, spilling burning gasoline onto the deck and into the cabin. The victim wakes up and the whole damn place is on fire. He manages to get out of the cabin and dives for the safety of the water. And that’s all she wrote.”

  “What would have been the victim’s condition?”

  “The autopsy will show that his lungs are singed. I’m surprised that he made it off the boat.”

  “And you don’t think that there’s any sign of foul play.”

  “Not unless you’ve got a murderer who can direct lightning. I think this can be labeled an act of God or an accident caused by nature, depending on the way you choose to explain the unexplainable. But there is one thing that’s less than kosher that you might want to look into.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come over to the truck?”

  Ray followed him.

  Mike opened the back doors and took out a plastic package. He unwrapped it carefully.

  “I’m trying to be very gentle. I don’t know if this got hot enough to become unstable. We found this tucked off to the side with some tools in the engine compartment.”

  “Is it what I think it is?” asked Ray.

  “Eight sticks of dynamite. If I had known what it was, I wouldn’t have pulled it out of the boat. I’d have called Lansing and let one of our resident nuts come and extract it. They’re coming to pick it up. If this stuff had gone, you would have had a lot more casualties.” Mike continued on with obvious sarcasm, “I’m not into the yachting scene, but is this a common cargo?”

  “I’ll have to check,” said Ray. “It might be the newest thing among the white wine and Brie crowd.”

  “One more thing, Sheriff.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Could you call Lansing and say you need me at least until Labor Day?”

  “Don’t you want to stay until the end of deer season?”

  “No, saw Bambi three times, don’t do that kind of thing.”

  16

  Deputy Sue Lawrence met Tawny Holden at the airport as she came through the arrival gate and drove her back to the cottage. Tawny made one last sweep through the cottage, gathering a few remaining personal possessions.

  “Thank you for coming in with me,” she said to Sue. “I didn’t want to be here alone.”

  “Are you worried about your safety?” asked Sue.

  “Not at all, but this place,” she paused and slowly looked around, “is full of bad memories.” Tawny’s voice took on a business-like tone. “I think I’ve got everything.”

  “Are you going to keep the cottage?”

  “Keep?” Tawny gave Sue a look of incredulity. “No. I don’t want to ever come here again.”

  Sue glanced about her, “There are so many beautiful things, don’t you want any of them?”

  “No,” said Tawny, “they don’t mean anything to me. They’re part of someone else’s life. I don’t want anything that will remind me of what happened.”

  “What will happen to the house?”

  “I talked to Randy’s lawyer at the funeral. He will look after getting rid of the place; his sister might be interested in it. Randy once told me that she wanted it. I think the fact that he got the place when their parents died had a lot to do with their falling out. I guess they hadn’t talked in several years, and I had never met her before Randy’s funeral, but she was very nice. The James’ called her after Randy was killed. They drove me down state for the funeral and invited me to stay with them, but she insisted that I stay with her. She handled all the arrangements for the funeral. I was a complete basket case.”

  “What are you going to do now?” asked Sue.

  “I’ll go on just like before. I’m scheduled to work next week. I just need to get on with my life.”

  “Don’t you have family or someone that you can fall back on for support?”

  “No family to speak of. My father died when I was little, and I never got on with my mom. I left home as soon as I graduated from high school. I haven’t made any effort to keep in contact, and my mom hasn’t either. I don’t believe in keeping relationships going that do more harm than good.”

  As Sue was locking the cottage, Ray came up the drive. She stopped and waited. “Do you want to go into the cottage?” she asked after he emerged from his car.

  “Not really. I do want to talk with Mrs. Holden for a few minutes.”

  “Can we sit at the beach, Sheriff?” Tawny asked. She motioned toward the cottage, “I’ve said my last good-byes to the place. I’d rather not go back in.”

  “I’d prefer it,” said Ray.

  They settled into the three metal lawn chairs facing the water.

  “It is beautiful here,” said Ray looking out at the lake.

  “Yes,” agreed Tawny. “I’m a beach and water person. My place in California is only a block from the ocean.”

  Ray looked at her as she was talking. Her rich tan and sunbleached hair confirmed her love of the beach. But as he looked at her attractive face, he could sense her pain. He couldn’t exactly tell what gave him the impression, but he felt that she seemed terribly worn for her years.

  “I know the last few days have been very difficult for you,” he began, “but I was wondering if you had any more th
oughts about who might have wanted your husband dead?”

  “I spent a lot of time thinking about that, Sheriff. Do you use visualization?”

  “Visualization? I don’t quite follow you.”

  “I was trying to think about the past given what has happened. I tried to visualize conversations Randy and I had; I tried to see if I could put another interpretation to things. I also tried to remember the phone calls I’d overheard; was there anything I might have missed?” She paused and looked at the lake.

  “And,” prodded Ray

  “I don’t think I missed anything. If Randy thought someone was out to kill him, he didn’t give me a hint that anything was going on. The hard part about this is that I’ve had to admit to myself I didn’t really know him very well. It’s strange, you meet someone, you get involved, you share your life, you share your body, but that doesn’t mean you really know them. I don’t think I’m naive, but I took everything that he told me at face value. You meet lots of men in my kind of work, you can usually spot the hustlers a mile away. They’re incredibly obvious, although they seem to think that they are unusually subtle. Randy was sweet, he was kind to me, and he wanted more than my body for a night or two. I have no misgivings, he was clearly no saint, but he was better to me than any other man I’ve known.”

  Ray waited for a few moments, then said, “I appreciate the thinking you’ve done. What are you going to do now?”

  “Go back to L.A. I’ll stop in Chicago and pick up some things. I have a few things at Randy’s apartment that I want. I wish I didn’t have to do that.”

  “Because?”

  “I don’t like dealing with ghosts. I just want to get this all behind me.”

  “Whenever you’re ready, Sue will take you to the airport.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff. I appreciate it.”