Acts Beyond Redemption

by S. Burke

  “Do you still have that receipt?” asked Trish, wanting to get back to the topic of the car.

  “No, dear.”

  “Do you recall where it was from?”

  “Only one place it could be from around here, dear. Joseph runs the only garage and tyre place around for a couple of hundred miles.”

  Trish looked at her watch; if she hurried she’d catch the garage, hopefully before it closed.

  “Thanks so much, Mrs Allworth, for your patience. I’ll come back at another time convenient to you to have a quick look at the car and a chat with your husband.”

  “Whatever we can do, dear. Phone ahead, save you a trip out here if we aren’t home.” The woman walked across to a bureau, copied down the phone number and handed it to Trish.

  Trish gave her own card to the woman, exited as quickly as she graciously could and headed back into town.

  It makes no damned sense. How could the fact that he left his pride and joy sitting in his garage not have come to light? How else had he left town, unless in the company of his murderer? So it wasn’t someone he’d met after he left. Whoever had murdered him had been in his home. In this town. This is wrong! This damned investigation has been toyed with since murder number one.

  Trish was angry, weary and determined. She pulled into the garage driveway just as someone was closing the shutters for the night.

  Chapter 34

  Craig mounted up and headed down to the main house with Kaiser trotting dutifully alongside Ali.

  Sheila Harrington was clearly surprised to see him, and not overly pleased by the look on her face.

  “Well, hello, Mr Crenshaw. I certainly hope the help didn’t ask you to bring Kaiser down to me.”

  “My idea entirely. I wanted to apologize in person for not taking you up on your dinner invitation the other night. It was rude of me not to tell you personally.”

  “Yes, it was rather rude. Not to worry.” Sheila said no more, taking the reins from him and expertly mounting the impatient stallion.

  “May I accompany you on your ride?” Craig asked.

  “Suit yourself, but I am going for a hard ride. I need it and so does Kaiser. I will not slow down, so keep up if you can. Enjoy your day.”

  She said no more, kneeing the horse hard into a fast pace. She soon began to widen the distance between them. Ali was up for the challenge and Craig let the powerful animal have its head. They rode flat out over the dangerous terrain, keeping up with the woman all the way.

  She took a pathway he hadn’t known was there and he followed, dodging the low hanging branches across his path. She finally slowed and reached a semi open spot. She dismounted, smiled at him and tethered Kaiser; then walked off up the trail without a word and soon disappeared from view.

  Craig followed at a leisurely pace. She couldn’t disappear, he was too damned good at tracking, but he had to hand it to her, she was good, she was exceptionally good. The rock pool was a pleasant surprise, and he reached it just in time to see her dive in; she was naked and beautiful in the predawn glow. He sat on a rock and watched. She had to have a solid constitution to handle the water temperature. It was only early fall, but that water would still be damned cold.

  Trish hit the horn a few times and scrambled from the car.

  A man exited a door next to the shutters and came over. “We’re shut, Ma’am. Open again at eight in the morning.” The man was in overalls and grease on his hands gave his occupation away.

  “Don’t need anything done to the car,” said Trish, producing her identification again, which he looked at but didn’t touch. “I was hoping you could spare me a few minutes, I need to ask some questions about …”

  “Quentin. Has to be about poor ol’ Quentin. I called him Quinn, you know. Well, come on inside and I’ll rustle up a coffee, unless you’d prefer something harder.”

  Trish gave him a smile. “Well, that would be good, I’m off duty, so yeah, scotch on the rocks if you have it.”

  “Done.” The man moved inside to a surprisingly clean and well-ordered office. “Name’s Joseph, Joseph Miller. I see your name is Trish. May I call you that?”

  “If we’re gonna share a drink, you may as well skip formality.” Trish seated herself and looked around while her new found drinking buddy fixed them both a large belt of good quality scotch.

  He handed her the glass and sat himself nearby, rolling the chair forward and lighting up a smoke.

  Trish lit up as well.

  “So, Trish. Whadya wanna know about Quinn?”

  “Were you and he friends, Joseph?”

  “Yep, sort of. Quinn had no real friends, excepting for Selma. We weren’t close buddies, but I’d say we were as friendly as he ever got alright.”

  “His death must have come as one hell of a shock.”

  “It did that, sure enough. I didn’t believe it at first, nobody around here did. Quinn wouldn’t hurt a fly, you know. Seemed a gentle kinda guy. As a matter of fact, some folks thought he was, you know, queer. But I didn’t think so, he just kept to himself and he was a damned good cook as well. I had dinner over at his place a few times. He never did make any moves on me. So they was wrong about that.”

  “Quinn, er, Mr Hamersley had his car regularly serviced here, didn’t he?”

  “Surely did. That big ol’ Chevy was his pride and joy. He loved the thing, kept it polished and shining all the time.”

  “Were you surprised that he left town without the car?”

  “Surprised ain’t the word for it. He would never of done that by his own choice. Them murderin’ bastards must have made him do it.”

  “Do you recall Quinn buying a couple of tyres from you that weren’t for his own car?”

  Joseph thought about it for a moment. “Hell, yes. He did. Do you think he was being forced to?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me about the transaction.”

  “He drove up in the Chevy one morning, must have been a couple of months before he was murdered. Anyways, he dropped in and asked if I had any tyres in stock to fit an eighteen inch rim. I did, luckily. I’d ordered ’em in special for young Danny Mon’s new car. Then he wrote the thing off and didn’t need ’em. Expensive they were.”

  “What type of car would they have been for, do you have any idea?”

  “Don’t need to have an idea. Quinn told me he’d been driving home the night before when he came on this young woman in a Porsche, seemed like she had a flat, and the spare was flat as well. She got mighty lucky; hardly anyone uses that road no more. Sheriff goes by maybe once a week to make certain no one’s stuck out there, or no animals is layin’ hurt on the road.”

  “A Porsche. You’re certain he said it was a Porsche?”

  “Certain as I am about sitting here, Ma’am. We joked about it being as close as either one of us would ever get to one.”

  “Did he pay with his credit card?”

  “No. The tyres weren’t for him. Quinn always used his card, but he paid in cash for those tyres and they wasn’t cheap neither.”

  “Did you happen to notice anyone in the car?”

  “Well, yeah, but I couldn’t see no face. Just the back of a person, a woman it was, she had real long black hair. That’s all I could see, was the hair.”

  Trish stood and extended her hand, and it was gripped in his greasy one, “Thank you, Joseph. You have been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

  “Can I ask you somethin’?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How come this is the first time anyone ever questioned me about his damned car? I was kinda surprised, being as it was in his garage and all.”

  “Joseph, I don’t know. I really don’t. The only thing I can think of is it may have been over at his friend Selma’s place when he went missing.”

  “Sure, I suppose. Although she normally stayed over to his place if they went out together, cause she don’t drive. Poor woman, took his murder real bad, so she did. She sold up everything and left after the memorial servic
e. Didn’t wanna be reminded of him, we all figure. Nobody’s heard from her in all this time, not even the Ladies Auxiliary at the church where she was a member. Seemed odd, kinda.”

  “Hmm, well, again my thanks, Joseph. I may need you to sign a statement; I’ll be in touch.”

  “Take care drivin’, lots of critters on the road after nightfall.”

  Trish walked quickly to her car. She waved at Joseph standing in the doorway, knowing full well her visit and their chat would be all over this small community by morning.

  She had one more place to check and then she’d catch some sleep. She wanted to tell Mike about this face to face. Sheila Harrington drove a Porsche. Coincidence? Trish didn’t believe in coincidences. There must be a way of connecting them. Although Harrington’s car was a newer model, perhaps she had a love of the type of vehicle. Some people just upgraded the same vehicle, model after model. It was a real possibility.

  The sheriff’s office was well lit and a few people were outside having quite a loud argument when she arrived.

  They stopped momentarily and all eyes followed Trish as she strode determinedly into the office.

  The uniformed man behind the desk looked up as she reached it. Before she could say anything, he spoke up. “You’d be that special FBI agent. I got a call from Frank Allworth’s missus. What can I do yer for?”

  Trish smiled at the old play on words, relieved that she didn’t have to start her chat with local law enforcement by pulling rank; it never went down too well.

  She extended her hand. “Trish Clayton.”

  Her hand was tiny and disappeared into his firm grasp. “Tom. Tom Oliver. What is it that you’d like to know?”

  “Were you in charge of this office when Quentin Hamersley went missing?”

  “Yep. I was. Worse thing I have ever been involved in. Can’t never quite shake it out of my mind.”

  “Can you try and remember back for me, it’s important. Do you or did you recall seeing a Porsche around town at the time a month or two before Quentin Hamersley was reported missing?”

  “A Porsche … why does that ring a bell? Damn it, somethin’? Hey, that’s right. Wait right here.”

  Tom Oliver hurried outside and came back in with another uniformed man, the one from the argument out on the street.

  “This here’s Steve. Steve, you remember that Quentin Hamersley tragedy, doncha?” The younger man nodded. “Well, this is Agent Clayton from the FBI, and she wants to know something I think you maybe can help her with.”

  The younger man looked confused. “Whatever I can do, Ma’am.”

  Trish was aware that Tom Oliver was getting quite a thrill from being involved in this little drama. She tried to keep a straight face as he played his only speaking part.

  “Um, Steve is it?” He nodded. “Steve, around a month or so before Quentin Hamersley was reported missing, do you recall seeing a Porsche in town?”

  “Well, no, I mean no, leastways not in town. I was driving back from visiting my wife over in the maternity hospital. Our boy had just been born, hell I can even give you the exact date, cause it was the day he was born, so that would have made it November sixteenth ... I was drivin’ back just on dusk and I spotted a car pulled over to the side of the road. It was a Porsche all right, that fire-engine red colour; back rear passenger side tyre missing, so that kinda explained what it was doing there. I recall it was locked up tight. I took down the plate number and kept my eyes peeled for anyone along the road.”

  Trish interrupted him, trying without success to keep the edge of excitement out of her voice. “Did you say it was fire-engine red? Are you certain?”

  “Oh, yes, Ma’am. I recall thinkin’ that’s the colour I’d pick myself if I ever got me one. We get very little traffic, so the fella, whoever he was, had one hell of a long walk ahead of him. I called round on my way home to see Joseph over at the garage and asked him, and he hadn’t seen nobody asking about tyres. When I drove back over to see my wife and the young’un the next day the car was gone. So I just put it from my mind. Did I do something wrong?”

  “Agent Clayton thinks maybe the Porsche was connected to Quinn’s murder.”

  “Oh! God!”

  “Nothing definite, and you weren’t to know anyway,” Trish said gently. “Apparently Quentin Hamersley was last seen alive in the company of a person of interest when they were purchasing new tyres for a Porsche. Would there be any remote chance that you filed a report on that number plate, Steve?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I should have, but my firstborn had just arrived and I was kinda anxious to get off duty and into the bar to celebrate with my friends.”

  Trish felt sorry for the younger man, but what she’d said was true. At that time nobody but the murderers could have known what was to happen a few short months later.

  Chapter 35

  Craig rolled a smoke and lit up, settling back comfortably and appreciated the view. She was one beautiful specimen of female, this Sheila Harrington. She was putting on a show the water follies would be proud of, obviously enjoying performing for a male audience. He took it all in, and placed it in his memory banks. She wouldn’t affect him as a woman, she was a job. Sweet and simple. It would be interesting watching her at work.

  Sheila felt his eyes on her and enjoyed the fact that he was watching intently. He was an interesting man, this Jack Crenshaw. New money obviously- he seemed comfortable about it though. He rode a horse like he was moulded to it; that in itself gave him a status of sorts with her. Her babies were hard to ride, they were high strung thoroughbreds and it took a knowing hand to get the best out of them.

  She swam over to the edge of the pool and climbed gracefully out, stretching and showing her lithe body off to the watching man. She put her jeans back on and took a smoke from the packet in her shirt. She didn’t bother putting the shirt on; she sat smoking in the newly risen sun, naked from the waist up. She smiled to herself, wondering if he was squirming yet. She turned around ready to give him the full benefit of the view, only to find the ledge empty. He was gone, and she hadn’t heard a sound.

  Sheila was shocked. Her acute hearing was something she utilized as a weapon often. How could he have disappeared? She heard a horse snort from the other side of the rock pool.

  Craig was mounted on Ali. He flashed a smile, gave her a friendly wave and called out, “See you later. I’m bored, so I’m heading off.” He turned the horse expertly and kneed Ali into motion.

  “What the hell!” She shook her head, aware that she’d spoken out loud. “Bored, hey? I’ll give you bored next time we meet Mr Jack Crenshaw.” Her mood darkened. This wasn’t the way it usually went. Sheila dressed quickly and walked down and around the pool, mounted Kaiser and headed slowly back to the homestead.

  Trish was torn between wanting to share the new information with Mike and needing to remain quiet about it for now. She decided on silence. She needed more time to check things out, and she wanted an opportunity to visit the Allworths again, to take a look at Quentin Hamersley’s old car and another look around the property. Something was clearly very wrong here. No record of the car was in any of the documentation. Surely they would have checked his license and registration and discovered the car was owned by him?

  Craig returned to the cabin. He was pleased with the way the morning went. Sheila Harrington would be livid that he hadn’t walked in to her honey trap. Good. It was exactly the reaction he wanted.

  Moments after Agent Trish Clayton had left the Bureau offices that morning, the note she’d placed on the screen of Mike Matheson’s laptop was read, removed and destroyed. The person then made a call.

  Mike woke up with another headache. These were becoming common. Nigel Cantrell told him to take it easy for a day or two, expressing his concern at the stress levels he carried around.

  Mike knew he was right. Maybe just a few hours in the afternoon, to get away from it all? He punched in Trish’s number. She’d be fine without him, but he needed to hear her
say so. He was surprised when her message bank picked up the call.

  That wasn’t like Trish, maybe she was in the shower. He made himself a powerful cup of coffee and then headed over to the office to see if she was there.

  He was officially off duty, but no one was surprised to see him. The boss rarely took his off time.

  “Anyone seen Trish this morning?”

  “No, not yet, Mike. She’s late, must have overslept,” said Lewinski.

  “What about Cantrell?”

  “Yeah, the Doc was here for a couple of hours, then he got a call and left. Said he’d catch up with you at the meeting later.”

  “What meeting?”

  “Deputy Director Weisman is addressing all of us at three o’clock. About the funeral for Director Prendergast.”

  “Since when?”

  “Memo came round yesterday, Boss.”

  “Hmm, he should have called me direct.”

  “He, uh, he rang and spoke to the Doc.”

  “Oh, did he now? Well, that’s fine then.” Mike stormed out. Cantrell was making inroads into his ability to hold his head up with his staff. That had to stop.

  He was agitated and it showed; he had let his guard down, again. His intention wasn’t to undermine Cantrell, but damn it all, he should have been kept in the loop.

  Chapter 36

  Ben turned to his lover; they had been living low since the attempted hit. Receiving no word from Sheila was not necessarily a bad thing. She shouldn’t know about the attempt, not unless they told her.