Fact or Fiction_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  “Covered in blood?” Marcy repeated. “A hat? How come we never heard about that before?”

  “Well, probably because Ross didn’t realize it might be important. But Mr. Prichard also found out that that detective, Weimer, he did some pretty underhanded things to get Ross to give his confession. Of course, we sort of knew that, but now we know more of the details.”

  Marcy was shaking her head. “Deb, honey, this is great, I think. So, what does the famous private eye plan to do now?”

  “Oh, he’s headed back to Thompsonville,” Debbie said. “He wants to talk to some of the people who knew Ross back then, and he wants to talk to Jason Garrity. Is he still around there?”

  “Garrity?” Marcy snorted. “Of course. You can’t get rid of a bad penny, remember? He gets in minor trouble now and then, but he never seems to do anything serious enough to get locked up for. He’s in here every morning for breakfast, him and those Hammond boys. Said they’re working the corn harvest up at the grain mill, so that ought to keep them from getting into too much mischief.”

  “Well, good,” Debbie said. “At least he shouldn’t be too hard to find. What about Weimer, is he still with the sheriff’s office?”

  “Nope. He’s the police chief over at Benton. That just happened last year, but I’m sure he’s still there.”

  “Well, if Mr. Prichard has his way, he may not keep the job much longer. As far as he’s concerned, Weimer didn’t do his job properly back then, or he would have known that Ross didn’t do it.”

  Marcy agreed, and the two women chitchatted for a bit while Marcy kept the phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear and continued cooking for the lunch rush. If there was one thing Marcy Elimon could do, it was multitask, but Debbie finally realized what time it was and let her go. Marcy put the phone away with a sigh of relief and kept hustling all the way through lunch.

  *

  Sam and his family rose early and were finished with the waffles available in the breakfast room before six thirty. By seven o’clock, they were checked out and on the highway once again, headed back to southern Illinois and the answers to a mystery that might have begun almost a century and a half earlier.

  “Along the southbound Odyssey,” Sam sang as they passed the city of Kankakee, “the train pulls out of Kankakee…”

  “Good morning, America,” Grace, Kim, and Indie joined in, “how are you? Say...” The four of them sang along through the chorus, with Sam chuckling when Kim got a few words wrong.

  “Samuel, I can’t believe you know that song,” Grace said. “My goodness, that’s from back in my day. Arlo Guthrie did that when I was just a kid in the seventies.”

  “Willie Nelson recorded it in the eighties,” Sam said. “That’s where I know it from. Who is Arlo whatever?”

  “Arlo Guthrie?” Kim interjected. “Didn’t you ever see Alice’s Restaurant?”

  “Um, wasn’t that a TV show?” Sam asked innocently.

  “Samuel, I am never speaking to you again,” Grace said. “You’re mocking me, I can tell.”

  “Don’t mock Grandma,” Kenzie said, her voice stern. “That’s not nice, Daddy.”

  The four adults burst out laughing, and Grace decided to mellow out. They found other songs to sing, including a number of children’s songs that little Kenzie could join in on, and singing helped the time pass along with the scenery.

  As they passed Effingham on the journey south, Indie googled for hotels around Thompsonville and found that there simply weren’t any until you went at least twelve miles or more. She found one in Benton that looked nice and was reasonably priced, and Sam told her to go ahead and book a couple of rooms.

  They rolled into Benton at about one o’clock, and it was only that late because of a couple of potty stops and lunch at the big truck stop on the Mount Vernon exit. Sam had made a mental note to himself to avoid stopping at big truck stops for lunch. Big truck stops always had big gift shops, and it was a toss-up whether it was harder to drag Kenzie out or her grandmothers.

  Once they were checked in, Indie set up her computer and put Herman to work. Herman was a program, one she had written herself that could almost qualify as artificial intelligence. Herman was capable of running searches and deciding which items that came up seemed important, and even had the ability to learn as it went along. She fed him the data she wanted him to search—Millie Cameron’s murder, Ross Cameron, Ray Weimer, Jason Garrity, and others—and turned him loose.

  It was only a matter of seconds before the computer began to chime, and each time meant another page of links that Indie needed to look at. She and Sam huddled at the table while the grandmothers took Kenzie out to a playground they spotted near the hotel.

  “Oh, look at that,” Indie said. “Your boy Weimer is the police chief here in Benton, now. He probably built his career off of the Billy Cameron case.”

  Sam shrugged. “That’ll just make him easier to find,” he said. “What else has Herman got?”

  “Did you know there have been three different books written about Millie’s murder? According to this, all three of them support the notion that Ross was innocent and was bullied into a confession, but none of them have any idea who might have actually done it.”

  “Writers always try to attach their names to a big story,” Sam said. “Incidentally, what’s this about you writing a blog about my cases?”

  Indie leaned closer to her computer and pretended not to have heard him. “Jason Garrity seems to be quite a character around here,” she said. “He’s been arrested several times but always on minor offenses that seem to get dismissed.”

  “That means one of two things,” Sam said. “Either he knows things he can tell the cops to buy his way out of trouble, or he knows things about the cops they don’t want brought to light. In a Podunk burg like this, I’d almost bet on the latter. Now, about that blog…”

  Indie let out a sigh and turned to face him. “You’re not upset, are you? I just wanted something to do to help bring a little money in, and when the Twitter feed took off the way it did, I got the idea of starting a blog. You’re up to about two hundred thousand regular followers, and it’s bringing in about eight hundred dollars a month now.”

  Sam’s eyes went wide. “Eight hundred dollars a month? Where is it going?”

  Indie made a face that was halfway between a smile and a grimace. “Um—I’ve been putting it in a college fund account, for Kenzie and the baby. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  Sam burst out laughing and pulled her into a hug. “Mind? I think you’re a genius,” he said. “When were you going to get around to telling me about this?”

  Indie shrugged, and Sam laughed again. “Okay, so let’s get back to Herman. Anything else going on there?”

  He let her go and she turned back to the computer. “Oh, hello,” she said suddenly. “This is interesting. A year after Millie was killed, a man named Ralph Pinkham told a reporter for the Benton newspaper that he had proof that Ross was innocent. He claimed that Millie was killed over some kind of dispute, and that he had overheard the altercation that took place in her house that day, and even saw the killer.”

  “Seriously?” Sam asked. “Find me this guy.”

  Indie was shaking her head. “Sorry, babe, but the interesting part is that the day after he made that call to the reporter, Ralph Pinkham’s car was found upside down in the Big Muddy River north of Benton, and he was still belted in behind the wheel at the time.”

  “Then I want the reporter’s name.” Sam’s face suddenly became grave. “I’d have to say it sounds like Beauregard might be right,” he said. “Sounds like it might be dangerous to dig into this story too deeply.”

  “Sam, he said it was going to be dangerous for someone descended from him. You don’t have any Beauregards in your family history, do you?”

  Sam shook his head. “Not that I know of,” he said, “and Mom would probably know. Think you can figure out who it might be?”

  Indie shrugged. �
�Well, I guess I can try having Herman run a scan through all the national databases on birth records, see if maybe one of the other descendants had a child or two that we don’t know about yet. I mean, it’s possible there’s another whole branch of the family tree out there, but what are the odds that it would put another of his descendants here in this area? In order for one of them to be in danger because of this investigation, they’d almost certainly have to be close by, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Sam said. “Still, it’s worth a try. How long will that take?”

  Indie was entering data on her keyboard. “I’m giving him all the names we’ve collected, going all the way back to Beauregard’s own children. Now, according to ancestry.com, most of them didn’t have kids of their own, but you never know what might turn up in a government database, right? Birth records should be one of the first things to be converted to data, I would think, so hopefully some of these long-dead people had children and the birth certificates got recorded in a computer someplace.” She hit the Enter key and looked up at Sam. “Don’t get your hopes up too high,” she said. “Even if it finds something, it’ll be hours at least.”

  Sam looked at her and smiled. “And our mothers won’t be back with Kenzie for at least another hour.”

  She looked up at him, and suddenly she broke into a smile. Sam locked the door while Indie turned down the covers.

  *

  Sam decided not to do anything until the following day, choosing instead to spend some time with his family. After googling for local tourist attractions, they took a drive out around Rend Lake, apparently one of the biggest lakes in all of Illinois. It was built in the 1960s by the US Army Corps of Engineers and covers nearly forty square miles to an average depth of about ten feet.

  The scenery around it was beautiful, especially with the red and gold of the autumn leaves. They enjoyed the drive immensely and then decided to explore some of the smaller communities in the area. That took them to the neighboring community of Christopher, where they stumbled across an interesting little diner with a sign that read simply “Maid-Rite.” Since it had been more than six hours since lunch and they were all a little hungry, Sam pulled the Ridgeline into the little parking lot and they wandered inside.

  The nostalgic little place featured old soda-fountain-type stools around a horseshoe counter and offered sandwiches made of loose ground beef. After listening to a couple of customers tell them how good the sandwiches were, they all ordered one and some fries, and moments later they were all moaning with delight.

  The lady behind the counter told him how that particular diner had been standing in the same spot for more than eighty years and planned to be there for at least eighty more. Sam assured her that he had no trouble believing they would achieve it, as long as they could keep those sandwiches tasting that good. He ordered four more to take with them, and they headed back to the hotel to relax and watch some TV.

  The next day was a Saturday, but Sam had learned that the weekend was no deterrent to a private investigator. Indie had googled the addresses of the people he wanted to see, but Herman wasn’t finished looking for Beauregard’s missing descendants. Sam copied the addresses into his phone and kissed his wife while she lay sleeping in. He slipped out the door quietly and snagged himself a cup of coffee on the way out to the truck.

  The first person he wanted to see was the potential star witness, Jason Garrity. From what Indie had read in excerpts of the books written about the murder, Garrity had never wavered in his story. He was only fourteen years old at the time the murder took place, which meant he would be twenty-two years old by now. Like a lot of young men, Jason was still listed as living at home with his mother. Sam started up the truck and headed for Thompsonville, but he had one stop to make first.

  Millie Cameron had lived on Fifth Street, in the very last house on the north end of the street. Sam had been told that the backyard opened on to the woods, but when he went to look at the house, he realized that it was actually surrounded. The wooded area extended away from the street in both directions, though it was especially dense and thick to the west. Sam pulled up and parked on the street just in front of the old house, which had been sitting empty since the day Millie had died. Debbie had told him that she and her late husband had gone to the place and gathered up what they could of her mother’s things, but that much of the furniture and such still remained inside.

  Sam got out and just stood there for a moment, looking at the house and getting a sense of the area. Down the street, the nearest neighbor was about two hundred yards away. Sam could hear the neighbor’s dog barking, probably reacting to the presence of the stranger in the area he considered his own domain.

  Barking dogs, Sam knew from sad experience, weren’t regarded with the same respect they once had been. There was a time when a barking dog would cause the homeowner to get up and look out the windows, just to make sure no one was prowling around the yard. Nowadays, though, most people simply wished the dog would shut up.

  He walked up to the front door, putting his hands around his face to look through the window. It was dark inside, but he could actually make out the silhouettes of a couple of chairs, and a shiver went down his spine as he realized that he was probably looking at the precise spot where Millie had died.

  He backed away from the door and began walking around the house, headed toward the backyard. It took him only a moment to get there, and he spotted the back door. He walked up to it and then turned to look at the woods behind the house.

  Okay, I’m Ross, and I want to go for a walk among the trees. I come out the back door; now where do I actually enter the woods at?

  Sam started walking toward the trees and suddenly realized that there was a natural break in the trees that bordered the back of the yard. He cut slightly to the right to reach it and could tell that there had once been a well-trodden path under his feet.

  He had to duck slightly to get under an overhanging branch, but then he was inside the same woods Ross had visited on that fateful day. Even after eight years, the path that he must have walked was clearly visible, a line of stunted growth and bare spots where even grass had never managed to take root after the ground had been trampled. He followed it for about fifty feet, then turned and looked back toward the house.

  It was like he was on a different planet. Despite the fact that many of the trees were bare and the rest were losing their leaves, the house couldn’t be seen from where he stood. There was a peaceful sense about that spot, and Sam suspected that he might’ve found one of the places where Ross liked to stand and simply commune with nature.

  He followed the path back to the house and made his way around it once more. When he got to the front of the house, though, he suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. Standing beside the Ridgeline was a short, chubby woman dressed in dark slacks and a black hooded sweatshirt. Sam could see that the hood was sagging a bit as she looked through the window of his truck, but then she turned when she heard his feet crunching through the tall, dry grass. Dark glasses hid her eyes, but he could see gray curls inside the cavernous darkness of the hood.

  “You got a reason to be snooping around here?” she asked pointedly, her voice a little shrill and cracking.

  Sam withdrew his ID from his pocket and held it out as he approached her. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My name is Sam Prichard. I’m a private investigator, and I’m working for the family of the lady who was murdered here. From everything I’ve been able to determine, the police didn’t bother looking for any evidence that might have cleared this lady’s son, but I’m convinced he’s innocent. I just wanted to get a look at the place and get a feel for where the crime actually happened.”

  The woman looked at his ID for a long moment, then switched her gaze up to his eyes. “You working for Debbie, then?”

  “Actually, I was hired by a distant relative of theirs to simply find his relations,” Sam said, “but when I told him what was going on with Ross and Debbie, he a
sked me to try to find evidence that would get Ross out of prison. I’m working for him, and he wants to remain anonymous, but I’m also reporting everything I find back to Debbie Jenkins.”

  The woman looked him in the eye for another few seconds, then nodded and smiled, showing Sam a set of pretty rotten teeth. “I’m Marie,” she said simply. “I keep an eye on the place for Debbie, so that’s why I came over when I saw you walking around over here. Do you want to look inside? I have the key with me.”

  Sam glanced over his shoulder at the house and slowly nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he turned back to Marie. “I think I’d like that.”

  Marie nodded and reached into a pocket of the sweatshirt she was wearing. She pulled out a key ring with two keys on it and handed them to him. “The gold one is for the front door,” she said. “The silver one opens the back door.”

  Sam looked at her, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead. “You’re not coming in with me?”

  Marie’s eyebrows rose over her sunglasses this time. “Who, me? No, sir, not me. I stepped into that house one time, about a week after Millie died, and that was enough for me. I will never go in there again.”

  “Was it that big a mess in there?” Sam asked.

  “Mess? Yeah, it was a little messy, but that’s not why I won’t go back in there. It’s on account of the things that happen in there. You go inside, you’ll see what I mean. Things move around all by themselves, doors open and close—that place is haunted. I don’t know if it’s Millie or some other ghost, but I know I don’t want no truck with it.”

  Sam felt a shiver run down his spine, but after having dealt with Beauregard for a couple of years, he wasn’t about to let the thought of another ghost scare him off. He turned and walked toward the front door, slid the key into the keyhole in the middle of the doorknob, and turned it to the left. It opened smoothly, and Sam stepped inside.

  The sun outside had been bright, so his eyes would take a moment to adjust. He took out his phone and turned on its flashlight feature, shining it around inside the living room.