South River Incident
Page 11
For a minute, Billy’s attention drifted away. He picked up the journal and looked at me. “What other stuff do you have in this book?”
I walked over to him and grabbed the book. “Excuse me, but there’s nothing in it that you would be interested in.” I turned and walked away, heading back to the bedroom. I didn’t want Billy to read some of the things I had written about him. There were a few times when I had been really mad at him and I had made mention of those times in the book. I hurried to put it away. When I returned to the living room, Billy was sitting at the computer again.
“Pull up a chair,” he said. “Let’s do some searching.”
We spent the next hour going through the police report, autopsy report, and every other thing we could find out about the case. It was apparent that someone had gone to great lengths to put me in the hot seat.
“This is just too neat,” Billy murmured, clicking away at the keys.
Finally, a screen appeared displaying a bank statement. It was Billy’s.
“Oh, no! Tell me this isn’t happening.”
“What’s the matter, Billy?”
He swiveled his chair around and looked at me. “On November the tenth, I made a deposit into my account for forty-six thousand dollars—almost the same amount as the ransom money.”
This was news to me. I didn’t realize Billy handled that kind of money. Most of the money we’ve collected from our clients ranged from a couple of thousand to anywhere around ten thousand, but never that much at one time. This was a real shocker.
“Maybe you should tell me where you got that kind of money, because it looks like they’ve implicated both of us.” I didn’t want to appear nosey, but I had a feeling this was only going to get worse and we had to stick together. “Was it legal?”
“Yes, it was legal!” He got up and paced around the room. “It was the money that Robert gave me. I had lent him money to start up his restaurant some years back. He needed about fifty thousand dollars so I lent him what I could. The deal was, when his restaurant got on its feet, he would pay me back. Well, he paid me back in cash.”
“I could see how that deposit might create a problem, but you have Robert to back you up. I’m sure he can clear up this matter for you.”
“Yeah, but it still could get messy. Robert’s my brother. The police automatically assume one family member will lie for the other. Besides, this was a cash deal. That might complicate things.”
“Undoubtedly, Robert will have a record of the money he withdrew from the bank, wouldn’t he?”
“Most likely, unless this was cash that he put aside from his profits over a period of time.”
“But who could do that? When you start up a business, it’s a long time before you see any profits. That would make it almost impossible for anyone to be able to stash away any extra money, especially this much.”
“I don’t know. He paid me back. That’s all that mattered at the time. I’ll talk to him about it later. I’m not going to worry about it now.”
“Well, with that problem on the back burner, what’s next?”
Billy walked back over and sat down at the computer. “The first thing we’re going to do is print out everything in this file. Then we’re going to pay a visit to Roy Keen.” He clicked a few keys, and the printer started spewing out pages. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
“Are you sure we should do that? He could be dangerous. Did it ever occur to you that he might have killed his wife?”
“I’d bet my money on it. I’ve had my doubts from the start about the whole kidnapping deal. Nobody in their right mind would pay a ransom without having the police get involved if they wanted to get their loved one back alive. He probably killed her and set us up to take the fall. But why did he choose us? We didn’t know either one of them.”
“You think going to see Roy Keen is going to give us any answers?”
“We have to start somewhere. I have a feeling once we talk to him, we’ll know exactly where he stands. If he’s got something to hide, we’ll be able to tell. His lies will show on his face.”
“Suppose he didn’t kill his wife? What if he really believes I did it? I could be walking into a bad situation.”
“He’s not going to do anything to you. I won’t let him.”
“I feel better already. I’ll go get my stuff together. Let me know when you’re ready to leave.”
I walked back to the bedroom and collected my handbag and briefcase, stuffed a fresh change of clothing and some toiletries in a duffel bag, and went back to the living room. I had everything I needed for a day with Billy. My gun (which I now had a permit to carry), tape recorder, and cell phone were all in my briefcase. I had my purse and some clothes. I was covered from all angles. “I’m ready,” I said, setting my stuff in a pile in the middle of the floor. “Let’s roll.”
“Just one more minute. I want to finish printing this out.”
The temperature outside was in the upper forties, and even with slight gusts of wind, Thanksgiving Day was turning out to be decent after all. The ground was soggy from the melted snow, but at least it wasn’t frozen.
“What are we going to say to this guy when we get to his house?” I asked Billy. I climbed into the cab of his Dodge pickup and stuffed all my junk behind the seat.
To avoid tipping Roy Keen’s hand as to our identity, we decided not to take my Jeep. Billy was sure he would recognize it since he most likely was in on this whole set-up fiasco.
Instead of answering my question, Billy turned the truck around and headed out of the driveway.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, when we pulled out onto the main road. “Maybe somewhere along the line, you’ve inadvertently had a run-in with this guy, and you just don’t remember.”
“I’ve been racking my brain, but can’t come up with anyone.”
“Maybe he’s friends with someone you helped put away, and he’s paying you back by going through me.”
“To be honest,” Billy said. He turned onto Rt. 29. “I think the watch was a fluke. I think the picture was a coincidence, too. Robert is always taking pictures of his customers and putting them up on his bulletin board. Anyone could have taken the picture down and turned it in to the police. Maybe the police found it. Concerning the choice of the location of where the body was dumped, I think the killer just picked a place out in the middle of nowhere. He probably figured no one would find it until spring. That’s been known to happen. You could dump a body out here in the winter and it might not show up until someone stumbles onto it when the snow melts. Most of the time a hunter is the one who’ll find it.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t a hunter this time. We have Athena and Thor to thank for this. They’re the ones who dragged that hand home.”
“Perhaps we should add them to our team.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I can see it now... the four of us out on a stakeout and the minute the wind blows, they both start howling.”
Billy and I continued down Rt. 29. The traffic was awful.
“According to this file Billy, Roy and Mary live off Celt Road. That’s the same road where the schools are located. It runs right into town.”
“And…”
“If he killed her, don’t you think he would have picked a location to dump the body a little farther away from home? Celt Road isn’t far from Mom’s. It’s probably ten minutes at the most.”
“He could’ve gotten scared and panicked. Fear makes people do strange things. You know what it’s like.”
“What about this kidnapping deal?” I asked, looking through the paperwork. “There’s no witness to substantiate his claim. Perhaps he made the whole thing up. He’s a thief, why not a liar?”
“I’ve thought about that, too.”
“Maybe they had a fight. Things got out of control and he accidentally killed her. Then he came up with a plan to cover up what he had done.”
“I think we’re grasping at straws.”
We had just tu
rned onto the Rt. 33 by-pass when I gasped at Billy in horror. I couldn’t believe what I had read.
“Oh, crap, did you read this autopsy report? She was full of drugs and alcohol. It says here she had marijuana, coke, valium and methaqualone in her system. What’s methaqualone?”
“Quaalude is the brand name, Ludes is the shorten version. They’re heavy-duty tranquilizers. On the street they sell for five bucks a piece. They’re one of the strongest tranquilizers there is on the market. If you took one of those, you would be stoned out of your mind for several hours, if it didn’t knock you out first. In your case, it would probably put you in a coma. I didn’t think doctors prescribed them anymore.”
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t you know anything about drugs?”
“Sure, I do,” I snickered. “I was a teenager once.”
“If she took a Quaalude, she was pretty much out of it. She could’ve fallen and hurt herself, and wouldn’t know it until later.”
“But she died from a blow to the head. Did you look at this diagram of the body? It’s not a pretty sight.”
“Yes, I did. She had a fractured skull, and bruises all over her body. There were lacerations on both legs. You name it.”
“But why cut off her hand? If they did it to cover up the fingerprints...”
“Her hand wasn’t cut off.” He glanced at me, then back to the road. “I think we need to make a turn here. What’s the house number?”
I shuffled through the papers until I found the address. “It’s 72374 Celt Road. Where’s that? ”
Billy hit the turn signal and made a left turn.
“How did you know to turn left? Are you that familiar with this area?”
“There’re about ten houses over by the school so it only makes sense that the rest is in this direction. This road runs at least fourteen miles to the left and one mile to the right. That many numbers mean a lot of houses. See?”
“Oh, you’re so smart Billy.” I fluttered my eyelids at him, trying to be cute. Then the severed hand flashed up in my head.
“What do you mean, the hand wasn’t cut off?”
“I hate to say this, but I think one of the dogs chewed it off.”
“They wouldn’t do that!”
“They might have if they were trying to drag the body home. Remember, the body was frozen to the ground. The hand would have been something they could get in their mouth. One of them chomped down on the wrist and started tugging.”
“That’s a terrible thought. It almost makes me sick.”
“Hey, they probably thought they were helping. They knew it was a person and they were going to drag it home. That was the only thing they could do. Dogs are, by nature, rescuers. It’s in their makeup to save us from harm. As much as you watch television, I would have thought that you would know this about our four-legged friends. As a child, didn’t you ever watch Lassie?”
“Yes, but I never saw Lassie chew off someone’s hand.”
“They wouldn’t show something like that on TV.”
“Yuck! Stop it before I throw up! My stomach can handle but so much.”
“I’m sorry, but I was just trying to tell you how it could have happened. I didn’t want you to think that the dogs were making a meal out of her body. Domesticated dogs won’t eat human flesh, unless...”
“That’s disgusting, Billy. I wasn’t even thinking of anything like that. Yuck... you’ve put that awful picture in my head.”
“I’m sorry, Jesse.”
“Where do you come up with these ideas? Is this one of those Indian things? Did your people sit around the campfire back in the olden days and dream up junk like this to tell their kids? I bet they did. I bet they sat around smoking the peace pipe, and telling tall tales. And then they sent their kids out to spread the same bull. I don’t believe a word of it.”
Billy started laughing.
“Was any of that true?”
“All of it was true. Dogs protect us, and sometimes in their effort to do that, they look as if they’re doing us harm. There’s no doubt in my mind that one of the dogs tried to rescue Mary Keen and in the process, chewed off her hand.”
“When you put it like that, Athena and Thor are real heroes.”
“You could say that.”
“It’s just that you made it sound so terrible.”
“I was trying to cushion the blow.”
“Men... sometimes I just don’t understand you.”
“You don’t understand us because you don’t listen.”
“I listen to everything you say to me. For example: I heard everything you said to me last night. You thought I was asleep, but I wasn’t. Do you really think that I’m beautiful, and sexy, and charming?” I leaned over and kissed the side of his face.
“I guess you do pay attention.”
“Yeah, at first I thought that you were talking in your sleep, but when you got out of bed to go to the kitchen, I knew you weren’t. That’s when I figured out that you were talking to me. I want you to know that your words touched my heart. You made me feel special. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Thanks, Billy.”
A satisfied grin appeared on his face. “I’m glad that I make you feel special, `ge ya.”
Chapter 10
We traveled eight miles on Celt Road before we reached what used to be the home of Roy and Mary Keen. Now it was just Roy’s home. The thought of him having to live alone in the same house he had once shared with his wife, made me sad. Suppose he didn’t kill her? How could he deal with the tragedy of his wife being murdered, and then have to go back home and relive every moment of their life together? I almost felt sorry for him, until I thought about my predicament. Things were not well. I felt like Alice in Wonderland falling down the hole, and then trying to claw my way out. I had to concentrate on saving myself. I couldn’t rule out the obvious—I didn’t kill that woman—but someone had.
The mailbox had a name and number on it, but you couldn’t see the house from the road. We turned and followed a long gravel driveway lined with evergreen trees, until we came to a two-story farm house. The house was in desperate need of a paint job, and from the way the roof looked, I would guess that the Keens had serious water leakage problems. A window shutter hung askew. A battered, sun-faded green pickup truck was parked off to the right. It had seen better days.
“What a dump,” I whispered to Billy. “I know he has fallen on hard times, what with losing his job and all, but this is an eyesore. Look at the dead weeds around his house and there’s not a flower bed in sight. What about that pile of trash out front? It looks like he just walked out the front door and dropped it. What a slob.”
Billy pulled up beside the pickup truck and parked. We both sat there in silence for a second, taking in our surroundings. Everything screamed of neglect. The small front yard was nothing but a muddy quagmire, and what wasn’t covered with mud, was laden with piles of mountain rocks and yard debris. Trees with broken or hanging limbs smothered the house. A ragged dog house with a chain missing its dog, sat under a tree.
“According to his file,” Billy looked over at me, “Roy and Mary moved here a few weeks ago. This place belongs to his dad.”
“But why on earth would they move into a dump like this? It needs a lot of work. I’m sure they could have found something better.”
“They didn’t have much of a choice. Roy lost his job. The supply of money from the evidence room that he stole on a regular basis, along with the drugs he stole and sold on the street, was cut off. He had nothing, and she didn’t work. Her tastes ran high. They lived in a high-dollar, rented estate on the south side of Stanardsville, and when the rent came due, they couldn’t pay. They were forced to move.”
“Talking about your life turning to crap...” I added.
We looked at each other. In the middle of all this, there was a moment of warmth that passed between the two of us. I finally caught my breath.
“Well, let’s go see our man.”
Billy stood behind me, looking as if he was canvassing the place. He turned, walked to the edge of the house, and then came back. “That must be his truck over there, but where’s Mary’s car?”
“Perhaps she didn’t have one,” I replied. “Remember, they had fallen on hard times. They probably had to sell any decent car they might have had. I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to finish reading the file.”
From inside the house, I heard someone groan.
Billy grabbed me by the arm and said, “Don’t touch anything. We don’t want to leave any fingerprints. Let’s take this real slow.” He gestured for me to move aside. He pressed his elbow to the door and gave it a shove. After wiping his feet on the sodden square of carpet before entering, he turned to me and said, “Get as much of that mud off your shoes as you can. We don’t want to leave muddy shoe prints as evidence either.”
Once inside, I saw the crumpled body of a man lying on the living room floor. It was Roy Keen. I recognized him from the printout we had in his file. A path of blood from his chest ran down his left shoulder, gathered in a circle by his elbow, and pooled by his fingertips. The color was almost black. He was trying to say something. The bloody hand he had pressed to his chest reached out to me.
Billy and I instantly reacted. I ran over to Roy and leaned down. Billy grabbed his cell phone.
“Chicky...” Roy tried to get out. “Chicky...”
He made a gasping sound as a trickle of blood ran out of his mouth. His arm fell to his side. He was gone. I pressed my finger to his throat. There was no pulse. His life was over. “Forget it, Billy. He’s dead.”
Billy slapped the phone shut. His eyes wandered around the room. “Somebody tore this place apart.” He bent down and lifted Roy’s shirt. “He’s been shot right above the heart. It looks like a .38 caliber. The bullet must have nicked an artery from the color of that blood. It was quick. I’d say no more than ten or fifteen minutes ago.” Billy stood and then paced around the room looking for clues. “There was definitely a struggle.”