by Tom Fowler
"It means first responders shouldn't go in. It's too unsafe, too likely to fall down."
"Do people live there?" I said.
"Doubt it," Rich said. "Sometimes, you get squatters. Often, people go there to do their drugs. Sometimes, they burn the house down, and the fire department doesn't run in."
I shook my head. Another house, looking just as unsteady and with an identical X on the door, appeared on the other side of the road. I wondered how many there were and how much longer they would still be standing. They threatened to slump to the earth any minute.
Rich made a right turn. The houses looked a little better here. No drug dens, at least. A deputy's cruiser drove past us and went down the road we had just turned from. "Is this their street?" I said.
"Yeah, why?"
"Just wondering." I don't have a conspiracy brain, I told myself.
***
The Shelton house looked like a log cabin. Two stories of wooden walls stopped at a traditional roof. None of the houses nearby looked like the Sheltons', nor did they look like each other. Absent anything like a homeowners' association, people built whatever dwelling they wanted and could afford. I liked the libertarian aspect, but looking between a white house, a blue one, a log one, and a rambler, I wished for some thematic unity.
Considering Jim's recent death, the conditions of the lawn and gardens was understandable. Closer to the house, I spied signs of age and disrepair—cracks in the logs, peeling paint on the door and shutters, and windows whose age exceeded mine. I wondered how many houses in the county had met similar fates once jobs dried up.
Rich knocked on the door. A woman answered and invited us inside. In the living room, she and Rich embraced and exchanged words I couldn't hear. He introduced me to Connie Shelton, and we shook hands as I offered my condolences. Connie looked to be about Rich's age, though her eyes and the lines around them suggested she had slept little in the last week. I heard children's voices from another room, but they didn't join us. Connie sat in a blue recliner; Rich and I shared a matching sofa.
The hardwood floors were the same color as the walls. They needed a good buffing to regain their luster. In light of Jim's passing, I tried to dial down my usual judgmental nature. Connie and the children had other priorities. Floors could be maintained later. There would be time for dusting, cleaning, and putting toys away. I was sixteen when my older sister died; I didn't want to do much of anything afterward, and I wouldn't pretend my situation was the same as losing a husband.
"Thanks for coming," Connie said. She mustered a small smile. "Both of you. Can I get you anything?"
"We're good," Rich said. "Tell me what's happened."
Connie let out a slow sigh. "Well, after Jim died, the coroner did an examination. The sheriff and some deputies came around. They talked to me, talked to the kids some. I hear they went out to the farm and questioned the charity people, too."
"Did anything come of it?"
"No." Connie snorted without humor. "Single gunshot wound to the head. No sign of foul play, the coroner says. No motive for someone to kill Jim, the sheriff says. So they tell me he killed himself." She shook her head as a single tear slid down her right cheek. "I don't believe it."
"I don't believe it, either," Rich offered.
"What are you going to do?" Connie said.
"We'll look around, talk to people, and puzzle out what happened."
"You think you can figure out who killed Jim?"
"Yes," Rich said right away. I thought we had good odds of doing it, but I also didn't want to promise results to a recent widow.
Connie looked at me. "You're Rich's cousin?"
"I am."
"You're not a cop?"
"Private investigator," I said. I had been describing myself this way for almost a year now. While it had gotten easier to say, it still felt weird to hear myself say it.
"Well, you must be good, if Rich brought you here to help."
"I tend to get results." Rich shifted beside me. I couldn't see his face, but I knew he must have been frowning.
Connie picked up on it. "Is something wrong?"
Rich ignored the question, which was probably best for everyone. "I don't want to sit here and ask you a bunch of questions," he said.
"I think you know the answers."
"I probably do, but I'm a cop, and Jim deserves my thoroughness. Had anything been unusual lately?"
"No," Connie said. "I think working with the bees was helping Jim. It'd probably drive me batty, but it seemed to calm him down. He was in a better place in his head these last couple months."
"He got along with everyone?"
She nodded. "Charity people were great. Farmer was really nice. I think he was glad someone could use the land."
"Did he have any quotas with respect to bees or honey?" I asked.
"You think someone killed him 'cause he didn't make enough honey?" Connie said.
"People have been killed for less."
She paused to think about my question. "If he had any goals to hit, he never mentioned them to me. It didn't seem like that kind of place. Sure, they could sell the honey, but it ain't like honey sells for fifty bucks a jar."
She had a point. Even if Land of the Brave sold their honey at high-end prices—presuming Garrett County and West Virginia shoppers would pay those rates—they'd need millions of bees to bring in a lot of money. Giving a handful of veterans a few hives each wasn't a formula to hoard cash and retire young.
"We'll figure it out," Rich said to reassure Connie.
I refrained from joining in the affirmation. Even though I liked our chances, nothing about this case made me think we would have an easy go of it.
***
"Now you're quiet," Rich said as he drove us out of the neighborhood.
"Am I surly, too?" I said.
"Surly suits me more than you."
I fell silent for a moment before saying, "This is a small city and a county with a low population."
"So?"
"So everybody knows everybody else. People know their neighbors' lives; they know their business."
"I still don't know what you're getting at," said Rich.
"I mean, obviously Jim's wife is going to think he didn't kill himself. What if he hid something from her, though? Something we might find out by asking around?"
"You think he killed himself?" Rich's voice had an edge to it now.
"I don't know. If he got killed, though, someone did it for a reason. He may not have told his wife about it."
"But you think he may have told someone else."
"Yes," I said.
"Maybe. The problem is that everyone knows everyone here."
"How is that the problem?"
"Because they don't know you," Rich said. "They don't know me. We're outsiders. They're going to protect their own."
"Maybe." We got back onto Route 219 for the short jaunt to the motel. "It may be worth trying."
"Let's see how tomorrow goes first."
Rich pulled into the motel parking lot. One vehicle we hadn't seen before, a gray SUV, sat near our doors. As we pulled closer, four large men got out of the SUV and took up positions near the doors. "The welcoming committee," I said. "Still think everyone we've talked to has been helpful?"
Rich gave me a sidelong glare as he pulled his Camaro into a spot two down from the goonmobile. "We don't know who sent these guys."
I opened my car door. "Why don't we find out?" I said as I got out.
Rich called, "C.T.!" after me, but I closed the door. He got out of the car, too. The two men standing outside my door sized me up. Both had their arms crossed under their chests, and those arms and chests were bigger than mine. All of them stood about six-four, giving them two inches on me and four on Rich. They were all built like offensive linemen, so I didn't doubt their strength even as I noticed their unnecessary bulk and paunches.
"You from the local Four-H?" I said as I stopped a couple paces from the pair darkenin
g my doorstep.
"What the hell is Four-H?" the one on the right said. He had long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other one wore his blond hair in a super short buzz cut even Rich would have found severe.
"Hell, I don't know." I thought about it for a second as they looked between each other, then scowled at me. "Head, heart, health . . . you know, I forget the fourth one."
"We ain't from the fucking 4-H," the blond one said.
"I believe you," I said. "They'd never approve of your language."
"Who sent you?" Rich said, plopping a wet blanket atop the banter I had going.
"You two assholes are asking too many questions," one of the two by Rich's door said.
"Right now," I said, "I just want to know what the fourth H stands for."
"You need to back off," Black Ponytail said. "Go back to Baltimore."
"Or what?" I said.
"Or we'll send you there in an ambulance."
"Why would it take us back to Baltimore? There's a hospital around the corner."
"Enough of this shit," Blond Crew Cut said as he grabbed for me. I shoved his arm aside and gave him a short jab in the solar plexus. Sucking wind made him take a step back into the wall. Behind me, I heard the telltale grunts and sounds of fighting as Rich's duo failed to persuade him to leave. The goon with the black ponytail threw a punch at me. It was the kind of loopy hook a boxing teacher would expel someone for throwing. I blocked it. He threw a few more. They were strong but slow, and I had time to turn all the blows aside.
My blond assailant recovered and pushed himself off the wall. This could get complicated. When Black Ponytail launched his next haymaker, I grabbed his arm and spun him into the parking lot. His momentum carried him into the front quarter panel of the gray SUV, which he bounced off of and fell in a heap. I turned back toward the blond goon in a defensive stance.
He threw a hard jab at my face. I pushed his punch high with my left arm, ducked a bit, and rammed my fist into his stomach. When he bent forward, I drew back my arm and walloped him in the face with an elbow. His head rebounded off the door and his eyes crossed. I did it again, then a third time, until he slumped down the door.
The long-haired goon got to his feet as I waded out to meet him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rich deliver a knockout blow to one of his attackers. "I just remembered what the fourth H is," I said.
"Huh?" he said.
"Hands." I launched a flurry of punches at his body. He managed to turn a few aside, but the majority connected. He rocked back with the impacts and his breathing grew labored. I gave him one last good shot to the midsection, then grabbed his ponytail and bashed his head into the hood of the car. When the first attempt didn't put him down, I did it again. The second one turned the lights off.
Both of Rich's assailants were down, too. His split lip leaked a little blood down his chin. "I think my two were bigger," I said, eyeing up the four men splayed out around the motel doors and parking lot.
"I don't think so," said Rich.
I pointed at the one with the ponytail. "He had more hair."
Rich chuckled and shook his head. "Not everything is a competition."
"Good thing," I said, touching my lip in the spot where his had been busted open.
Sirens screamed from nearby. I saw red and blue flashing lights as three sheriff's deputy's cars drove into the parking lot and skidded to stops near the scene. One of them got out and pointed his gun at us.
"They started it," I said as I raised my hands.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rich and I rode to the sheriff's office in separate police cars. Once we established that he was a police detective and I was a private investigator, the deputies decided not to handcuff us. Ambulances took the four goons to the nearby hospital. They never told us who sent them. I wondered if the deputies would have any idea, and if they would tell us anything they knew.
The Garrett County Sheriff's Office was in the same building that housed the district and circuit courts, and where Rich and I met the mayor. I got the feeling Ken Dennehy wouldn't be chatting us up tonight. The deputies herded Rich and me inside. The squadroom looked like it had been lifted straight out of 1990s cop dramas and deposited here. Desks, loosely organized into rows, butted against one another. The vinyl floor was pockmarked with coffee stains. Whiteboards, filled with active cases and other official scribblings, covered most of the available wall space. Doors to offices and interrogation rooms ringed the exterior.
A tubby deputy led me to one of those rooms, pointed at my chair, and left without saying a word. If it came down to running away, I liked my chances against him. I would be back at the motel before the ambulance arrived to tend to his coronary. The interrogation room was just as unspectacular as the rest of the area. Paint peeled from the walls in a few spots. I sat on a plastic chair whose design specifications clearly listed comfort at the bottom. The chair reserved for my inquisitor boasted of a thin layer of padding covered by gray cloth—probably not much more comfortable. The required one-way mirror dominated the wall to my right. I waved in case anyone watched from the other side.
Then I waited. And I waited some more. If the Garrett County Sheriff's Department sought to turn me into a quivering mass of gelatin by waiting me out, they would be disappointed. I used the downtime to ponder recent developments in the case. Rich and I talked to few people, yet we still had a quartet of legbreakers waiting for us. No one called 9-1-1, but deputies came anyway. Someone at the motel could have called, but the parking lot was mostly empty. The office was too far away to have a good view of the scrum, and the motel didn't have exterior cameras. Right after the law arrived, an ambulance rolled into the lot. The whole thing smelled like a setup to me. But who would have sent the four idiots to dissuade us, and would the same person have had first responders on standby?
Of course, someone trying to encourage us to abandon the investigation meant there was something to investigate. No one should care about extra scrutiny on a suicide. A murder, though, could not withstand a glut of questions, especially not when posed by someone as brilliant as me. And Rich, too, for that matter. Whatever room Rich sat in, I had a feeling the same thoughts came to him. We were onto something, and whoever was responsible didn't want us to stay on it. I wondered if some deputy would come in and suggest that we abandon this and go back to Baltimore.
A few minutes later, a middle-aged deputy entered the room. Unlike the fat one who showed me in here, this man looked like he could still play a mean left field in a softball league. His hair had gone gray, but he looked to be about my height and build—six-two and about 185 pounds. His name tag identified him as White, and he was. So, too, would his hair be in another ten years. He set a manila file folder and a small spiral notebook down on the table in front of him as he slid into the chair. "You know why you're here?"
"I'm extremely good at defending myself?" I said.
"You put two men in the hospital."
"There you go." His neutral expression told me he was unconvinced. "They would have done the same to me."
"But they didn't," White said.
"Do you really think my cousin and I picked a fight with four guys that size?" I said.
White shrugged. "Couple of hotshots from Baltimore . . . don't know what kind of trouble you'd start."
"You might look at the four guys we laid out. I doubt they're as pure as the driven snow."
"Now you're going to tell me how to do my job?" said White.
"Only because it appears someone needs to," I said.
My comment made White glare at me. I didn't wilt. He moved the notebook aside and opened the folder. Inside, I saw a few sheets of paper. The picture on the top page looked like one of the goons I tangled with. "We already did that," he said. "I guess someone else told me how to do my job before you. All four of these guys are dirty." White leafed through the pages. The print was small, and I was reading upside-down, but it looked like two of the men hailed from West Virginia.
"Local boys?" I said.
"Mm-hmm. They seem to specialize in the work you saw them doing tonight. We've arrested all of them before."
"And yet I'm the one in this room," I pointed out.
White raised both hands and slapped the tabletop hard. I didn't flinch, though I wondered if the rickety table would survive. Before I worked my first case, I lived in China for thirty-nine months, culminating with nineteen days in one of their prisons. It was an experience I did not care to repeat, but it made me immune to amateur tactics like the one White used. "What did this poor table ever do to you?" I said.
"You're a smart ass."
I was about to say I preferred it to being a dumbass but refrained. White seemed competent and didn't deserve the barb. When did I go soft? "The key word is 'smart,'" I said instead.
"All right, let's presume you're smart. What are you and your cousin doing up here?"
I figured White knew this already, but I played along. "Looking into the death of Jim Shelton."
"Suicide," said White.
"The four men trying to get us to drop our inquiry would disagree," I said.
"Yeah? Why?"
"Real suicides stand up to scrutiny. Murders dressed up to look self-inflicted can't take the spotlight for long."
"You think someone killed Jim Shelton?"
"I was on the fence until we got the welcoming committee at our motel."
White lapsed into silence. He busied himself looking through the papers again. With another chance to eye up the reports, I confirmed seeing West Virginia on two sheets. Perhaps the talent market for goons was at low ebb in Garrett County. "Say you're right," he said, and I resisted the urge to say I was right. "Who killed him?"
"We don't know yet," I said, "but I guess whoever sent four assholes to our rooms is a likely suspect."
"You know who did it?"
I shook my head. "None of them said much except the usual threats."
"Maybe you could have given them more of a chance to talk."
"Sure. I'll just get punched around a bit to help your nonexistent investigation." I pointed at my face. "Can't risk the money maker."