Sinister Justice

by Steve Pickens

All hope of a quiet meal was dashed the minute they set foot in the bar. Tuned to the local access channel, the huge flat screen on the wall showed the live feed from the camera held by Randy Burrows, whose booming voice was giving a commentary along with repeated questions shouted at the police whenever an officer was within earshot.

  “I regret the day KABW ever got that local access channel,” said Jake glumly.

  “At least Randy and Walter have built a studio for it at the station,” Caleb said. “Although the entertainment value of walls falling down and lights constantly going out before they got the studio built shouldn’t be overlooked.”

  “It gave it a very David Lynch-like feel,” Sam agreed.

  “Huh, that’s the second allusion to Twin Peaks in one day,” said Jake.

  “I always felt it was more like Peyton Place,” said Sam, looking at the chessboard. Caleb had captured his rook.

  “You’ll have to find a more hip, up-to-date reference,” Jake said. “How many people even know what Peyton Place was about?”

  “He’s right, you know,” Caleb said. “Not to mention we’ve gone from creepy mothers giving their kids enemas to multiple homicides in this town. Maybe Twin Peaks isn’t so far off.”

  “Even Twin Peaks is getting to be in the dim past these days,” Sam said.

  “You’re in check, incidentally,” Caleb informed Sam.

  “Blast.”

  “Where’s Roxy?” Jake asked, watching Randy Burrows gently escorted away from the scene by an Arrow Bay police officer.

  “Who knows?” Caleb said. “At least this way we’re actually getting some news, other than the color of the walls of the home and the charming décor.”

  “Just whose house is it anyway?” asked Sam.

  “They haven’t said yet, but it looks familiar,” said Caleb, pausing long enough to grab Paul Driggers a bottle of Arrow Bay Amber.

  “Big old place off the road like that could be any number of houses,” said Sam, smiling as his cheeseburger arrived.

  Trudy Mundy had just arrived, still in her Customs uniform but sans firearm, as Caleb had repeatedly told her it was not allowed on the premises. She was with a tall man with short-cropped hair and thick eyebrows whom Jake assumed was Mr. Mundy when she stopped next to them, staring up at the flat screen television.

  “What’s up?” she asked Caleb, who was already handing her a Naughty Shirley Temple, her usual.

  “Found a body,” said Caleb, looking to the presumed Mr. Mundy with raised eyebrows.

  “Just a beer,” he said.

  “We have over thirty.”

  “Give him an amber, Caleb, he’ll like that,” said Trudy, not looking away from the screen. “That looks familiar, where is it?”

  “Somewhere on Sky Heights,” said Jake.

  “You know you could end the mystery if you called Jason. He must know who it is by now,” said Sam, who was fuming at the loss of his rook and being back in check.

  “He’s busy,” said Jake. “I’ve seen him in the background there a half dozen times already snapping photos.”

  “You don’t need to call him,” said Trudy Mundy, turning to face them. “I know whose house that is. It’s Reed Longhoffer’s.”

  * * *

  “Jake, are you okay?” Sam asked for the hundredth time.

  They had left the bar shortly after they found out whose house it was. Jake had suddenly lost his appetite and wanted to come home. Sam had asked for to go boxes and wrapped things up quickly.

  “Everything okay, Sam?” Caleb had asked.

  “Not sure,” Sam said, eyeing Jake, who was looking like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming Ford Excursion.

  “If there’s anything I can do, let me know, okay?” he said as they left.

  Now at home, Jake was just sitting mutely on the couch, staring at the wall.

  “Jake?”

  “I’m fine, Sam. I’m just…” he looked into Sam’s expressive brown eyes. “I was just talking to Gav about this, about how it had the feel of an unfinished thought. Now Longhoffer… It’s just kind of a bad déjà vu, you know? Like a repeat of last year.”

  Sam smiled gently at Jake. “Upstairs.”

  Jake walked up the steps and into their bedroom, allowing Sam to place him on the bed, lay him flat, and take off his shoes. Sam pulled the comforter up around him, telling him he’d be right back. Sam returned with a hot toddy. He propped Jake up on the pillow, narrowly avoiding stepping on Sophia before joining Jake on the other side of the bed. Barnaby joined them a few moments later, curling into a ball at Jake’s feet.

  “You want to tell me all about it, or do I have to tie you down and force it out of you?”

  “You can always tie me down,” said Jake.

  “Stow it, Mr. Emboldened-by-Alcohol. What’s up?”

  “You mean other than the murder of Reed Longhoffer?”

  “We don’t know that. Dead yes, murdered no. And what does that really have to do with us, anyway?”

  “A pervading sense of dread and déjà-vu.”

  “So you said,” said Sam, sliding under the comforter. “Brr.” He looked at Jake again, taking his hand. “Big difference this time, kiddo. We are not involved in it.”

  “I know it, I know, it just seems like it’s following us, somehow.”

  “What is?” asked Sam, perplexed.

  “Death.”

  Sam burst out laughing.

  “I fail to see what’s so funny about it.”

  “It’s hysterical. You make it sound like Death is stalking us at every turn.”

  “Come on, Sam. We have a fight with Leona Weinberg, and she turns up murdered. We have a run in with Reed Longhoffer, and he turns up dead.”

  “Jake, be serious. I know I’m the left-brained one, but even you can see logically that A has nothing to do with B.”

  “I feel like I’ve got a curse on me, a killing power.”

  Sam erupted into a fit of giggles again. “Better watch out. Seriously dangerous brain powers here. You might be dead within minutes.”

  “Samuel Patrick O’Conner, you are one insensitive S.O.B.”

  Sam stopped laughing. “Oh Tiger, I’m sorry. But come on, you have to see how ridiculous that sounds. If one had anything to do with the other, there would be bodies littered all over the highway every time you drove into Mount Burlington. I don’t think I’ve ever been with you once where a driver hasn’t pissed you off in some way or other.”

  Jake gave a grudging smile. “Well, okay. Maybe I was being a little melodramatic.”

  “You were being a drama queen, Macbeth,” said Sam, snuggling closer to Jake. “Now come on, what’s really bugging you?”

  “It’s a lot of little things. Gavin and Jeff not being able to come up for Christmas, the specter of Tony Graham, and…well…your sister.”

  “Nora? I wasn’t aware you had talked to her.”

  “I haven’t. It was something Amy said to me on the phone the other day, after the news about Mom and Dad. About being the only family we have. I just got to thinking. I feel a little responsible for the blow-out you two had.”

  “You aren’t responsible for Nora acting like a nuclear reactor reaching the China syndrome.”

  “Intellectually I know that,” said Jake. “It’s just she’s your only sister.”

  “And because you’ve patched things up with Jason, naturally you’re feeling a little bad for me.” Sam ruffled Jake’s hair. “I love that about you, you know. Your consideration.”

  “What if I don’t make it, Sam? What if I don’t get published? I’m not even sure I want this manuscript published.”

  Sam shrugged. “Then you’ll write another.”

  “What if that one comes to nothing? What if Nora was right, and I end up just working for years and it never amounts to anything?”

  “Nora said this to you?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Jake, first of all, Nora’s never been completely rational when things d
on’t go the way she wants them to.”

  “I realize that, but—”

  “Second, Nora needs to mind her own business.”

  “I suppose, but—”

  “And third, Jacob, I have every confidence in you. If it takes until you’re eighty to get published, it doesn’t make one damn bit of difference to me. My God, Jake, you worked your ass off to get me established, and because of your earnings, your hours and hours of overtime, particularly the six months I was out of the country, the house is paid off twenty years early. Remember, we are husbands after all. Equals. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine,” Sam said, winking.

  “A paragon of generosity, you are.”

  Sam laughed. “If it makes you feel any better, the fight I had with Nora over your taking time off to write was only part of it. It was about a lot of things, Jake. Money, mostly. Mine. Nora seems to think I shouldn’t be doing with my money what I am.”

  Jake took a sip of his toddy. “This is really good,” he said, enjoying the warmth that spread not only from the toddy itself, but from the whiskey. “In what way? Other than with me, which I knew about.”

  “Helping Mom out.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “Neither do I. Nora still blames Mom for the way things happened in Seattle. That we did without for so many years. She doesn’t seem to remember the fact that Mom took a whole hell of a lot to keep us from getting hurt. “I just wish Nora would let it go, you know? Phil Baker has been dead a long time. It’s just time she moved on.”

  “What else?” said Jake, feeling something wasn’t being said.

  “Nothing, Jake, really,” said Sam.

  Jake let it pass, but he knew there was more to it. Jake could sense Sam was not ready to go over whatever was bothering him now, and he snuggled closer to him and reveled in his warmth, his love, and the feeling of connectedness.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Their blissful solace abruptly shattered when the front door banged open, Jason presumably having arrived home.

  Jake sighed heavily. “Jason’s home. Alone, I wonder?”

  “Sounds like,” said Sam.

  A secondary bang caused Barnaby to look up and let out a woof, only to lower his head a second later and go back to sleep. Jake sighed again and burrowed down in the comforter, still unable to get completely warm despite the whiskey in the toddy. He wondered if he wasn’t coming down with something.

  “We could go down and find out what’s going on,” said Sam.

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t want to know that badly. You go if you want to.”

  “You done with your toddy?”

  Jake nodded.

  “Then I’ll take it downstairs.” He took Jake’s cup and walked out of the room, Dorothy and Sophia trailing after him. He realized their food dish must have been empty. Entering the kitchen, he found Jason and Derek sitting at the table, looking somewhat shell-shocked.

  “Was it bad?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve seen some weird stuff,” Derek said. “In a city the size of San Francisco, you expect to see weird stuff. But this—” He glanced at Jason and shook his head.

  “This takes the cake,” said Jason. He got up and went to the cupboard, pouring himself a shot of Jameson.

  Sam’s eyebrow shot upward again. “What exactly did happen to Reed Longhoffer?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell this to anyone, you realize. The police were furious when they found out the two of us had gotten in there. More so when they found out I’d taken photos.”

  “Detective Haggerty threatened to arrest us,” Derek said. “And he confiscated the memory cards from Jason’s camera.”

  “He thought he did,” said Jason, grinning for the first time. “When have you ever known me not to back up my cards, D?”

  “You sly son of a bitch. You finally took a page out of my book.”

  Jason rolled his eyes and said, “You can only hear ‘back up everything twice’ so many times before you take it to heart—if only to shut you up.”

  “And?” Sam prompted.

  “The place was torn apart. There was blood everywhere…” said Jason.

  “The smell was horrible,” Derek continued. “Reed must have been cold-blooded as the heat had been cranked up.”

  Sam felt an unpleasant plummeting sensation in his stomach but remained mute. He’d be sure to mention the heat being turned up to Jake.

  “And Reed was in the study and that thing was still on top of him, jaws clamped on his throat.”

  “Dear God,” said Sam, horrified. “What thing?”

  “A timber wolf,” said Derek.

  “It was not a wolf. It just looked like a wolf.”

  “What was it then?”

  “A big dog,” said Jason. “A really damn big dog. It might have been a wolfhound, but wasn’t a wolf. It was definitely a very, very big dog.”

  “Was? It was dead too?”

  “Reed managed to kill it with a spike—you know, the kind you put receipts on. I didn’t even know people still used things like that.”

  “Like lawn darts, they’ve gone the way of the dodo in most homes due to the penchant for young children to end up on the pointy end of them,” said Sam. “But knowing Longhoffer, does it really surprise you he had one?”

  “No,” said Jason. “He jammed it up its ribs. Killed it, but it was too late. The thing had torn into his throat by that time. Right through the jugular would be my guess. Reed bled out pretty fast.”

  “I don’t think I realized how much blood the human body holds until tonight,” said Derek grimly.

  Sam shook his head again. It was bizarre; it was unbelievable. Who would plan such a gruesome way to kill someone? And why? Why go to the trouble to do something like that?

  The three men sat in the quiet of the kitchen until Derek bid Jason and Sam good night, leaving them in the silence.

  “I can’t believe it,” Sam said, trying still to get his mind around Reed Longhoffer’s demise.

  “You’re not the only one. The police are baffled as well. And freaked out. You could tell. Detective Haggerty and Sharon both looked very upset.”

  “Sharon?”

  “Uh, yeah…Sharon Trumbo.”

  “I understand why,” Sam said. “Something like that takes a lot of planning…patience…”

  “And clearly not a sound mind,” said Jason. He sighed, swigging the last of his drink down. “Something else I need to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Derek’s having some troubles financially. He was wondering now that I’m working if I could move into the second bedroom in his place to help him with the rent.”

  “Oh,” said Sam, surprised. “And it wouldn’t bug you? You know, having a gay guy for a roommate?”

  “Yeah, because that would be so different from now.”

  Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing. “Right, right. Sorry. I must be more tired than I thought.”

  “Well, I know you don’t see it that way because Jake and I are brothers.”

  “I guess that’s it. And I’m tired. Will you be moving soon?”

  “Yeah, fairly,” said Jason. He looked at Sam. “I thank you guys for putting up with me. You’ve always made me feel welcome, but I feel like I’ve been invading your space.”

  “J.D., it’s been no trouble.”

  “I know, but I’ve been infringing on your hospitality for nearly a year now. You’ve never once asked me to help with the bills or anything. I’ve kept the house clean as best I could, more so I could contribute—”

  “Which we’ve really appreciated. It’s been no bother, Jason.”

  “It’s time for me to get out on my own,” he said, looking directly at Sam again. “Well, sort of. And I’ll be helping Derek out.”

  “You’re welcome here any time. And if Derek drives you nuts, you know you can always come back.”

  “Thanks Sam, I appreciate it,” said Jason, rising to go. “I bet
ter get to bed. It is going to be a long day at the office tomorrow.”

  “I bet. Sleep well.”

  “I’ll try. After seeing that…” he shrugged. “The Jamesons will help. G’night, Sammy.”

  Sam put Jason’s glass and his cup into the dishwasher. After a moment of thinking about Reed Longhoffer, he bolted the dog door shut and checked all the doors and windows on the ground floor before going upstairs. He walked slowly up the stairs and into their bedroom, looking closely at Jake who was fast asleep, Barnaby still at his feet.

  “What is going on, Jake?” he said quietly. “What is going on?”

  * * *

  Sam frowned at the thermometer and looked at Jake. “You’re not getting out of that bed. Your temperature is at one hundred now and has gone up half a degree every hour.”

  Jake was not about to argue. His head felt like it was packed full of cotton, and he ached from head to foot. With his birthday only three days away, he was perfectly content to stay in bed until he began to feel somewhat human again.

  “Is there any of that cough syrup left from last year that Doctor Masuoka gave me?”

  “You mean the stuff with the codeine in it?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Half a bottle at least, but I don’t think—”

  Jake erupted into a coughing and sneezing fit that caused both Dorothy and Sophia to flee the bedroom.

  “I’ll just go get it for you, shall I?” said Sam, who had taken cover behind the door until the fit had passed.

  An hour later, the sheets seemed to irritate Jake’s skin so he got up, pulling the comforter off the bed, and slunk downstairs, plopping unceremoniously on the couch. He propped his head up with the cushions and pulled the coffee table closer so all remotes and the box of tissues were close. He pulled the comforter up to his chin and snapped on the fireplace. He flipped the television on and went over to the Discovery Channel, which was airing a program about ghosts. He left it there, finding the idea of an afterlife, even in ghost form, somewhat comforting in his current state.

  Glancing at the bedroom door, he thought about what Sam had told him this morning. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about Jason moving out. While it had been nearly a year, it certainly hadn’t been an inconvenience to have Jason about. He’d miss him.