Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  “Step away from the door,” Gates told the man, loud enough for whoever was behind it to hear. “Deputy Sheriff Gates,” he said for the unseen person’s reassurance. “We’ll calm down or we’ll have this talk at the jail.”

  The man gave Gates a withering look, said, “I’ll be in the living room,” and walked away.

  Gates heard the door unlocking and was surprised by the woman who walked out. The angry man was near sixty. The woman, disheveled and perspiring but beautiful, could not have been over forty. Her hair, originally in some sort of French roll, had come untucked, and wisps of it hung around her neck and over one eye. She blew on it to clear her vision but it fell again. She glanced at her outfit, made a half gesture with her hands as if she regretted her dirt-stained gardening clothes. “Thank you,” she said. “If he’d broken through the door…”

  Gates appraised her forearms and face. No obvious bruising, but the man might be too clever to leave marks. “Does this happen often?”

  The woman shrugged. “Chuck has a temper. We’ve been having trouble lately, since I came back from Europe.”

  Her words had a lilt that might indicate a foreign birth. The home and grounds looked like a country estate, complete with circular drive, matching turrets on either side of the two-story house, Greek columns on the front porch. Overseas travel could easily fit their lifestyle.

  On the way to join the husband in the living room, Gates had been surprised to see a boy watching everything from atop the stairs to the second floor. Wasn’t this a school day? The boy, early teens, delicate-looking, with large dark eyes, narrow face, and long neck, thin arms poking out of a T-shirt touting some band. Gates raised his eyebrows at the woman beside him.

  “My stepson, Jerell,” she explained. “He doesn’t like loud noises.”

  Gates remembered thinking that was an odd comment. Jerell’s eyes had reminded him of his own son’s, though his boy was a larger, more muscular, football-player type. When he looked again, the boy was gone. Jerell. Barker.

  Once seated in the plush living room Gates’s mediation with Chuck Barker and his wife, Dolores Cordova Barker, had taken most of an hour. The man remained brusque but no longer threatening. Apologized for what he called his outburst.

  “Do you always look for a weapon when you’re angry?” Gates asked.

  The man glared. “I wanted to talk things out. She walled herself off. I was getting rid of the wall,” he said. “I don’t condone violence.”

  Gates reissued the threat of incarceration should this situation reoccur, and gave the woman the department dispatch number and the contact phone for the local women’s shelter. Suggested the possibility of a restraining order. Mrs. Barker declined but agreed to a voluntary follow-up appointment with social services.

  Barker seethed but didn’t say another word. Collected his wallet and keys from a drawer in the foyer table and strode outside to a solid-looking white Lexus with silvery brushed aluminum sides. Gates expected the man to throw it in gear and spray loose gravel on the parked cruiser, but Barker left in a controlled fashion without a backward glance.

  * * *

  At the department, filing his report, Gates imagined this was a long-standing altercation. LinkedIn told him the man was chief financial officer for Trask Engineering off Air Park Drive in Riverton. Gates checked dispatch records for a complaint history, ran the name Barker through the NCIC database. Found nothing related to either assault or domestic disturbance.

  * * *

  Mrs. Barker did not attend her social services appointment, but two weeks later she had called the sheriff’s office asking how to file a restraining order. Didn’t follow through with that either, and the matter was dropped.

  * * *

  Gates straightened his back and rolled his head side to side to relax his neck muscles, which had tightened as he recalled the confrontation with Barker. So now he’d remembered why the missing homeless boy’s name, Jerel Smith, rang a bell. Unusual name, and he’d run into it earlier, Barker’s son, Jerell.

  The boy. At the top of the stairs with the large dark eyes that reminded him of his own son. His dead son. Could Kiefer talk to him? Gates shoved the thought from his mind.

  Gates remembered where he was and glanced at Duheen. She had taken his arm and was holding it firmly, he supposed in response to the movie’s increasing tension. Gates didn’t bother looking up at the screen. Maybe he could actually watch this film another time. Closed his eyes. Balanced his weight. Deep breath. A little meditation might clarify the nagging feelings he’d been experiencing, might bring to mind things he sensed he was overlooking.

  Gates opened his eyes to Duheen’s gentle nudging. When he looked up, the credits were scrolling.

  “Doesn’t say much for me or the film.” Duheen raised her eyebrows as if for confirmation.

  “Sorry. Work snuck in and I spaced.”

  “Like the fog? Came in on little cat’s feet?”

  “What?” Gates, still a little disoriented.

  “Carl Sandburg,” Duheen said, reaching down for her purse, “and I don’t think either space or fog snores, but you might be able to make it up to me. I have a taste for some serious food.”

  “I’m ready,” Gates said, wondering if he’d brought a coat, and if he had, where he’d put it. “Um, Jack’s is still open. How about a rare steak, a loaf of wine, and thou?”

  Duheen lightly punched his shoulder.

  As they walked out to the car, Duheen was cheerful, talking about how much she liked Sandra Bullock, but Gates remained distracted. There was definitely something major he had dropped and it unsettled him. Missing pieces were somewhere in those jackets or in his domestic violence report.

  Stumbling off a theater step jarred him out of his reverie and he nearly fell, dragging Duheen with him.

  “A simple hug would be more effective,” she said, pulling her purse strap back on her shoulder and smiling at him.

  GOING TO THE OTHER SIDE

  Maybe Murray was wrong. Maybe he could do it by himself. It would be simpler, and in a way, safer. He wouldn’t have to deal with Pearl. Last time she got involved with a strange voice, she wound up uncovering a body. Murray couldn’t face that again.

  Friday, after school, he walked east on Eureka Way all the way down to Continental, on past the cemetery over to Butte, across the 44 overpass at the top of Parkview where he entered the convention center campus. He circled the western perimeter of the rodeo grounds to the bluff, the steep hill that climbed toward the cemetery. There were six or seven cars and pickups parked fifty yards away, by the stable. Grooms and handlers, he thought. Just to the left of the stable, on the edge of the blacktop close to the hill, sat a big blue Dumpster with rusty metal barrels beside it. He stopped at a barrel, looked in. Just some gunky residue. The Dumpster lid had a lock on it. That surprised him—what were the horse people supposed to do with their garbage? He knew he was avoiding what he came for.

  Behind the Dumpster he stopped again, listened, heard nothing, and began climbing. The crow-fly distance to the cemetery fence couldn’t have been more than three hundred feet from the foot of the bluff, but the vertical distance at this point on the hill was formidable, at least fifty yards of loose dirt and clods, leaves and twigs. One step forward, slide back, until he started digging each foothold with his shoes and inching up spraddle-legged like a duck. He hadn’t climbed more than forty feet when he heard the mumbling. Off to his right, closer to a bushy area above the stables.

  He tacked laterally until the high voice came in. This time it sounded sad, moaning or wailing, but not loud. The kind of sound you make when you’ve quit trying and you’re all by yourself, feeling sorry, like when you’ve peed your bed but your mom won’t come help you, won’t answer your knock because she’s locked in her bedroom with a man you don’t like.

  Murray didn’t want to talk to the voices. Dreaded that. He just wanted to see the grave … or would it be graves? See if they were fresh or old. See if they wer
e marked. See if the bodies were just … no, he didn’t want to see that. Let the bodies be buried. And stay buried.

  It had been much easier moving laterally and the area he reached wasn’t as steep as where he’d started. Above him Murray saw a patch of earth maybe ten feet square, between a gnarled tree that looked like it had been on this hill forever and a sturdy evergreen that stood straight up even though it was growing on a steep slant. The ground had been disturbed, the dirt broken up and covered with a thin scattering of leaves.

  Not what he wanted to see. Not at all. And though they were no louder, the voices seemed to be crowding him, pushing him. He took a little step back, lost his footing, and slid, clawing at the loose earth but not stopping until he bumped against another tree, a small one with strong-enough roots to hold against his weight.

  If he hadn’t slid, he wouldn’t have seen the rope. Maybe half an inch thick, brown and dirty, lying like a dead snake not a foot from his side. It trailed above and below him like a boundary. He reached and tugged it. That pressure tightened it, brought it out of the dirt, but it didn’t come down. It was trapped by something or tied to something uphill. He got to his knees and tugged again. This time he saw it looped around the sturdy evergreen at the top of the messed-up patch. He could use it to help him climb back up, and in that moment he got an image. It took his breath, turned his stomach upside down and poured acid. Somebody had used this rope to help him lug a body up the hill. To that patch the voices came from. And maybe it was still happening. The damn rope was in good shape, ready, waiting to be used again.

  He slid down the hill on his butt until he was up against the back wall of the stable. Crabbed around, leaned against the rough planks, crossed his arms, and tucked his head. Wished he could yell or cry, something to relieve the poisonous feelings.

  * * *

  He was still there at dusk, like before at the library, robbed of the will to move, until he heard a vehicle drive up and park. Heard the door open and close. Heard footsteps on the blacktop and the brushing, twig-crunching sound of someone beginning to climb the hill. And he was up, flying like a bottle rocket for Continental Street and the cemetery.

  JUMPING JACK FLASH

  By the time Murray got back, he was practically vibrating with adrenaline. The lawnmower shed was a totally stupid room for pacing, six steps in either direction, but Murray had to stay inside; couldn’t stand to be seen by anyone right now. It was like he’d not only lost his clothes but lost his skin. He was defenseless, even against something so harmless as a conversation.

  He drank from his water bottle and flopped on the cot. Couldn’t stay. Stood quickly and started doing jumping jacks like they taught him in gym. Now that was crazy, and he laughed in spite of his fear and kept laughing like a damn lunatic. His situation was so dumb, so hopeless, so demented, what could you do but laugh like a maniac and do jumping jacks? Right? He kept on until he was completely out of breath, completely out of energy, until his shoulders ached, his arms burned, and his legs felt like lead posts. He collapsed on his cot, too tired to do anything but get some air back in his lungs.

  And just when he knew things couldn’t get any worse, he let his arm flop off the cot, his hand down to the floor, where he touched something woolly, and without thinking he lifted it to give it a look.

  The homeless man’s stocking cap.

  Murray was so surprised, shocked really, all he could think was that Pearl must have dropped it the day she got so mad at him and knocked over the bucket. She was so mad she forgot she’d brought it. She— But Murray wasn’t thinking about Pearl anymore. Or even the cap. He was at a funeral holding a larger person’s hand. It wasn’t raining, but it was damp and gloomy. And there were flashes in the sky and he was walking beside a large truck with metal tracks that churned and clanked and the sky kept lighting up and the noise was horrible. Someone was shooting and he began firing shot after shot straight ahead, and he started to run but his rifle was so heavy and then he was in a small store where everything smelled sweet like strawberries or ginger cookies and a woman smiled down and handed him a pink ice cream cone and then he was in a hospital, and people were wearing blue pajamas and shaking their heads. And then he was outside a red brick building watching a beautiful girl walk away, walk down the sidewalk toward the street, and he knew she wasn’t coming back, this was really goodbye, and then he was hitchhiking. Murray hadn’t done that before but his thumb was up and he was standing near a highway overpass and it was freezing and windy and sand was stinging his cheeks and there were no trees, no houses as far as he could see, and there were no cars, no trucks, nobody to drive by and pick him up and he was terrified he was going to die out there. And then he was in a cave, a small cave, no, a doorway, and it smelled horrible and he smelled just like it, and he reached to wipe his nose and dropped the cap.

  He must have slept, because when he opened his eyes it was dusk and he was cold. And exhausted.

  WON’T GO AWAY

  Gates awoke feeling heavy, still full from last evening’s late dinner. Wondered how Duheen was feeling after downing a sixteen-ounce filet mignon with all the trimmings. That brought a smile. She was quick, fun, quirky, attractive, and had the appetite of a giant squid. Who could ask for more? He found his phone and texted her: “How bout that boeuf? Next week Surfing & Turfing?”

  He’d planned house chores for his day off but was too restless to stay home. Something about the names? The kid? He couldn’t pin it down. He showered, dressed in jeans and a Pendleton, got a dark-roast at the nearby drive-through, and was sitting at his desk doing paperwork by eight.

  Gates’s search of county documents turned up his report on the domestic disturbance at the Barker home last year and more. Transcripts from 911 records dated February 13 leading to another case file. That one surprised him. A fairly recent investigation involving the Barker household. Transcripts of calls that reported Jerell Barker missing. Jerell, two l’s.

  School friends from Sierra High’s digital media and drama clubs had made the initial contact. Called both police and sheriff. Each caller used the word “disappeared.” To the police, Claudia Clemens, sixteen, added, “No way he’d bail. Jere wasn’t like that. He had a part in the one-act and was building a homemade Roku box in lab.” To the Sheriff’s Department, a boy named Marvin Suh, seventeen, gave a similar statement. “He would have cut us in. Wouldn’t just truck it. Him and us, three periods. Every day. We’re main. Like family.”

  Phone calls to the boy’s house had not been answered, messages not returned. Because the family’s home was outside city limits, a sheriff’s investigator was sent to contact the parents. Though Gates’s usual beat was that area—west county between Anderson and Mount Shasta City—he had been in Sacramento attending a seminar with SINTF, Sierra County’s Narcotics Task Force. Another deputy, the new woman named Faraday, drew the assignment in his stead.

  Unlike the boy’s worried friends, the father, Chuck Barker, didn’t use the word “disappeared.” Instead, said Jerell “ran off.” Faraday noted Barker’s frowning, demeanor more irritated than concerned. Police involvement obviously unwelcome.

  “Kid hit the road. He was always threatening to ‘jam’ when he didn’t get his way. I’m not chasing him.” The man portrayed his son’s flight as an insult, a betrayal of everything Barker had done for him. “He’ll learn,” Barker said. “Pretty good here, tough as hell out there.”

  “Is he your boy or a stepson?” Faraday had asked.

  Barker ignored the question. “He’s smart enough to get along for a while.” Gestured to his hip pocket. Said, “Took my cash. Wallet and the envelope on the dresser. No way to track it. He’ll be back when he runs out.”

  Barker yelled upstairs for his wife. “Get down here!”

  The woman, who according to the female deputy, was significantly younger than her husband, appeared at the top of the stairs wearing a housecoat, holding a small blond lapdog. The woman’s eyes looked watery and unfocused, as if she was
heavily medicated. She descended, stopped at the bottom step, and held on to the banister. Said, “I wasn’t really close to him.” Elaborated, “Stepmother,” and glanced at her husband as if to make sure he approved of her remark.

  When Faraday had asked about the boy’s real mother, the woman shook her head and the father answered, “I lost track of Ellen years ago. She never gave a damn about either of us.”

  Faraday’s report included her two follow-up contacts over the next ten days but she had developed no new information. Her conclusion: runaway.

  * * *

  Would the Barker boy have used an alias to hide from his father in the Riverton mission? Jerel Smith/Jerell Barker. Gates had to eliminate the possibility that those were different names for the same kid. He’d review his notes, check the date of “Smith’s” arrival in Riverton, and nail down the date of Jerell Barker’s “disappearance.”

  First, he completed newer requisition forms authorizing occupancy lists from shelters in cities along highways 5 and 97. Medford, Klamath Falls, Bend, Portland, and Seattle. Teenage boy, homeless, those were the most likely destinations. Gates needed to know if the mission’s Jerel Smith had moved north. Found his notes from his earlier shelter visit. Jerel Smith was logged in February 10, just a few days before Jerell Barker’s friends called in to report him missing. Inconclusive.

  If Gates had to, he’d guess Barker had injured his son in some squabble. Badly. Badly enough that the boy stole money and ran. Possibly went to a shelter using an alias. Continued going to school until something else happened and he had to flee town. Nonetheless, the name Jerell was very uncommon. Gates couldn’t imagine the boy would use Jerel for a pseudonym. So, was the intern’s record of Jerel a misspelling, Smith an alias, or was this a totally different kid? Gates had to keep digging.

  After faxing the shelter census requisition forms, Gates turned to the computer. Put in another search, this time adding N-DEx, the national database that kept intel on millions. Asked for anything/everything on two people. Jerell Barker came up empty, except for birth records. Chuck Barker was named in a single federal inquiry. He was the comptroller interviewed during an embezzlement investigation at a Riverton-based company six years earlier. Investigation was terminated for lack of evidence. Nothing strange there. Standard procedure. Comptroller should be the first one debriefed in a financial investigation.