Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  Still, he had a bad feeling about Chuck Barker. Bad enough to run him though the NCIC database after meeting him only once. And Faraday’s description indicated the pretty wife’s downhill slide. Why? Depression? Intimidation? More domestic abuse?

  * * *

  Gates bought a cold soda and settled in to reread the uncleared case documents. Day off? He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to log these hours for pay. Just needed to get some balls rolling. Plus, hanging around his empty house always reminded him of his son.

  FLOORED

  Murray sat up and stared at the cap on the floor like it was a scorpion. Those … things he’d seen, the pictures or whatever they were. Like he was there. But he wasn’t there, he was here, and he didn’t think he forgot that, but the pictures were so real: the gloom, the smoke, the noise, standing out freezing in the middle of nowhere. He hadn’t made that up. Couldn’t have. They were like scenes in a movie all run together. Maybe he saw things like that on TV when he was still living with his mom.

  He leaned over and slowly reached for the cap again, pinched it between thumb and finger and held it in front of him. Dirty, bluish-gray, fake wool. It smelled of sweat and wood fire and— He was nose to nose with a woman, an older woman, and her face was dirty and her breath smelled like vinegar and he couldn’t move farther away because their sleeping bag was zipped and the sidewalk was icy but she was warm and he liked her … and the explosions made dirt clods fall all around him and hit his helmet. He could feel them but he couldn’t hear them and he tried to run but slipped and dropped his rifle and sprawled face-forward in the mud … This time Murray threw the cap, hard, toward the front door, and lay back on his cot, breathing like he’d been sprinting.

  Pearl had told him earlier. Clairvoyants could find people by touching things. This was something about the gift. That word made him want to scream. Whatever it was, whatever was wrong with Murray, it was no damn gift. It was a tunnel to hell. He couldn’t stay in bed. But he remembered the hill and the graves and he didn’t feel safe outside. Could he go to Janochek’s workshop or his cabin? Take a book, and if they asked what he was doing there just tell them he needed better light to do homework? He couldn’t stay in the shed another minute with that cap. What if it started showing him stuff when he wasn’t even holding it? He grabbed his stats book and ran up the road toward the caretaker buildings.

  Murray opened the workshop door first. Lights were on, a Dremel plugged in on the workbench, crookneck lamp lit over the computer table, but no Janochek. Another step farther inside showed him Pearl in a nook behind a bookcase, sitting, feet under her, reading. She looked up when she heard him. Said nothing. Continued reading. He backed away, out the door, careful not to let the screen slam, and slipped quietly under the covered walkway to the two-bedroom stucco house Janochek called the “cottage.” Opening that door, he found the place lights-off and empty. Janochek still working somewhere out on the grounds.

  It would be rude to sit in that cabin when neither Pearl nor Janochek was there, and he was not going to roam around the cemetery as upset as he felt, so that left the workshop and Pearl, who was obviously still mad at him. Well, that couldn’t be helped.

  The moment he reopened the workshop door she stood and let him have it.

  “What are you doing? Dad said he asked you up for Sunday.”

  “I need to … I needed, uh, better light … to study.” Murray hated how difficult it was to think on his feet when Pearl was mad at him.

  “Try the library,” she said, and turned back to her nook.

  “I held the cap,” Murray said; he hadn’t meant to, or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to, but he was afraid to go outside and he was desperate and didn’t know what else to do.

  Pearl stopped but didn’t turn around to face him.

  “By accident. I … I picked it up and it, or I … saw things. Like I was there but I’d never been there and … most were sad or scary or just, uh, blue pajamas … maybe I saw things like that on television at home but you’d think I’d remember.” He ran down. Closed his eyes. Waited for a response.

  “The old man’s cap,” Pearl said. “You saw things.”

  Now Murray was quiet. He’d said enough.

  “Did you ask it anything?”

  “Holy hell, Pearl! It was like a horror movie or a … I don’t know what. I hardly knew what was going on. And then I threw it because … it’s not right. It’s way too … like a drug trip or something.” He wondered if he should go on. “And there’s voices again.”

  When Murray heard Pearl wheel around, he opened his eyes.

  Like the two people in the sleeping bag, neither he nor Pearl seemed able to back away or say anything. Murray thought Pearl could see right into him. Right through his pupils into his mind and down into the ball of fear above his stomach. And he thought maybe she knew him like nobody else in the world knew him. And he thought maybe she liked him like nobody else in the world liked him. And he saw that even though she was disappointed in him, she still liked him, and his chest ached and water came to the corners of his eyes and he rubbed his forehead to smear the drops from falling.

  Murray stayed frozen while Pearl closed the distance between them, put her arms around him, and held him like his mother might have but never did. And some amount of time passed. And when Janochek barged in the door carrying a bag of fast food, they jumped apart like they’d been electrocuted.

  Janochek stopped immediately a foot inside and looked at each of them. “Guess I should have told them to supersize it,” he said, and resumed walking through the workshop to the back door and the covered patio that connected to the cottage. “It’s better while it’s hot,” he said, leaving the door open.

  SOMEONE’S KILLING

  Janochek, Pearl, and Murray sat at the dining room table. You could practically hear dust settle. A pin dropping would have shattered glass. No one said a word. And then there was the sound of paper rattling and people eating as if that required absolutely full concentration and left no room for casual glances or chatter.

  When every last crumb of food was gone, Janochek gathered the wrappers, stuffed them in the paper bag, and tossed that in the recycling. Returned to the table and rested his hands in front like he was in class waiting for lessons to begin. “So,” he said, “what’s the latest?”

  Pearl started. “Murray … you know the homeless man we bought the coat and sleeping bag?” She waited until her dad caught up. “Murray held his cap, I asked him to, and he saw things … like they do … clairvoyants.”

  “Some do, apparently,” Janochek amended.

  “Did you see where he is?” Pearl asked Murray. Noticed the question seemed to make him shudder.

  Murray shook his head.

  “So what did you see? What did you find out?” Pearl, leaning closer.

  Murray looked at the table, felt like he was suddenly out of air, and took a deep breath. He’d brought this on himself. There was no other place to run. Nothing else he could think to do. “I don’t know where he is. I just … I think I saw things he did or things that happened to him. But…” Murray heard himself groan, wanted to turn away from the two of them, didn’t think he could make himself say the rest.

  “What else?” Pearl said. “What’s the matter?”

  Like from a great distance, Murray saw Janochek reach over and put his hand on Pearl’s arm. He knew why. Janochek was asking her to give him time.

  Do it.

  “There’s more voices,” Murray said, “a lot of them. I saw the graves. Someone’s killing people.”

  Murray put his hand over his face wishing he could make it all go away.

  HYPOTHETICALLY SYNDROMATIC

  When she arrived at the taqueria, Gates already had her carnitas tostada covered in pico and drenched with red sauce. Beside it, a cantaloupe agua fresca.

  Her smile showed white teeth. “For a one-horse deputy, you have exquisite taste.”

  “This isn’t exactly a social call, but then ag
ain it’s not an antisocial call either.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere. On the other hand, a tostada…”

  Gates loved her smile. Looked at her shiny brown hair that she kept pinned up for work, her light touch with cosmetics, her wide shoulders and solid build. Those long legs that could probably outrun him in a sprint. In his forties he had at least five years on her, but anyone who saw the two of them together would probably assume ten or more.

  Gates kept himself in pretty good shape, kept his thick sandy hair combed and his steel-toed Wellingtons polished. He knew his face was rough, creased. Not handsome, he thought, but weathered and durable. Hardly seemed like enough for a woman like Duheen; quicker, educated in art and psychology, widely read. And what did he have to offer? A washed and waxed king-cab GMC pickup with new all-weather tires. What woman wouldn’t swoon for that?

  “You mentioned a while ago that you thought I had an unconscious process that helped during investigations.”

  Duheen nodded. “Okay,” she said, taking a second to stack a jalapeño slice on a chip, “you’re fascinated by apparent mysteries, always looking for plausible solutions, actually feel pleasure when you’re working a case. You’re analyzing situations all the time, but you’re not necessarily aware of it. Answers often come when you’re not thinking.”

  She stopped for an instant to load another chip with hot carrot and onion. “Your brain works on crimes that puzzle you even when you’re doing something else—driving, reading. That’s the ‘process’ I was talking about. Your brain craves explanations, searches automatically, practically incessantly. Neuropsych research has established the mechanisms.”

  She added more chips to her plate and stirred them into her extra hot sauce while Gates watched. Satisfied with the mix, she went on, “If, hypothetically, you and I were out together sitting around a campfire and there was a sound and I asked you, ‘What was that noise?’ you wouldn’t say, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ You’d do whatever it took to answer the question, including getting up and exploring, to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. It’s your nature to sort things out, solve puzzles.”

  While she took a quick break to check her phone that had buzzed a minute before, Gates was shaking his head. Did this woman really know him better than he knew himself? That question was unsettling. He took a deep bite of his taco and put the thought out of his mind, where at least, according to Duheen, it might do some good.

  * * *

  Duheen waited, looking out the plate-glass window at the leafless trees and the clouds turning from purple to gray while Gates finished eating. When he raised his eyes, she checked her watch. Said, “We have about five minutes. What are you working on now?”

  “Missing person. A guy named David Payne. Maybe dead, maybe related to more missing or murdered.”

  “So what do you know?” she asked, and peered over at his plate as if she was considering spearing the slice of tomato he’d left uneaten.

  “Have it.” He pushed his plate toward her. “Payne was in his early forties. Laid off last year from a pretty good job. Life collapsed. Now homeless.”

  The tomato was too slow to avoid capture. “Who might want him dead?”

  “Maybe someone in his family? I haven’t met any of them yet.”

  She wiped her mouth on a napkin and waited for him to continue.

  “If not his family, then … I don’t see how robbery could have been a motive.”

  She put her chin on her hands, thinking along with him. “So, just bad luck? Could it be random, somebody venting or a gang initiation? Hide the body?”

  “I think Payne was specifically targeted.”

  “Who else was Payne close to?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he had many friends, or any close friends. Another homeless guy named Rex.”

  “Payne worked…” She glanced at her watch again and reached down for her purse.

  “Yeah, a financial planner, auditor, for some local company.”

  “Anyone there have a grudge against him? Benefit from his death?”

  Duheen was looking around the restaurant, Gates thought, trying to locate the restroom. “All the way to the back beside the kitchen,” he told her. “Go ahead, I know you’re on a time line.”

  Gates considered the woman’s question. A grudge? Payne was fired or downsized or laid off months ago. By reports Payne was “nice,” but everyone had enemies. Was somebody from his company still mad enough at Payne to beat him to death? Not plausible. Unless … could Payne have been cheating on his own wife, having an affair with a fellow employee’s wife and the betrayed husband waited a while to get revenge? Gates would find out where the man had worked, get some answers.

  The last thing Rex had told Gates didn’t fit any of this. Had Payne’s catastrophic losses, job, marriage, home, snapped him, pushed him toward a manic optimism, or did something actually change about his situation? He was expecting big bucks. Going to get his house back. Come into some money or get a new job or find a backer? What could have happened to make Payne think that was possible?

  * * *

  When Duheen returned, she stood behind her chair. “Time to go.”

  “Hey, I appreciate your, uh … diagnosis? Analysis? About my, uh, syndrome.”

  Duheen rolled her eyes. “Process! God, you’re hopeless.”

  “And thanks for talking shop.”

  “I enjoyed it. Enjoyed seeing you. Hypothetically.”

  Gates returned her smile.

  THE GOOFBALL SCALE

  Janochek and Pearl left Murray sitting at the table and busied themselves with evening chores, cleaning, straightening. Finished, they settled to read in nearby chairs and waited for Murray to take his next step. Murray slumped, head on hands, rattled and tired from bringing them up-to-date. And now? What was he going to do?

  All the options he could imagine scared him. Report the graves to the police and wind up being a murder suspect again? Stay inside here, at the cottage, or down in the lawnmower shed until the voices got worse and he went off the deep end? Take the few dollars he’d kept hidden and buy a bus ticket to … well, that was the problem, wasn’t it? If not here, where could he go? Alone, broke, he’d wind up homeless, sleeping under bushes or in a barren warehouse with hundreds of other people who had nowhere to go and no one who wanted them.

  At least if he decided to report the graves, he’d have Janochek and Pearl in his corner. And he’d still have his friends Dearly and Blessed and Edwin and Sandray. Sandray wouldn’t ever be able to hug him like Pearl had.

  Could the kids at school think he was any weirder? Murray supposed he’d pretty much maxed out socially on the psychotic-goofball scale. How much lower can you go than peculiar and delusional with a prostitute for a mom? In other words, if he told the police what he’d discovered, he wouldn’t be much worse off than he was right now—unless they blamed him for everything, and he knew, if they did, Janochek and Pearl would step in to defend him.

  “I don’t want to climb there tonight.” He was surprised to hear his words out loud.

  Pearl set her book down, pulled a kitchen chair to his side, and sat near enough to touch.

  Janochek stood and searched his desk for a pen and notepaper. Returned to the head of the dining table. “That’s sensible,” he said. “Where are these graves?”

  EX MARKS THE SPOUSE

  According to the mission’s counselor, Payne’s wife was a popular waitress at the local Gold Rush Café. Said the woman moved out right after Payne lost his job, months before the mortgage company took his house.

  Gates parked in front of a cedar-shingled, older ranch-style home on Ridge Drive. The woman who answered the door was a bottle-blonde in her late forties. Greeted Gates curtly. Ushered him through an ornately mirrored hall into a living room with bulky leather furniture and dramatic paintings of snowy wilderness scenes. She sat on the edge of the couch facing the picture window and gestured Gates to the overstuffed chair beside the glass-topped coffee
table. Didn’t offer coffee.

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mrs. Payne.”

  “Gibson’s my maiden name.”

  “Okay. An associate of your husband’s—”

  “Ex-husband,” the woman said, glancing at a magazine on the coffee table in front of her.

  “—told me that David was expecting to come into some money and get his home back.”

  The woman sighed. “David was a dreamer. You’d think working with numbers he’d be … objective.” She used a single finger to turn the magazine ninety degrees so she could better see the writing on the cover. “I suppose I should be embarrassed. I never loved him. Our daughter, Ariel, and I went our own way. David didn’t seem to notice. He was more like another child than a husband.”

  “Were you going to help him get the house back?”

  The woman barked a laugh. “Other people have already bought it. I wouldn’t have given David another cent and no one else would either.”

  “What about his work? Would they rehire?”

  “They were looking for any excuse to can him.”

  “Other engineering companies?”

  “David never found a job in his life. I did that for him. Asked my customers. Never again, and I wasn’t going to take a second job so he could mope around the house. Ariel was ashamed of him.”

  “Would he have an old friend who’d stake him to a new start?”

  She sighed again. “You really don’t know anything, do you? David didn’t make friends. He was too superficial. He didn’t know how to reach out and nobody else bothered.”