Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  Murray thought again about what a … well, good wasn’t exactly the word … uh, determined?… what a remarkable girl she was. She didn’t take tough breaks lying down. She stood up, fought back. Maybe losing her mom, maybe the years of teasing she’d gotten for being a cemetery kid. Or maybe she was just born tough. Janochek doesn’t make a big deal of it but he’s tough. Nobody pushes him around.

  Whatever it was that had contributed to Pearl’s resilience amazed Murray. He didn’t like to admit it, but she was sort of teaching him how to face life. She didn’t do things the easiest way. If she made a mistake, she took the consequences. And even for all that, she could be gentle and kind, like the way she was taking care of her father.

  But what about Sandray? She was so pretty. Prettier than Pearl. And lively and fun and graceful. Pearl was a jock, but Sandray was a dancer! No. Pearl is a jock. Sandray was a dancer. Pearl was flesh and blood and she’d hugged him. Sandray might like him, but she’d never hold him … or fight beside him either. Was that the deal breaker?

  Murray felt a rush of guilt. He felt like he hadn’t kept up with Blessed or Dearly or Edwin or even Feathers. He imagined sitting on their graves, touching their stones. Blessed would be cheering for him, telling him he did good, getting away from the first kidnapper. She’d say, Do it again. Think. Turn the tables.

  Dearly would be calm, kind of philosophical. Probably say nobody can predict or control what life brings so you have to be ready. Prepare for opportunity. Seize the moment. Do what you have to.

  Edwin? His buddy had hated the polio so bad, hated being paralyzed in that iron lung. He’d be saying, Punch ’em in the pie! Go for it! Don’t take this crap lying down.

  Although Murray wasn’t trying, he found himself imagining Feathers. All wound up. This here’s serious shit, yo! You got to look right to feel right! Go Armageddon on their ass! Scared as Murray was, those words made him smile. Count on Feathers to have a strong opinion even if Murray wasn’t sure he got the translation. Something like fake it till you make it? Maybe.

  Murray didn’t know if he was inventing their words. He didn’t care. Thinking about his friends made him feel better, and their advice made sense. He couldn’t sit around waiting for something to happen. He hadn’t earlier when he’d been handcuffed. He got busy, did things he probably couldn’t or wouldn’t have done if he’d thought much. So now wasn’t the time to wait and see. They needed to make a plan and do it.

  He told Pearl, “We have to be ready whether your dad wakes up or not.”

  THE FINAL WORD

  Gates had just crossed Pine Street less than ten blocks from the cemetery when a call from Faraday changed his plans. Okay, he’d let Janochek and the kids rest a little longer. Mrs. Barker wanted to see him.

  * * *

  She was sitting up in bed, set expression on her face like she was ready to get this unpleasant task over with.

  Gates stood at the foot and Faraday stationed herself close enough to the door to keep people from entering and disrupting the conversation. Neither Gates nor Faraday had spoken since entering the room.

  “You want me to give information about my husband,” she said, holding her blanket tight to her waist with both hands. “I am strong. Stubborn like your mula. I will not talk for you.” Mrs. Barker gave the blanket an irritated jerk making the fold sharper.

  “My husband can hit but he cannot make me. No more.” She took a deep breath. “No more.” She released the blanket with one hand, looked on her tray, found a small cup of water, took a sip.

  A toast to herself? To her newfound will? Gates wondered.

  “I will not see my family. I know. My home. My country. I will not see them.” She looked to both Gates and the female deputy, apparently to emphasize her resolve.

  “No more speaking. Worse than you have tried.”

  Gates realized she was doing exactly that. Speaking to him. Perhaps with patience her resistance would run its course and she would talk, first of the dog, then of the boy.

  “You can arrest me.” She gestured toward the nursing station. “A nurse told.”

  Gates kept his eyes on her face, trying to ignore the woman’s transformation: the shiny unruly wisps of hair now flat and lifeless, lined with gray. The smooth face, sculpted cheeks now sunken, teeth no longer bright. The beautiful gardener with large dark eyes had been replaced by a refugee, grim and exhausted. Broken, Gates believed, by a violence she had never anticipated and could not fully comprehend.

  “What would I care?” She resumed her thoughts. “Jail? It does not matter.” She picked up a Kleenex and wiped an errant drop of water from the side of her mouth. “Go now, please.”

  Gates didn’t move. Waited. Hoping for more. “I love gardening,” he said. “I have one. Flowers, vegetables.”

  Faraday shot him a look.

  Mrs. Barker laboriously turned her body to face the bank of monitors. Pulled the covers higher.

  * * *

  In the parking lot Faraday stood outside the cruiser, made no effort to enter. “That attempt at rapport was pathetic.”

  “Maybe if you showed her your quilting she’d have opened right up.” Gates was irritated by Mrs. Barker’s intransigence and the deputy’s censure, but Faraday was right.

  “End result, no information,” she said, brushing at the arms of her uniform shirt as if the hospital ward had left germ dust.

  Gates rested his hands on the cruiser top. “Here’s pot or bust,” he said, looked away to organize his thoughts. “Barker killed her dog and either badly hurt or killed his boy. The only reason she’s still alive is timing.” He didn’t seem to notice he’d begun tapping on the car’s roof.

  Continued. “I think Barker and possibly his brother have squirreled away a lot of money. Enough to live fat for the rest of their lives. I think Payne tried to put the finger on one or both of them and got disappeared for his trouble. Somehow the other homeless are just a cover or they’re implicated in the blackmail. But what I think doesn’t mean squat since I don’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant, let alone an arrest and conviction. And I’ve lost a Dumpster the size of Paul Bunyan’s bread box.”

  “We,” Faraday said.

  Gates gave the top a hard knock, and, embarrassed when he saw the small dent he’d made, dropped his hands to his sides. He walked around the nose of the cruiser to Faraday. “You can’t hide a bright blue Dumpster behind a barn or in a grove of trees. Somebody will eventually wonder about it and make a phone call, so long-term, you’ve got to sink it or bury it. The best place to sink something that size is Sierra Lake, but you’d have to push it off a bluff into very deep water or barge it out to the middle and tip it in. Easily observed, too complicated.”

  She nodded, thinking along with him.

  “Bury it? To dig a hole that big, you’d need a Caterpillar or earthmoving equipment.”

  “Trask again. At their compound? They have enough to dig to Singapore,” Faraday said, remembering the idle dozers, loaders, and carriers. “But they wouldn’t put the thing anyplace that could be tied to them.” She absentmindedly ran her fingers over the shells in her gun belt. “We need to find it before the trail gets too cold.”

  Gates moved past Faraday and gave the front tire a hard kick with his steel-toed boot. Swore. “Anything else?” he asked her.

  “Just my chips,” Faraday said, no longer frowning. “I’m all in. Hey, don’t you have a psychiatrist girlfriend?”

  Gates, a reluctant smile. “And you call yourself a detective. One, she’s a licensed clinical social worker. Two, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think she’s my girl.” Gates thought for a moment. “We’re friendly associates.”

  “Then you probably shouldn’t moon over her in public restaurants,” Faraday said. “Get a grip.” She shook her head. “Why don’t you ask her if she thinks a woman might do better with Mrs. Barker. Ask her if there’s a lever we’re missing that might pry her loose.”

  “And you’ll?”

 
; “I’ll grow a longer nose and sniff out that Dumpster.”

  WAR PLANS

  Murray slipped out the pickup door again, climbed on the hood and shone the flashlight at the box roof. Were there holes? Seams? Rust? A hatch or an air vent? The area in front of the pickup looked solid. No breaks, no trap doors. He shone the light on the roof all the way to the back. Checked out the rails that guided the rear door when it rolled up. Was there enough room to hide on top of the rails and get on the door once it was opened? No way. But there was a thin patch of some kind on the truck’s ceiling, left side rear. He could reach it standing on the corner of the tailgate. Up closer, it was a stretched fabric. Murray pulled back a corner, saw what he thought was a digital camera, and ducked to the side hoping it hadn’t caught his image. What was that for? They were being watched, monitored! Whoever’d taken them wanted to know what they were doing. If that person had been paying attention, he’d seen the ax.

  He got off the bed and examined the floor, then the rolling door. No obvious escape routes. Murray remembered the last moment as they’d bounced into the back of the truck. Had anyone been standing and watching? He hadn’t seen anybody, so how would whoever took them know for sure there were three people in the pickup? They wouldn’t. Pearl had been on the floor beneath Murray’s feet. Nobody could have seen her.

  He and Pearl were discussing possibilities when they felt the big truck go even slower and make a lumbering turn onto a much bumpier road. Pearl had leaned her dad over on a pillow she’d made from rolling up her robe. He was seat-belted in. He’d be okay. Meanwhile, though they’d been riding for what seemed like hours, he and Pearl might not have much time left to get ready.

  Their ideas? Murray would stand next to the door when someone began to open it, and as soon as it was high enough he’d jam a screwdriver into the base of the guide rail on his side so if they pulled the door down again it wouldn’t close all the way. When whoever it was made Murray and Janochek get out, Pearl would stay hidden for a minute or two, then use the ax as a lever to reopen the door, slide out, and follow them. The ax and surprise would be her weapons. Murray would take advantage of that and grab a gun or whatever the kidnappers had. The plan was ridiculously dangerous and full of gaps, but at the very least it might free Pearl to go for help. Better than nothing.

  They were talking about how to prevent the roof camera from revealing their preparations when the cargo truck stopped, then backed a short way before the vibration ceased. The driver had turned off the engine.

  Murray stationed himself at the rear on the left, lying flat against the side ready to stick the screwdriver in the rail track. He heard a fumbling at the latch: the door was opening. At a foot’s gap he shoved the screwdriver in place.

  “STOP! Put the gate down! NOW!”

  The door scrunched back to the bottom. Murray couldn’t tell if the screwdriver had worked or not.

  “Get away from the truck!”

  Murray heard a brief muffled conversation, a pause, a vehicle door slamming, an engine start, a sharp report like a car backfire, and then silence. In his mind’s eye he imagined another man off to the side where the truck was parked, upset, yelling at the driver, making him leave. He’d only heard two voices. Two men. That was good news.

  The bad news? In the brief space the rear door had opened, Murray had gotten a glimpse outside in the morning light. The truck had backed up to the edge of a pit. A deep hole the size of a two-story house had been carved into the side of a wooded hill. He saw torn roots at the upper edges, reddish dirt and boulders in the walls and floor. The pit stood empty except for a large metal container sitting all the way to the back of the cut. A blue Dumpster.

  Murray had never expected to see it again. Absolutely did not expect to join it. He was jolted out of his daze by the sound of the pickup engine cranking, grinding. Good god! Was Pearl going to ram her way out? The fall out of the truck and into the hole would kill them all—and Murray was vaulting the tailgate racing to stop her.

  “TURN OFF THE ENGINE!”

  Where did that come from? Was there a speaker up there with the camera? Murray reached the driver’s door and yanked it open, lunged to hold the gearshift lever. “Wait!” He fought with her hand trying to put the pickup in gear. “We’ll crash!”

  Pearl released her grip and Murray looked up to find Janochek awake, wide-eyed, practically hyperventilating.

  “It’s me!” Murray, so out of breath he could hardly speak. “Pearl’s okay. Hold on a minute.”

  “STOP! NOW!”

  Though the engine had never caught, had never actually started, Janochek reached over and turned the key off.

  Murray collapsed to the floor beside the truck, wondering what was happening. Whose voice was that?

  “I can see you,” the voice said. “I can also hear you.”

  The patch!

  “Stop,” Janochek disengaged from Pearl. “We have to do what he says.”

  Murray wanted to argue, but he knew he was missing important information. The voice had to be the person Janochek had spoken with at the cottage and again in the pickup before driving into the cargo truck. Okay, Murrray and Pearl’s plan was still in place. He could wait.

  “You mentioned a negotiation,” Janochek said.

  Didn’t that mean a compromise? Murray couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had the head injury knocked Janochek senseless? This voice had to be the same person who’d handcuffed Murray, who would have killed him. The same person who had probably killed the people on the hill. He was going to kill the three of them. Murray was a kid but even he knew you can’t bargain with a murderer. No matter what the person said, if they didn’t escape or attack, they were as good as dead. More bones for the pit.

  “Pearl, take your foot off the brakes and turn off the flash,” Murray whispered as he shut off the truck lights before climbing over the bed and into the passenger side. He needed to let Janochek know what he’d seen without alerting the voice. He turned to whisper, but the sight of Janochek’s still-bleeding head wound knocked the thought from his mind. Is he going to die?

  A WOMAN’S TOUCH

  Gates called Janochek again. Still no answer. Maybe he was out working and the kids were still sleeping or gone to school. Gates would drive over in a few minutes and look for the man. First, one more call. He was put on hold while the operator paged. Faraday’s suggestion had been a good one. Duheen, savvy resource. When she answered, Gates got right to business.

  “Can I talk to you about Chuck Barker’s wife? Quick?”

  “I might think better in front of a plate.”

  “We’ll do that. Soon. But I’m running out of time with this homeless thing. Mrs. Barker’s in Mercy Acute Care. I saw her this morning and if the doc rules suicide attempt, you could get her on the unit.”

  “Not going to happen if she has any insurance. We send patients with coverage to private hospitals. Sacramento. We’re full, all fifteen beds. They’ll probably send her home unless she re-ups the suicide thing.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Verbalizes intent with a workable plan.”

  “She wouldn’t say that to a doc, but she’s going to kill herself, one way or another. Alone. Definitely doesn’t want therapy.”

  “What’s she mad about? What’s the bind?”

  Gates liked that Duheen would always go to the heart of the matter. She’d seen it all in twelve years with the locked unit and outpatient. “I know her husband’s abusive,” he said. “I think he killed her dog, may have injured or killed her stepson. I think she believes she’s next, as soon as the timing’s right. Her family of origin’s somewhere in Europe. Pretty sure her husband controls the money. No close family here, functionally penniless, I think she’s decided to die her way, not by her husband’s hand.”

  Duheen paused, looked down at the fountain’s pool, pennies glinting underwater on the tiled floor. “Okay. Furious with no options is a good recipe for suicide. Can you offer her anything she wants?”r />
  “A trip back to her homeland?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Might be embarrassed about her marriage, how her decisions turned sour. May not want to face her family.”

  “If I jailed her husband?”

  “Likely she’d see that as temporary, just postponing the inevitable.”

  “Can you think of any carrot that would lead her to talk about what’s been happening?”

  “Is she taking antidepressant medication?”

  “Yeah, and benzos too, unless the paramedics confiscated them.”

  “The doc should probably pull the Xanax and…”

  “Klonopin.”

  “Right. Too easy. Too lethal. Keep the antidepressants, probably switch to different one hoping for better results. That’s not much use to you, because even if they work, they usually take a couple of weeks to kick in.”

  “What about victim witness? New ID, change of scenery, safety?”

  “From what you’ve told me, she wouldn’t qualify.”

  “She might if she burned her husband.”

  “Right now she sounds too despondent to respond positively. Maybe in a month or so, if she was feeling less morose. How about bringing a close family member stateside? Like if she had a favorite sister or brother?”

  Gates had been distracted by the Duheen’s mention of “close family.” That triggered something, relevant to a question he’d been asking himself, but which one?

  Duheen could feel the change in Gates’s energy. “What’s the matter?”

  His desk phone rang and he put it on speaker to include Duheen.

  “I bought her a dog.” Faraday’s voice.

  “What are you talking about?” Gates, confused.

  “I was out at Haven Humane last weekend, looking for one myself. Mrs. Barker had one of those fluffy tan things?”