Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  He shook off an involuntary shudder and concentrated instead on Pearl and Janochek several feet away, also looking into the pit. Both smiling. Well, they hadn’t killed anybody. Which reminded him, where was the man he’d struck? He jumped to find him not a foot away, on the ground almost beneath the truck. He saw the blood. A big pool of it under the truck’s door below the loading plate. A woman deputy knelt beside the man, hands together, pressing on his stomach. Meant he wasn’t dead, didn’t it? So the charge would be just something like ax with intent to kill. With any luck Murray’d eventually get out of prison. He should ask.

  “I don’t know that guy,” Murray said, pointing to the man on the ground.

  “Chuck Barker,” Gates said. “His brother around here?”

  “Somebody was.” Murray looked around though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He’d never seen the man with the first voice. “Somebody else talked to us … There was an explosion. I don’t know what happened.”

  “That was entirely too close,” Gates said, stepping between Murray and the body on the ground. “I … uh, I haven’t done right by you. I’m … relieved. Glad you’re safe. Finally.”

  Murray couldn’t look at the man. He believed Gates had kind of liked him. Had told him some personal things that you don’t tell just anybody. Somehow the deputy who’d accused and doubted had changed his mind. That felt surprising, and good, and it was a shame Murray had let him down. He’d hurt or killed the person who must have kidnapped him. You weren’t allowed to do that, not even for political or economic motives, and Murray didn’t have either one. He’d just been trying to save his friends.

  “There is probably a bomb inside the pickup,” Murray said, amazed he’d been able to guess what it might be and then put it out of his mind.

  “Then we better move a lot farther away,” Gates said, bending to help the deputy he’d called Faraday drag Barker from the cargo truck all the way over to the edge of the meadow closest to the pit. They found a shady area with a flat spot for the injured man, who was still breathing but making a lot of noise doing it.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Murray asked.

  “If dragging him didn’t put him out of his misery I guess he’ll make it till the medevac arrives,” Faraday answered.

  PUT THIS TOGETHER

  Gates’s hip radio squawked and he walked a few paces away to answer. Murray returned to the near edge of the pit for one more look … No tombstone. If they’d covered him with all that dirt could he have ever talked to anyone again? Probably not. Dearly had told him the friendship depended on the living person. No one would even try to connect. Nobody would guess he was buried down there.

  Murray knew he’d never been this close to death. Maybe dying wasn’t such a top choice. Making breakfast for Janochek and Pearl … that had been pretty good. Maybe he needed to pay more attention to it. Living. That reminded him of Pearl, and he was glad to see her and Janochek walking toward him, with Faraday not far behind. He could see Gates taking over care of the wounded man.

  When she got close, the woman deputy pointed at something in the pit.

  “Recognize the markings on the bottom car? That’s a CarterGuard.”

  Pearl nodded. “Like the one that caught us near the stables.”

  “What I don’t get is,” the deputy said, “I think I see two bodies in it.”

  Murray chimed in. Might as well say what he knew before they arrested him. “There were two of those guys in the junkyard I escaped from.”

  “Junkyard?” the deputy asked.

  “Fenced. Shipping containers, a trailer, tractor-type things, a whole bunch of stuff.”

  “Probably Trask’s equipment yard. Gates and I were there earlier looking for this Dumpster.”

  “Who’s down there in the sheriff’s patrol car?” Janochek asked.

  The deputy looked at him and smiled. “Nobody.”

  Gates joined them. “FBI out of Riverton’s sending two teams. Kidnapping and a demo squad. We need to wait for them. I’ve got some bottled water in the trunk.”

  Faraday moved her eyes from his face to the pit.

  “Yeah. Right.” Gates tapped his forehead. “Maybe later.”

  “We can wait,” Janochek said. “We’re still breathing. Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry about the missed calls,” Gates said.

  Janochek waved him off. “You’re here.”

  “How’d you find us?” Pearl asked.

  “Let’s sit,” Faraday suggested. “Put this thing together.” She turned away from the pit, returning to check on Barker. Motioned to a spot near him, where medium-size boulders had collected, maybe from Lassen’s volcanic eruption nearly a hundred years ago.

  When they were reasonably settled, Janochek began. “One of these guys called an hour or so after Murray got home. I’d just sawed off the handcuffs.”

  That raised the officers’ eyebrows.

  “They put a sack over my head.” Murray looked at Gates. “I got jammed into a car … a van, on the other side of the lake where we’d been talking. They took me to this … construction place.” He nodded at Faraday. “She said you guys were there earlier today. When I got away, it was still dark.”

  Janochek resumed. “I got a call early this morning. Thought it was you. A guy said he knew Murray was with us and he’d blow up the cottage if we didn’t take off in the truck.”

  “How?” This from Faraday.

  “He’d taped … somebody had taped a bomb to the gas pipe entering the house.”

  Gates looked skeptical.

  “I saw it,” Janochek explained. “Don’t know if it was real. Couldn’t risk it.”

  “That was when you were looking out our window?” Pearl asked. “You were acting so weird.”

  “You left a note,” Gates said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

  Janochek nodded. “The guy or a partner left a phone in my truck. Told me what to do. Drive over a few streets, ramp into the back of that big truck. Soon as we did, door closed and he, they, took off, I guess. I was out of it for a while.”

  “So they drove us here and the voice wouldn’t let some guy open the rear door,” Pearl continued.

  “The voice?” Faraday.

  “They’d rigged a camera and speaker with a mic on the truck ceiling,” Janochek said. “Could see us, hear us, talk to us without showing themselves.”

  “Why?” Gates.

  “Negotiate,” Janochek explained. “One guy said if we’d shut up about everything, they wouldn’t kill us. The other guy thought letting us go was crazy.”

  “No disrespect,” Faraday said, “but why didn’t they simply kill you as soon as they got here? They’d already murdered several. Can’t hang twice.”

  “This guy, the voice, thought—he had these creepy ideas,” Murray said. “Killing was okay, uh, economical. He said he didn’t want to bury us ’cause that would bring on a bigger investigation—”

  Janochek broke in, “The voice, whoever it was, rationalized it was okay to murder people if they got in your way. Said everybody with money or power did it. Said mainly he didn’t want to get caught—embarrassed, he put it.”

  “And the second voice came in,” Pearl said, “it was like two men working together who couldn’t stand each other. Always arguing.

  “I guess both wanted to kill us no matter what,” Pearl added, talking as she pieced things together. “I think the first guy wanted to fool us and the second guy didn’t get it. The first wanted us to drive ourselves into the pit, thinking we were getting away. If we did that, they wouldn’t have to come in the cargo truck after us, risk getting hurt by whatever we were going to do.”

  “They didn’t know you had a gun?” Gates asked.

  “I don’t see how. The first guy knew we had an ax but they couldn’t be sure what else. And if we fought, even if they won, there might be blood or bullet holes. The company truck wouldn’t be clean anymore.”

  “Mr. Janochek covered their camera so they
couldn’t watch us,” Murray said, “and we made a plan.”

  “You guys are commandos,” Gates said, shaking his head.

  “Yeah, but something happened between them,” Pearl said. “Remember that incredible noise?”

  “Possible the second man shot the first,” Janochek said. “The first had been running things. After that big noise, we never heard him again.”

  HOLD THE RELISH

  Gates thought the cemetery made a pretty good spot for a picnic. Green and shady, flowers, birds, squirrels, quiet enough to talk.

  Janochek had set up a dining area under the trees behind the cottage. No one seemed to be buried there yet. At least Murray hadn’t heard anyone when he checked it out. Pearl and her dad put chairs and benches around a large rough-wood table with tablecloth, silverware, napkins, and a couple of bowls filled with wild flowers. Nearby, a grill and a cooler full of sparkling juices and sodas.

  * * *

  Murray paused outside the lawnmower shed. He should go and say hello to Edwin and Dearly and Blessed. Even Feathers and Sandray. Let them know what was going on. How incredible it was. They’d enjoy the wild story and it had been a while since he’d visited their graves.

  The picnic was supposed to begin in a couple of minutes. Murray gazed up the hill toward the graves, momentarily frozen with indecision. He should tell them. Real quick. But he didn’t. He didn’t move. Why? Maybe it was pretty simple. The dead were still going to be right there after the picnic. They stayed in place. The living didn’t.

  He headed toward the cottage, wondering if Janochek had thought to buy hot links.

  * * *

  Faraday tapped on the table with her ballpoint. “Let’s share news so we can get on with some serious celebrating. And are those Scoops behind the macaroni salad? We should probably get those going around.”

  “Speaking of scoops,” Pearl said, “give it up.”

  Faraday gestured to Gates. “It was his case.”

  “She graciously anticipated me most of the way,” Gates said, nodding to Faraday, who saluted him in return.

  “Okay,” he began, “according to the Feds, it started with big-time tax fraud, a theft from both the company and the federal government. The rest was a cover-up. Probably would have worked if it hadn’t been for Kiefer.” He lifted his can of ginger ale and raised it to Murray, who blushed but didn’t turn away.

  “One slight glitch,” Gates went on. “To move the money originally, everything had to pass through a guy named David Payne, Trask Engineering Research and Development accountant at that time. Payne suspects something, knows nothing, and when the Feds investigate him in the summer of 2008, he’s afraid he’ll be implicated if he speaks up. Later the firm fires him and he winds up homeless and hopeless. Before long, realizes he possesses information Trask and Barker will pay to keep hidden. He underestimates their ruthlessness and, according to the coroner’s report, Roth kills him with a golf club at the stable. Barker stashes the body up the hill behind the cemetery.

  “We haven’t confirmed this because Chuck’s still in critical condition, but we’re pretty sure Payne had bragged about his great idea to other members of the mission, which led to their murders. A man named Rex said Payne believed he would be coming into a big chunk of money soon. Extortion.

  “These particular homeless people were killed to freeze the investigation of Payne’s murder. Chuck Barker went to the mission posing as a software marketer to get a roster so they’d have the information they needed to tie up the loose ends.

  “We’re pretty sure Chuck took over the killing, stashed the bodies with Payne’s. He and his half brother were sometimes rodeo volunteers and convention center board members. Both of them were around the center complex often enough that their presence wouldn’t be unusual. Chuck could come and go as he needed. We’re pretty sure he always planned to move the bodies to a more secure location. It was his unimagined error to temporarily put them near enough where Kiefer could sense them. Otherwise, his leave-the-woman idea would have been a perfect subterfuge. Rape her, kill her, leave her body on the hill where animals could eventually uncover it. That “decoy” strategy probably would have led us to conclude that the others missing weren’t connected, just coincidental disappearances for a variety of reasons. The lifestyle—pick up stakes without telling anyone.”

  “We know,” Pearl said. “We still have the cap, coat, and sleeping bag to prove it.”

  Gates looked to Faraday for an explanation. She shrugged.

  “That reminds me, Dad, what did you find out?” Pearl sat up straighter, possibly glad to have a larger audience for this line of inquiry. “Who did you ask about the, uh, electro-stain, the remainder stuff that might be transmitted by people who are terrified or hurt?”

  Janochek cleared his throat. Seemed like he might be a little embarrassed to talk about this in front of Gates and Faraday. “Yes. The something-or-other, energy possibly, that clairvoyant people might be picking up on. Secretions or some kind of remnants from traumatic situations.”

  Did Faraday’s eyes widen? Janochek couldn’t imagine what she and the others might be thinking. He soldiered on. “Well, uh, okay. I called my best friend from high school. The physicist? Steve Billings? He said such electro-chemical information could conceivably be generated in the brain during particularly traumatic experiences. That an extremely small amount of energy might possibly be transmitted to and through a person’s skin leaving an almost infinitesimal residue on the skin’s surface or possibly on something the person touched. Told me the human eye can detect a single photon, the incredibly small elementary particle of light. An absolute miracle, but true. So who knows what kind of information a particularly sensitive brain might apprehend? But he said, as of now, this idea is guesswork. There’s no way to study the theory just like we don’t currently have a mechanism to experiment with String Theory.”

  Pearl smiled. That was good enough for her. She was on the right track. Who knew what she might discover one of these days.

  Murray didn’t know what to make of the discussion. Was there some basis in reality for what he could do? He scarcely dared to hope.

  Gates had listened. Nonjudgmental. Faraday looked a little skeptical.

  After a moment Gates went on with the crime story. “When Murray led you all to the hill, the killers thought you were getting too close. Roth grabbed Murray in a company van and botched it. At least according to the argument between the two that you all overheard, because Roth tried to make it right with the bombs and the Trojan truck plan. It was Roth who seemed to want to negotiate. Chuck who wanted to bury every witness and run.”

  “I figure Pearl was right,” Faraday said. “Makes sense Roth wanted to fool you. That would juice his ego another notch. Trick you into driving yourselves into the hole.”

  “He didn’t bother to set up the ramp,” Gates added. “He couldn’t risk a witness no matter what he said. Alive, you could find the equipment yard and the burial pit once you got to safety and got yourselves oriented. There was a seriously big bulldozer and a transport eighteen-wheeler in the trees on the far side of the pit.”

  Faraday took over again. “We believe Roth could have done the whole thing by himself. According to your testimony, Barker’s arrival was unexpected. Roth probably went off the grid at some point and Barker had to find him to protect his investment. Finally had only one place to look. His dad’s old place. He figured it out and showed up uninvited. After Barker shot his half brother, he put him in the CarterGuard cruiser and sent it over the rim.”

  “My bet, he beat Roth to the punch, pulled the trigger before his brother could,” Gates said. “Fits Chuck’s profile. Act first, think later. According to his mother, neither man could stand the other. Those two weren’t going to split all that money. One was going in the pit. Count on it.”

  Faraday momentarily grimaced. Shook her head. When she spoke her voice had grown serious. “Our consulting contractors tell us either man could have completely
filled the pit, covered the Dumpster, cars, van, pickup. Pushed and leveled the dirt and left for home in under four hours.”

  She looked at Janochek, Pearl, and Murray one by one. “If they’d been able to pull that off, I don’t think anyone would have ever found you.” She swallowed. “Barker hauls the dozer back to the compound. Hitches a ride to the dead father’s cabin, which was less than a half mile from the SUV, and he’s gone. Chuck had tickets in the SUV for Caracas leaving tomorrow.”

  Gates stood. “Crimestoppers,” he said, doffing his Stetson.

  Murray raised his hand like he absolutely never did in class. It got everybody’s immediate attention. “I think it was Pearl,” he said. “I hate to say it. I don’t want to encourage her, but if she hadn’t kept pushing, those guys might have gotten away with the whole thing. Her stubborness brought CarterGuard into the mix.”

  Pearl blushed. Didn’t deny her pivotal role.

  “Speaking of family,” Pearl said, “didn’t somebody say that one guy, Trask, had a daughter? And the other guy has a son, both around our age. What’s going to happen to them?”

  “Hard to imagine how the girl will react when the news breaks,” Gates said. “Maybe she’ll go back with her mother. Maybe she’ll move. Could bring a civil suit against Barker if he lives.”

  “As of right now,” Faraday added, “the son’s missing.”

  “Anyway,” Gates broke in, changing the subject, “the entire sheriff’s office, and especially Faraday and I, are honored to have your expert assistance with uncleared cases.” He and Faraday smiled. “Makes me wonder if I can ask you all for one more favor … actually two more, but that’s for another day. Today, we party.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Duheen said, walking around the back of the cottage to join them. “Who brought the lobster?”

  MAD ALIVE

  As the meal wound down, Janochek and Gates, Faraday and Duheen got in an animated discussion about rising crime, full jails, homeless support services, and interagency cooperation. Murray quickly lost interest and slipped away.