“Yes. Clark Royer,” Amanda replied. “He’s supposed to live somewhere around here.”
“I know there’s a young feller who lives out at Raccoon Run name of Royer. Reckon that might be him.”
“Wonderful. How do I get to Raccoon Run?”
The man smiled, revealing a jagged set of tobacco-stained teeth. “Gonna have to go outside to show you. C’mon.”
Amanda followed him out the door to the end of the sidewalk. He pointed along the main drag and said, “Go that way about three miles or so ‘til you see a big two-story white house on the left. Go past that house and start looking for a road not too much further. The road ain’t got a sign—some fool ran over it a couple of weeks ago, drunk as a skunk—but it’s the only road for a ways so you can’t miss it. Take a right on that road and go another mile or so until you see an old barn on your right. Just past the barn is Waller Lane. Take a left on that and stay on it a ways until you see Raccoon Run. It’s a good-sized crick with a dirt road that runs along it to the east. The Royer fellow lives way up that road.”
Amanda had taken a scrap of paper from her purse and jotted the directions down. “Sounds like he lives in the middle of nowhere.”
“You got that right. I haven’t been up that way in a while but I can tell you it’s a pretty good jaunt to Royer’s place. Used to go fishing in that area a while back. That road is rougher than a cob so I hope you got a car with good shocks.”
“I’m driving that Jeep,” she said, pointing toward her uncle’s Grand Cherokee.
“You shouldn’t have no trouble then.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Be careful up there.”
She wondered why he’d said that as she turned away and got into the Jeep.
Before starting the engine, she opened Google Maps, spotted her current GPS position and attempted to trace the route to Raccoon Run using Ralph’s directions. She found the task impossible since she had no idea where to find the two-story white house he had mentioned on the map. She would have to get there first before attempting to go any further electronically.
As she drove along the road she found it physically hard to believe that the huge metropolis of Cleveland was less than fifteen minutes away. This place seemed like something she would find in rural Milldale, not in the populated area of northeast Ohio. The folks even spoke like hillbillies, making her wonder if the original settlers of Anston had been southern Ohio emigrants.
Referring to her odometer, she started looking for the white house after a couple of miles. When she spotted it, she peeled her eyes for the first road on the right. The flattened sign Ralph had mentioned was lying on the berm, perhaps a reminder to others not to drink and drive.
After a mile or so she spotted the barn and pulled over long enough to get a fix on her GPS. She zoomed in and found Waller Lane a few hundred yards away. So far, Ralph had been spot-on with his directions, she noted.
She pulled onto Waller Lane and drove a little further until she reached Raccoon Run. She saw the dirt road running alongside, pulled onto it and parked.
Amanda switched over to 3-D satellite mode and zoomed into where the blue icon of her current location was pulsing. Dragging her finger along the road on her screen, she eventually came upon a large clearing where the road apparently dead-ended. In the clearing were three structures: a good sized home, flanked by a garage, and beyond that a much larger building that looked like a barn in the satellite image. She backtracked to where she was and guesstimated that Royer’s home—or farm or whatever—was about three miles further up from where she sat.
She drove slowly, hoping that there wouldn’t be any vehicles coming down the road along the way. The road was narrow—too narrow for two cars to pass each other without one having to pull over onto the berm. The last thing she wanted was to run into Royer before she got to his place.
Her window was down and she could hear the sound of the creek that ran out of sight to her left. Judging by its swift flow, it must have rained a lot recently in the area. She glanced at the satellite view again, wondering at what point she should bail out before she got within viewing distance of Royer’s land. She didn’t want to park too far away—just far enough to avoid being seen.
She continued her drive until she reached a curve in the road that was probably only a quarter mile from Royer’s property. She pulled over and shut off the Jeep. The sound of the engine ticking from the heat and the babbling of the creek were all she heard.
Amanda got out, locked the doors and began hiking further up the road. Moments later she could see Royer’s house through a clearing up ahead so she slowed down to a crawl, attempting to get a fix on how to access his property without being seen. When she came within clear sight she saw a split rail fence that ran across either side of the road to the tree line.
Stopping abruptly, Amanda assessed the area. Royer’s property seemed much bigger than the satellite image suggested. As she observed his home, she saw that not only was it huge, it was impressive. It was a two-story frame that you would expect to find in an upscale neighborhood, not here in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere. Had it been renovated since the satellite photo had been shot? Beyond the house to the east stood the large building that looked less like a barn now and more like some sort of storage facility. She saw some windows and planned on taking a good look at what Royer had stored inside before she did another thing.
There were no vehicles in the driveway and the garage door was closed. Was Royer at home or away? She couldn’t be sure. She would have to assume that he was and he could see her if she wasn’t careful.
She glanced to her left at the tree line. It was fairly dense but navigable. If she could stay hidden in the trees, she would be able to make it all the way to the large building without being seen.
Amanda entered the woods and stayed within fifteen yards of the tree line as she headed toward the structure. She wasn’t crazy about bugs and snakes and hoped she didn’t run into either. She had become a hopeless city girl since leaving Milldale as a kid and had lost any desire to go hiking or camping out.
The structure was only thirty yards or so away when she came to a stop. From this angle there would be no way that Royer could see her, so she came up to the edge of the trees and sprinted across the clearing to the east side of the building.
There were no windows on this side so she walked toward the back and spotted a window about half the distance to the other end. She walked over and peered inside. What she saw nearly took her breath away.
In the dim light, she could make out no less than a half dozen vintage cars neatly lined up in a row. An old Corvette Stingray, a GTO, a Ford Mustang Mach 1, and a few more she didn’t recognize. Every car was in mint condition, the paint sparkling despite the weak light, and not a single dent in sight.
So Mr. Royer’s a classic car buff. An odd pastime for a techno geek, but everyone needs some sort of release, she reckoned.
Her curiosity piqued, she wanted to see what else was inside that she couldn’t make out from this perspective. She had noticed that the entrance to this enormous garage/showroom was located on the other side and that it was visible from Royer’s house. She walked toward the end, stopped just shy of it and peered around the corner.
The house was perhaps fifty yards from where she now stood. Fortunately, there was a large oak tree growing in the backyard that obscured her view from most of the rear of the house. If she moved quickly enough, Royer most likely would never see her.
She inched out a foot or so and peered toward the garage door that was closed. This side of it was a smaller door. Amanda shot a quick glance toward the house then ran over to the door. She tried the knob and it turned. She swung the door open just far enough to slip inside and promptly shut it behind her.
Panting hard, she looked around. She was standing in what appeared to be the maintenance area of the building. There was a compressed air controlled car lift supporting what looked like a sixti
es model Pontiac Firebird. Unlike the other cars, this one was in serious need of bodywork. There were patches of body putty and a few areas that had been sprayed with gray primer paint. On the workbench sat a paint sprayer attached by a long hose to one of the two air compressors.
She was tempted to turn on the lights but decided not to take the chance. Instead, she made her way through the neat row of glistening American muscle cars all the way over to the far side of the building. When she neared the end, she let out a gasp and her heart skipped a beat.
Parked in the corner was a white police car. No, it wasn’t a police car but a sheriff’s department patrol car—an Adams County Sheriff’s cruiser identical to the ones in Milldale!
So Royer was the murderer—he did it! Just as he’d done back in high school, he had transformed a stock car into a cop car and used it to deceive his victims. As a database worker at Davidson and Associates, he had total access to the records of every client at the firm, which he used to his advantage. Whenever he found a case involving a wealthy person who lived alone and was vulnerable, he began planning his attack. The first thing he did was check out the local law situation—more specifically what models the vehicles were and their markings. Then he probably took a few shots, bought the same model car, brought it here to his body shop and got to work. The rest would be a piece of cake.
She knew this line of thinking was jumping to conclusions and pure conjecture but it fit. Clark Royer had money—plenty of it—certainly more than his job as a database manager paid. He had a hoard of vintage sports cars that were worth plenty in fair condition and much more after Royer had used his obvious skills to restore them to mint condition. He owned a home that had once looked little more than a farmhouse on the satellite view and now looked like it belonged to a well-to-do, eccentric weirdo.
She pulled out her iPhone and took two shots—one of the mocked-up cruiser and another with the cruiser in the foreground and the sports cars in the background. Wait until Alan sees these! She would text him the second she got back to the Jeep.
She went over to the cruiser and poked her head inside the open window. Just as she expected, the interior of the car was stock—no wire mesh partition, no police radio or on-board computer, no special controls or instrumentation. Royer had put all of his effort into transforming the exterior to make—
She heard a door open. A second later, the lights came on.
“Who’s in here?” a voice called.
Royer! she thought. Immediately, she ducked down in the shadows.
“I know you’re in here so you might as well come on out.”
Amanda felt her heart bursting out of her chest. What could she do?
“Trespassing is against the law and I have every right to shoot anybody trespassing on my property. If you want to avoid being wounded or killed, I suggest you give yourself up right now.”
She heard the sound of his footsteps grow louder. He was heading directly toward her! She wanted to take a look and see where he was but knew better. She would just have to lay low.
“Whoever you are, you are fucked! You’re obviously not armed or you would have shot me by now. So I’m the only one with a gun, and that gun makes me the boss. Give it up, woman! I’m in control and I will prevail—no doubt about it!”
So he had spotted her from the house. Shit! Amanda guessed that he was near the halfway point of the building now—maybe a little closer than that. She had nothing to defend herself with. Cold reality hit her hard—there was no way she was going to get out of this!
Her phone suddenly vibrated. Alan! she thought. Although the phone was in her back pocket with its ringer turned off, it may as well have been set on killer bee mode as it buzzed incessantly in the still quiet of the garage. No way he hadn’t heard it.
“You going to answer that?” he said. She nearly jumped out of her skin—he was only a few feet away!
Amanda paused a moment before breaking into a run. Immediately she felt a hand grab her by the elbow and a shot rang out. She heard the bullet ricochet off a metal ceiling girder as she struggled to break away from Royer. The man was strong and he effortlessly held her arm as if in a clamp. She felt the cold steel of the barrel suddenly press hard against the nape of her neck.
“I suggest you chill out, honey, unless you want to see your brains splattered all over my priceless possessions. That wouldn’t do either of us any good.”
Amanda relented. “Okay.”
“I’m going to take this gun away now. Don’t try anything or I’ll shoot. I want you to lead the way out of here—slowly.”
Amanda felt the gun taken away from her neck and pressed firmly into her back. She walked forward slowly as directed.
“So what may I ask are you doing here? You sure as fuck didn’t come to make an offer on one of my cars.”
Amanda was at a total loss for words. “How do you know that?”
“Oh, we have a comedian here! Okay, I’ll play along. If you were interested in purchasing a car, you would have probably had the decency to call first instead of taking the liberty of breaking in here like this. How’s that for an answer?”
“Pretty good.”
“Now, how about the truth?” he said.
“I just happened to be in the neighborhood and—”
He spun her around so violently that she screamed. He got right up into her face, pressed the gun against her temple, absolute rage in his eyes.
“Enough of the bullshit, bitch! You tell me what you’re doing here or we’re through talking, if you catch my drift!”
“Okay! I’m investigating a case with my partner.”
His expression changed dramatically as Amanda realized he was not expecting that particular reply.
“I see. So what are you, some kinda cop?”
“No, I’m a private investigator.”
“And what case are you investigating?”
“The murder of Jodi Wilburn,” Amanda replied.
He didn’t flinch. “Who may I ask is Jodi Wilburn? Or should I say, who was Jodi Wilburn?”
“An old friend of mine.”
“Interesting. Let’s go to the house so you can tell me more about it.”
He nudged her with the gun and Amanda turned to go. When they reached the inside of his house he ordered her take a seat at the kitchen table. As frightened as she was at the moment, she couldn’t help but notice the awful state the kitchen was in. She had expected to see a clean, modern space but instead saw was an old, dilapidated room in serious need of an overhaul.
“Sorry about the mess in here—haven’t gotten around to the inside of the house yet. Been too busy. So what’s your name, dear?”
“Amanda.”
“You mentioned a partner. What’s his name?”
“Alan.”
“Last name?”
“Swansea.”
“I see. So you and Swansea are investigating a case involving the murder of this Wilburn woman. Tell me more about that.”
“Jodi lived alone and had inherited a great deal of money from her grandmother when she passed. Somebody broke into her home, stole her inheritance and strangled her to death.”
“That’s horrible! And where did this happen?”
“In Milldale, a little town in the southern part of the state.”
“That’s very interesting. So what may I ask are you doing all the way up here investigating a crime that happened in the other end of the state?”
“We have reason to believe that you might be involved.”
He laughed heartily. “Is that so? And what in the world makes you think that, honey?”
His incessant use of honey, dear, and other terms of endearment was beginning to grate on her nerves in spite everything. She looked him over for the first time and saw a man who was probably suffering from a lack of confidence and attempting to make up for it with a gun, a bunch of restored muscle cars and quasi bravado. Although he wore jeans and a t-shirt, she could easily see him sporting a pair of p
leated khaki Dockers and a navy blue polo shirt while crunching client data at a computer screen all day. All he needed was a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses to complete the look of a total loser geek.
“I don’t think that, Mr. Royer. I know it.”
“Ha-ha! This is getting really interesting! How do you know it?”
“That Adams County Sheriff’s department pseudo-cruiser you have in you collection, for one thing.”
For the first time, a flicker of dread showed in his eyes. “How’s that? And how is it you know my name, Amanda?”
“You were driving that car the day you murdered Jodi. You pretended to be a cop so she let you into her house. Then you robbed and murdered her. And I know your name because you work at Davidson and Associates, which is where you found out about Jodi’s inheritance. What I don’t know, Mr. Royer, is how you knew Jodi had it all stashed in her house.”
“You’re a real smart bitch, aren’t you? Think you’ve got this all figured out. Let me remind you that this is my home and I’m the boss here, missy, before you start getting all cocky like some know-it-all cunt! Time to stifle the attitude right now, hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.”
“Good. So let’s assume that what you said really happened. Have you taken a moment to think of how ridiculous that sounds? Anybody who knows how to read a newspaper or search the internet could find out that somebody’s rich and lives alone—without having to work at an accountant’s office. So that angle of yours is bogus.
“And how in the hell would I know that some dumb chick kept all her treasures in a safe at her home and not in the bank, living all the fucking way up here in Cleveland, Ohio?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to.”
“I’ll bet you would. Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m going to tell you—call it a professional courtesy. Then you can feel like you have all of this figured out, case closed. I mean, what the hell difference does it make to me? You aren’t going to be leaving this house anyway, so you won’t be sharing it with anybody.”
For the first time, Amanda felt the full scope of this situation. He had been toying with her, keeping the mood just light enough to make her think she might make it through this alive somehow. She had been kidding herself.
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