Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112)

by Simonson, Sheila

  She nuzzled the pillow and her mind drifted. The stove and water heater were gas-powered like hers. Why? Should be electric. The town sat practically atop Bonneville Dam. Ah, power outages. Not a good thought.

  The kitchen. Meg’s eye for color was not exact, and she was apt to be suckered by trends, so she’d been stuck with a lot of hunter green in her own decorating adventures. The most striking thing about the kitchen, apart from the fact that it was obviously Rob’s and not Hazel’s, was the color palette, like something from a landscape of Provence. It should have looked incongruous in the Pacific Northwest, but didn’t. It just looked cheerful. Rob didn’t strike her as a cheerful personality. Small puzzle.

  After awhile Meg fell asleep and didn’t dream, or if she did the images faded away.

  THAT afternoon, Rob had seen to it that the sheriff called Madeline Thomas with the news of William Meek’s impending arrest, so his first thought when the dispatch call came was to have Mack phone the chief with word of Meek’s probable death. Rob and the sheriff talked it over as Rob drove, one-handed, along the winding River Road. It was supposed to rain again before morning.

  According to McCormick, Chief Thomas had taken the prospective arrest in without comment. Saving her big guns. The suicide dimmed Mack’s elation to quiet satisfaction. He considered the two cases closed.

  They were not closed. The loot was still missing. And there were other loose ends. Rob pointed them out and signed off. He didn’t like to drive and talk on the phone.

  When he turned his pickup into the campground, he could see the revolving light of the patrol car, straight ahead and some distance away toward the river side of the camp. But a knot of people had gathered at the office to the right, a blockhouse he thought also contained the showers and restrooms usual in a well-designed setup. Since it was the beginning of the week, fewer campers and RVs dotted the grounds than would have been the case on Friday or Saturday. Apart from the patrol car, no other vehicle was close to what he took to be Meek’s campsite.

  Jake, in uniform, strode from the clump of men with his hand held up. When he recognized the pickup, he let his hand fall and stepped aside, waiting. “Hi, Rob. You made good time.”

  “Jeff not here yet?” Rob’s muscles protested as he twisted to get out of the pickup. He grimaced and wriggled his shoulders.

  “No. His wife’s on duty at the hospital. He’ll come when the sitter gets there.”

  Rob looked around. “Who are all these people?”

  “Campers. Hunters, mostly. I figured you’d want to talk to them.”

  “And to the manager. When did it happen?”

  “God knows. A while ago. Listen, about Todd—”

  “Something wrong with him?”

  Jake drew a long breath. He didn’t look wonderful himself, and Rob was reminded of how young he was. “He’s hiding out in the car. Won’t talk.”

  “Won’t or can’t?”

  Jake shrugged. “He found the body. It’s pretty ugly.”

  “Are you sure it’s Meek?”

  “Driver’s license in his wallet. Right build.”

  “Okay, good man. Take Todd a Coke or something while I have a word with the manager. What’s his name?”

  “Chuck Bellew. I went to high school with him. Lives here with his girlfriend and her kid. Hey, there’s Jeff’s car.” A small gray Toyota pulled in beside Rob’s pickup.

  “That’s a relief. I’ll need somebody to baby-sit the hordes here while you tend to Todd.”

  “I could help Jeff with the witnesses.”

  Rob met Jake’s troubled eyes. “I think it’s more important to give your partner a little support. He’s a rookie. You’ve been around for a while.”

  Jake nodded, eyes downcast.

  Rob touched his arm. “Is there a Coke machine?”

  “Yeah. By the shower room.”

  “Okay. Pump some sugar into Todd and have a talk. I’ll send Jeff for the two of you when it’s time to question these people. Earl and Thayer should get here with the Crime Scene van pretty soon.”

  “The van’s on its way.”

  Rob nodded and headed toward the blockhouse. A heavy young man in sweats came out of the manager’s office to meet him.

  Rob introduced himself and shook hands.

  “Look, Mr. Neill, er, Lieutenant, can’t these people go back to their campers?”

  “I’d like to speak to them first, Mr. Bellew. And I need to talk to you at some length.”

  “Me?” His eyes widened. “I don’t…didn’t even know the guy.”

  Rob raised his hand. “In a minute, Bellew. Jeff?”

  Jeff Fong came to his elbow. “You called?”

  “Sorry to drag you out tonight. We need to take names and addresses here. Got your notebook?” He meant the notebook computer.

  Jeff nodded. “In my car.”

  “Good.” Rob drew a breath and used his Shakespearean-actor voice. “People, listen up.”

  The murmur of discontented hunters gradually stilled.

  Rob looked them over in silence. Eleven, all men, most in their late twenties or early thirties, two older men who looked as if they had been hunting since Lewis and Clark. As the silence extended, they began to shuffle their feet and murmur.

  Rob told them his name and introduced Jeff. “You probably know there’s been an accident here, a shooting. You’re all potential witnesses, so I’ll need your names and permanent addresses. Deputy Fong will take that information down now.” He turned to Bellew. “Got a desk or a table and a couple of chairs we can use?”

  Bellew jerked his head. “In the office.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Rob raised his voice again. “When you’ve given the deputy your name in the office here, you can go back to your poker games….”

  The tension eased into chuckles.

  “But don’t leave the campground until one of the deputies has taken a statement from you, okay? And go easy on the beer. Thanks. Jeff?”

  He stuck around until Jeff had herded them into a line outside the office. They would see him one by one, and they jostled a bit lining up, but the jostling was good-natured. When it was clear they were going to cooperate, Rob turned back to Bellew. “Where can we talk privately?”

  Bellew jabbed the air with his finger. “I live in that trailer.” A new single-wide sat across from the office. “Wendy’s putting the kid to bed. Kitchen table okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “I can’t be gone long. The office is supposed to be manned until ten.” It was nine-fifteen.

  “Jeff won’t take much time.”

  “Okay,” Bellew grumbled, “but I got one reserved spot left. Guy’s supposed to show up any minute.” He led the way to his house.

  The mobile home was cluttered with the toys of a preschooler but smelled clean. Noises from the bedroom end of things indicated that a child was taking a bath. The design of the place was small-scale but efficient. Everything seemed to be within arm’s reach. Rob put his tape recorder on the kitchen table and sat down. Bellew sat opposite him, looking resigned.

  “Deputy Sorenson probably told you—”

  “Guy blew his brains out,” Bellew interrupted. “Ate his gun.”

  Or appeared to. Rob nodded and intoned the usual information as he turned the recorder on. Bellew gave his name and address, then said, “I think I heard the gunshot.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “It’s hunting season, man. Things go boom.”

  “When?”

  “Late last night, around midnight. I was watching TV with Wendy. I got up to go see about it, honest, but she thought it was just a backfire or a liquored-up hunter off across the river. Sound carries funny on the river. Nobody called or nothing.”

  “Okay. Did you hear a car leave?”

  “No. Had the DVD on. We watched TerminatorII again.”

  “Right. So when did you investigate and why?”

  “I make the rounds. I walked around the trailer, must have been
six o’clock this afternoon, and saw that the window on the far side was smashed. Nobody answered my knock, so I went back to the office and called 911.”

  “Ten after six.”

  “Yeah. The dispatcher said the guys would be out as soon as they dealt with a wreck on County Road Eight in Two Falls. I had dinner, left Wendy at the desk, and walked back over to the trailer, must’ve been seven-thirty. The more I thought about the window the more it bothered me. It looked like it was smashed out.”

  Rob waited, silent, watching the round, good-natured face. The child in the bath gave a happy shriek amid sounds of splashing.

  Bellew rubbed his nose. “I tried the door. It stuck, see, and I thought it was locked. I jiggled it and got it open and looked in. Well, fuck me, the guy was dead. I could see that as soon as I stuck my head in the door. I backed out and ran for the office.” His face creased and he gave a sheepish grin. “After I tossed my cookies.”

  “So you called it in again?”

  “Yeah, she, the lady on the phone line told me Jake Sorenson and Deputy Welch were on their way. I know Jake. They got here about eight-fifteen.”

  “Must’ve been some wreck in Two Falls.”

  Bellew shrugged. “Jake said it was a mess. DUI with an underage driver in his dad’s truck. No injuries but they had to wait for the kid’s old man to show up. Kid totaled the truck. Lots of paperwork, I guess.”

  Rob made a face. “I guess. So, when they got here, Jake and Deputy Welch inspected the site and called for assistance?”

  “Yeah, Jake said Welch threw up, too. I didn’t go back there with them. I got a delicate stomach.”

  “Okay. I appreciate your frankness, Mr. Bellew. When did the victim check in?”

  “I dunno. The trailer belongs to Akers Construction. Somebody must have lent him the key. I noticed the car Saturday morning and went over to give the guy the once-over. He didn’t appreciate me waking him up.”

  “You had words?”

  “Nothing serious. Little guy about five-five. Banty rooster, my mom would say. He come over and registered at the desk.”

  “What name did he give?”

  “William Meek. Showed me his I.D. Montana driver’s license. Said Old Man Akers let him use the trailer whenever he was in town. Maybe so. Akers didn’t move the trailer down from Tyee Lake until September, and I’d never seen Meek before. His car had Oregon plates. He said it was a rental.”

  “So Meek was here over the weekend. Did he say why he was in town?”

  “Hunting. I didn’t see a gun, rifle, I mean.” He grimaced. “I saw the handgun all right. Hey, there’s my customer. Gotta go sign the man in.”

  Rob logged out and turned the recorder off. The vehicle outside turned out to be the Crime Scene van with Thayer Jones at the wheel.

  Earl got out of the passenger side as Rob and Bellew approached. He didn’t looked pleased. “Doc’s on the way.”

  “That’s good. This could be difficult.”

  “Suicide, huh?”

  “Could be, or could be murder rigged to look like suicide. We need to be careful.”

  Earl bristled. “Aren’t we always?”

  “Just a heads-up, Earl,” Rob murmured. “Want to bet it’s not the gun that killed Brandstetter?”

  “Ten bucks the other way.”

  “No takers,” Jeff said at his elbow. “I got the population sorted, Rob, and had them tell me which campsite they’re at.”

  “Good idea. Jake can help you with the interviews. Let me know when the ME gets here. He’s going to be sarcastic as hell, three trips up the Gorge in five days.”

  “Hey, he gets paid for it.”

  The ME was a special consultant paid by the job. He made more on one call than the deputies on salary made in a week, so Jeff’s sourness was probably justified. On the other hand the rate of questionable deaths in Latouche County was not high. The previous year there had been only two homicides.

  “I need to finish with you, Mr. Bellew,” Rob called as the manager headed to his office.

  “It’ll have to be in there.” Bellew jerked his thumb toward the blockhouse and ducked into the office.

  Earl and Thayer gave Jeff a lift to Meek’s campsite in the van. They would do some preliminary work on the scene while they waited for the medical examiner.

  Rob followed Bellew into the over-bright office with his mind on Todd Welch. He started the tape again but had trouble picking up the thread of the interview. “So Meek checked in with you Saturday morning?”

  Bellew nodded. “Yeah, around nine.”

  “The car doesn’t look like a rental.” Rob was sitting by the manager’s desk behind the check-in counter.

  “Could be Rent-a-Wreck,” Bellew offered, leaning back with the creak in his big office chair.

  “True. We’ll check the registration. You said you didn’t know him.”

  “Saw him once. Alive, that is. Didn’t talk to him after that.”

  “But you saw him come and go?”

  “I don’t clock the folks in and out, Lieutenant. I think he was gone most of Saturday and Sunday. Didn’t see him alive on Monday either. I noticed the car was in place Sunday evening when I was checking a couple of guys in. That’d be around seven-thirty.”

  Rob probed the matter of timing until Bellew started to get testy, then decided to drop it. With luck one of the campers would have noticed Meek’s movements. The hunter who had reserved a place showed up, so Rob closed the interview and went out to see to his crew. And to check up on Todd.

  The ME was still forty-five minutes down the road. At least he had called in. Thayer was doing things with a vacuum cleaner and Earl had the camera out, so Rob stayed out of their hair after he’d taken a quick look at the corpse. Earl said Jeff and Jake had gone off to start interviewing the poker players. Nobody mentioned Todd.

  Rob went over to the patrol car. His stomach was churning, and not from the sight of the dead man. Meek looked the way anyone would in the circumstances, blood and brains everywhere. Rob doubted that the ME would be able to say whether the man had killed himself or been killed.

  Todd was sitting in the passenger seat with the engine off. The windows had steamed up.

  Rob got in on the driver’s side. He didn’t look at Todd. “Tell me aboutit.”

  No reply. Rob waited.

  Todd rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “You seen him?”

  “Meek? Yes.”

  Another silence. “I vomited.”

  Rob let that pass without comment.

  Todd covered his face with both hands, pulling them down slowly. “Shit, I give up. I quit.”

  “Okay, but I still want to hear about it.”

  “Didn’t you hear me, asshole? I resign!” His fist pounded the dash. “I don’t want to be a fucking cop anymore.”

  Rob shot a glance sideways.

  Tears were streaming down Todd’s face. He wiped them away with his hand. “I apologize, sir. I shouldn’t be calling you names. I’m just so goddamn mad I don’t know what I’m saying.” He grabbed a tissue from the box on the dash and blew his nose.

  He was such a nice kid, Rob thought sadly. Imagine apologizing.

  “I wanted to kill the sucker and there he was dead. It’s not fair. He killed Eddy, my little cousin Eddy that I taught to shoot baskets. I wanted to see the bastard suffer, only somebody beat me to it. And that’s not right.”

  Rob drew a long breath that was mostly relief. Todd’s paralysis began to make sense. At least he was talking. “What’s not right?”

  “Feeling like that. Wanting to kill. I’m supposed to be a professional.”

  Rob let him talk. He rambled. He was angry and sick, frightened, disappointed in himself, and full of unmerited shame. It was an old, old tale, but it needed to be told.

  When Todd wound down, Rob said, in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could master, “You need to take some leave, Todd, but quitting seems extreme. You’re a good deputy.”

  “Shit!”

/>   “Think you’re the first cop who wanted to kill a suspect? Be real. You wanted to kill Meek, but you didn’t.”

  “No, but—”

  “You said somebody beat you to it. Nope. Clear case of suicide.” He watched Todd.

  Todd’s eyes narrowed, his fists clenched. “No! No, I’m sorry, I don’t buy it. Somebody shot him, like somebody shot Hal Brandstetter.”

  “The sheriff thinks it’s suicide.”

  “Convenient.” Sarcasm rang heavy in Todd’s voice. “I suppose Meek killed Eddy and Brandstetter and tried to kill you, then got a conscience. Give me a break.”

  “I find it hard to swallow myself. We’ll see what the ME says.”

  “Well, ask him how that window got smashed. I suppose Meek shot it out and then whirled around, sat down, and bit the barrel? That doesn’t make any kind of sense.”

  Rob chuckled.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Listen to yourself. You were in that trailer maybe sixty seconds, but you were observing, and now you’re trying to make sense of the evidence.” He met Todd’s indignant glare and smiled.

  After a solemn moment, the deputy’s mouth eased in a sheepish grin. “Okay, okay. I may have nonprofessional instincts, but I didn’t say I was dumb.”

  Rob dug in his pocket and came up with the keys to his pickup. “My truck’s parked by the blockhouse. Drive yourself home and do whatever you do to unwind. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  “But Jake—”

  “He’ll understand. I’m going to keep him busy here most of the night anyway. You all right?”

  Todd took a long, shuddering breath. “Probably not, but I’m better than I was.”

  “And call your aunt.”

  “Really?” ‘

  “Yes. She’ll expect you to call. The sheriff’s already talked to her.”

  Todd opened the door.

  “AndTodd.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go easy on the theorizing. At least with civilians.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” He trotted off, resilient as a puppy.

  Rob felt a hundred years old. The window might have been hit by a fragment of bullet or bone flying out from the suicide shot. Todd’s “theory” would take some proving.

  MARGARET McLean, please,” said the caller, as if Meg had a personal secretary at home. Meg didn’t know whether to be flattered or annoyed. The voice was crisp, female, and elderly.