Long Gone Man

by Phyllis Smallman

  “Ahem.” Ruston came forward with a well-manicured hand outstretched. He was eager to point out they were on the same side of the law and expressed his shock at this abhorrent murder as he led Wilmot into his office.

  Wilmot wasn’t playing along. “I spoke with Mr. Garmeski at Skeena Estates Development. He told me you two had an agreement.”

  “Nonsense, we had no agreement.” He spoke too loudly. On his face was an expression like he had just tasted something nasty. Ruston swallowed and tried again in a normal voice. “No agreement at all.”

  “Mr. Garmeski not only told me that you favored development on Glenphiddie Lake, he told me that you two had an understanding. If you were able to convince John Vibald to sell his land, Mr. Garmeski would give you one of the premier lots on the lake.”

  “It wasn’t quite like that. I just planned on buying property if the development went ahead.”

  “Yes, at a greatly reduced rate, say one third of its value.”

  “There was nothing illegal about our discussion.”

  “The Law Society of British Columbia might have a different opinion. Your interests and your client’s interests seemed to be in conflict.”

  “I don’t see what makes this of interest to you. I thought you’d arrested Foster Utt for John Vibald’s murder.”

  “Your information is very good.”

  “It’s a small island, Sergeant. You’re an outsider; you don’t understand how it works here.”

  “Ah, yes, and being a small island, and given that everyone knows everything, did Mr. Vibald find out about your agreement with Mr. Garmeski?”

  “There was no agreement. I’ve already told you that.”

  “I interviewed Mrs. Utt. She works up at Syuwun doing housework, did you know that?” Wilmot answered his own question. “But of course you did. You knew everything that went on at Syuwun. But did you know that when Mrs. Utt went outside the day before the murder to sweep the step and shake out the mat, the windows to the office were open, and she heard you and Mr. Vibald discussing your involvement with Skeena Developments. Rather loudly it seems.”

  The pencil in Chris Ruston’s hands snapped in half. “Of course we talked about it, I was his lawyer. We discussed the possibility of selling his land, went over the legal and tax implications, but I had nothing to do with his death. Why would I want to kill him?”

  Wilmot flashed a brief smile. “Mrs. Utt also saw a little cuddle between you and Mrs. Vibald. Well actually, it was a little more than that, a kiss, with your hand on Mrs. Vibald’s . . .” He didn’t finish. “Perhaps you might explain your relationship with Mrs. Vibald.”

  “There is no relationship.”

  Wilmot sighed. “You are an officer of the court. You know you have to answer my questions.”

  Chris Ruston stared down at his desk.

  Wilmot waited.

  Ruston picked up the remains of the pencil and tossed them in the wastebasket. “I had a little fling with Lauren, that’s all. Well, look at her, and then look at what a monstrosity John was. Is it any wonder?”

  “And did Mr. Vibald, your client, know you were having sexual relations with his wife?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because John would have shot me dead if he’d known. He was a violent man.”

  “Plus he would replace you as his lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You took quite a chance for a brief affair.”

  “It wasn’t brief. It went on for three years.” Ruston wiped a hand across his face. “Madness, craziness, I don’t know what got into me, but it was over.”

  “Did Mr. Vibald fire you when he found out about Mr. Garmeski’s proposal?”

  “No. I told him Garmeski was trying to stir the pot. Garmeski made the offer and I turned him down.”

  Wilmot spoke softly. “Oh, but you didn’t turn him down, did you?”

  “No.” Ruston sighed. “No.”

  “Did you kill Mr. Vibald?”

  “No.” Ruston’s voice was stronger and more assured.

  “Do you know who did?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What are the terms of the will?”

  “Ian gets the rights to all John’s music, including ‘Long Gone Man.’ Janna gets everything else, except for what goes to Lauren Vibald as agreed upon in the prenuptial, twenty thousand dollars for each year of marriage with a cap of a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “A hundred thousand dollars might lead her to shoot her husband.”

  “John was already worth millions, plus the value of the Skeena Mountain project. She got virtually nothing.”

  “So you don’t think his widow killed him.”

  “I can’t think why she would because she doesn’t benefit. She would get the same hundred thousand if she divorced him.”

  “Perhaps there was a clause in there about affairs. If she had an affair, would she get anything in a divorce?”

  Ruston’s face flushed and a vein throbbed in his forehead. “No.”

  “So if Mr. Vibald found out about your affair, she stood to lose a hundred thousand dollars, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you worth that risk, Mr. Ruston?”

  “Now you’re just being rude.”

  “Did Mr. Vibald put you up to this affair as a way of ensuring that he didn’t have to pay Mrs. Vibald any money?”

  Ruston violently pushed his chair away from the desk and shot to his feet. “I’ve answered your questions, now I want you to leave.” Ruston went to the door and held it open.

  Wilmot raised an eyebrow but stayed where he was. “I saw Steven David leaving as I arrived. Were the two of you going over your alibi?”

  “Get out.”

  “As you wish,” Wilmot said, smiling. “We’ll talk again.”

  Fifty-two

  As Duncan put on the blinker and waited for a break in traffic, Wilmot said, “After we talk to Mrs. Utt, we need to go to Syuwun.”

  “But I thought . . .” she began.

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought Foster Utt was under arrest for the Vibald murder.”

  “That seems to be how Major Crime is planning to proceed.” Wilmot had faxed them all the information on the case so far, and, after a lengthy discussion, the advice had been to charge Foster Utt with both the murder of John Vibald and cruelty to animals.

  Duncan turned onto Skeena Road. “But we’re still investigating the murder?”

  “Until we find the perp, yes, we’ll continue to investigate. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No, Sergeant. The Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit might have a problem with you misleading them but I don’t.” She grinned at him. “No problem at all.”

  Wilmot smiled in response. “Good. By the time they get worried about the charges against Utt, we’ll have someone new to charge. I want to interview everyone involved in the crime one more time.”

  “And Foster Utt?”

  “Foster Utt is a complication. There’s no doubt he killed the dog, he even admitted it, but I don’t believe he murdered John Vibald. Unfortunately Rogers in Major Crime disagrees, doesn’t think there could possibly be two criminals in a backwater like this.”

  Foster Utt’s green Ford pickup was the only vehicle in the neglected yard, and Marion Utt didn’t answer when Wilmot pounded on the door, which had gone unpainted for so long that bare wood showed in long ragged strips. They walked around the house to the back porch and looked in the window, which was held together with black electrical tape. At the edges of the lawn, small trees had started to reclaim the open space and spread into the ragged unmown grass. It was a sad, falling-down sort of place, desperately in need of repairs, but the air was clear and sharp in the lungs and birds cal
led in the trees.

  Hands clasped behind his back, Wilmot studied the trees that hid the other three homes on the mountain. “How can they stand all this quiet?”

  “Some people like it like this,” Duncan replied. “It’s peaceful.”

  “So are cemeteries, but I wouldn’t want to live in one.”

  Duncan pointed to the woods. “All of the houses on Mount Skeena are connected by that footpath.”

  A faint path ran from the house to the shed and on into the woods. They followed it to the utility shed. Wilmot stood at the door and glanced inside. Wood, drying for the winter to come, was piled nearly to the ceiling on the right. A workbench ran along the opposite wall and was buried under a jumble of rusted tools, parts for small engines, and empty beer cans. A ripped windbreaker hung from a nail and a torn T-shirt covered with grease was discarded on the bench. “Not unlikely that someone entering with a gun would find a stray piece of Foster’s clothing to wrap the gun in. Not unlikely that they would walk down the path either. Melissa, follow this path up to the woods and wait a few seconds and then come down again.”

  He hurried to the back porch of the house and waited. When Duncan appeared again around the shed, he said, “I didn’t see you once. The shed blocks out the path. Go back around and enter the shed. Let’s see if I can see you open the door from here.”

  Duncan did as she was told and then came to the porch. “I did see the door,” he told her. “But only for a second. A small risk and maybe none at all if it was only cracked enough for someone to slide in.”

  “So someone living farther up the mountain brought the gun down and hid it in the shed without being seen by anyone in the house?”

  “One possibility. I’m not even sure that Mrs. Utt was here the day after the murder. She cleans for people all over the island. We’ll get her schedule.”

  Duncan took her notepad out of her jacket. “I got it while I waited for the search warrant.” She opened the spiral-bound pad, although she really didn’t need to check her notes. “The day after the killing she worked all day, from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon. And Foster worked a full shift on the ferry. There was no one on the Utt property. I asked Mrs. Utt if anyone knew her schedule. Seems everyone on the mountain is pretty aware of each other’s schedules, especially Mrs. Utt’s and Foster’s. They run errands for people, pick things up and drop them off on their way to and from work.”

  “So there would be no risk to come down and hide the gun in the shed?”

  “That’s how it seems to me. Let’s just see that path.”

  They followed the steep trail to the woods and up to where it took a sharp turn around a huge boulder. Here it joined a parallel path. They followed it to the left and within minutes came out at the Pye residence.

  Beside him, Corporal Duncan wasn’t even breathing heavily, while Wilmot had to wait several minutes to catch his breath before he could say, “How long?”

  “Nine minutes from the cutoff.”

  He was bent forward at the waist, with his hands on his thighs, panting. “Better add a few minutes for normal human beings.”

  “And sergeants.”

  He still wasn’t sure if she was joking.

  Fifty-three

  It was almost noon when Singer limped into the kitchen. Her eyes went involuntarily to the window over the kitchen sink to the tree where Missy’s body had hung.

  Lauren’s eyes followed Singer’s. Lauren said, “It’s hard not to look.”

  “This place is giving me the willies,” Singer said.

  Lauren opened a cupboard and took out a mug. “I’ve been thinking.” She poured a coffee and set it in front of Singer. “What I’ve been thinking is Foster’s arrest doesn’t change anything.”

  “You mean someone is still trying to kill me?”

  Lauren nodded. “Wilmot will be questioning everyone on the mountain about what happened in Taos. They’ll know about Michael’s death.”

  “And they’ll all be blaming it on Johnny.”

  “Yes, but the fact remains that one of them tried to kill you.”

  “It hadn’t escaped my notice. I have to get out of here.”

  “I agree.” Lauren gave her an impish grin. “But I think you need a disguise, need to change who and what you are. Safer that way.”

  Singer looked at Lauren over the rim of the coffee cup.

  “I’ve had all morning to think about this while you were sleeping. We need to get you some new clothes, but I think you should be someone else when we go into Kilborn. How about my aunt, here to hold my hand in my time of trouble?”

  “But everyone knows me already.”

  “Only as the singer. We can change you.”

  “For what? And do I want to?”

  “We’ll do your hair.”

  “Do what with my hair?”

  “Cut it and add a little color. The sixties are over and no one wears their hair to their waist anymore.”

  “I’m unique.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “And what color?”

  Lauren lifted her rich, mahogany hair, then let it fall. “How about like mine?”

  “What, you mean that’s not natural?”

  “Not even close.” Lauren slid a bowl of fruit and a plate in front of Singer. “Before anyone can come after you again, they have to be able to identify you.”

  “So you’re saying hide in plain sight?”

  “Exactly.”

  Singer looked out the window behind Lauren to the fig tree. “Somehow your plan doesn’t make me feel a whole lot safer.”

  “It’s a start. I already called everyone on the mountain and asked if they’d seen you. I told them that your van was gone and I was really pissed off that you’d slunk away without even a goodbye or a thank you.” She grinned. “I do that pissed off part well. And I said in passing that my aunt was here.”

  Singer was doubtful the subterfuge would even begin to work. The problem was she couldn’t come up with anything better. “All right, but I’d feel safer taking Beastie down the mountain and staying there.”

  “You’d stand out like a bull’s eye.”

  “Would Wilmot really be able to stop me from leaving the island?”

  “The ferry staff would spot that van right away. You can’t get off the island with it. If we change the way you look, you can go on the ferry as a walk-on.”

  Leaving Beastie behind meant she’d be truly homeless, trapped on the streets and beyond a doubt a homeless person, someone she’d fought hard to avoid being. Beastie had held her marginally above that until now, but was staying a viable option?

  “No one knows your van is locked in the garage but me,” Lauren said. “They’ll think you’re gone.”

  Singer nodded.

  Choosing clothes, cutting fifteen years of hair, and then coloring it took away some of the horror of the last few days for both Lauren and Singer.

  “I feel about ten pounds lighter without the hair,” Singer said and ran her hands through the damp hair that fell just above her shoulders.

  Years had dropped away. When had she stopped using makeup? She couldn’t remember, but the tomato red lipstick felt and looked alien to her. She felt strange and naked in this new skin. Heeled leather boots made her look taller and thinner. Wearing Janna’s jeans and an oversized sweater of Lauren’s, and with rich, brown hair framing her face, she seemed nothing like the woman at the café the day before. A little flame of hope flickered in Singer.

  Lauren gave her a pair of huge, tortoiseshell sunglasses. “They’ll hide your eyes.”

  Singer slid them on. Her violet eyes had always been distinctive but now they were gone. She leaned forward and studied the person in the mirror. She didn’t recognize this new woman, and, with luck, no one else would either.

 
Lauren handed her a huge, red leather bag to complete her new look and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  As they fastened their safety belts, Singer said, “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Is it legal?” Lauren asked.

  “Not sure. Have you and Johnny got joint bank accounts?”

  “Yes.” The word came out uncertain and hesitant.

  “Then let’s go into town and clean out his bank account, max out every joint credit card, and let the estate pay them off.”

  Lauren protested, “I’d be stealing from Janna.”

  “Suit yourself, but I’d say you were getting the short end of the stick. Besides, ‘Long Gone Man’ went a long way to building this place. Strictly speaking, lots of this should be mine.”

  Now she had Lauren’s attention. “My credit cards are attached to John’s. Can I still use them?”

  “Sure, unless someone canceled them. You didn’t cancel them, did you?”

  “Nope. Chris might have, but I didn’t.”

  “So,” Singer said, “think we should try them out, just to see if they work?”

  Lauren gave a brisk nod. “Right, we are going to outfit you in the style you’ve never become accustomed to. One thing about Kilborn, it has great shopping for all the rich tourists who come here on their boats or fly in for the spas. We are going to make a day of it. Get you a really good haircut.”

  “But you just did it,” Singer protested, fluffing her bob. “And I like it.”

  “I mean a good haircut by a proper stylist.”

  As they turned out of the driveway, Singer lost interest in fashion. “Test the brakes.”

  Lauren started to speak but changed her mind. She began tapping the brakes. They went down the first four hundred yards of the road in jerks and starts. “They seem all right,” Lauren said at last.

  “I’m a little paranoid,” Singer said.

  “Can’t think why.” Lauren checked the rearview. She’d locked the second Yukon in the garage, but still she wanted to be sure they weren’t followed. “Hardly anything has happened to you.”