Dean climbed back into his car and started for his office, but something made him turn and take the road that led to the mountain pass where sheriff’s deputies found the Armitage car in the ravine. Dean stopped at the side of the road where the car had gone down, trying to get a mental picture of the circumstances leading up to this point. It didn’t make sense that the car was found in the ravine empty. If the Armitages rolled down there with it, they’d have been seriously hurt or killed. But the car had been found empty. That meant one of two things. Either they weren’t hurt and crawled out of the car, or the car went down the ravine empty.
If they were in it at the time and survived, someone would have found them by now or they would have made it back to the road somehow. If the car went down there empty, who sent it down and why? If the Armitages sent it down and walked away, then where were they and why haven’t they made their presence known? If someone else sent the car down there, what did they do with the Armitages?
Clay slid back into his car and started the engine. He rode the brake down the sloping road, letting his idling engine carry him along. He watched out both windows for signs of anything or anyone who might have come up to the road along this route. He saw nothing. A little way further down, Clay saw a road. It was actually more of an overgrown path, but he decided to see if led anywhere. He eased his car onto the path and slowly made his way into the thicket of trees. When he came to an open area, he stopped the car and got out. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for or if there even was anything to see here, but something drew him into this area.
He picked up a fallen branch, about the size of a walking stick and swiped at the dead leaves on the ground as he walked. The action reminded him of when he was a boy and played in woods similar to these. Back then a fallen branch became a sword or a rifle and his twelve-year-old imagination would lead him on one adventure after another. Here in these woods, nearly fifty years later, the branch was just a branch and the only adventure he was facing was waiting for him back in his office. He wondered if his men were planning anything special for him on his last day.
Dean walked along, swatting the piles of leaves. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that made him look down at the leaves. But there seemed to be fresh dirt scattered all over the top of the fallen leaves. That struck him as unusual and it made him scatter more leaves as he walked. He brushed away a large pile of leaves and saw that a large area had recently been disturbed. He continued walking, looking more closely now at the ground.
There, ahead of where his car had stopped, Dean saw the distinct impression of tire tracks and they weren’t old tracks, either. These were fresh, probably only two or three days old. The tracks made a large circle and ended up under Dean’s car. He looked around the back of his car and saw his own tire tracks. A second set of tracks lay next to his and those tracks pointed toward the road. Someone had been down here recently.
Dean returned to the large area of disturbed dirt and scraped at the ground with his stick. He scraped enough of the leaves away to see that the area of fresh dirt was more than six feet long and two or three feet wide. A grave, he thought. He returned to his car, opened the trunk and withdrew the shovel he’d kept there. He carried it back to the site and set the pointed blade on the dirt and stepped on it. Dean removed several shovelfuls before the blade hit something solid. He set the shovel aside and dropped to his knees, pushing the dirt aside with his hands.
A moment later he brushed a little more dirt aside and found himself staring at a human ear. Dean sprung to his feet and jumped back, quickly looking at his surroundings to make sure he was alone. He pulled his .38 from his shoulder holster and turned in a complete circle. Dean hurried back to his car and grabbed the microphone for his radio.
“Headquarters,” Dean said into the mic, “This is car nine do you read me?” There was no response. “Headquarters, this is car nine. Come in.” Still no response. Then he remembered that he was in the mountains and then further down this road. He was probably in a dead spot for radio transmission. He threw the shovel back into his trunk and slipped behind the wheel again.
Dean threw his arm over the back seat and backed the car up to the road again, unwilling to contaminate the scene any further. Once on the road again, Dean turned and drove up the way he’d come until he got to the highest point on the road. From there he could look down onto the city. He tried his radio again. This time headquarters answered.
“Car nine, this is headquarters, go ahead. Over.”
“Headquarters,” Dean said. “I’m on the mountain road where the deputies found that car in the ravine. You’d better send backup and the coroner to my location. Over.”
“Car nine, be advised that cars twelve and three are en route to your location,” the dispatcher said. “I’ll notify the medical examiner to meet you at that location. ETA is fifteen minutes.”
Dean sat there in his car and waited for what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to twelve minutes. Over the next rise, Dean spotted two black and white patrol cars coming his way, their red lights flashing. Dean got out of his unmarked car and flagged them down. When the first patrol car stopped, Dean leaned in to the driver’s window.
“Follow me,” Dean said. “If you didn’t know the road was there, you’d miss it. “Probably better if we leave the cars on the road and walk down.” Dean looked past the driver and told the other officer to stay on the road with the cars and to direct Andy Reynolds, the M.E. to their location when he arrived.
Dean got back in his car, made a U-turn on the mountain road and headed back down, the two patrol cars close behind him. He stopped at the entrance to the narrow road and locked his car. The driver from the first black and white along with the two officers from the second patrol car followed Dean down into the thicket of trees. When he got to the spot where he’d been digging, he instructed the officers to scour the area for any clues at all. He also told them to be care where they stepped. The three officers split up in different directions.
Five minutes later Andy Reynolds came walking down the overgrown road, flanked by two ambulance attendants, pulling a gurney. Dean walked up to meet Andy before he got to the grave.
“Down here,” Dean said. “Once I uncovered the ear, I stopped digging. The scene’s all yours now.”
Andy Reynolds cautiously approached the fresh dirt and looked down at someone’s left ear as it poked up above the dirt. He got to his knees, brushed away a little more dirt with his gloved hands and exposed the rest of the victim’s head. It was a man, probably forty or so with dark hair.
One of the three officers who’d been sent to scout the area came back to where Dean stood watching Andy. “Lieutenant,” the officer said, pointing to where his partner stood, marking a particular spot. “I think we found something over there.”
Dean followed the officer back to the spot and looked down at a large maple leaf with a dark stain on it. Dean bent down and carefully picked up the leaf and examined it closer. It was blood, all right, and it looked too dark to be and fresher than a couple of days, at least.
“Keep looking,” Dean instructed the officers. “This can’t be all there is.”
“Yes, sir,” the first officer replied.
By now another patrol car had arrived on the scene. A television news van pulled up along the road where the four police cars and the ambulance had stopped. A cameraman and a woman holding a microphone stepped out of the van and started down the path. The officer at the road stopped them, telling them that the area was a crime scene and that they’d have to wait up at the road. The woman reported complained but complied.
Dean returned to the grave to find Andy had brushed away enough dirt to expose the man’s shoulder and upper torso. He’d brushed away a little more dirt and then turned to look up at Dean.
“We’ve got a second victim,” Andy said. “Looks like a woman lying next to him.”
Other television stations must have also been monitoring the police band radio because now there were
three news trucks on the road. Somehow one of the reporters managed to sneak past the cop on the road and was making his way toward the grave.
Dean looked up and saw the reported coming and motioned to one of his officers to intercept him. “Get him out of here,” Dean said. “If he resists, cuff him and throw him in the back of the squad car.”
The officer complied and turned the reporter around and nudged him back toward the road. The cop remained up at the road, assisting the only other policeman with the onlookers.
Dean turned to another officer who had been searching the area for clues. “Officer,” Dean said, “Go on back up to the road and put in a call to the crime lab. Tell them we’ll need the whole works down here, including flood lights and stands. It’ll be getting dark soon.”
“Yes sir,” the cop said, and hurried up to the squad car.
Half an hour later a dark colored van pulled up alongside the black and whites and a crew of three men emerged, all carrying equipment down the path to the crime scene. They made several trips back to the van until they had everything they needed to process the scene.
By now Captain Blake had gotten wind of the situation and had driven up into the mountains to look in on the operation. He walked down the path until he found Dean and his men. Blake watched as Andy Reynolds and the ambulance attendants pulled the two bodies from the shallow grave. They laid one body on the gurney, covered it head to toe and pulled it back up to the ambulance. They returned with a second gurney and repeated the process for the second body. Once the second body had been loaded into the ambulance, the two attendants drove off, their red light clearing their way.
“That’s one hell of a way to end a career,” Blake said, patting Dean on his shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to stick around for a while longer? I hate to lose a man as valuable as you, Lieutenant Hollister.”
“I appreciate your confidence, Captain,” Dean said. “But it’s time to step down. I’m sure Sergeant Anderson can fill the position satisfactorily, if that’s who you had in mind.”
“He is,” Blake said. “He’s a find man and a good cop, but he’s got a way to go to fill your shoes.” He looked down at his wristwatch. It was five-fifteen. “Well, Lieutenant, as much as I hate to see it end, your time is up and we don’t have any money in the budget for overtime.”
“Captain,” Dean said. “I’m off the clock as far as the department is concerned, but I’d like to see this thing through to the end of today anyway.”
Captain Blake nodded and smiled. “Take all the time you need, Lieutenant. My men are at your disposal. I have to be getting back to the precinct.” He saluted Dean, who saluted back, and then extended his hand. Dean shook it and nodded at Captain Blake. “Thank you, sir,” Dean said and watched as the captain walked back toward his car.
The officers on the scene were all well aware that Dean was no longer their lieutenant, but they still treated him with the utmost respect and followed all of his orders. Evidence was bagged and tagged. Photos of the entire area were taken. The crime lab made plaster casts of the tire tracks left there. Dean pointed out to them where his own car had stopped and they took casts of only the marks forward of that area.
By the time the last of the crime lab personnel and the police officers had left the area, Dean noted that it was just past six o’clock. He walked back up to his car and dismissed the officers watching the road and drove back to the precinct. It felt a bit strange walking through the halls of the twelfth, knowing that this was no longer his place of employment. It was the same place he’d come to for the past thirty-eight years and a flood of memories came back to him all at once.
Dean rounded the corner and opened his office door, flipping on the light switch. He paused in the doorway and looked around, taking it all in. Before he could go around his desk and sit in his chair for one last time, Captain Blake appeared behind him.
“Dean,” the captain said. “Could I see you in my office?” Captain Blake had never called him by his first name before. It had always been ‘Lieutenant Hollister’ or just ‘Lieutenant’.
“Certainly, Captain,” Dean said, turning off his light, closing his office door and following Blake back to his office. Dean closed the door and sat across the desk from Captain Blake.
It was twenty past seven and Dean was home, changing his clothes and waiting for Clay to pick him up for the movie they were planning to see. Dean’s wife, Helen stepped in front of Dean and fussed with his shirt lapels and collar, straightening them out a bit. She smoothed down a few hairs on his head that had become messed up when Dean slipped into his shirt.
“You boys enjoy yourself,” she told her husband. “And don’t be too late. You have to be to work in the…” She stopped herself, realizing that would never be a problem for Dean again. “Never mind,” she said. “You just have a good time tonight.” She kissed Dean and smiled just as the doorbell rang. She turned away from Dean and walked to the front door.
Clay stood out on the porch and Helen smiled when she saw him. She grabbed one of his arms and pulled him inside. “Come in, come in,” she told Clay. “My, it’s good to see you again, Clay. It’s been way too long between visits.”
Clay bent over and kissed her cheek. “You’re looking good, Helen,” he said, holding her hands and stepping back to take in the whole picture. “You must be awfully proud of that husband of yours.”
“I am,” Helen said. “Everybody is, and on his last day, last hour no less. From what I hear it’s just a matter of time before they’ll be able to identify the killer and bring him to justice.”
Dean stepped in. “Come on, Helen,” he said. “Don’t exaggerate. I just happened to be there on a hunch, that’s all. The whole crew chipped in gathering evidence and whatnot. It wasn’t just me.”
Clay checked his watch and tapped the crystal, making sure Dean could see his actions. “The movie,” he said to Dean.
Dean kissed Helen again and headed for the door. “I won’t be late,” he said and left the house.
As soon as the door closed, Helen hurried to the bedroom and slipped out of her house dress and into her evening wear. She’d had everything set aside in the closet and it took her just three minutes to get ready. She locked the house and hurried out to her car. It took her just ten minutes to get to the hall she’d rented for Dean’s retirement party. The hall was filled with policemen, friends, family and people whose lives Dean had touched in nearly forty years as a cop.
“Why are we going this way?” Dean said, as Clay drove up a side street, away from the movie theater.
“I didn’t want to tell you earlier,” Clay said, “but there’s one more guy coming with us tonight. I told him I’d swing by and pick him up. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Another guy?” Dean said. “Who is it and why couldn’t you tell me earlier?”
“You don’t know him,” Clay said, “But I’m sure you two will hit it off right away. In fact he kind of reminds me of you in a way.”
Clay pulled to a stop at the curb and got out, walking around to the Dean’s side of the car. He pulled Dean’s door open and said, “Come on. He might take a minute or two getting ready. Besides, I’d like you to meet him.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Can’t he just come out to the car?” he said to Clay.
“Come on,” Clay said. “This’ll just take a minute, so try to put on your sociable face, will you?”
Dean stepped up to the front door and twisted the knob.
“What are you doing?” Dean said.
“He told me he’d be getting ready and that we could just walk in and make ourselves at home.” Clay said, swinging the door open and reaching around for the light switch.
Dean stepped in behind Clay and as soon as the lights came on, thirty or forty people all yelled, “Surprise” and began applauding.
Dean’s face showed genuine surprise as the crowd of people rushed up to shake his hand. First to approach him was Helen, smiling broadly and hugging her husb
and. “Happy retirement,” she said, a single tear rolling down her face.
“What’s all this?” Dean said, turning to Clay. “So we were never going to any movie? And there is no third guy coming along with us?”
“That’s why they paid you the big bucks,” Clay said. “You always picked up on clues pretty fast.”
Elliott and Gloria stepped up. Gloria hugged him and kissed his cheek. Elliott shook Dean’s hand and congratulated him on his retirement. “Dad tells me it looks he’s going to have a fishing partner.”
“Really?” Dean said. “And who would that be?”
“That would be you,” Clay said, handing Dean a wrapped present. “Go on, open it.”
Dean unwrapped the present and opened the box to find a pair of rubber hip waders. He pulled them out of the box and held them up against his legs. He looked back at Clay and smiled. “Thanks, buddy,” he said.
One by one, everyone in the room took a minute to congratulate Dean and wish him well. It was well after eight o’clock by the time he’d made the rounds and thanked everyone for showing up. The answer from everyone was almost identical. They all said they wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Dean finally got a chance to sit and catch his breath. Helen saw him and came over to sit next to him.
“How long have you known about this?” he asked his wife.
“A couple of weeks,” she said. “You have no idea how hard it was not to slip up and give it away.”
Dean looked around the room. By now everyone else was milling around, talking with each other and laughing and drinking. Dean turned to Helen. “Come on,” he said, pulling her out the front door and onto the porch. They sat on the two porch chairs and Dean leaned in toward Helen.
“This is awkward,” he said, holding Helen’s hands in his.
“What’s awkward?” Helen said. “Is there a problem?”
“Well,” Dean said. “That depends on your definition of a problem. You see, before I left the precinct tonight, Captain Blake called me into his office. I thought he was just calling me in to say goodbye or give me some parting gift or whatever.”
The Complete Cooper Collection (All 97 Stories) Page 216