“Yes.”
“He was there when I came back out. I saw his truck and I had that sticky valve so I tooted my horn and went inside and—” He took another deep breath. “He was already dead, Deb’rah. Laying there on the floor.”
“With the safe open?”
“No. Billy must’ve done that. It was a little after eleven-thirty. Say eleven-forty, maybe? Soon as I saw Mr. Jap laying there with that tire iron, I knew somebody’d killed him and it scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t supposed to be there anyhow, so I just took off. Soon as I was out on the road and straightened up good, I looked back in my rearview mirror and I seen Billy turn in. He might’ve taken the money, but he never killed him.”
“You’ll have to tell Dwight,” I said, looking around for him.
“No!” said Reese. “You tell him. Please?”
“Listen, ma’am,” said the paramedic. “If we’re going to transport him, we need to do it now.”
Reluctantly, I stepped back and they finished loading him into the ambulance and headed back to Dobbs minus the siren and flashing lights.
I walked over to where Dwight was watching the hunters. Still muttering angrily, the two men carried the tagged and now thoroughly dead buck down across the ditch and put it in the back of their own truck.
“Eight points,” Dwight said admiringly.
I nodded. “No wonder Reese was tempted.”
The wildlife officer was a friend of Kidd’s and apologized for having to cite my nephew for unlawful possession of a deer, but I assured him there would be no hard feelings on my part.
He and the hunters drove away. Trooper Harrold was finishing up his report in his cruiser and Dwight walked with me over to Reese’s truck.
When we were alone, I told him what Reese had just told me about Saturday morning.
Dwight gave a sour laugh. “Zack Young hauled Billy Wall down to my office last thing Wednesday evening. Billy wanted to confess that he’d kept the money and burned open the safe to get at the chits Jap was holding on him, but he said Jap was dead when he got there. I’m not real sure Zack believed him any more than I did.
“Dammit, Deb’rah! Why the hell did Reese run? And why didn’t he tell me this when I first talked to him?”
“Probably for the same reason he picked up a stunned buck and put it inside his truck,” I said wearily. “Congenital stupidity.”
Dwight closed and locked the far door of the truck. I pulled the keys from the ignition and lifted Reese’s Winchester from the gun rack.
“I’d better take this with me,” I said and stowed it in the trunk of my car.
“You want me to run with you over to Jimmy’s?” asked Dwight. “If he’s not there—”
His radio crackled and he reached in and turned it up. “Yeah, Laurie?”
The dispatcher’s voice came through clearly. “Jack just called in about that shooting. Guy in a white truck on Pleasant Road near Old Forty-Eight? He wants to know how come you’re not there yet.”
Dwight looked at me. We were on Pleasant Road, near Old Forty-Eight, beside Reese’s white truck.
“Where on Pleasant Road?” Dwight asked.
“Between the west side of Old Forty-Eight and Pleasant’s Crossroads.”
We were on the east side of that highway.
“On my way,” said Dwight. “See you, Deb’rah.”
As he pulled even with Trooper Harrold’s cruiser, he paused and relayed the information.
Many people would have chased right after Dwight and the trooper to see who’d been shot, but I’m a responsible adult. I did a three-point turn and drove sedately over to Jimmy’s. I arranged to have Reese’s truck towed. I called Nadine to say that her son was on his way to Dobbs in an ambulance.
Then I chased back toward Pleasant’s Crossroads.
28
« ^ » {New-comers} are apt to indulge themselves too much, tempted by such good living, and delicious fruits as abound there, which sometimes produces bad consequences.“Scotus Americanus,” 1773
Dick Sutterly’s truck was sitting in a ditch almost at the same angle as Reese’s, but the damage to his truck was minimal.
There wasn’t even any broken glass since the window was down when the bullet smashed into Sutterly’s brain.
He’d been found by four Makely women on their way home from Christmas shopping at the malls in Raleigh. After getting their names and addresses, Detective Jack Jamison had let them go.
“They found the car in gear with the keys in the ignition,” said Dwight. “Looks like he might’ve had his foot on the brake, talking to the person who shot him, and then when he died, the car just rolled on into the ditch and stalled out.”
I hadn’t liked Dick Sutterly and I hated what he wanted to do out here, but he didn’t deserve this—his body slumped over the steering wheel of his truck, with cameras flashing and crime scene technicians poking and measuring.
He had been so happy—pink-cheeked and excited about building something he could be proud of, something that would change his reputation from a penny-ante scrabbler to one of the high rollers. Now his cheeks were gray with the pallor of death and the future of his clustered village was probably just as gray.
“This is related to Mr. Jap’s murder, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Looks like it. Jack found a folder on the floor of the truck with a bunch of papers scattered around. There’s a copy of that note Jap signed.”
“That he’d sell to Sutterly?”
“Yeah. And a couple of other things.”
He handed me a scrap of paper that Jamison had slipped into a plastic bag. It looked like a note that Dick Sutterly might have scribbled to himself. There was a phone number which I recognized as Zach’s. Below were the words “A.K.—Pls.Rd. lane—2 pm.”
It was 3:45 now and that 911 call had come in more than an hour ago. Sutterly’s truck had run off the road less than a hundred feet from the lane that led directly to Gray Talbert’s nursery.
Right past Adam’s 2.9 acres.
Adam’s former 2.9 acres, I reminded myself.
“Oh, come on, Dwight. You can’t think that Adam—? Look. There’s no date on this paper,” I said. “It could have been any day this week. Besides, he flew home to California Wednesday night.”
I suddenly remembered the fog and all those radio reports that RDU was closing down.
“Didn’t he?”
“Nope. I was out here yesterday to look at Jap’s papers and have another talk with Allen.”
“You worked the holiday?”
“Hey, quit looking at me like I’m an orphan or something just because Jonna wouldn’t let me have Cal this weekend. I’ve got plenty of family—a brother and two sisters, remember? Rob and Kate had Mom and me and Nancy Faye and her family for turkey in the middle of the day. Long as I was out this way though, I thought I’d poke around a little. And Adam was there at the shop chewing the fat with Allen.”
I frowned. “Never knew those two to have anything in common.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve got one now,” he said sardonically.
“Me?”
“Your name did come up a couple or forty times. They were both real pissed with you. Adam seemed to think you’d set up to pass judgment on the whole world, starting with him, and Allen kept talking about some sort of blood tests that you were going to put him through? ’Course all those empty beer cans sitting around the place might’ve had something to do with their attitudes.”
“Both of them could stand an attitude adjustment.”
“Anyhow, Adam’s flight got canceled Wednesday afternoon, which means he’s probably here till Monday. The TV says Thanksgiving weekend’s the busiest travel time of the year.”
I handed him back the bagged scrap of paper. “I still say this could have been any day last week. Maybe Tuesday. They were at the courthouse then. Maybe they met here first.”
“For Adam to sell him his land?”
“You know about that?”
“It’s a family matter,” I said stiffly.
“And if your family’s opposed, what would Adam do? Maybe try to cancel the deal? And then when Sutterly wouldn’t, he—”
Someone from the crime scene unit claimed Dwight’s attention and I got back into my car and drove through Adam’s lane, past the nursery, across the creek and straight over to Seth’s.
He and Minnie were entering farm data into the computer and double-checking the figures as they went. “Easier to put it in there right the first time than to have to go looking for the error,” said Minnie.
They were shocked to hear about Dick Sutterly and when I asked them where Adam was, Seth thought he was back with Zach. “I reckon you heard his plane was canceled?”
I nodded.
“They told him not to even call the airlines again till Monday morning,” said Minnie. “Every flight’s sold out till then.”
Zach’s Lee answered the phone on the first ring and sounded disappointed that I wasn’t one of his buddies calling about a double date that night. “Uncle Adam’s not here,” he said. “You want to talk to Dad?”
When I said I did, he hollered for Zach to pick up downstairs. “I hope y’all don’t plan to talk long.”
I assured him I’d be brief.
I asked Zach where Adam was and he said, “Over at the homeplace, I think. He borrowed my squirrel gun yesterday. Said he might try to pot a couple of those tree rats that were stealing Daddy’s pecans. He didn’t come back last night, so I just assumed he stayed over with Daddy or Seth.”
Phone calls to Daddy, Haywood, Andrew and Robert were equally unproductive. So far as I could tell, Dwight and Allen were the last ones to see him.
I drove back through the lane, this time by way of Mr. Jap’s place. I saw no sign of a rental car. Allen’s truck was parked next to Mr. Jap’s out near the shop, but the shop itself was locked and dark and nobody came to the door when I blew long and loud on my horn over at the house.
When I got back to the highway, they were just loading Dick Sutterly’s body onto the ambulance and Dwight was about ready to pack it in.
His eyes narrowed when I told him I couldn’t find Adam nor Allen either.
“Adam’s running around with a gun? What caliber?”
“I don’t know. A .22 probably. Why?”
“We think Sutterly was shot with a small-bore gun,” Dwight said grimly.
29
« ^ » … They are in no danger, but may be out late or early, travel by night or day, go the same lengths, and use the same freedoms they were accustomed to at home with equal safety.“Scotus Americanus,” 1773
As word spread through the family that Adam seemed to be missing, everyone turned out to look for him. We scoured the land until darkness forced us to call off the search. Not just our land and along Possum Creek, but both the Stancil and Pleasant farms in case he’d forgotten the old boundaries and strayed across them. Zach thought Adam might have remembered that he was renting a farm on the west side of Cotton Grove and he took some of the kids to search over there as well.
I called Merrilee and Pete, and someone even stopped past Cherry Lou’s. So far though, Dwight was the last person to see either man since the afternoon before.
The last person to admit it anyhow.
Minnie phoned Karen out in California to see if he’d called home by any chance. “And didn’t I sound like an idiot?” she said afterwards. “Saying I forgot to ask him before he went off hunting if he was still going to be here for our get-together tomorrow. But I really don’t think she noticed.”
We couldn’t agree on the details of the car Adam was driving except that it was a blue Taurus. Luckily, Zach found the rental papers in Adam’s carry-on bag. Because it’d been twenty-four hours since any of us had seen Adam, Dwight stretched a point and put it on the wire. After that, there was nothing to do except wait.
And speculate, of course.
A hunting accident?
Murder?
Had Adam seen Allen shoot Dick Sutterly?
Had both of them seen someone else shoot Sutterly?
“What if it’s just something dumb, like pulling a drunk?” asked Seth. “Maybe Adam went juking last night and he’s holed up somewhere drinking or hung over.”
“Never knew Adam to do much catting around,” said Will. “He always walked the straight and narrow.”
All this was over sandwiches at Minnie and Seth’s.
“Well, being back here, off his chain, maybe he’s finally broke loose,” said Isabel as she rummaged in Minnie’s refrigerator. “Anybody want pickles while I have them out?”
Haywood was back to worrying over Adam’s state of mind. “You don’t reckon he’s got money troubles, do you?”
“Don’t know if it’s money or his marriage, but something’s eating at him,” Zach said, taking a huge bite of his cold meatloaf sandwich.
Daddy kept his own counsel and I kept my mouth shut except to nibble at some tangerines a cousin had shipped from Florida for the holidays.
By nine o’clock, we were ready to call it a night.
“If y’all hear anything—”
“—don’t matter how late—”
“Call us.”
“Let us know.”
“We’ll call.”
I drove back through the lane one more time, half expecting to see Adam’s car parked in front of Mr. Jap’s shop, but except for that single dim light bulb that burned day and night on the back porch of the house, all was dark and silent.
As I looked at the shop in frustration, it occurred to me that no one had actually searched inside since it was locked from the outside.
I stopped, turned on my overhead light so I could find Merrilee’s number in my address book, then reached for my cell phone.
“Hello?”
“Merrilee?”
“Deb’rah? Did y’all find them?”
“Not yet. What I was wondering is, do you have a key to Mr. Jap’s shop?”
“Oh, sure. I keep spares of all his keys, just in case. Why?”
“Well, I just realized that we didn’t check inside here. I know it’s after nine and a long shot, but since I’m here, would it be much trouble to let me take a look?”
She sighed. “Well, no, not really.”
“I know I’m imposing, but if Adam is in there, he might be hurt.”
“Or Allen,” she said, tartly defending family honor, even if Allen was family only by marriage. “He’s missing, too, isn’t he, and his truck’s right there? He wouldn’t go far, not if he’s walking.” She sighed again. “Oh, all right. Let me put on some clothes. I’ll have the key up there in five minutes.”
As I sat alone in the darkness, waiting for Merrilee, it was the first time I’d had to think about Dick Sutterly’s death even though my family had turned the known facts inside out and upside down trying to figure if it involved Adam.
If this killing was linked to Mr. Jap’s, why on a public road, so seemingly spur of the moment?
Sutterly had been all over this section of land last Saturday morning. His own death would seem to clear him of Mr. Jap’s, but what if he’d seen someone entering or leaving the shop? And what if he tried to pressure that someone?
Allen?
Allen’s alibi was Katie Morgan and her brother. They’d probably lie for him in a heartbeat.
So say it was Allen that Sutterly saw. What does he do? See Allen out there on the road and say, “I’ll tell unless you—?”
“Unless he what?” asked my pragmatist.
Pays blackmail?
“Sutterly didn’t need small money and Allen hasn’t got big.”
Of course, when (if) Cherry Lou’s convicted, Allen will have the land. Big money potential there. And don’t forget that promissory note Dwight found in Sutterly’s truck. Why was it on top, if not to shake in someone’s face? Maybe Sutterly said he
’d keep silent if Allen would honor the terms Mr. Jap had negotiated.
“But Allen thought that was a good deal. He was hoping Sutterly would be legally bound to pay off on that note when he got title. Your trouble is you just don’t want to think Adam’s involved.”
Whoever shot Sutterly killed Mr. Jap first, and Adam had no reason to do that.
“If Cherry Lou had signed the land back to Mr. Jap, he could have sold part of the road frontage right away and then Adam’s land would have been less valuable. No sixty thousand for him. ”
That argument thankfully ended when a car turned into the drive over beyond the house and circled around through the yard to park a few yards behind me.
By tilting my watch to the headlights, I saw it was closer to ten minutes than the five Merrilee had promised. I also saw that she’d sent Pete instead of coming herself.
I might have known. All she needed to do was pout a little about having to go traipsing up to Uncle Jap’s shop and good ol’ Pete would insist upon coming for her, anything to save Merrilee the least bit of aggravation.
Automatically, I pulled my keys from the ignition and met him at the shop door.
“Sorry to drag you out,” I apologized, “but Dwight Bryant said Adam and Allen were here together yesterday afternoon and since nobody’s seen them again—”
“It’s okay,” Pete said. “I don’t blame you for worrying. If Allen and Adam got to fussing, no telling what might happen. Allen used to be worse’n me for drinking and then getting in fights.”
He opened the padlock and left it hanging on the staple. Inside, we found the light switch and lit up the shabby old shop. Beer cans littered the workbench and floor beside two broken-down chairs, but there was nothing to indicate a fight of any kind.
“That Adam’s rifle?” asked Pete, pointing to the .22 propped against the old air compressor.
“Actually, it’s Zach’s.” And I was really glad to see it. “I’ve been worrying that he was lying out in the woods somewhere in a hunting accident.”
“Still could be,” said Pete. “Allen could have brought the rifle back and then took off in Adam’s car.”
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