December's Secrets (Larry Macklin Mysteries Book 2)

by A. E. Howe

  “Oh,” was all the man said. We took that for what it was worth and walked up to the house. The other dogs insisted on smelling us when we reached the porch.

  “Jesus, what is that thing?” the man, Reed Holly I assumed, asked as he stared at the van. Mauser still had his head sticking out, watching the dogs on the porch. I gave a quick explanation and Reed shook his head. “Are our taxes paying to feed that monster?”

  “No, he’s not on the payroll. I’m with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, down here investigating a homicide.”

  We made our introductions and Mr. Holly invited us into the living room where a wood stove was sending out waves of heat. Debbie Holly stood up when we came in. She was a good-looking woman in her forties who must have been stunning in her twenties. I looked back at Reed Holly, who was 5’10” with brown hair going grey around the edges and a rough-hewn face with a nose that was a little small for the rest of his features. He wasn’t ugly, but he seemed to be punching above his weight class with Debbie. Uncharitably, I wondered how much money he had.

  The Hollys invited us to sit down. As soon as we were all situated, Chavez explained why we were there. When he said Timberlane’s name, Reed Holly’s face turned beet red. By the time Chavez finished, Reed looked like he wanted to punch something. Debbie noticed and placed her hand on his thigh.

  “Mr. Holly, you seem upset. Did you have a run-in with Timberlane?” I asked.

  He looked at me for a moment as though he thought he could deny it. “Yes, two actually.” He hesitated.

  “Want to tell us about them?” Chavez asked.

  Reed Holly sighed heavily. “I wish I could say they were nothing, but I was pretty sure they were at the time. I told you we should have reported it to the board, or at least to Henry.” This last was directed at his wife. He turned back to us. “Timberlane was here doing some work on the side of the house. I should have done the work myself, but I was busy and didn’t want to let the dry rot go. Anyway, he was working and I had to go out to mail some packages. Long and short of it, I found him inside the house in my office. He made some stupid excuse about needing to use the bathroom and getting lost. I told him to leave and that I’d finish the work myself.”

  “What did he do then?” Chavez asked.

  “He was mad. He got right in my face and stared into my eyes. But what could he do? Finally he left, but not without slamming the door and giving it an extra kick. I thought that was the end of it until… Debbie, you tell this part of it since it happened to you.”

  “Okay.” She sounded very uncomfortable. “I was jogging through the neighborhood. I usually try to get in a couple miles every other day or so. Anyway, this was a few months ago, and I was on my second loop. I went by the rental trailers. Timberlane was doing something with his car. When I ran by he looked up and stared. It was odd… Lust mixed with disgust, if that makes any sense. It creeped me out so much that I decided to head straight back to the house. I was almost done anyway. I made it home okay and got cleaned up, but when I came downstairs I heard the dogs barking. When I looked out, I saw someone pass by one of the windows. I was already spooked and this freaked me out.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I got the gun we keep in the nightstand and then I called Reed,” she said flatly.

  “Unfortunately I was out of town. I told her to call 911.”

  “But while I was still on the phone with Reed, I looked out the window and saw Timberlane walking around the house.”

  “And I told her to fire a round out the window at the bastard.” Reed was visibly reliving his anger and anxiety.

  “I didn’t think I should shoot at him. But I thought about that look he’d given me and I opened the window and told him to get the hell away from our house. I shot the gun at the ground.”

  “Did he leave?”

  “He looked up at me like he was trying to decide how serious I was. I just held the gun and stared back at him. Finally, I swear it felt like an hour but was probably only a couple of minutes, he left.”

  “Did you call 911?” Chavez asked.

  “I was getting ready to when one of the neighbors called. I told him a little bit about what had gone on and he said he’d be right over. He’s older, but was in the Marines. Ten minutes later he knocked on the door, said he’d checked around the house and Timberlane was gone. He called his wife up and the three of us wound up having a movie night here. They even slept over in the guest room.”

  “I was home by noon the next day. We talked about it. I called Teddy, who’s on the board, and asked him what was going on with Timberlane. He said that a couple people had made complaints and that they were deciding what to do. I told him I’d vote to kick him off the island. Teddy didn’t ask for details, and I didn’t offer them. I wish I had now.” Again Debbie patted his leg.

  We went over some more of the details with them and then headed for the door. One of the difficulties with interviewing people is knowing whether their emotions are caused by the questions you’re asking or by events that happened before the interview began. Reed was on edge. Why? Was it just our questions?

  I left feeling like we failed to find something that they were hiding. But one of the first lessons you learn is that a hunch can be wrong. A feeling can be deceiving was what my field training officer used to say. I talked it out with Chavez and he agreed we’d revisit them if nothing else panned out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was past noon when we drove into the parking lot of the nearest Express Burgers. I took Mauser for a walk in the grass alongside the restaurant, gave him water and fed him his lunch. With the air full of the smell of grilled burgers, he was less than impressed with his dry food.

  “My children are not as much work as that dog,” Chavez said with a chuckle.

  In the restaurant we asked for the manager, who turned out to be a young man with a sour demeanor. The permanent sneer on his face perfectly accented his small hooded eyes. My first thought was that he was the last person on God’s green earth I’d want to work for.

  “Yeah, what can I do for you?” he asked after we’d shown him our badges. “I hope this is about the vandalism a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t think that the officer who took the report seemed like he was taking it very seriously.”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t about the vandalism. We’re looking for a man that might work for you. We need to question him about an incident. Right now we are not considering him a suspect,” Chavez said, which was kind of true and kind of a lie.

  “Yeah, okay. Who are you looking for? We get a lot of turnover here.” The manager, Donnie according to his name tag, was clearly not interested in our investigation. Jerk, I thought.

  “We don’t have a name. He’s got red hair with a receding hair line, he’s under 5’9”, he’s in his early thirties. Drives a Datsun pickup truck.” Chavez rattled off the list.

  “What kind of truck?”

  “A Datsun. They changed their name to Nissan about twenty years ago. So we’re talking about an old, small pickup truck. Has a lot of Bondo on it.”

  “Has what?” This guy was clearly not a gearhead.

  “Places on the truck where the body was repaired. It’d look like big white spots,” I explained.

  “Oh.” That was it. Just “oh” as if he’d forgotten we’d asked a question.

  “Do you know who we’re talking about? Did he ever work for you?” Chavez said it slowly and calmly.

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “There was a guy kinda like that, but he didn’t work here long. Maybe a month.” He took out his phone and idly played with it—sending a text, checking his email, updating his Facebook status. Who knew?

  Disgusted, I reached out and took the phone from him. He seemed surprised, but didn’t put up any resistance.

  “What we’re asking is very important. You need to concentrate and answer our questions fully and accurately. Now could you please check your re
cords, ask some of the other employees or do whatever else you need to do to give us a name and contact information for this guy?”

  “Can I have my phone back?” he asked with a petulant expression.

  “After you get the information we need,” I said. He stared at me like he didn’t know how to handle someone telling him what to do.

  “Do it now,” Chavez and I said in unison.

  Donnie turned around to the employees who were actually working their asses off serving customers and shouted, “Hey, what was the name of the guy who drove that old shitty truck? He had nasty red hair. Guy was like thirty. Old.”

  “Billy something… Oh, yeah, Billy Good. Which was funny because there wasn’t anything good about him,” answered a girl at the counter without looking up from her cash register. And she has to work for this idiot, I thought.

  “Billy Good,” the manager parroted.

  I held up his phone. “Could you check your employment records and give us his contact information?”

  “Hey, don’t you need a warrant or something?” Of course he didn’t care about any legalities, he just wanted his phone back and didn’t want to be bothered.

  “No,” Chavez and I said again. Remarkably, we were well within bounds to lie. If a suspect or witness believes you, that’s on them. I try not to make it a rule, but it can be damn handy sometimes.

  He turned around and we followed him into the cramped cubbyhole that served as an office. He dropped into a chair and started fiddling with the keyboard, eyes glued to the computer screen.

  “Yeah, William Good. Here it is.”

  I reached out and shifted the monitor, taking several pictures of the screen with my phone. We thanked him and left as fast as we could.

  “I was hungry before we went in there,” Chavez said.

  I apologized to Mauser for not bringing him a burger. Chavez and I overcame our post-Express Burgers queasiness and stopped at a sandwich shop to grab a quick bite before heading to the address listed on Good’s application.

  “That address probably won’t be any good. I’ll run his name, see what we get,” Chavez offered. He was able to access the system through his phone.

  “Surprise, surprise, that’s his real name. He’s got mostly minor stuff. Spent six months here and a year there in county lock-ups for drug- and alcohol-related offenses. There was an assault charge for a family fight, apparently, and a couple of small-time burglaries. Nothing with a gun. That’s good news for us. Unfortunately, he’s not on parole so the only ‘current’ address we have is his driver’s license, which matches the employment application.”

  The address was in an older neighborhood built up in the post-World War II housing boom. The houses were starter homes, three-bedroom, two-bath models on quarter-acre lots. Some were now rented out to students, others were serving as starter homes for the current generation, and a few housed retirees.

  Good’s house didn’t look like a rental. The yard was neat and there were only two vehicles in the driveway. The garage had been bricked up and converted into an addition years ago.

  “We just won the missing witness lottery,” Chavez said when we saw that Good’s old pickup was the second car in the driveway. We parked behind it and went up to the door, which had a large faded Christmas wreath in the middle of it. A fairly well dressed woman in her sixties answered the doorbell.

  “Cops,” she stated without surprise. “He’s in his room. Come in.” She turned and we followed her into the living room. The house was bright and well kept.

  “Billy! Get out here!” she yelled. After a couple moments, we heard a noise from the side of the house. She turned to us. “He’s going out the window. He’ll come around the front of the house if you want to catch him. He’s not as fast as he used to be.” Before she finished, Chavez and I were heading back out the front door.

  We got outside in time to see Good, wearing an open flannel shirt, jeans and no shoes, pass us on his way across the lawn. He must have hoped he’d be able to escape in his truck. When he saw that we had him blocked in, he turned left and started past my van. Mauser must have been watching the excitement because he chose just the right moment to jump at his open window, giving out one of his seismically measured barks. Billy Good screamed, lost his footing and tumbled to the ground. I caught up with him and placed my knee on his back, pinning him to the ground. I looked back for Chavez and saw him down on his knees, laughing hysterically.

  “Oh, my, that was the best ever! Dear God, if we had gotten that on video we would own the Internet for a week.” He collapsed into another fit of laughter.

  I turned back to Good, who was squirming under me, trying to get a look at the monster in the van who was looking happily down at us.

  “Why’d you run?”

  “What the hell is that thing? That’s the biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen. Jesus!”

  “Are you done running? If so, I’ll let you up. Try to run again and we’ll haul you in.” We didn’t have any reason to haul him in, and running from law enforcement officers who haven’t even told you to stop or identified themselves isn’t a crime anywhere in this country, but again, that lying thing can come in handy.

  “I won’t run. What the hell are you all harassing me for? I haven’t done nothing.”

  I let him up.

  “Then why were you running? You forget that you’re innocent?” Chavez asked. He’d finally stopped laughing and caught up with us.

  “Man, you all are always busting my ass.”

  “We just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Damn, it’s cold out here.”

  I stepped between him and the street. “Maybe your mother will let us sit inside and talk.”

  “That old battle-ax. Maybe.” He started shuffling barefoot to the front door, with Chavez flanking him and me behind him so he couldn’t make another run for the street.

  His mother opened the door. After we were all inside, she closed the door and muttered, “Dumbass. Make yourselves at home. I’m going in the back. I don’t need to hear any more of his crap.” She disappeared down the hall.

  We all sat and looked at each other for a minute before Chavez started us off. “Your name is Billy Good. You’re friends with Thomas Gibson and Doug Timberlane. What can you tell us about your relationship with them?”

  “Oh, shit. Someone killed Tommy. I heard about that. Damn, man. I’ve known Tommy since high school.” He shook his head and looked down at the floor. “It sucks,” he added, in case we didn’t realize that being dead was a bad thing.

  “You know Doug Timberlane too.” Chavez was posing the questions as statements to push Good to tell us the truth. Or at least to skip the early lies that he was going to tell us and allow us to get straight to the rest of the lies.

  “I don’t know,” he said very tentatively, trying to see if there was any wiggle room.

  “You, Gibson and Timberlane were all seen together at the co-op north of town.”

  “Oh, yeah, he was a friend of Tommy’s. We just hung out a couple of times.”

  “What did you all do when you ‘hung out’?” Chavez asked.

  Good shrugged.

  “That’s not good enough. We need to know what you all were doing. You should realize that your ass is on the line here.”

  “We watched football, worked on my truck, smoked a little weed. That’s all.” He looked sad, as if the world was picking on him.

  “Where were you yesterday morning?” Chavez delivered the question with force.

  Billy Good looked up with a surprised expression on his face. “You don’t think I had anything to do with Tommy’s murder?” His voice was high and incredulous. He was really shocked that we had gone there.

  “Just answer my question.” Chavez’s voice was low and menacing.

  “I was here. Ask my mom. I don’t get up until noon, usually. Really. I scored… I got some stuff and was pretty gone by, like, one o’clock. I got high, played Armored War and fell asleep. End
of story, man.”

  As stupid as his alibi was, I believed it and I could tell that Chavez did too. This idiot didn’t have the smarts to pull off that type of murder and frame Henry.

  “You say that Doug Timberlane was Tommy’s friend,” I said, imitating Chavez’s interview technique.

  “Yeah, but there’s something funny about that. Tommy didn’t call him Doug. He called him something else. Dave, that’s right, he called him Dave when no one else was around. Dave, Doug, whatever his name was, bragged he was wanted and had to use a fake ID. He’s a creepy guy. You know, he might have killed Tommy.” He seemed excited by his theory. “Yeah, he could have done it. Dave had some killer eyes.”

  “Did you ever see him hurt anyone?” I asked.

  “No,” Billy said, way too fast. This was the first deliberate lie he’d told us. I’d come back to it.

  “Do you know how Tommy and Dave met?”

  “I think in prison, or just after one or both of them got out of prison.” He was glad to get away from the question of Dave’s violent acts.

  “Do you know why someone would murder Tommy?”

  “Drugs. Probably drugs.”

  “Tommy dealt drugs?” Chavez stepped in.

  “He grew a little weed. Sold some. But there are guys around here that don’t want no one growing their own, if you know what I mean. Could have been something like that.”

  “You said that you thought Dave could have killed Tommy. Why would he want to do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He had this temper. Got real mad at people, quick. But it might have been the drug thing.”

  “What, Dave might have killed him for drugs?”

  “No, no, some other guys might have killed Tommy because of drugs, that’s what I mean.” Billy really wanted us to get away from questions about Dave.

  “Let’s stick to Dave. Who did he get mad at?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know…” His voice trailed off.

  “I think you do. Come on, we’re talking about Tommy’s murder. You want to help us, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, I’ve known Tommy forever.”