False Cast: a small town murder mystery (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series Book 5)

by S. W. Hubbard

  Frank kept walking. Earl’s familiarity with every detail of the New York State criminal code made work increasingly difficult. He entered the great room. One wall lined with windows offered a panoramic view of the mountains. Impossible not to be impressed. “Wow. Nice.”

  The perpendicular wall held a huge river rock fireplace. “Gee, you could roast a whole deer in there,” Frank said.

  He turned again. The third wall held a large, finely crafted oak gun cabinet with glass doors and a prominent brass lock. Frank crossed the room and looked at the lock: there were scratches in the shiny finish. He pulled on the door and it swung open.

  The lock had been jimmied.

  One slot in the rack of rifles did not hold a gun. Instead it contained a yellow Post-It note with a scrawled message: I have now regained my Second Amendment rights.

  Chapter 15

  Now the state police checked every house on the hardware store list, but none of the others had been entered. When the homeowner on Giant View Road arrived from his primary residence near Albany, he confirmed the theft of a Remington rifle, as well as a one-man tent, hunting knife, sleeping bag, size 12 boots and a weatherproof camo jacket.

  The next day Lt. Meyerson called a meeting at the Ray Brook state police barracks. Surprised and pleased that he and Earl had been invited, Frank vowed to sit quietly and soak up as much information as possible

  “So what we know now is that Ronnie is armed, he has a backpack, he has boots and a jacket, and he has a tent,” Meyerson said as he paced in front of a whiteboard in the cramped conference room. “With his backwoods skills, he really doesn’t need to break into homes anymore. He’s got what he needs to survive off the grid for a while. That means searching hundreds of square miles of backwoods to find him, and we just don’t have that kind of manpower.”

  “A platoon of troopers crashing through the woods is no match for Ronnie,” another trooper said. “He’ll hear us coming from five miles off. We need to get the DEC rangers alerted to signs of a lone man camping in wilderness areas.”

  “He can’t live outdoors all year long,” a skinny young trooper said.

  “That guy in Maine did it. Lasted twenty-seven years as a hermit.”

  Finally, Frank couldn’t stand staying silent any longer. “Even with a rifle, Ronnie can’t hunt all the food he needs. Cooking game requires a fire, which could give away his location. And drinking untreated stream and pond water is a great way to get giardiasis. Ronnie knows that. He can’t stay out there much longer without help. Have you interviewed his best friends and his extended family?”

  Meyerson declined to look at Frank when he spoke. “Gatrell has no extended family. Only child. Parents dead. Some cousins out-of-state. I can’t believe staying in the woods is Ronnie’s long-term plan. He needs to get out of this area. It’s insane to stay where he’s easily recognized,” Meyerson insisted. “His next move will be to steal a vehicle. How can we head him off?”

  “And go where?” Frank asked. “New York City, where he knows no one and has no survival skills whatsoever? There are people here in the Adirondacks willing to help Ronnie. What are you doing to find them?”

  The atmosphere in the featureless beige government-furnished room crackled with tension. The other troopers exchanged glances. Frank knew they weren’t used to seeing their boss challenged.

  “Look, Bennett—I’m under a lot of pressure from upstairs. I don’t have a limitless budget. I’ve got the K-9 team, I’ve got guys running roadblocks, I’ve got two men conducting interviews—neighbors, hunting buddies, poker partners. We haven’t found anything suspicious. People might be willing to stick up those silly signs, but they’re not willing to get arrested for sheltering an escaped prisoner.”

  “The last house Ronnie broke into had a functioning landline. Have we checked the records to see if he made any calls?” Frank persisted.

  “Yes. Nothing.”

  Frank drained his coffee cup. “Hey, I never heard the final report on the investigation at the county jail regarding Ronnie’s escape. Was there any indication he had help from in—”

  “None,” Meyerson barked. “It was a simple case of the Sheriff’s transport team not following procedures to the letter. They’ve been disciplined. It won’t happen again.”

  “Yes, but did the inquiry include how the fight Ronnie got into—”

  Meyerson glared at Frank. “What part of the inquiry is closed don’t you understand?”

  Frank and Earl rode in silence on the way back to Trout Run. When they passed the golf course, Earl spoke. “You think Meyerson’s all wrong about the escape and Ronnie’s plans, don’t you?”

  “Meyerson is friends with the sheriff—they go way back. And the sheriff is up for reelection this year. He can’t afford for there to be any hint of corruption in the way he runs the county jail. I think Meyerson is letting him off easy, looking the other way.”

  “You really think the sheriff is worried? He’s been in office for as long as I can remember, “ Earl said. “It’s not like the Democrats stand a chance in hell of winning the election in this county.”

  “It’s not the general election he has to worry about. It’s the primary. He’s being challenged on the right by another Republican who claims the jail is just a full- employment program for the sheriff’s cronies and family members.”

  “How do you know all this?” Earl asked.

  “Trudy told me. She’s very involved with the Essex County Democratic party. They think that if the far-right candidate gets the nomination for the Republicans, the Democrats might actually stand a chance in the general election.” Frank glanced at Earl as he drove. “Do you know anyone who works at the jail?”

  “Sure. My cousin’s wife works in the cafeteria. And my mom’s best friend’s son’s brother is a guard.”

  Frank gave his head a shake. Trying to interpret Earl’s family tree required a professional genealogist. “Isn’t her son’s brother her other son?”

  “No. Her first husband got married again, so the kid who works at the jail is her son’s half-brother, I guess you’d say. But they’re real close.”

  “Can you get them to meet us at the Mountainside for a beer? I want to ask a few questions about that fight where Ronnie supposedly got injured. I want to know how that went down without letting Meyerson or the sheriff know what I’m up to.”

  “No problem. They’re both at the Mountainside every Friday from the end of work ‘til last call.”

  “I want to talk to him after he’s relaxed but before he’s shit-faced.”

  Earl studied his watch. “Come around eight-thirty.”

  “Someone’s helping Ronnie, Earl. That much I’m sure of. We figure out who, we’ll find Ronnie.”

  Earl jumped out of the car in front of his mother’s house. “See you at the Mountainside.”

  Frank glanced at the time: five-thirty. Penny had told him this morning he was on his own for dinner because she had a planning meeting for her big library fundraiser. Why not squeeze in one more welfare check—this one in Verona.

  Pam Gatrell.

  The order of protection Pam had filed against her husband gave Frank a legitimate reason to pay a call. He wondered, as he knocked at the door, if she’d changed her mind about that. Women sometimes filed for the order following a violent encounter, then reneged and even reached out to their abusers when the heat of the moment had passed. Was Pam one of those?

  When Pam opened the door and saw Frank, her face lit up. “You found him? He’s back in jail?”

  There was no mistaking her eagerness. She hadn’t softened on wanting Ronnie back behind bars.

  Frank shook his head. “Sorry, he’s still out there. Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?”

  Pam led the way to the kitchen and poured Frank a mug of strong, hot coffee. Her courage and steadiness during the standoff had already earned Frank’s admiration, and the coffee was another point in her favor.

  She leaned across the table
and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “Haven’t you made any progress in tracking Ronnie down? No one at the state police office will tell me anything. I can’t sleep at night.”

  “The state police should be watching this house,” Frank said.

  “They were, for the first couple days after Ronnie escaped. Then they decided they had better things to do, I guess. But I’m still scared to death he could turn up here. I’m worried about RJ.”

  “You know Ronnie better than anyone, Pam. What do you think he intends to do now that he’s escaped?”

  She gazed at the scrubbed pine kitchen table and gouged the soft wood with her thumbnail. A clock on the wall ticked. Two birds squabbled over seed in a feeder outside the window.

  Frank waited.

  “I don’t know him anymore.” When Pam spoke, her voice was thick with swallowed tears. “When I met Ronnie in ninth grade, he was the cutest boy in High Peaks High School. Everyone wanted to be his friend. When we got married after graduation, Ronnie was all set for taking over his dad’s business. We built this house”—she gestured to her pleasant surroundings. “We had RJ. I had a nice little business going with my daycare.”

  She paused, stuck in that distant, happy past.

  “What changed?” Frank prodded.

  “Ronnie’s dad keeled over from a heart attack, and his death blindsided Ronnie. He knew how to work on projects, but his dad was the one who brought in the customers, organized everything. I tried to help, but—” Pam shook her head.

  “The worse things got with the business, the crazier Ronnie acted. He blamed his problems on everyone else—his customers, his competitors, the bank, the government. Then he started spending more and more time on the Internet, following these crazy conspiracy theory websites and talking all kinds of nonsense.”

  Frank leaned closer. “Did he ever mention survivalists? You know, those—”

  Pam rose and headed for the coffee pot. “Oh, please! He never stopped going on about how we had to be prepared for an invasion. I told him to shut up—he was scaring RJ.”

  “Invasion by whom?”

  Pam threw her hands in the air. “The government, terrorists, space aliens—who the hell knows?”

  “So you’re saying he was actually mentally ill?”

  Pam refilled his cup and plopped back down at the table. “No…I can’t explain it right. It’s like sometimes Ronnie couldn’t separate reality from fantasy. He’d talk to these people on the Internet, or play video games with RJ, and he’d start thinking this global conspiracy stuff was real. Then I’d talk some sense into him and he’d settle down. But then he’d start up again, always looking for someone to blame.” Her hands tightened on the coffee mug. “This is why I can’t sleep at night. What if now he blames me for everything that’s gone wrong?”

  “What about real-life friends? Did anyone around here share his…er…interests?”

  “Ronnie’s got a million friends. He’s never met a stranger, and he always went out a lot with the boys. But he’s also burned a lot of bridges. Borrowing money. Wheedling favors.” Pam stirred her coffee listlessly. “I’m not sure who our friends are anymore. When I go to the Store or Malone’s, people avoid me. I see them look away, pretend to be looking for something in their purse or reading the menu so they don’t have to talk to me.”

  “What about these flyers that have sprung up all over town? And Earl says there’s something going around on Facebook.”

  Pam slammed her mug down and coffee sloshed over the top. “I told the people spreading that Facebook crap to lay off, but that picture of Ronnie as Roadrunner kept cropping up every time I logged on. They defend Ronnie online, but then when they see me in person, they look the other way. Well, it doesn’t matter now. I can’t afford my Internet bill anymore, so I had to shut down my service. Let them post whatever they want.”

  “But do you know who started it?”

  She shook her head. “Who can tell? Seems like everyone in town shared it.”

  Frank shifted restlessly. “Pam, think. To catch Ronnie, I have to think like Ronnie. What do you think he intends to do? Hole up in the backwoods like some crazy hermit? Or steal a car and get as far away from here as possible?”

  Pam shook her head hard enough to make her long hair fly. “Never. Ronnie will never leave the Adirondacks. He’d leave me, but he’ll never leave RJ.”

  Frank glanced at the clock. “Shouldn’t RJ be home from school by now?”

  “He’s been staying after school for baseball practice. He plays first base for the freshman team. Thank God for that. It takes his mind off our problems for a little while.”

  “I’d like to talk to him. When would be a good time?”

  Pam bristled. “The state police already talked to him and it really upset him. I won’t have you stirring him up. There’s nothing he can tell you.”

  Frank knew he couldn’t talk to RJ without his mother’s permission, so he tried to be as consoling as possible. “You know, Pam, sometimes kids open up to a stranger more than to their own parents. He might know something that he’s unwilling to tell you….you know, to spare you any more anxiety.”

  “Huh! As if!” Pam brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “RJ is very worried about his dad. He asks me every day, ‘Where do you think Dad is now? ‘Do you think he’s hungry?’ ‘Will the cops shoot him if they find him?’ It’s heartbreaking.”

  Pam rose and started walking toward the front door. Frank had no choice but to follow. In the foyer, she faced him. “Please, find Ronnie and lock him up right this time. At least then RJ will know where his dad is. We can’t take this uncertainty.”

  Chapter 16

  The Mountainside Tavern was Trout Run’s premier workingman’s (and woman’s) watering hole. Any tree-hugging hikers and foliage-admiring tourists who stumbled in unaware were given the collective cold shoulder. Let them eat and drink at the Trail’s End if they wanted Adirondack atmosphere with antique snowshoes and wooden skis mounted on the wall. The Mountainside was local local. Its only nod to décor was a flickering neon Budweiser sign and a crudely defaced Heimlich maneuver poster that impugned the masculinity of both choker and rescuer.

  Frank tripped over a chair as he made his way toward the bar. A fifty-year-old like him had no business in a place this dark. Perching on the one empty stool, he ordered a beer and squinted, trying to locate Earl among the dancing couples and the pool players. Finally, he spotted him at the dartboard.

  Earl held the dart with the tips of his fingers and sent it sailing with a deft flick of his wrist. It must’ve struck the bull’s eye because Frank heard a roar of admiration go up from the other players. With his eyes more adjusted to the low light, he sauntered across the room.

  Earl hit the center of the board again. All that target practice at the Academy must’ve really improved his darts game. He caught sight of Frank and grinned. Then he threw the next dart and hit single five. The intentional miss allowed one of Earl’s companions to take his place before the dartboard.

  Two men who resembled each other—brown wavy hair and barrel-shaped torsos—one a little older than Earl, the other a little younger, took their turns as Frank watched. Neither one could hit the target like Earl could. The game ended with good-natured laughter and some slaps on the back.

  Then Earl waved to Frank and invited him to join the next round. “Brett, Devin—this is my boss, Frank Bennett.”

  The brothers nodded distinctly unenthusiastic greetings. Who could blame them? The arrival of a police chief twice their age was hardly call for celebration.

  Frank set about dispelling the wet blanket he’d thrown on the group. He offered to buy beers for everyone if Earl could beat him in a game of Round the Clock. Although he put up a good fight, Frank eventually went down in flames and the waitress brought four bottles of Bud.

  After that, they played on teams: Earl and Frank versus the brothers. Then Earl suggested switching up, so Frank found himself partnered
with Devin, the brother who was a guard at the jail. Frank kept it light: they chatted about baseball and fishing and cars between turns. When a girl in tight jeans and too much makeup who had been cheering for Brett succeeded in persuading him to dance, Frank saw his opening.

  “Let’s take a break. I’m ready for a snack. How about you, partner?”

  Frank spied an empty table and guided Devin, who staggered slightly, into a chair. He ordered a basket of fries from a passing waitress and when the snack arrived, Devin fell on it with gratitude.

  “Thanks, man. I didn’t hardly have dinner. Work was crazy today and I only had time for a ham sandwich.”

  “I guess things must be kinda tense over at the jail since Ronnie escaped, huh?” Frank held his beer bottle but had stopped drinking from it a while ago.

  Devin gestured with a ketchup-drenched fry. “You better believe it. Cell checks five times a day, isolation for any infractions. Everyone’s as jumpy as a cat.”

  “I hear the transport team got disciplined for letting Ronnie escape.”

  Devin leaned across the sticky Formica table. “Those guys got a raw deal. They took all the heat, but it wasn’t their fault Ronnie wasn’t wearing shackles.” Devin took a breath as if to say more, then thought better of it.

  Frank waved a beer bottle and held up two fingers to the waitress just as Earl joined them at the table. “Devin was just telling me about how the transport team couldn’t get shackles on Ronnie.”

  This was what he wished Devin had been telling him, but luckily Devin was just buzzed enough to rise to the bait.

  “The damn nurse had him all wrapped in Ace bandages and shit ‘cause she believed him when he said his ankle got twisted in that fight.”

  “Did you see the fight? How did it start?” Earl asked.

  “Happened on my watch. Some punk called Ronnie a pussy. Said a real man woulda taken hostages at the bank, not at home. So Ronnie pushed him up against the wall. I mean, you can’t let another inmate disrespect you like that.”