By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  “Where we heading?” Sergeant Barker asked as they left the fixture along Stirrup Cup Road.

  “Gone Away Lane. About two miles north that crook in the road they never fix.”

  “What are we heading into?” he asked.

  “I walks them hounds twice a day usually with some rotating volunteers of the hunt members. We does a standard loop that they learn so if someone gets separated they can find themselves back to the pack.”

  “That’s a long walk. By the time we go up Full Cry Road and make a right to go up two miles past from the hairpin and back you must be pushing on six miles. Twice a day?”

  “You following the roads, we going as the crow flies. More like four. And I’m not walking neither, at my age. The hunt owns a gator. Hell, old Alpo rides in the gator and don’t walk no more neither. He a snaggletooth old hound that no member adopted yet so he just hang with me. Volunteers go with the pack, sometimes riding their horses, and me and Alpo go round up those that gets lost. Usually young ones who need a little more time on the couple.”

  “What’s a couple?”

  “The young hounds, we tether each to a full grown hound so then learn to stay up with the pack and not wander off.”

  Sergeant Barker slowed down for the turn from asphalt to gravel by the leaning and rusty green street sign reading “Gone Away Ln”.

  “So what did you encounter on this hound walk that has me leaving my coffee and donuts?”

  “You’ll see here just up ahead.”

  Sergeant Barker peered down the lane, driving at speed. There was an old dilapidated cattle farmhouse and then a giant piece of construction equipment, the elbow of the mechanical arm towering high in the sky. The bucket of shiny steel, paint scraped away by clay and gravel, rested in front of the monster caterpillar treads. A section of rusted barbed wire was on the ground, metal T-posts snapped off when crushed under the massive weight of the machine. He parked by the gap.

  Just inside the fence line, surrounded by thigh high grass stems coated in seeds was the red clay of freshly excavated soil. It was firm, the outline of the bucket plainly impressed upon the top from compacting the soil. But spoiling the neat rectangles caused by the bucket, and the tracks left by the treads were the holes surrounded by paw prints.

  “My hounds just went crazy, Sir. Digging away two, three at a time in the same hole with their paws. Some got deep enough all could see was there hind ends swaying back and forth as dirt flew out between legs. Everyone kicking and punching, dragging and yelling trying to get the hounds moving on. Never thought we’d get them off this field.”

  “So someone buried something that smells good to dogs. Not a crime.”

  “Ain’t no cattle or horses out here no more. Them farms been sold. And look how big this area is. Would be a herd of horses or cows buried here that’d be worth several thousand at the slaughter house. And don’t forget, last evening hound walk the machine was here, but no ground tore up. This done after hours. Makes me suspicious something not right.”

  Sergeant Barker considered, looking back and forth from the fresh soil to the excavator.

  “It does seem queer,” agreed Sergeant Barker who then observed a couple of orange M&M candies on the road.

  Larry Turner sat at the small table in his office with an art pen and a set of plans for an old apartment building across from the bank, badly in need of renovation. His office was just a rented space, a block east of the hospital and not quite directly across the street from city hall. There were several realtors, a land surveyor and an accountant all sharing a central receptionist, photocopier, and coffee pot. Truth was, he could work just as well at his living room table, but it looked better to potential clients.

  The plans had been printed next door at Duplication Station, a business center with a plotter. The image intensity had been turned down to make the lines of the drawings feint. He used them as guidelines as he sketched out some ideas on how best to renovate the space. The exterior walls would remain, as well as the support columns and stairs. But the rest, he intended to strip out and completely refurbish. It was a depressed market, but with a bit of a housing shortage. And the state was willing to extend tax credits for providing “quality and affordable housing units” to the local economy and he thought that would be enough to make the economics work. He’d been working on it, off and on, for quite a few months though he put it on the shelf when the golf course resort looked hot and heavy. But with the impending auction, he needed to get serious about his bid.

  Kenny Martin finally texted him late last night, saying only that he’d confer with the client and communicate how to proceed. It had been the first time that they’d been less than responsive in their communications. Larry wasn’t particularly worried, other than tempering disappointment if he wasn’t going to get a big score. At least he wouldn’t get hurt. There was plenty of “good faith” money in that account to bill against for things like excavators rented for photo opportunities.

  The phone over by his desk rang, and after two rings it forwarded to his cell as Larry knew it would. He was too lazy to get up from the table and use the landline.

  “Turner,” he greeted.

  “Good morning, Mr. Turner. This is Sergeant James Barker of the Westburg Police Department. There’s been an incident concerning your rented excavator and I’d very much like you to come out to your jobsite on Gone Away Lane.”

  Larry’s face fell. How could anything of note possibly happen in a remote old cattle pasture?

  “Can you please be more specific, Sergeant?”

  “Please immediately drive out to the jobsite here at Gone Away Lane,” replied Barker in a measured cadence to be clearly understood.

  “Okay, I’m on my way. Give me about fifteen minutes.”

  Johnbull watched the big jacked-up pickup role up Gone Away Lane to where he waited with Sergeant Barker. The policeman walked assertively forward waving his hands toward the ground to tell the driver to slow down. The past ten minutes or so had been spent marking potential evidence with yellow numbered plastic tents, including tire marks in the mud on the side of the road. Johnbull wasn’t certain if the good sergeant had fully made up his mind that something wrong had happened here, but at least he was hedging against the possibility.

  The truck stopped, and a big fifty-something man swung down from the cab taking advantage of the running board. He left it running.

  “Good morning. You Barker? I’m Larry Turner,” he greeted.

  “Thank you for coming out on such short notice, Sir. I called the number on the sign of the equipment, and the company told me you were the renter. Is that right? What are you planning to do out here with it?”

  Larry nodded, “My client wanted to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony, but I think they were postponing since the city council hasn’t approved the project yet. I do know I haven’t been invited.”

  They walked toward the down wire fence, joining Johnbull at the edge of the disturbed earth.

  Sergeant Barker asked, “So no reason for them to be digging out here?”

  “None at all. I mean at least from a construction perspective. There aren’t any permits yet. Not even for preliminary site work,” replied Larry.

  The three men stood silently staring at the red clay smear. Sergeant Barker took out his phone and began taking pictures of the ground. Then he tried to climb up on the excavator for a higher vantage point. A few dripping drops of sweat made some circles in the dirt. The direct sun was hot, and Johnbull even loosened some buttons on his shirt and swatted at a pesky fly.

  Larry called to Barker, “I can pick you up in the bucket if you want a bird’s view. You’ll get your uniform dirty though. You’d want to sit in it as I raise it up. I promise I won’t dump you.”

  “No thanks,” said Jim Barker taking the picture with one hand while holding a rung on the side of the cab with the other, “this is sufficient. I just want to give some scale, and capture the paw prints and holes for some perspective.” />
  “Perspective for what?” asked Larry.

  Johnbull answered for the Sergeant, “The decision to dig up whatever it was that was buried.”

  “I should call the utility locator then. I can dig it up, but I don’t know if there are any phone or electrical lines along the road I might hit.”

  Johnbull expressed the counter point, “If anything fo them boys to hit diggin, they is already hit it.”

  “What about other evidence that I might destroy? I don’t know how deep things are. I might tear apart evidence,” explained Larry.

  Johnbull looked at the Sergeant’s sweaty face staring silently at the red clay while Larry paced restlessly while he talked. He never appreciated the issues law enforcement wrestled with before now. Some smell had attracted the hounds, irresistible despite the hunt member’s best effort to move the pack along. Johnbull had been there when Greg’s assault suspect had been taken from the hospital by veteran thugs. Assuming his hypothetical burial took place at midnight, which was just a guess, he would have been down there for at least twelve hours or so. Much too long for the escaped suspect to be alive if that was indeed who was at the bottom of the hole. This wasn’t a rescue effort. Especially when the suspect was in such poor condition from Helmut to begin with.

  The safe play would be to preserve the evidence. With no life at stake, slow and sure was the best way to avoid being second guessed. The investigation should proceed slowly using shovels and sifter screens like on an archeological dig. The perpetrators had most likely already left town. Even sleeping in and having a leisurely breakfast, they still an insurmountable head start.

  Barker asked, “Are there a bunch of rocks in this area?”

  Larry shook his head, “Not really. This thing will readily remove any stray boulders. Hitting bedrock isn’t an issue, unless you are going super deep. Much deeper than this excavator can dig. We drill wells out here all the time.”

  “I have a fugitive whose partners may have liquidated,” shrugged Sergeant Barker in apology for using dehumanizing terms. “A grave of six feet by three feet would be sufficient for disposal. I could see that growing sideways if they ran into rocks and couldn’t dig as deep as they wanted to.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Turner as he gestured back and forth with his hands, “But this site is big enough to bury a car.”

  Sergeant Barker’s eyes lit up, “That’s what they’ve done. They’ve not only buried our fugitive; they’ve buried his car. Let’s dig it up!”

  Sergeant Barker watched in satisfaction despite standing with hands on his hips. The pose was more for that “you underlings should try much harder to please me look” body language he used to try and coax the best out of his men. Larry was in the cab of the machine slowly scraping earth away, while a pair of officers in fatigue uniforms probed the ground with each pass of the bucket. His crime scene technician was spending the afternoon taking plaster casts of the tire tracks. They’d walked the area closely trying to find fresh looking cigarette butts or non-weathered drink containers in the hopes of a DNA hit, but nothing looked promising. The best hope looked to be a fingerprint off an M&M candy.

  Johnson raised an arm when the excavator’s bucket made a metal scraping sound. The pair of patrolmen stepped in with their shovels, rapidly uncovering a square of twisted sheet metal.

  “Sergeant Barker, might be a car roof here!”

  It took close to an hour of hand digging in addition to several scoops from the machine to reveal the hood and trunk area and expose the outline of the vehicle. Larry quickly excavated a pair of pits on each side of the car, each taking only a few scoops. A little hand digging later, the patrolmen could work nylon cargo webbing underneath the vehicle. Using these straps as a lifting point for the excavator’s bucket arm, Larry slowly raised the car from the hole. Then he gracefully swung it to the side, and gently set it down in the field.

  Red clay dirt and stray topsoil stuck to the vehicle. The windows were all broken out, and the torn roof dented and collapsed. The doors were mangled, barely hanging on their bent hinges. As his men unstrapped the cargo webbing from the bucket, Sergeant Barker approached to peer inside. The car was empty.

  He walked around to the driver’s door and looked for any type of truck release. Under the dirt just inside the jam he found some type of switch, but he could move it up and down without any resistance. If there was an unlock cable for the trunk, it had been damaged in the ordeal. Sergeant Barker saw the keys in the ignition and reached for them.

  “Wait, Sarge. Fingerprints,” cried Johnson leaning on a shovel and gushing sweat.

  “I want that damn trunk open,” growled Barker with fists clenched at his sides.

  Larry Turner grabbed the tread adjusting bar from the side of the excavator. It was essentially a giant pry bar, and made short work of the tired Olds’ trunk mechanism. The odor of raw meat greeted them as they stared at a pair of coolers. Sergeant Barker cracked the lid on one of them, showing cans of beer.

  Johnson captured everyone’s sentiment, “Oh man, do I wish those were cold.”

  CHAPTER—21

  Johann Grunfeld enjoyed working on his personal laptop using a hotspot, a mobile internet connection device, so the computer’s feed wouldn’t be recorded in the bank’s servers. His closed office door provided plenty of privacy. Holly Healy proved a pleasant distraction from his ambitious Westburg revitalization gambit and plans of ascent to power. On the screen he positioned naughty pictures into a collage. Certainly, he enjoyed reliving memories looking at such pictures, and over the years he’d assembled quite a collection. What he relished more, of course, was the experience of acts worthy of photographing or videoing. In Holly’s case, despite being early in their relationship, he still had plenty to work with to meet his twofold goals.

  First, was blackmailing an inexperienced adolescent girl into his bed and eventually coercing her into acts of male enjoyment not typically available from one so young. He’d once considered the alternative of procuring real estate to imprison a sex slave, but even if he managed to abduct a suitable comfort there were plenty of risks he couldn’t figure out how to effectively mitigate. What if police and family with considerable resources came looking for the missing girl? The girl could manage to escape. Prisoners, he hypothesized, could be less than motivated to keep themselves made up and take care of themselves to his pleasure’s detriment. The girl would need to be disposed of when she no longer provided him sufficient enjoyment to put up with the hassle of day to day care and feeding. How would he dispose of her body?

  Blackmail was the preferred alternative and the power of manipulation intoxicating. Better than containing her with physical walls was the threat of releasing a collage of pictures to the girl’s friends, fellow students, administrators and family. This was a shame those with low self-esteem, and still developing powers of critical thinking, could contemplate. They’d do anything to avoid it, absolutely anything eventually, and he could let them continue in their regular routine when he’d finished with them.

  His second goal was to continue to have leverage over the girl for the long-term. Adolescents grew up, and with that could come a sense of self that might find the courage to share deep dark secrets and shame to someone else. Someone enamored with the idea of it not being the victim’s fault and eventually start an investigative ball rolling. The good news, thought Johann, was these girls grew up to be high profile career women or to be highly active with the social elite at country and yacht clubs. They had too much at stake for explicit and compromising, downright obscene, genuine pictures floating around their community circles. While he’d no longer be able to call them to perform at his bidding, their own social self-preservation instincts would continue to keep them in check concerning spilling the beans. To make this most effective, earlier pictures marred with expressions of regret and reluctance needed to be replaced with ones displaying willfully engaging partners comfortable and enthusiastic with their acts.

  At this stage,
goal one dominated his thoughts to near crazy frenzy. Especially as his wife slapped his wandering hands away. He craved relief. To get it, the collage needed to be impactful. He put her full name and Fox Ridge School on it in prominent bold letters to make it personally striking with no room for doubt. Johann worked hard to give it a wide scope, that it wasn’t an isolated occurrence or a candid camera. He used a picture from each of the photo sessions, even if one was really just a rod shaped sucker; no one could tell with it in her mouth. Another picture in the collage of a hard candy dildo made the needed inference. The chocolate one could speak for itself. Of course he used both breast pictures, the backgrounds making clear they were different times and places. He also overlapped pictures, turning them at random tilts and angles. This allowed him to use some stock picture close-ups of female teenage genitals where the overlapping pictures hid features on the stock photos betraying the inference. As he collected more material to work with, he’d replace the subterfuges with the genuine photos.

  He liked what he’d put together so far and felt himself stirring. It stood a good chance of compelling her to appear and comply with him. However, his and her schedule wouldn’t immediately allow that, so he might as well continue to solicit new material to enhance it. Tomorrow’s text message wouldn’t be satisfied with titties; he’d demand a cunt shot. Friday evening looked promising to take his prize.

  Johann wasn’t planning to say, “Show up or I’ll share this collage with the world.” Rather he’d tell her the candy company liked the pictures and had sent a contract he wanted to review with her. Then he could show her the collage, and entice her to beg or offer to do anything to keep him from releasing it. Of course, cameras would be rolling to enhance his trove of blackmail material. And afterward, she left without the collage in her procession. It would haunt her, her imagination making it more damning than something she could continue to physically stare at and get numb to it.