Harvest Moon (Buck Valley Mysteries Book 2)

by Joshua Erik Rossi

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He was stabbed twenty-eight times.”

  “Holy shit! Seriously?”

  “It was a quick count, but about that many times. Yes.” He smelled the sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t smell like him now, do I?”

  I felt queasy. “Let’s get out of here.” I reached for the truck door handle, opened it and got in. “Did you see a knife or anything?”

  “No. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “You saw him.”

  “I know, but I had him for class and…” His voice faltered.

  I started the truck and backed up.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To report this to Chief Ryker.”

  “But…”

  “But, nothing! We can’t leave him there for the buzzards. We have to tell somebody. He has a family...somewhere.”

  “You’re right,” Steve said. “They’ll have to come and get him.”

  “We’re not putting him in my truck. I’ll haul anything but that, and right now,” I said, “I’m hauling ass to town. Hang on.”

  Chapter 3

  “Do you have anything in here I can clean my hands with?” Steve asked.

  “Look in the glove box. There should be some wipes, ketchup packets, mayo…”

  “You own a diner and you eat fast food?”

  “Sometimes.” He looked peaked. His face was pale and there was a slight tremor in his hands as he fumbled through the contents of my glove box.

  “It’s not healthy, you know? Fast food.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Stop!”

  I slammed on the brakes. He jumped out and doubled over, vomiting in the grass. So. He hadn’t become superman while he was away. Good to know. I picked up the wipes, tore the packets and opened them. I got out of the truck and carried them over to him. “Here.”

  “You can’t look at a dead body, but you’re okay with puke?” he asked. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Old Tom. He was sick before he died.”

  Steve nodded. “I remember. You took care of him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  “Don’t be sorry. I don’t know how you lasted as long as you did.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. Are you okay now?”

  “I think so.”

  “Take a few minutes. I’m not in a hurry.”

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  I drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to steady myself. It had shaken me up, too. “It would be easier if he were a stranger. This town. Damn. It’s not like he came to the diner every day, though. I wonder if he has a family?”

  “No. He lived alone.”

  “Quiet guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He pissed somebody off. Jesus. Twenty-eight stab wounds.”

  “I’m ready to go now,” Steve said, getting into the truck.

  I went around the front of the truck. He was still shaking, and I hoped he wouldn’t barf inside the cab. I wouldn’t yell at him or anything, but I’m not good with the smell. I got in behind the steering wheel. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I drove back down Oak Street, took a right on Maple and went to the police station. We got out of the truck, walked down the corridor and found Bobby in his office. He was behind his desk laughing at his phone.

  “Hey, got some work for you,” I said. “We found a body by the river.”

  “What? Damn! This is really good. Did you ever see Dumb Ways to Die? It’s an app. There are three of them.”

  “Bobby!”

  He looked up. “I heard you. You found a body. What were you two perverts doing down there anyway? Can’t you do it in the bedroom like everybody else?”

  Steve launched across the room with his arms outstretched like he was going to choke him. I grabbed him around the waist and held on. He calmed down, but the tremors were still there. Rage, I think.

  “It’s Mr. Reynolds, the history teacher.” I dropped the wallet on the desk.

  He picked it up and opened it. “No money, Keegan? Never thought of Reynolds as a poor man.”

  I sighed. Why was I born? Why? “Somebody stabbed him about twenty-eight times.”

  “Somebody?” Bobby stood up with his hand on his gun. “Let me get this straight. You happened to be down at the river with Stevie here, doing God knows what, and you found a body?”

  Why did everything feel like a set-up by my old man? “You saw Pa come to the diner yesterday. He told me about the body. He wanted me to investigate and get rid of it.”

  “Uh huh,” Bobby said, watching me.

  “For chrissakes Ryker! I’m in the diner every single day from four in the morning till five in the evening! Everybody saw me there.”

  “Kind of nervous, ain’t you? But I guess if my name was Keegan, I’d get nervous around a cop, too.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself and before you go there, Pa didn’t do it. Casey wouldn’t either. They wouldn’t leave any evidence.” Everybody knew that was true.

  “Stabbed, huh?”

  “Stabbed, drowned maybe. He was half way in the water,” Steve said.

  “I highly suggest you boys leave this to the experts in town. Don’t get any ideas about investigating another case. You hear me? Nobody wants you two hurting yourselves again.”

  “Right,” I said. Of course, that’s how it looked the day we came down out of the mountains all beat up. No one knows we confronted a serial killer. No one except Steve, Ian, Dale and I knew the killer was dead. Well, my family knew, but they know everything that happens on the mountain.

  “Reynolds, huh?” Bobby asked, looking at the driver’s license. “His tests sucked. All right, you two prima donnas get out of here and stay out of my business. You’re not cops and you’re sure as hell no private investigators. Prance along now.”

  I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, “Listen you fucker, I’ve had enough of your bullshit!”

  He snarled back, “You want to go to jail, Keegan?”

  I let go of him. “Fucker.”

  “If I had to guess I’d say you’re the fucker and he’s the fuckee. Or is it the other way around?”

  “Come on Seth,” Steve said. He pulled on my arm. “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t want to go to jail. I couldn’t. Who would make forty- three omelets, twenty eggs over easy, sausage...bacon, the burgers? I breathed deep and calmed down. “At least we’re getting some,” I said, and we left the office.

  Steve grinned. “Are we?”

  I chuckled. “Not yet. We have things to do.”

  He was excited. “Like what?”

  “We’re going to 703 Sycamore Road.”

  “Mr. Reynolds house?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said, getting into the truck. Steve got in beside me. “It shouldn’t be too hard to stay ahead of Ryker on this investigation.”

  “We’re doing this?”

  “We’d better. We can’t leave justice up to Bobby. Can we?”

  “No, Sir,” he said.

  “We have a new case.” I looked over at him and added, “Partner.”

  “I thought you meant we had other things to do.”

  I laughed. “If we ever get some time, yeah. Maybe.”

  “Oh,” he replied, “now it’s a time thing. I see.”

  Chapter 4

  Mr. Reynolds lived in a red brick ranch-style house on the outskirts of town. He taught history in the middle school for years, but I never knew anything about his personal life. I had no idea why anyone would want him dead. Although he gave killer tests, I couldn’t imagine a seventh grade psycho stabbing him repeatedly. It was, however, a possibility.

  “How are we going to get in?”

  “Around back,” I said. In the backyard, we found a sorry looking cat that Steve went to immediately.

  “Oh my God! Poor kitty. He hasn’t been fed in a long ti
me! I can feel his ribs.”

  I took the screen out of the window and pushed the frame upward. It opened. “Can you get through here?”

  “Yes, but breaking and entering?” He carried the tabby cat with him.

  “I didn’t break anything.”

  He put the cat through the window and crawled in.

  I waited outside. “What are you doing? Open the door.”

  “Feeding the kitty and look,” he said, showing me the calendar, “The last notes were made three weeks ago.”

  “Any appointments?”

  “One with a Dr. Gordon. The day before the notes stopped.”

  “I never heard of him.”

  “I’ll look it up later.”

  I went through the living room and looked in the other rooms. There was nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like the home of a guy who lived alone. Some laundry. A few dishes. Relatively clean. I opened the door to the basement.

  “Be careful.” Steve was behind me.

  I flicked the light switch and went down the steps. Again, nothing seemed out of place. “Damn, this is creepy.” The stairs were wooden and narrow. The cement wall was wet. It felt slimy and I moved my hand away quick, as soon as I touched it.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “I don’t like it either, but we’ll take a quick look around and get out. We’re not doing well as far as suspects go. Pa wouldn’t come to town to tell me about a dead body, if he killed the man. I think he’d just get rid of him. I don’t know why Bobby would want a history teacher did, either.” I looked around. The basement was damp, full of cobwebs, and the cement walls were crumbling.

  “There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

  “Scared?”

  “We didn’t exactly come through the front door. If Bobby comes, he’ll arrest us.”

  I walked around the basement, searching for something. Anything. “He’ll play that app for a while before he gets off his ass. Hell, he’ll probably send Duncan to the river.”

  “True.”

  I found another door and opened it. I flipped the switch and stood in the doorway, unable to move. On the wall were about two hundred pictures of kids. They were sixth and seventh grade school pictures. “Oh wow.”

  “What?”

  He couldn’t see. He was standing behind me, and my body blocked the doorway. I scanned over the faces of the young boys. I knew them from school. My gaze settled on the picture of the young blond haired boy with the most beautiful green eyes. Steve. I grabbed the pic fast and shoved it in my pocket.

  “What did you find?”

  “It’s bad.” I moved so he could see the wall. He moved closer. He searched through the faces as his adams apple quivered in his throat. “Looks like he had a thing for kids.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “I get the multiple stab wounds now.”

  “Yeah.” He pushed his hair back with his hand. “Fuck. There are hundreds. You’re...you’re not here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you look? I mean...there’s Drake and Justin…” He studied the pictures and moved from one end of the wall to the other.

  I held my breath. Was he looking for the picture I had in my pocket? Did he know? What did he know? “Come on. We’ll leave the door open, so Bobby can find it easier.”

  “I have to see if there’s anything else. Is there a computer in here? Any files?”

  “I think I saw one upstairs.”

  He pushed past me and ran up the steps.

  My eyes moistened as I climbed the stairs. I knew we should have let this one alone. I barely made it to the top of the steps. Why would anyone want to be an investigator? Was Reynolds into collecting pics? Had he touched all those boys? Molested or raped them? Steve. When I got to the top of the stairs, he was swearing and tapping on the computer keys.

  “It’s password protected. I can’t get in.”

  “Leave it for the cops.”

  “But...there were hundreds of pics down there. We went to school with some of those kids. It’s been years, Seth. Years.”

  “It’s disgusting.”

  “Yeah.” He continued tapping on the keys, trying different words that might give him access to the computer. There were tears in his eyes. I couldn’t take it. I looked away. The cat was in the kitchen licking its paws. It had eaten the entire bowl of food in one sitting. “She was hungry.”

  “He. It’s a male.”

  How did Steve know that? He hadn’t looked. I had to ask. “Have you been here before?”

  He got up and briskly walked past me, picking the cat up into his arms and he went out the front door.

  I had the feeling I’d walked with him into a nightmare, and it was one we couldn’t get out of. By the time I got outside and locked the door behind me, Steve was in the truck, holding the cat on his lap. It licked his face. It was as if the cat knew him. I got into the truck, and we rode in silence back to town. He didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t. I parked behind his mini-cooper convertible, and he opened the truck door to get out. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

  He nodded, and he went to his car, taking the cat with him. I watched as he pulled away and drove down the street. I got out of the truck and in a numb-like fashion I went up the steps to my apartment above the diner. I sat down in the chair by the window and stared at the town below. Years. Hundreds of boys and Steve. I took his picture out of my pocket. On the back he’d scrawled his name. Below it was the number 12. The tears left my eyes and rolled down over my cheeks. I choked out a sob and gasped, crying for him and for all those kids. Most of them were adults now, our neighbors, and no one had said a word.

  Chapter 5

  Steve’s Salon was closed the next day. Everyone came into the diner asking where he was. Did I know? I told them he wasn’t feeling well, and he’d be in the next day, but in truth, I really didn’t know. I wanted to call or text, but I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say. I think I’d already said too much when I asked him if he’d been to Reynolds house before.

  I worked through the day and when I was sweeping the floor around 5:30, it hit me. Our entire world changed in twenty-four hours. It turned upside down at Reynolds place.

  I couldn’t take it when I hadn’t heard from him. In the past four years that he’d been home, he never missed a day of work. I locked the door to the diner, went upstairs, showered and changed clothes. I put his picture in my pocket, and I went downstairs. Maybe I couldn’t talk to him, but I could be there for him. He needed someone. He needed me.

  I drove to his place and stood by the gate waiting until I heard it unlock. I went through it and up the steps to the porch. He swung the door open. His hair was disheveled, and a scented wave of whiskey met me like a door slamming in my face. He was half-naked, wearing a pair of athletic pants that slung low on his hips. The cat was in his kitchen eating out of a tuna can.

  “Come in.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped inside.

  “I’ve been drinking all night.” He looked through the window noticing the daylight. “All day. Cutting hair was out of the question.”

  “Yesterday was...a lot to...”

  “Yeah.” He scowled and turned away. “I may as well tell you. You’re going to hear about it anyway. I don’t know why my picture wasn’t down there, but I’m probably on that fucking computer.”

  “If you’re not, no one will know.” I reached into my pocket and gave him the picture. He broke down and started crying. I wrapped my arms around him.

  “I don’t know who killed him,” he sobbed. “I didn’t. It wasn’t me. I thought of it, but I didn’t. I would have. I didn’t know there was anyone else. I thought it was just me...he did that to.”

  “You could have told me,” I whispered.

  “No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I knew I was gay and...it would have been worse. They called me girly-boy. Remember?”

  The tears returned to my eyes. “Yeah. I remember. I
’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  He cried for awhile, his tears seeping into my shirt, making it damp. “I was so stupid.”

  “You were a kid. It’s not your fault.”

  “I know it wasn’t. I didn’t even know what he was doing...at first.” He pushed away from me and stumbled into the kitchen, reaching for the whiskey bottle. “I thought the touches were accidents, like his hand bumped me by mistake…” He put the bottle down. “I don’t need more whiskey. I feel like shit.”

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  He forced an angry laugh. “You don’t know the half of it. I left here to get away from people like Reynolds and because I thought you didn’t love me, but mostly because of him. Forgive me. I’m really, really drunk.”

  “Sit. I’ll make you some coffee, and I do love you, by the way. I just don’t think I’m the kind of person you need in your life.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide that? What kind of person should I have, hm?”

  “Someone like you, polished. Refined. Smart.”

  “You’re smart,” he said.

  I laughed because we both know I’m not the other two. “We’re different. You know where I came from.”

  “Yes. True. But you are so…”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Fucking hot. One fucking hot mountain boy.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m the one who’s not good enough for you. I tried anyhow.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I’m not. I’m not what everyone thinks I am. I’ve never really measured up. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell my parents. I was sure there was something wrong with me…”

  “But there’s not.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “You’re perfect. You’re...gorgeous. You’re kind to everyone. You brought home the stray starving cat of someone who...hurt you. I don’t know what you think of yourself, but I think you’re a beautiful person.”

  He smiled, rubbing the whiskey glass with his fingers. “I wish that were true.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. That man was sick.”

  “I guess the ones who jumped me were sick, too. I’m a magnet for ill deranged men; it seems.” He cleared his throat. “I have gotten myself into situations that I could not escape from. I’m not strong, like you. I’ve toned my body, but I have no real strength and when I see that I can’t win...I give up. I let them take what they want and eventually, they leave me alone. Everything else in my life, this house, the car...even the salon...is a stage where I’m acting in a play. That’s not the real me.”