She was really cooking. “But then, they put him in the car to take him somewhere else, and he got out…”
“Not with his hands behind his back,” I objected. “Unless they had him in the backseat all by himself. And not if the car was moving. No abrasions on his clothes, for one thing.”
“They took him up the road to kill him,” she said. “He was in the back, they stopped, he made a break for it then. As they were getting him out of the car.”
That sounded feasible.
She thought again and so did I. I got there first. Well, I think I did.
“Know what, Hester? If you’re right, it would have been so damned much easier to kill him right here. They made an effort to take him someplace else to do it. So, they didn’t want this place connected with him. You agree?”
“You bet. Now all we have to do is figure out why. And why, if they go to the trouble of taking him away from here, they go less than a mile. Why don’t they take him way far away?”
That question had us both. Well, when you get to a place where you draw a blank, back up to the place just before it, and see what else you can pull from it.
“Well,” I said, “let’s go for what we know. First, let’s assume they aren’t completely familiar with the area. The rural mail carrier drove by and saw some people here after lunchtime. They may have seen him, too. Figured it was not a good idea to do what they were going to do after being seen?”
“Nope.” She sounded pretty certain.
“Why?”
“Too much of a time lapse between then and the killing. But I think we’re still on the right track. They want to get away from this place.”
“So that means that the decision to kill him, regardless of when it was made, also took into consideration the fact that they didn’t want a body discovered on this abandoned farmstead. We think we know that. So that means… what the hell else connects the suspect to this place, over and above the mail carrier?”
“Yep.”
I sighed. “And you want to walk around the area, in the dark, looking for that particular ‘something,’ don’t you?”
“I can wait until you finish a cookie,” she said. “If you give me one, too.”
I fished the Girl Scout cookies out of my camera bag. Fortified, we got out of the car and began to walk around each of the buildings in turn.
In a rural area, especially in a narrow valley, it gets very, very dark. The place did have a yard light, but it was one of the old ones that threw kind of a greenish cast over the area and created more shadows that anything else.
“Why keep the yard light hooked up,” said Hester, “when nobody lives here?”
“Most do. Keep the vandals and kids out, as much as anything.”
“It just makes it seem that much darker in the shadows,” she said.
The scrub- and rock-strewn gully that ran near the back of the barn and shed kept us out of that area, but we did a fair job on the rest of the place. We didn’t find anything of interest whatsoever.
Bob finished the tracks and came down the lane. We showed him the shoe. He said they’d do the area in the immediate vicinity of the shoe and then call it a day, returning early in the morning to finish up. We told him our theory about the suspects not wanting to connect the abandoned farm to the body for some reason.
“Why?”
It always went back to that.
“We don’t know,” said Hester. “Maybe you can come up with something when you get back here in the morning.”
Bob grinned. “What’s it worth?”
I didn’t hesitate a second. “Lunch.”
“For lunch,” said Bob, pointing at the shed, “I can locate the remains of Jimmy Hoffa right over there…”
At that point, there really wasn’t much for us to do until we had more information. We left instructions with the reserves that they were to protect the scene at all times, but especially while the lab crew got some sleep.
I figured that left the office and the preliminary report as all that stood in the way of a good night’s sleep.
The media didn’t agree.
CHAPTER 04
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001
The Nation County Sheriff’s Department and County Jail sits on a hillside at the edge of the town of Maitland. I imagine the parking lot is about twenty or so feet higher than the approaching roadway. That being the case, the first hint I had of the presence of the media was as I glimpsed a four-wheel-drive with a conspicuous KNUG/TV on its side. Another hint, and one that boded no good for me, was the glimpse of Lamar’s four-wheel-drive parked to the rear of the building. If he was there, and he was, then he was reluctant to come out of the building because he’d have to talk with the media. Lamar hated the media. So I knew who was going to be the spokesperson for the department. I just didn’t know how he was going to order me to do it, since I had all that typing to do.
As we came up the steps to the main office entrance, I saw three reporters and their cameramen, and heard Lamar’s voice saying, “Here’s the man I was telling you to wait for. Just ask him anything, and if he can answer it, he will. He’s been there, and he’s seen it.” This was followed by a big, hearty “Hello, Carl,” as I reached the counter. “Glad you’re back so soon.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he had had just about as much media attention as he was going to allow for the rest of the year. I just smiled, turned to say something to Hester, and discovered that she’d disappeared. She’d probably ducked down the hall and into Dispatch. I was on my own.
“Hi, Boss.”
“He’s all yours, folks,” said Lamar, and headed for his office in the back of the building. He didn’t quite run.
I’d pretty much managed to avoid all media attention over the years, mainly because I was afraid that if they got me talking I’d say too much. Especially the TV reporters. Not that I’m all that chatty, but I tend to get very enthusiastic about my work.
“Detective Houseman?” asked a young, pretty TV reporter I saw on the tube just about every night. “I’m Judy Mercer, KNUG, and I’d like to ask a few questions…”
“Bill Nylant here, and I’m with KYYQ…”
“-Handy, with KK. NN…”
I thought that maybe if we went outside in the cold, it would be shorter. “Come on out here, and I’ll be glad to answer some questions if I can.”
Once on the front steps, I remembered that I was on closed-circuit TV at the dispatch center from out there. With sound. As if the media weren’t bad enough, our own people were now taping me, as well. Something for the Christmas party.
The cameramen had the tripods set up, cameras attached, and the lights came on, right in my eyes.
“Hey, do we need to do the cameras?”
Judy Mercer answered first. “Well, detective, I’m sure you’ve noticed that this isn’t radio. We really like to have something to show.” She paused and then said, “If you’d like to take us to the scene, we could shoot footage of that, and leave you as a voice-over.”
No way in hell, and she knew it.
“Okay, just don’t get reflections off the top of my head. And I’m not a ‘detective,’ I’m an investigator.”
They asked standard questions before they rolled tape. Just so I wouldn’t clutch on camera and cost them their footage.
