20

 

 

I parked down the road a ways from the Brassart home, near a small square patch of manicured grass with a pair of benches in the middle. Namaste Estates idea of a mini-park, I supposed. From there, it was an easy walk to King Pigeon Lane. Or would have been, if my knee wasn’t screaming at me the whole way.

To avoid limping, I slowed my pace to a lazy stroll. I passed several houses, both set back from the road and well fenced, before I reached King Pigeon Lane. I guessed each lot had to be somewhere between seven and eight acres. By city standards, that was huge.

The unmistakable drone of a car engine approached me from behind. I turned to see a grey Mercedes slow and turn onto King Pigeon Lane. Out of die-hard habit, I glanced down at the license plate. The personalized plate read GETSUM2. When I looked at the driver as the car passed, I wasn’t surprised to see a middle aged man with slightly graying hair behind the wheel. The message on the license plate could mean a lot of different things, but somehow I was pretty sure what he was going for was getting rich.

Given the insignia on the hood of his car, it looked like that was working out for him.

The car continued straight on, and for a moment, I thought he might turn into the Brassart driveway. Instead, he veered left when he reached the cul-de-sac, and headed down that driveway.

“Hello, neighbor,” I muttered, and continued strolling.

My initial thought had been to walk right up and knock on the door and talk to Marie Brassart. But by the time I got near enough to see their driveway in the distance, a new plan began to take shape. I decided that I should at least scout out the lay of the land before going with the direct approach. I wasn’t sure what it might yield, but I figured it was worth a try.

I slowed down when I neared where I believed Henry Brassart had died, but didn’t see any purpose in revisiting that spot. So I continued past, and passed two more driveways before I knew I was nearing the Brassart home. The cul-de-sac was visible from a long ways off, and King Pigeon Lane was a straight road, so the distance was a little deceiving. But I knew I was close enough to go off-road, and probably only be trespassing on Brassart property.

The thick bushes tugged at my clothing as I tried to play at being Daniel Boone. Being a city boy was a definite disadvantage in situations like this. I felt pretty confident in my urban talents, but trying to stay quiet in the woods was like trying to breathe water.

Still, if Marie Brassart was inside her house, she wasn’t likely to hear me. And as long as she didn’t have a dog—

That stopped me. Any dog living out here in the quasi-country was going to be pretty territorial. And even if it was a Pomeranian or some other yapper, it’d be far more likely to spot me, and to ghost my position.

I listened for barking but heard none. Eventually, I decided to press forward, keeping an ear out for thundering paws, barking, and snarling.

Finally, I reached a location close enough to get a decent view of the house while still remaining hidden in the foliage. I crouched down and took in the scene. The Brassart home had a lot of windows. A big bay window extended out from what looked like the kitchen, and the living room windows were tall and wide. None of the shades were drawn, but I guess that made sense. Living out here, why would you need to? It’s not like people were going to hide in the woods and peer inside your home, right?

In that moment, I felt more than a little grimy.

I also felt foolish. I had a small pair of field glasses in my apartment. They would have come in handy here. Instead, I had to keep watch with the naked eye.

A couple of times over the next half hour, I saw a figure walk through the living room to the kitchen and back again. From that distance, it was impossible to tell but the body shape was right for Marie.

After about forty-five minutes, I started to wonder what I expected to accomplish. Watching from the woods wasn’t going to answer the questions I had about the corporate insurance, or how she’d bailed out. Unless she was going to confess to the murder using signal flags, all I was accomplishing was feeling like a peeping Tom.

But I stayed for a little while longer while I tried to decide how to approach her once I was at the front door. Would a direct approach work? It hadn’t been too successful at the jail. But that was a different setting. Maybe at her home, free of incarceration, she’d be more amenable.

Or she could be more confident in telling me to stick it.

One thing was sure. I wasn’t going to get an answer crouching in the woods outside her house.

I was about to stand up to walk back to the road when I heard a stick snap, and the rustle of bushes. Images of a rabid dog went through my head, and I stared intently toward the sound. Nothing but silence followed.

I glanced up at the trees. Some were pines. Maybe it had been a falling cone.

Somehow I didn’t think so. I was no woodsman, but the sound had the feel of movement to it. And now that I was paying attention, I sensed a presence. Something was there.

I decided I didn’t need to know what. I rose slightly into a hunched standing position, and started backing through the foliage. I kept my eyes locked on where the sound had come from, except for quick backward glances to make sure I wasn’t going to back into a tree. The result was a less than stealthy retreat on my part, but at this point, I was more concerned with being ready for whatever came through the woods for me than being quiet.

Forget the field glasses, I thought. I wish I had my gun.

I thought I heard another rustle of movement, but couldn’t be sure. My own noise-making parade made it difficult to hear. Every few feet, I stopped and listened.

There! Another twig snapped, this time off to my right.

I turned in that direction and tried to see through the mess of trees and bushes, but saw nothing. No dog, no grizzly bear, nothing.

So I kept backing up toward the road.

I hadn’t gone another fifteen feet when a cold voice stopped me.

“Right there, motherfucker,” came a low, deadly tone. “Keep your hands where I can see them, or I will make today your last day on this beautiful planet.”

I froze.

“Over here!” He said, raising his voice slightly.

The noise of movement was all around me now, no pretense of stealth. Two men and a woman appeared out of the woods, all wearing forest camouflage, and trudged toward me.

“Who the hell is this?” one of the men asked.

“No idea,” the man behind me replied.

The trio all regarded me curiously. I stared back, taking in their expressions and demeanor. A realization hit me.

These were cops.

“You live around here?” the first one asked me. He wore a Fu Manchu mustache, along with a couple days’ worth of stubble on his face.

“No,” I said.

He gave me a suspicious look. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” I asked back.

He smiled contemptuously, then looked over my shoulder at the man who’d captured me. “Cuff him, Dan-o.”

“For the fiftieth time, it’s Daniel,” the voice behind me muttered.

“Just cuff him,” Fu Manchu said.

Dan-o instructed me to put my hands behind my head, then expertly cuffed one wrist, and brought it down to the small of my back. “Give me the other hand,” he said. When I did, he cuffed that one as well. He performed a thorough, meticulous search, which turned up my wallet and my car keys.

I waited while he went through my wallet.

“Says here he is Steven, no, Stefan…” he hesitated, then guessed, “Cop-riv-uh?”

“Wait, what?” Fu Manchu stepped behind me. “Let me see that.”

I took a deep breath and waited some more. Dan-o didn’t know who I was, but I was pretty sure Fu Manchu did. As we stood there, I caught a whiff of cologne. I wasn’t familiar with the scent, but the boldness of it told me who it probably belonged to.

“Son of a bitch,” Fu Manchu whispered. Then, “Take him back to the barn. We’ll interview him there.”

“Interview him?” Dan-o asked. “About what?”

“What the hell he’s doing here,” Fu Manchu snapped. “Just do what I said.”

Dan-o didn’t argue further. He took me by the elbow with one hand and grasped my ring and small fingers with the other. “This way,” Dan-o instructed.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked.

“You’re being detained,” Fu Manchu answered gruffly.

“For what?”

“How about trespassing?” He snapped. “Now shut the fuck up.”

Sometimes that’s the best thing to do, and this seemed like one of those times.