The jangle of the phone ripped through the dark studio apartment Police Chief Forest Wade called home. Cramped and drafty, it wasn’t much, but it conveniently occupied the upper floor of the Gold Creek Police Department and came free with the job.
He faintly heard the first two rings, muffled by the pillow that lay over his head. Two hours earlier, he had downed three bourbons, one more than his usual, while watching the ten o’clock news, and had fallen into a deep sleep.
The third ring pulled him from beneath the pillow. He swung his legs off the narrow mattress that served as a sofa by day and a bed at night. The TV on the empty nail barrel across the room spit static at him. He reached for the phone, interrupting the fourth ring in mid stride, but fumbled the receiver. It hit the linoleum floor with a bang.
“Goddamn it,” he growled.
He grabbed the cord and swung the receiver up, catching it with his other hand. The clock on the two-burner stove in the corner blinked 12:25 a.m. One of the better parts of his job was that no one ever called at this hour and he couldn’t imagine who this might be.
“This is Wade,” he said as he brought the phone to his ear.
“Chief Wade. It’s Louise Varney.”
“Louise? What’s the matter?”
“It’s Lloyd. I’m worried about him.”
Wade forked his fingers through his thinning hair and then snatched the remote from the bedside table and punched the TV into silence. “Yeah? What is it?”
“You know those break-ins we’ve had. Well, he left about ten to go watch the store and try to catch whoever’s been doing it. I told him not to, but...well...you know how pig-headed he can be.”
“So, why’re you worried?”
“He was supposed to call me at midnight, but he didn’t. I dozed off and just woke up. I’m afraid the old fool fell asleep. And as cold out as it is, he might catch pneumonia or something.”
Wade sighed heavily. “Well, I’m awake now. I’ll take a stroll down there and shoo him on home.”
“Thanks, Chief. I’d feel better if you did.”
He hung up the phone and stepped into his pants, which lay on the floor beside the bed. After slipping on his shirt and boots, he splashed water on his face at the kitchen sink. The aroma of dried tomato soup, last night’s dinner, wafted up from the dirty bowl he had neglected to wash.
He strapped on his gun belt, snagged his jacket from the back of the chair where it always hung, and headed out the door.
The old wooden stairs, which ran down the side of the building, creaked in protest as he descended them. The acrid aroma of smoldering wood from the fireplaces of nearby homes, a smell he never tired of, hung in the crisp night air. Stepping off the last step, he took a deep breath to clear his fuzzy brain and headed across the department’s front lawn and down the street toward Varney’s. A half block later, he came to a white Jeep with a roof mounted light bar and black and gold door decals that read: “Mercer’s Corner Sheriff’s Department.” Curious.
Looking across the street toward Varney’s, he saw an interior light shinning through the front windows. “Lloyd never leaves lights on,” he muttered to himself.
Then, he saw the nose of Lloyd’s pick-up, parked at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Main, and walked toward it. Lloyd wasn’t there, but a cup of coffee sat on the dashboard. A half empty box of .38 shells and a nearly empty pint of Jack Daniel's lay on the passenger’s seat. He exhaled loudly and shook his head.
As he crossed Main Street and approached Varney’s, the light that spilled through the front windows flickered, shadows dancing on the glass. Someone was inside. Probably Lloyd.
He peered through the window, didn’t see anyone, but noticed the side door stood open. He headed around the building.
*
After Sam searched the dark nooks and crannies of the store and found no one, she returned to the body. Squatting, she reached out and touched the man’s wrist, checking for the pulse she knew wouldn’t be present. His dilated black pupils had already told her the story. His skin was warm. Several long strands of dark hair lay in his open palm.
“Now will you call the damn police, Samantha?” she said aloud.
She started to rise, but heard something and dropped back to one knee, senses on edge. A scrapping sound, footsteps, just outside the open door. The killer? Had he returned to eliminate the witness?
A shadow moved across her and she heard the distinct sound of shoes against the hardwood floor. Whoever it was, was inside now.
Gripping her Smith and Wesson, ignoring the pain in her battered knuckles, she popped up to a standing position and leveled the .357 at the backlit shadow before her.
“Freeze!” she shouted. “Police.”
The intruder stopped. He was much shorter than the man who had run over her. And possessed narrower shoulders and a broader midsection. Accomplice? Even in the dim light, she could see the look of surprise on his face. She could also see the gun that appeared in his right hand.
“Drop the piece,” Sam commanded. “Now!”
“What the hell...”
“I said now. Drop it.”
“I’m the Chief of Police, Goddamn it,” he said.
Confusion swept through her. “Police? What’s your name?”
“Wade.”
That fit. That was the name on the sign in front of the police department. She noticed he not only hadn’t dropped the gun, but also had pointed it in her direction.
He took a step toward her. “Now, why don’t you put that thing down and tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing here,” he said.
“Show me a badge,” Sam said.
“Don’t have it on me. Never wear it. Everybody knows who I am.”
That made sense, too. In a town this size, everyone would know the police chief.
“I’ll ask again,” he continued. “Who are you?”
“Sam Cody. Sheriff’s Deputy from California.”
“That your rig up the street?”
“Yeah.”
“Long way from home aren’t you?”
Sam felt increasingly uncomfortable pointing a gun at who was apparently the Chief of Police and even more uncomfortable staring down the barrel of his gun. “OK,” she said. “I’ve got my badge in my pocket.”
“Let’s see it.”
She pulled out her badge wallet, flipped it open, and held it out toward him. He glanced at it and then lowered his gun. Sam stuffed her .357 back into its holster.
“OK, Deputy Cody, what’s going on here?”
“There’s a dead man here,” she said.
“What?” He leveled the gun toward her again. “Keep your hands where I can see them and step back.”
She guessed Wade was pushing 60, with thin, graying hair and fleshy jowls. Wrinkles ravaged his denim shirt and the lamp reflected off a large oval silver belt buckle, which held in a gut that suggested most of his meals came with fries on the side.
He stepped around the rack of flannel shirts that separated them and looked down. “Jesus Christ.” He knelt down by the body. “It’s Lloyd.” He cocked his head up toward her, eyes narrowing. “Want to tell me what you have to do with this?”
“Nothing. I found him just before you got here.”
“How’d you get in here?”
“The door was open.” She told him of driving by, seeing and hearing gunshots, stopping to investigate, and getting run over by the apparent murderer.
“What’d he look like?”
“I didn’t really see him, but he was big.”
“Hmm,” Wade said.
“You know who it might be?” Sam asked.
“Maybe.” He stood and looked around the room. “How big?”
“Maybe 6-3 and 250 or more. Built like a tank. Fast on his feet.”
Wade sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Sounds like Billy Bear Wingo.”
“Who?”
“One of our local trouble makers. Course, he ain’t never done anything quite this bad.” Wade hitched up his pants. “There’s a half empty box of shells in Lloyd’s truck. You find a weapon?”
“No, but a gun had been fired. I smelled it when I first got here.” Sam panned her flashlight beam across the floor. The circle of light swept past a dark object, which nosed from beneath the shirt rack, near the dead man’s hand. “What’s this?” she said.
She knelt. Wade stepped around the body and peered over her shoulder. She pushed the shirts back, revealing a revolver. Wade slipped a pen from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. She lifted the weapon by the trigger guard and sniffed the barrel. “It’s been fired.”
Wade pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and took the gun. “Looks like a .38,” he said. He walked to the desk, swung open the cylinder, and shook the shells out on the desktop. Four bullets and two empty casings. “Looks like Lloyd got off a couple of rounds.”
“There,” Sam said, pointing to splintered hole in the wall above the desk.
“Let’s get some more light in here,” Wade said. He walked to the front of the store and flipped on the overhead lights. The sudden brightness caused Sam to flinch.
“Jesus,” Wade said. “Look at this mess.”
Sam walked toward him. The other smell she had sensed earlier increased as she approached. Then, she saw the three ruptured cans of Campbell’s Pork and Beans. Their gooey contents clung to nearby cans and cascaded off the shelf to the floor. That’s the mystery smell. Pork and Beans. A staple of her childhood.
Wade picked up the phone from the front counter and dialed. “Eloy, drag your butt out of bed. Stop by the office, pick up the crime scene kit, and meet me at Varney’s store. Lloyd’s been murdered.” He hung up and looked at Sam. “Eloy and I’ll see what evidence we can find.”
“Want some help?”
“We’ll handle it,” Wade said.
“I’d be happy to give a hand. Doubt I’ll be able to sleep for a while yet, anyway.”
“Where’re you staying?”
“I’m visiting my friend. Alyss Cameron.”
“Yeah. She just bought the Aspen Creek B and B up the road here. Nice lady,” he said.
“We’re old friends.”
He jerked his head toward the street. “They let you bring the county vehicle this far?”
“The Jeep’s mine. The lights and the decals belong to the county.”
Wade gave her a half smile. “Sounds like your budget’s about as generous as mine.”
Sam nodded. “I’ll call Alyss, let her know I’ll be there later, and give you a hand here.”
*
After Sam called Alyss and told her what had happened and that she would be even later arriving, she and Wade worked the scene. An empty boot box, a couple of shovels lying on the floor at the rear of the store, and a stack of sweaters knocked off a display shelf were the only things out of place. And of course, Lloyd Varney’s body and the bloody boot prints that led out the door into the night.
Sam slipped the strands of dark, thick hair she had lifted from Lloyd’s palm into an envelope and passed it to Wade. He folded it and shoved it into his shirt pocket. She then leaned on the desk and examined the two slugs she had placed on a paper towel. One she had pried from the wall with a screwdriver she found in the desk drawer; the other Wade had discovered by digging through the contents of a ruptured Pork and Beans can.
“Hello.”
Sam jumped. A man stood in the open side doorway. He wore a faded orange sweatshirt beneath frayed tan overalls and carried a gray tackle box with “Crime Scene Kit” printed in black marker on the side.
“You scared me,” she said.
The man gave her a head-bobbing apology, muttering something that sounded like “Sorry,” though Sam couldn’t be sure.
Wade introduced her to Eloy Fuller, Gold Creek’s only other police officer. They shook hands and then Sam returned to examining the slugs while Wade brought Eloy up to speed on what they had thus far found.
To say that Eloy was strange didn’t even approach the truth. Sam figured he possessed more than his share of recessive genes. He was short, thin, edgy, with wide, low set ears that projected from the side of his head like open car doors. His misaligned eyes constantly darted around the room as if following some invisible moth. He emitted an aura of old sweat and stale cigarettes.
As Wade spoke, Eloy seemed to only half listen, appearing more interested in Sam’s anatomy than any evidence that might be present. Every time she glanced over at him, he would quickly look away as would a child caught by his mother pilfering cookies. He would then turn his attention to Wade, furrow his brow, and nod his head, as if he was concentrating on the Chief’s every word.
Sam scraped the slugs into a plastic bag and handed it to Eloy. He smiled at her. She couldn’t decide which eye to look at, but offered a half smile in return.
Wade and Eloy dusted the door, the lamp, and the shovels they had found on the floor for prints. Then, Eloy began taking Sam’s prints for exclusion. As he rolled her ink stained fingers on the print card, he held the first two a little longer than necessary.
“I can finish this myself,” Sam said.
“Sure.” Eloy nodded and shuffled away, shoulders slumped like a scolded child.
Sam completed the process in less than a minute and then cleaned her fingers with a paper towel.
Wade took one last look around the store and sighed. “I guess that about does it.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly two. You both get home and grab some sleep. I’ll lock everything down here and go see Louise Varney.” He released a heavy sigh. “This is going to kill her.”