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MY PHONE RANG AS ALEX and I walked across the parking lot to her Jeep parked at the St. Johns Town Center. I answered, “Walsh Investigations.”
“Henry? This is Lydia. I wasn’t sure if I should call you or not, but I thought you should know...I’m on my way to meet Nate.”
“Where is he?”
“You know where Thomas Creek Park is?”
“The conservation area?”
“Yeah. He’s there, in an old hunting cabin back off one of the roads.”
“What’s he doing? Why’d he call you?”
She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. He said he needs my help.”
I pulled the phone from my ear and said to Alex, “It’s Lydia. She knows where Nate is.”
I put the phone back to my ear. “Lydia, can you tell me how to get there?”
“To the cabin? Yes. Just come in from the East side and there’s an old trail about half a mile in, on your right. It’s not hard to miss.”
I thought for a moment. “Are you already there? You sound like you already—”
“Nate gave me directions. That’s what he said, just thought I’d tell you...hoping you’d come out there.”
I looked at Alex, already up in the driver’s seat. “They’re at Thomas Creek.”
“Northwest?” Alex said.
I nodded. “Lydia, does he know you called me?”
She went quiet for a moment. “Um, no. Not really.”
“What do you mean ‘not really?’ Maybe you should wait for us. We’re coming right now.”
“Well, I know how important it is for you to find him.”
“Okay, then do me a favor and wait for me at the entrance, we’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Okay, but if I’m not at the entrance, just look for the trail on the right, from the east.”
“Keep your phone on,” I said. “I’ll call you as soon as we get there.”
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THOMAS CREEK WAS A pretty good ride out, just east of Crawford on the edge of Jacksonville. As soon as we drove through the entrance, I called Lydia. Her phone went straight to voicemail.
“Might not have a signal,” Alex said as she looked down at her own phone.
“I hope that’s all it is...and she’s okay.”
Alex drove at a good clip along the main road from the entrance, both of us watching for a road or path along the right side.
“You see anything?” I said just as we drove past an opening in the woods with a rusted chain hung between two trees. “Shit. We just passed it.”
Alex slammed on the brakes and spun the Jeep around. We headed back and turned onto the road.
There was a chain blocking the entrance, so I jumped from the passenger seat and removed one side. Alex drove through and stopped as I stepped back up into the Jeep.
“This looks like it could be it,” I said as we both looked straight ahead.
There were trees and thick vegetation on either side of the road, overgrown branches hung down toward the ground. Stones and gravel kicked up from the tires and pinged off the Jeep’s undercarriage.
“Why would he hide out here?” Alex said as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
“My question is...why would he hide at all? Why wouldn’t he have just called me himself?”
“Maybe he doesn’t trust you. Or anybody else.”
We were deep into the woods. The path we were on became less visible, but it was clear from the tracks another vehicle had recently come through.
“I don’t know how much I trust Brian, either. But I keep thinking about what he said...about how Nate wasn’t someone we should trust.”
Alex didn’t take her eyes from the terrain ahead. “I’m not convinced Brian is someone we should have trusted.”
We turned a corner around the densely wooded area and stopped. We both looked straight ahead through the windshield toward an old cabin the size of a small house. It had brown stained siding and a handful of small windows. A covered porch on the front stretched from one end of the house to the other.
Alex shifted the Jeep and pulled it closer. She stopped again. “Where’s Lydia’s Jetta?”
Within the tall weeds and overgrown grass surrounding the cabin, a set of tracks worn down to the dirt hooked around the side.
“Maybe she parked in back,” I said.
Alex turned off the engine and we both stepped from the Jeep. We walked toward the cabin and every few steps glanced at each other without a word.
I passed ahead of Alex and walked up onto the porch.
Alex waited at the bottom of the stairs. “What if this isn’t the right place?”
I looked down at my phone but there wasn’t much of a signal then turned to Alex but she’d already walked around back. I watched her as she pulled her Glock from her holster and disappeared around the corner.
I leaned my forehead against a window to look inside, but there were blinds that stopped me from seeing much of anything at all. I finally knocked on the door.
I waited a couple of moments, then was about to knock again when I heard the rack of a shotgun.
I raised my hands up a little higher than my shoulders and slowly turned around toward the stairs. I looked down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun held in the thick hands of Roy Mason.
Lydia stood behind him and looked up at me from over his shoulder. Her eyes were on mine as she mouthed, “I’m sorry,” without a sound coming out of her.
“She didn’t do nothing but what I asked her to do,” Roy said as he gave me a nod with his chin. “Brian told me she thought she’d heard a conversation she shouldn’t have—on the phone in the privacy of my own home—and once she understood what it was all about she offered to do whatever I needed to fix things.” He again gave me a nod. “So here we are.”
I slowly eased my hands down by my side. I shifted my eyes from the barrel of Roy’s 12 gauge to the look on his face. “So you brought me here for what, to make sure I get your so-called ‘real’ story? Or are you planning to empty that shell into my chest...”
He shook his head, the 12 gauge still on me. “I wasn’t planning on killing you, to be honest. Hoping you and I could have a word, that’s all.”
I said, “You didn’t think to maybe, I don’t know, just give me a phone call? Sit down for a few drinks?”
Roy narrowed his eyes, cracked somewhat of a smile. “I want to make sure you’re doing the listening I’m asking of you. That’s all. I apologize if I’m a bit over-the-top in my approach.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I said under my breath.
Roy put his hand up flat behind his ear, his palm toward me. “What’s that?”
“Your son seems to take a similar approach. Can’t help me think the two of you always have something to hide.”
“Nah, just protecting ourselves. That’s all. You’d do the same thing, some stranger came around asking questions of you and your family...in your place of business. For Brian, I’m all he’s got.” Roy turned and looked over his shoulder at Lydia. “No offense, hon.”
I said, “If you’re trying to defend him...”
“He don’t even know what he’s protecting me from. He’s just doing what he feels is right.”
I tried to take a quick glance toward the side of the house without Roy or Lydia noticing.
But Roy picked up on it right away, turned to his side and said, “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend to come on out before someone gets hurt.” He turned to me, raised an eyebrow and said, “She think we didn’t see her go ‘round back?”
I stared back at Roy without saying a word.
“She’d be making a big mistake, she tries anything foolish.”
Lydia had stayed quiet, hiding behind Roy.
He turned and handed her the 12 gauge, nodded toward the side of the house. “Make yourself useful, will you? Go find Ms. Jepson, tell ‘er come on out front...say hello.” Roy pulled a revolver from the belt of his pants. He lifted the barrel toward me but kept it down by his waist. “So I’m going to straighten some things out. Tell you where things are at. You choose to believe me, maybe we both walk away from here with a better understanding of each other. You don’t...perhaps you and I are gonna have ourselves a problem.”
Roy waved his long revolver toward the steps, nodded at a grayed picnic table that dipped down on one side. It sat a few feet from the stairs, within the long overgrown grass.
I’d kept quiet while Roy flapped his gums, thinking about Alex. I was more worried about what Lydia would do with that 12 gauge if Alex surprised her than I was of Roy putting a dozen or so pellets in my back.
As I sat down on the bench, the picnic table shifted. I thought it would flip but Roy came behind me and put one foot up on the other side and kept it down. He rested his revolver on his knee and flicked the barrel back and forth as he spoke. “You need to understand, Henry. I didn’t kill John.” He looked off before shifting his eyes to mine. “God’s honest truth is what that is.”
“Then why were you at his house—before anyone else had even found him—like you’d known something nobody else had?”
Roy laughed, his eyes down toward the ground. “I was there when the officers first showed up at her door. That was the first moment I’d learned of his passing.”
“His passing?”
Roy gave a quick nod.
“Then why were you there? Knowing John was out on his bike, as he’d been every single Sunday morning for as far back as anybody can remember...”
Roy was quick to answer. “I dropped off John’s clubs. He’d left them in my trunk from the week before, but I knew he’d been away those few days.”
“With Kayla,” I said.
Roy stared back at me without responding.
“So let’s just stick with the fact you had nothing to do with John’s death.”
“It’s the truth, son.”
I looked off for a moment. “Okay, so you didn’t kill him. But then why don’t you go ahead and tell me about the money John got when Theresa died. I’m beginning to think your relationship with John healed up quite well soon after she was gone. And I wonder if it had anything to do with the two-and-a-half million that landed in his lap. Coincidentally, it was the same amount he owed you for the mistake he made on your policy.”
Roy shrugged. “You know what? I’m not going to deny it. John owed me money. And it caused some real friction between us. But after the accident...”
“You’re still calling it that?”
Roy squinted, his eyes on mine. “Come again?”
“You’re still calling it an accident?” I said. “I just thought, since it all had turned out to be just a coincidence Theresa dies, John collects a nice check...and you’re sitting happy, like a pig in shit, it’s hard to believe it was an accident”
“I had nothing to do with John’s death. And I certainly had nothing to do with Theresa’s.”
We both looked toward the side of the cabin where Alex turned the corner with Lydia behind her, Lydia holding the 12 gauge up toward Alex’s back.
Roy gave me a look then out of the corner of his mouth, he said, “You can put that thing down now, Lydia.” He looked over at Alex. “Why don’t you come join your boyfriend. We’re just having a friendly conversation.”
I gave Alex a look as she walked over and stood next to me. “Roy, I know Theresa’s death wasn’t an accident. We have proof it wasn’t. The whole scene was staged...there’s no doubt about it. So...”
The picnic table shifted when Roy straightened up and took his foot off the bench. He tucked the revolver in the holster he had on his belt, acting like a cowboy. He looked off toward the woods. “I used to hunt out here with my daddy, you know.”
I watched him look off, appeared calm and relaxed.
“Roy,” I said. “Did you help John kill Theresa so he could get you the money he owed you?”
Roy snapped his head around and gave me a look, his eyes narrowed. “John wouldn’t hurt a fly. He had his faults...thinking with his, well, you know what. He liked the ladies a little too much. Could barely control himself. But...” Roy shook his head. “He didn’t kill Theresa. And that money he gave me? I never asked him for it. That’s the truth. In fact I knew nothing about it. Not until later. He just wanted to make a wrong right again. And I wasn’t going to argue with him, either.”
“Did you know his brother was the one that made the mistake?” I said.
Roy nodded. “Eric told me. John never said a word. That’s the kind of man he was. He didn’t even like his brother very much. But he took the blame because it was his company. He was an honorable man, in some ways. And he didn’t want to throw his brother under the bus.”
Alex and I gave each other a look.
“So what do we do from here?” I said.
Roy took a moment before he answered. “Do you believe what I’m telling you?”
I looked off for a moment. “I hate to say it, Roy. But I guess right now I don’t have much of a choice but to tell you I do.”