by Dale Mayer
Becky beamed. “Yes. Please,” she added.
“Once we get you settled into your cabin,” he said, “we can do that.” He turned behind him and reached for two keys hanging on separate hooks. “I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.” With that, he walked past the small group, out the door, and turned left.
They followed behind him. Gemma had been here before, many times as a child and a teenager, and had stayed in touch with the group who owned the place. She knew Galen and Zack were curious about her friendships, but she kept them in the dark on purpose. Her friends preferred it that way, and, since she’d known them for so long and had accepted them for who they were, she didn’t have a problem with that. Lots of people did though. They took a group of individuals like this who liked to live on the edge of society and tore them apart mentally, trying to figure out what made them tick and whether they were loose time bombs or not. She was just happy to let them be themselves.
As she walked along, she asked, “How has the year treated you, Tim?”
Galen noted that the man hadn’t introduced himself.
Tim looked at her, smiled, and commented, “It’s been good. The crops have been prolific. The animals have been decent. We’ve got two more babies in the group,” he said proudly. “We’re all happy. That’s what counts.”
She nodded and didn’t say anything more. He opened up the first cabin, and she stepped inside and smiled. She was always okay with the simple life. She knew her sister would freak out though.
They walked to the second cabin which was a little bigger and had a bedroom in the back.
“This is where you two will stay, Becky,” she said, turning to look at her sister. “I figured Zack can stay in here with you.”
Rebecca stared at her, surprised. “And you?”
“I’ll stay at the other one,” she said.
Rebecca pinched her lips together, as she contemplated that and then shrugged. “Sure, I’ll take the bedroom. Whatever.”
“You and Becky,” Gemma said firmly.
She sighed. “Of course, me and Becky. Why do you always see me in a bad light?”
“I don’t,” she said, “but I always see you as being you.”
“And somehow that came across as very insulting,” Rebecca snapped.
“Listen. I’m not trying to be difficult,” Gemma said with a long-winded sigh. No matter what she said, her sister would take it as a criticism. She handed her sister the key. “This is the key to your cabin.” She walked back over to hers and stepped inside to find Galen here. “I wasn’t aware of you when I made these arrangements.”
“I’m staying in here,” he said firmly.
She studied him for a long moment, shrugged, and said, “That’s fine.” She could tell from the look on his face that she’d surprised him. “Did you expect a fight?”
“No,” he said, “but I didn’t expect you to give in so easily though.”
“If trouble comes,” she said, “I’ll be glad to have you on my side.”
“Are you expecting trouble?”
“I don’t know. I hope not,” she said. “I really don’t want to bring it to these quiet folks around us.”
“So, are we putting up guards overnight?” he asked.
“I was planning on it,” she said. “I do need some sleep though.”
“Some sleep?”
“I’m one of those weirdos who don’t sleep much,” she said with a dismissive shrug. “Four hours is plenty for me.”
“I need at least six,” he said, studying her in an odd way.
But then she was used to that. Everybody thought she was odd, different, or unique, but usually just weird.
The two of them stood, comfortably staring at each other, and then he motioned outside and asked, “Now what?”
“Now,” she said, “we need to check up on Joe’s cabin that we just left, and on Joe’s house, and see if anybody’s been there.”
Galen tilted his head. “You could leave that to us.”
“I could,” she said. “I’ve been around guys like you before. Some of them are good, and some of them aren’t.”
“That’s like everybody in the world. So what do you mean when you say ‘guys like us’ anyway?”
She gave him a hard look. “My fiancé was ex-military.”
“Ex-fiancé or ex-military?”
“Both.”
“So you don’t trust us anymore?”
“I trusted him implicitly—until I didn’t trust him anymore.”
“Sounds like a story in there. Are you always such an enigma?”
“Nothing’s mysterious about me at all,” she said with surprise. “But when I love, I love deep. And when I’m loyal, I’m loyal forever. But apparently that’s not the way the rest of the world is.” With that, she turned and headed toward the front door.
“Gemma, did you have anything to do with Joe’s death?”
She turned and looked at him in surprise. “Hell no,” she said. “Joe was a good guy.”
“So why do you think he was killed?”
“The easy answer is, he was killed entirely due to the mess he created at work with the changes he implemented. He also cut back the amount of free beer each employee could take home a month. That might have gotten him killed alone,” she said with a small smile. “But he wasn’t easy to work with or to live with. In spite of that, I liked him. He was a simple person with very high ideals and expected the rest of the world to be the same. But this is just my guess. I don’t know anything about that. It’s only what I’m assuming.”
“And your sister?”
Gemma stopped at that but made no pretense about not understanding. “I would like to think she had nothing to do with it. That’s the premise I’m operating on. It would be devastating if she had. But I also think that, if she had, it would have only been to further her own purposes.”
“Is she that selfish?”
“We’re all selfish,” Gemma said, “but, in her case, I wouldn’t have thought she could be so incredibly selfish as to kill Joe.”
*
Galen watched her closely. “And why do you expect the killer to come out this far?”
“Because, if they already killed once,” she said in exasperation, “what’s to stop them from killing again? I would do a lot to keep my niece alive.”
“And your sister?”
“I’ve already done a lot to keep her alive,” she said sadly, “but my sister has a mind of her own and doesn’t always listen to what’s best for her.”
Just then a voice from outside the cabin door snapped, “You mean, what you think is best for her.”
Gemma waved her hand. “Let’s take Becky to see the animals,” she said. “It’ll keep her happy for a while.”
“True enough,” Rebecca said, giving in, but still glaring at her sister, as if this were an old argument with no winners.
Galen watched as the women immediately joined forces for the little girl’s happiness and headed off to look at the animals. He, on the other hand, did a quick sweep of the cabin and then pulled out his laptop, connected up to the surveillance equipment they had left at Joe’s cabin and to Joe and Rebecca’s house. As he went through the videos, he couldn’t see any unwelcome guests, which made him feel marginally better. Also a part of him said this whole thing was a wild goose chase and completely unnecessary, but, for whatever reason, Gemma seemed to think it wasn’t, and she definitely wasn’t the kind to flap over nothing.
As he stepped out the front door, he heard a short whistle. He turned to look at Zack, motioning at him from the other cabin. Galen walked over and joined him on the front deck, where there were two chairs. “So, what did you learn?” Galen asked.
“I checked out the compound. They are pretty heavily armed.”
He turned slowly and stared at Zack. “Seriously?”
Zack nodded. “There’s a full armory, and I’m talking AK-47s and hand grenades. That level of armed.”
“Do
you think Gemma knows?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised either way.”
“I don’t think it would bother her if she doesn’t,” Galen said. “Something about her makes me think she’s completely okay with weapons. But I don’t know if she expects her friends here to be quite that well armed.”
“Or she was counting on it, and that’s why we’re here,” Zack said.
“Good point. If so, it was smart of her again. That’s possible too. I’ve checked the camera screens, and there’s no activity I could see at Joe’s cabin or the house.”
“No?” He scratched his head. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad at this point.”
“I did get an update from Levi,” Galen said. “Sounds like the police are looking to close the case as a burglary. Whereas they should be looking at it as yet another connected break-in to the brewery.”
“Which would mean the murderer gets away scot-free,” Zack said derisively, shaking his head. “The cops don’t see this as connected.”
“Possibly. But we need a witness or a weak link in this that we can put some pressure on, to see if we could blow things up a bit.”
“I think the weak link is here,” he said. “I’m pretty sure Rebecca knows more than she’s saying.”
Galen looked at Zack, surprised. “Seriously?”
“I get the feeling she’s not telling us everything.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why Joe was at the office so late. According to the police report, he didn’t come home until eleven that night. And the break-in later that same night? Rebecca wasn’t home at the time.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “Was the little girl?”
“No. They were both away from the house. Convenient, huh?” he said.
“You expect her to be involved somehow? That would be tough.”
“I hope not,” Zack said fervently. “I came to help, but I’m not blind to who she is either.”
“You don’t think she’s the murderer though, right?”
“No,” he said, pausing. “Not the murderer. She isn’t quite innocent either. She can be malicious. You just have to watch her interact with his own sister to see that.”
“So it could have been a coincidence that she wasn’t at home that night.”
“Well, it sounds like we need to get some answers from her. I feel like Gemma has taken control of this, and we haven’t even gotten in the front door of the investigation.” Zack snorted. “Welcome to Gemma’s world.”
“Always taking charge?” Galen looked over where the two women stood on either side of the little girl, and a horse was up at the fence, her nose down so the little girl could pet her.
“No, not necessarily,” Zack said. “I knew her ex though.”
“She said he was ex-military.”
“He turned mercenary once he was engaged to her. She didn’t know about it.”
“Ouch,” he said. “I have a feeling she has very high morals, strong ethics, and wouldn’t have approved. Especially if he didn’t tell her. I doubt secrets fly with her either.”
“Exactly,” Zack said. “He, on the other hand, wanted more money, thinking he could provide better, and they could take off and have a better life. So, once he finished his time with the military, he used some of his connections to get private work in Africa. But, when she found out, she was in Switzerland. They had an almighty row, and he headed back and took a bullet from the person who should have been his target and died in the process.”
“Ouch,” Galen said. “So there’s a bit of guilt on top of that.”
“Guilt, anger, and a sense of betrayal, I imagine. All of it is rolled up inside.”
“She’s very controlled, and I don’t think she says much or gives way to her feelings very often.”
“And yet I would say Rebecca’s the same. That’s something they seem to have in common.”
Chapter 6
The rest of the day passed in a series of outside adventure walks and a simple meal of ham sandwiches at lunch. After that, Gemma looked at Becky and said, “I’ll go lie down again for a nap. How about you?”
Becky was already yawning and, with concurrence from Rebecca, the two groups split up.
As Gemma walked into her cabin, she threw herself down on the single bed, looked over at Galen, and said, “They’ll bring another cot over for you.”
“That would be good,” he said, now seated on a lone chair in the room.
Picking up on the hesitation in his voice, she looked at him for a moment. “Look. I really am tired, and I do need to sleep, but it’s obvious you have questions, so speak up.” She curled up with a blanket over her shoulders, her eyes closed. She could feel him hesitating still, and she opened her eyes and said, “Or don’t.”
He gave a short bark of laughter. “You’re very short and to the point.”
“I don’t suffer fools gladly,” she murmured.
“Do you think your sister is involved in Joe’s murder?”
“No.” Clear and concise but nothing else was needed.
“Why was she not at home when Joe was murdered?”
“She was visiting a friend.”
“Convenient,” he replied.
“Yes.”
“And her daughter? Where was she?”
“Becky was with her mother.”
“Why was Joe working late? As in late late?”
She opened her eyes slowly and stared at him. “I don’t know.” And she wished she did. Staying an hour or two later was not his usual habit, she didn’t think …
“Did you not ask your sister?”
“I’m not sure I knew that he was working late that night,” she said, staring across the cabin. “She said she wasn’t home, and, when she got in the next morning, he was dead.”
“So she found him?”
Gemma nodded slowly. “She was pretty traumatized when she called me.”
“And did you believe her?”
“Yes,” she said, remembering the pain in her sister’s voice. The shock and horror of what had happened. Surely no one could fake that? “I did. My sister is a good actress, but that was real.”
“Can you tell me where she found him?”
“In the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, still in his pajamas with a single gunshot to the head.”
“Does that sound like a B&E gone wrong to you?”
“Of course not,” she said. “He also had a handgun, but there was no sign of it when Rebecca went to give it to the police.”
“So he came downstairs with a handgun potentially? And, if the intruder had a weapon, that would have upped the ante. He might have shot first in order to get away. A situation that built past what he’d expected.”
“Potentially. I don’t know.”
Galen frowned. “I’d still like to locate Joe’s gun.”
“According to Rebecca, it’s not in the house anymore.”
“Do you know what kind of gun it was?”
Gemma shook her head. “Had no idea Joe had one at the house. With Becky around, I would have told him to toss the damn thing.”
“Is it possible the robber wrestled it away from him and shot him with it?”
“Of course it’s possible,” she said. “But probable? I don’t know.”
“Joe was a big guy?”
“He was five feet, ten inches and about two-forty, with twenty pounds of paunch that he wore really well.”
“Right,” he said, studying her with an odd look in his eyes.
Then she should be used to that. Still, for some reason she wanted him to not be like everyone else. “Are you looking for a connection between my sister and Joe’s death?”
“I just think it’s highly irregular that she happened to be away and that the intruders would choose that night to come in.”
“So, maybe the question is, who knew she wouldn’t be there?”
“And who would that be?”
“Her girlfriend she stayed with
,” Gemma said instantly. “And her girlfriend’s husband. He works with Joe too.”
“And was he working that night?”
“Yes. The police investigated them and said they weren’t suspects. I think the escalation at Joe’s work is behind all this. Someone with a grudge. Were they just checking out his home, looking for something to steal, or did they go deliberately to kill him, I couldn’t say.”
“Okay,” he said, “what else can you tell me about the crime scene? Like blood spatter. Did anybody look at it, or do we have any crime-scene photos? Do we have anything that connects Joe’s death to Joe’s predecessor at the brewery or the other thefts and break-ins at work?”
He watched the slight wince cross her face.
“I think they’d all have to be connected. Anything else is hard to contemplate. And I haven’t seen any crime scene photos,” she said faintly. “I can describe the scene as I saw it. He’d fallen forward, as if he were on the lower steps, took the bullet in his head, and stumbled to fall facedown at the bottom of the stairs. There was a huge blood pool around his head.”
“Any around the back wall? The stairs?”
“Yes. I have no doubt that the spatter and the blood were all from the same shot.”
“And he was in his pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so chances are that’s how he was shot. What about fingerprints, the bullet, any casings, security cameras, keys to get in?”
“The back door was jimmied,” she said, “although I’m not sure if it wasn’t done afterward.”
“You mean, to make it look like it was locked prior to entry?”
“Possibly. I don’t know that. My mind just said something was off about the entire setup.”
“More so than just a burglary?”
“I think it was all part of the same thing,” she said. “I think somebody tried to make it look like a B&E, but the intention was to shoot Joe.”
“Interesting. Who else would know that he was home alone that night?”
“Whoever Rebecca might have told,” she said. “I doubt Joe would have said anything.”
“How was their marriage?”
“I thought it was fine, until hearing Rebecca bitch a little bit.”
