Murder in Rat Alley

by Mark de Castrique

  “My father said he just disappeared,” Cory said.

  The rest of us looked at each other with confusion.

  “And Frank DeMille was what relation?” Hewitt asked.

  “My father’s older brother. An uncle I never knew.”

  Hewitt nodded and picked up his story. “Frank DeMille was a software engineer on-site for writing and maintaining the codes that kept the radio telescopes under computer control. Once the station had completed its function for that rotation, the computer scientists reprogrammed for the next pass. That was when Frank DeMille was reported missing. He was never seen again.”

  “This was over a decade before I was born,” Cory explained. “My father, Zack DeMille, came here looking for his brother. At first, he thought Frank might have gone out for a walk that evening and gotten lost. He loved the woods. Dad hiked the area for days. He eventually took a job with the city of Asheville and wound up staying here.” Her eyes welled with tears. “He and Mom were killed in a car crash ten years ago. I hate to think that they died without ever knowing what happened.”

  The room fell silent.

  Then Hewitt said, “I knew the FBI was concerned because Frank DeMille worked with classified computer information. The scientist in charge had told them how innovative Frank was. That he was a real loss to the project. His skills went beyond the space program, and he’d drawn the attention of the Department of Defense as they began to consider the computer as another potential weapon of the Cold War. I heard the theory floated that Frank had been abducted.”

  Hewitt looked at Efird and smiled. “Yes, that did fuel the UFO crowd when they heard the word. Not a Soviet abduction but an alien abduction. They still consider PARI to be hiding an interstellar spaceport with more saucer traffic than the jets at the Asheville airport.”

  “That’s crazy,” Shirley said. “Everybody knows PARI is a vortex of overlapping dimensions, not some interstellar hub.”

  Again, Cory smiled and looked at me. We both knew Shirley wasn’t kidding.

  Newly leaned forward in his chair. “I would think Sheriff Hickman would know this. It’s got to be in the cold case records of the Transylvania Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Not necessarily,” Hewitt said. “The location was federal property, not county. If not owned by NASA, it would be national forest patrolled by rangers.”

  “Why’s Hickman on the case now?” I asked.

  “Because the land’s no longer federal,” Hewitt said. “I don’t know the details, but there was some kind of acreage swap with the government.”

  “That’s right,” Newly agreed. “I’d forgotten. Must be twenty years ago. The case probably didn’t cross into Hickman’s jurisdiction with the exchange. He might not be aware of the disappearance.” The homicide detective turned to Cory. “Tuck and I will offer him any help we can. First, he needs to determine if it is indeed your uncle.”

  “DNA,” Cory said.

  Newly nodded. “Your father was your biological father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I suggest you let us take a saliva swab. I’m going to notify Special Agent Lindsay Boyce, since the FBI should still have an interest. That will give us access to the Quantico labs and maybe expedite the process. Is that OK?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Hewitt took a deep breath. “Do you want Cory to go with you?”

  “That’s not necessary,” Efird said. “I’ll bring the kit here. That is if we’re done.”

  Hewitt stood. “Thank you for your assistance. I know we’re not always on the same side, but you have my unqualified respect.”

  The rest of us rose.

  Newly gave a wry smile. “My dear counselor, I hope we’re always on the same side. The side of truth.”

  * * *

  “Had you heard that story from Cory before?” I asked Nakayla the question as we sat in the conversation area of our three-room office suite.

  The layout was simple and practical. You entered a room that looked more like an old English drawing room than an office. A leather sofa, two matching chairs, a Persian rug, and antique end and coffee tables were meant to relax our clients in a homey atmosphere.

  Off to the left of this main room was my office, the door usually shut so that the mess didn’t give the impression I was disorganized. I simply liked to keep everything within arm’s reach. On the right, Nakayla’s open door revealed a tidy, orderly desk and file cabinets that assured clients that important documents wouldn’t fall into the trash.

  Nakayla sat in a corner of the sofa, her bare feet tucked under her thighs. “No. If Cory hasn’t told Shirley, she hasn’t told anyone. And it happened nearly fifty years ago.”

  I rose from the chair opposite her and stepped over Blue, who lay sprawled at my feet. As I paced back and forth, the coonhound followed me with his eyes. “Whether it’s her uncle or not, Sheriff Hickman has to be looking at a murder investigation. You don’t bury yourself.”

  “Newly’s smart to cover the FBI,” Nakayla said. “Not that Hickman wouldn’t have brought them in. But you know as well as I that the local authorities don’t all welcome feds into their cases.”

  “Hickman won’t have any choice if it turns out to be Frank DeMille.” I glanced at my watch as if the hour since Hewitt and Cory told their stories should have yielded some results. “I guess we’ll know in the next few days.”

  Nakayla stretched her legs and slipped on her shoes. “Probably. My guess is Newly called Hickman immediately, asking for a skeletal fragment to go with Cory’s DNA swab. The sheriff has no reason not to cooperate.”

  A knock sounded from the hallway door. Then Cory opened it. “Can we talk a few minutes?”

  Blue sat up on his haunches, and his tail thumped the floor like a metronome.

  Nakayla stood. “Certainly. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I’m coffeed out.” Cory closed the door behind her and crossed to the sofa.

  Nakayla sat beside her as I returned to my chair. Blue rested his head on Cory’s knee and was rewarded with a scratch behind his ears.

  “Did Tuck get everything he needed?” I asked.

  “Yes. He and Detective Newland were going to see Sheriff Hickman and then Special Agent Boyce at the FBI office. Newland thought it would be bad to run straight to the feds. Since Hickman had called Newland, it was only fair they contact him first.”

  I nodded in agreement. Investigations can be very territorial, and there was no benefit in alienating the Transylvania County sheriff. It was his case until it wasn’t.

  Cory shifted her gaze to Blue’s face as if she were more comfortable talking to the dog. “If the DNA proves it was my Uncle Frank, I don’t know whether to be happy or sad. Is knowing that he’s dead better than living with uncertainty when uncertainty means he could be alive?”

  “It’s better to know,” Nakayla said. “Wouldn’t your parents have taken some degree of comfort, slim as it may be, that he didn’t just turn his back on his family? That he didn’t reject those who loved him?”

  Cory kept staring at Blue. I saw a tear trickle along one cheek and fall to the back of her hand. Blue licked it and whimpered.

  Cory pushed him away and leaned back against the sofa. “Yes. I guess. But what do I do now?”

  “What do you mean?” Nakayla asked.

  Cory’s expression hardened. “I never knew my uncle. My feelings are for my parents, if that makes any sense. I cry because they’re not here to. I cry because I believe my father’s brother was murdered. Someone had to have buried his body.”

  Nakayla and I said nothing.

  “And if it is Uncle Frank and he was murdered, I cry because there’s nothing I can provide the police to help find his killer, whether that killer is alive or long since dead.”

  “Are there no relatives of your parents�
� generation?” I asked.

  “I have an aunt. Frank and my father’s sister. She was the baby of the family. She’s in Roanoke. We’ve never talked much about Frank, and it’s been several months since I’ve seen her.” Cory sniffled. “She’s closer kin than I am. Guess she’ll get the official notification.”

  “You should give her a call,” Nakayla said. “She might see a newscast and have the same reaction you did. The story will break before any DNA analysis is complete.”

  Cory nodded. “OK. But that’s not what I came to talk about.”

  I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “Go ahead.”

  “This Sheriff Hickman. What do you know about him?”

  I looked at Nakayla. She’d grown up here and knew the players better than I did.

  “He’s been sheriff a long time,” Nakayla said. “Fifteen years at least. I was in high school when he was elected. Before I met Sam, I was working for an insurance company in fraud investigations. Sometimes those cases were in Transylvania County, and he served some papers for us. Nothing demanding investigative skills, so I can’t speak to his competency. I would think Hewitt and he would have tangled at some point.”

  “They did,” Cory said. “Hewitt has defended six clients over the years that were arrested by Hickman and his deputies. Hewitt got all of them acquitted. Hewitt said some of the acquittals were the DA’s fault for bringing a weak case to trial. But two of the cases had bungled evidence and procedural search irregularities that Hewitt exploited. He made the sheriff look bad. You know how Hewitt can be. Cut a witness on the stand to pieces and then pour salt in the wounds. In other words, if Hewitt were drowning, instead of a life preserver, Hickman would throw him an anchor.”

  “And you’re afraid if Hickman discovers you work for Hewitt, he’ll slack off on the investigation?” I asked.

  Cory shrugged. “I don’t know. I would think he’d want to close a murder case. It’s more the competency issue. I wouldn’t worry if it were Detective Newland. He’s one of the best, but if it’s murder, it’s outside his jurisdiction.”

  “There’s the FBI,” Nakayla said.

  “Yeah. The Federal Bureau of Incommunicado. Ask them what time it is, and they answer they can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  I understood where Cory was headed. “If it’s murder, we’ll do it.”

  She blushed. “I haven’t asked yet.”

  “See. Aren’t we good detectives?”

  I glanced at Nakayla. She nodded, signaling she approved.

  “This will be a professional relationship,” Cory said. “I’ll be paying whatever’s your rate.”

  “No, you won’t,” I said. “We’re not busy right now, so your case will keep us occupied. Idle hands and the devil’s workshop.”

  “But if you’re not busy, then you should let me pay you. You’ve got bills, don’t you?”

  “OK. Give Hewitt a dollar and have him give it to us. Then if you and your aunt ever file a wrongful death suit, our work will be part of Hewitt’s case file. That’s our final offer.”

  What Cory didn’t know was that Nakayla and I had several million dollars in an offshore account that came from two earlier investigations—one involving a long-ago theft from her family and the other tied to my service and injury in Iraq. Both “treasures” went unreported to Uncle Sam and both now trickled through our detective agency and provided a comfortable income and the ability to make generous donations to worthy causes. Causes like Cory’s.

  Tears welled in the paralegal’s eyes. “It’s too much to ask. Really.”

  “You didn’t ask,” Nakayla said. “It’s something we want to do. Don’t deny us the opportunity.”

  Cory pulled a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her tears. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “We haven’t done anything yet. It might not be your uncle, and it might not be murder.” I said the words, but I didn’t believe them.

  Chapter 3

  Confirmation came four days later. On Friday morning, Special Agent Lindsay Boyce first notified Transylvania County Sheriff Hickman that the FBI had positively identified the skeletal remains as belonging to Cory’s uncle, Frank DeMille. Then, since Detective Newland had alerted her to the case, Boyce called him to see if he wanted to break the news to Cory.

  Newly phoned me to share developments and to say he and Tuck Efird were coming to Cory’s office and they’d like to stop in and speak with Nakayla and me afterward.

  A few minutes before eleven, the two detectives made a somber entrance. Each man accepted a cup of coffee without a sarcastic remark or wisecrack. A good police officer never takes delivering news of a death as routine. Newly and Efird were good officers.

  We moved to the conversation area, Nakayla and I on the sofa, Newly and Efird in the chairs.

  “How’d Cory take it?” Nakayla asked.

  “Pretty well,” Efird said. “The initial shock occurred last Monday so she’s had time to prepare herself. I mean who else could it have been?”

  “Did Boyce say if an ME had determined the cause of death?” I asked.

  Efird looked to his partner for what to share.

  Newly shook his head. “No. The road grader’s blade did some damage to the bones, but there were no other indications of violence. Clothing had rotted away except for a belt buckle and a pair of glasses. Death’s labeled a homicide. No one can bury himself.”

  “Where’s it going from here?”

  “Boyce is opening a federal investigation. Sheriff Hickman will be marginalized.” Newly glanced at Efird. “We’ll be shut out since we have no jurisdictional authority, and the FBI’s cone of silence will descend upon everything. They’ll interview Cory and her aunt, so we’ll get some information from them, but unless they need us for something, we’ll get news from the press briefings like anyone else.”

  “Is a press briefing scheduled?”

  “Not that we’ve heard, but you’ve seen the story of the discovery’s already made the papers and local TV this week. Boyce will hold that conference sooner rather than later. And she’ll make an appeal for anyone who might have known DeMille.”

  “Good luck with that,” Efird said. “We’re talking nearly half a century ago.”

  Nakayla and I looked at each other. Even the FBI could have a problem solving a case that cold.

  Newly shifted in the chair and rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Look, we know Cory is going to be anxious for a resolution. And she’ll have Hewitt Donaldson championing her cause. He could have the opposite effect in that Boyce won’t want a defense attorney coming anywhere near her investigation, even if he’s helping a relative of the victim. That’s just not in her DNA.”

  “Understood,” I said. “You want us to try and rein him in.”

  Efird smiled for the first time. “That’s a harder task than solving the case. No, because we know you’re also going to have trouble sitting on the sidelines.”

  Nakayla and I exchanged glances. I knew she was thinking the same thing: had Cory told them we’d offered to become involved? Nakayla gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. I agreed. Newly and Efird were smart guys who knew us too well. They figured we’d get involved whether Cory wanted us to or not.

  “So you want us to rein ourselves in?” I asked.

  Newly lowered his voice. “We want you to know we’ll help behind the scenes any way we can. As you know, there are protocols working with the FBI that we have to respect. You have more latitude.”

  “As long as we don’t obstruct justice or do something else that gets our PI licenses revoked.”

  “And you’re too smart for that,” Newly said. “At least Nakayla is.”

  “OK. What do you think Sheriff Hickman’s response will be to all this?”

  “In a word, indifference. The crime didn’t happen on his watch nor on
county property at the time. He’ll be glad of two things—getting his picture made with Special Agent Boyce and handing off the case. He might or might not answer your questions, depending upon how you approach him.”

  “And what do you think Cory’s reaction will be?” Nakayla asked.

  “In another word, relief.” Newly cocked his head and eyed us skeptically. “You’re telling me you haven’t already discussed it?”

  “She hasn’t asked us.” Technically, my answer was true, since we’d volunteered before she could ask.

  “Well, we’ll leave that up to you as to whether you want to aid her or not. We just wanted to let you know we’ll do what we can to help you.”

  Everyone stood. The conversation was over.

  As the detectives headed toward the door, Efird paused and turned. “Don’t rule out the UFO nutters. There’s a vocal group that thinks our government’s been colluding with little green men for decades. It’s paranoia of global proportions, and God only knows what they’d do to save the planet.”

  “Have you run into them before?”

  Efird laughed. “Run into them? I was married to one.”

  When Nakayla and I heard the elevator in the hall taking the two detectives to the ground floor, I asked, “What do you think we should do first?”

  Nakayla refilled her coffee cup and returned to the sofa. I sat opposite her.

  “I think we need to stay a step ahead of the FBI,” Nakayla said. “Special Agent Boyce’s loyalty is to the Bureau, and she’s certainly not going to share information with private investigators. She could even instruct persons interviewed not to speak about her inquiries.”

  “OK. I see that.”

  “But it will take Boyce a little while to build her momentum. Meanwhile, we can visit the crime scene if the PARI facility isn’t closed, and we might get a head start on any leads Cory can provide.”

  “I wonder how much information about the NASA tracking station is available online?”