by Tim Garvin
“Morning, Randall. You holding the fort while they dig?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Creek.”
“Call me Seb. You track down any more clues?”
Randall smiled. “Not yet. Did you talk to DeWitt?”
“Yes, I did. It turned out he was the killer.”
Randall’s mouth opened.
Seb said, “I’m joking. I shouldn’t be so convincing when I’m joking, but otherwise it’s not funny.”
“That’s true. Are you here for the dig?”
“No, I’m going to look around again. I got an idea.” Seb started toward the entrance to the lodge.
Randall followed. He said, “You do?”
This was an inquiry. At the lodge, Seb stopped, slipped on a pair of Tyvek booties. He said, “Yes, I do. I believe you’re thinking about becoming a detective.”
“I did start thinking about it.”
“Well, here’s what it is. Hard work, careful thought, and keen interest. That’s it.” Behind them, two vehicles entered the lot, Kate and Ernie in a car, and behind them, a white van marked fr mechanical. “I believe your diggers have arrived.”
Randall said, “See you.” He started toward the vehicles.
Seb said, “What are the requirements for a detective?”
Randall turned, backpedaling. He smiled broadly. He said, “Hard work, careful thought, and keen interest.”
Seb went directly to the master bedroom. His banter with Randall had been light and usual, but from the other world, the ordinary world where he no longer lived. He had, like Cody and with Cody, made a decision that could change his life. Really it had not been a decision. It came from a place beneath. But the ordinary world trembled.
The room was the same, the unmade bed, the dog-eared magazines, the looming rolltop desk. He switched on his flashlight. There were two columns of drawers in the upper section, left and right. He began pulling them, inspecting each and making a stack. He beamed the light into the cavities, looking for marks, tape, nails. He pulled the lower file drawers, inspected their cavities. He pulled open the main drawer, backing away as its nearly two-foot depth came free and swung toward his feet. He turned it over and placed it on the desktop. There were scraps of Scotch tape about a foot apart in a quadrant. A single piece of tape remained and held the corner of a Post-it note on which was written the word under.
She had left a note in the desk: Look under here, find my testament. Leo had found it, taped the note in its place, then hid the testament in his precious box.
Someone had taken it.
Outside at the wellhead, two men in gray coveralls had descended the ladder and were working with shovels in the well bottom. Kate and Ernie stood at the rim, each beaming flashlights into the dark.
Seb said, “Got a minute, Kate?”
They entered the house, and he followed her down the hall toward the bedroom. She was a generous-minded, amiable woman, a friend, and as they entered the bedroom and stood before the desk, he had the sudden strong impulse to embrace her, to reconnect with the ordinary world. He resisted. He said, “By the way, did you find a business card with Landman Realty on it?”
“I saw that in the case file. We didn’t find it. It wasn’t in the trash either.”
He showed her the upturned drawer. He explained his theory of a missing testament, mentioned by the governor. He worked the case in the ordinary world. He said, “I got good photos. Probably don’t need Barb. I’m hoping you can get some prints from the note. It should be Leo and Germaine. You might want to get prints from Josie Land too, who was her housekeeper. She lives over on—”
“Staunton. We did that this morning. We have Germaine’s prints isolated.”
“You are an on-the-ball detective.”
“Oh yeah. Missed the phone, and now I missed the note.”
“No, you found this note, Kate. There it is, and the honcho detective congratulates you. How’d they do in softball last night?”
“They won. My hubby clobbered a homer.” She punched his shoulder. “You’re a dude, Seb Creek. You are a dude.”
Seb’s phone rang. He looked at the screen. A call from Lieutenant Stinson.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“You on the way in?”
“I’m at the lodge with Kate and Ernie. I’ll be at the shop in fifteen minutes for the briefing.”
“That’s why I’m calling. It’s canceled again.”
“Okay. Why?”
“We got a dead kid at Cooper Farms.”
“Who?”
“An eighteen-year-old Hispanic named Jorge Navalino.”
AllGone
Cody swung the boat into a creek, then nosed in behind a willow that spilled into the water. He sat hunched, his hands folded into clams, thumbs out. He inhaled and exhaled, again and again, consciously. He had made a flash plan, and eventually he would have to move. He would have to examine the plan’s bits and pieces, see if it was smart. Breathing was enough now, to fill with good air and its amazing free, important energy.
Great danger had come, then great goodness.
Except if it was trickery. And they were watching him. And they had guys in boats waiting to follow him to the missile stash, and Seb Creek was a way-smart actor, someone who knew him, who they sent to freak him—hurry hurry.
Later, in the eight-by-eight cell, he would think of Seb Creek, how convincing he was, how flawless in deceit.
Or later, with Keisha, watching their children, he would think of Seb Creek, how good he was, the man who saved him.
He sucked in air and burst it out.
Let it be the last Seb. Later, even if it was the eight-by-eight cell, and he trusted himself into prison. Trust was right. Follow trust. In the end, everything depended on trust, every heartbeat and breath and inch you went, you went on trust. He hardened in trust. He claimed it.
Also, Seb Creek was right, if they found the missiles, which they would someday with metal detectors or super space science, they would find his stupid stoner fingerprints. And DNA too, since the missiles had been heavy.
As he fished up his phone and typed how to destroy DNA in the browser search window, the flash plan came back and seemed good and right. First Walmart, see Keisha, a bunch of spray paint, a coat and a hat, rags and a cleaning agent, some fishing stuff. At the last second, before hitting enter, he remembered they could search his history, so fuck fuck fuck! use the tor browser. He set the phone as a hotspot and opened his laptop. The search came up with Cease, an oxidizing bleach, sold only in England, Australia, and India. Oxidizing bleach seemed to be the ticket for DNA destruction though, normal bleach being iffy. Then he found AllGone, which was Cease sold under a different name in America. Maybe his neatnik sister had had some, and Walmart would have some, and Keisha was there.
He nosed the boat through the willow branches, bending into the wet mossy leaves that stroked him. Peener and Elton would be on the water in an hour, say, or a half hour, maybe with binoculars. They would head for the islands, zoom here and there, or maybe the creeks, thinking he would hide until dark. Or maybe say, fuck it.
And he thought, if they don’t find me, Elton will kill his nephew.
Gas Chamber
Seb arrived at Cooper Farms to find the other two investigation detectives, Marty Jerrold and Barb Addario, Barb with her two cameras slung around her neck, standing with the coroner, Walt Carney. All three were gazing into an eight-foot-deep trench. Randall Garland had gotten there ahead of him and now stood with another deputy beside his cruiser. The gravel lot was filled with vehicles, one of which was the blue van from the drone video. The trench was already staked with yellow tape. Hog stench was fierce and inexorable, mixed now and then with the smell of rotten eggs.
The trench was arm-width wide and fifteen feet long and slanted across a grassy slope between the hog buildings and l
agoons. A small white shed sat at the high end where the muddy bottom had pooled with brown water. Three metal pipes emerged from the shed base, turned down, and descended the sheer face into the pool, where bubbles bloomed and burst. More pipes connected the small shed to a larger shed behind it. Beside the trench, two white socks were neatly draped over a pair of work boots. A yellow evidence marker lay beside them.
Below, facedown in the mud in the center of the trench, lay a man’s body. He wore a short-sleeved blue shirt and brown pants rolled to the knees. The bill of his blue baseball cap knifed into the red-brown mud, and his feet were still submerged. His arms lay above his head in a diamond, as if he had begun a forward dive. A cell phone lay half sunk in the mud four feet from the body.
Seb said, “Where’s Squint?”
Marty, whose section included Cooper Farms, and who had caught the case, said, “He’s over with the father. The lieutenant’s with him.”
“His father’s here already?”
“They both work here.”
“Who else?”
“That’s it. Two guys.”
Barb said, “Amazing, when you think about. Thousands of hogs and two farmhands. Talk about efficiency.”
Carney looked up at the detectives. He said, “Right here is the essence of income inequality in modern times. Two little bitty jobs and all this wealth. You’re all Republicans, I bet. But now and then I must throw caution to the wind.”
Barb said, “Not all cops are Republican.” Carney looked at her. She said, “Don’t ask. That’s private.”
Marty said, “She’s a liberal.”
Seb said, “So what happened?”
Carney said, “That trench is full of hydrogen sulfide.”
Marty said, “Looks like he dropped his cell phone and climbed down to get it.”
Seb said, “How do you know it’s hydrogen sulfide?”
Carney said, “Because that’s a hydrogen sulfide scrubber.” He pointed to the small shed. “There’s some kind of process in the little house there that cleans up the gas that comes off the pond, the one they got covered. The methane drives the generator in the big shed, but hydrogen sulfide is too corrosive to burn. The generator was howling away when we got here. Squint shut it down.”
Seb said, “What’s the trench for?”
“They’re getting ready to cover the other lagoon and are connecting two scrubbers. They’re putting in another generator.”
“So if anybody falls in they die? Where are the people working on this?”
Marty said, “They’re not here. They’re waiting on a generator. They haven’t even built the second generator house.”
“It’s a leak,” said Carney. “They got a gas leak.”
Seb pointed to the pipes that ran from the base of the small building into the brown water. He said, “That’s bubbling. And there’s a valve.”
Marty said, “We noticed. But we can’t check it until the masks get here.”
“And the waders,” said Carney.
Seb said, “Squint Cooper explained all this to you?”
Marty said, “He did.”
“So the kid was out here by himself? No one saw him out here?”
“His dad was in number two building, dropping feed. Squint was up at his house. He’s the one found him.”
“Why’d he come?”
“Squint? It’s his farm. I guess he was overseeing.”
“And he wandered over here and looked in this trench?”
Barb looked at Seb. “Here we go. You think Squint pushed him in?”
Marty said, “There’s tracks from the pipes to where he’s lying. He climbed down there all by his lonesome.”
An ambulance pulled up in the gravel lot behind them and parked alongside the other vehicles. Two technicians emerged, a man and a woman. They walked to the trench, the man carrying several pairs of green rubber waders, the woman with a canvas duffel.
Carney said, “Thanks, guys. Email me the receipt.”
The woman unzipped the duffel and produced three face masks in plastic bags. Carney inspected one, thrust it under his arm, and began reading the enclosed brochure.
Marty said, “Tell you what, let me go down there first. Just in case.”
Carney looked up. “I would appreciate that, Marty. Not from the danger. These are M95s. They’ll do, as long as you snug them up. But if I go down there in that mud, someone will probably have to come rescue me.”
Seb said, “Best thing though, Marty, is to go down with a rope around you.”
Barb said, “Definitely, Marty.”
Carney said, “You guys have a rope?”
The male technician said, “We should. But we don’t.”
“Get your waders on, Marty,” Seb said. “I’ll see if Squint has one.”
A man wearing stained green coveralls was seated on a packing crate outside the number two building, his forearms braced on his knees, his head hanging between them. He raised his head at Seb’s approach, showing a grimy tear-streaked face, then lowered it again. Stinson, bent forward with his hands on his knees, was speaking to the man. Now he straightened. Squint stood with folded arms and a thoughtful scowl.
Seb motioned for Stinson and Squint to approach. He said softly, “We got the masks, but it looks like we need a rope. As a safety precaution. Marty’s going down.”
Stinson said, “Why Marty?”
“He volunteered. It’s his section. Walt said he’d get stuck down there.”
“Walt would get stuck, and I’m thinking Marty could too. He’s got a gut.”
“I’ll go. You tell Marty though.” Then to Squint: “You got a rope?”
Squint said, “I got some chain out here, and some cord. But I got some rope at the house.”
They drove in silence along the gravel road in the blue van. It was a working vehicle, with mud-crusted floor mats and a bug-splattered windshield. A red baseball cap was hung on a large bottle of water on the console between them.
Seb fished his phone from his front pocket and began searching his camera. He said, “Last time we talked, we talked about this boy.” He glanced at Squint. “Never know what life’s got in store.”
Squint said, “I been knowing that.”
“How’d you happen to look in that trench?”
Squint inhaled and blew his breath. He said, “I couldn’t find him. Then finally I called him. I heard his phone ringing.”
“It’s a wonder that phone could still ring, down there in the mud.”
“Well, it did.”
“How do you suppose that trench filled with hydrogen sulfide? There’s got to be end caps down there under that water.”
“I bet there aren’t.”
“Seems like something was in the news not that long ago, a couple of guys in Ohio on a hog farm. One went down and passed out, and the other one went to help, and they both died.”
“It was a family. It was three of them. They all died, one after another.”
Seb opened Prince’s video on his phone, surfed until the screen showed the farm, then leaned and held it up for Squint to see. He said, “This right here is Peter Prince’s video of your hog disaster. What was it—fifty-three hogs? I got it anonymously, so I can’t use it against him. But it might be evidence in the Leo Sackler murder.”
Squint nodded and smiled. “Good.” He glanced at Seb and flicked his eyebrows. He said, “Continue.”
“How much of the video did you watch? Because after he showed the dead hogs, he kept going. It shows the van, this van right here, following the drone. All the way out to Ruin Road. You didn’t watch that far?”
“I guess I didn’t.”
“What was Jorge going to do if he actually tracked him back to his LZ, by the way? Did he have the rifle?”
“He was going to call me, a
nd I’d bring the rifle. And make a citizen’s arrest.”
Seb closed the video, then thrust a hip to tuck the phone into his front pocket. “Thing is, if you keep watching this video, you see he turns around and heads home. But guess what? The drone turns too and follows him. Prince says he was having fun, trying to catch back up. But Jorge didn’t know that drone was following him. All the way back to the farm entrance. And what does he do? He drives right past the entrance. He does not return to the farm. That was around twelve noon, maybe half past. And Leo died around one, is what the coroner thinks. So what I think is, Jorge drives over to the lodge and robs and kills Leo Sackler, because he has heard about Leo coming into money. What do you think? Is that something the Jorge you knew could do?”
“No, it’s not. He was a good kid. But who knows.”
“Did he come back late that day?”
“No idea. I went back to the house. He was supposed to call me if he found Prince.”
“He didn’t call?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s where things are pointing anyway. I know his dad is pretty broken up. Lots of grief there. That’s not proof of character, but it’s a hint. If they were close. I mean he wasn’t a hoodlum.”
“They were close.”
“Well, I hope we never find proof, for his dad’s sake.”
The road opened onto the landscaped lawn and the Cooper house appeared. Squint stopped in front of an open detached garage and got out. He returned a moment later with a coil of waxy rope. They started back down the road.
Seb hefted the rope. “This is a cowboy rope.”
“That rope is forty years old. That was my rodeo rope.”
“Did you ride bulls and all that?”
“I was a calf roper.”
“Do any good?”
“Plenty good. Then I got drafted and joined the Marines.”
