A Dead Issue

by John Evans

  I jogged a few steps to his side and threw a glance back over my left shoulder—back toward my Saturn with Jonah’s gun on the floor, wondering how it got there.

  “Dusty, you stupid son-of-a-bitch.” I mumbled to myself.

  CHAPTER 43

  Sally’s Diner was a relic from the forties, expanded and remodeled, leaving behind only a few traces of the art deco flavor of the past. Devereaux squeezed into the last booth by the back window, his stomach nudging the edge of the table. Liza and I slid in opposite him. In the mirror behind Devereaux I saw a waitress headed our way past a row of empty booths.

  “Three coffees,” he said before she could pull out her pad. “Anything else? Eggs? Pancakes?”

  We shook our heads and the waitress left.

  “So,” Devereaux began, folding his hands on the table. He looked at Liza. “What are your plans?”

  She had no response.

  “I mean,” he continued, “you’re here to settle Jonah’s estate. I know that, but where are you staying? Not the farmhouse . . .”

  “She’s staying with me,” I jumped in. “I don’t think she’d be safe at the farm.”

  Devereaux nodded. “You’re right. Mr. Lovell already knows that connection. He also knows you’re here to settle the estate?”

  “Probably,” Liza said quietly. “My grandfather’s lawyer contacted me after he died, but the message came through my mother’s sister-in-law. I kind of hoped that she’d keep her mouth shut, but it looks like she talked. Sheesh!”

  “Then Mr. Lovell smells money. That could get messy if you file . . .” Devereaux stopped. He looked uncomfortable with where he was headed.

  Liza smiled sadly, “Romani law is different. We don’t file for divorce.”

  Devereaux frowned and thought for a moment. ‘You mean your marriage isn’t on the books.”

  “Not your books.”

  “Then you can just walk away. Legally, he has no claims . . .”

  “There’s no ‘legal’ about it. Tony wants that money and he needs to get his honor back after I cut his balls off by leaving him.” She paused and stared at Devereaux for a moment. “So he’s not going to kill me until after the settlement and we’re away from here.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “You’d rather he kill me in your jurisdiction?”

  “I’d rather he not kill you.” Devereaux glanced toward me. “Either of you.”

  He stared off into space for a moment while the waitress came and poured our coffee. Devereaux sipped at his, ignoring the steam rising from the cup. He waited silently as we added milk and sugar. I watched the waitress walk away in the mirror.

  “The land,” Devereaux said almost to himself. “It’s all about the land.” He put the cup to his lips and pulled it away. “All along, I’ve been thinking they were after something of value, but Jonah had nothing. And then, two days ago, it hits me. It’s the land. Jonah has one hundred and seventy-three acres of unpreserved farmland, a developer’s dream—worth millions in the right hands.”

  Devereaux blew the steam off his cup before taking another sip. “There’s a developer in Easton—Horace Stem. He has a subdivision in the works—400 units, and he’d love to get his hands on that land. It’s right next-door. Opens things up for expansion.”

  Horace Stem . . . Stemcell’s father? I wondered.

  Devereaux stared at me for a full five seconds. Something was coming, and I braced myself. I caught Liza’s puzzled look. She must have felt it, too. “There’s someone else who’s been sniffing around,” he continued. “On the other side of Jonah’s farm is Cameron Industries.”

  Devereaux sat back, allowing his hands to unfold and fall to his side. He studied our reactions, waiting for some telltale sign that my interest in Liza was less than romantic, or that Liza now suddenly suspected me of insincerity—as if she wouldn’t have sensed it from the start. Liza looked at me. She placed a hand on my forearm.

  “Mark hasn’t mentioned buying the farm—yet. But I’ll tell you what—I’ll keep a real close eye on him and call you if he decides to blow his last McDonald’s paycheck on one hundred and seventy-three acres of prime real estate.”

  Devereaux’s lips strained against a smile. “You do that,” he said and shifted in his seat to reach his wallet. “Here’s my card.” He tried to tuck his wallet back into his pants pocket but had to give up, slipping it instead into his jacket like a service revolver.

  “Actually, I wasn’t thinking about Mark paying for all that land. That check would be signed by William J. Cameron.” Devereaux folded his hands on the table again and zeroed in on me. “So you didn’t know that your father was interested in that land?”

  “I didn’t even know the properties were next to each other. I didn’t know that Jonah’s farm extended that far.”

  “But you knew your father has been buying property,” Devereaux probed casually.

  “Of course—it’s been his hobby over the last decade or so. He’s bought up 643 acres of surrounding property—a square mile. That has always been his goal.”

  Devereaux put his cup down. “Yes, but when you hear that your square mile of country heaven is going to have a housing development pop up next door, you might want to change your goal—expand your territory—especially if you have the money to do it.”

  I wondered if all that cash in my father’s vault had anything to do with territorial expansion. I found myself nodding my head in agreement with Devereaux’s logic.

  “He never said anything to you about buying more land?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think you understand. My father and I don’t talk—we argue. That is, until a few days ago . . .”

  “When you agreed to work for your father.”

  “As a caretaker. That’s about the extent of my involvement in Cameron Industries.”

  “Never worked in the shop?”

  “They have a deep fryer in there?”

  Devereaux’s lips twisted into his painful little smile. I was starting to regard his stoic demeanor as a challenge and each little smile a minor victory.

  “See, what I’m thinking is,” he took a deep breath—possibly to arrange his thoughts, “we have two people who want that land. One of them, Horace Stem, stands to make a lot of money developing it. The other, your father, wants it to hold back the city from coming his way. He doesn’t want to have to look at all those houses.”

  Devereaux was right. My father cherished his untarnished view from the Crow’s Nest.

  “Both men have enough money to buy the land,” he continued, “and that puts Jonah in the driver’s seat.”

  “A bidding war,” Liza said thoughtfully.

  Devereaux aimed his index finger at her like a gun and fired off a shot by flexing his thumb. “Right on target,” he said. “Highest bidder gets the land.” He waved at the waitress and made a pouring gesture in the air and she headed off toward the coffee machine.

  “The thing is,” he continued, “that can get expensive—especially if two people want the same thing bad enough. That leaves you with two choices. Get rid of the competition . . .”

  “Or make an offer they can’t refuse,” Liza added.

  Devereaux fired off another imaginary shot in her direction. “That’s why you need to be careful. You got too many things happening here. You got your husband . . .” Devereaux paused to shake his head, “and you’ve got this land that everybody wants. You want some advice?”

  “Buy a bazooka?”

  “Get out of town while you can. Find some nice safe place and hole up. Settle the estate through a lawyer and keep out of sight.”

  “How does Brazil sound?” Liza threw me a glance.

  Devereaux shrugged his shoulders. “Not my first choice, but you have the idea.”

  We left the diner and headed across the street to Granger’s where our cars were parked. I had a nightmarish vision of the gun firing spontaneously, blowing a hole through the door, and leaving a cr
ater in the parking lot at Devereaux’s feet.

  Devereaux walked painfully to his car, and I fumbled with my keys, giving him time to leave the lot first. It all made so much sense—Jonah playing my father against Horace Stem, Stem sending someone out to intimidate Jonah into a sale. I could see it all turning bad when Jonah awoke to noises in his house and grabbed his gun from his sock drawer.

  Devereaux’s analysis gave me hope. It opened the door to Dusty’s theory that there was someone else in the house with us that night—someone truly responsible for Jonah’s death. And then it hit me. Devereaux wasn’t interested in Horace Stem. He wanted to know whether William J. Cameron hired his son to make an offer Jonah couldn’t refuse. Everything seemed to verify it. I was on my father’s payroll. Security tapes would show that my timecard was wrong. I was with Jonah when he died. My wallet was found in his pocket. Jonah’s gun was in my car—now with my fingerprints all over it. Devereaux may have suspicions, but he did not have the evidence. The tapes and the gun were still out there. I had to make sure he didn’t get his hands on them.

  CHAPTER 44

  Devereaux wedged himself into his car. I gave him a little salute and returned to my Saturn. His engine started and revved as he pulled onto the road. I waited a second before turning to be sure he was leaving. Relief swept through me and escaped in a deep breath blown through dry lips.

  I got behind the wheel of my car and felt eyes on me. Liza was sitting upright, at rigid attention, her head twisted at an uncomfortable angle toward me.

  “What is this?” she said.

  She held Jonah’s forty-five in her hands.

  “I think it’s some kind of gun,” I answered, but my light sarcasm fell flat.

  Liza turned it over in her hand, studying it, caressing it the same way she did with the .357 Magnum—the one with the K frame for heavier loads, the one she sensed was my father’s.

  “This is my grandfather’s,” she said in an awed whisper. Pieces of a puzzle must have been falling into place. “The one that . . .” she paused as her mind reeled with another thought. “Sheesh!” She brought her eyes up from the gun. They met mine. “How did it get here?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, and it felt like a lie. “Are you sure it’s Jonahyour grandfather’s?”

  “Oh, I’m sure all right. It’s a standard issue Colt 1911. He was an MP. That’s what they carried.”

  I looked over at her as she studied it from several angles. Then she went into Drill Instructor mode and popped out the magazine, racked open the slide.

  “Christ!” she exclaimed. “It’s loaded—full clip and one in the chamber.”

  Loaded? Several thoughts detonated inside my head in rapid succession. If Dusty took the gun while I held off Billy and Ray at Jonah’s door, it would be easy for him to ditch it under the seat without me seeing him. My car hadn’t been used since that awful night, so the gun would be safe there. But when did he have time to reload it? It suddenly occurred to me that it might not be Jonah’s gun. I had an absurd thought that it fell out of Mike Granger’s toolbox or something when he fixed my car.

  Liza had removed a bullet from the magazine and studied it, looking at the bottom like she was reading the fine print on a prescription bottle.

  “Are you sure it’s your grandfather’s?” I asked.

  She dropped the round into her lap and picked up the gun. She brought it to her nose and sniffed along the barrel, eyes closed. Then she pressed the butt of the pistol to her forehead for a moment, soaking up vibrations. “Yup,” she pronounced firmly. “It’s his.”

  I wondered, How does she do that?

  As if in answer to my question, she turned and smiled. “His initials are etched on the hand grip—J. H. Jonah Heard.”

  “The question is . . .” I started to say.

  “How did it get in your car?” Her smile was gone.

  I didn’t have an answer so I fiddled with they keys, sorting out the right one.

  “Of course,” she continued. “The obvious answer is that you stashed it there. It’s your car. You worked for my grandfather, and if the bullets in my grandfather’s wall match this gun, you have a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do.”

  “I think I have a whole lot of ‘splainin’ to do anyway.”

  Liza was absorbed with the magazine, flicking the bullets out with her thumb, gathering them in her hand like peanuts. “You can ‘splain’—only if you want to.” She glanced up at me. “I mean, I am curious how my grandfather’s gun got in your car.”

  “I can’t ‘splain that,” I said softly.

  “And why an angry McDonald’s night manager is putting the squeeze on you.”

  Instead of answering, I pulled out onto Belhaven Road and headed toward the Crow’s Nest, pretending that driving needed my full attention.

  “And why a 320 pound biker thinks you owe him money.”

  I glanced over at her long enough to make eye contact. I cast a look, begging for mercy.

  “And why a homicide detective keeps showing up to chit-chat over coffee about his investigation with his prime suspect.”

  I felt myself drain. Sweat broke out everywhere. I turned to her.

  “Surely, you know that,” she added.

  I glanced at her as I drove.

  “Do you think I’m a suspect?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She tucked the bullets back into the magazine, burning off nervous energy.

  “You’re Devereaux’s suspect, not mine.” She stared at me for a few seconds. “Do I think you murdered my grandfather? Of course I don’t. You’re a good person. I told you that.”

  We rode in silence for about a mile.

  “He’s fishing,” she said almost to herself, “Always fishing. He has a theory and he discusses it with you to see your reaction. Didn’t you notice how he studied us while he dropped the little bomb about the land being between your father’s property and whatshisname’s housing development? He wanted to see if you knew that—he wanted to see your eyes bug out because he was getting close to some kind of motive. Then he watched to see if my eyes bugged out when he hinted that you’re using me to get the land for your father.”

  “I noticed,” I explained. “He watches and probes—watches and probes. It’s like a game he’s playing.”

  “He’s not playing,” Liza said. “He wants an arrest—I’m wondering how much.”

  I gave her a puzzled look.

  “I’m wondering,” she said thoughtfully, “if he’d plant evidence.”

  “The gun? You think he put the gun in my car?”

  “Somebody did. Somebody wants to make it look like you were there the night my grandfather died.”

  “But if he put the gun in my car,” I argued, “why didn’t he bust me at Granger’s?”

  “Maybe the timing wasn’t right. Maybe me being in the car with my grandfather’s gun weakens his case. And maybe he had second thoughts and came back to Granger’s to get the gun and almost ran us over in the parking lot. Maybe a lot of things.”

  “But the gun was missing . . .” I caught myself. I almost said that the gun was missing before Devereaux got to the scene.

  “Of course it was missing. Or at least he says it was. Without a missing gun, what does he have? A blind farmer shooting at ghosts. No case. But if he senses something—if his gut tells him that there’s more going on than just a farmer having a heart attack after shooting up his house, the “missing” gun gives him an excuse to investigate deeper. He can even drop that evidence bomb wherever it suits him. He can build a case against anyone his gut tells him to.”

  “Devereaux wouldn’t do that,” I said softly.

  “How do you know? Cops do that kind of thing all the time—bad cops.”

  “Devereaux’s not a bad cop. He’s too conscientious.”

  “OK,” Liza continued. “If not Devereaux, who? Who would want to place you at the farm the night my grandfather died?”

  “The real killers?” I offered, and
I winced at the phrase borrowed from O.J. Simpson after his lawyers convinced a jury that the police planted a mountain of evidence against him.

  “Right,” she said ripe with sarcasm. “Sheesh.”

  As we rolled down 611, the houses thinned out quickly and we were in farm country—trees and fields.

  “Why would they pick you?” she continued. “Because you worked for my grandfather? They’d have to know you—really know you . . . your schedule, your friends, family, your whereabouts. Otherwise, they plant evidence and you show up on Who Wants to be a Millionaire that night. Doesn’t make sense.”

  She was absolutely right. Whoever placed the gun in my car had to know that I was there that night. The list suddenly became very short: Dusty and Cash; Dexter and Phil, the two jerks who worked our shift; and—I almost forgot, Dave Morgan, the oil delivery guy I met at the top of the lane. And, to be thorough, I threw in Billy and Ray, Jonah’s drinking buddies. They knew I was at Jonah’s before going off to McDonald’s.

  The list became shorter when I eliminated those who had no chance to take Jonah’s gun. Phil and Dexter were working with Cash at McDonald’s. Dave Morgan pulled out of the lane while the gun was still in Jonah’s sock drawer. That left Dusty, Ray, and Billy as the only ones with an opportunity to take the gun—Dusty, as I crouched below the door, and Ray . . . or Billy, while they stood in shock over their dead friend. I remembered their startled realization that the intruder went out one door while they came in the other and the possibility that he had Jonah’s gun. But what if Billy and Ray were not quite honest with each other. What if one of them picked up the gun for protection? It would be a natural thing to do in a room full of bullet holes and a dead body. Maybe one of them carried it off and was too afraid after the fact to come forward. Billy was pissed at Devereaux because he had accused him of taking the gun. What if he really did? But if he did, why would he plant it in my car?

  Dusty kept popping up as a likely suspect. Taking that gun would have been easy and not at all shocking. He was unpredictable and impulsive. But, once again, why would he plant it in my car?

  There could have been someone else—like Dusty had said earlier. Someone was in that house with us that night, around us, near enough to see us, but careful enough not to be seen. Someone who took the gun before we left the house, and before Billy and Ray entered it. Someone who wanted to remain in the shadows and wanted me to look guilty. Someone who was, in fact, the real killer.