by Rick Murcer
Chapter-7
“What happened, Chase? We all need to hear it from your lips. I don’t ever remember you lying to your Mom or me, so talk to us.”
It was almost five a.m., and the people I cared about the most, minus one, were gathered around our antique oak table. My mom, still pretty in the way older women are, was holding my hand. I think it’s her eyes. The hazel in them seems to brighten with age. My dad, looking older than I could remember, set his gaze on me too. Not just because of what was happening, but because he’d loved Maggie from the start. I think his vision of grandkids and Maggie and I taking over the farm had been embedded far deeper into his subconscious than he, or I, had realized. My kid sister, Lizzy, all of fourteen, sat with tears on the brim of her lower lids, but never quite letting them come. She was a little jock and, in lots of ways, tougher than me.
Aaron, supporting an ice pack under his eye where Jill Burrows had thumped him, sat beside Chuck. Brawny, smartass Chuck sat speechless: truly a rarity for him.
It seemed we were all on the verge of one of those life-changing epiphanies, and each of them was connected to what had happened to Maggie . . . and me.
I went over the events again. I halted, momentarily, when they cried, when they swore, when I cried, when my brain refused to process what my eyes had seen. They say time heals. Maybe. But the image of her twisted body had left a tattoo on my heart that a million years would never remove.
After I finished, a pregnant silence filled the room, then Chuck broke it, his strong jaw determined to hide his emotion. I was thankful for that.
“Why didn’t the cops check the area for footprints and stuff?” he asked.
“I think they might have later, but they were pretty sure they had their man, so why bother? But I do think Detective Green had asked me that last question because she wasn’t sure what really happened.”
“Let’s get this right: you got pissed, left the lighthouse, came back later, heard Maggie scream, and then after . . . after seeing her, you heard the door, fell over your tire iron, and then saw someone hitting the path as you yelled for help, right?” asked Aaron.
“Yeah, that’s it, in a nutshell.”
More silence. Then I realized why: the story did sound bad, even contrived. Like something from that old fugitive movie from the ‘90s.
“It does sound off, I guess. But it’s true.”
“I believe you, but it’s not us you have to convince,” said Aaron.
“So how’d the tire iron get out of your car? Didn’t you lock it?” asked Lizzy.
Out of the mouth of babes.
“I don’t always, especially around here. I had the keys in my pocket, but I really don’t remember if I did or didn’t, but probably not.”
Aaron stood up and paced around the room, frowning and rubbing the back of his neck.
“You know what that means, right?” asked Aaron.
“It means someone was watching and following you two. Maybe even trying to make it look like you did it,” said my dad.
I was quickly coming around to their train of thought. Maybe the shock was starting to wear off, or maybe it was becoming clearer to me that I was in deep trouble. Either way, with the help of mom’s coffee, the light was getting brighter.
“Why in the hell would anyone do that? I mean, Maggie didn’t have an enemy in the world, and I don’t go around pissing people off. Except for Chuck and Aaron, once in a while. We weren’t exactly target material for some mafia hit or drug gang after a deal went south.”
“That might be true as far as you know, and since I spend half of my waking life around you, I can vouch for that,” said Aaron, slowly. “I didn’t see Maggie as much as you.”
The tone in his voice made me uncomfortable, then it made me see red.
“What are you driving at? That maybe Maggie had something going on that no one knew about?” I yelled. Standing, the chair hitting the hardwood floor, I started around the table, fully intending to knock Aaron on his pious ass. I guess this was one of those times when he pissed me off. Chuck grabbed me, and my dad got between us.
“Don’t you be saying stuff like that. She was as pure as they get. We hadn’t even . . . you don’t know shit!”
“Easy, Chase. I didn’t say what you heard. I’m only trying to walk down every path here and make sure you don’t go away for a long while. My life wouldn’t be too cool if I had to hang around with just Chuck all of the time.”
I was breathing hard, still wanting a piece of him, then Chuck snorted. My dad grinned as Aaron pushed his glasses up farther on his nose, his patented twinkle forcing me to shake my head and smile. That look got me every time, and he knew it.
I sat back down and put my hands on each side of my head. I noticed the aroma of baked cherry strudel coming from the kitchen and wondered when mom had done that. Man. My head had really been up my butt.
“I know. Its justthis is Maggie we’re talking about.”
“We all loved her too, man, so listen to what old Brainiac is saying,” said Chuck.
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“Listen. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything weird, even a feeling?”
“Dude, you’re watching too many crime shows on TV,” said Chuck.
I searched my mind for something, and then it slapped me: Maggie’s car.
I sat up straight. “After the cop threw me into the back of his car, he stood outside, talking to his partner for a minute, then just as they got in, I thought I saw Maggie’s car drive past, heading back to town.”
“Thought?” asked Mom, coming in from the kitchen with cherry strudel for everyone.
“No. It was her car. It wasn’t just the moon that made her Bug stand out, but it went underneath those bright street lamps just outside the State’s parking lot.”
“Where was her car when you picked her up after work?” asked Aaron, a strain of excitement dancing in his voice.
“It was in the employee parking area behind the Sands restaurant, where it always is when she was working.”
My dad reached for his cell and dialed a number. “I’m calling my brother Jack.”
“Why call our attorney now?”
“Because her car wasn’t there when we came to get you.”
Chapter-8
After an hour on the phone, we were able to arrange a get-together with Detective Green, my Uncle Jack, and us near the beach . . . and the lighthouse. My mom decided to stay home with Lizzy. We were all exhausted, but there was a special kind of tired in her eyes that I’d only seen once before. It was just after she’d received the call that her sister had been killed in a horrible car accident near Grand Rapids. The crash had been so intense that it took them three hours to get all of the body parts out of my aunt’s car. This look was a little different, though. It was almost like she knew something none of the rest of us did. Anyway, I think that kind of news affects us all in different ways, but it was like she was reliving that experience all over again, and as much as she’d cared for Maggie, it was me she was really worried about. I think she thought it would be awhile before they got my body parts out of this wreck. But I knew it would work out because I hadn’t done anything, and this is America, right?
My dad piled my friends and me into the SUV, and fifteen minutes later, we stood at the State Park’s entrance, waiting. It was around seven a.m., but the sun had already risen, and the day was heating up. I could hear the waves and even got a whiff of the lake’s fishy, but fresh, breeze. It struck me how much I loved this beach life, and wondered how anyone could ever leave it. It was addicting. More than that, it was home.
A few minutes later, Detective Green pulled up. She had someone with her, a man. They stayed in the car, talking and drinking coffee until Uncle Jack showed.
Jack got out of his Mercedes and motioned for us to follow him.
“Have they attempted to talk to you?” asked Jack.
I shook my head. “They haven’t got out of the car.”
/> “They’re just trying to figure a way to pin this on Chase, that’s all,” lamented Chuck.
He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but his loyalty was unbelievably comforting.
Both doors of the blue state trooper unit opened, and the detective and the man got out.
He was over six foot, blond, kind of stocky, and had these blue eyes that just sort of saw right through you. Without even talking to him, I immediately felt uneasy, yet comfortable at the same time. Some people just have this presence, this . . . hell, I don’t know, this charisma. It was like he knew my thoughts before I said anything. I glanced at dad, then Aaron and Chuck. Strangely, they all had the same kind of look on their faces.
Who is this guy?
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. He stretched out a large hand and smiled.
“I’m Manny Williams. I’m a detective with the Lansing Police Department.”
His grip was strong, and there was a sense of honesty about the man. He was easy to like.
He shook everyone else’s hand, and even Uncle Jack, at least for a second, returned his smile.
“Manny and I go way back,” said Detective Green, “and I invited him in on this one. He’s the best detective I’ve ever met, and he does that profiling thing you see on TV . . . and he does it better than most.”
“None of your shyster-ass tricks. We’re here because we have more information, and we just want to find out what happened to . . . Maggie, got it?” said my uncle.
Detective Williams nodded and then turned to me, locking onto my eyes.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I’m only here to get to the truth. That’s what you want, right?”
I felt the tears well up. That simple statement caused Maggie’s face to flash across my mind and led, once again, to the scene at the rocks at the base of Little Sable Point Lighthouse. Her being gone didn’t seem real, still. Would it ever?
“It is what we want,” said my dad, knowing it’d be a minute before I could speak.
“Tell me when you saw Maggie’s car, again,” said Detective Green.
“Like I said, it was just before the cops got in the car, and I was sitting in the back,” I answered.
“Show me where you were and then where you saw her vehicle,” she said.
I walked over to the parking lot and then, some twenty feet later, stopped, turning toward the road.
“This was it,” I said. “The car came over that ridge and went toward town.”
“You’re sure?” asked Detective Williams.
“Yes.”
“Okay. And you were sitting in the back seat, behind the driver or on the passenger side?” he asked.
“The passenger side.”
He ran his hand through his hair and frowned, but didn’t say anything. More of that uneasiness whispered to me.
“Well, we found Maggie’s car. It was parked a block from yours in another driveway that led up to a house near the dunes. The CSU folks are going over it now, and they’ll let us know what they find. But I got to tell you, there was some blood smeared on the driver’s seat, like the killer wiped their hand on it. Whoever did this was probably in her car.”
“Is that like, well, don’t killers sometimes come back to the scene?” asked Aaron.
Williams smiled. “That’s what people think about killers, that they come back to the scene of their crime, but in reality, it doesn’t happen unless the perp has a different agenda. Some serial killers and arsonists would fit into that minority, but ‘no’ is usually the right answer.”
Detective Green crossed her arms and glanced at Uncle Jack, then me.
“That also means whoever did this went back to get her car. The keys were still in the ignition. That says to me the killer had access to them. Do you have any idea how that could have happened, Chase?”
“Don’t answer that, Chase. They’re fishing,” said my uncle.
My dad scowled at Uncle Jack and then motioned for me to answer. “We’ve nothing to hide.”
“Well, she must have left her purse in the car. Or maybe she brought it with her. I honestly don’t remember,” I said.
“I agree with you that she must have left her purse in the car. I don’t think whoever killed Maggie would have bothered to take her purse from her and then do what they did. Besides, we didn’t find her purse anywhere near the lighthouse,” said Detective Green.
It was my turn to frown. “What do you mean?”
She gazed out to the lake, the horizon becoming ever so brighter, then turned back to me.
“Chase. We found it down the beach, near where you said you had been walking.”
Chapter-9
“What the hell does that mean? You still think I did this?” I bellowed . Fatigue and stress don’t play well together, and I was living proof.
Detective Williams stepped closer to me. “Chase. What we do in this cop world is try to eliminate possibilities and, in this case, suspects. I want you to think like Detective Green and me for a moment, then tell me what you would consider , understand?”
That voice of his was so disarming. The man had done this a time or two.
I tried to do what he asked, and for a moment, just a second, I understood what was going through their minds, I think. I hadn’t really supplied them with options, and people lied all of the time for less serious reasons, far less.
“I, well, I guess that—”
My uncle took three steps, grabbed my arm, and pulled me back to where dad and the others were standing. Interesting how I had been kind of cut from the herd and hadn’t even realized it. They were really good.
“Don’t answer those kinds of questions, at least the way they’re leading you. They want you to confess, even though you didn’t do it. From now on, no more questions answered unless I say it’s okay. Okay?”
I looked at my dad, then Chuck, then Aaron. I’m pretty sure we were all on the same page. I didn’t do this, and I wanted to answer all of their questions.
My grandpa on my mom’s side had been a different kind of man. Strong, fearless, full of that life energy we’d all like to have. He’d fought in Germany in 1944, and during one of those special talks that only granddads and grandsons have, he’d said, Don’t be afraid of nothing, walk boldly into the pit. You ain’t going to live forever anyway, so living like a chicken shit is a waste.
He was right. It was time to go boldly. I didn’t have anything to hide.
Detective Williams had said to put myself in his shoes and tell him what I’d think. That was still a good idea to me.
“Uncle Jack. I’m going to talk to them about whatever they want. Maggie’s gone, and someone has to pay. The sooner we stop with the games, the faster that will happen.”
“You don’t know how this game is played. Innocence isn’t always the best way to avoid . . .”
“Stop. For God’s sake and ours, stop,” said my dad, that familiar, and sometimes dreadful authority reverberating through his voice. When dad got like that, it was time to listen.
“I believe in the truth, no matter what that is. So at least for now, Jack, you’re fired. We’ll do this the right way.”
Jack stared at me and then dad. He threw up his hands. “You’re both damn fools. Don’t come running when this all blows up in your faces. Oh, and you’ll get my bill, real soon,” he called over his shoulder as he stomped toward his car.
“Yeah, I figured that,” said my dad, quietly.
Got to love my dad.
Without another word, I motioned to the two cops.
“Listen. For the tenth time, I know what this looks like. I don’t know how her purse got there. I don’t know who would have followed us, then me. I just know what I’ve told you, and it’s the truth.”
The two cops exchanged glances.
“You sound like an honest man, but we have to follow the evidence, and right now, that’s not looking so good,” said Detective Green.
&n
bsp; I started to answer and then realized that Detective Williams wasn’t looking at me, but over my shoulder instead. I felt one of those oh-no chills. You know, like when you’re sure there’s some type of monster behind you, ready to tear your head off. I was close.
“What’s on your mind, son?” asked Detective Williams.
I turned to see who he was speaking to. Aaron was moving sand with his right foot and watching the process. I could tell he was in one of his famous thinking spells. But the feel of intensity draped around him was out of character. He usually kept his calm, come hell or high water. Not this time.
“If you two are right, whoever was driving Maggie’s car was probably the killer, right?” asked Aaron, that strange look not leaving his face.
“Let’s just say that I’d like to have a little one-on-one session with that person,” answered Detective Green. Williams said nothing; he just waited.
Aaron pursed his lips and spoke softly. “I saw who was driving her car last night.”
Chapter-10
I was stunned. My mouth wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t move. Detective Williams had no such ailment.
“What do you mean, Aaron?” he asked.
“Just what I said. It was around twelve thirty, and I’d just finished up at the Barbeque Ranch and was getting into my car, when I saw the yellow Bug heading south. I waved but—”
“Who was it? And why in the hell didn’t you say something sooner?” I growled. “It could have saved us all of this crap. Damn, Aaron.”
I felt like a million tons of manure had been lifted from my shoulders. Then, for no reason I could think of, I felt dread reach over and kiss me on the cheek. Aaron’s answer was going to change each of us forever. I just knew it.
Aaron hesitated, looked down at his foot again, then shook his head slowly. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Chuck back away from him like he thought whatever came out of his mouth would have the same effect as a grenade. Odd. My dad looked nervous too, but held his ground.
