by John J. Lamb
“Sergeant.” He flexed his brawny left shoulder to signal the fact he wore three gold chevrons on his shirtsleeve.
“My apologies, Sergeant. Do you mind telling me why I’ve been stopped?”
“You ran the red light and I’m gonna issue you a citation.” He pointed back to the intersection of Highway 33 and Coggins Spring Road.
I struggled to keep my voice serene. “I don’t understand how that’s possible. You turned your emergency lights on to stop me about fifty yards before we got to the intersection and, besides, the light was green.”
“Why don’t you shut up—or I might just decide that you’re interfering with my duties. Now, gimme your license, registration, and insurance card and don’t make me tell you again.”
Then I noticed the cop’s nametag above the pocket on his uniform shirt. Removing my license and car insurance card from my wallet, I said to Ash, “Honey, I’d like you to meet one of Massanutten County’s finest, Sergeant Trent Holcombe.”
Ash, who was already simmering, leaned over to look out the driver’s window. “Imagine trash like that wearing a badge.”
“I’d watch my mouth if I were you, ma’am.”
“I’ve always believed that you can tell how brave a man is by the way he threatens an unarmed woman.” I handed Trent the license and insurance card. “My vehicle registration is in the glove box. Can I reach for it or are you going to claim you thought I was reaching for a weapon so you can stick your gun in my ear?”
“If I wanted to point a gun at you, I wouldn’t need any excuses.”
I grabbed the registration form and gave it to Trent. “So just to satisfy my curiosity, did your daddy send you out on this errand or is this just a routine psychotic episode caused by your steroid addiction?”
For a moment I thought I’d gone too far. Trent’s jaw got so tight you could actually hear his teeth gritting and his hands balled up into enormous fists. Then he seemed to regain some control over his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Shut up, you goddamn cripple.”
Trent went back to his car and I watched in the mirror as he stood and wrote out the ticket. He came back a couple of minutes later and stuck the leather-bound ticket book under my nose. I took the book and examined the citation, amazed at Trent’s awful penmanship. Not only had he charged me with running the light, he’d also cited me for having a brake light out. Of course, my brake lights were in perfect working condition, but I knew that if I said anything to Trent, he’d break out a taillight with his nightstick. I’d occasionally run into badge-heavy thugs like Trent back in San Francisco and knew how they operated.
“Sign here.”
I took the pen and signed the ticket—there was no point in disputing the false charges here because all that would do was land me in jail. Handing the citation book back to Trent, I asked, “So, what did I do to annoy your dad? I thought I was properly respectful earlier this morning.”
Trent snatched the ticket book away, tore out my copy of the citation, and flipped it through the window. “This was all my idea. I just wanted to introduce myself and to make sure you understood to mind your own damn business and watch that wise-ass mouth of yours.”
“And if I don’t, I might get pulled over and ticketed a lot, right?”
Trent chuckled. “I’m just enforcing the laws. It’s not my fault if you’re a bad driver.”
I held up the ticket. “Any point in fighting this in court?”
“Not unless you want to really piss me off.”
“Thanks for the guidance.”
“Y’all drive safe now.”
Ash was quivering with rage, but managed to suppress it until Trent returned to his patrol car. However, once the sheriff ’s cruiser drove off, Mount Saint Ashleigh erupted. Volcanoes are fascinating to watch—so long as you’re not in the zone of destruction, so I allowed her to vent. Finally, she looked at me incredulously and demanded, “Why aren’t you mad?”
“Oh, I’m mad, sweetheart, but I’m also pondering the most vicious way to get even with that bullying steroid junkie and his sanctimonious father. Nobody threatens you and gets away with it.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“The thing they’re most frightened of—investigate the murder that Holcombe decided to hush up this morning.”
“Brad honey, that’s crazy.” Ash didn’t sound angry anymore, but there was a tremor of anxiety in her voice.
“Could be, my love, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let maggots like that intimidate us, even if they are wearing badges.”
“But how are you going to investigate? You don’t even know the man’s name.”
“We can talk about that later. Let’s get some dinner and then plot.”
We arrived in town a couple of minutes later and I pulled into the parking lot of Pinckney’s Brick Pit. It’s the only restaurant in Remmelkemp Mill and—unlike so many alleged “genuine” barbecue joints that have switched to gas ovens—the meat is still cooked the old-fashioned way over hardwood charcoal. In fact, the only thing that isn’t authentically Southern about Pinckney’s is the owner. His name is Sergei Zubatov and although he is an emigré Russian, the man flat out knows how to cook North Carolina-style barbecue. Ash’s dad told me that Zubatov arrived in Remmelkemp Mill not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union and shortly thereafter bought the restaurant and it’s name.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked
Ash tried to stifle a yawn. “I’m suddenly so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. If you don’t mind, I’ll just stay here.”
“Not a problem. Be back in a minute.”
Pinckney’s isn’t a fancy place, which is just fine by me. As a lifelong resident of San Francisco, I’d occasionally had a “dining experience” at an upscale eatery. This usually meant paying a king’s ransom for tiny portions of fusion cuisine of what might have been broiled mice in papaya-wasabi sauce, enduring a surly attitude from a server, and trying to ignore the sappy New Age zither music playing in the background. At Pinckney’s the food is hearty and unpretentious—pork ribs, barbecued chicken, cole slaw, and baked beans. The dining room furniture consists of redwood picnic tables covered with red-and-white checkerboard plastic tablecloths and there isn’t a server as such—unless you count yourself.
It being suppertime, the restaurant was crowded, yet despite the noisy buzz of conversation, I heard the superb jazz piano of Theolonius Monk playing “In Walked Bud” coming from a pair of old Bose 901 speakers suspended from the ceiling behind the counter. Sergei was behind the counter, slicing a rack of ribs with a large carving knife. He’s a distinguished looking man in his mid-fifties with a head of lush curly silver hair and an iron-gray handlebar moustache.
He put two cardboard plates sagging under the weight of food on the counter and yelled, “Twenty-eight, your order’s ready!”
“How’re you doing tonight, Sergei?”
“I’m doing very well, Brad. Business is excellent. Where’s your lovely wife?” It’s a curious fact, but Sergei sounds more British than he does Russian. He didn’t pick up that cultured Oxbridge accent here in the Shenandoah Valley and that leads me to suspect he spent a good portion of his adult life outside the Soviet Union. There were only two kinds of people allowed that sort of freedom under the former Communist regime: professional diplomats and spies—different names for the same profession. But that was a long time ago and regardless of any unsavory secrets he might be concealing about his past, I liked him.
“She’s in the truck. It’s been a long day,” I said.
Number twenty-eight came up to claim his food and Sergei waited until the guy was gone before quietly continuing, “You’d better watch yourself. Sergeant Holcombe was in here a little while ago talking about how he was going to take care of you for being disrespectful to his father.”
“We met and I now have a ticket for running a red light that was green.”
“I see. What did you do to make yourself so popul
ar?”
“You heard about the dead man they pulled from the river at our house this morning?”
“Of course.”
I hesitated before continuing because the last thing I needed if I was going to pursue my own private investigation was the word being circulated that I was still in disagreement with the official cause of death. Yet my instincts told me I could trust Sergei. I told him the story of finding the body and what had happened afterwards. At the conclusion of the tale, I said, “All I did was object to the fact that Holcombe is covering up a murder. The man they pulled out of the river this morning has obvious ligature strangulation trauma, yet the sheriff insists it’s an accidental drowning.”
“This man . . . could you describe him?” I did and Sergei raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “And you say that nobody recognized him?”
“No. But it sounds like you think someone should have known him, which means you have an idea of who he is. What the hell is going on here?”
He glanced toward the window and I turned to look also. Outside a sheriff ’s cruiser slowly rolled past the restaurant. Sergei answered, “Nothing that I’d care to become involved in, my friend. Now what can I get you for dinner?”
Chapter 7
At first, I was so disgusted and disappointed over Sergei’s display of arrant cowardice that I had to bite my lip to avoid suggesting—in graphic detail—where he could put his barbecued ribs and cole slaw. Then I reined in my temper and ruefully acknowledged that I had no right to be angry merely because he was demonstrating good sense. While it was true that Sergei and I were quickly becoming friends and he’d recently visited our home to enjoy drams of single-malt Scotch whiskey and classic jazz CDs, that didn’t mean he was obligated to join in a crusade that was almost certainly destined to land me in the Massanutten County Jail or worse.
I ordered our food to go, paid, and a couple of minutes later Sergei pushed two brown paper bags across the counter toward me. “Here you go, Brad. Enjoy. Oh, and last week Ashleigh asked for my chocolate cake recipe, so I put a copy in the bag. Give my best to her.”
The words jerked me from my funk because the day that Ash goes in search of a new chocolate cake recipe you can also look for the U.S. Olympic Committee to show up at our house asking me to be the anchorman in the 440-relay. My wife learned how to bake when she was six-years-old and makes a delectable chocolate fudge layer cake so rich with butter—there’s a full pound of it—that every slice should be accompanied with a voucher for a free angioplasty. Sergei knew this because he’d sampled the cake during his visit to our home and pestered Ash for the recipe.
Grabbing the bags, I said, “Am I going to like it?”
“Quite possibly. Let me know.”
Once I was back in the Xterra, I handed the bags to Ash. “Do me a favor, sweetheart, and check inside the bags.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe a note.”
“And why is Sergei writing you notes?” She opened one of the bags.
“Because he knows something about the dead guy from this morning, but he couldn’t say anything.”
Ash unfolded a thick stack of napkins. “Okay. Here it is. He wrote something on a napkin. Let me see . . . it says, ‘You’d make a bloody awful spy. Call me tonight after I close.’ Then it’s got his telephone number. What happened in there?”
“Apparently Trent was in the restaurant earlier today running his mouth about how he was going to take care of us, and Sergei asked me why. I told him about what happened this morning and he reacted as if someone that came to our house should have known the victim.”
“Then wouldn’t that also mean Sergei has an idea of who the victim is?”
“Yeah. Interesting, huh?” I backed out of the parking space and—since the sheriff ’s station was just around the corner—I made a driving test-quality left turn onto Coggins Spring Road and headed for home.
“So, who do you think knew the dead man?”
“Holcombe was the only one that acted strangely this morning. If he already knew the victim, it would explain why he never once bothered to look underneath the blanket at the body.”
Ash tightened her grip on the paper sacks. “But wouldn’t that also mean the sheriff was connected with the man’s death?”
“Not necessarily. More than likely, Deputy Barron described the guy when she radioed Holcombe.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he’s covering up a murder.”
“There could be any number of reasons. Maybe the guy was a crook and Holcombe can’t see any point in investigating something he considers equivalent to the unlawful dumping of rubbish into a public waterway.”
“But that’s so wrong.”
“You won’t get an argument from me. Unfortunately, it happens more often than I’d care to admit.”
“Brad honey, the moment any of this begins to make the least amount of sense to me, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“I’d appreciate it. Until then, let’s table any further conversation about murder and properly celebrate your victory today.”
“That would be very nice.”
We arrived home and while Ash stayed inside to begin putting dinner on plates, I released Kitch from his crate and took him outside to go to the bathroom. As I waited for Kitch to sniff every square inch of the front yard in order to find the perfect spot to lift his leg, I examined the river. Although the water was still the color of Ash’s morning hot cocoa, the level had receded between two and three feet during the day and it was far less turbulent than this morning. When Kitch finished, we came back into the kitchen and I fed him his dinner. As Kitch gobbled down the dry kibble, I went to the refrigerator and pulled the vegetable drawer open.
“What are you looking for?” Ash asked.
“Something I picked up yesterday in anticipation of Samantha’s win.” I held up the dark green bottle of Domaine Chandon Napa Brut I’d hidden beneath a mass of fresh vegetables.
“Brad, that’s so sweet, but you know what champagne does to me.”
“Yes and that was the other reason I bought it.”
Ash giggled and kissed me on the neck. “It’s still nice outside. Do you want to eat on the picnic table?”
“I’ll get the glasses and meet you out there.”
I like to think of our meals outside as a dinner and a show, and I’m really going to miss it when the cold weather finally drives us indoors. The redwood picnic table stands on a low grassy knoll with an eastward view that encompasses the river, an expanse of Currier and Ives farmland, and the mountains. And the lovely landscape isn’t the only attraction. Over the past few months we’ve seen flapping Vs of Canadian geese making more useless noise than both houses of Congress combined, a Cirque du Soleil troupe of squirrels, deer ghosting through the underbrush, the inky spectral form of an osprey gliding through the air just inches above the river waters, and—a couple of weeks earlier—a large black bear lumbering along the opposite side of the river. I’ve never seen such an amazing profusion of wildlife—unless you count the three days I once spent in LA looking for a murder suspect in that alternate universe called Hollywood Boulevard.
I opened the champagne, grabbed a couple of fluted crystal glasses from the china hutch, and joined Ash at the picnic table. It was twilight now, yet still pleasantly warm. Kitch gazed longingly at the ribs and then lay down beneath the table until he was needed. We no longer have an automatic dishwasher, so our dog is responsible for the prewash cycle. It’s a big job, but Kitch is happy to help.
Pouring the wine, I handed her one of the glasses, elevated my own, and said, “I offer a toast to the beautiful woman who created Susannah S. Seraphim. If your prize-winning teddy bears can provide people with so much as one-one-thousandth of the joy you’ve given me, then the world will be a much happier place.”
We touched glasses and Ash whispered, “Thank you, my love.”
Dinner was wonderful. The combination of good food, fine wine, sup
erb scenery, and cheerful conversation with Ash about the teddy bear show helped me to temporarily forget the ugly business that had occurred here in the yard earlier that morning.
When we were finished, Ash said, “God, that was good, but I’m stuffed.”
“There’s a little more champagne.”
“I couldn’t. I’ve already had too much and it’s hard to clean house when you’re half drunk.”
“Honey, the Teddy Bear Empress won’t be here until three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I think the chores can wait for a few minutes.”
“But . . . well, I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. So relax, have some more champagne and help me figure something out.” I emptied the remainder of the bottle into her glass.
“What’s that?”
“If I’m going to investigate this murder, the first task is to go upriver and check out both banks.”
“To find where he was put into the river.”
“Correct. The story about some ‘anonymous’ witness seeing him jump from the Island Ford Bridge is just like me.”
“Huh?”
“Lame. When guys jump from a bridge to commit suicide they do it from a real bridge—”
“Like the Golden Gate.”
“Exactly. The Island Ford Bridge is what—twenty feet above the water? He couldn’t hurt himself falling that distance and it isn’t real likely he intended to drown himself. People just don’t commit suicide that way.”
“Unless . . .” Ash said and took a sip of champagne. “Unless, it’s James Mason in A Star is Born. He killed himself that way—walked into the ocean and drowned himself.”
“You’ve definitely had too much to drink. I love it.”
“Thank you, my darling. So, your question is: How do we search the riverbanks for clues?”
“Right. If I recall correctly, isn’t there a little store near the river up in Port Republic where we can rent a canoe?”
Ash lowered her champagne glass. Although it was nearly dark I could see her peering at me in utter disbelief. “A canoe? Brad, honey, when was the last time you paddled a canoe? Or, for that matter, when was the first time you paddled one?”
