The Body in the Gravel

by Judi Lynn

  Earl glanced down at his flannel shirt and work jeans. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? I cleaned and X-rayed teeth for three years. Hated it. My wife loved it, but I didn’t like being stuck indoors. I wouldn’t have been happy doing any office work. When I quit to drive a truck, she filed for divorce. I made more money, but she thought it was a low-class job. I steered away from women for a long time after that.”

  Gaff finished scribbling notes and asked, “Did Darby pick on his other two employees?”

  “Anyone was fair game,” Earl said, “but he especially heckled Andy. He’s the youngest of us, and I got the idea that made Darby think he was more vulnerable. That, and Andy has a kid with autism.”

  Jazzi couldn’t believe anyone would use autism to badger a parent. What kind of sadistic person would make fun of a father trying to cope with a child who had a disability?

  Gaff’s expression hardened, too. The detective was close to his two grown boys, Jazzi knew, and crazy about his three grandkids. He wouldn’t appreciate jokes about kids with problems. “Is Andy working today?”

  “We’re all on the schedule, but it’s getting close to quitting time. If you want to talk to them, you’d better call them and ask them to stay.”

  Gaff made the call and gave a curt nod. “We’d better go. They’re going to stay long enough to clean their trucks and promised to hang on a few more minutes, but Andy has to get home so that his wife can meet friends tonight. He’s watching their son so she can have a break.”

  Earl rose to leave, too, and Gaff glanced at Thane. “Want to come with us? We can check out the new cement slab.”

  “If Jazzi comes, too.” Thane gave her a pleading look.

  “Why me?” She’d be happy to go home to hear the results.

  Thane turned to Ansel for backup. “She knows the right things to say, right? She makes things easier.”

  Ansel grinned. “She’s the best, all right.”

  “I have to agree.” Gaff motioned for her to come, too.

  No fair. She was about to argue when Thane added, “I’m still a suspect. I could use some help clearing my name. Olivia would want you to help me.”

  Olivia would have a fit if Jazzi didn’t go with him. With a sigh, she went to join them.

  “What if I drive and we follow you there?” Thane asked Gaff. “I have to come south again when we’re done, and I can drop Jazzi here on my way home.”

  Jerod looked at the kitchen clock. “Ansel and I will start ripping off the back porch while you’re gone, Jazz.” He gave Gaff a sour look. “We can’t finish the driveway with police tape roping it off.”

  Everyone, including Jazzi, grumbled as they left the kitchen. A murder did that, put people on edge. Would it have been asking too much for Olivia to have been home all night last night? For Thane to have a rock-solid alibi? For Darby to have fallen out of the gravel in someone else’s driveway?

  Chapter 8

  As Thane drove west toward Darby’s place, Jazzi spotted a few trees that were beginning to change color. Not many yet. But a few reds and yellows were scattered here and there in the woods they passed.

  She cracked her window an inch. The air was cool but had no bite. They took the same route she used to drive to Jerod’s house, except that they turned off before they reached the highway. Darby’s house and business were close to a series of gravel pits on the southwest side of town. At one time, a warm shallow sea covered the entire area. Geology students got special permission once to take a field trip to the bottom before the pit grew so huge and deep. They found prehistoric fossils poking from the sand. She’d been fascinated with the trilobites on exhibit at the local college. Had the sea existed before the Ice Age? Or had the glacier that moved across northeast Indiana dumped all of the sand and gravel here? She tried to remember. The sea came first, she decided.

  Thane interrupted her thoughts. “I’m sort of dreading digging up the cement slab. Part of me has always suspected that Darby killed Walker and Rose, but I sure hope we don’t find skeletons under the slab Earl told us about.”

  “Me, too. Finding Aunt Lynda in the trunk at our house was enough.” When she and Jerod had bought the cottage she and Ansel now lived in, they never expected to find the skeleton of her mother’s sister folded in a trunk in the attic. Everyone had thought Lynda had gone to New York, but she’d never left River Bluffs.

  Thane wrinkled his nose. “It was hard enough seeing Darby’s body when he was still fresh. Walker and Rose disappeared two years ago. Would they be skeletons by now? Or would they look like the bodies you found near the wetlands?”

  Jazzi pushed those images away. Thane hadn’t gone with Ansel, Jerod, and her when they led Gaff to two shallow graves near his and Olivia’s subdivision. She grimaced. “I don’t know how long it takes for bodies to decompose. I just know it’s not a pretty sight.”

  Thane slowed to turn into a long drive that led to a tri-level house. They passed it and wound around to three metal outbuildings at the back of the property. One of them had an office sign hanging next to the front door. Gaff’s car was already parked close by. When she and Thane walked into the office, Gaff, Earl, and two more men sat in stiff-backed chairs, waiting for them.

  “Good, we can get started.” Gaff reached for his notepad and pen. “Earl, you can introduce your friends to Jazzi and Thane.”

  “I know them,” Thane said. “I used to come here to pick up Walker. He always had work to finish, so I ended up hanging around for a while.”

  Earl motioned toward Jazzi. “This is Jazzi. Thane lives with her sister. She and her friends are fixing the house I delivered gravel to. Darby’s body landed in their driveway. Jazzi, this is Andy.” He motioned to a guy who looked to be close to her and Thane’s age. “And this is Colin.” Colin looked older, like he might be in his late thirties.

  “Let’s start with you.” Gaff turned to Andy. “How long did you work for Darby?”

  “Six years. I’m the newest driver. I started a year after my son was born.”

  “How did you get along with Darby?”

  “We did all right until Walker left. Then things got rocky. When Darby was in a mood, he could be really mean.”

  “Can you elaborate?”

  Andy looked uncomfortable. “My son is autistic. When he wanted to needle me, he’d ask where the screwed-up gene came from, me or my wife?”

  Jazzi gaped. Who’d say something like that?

  Colin snorted. “You were an easy target. You always took his crap, never stuck up for yourself.”

  “Didn’t matter,” Earl said, sticking up for Andy. “Darby wouldn’t quit, no matter what you did. Look at how he treated Walker and Rose, and they let him know he was pushing it.”

  “If he treated me like that, I’d walk,” Colin said.

  Gaff turned his attention to him. “Darby didn’t give you any grief?”

  “Oh, sure he did, but nothing personal, nothing downright mean. Darby couldn’t leave anyone alone. He had to heckle, but he paid good wages. What did I care what he said? He was a paycheck. I didn’t have to like him.”

  “Did he ever push hard enough that one of you would snap and smash his head in with a shovel?”

  Andy’s jaw dropped. “Is that what happened to him?”

  Gaff nodded. “Looks like a crime of impulse, like Darby said the wrong thing, and somebody hit him to shut him up.”

  Jazzi was surprised that Gaff was telling them this, but then she remembered that Earl had seen Darby’s body. He knew how Darby had died.

  Colin leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. “Sounds like the old coot finally went too far. When did he die?”

  “I don’t have the coroner’s report yet,” Gaff told them. “Did any of you see or hear from him after you left work yesterday?”

  Andy shook his head. “We all left at the same time. That�
��s the last I saw him.”

  “You?” Gaff glanced at Colin.

  “He doesn’t pay me enough to put up with him on my off hours.”

  Andy fidgeted. “Will we have jobs now? Should I start looking for something else? We don’t have much in savings, mostly live paycheck to paycheck.”

  Gaff spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. We’re going to try to find Walker and Rose, but I don’t know what will happen to the company. We’re going to look for a will, too.”

  “I doubt he has one,” Earl said. “I don’t think he liked anyone enough to give them anything.”

  Gaff turned to Jazzi and raised his eyebrows. She took her cue and asked, “Did Darby have any friends, anyone he was close to?”

  Earl looked thoughtful. “He had a drinking buddy he met a few times a week, but I don’t remember his name. Do you guys?”

  Andy and Colin shook their heads.

  Earl frowned, then brightened. “Whiskers! That’s what he called him, but I never heard his real name.”

  With no name, how would they find him? Jazzi decided Gaff would find a way.

  Gaff wrote it down, then said, “I need to know where Andy and Colin were last night after you left work. I already asked Earl.”

  Andy answered quickly. “I went home. My wife and I stayed in and had a quiet night.”

  “You?” Gaff asked Colin.

  “I met a friend at the bar for a burger, then I went to the store to restock the fridge. I ended up drinking a couple beers at the Black Dog Pub before I went back to the apartment.”

  “Can anyone vouch for you?”

  “Off and on. I don’t like to stay in one place very long.”

  “The restless type?” Gaff asked.

  “That’s why I like this job. I can come and go, making deliveries, not be stuck in one room all day.”

  Gaff got the friend’s name whom Colin had met and made a note to check his alibi at the Black Dog Pub and grocery store. “I’m pretty sure there’ll be big enough gaps, though, that you could have snuck out here to kill Darby.”

  “If I’d wanted to,” Colin agreed. “But I didn’t.”

  When he finished with his questions, Gaff handed them each one of his cards. “If you think of anything else, give me a call. And don’t leave town. I might need to ask you more questions.” Then he turned to Earl. “Can you show us the slab of cement you told us about?”

  Colin’s eyes lit up. “Funny about that slab. Darby poured it where no one would ever use it.” He followed them when Earl led them to it, but Andy mumbled a quick good-bye.

  “I have to babysit our son so my wife can leave.”

  Gaff nodded. “Earl explained about that. And remember, don’t leave town.”

  “Like I could. My wife can’t raise our son alone.” Andy hurried to his car.

  They left the outbuildings and crossed a stretch of grass that led to Darby’s fenced-in backyard. Most of it was taken up by a huge cement patio. A gas grill and a smoker sat on one side of it. Two umbrella tables, circled by chairs, sat on the other side.

  “Did Darby like to entertain?” Jazzi asked. Ansel was thinking about buying a big smoker. They had her family over every Sunday, and he had visions of smoked ribs, briskets, and chickens, but they’d have to expand their patio to make room for it.

  Earl scoffed at her question. “Darby left on Sundays a couple times a month to go fishing with Whiskers. They drank beer on his pontoon and usually came home empty-handed. Rose invited us over whenever he was gone. Walker manned the grill and smoker.” Earl let out a deep breath. “There wasn’t a nicer person on this earth than Rose.”

  “She didn’t have any family around here?” Jazzi asked.

  Earl looked sad. “She told me that when she married Darby, they all drifted away from her. She was pretty much on her own.”

  Jazzi motioned toward long, raised garden beds tucked between the patio and fence. “Rose liked to garden?”

  He smiled. “That woman canned enough green beans and tomatoes to last an entire year. Dried herbs, too.”

  They were approaching the slab, and Jazzi scanned the area. There was nothing but grass. Nothing.

  When they reached the square of cement, they circled it, staring at the four-by-four slab. It wasn’t big enough to cover two bodies. Had Darby used it as a grave marker?

  Colin gestured at the lack of anything close by. “The old man dug up a big chunk of sod and stuck this here. What sense does that make?”

  None, as far as she could tell. The slab was completely out of place.

  “I’ll call for a jackhammer,” Gaff said. “We’ll see what’s under it.”

  Jazzi was glad she wouldn’t be here when they dug for bodies, but Thane grinned.

  “Jerod let me borrow theirs. It’s in the back of my van.”

  She’d have to thank Jerod for that. Not.

  Thane went to get the jackhammer. He was grunting by the time he dragged it back to them. Colin and Earl walked to one of the buildings and came back with shovels. Jazzi thought about walking to the picnic table near the office and grabbing a cup of coffee from the machine inside. She’d be far enough away, she wouldn’t see anything, but she was too nosy. She wanted to know if Walker and Rose had never left River Bluffs, just like her Aunt Lynda.

  Thane pressed on the jackhammer, and soon its loud racket drowned out all other noise. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Dust and dirt flew in the air. Jazzi coughed and stepped back. Thane made short work of the slab, and she helped the men move chunks of cement out of the way, then Colin and Earl began to dig. About a foot down, their shovels hit metal.

  “Darby didn’t stick them in a metal drainage pipe, did he?” Colin asked.

  “Wouldn’t put it past him,” Earl said.

  When they dug enough to clean off what he’d buried, they stared in surprise at a heavy metal safe.

  “What the heck?” Earl scratched his head.

  It took some serious lifting, but they finally managed to free the safe from its hole and set it on the grass. A heavy sheet of plastic was duct-taped to its top, protecting an envelope stuffed into a plastic sheath. They scraped dirt off it and read the message: FOR WALKER.

  Thane shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I’ll be. If Darby buried this for Walker, then my friend must still be alive. Somewhere.”

  Earl turned to Colin. “Isn’t that the safe that used to be in Darby’s office? I wondered why he’d gotten rid of it.”

  “You don’t think it’s booby-trapped, do you?” Colin bent closer to it. “I don’t see any wires. The old man was royally fuming for weeks after Walker disappeared.”

  “Would he do that?” Jazzi asked.

  Earl barked a laugh. “You didn’t know Darby.”

  She stepped farther away from the safe.

  “Does anyone know the combination?” Gaff asked.

  Earl answered. “Only Walker and Darby. The boss guarded everything to do with that safe. You’d think it was Fort Knox.”

  Gaff considered it for a while. “You guys are all strong. Let’s put it in the trunk of my car, and I can take it to the station. Maybe we can figure out how to open it there. And I’ll start searching for Walker and Rose.”

  The safe was heavy, but nothing Thane, Earl, and Colin couldn’t handle. They put it in Gaff’s trunk, and then everyone got ready to leave.

  “Remember. Don’t leave town,” Gaff warned them.

  “Do we show up for work tomorrow?” Colin asked.

  Gaff gave that a moment of thought. “Might as well until we know what will happen to the company.”

  “Will we get paid on Friday?” Colin’s question was legitimate. Did Darby have anyone as backup in case he got sick or hurt?

  Gaff shrugged his heavy shoulders. The detective wasn’t tall, but he was st
ocky. “That I don’t know.”

  Earl sighed. “I hope you find Walker soon. He might know what to do now.”

  They climbed into their vehicles to part. On the drive back to the fixer-upper, Thane brooded for a while before blurting out, “Walker could have called me. He could have let me know he was alive. If Gaff finds him, I don’t want anything to do with him.”

  “Maybe he had a good reason.”

  “Not good enough. We were like brothers. He knew I’d worry. Even if he’s alive, he’s dead to me.”

  Jazzi didn’t argue. She understood why Thane was hurt. He’d deserved better treatment from his friend.

  Chapter 9

  When Jazzi got back to Southwood Park, Jerod and Ansel had yanked the entire back porch off the house and were throwing the last of the debris into the dumpster.

  “Now she gets here!” Jerod teased. “After all the work’s done.”

  She waved off Thane and gave her cousin a sweet smile. “You can go with Gaff next time, and I’ll stay to work with Ansel.”

  “No way. You win. I don’t want any part of murder investigations.” Jerod took off his work gloves and stuffed them in his back pocket. “Did you find any bodies?”

  “No, but we found a safe buried under Darby’s cement slab.” She brought them up to date on things.

  The guys listened with interest, then Jerod dusted off his flannel shirt and swatted rubble off his baseball cap before returning it to his head. “It’s been a big enough day for me. I’m ready to head home. Gunther has to collect a dozen different kinds of leaves to take to nursery school tomorrow. They’re going to have a lesson on trees and then do an art project.”

  A dozen seemed like a lot to Jazzi for a four-year-old. Were preschools offering college degrees these days? “Do you have that many different trees on your property?”

  “No, but Foster Park does. I’m going to drive him there.”

  Ansel looked tired, so she motioned toward their vehicle, too. He grabbed George and headed to his white work van. They followed Jerod’s pickup to Fairfield, then he turned south and they turned north. On the drive home, Ansel said, “Maybe we should plant more trees on our property and get ready ahead of time. Then when our kids have to collect a dozen leaves, we’ll be ready.”