by Jeramy Gates
He said, She said,
“Murder”
By
Jeramy Gates
Published by Timber Hill Press
Chapter 1
Tanja Shepherd
(Prologue)
The thought of Joe following the killer into that creepy old building sent a chill crawling down my spine. I used the sleeve of my jacket to wipe the fog from the car window and gazed across the dark parking lot at the dilapidated old warehouse where my husband had disappeared. The rain came down in sheets. Lightning flashed, the light glinting in the blacked-out windows, the ominous rumble of thunder echoing up and down the coastal mountains.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” Joe had said, “If I’m not back by then, drive down the road until you get a phone signal. Call Sheriff Diekmann.”
Joe’s plan had two problems: First, it was storming violently, and the odds that I’d get a cell signal anywhere along the Sequoia coast on a night like that were somewhere between nil and none. Even in clear weather, cell reception on the NorCal coast comes and goes at will. For all I knew, a cell tower may have been half a mile away. Tucked into a narrow valley between the coast and the cliffs, with the wind howling off the bay and the rain pounding down, it may as well have been a hundred miles.
The second problem was that Joe had the car keys in his pocket. I hadn’t even noticed that little tidbit of information until after he was gone. I didn’t have a spare, and hot-wiring the Suburban didn’t seem like the best alternative, especially since we still had three years of payments left to make. I simultaneously wanted to call him a moron for leaving me in that predicament, and felt an aching dread in my chest for his safety.
I glanced at my cell phone and confirmed that I still had zero bars. I opened the center console and pulled out my 9mm Glock. I checked the magazine to make sure it was loaded. I patted my swollen belly.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, baby Autumn. Time to rescue daddy again.”
Chapter 2
One week earlier:
My name is Tanja Shepherd. It’s the traditional German spelling, with a “J” instead of a “Y.” It seems to throw some people off, especially during those sales calls I get from some anonymous stranger hundreds -or thousands- of miles away, who insists on pronouncing it like “jam” instead of “yam” no matter how many how times I correct him. It’s really annoying. Tanja does not rhyme with ganja. Period.
I suppose the unusual spelling of my name makes me strange to some people, but certainly no stranger than the fact that I’m six feet tall and several inches taller than my husband. That definitely throws some people off. We get looks. Most of the time, I can guess what people are thinking as they size us up. They glance at my husband Joe, they notice his broad shoulders, his shaved head and goatee, and then they look at me, the six-foot blonde, and it’s obvious that something brought us together. Not just physical attraction, although it is definitely there, but something deeper; some connection based on our personalities and experiences that you can’t quantify in mechanical, physical terms.
Usually, they conclude that we’re just two unique people who found one another attractive and fell in love. Other times, they don’t. I see the smirk beginning to form, the slow curl at the edge of the lip, the amused gaze that lingers just a little too long. It’s funny to them, as if a couple inches of difference in height made us two completely different species. Beyond the obvious, I really can’t guess what’s going on in their minds, but I don’t expect it’s much. It doesn’t make me self-conscious, because it says more about them than it does about us. Joe and I are happy, and that’s what matters.
There is one last thing, one more unusual detail about the two of us: Joe and I are private detectives. It wasn’t always that way. We used to be cops. Joe worked undercover and I was an FBI behavior analyst. I’ll explain more on that later. Long story short: we ended up in Sequoia County with a baby on the way and hardly a penny in the bank. That is, until Sheriff Diekmann suggested we go into business. That wasn’t working out so well, but then he came up with another proposition.
It was a sunny January morning, and I had just started a pot of coffee when I heard the doorbell ring. I stepped out of the kitchen as Joe came wandering down the hall, drying his freshly shaved head with a hand towel. I opened the door to see Sheriff Diekmann standing there with a wrinkled cardboard box.
“Morning,” he said with a nod. “Do you and Joe have a few minutes?”
The sheriff had heavy bags under his eyes and more crow’s feet and wrinkles than an old paper bag. His dark brown hair was slightly mussed, curling up around the telltale ring of an old baseball cap he usually wears. He needed a shave too, but that’s pretty much how Bill Diekmann looks all the time. He’s the kind of man who owns just one suit: a black one, reserved especially for funerals. The rest of the time, he wears faded jeans, flannel shirts, and the aforementioned cap.
I invited him in of course, and we gathered in the kitchen. Diekmann set the box next to the table, and I poured him a cup of coffee. After we had settled, he explained the reason for his unexpected visit.
“Sorry to drop in on you,” he said. “I’ve heard the two of you might be looking for work. I think I can help with that.”
Looking for work? That was an understatement. It was just a few weeks after Joe and I had launched our business, and we hadn’t had a single client. Still, I was a bit hesitant about the idea of working for the sheriff. Working with friends can be a recipe for trouble, and I didn’t know the sheriff as well as Joe. I had barely lived in Sequoia County for a year.
“I know this isn’t the kind of job you have done before,” he said. “You won’t be chasing down bad guys and having wild shootouts. In these cases, the bad guys are long gone and the trail has gone cold, if there ever was one. All that’s left is to clean up the mess. In most cases, you probably won’t even be able to do that.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Let me be honest: These are lousy cases, and you probably won’t be able to solve most of them. But the department is willing to pay you on a case by case basis, if you can produce results. I wish I could do more for you, but those are the terms. It’s up to you if you want the job or not.”
I fixed my gaze on the manila folder in the sheriff’s hand and glanced over at Joe. I found him staring at me, grinning like always, amused by everything. His goatee accentuated his smile. A diffuse ray of sunlight glinted off his freshly shaved head, illuminating the tiny whisker-like hairs that are otherwise invisible. I don’t mind Joe’s bald head, but I have explicitly forbidden him to shave his thick blond goatee.
Joe’s eyes were deep green that day, like emeralds laced with gold. Sometimes they’re blue. They change color with his moods, and when he wears certain clothes. At that moment, they were wordlessly urging me to accept the sheriff’s challenge, silently whispering, “Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for!”
I smiled. I already knew how Joe felt about all of this, how he believed that God and the universe had just handed us this opportunity right when we needed it most. He’s always held the conviction that everything in the world happens for a reason. Joe finds life fascinating, the ups and downs, the inexplicable things that happen, the synchronicity of it all. Sometimes I think it’s all a game to him.
I glanced back at the sheriff, who was still waiting for our answer.
“Absolutely,” I said with all the confidence I could muster. “When Joe and I started this business, we knew it would be tough to get off the ground. We need the work, and we’re more than happy to help
out.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The sheriff opened a folder and produced half a dozen snapshots, which he spread out across the kitchen table. “I’d like you to start with this case, if you don’t mind.” He selected a photo and handed it to me. It was a girl in her late teens with shoulder-length chestnut hair and dark, almond shaped eyes. It was an outdoor shot, probably taken by a friend. She was leaning up against a Camaro, smiling and pretty… happy, like any girl that age should be. I showed the image to Joe.
“Pretty girl,” I said. “She seems very happy.”
“That’s the victim, Becky Sweet,” the sheriff said. “She was murdered five years ago. She was a senior at Healdsburg High School. Her father had committed suicide several years before that, and for a while, Becky’s mother was afraid she was becoming suicidal. The two of them went through an intensive counseling program together.
“When it was all over, Becky seemed to have recovered. She became a cheerleader and a high school teen counselor. She had lots of friends, and seemed to be loved by everyone. It really rattled the community when she was murdered.”
“What happened to her?” said Joe.
“She was drowned.” The sheriff grimaced as he produced another photo. He handed it to me, and I looked it over. I saw a large room with a concrete floor and several rows of stainless steel tanks. In the foreground was a sheet-covered body lying on the floor. Puddles and splatters of white fluid covered the area. Nothing else leapt out at me.
“What is this place?” I said.
“Timber Hills Dairy Farm. It’s just a couple miles south of Vine Hill.”
Joe snatched the photo out of my hand. “Are you saying Becky was drowned in milk?”
“Cream, to be exact,” said the sheriff. “When the owner showed up for work that morning, she found Becky’s body in one of those vats. Apparently, the cream had been run through a separator and left overnight in a vat. Someone shoved her in there, and then sealed the lid.”
“You’re sure this couldn’t have been accidental?” I said.
“Unlikely. The coroner determined that the killer struck Becky from behind with a wrench and dumped her into the cream. The weapon was found at the scene. We found D.N.A. under her fingernails, but it didn’t match anything on record. We didn’t recover any prints.”
“Did Becky work at the dairy?” Joe said.
“No, the dairy owner had never seen her before. At the time, there was only one other employee, a mentally disabled man. He’s the one who found the body. Traumatized him pretty bad, too. Becky’s mother had reported her missing the night before, so it didn’t take long to confirm her identity.”
We fell silent, all three of us staring at the grisly photo.
“What about a motive?” I said. “Are there any suspects?”
Diekmann picked up one of the other photos and handed it to me. It was a mug shot of teenage male with shoulder-length dark brown hair and a sleeveless t-shirt with the logo of a band called Death Metal. He looked like a run of the mill troublemaker. His eyes were very angry, but his face was almost expressionless. I looked closer, and noticed a purple bruise on his left shoulder, right below the tattoo of a skull with a snake looping through the eye sockets.
“That’s Jimmy Pishard Junior,” Diekmann said. “He was our prime suspect at the time. He had been dating Becky, and they’d just had a nasty breakup. His only alibi for the night of her disappearance was that he’d fallen asleep watching TV after getting stoned. He was alone.”
“No alibi,” Joe said. “It sounds to me like an open and shut case.”
“We thought so, too. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything solid to pin it on him. The few pieces of D.N.A. evidence we found weren’t a match. We had nothing to place him at the scene.”
“What kind of D.N.A. did you have?” I asked.
“The skin under her nails, and we found a spot of blood on the vat.”
The sheriff handed me another photo, this one of a tall, thin man in his forties with graying hair and a permanent scowl etched onto his face. “That’s James Pishard Senior, Jimmy’s father. He couldn’t vouch for Jimmy, because he was out of town for a business convention. In fact, he took one of our investigators aside during the interview and told him he didn’t trust his son. James even said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Jimmy had killed Becky.”
“Why would he say something like that?” I said. “Did Jimmy have a history of violence?”
“No, we ran a full background check and came up with zip. We even interviewed a few of his teachers and they had nothing bad to say about him. If you read the notes, the detectives didn’t buy it. They were sure Jimmy was into some sort of trouble, and that made him the prime suspect.”
“Why’s that?” said Joe.
“I don’t know, intuition maybe. He had outright admitted to smoking pot. Then there was his hair and all.”
“Meaning what?” I said curiously.
The sheriff leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “When a kid looks like that, and as much as admits he’s involved with drugs, it tends to put the spotlight on him. Between the long hair, the drugs, and the heavy metal music, you can imagine why they suspected him. Not to mention the fact that he lived just two miles away from where the body was discovered.”
“Everybody in Vine Hill lives two miles away from where the body was discovered,” Joe said with a chuckle.
I glanced at the photos of Jimmy and his father, wondering what could drive such a wedge between a man and his son. Clearly, there was a lot more to the story. I took a good look at James. The man appeared very stern, very proud… but was he violent? I know the symptoms of an abusive relationship from both training and experience, and I would have bet my last dollar that James Pishard had been abusing his son. Jimmy had been rebelling against something, and I had a strong feeling it was his father. This dark dynamic in their relationship piqued my curiosity. I couldn’t help wondering if it had something to do with Becky’s disappearance.
“So what happened?” said Joe. “Did you press charges?”
The sheriff folded his hands on the table. “We didn’t have much on Jimmy at the time, but we wanted to make sure he didn’t skip the state. The D.A. was sure he could make a case. Then the D.N.A. evidence fell through, and the D.A. ended up dropping the charges rather than face double jeopardy sometime down the road.”
“So that was the end of it?” I said.
“There wasn’t anything else to do. My deputies interviewed Becky’s friends, the other cheerleaders, her teachers… we couldn’t come up with any other suspects…” he displayed his empty hands. “We had nothing.”
Joe asked to see the file, and quietly thumbed through the pages. “There’s not much here. A few interviews, some observations by your investigators. I can see why this case was never solved.”
“I had given up on it,” said the sheriff. “Which is tragic, because Becky deserves better than that. So does her mother. Kendra Sweet fell apart. You can imagine what it was like for her, after her husband’s suicide, and then her daughter’s death. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the funds or manpower to keep pursuing a dead end, and that’s what this case turned out to be. That is, unless you can find something we missed.”
“Says her car went missing, too,” Joe said, stroking his goatee. “It’s kind of hard to hide a whole car, isn’t it? Especially a sixty-nine Camaro.”
“We listed the car as stolen and posted a statewide B.O.L.O. Never heard a word. That car just vanished into thin air.”
Joe set the file on the table and looked up with a smile. “Thanks for everything, sheriff. We’ll get right on this. We’ll find your man and deliver him in cuffs.”
“As cocky as ever, I see.”
“Worse than ever,” I said.
I pushed away from the table, making room for my belly as I rose from the chair. The sheriff glanced at the basketball-sized lump under my shirt and smiled.
; “Do you know what the baby’s going to be?”
“A girl,” I said proudly. “Joe’s a little freaked out, but I couldn’t be happier.”
“I’m not freaked out,” Joe said, feigning hurt. “I just don’t know what you’re supposed to do with a baby girl. Boys are easy. They make forts, climb trees, ride skateboards…”
“You never know,” said the sheriff. “I’ve seen girls do all that. Have you settled on a name?”
Joe and I exchanged a smile. “We named our business after her,” I said. “Autumn’s Hope Detective Agency.”
“Autumn, then,” said the sheriff. “Nice name, on both counts.”
“We thought it made sense,” said Joe. “Considering this business is Autumn’s only hope of ever getting into college.”
The sheriff threw his head back and laughed. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
He headed for the door, and Joe followed him. I could hear their voices fading into the distance as Joe accompanied Diekmann out to his truck. I waited until they were nearly to the street before I walked across the kitchen and opened the drawer under the coffee pot.
I stared at the envelope in the bottom of the drawer for a moment before taking it out. I had left it in there all weekend, ever since it had arrived in the mail Friday afternoon. I’d hidden it away from Joe, not out of dishonesty, but because I was waiting for the right time to show it to him. Unfortunately, that time had yet to come. I was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
Honestly, I didn’t have the heart to show it to him. That was the problem. Joe had sacrificed so much for us already, for our family. I didn’t know how to break it to him. I opened the enveloped and carefully unfolded the letter inside. I stared at the big, bold print at the top of the page that read:
“Past Due Notice: You are in danger of foreclosure!”
I heard the sheriff’s truck start up out front. I jammed the letter into the envelope and shoved it back in the drawer. By the time Joe had returned, I had settled back down at the table. I didn’t say a word as he sat down next to me.
