by Jeramy Gates
“Step back,” I said, putting a hand on his arm.
He flinched, jerking away from me, and threw a sucker punch aimed at my nose. I saw the attack coming, and twisted my head to the side. The blow glanced off my ear. I responded with a sharp uppercut that sent him staggering back.
I leapt forward, tackling him, crushing him against the bow of the sailboat. I felt the fiberglass hull buckling under our weight, but I didn’t care. I grabbed him by the collar and drove my fist into his face. I drew back and hit him again, and again, and then suddenly became aware of Tanja’s cool grip on my arm.
I hesitated. I glanced at her, and she locked gazes with me. My heart was drumming, the rushing sound of blood filling my ears. My lungs burned as I sucked in deep gasps of air. The world around me was silent, motionless. As I stared into her face, the rage slipped away. I remembered who I was, and where I was. I released Pishard and took a step back. He rolled off the boat and landed on his hands and knees.
Slowly, he rose to his feet. He wiped his bleeding nose across the back of his sleeve.
“I’m gonna sue you,” he snarled, his body swaying to and fro like a sapling in the wind. “I’m gonna sue you for everything you’ve got!” He went charging into the building, and disappeared behind the dark, mirror-like windows. We started walking back to the Suburban.
“Well, that could have gone better,” Tanja said with a sigh.
“Don’t look at me. You started it.”
“I know, I meant to ruffle his feathers. I just didn’t expect him to turn violent so easily.”
“You wanted to tick him off?”
“Yes. Jim just gave us a glimpse into his son’s life. Did you see how fast he lost control of his emotions?”
“Uh, yeah. You see this blood?” I showed her my knuckles.
“Jimmy’s mother abandoned him with that man. Paints quite a picture, doesn’t it?”
“It paints a picture all right,” I said grimly. “Of him and a million other kids. Jimmy’s not the only kid in the world who had lousy parents.”
“That’s true, but not everyone handles their problems the same way. As I recall, you had something of a troubled youth yourself, didn’t you?”
“Sure,” I said. “But I’m not a murder suspect.”
“Why do you always do that?” Tanja said as we crawled into the car.
“What are you talking about?”
“The way you shut me out. I understand about your past, Joe. I can help you work through it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Work through it? What does that even mean? The past happened. You don’t work through it, you just move on. What happened then is long gone. It’s not happening now, and it won’t happen again.”
“It can help, Joe.”
“Yeah? So after we work through my childhood, can we move on to the Kennedy assassination? How about the civil war and the black plague? Can we work through those, too?”
Tanja crossed her arms and fixed her eyes on the road. That meant our conversation was over. I knew her body language well enough to know that. I also knew that once she started giving me the silent treatment, it could last for hours. I had to change the subject fast. We passed the River Road exit and I glanced at the clock on the dash radio.
“So what’s the plan?” I said.
She rolled her eyes and turned her head the other way. I tried again. “Jim said his son had been living in Fort Bragg, and that he worked at a junkyard. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him, but it’ll take two hours to get there.”
She fixed me with a glare. “You have somewhere else to be?”
I was trying to think of a tactful way to say I didn’t feel like spending the rest of the day trapped in the car with her giving me the silent treatment, but Tanja pulled out her cell phone and dialed Information.
“I’m looking for a junkyard in Fort Bragg,” she said. “Yes, that’s it. Can you give me an address?” She memorized the information and hung up. When she had finished, she put her phone away and leaned back in the seat with her eyes closed. I took a deep breath. It was going to be a long drive.
Chapter 4
Tanja
Obviously, Joe has some anger issues. Some of it stems from his childhood, some from the things that happened to him while working undercover. I can never be sure which did the most damage, because Joe won’t really talk about any of it. He’s a good man, but sometimes I feel like there’s a time bomb inside of him just waiting to go off.
I know he wouldn’t hurt me, or anyone he cares about, but there are many James Pishards out there. I’m afraid that someday Joe will turn violent, and I won’t be there to bring him back to his senses. I’ve spoken to Diekmann about this in private, but I don’t know if he’s ever mentioned anything to Joe. When I bring the subject up, Joe either makes a joke out of it or pretends he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
I suppose that’s normal. It’s not uncommon for men to have difficulty sharing deeply personal feelings and experiences. Young boys are taught to be strong and independent. It’s part of their nature as well as their culture. I suppose that can be healthy, but when a person has suffered through highly dangerous or difficult situations, he can lose the ability to turn that switch off. These people often perceive feelings as a weakness, and because of their experiences, they won’t allow themselves to be weak. Helping a person like that can be a lifelong struggle.
I gave Joe the silent treatment all the way to Fort Bragg. Yes, I did it partly to punish him for his sarcasm, but mostly to let him know what it feels like when someone you love won’t communicate with you. By the time we arrived, he was practically begging me to talk to him. Unfortunately, making the connection between my behavior and his own was a leap of logic, and Joe’s not the type to dwell on such things. Sometimes my little psychological tricks work on him, sometimes they don’t. All I can do is keep trying to get through to him. I have faith that if I’m persistent, it will happen.
It had begun to rain by the time we pulled into Fort Bragg, but for the moment, it was little more than a mist on the windshield. I was half-starved and I felt like my bladder was about to explode. I should have stopped at a gas station, but unfortunately, it was close to five and we were afraid we might miss Jimmy if we took a detour, so we went straight to the junkyard. Just my luck, it turned out that the place was closed on Fridays.
“No,” I groaned, staring at the closed sign in the front window.
“I told you we should stop somewhere,” Joe said.
“Never mind that now. I see a light inside. I think somebody’s here. I’m going to see if they’ll let me in.”
Joe rolled his eyes as I ducked out of the Suburban and ran for the office. The rain didn’t seem like much until I felt it dribbling down the back of my neck. I got a cold shiver and nearly peed in my stretch jeans. I reached the door and started hammering on it.
I could see the bodies of cars piled up behind the slatted ten-foot privacy fence, and I could hear a forklift moving around back there somewhere. I peered into the window and saw a shadow move somewhere near the back of the building. I hammered on the door again.
At last a woman appeared. When she saw me, she hurried up to the door and made a waving motion.
“We’re closed,” she shouted through the glass. “Eight a.m., Monday.” She was in her late forties with a cheap dye job, and she was puffing on a cigarette. Her orange-red hair fell in tight curls around her shoulders.
“Sorry to bother you,” I yelled. “I need to use your bathroom!”
She looked me up and down. I was standing there in the rain, soaking wet and pregnant. I must have looked reasonably pitiful, because she unlocked the door and ushered me inside. “You poor thing, you shouldn’t be standing out there in the cold. Look at you, you’re soaked! You must be freezing. You’re going to catch pneumonia!”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’ve been driving for hours and I really need a bathroom.”
“Of course. It’s just down th
e hall.”
I thanked her and hurried in that direction. A few minutes later, I returned to find her working at the front desk. The nameplate on the counter said her name was Marge.
“Feel better?” Marge said as I emerged from the hallway.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “That was a close call.”
“I understand perfectly,” she said. “I’ve raised three of my own. Pregnancy is fun right up until the shower. Then the party’s over. By the end, you just want that thing out.”
I laughed. “Does it ever seem like all of nature’s cruelest jokes are reserved especially for women? First, it’s the menstrual cycles, then the hormones. Then, when we decide to have a baby, our bladders shrink down to the size of a tennis ball and we want to cry every time we see a picture of a puppy or a kitten on the internet. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I sent the last one off to college last fall.”
“You must be relieved,” I said.
“Yes, when I’m not crying. Now that they’re all gone, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m just praying for menopause to kick in before I do something stupid. Of course, when that happens, we get a whole new truckload of mood swings and emotional wreckage.”
“Maybe you should get a puppy,” I said, grinning.
“Sure, one more life to micromanage. That’s just what I need. Besides, I’m never home anyway. The poor thing would probably starve to death. Is there anything else I can do for you? I don’t mean to rush you off, but I have to finish all this paperwork.”
“Actually, I did come here for a reason. I’m trying to track down an employee of yours. Jimmy Pishard.”
“Oh, he’s not in today. He’ll be back on Monday morning.”
“I see… I don’t suppose you’d mind giving me his address?”
“That’s against the rules,” she said, looking me up and down. Her eyes lingered on my belly. “Is that baby his?”
I patted my tummy. “Yes. Yes it is.”
I walked out of there five minutes later with the address, cell phone number, and a photocopy of his driver’s license. I climbed into the suburban and handed the paperwork to Joe.
“Nice work,” he said. “How’d you get all this?”
“Social engineering,” I said, winking at him.
“Uh-huh. Meaning you lied.” He twisted in the seat to face me. “You shamelessly manipulated that woman, didn’t you?”
I gave him a mischievous grin. “I’m afraid I have bad news, Joe. The baby isn’t yours.”
“I see. Won’t Jimmy be surprised when he finds out he knocked up a middle-aged woman he never met before.”
I made a fist. “What was that you said?”
“Won’t Jimmy be-?”
“No, the other part. The middle-aged part.”
Joe gulped. “I just meant from his perspective, being younger than you and just a-”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”
Joe pulled back onto Highway 1 and drove north out of town. A few miles up the road, we turned right and headed down a muddy back road. The rain had stopped, but as the redwoods closed in around us, it became so dark that without the headlights, we’d have been driving blind.
We came to a fork in the road and followed a sign pointing to the right. It was a piece of wood nailed to a tree, and spray painted with Jimmy’s address. A minute later, we came to a clearing where a cabin rested next to a creek. Smoke was rolling out of the chimney, and it drifted across the property like a fog. We parked and approached the house.
The owner must have seen us coming, because he opened the door after just one knock. We found ourselves face to face with a gray-bearded man in a buckskin jacket and cowboy hat. He looked us up and down, not saying a word.
“We’re looking for Jimmy Pishard,” I said.
“Behind the house,” the man said with a nod. And with that, he closed the door.
“Friendly,” I murmured. “I guess that explains why he lives way out here.”
We walked around the cabin and saw a trail leading to a camp trailer a few yards up the hill. “The guy in the house must be Jimmy’s landlord,” I said.
“Why do you say that? He could be a friend, or somebody Jimmy works with.”
“A friend or co-worker would have wanted to know who we were,” I said. “This guy either didn’t care, or was trying to mind his own business.”
“Good point.”
As we approached the trailer, I saw a series of extension cords running up from the cabin. There was a light on inside, and I noticed the unmistakable smell of burning propane. “He’s home,” I said in a low voice.
Joe stepped up to the door and knocked. I was a little nervous as we stood there waiting, listening to the sound of movement inside. Jimmy Pishard didn’t know who we were, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come out with guns blazing. He was after all, a murder suspect. I found myself thinking fondly of the Glock in my dresser back home, wishing I’d thought to bring it with me.
That was a strange thought, because in all those years with the FBI, I had never shot anyone. I’d only had to draw my firearm a handful of times, and I had never even come close to pulling the trigger. Until that moment, I had always been opposed to the idea of shooting someone. With Joe standing there next to me, and this tiny little baby growing in my womb, I realized that I would do just about anything to keep them safe.
When the door finally opened, I flinched. Joe gave me a strange look as Jimmy Pishard appeared before us. I recognized him from the pictures, but just barely. He’d changed a lot. The first thing I noticed was that he had put on weight. His hair was even longer than it had been, reaching almost to his waist, and he wore it pulled back in a tail. He was taller, too. Six-three or more. Jimmy had sprouted after high school.
He pushed his wide frame through the doorway, and a cloud of incense followed him out of the trailer. I glanced over his shoulder and saw a book resting on the counter, next to a pot of coffee.
“Can I help you?” he said, looking us up and down.
“I’m Tanja Shepherd. This is my husband Joe. We’re private investigators. Do you know why we’re here?” His shoulders slumped.
“Do you work for the family, or the cops?”
“Neither,” Joe said quickly. I glanced at him and back at Jimmy.
“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “I won’t lie to you, Jimmy. We’re trying to find out who killed Becky Sweet. We came to you because we want to hear your side of the story.”
He locked gazes with me, and I saw a world of pain and frustration behind his eyes. “Are you sure? Because that’s what the cops said last time, right before they arrested me for murder.”
“This isn’t a trick,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “If you’re innocent, Joe and I will prove it. I promise.”
He sighed. “All right. I suppose you won’t leave me alone until I talk to you anyway. What do you want to know?”
“Did you kill her?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
“Tell us what happened, in your own words.”
He stepped around us and gestured down the path.
“There’s no room in the trailer, but we can talk over here,” he said. He led us a few yards down the trail to a picnic area covered by a canvas canopy. There was a redwood picnic table and an outdoor fireplace made of brick. Joe and I settled down at the table. As he began to speak, Jimmy started building a fire.
“Becky was special to me,” he said. “She wasn’t like the other pretty girls. They just saw my hair and my clothes. They acted like I was scary or disgusting. Becky wasn’t like that.”
“What happened?” I said. “Why did the two of you break up?”
“To be honest, I just had too much baggage. I didn’t know how to have a relationship and she got tired of me being depressed and moody.”
“So she dumped you?” sa
id Joe.
“Things hadn’t been going that well. I was tired of my old man beating on me, so I ran away. She tried to talk me out of it, and I yelled at her. She just didn’t understand.”
“And that was when you killed her?” said Joe.
He snorted. “First, I didn’t kill her. Second, we broke up months before she died. By then, I’d been dating another girl for a while. Didn’t they tell you that?”
I looked at Joe curiously. “Why didn’t they note that in their reports?” I said. “Diekmann’s file said the break-up happened right before the murder.”
Joe shrugged, and I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t believe Jimmy’s story.
“The only reason the cops chose me as a suspect was because of my hair,” Jimmy said. “The cops in Healdsburg used to harass me every single day. They’d wait for me after school, make jokes about arresting me in front of the other kids. It was a living hell.”
I could see Jimmy getting frustrated and angry. Under the bitterness in his voice, I heard pain. I glanced at Joe and wondered if any of it was getting through to him.
“What about the drugs?” he said. “Your file says you admitted to doing drugs.”
Jimmy shook his head and laughed. “Is that what they told you?”
“Is it true?” Joe said.
“Aww, man… One of those cops asked me if I’d ever smoked pot. I said yes because I wanted to be honest and helpful. I told them I’d tried it once, but I didn’t like it and I’ve never smoked it again. But they didn’t write that down, did they?”
He bent down to light the fire, and it quickly blazed up.
“What about the night of the murder?” I said.
“They say Becky was killed down at the dairy farm. That’s all I know.”
“You weren’t near there?”
“I was working, delivering pizzas.”
I glanced at Joe. “The notes didn’t mention that, either.”
“It’s not much of an alibi,” Joe said. “There’s a lot of time between deliveries.”
“You think so?” said Jimmy. “Maybe you should try it someday.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
