by Jeramy Gates
“At least we’re not late for work,” I said cheerfully as I headed for the shower. My hip was feeling much better, and that instantly put me in a good mood.
“That’s the nice thing about being self-employed,” I said. “It’s like every day is Saturday.”
“It’s also like every day is never Saturday,” Tanja said as she joined me in the shower. “These days when we get a day off, it’s a bad thing. It means we’re not making any money.”
“You have a point. They say that when you start a business, you have to ask yourself: Is it better to work forty hours for someone else, or eighty for yourself?”
“What’s your answer?”
“I’m not sure, but I bet most self-employed people wouldn’t change for the world.”
The soap fell on the floor, and we stared at each other.
“Well, pick it up,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You first.”
“Not a chance.”
“It’s a standoff,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Tanja pulled me close, and put her arms around my neck.
“Let’s just stand here for a while.”
After we had the soap issue worked out, I left Tanja in the shower while I toweled off and got dressed. I called Diekmann to tell him about the recording, and our theory about the killer.
“We think Meyer’s body might be around that reservoir somewhere,” I said.
“That would explain the shovel in Becky’s trunk. There isn’t much I can do to help, but I can call Santa Rosa P.D., and ask them to send over a K-9 unit. They have a shepherd that’s trained for that sort of thing.”
“That’s a long shot, isn’t it?” I said. “If there really is a body around that lake, it has been buried there almost twenty-five years.”
“I’m no expert,” he said. “I’ll ask what they think. I suppose a metal detector wouldn’t hurt, if you can get your hands on one.”
I thanked him and hung up. Tanja saw me frowning as she came out of the shower. She asked what was wrong, and I explained the situation.
“How much do metal detectors cost?” she said.
“Too much. If the dogs don’t work out, I’ll call around and see if I can find a rental.”
The doorbell rang, and I tensed up. I pulled my gun out from under my pillow and tucked it into the back of my jeans. Tanja started getting dressed as I went down the hall to take a peek out the kitchen window. I saw a delivery van parked out front. I opened the door and a tall, thin guy in a brown shirt asked me to sign for a certified letter. As he drove away, I opened it and scanned the first paragraph.
“What do you have there?” Tanja said in the hallway behind me.
“It’s a foreclosure notice. Says if we don’t make a payment in forty-eight hours, they’ll start proceedings.”
“Joe, we have to cash that check. We can’t put it off any longer. We can’t risk losing our home.”
I handed her the letter. “Do it,” I said. “It’ll buy us some time. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pay Grandma back soon.”
“I don’t think Grandma expects us to pay her back.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re going to anyway.”
Tanja accepted that quietly. She retrieved the check from the bedroom. She also came out with her small gun safe, the one she keeps locked up in the back of the closet.
“What are you doing?” I said.
She opened the box and pulled out her little 9mm Glock and a pair of earplugs. “Just playing it safe,” she said. “Until we catch that psycho, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Earplugs?” I said. “What are you going to do, ask the maniac to wait a few seconds while you put in your earplugs?”
“Very funny.” She tucked the gun and earplugs into her purse and held up Grandma’s check. “You ready?”
Fifteen minutes later, Tanja had already deposited the check into our account at the Vine Hill Credit Union. She made an instant payment to our mortgage online, using her cell phone. The whole process took about two minutes.
“It’s done,” she said with a sigh of relief.
“That fast?”
“They make it very easy to give them money.”
“Somehow I doubt it would be so simple if they owed us,” I grumbled.
“I know you don’t like taking money Joe, but it was the right thing to do. We can pay Grandma back. We can make payments.”
I glanced at the clock. “Diekmann called. He said the K-9 unit will be at the reservoir in less than an hour.”
“Perfect, let’s go!”
I don’t know why, but for some reason when Diekmann had said a K-9 unit was coming, I assumed half a dozen city cops and a team of highly trained dogs would meet us. I was a bit surprised when an old Blazer appeared at the top of hill. As we parked, a gray haired woman in her fifties climbed out. She introduced herself as Marge. She opened the tailgate, releasing a German shepherd and two collies.
She must have noted my look, because she said, “Don’t let them fool you. Last winter they found a skier buried under twenty feet of ice in Tahoe.”
“Oh my God,” said Tanja. “Did he survive?”
Marge wrinkled up her forehead. “No. He was buried under twenty feet of ice. He had been there for two years.”
“What should we do?” I said.
“Just stand back, and try not to distract the dogs. We’ll walk around the area a few times. When they stop and sit, that’s what we call a hit. That means they smell something they’ve been trained to find. Maybe a body, maybe not. If they do that, I’ll put down a small flag and we will come back to the spot again in a little while.”
Tanja and I stayed out of the way as Marge gave the dogs a search command, and they went to work. As we watched, the group covered the circumference of the lake and the surrounding area three times. The first time around, they hit on seven different spots. Marge later explained that some of these were probably places where animals had been buried, or had died over the years. She told us to be patient.
During that time, Diekmann arrived. Tanja had crawled into the passenger seat in the Suburban because her back was starting to hurt. Diekmann and I stood next to her so we could talk quietly while we waited.
“I brought a few shovels and a pickaxe,” he said. “Unfortunately, there was a shooting up Chalk Hill and I can’t spare any men. It’s just you and me, Joe. How’s your leg?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him that it had been aching for two days, ever since I first jumped into that lake. I wasn’t going to let a little pain stop me.
“Good. We’ll see how far we get. If it gets too rough, we’ll rent a Bobcat.”
I laughed, and then realized he was serious.
“A tractor?” I said. “Won’t that damage evidence?”
“Probably,” said Diekmann. “But not much more than burying it for twenty-five years.”
On their last trip around the lake, the canines zeroed in on two spots, one at the southern end of the reservoir near the road, the other just beyond the bushes, a few yards from the collapsed dock.
“I pulled all the flags except those two,” Marge said as she loaded up her dogs. “If you find anything, it’ll be in one of those two spots.”
We thanked her for her help, and Marge went on her way. Diekmann and I decided to start with the one closest to the road. We grabbed our shovels and went to work.
Thankfully, several months of persistent rain had saturated the ground, so the digging was easy. Even with my bum leg, I managed to hold up my end of the work. Fifteen minutes in, we found a bone. Diekmann examined it and proclaimed that we had discovered the corpse of a murdered cow.
I told him Tanja and I would accept a cashier’s check for payment. He said the check was in the mail. We moved on.
The second likely spot was a bit harder to work. The soil was rocky and tangled with the roots of the nearby shrubs. We encountered several large stones that consumed a great deal of time and energy to r
emove, and left both of us panting and dripping with sweat. By then, it was getting dark and my leg was starting to hurt pretty bad. I kept that to myself.
Tanja took the Suburban back to town to pick up some dinner and flashlights. By the time she returned, full night had fallen, and she found the two of us resting at the edge of the hill, talking about the old days. We had no place to eat, so the three of us crawled into the Suburban to enjoy our greasy dinner of cheeseburgers and stale fries. It was a less than spectacular end to a long, hard afternoon. It started to rain while we were eating.
When he was finished, Diekmann reached around to put his trash in one of the bags and groaned as his back muscles seized up. He froze with a look of pure anguish.
“You going to be all right?” I said.
“Just… breathing…” he whispered. “Give me a minute. Or three.”
“I think you need to call it a day,” Tanja said. “We can come back tomorrow.”
“Not me,” said Diekmann. “I’ve got a meeting with the city council in the morning.”
“Wait here and let your back unwind,” I said. “ I want to get that last rock out before I give up.”
Diekmann protested, but only halfheartedly. He knew when he was beat. I threw on one of the ponchos Tanja had brought back with her, and went stumbling back to the hole with a gas lantern and an old shovel. The rain had picked up steadily while we were eating, and a pool of water had begun to form in the bottom of the hole.
I threw my back into my work, using my weight against the shovel’s handle as a lever to pry the rock upward. I ignored the pain in my hip, steadily working at the stone until I finally heard the sucking sound I was looking for. As the rock began to move, mud and water rushed in to fill the gap. I reached the end of my leverage, and the rock fell back into place. I was close, but it wasn’t ready to come out yet.
I moved to the other side of the hole and tried again. I jammed the tip of the shovel under the corner and stomped on it a few times to make sure I had a good bite. I leaned on the handle, pressing down with all my weight. All at once, the rock moved and the handle snapped. Before I knew what had happened, I was sprawled out face down in the mud with excruciating jolts of pain shooting up and down my leg.
I cried out, blinded by pain, twisting around as I tried to get my face out of the mud. I got an arm underneath my chest, giving me some room to breathe, and then went still, moaning quietly as I waiting for the agony to subside.
For some reason, when my bones healed after that old injury, they ended up slightly out of whack. I’ve already explained that once in a while my leg decides to give out on me. When the stars align just right, and I put too much weight on it at just the wrong time, my hip tries to twist out of the socket. When it does, it’s about the most god-awful pain imaginable. It pinches a nerve that nearly cripples me. The doctors say I’ll probably need a new hip someday, but I have this philosophy about trying to keep my original body parts intact as long as I can.
This has only happened to me a few times. Every time it does, I have a good reminder to be very careful with that leg for a year or so. Then I forget. I get careless.
This time, the pain was bad enough at first that I completely lost any sense of who or where I was. After what was probably just one minute, but seemed more like a day and a half, I heard footsteps sloshing through the mud in my direction. The pain hadn’t abated much, but shock must have been kicking in because I started to come around. I felt Tanja’s hands on my shoulders as she bent over and tried to lift me. I waved her away.
“Don’t!” I said. “Just give me a minute.” She stood back, and I looked her up and down, rolling my eyes. “Are you crazy, woman? Get back in the car! You’re going to catch pneumonia.”
“I’m not the idiot lying in the mud,” she curtly replied. I didn’t bother reminding her that she was pregnant. I figured she knew. I heard a snort, and swiveled my head around to see Diekmann staring down into the hole.
“What?” I said.
He looked at me and shook his head. “You enjoy making me work in the rain, son?”
“Huh?”
He stepped into the hole, bent down, and held something up. Tanja lifted the lantern so we could clearly see the object. It was a human skull.
“You’ve done it now,” Diekmann said. “I’m gonna be here all damn night.”
Chapter 11
Tanja
Over the next two hours, a steady stream of police personnel joined us at the reservoir. The Sheriff’s men helped Joe get into the Suburban, but Joe insisted we stick around, even though he was in excruciating pain.
“Just a while,” he said. “I want to make sure it’s the right body.”
I gave him a concerned look. “Joe, if we’ve found another body and it isn’t Myles, we must be sitting on an ancient burial ground.”
Joe didn’t quite get my joke. I think he was in too much pain to understand me. He took a Tylenol and crawled into the backseat.
It was after ten p.m. when the sheriff finally came over and announced that we had officially discovered the remains of a pubescent male.
“We’ll move the remains to the morgue for testing and identification,” he said. “The rest of the excavation will have to wait until morning. Go get some rest, Joe.”
“Do you think you’ll find anything else?” I said.
“I didn’t think we’d find this,” said the sheriff. “Go home.”
I didn’t argue. I took Joe home and tucked him into bed with a nice hot buttered rum. A little while later, he called for a second. I noticed that his color was coming back. That was the last I heard from him. I went to bed half an hour later and he was snoring like a freight train.
When I woke the next morning, Joe was still out of it. I left a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water on the nightstand next to the bed, and went to make some breakfast. Unfortunately, we were down to pickles, toast, and prenatal vitamins. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with a clever breakfast idea based on those ingredients.
I made a quick trip to the supermarket. When I got back, I found Joe lying awake in bed. I noticed that the glass of water was empty and the aspirin bottle was sitting open.
“You okay?” I said.
“Just waiting. I think the third pill just kicked in.”
“Joe! How many did you take?”
“How many? I’m not done yet.”
“Yes, you are.” I took the aspirin back to the bathroom and brought him a cup of coffee. “Drink that, and then get moving before that hip freezes up on you.”
Joe moaned and grunted a lot, but he stumbled into the shower without too much argument. Twenty minutes later, he wandered into the kitchen leaning heavily on his cane. I set a plate of pancakes and bacon on the counter, and refilled his coffee cup.
“Where’d all this food come from?” he said.
“I went to the store.”
He stared at me, mystified. “What time is it?”
“Ten thirty.” Joe blinked. He didn’t say anything; he just went to work on the food. By the time the plate was empty, he was acting half-human again, and even talking like one.
“Have you heard from Diekmann?”
“He had that meeting this morning. I’m hoping he’ll update us by afternoon.”
“What do we do in the meanwhile?”
“I want to visit the high school again.”
“For what?”
“I’ve been thinking. If that body we found last night really was Myles Meyer, there must be a connection between him and Richard Sweet. The killer must be someone they both knew.”
“And he’s at the high school?” Joe said, looking askance.
“No, moron. Remember the pictures in Becky’s notebook? Richard Sweet and Myles Meyer went to school together. I want to see their records.”
“Ah.”
Joe refilled his plate and picked at it for a while. I could tell he wasn’t eager to get back on his feet, but I eventually told him it was time to
get moving. He resigned himself to his fate with a loud sigh, and we headed for the door.
Half an hour later, we were back at Healdsburg High School. Linda, the freckle-faced woman at the front desk, greeted us with an irritated sigh.
“Back again so soon?” she said.
“Yes, I would like to view some students’ records from nineteen-ninety.”
She sighed again. “That’s not our policy. Would you like to speak with the principal?”
“Yes, please.”
I turned to Joe and found him grinning.
“What’s so funny?” I said quietly.
“I don’t think she likes us much.”
“I don’t think she likes anyone who makes her get her lazy butt out of that chair.”
Joe laughed. “She is kind of sexy, though. In a hostile, apathetic sort of way.”
I punched him in the shoulder. Linda returned a few minutes later with a very short, very bald man with a mustache.
“I’m Chester Balfour,” he said. “Linda tells me you’re looking for old records?”
“Yes, from nineteen-ninety. We want to cross reference your records for Richard Sweet and Myles Meyer.”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“Do we need one?” said Joe. “We are talking about two murder victims.”
“Rules are rules,” he said. “I can’t let one person break the rules, or everyone will want to.”
“Mr. Balfour,” I said. “We’re not children. We’re investigators trying to solve a murder. What can it hurt to see those records?”
“I’ve done all I can,” he said dismissively, and disappeared back inside his office. Joe and I stared at each other, dumbfounded.
“Better luck next time,” said Linda with a snarky grin.
“Count on it,” I said. “Next time, we’ll have a warrant. And we’ll be asking to see a lot more than two files.”
Her eyebrows went up.
“Yep,” Joe said. “That’s going to be a huge mess. I’ve seen these guys serve a warrant before. Everything ends up in one big pile on the floor. It can take weeks to sort it out after they’re finished.”
