He said, She said, Murder (He said, She said Detective Series Book 1)

by Jeramy Gates

  “No signal,” Tanja said, staring at her phone. “I was going to look the address up on a map.”

  “If I remember right, that road is a couple miles north of town.”

  “Do you think we should have called Diekmann?”

  “I don’t see what good it would have done. We don’t even know if anybody’s out here. Let’s check it out first. If we need to, we’ll drive around until we get a cell signal.”

  “What if we don’t get a signal?”

  “We can use a landline at one of these restaurants.”

  We passed through Bodega Bay, a quaint little town full of kite shops, candy stores, and art galleries. The place seemed ominous and foreboding with the storm raging, and everything dark and shuttered.

  A few minutes later, I pulled onto Pelican Way. Two ridges rose up along either side of the road, perfectly funneling the wind up into the narrow valley. It was like driving through a hurricane. Two hundred yards up the road, we came to an eight-foot chain link fence surrounding a creepy-looking old warehouse. A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, momentarily illuminating the area. I shut off the headlights.

  “I’m going to sneak up there and take a look,” I said.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not. Remember what the doctor said? You’re supposed to be taking it easy. You shouldn’t even be here, much less sneaking around in the dark and the rain.” I reached for the door handle and she put a hand on my arm.

  “Joe, I don’t like this.”

  “Relax, I’m just taking a look.”

  “What if somebody sees you?”

  “You have your Glock, right? If anything happens, you can cover me on the way out.”

  “What if you don’t come out?”

  Tanja’s eyes were huge, and I almost hesitated. She’s a southern California girl. She’s not used to the stormy isolation of the north coast, and I could tell she didn’t want to be alone out there at night.

  “I’ll be fine,” I promised, pulling her close. I could smell the perfume on her neck and the warmth of her skin drawing me in. I gave her a quick peck on the lips and pulled away while I still could. I opened the door.

  “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, get out of here. Drive up the road until you find a phone signal and call Diekmann. If you have to, go use a landline back in town.”

  I grabbed my cane and stepped out into the rain. It was coming down in sheets, and even though it was only a hundred yards away, the building was little more than a silhouette in a foggy haze. I saw a glimmer of light in one of the upper windows, and that’s when it occurred to me that I didn’t have my gun. I’d left it on the nightstand that morning.

  I reminded myself that I was just going to take a look. Besides, I’d been through worse without a gun. I didn’t consider either of those two much of a threat. King was old and frail and completely unfamiliar with physical violence, and Pishard… well, he had already proven his physical prowess, or lack thereof.

  I slipped through the gate and moved along the fence line towards the building, hoping the distance and the storm would help to obscure me from sight. The rain had already soaked me to the bone and the wind was blowing so hard I had to lean into it and squint my eyes against the spray. My leg was tight and throbbing, and I was leaning heavily on my cane. All things considered, I still moved fairly quickly. The thought of reaching the shelter of the warehouse provided some motivation in that regard.

  I reached a spot adjacent to the back corner of the building, and hurried across the parking lot. I pressed my back up against the wall and took a moment to catch my breath. The slope of the hillside channeled the wind up the hill behind me, whipping the sagebrush and wild grain into a frenzy. The gusts made a moaning sound through the rafters, and sent spirals of fog twisting up the hillside like dust devils.

  I crept to the nearest window and tried to peek inside. Unfortunately, the window had been painted over. There was another a few yards down, but it looked the same, and the one after that had been boarded over. Frustrated, I moved around the far corner, looking for a way to make a quiet entrance. As I went around the building, the hillside closed in behind the warehouse and I found the area blessedly dry, but still freezing cold.

  Just around the corner, I found a door. I twisted the handle and found the deadbolt had been locked. I pulled out my wallet and removed my lock picking kit. I inserted the pick and tension wrench, and began working my way slowly back and forth, trying to force the pins into place without making a noise that would tip off the occupants of the building.

  With the wind howling around me, and the moisture running off my shaved head and into my eyes, it took a lot longer than it should have. It didn’t help that I was very out of practice. I hadn’t had to pick a lock in three years.

  At last, I heard the telltale click and felt the lock begin to twist under slight pressure. Very gently, I turned the tension wrench and felt the deadbolt slide back. I winced as it made a slight clicking sound.

  I shoved the picks into my back pocket and pulled the door open a crack. I was taking a risk that the building might have some sort of security system, but since someone was inside, the alarm had mostly likely been disabled. I peeked through the narrow slit and saw a dimly lit room full of boats, kayaks, and piles of miscellaneous junk. Most of the stuff looked pretty old.

  This, I presumed was the final resting ground for all those old trade-ins. I drew the door open a little wider, giving my self a broader field of vision, and saw no signs of life. I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me.

  There was something creepy about that place. All of those old boats rotting away under a thick layer of dust and spider webs gave me a chill. Some of those boats went back to the fifties. I saw everything from canoes to thirty-foot sailboats. Some of them were even custom made.

  I felt a sad compulsion to rescue all of those poor old boats, like poor little orphans lost in the wilderness. It didn’t make sense to me that they would be allowed to just sit and rot like that. I thought I knew why, though. Pishard didn’t want those old boats floating around the classifieds. He wanted them out of commission, so that when people needed a boat, they’d have to go to him and buy a new one. There’s nothing illegal about it. It’s just a symptom of life in a disposable society.

  I stepped around the hull of an old wooden powerboat and bent down, keeping my head low as I crossed the room. In the distance, near the front of the warehouse, I saw light streaming down a wooden staircase from the second floor. I worked my way slowly in that direction, careful not to bump into anything or trip over the many objects lying on the floor. That was easier said than done. Moving through that warehouse in the dark, trying to keep a low profile while leaning on my cane was tricky. Every few feet, I came across an old outboard engine or life preserver just lying on the floor. The place was like an obstacle course of derelict boating accessories.

  By the time I got close to the staircase, I had the feeling my time was just about up. I felt a twinge of guilt as I thought of Tanja sitting alone in the dark, worrying about me. That was almost enough to make me turn back. But not this close. Not when I had already come this far…

  I paused at the base of the staircase, straining to hear anything over the rain pounding down on the metal roof. If King and Pishard were up there, they weren’t making much noise.

  I cautiously took the first step. I moved my weight slowly, good leg first, then gradually lifted my left foot onto the step, putting my weight on the cane. I worked my way halfway up the staircase like that, practically crawling one step at a time, counting them out in the back of my head like an obsessive compulsive climbing the steps at Giza.

  Number eight was the one that got me. I put my weight on that step, and it groaned like the Titanic smashing into an iceberg. I fought the urge to pull back. With my weight balanced uncomfortably between my good leg and my cane, I’d probably just end up falling down the stairs backwards.

  I steadi
ed myself and stood there, listening to the downpour, straining to hear anything that hinted I’d given myself away. A good minute passed that way. At last, I took another step. Number eight creaked slightly as I shifted my weight, but not nearly as loudly as the first time.

  At last, I reached the height of the upper floor. I leaned up against the wall, and ever so carefully took a peak over the top. I saw a large, mostly empty room. Papers covered the walls, possibly blueprints for various boats. There was a desk against the far wall. Opposite the desk, just a few yards away from me, was a chair. It was facing away from me, but I was sure the man sitting in it was James Pishard. Or, it had been Pishard, judging by the pool of blood on the floor around him.

  “There you are, Mr. Shepherd,” said a familiar voice behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to see Mr. King at the far end of the stairwell, overlooking the staircase. He must have been hiding back there the whole time, waiting for me to get to the top of the stairwell.

  “Come on up,” he said. “Where is that pretty wife of yours?”

  “She didn’t come.”

  “Perfect! This will be so much simpler that way.”

  I climbed to the top of the stairs and lurched over to the chair. Pishard’s head lolled uncomfortably off to the side, his death gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the ceiling. The blood was already darkening around the bullet wound in his temple.

  “Nine millimeter,” Mr. King said. “Very fast, very clean. James chose an excellent weapon for his suicide, don’t you think?”

  “Is that the same gun you used on the reporter?”

  “Aren’t you the clever one?”

  “If you think killing Pishard is going to get you off, you haven’t thought this through very well. He’s not the only one who knows what you did.”

  “First of all, I didn’t kill Pishard. He killed himself, right after he killed you. He couldn’t take the guilt anymore, which is exactly what I plan to write in his suicide note. And yes, I have thought this through. See, Pishard was the only witness left. I was sure he’d keep his mouth shut after what happened to Richard, but I guess he got brave. It was bound to happen eventually. See, children can be controlled. They don’t understand the world. They don’t know who they can trust, or what might happen to them if they’re not careful. All it takes is a few words, a few seeds whispered into their fertile young minds…

  “But they inevitably grow up. That’s the tragedy of it all. They lose their fear, their malleability. Slowly, over the years, they turn into the thing that they hate most. They turn into their parents. They start feeling responsible, and they’re staring down the barrel of middle-age, and suddenly they have a crisis of conscience. They start thinking maybe they should go to the cops about that thing that happened so long ago.

  “It doesn’t matter, though. There is more than one way to skin a cat, Mr. Shepherd. After tonight, I can finally put this story to rest once and for all.”

  “That’s not gonna happen,” I said. “Pishard confessed. The sheriff knows everything.”

  “Really?” he said with a devious smile. “After the sheriff sees what Pishard has done tonight, do you think that confession will mean anything?”

  He had a point. The whole murder/suicide scheme was simple but effective. I almost wished he had come up with something more elaborate. That way, there would have been at least some margin for error.

  I took a deep breath and told myself that Tanja was just a few miles away, calling Diekmann that very minute. She must have realized by then that something had happened; that she needed to go for help. It didn’t make much difference, though. It would be at least twenty minutes before Diekmann showed up. By then, I’d be dead and King would be long gone. At least Tanja would be safe.

  “Take a few steps to your left, if you please,” King said. “That spot looks about right, don’t you think?”

  “First tell me what happened,” I said. “What made you kill Myles Meyer? Did he threaten to blackmail you?”

  “No, it was nothing like that. Myles was a good boy, pure, unsullied. It was something rare and wonderful then, almost nonexistent now. The two of us, we had an understanding. I could tell by the way he looked at me, by the way that he talked to me… he understood.”

  “What? That you’re a pedophile?”

  “Don’t. Just don’t. At his age, he was almost a man. He was no innocent. He’d been trying to get my attention for weeks. He was jealous of the other boys.”

  “Why kill him?” I said. “You don’t expect me to believe it was just an accident.”

  “But it was. Can’t you understand that? That’s the tragedy of this whole thing!”

  “How do you accidentally kill someone?”

  “Myles and I had been waiting so long for the chance to be alone. When it finally happened, it was like destiny. It was karma. But Myles was nervous; afraid we might be caught, and he started to struggle. I didn’t know what to do. This boy who had been leading me on for weeks was about to ruin everything. When people found out, it would have been the end of my career. It would have ruined me.

  “I panicked. I tried to put my hand over his mouth, just to keep him quiet until I could calm him down. In our struggle, he threw his head back and somehow struck a sharp rock. It killed him. It was a freak accident, something that would have just bruised ninety-nine percent of us. But for Myles… it must have been his time. I can’t imagine how else it could have happened. Just a horrible, horrible accident. That’s how it all began.”

  “Pishard was telling the truth,” I said. “And after Myles died, you convinced the other boys to help you hide the body?”

  “Yes. We all knew it was for the best. We swore each other to secrecy. We would never speak of it again.”

  “But Richard broke that oath?”

  “He was going to. He called me one day, out of the blue. Said he couldn’t take the guilt anymore. He had become a man, raised a child of his own. He said it wasn’t right, leaving that body up there on the hill. He said that we had to do the right thing. Of course, I knew what that really meant. It meant he was going to tell the truth, and when the police investigated, they would find out everything. They would know I had been there; what I had been doing…”

  “So you killed Richard before he could talk. You made it look like a suicide.”

  “Yes, and that should have been the end of it. It really should have. I don’t know why his daughter wouldn’t get that silly notion about his murder out of her head. Becky went through counseling. We all told her that she needed to accept his death and move on. She just wouldn’t.”

  “How did you know about her and Randall?”

  “Oh, I knew Becky was up to something the first day Randall came to the high school. I had seen the two of them talking. After he left, she said something into her voice recorder. I had this terrible feeling it was about her father, and I was right.

  “I started to keep an eye on her. The night she met Randall, I was there. He had brought some digging equipment, which they put in her car, and they drove up to the reservoir together. As soon as they parked, I knew what I had to do. I had my pistol with me, so I shot Randall.”

  “And Becky tried to run away?”

  “Yes. I chased her down the hill, into the dairy. She tried to hide inside the building, but I found her.”

  “And you attacked her, and dumped her into the vat?”

  “Yes. I had planned to bring her body up to the car, but before I could, that half-wit came around. He was calling all the cows in to the milking machines.”

  “So you panicked and threw Becky into the cream?”

  “What else could I do? I dumped her into the vat, closed the lid, and snuck back up to the hill. I had to cover my tracks before anyone saw me there. I put the reporter’s body in the car. I drove it over to the dock, and let it roll right into the lake.”

  “The voice recorder…” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Becky confronted you
, and you threatened to kill her. She recorded the whole conversation.”

  “You’re mistaken,” he said.

  I considered that. “It must have been Pishard then… he was warning her away, wasn’t he?”

  “Sounds like the sort of thing he would do. I should have killed that fool years ago.”

  I smiled. I had started talking with the hope of buying myself some time. I hadn’t expected King to give me a full confession. I just had to keep him talking a bit longer… ten minutes, maybe. Fifteen?

  Then I heard the loud, unmistakable creaking sound of step number eight.

  Chapter 13

  Tanja

  I wish I could say I was surprised that Joe didn’t come back when he said he would, but I wasn’t. That’s just the kind of thing Joe does. You know the type. He leaps headfirst into dangerous situations without a second thought for his own well-being, and hardly a thought for anyone else. He thrives on dangerous situations. He’s an Alpha.

  It’s not entirely Joe’s fault. He spent so many years working undercover that all he knows now is how to follow his instincts. He’s not used to working with a partner, much less being married to one, and he sure doesn’t think things through before he acts. I suppose I can forgive him, since that’s probably what has kept him alive this long. He is getting better about it. But at times -like when he jumped out of the car and went rushing off into the storm- I just want to strangle him.

  “Give me fifteen minutes,” he had said. Sure Joe, great plan. Except that even if I could get a cell signal in that storm, it would have taken Diekmann twenty-five minutes to get there. And where would that leave us, you reckless imbecile? Ah, well. I suppose that’s the price we pay for marriage. We put up with men being imbeciles and they put up with us and our hormones. When you add it all up, I’m still fairly certain that women drew the short straw on that deal. At least we only act like idiots once a month.

  So I did what came naturally: the exact opposite of what he told me to do! Glock in hand, I followed Joe’s path around the outside edge of the property. I crept along the fence line to the back of the warehouse, right up to the back door on the far side. It was still unlocked, having been left that way by my careless, erratic, semi-crippled husband. I slipped quietly inside.