by L A Dobbs
“Do you see him?” Jo asked as they trotted toward the woods.
“No. Damn!”
“Yeah. As soon as he saw us. He looked panicked.”
“Right. And why would he run unless he was guilty?”
“We need to get out to that campsite pronto. He might be pulling up stakes right now and getting ready to skip town.” Jo broke into a jog toward the Tahoe.
Just before they reached the vehicle, Summer Solstice stepped into their path.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” she said in a low voice as if she didn’t want anyone to overhear.
“We’re kind of in a hurry right now,” Sam said.
She remained in their path, crossing her arms over her chest and looking around furtively. “This is important. It’s about the night Ray died.”
Sam stopped trying to get around her. “Oh?”
“Yeah. You know how you asked if anyone heard anyone leaving?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I did hear something. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure when you asked before, and I didn’t want to say anything in front of everyone else, but now that I’ve thought about it I’m almost certain someone did leave in the middle of the night. I heard a tent zipper being unzipped very slowly and then a car start up.”
“You’re sure?” Sam asked. “Do you have any idea who it was? Or what direction the sound came from?”
Summer pressed her lips together. “I’ve been thinking about that. The way that spot is, the sounds echo off the river, so I really can’t say for sure whose tent it was.”
“But you’re sure you heard someone?” Sam asked.
“Yes. I’m positive about that.”
Chapter Fourteen
While Sam sped toward the campground, Jo double-checked the paper Reese had given her with the names of the owners of the cars that had been parked at the campsite by the river. “Dennis drives a green Gremlin.”
“My bet is he’s still at the camp. It takes time to pack a tent, so if we hurry we’ll catch him.” Sam accelerated, much to the delight of Lucy, whose head hung out the back window, enjoying the breeze.
Jo looked out the side window at the passing scenery of dense forest, which dropped off to an expansive view of mountains with puddles of cornflower-blue lakes at their feet. Her thoughts turned to Dupont’s request for their help. “Dupont seemed as if he was trying to send you a message back there at the owl zone. How long do you think it will take before he gives us any information?”
“Don’t know.”
“We could run surveillance on the river,” Jo suggested.
“We don’t have the manpower for that,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I guess that’s another reason to get that new hire on board.”
“I went over the resumes again this morning. His is on the corner of my desk. I’ll call him when I get a chance.”
As the Tahoe lurched and jolted down the dirt road, Jo debated asking about what Thorne had told Sam that night in Holy Spirits. Was it about her? It seemed as if Thorne had given Sam something. Could it have been an old article about her sister’s disappearance?
Sam no longer acted aloof. Perhaps he figured she would tell him when she was ready. At any rate, things seemed good between them again, so maybe it was best to leave it alone.
Jo’s stomach swooped as they pulled up to the campsite. The green Gremlin was gone.
“He’s not here. You think he’s already gone?” she asked.
“Doesn’t seem like there’d be time.” Sam shut off the engine and jumped out. “Let’s check.”
Jo and Lucy piled out behind him and traversed the short path to the site.
“All the tents are here,” Sam said.
“Which is his?”
“No idea. But he wouldn’t have left without all his stuff.”
Jo glanced around. Everything seemed as it had when they’d visited the day before. Lounge chairs circled the fire, clothing hung on the line, the trash picked up neatly. If anyone here was guilty of murder, they weren’t in any hurry to leave.
“Funny thing how everyone claimed they were all in their tents when we talked to them yesterday, and now two people have privately said otherwise,” Jo said.
Sam nodded. “Either they don’t want to squeal in front of their friends or they’re covering up.”
“What do you think of Peter? He seemed awfully protective of Sally and not so keen on Ray.”
“Jealous lover?”
“Can’t rule that out,” Jo said. “But both Peter and Summer said they saw Ray meeting with that mysterious guy.”
“And something isn’t right about Summer, either,” Sam said. “Didn’t Sally say she thought Summer was the one who left that night?”
“Right, but Summer just told us that she heard someone leaving.” Jo gnawed her bottom lip. “Of course, she could have been making that up to cover for the fact that it was her.”
“Or Sally and Peter could have been making things up to cover for the fact it was Peter.”
By the fire, Lucy clawed and sniffed at something. She looked back and barked at them, her tail wagging rapidly.
Jo squatted beside her. The object of interest was a small piece of blackened metal with molded plastic gooped at one end. She pushed it out of the ashes and onto one of the rocks with a stick.
“Check this out. It’s a flash drive,” she said. “You think someone dropped it in the fire accidentally, or on purpose because they didn’t want anyone to see what was on it?”
“My bet is the latter. Better take it.”
Jo pulled an evidence envelope from her pocket, turned it inside out and stuck her hand in to pick up the drive without touching it.
“Good job, Lucy.” She patted the top of Lucy’s head and was rewarded with a Lucy smile. The dog’s smile froze, and her tail stopped in mid-wag. She let out a bark and then bounded off toward the tree line. Jo jerked her head in that direction. Dennis stood at the edge of the trees, a look of panic on his face.
“Stop right there!” Sam yelled.
Dennis turned and ran, Lucy at his heels.
Before Jo and Sam got to the tree line, Lucy had tackled Dennis. He went down with a loud “Oof!”
“Hey, get this thing off me!” He thrashed and tried to roll, but Lucy had his arm in a tight grip, her teeth just short of breaking the skin, exactly as she’d been trained.
“I’ll sue for police brutality!” Dennis yelled.
Sam snapped his fingers, and Lucy let go and trotted obediently to Sam’s side.
Dennis sat up, inspecting his arm. There was barely even a red mark.
“Police brutality doesn’t hold up if the police are trying to catch a criminal,” Sam said.
“I’m not a criminal!”
“Then why were you running from the police?”
“I ... I just got freaked out when I saw you poking through our things.” Dennis bristled, now becoming indignant. “You don’t have any right to …”
“Yes, we do,” Sam cut him off. “You’re camping here illegally on town property. But never mind that.” Sam reached over and hauled Dennis to his feet. “You’re wanted for questioning. So are you going to come to the station voluntarily, or do we have to cuff you and drag you there?”
Chapter Fifteen
Sam sat Dennis in the interrogation chair in his office. It was a straight-backed wooden chair that Sam had taken a quarter inch off one leg so that the chair rocked. The off-kilter motion made suspects nervous, and the more nervous they got, the more they fidgeted. The more they fidgeted, the more the chair rocked, ratcheting up their anxiety and making confessions come more easily.
Sam sat behind his desk, Jo in a chair off to the side. Lucy warmed herself in a puddle of sunshine that spilled in from the tall windows.
“I don’t understand why you need these high-handed tactics.” Dennis leaned forward, the chair rocked and he sat back again. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We just have some
things we want to clear up,” Sam said.
Dennis spread his hands. “Okay. Shoot.”
“You and Ray were good friends, right?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. For a long time.”
“Then why were you seen arguing the other day?”
Dennis rocked forward in the chair again, his eyes darting to the window. “We didn’t argue.”
“I have a witness.”
“Okay, well, Ray was on edge and arguing a lot. I wasn’t the only one he argued with. It was nothing. Didn’t you ever argue with a friend?”
Point taken. Sam and Mick had argued plenty over the years yet remained close as brothers.
“What about the five thousand dollars?” Sam asked.
“What five thousand dollars?” Dennis tried to sound as if he had no idea about the five grand, but the way he shifted his eyes to the left told Sam he knew exactly what he was talking about.
Sam showed him the note, and Dennis sighed. “Oh, that. He invested in my company.”
“The trash-barrel company?”
Dennis straightened in the chair, reaching awkwardly into his back pocket for his cell phone. The chair rocked, and he looked exasperated. “Don’t you have a better chair?”
“Just answer the questions.”
“I’ll show you.” Dennis gestured to his cell phone, which Sam had confiscated and put on the corner of his desk. Sam nodded, and Dennis picked it up. He typed something in and then turned it to Sam. “He invested in Green Turtle — my company. There’s so much litter, and I want to clean it up. Is that a crime?”
Sam looked at the screen, which showed a bank account for the Green Turtle Company and a $5,000 deposit that coincided with the timeframe Ray had left the note.
“So he was an investor?”
“Of course. We’re friends. He’s a proponent of cleaning up the environment, too,” Dennis said. “So you see, we didn’t argue about anything important. Why would he have invested otherwise?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Where did he get that kind of money?”
Dennis shrugged. “How would I know? He gets paid well sometimes for his photos.”
“Ever since you activists came to town, things have been a little heated. What do you know about that? Was Ray involved in any of the fights or graffiti? Was there anyone else he argued with? Anyone who would want him out of the way for anything?”
Dennis rocked in the chair again. “I have no idea what Ray does … did … when I wasn’t with him or who would want him out of the way. Lots of people here are hot-headed, and graffiti gets sprayed at every single one of these things.”
“What about egg throwing?”
“That’s unique to here because of the owls, but what’s that got to do with anything?”
“We saw you throw the egg at Dupont. Maybe egg-throwing is the least of your crimes.”
“Are you going to arrest me for that?”
“Not for that, but if you come clean with everything else, maybe we’ll go easy on you.” Sam usually tried this tactic, but it hardly ever worked. Dennis was no different.
“Like I said, I haven’t done anything worse.”
Sam leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why did you run from us?”
Dennis looked down at the floor. His chair rocked. “You surprised me.”
“I’m not buying that. You ran at the owl zone when you saw us there, and then again at the camp. You’re avoiding us because you’re guilty. It’s only a matter of time before we find out the truth.”
Dennis’ eyes jerked back and forth between Jo and Sam, his face contorting in anguish. The chair rocked unsteadily, in tempo with Jo’s eraser tapping on her notepad. Sam and Jo remained quiet. Experience had taught them that sometimes saying nothing was the best way to get someone to say something.
“Okay. I confess. It was me.”
Sam shot Jo a look. That was too easy. Something wasn’t right. “You mean you confess that you murdered Ray Ingalls?”
“Murder? No. I confess that I was the one who sprayed graffiti on the side of the hotel. I didn’t kill anyone!”
* * *
“So another person claims someone left their tent that night,” Jo said as they watched Dennis drive off with Kevin. They’d brought him in in the police car, so someone had to take him back. Kevin seemed the likely candidate.
Upon further interrogation, Dennis had reiterated that he was in his tent all night, but also claimed to have heard someone leave. He also denied knowing anything about the secret meetings with the orange-tipped hair guy. Now they were back at square one.
“It’s getting mucky,” Sam said.
“Yeah. Seems weird that Ray wouldn’t have told Dennis about meeting that guy. I mean, if they were close enough for him to invest five grand.” Jo shrugged.
“I’m still not sure we can bank on anything he says, but for now we’ve got nothing on him. All we can do is issue a fine for the graffiti,” Sam said.
“At least we cleared up the mystery of the five grand.” Jo went to the coffee machine, stuck in a K-cup, shoved her mug under the spout and pressed the button. “That explains the five grand that Ray deducted, but what about the fifteen grand that was deposited?”
“Guess we need to research that further.”
“Maybe not,” Reese cut in. “I looked into TLP like you asked. Turns out it’s a publishing company.”
“A publishing company?” Jo looked at her over the rim of her yellow smiley-face mug. “Maybe that makes sense. Ingalls sold photographs and wrote articles, right? It’s probably his publisher or something.”
Reese made a face. “Fifteen grand? For an article? I don’t know. One of my college friends writes freelance, and she gets about two hundred an article.”
“Maybe the payment was for a bunch of them?” Sam suggested.
Reese pursed her lips. “That’s a lot of articles.”
“So that’s not really good news. I mean, if the payment was legit, then we’re no further ahead than we were before.” Jo reached into the white bag on Reese’s desk and pulled out a jelly doughnut. The sound of the bag crinkling summoned Lucy from her plush dog bed. She trotted over to sit in front of Jo, her hopeful eyes trained on the doughnut.
“Well, we’ve ruled out Dennis. Now we have Summer and her mysterious sugar daddy, Peter and his jealousy, and this hooded guy who may or may not actually exist. Guess we need to do some old-fashioned detective work.”
Jo squeezed the sides of the doughnut and licked the blob of jelly out of it. “Dennis did say he heard someone leaving the campsite. So now three people have told us someone left. We need to figure out who that is. We need to check alibis.”
“Too bad everyone claims to have been in their tent asleep.”
“Maybe we need to figure out who else could have seen someone going up to the owl zone,” Jo suggested.
“The only one in the area is Jackson, and he wouldn’t have seen anyone. His house isn’t near the access road.”
“They drove in and out in their cars. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone stopped for gas at the Quick Mart.”
“Suppose it can’t hurt to ask.” Sam bent down to pet Lucy. The dog tore her attention from the doughnut for a second to give him a quick glance. “And where is his camera?” Sam turned to Reese. “Put a watch on all the pawn shops and look on Craigslist and eBay to see if anyone is trying to unload that camera. It’s a pretty expensive model. A Canon EOS.”
“Will do.” Reese slipped back behind her desk and started tapping on her keyboard.
“This still could have something to do with Thorne. He seems most likely to have a hooded guy doing his dirty work,” Jo said.
“Right. But we don’t really have a good motive and no reason to question him. If he’s involved, something will come up. In the meantime let’s do some more checking on our suspects.”
“Where do we start?” Jo mumbled as she shoved the last bite of doughnut into her mouth.
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br /> “We know Summer Solstice isn’t using her real name. It could be she just wanted a wacky name or could be she has something to hide. Her visits to the hotel are suspicious, so I say we make a visit to The Carrington House and find out exactly what Summer’s up to.”
* * *
Kevin glanced in the rearview mirror through the mesh divider at Dennis, who slunk low in the backseat of the Crown Vic, staring out the side window. He tapped his fingers on the armrest nervously but appeared happy to be sprung.
“Bet you’re glad to be going back to the campground,” Kevin said. He was still feeling a little put out that Sam hadn’t had him in on the interrogation, but that was okay. He needed to conduct his own little interrogation, to figure out what exactly his contact’s involvement in this whole thing was. Something didn’t add up, and Kevin needed to get to the bottom of it.
Dennis raked his hands through his hair. “I’ll say. Feels weird to ride in the backseat like this, though.”
“Sorry, man. It’s the only other car we have. So what’s the big deal with this owl zone anyway? Is it worth killing over?”
Dennis’ eyes jerked from the passing rural landscape to meet Kevin’s in the mirror. “Killing? Is that why you think Ray was killed?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s no coincidence he was out there, right?”
“I guess not. The owl zone is pretty controversial.” Dennis frowned. “Now that I think about it, there have been deaths at other protected areas.”
Kevin’s eyebrows ticked up. “Really? Does that happen a lot?”
“Nah, but a few times over the past decades.”
“What was the motive?”
“Anger mostly. Someone didn’t like that the protected areas were restricted. One time two guys came to blows about it in a bar. Another time it was more like this, where the guy ended up dead in an alley.”
“Don’t see much point in that,” Kevin said. “Killing someone isn’t going to stop the area from being protected.”
“Yeah, people are dumb,” Dennis agreed. “But when big money is involved, people get crazy.”
