Gray Ghost

by William G. Tapply

  Mr. Paul Vecchio was dead on his deck, and that was an extremely bad thing. But Ralph Waldo had gone missing, and as far as Calhoun was concerned, that was even worse.

  He tried to take comfort in the fact that he hadn’t found Ralph’s body, the way he’d found Paul Vecchio’s.

  The phone rang about five minutes after Calhoun hung up with the answering service. He picked it up and said, “Sheriff? That your

  “It’s me,” said the sheriff, not sounding any too cheerful about it. “What is it?”

  “I got a dead man sitting here on my deck. It’s that Mr. Vecchio, the guy I took fishing the other morning.”

  “The man who found the body on Quarantine Island?”

  “Yep. Him.”

  “You sure he’s dead?”

  “He’s got three bullet holes in him. Two in his chest, one in his belly. I’d say he’s been dead for a few hours.”

  56

  The sheriff blew out a breath. “Okay. We’ll be right there. You know how it works. Don’t touch anything. Try to keep Ralph from messing up my crime scene.”

  “That’s another thing,” said Calhoun. “Ralph’s gone.”

  The sheriff hesitated, then said, “Gone? What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Ralph ain’t here. I left him here in the morning, and now he’s gone.”

  “You sure?”

  “I guess I ought to know.”

  “Right. Sorry. So what do you—”

  “I looked around and didn’t find a damn thing by way of clues unless you want to count a bottle of sunscreen that ain’t mine. Nothing about what happened to Mr. Vecchio, and nothing about where Ralph is at.”

  “I’m sorry about Ralph,” said the sheriff, “but I expect he’ll turn up. Ralph’s a pretty resourceful dog. He’s probably off in the woods chasing partridges.”

  “I got a bad feeling, Sheriff. I sure hope you’re right.”

  Sheriff Dickman was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You’re a hard man to stay mad at, Stoney, but I intend to keep doing it. I truly do hope Ralph’s all right, but my plan here is to focus on this dead man you’ve got for me. You sit right there. I’ll be with you shortly.” He hung up.

  Calhoun started a pot of coffee brewing, then went out onto the deck and yelled for Ralph.

  Ralph did not appear.

  After a while, Calhoun went into the house and poured himself a mug of coffee. He took it back out onto the deck, sat in the chair beside Mr. Vecchio, thought about the good morning of fishing they’d had just two days earlier, and waited for the sheriff to arrive.

  Darkness was seeping out of the woods into the clearing that surrounded Calhoun’s house. The stars were winking on one by one. A couple of bats had come flapping out from the trees to chase mosquitoes. The barred owls were calling to each other.

  It was past Ralph’s suppertime.

  Calhoun sat there sipping his coffee, keeping Mr. Vecchio company and trying not to worry about Ralph, and after a little while he heard the sheriff’s Explorer turn into the driveway. A minute later, headlights came bouncing out of the woods and cutting through the gathering dusk. Then the sheriff pulled in, parked beside Calhoun’s truck, and got out. He was wearing his uniform, flat-brimmed hat and all, and he had a big cop-sized flashlight in his hand.

  He came up the steps to the deck, frowned at Paul Vecchio sitting dead in the chair, then turned to Calhoun and said, “Did you shoot him, Stoney?”

  Calhoun rolled his eyes. “You feel obligated to ask?”

  “That’s your truck parked in the bushes out at the end of your driveway, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why is it there?”

  “That’s where I left it.”

  The sheriff blew out a breath. “I’m trying to be patient, here, Stoney. So why’d you leave it there?”

  Calhoun shrugged. “I had a bad feeling.”

  “A bad feeling.”

  Calhoun nodded.

  “What kind of bad feeling?”

  Calhoun shrugged. “The kind of bad feeling you get when you know there’s something unpleasant waiting for you but you don’t know what it is.”

  The sheriff smiled quickly. “And as a result of this bad feeling you had, you decided not to drive all the way in, so you got out of your truck and came sneaking back here to your house. You came around through the woods, did you?”

  “That’s right.”

  He pointed at Calhoun’s .30-30 on the table. “Did you bring that rifle with you?”

  “I did.”

  “You keep it in your truck ?”

  Calhoun nodded. “Behind the front seat.”

  “What did you find when you got here?”

  Calhoun tilted his head at Mr. Vecchio.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Just Mr. Vecchio. And that bottle of sunscreen there.” He pointed at the purple bottle.

  “That’s not yours?”

  Calhoun shook his head.

  “You didn’t touch it, did you?”

  “ ‘Course not.”

  “What about Ralph?” said the sheriff. “Has he come back?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “Look,” he said, “I’m damn sorry I let you down.”

  The sheriff waved the back of his hand at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “The thing is,” said Calhoun, “for a man who’s mad at me and doesn’t want to be my friend, it’s a pretty damn friendly thing to ask about my dog before you even take a serious look at this poor man’s dead body.”

  “He’s a good dog,” said the sheriff. “I like Ralph. Too bad I can’t say the same for his master.”

  “Well,” said Calhoun, “he’s gone.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “He never did this before. It’s past his suppertime.”

  The sheriff shrugged and went over to where Paul Vecchio was sitting. As he gazed down at the dead man, he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and snapped them onto his hands. Then he turned on his flashlight and shined it on Vecchio. He bent close to the man’s body, studying his face, and the wounds on his chest and belly, and his hands, which were resting in his lap.

  Without turning around, the sheriff said, “I could use some of that coffee.”

  Calhoun went inside, poured a mug of coffee, and brought it out. He put it on the table. “There’s your coffee, Sheriff.”

  “Thanks,” the sheriff muttered.

  Calhoun sat at the table and watched him.

  After a couple of minutes the sheriff straightened up, pulled off the gloves, and stuffed them into his pocket. He sat at the table and took a sip of coffee. “What time did you leave the shop this afternoon, Stoney?” he said.

  “Little after five.”

  “Kate there with you?”

  “Yup. She was still there when I left.”

  “So about what time did you get home?”

  “Takes an hour, give or take five minutes. Why? How long has Mr. Vecchio been dead ?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Not that long. Few hours at the most.”

  “You think I came home and killed him?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Well,” said Calhoun, “I wouldn’t.”

  “I meant,” said the sheriff, “have you got anything like a motive I ought to know about?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “I just met him that once. We had good fishing. I liked him. I didn’t let him pay me, because we had to quit early. On account of that damn body out on Quarantine Island.”

  “So you had no disagreements or arguments.”

  Calhoun shook his head. “You think I’m lying to you?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “No, I don’t. Not me. But I can’t speak for the others who’ll be coming.” He took out his cell phone. “I better call this in.” He pecked out a number, talked for a minute, then snapped the phone shut and took another sip of coffee.

  “State cops?” said Calhoun.

  The sheriff nodded. “The whole
shebang. Detectives. Forensics. Medical Examiner. You name it. They’ll all be here.”

  Calhoun nodded at Paul Vecchio’s body. “You want to do some brainstorming about this?”

  “With you?” The sheriff shook his head. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Look,” said Calhoun, “I gave you my reasons for turning you down. It would’ve been easier just to say yes.”

  “A gold star for taking the hard way, then,” said the sheriff.

  “I never knew you to be sarcastic before, Sheriff.”

  “I never had a friend spit in my face before.”

  Calhoun nodded. “Some things’ve changed since we had that talk.”

  “Finding a man sitting on your deck with three bullet holes in him is a new thing, all right,” said the sheriff.

  “Other things’ve changed, too,” said Calhoun. “The other day I was telling you how damn perfect my life was, and I guess I cursed myself pretty thoroughly by saying those things, because now my life ain’t even close to perfect.”

  The sheriff squinted at him. “This about Ralph going missing?”

  Calhoun shrugged. “It’s about Ralph, sure. I guess it’s about Kate, too. And it’s about you asking for my help and me refusing because I was just thinking about myself instead of considering what it meant to be your friend. Mainly, I suppose it’s about this dead body here on my deck. You and I both know it ain’t a coincidence. It’s connected to that burned-up corpse we found on Quarantine Island.” He blew out a long breath. “Anyway, I guess I’ve been a dumb-ass, and I’m sorry. I don’t like not being your friend.”

  Sheriff Dickman nodded. “You sure can be a dumbass sometimes. You’re right about that, at least.”

  Calhoun held out his hand.

  The sheriff gripped it. “I’m happy to be your friend again, Stoney, but I can’t hire you on.”

  “Because I’m a suspect?”

  “Whether you’re my suspect or not,” said the sheriff, “the others are going to look all squinty-eyed at you no matter what I say.”

  Calhoun shrugged. “I got nothing to lie about, so I ain’t worried. Look. I don’t want to be your deputy. I got no desire to go sleuthing around with you. That hasn’t changed. But I do want to be your friend, so if you want to talk about it.. .”

  “Okay. Why not.” The sheriff took off his hat and put it on the table. “Let’s do that. Let’s give some thought to what we’ve got here.” He ran the palm of his hand over his bald head. “We got Mr. Vecchio sitting here in your chair, and it appears to me that this is where he was sitting when he was shot.”

  “On account of no blood on the steps or the floor.”

  “Right. So the question is—”

  “Why was he here?” said Calhoun.

  The sheriff arched his eyebrows. “You tell me,” he said. He reached out, picked up his mug, took a sip of coffee, and put the mug down.

  “I didn’t expect him,” said Calhoun. “He never called or said he was coming. I didn’t know he even knew where I lived.”

  “So why would he come here?” said the sheriff.

  Calhoun shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Suppose he came against his will.”

  “In that case,” said Calhoun, “there had to’ve been more than one killer. One to drive their car so they could get out of here when they were done, and one in Mr. Vecchio’s vehicle, which they left here.”

  “If Vecchio came to see you, then it could’ve been just one shooter who followed him. Vecchio came up on your deck to wait for you, and the shooter came up and plugged him.”

  “If it was that way,” said Calhoun, “Vecchio must’ve known the guy who did it.”

  The sheriff nodded. “He just sat there and watched the killer walk up to him and shoot him.”

  “Like he wasn’t surprised to see him.” Calhoun hesitated. “Like they planned to meet here, maybe.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Hmm. Interesting.” He looked up at the sky for a minute. “The big question is why.”

  “Why kill Mr. Vecchio, you mean? Or why would they want to meet here ?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Both.”

  “You asking me?”

  “I’m asking you to speculate,” said the sheriff.

  “As far as them planning to meet here,” said Calhoun, “that one’s got me stumped. I mean, the only reason to do that would be to talk to me, and I don’t know why they’d want to do that. Seems more likely that Mr. Vecchio came here to see me, decided to wait here on the deck for me to get home, and the other guy followed him.”

  The sheriff nodded. “So why would someone want to kill this man ?”

  “Well,” said Calhoun, “he was a writer. He stumbled upon that corpse out on Quarantine Island. Maybe he was researching it and figured something out, and—”

  “And the killer got wind of it…”

  “And followed him here and shot him.”

  “To shut him up,” said the sheriff. “So maybe Vecchio came here to see you, tell you what he’d figured out about that body.”

  “Why would he do that?” said Calhoun. “I mean, why me? I only met him that once. It’s not like we were best friends.”

  “Well,” said the sheriff, “the other possibility is that the shooter’or shooters—brought him here specifically to your place to kill him.”

  “If that’s the case,” said Calhoun, “it means they got some issue with me.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Or maybe they just figured they could pin it on you.”

  “As I understand it,” said Calhoun, “for me to be a good murder suspect, I’d have to have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to kill the man. All three.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I already told you, Stoney. You’re not my suspect.”

  Calhoun got up from the table, went to the deck railing, and looked out over the yard. He was hoping to see Ralph come trotting into the area that was lit by the floodlights.

  “He’ll be back,” said the sheriff.

  “I hope to hell you’re right.”

  After a minute, the sheriff said, “One way or the other, Stoney, you are involved in this.”

  “Because Mr. Vecchio’s body is here.”

  “Yes.”

  “I ain’t all that worried about it.”

  At that moment Calhoun heard a distant siren. He listened to it grow louder, and then he heard the distinctive sounds of four different vehicles approaching on the paved road, then slowing down, and then one by one turning into his driveway.

  “Here come the troops,” he said.

  “Gonna be a damn zoo,” said the sheriff. “Try to behave yourself.”

  Headlights came dancing through the trees, and then four vehicles pulled into the yard and parked at cockeyed angles. There were three dark SUVs and one state police cruiser. A radio crackled from inside at least one of the vehicles.

  Calhoun stood there at the deck railing and watched the various homicide officials get out. He recognized the tall redheaded medical examiner, Dr. Surry, who they called Sam. She was lugging an old-fashioned black bag, as she had when she showed up on Quarantine Island. One of the state police detectives and a couple of the foren-sics people from the other body on Quarantine Island were there, too. Three of them—an Asian man with three cameras hanging from his neck, a bearded man wearing a necktie and a sport coat, and a uniformed state police trooper’he had never seen before.

  Calhoun never forgot a face.

  The sheriff said, “You better come with me.”

  Calhoun followed the sheriff down the steps to the parking area.

  The others gathered in a kind of semicircle around them. “This is Mr. Calhoun,” said the sheriff. “This is his place. He’s the one who found the body, which is up there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the deck.

  The trooper came over to Calhoun. “Come with me, please, sir.”

  Calhoun looked at the sheriff, who gave him a little nod. So he followed the trooper
over to his cruiser.

  The trooper opened the back door. “Get in, please.”

  “My dog’s gone missing,” said Calhoun. “I’d rather stay outside so he can find me. I ain’t going to run away on you.”

  “Get in,” said the trooper.

  “At least open the damn window so I can talk to my dog if he comes looking for me.”

  The trooper nodded. He had a smooth-shaved face, sharp blue eyes, a square jaw, and perfect teeth. Calhoun wondered if they recruited state police troopers based on how well they looked the part.

  Calhoun climbed into the backseat of the cruiser. It was separated from the front by steel mesh. The trooper got in behind the wheel and rolled the rear windows halfway down. When he got out, the doors locked with a click.

  The trooper leaned against the side of the cruiser. All the others had gathered around the sheriff. He seemed to be doing most of the talking. Calhoun couldn’t hear what any of them was saying. It occurred to him that they were all speaking quietly on his account.

  After a few minutes, the medical examiner, Dr. Surry, went up onto the deck with her black bag. The young Asian man with three cameras strapped around his neck followed behind her. The sheriff and one of the others went over to Vecchio’s Subaru. There were a couple of other vehicles parked between the cruiser and the Subaru, so Calhoun couldn’t see what they were doing, but he assumed they were searching it for clues.

  The rest of them remained in the parking area, talking among themselves and smoking cigarettes and cigars and shuffling their feet.

  Fifteen or twenty minutes passed. Camera flashes kept blinking from up on the deck. Dr. Surry and the Asian man came down. They spoke with the others for a few minutes. Then the doctor came over to the cruiser. “Let him out,” she said to the trooper. “I want to talk to him.”

  The trooper unlocked the doors with the remote on his key-chain. Then he came around to Calhoun’s door and opened it.

  Calhoun got out and looked all around, hoping to spot Ralph, but Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

  The sheriff was leading two of the police officials up the steps onto the deck. A couple of others were prowling around the house with flashlights.