Skeleton Key

by Jeff LaFerney

  “Well, we’ll do whatever we can to help you, Erika. It’s obvious to us that he has a good heart. He treats our girls like princesses…especially Anna. We love him.”

  ***

  Clay showed up at the Durand Police Station by 11:00. He was told to head into Chief Hopper’s office. Dan Duncan stuffed a fist full of sunflowers seeds in his mouth as he glared at Clay. Clay walked past and heard, “Who do you think you are?” as he glanced at the police officer. Clay saw “Duncan” on the cop’s desk. He remembered the policeman stretching out crime scene tape at the gravesite the night before and remembered his name as the cop who was Erika and Logan’s “protector.” Clay figured he was probably a good guy who was just a bit jealous. As he made his way through the station, Dan grabbed his jacket and headed home to do some yard work and relax.

  Clay entered Hopper’s office. “Mornin’, Clay. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Mornin’, Chief. No thanks. I don’t drink it.”

  “Call me Luke…and have a seat, Clay. We have some things to talk about.”

  “Okay.”

  “All right, listen. We checked out your alibi. Obviously Erika and her son vouched for you, but we also talked with neighbors who confirmed it was you and Tanner that had raked up those piles of leaves in the Payne’s yard, and Roberto Gomez and his wife confirmed you were at the house during the time we figure the grave was dug up, so you’re not a suspect. But I’m still trying to figure out if you had something to do with it anyway. So, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of a coincidence that we’ve never had a clue about the location of Adrian’s body and then you show up and claim it was in the horses’ grave, and that very day the body is dug up and discovered?”

  “Yeah, it’s quite a coincidence, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.” No sense telling about Tanner. “You mentioned that it was Adrian’s body.”

  Hopper ignored Clay’s comment. “I don’t understand your interest, Clay. We all know that Erika’s about as hot as a woman can be, but there has to be more to it than that.”

  “I’m just trying to help her, Luke. And maybe help her son. My friends, Zander and Lydia Frauss, asked me to help her.”

  “He’s the doctor I spoke to yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told me that he set you up with Erika so she could help you. What’s that about?”

  “I went caving with Erika. Zander is my friend. He felt that I wasn’t doing myself any good sitting around mourning my wife’s murder. I suppose you’ve checked me out and know about that by now? I feel quite a bit responsible for her death, Luke. It was my powers that caused the whole chain of events to transpire. Erika helped me to see that I might be able to use my gifts for something good. I can’t help but feel that I can help Erika discover some peace and maybe help that troubled son of hers.”

  “I know about the murder. I’m sorry, Clay. I have to admit, you seem like a straight up guy, and I admit to taking a liking to Tanner too. So I’m going to include you in this investigation. I’m hoping it’s the wisest course of action. This being my first homicide investigation, I don’t exactly have a plan of action. Durand’s not exactly a hotbed of violent crime. There hasn’t been a murder since I’ve lived here.”

  “You mentioned it was Adrian’s body.” Clay’s question still hadn’t been answered.

  “Okay. Here goes. Fortunately we didn’t need to do any DNA tests. After seven years the body was completely skeletonized and all cloth remains or other evidence was completely decomposed. However, we were able to match up dental records and X-rays from his past. We’re certain that the body is Adrian Payne’s. The forensic pathologist from Genesee County, however, has determined that the cause of death is almost certainly trauma caused by the train wreck. Many, many bones were broken, including his skull. His best guess as to why so many bones were broken would be that he jumped from the train and one of the overturned train cars landed on top of him.”

  “So if he died in the train wreck,” Clay asked, “how did the body end up in the horse grave?”

  “That’s a question we need to attempt to answer because the graves weren’t dug until the second day after the wreck, and certainly Adrian’s body wasn’t buried along with the horses until later. Someone would have had to hide the body for at least two days and then dig up the grave after the fact.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Let me tell you something about Adrian Payne, Clay. I don’t think anyone really liked him. And I can tell you that there wasn’t much mourning over his disappearance. People’s lives simply moved on—except many people have gone out of their way to help Erika. Logan is the only one who seemed affected by the loss of Adrian. It could have been anyone.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “Nope. And you wouldn’t have either. I never met another person who cared less about others and more about himself. We all pretty much felt a shortened life was pretty much what he deserved. So, you have any ideas of what to do next?”

  “I have two. Number one, let’s find out what happened on that train. You’re a detective…detect,” Clay said with a smile. “Number two, let’s go back to the train station and see if Adrian’s ghost is still alive and kickin’…so to speak.”

  “I can see this is gonna be fun for you,” Hopper rolled his eyes. “Let’s head over to the Depot.”

  “Do you mind if I call you Copper?” Clay laughed.

  “Unless you want to be kickin’ alongside Adrian, I’d suggest not,” replied Luke Hopper. Clay smiled again. The chief was definitely a good guy.

  Chapter 13

  Luke and Clay waited at the Ann Arbor Street railroad crossing for a good ten minutes, while a cargo train zoomed by at about two miles per hour. “Wouldn’t it be better for the transportation business if the trains went, like, thirty or forty times faster than this one is going?” Clay asked in complete sincerity.

  Luke laughed. “Yeah, I think I could push a train with my own strength faster than this one is going. But you get kind of used to it around here. I’ve taken to listening to books on CD while my life wastes away at railroad tracks.”

  “I’d think you wouldn’t have too many high speed chases around town here in Durand. Every road is pretty much permanently barricaded from what I’ve seen in my short time here.”

  Luke laughed again. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that there’re all sorts of stories about homeless people and teenaged runaways hopping on cargo trains as they inched through this town. Especially during the Great Depression. They go too fast, you can’t jump on ’em, Clay.”

  Finally the train cleared and Chief Hopper drove the rest of the way down Ann Arbor Street and onto South Railroad Street before pulling into the Depot parking lot. The track superintendent, Wilson Goodrich, was organizing a group of three men, Roberto Gomez and two of the workers that Tanner had manipulated in the restaurant, to fill the dirt back into the grave and reestablish the memorial site. Chief Hopper nodded at the men and led the way inside.

  Their first stop was Marshall Mortonson’s office. He was looking a bit ill, but was busy making entries in an account ledger on his desk. “Morning, Chief,” he said as he finished an entry and flipped the book shut. “I figured I’d see you today. Any idea who it was that trespassed on my property and dug up the memorial?”

  “Sorry, Morty. Nothing yet. Hopefully we’ll hear something that will give us a lead. This here is Clay Thomas, by the way.” Clay reached over and shook Marshall’s hand. “Clay’s an advisor on the Adrian Payne case. He’s the one who brought me the evidence about Adrian’s location.”

  “You trust him?” Marshall obviously didn’t.

  “The jury’s still out on that, Morty. I don’t trust easily. But, yeah, I think I can trust him. What we’d like to ask you is to think back to the train wreck. What do you remember about that night?”

  Marshall took a deep breath. Clay looked into his eyes. “This can�
��t possibly go well,” Marshall thought. Clay was immediately very interested.

  “We were coming from East Lansing. There was a convention honoring Amtrak employees and such. Adrian liked to go to those and be seen and heard. I usually didn’t attend. But Erika was going on a caving training, I think it was, and Logan needed someone to watch him. Adrian flat out refused. He had plans in Lansing. I went along simply to keep an eye on Logan.”

  “What kind of ‘plans’ did he have?”

  “Same as usual, I suspect. Some babe on the side. How could he have the nicest looking wife on the planet and fool around on her?”

  “Did Erika know that Adrian was cheating on her?” Clay asked.

  “What’d you say your name was again?” Marshall responded.

  “It’s Clay Thomas.”

  “Well, Clay, pretty much everyone knew he was fooling around, so I’d suspect that Erika knew it too. I’ve never said anything to her, though. Listen, Adrian was my best friend. I knew him before we purchased the Depot. He wasn’t such a bad guy in those days. Couldn’t have been so bad if he got Erika to marry him. But he changed—almost completely for the worse. When he had a chance—and he found lots of chances—he fooled around, and he spent a lot of our money doing it. That trip to Lansing, I suspect, was no different than any other. I tried to occupy Logan while Adrian went off to do his own thing.”

  “So what was Logan, ten, eleven years old?” asked Hopper.

  “Something like that. He was a timid kid. Seemed afraid of his dad, if you ask me.”

  “So, again, what do you remember about that night?” Hopper asked.

  “Well, the Lansing station is pretty much just a storage facility turned into a train station. But it’s right on the west side of the MSU campus. It’s really convenient for students, and the storage facility was sold at a minimal cost by the college just to get rid of it. But we’ve worked out a sort of partnership, so we have lots of our meetings, parties, conventions, and such right on campus. Adrian was an MSU grad and he donated money to the college, so they pretty much let him do as he pleased there. Off from the service road near the train station, there’s a huge service building that we meet in. Lots of rooms. Adrian was known to take advantage of some of those rooms by paying for the services of a lady of two.”

  “Hookers?” Clay asked in amazement. “And he was with someone like that on the night of the accident?”

  “I don’t know that for sure, but it was pretty common. I never saw him with anyone on that particular night, at least not that I recall. Besides, I spent half my time trying to keep up with Logan. Lost him a coupla times.”

  “How ’bout the train ride back? What do you remember?” Hopper asked.

  “The train left on time, so it would have been 8:20. There weren’t many passengers. Fifteen to twenty, I’d guess. There were two passenger cars near the back of the Amtrak that the passengers were in. Logan and I were in the front of the two. I don’t recall any problems until Logan got up to look for his dad. It’s not a long ride. Forty-five minutes give or take. We’d been on the train maybe thirty minutes when Logan left to find his dad. We had seen him get on, but hadn’t seen him since. I was pretty confident he’d be in the engine, piloting the train. Adrian knew the engineer—Joe something-or-other. He’s the guy who died in the wreck. But Adrian would always deliver the train into the station when Joe was the engineer. He’d buy him a bottle of somethin’ Joe liked to drink and then act like he was important by driving the train into the Depot by himself.”

  “He’d do that often?” Clay asked.

  “Everyone who knew Adrian or was associated with the Depot knew he piloted the train into our station. Adrian was a deadhead—he rode the trains on company pass and company business all the time. I generally stayed and worked in the offices. But he fancied himself as an engineer. He could be like a spoiled rotten little kid.”

  “So what happened with Logan?” Hopper seemed to be constantly trying to keep Marshall on topic.

  “Well, he came back after about five minutes. Wouldn’t look at me. Curled up with his face against one of the seat cushions and was sniffling. He was cryin’ about something, but wouldn’t talk to me. Finally, just before we got to the Depot, I left my seat to look for Adrian myself.”

  Clay was looking in his eyes when Marshall paused. Clay heard, “He was lying on the floor, looking like he’d passed out.” Finally, Marshall spoke out loud. “I assume that Adrian was in the engine car, but I never saw him. I looked through the engine windows and saw something large was on the tracks. Before I could even think, Joe jumped from the train, and I just reacted and jumped myself. The train wasn’t going very fast. I guess we came around the curve after the Monroe crossing, and there was the horse trailer. Word was that Joe was drinking. He must not’ve reacted quick enough. The ‘black box’ recorded an attempt to brake, but obviously Joe knew there was gonna be a crash, so he bailed, and I did too.”

  “What about Adrian?” Hopper asked.

  “More’n likely I killed him” is what he thought, but what he said was, “He was on the train when it left Lansing, but I never saw him before, during, or after the wreck. I always believed that somewhere along the way, he jumped off, and went off to live a new life. Figured he’d done something so stupid he was running for his life. I always figured he was alive somewhere, living the same selfish, despicable life he always led.”

  “So tell me about the wreck,” Hopper continued to push.

  “Well, I scraped myself up pretty good. Hit the ground just before the crash. It was a horrible sound, and then the truck caught on fire and a couple of train cars tipped over. The back one just missed me. I guess the front one landed on Joe. It was a while before passengers started unloading. After that, I rounded up Logan. He had a pretty good bruise on the side of his face and was a bit shook up, but he seemed okay. The other passengers weren’t hurt badly either. All the emergency services started showing up, and eventually reporters, police, and such. Then Erika came for Logan. I answered a few questions, made sure the medical teams had access to the Depot. I prob’ly got home somewhere between eleven or twelve.”

  “Any idea who might’ve buried him?” Hopper asked.

  “Yes,” Marshall thought. “No,” Marshall said. “Maybe he was runnin’ from someone who wanted to kill him. Maybe they caught up with him and he ended up dead.”

  Clay was finding detective business to be intriguing. He had a few things to share with Hopper. Marshall clearly had something to do with Adrian’s death. Maybe the ghost had the answer.

  Marshall looked at his watch and squirmed uncomfortably. “I got some business to do at the bank and then an appointment with my attorney. If you don’t mind, I need to get goin’.”

  “No, that’s fine, Morty. We’ve got some other business to accomplish ourselves. If we need to, we’ll talk to you again later. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem. Gentlemen,” he nodded, “have a nice day.”

  ***

  Dan Duncan worked out, tried to watch his cholesterol, and tried to limit salt in his diet, but his stress level was raising his blood pressure more than his efforts were lowering it. He was thinking of taking up yoga, but vainly hated the idea of being seen in the classes at his health club, so instead, he was reading a book about yoga while he ate oatmeal and drank a cup of hot chocolate. He was listening to classical music, thinking it had to be better for his nerves than the country music he actually liked to listen to. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his irritating squirrel squatting on one of the feeders that he’d just refilled. How it got there was a mystery. He had just cut down several additional tree branches to keep the animal from leaping to the feeder.

  So much for peaceful bird watching—as soon as Dan noticed the pest, he could feel his anxiety rising. He opened his kitchen window and yelled at the squirrel, but it ignored him completely. Dan ran to his bedroom and grabbed a BB gun that he’d recently purchased and pumped the thing about thirty
times. He slid open his sliding glass door which led to a wooden deck and stepped out in his stockinged feet for a clear shot, but he stepped on the pruning-stick tree-trimmer that he’d just left on the deck. He heard a snap of the trimmer handle from the weight on his right foot, and then he yelped and cursed as he stumbled and the weight of his left foot stepped onto the pruning blade, almost completely severing his big toe.

  In his pain and anger, he started yelling at the squirrel. As he raised the BB gun to shoot, the squirrel simply repositioned itself so that it was directly behind the feeder and there was no clear shot. Dan’s bloodied sock was leaving bloodstains on the deck as he limped with great difficulty from one end to the other, trying to get a good view of his hated enemy. The first time the squirrel’s head poked out from behind the feeder, Dan took a shot, which hit the plastic feeder dead on, cracking it. A trickle of birdseed began streaming from the feeder onto the ground and Dan swore and yelled some more. He pumped the gun about forty more times and ran into the yard like a crazy person, ignoring completely that his toe was dangling from his foot and blood was pumping out at a furious rate. Running awkwardly with only one working big toe, he saw the squirrel prepare to take a flying leap, so Dan shot the rifle from his hip like a cowboy in the movies and then, after his final left-footed, unbalanced step, he fell on his face in a heap. The BB hit the feeder a fraction of an inch from the first crack and the plastic nearly exploded as the entire collection of seeds poured onto the ground. The squirrel landed safely on the grass and scurried up the stupid-looking tree that Dan had nearly voided of branches. The policeman howled, and in a fit of anger, threw the gun at the tree, breaking the rifle and rendering it forever useless.

  “Tchrring…tchrring,” the squirrel called down from the top of the tree. From Dan’s perspective, it sounded like it was laughing at him. Dan rolled over and for the first time noticed his blood-soaked sock. He reached down to touch his toe, which was dangling, just barely attached. He hurled his chocolaty oatmeal onto the grass and fought the urge to pass out just long enough to pull his cell phone from his belt and punch in 9-1-1. He had barely managed to give his address before he passed out on the lawn.