Skeleton Key

by Jeff LaFerney

  On the way, Clay was driving behind the one lone car on the road, a car that was slowing down as they were approaching a railroad crossing. The crossing was in a wide-open space where both directions of track could be easily seen and where there was no crossing arm. As they cautiously—for no apparent reason that Clay could perceive— approached the tracks, the crossing lights began to flash and the driver slammed on his brakes and came to a screeching halt. Clay slammed on his brakes too and managed to skid to about an inch of the car in front of him. After breathing a sigh of relief, he craned his neck in both directions, looking for the train. Ten to fifteen seconds later, he caught sight of the engine about a quarter-mile away. There was still plenty of time to cross the tracks, but the car in front of Clay never budged. As Clay impatiently started to back up, another car came to a stop behind him, blocking any hope of maneuvering around the waiting car. He was stuck. There was no end to the adventures of train crossings in Durand. When the train finally arrived, it was at least a mile long and took a good five minutes to pass.

  “So what do you think of Durand?” Erika laughed.

  “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here,” Clay responded with his own laugh. “So far, you’re the nicest thing about this place.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet. You’re pretty okay yourself, Clay Thomas.” Erika wrapped his arm warmly with both of hers and actually placed her head on his shoulder.

  When they reached the front door of Dan Duncan’s house, he could be heard yelling and swearing. Erika rang the doorbell. When Dan finally opened the front door, he was on a pair of crutches and his police revolver was tucked into the waistband of a pair of sweatpants.

  Dan smiled a friendly smile at Erika and then lost the smile immediately when he saw Clay. “Hey, Danny. I’d like you to meet my friend, Clay Thomas…Clay, this is Dan Duncan.”

  Dan’s left foot was in a cast, but while balancing on his right, he gave Clay a handshake that was intentionally a bit too hard. “Clay,” he said.

  Clay squeezed back just as hard but gave no indication to Erika what he was doing. “Dan,” he responded. “What a jerk,” Clay thought.

  “What’s the gun for, Dan?” asked Erika. “Expecting trouble?”

  “It’s for a squirrel in my backyard. Because of that stupid pest, I ended up in the hospital, and now he’s back again. I’m gonna shoot it, Erika, I swear.”

  “Do you mind if we come in? How’s the toe doing?”

  Dan directed them to seats in his living room, which was a jumbled mess. “I’ll be fine. What’s up, Erika? Why the visit?”

  “I wanted to see how you were doing, and I towed Clay along—no pun intended—because he’s trying to help me figure out what happened the night of the train wreck. Now that Adrian’s no longer missing, I’m hoping that figuring out what happened will bring some closure for Logan.”

  “And Clay here is what? A private investigator? A cop?”

  “No, Dan, I’m just a friend, but Chief Hopper asked me to stay on and help him with this case. I’m volunteering my services as a favor to Erika, so Hopper doesn’t have to foot the bill—no pun intended, of course.”

  “I see,” he said. “You’re after my Erika,” Clay read from his mind. “So what do you want to know?”

  “We’re just hoping that maybe you can remember something about what happened that night that will help us figure out how the body ended up in the grave with the horses,” explained Clay. “Would you mind telling me exactly how you were involved in the incident that night?”

  “I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,” he thought. “Anything to help Erika and the boy, but I don’t have much to tell.”

  “When were you at the accident scene?”

  “Before and after I killed two people.” Those words got Clay’s attention, but he did his best to not show any reaction to Dan’s thoughts. “I arrived after the wreck. I was at the Shell gas station by the expressway when I heard the emergency call on my radio. The truck driver saw me and explained that his rig had been stolen. He gave me a description, and I called it in. Dispatch claimed that the train had smashed into a semi-truck carrying a load of horses. So I drove the truck driver to the accident scene, and he identified his rig. It was on fire, and the horses were all dead.”

  “Why were you at the Shell station?”

  Dan was looking at Erika, so Clay had no chance of reading his mind. “I don’t remember. I was on my shift, in my police cruiser, cruising around Durand. I just happened to be there when a truck driver needed my assistance. There was no particular reason for my being there that I recall.” He turned back to Clay. “Sooner or later this was all bound to come back to haunt me.” Dan decided to try to change the subject. “Would either of you like something to drink?”

  “Sure, Dan. Get us a couple of tall glasses of ice water and we’d love to watch you carry them back.” Erika giggled. She liked to laugh, and Clay liked that about her. Obviously, Dan liked a few things about her too. “Really, that’s not necessary,” she added. “But thanks for offering.”

  Clay was a little concerned about his interviewing skills. He didn’t know where to go with his next question. “So you just happened to pull into the gas station, and the truck driver saw you and told you about his stolen truck?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I remember it. I may have been heading into the store to get some gum or seeds.” As if the thought compelled him to do something, he opened a bag of David BBQ flavored sunflower seeds and stuffed a few in his mouth.

  “Do you recall where you were before you ended up at the Shell station?”

  “Drivin’ around town, I assume. Donut shop maybe.” Dan gave a weak laugh at his poor attempt at humor.

  “Were you anywhere near the Depot where you might have seen something suspicious?”

  “I ain’t tellin’ you squat, Dude.” Dan replied, “First time I was near the Depot was after the accident. There were firemen startin’ to put the truck fire out, a smashed train engine, a couple of grounded train cars, and lots of people millin’ around. Other emergency vehicles were there.”

  “Did you happen to see Adrian?”

  “I don’t believe anyone saw Adrian, ’cause he’d disappeared.”

  “Did you look for him?”

  “I checked to see if he was dead,” Duncan thought. “Of course not. Why would I care about him in particular?”

  “Excuse me for saying, Dan, but you don’t seem all too sympathetic about Adrian passing away. Did you have something against him?”

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, but since you’re supposed to be Erika’s friend, I invited you into my house. Dredging up my problems with Adrian isn’t somethin’ that I wanna talk about right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, you do,” Clay told Dan as he looked into his eyes and manipulated his mind. “Tell me what you had against Adrian Payne.”

  “He treated Erika and Logan like crap, and he put my dad out of business!” Dan nearly shouted before looking embarrassed and unsure of why he just spit that information out.”

  “Did you know he was going to be on that train?”

  “Everyone knew he was gonna be on that train. Anytime there was a convention, banquet, ceremony, anything, Adrian was there front and center, seeking attention. Everyone knew he engineered the trains back into Durand. He was an ego-maniac; so sure, I knew he’d be on that train.”

  “Do you know anything about how the body ended up in the horse cemetery?”

  “If I knew somethin’, he would’ve been dug up a long time before now.”

  There was a long pause while Clay tried to sort out his thoughts. Finally, Erika wisely suggested that they should get going. She could see that Dan was getting angry. She already knew about his father, so she hadn’t heard anything new or interesting in the interview. She told Dan again that she was concerned about his toe, and she added that she hoped he’d be better soon. She hugged him, and the men did another handshak
e squeeze, and then they left.

  As Clay was opening Erika’s door, they heard Dan screaming obscenities at the squirrel from the backyard, and then they heard a gunshot. Clay decided to drive away before Dan shot at him. What they didn’t know was that the squirrel was somehow eating from the other feeder—the one that hadn’t been shot apart—and when Dan shot at it, he demolished the second feeder too. The squirrel simply ran to safety. Dan’s blood pressure rose once again.

  ***

  As they pulled away, Clay spoke first. “Dan’s a little on edge, don’t you think? I hope he didn’t shoot someone.”

  “Always has been a bit uptight, but it does seem a little overboard to be shooting his gun at a squirrel. Regardless, I’m sorry you didn’t really learn anything new.”

  “Sure I did.”

  “Oh, that comment about Adrian treating Logan and me bad and how he put Mr. Duncan out of business? I could have told you that. By the way, he said he didn’t want to talk about it, and then he shouted it right out. What do you make of that?”

  “Um, actually I made him tell me.”

  Erika giggled. “Did you make him shoot at that squirrel?”

  Clay laughed too. “No, I’m not as crazy as he is.”

  “So, what did you learn?”

  “First of all, he thinks you’re his girl.”

  Erika laughed harder. “We could get married and I could open my own donut shop. I could call it Duncan Donuts. Wait, that name’s taken.”

  “Don’t get your hopes too high. The dude says he killed two people that night. Also, he was at the scene of the wreck both before and after the crash, and when he returned with the truck driver, he checked to see if Adrian was dead.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’re telling me. The coroner says Adrian died as a result of the train crash. Adrian says he died of a heart attack. Mortonson says he probably killed him, and now Duncan says he killed two people, one of which is obviously Adrian. Logan says he argued with his dad on the train and Adrian struck him in the face, but Mortonson said Adrian was passed out on the floor. How did he get off the train, I wonder? Then Marshall suggested he knew how the body was buried, but Dan had no idea. Yet he was checking to see if Adrian was dead after the wreck. None of this makes any sense to me.”

  “Why would Dan want to kill my husband?”

  “The nut had a crush on you and resented Adrian for how he treated you, and he hated Adrian for putting his father out of business. It appears he had a motive or two.” Clay paused. “Tell me what happened with the trucking business.” They were approaching town and there was a long line-up of cars stopped at a train crossing. Clay slowed down, sighed, and shook his head in frustration.

  “When Adrian and Morty bought the business, Morty settled right in as the business manager. He was in charge of the books and the daily running of the business. Adrian was more front and center. He was very aggressive in his attempts to improve the company, and one of his primary goals was to get shipping contracts for the freight trains. Dan’s father had a trucking company in town that was a family-owned business. Dan probably would be a trucker instead of a cop if Adrian hadn’t convinced people to ship by train rather than truck. When Adrian took over the Duncan’s business contracts, Dan’s father lost everything.”

  The train finally passed and cars were beginning to move forward, but because of stoplights in town, the entire line-up of cars came to a halt again. Clay impatiently observed the lack of forward movement as a few cars made it through the stoplight and then the light turned red again.

  “I assume that happened a long time before the train wreck. Why would Duncan all of a sudden feel the urge to get revenge?”

  “The takeover was probably at least ten years before the wreck, but as I recall now, it seems like Dan’s father passed away shortly before the train accident. Mr. Duncan’s health deteriorated after he lost his company. Maybe his death motivated Dan to get revenge.”

  “All this is well and good, but how could Dan have killed Adrian? He wasn’t on the train, and clearly he was on a work shift when everything happened. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Cars had made it through a couple of lights, so Clay’s car was finally nearly at the railroad tracks when the crossing lights started flashing and the arm lowered once again. Clay looked at Erika in absolute frustration, and she began to laugh.

  All of a sudden, Erika’s passenger side window exploded. She screamed and ducked her head. When she looked up and out of the window, she screamed again. There was her little midget friend standing beside his bike with another rock in his hand. He was screaming incoherently and pointing at Erika threateningly. He hurled another rock that ricocheted off the side of the car.

  Clay’s frustration with the train was already apparent, so the midget’s act of vandalism put him over the edge. He jumped out of the car, ran to the edge of the train tracks, and picked up two nice-sized rocks of his own. He hurled the first one with tremendous velocity at the midget’s bike, breaking the left-side pedal. The midget recognized the strength of Clay’s arm and dropped his next rock. Clay accurately fired the second rock and bent several spokes of the midget’s back tire. The little guy jumped on his bike in an attempt to escape. He started pedaling furiously but his left foot kept slipping of the broken pedal and his back tire was wobbling crazily. The little man was swearing furiously. He looked back over his shoulder and flipped Clay off with his middle finger, but his foot slipped off the pedal again and he lost control of his bike, which smashed into a cement commercial parking block, throwing him over the handlebars and onto the downtown sidewalk.

  The midget slowly climbed up off the cement and picked his bike off the ground. The handlebars were bent at a crazy angle and the front tire was completely flat. He hurled his bike back on the ground and started flailing his arms in a crazy temper tantrum. Then he did an amazing thing. He started kicking himself in the head, just like Erika explained. Cars were honking as Clay realized that the train had passed and he was holding up traffic. He had thoughts of helping the lunatic little man, but the honking cars made him realize he had no choice but to return to his car and drive away.

  “That little dude is definitely terrifying, Erika. Did you see him kicking his own head? I totally thought you were kidding.”

  Erika’s eyes were as big as saucers. Finally she smiled. “I have a new protector.”

  Clay couldn’t help but laugh, even though he knew there was damage to his car. “There’s no doubt about that,” he said.

  “You have quite an arm there, Rocket. Your baseball players must be very impressed.”

  “Makes you kind of proud that you know me, doesn’t it?” Clay joked.

  “I was kind of feeling that way even before I was rescued.”

  Chapter 18

  “Here’s my report, Chief,” said Officer Verne Gilbert as he handed Chief Hopper a file folder. Hopper had assigned the officer the responsibility of checking into Roberto Gomez’s movements on the night of the train wreck seven years earlier. It was gnawing at Hopper that Logan Payne believed he had seen Gomez at the train station in East Lansing. Was he really there? If he was, what was he doing?

  Hopper was disappointed as he flipped through the file folder. There were no credit card purchases, though he did fill up his gas tank at the Durand Shell station at about 6:30 p.m. There were no phone calls to his house or from his cell phone that were suspicious at all. Roberto was not working that evening, so he was available to leave town, but there was no evidence that he had gone anywhere except for Logan’s belief that he saw Gomez at the train station.

  He decided to call Clay. They needed to give Roberto Gomez a visit, and Clay’s mind-reading ability could come in handy. Clay and Erika were eating at Uncle Tony’s Pizza Company, while Logan finished up his basketball practice. Hopper invited himself to crash their date.

  ***

  When Hopper arrived, Clay and Erika had already started on their pizzas. They had
ordered two-for-one specialty pizzas, a BLT pizza and a Chicken, Bacon, Ranch pizza that Erika claimed Logan liked best. Clay was impressed with the variety of food choices on the menu, including pasta dishes, Mexican food, stromboli, salads, and wings.

  Hopper had a seat next to Erika. “You didn’t order The Uncle Toninator? I think I’m hungry enough to eat one myself.”

  “A 28-inch pizza all by yourself? You have a couple of hollow legs? You got here pretty quick. Must not’ve hit a train.”

  “Nope. I think you’re bad luck, Clay. The train gods are picking on you. Did I see that your car window is smashed out there?”

  Clay retold the story about the midget, and Hopper got a good laugh out of it. “You wanna file a complaint against the little pest? It won’t be the first, and I’m afraid it won’t be the last. Bet you didn’t know he holds a law degree. In front of a judge, he’s an expert at making himself look like the victim. A regular wordsmith. Another interesting fact is that he claims he’s an heir of one of the circus performers that died in the Wallace train wreck. He says one of the unmarked graves is the burial site of his great grandfather.”

  “Well,” Clay said, “I don’t think I’ll file a complaint—especially if he’d have some sort of advantage in front of a judge—but I have to say the tiny man is hugely unstable. You should have seen him kicking himself in the head.”

  Hopper laughed again. “I’ve heard reports of his flexibility, but I’ve never seen it myself. I have to tell you, one of the funniest things I ever witnessed was an incident during the Railroad Days several years ago. He was riding his little bike while holding onto a helium balloon. The balloon was weighted, but apparently not enough that, when he lost hold of it, it started to slowly rise out of his reach. Somehow he stopped that bike, jumped onto the bike seat with his feet, and leaped for the balloon—the little dude’s as nimble as a gymnast. The bike crashed, and he missed the balloon. He landed off balance, but he fell forward onto his hands and did a somersault back onto his feet. The balloon kept slowly rising, so Jasper—that’s his name, by the way—climbed the no parking sign on the side of the street. He got all the way to the top and just as he was reaching for the balloon string, the sign started to bend backward. Jasper was hanging there by one hand and flailing for the balloon with his other one, and the sign was slowly bending until he landed right on his feet on the ground. But that’s not the end of it. Jasper’s pretty handy with a rock, as you’ve seen, so he picked up a small rock from the street and while swearing a stream of cuss words that would’ve made a sailor blush, he hit that balloon with his first throw, and it popped immediately. The weight fell straight down and hit him on the head. You couldn’t make up something like that.”