Skeleton Key

by Jeff LaFerney

  “Robbie, I need you to open up the storage shed closest to South Oak Street. I have a warrant to search the building.”

  “What’s up, Copper?”

  That wasn’t a wise thing to say. Hopper glared at Roberto in a way that made Gomez backtrack with amazing speed. “I mean Hopper. Chief Hopper. I’m sorry, Chief.”

  “Grab your keys, and let’s go, Robbie. Police business.”

  It took a few minutes to make the walk, which was done mostly in uncomfortable silence. Once there, Roberto unlocked the shed and stepped aside. There was a light inside, but the crew had ultraviolet lights as well, and a quiet but thorough search was made. Finally, in a back corner under a workbench, a discovery was made. The ultraviolet lights picked up some stains on the wooden floor and, when the bench was moved aside, the wooden walls were stained as well. Wood samples were carefully removed and then bagged and tagged as evidence.

  “We’ll have all the evidence sent for DNA analysis,” Hopper explained to Clay.

  “How soon will you know something?” Clay wondered out loud.

  “Forty-eight hours, max”.

  “Isn’t that awfully quick?” Clay asked. “I was under the impression something like that could take a month or two.”

  “It could unless you know the right person, and he owes you a favor, and he’s family, and you bribe him with a steak dinner.”

  “I assume that moves you right up to the front of the line,” Clay joked. He was starting to like Luke Hopper quite a bit.

  “It’s not what ya know; it’s who ya know.” Hopper turned and marched away. He was all business.

  He was followed closely by the forensics “crew.” Roberto and Clay lagged behind as Roberto shut the door and relocked it. Then he turned to Clay and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “We’re just gathering evidence of foul play, Robbie. We may have figured out how the body was buried.”

  “Does that mean the investigation is over?” Robbie asked with concern in his eyes.

  “Possibly,” Clay responded honestly.

  “Dios, gracias,” Roberto thought. “No more search warrants?” he asked.

  “You don’t have any reason to worry, do you?” Clay asked.

  “Just about the train engine,” he thought. “No. I was just wondering if I could get back to work, or if I would be needed for something else.”

  “This is the only thing I’m aware of. I’m sure you’re free to get back to work, Robbie. Thanks for the help.”

  When they all got back to the parking lot, Clay caught Luke up to speed about the discovery of Marshall Mortonson’s two sets of books and Erika’s appointment with an attorney. Then he told about Roberto’s unspoken concerns, especially his worry that another search warrant would be issued to search the train engine. Clay and Luke both agreed that Roberto was probably talking about the engine from the wreck, the very engine that was on display in front of the train depot. It was just one more thing to think about in an already confusing case, but Hopper said that he’d find someone to look over the train engine.

  ***

  Because Erika was busy, and there was nothing else for Clay to do, he shook hands with Chief Hopper and headed home. Hopper promised to call with the DNA results. He would want Clay present for any arrest and interview. Clay’s mind was wandering, and he was driving too fast when he hit a railroad crossing with a terrible bump. He heard what sounded like a gunshot. He ducked and actually wondered if Dan Duncan was shooting at him. None of his windows exploded but a warning light lit up on his dashboard, and based on how the car was driving, he realized that he had a flat tire from the railroad track. There was no end to his railroad track adventures.

  Clay got out of the car, popped open his trunk, unscrewed everything related to his spare tire, and pulled the mini-spare, tire iron, and jack from their storage compartments. A few snowflakes were swirling in the air. Clay put on a pair of gloves, quickly read the tire-replacement directions to be sure he didn’t do something stupid, and then he proceeded to loosen the lug nuts from the tire. Next, he used the lug wrench to raise the jack to a height nearly equal to the car frame level. He positioned the jack and continued to raise the wheel. After the wheel was suspended a couple of inches off the ground, he stopped and grabbed the tire to pull it off, but all he managed to do was disturb the perfect balance he had fortuitously established and the car fell off the jack, bending the metal at a ridiculous angle. It was ruined, and there was no way for him to continue. He was stranded on the side of the road with no way to change his own tire. Clay had managed to do something stupid anyway.

  If he was the swearing type, he’d have been tempted to let out a stream of curses that would have certainly made himself feel better, but he resisted the urge and pulled out his AAA card to make a call from his cell phone. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of damage Jasper would have inflicted upon the car, or his own forehead for that matter, had he been the unfortunate victim of the flat tire. He laughed out loud at his vision of the little man, his seat squished as far forward as possible. He pictured his head tilted back and his neck craned to just barely peer over the steering wheel while his toes stretched for the gas pedal.

  The AAA service representative gathered Clay’s information and let him know that someone from the Shell gas station in Durand would be there to help him shortly. It was only a matter of minutes before a truck rolled up to his car and a man jumped out and retrieved his own jack to help Clay change his tire. He laughed at Clay’s story, but he was gracious enough to not make Clay feel any more stupid than he already felt.

  As they talked and the man worked, Clay had an idea. The man’s name was Roger. “Roger, do you remember the night of the train wreck about seven years ago?”

  “Sure do. Was actually workin’ the cash register at the station that night. Missed all the action at the railroad, but I sure remember the truck driver comin’ in there claimin’ his truck’d been ripped off.”

  “What happened?”

  “He came in, paid for his gas, I got him his receipt, and then he asked for the key to the restroom outside. Quite a few minutes later, he was back inside claimin’ the truck had been stolen.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “Well, he disappeared outside to look again, like maybe he missed the truck the first time he looked.” Roger laughed at the absurdity of the thought. “Saw him walk from one side of the building to the other. Finally, he saw the cop car that was parked in the lot. He went to the car, then came back in and asked me if I seen the cop that belonged to the car. I hadn’t seen nobody, and I told him so. Asked if he wanted to use the phone to call the police station. He took a coupla minutes to tell me about the horses he was deliverin’ and how he was worried about ’em. Then he made a call to the horse owners or his boss or someone. I asked him if he wanted me to call 9-1-1, but he shook his head and finished his call. Then he went back outside like he was hopin’ it might be there if he only looked one more time. Lo and behold, that time the cop was there.”

  “Do you know the cop?”

  “Naw, I’m a law-abidin’ citizen. Never had a run-in with no cops before.”

  “Ever find out where the cop was?”

  “Nope. No one ever came back inside, and I couldn’t leave the register. The truck driver got in the cop car and they drove away with lights flashin’ and siren blarin’. I heard about the train wreck from another customer awhile later. Heard the train blasted the dude’s truck and killed his horses.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”

  Roger finished, Clay signed paperwork, and the conversation was over. Even though the flat was inconvenient, Clay actually thanked God for the good fortune of running into Roger. Clearly, his story and the story told by Dan Duncan were different. What was Duncan hiding? Where was Duncan when the truck driver discovered that his truck was stolen? As always, after another day of “investigating,” Clay still had more questions than answers.

  Ch
apter 23

  After two days of sitting around going crazy waiting for a call from Hopper, Clay decided to get on his treadmill to run off some pent-up energy. Tanner had a game against Bowling Green that evening, and it appeared he would be getting his first start. Clay put some headphones in his ears and started to run. He had called Erika five times in two days. In their last conversation, it was confirmed that Marshall Mortonson was a crook. First he embezzled, then he stole to cover the embezzlement. Then he manipulated numbers to cover financial losses that Adrian was more than likely racking up. He had evaded paying taxes. Most importantly to Erika, he had made one set of books appear that the business hadn’t made much money over the past seven years. He owed Erika a lot of money, but Andi Nickel was confident they could easily prove his dishonesty. Marshall would clearly be in financial straits with Erika and in legal trouble with the Department of Treasury.

  Clay had run more than a mile and was getting a little fatigued when he looked down at his iPod to determine the artist of the song he was listening to. His right foot stepped off the treadmill onto the side of the machine. The misstep spun his body sideways and Clay started to lose his balance. He was practically running sideways, but it was clear in a fraction of a second that there was no way he was going to survive the misstep. He fell straight to the course black belt that was rotating through the rollers and it shot him right off the back of the machine. His knee and palm were scraped raw and his body was shot headfirst right into the weight machine set up on the floor behind the treadmill. He hit his face on the metal stanchion, and lay on the floor with a welt below his eye. His pride was hurt as much as his body, but eventually he started laughing, imagining that his fall was captured on video. Spending time with Erika sure had given him a more optimistic outlook on life. He found himself laughing more easily and worrying less. When he dragged his body off the floor, he headed to the kitchen for some ice for his eye. Once he looked into a mirror, he could see that he would have a black eye and a lot of embarrassing explaining to do.

  ***

  “What happened to your eye?” Zander Frauss asked as Clay took his normal seat next to his friend at Crisler Arena.

  “Um, I fell,” said Clay as he attempted to avoid the truth.

  “On your eye?”

  “Okay, I fell off the treadmill and hit my eye on my weight machine.”

  “Likely story. Who hit you?”

  “Let’s just watch the game, okay?” The anthem played and starters were announced. Then Clay quickly caught Zander up on the news of the investigation in Durand. Tanner made a turnover on his first possession as a starter, just like his first possession in his first game off the bench, but he settled into a very solid performance—three turnovers, six assists, four rebounds, and nine points in a fifteen-point victory. Clay waited patiently for Tanner to emerge from the locker room after the game, and gave him a smile and a hug. They talked briefly about the game, Clay giving a few pointers like a dad tends to do and words of encouragement and confidence as dads also tend to do.

  “What happened to your eye?”

  “I fell.”

  “On your eye?”

  Zander laughed.

  “Is déjà vu a parapsychological gift?” Clay said.

  “You’ve had this conversation before?” Tanner asked.

  Clay changed the subject. “Wanna head back to Durand with me tomorrow? There may be some excitement. I was thinking we could watch Logan play in his basketball game too.”

  “Coach has a clinic he’s speaking at Friday night and Saturday morning, but we still have a shortened practice tomorrow morning from 11:00 to 12:30. If you can wait, I can make it after that.”

  ***

  Dan Duncan was itching to go back to work after being off for seven consecutive days. There were rumors at the police department that something big was going down concerning the discovery of Adrian Payne’s body. Developments in the case since he had severed his toe were mostly a mystery. Dan had convinced doctors to remove his cast, so he was limping around in a walking boot when he wasn’t using his crutches. He’d made it out to Walmart the day before, on Thursday, and he’d made several purchases that had left him in a very good mood. He was thinking: “Two new birdfeeders—$44.98. One 3-9x power rimfire rifle scope—$84.99. One Mosseberg .22 semi-automatic hunting rifle—$99.99. One dead backyard varmint squirrel—priceless.”

  Dan kicked back with his police scanner turned on and classical music quietly playing on his Bose radio when he heard some scraping on the roof of his house. Soon, he heard what sounded like little clawed feet running on his roof, and then everything was quiet. Dan cautiously eased himself from his chair and spied out of his kitchen window, and sure enough, the squirrel had leaped from his roof and was perched on the bird feeder, stealing seeds. He began sneaking his way to his bedroom closet, giving the distinct impression that he didn’t want the squirrel to know he was planning its murder.

  Dan had already installed the scope but he had to take a minute to load the rifle with ammunition. Then he sneaked the best he could while hopping on one foot back to his kitchen window. He peeked out of the window, imagining that the squirrel was worriedly looking for him. He quietly slid the glass open a crack and poked the barrel out. Dan’s heart was beating wildly and sweat was forming on his brow and upper lip. If he had known anything about hunting rifles and scopes, he would have known that he needed to zero in his scope before he used it, but what Dan was naively thinking was that an assembled scope would simply insure accurate aiming. Dan gazed through it with deadly focus. Within seconds, he believed, his squirrel would deservedly be executed and eliminated from his life completely.

  Once the crosshairs of the reticle were perfectly aimed and focused on the squirrel’s little head, Dan took a couple of deep, slow breaths and gently began squeezing the trigger. One shot was all that he’d need and all of his problems would be over. Finally, the bullet was ejected from the barrel. Dan watched carefully through the scope in anticipation of the squirrel’s demise, but nothing happened except for a noise that sounded remarkably like glass breaking. The squirrel itself looked up in curiosity. Dan stood up, looking in the direct line of his shot, when reality sank in. His scope had not been properly sighted, and Dan had just shot out his neighbor’s bathroom window.

  ***

  Clay received a call from Chief Hopper at 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning. The DNA results were conclusive. The bloodstains were from the body of Adrian Payne. Luke agreed to allow Tanner to come and witness the arrest and interview. He found he wasn’t doing many things “by the book” since he let Clay be part of the investigation. Clay also informed Luke about the conversation with Roger from the Shell gas station. He suggested that Hopper track down the truck driver so they could have a chat with him. Maybe he would remember something.

  Tanner arrived at his dad’s house by 12:45 and they were at the police station by 1:15. “I thought you said that Jasper didn’t hurt you, Clay,” said Hopper. “What happened? That’s a nice shiner you have.”

  “It wasn’t Jasper. I fell.”

  “On your eye?”

  Clay rolled his eyes.

  “More déjà vu?” Tanner laughed.

  According to Erika, Mortonson had left for an appointment with Toni Nickel, but he was expected back for a phone conference at 1:45. Hopper drove his own vehicle and Officer Verne Gilbert brought a back-up squad car to the Depot to wait for Mortonson’s arrival. DNA results confirmed that the body had been hidden in the storage shed, and Jasper’s eyewitness testimony was compelling evidence that Marshall Mortonson was the person responsible for hiding the body after the train wreck. Hopper was planning on arresting Mortonson and charging him with a felony for concealing the corpse of Adrian Payne.

  Mortonson’s hands were shaking as he headed back to his office at about 1:35. While at the attorney’s office, Marshall had poured himself a cup of coffee in the lobby and happened to see a stack of books on the desk of Andi Nickel. He could tel
l immediately that they were his account ledgers—both sets. Erika either knew or was soon to know that he was not being honest with her. He was sure to lose her trust along with probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. After passing the last set of railroad tracks, he entered the Depot parking lot and saw Chief Hopper, Clay Thomas, and an additional uniformed police officer waiting alongside a police car. Marshall panicked. He hit his brakes, paused to think—though he wasn’t thinking sensibly—and then did a U-turn in preparation to drive away. Where to? Canada?

  Everyone immediately recognized that Mortonson was attempting a getaway, and they all leaped into either the police chief’s car or the patrol car in preparation for an exciting car chase. As Marshall started to accelerate away from the Depot, a train roared by, blocking the tracks and forcing him to stop abruptly. The cop and his chief of police skidded to a stop after about a fifty-yard drive. Ironically, a train had trapped Mortonson.

  “That was exciting,” Tanner quipped.

  “I always get my man,” Hopper wisecracked.

  “What you got under the hood of this thing?” Clay asked. “It’s a wonder you were able to keep up.”

  “I’m like a bloodhound. Never lost sight of him the whole time.” Hopper got out of the car while Tanner and Clay laughed. They took a minute to gain their composure before exiting the car themselves.

  “Marshall Mortonson,” Hopper began, “you are under arrest for conspiracy to conceal a dead human body. Morty, it is a Class 5 felony to move or hide a dead body. You are further charged with preventing a lawful and decent burial.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mortonson lied.