“He didn’t talk me out of anything. I never wanted to harm that woman. And it wasn’t his idea to do any of that. It was mine.”
“Okay, now, that’s what I needed to hear. Details. Thanks, Gerald. This is helpful.”
“Is that woman okay?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s fine. A headache, maybe, but she’s alive. So there’s no murder charge here,” Owens insisted.
“We didn’t aim to kill her. We were hired to simply get rid of her.”
“That’s what Bo said. So, this is good. Your story and Bo’s story fit together nicely. Now, who hired you?”
“Raney Goforth,” he said.
“He pay you?”
“Five hundred up front, five hundred when we showed him proof of her being gone,” Gerald said.
“So, you already have received five hundred dollars?”
“Yeah.”
“How were you going to prove that she was gone?”
“I got her cell and gun. I was going to give them to Raney for the rest of the money.”
“Good. You have those things now?”
“Yeah. Safe in my apartment. You want them?”
“I’ll get back to you on that. Might want to use them,” Owens said as he got up and left the interrogation room.
Seconds later he walked into the room where I had watched and listened to him work Laney.
“You’re pretty good at that,” I said.
“Don’t sound so surprised. Some of us know what we’re doing around here.”
“Still,” I said voicing some doubt.
“Still what?”
“That Gerald guy,” I said and smiled.
“What about him?”
“Lights were on but nobody was home.”
“Yeah, but I’m still good at what I do.”
“Never doubted for a moment,” I said. “Doughnuts and good interrogation go together, don’t you know.”
“Even with dufus criminals.”
46
Walters provided me with a quart thermos of expensive coffee for the trip to Weston. Owens and I were now sitting in his car eating some fresh ones and drinking expensive coffee while we waited for the meet to take place. Owens had convinced Laney that it was in his best interest to cooperate with us in apprehending Raney Goforth. Instead of allowing Gerald to retain my weapon, Owens had provided him with a similar caliber weapon that had been fixed so as not to fire. Gerald had the cell phone and was wearing a wire.
The guys in the truck were to listen to the conversation while we watched from Owens’ vehicle. I don’t think they had doughnuts and coffee in the truck. Their loss, I can safely attest.
“Thanks for your help in this,” I said to Owens while we waited for Raney Goforth to show up.
“This is good coffee. What did you say was the brand?” Owens said.
“I didn’t say.”
“Well, what is it?”
“You couldn’t afford it on your salary.”
“That sounds condescending to me. You don’t know how much money I make.”
“You on the take?”
“Naw, never saw much future in that.”
“Then I have an idea of how much money you make. You can’t afford this coffee even if I divulge the brand to you. My Uncle Walters has more money than God, so he can afford stuff like this.”
“Must be nice.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“This is really good coffee,” Owens said.
“And these are really good doughnuts,” I said.
“They are, aren’t they? Nothing but the best for those of us who serve and protect.”
We sat in silence with only our gulping and chewing sounds resonating around our small space. This lasted for several minutes. Stakeouts are not usually this much fun. Doughnuts and coffee add a delightful addition to an otherwise dreadful job. The fact that it was good coffee made it even more so.
“You think Raney Goforth is behind all this?” Owens said breaking the sound of chewing.
“No.”
“So who then?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“That preacher guy?”
“I thought so once upon a time, but I’ve changed my mind about that. Something about him tells me that he cared enough about Melody … something, I don’t know. I hate to use the word kindness for him, but he liked her and wanted her to be a part of his kingdom. I think he was genuinely disappointed when she failed the test.”
“The test?”
“Yeah, she was pregnant, which meant that she was not a virgin and could not become his wife and high priestess since she was impure.”
“You’re not making this crap up, are you?” Owens said.
“No. This is the stuff he practices. His religion.”
“You think she wanted to be that old man’s wife?” Owens said.
“Can’t say much about that. But it would appear that she did. At least that’s the way I figure it with what little I know now. He was only twenty-plus years her senior,” I said.
Owens rolled his eyes at me while stuffing the last bit of doughnut in his mouth. He chewed a few moments and then gulped down more coffee.
“Golly gee, I love this java.”
“Sounds like the beginning of song,” I said.
“Don’t sing. Don’t even listen to music. Just like good coffee.”
He was reaching for another doughnut when Gerald Laney got out of his car and walked towards the building where I was accosted two days ago. We watched him enter and disappear.
Rogers interrupted our surveillance ritual.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“I wanted to be sure that you were alright,” she said.
I started to thank her for her concern, but with Owens in the car, I thought better of saying that line.
“Nothing to report,” I said, trying to sound business-like.
“You’re not alone.”
“That would be correct,” I said.
“You safe?”
“So far.”
“You packing heat?” Rogers said.
I wanted to say something clever, but she knew I was bound by my present company.
“All is well. I’ll report in later.”
I closed the phone and stuffed it in my pocket.
“That an underling you have working for you?” Owens said.
“My computer is programmed to call me every few days to either provide me with reports or check on me.”
“Your computer,” he repeated.
“It’s an unusual computer. I have some experimental programs working.”
“Sounds more like your mother programmed it,” he chuckled.
In a few minutes, Raney Goforth arrived and entered the same building.
“The game’s afoot,” I said.
“Say what?” Owens said.
“Literary metaphor.”
“I don’t do metaphors, and I certainly don’t do literary ones. Besides, I don’t know that the real Sherlock ever said that,” he grinned at me and got out of the car.
“The real Sherlock?” I said.
I followed suit since I had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. He turned to look at me and I raised my palms in his direction as if to ask what was up.
“Just getting ready in case things happen quickly. I haven’t been impressed with the IQ of either Johnson or Laney. One never knows what might happen when idiots wear a wire,” Owens said.
I followed him into the building. A noise from upstairs suggested that Laney might have gone in that direction. We climbed the staircase.
“Room 337,” I whispered to Owens.
“How do you know that?”
“I pay attention to details.”
Minutes passed. We landed on the third floor and found the room with that number on the door. We both pressed our ears to the door and could hear voices. One of them sounded like Laney. I recognized Raney Goforth’s voice as well.
I nodd
ed and we stood outside the door waiting for whatever happened to happen. Owens had a line to the truck in front of the building. When they heard something from room 337 that would seal the deal, they would give him the go ahead. That was the plan.
Eternity passed.
Owens pressed his left ear to the door while looking at me. He shrugged.
“I don’t hear voices,” he said.
I pressed my ear to the door. Nothing.
“Me either.”
“Shall we go inside?” he said.
“Your call.”
He turned the knob easily but the door didn’t open. He stepped back and kicked fiercely. The door opened abruptly and sagged on one hinge. Ah, the power of several doughnuts and good coffee.
Laney was on the floor and not moving. Blood was flowing a little from a wound to his head. Other than Gerald Laney lying on the floor bleeding, the room was empty. I walked over to an opened window. There was a fire escape going down the back of the building.
So much for astute police work. I could have allowed this on my own.
“Your cell phone is missing and so is the fixed gun,” Owens said.
“Gerald mostly okay except for that gash on his head?” I said.
“Not really. Gerald’s mostly dead.”
47
“Can you come home for a few days?” my mother’s voice said when I took the land-line receiver from Uncle Walters and offered the usual hello.
“What’s wrong, Mother?”
“There’s a rumor running around town that the deacons have asked Reverend Stoddard to resign as pastor.”
“Good,” I said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t like the man.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it. Besides being a chauvinist and a first class idiot, he should be given the opportunity to defend himself if he is innocent. It’s a matter of justice.”
“Where did all of this justice come from?”
“I was married to your father, remember?”
“Oh.”
“Will you come?”
“Does the rumor say why the deacons did this?”
“No. I need you to come home and investigate,” Rachel said.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“This is serious, Clancy. I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“You don’t think that the truth will come out?” I said.
“What if the deacons are wrong?”
“About what?”
“About whatever it is that they are saying he has done.”
“They could be wrong. But here’s the thing. Even if they are wrong, and they ask him to resign, whatever happens next will happen, right or wrong. I couldn’t possibly stop it, even if I investigate the situation.”
“But if you found out the truth, you could defend Reverend Stoddard to the deacons,” Rachel said. “It is all very hush, hush. I don’t like stuff buried like that. Hidden and secretive. Bad karma here, Clancy. If he did something illegal or immoral, then kick his butt out of town, or put him in jail. But for goodness sake tell the world what he has done.”
“That’s a little out of my expertise,” I said.
“What, church work?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I was thinking that I usually investigate crimes, or criminals, or … well, you know, stuff like that.”
“Investigation is investigation,” she insisted.
She was right and I had no real argument against it other than the fact that I did not want to get involved in my home church’s mess, if, in fact it was a mess. Since my mother began our conversation using the word rumor, I was unusually suspicious that it was already a mess. I had enough of a mess here in Massachusetts.
“Can you break away from your present case and come home for a few days?”
She sounded earnest and pitiful. I knew, of course, that she wanted to use me as one of her tactical maneuvers and that she was trying to reel me into her web. The truth was, I wanted a break from my investigation here just to mull over what I had learned about Melody, Duchess, Raney Goforth, Fletcher, and the Church of the Real End, just to name some of the principal characters in this Weston, Massachusetts drama. The fact that I had been kidnapped and left in some New Hampshire woods also played into my thinking that it might be a good time for a short halt in the limited progress I was making. However, that being confessed, investigating some decisions made by a bunch of deacons in a local church was not exactly my idea of a breather.
“Okay, I’ll come. I’ll be there in a couple of days. I need some time to talk it over with a couple of people.”
I was thinking about Owens and Uncle Walters. I knew Sam would like to travel south to Clancyville, so he would be no good at thinking through a possible time out.
“I thought you were working alone up there.”
“Made some friends.”
“Don’t pull my leg like that. No way you can make friends.”
“I love you, too, Mother.”
“It may be too late if you wait a couple of days,” she said.
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to correct whatever may be happening here,” she said, and she was exasperated at this point.
“Get control of yourself, Mother. If the situation is non-reversible two days from now, then there isn’t much I could do to stop the forces at play if I came today. You know investigations take time. I shall begin looking into this before I arrive. I still need a couple of days to leave Massachusetts, return to Norfolk, pick up some things, and drive to Clancyville.”
“Be here in two days,” she said and hung up her phone.
Her beck and call. She had won once more. Maybe if I lived in California I could overcome some of this. I would have further to drive, so I couldn’t be there in two days. I’d have to fly. California would not help. I wonder, if I lived in Australia … Or China?
I called Detective Owens from Walters’ place and told him I would be away for a few days. I told that I had some business back in Virginia that needed some attention. He said he would continue the search for Raney Goforth and keep me apprised of whatever he learned along the way, if anything.
“You must need a break,” Walters said.
“I do. I think I need to process the pieces I have uncovered, try to figure out how they fit together – or even if they do fit. All of this … before I can move forward. Nothing is clicking at present.”
“But you have to be getting close to something,” he said.
“I agree. The fact that someone wanted me out of the way is reason to believe I’ve touched a nerve. Somebody’s nerve, but I have no idea whose.”
“And the young man who was killed,” Uncle Walters reminded me.
“Yeah, that was a bit of a shock. Didn’t see that coming.”
“Reason enough to stay and keep at it,” he said.
“Also reason enough to take a few days and think about what I know.”
“With Rogers.”
“Yeah, with her. And Sam, at my mother’s place.”
“My sister in a mess again?”
“Not personally. She’s invested in the church there and stuff is happening. She wants me to check into it. She fears that the deacons are overreacting to something that her minister has done or not done. Either way, she thinks I can help.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I need to be careful when poking around a church and challenging any of their decisions by asking questions.”
“Since you are an absentee member?”
“Something like that. I’m not as vested as my mother.”
“Safe travel. Be careful. There are dangers that lurk even in Virginia.”
“Surely you don’t mean inside a Baptist church,” I said.
“See you in a week or so.”
Before I could leave Boston, I had to replace my missing mobile. I stopped at one of those cell phone carrier
stores. It took longer than it should have since the salesperson didn’t want to let go of her best flip-phone on hand. She insisted that I had to have the most modern talking phone with internet access and two zillion apps. I remained firm, then turned towards rude before she finally relented and sold me one, she said, that had used by Noah on the ark.
Two hours later I was leaving Boston and I called Rogers to give her access to my newly acquired instrument of torture. I also called to update her on what I was doing and where I was headed. I required some assistance from her in regards to my mother’s crisis. I needed her to dig around on the Clancyville Baptist Church. It was a long shot that something might be posted online, but it was worth a try. Any morsel of the goings-on would be useful and a place to start, my mother’s suspicions notwithstanding.
“Tell me again what it is you want me to check regarding your mother’s church,” Rogers said.
I tried to clarify.
“A rumor?” she said.
“That’s what she said was out in the community. Somebody said something about the deacons meeting and asking the preacher to resign,” I said.
“And you are leaving a suicide murder, plus a fire, then another murder just to investigate this rumor about a preacher you don’t like being removed unfairly?”
It sounded ludicrous to me as well. I shook my head as I drove along. Even a machine with artificial intelligence could see the irregularity of such action. I was a prisoner to my own flesh and blood. Blood and water. Yikes.
“Look at it this way. What if the deacons had voted to kill the man? I would need to investigate that,” I said.
“But voting to kill him is not a crime. Killing him would be the crime. Asking him to resign is not a crime. Neither is firing him. You investigate criminal activity. Show me the criminal activity,” Rogers said.
“I see your point. However, it could be construed that firing or seeking a person’s resignation unjustly is a criminal act of sorts. Fair is fair.”
“Point. At any rate, you have agreed to jump into the fray. And, you need my help.”
“As always. Let me know what you find.”
“This should not take long,” Rogers said. “Oh, by the by, are you coming home before venturing forth to slay a windmill?”
“Cute. I was considering it, but if I take a more westward route to Virginia, Norfolk would be considerably out of the way. I am wondering if I need to come by and see you,” I said.
Desperate Measures: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 5) Page 18
