The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  I needed to ask him about it. I stood up, then sat back down. Dan already suspected Taylor of being involved in Johnny’s death. If I told him about the man, it could be very damaging to her and it wouldn’t be fair to implicate her when it might have been an innocent conversation. A man had been murdered though. Maybe two men if Johnny’s death was somehow not an accident, and if that were true I had no reason to protect her. If she was telling the truth, she had nothing to fear.

  Dan had told me the last person who’d admitted to seeing Frank was Taylor, and according to what she was saying now, she’d last seen him with Jack. My renter had seen Frank come home much later, alone. That fit Taylor’s revised version of the night’s events, and it made more sense now that she would go to the boat when we set out to look for him. Taylor’s new account had the ring of truth that had been missing from her earlier tale, so the next logical step would be for someone to talk to Jack.

  I climbed off my perch and headed back into town. At city hall I poked my head into Dan’s office. It was empty. “Where’d he go?” I asked Tammy, the senior citizen who greeted visitors.

  “Home, I hope. He’s been bitin’ people’s heads off all mornin.’”

  “Why?”

  “Them state boys musta rattled his chain. Think they know ever’thing up in Juneau.”

  “If you see him, could you tell him I’m looking for him?”

  “Shore thing, hunny. You sweet on Danny?”

  “Dan? Tammy, how desperate do you think I am?”

  She took the horn-rimmed glasses from her face and let them hang by the chain around her neck. “Now you listen’ to me, dearie. It don’t pay to be too picky. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Danny that a good woman cain’t fix.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. You let him know I need to talk to him, okay?”

  “I’ll tell him, but you just think about it. There ain’t so many men around here that you can keep givin’ them away.”

  “Haven’t you heard there are five men for every woman in Alaska?”

  She laughed, a high, squeaky snort. “That mighta been true in my day, missy, but it ain’t true now, and it shore ain’t true in Coho Bay.”

  She was right, so I quit while I was behind and left, listening to the snort fade as I got further down the street. I pulled out my cell phone and called Dan. I got his voice mail, the bane of modern existence. What good did it do to carry a cell phone if you weren’t going to answer it? “Dan, it’s Cara. I’m headed out to the mill to talk to Jack. I found out a couple of things that may have something to do with the murder, so I probably ought to tell you about them. Give me a call when you get this.”

  Considering the mood Jack had been in lately, I thought about checking to see if Bent would go with me when I passed the restaurant, but I decided against it. I still had my handgun in my pocket if I needed to defend myself, but I couldn’t imagine I’d need it. Jack might be a bully, but he wasn’t a murderer. Bullies back down when you stand up to them, so I wasn’t afraid of him. He had been angry with me for introducing Johnny to Taylor, but it was her he hated, not me. I headed out of town, past the cabins and out to the end of the road where Jack’s sawmill was located. I hadn’t been there in years, not since high school when I used to go out now and then to have dinner with Johnny and his parents. It had been a way to break up the long winters, and I had visited several of the homes of the guys on my football team.

  Johnny hadn’t ever played football. I think his artist’s eye couldn’t bear to see the bruises and blood that even our tame brand of play produced. As I’d told Frank, I’d been drafted to round out the team because when Johnny decided not to play, our little school didn’t have enough boys to field even a six-man team. I hadn’t minded playing, partly because it bothered my mother and partly because what girl wouldn’t want to be surrounded by every boy in her class? The downside of playing football was that after graduation I found the only single men my age had become pals and teammates. It’s harder than you’d expect for a boy to fall in love with his quarterback, and one by one my former teammates had grown up and married other girls.

  I didn’t see Jack’s truck parked at the mill or by his house, which stood about fifty feet further off the road, under the shelter of the trees. Climbing the steps into the mill, I saw why. Gone hunting was written in block letters on cardboard and stuck with a thumbtack into the doorframe. “Crap,” I said, kicking the door in my disappointment. I don’t know what I’d been planning to say to Jack, but now that I was here, it was frustrating to not be able to say it.

  I don’t know what possessed me to try the door. I had a vague idea that maybe I’d leave Jack a note and ask him to come see me when he got back, but whatever idea I might have had, it packed its bags and left the moment I opened that door. Of course it wasn’t locked. Not everybody in Coho Bay has a paranoid and now missing friend who makes her lock her door, but poor Jack might have been better off if he’d had someone like Frank looking after him.

  The smell hit me, then the flies. Then the sickly but unmistakable stench of blood and lots of it, judging by the sheer number of the flies. I didn’t set foot inside. I leaned over the deck railing and threw up into the bushes. I was bent over, still reeling, when Dan’s truck pulled into the lot, and I can honestly say I was never gladder to see anyone in my entire life. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I stood there rooted to the spot and waited for him to join me on the stoop. I had a fleeting thought that I should walk down to meet him, but my feet wouldn’t move and my hands refused to let go of the railing, so I’d stood there, waiting, feeling the world spinning around me.

  “What happened to you?” said Dan glibly, but my weakened condition must have impressed itself upon him, and I thought I detected a note of concern.

  “Blood. Flies. Everywhere.” Not the most intelligent line I’d ever spoken, but I was surprised I could muster even that much, all things considered. Just uttering those three words had brought the memory of that smell back to me, and I leaned over the railing again.

  “Stay here,” said Dan when I was able to straighten up again. He didn’t have to tell me that. There was no way I was going to follow him. I had seen enough to know I didn’t want to see anything more. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and closed it quickly after him, but not so quickly that the smell hadn’t come billowing out.

  I threw up again. You’d think I’d have a stronger stomach, having been a hunter half my life, but there’s a big difference between the fresh kill of a game animal and the who-knows-how-long-ago murder of a human being. I leaned my head against the rail and blessed the metal for being cool against my skin. I fought to stay upright. Dan must have come back out again because I heard the door and, well, you know what I smelled. I closed my eyes and rocked against the railing. My knees began to buckle.

  I felt Dan’s arm go around my waist. “Come on, Cara. Let’s get you away from the door.”

  “Thank merciful God for you, Dan.” I don’t know that I’ve ever thanked God for the appearance of a man before, but at that moment it seemed faint praise. “Is he... dead?”

  “Somebody’s dead, from all that blood, but there’s no body.”

  He pulled open the truck’s passenger door and lifted me into the seat. I tried to climb up, but my legs were no help. I wasn’t sure I even had the strength to sit upright. Dan must’ve wondered about that too because he reached across me and buckled the seat belt, holding me in the seat. “There’s no body? What about that horrible smell?”

  Dan shut the door and walked around the truck. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine before he answered. “I didn’t say there was never a body. I said there wasn’t a body anymore. Someone must have moved it.”

  I leaned my head against the window, saying another prayer of thanks for the cool of the glass. “Moved it into the bay you mean.”

  “Possibly.”

/>   “Then it isn’t Frank. The body in the bay, I mean. It was Jack.” A glimmer of relief helped settle my stomach, though I didn’t like the thought of Jack being murdered either.

  “Maybe. I checked on Jack after Frank went missing, but when I saw the sign and his truck was gone, I assumed he’d gone hunting like he does every year round about this time. Trouble is, everybody knows that, so it’s possible they might have borrowed the use of the saw—” I groaned, and he looked at me. “What made you open the door?”

  “I don’t know. I came up here to talk to him, and I guess I just thought I’d leave him a note.”

  He nodded, then backed out of the lot. “What did you want to talk to him about? Same reason you called me?”

  “Sort of. It’s a long story. Are we just going to leave the mill like that? Don’t you need to, I don’t know, collect evidence?”

  “I’ll have to get the state crime lab down again. Tell me the long story.”

  “Can it wait until we get to Mel’s? I don’t think I can have this conversation twice.”

  We drove past the cabins. Taylor was sitting on a chair outside the cabin next to Frank’s, watching the sunset over the bay. She stared at us as we drove by, but she didn’t wave, nor did I. “What’s that all about?” asked Dan. “You and Ms. Lennon have a falling out?”

  “I don’t know, Dan. To tell the truth, I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know what to think or who to believe. A week ago my life was sailing along, peaceful and happy. Today? Everything’s different. Everything’s strange. Nothing feels like it used to feel.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Most things are the same as they always were, and you’ll see that once this business is settled. Everything will go back to being the way it was.”

  “Will it?” I sat up, and the world swam, so I sat back and shook my head very slowly. “How can you know that?”

  “Because this ain’t my first rodeo.”

  I gave him a sideways look. “Nobody says that anymore, you know.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, you should stop.”

  Dan chuckled. “You see, Cara? Even now, as bad as I know you’re feeling, you’ve still got your sense of humor. You wait and see. You’ll come out the other end of this just fine.”

  “A sadder but wiser Cara. My mother uses that phrase, when someone we know has a bad experience that strips off some of their innocence. They’ll be sadder but wiser for it. She always says that, and I never knew what she meant by it. I heard the words, you know, but I couldn’t see the wisdom.”

  “Wiser would be good, but I wouldn’t like to see you be sadder. I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”

  I didn’t ask him what he meant by that because we’d pulled up behind the restaurant and he was out of the truck and walking around to the passenger side almost before the sound of the engine died. He opened my door, and I stabbed ineffectively at the seat belt. He patiently helped me out of the truck because my sense of humor might have returned, but my sense of balance had not. He had to put his arm around me and half carry me to the kitchen door.

  Mel had locked it again, but this time she answered on the first knock. She took in the sight of us standing there, Dan holding me up like a rag doll, and backed up to let us in. “Bent, come quick!”

  Bent put down the spatula he was using to flip burgers, but Dan waved him off. “I’ve got her.” He plopped me down in a chair Mel had dragged over from her desk in the corner and walked over to see what Bent was cooking. I was glad she’d grabbed a chair because I didn’t think I could have managed a stool.

  “Cara, my God, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, Mel, really. Don’t fuss.”

  “She’ll be okay. She’s had quite a shock.” Dan was leaning against the wall next to the grill, watching Bent sliding burgers onto the buns Mel had stacked with toppings. He scooped chips from the warmer and put a pile on each plate, then pushed them across the table to Mel. It was usually like ballet, watching them work, but this time their rhythm was off.

  “Honey?” Bent tapped softly on the worktable to get Mel’s attention.

  “I... are you sure you’re not hurt, Cara?”

  “I’m fine. Go serve your tables.”

  She hesitated. Dan nodded reassuringly. She looked back at me, then picked up the plates and disappeared into the dining room. Bent put another burger on the grill and looked up at Dan, who nodded. Bent dropped two more patties onto the grill and then pulled out a package of thinly sliced turkey, setting it on the worktable. Mel came back and pulled down three plates, getting them ready. She asked only what we wanted to drink, before disappearing back into the dining room.

  “Small crowd tonight, Bent?” asked Dan.

  “Always is this time of year. I think we’ve only got three or four tables going out there.” Bent added a serving of turkey to the grill.

  “You’re frying already cooked turkey?”

  “For that one,” he said, nodding his head toward me. “Normal people like bacon on their burgers, but Cara would rather have turkey.”

  “When in Rome,” said Dan, looking at me. His gaze was oddly gentle. Bent grabbed another serving of turkey and added it to the grill.

  “I like bacon,” I said, finally finding my voice and being surprised that it sounded almost normal, at least to me. “Turkey is better. Turkey and bacon, now that would be good.”

  “Turkey’s better for you than bacon,” said Mel, coming back into the kitchen. She pulled a small pasta salad out of the refrigerator and went back into the dining room, returning with silverware and napkins. I sat watching her, feeling strangely disconnected from the normalcy of the kitchen.

  When the burgers were ready, Bent piled my plate high with chips, and Mel brought in a pitcher of root beer. For once I wished we had something stronger, but I made myself get up and move to a stool next to Mel. Dan and Bent ate their meals standing up.

  “So what happened, Cara?” asked Mel. I guess I must have been looking enough like myself that she thought it was safe to ask.

  “Do you still have people out there?”

  “Only a couple of tables. One’s eating dinner, and the other’s on dessert.”

  “Go throw pie at them and tell them to let themselves out when they’re done. This is gonna take awhile.”

  She gave me a searching look but did as I asked. While she was gone, I thought about what I was going to say. So much had happened since I’d left that afternoon. I didn’t know whether to put all the cards on the table, or protect Taylor and only talk about the grisly discovery I’d made at the mill. The mill was the logical place to start, but thinking about that would ruin my appetite, and Bent almost never made turkey cheeseburgers for me because he hated them. It might be selfish, but after the day I’d had, I needed my favorite food. I decided I would eat faster.

  When Mel returned and had settled back onto her stool, Dan must have decided he’d given me enough time to collect myself. “Why is Ms. Lennon at the cabins?”

  “Taylor’s at the cabins?” asked Mel. “When did that happen?”

  I finished the last bite of my burger before I answered, resigning myself to the ordeal of recounting my day. “We had a fight.”

  “Must’ve been a doozy. What were you fighting about?” Dan pulled a notebook from his pocket, reminding me that what I chose to say now might haunt Taylor forever.

  “Were you fighting over Frank?” asked Mel.

  “Why would they be fighting over Frank?” Dan and Bent asked in two-part harmony.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “Because Taylor slept with Frank even though she knew Cara liked him.”

  “Cara liked Frank?” Again they spoke in unison.

  “What are you, twins?” I asked. “Stop that. We weren’t fighting because Taylor slept with Frank. We were fighting because now she says she didn’t.”

  “No!” gasped Mel. “Why would she tell you she did if she didn’t?”

  “And if they
weren’t together,” added Dan, “where was she that night?”

  “I don’t know why she said it, she just did. I don’t know why Taylor says anything. She lied. When Frank turned up missing, she kept right on lying.”

  “Because she thought it was a good idea to lie to the police,” said Dan, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why does everyone think it’s all right to lie to the police?”

  “This isn’t about you, Dan,” said Mel. “Go on, Cara. What is she saying happened now?”

  “She said when she realized she was locked out, she started to come back here, but Jack confronted her. She says he called her everything but human until Frank stepped in. You remember me telling you he’d followed when Taylor left? Well, Taylor says he tossed her his keys and told her to go wait for him in the boat. She says he never showed up.”

  “I wonder which story is true.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to Dan about. When my renter checked out of the cabin this morning, he said he saw Frank come home alone around two in the morning. If he took Jack home, spent a little time calming him down...”

  “It still wouldn’t have taken him until two in the morning,” said Dan.

  “Maybe it took a long time to calm him down.”

  “Or maybe Frank killed Jack,” said Bent.

  “Bent!” said Mel.

  “Nobody’s seen him since that night,” agreed Dan, ignoring Mel.

  “I thought you thought Frank was dead.”

  “Somebody’s dead, Mel,” answered Dan. “We don’t know for sure that it’s Frank. Could be Jack.”

  “Why would Jack be dead? I thought I heard he’d gone hunting.” Mel looked perplexed.

  “If Jack’s dead,” I said, thinking out loud, “where is Frank?”

  Dan sat without answering for a moment, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He knew better than to talk about a case under investigation, but he also knew that if he didn’t tell them, I would. I guess he decided to spare me the gruesome task. “There’s a lot of blood out at Jack’s mill. Been there a few days, probably not more. Cara found it.”