Murder Among the Pines

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  Zeyer leaned across the table, coming so close to the gardener that the other man stood and stepped back. “Just so you know, I could’ve bought ten of those rings. With cash, like I did that one. She said I couldn’t afford it. She bugged me so much that I walked in to buy it just to prove I could. And she’s not dead because of that ring. It’s because she ran off with some guy, used to be a cop. She came up here with him and bragged to me about it. Called me up and told me where she was, said she needed to see me. Wanted me to come up and take her away from the dumb ex-cop. Said she loved me, wanted me to marry her. Asked me to meet her at midnight out in them pine trees. And call her when I got there. I said sure and that we’d ride off later, back to Toronto. Got her all excited about the idea. I just wanted the ring back. And a chance to teach her not to fool around on me.”

  “They say she drowned,” the gardener said in a low voice. He sounded sad. “They say she was beat up and then held under until she drowned.”

  “You think I could let her go after smashing her face like I did? I dragged her into the lake so fast, she never had a chance to make a sound. Just a whole bunch of bubbles.” Zeyer seemed to realize where he was and what he was saying. He stood back and looked around the room again. “You ever have a woman get to you like that? I’ll bet you haven’t.” He looked at the gold band on the gardener’s left hand. “What’d you do? Marry some girl you knocked up in high school? Now you got a bunch of kids and a dead-end job? You can’t stand looking at each other, you and her? Is that what happened, loser?”

  The gardener looked at the floor. “We don’t have children.”

  “Good for you. Now give me the ring, or you won’t have a head either.”

  “It’s outside.”

  Zeyer looked this way and that. “What’s outside?”

  “The ring. I’m not going to carry it around on me. I told you, my mother—”

  “Yeah, she didn’t raise no dummies. Well, one of you better get out there and bring me that ring.” He began to walk around the table, his fists clenched.

  The gardener reached behind him and seized a pitchfork. He aimed the sharp points at Zeyer and said, “Go get it yourself.”

  Zeyer took a step back. He considered charging the other man, but the points were sharp. And rusty. Instead he said, “Tell me where it is.”

  “There’s a wooden bin on the far side of the shed,” the gardener said. “Full of grass seed. It’s in the seed bin out there.” He waved his hand to the right. “Out there against the wall. You can feel the ring under the seed. In the top left corner. Get it and get outta here. I don’t want the ring, and I don’t want your money. Take it and go. Don’t ever come back, see?”

  Zeyer almost smiled. “I don’t ever want to come back here for anything.” He walked to the door and turned around. “I got it right here, you know. The money, I mean.” He patted his jacket. “But if you don’t want it…” He shrugged, opened the door and stepped outside.

  The garden was still empty. Good. He walked to the corner of the shed and turned to see a large wooden bin against the wall. Just as the loser had said.

  Tall pines beside the building kept it in deep shade. The darkness felt cool after the hot sun. It would be good to sit there in the shade, maybe with a cold beer. But he wanted to get on his motorcycle and ride south in the sunshine. With the ring in his pocket.

  He wouldn’t try to sell the ring after all. Too risky. He would dump it down a sewer somewhere. The loser was right. A piece like that could be traced back to him. Better to dump it. He would write off nearly fifteen thousand dollars to save his skin. But he could afford it. There was another deal coming down next week that would make him two, maybe three times that much money. How many guys could do that?

  He walked to the bin and raised the wooden lid.

  The bin was almost filled with grass seed. Holding the lid open with one hand, he reached in with his other to the top left corner. His fingers felt under the seed. There was nothing there. He pushed his hand deeper into the seeds. Still nothing.

  Maybe it was in the other corner. He changed hands, using his right hand to look under the seeds, feeling beneath the surface. Nothing there either.

  He swore aloud. He should have sent that fool out here to get it himself. He swung his right hand through the seeds in the bin. Now he wasn’t feeling beneath the surface. He was flinging seeds out of the bin in handfuls. There was no ring. When he dropped the lid, it landed with a loud thud.

  He leaned on the bin to catch his breath and felt his anger rise. He had been taken. By a stupid gardener. One way or another, he would teach that fool a lesson, pitchfork or none. He wiped his hands on his jacket and began walking back to the shed, planning what he would do. There were shovels in that shed. He would grab one and use it. Zeyer had been in enough bar fights to handle himself with some skinny fool. The other guy would have no chance with a pitchfork this time. He would grab a shovel, throw it at the loser, and when he ducked…

  Zeyer turned the corner of the shed, and there he was.

  The gardener had a smile on his face and a pistol in one hand. In his other hand was a set of handcuffs. “Hi there,” he said. “Name’s Henry. This here’s my boss.” He tilted his head at a woman in a police uniform. She was also holding a pistol. “And that there’s the manager, Ms Rosart.” A tall woman in a gold jacket stood a few steps away, her arms folded.

  “Martin Zeyer,” the woman in the police uniform said, “you are under arrest for the murder of Lana Jewel Laverne Parker. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  “You’re crazy,” Zeyer said.

  The woman pulled a Taser from her belt. “You will be on the ground in pain unless you do it,” she said.

  Zeyer turned around.

  “You’re gonna be staying with us until the OPP comes for you,” Henry said. “Maybe for a couple of hours.” The cuffs snapped shut. “That’ll be long enough for me to show you a couple of card tricks.”

  TWELVE

  Max sat in a chair, her legs stretched in front of her. She felt both relaxed and excited at the same time. Standing behind her were Margie, Henry and Pam Rosart. Henry was sipping a coffee. Margie punched his shoulder when the video finished. “Boy, you’re good,” she said. “You could win an Oscar doing that.”

  “You were right,” Henry said to her. “About trying to show him card tricks. Got him so angry he couldn’t stop talking to me. How’d you know it would work?”

  Margie just smiled.

  Down the hall, Martin Zeyer sat in a cell, his head in his hands.

  Max called Sergeant Stanton with the news. “We have the killer of Lana Parker in a cell,” she said. “And we have him on video telling what he did and how he did it. I think you need to come and see it.”

  She did not expect the sergeant to believe her, and he didn’t. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “We have the man who did it.” He meant Jim Benson.

  “You need more proof,” Max had said. “And you know it.”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “No, you won’t. Because we have it here.”

  Stanton made a point of sounding bored. “So what is it?”

  “Everything you need is on the video, with sound. He brags about what he did and gives us a motive.” When Stanton said nothing, she said, “Look, if you or someone from your force doesn’t get here soon, I’ll pass it on to some TV news outlet.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You’re telling me it’s not evidence. So what law would I be breaking?”

  She heard Stanton breathe long and hard into the receiver. “If I waste my time coming up there…” he said.

  “I’ll expect you in an hour,” Max said. “Remind me how you take your coffee.”

  • • •

  Stanton was not pleased when he arrived. “If this has been a wild-goose chase,” he said, “I will file a report, and from now on you clowns won’t be able to do anything more than write parking ti
ckets.”

  Max ignored his tantrum. “It’s in here,” she said and led him into her office. Henry and Pam Rosart followed them.

  It took less than ten minutes to watch the videos. The first showed Zeyer arriving in the garden, approaching Henry and talking to him. Next they watched Zeyer walk back to the rosebush and pull the broken silver chain from its branches. The screen went black.

  “Now for act two,” Henry said.

  The new view showed the inside of the shed. Henry sat to the right, dealing cards on the old table. In a few seconds the door opened and Zeyer entered. Henry looked up and said, You find what you’re looking for?

  They watched and listened as Zeyer bragged about killing Lana Parker. They watched Henry raise the pitchfork to defend himself. When Zeyer left the shed to look for the ring in the seed bin, Henry took his cell phone from a drawer in the table. He’s out, he said into the phone.

  We see him, Max said from inside the inn, where she had been watching through a window. We’re on our way.

  Henry replaced the phone. Then he took his pistol and handcuffs from the drawer and left the shed. Every word and every gesture from Henry and Zeyer was on the video.

  “Where did you hide the camera?” Stanton asked. He stared at the screen as though waiting for another show. He looked and sounded weary.

  “Behind a tractor poster,” Pam Rosart said. “It’s one of our portable units. The size of a pack of gum.”

  Stanton turned to stare at her.

  “It’s got big flowers on it,” Henry said. “The poster, I mean. They’re daisies. We cut the center out of one and aimed through the hole. Pretty smart, right?”

  Stanton ignored him. “The sound is good,” he said. “I could hear every word.”

  “It will hold up in court,” Max said.

  Stanton ignored her too. “What got you started on this? What made you think the ring was part of it?”

  Instead of answering, Maxine called out, “Margie?”

  Margie’s gray-haired head peeked around the corner.

  “Tell Sergeant Stanton about young men and young women and jewelry,” Maxine said.

  “My son is a sweetie,” Margie said to Stanton. “But when his girl dropped him after he bought her a bracelet—”

  Stanton cut her off. “I get the picture.”

  Margie looked at Maxine, who grinned and shrugged.

  “What was all that stuff about numbers on diamonds?” Stanton said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Some diamonds are marked with lasers,” Max said. “They put a logo on it. We figured they could put numbers on them too.”

  “Where is the ring?” Stanton said.

  Max said, “We don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “We never said we had it. Not to you. It may still be out there in the sand. Or maybe it’s in the water. Or maybe somebody found it already.” She lifted her chin and said, “Does it matter? This is not about a ring. It never was. This is about the murder of a pretty young woman who liked to tease men. She went too far with Zeyer.”

  Stanton still said nothing. Then, “Do you have a copy?” He meant the video.

  Pam Rosart stepped forward. “It’s on here,” she said. She handed him a memory stick.

  “Does this guy Zeyer know he was recorded?” the sergeant asked Max.

  She nodded. “We played it for him. Showed it to him through the bars of his cell.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked if we would get his motorcycle out of the parking lot. He was afraid somebody would steal it.”

  “Here’s the funny part,” Henry said.

  Stanton turned to look at him for the first time.

  “When we asked where he had parked it, he said it was next to a red Porsche.”

  “Jim Benson’s car.” Stanton turned to look back at Max.

  “He left it there when you arrested him three days ago,” she said. “Now he can come and get it himself, right?”

  THIRTEEN

  “So that’s how it went.”

  Maxine was sitting on her front patio an hour before sunset. Granite Lake shone like gold in the fading light.

  Geegee shook her head and took a sip of wine. “Did this guy Zeyer say any more? After you took him in, I mean?”

  Max nodded. She had her own glass of Pinot Grigio, her reward for living through one of the best days of her life. “He talked when he was in the cell. I didn’t tell the OPP about it. They might have accused me of interrogating him. We didn’t ask him any questions. He just sat in his cell, talking to himself as much as to us. A lot of them do it when they know it’s over for them.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much we didn’t already know or could guess. He said Lana had been his first serious girlfriend, the first one he might have loved. He’d made a drug score and they went downtown to celebrate. They walked past Bentley’s, and she saw the ring in the window. When she made a big deal about it, he bragged to her. If she liked it so much, he said, he would buy it for her. She laughed at him, said he couldn’t afford it. He got angry and told her he would prove he could.”

  “Like a little boy,” Geegee said, “showing off to some little girl.”

  Maxine shrugged. “Men are all little boys around women like her,” she said. “He went into the store and asked the price of the ring. Then he told her she would have it the next day.”

  “He really went back and bought it?”

  Maxine nodded. “He paid cash with money from his drug deals. He gave it to her and told her to put it on her finger, but she said not until he proposed to her.”

  “Do you think he would have?” Geegee poured herself more wine. “Proposed?”

  Maxine gave that some thought. “Doubt it. Of course, he might really have been in love with her. As much in love as a guy like that can get.”

  “Speaking of getting,” Geegee said, “what kind of sentence will he get if he is found guilty?”

  “His lawyer may tell him to plead guilty to second-degree murder and say he killed her in a rage. He’d probably be right. We can’t prove the guy rode up here to kill her.”

  “So he’d get a shorter sentence?”

  “It would still be a life sentence, but with earlier parole.” She looked behind her, where the sky had a strange glow. Some people called it the magic hour, but there was nothing magic about what she saw approaching.

  Geegee followed her eyes. “Is that…”

  Maxine watched the red car pull into her driveway and the driver’s door open. The man who stepped out was tall and slim. He wore a light jacket over a denim shirt.

  Maxine set her glass aside, stood and walked toward him.

  Jim Benson opened his arms to hug her, but Maxine stopped several paces away with her arms folded.

  “I have always owed you so much,” Jim said. His eyes were dry, but there were tears in his voice. “Now I owe you even more.”

  Maxine kept her voice steady. “You owe me nothing. I knew you didn’t kill that girl. They had the wrong man, and it was up to me to prove it. That’s what I did.”

  “Yes, you did.” Jim leaned against his car. “You were always a great cop. Now you’re a great detective.”

  “All the charges against you are dropped?”

  “Free and clear. She played both of us for fools, Zeyer and me. She used me to make him jealous.”

  “And you jumped at the chance.” She turned to walk away. “Of course, you always did.”

  “Maxine.”

  She stopped to look back at him. He’s at his mellow age, she thought. That’s what her mother had said when Maxine’s father reached his mid-forties. Your father is in his mellow age, she told Maxine. Mature and sure of himself, yet still young where it matters. I don’t think he’s ever been sexier.

  Maxine had blushed at her mother’s words. Now she saw the same things in Jim Benson. His hair was gray at the temples, and small crow’s-feet spread from the corners of
his eyes. His body was still trim and firm. His voice was deep and a little raspy—when he spoke, his words were almost musical. He had mellowed.

  She watched him standing in the dying light of the midsummer evening. She saw two things in the same person. A man mellow with age, and a boy in need of a mother.

  When he began to speak, she held up a hand. “Nothing has changed,” she said. “I want you to go. Get back in your car and go. I’m glad the charges were dropped. That’s all. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I just want you to leave. Goodbye.”

  She turned and walked to pick up her wine. Then she motioned Geegee to follow her inside her home, where she closed and locked the door. She and Geegee watched Jim Benson climb into his car, start the engine and back out of the driveway. They stood listening until all was silent again. Outside, the magic hour was ending. Stars were appearing. There was moonlight on the water. The women returned to the patio and sat back in their chairs.

  “Could you hear us?” Maxine said. “Could you hear what we were saying?”

  Geegee nodded. She leaned toward Maxine. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Maxine took a sip of wine. “I was pretty abrupt with him.”

  “Sure you were. But I know why.” Maxine looked at Geegee, who said, “You were afraid he would ask if he could come in and stay the evening.”

  “Not quite.” Maxine stared out at the lake. “I was afraid I might be the one who would ask.”

  The two women sat in silence for a very long time, listening to loons call across the water.

  JOHN LAWRENCE REYNOLDS has had more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction published. His work has earned two Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Mystery Novel, a National Business Book Award and a CBC Bookie Award. His bestselling book Shadow People, tracing the development and influence of secret societies through history, was published in fourteen countries and twelve languages. He has also authored several business and investment books, including the bestselling The Naked Investor and its sequel, The Skeptical Investor, as well as his assessment of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, Bubbles, Bankers & Bailouts. Murder Among the Pines is his third book in the Maxine Benson Mystery series, after A Murder for Max and Murder Below Zero. He lives in Burlington, Ontario, with his wife, Judy. For more information, visit www.wryter.ca.