Our Little Secret (Jake Hancock Private Investigator Mystery series Book 5)

by Dan Taylor

  Has my plan changed? Not one iota. I’m still going to see the sheriff under the pretense of doing some sort of tourism survey on his hick town. I need to find out what attracted Julius to this place, if it wasn’t just visiting some mistress…Jesus, why didn’t I think of that earlier? Probably because that’s the most obvious solution. And those of you who are already acquainted with the shit I’m given to investigate know that the obvious doesn’t often present itself as the solution for Old Hancock.

  Anyway, I reckon I can figure out Annabelle’s deal, as well as learning about Julius Collingwood’s weekend of fun. I’ll satisfy my own curiosity, and I could end up helping someone. Whether it’s the poor guy Annabelle’s accusing of rape, or Annabelle herself, is anyone’s guess.

  Time to get this show on the road.

  I take out my cell and pull up the website for the Hickston County sheriff’s office. I dial the number for the receptionist, instead of phoning the sheriff directly. That way I can speak to her first. It’s polite, and I can tell her what my enquiry is, and then the sheriff can hear it from her first. He’s more likely to buy it that way, even if he knows that’s what I just told her.

  She answers on the fifth ring. “Hickston County sheriff’s office. Gene speaking.”

  Here goes. I tell her the whole deal.

  “And you want to speak to the sheriff about some tourism thingamajig?” she asks.

  “Our usual protocol is to contact the mayor first, ma’am. But I’ve been informed the mayor is busy this weekend.”

  There’s silence a second. “And you want to do a tourism thingy on Hickston?”

  “That’s right. Lovely town you have here. And survey. Tourism survey.” Total confidence.

  “Oh. I guess I’ll patch you through then.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you want to prepare the sheriff for my call?”

  Silence again. “And why would I want to do that?”

  “No reason. Never mind.”

  Hell of a receptionist. A second later, I hear someone groaning into the mouthpiece and then what sounds like someone hocking loogies into a waste paper basket. “Sheriff Dale Constable speaking.”

  “Hi, it’s Giles Baker. I’m with the California Office of Tourism.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was wondering if you would be available to speak to me about a survey I’ll be conducting on your town.”

  There’s silence, so I decide to bust out the town’s slogan. “Your Home of Good Livin’.”

  “On Hickston?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’d you say your name was again?”

  “Giles. Baker, sir.”

  “Well, Giles. I don’t know what I could tell you that some drunk down at the Tappers Tavern couldn’t tell you. So I’m inclined to say no. I’m a busy man.”

  “That’s a shame. I guess I’ll head on down to the tavern then. Thanks for your time.”

  “Wait a minute. Now you hold on there. Why would you want to speak to me about this survey?”

  “Part of the preliminary survey is to assess whether your town is suitable for recommending to tourists. It includes an overview of crime statistics. We wouldn’t want to send some family to your town knowing that it’s possibly unsafe. For example, if there’s a high instance of certain crimes that would make it unsuitable for tourists and whatnot. But I guess I can get a feel for that sort of thing from the locals. As you’ve just suggested yourself.”

  “Not so fast. Now that sort of thing’s best comin’ straight from the horse’s mouth. I guess I could move a few things ‘round on my schedule to fit you in. Besides, it’ll be real quick. I got the easiest job in America, Giles. Ain’t a nicer set of folks you’ll find than Hickston folks.”

  “That’s what I figured, Sheriff. Are you free this afternoon?”

  “Hold on a minute. Let me just check with Gene.”

  He puts me on hold. Hold music’s blue grass. Checking with Gene takes a good minute.

  He comes back on the line: “Freer than a sky-high bald eagle, Giles, now that I switched ‘round some of my community outreach for next week. Where’d you want to meet?”

  “I guess you’re the man to choose.”

  “Let me see. There’s a bar in town. Corner of Hooper and West. Can you find it?”

  “Corner of Hooper and West. Got it.”

  “Three do you?”

  I check my watch.

  “Three would do me nice.”

  “Great, then. Three it is. Bye now.”

  He hangs up.

  Now that was a sheriff with either a lot of time on his hands or a sheriff with something to hide.

  18.

  THREE O’CLOCK GIVES me a good two hours to get into character and find some threads that suit Giles Baker, goofy tourism pedant with a stick up his ass. The mall Julius Collingwood visited to buy Megan’s tacky jewelry is on the western fringe of the town. That sounds like a better place than any. I can make a visit to the jeweler while I’m at it. Ask a few questions about Julius Collingwood—if they remember him, which they won’t.

  I figure that will take me an hour. I just googled the drive, and it’s around twenty-five minutes, which I’ll do in twenty. It’ll take five minutes to find some goofy clothing store from which to buy my outfit; ten minutes to choose, try on, and buy said goofy outfit; Five minutes to corner a clerk at the jeweler, and about a minute for said clerk to stare dumbly at the photo of Julius Collingwood, before looking at me and telling me he’s never seen the guy. And if he had, he can’t remember him. “Not even a yuppie type like that? In these parts?”

  “No. What I can tell you?”

  Now you’ve probably put those minutes into your meat grinder and realized there’s some sausage not accounted for. About a buck ten before I meet the sheriff by my count. I just checked and the drive from the mall to the corner of Hooper and West, where the bar the sheriff suggested is located, will take about half that of the drive to the mall, with it being central, and the motel being east. That leaves—what?—an hour before the sheriff will arrive. How will I spend that time? Seeing the sights? Maybe see if some resident’s chicken needs taking for a walk for some pocket change? I’ve always had a soft spot for looking at non-sights and taking unconventional pets on unconventional walks, but I’m not here for a vacation. But I’d want to be, or at least that’s what I need to convince the sheriff of.

  The sheriff told me what I would do with that time before I even knew I had it. When he said, “Don’t know what I could tell you that some drunk down at Tappers Tavern couldn’t tell you.”

  I have a plan for this Annabelle situation. One that’ll help me find out if there’s some substance to Annabelle’s story. Just to make sure. Either way, it’ll be fun seeing the look on the sheriff’s face. Nothing gives me a semi like messing with law enforcement who have time to sit around with their feet on their desk on a Saturday afternoon. Soon enough, I’ll know if this story of Annabelle’s, at least the bit about visiting the sheriff, is a pile of horseshit.

  19.

  FOR THE DRIVE, I had planned on rolling down the window, breathing in the fresh country air, and listening to a dose of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I’m getting a call. I’ll give you a clue as to who it is: Her name rhymes with…pegan? Is that a word?

  Anyway, I try my dad’s trick on her of not answering for a while. She’s persistent.

  So I answer. “Megan, I’m on the can. I can’t speak right now.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re listening to music.”

  “People listen to music on the can. Which is what I’m doing.”

  “Why didn’t you just say the restaurant or whatever is playing the music?”

  “Okay, you got me. But I was enjoying some peace and quiet. I gotta say, Megan, I’m not a big fan of the whole micromanaging thing. I need time to think. This isn’t how I work. Right now you’re keeping me in the box, and Old Hancock needs
time to float outside of the box. That’s how he operates.”

  “When did you start referring to yourself in the third person?”

  “Book two, I think.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Butt out, I said.”

  “Relax, Jake. I just phoned for a chat.”

  “Oh yeah? What did you want to chat about?”

  She’s silent for a second or two. “Stuff.”

  “Only a couple moments’ hesitancy and a very specific topic of conversation. I must say, Hollywood’s lucky to have you. Just don’t forget about me when you’ve made it to the top.”

  She sighs. “Okay, I admit it. I phoned up to be a micromanaging bitch. How’s the investigation going?”

  “I’ve been in Hickston about a half hour and I’ve cracked the case wide open.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Jake. I just wanted to know what your plan was.”

  “I’m heading to the mall right now. Just to eliminate the obvious.”

  “Which is?”

  “That Julius was in town for the local donkey derby. And that mid-race, he stopped off at the mall, bought jewelry for you, before rejoining it. I figure if the jeweler remembers our yuppie but has no recollection of him being with a donkey, then I can cross that off my list and get on with the real investigation.”

  Megan, like most of the women in my life, gets straight to the heart of the matter. “What did you call Julius?”

  “A yuppie.”

  “No he’s not.”

  “I hate to say it, but he sure looks like one.”

  “If there’s one disingenuous phrase in the English language, it’s ‘I hate to say it.’ Anyway, Julius isn’t a yuppie. He’s cute and funny and sexy and an upper-middle-class professional.”

  “Megan, I gotta tell you, those attributes and yuppiedom aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  She sighs. “What’s your real plan and what’s the obvious theory you’re going to eliminate?”

  “Well, I was telling the truth about the mall part. I’m heading there now. The obvious theory is…”

  “Yeah?”

  “That Julius was visiting a mistress.”

  “Oh, Julius wouldn’t cheat.”

  I resist the urge to remind Megan he’s “cute and funny and sexy and an upper-middle-class professional” male. And say, “As I said, I’m just eliminating it as a line of inquiry.”

  “I don’t get it. How would visiting the mall eliminate that?”

  “Well, my plan was to corner a jeweler and ask if they remembered him. And if they did, if he was with anyone.”

  “So let me get this straight. Your theory is Julius was cheating on me, and part of his date for the weekend was to take her jewelry shopping for his actual girlfriend?”

  “Well now that you said it, it seems a little flimsy.”

  “I gotta say, I’m starting to regret this, Jake.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Megan. I’ve got to start at the most logical place, which is the jeweler. I would’ve come up with a better plan if we weren’t having this conversation. Old Hancock’s not floating anywhere near the edge of the box while he’s so restricted. I’m a decent investigator, if you just let me get on with it. Let me float, Megan.”

  “Not that. I’m regretting hiring anyone to investigate Julius. He’s treating me really well and I don’t want to ruin things between us.”

  It’s my turn to sigh. “Should I reassure you that you’re doing the right thing again?”

  “Please.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, Megan. Things are getting serious and you’re just being pragmatic. You’re right to make sure Julius’s intentions are pure. Think of this gig like a pre-nup, but the property you’re protecting from your potential gold digger of a wife is the thing you hold most dear in the world—”

  “My heart?”

  “I was going to say your sports car. But that works.”

  “Your metaphor kind of fell down there.”

  “Anyway, it’s the right thing to do. Now let me float…oh, and one more thing. I need you to do some investigating your end. Usually I’d get my guy to hack into Julius’s online accounts and whatnot, but he’s not available this weekend. So I need you to do some checking.”

  “No way.”

  “Okay.”

  She’s silent a second. “Just okay?”

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do my end.”

  “And find out definitely what he was doing?”

  “Probably.”

  “Jake Hancock…?”

  “Megan Books.”

  “This wasn’t our agreement.”

  “Our agreement, as I remember it, was that as a friend of yours, I’d look into this guy for you. When we made the agreement, I thought I’d be able to use my guy to find out information. That’s not really my department. I asked you to do it, you disagreed with my request, and I said I’d do my best without the help.”

  “You said probably in a nonchalant way.”

  “I don’t speak French, Megan. You lost me at ‘probably.’”

  “You know what you’re doing, Jake.”

  “Hold on a second. There’s a herd crossing the road. I need to shout at the farmer to get his dairy cows’ butts in gear.”

  I do, and the farmer calls me a city boy, in a tone that suggests it’s a bad thing. When I come back on the line, Megan’s come to her senses: “Jake, you’re being a real stubborn asshole about this.”

  “I knew you’d come around.”

  “I haven’t. There’s no way I’m going to snoop around in Julius’s office. I don’t even think I could.”

  “Sure you can, just ignore the distraction of his lava lamp and his copy of Business Jerk Monthly and take a look at his computer. Find out what you can.”

  She makes a noise like uggcchhhhggghhh, then says, “You would’ve gotten your guy to do it anyway, right?”

  “I promise I would’ve had my guy find out every little detail about him. If he wet his pants during his first piano recital, my guy would’ve found out.”

  Again, she gets straight to the point. “Julius doesn’t play piano. But I suppose…” Silence a second, during which I can hear Megan thinking. How can I tell? She’s breathing through her nose like a male rhinoceros during mating season. It’s real cute.

  I prompt her. “You suppose?”

  “That it’s better that I do the snooping as opposed to someone else. What do you want me to check?”

  Megan’s pretending that my guy’s not out of action and that there’s someone else available to do the gig. But whatever she wants to tell herself to make herself feel better is all right with me.

  “Attagirl. And check his web browser history, stuff like that. Especially in the weeks leading up to his weekend of fun.”

  “What do I tell him if he catches me?”

  “That high-res porn’s a little jerky on your machine and once you started watching the high-res stuff you couldn’t go back to pixilated girl-on-girl action. You’re way too classy for that.”

  “I question why I ask you anything, every time I do.”

  “You’re not the first. Do you want a serious answer?”

  “No. I’ll think of my own excuse.”

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t hear it. It’s a good one.”

  Silence a second. “Okay, go on.”

  “You’re checking his hardware to make sure the webcam you’ve been thinking of surprising him with is compatible.”

  “And why would I be buying him a webcam?”

  “Stripteases during lonely nights.”

  “Huh. That’s actually quite good.”

  “Thanks. And put a bit of foreshadowing in the conversation leading up to you sneaking off, so if he catches you, the excuse will make more sense.”

  “Foreshadowing?”

  “A warning or an indication of a future event.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re on your own on this one. Okay, Me
gan. Speak soon.”

  I go to hang up, but she says, “Wait. What happened to the hitchhiker? You drop her off at home with her parents?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good.”

  “Oh, I have one more thing. Is pegan a word?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “No reason. Literally no reason.”

  “How’s it spelled?”

  “P-E-G-A-N.”

  “It is. But it’s pronounced with a hard E.” Knowing I don’t know what a hard E is outside of a nightclub setting, Megan pronounces it, then says, “It’s a new fad diet all the celebrities are doing. Vegan, but with eggs. Anything else?”

  “Like an omelet without cheese and meat?”

  “Exactly like an omelet without cheese and meat, Jake. Any other culinary-based questions you want to waste my time with?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, bye, Jake. And good luck.”

  “You too, kinda rhymes with pegan.”

  I hang up.

  In the horizon, peeking over shit-smeared fields, and looking like a dome erected by Satan to catch every Justin Bieber-listening, bubblegum-chewing, brainfart-tweeting teenybopper before they get saved by Jesus Christ, I see Hickston’s mall.

  I turn up ‘Free Bird’ to drown out the sound of a combine harvester to my right.

  20.

  I MAKE THE drive in nineteen minutes. Makes you wonder what demographic of driver Google has in mind when making estimates for their routes. Maybe they figure in a pee break? Maybe a stop to toss a bum some change? Or maybe an accident involving a goat where the driver doesn’t just hope he only clipped the little guy, and carries on driving?

  Only joking about that last one. I looked in the rearview mirror and he was shit scared and running away without limping. No fatal injury to speak of.

  Anyway, goat accident out of the way, I park my rental in the purple zone in the mall parking lot.

  I find a clothing store called Hughie’s Dress to Impress. Inside, I find exactly what I need: button-down plaid shirt, boot-cut mom jeans, a tie that clashes with said jeans, and a pair of shoes I could imagine a bum being sniffy about. Oh, and tartan socks.