“What about Blake Junior’s accident?” Tommy Lee asked.
“Carson and I walked the scene. Blake Junior was killed when his truck struck the rock wall of the bridge where Cedar Road crosses over Sapphire Creek. We discovered nothing to pull us off Carson’s original report.”
“There’s a deer trail fifty feet north of the bridge,” Carson added. “At dusk they come down to Pearson’s meadow to feed. I figure Blake Junior hit the buck, lost control, and then slammed into the wall.”
“Any way the site could have been doctored?” Tommy Lee asked.
“Would have been a hell of a lot of work,” Carson said. “Easier to put Blake Junior’s body in the truck and roll him off a cliff.”
Shelton stood by a flipchart, the marker in his hand. “And I saw the truck this afternoon. Blood and deer hide were snared in the busted grill. Some of it was stuck in the radiator.” He wrote “blood and guts on grill” on the sheet.
I shook my head. “No, Shelton. We don’t want anything about Blake Junior on the wall.”
Carson laughed. “Yeah. How are you going to explain ‘blood and guts on grill’ to the D.A.? Tell him it’s a cookout menu?”
Shelton reddened.
“That’s okay,” Tommy Lee said. “It was a good observation. But Barry’s right. The guy who claims to have killed Carl could be nothing more than a nutcase. I don’t want word getting back to the Nolans unless there’s evidence hard enough to open an investigation.”
Shelton tore off the sheet and wadded it into a ball.
“Anything else?” Tommy Lee asked.
“We cross-checked the list of fourteen to twenty-two-year-old boys,” I said. “Over forty fall in the category. No one stands out.”
“About what I expected,” Tommy Lee said. “I called Lindsay Boyce and ran your idea by her.”
Lindsay was Tommy Lee’s niece, an FBI agent in Asheville. Carson and Shelton looked at me for an explanation.
I drew a blank. “What idea?”
“Hiding meth in apple crates. Lindsay mentioned it to the DEA and she told me they were intrigued. Wanted to know if we’re onto any one in particular and reminded her that interstate shipment is their jurisdiction.”
Carson grunted. “Damn Feds. Always about the turf. Barry, are you saying Carl was mixed up in drug trafficking?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Just trying to think of how he could be a player in some dangerous game.”
“Not a bad cover,” Carson said. “But I think most of the Atkinson crop goes to the big wholesalers.”
Tommy Lee smiled. “Yeah, we can let that line of inquiry go. The DEA will be making spot checks of apple crates for us.”
Marge broke over the intercom. “Barry, Reverend Pace is on the line.”
The conference room went silent. For a second, we stared at the phone. My pulse quickened. Shelton sat down and leaned over the table, his eyes wide.
“Okay,” Tommy Lee said. “Let’s hear what the good preacher has to tell us.”
I lifted the receiver, opting to keep the call off speakerphone. “Deputy Clayton.”
“It’s all set.” Pace sounded relieved. “He wants you and Tommy Lee up here at seven-thirty. No one else.”
“All right. Will he be with you?”
“No. He’ll come later. He wants to make sure you’re doing what you promised, an unmarked car with just the two of you. He’ll come into the sanctuary, where we should be waiting. He wants me to ride with him to the department.”
“I guess that’s okay. Tell him no weapons and to walk in slowly with his hands above his head.”
“He doesn’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do we.”
Pace paused a second. “There was one sticking point. He’s not happy that you didn’t commit to exhuming Blake Junior’s body.”
“Tell him we’ve already started an investigation into Blake Junior’s death.” I didn’t tell Pace we’d found nothing to contradict that it was an unfortunate accident. “But we need to hear his story before upsetting Blake Junior’s family. That’s the respectful way to handle it.”
“Understood,” Pace said. “I’ll see you at seven-thirty. The sanctuary will be unlocked.”
Chapter Thirteen
Tommy Lee and I left the department at seven. A cold November rain had moved into the mountains, and we allowed extra time to make the seven-thirty rendezvous. Tommy Lee drove the department’s sole unmarked Crown Vic through the evening drizzle. The high beams were useless against the ground mist, so he kept the headlights on low and his speed well under the limit.
“How do you want to handle Pace coming with us?” I asked.
“We’ll put him in the back. I want you holding onto your gun, and I don’t want a weapon within reach of this guy. I guarantee anyone who stabbed Carl like he did will be unpredictable and highly emotional.”
“Had to be spur of the moment, since no one knew Carl would be in the casket.”
“Not necessarily,” Tommy Lee argued. “At a Jaycee function, the president would be expected to show up.”
“But the haunted house had been going on for a week.”
As the road started to climb, Tommy Lee gripped the wheel tighter. “Don’t dismiss Blake Junior’s accident. If the murderer thought Carl had engineered it, then that could have triggered his action. But you’re probably right about the opportunity being unplanned. A Buck knife isn’t the best premeditated weapon of choice.”
“And as common as a gun rack in a pickup.”
The rain lessened, but the higher we drove the more the mist became denser fog. We rode in silence till we saw the lights of the Eagle Creek sanctuary. I glanced at my watch. Seven twenty-five. Maybe in fewer than ten minutes, we’d have the answers to all our questions.
“I’m going to park out front in the spill light,” Tommy Lee said. “He can see the unmarked car and we’ll have a shorter walk in the rain.”
He braked beside the sidewalk nearer the main road. I stepped out in the drizzle and hitched my belt up so my holster hung straight. Out of training, I scanned the area. Pace’s car must have been in the rear. A few gravestones were visible in the adjacent cemetery and then the landscape disappeared into a black void. If our killer wanted to come in unnoticed, the weather provided the perfect cover.
As we started up the walk, the door swung open and Pace stood backlit by the inviting interior lights. With his cane in his hand, he looked like Moses about to part the Red Sea.
“Come in,” he called. “I even turned up the heat, which on our small budget is an extravagance.”
We shook hands and sat on the ends of three pews near the door.
“What do you want me to do when he gets here?” Pace asked.
Tommy Lee looked to me, but I said nothing, preferring him to be in charge.
“When he drives up, open the church door like you did for us. I want you to be the first person he sees.”
“Okay.”
“Then we’ll sit for a few minutes. I want to explain what’s going to happen. Try to put him at ease. We won’t take any statement here. I’d rather do that in an interview room where he can be recorded. He’ll be in isolation after that. I’ll need to verify what he says, but his fingerprints will be our fastest and most reliable indicator that he’s not fabricating his confession.”
“How long do you want me involved?”
Tommy Lee thought for a moment. “Let’s play it by ear. I’d prefer to do this by the book with Barry and me doing the interrogation, but if he’s insistent you stay with him. Or if he’s agitated, then I’ll invite you to join us.” Tommy Lee smiled. “At least you’re not a TV preacher so people will believe what you say if it ever comes to your appearing in court.”
Pace chuckled. “No TV for me. I have a face best hidden away in these mountains.”
“But I can’t have you prompting him in any way,” Tommy Lee said.
Pace nodded. “Understood.”
We heard the
sound of a vehicle turning off the road. Tommy Lee stiffened. Pace bowed his head and must have said a brief prayer. I wiped my hands on my pants and took a deep breath.
“Barry and I’ll just sit and look as relaxed as possible,” Tommy Lee said. “If anything seems amiss, step aside quickly and let us deal with it.”
Pace lifted himself out of the pew and headed for the door, the tip of his cane clicking like a metronome on the plank-board floor.
Tommy Lee cleared his throat. His eye moved from my face to my gun as he unsnapped the flap of his holster. I did the same. Tommy Lee didn’t want to upset Pace with the prospect of drawing pistols in the House of the Lord, but he wasn’t going to be a sitting duck either. I flexed my fingers and then loosened the gun from the leather.
Pace opened the door and beams from the headlights flared around him and down the aisle. Abruptly they cut off. A car door slammed, and then the smack of footsteps on the wet sidewalk grew closer.
Suddenly a new set of headlights swept through the churchyard and froze on the door.
Tommy Lee sprang from the pew. “Move away, Lester!”
The old preacher stepped aside as I hurried after the sheriff. A man stood just outside the door with his hands above his head, his thin body a silhouette against the glare of the high beams.”
“You lied,” he screamed, and pivoted to face the unknown vehicle, his arms still in the air.
The engine shut off and for a few seconds the world was absolutely silent.
A rifle cracked sharp and loud. The man in the headlights tumbled backwards. Pace’s cane flew out of his hand.
“Clear the door,” Tommy Lee yelled. He leapt to his right, pulling Reverend Pace with him.
I jumped to the left and pressed against the doorjamb. My pistol was in my hand although I didn’t remember snatching it from my holster. At my feet, a young man of eighteen or nineteen lay across the threshold. He looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes. As the echo of the gunshot faded through the hills, I heard raspy gurgling as he struggled to breathe. The sound meant one thing: a massive chest wound. The rapidly spreading pool of blood beneath him indicated the bullet had torn straight through his lungs, annihilating tissue and severing major vessels.
Pace crawled beside him.
“Get out of the light,” Tommy Lee ordered.
The preacher ignored him. He put his lips to the ear of the injured man. “I’m here, Travis. I’m right here.”
“I cut my.” The three words came in a single breath, not a whisper but a cry stripped of all vocal power.
The headlights cut out, leaving us in the soft yellow glow of the sanctuary’s simple iron chandeliers.
I unclipped my cell phone from my belt. “We’ve got to get an ambulance up here. He’s bleeding out.”
“Call the department,” Tommy Lee said. “Have them coordinate an armed escort for the ambulance and bring every available deputy. Set a perimeter a hundred yards out.” He inched closer to the door. “Why the hell are they staying?”
An engine roared from beyond the cemetery. Headlights twinkled as they moved behind tree trunks and picked up speed.
“Two vehicles,” I said. “But only one’s leaving.”
The young man Pace had called Travis coughed. Blood and spittle frothed on his lips. He looked toward me, but didn’t seem to focus on my face. His pale lips barely moved. “My trees,” he whispered.
“Sshh,” Pace said. “Don’t try to talk.”
From the darkness another voice cried out. “Barry.” Again, but this time closer to hysterics. “Barry!”
I recognized her immediately. Rachel.
Chapter Fourteen
The clink from the unlocking brake of the rolling gurney echoed through the sanctuary. I turned from the wall where I’d been examining the bullet hole to see the sheet-draped body of Travis Oakley wheeled out the door into the rain. The young man had bled to death despite our best efforts to save him.
One of the EMTs figured the bullet had punctured his aorta and that all of the compression we’d applied to the entry and exit wounds couldn’t have stemmed the bleeding. I looked down at my blood-drenched uniform, and then at my hands. Their crimson color was turning rusty brown.
Reverend Pace sat on the edge of the front pew in the same spot where we’d discussed Travis Oakley’s surrender. He rested his head in his bloody hands, unconcerned with the smears they left on his cheeks. At his feet lay his rhododendron cane, now shattered in two pieces. The bullet had gone through Travis, splintered the cane inches from Pace’s side, and been deflected into the wall.
Carson and Wakefield were scouring the woods at the edge of the cemetery, using the angle from where the bullet passed through Travis to Pace’s cane as the guide to its trajectory. Tommy Lee and Shelton were questioning Rachel in Pace’s office. I’d been placed in charge of the crime scene, but I suspected that was to give Tommy Lee a chance to question Rachel out of my presence. He had to make sure I hadn’t somehow tipped her off to the surrender.
We found her curled under the steering wheel of her rental car. She saw Travis gunned down and heard the shot off to her right. When Pace crawled into the doorway, she killed the headlights. Then she took cover and started crying for help. I’d never seen her so distraught. She realized she’d lit Travis Oakley up like a target in a shooting gallery.
Tommy Lee wouldn’t rest until he uncovered every possible link between Rachel and the assassin. As far as I knew, only six people were aware of the surrender: Tommy Lee, me, Carson, Shelton, Pace, and Travis Oakley. I was the one Rachel had called for. I was the obvious choice to have passed inside information to my ex-wife.
Pace looked up as I walked over.
“You all right?” I asked.
“No. But then I shouldn’t be, should I? I just witnessed an eighteen-year-old gunned down on the steps of my church.”
I paced back and forth in front of the pulpit, too bloody to sit and too keyed up to stand still. “Is there anything else he said that indicates who could have done this?”
Pace shook his head. “You heard what I heard. He talked about cutting his trees. His final words.”
“I mean before. You’ve no bond of confidentiality now.”
Pace sighed and slumped back in the pew. “Travis came to me after church and asked to speak in my office. I thought he wanted to talk about his dad.”
“I don’t know the family.”
“They have a small farm out toward Fairview. Apples, some Christmas trees. Travis lived with his mother.”
“Are his parents divorced?”
“No. They should be, but Edna Oakley’s a long-suffering woman.”
I stopped pacing and waited for him to explain.
“This might sound strange coming from me but Edna’s too religious.”
“A zealot?”
“A victim. One of those poor souls who chalks every hardship up to God’s will.”
I glanced out the door as the ambulance bearing Travis Oakley’s body pulled away. No lights flashed. No siren wailed. “Even her son’s murder?”
“I’ll break the news in person and she’ll grieve, but as sure as I’m sitting here, she’ll say, ‘God must have needed Travis more than I did.’”
“How do you answer?”
Pace looked at the blood on his hands. “There is no answer. Not one that speaks to her. If I talk about man’s free will going against God’s will, then she would have to take responsibilities.”
“For her son’s death?”
“No. But for staying in a loveless marriage with an abusive husband. For not protecting her son from her husband’s temper or encouraging him to further his education. So much easier to hide in the cocoon of God’s will and wither away with self-serving piety.” An undercurrent of anger rose in his voice. “I’d like to tell her to work like it all depended upon her and pray like it all depended upon God. Then maybe she’d discover what discipleship means.”
I said nothing. For me too man
y funerals for little children and young people who had everything to live for had created a question that demanded an answer greater than the mystery of faith could supply.
Pace let go of the budding sermon. “The saddest thing is Travis had a chance. In the end he died trying to give himself up.”
“Guilty conscience?”
Pace shrugged. “Partly. He was remorseful. He told me he left the knife and the police would figure it was his. He got that fatalism from his mother. The flash of uncontrollable fury that drove a blade into Carl Atkinson came from his father.”
“Is his dad Tom Oakley?”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t made the connection before, but I remembered Tom Oakley had been sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter. He’d killed an elderly clerk in Walker’s Hardware when the man refused to take back a tool chest that Tom claimed had a faulty hinge. The sale had been six months earlier, but Tom blew up. He threw the chest at the man so hard he was knocked over and his head split open on the concrete floor.
“Tom’s still in prison, isn’t he?”
“Serving a four-year sentence in Raleigh, but Travis said he might be paroled at Christmas. Tom’s served half his sentence and prison overcrowding is forcing early release of those considered nonviolent risks.”
“But he is violent.”
“I guess it’s a numbers game. Let’s hope two years have had a mellowing effect.”
I started pacing again. The dried blood on my pants made the fabric stiff and noisy. “What did Travis think of his father’s parole?”
“He saw himself entering prison as his father came out. Travis was sixteen when Tom went to jail. He dropped out of high school to work the farm. I think he wanted to prove he could succeed where his father failed.”
“Somehow Carl Atkinson got tangled up in his life,” I said.
“And Blake Junior.”
“Blake Junior died in a car accident. I’ve no doubt about it. Deputy Carson was first on the scene and he’s too experienced to be fooled.”
“That might be true, but what matters is that Travis believed it. So much so that he wouldn’t tell me why he killed Carl.” Pace paused and his voice choked. “He said he was protecting me.”
Fatal Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series) Page 13
