Fatal Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series)

by Mark de Castrique

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Carson said.

  I looked at the girl. Her mouth was open and she was hanging on every word. I didn’t want our speculation being posted on Facebook.

  Hampton guessed my concern. “Let me walk you to your car.”

  When we reached the loading dock, Hampton said, “I can’t see Carl mixed up in this. Maybe the Oakley boy got some crazy notion in his head, but it doesn’t add up. I saw Carl that Monday night. He and Ralph were finalizing what trees they’d cut this season and I was giving them a labor estimate.”

  “Did you work till midnight?” I asked.

  “No. But we had a few drinks afterwards. Carl gave me a ride home because Manuel had my car. I don’t think he’d be so relaxed while he had someone rustling the Oakleys’ trees.”

  “When do you think Manuel will be back?” Carson asked.

  “Couple weeks probably, but I’m afraid he’ll miss the season. He might just stay home till beans come in next year.”

  “Let us know if he returns,” Carson said.

  We shook hands and Carson and I walked back through the hardware store. Mason was on the phone. Carson decided to get a Sundrop from the drink box and I told him I’d be in the car.

  A scrap of paper was tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. I suspected it was a mock parking ticket. Kids loved to play policeman on police cars.

  I unfolded the paper. Scrawled in pencil were the words: “Stop or Die!” I looked around, but the parking lot was empty.

  Carson was still in the store, probably talking to Mason if the old man was off the phone. I used my cell to call the department and asked Marge to put me through to Tommy Lee.

  “Right away,” Marge said. “He’s hoping you’d call.”

  “Where are you?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “Just finished with Hampton. Someone left a death threat on my windshield.”

  “Fine. I’ve got a drawer full. We’ve got more important things to worry about than your life. Get your butt back here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Is Carson with you?”

  “Yes, but he’s still in Mason’s store.”

  “Good. Don’t tell him, but I got the number of the call that went to Brock’s cell last night.”

  “Ralph Atkinson?”

  “No. Better than that.”

  “Who?”

  “The home number of Mayor Sammy Whitlock. You and I are going to pay a surprise visit on His Honor and do whatever’s necessary to shake the truth out of that tub of lard.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The block adjacent to the county courthouse, jail, and Sheriff’s Department contained the administrative offices for Gainesboro. There the town manager and the municipal employees did the real work, but the man who loved to bask in the glow of their success was Mayor Whitlock. Fortunately for the residents dwelling within the town limits, his elected office was nothing more than a figurehead and cheerleader. Town councilmen decided key issues and the mayor had no veto. He only cast a vote in case of a tie, and with seven council seats, that meant an absent councilman and a deadlock were needed before the mayor had an impact.

  But the mayoral position came with a nice office on the second floor of the squat, white concrete building identical to the hundreds of others that popped up in small town America during the 1960s and 70s.

  Tommy Lee and I crossed the side street separating the county and town governments and headed for the rear of the municipal building. We walked side by side without acknowledging the people we passed.

  “He’ll say someone else made the call,” I said.

  “Who? He lives alone.”

  “You think Brock will recognize his voice?”

  Tommy Lee pulled open the glass door and signaled me in first. “I don’t need Brock. Whitlock’s already given me proof.” He cut down a side hall to a stairwell.

  “What?”

  “We had a crowd of reporters at the briefing but no mayor. Have you ever known him to be camera shy?”

  “Maybe he’s sick.”

  “He’d have to be dead. I called to check on his schedule. He’s in his office. He’s not dead but he might be scared to death. That’s the only thing I can figure would keep him out of the spotlight.”

  I followed Tommy Lee onto the second floor. “How do you want to play this?”

  “Bad cop, badder cop. Just look mad as hell. I’ll do the rest. You’re here to keep me from choking the son of a bitch.” He turned the knob of the door with “Mayor” inscribed upon its frosted glass window and stormed inside.

  An administrative assistant sat at a desk in the outer office. She looked up from her computer screen. “Good morning, Sheriff.” Her greeting faltered as she saw Tommy Lee’s expression.

  “Why don’t you take a break, Denise?”

  “He doesn’t want to be disturbed,” she whispered.

  “Really? Well, if you weren’t here you couldn’t have told me.”

  She took the hint and grabbed her purse.

  “Keep this social call to yourself,” Tommy Lee said. “Trust me. Your boss will appreciate it.”

  Denise scooted past us, clutching her bag under her arm. “How long?”

  “Twenty minutes. Unless you hear screaming. Then take the rest of the day off.”

  She closed the door and we listened until the click of her heels on the terrazzo floor faded to silence.

  Tommy Lee crossed the room and barged through the door marked “Private.”

  Mayor Sammy Whitlock stood in front of a large oak desk, his head bent over a putter. He must have been on number eighteen at the Masters because he didn’t look up for several seconds. When he did, his rotund body quivered like a jolt of electricity surged through him. He snapped the club up like a fencing foil.

  Tommy Lee grabbed the putter head and twisted so violently Whitlock’s arms were flung to the side.

  “What’s going on?” he sputtered.

  “An excellent question.” Tommy Lee pointed to the desk chair. “Sit down and answer it.”

  Whitlock looked at me with fearful eyes. I shut the door and stood in front of it, my arms folded across my chest.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Whitlock whimpered. He gave Tommy Lee wide berth as he moved to the chair. True to his garish taste, the mayor wore a bright yellow dress shirt and red tie. When he sat, he looked like a parked school bus. He fidgeted with his pearl cufflinks, not sure what to do with his hands.

  The top of his desk held four framed photographs on stands. Like those littering the walls, each featured the mayor with some more famous politician or minor celebrity. The four were winged out from the blotter, two to a side, and angled so visitors could see them. One was with the current governor, one with a native son presidential candidate, one with a grade B movie starlet who acted in some slasher film set in the area, and the last showed Whitlock standing between two Carolina Panthers linemen like he was a Munchkin captured from Oz.

  “Where were you last night?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “Home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Tommy Lee pressed against the front of the desk. “You enjoy being mayor?”

  “I enjoy serving the people.” Whitlock’s voice rose with indignation.

  “Planning to run again?”

  “I’ll decide in the spring.”

  “Assuming you’re still in office. It’s hard to mount an effective campaign from a jail cell.” Tommy Lee touched the top of the picture of the governor with his forefinger, and then flipped it facedown. The frame smacked against the desktop. He did the same with the presidential hopeful.

  “What are you doing?” Whitlock reached for the frames, but yanked his hand back when Tommy Lee pointed a finger in his face.

  “Telling you the facts. No politician will come near a convicted felon.” Tommy Lee moved on to the actress. “Even Hollywood draws the line at murder.” He knocked the photo o
ver. Then he turned the remaining picture of Whitlock and the football players around to face the mayor.

  Whitlock stared at it.

  “These guys are nice,” Tommy Lee said. “I’d like to have my photograph taken with them. There are men that big in Central Prison. You’ll probably wind up sandwiched between them too. It won’t be as pleasant an experience.” He flipped the picture over.

  The mayor’s breath came in short gasps. “Me? A murderer? How dare you.”

  “Funny thing about phone numbers. They might be blocked on caller ID, but the companies have a record of every call made.”

  The blood still remaining in Whitlock’s face drained away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the man who passed confidential information onto a killer. A co-conspirator is as guilty as whoever pulls the trigger.”

  “I didn’t conspire to kill anyone.”

  “A videographer received confidential information last night from your home phone. Information the shooter used to gun down Travis Oakley.”

  Whitlock moistened his lips. “Someone must have hacked into my line.”

  “And then done an excellent imitation of your voice.”

  Whitlock clutched onto the suggestion. “That’s possible. Obviously someone’s framing me.”

  “I see.” Tommy Lee sat on the corner of the desk and leaned over Whitlock. “So, how do you explain the sworn testimony of my deputy that he gave you that information yesterday after Barry got it from Reverend Pace? How do you explain the voiceprint match to Dave Brock’s cell phone?”

  I tensed. Tommy Lee’s first question was a gamble and the second, a bald-faced lie.

  Whitlock ran shaking fingers through his thinning hair. “He recorded my voice?”

  “He’s a newsman. It’s automatic on their phones.”

  The man crumpled in his chair. His lower lip trembled and tears trickled down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. I just wanted the world to know we solve our crimes. Gainesboro’s a safe place to live, not some hick town to be laughed at on Weird World.”

  “Who else did you tell?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “No one, I swear.”

  “Wrong answer, Sammy. That makes you my only suspect.”

  “What about Shelton? If he told me, he could have told others.”

  I saw Tommy Lee’s back stiffen. Shelton, not Carson, had betrayed us.

  Tommy Lee stood and walked toward me with his jaw clenched in barely suppressed fury. “Barry, call the D.A.’s office. I’ll want you to read the mayor his rights in front of Jamison.”

  “No,” Whitlock wailed. “He’ll want to plaster my face all over the news.”

  Tommy Lee turned around. “Of course, he will. Prosecuting a sitting mayor is a career-maker and he knows it.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because you have yet to tell me one word of truth.”

  Whitlock buried his face in his hands. Tommy Lee said nothing. Our suspect wasn’t going anywhere.

  I put my phone to my ear without dialing. “Phillip Jamison’s office, please.”

  “All right,” Whitlock yelled. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  I clipped the phone to my belt.

  “I’ve already talked to Shelton,” Tommy Lee lied. “Let’s do a little test of your truthfulness. I want to hear your version. What was your leverage?”

  Whitlock glanced at me and then stared at the toppled photographs. “I may have exaggerated a little.”

  “About yourself.” Tommy Lee stated his guess as a fact, a safe bet knowing the mayor’s ego.

  He nodded. “I told Shelton I got him hired. You were leaning toward someone else, but I put in a good word.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a week after he started.”

  “And in return for this good word?”

  “I told him you covered me on everything going on in the department, but sometimes you didn’t keep me as updated as I liked.”

  “You said I was supposed to give you reports?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “You told him law enforcement reported to you, didn’t you?”

  “Well, the Gainesboro police–“

  “I’m not your town’s police department,” Tommy Lee snapped.

  I thought about Shelton’s respect for authority. If he believed Whitlock had gotten him the job, he might have answered any questions the mayor asked.

  “You didn’t get him hired,” Tommy Lee said. “You got him fired.”

  “Don’t take it out on Shelton. Please.” The mayor sounded truly remorseful. “I called him about six looking for an end-of-the-day update. When he was evasive, I knew something was going on.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said an arrest was imminent. I asked who and he wouldn’t tell me. I wanted to know if it was someone in town. He said the suspect lived out in the county and was surrendering at Eagle Creek Church at seven-thirty. Shelton said you’d want to tell me in person. He wouldn’t say any more.”

  “Okay,” Tommy Lee said. “Then you called Dave Brock. He probably gave you his card at some event.”

  “I knew he could get the arrest on the TV stations. I didn’t think he’d recognize my voice.”

  “Who else did you call?”

  The mayor tightened his lips and gave a slight shake of his head.

  “Come on, Sammy. I know Brock only spoke to Rachel Clayton and she didn’t tell anyone. She wanted her exclusive.”

  “He’ll kill me,” Whitlock whispered.

  Tommy Lee took the handcuffs off his belt. “Get up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re impeding an investigation and I’m marching you into jail through the front doors of the courthouse. There’s plenty of press out there, so the world will see we’re not a hick town. We solve our crimes no matter how high the conspiracy might reach.” Tommy Lee looked at me. “Get Jamison to walk with us. This is a photo-op he won’t want to miss.”

  “Wait.” Whitlock took a deep breath. “I only did it as a favor. I thought he had a right to know. I never thought he’d take the law into his own hands.”

  Tommy Lee walked to the desk. “Spill it, Sammy. I want to hear it from your lips.”

  “Ralph. I told Ralph Atkinson.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as I spoke to Shelton. But I never dreamed he’d do something like this.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  As soon as we returned to the department, Tommy Lee summoned Shelton to his office. I joined Carson in the conference room, but didn’t tell him our colleague had been the source of the leak.

  Carson looked up from a file. “The lab report finally came back on our knife. Carl’s blood, wood and sap residue consistent with Fraser firs, and confirmation of our own fingerprint analysis that Travis handled the weapon.”

  “Exactly what Tommy Lee thought,” I said.

  “Why do you think Travis believed Carl took his trees?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he found something in the stripped field.”

  “Maybe Blake Junior told him?”

  “No. Mr. Nolan said Travis told Blake Junior he had the proof, not the other way around.”

  Carson nodded. “How the hell do you tell Christmas trees apart anyhow?” He chuckled. “We call it rustling but at least with cows the ranchers have a brand.”

  His statement stopped me cold. “I cut my,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “The last words Travis Oakley said. They came in two phrases. ‘I cut my’ and ‘my trees.’”

  “And he had cut his trees.”

  “But why spend his dying seconds saying that? Unless he thought he said more.” I thought how his breath came in shallow gasps, forcing a break in the words. “What if he meant I cut my brand in my trees? That’s what he wanted us to know.”

  Carson’s eyes brightened. “He marked his trees. Maybe
not all of them but a random sampling.”

  “Yes. And he found them linked to Carl.”

  The door opened and Tommy Lee entered. His grim face startled Carson. I shook my head just enough for Tommy Lee to understand I hadn’t said anything.

  “We’ll be working this case without the assistance of Deputy Shelton,” he said.

  “Did something else come up?” Carson asked.

  “Shelton’s suspended for a month.” Tommy Lee glanced at me for my reaction to his more lenient disciplinary action. “He told Whitlock some details about Travis’ surrender that I believe led to the shooter’s opportunity. The mayor misrepresented himself, which is the only reason Shelton wasn’t fired.”

  “That damn windbag,” Carson said. “He’s the one who should be suspended. Shelton was working out fine.”

  I was surprised and pleased that Carson’s opinion of the newest deputy had changed.

  Tommy Lee pulled a chair to the table. “So here’s what we’re going to do. Howard, I want you to concentrate on the Christmas tree thefts. We know for sure the murders and the rustling are linked. Focus on the trees, and somehow they’ll lead to our killer.”

  “Barry thinks Travis marked them,” Carson said. “That’s what he meant by cutting his trees.”

  “You’re saying Barry can think?”

  I smiled to see Tommy Lee’s sense of humor return, even at my expense. “Am I still in charge of the murder investigation?”

  “Absolutely. Howard and I don’t want to be tainted with your failure.”

  “Thanks for your confidence. I’ve been doing some additional thinking.”

  Tommy Lee groaned. “Oh, Lord, here it comes.”

  “When we were out at Hampton’s office, I got warned off the case.” I took the slip of paper from my pocket and passed it around.

  “Stop or die,” Carson read. “About as basic as you can get.”

  “Which makes me wonder whether the phrase was chosen for impact or the simplicity of the language.”

  “What’s the difference?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “There was a Hispanic man in Mason’s store. He gave me a curious look and then disappeared. His face has been bugging me because he seemed familiar.”

  “They all look familiar to me,” Carson said.