Murder for Max, A

by Reynolds, John Lawrence;

  Billy Ray told him to get lost.

  The company’s lawyer said he would look for a legal way to force Billy Ray to sell.

  Billy Ray said he would shoot anybody who came onto his land.

  This brought Max and Henry to visit Billy Ray and warn him about making threats. I am just taking care of what is mine, Billy Ray told them.

  You are being a fool, Max said to him. Until now you have been a law-abiding fool. But if you make more threats like that one, you will find yourself in a jail cell. So try to stay out of trouble.

  I’ll stay where I want to be, Billy Ray said with a sneer. Which is right here. No broad with a badge is going to tell me what to do. Police chief or not.

  Max had dealt with tough guys before. She ignored his threat and said she did not want to come back to talk to him again.

  Come back anytime, Billy Ray said with a cold smile. Next time bring some wine. And leave that loser at the station. He meant Henry Wojak.

  Somebody is going to shut his big mouth for good, Henry said as he and Max drove away from Billy Ray’s house.

  I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Max said.

  But after Billy Ray was found dead, she couldn’t help remembering it.

  I can’t figure Billy Ray out, Max said to Margie after telling her of Billy Ray’s threat. What makes him act like that?

  It comes natural, Margie said. Some people are natural athletes. Billy Ray is a natural pain in the neck. He didn’t start out that way. When he was young, maybe five years old, he was a sweet little boy. Now he is just an awful person who nobody wants around.

  Brenda Karp said this wasn’t true all the time. Billy Ray can be nice when he wants to be, she told Max one day. Brenda would know. About a year before word of the new resort was heard, Billy Ray’s wife walked out on him. Brenda moved in a month later. I guess I always liked bad boys, she had said when people asked her why. Billy Ray fit the image of a bad boy. He had plenty of muscles, rode a loud motorcycle and liked to scare people. If he tries hard, Brenda said, he can be sweet. Then she added, Trouble is, he won’t try hard enough.

  From the day she moved in, Brenda started to repair Billy Ray’s house. The rooms had not seen a drop of fresh paint in years. I gave the place a woman’s touch, Brenda said. It looked so much better when I was done.

  But when the work was finished, Billy Ray told Brenda he didn’t want her around. He told her to take her things and get out. When she said she wanted to be paid for the work she had done, Billy Ray became violent. That’s when Brenda called Margie to say she was scared for her life. Max and Henry came to talk to Billy Ray. They told Brenda it would be best if she left, and she rushed off to pack her clothes.

  Max turned to Billy Ray. If you make one threat to Brenda, she said, I will put you in jail.

  You and who else? he said.

  Me and Margie, Max said. Billy Ray made no reply. He knew about Margie.

  Max had some advice for Brenda as she was leaving. The best thing you can do now, she said, is find yourself a better man. Then she said, Which should not be hard to do.

  It wasn’t. A few weeks later Brenda moved in with Seth Torsney, who ran a garden nursery in town. But she and Billy Ray were not finished yet. In her rush to leave, Brenda had left some jewelry at his house, a few rings and bracelets. She asked for them back, but he laughed at her. When she tried to sue him, a lawyer said it was not a good idea. It was cheap jewelry, after all, and not worth the effort.

  It was worth the effort to Brenda. Some of the rings were her late mother’s. Seth called Billy Ray to demand Brenda’s jewelry. Billy Ray told Seth that if he set foot on his property, he would come face to face with a loaded shotgun.

  When Seth went to Max about the threat, Max and Henry paid another visit to Billy Ray. That ain’t a threat, Billy Ray said. It’s a promise. Billy Ray was a tall man with a full beard and a voice deep enough to have its own echo. Don’t care if you put me in jail, Billy Ray said. Nobody’s tellin’ me what to do. Ever. About anything.

  Max let him off with another warning.

  Everyone knew Billy Ray could be a jerk. But not everyone knew why he would not sell his home for the million dollars offered by the resort firm. This was more than the price he might get on the open market. Why not take it and call himself a millionaire? Then, some folks hoped, he would move away to the big city. Anywhere but here.

  Part of the reason was his stubborn streak. But there was more to it than that. Before she married Billy Ray, his wife, Deborah, had him sign a deal that would give half of all he owned to her should the marriage end. She thought it would make him a better husband. It did not. But that didn’t matter now. If he sold his land before the divorce came through, Deborah would get half of all the cash. If the land was sold after the divorce, her share would be much less. So she was in no hurry to start the divorce. As soon as Billy Ray sold the land, she would ask for half of the money for the land. And she would get it.

  But the company that was to build the new resort lost its patience. On Monday the company said it would take its money and go somewhere else unless Billy Ray agreed to sell by the end of the week. Now it was Wednesday. He would rather die poor and cost this town its future than share the million dollars with his wife, people said. He is one mean SOB.

  So this was a week the town would never forget. In two days, they would lose a chance to make the town rich and famous. At noon, it was struck by the biggest thunderstorm anyone could recall.

  And now it had its first-ever murder.

  THREE

  Max was at home the day Billy Ray was shot. There was always paperwork to be done, and she chose to do it there. She enjoyed the silence and visits with her next-door neighbor Geegee. It’s Gillian with a G, the woman said when they met. And Gallup, my husband’s last name. So I’ve been Geegee since we married. She rolled her eyes. Twenty-one years ago. She was a small woman, with short blond hair and a boyish figure.

  I’m here all the time, Geegee said. My husband Cliff’s a bigamist. He’s married to me and the music store. Gallup Guitars? On the corner near the lake? When he’s not selling, he’s teaching, and when he’s not teaching, he’s playing somewhere. She waved a hand and laughed. I’m a music widow. Anyway, you want company, I’m here. You want me to watch your place, I’m here for that too.

  Max was pleased to have Geegee as a friend. The truth was, she was glad to have anyone as a friend. The people of Port Ainslie were proud that their town had a woman police chief. But they were not eager to get close to Max. Not right away. She was new to the town, after all. No one was rude to her. They were just not in a hurry to be her friend. Except for Geegee.

  So while Max got to know many of the folks in town, she could talk openly only with Geegee.

  It will take time, Geegee told her, but they’ll come around. Meaning the people in and around Port Ainslie. You’ll see. Just keep doing a good job like you are and smiling a lot.

  Max and Geegee were soon sharing stories, over wine for Geegee, coffee for Max. Once or twice Max met Geegee’s husband, Cliff. He seemed pleasant, but Max saw a man divided. Cliff had time for his store and time for his music. This did not leave much time for his wife. Geegee, Max thought, needed their friendship as much as Max did.

  Max had not been thinking about Cliff Gallup the day Billy Ray was killed. She was lost in planning next year’s budget, until a clap of thunder shook the house. She stood at the window for a while to watch storm clouds sweep across the lake toward town. Then she went back to work while the rain pounded on the roof and beat against the windows.

  At two thirty the storm had long passed, leaving behind a beautiful day. The air was calm, the sun was shining…and Margie called to tell Max that Billy Ray had been found dead. I have a report of a body, she said. In a garage at 873 Main Street. Wojak is at the site.

  Sounds like Billy Ray’s house, Max said. She was out of her chair and on her way to the door.

  Why, my word, Margie said. I do bel
ieve it is.

  Margie had called Henry after getting the call about Billy Ray being found dead. Henry had been nearby, in his car on Main Street, when the call came in.

  When Henry got to Billy Ray’s house, he ordered people to stay back from the open garage door. Then he put yellow police tape across the driveway but left the garage door open. Anyone on the street could see Billy Ray’s body, and some stood looking at it from the end of the driveway.

  This was not the way to do things at a murder scene, and Henry knew it. He wanted the world, or at least people in town, to know what had happened to Billy Ray. It was a bit of revenge for Henry. He didn’t like Billy Ray any more than anyone else in town. Henry liked him even less, if that were possible. But he had good reason.

  Billy Ray had once tried to charge Henry with police brutality. He said Henry had used too much force when arresting Billy Ray for stealing snow tires. A judge did not agree, and the charge was dropped. But Billy Ray’s complaint went into Henry’s file. Henry was sure that this black mark on his file kept him from winning the job of police chief. That’s why the town council, Henry thought, looked for someone else. They chose Max instead of him. Henry liked Max, but from that day on he hated Billy Ray.

  About a dozen people were at the end of Billy Ray’s driveway when Max arrived. She checked the time: 2:43 PM. She would put this in her report.

  Among the people at the scene were Ivan Curic, Brenda Karp, Seth Torsney, Ben Black and Sam Little. All stood behind the yellow tape Henry had stretched across the driveway. They were staring at Billy Ray’s body slumped in a patio chair you could buy at the hardware store for ten dollars.

  “Afternoon, Chief,” Sam said. He and the others stepped aside to make room for Max.

  Max did not answer. Instead, as she walked to the garage she barked, “Keep everybody back.” Her eyes were on Billy Ray.

  Billy Ray’s head was down. His chin was on his chest, and his arms hung at his sides. His eyes were open as though he were staring at his feet. He wore a black T-shirt, cut-off jeans and boots with no socks. A trail of blood led down the back of the chair to the floor of the garage.

  Max looked at the scene, soaking up the details. Henry walked into the garage to stand beside her. “When are you going to call the OPP?” he asked.

  “Who says I am?” she said.

  Henry looked at Max like she had grown a second head. Then he walked back to the people behind the yellow plastic tape.

  Max moved to look closely at the body. Billy Ray had been shot in the back of the head while sitting in his garage, facing the closed door. His shotgun lay across his lap on top of an open magazine. A large Tim Hortons coffee cup sat on an old metal table next to him. Also on the table was an open bottle of rum. Billy Ray, Max thought, had been adding courage to his coffee. A box of shotgun shells was at his feet. Two shells had been taken from the box. Max had no doubt that they were in the shotgun.

  She looked around the garage. Was anything out of place? Was there something here that should not be here?

  Billy Ray had come and gone from his house through his garage. One of the changes Brenda Karp had helped him make was putting a new steel door in the front entrance. Billy bricked up the back door facing the lake. Don’t want nobody comin’ in that way and sneakin’ up on me, he had said. They come in the front, or they don’t come in at all. Then he put a new steel door on the entrance from the garage.

  It’s like a trap he never got to set, Brenda Karp had told Max. She meant the house. You get into the garage easy, but not into the house. He was going to put in a new door, one you could open from the truck. Never got around to it. Didn’t even fix the lock on the old garage door. Just kept putting it off. He’d rather ride his Harley-Davidson and drink beer.

  From inside the garage, Max could hear the others talking at the end of the driveway.

  Ivan Curic said, “Maybe now we’ll get that resort built.” When Ivan looked up to see Max glaring at him, Ivan didn’t try to hide his smile. All the property for the resort site had been priced by Ivan. The price he gave to the resort company was the offer it had made to every owner. Including Billy Ray.

  That’s why Billy Ray had let Ivan inspect his property. He wanted to know the price so he could turn it down. Ivan was there long enough to name a price. He told the resort company that Billy Ray’s land was worth four hundred thousand dollars. They offered that to Billy Ray, who told them he had let Ivan put a price on his land but had not agreed to sell it. And he would not sell it at any price. I just wanted to know how much I would turn down, he said with a laugh. The company raised its price. Billy Ray still said no. Each time he was offered more money, Billy Ray turned it down. All the way up to the final bid of one million dollars.

  Max thought about this while she looked at the things inside Billy Ray’s garage. She walked to his pickup truck, parked next to his body. A blue plastic sheet covered the truck bed. When Max lifted the sheet and looked in, she saw bags of cedar-mulch nuggets in the truck bed. She lowered the sheet and walked to a workbench near the motorcycle in the corner. “Did anybody hear a gunshot?” she called out to Henry.

  “No one heard a thing,” Henry said. He walked toward her. “They all heard the thunderstorm, but nobody heard a gun. If he was killed in the middle of that storm, nobody could’ve heard it.”

  Henry was a sad-faced man. When Max had first met Henry, she’d thought it was because he was unhappy about not being made chief. But she soon learned this had nothing to do with Henry’s look. He just had a sad-looking face. She knew about the black mark on his record that Billy Ray had put there. Would this make it a problem to work with Henry now?

  “Take this sheet off the truck,” she said to Henry, “and cover the body with it. The whole town doesn’t have to see what’s left of Billy Ray.”

  When Henry pulled the sheet off the bags of mulch, a loud voice called out, “Well, look at that!”

  Max turned to see Seth pointing at Billy Ray’s truck. “The guy was a thief,” Seth said. He raised his voice louder. “A common thief. He stole those from me last night.”

  Max walked farther into the garage, headed for an open window at the rear. The window was on the side of the garage away from the house, and its lock was broken. By all the rust on it, she could tell it had been broken for years.

  She stood at the window and looked back to the body. With her eyes she drew a straight line from the window to the back of Billy Ray’s head. A person standing outside the window would have a clear view of him. Or, more to the point, she thought, a clear shot. She was sure this was where the killer stood and took aim.

  She looked out the open window and down at the ground. Someone had torn branches from the high shrubs that blocked a view from the street. They had dropped the branches on the ground under the window. When they stood there, looking at Billy Ray’s back, they left no footprints. From there they could have slid the window open and shot Billy Ray. Then they left without leaving a trace. Max was sure that was how Billy Ray had been murdered.

  She went back to the body and lifted one of Billy Ray’s tattooed arms from under the sheet. She was looking for lividity, a redness in the skin caused when blood settles in a dead body. An expert can tell how long a person has been dead by the lividity. Max looked at Billy Ray’s arm and hand. He had, she guessed, been dead for two, maybe three, hours.

  Max stepped past Billy Ray to look at the group outside on the driveway. The sun was still shining brightly. She could hear music and laughing children from out on the lake. As she walked out of the garage, the sound of their joy and the view of the dead body gave her chills. So much joy, she thought. And so much sorrow. That’s what life was all about.

  “Who found him?” she asked the group behind the yellow tape. None of them seemed upset over Billy Ray’s death.

  “We all did,” said Ivan Curic. “We came down here to have it out with Billy Ray.”

  “And there he was,” Sam Little said. “Deader’n day-old roadki
ll.”

  “That’s when I called it in to Margie,” Ivan said.

  “Here comes Ryan,” Seth said.

  Max turned to see Ryan Kelly jogging from the downtown area.

  “I just heard,” Ryan said when he reached them. He bent to look past Max at Billy Ray’s body. “Is he really dead?”

  “He really is,” Ben Black said. He and Ryan exchanged high fives.

  “Now who would have done a thing like that?” Ryan said with a laugh.

  Which made Max snap into action. “You may think this is a joke,” she barked, “but I don’t. Someone committed murder here. The dead man may not have been your idea of a saint, but no one has the right to do that. And no one has the right to treat it as a joke!”

  The group fell quiet.

  Max turned to Henry. “Close that door and seal it with tape,” she ordered. “This is now a crime scene.” She looked back to the crowd on the driveway. “Anyone who goes into that garage will be arrested.” She looked at Henry again. “Call the morgue in Cranston,” she said just as loudly. “Tell the coroner we have a body to be looked at and taken for an autopsy. Stay here until he comes. Tell him I want to hear his first opinion right away. Have him call me as soon as he can.”

  “Do I call the OPP too?” Henry said.

  She glared at him. “Did I tell you to?”

  Henry jerked his head like he had been slapped.

  She turned back to the onlookers. No one was laughing now. “I want all of you who were here when the body was found to meet me in my office at four o’clock sharp,” she said. “That means you too, Ryan. And I don’t want any of you to talk about this. Not among yourselves, and not to anyone else. Not a word.”

  She looked them all straight in the eye: Ivan Curic, Sam Little, Brenda Karp, Seth Torsney, Ben Black and Ryan Kelly. “Anyone who talks about this, or who is a minute late to my office, will be subject to arrest.” Walking to the cruiser she heard Ben say, “Can she really arrest us for that?”