The Verdict on Each Man Dead

by David Whellams

  “Preciso?”

  “Izquierda. Poquito.” A bit biased to the left.

  “Can I borrow this, señor?”

  Peter carried a gun in each hand back into the hut; the third, Henry’s empty pistol, stayed in his belt. His only concession to Henry’s quizzical look was a peremptory nod.

  Inside, Peter walked the length of the hut again, extracted Henry’s empty .45 and placed it on the table. He stood back and evaluated the impression left by it. He concluded that his plan would work or it wouldn’t; so be it. He was in a very fatalistic mood, borne of his cold serenity before a gunfight. Had Henry and Phil been there to see his expression any doubts they might have had about his doing this alone would have evaporated. He placed the Mexican’s ancient .45 on the table corner, as far as possible from Henry’s.

  This left him with the other Mexican’s long-barrelled gun in his belt.

  Peter carried both chairs back to the small door, where he positioned them fifteen feet apart. By now, his heavy brogues were coated with the oily-sawdust-and-sand mix. He leaned down and buried the long pistol in the dirt, hoping he would remember where it lay.

  He waited uncomfortably by the door, mightily tempted to step outside for a last view of the salty wasteland and the haunted mountains to the west. He recalled his wanderings with Joan through Canyonlands and the Arches and wondered if Kelso Vyne had spent those lost years between 1995 and 2002 in a hideaway in such hills, just as Butch Cassidy was said to have done.

  Peter’s arrangements dictated how this fight would play out, but he went down his list of preparatory decisions once again. If Henry’s reputation was to survive today, he could not be seen to pull a trigger. The same went for Phil Mohlman. Thus, Peter and DeKlerk had to meet out of sight, and if that made it a faceoff indoors at high noon, let the gunplay happen and the legend take its own course without the contributions of eyewitnesses.

  As he waited, Peter realized that it had to be like this, because the traditions of the West demanded a clear contest.

  “Let the myth-makers take it from here,” he declared to the emptiness.

  Peter’s arrangements depended on Mohlman’s persuasive powers in the face of DeKlerk’s innate paranoia. Phil had assured him that he could pull it off, which he did simply: after a fifteen-minute wait, the door opened and Boog DeKlerk stumbled inside with Phil Mohlman behind him, holding a pistol to the South African’s back.

  Peter gestured to one of the chairs as he verified that DeKlerk was unarmed. Phil left through the small door.

  DeKlerk was thinking along the same lines. “You’re not armed?”

  Instead of waiting for an answer DeKlerk checked out his surroundings. Peter looked way down to the table and confirmed that his opponent saw both guns sitting on it.

  “You won’t get away with it, Cammon.” DeKlerk sat down and crossed his legs.

  “I have one question …”

  “Really, Cammon. I’d have thought you’d have a million of ’em. We can talk all day, if you like.”

  “Just one. When did you know Devereau was the killer?”

  “I recognized the bomb design as something I’d come across in a couple of drug takedowns in Moab and just up the road in Ogden. I figured Davis for it, given his anti-social attitude, but then he outed Devereau and I took it from there.”

  “You could have stopped this before the Proffets and Theresa got killed.”

  Boog got up and paced near the entry door. He seemed to understand that he was a dead man if he stepped outside unarmed. “Surely you want to know other things.”

  “Well, I’d like to know where you left Carleton Davis’s corpse.”

  DeKlerk smiled. “Carleton Davis will become the new Susan Powell.”

  The South African had gained a few pounds even in the short time since Peter had last seen him, and his pot belly put him over 250, but he bolted like a wild animal, in a few yards gaining traction on the concrete pad. He ran for the table at the far end of the hut.

  The drug detective had a long lead. Peter took two unrushed steps in the direction of the table, then crouched to root in the dirt. Boog’s triumphant smirk shifted to puzzlement as he grasped Henry’s pistol, finding it too light. If this is a duel, why is one of the duelling pistols empty? He dropped Henry’s empty .45 and picked up the other one. The delay gave Peter the extra seconds he needed.

  DeKlerk turned just as Peter rose to his feet with the sawdust-coated long-barrel pistol in his hand. He took two seconds to blow the dirt away, but he wasn’t about to be any more sporting than that with his adversary. He aimed, compensating a couple of degrees to his right, as the Mexican soldier had recommended. In fact, DeKlerk got off the first round (although there was no one to record this fact and Peter never revealed it; let the legend evolve.) The South African’s effort went wide. Peter’s shot — he was aided by the long barrel — took DeKlerk in the throat. His blood flooded into the cracks in the broken concrete floor.

  Peter let the ringing fade. The detectives outside had strict orders not to enter. He ached all over, and the oil and cordite smells sickened him as he turned to the door. How would he explain this to Joan?

  As he passed through the narrow door, from a dark world to a bright one, three Mexicans stepped forward with shovels.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID WHELLAMS worked for 30 years in criminal law and amending the Criminal Code in such areas as dangerous offenders and terrorism. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

  OTHER PETER CAMMON MYSTERIES

  WALKING INTO THE OCEAN (9781770902336) In the debut mystery featuring veteran Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Peter Cammon, what seems like a simple domestic crime turns out to be a series of murders ravaging a peaceful English coastal community. The semi-retired Cammon is sent to the Jurassic Coast to investigate a case: a woman murdered and her mechanic husband, the likely suspect, drowned in the English Channel. But Cammon soon discovers that his investigation is a sideshow to a string of killings along the cliffs that has stymied local police. The only way to solve this one murder is to figure out the serial killings that terrorize the region. The detective travels from London, Dorset, and Devon to the island of Malta, relentlessly following the overlapping threads of the two cases to their shocking climax.

  The first installment in a series of three, this cliffhanger sets a chilling tone for the British sleuth’s forthcoming mysteries.

  THE DROWNED MAN (9781770903678) In this second mystery featuring Chief Inspector Peter Cammon, the veteran detective is called out of retirement once again. His assignment appears simple: travel to Canada to retrieve the body of a murdered Scotland Yard colleague. But Peter cannot resist delving into the oddities of the crime. His colleague was brutally attacked, run down by a car, and then dumped in a canal, yet the probable motive for the murder is bizarre: the theft of three letters from the U.S. Civil War era, one of them signed by the assassin John Wilkes Booth. Haunting the investigation is the beautiful Alice Nahri, girlfriend of the dead man.

  The Drowned Man reacquaints readers with characters from Walking into the Ocean as well as features Maddy, Peter’s daughter-in-law, whose amateur sleuthing back in England proves pivotal in cracking the case.

  TRY ANOTHER GREAT READ FROM ECW PRESS...

  A LITTLE MORE FREE (9781770907942) Montreal, Labour Day weekend, 1972. The city is getting ready to host the first game in the legendary Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. Three men set fire to a nightclub and Constable Eddie Dougherty witnesses the deaths of 37 people. The Museum of Fine Arts is robbed and two million dollars’ worth of paintings are stolen. Against the backdrop of these historic events, Dougherty discovers the body of a murdered young man on Mount Royal. As he tries to prove he has the stuff to become a detective, he is drawn into the world of American draft dodgers and deserters, class politics, and organized crime.

  A Little More Free, the second Edd
ie Dougherty mystery, presents a portrait of a city and an officer trying to find out where they stand in a divisive and rapidly changing world.

  ECW digital titles are available online wherever ebooks are sold. Visit ecwpress.com for more details.To receive special offers, bonus content and a look at what's next at ECW, sign up for our newsletter!

  Copyright © David Whellams, 2015

  Published by ECW Press

  665 Gerrard Street East

  Toronto, Ontario M4M 1Y2

  416-694-3348 / info@ecwpress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Whellams, David, 1948–, author

  The verdict on each man dead / written by David Whellams.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77041-295-8 (bound)

  978-1-77041-044-2 (pbk)

  978-1-77090-811-6 (pdf)

  978-1-77090-812-3 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8645.H45V47 2015 C813’.6 C2015-902789-6

  C2015-902790-X

  Cover design: Tania Craan

  Cover images: abstract yellow wash © Roman Sigaev/Shutterstock and © maxim ibragimov/Shutterstock; man’s silhouette © Naufal MQ/Shutterstock

  Author photo: Jennifer Barnes JB Photography

  The publication of The Verdict on Each Man Dead has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and by the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,793 individual artists and 1,076 organizations in 232 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.