“Do you see what those goddamned tree huggers did to my dozer?” Schmidt shouted as he stormed over to the sheriff, his face red with heat and rage.
“What happened?” Weber asked him.
“I told you, those damn tree huggers set fire to my equipment!”
“Are you sure somebody started the fire?”
“Oh, somebody started it alright,” said Fire Chief Steve Harper as he joined them, pulling off his fire helmet and wiping his face. “We found two empty five gallon cans that had gas in them, from the smell. The Caterpillar had a diesel engine, so there was no reason for the gas.”
“And the cans weren’t something you were using out here?” Weber asked Schmidt.
“Of course not,” Schmidt said. “Like the chief just said, all of my equipment is diesel.”
“Okay, let’s run this down from the start so I can get a handle on it,” Weber said.
“I already told you, they set fire to my ’dozer,” Schmidt said in frustration. “They’ve been harassing me ever since I started clearing land out at the Y. I just started out here yesterday, and now look what they did! I want every one of them arrested.”
“Well, help me out, here,” Weber said. “Just so I can get the overall picture in my head. Who discovered the fire?”
“I did,” Schmidt said. “I was driving out here to start to work, and a quarter mile or so down the road I saw a car pulling out of the turnoff there, that I cleared yesterday. It was hauling ass toward town. A minute later, this big old fireball went up and I knew what they had done.”
“What kind of car was it?” Weber asked him.
“Hell, I don’t know! All these rice burners look the same to me these days. I haven’t been able to tell a Ford from a Datsun in twenty years. There was a time Americans built real cars and they had personalities. Not any more. Even the few cars still made here look just like all of the foreign junk.”
“Okay, was it a big car or a small car? Two doors? Four?”
Schmidt shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno. Like I said, it was hauling ass.”
“Color?”
“White, maybe beige, something like that.”
“Could you tell who was driving? A man or a woman?”
Schmidt shook his head and asked, “Are you gonna stand here all day jawing with me, or are you gonna go arrest the people who did this?”
“Dutch, I need something to go on,” Weber told him. “Am I supposed to stop every light colored car in town and arrest the occupants?”
“We both know who did this!” Schmidt said. “It was that scrawny, redheaded bitch, Edna Moyer and her crowd.”
“Do you mean Emma Moyer? How do you know that?”
“Who else would it be?” Schmidt demanded to know. “You saw them out at the Y last week. They’re a bunch of goddamned flakes!”
“Did you actually see Emma or any of her people out here today?” Weber asked.
“No, I didn’t see anybody. I already told you that. But you and I both know it was her or some of that crowd of tree huggers she runs around with.”
Weber could understand the man’s frustration, but he had known Emma Moyer since he sat behind her in the seventh grade. She had always been a bit “out there,” especially for a small town girl. Taking up causes for everything from saving endangered species to the plight of exploited migrant workers, but Weber couldn’t picture her going so far as to commit arson to further her current passion.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Weber told the aggrieved heavy equipment operator. “But I have to be honest with you, Dutch. With no eyewitnesses, it’s going to be pretty hard to make a case against anybody.”
“There’s got to be something you can do. It’s not right for a man to work hard all his life and then get this,” Schmidt said, waving his hand at what was left of his bulldozer. “It’s just not right!”
***
Emma Moyer lived in a small cottage three blocks off Main Street, and when Weber arrived, she was sitting on the front porch with Richard MacEwen drinking herbal tea and discussing how best to protect the environment of Big Lake.
“Morning Emma, Richard,” Weber said as he walked up onto the porch.
“What brings you out here this fine morning?” Emma asked.
“We had an incident out at one of the cell phone tower construction sites,” Weber told her.
“Define incident,” McEwan said.
“Well, it looks like somebody decided to burn up Dutch Schmidt’s bulldozer.”
“And you're accusing us?” Emma asked hotly.
“I'm not accusing anybody of anything,” Weber told her.
“But you're here, and I get the feeling this isn’t a social call,” Emma said.
“Do you know anything about the fire?” Weber asked.
“No, Sheriff, I do not know anything about any fire, anywhere! And I really resent you coming here asking these kind of questions.”
“Calm down, Emma,” Weber said. “I'm just doing my job. You and Richard here, and the others, have been out there protesting the cell towers, so it's just natural that I'd come here talk to you about it.”
“Well, you've come, we've talked, and now we’re done,” Emma told him. “We have a right to peacefully protest, and that's what we've been doing. Nobody from our group started any fires, anywhere. Do you really think we'd risk burning down the whole forest to get our point across?”
Weber didn't think Emma would resort to such extreme measures and told her so. “But I would appreciate you letting me know if you do hear anything.” Weber said.
“If I do hear anything, I'll let you know,” Emma said. “But don't hold your breath. It's not something any of us would be involved in.”
Weber thanked her and MacEwen for their time and drove to his office, still convinced that as fanatical as she was about the things she believed in, Emma would not resort to felony crime to further her cause. Civil disobedience, yes, but nothing like arson.
***
Mary Caitlin greeted him with a cup of coffee and followed him into his private office with a manila folder in hand. Chad trailed her and took the seat next to Weber’s desk.
“Here is all that we could come up with on the people who live in the neighborhood around Carl and Abby Weston,” Mary told him, placing the folder on his desk, “but I don’t think it’s going to help you figure out why Jerry Lee Chandler chose to show up in their living room. We couldn’t find even a vague clue that ties anybody in that neighborhood to him. Everybody who lives there has been around for ten years or more, and most of them grew up right here in Big Lake, or nearby. There were only three who didn’t. Mildred Harner moved here from Phoenix five years ago with her husband, Ben, the Methodist minister. He died last year.”
“I think we can rule out any connection with Chandler to her,” Weber said. “Who else?”
“Let’s see,” Mary said, referring to her notes. “Art and Colleen Mitchell, who moved here eleven years ago, after he retired from the Air Force, and Carl and Abby. The Mitchells moved all around during his military time. Carl and Abby have lived here for at least twelve years but they came from back east somewhere, I’m not sure exactly where. I think Abby said once it was Pennsylvania or New York.”
“So we’ve got another dead end,” Weber said.
“I just don’t see where it really matters,” Chad said. “Chandler got what he had coming to him, and I’m just glad that if he had to come to Big Lake, he chose Carl and Abby’s place, instead of one of the older couples around there that weren’t able to defend themselves.”
“I know you’re right, Chad, but he called somebody around here. Why?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe he was meeting somebody here, but that doesn’t mean they came from Big Lake. Maybe it was somebody from his old gang and they just picked this place off a map. And when Chandler got himself killed, they split. Who knows?”
“You’re probably right,” Weber acknowledged, “I’ll look this stuff over in a bit. Meanwhile we�
��ve got this arson to deal with.”
“Any leads at all?” Chad asked.
“Dutch Schmidt is convinced Emma Moyer and her crowd did it,” Weber said, “but I don’t buy it. She’s committed to saving the world and everything in it, but I just don’t see Emma going that far.”
“Neither do I,” Mary said. “I knew Emma’s mother, Jessica, and she was the same way. Her thing was stopping hunting and animal rights. They must have had a dozen dogs and cats they rescued, but she’d never have destroyed someone’s property, no matter how much she was opposed to whatever it was they were doing.”
“How about this Richard MacEwen?” Chad asked. “Would he go that far?”
“I don’t think so,” Weber told him. “Emma said something that made sense to me, that there was no way her people would risk setting the whole forest on fire to get their point across.”
“I had Tommy bring in the gas cans found at the construction site,” Chad said. “I dusted them for prints and found a few, but the darned things are beat up and filthy. They look like they’ve been around a while, so who knows how many hands they’ve passed through?”
“Well, run what you’ve got,” Weber told him, “see if you can get a hit.”
The phone on Weber’s desk rang and Mary picked it up, listened a moment, and said, “I’ll tell him.” She hung up the telephone and said, “We just got a call from some folks passing through town. You’d better get out to Bugle Meadow, Jimmy, there’s been an incident.”
***
Chad’s prediction that any major problem associated with the Enlightened Love Movement would come from the local rednecks proved true when Weber, Chad, Dolan, and Buz arrived at the encampment. The flower children, who had seemed so mellow and laid back on Weber’s visit the day before, were now quite agitated, and a crowd was gathered around the blue tarp first aid station.
Weber and his deputies made their way to the front, where they found Burt and Caroline tending to a young man who was bleeding profusely from a head wound. His face was cut in several places, his lips were split, and his eyes were swollen almost shut. He was bare-chested and there were vivid welts and large red marks covering his back and ribs. A young woman sat next to him, crying and holding his hand.
“What happened here?” Weber asked Caroline as she swabbed the deep cut on the top of the young man’s head.
“We were attacked,” said the young woman, whose long brown hair hung past her waist. Weber noticed that there was a large red welt across her cheek, and a trickle of blood had dried at the corner of her mouth.
“Who attacked you? Where did it happen?”
“Out there on the road. There were three of them. We were hitchhiking back to town to get some groceries and this yellow Jeep pulled up with these guys in it, and they started saying ugly things and calling us names.”
“What were they saying?” Weber asked as Chad took notes.
“Calling us trash and telling me they wanted some of that free love they heard so much about. They called me a whore and a slut, all kinds of filthy names. We tried to ignore them, but they wouldn’t go away. They laughed at Jeremy and asked him why he wasn’t man enough to defend his woman. We just kept on walking because we’re not into confrontation.”
She sobbed, and wiped tears from her eyes. Weber gave her time to compose herself and she continued.
“Then they pulled off the road in front of us and got out and started pushing Jeremy around, saying he was as yellow as their Jeep if he wouldn’t stand up for me. He asked them to leave us alone and this one, a big guy with tattoos all over his arms, started hitting Jeremy. Then he knocked him down and started kicking him. I tried to pull him off and one of them hit me. The next thing I knew, one of the other guys was putting his hands all over me, saying that they were going to show me the difference between hippy freaks and real men. A car came by honking its horn and the people inside said they were calling the police. That’s when they left, but they said they’d be back to finish what they started.”
“Miss….”
“Randi. Randi Bridges.”
“Miss Bridges, did it go any further? Did they…”
She cut him off with a shake of her head. “No, I wasn’t raped. Just felt up pretty crudely.”
“You said it was a yellow Jeep?” Weber asked. “Did you get a license plate number?”
She shook her head and said, “I was too busy trying to help Jeremy.”
“Can you describe these guys?”
“The one was really big and had tattoos on both arms. The one who groped me and hit me was a tall, skinny guy, and the third one, he was driving the Jeep, he had something wrong with him, he walked funny. He was laughing all the while, like it was all just a big joke.”
“Are they going to be okay?” Weber asked Burt.
He nodded and said, “Head wounds always bleed a lot, it looks worse than it really is.”
“Still, I want the paramedics to take a look at him,” Weber said.
“I’ve already radioed it in,” Dolan said. “ETA is five minutes.”
The victims didn’t have much more to add to their story. They had made their way back to the encampment after the attack, where Bud and Caroline started tending to them, then Weber and his deputies arrived.
The sound of a siren announced the ambulance’s arrival, and the paramedics began checking out the victims’ injuries. Caroline stepped aside and made her way over to Weber, sadness in her eyes.
“Why can’t people leave others be and just live and let live? Just because we don’t dress the same way, or live a different lifestyle, shouldn’t make us targets.”
Weber felt ashamed that it was people from Big Lake who had done this, and angry that it had happened on his watch.
“Caroline, I’m sorry. I’ve got a pretty good idea who did this, and we’re going to take care of it.”
“We’re not into retribution,” she told him. “They have to walk their own path, wrong as it is. We just want to be left alone.”
“This isn’t their first time. They have to be punished for this,” Weber said. “They’ll do jail time for this.”
“No!” said Randi. “We won’t be a part of locking other human beings up like animals. Please, just let it go, Sheriff.”
“They’re already animals,” Weber told her.
Randi shook her head stubbornly. “I won’t testify. Neither will Jeremy, will you?”
Jeremy shook his head and said, “It’s cool, Sheriff. Thanks for coming out, we appreciate it, we really do. But it’s over. We don’t want to ruin their lives by putting them in the system that will just grind them up and destroy whatever humanity they have.”
Weber tried to convince them that the trio were already well on their way to ruining their own lives, and the lives of anyone they came into contact with, but it was hopeless. The young couple refused to cooperate with any investigation or prosecution of their attackers. Frustrated, the sheriff finally gave up.
The paramedics didn’t have much to do, since Burt and Caroline had already cleaned the young man’s wounds and Jeremy declined their offer to take him to the medical clinic to be checked out. So after warning Jeremy of the symptoms of a concussion, they left. As Weber and his deputies walked back to their vehicles, the sheriff thought that while revenge may not be something Caroline and her friends needed or wanted, he was going to make the men responsible for the attack pay.
Chapter 19
When they reached the paved road, Weber pulled into a turnout and the deputies stopped behind him. The grim looks on all of their faces told him they were just as upset as he was.
“J.T. and his crew?” Buz asked.
“No question about it,” Dolan said. “The yellow Jeep, the tattoos, the way Rick walks.”
John Thomas Mercer was a local bully who had used his size to intimidate anyone smaller than himself all through school. Now in his mid-twenties, he lived off a series of girlfriends while he spent his days sleeping off night-long
drinking binges or running around with his two henchmen, Bobby Christensen and Rick Lyons, looking for trouble. Both were misfits who had arrest records for minor crimes like theft, vandalism, and public intoxication. While Lyons and Christensen were always in some kind of trouble, Mercer was a sociopath whose actions, Weber was convinced, were only going to get worse.
“Where do they hang out these days?” Weber asked.
“Last I heard, J.T. was shacking up with Margo Prestwick,” Dolan said.
“What’s she, ten years older than him?” Buz asked.
“Well, maybe the boy needs a mother figure,” Dolan said, “and Margo’s standards have never been all that high.”
Margo Prestwick was an overweight, bleached blonde with a perpetual bad attitude who owned the Antler Inn, a run down tavern that was housed in a cinder block building, located on the outskirts of Big Lake. Weber and his deputies had a long association with the business, which attracted a rough crowd.
“Let’s go pay them a visit,” Weber said, and led the entourage of police vehicles to the bar. A mud-spattered yellow Jeep Wrangler was parked outside, next to a couple of beat up pickup trucks.
A thick haze of blue cigarette smoke hung in the air when Weber and his deputies went inside the dimly lit saloon. Two cowboy types sat at the scarred wooden bar that ran along one wall, nursing beers. Vinyl-coated booths, patched with duct tape, lined the other wall.
“What do you want?” Margo demanded when she saw the lawmen. “There’s nothing going on here that concerns you.”
Weber nodded toward her and looked toward the back of the room, where two men stood around a pool table.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” Weber asked.
“My what? Get the hell out of here!”
“Aw, come on Margo, I thought we were friends,” Weber said.
The winter before, Margo’s rough and crude exterior had cracked to reveal a frightened woman underneath, when she feared she had become a target for a family of survivalists who she thought suspected her of providing information to the police. But that threat was in the past, and she had reverted to her true spiteful self.
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 172
