A Field of Poppies

by Sharon Sala

  “How did you get that black eye and busted lip?” Harmon asked.

  “Um... well, I think I got a little tipsy at the bar last night and fell on my way out the door, but I’m not real sure.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t run into Sadler last night and get into a fight? Then someone pulled a gun and the fight was over, right? Maybe he was the one who’d brought the gun and you were just protecting yourself. Is that how it went down?”

  Bonaventure felt like he’d just been sideswiped. He had not seen this coming.

  “No, sir it is not! The only gun I own is a huntin’ rifle, which I damn sure don’t carry around to no bars. And, I did not get into a fight with anyone last night, especially Jessup Sadler.”

  “So you got drunk off your ass last night with a clear conscience, yet had no compassion for Sadler?”

  Bonaventure was getting pissed. He’d tried to be nice, but he didn’t like the way this was going.

  “I never said I was a teetotaler. I just don’t come on the job drunk, mister, and neither does anyone else who works here. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes. I need a list of people who work on the same shift that Sadler worked, and the names of anyone who can verify your whereabouts from sundown last night until sunup this morning.”

  Bonaventure’s eyes widened in sudden panic. For the first time in the five years since he and Mayrene had gotten a divorce, he wished it hadn’t happened. At least she would have been waiting up for him like she’d used to when he’d dragged his sorry ass home. He got up and pulled a list from the filing cabinet, ran a copy for the cop and handed it over.

  “There’s your list. I don’t know what time I left Doobie’s Bar, but I’m sure he can tell you. However, I live alone, and there ain’t no one who can say what time I got home or what time I left the house until I clocked in here at six a.m.”

  Harmon was writing fast and furious.

  Bonaventure was sweating.

  “Did Jessup ever have any arguments or disagreements with the men he worked with?”

  Bonaventure thought for a moment. As much as he would have liked to point the finger of guilt at someone else, he couldn’t think of a one. “None that I knew of.”

  Harmon stood abruptly. “I don’t need to tell you not to leave town, do I?”

  Bonaventure belly rolled. “Are you insinuating I had something to do with Jessup’s murder?”

  “I didn’t insinuate anything. I’m just telling you not to leave town. Do we understand each other?”

  Bonaventure wanted to punch him. Instead he managed to nod in what he hoped was an accommodating manner.

  “Yep. Yep, we do.”

  Harmon put his raincoat back on, picked up his shoes and left as abruptly as he’d come in, shutting the door behind him with a slam.

  Bonaventure started to call the boss then stopped. If he told Justin Caulfield he was now a murder suspect because he’d been drunk last night and woke up with a black eye and a busted lip, he was likely to be the next one fired. He didn’t want that to happen.

  What he needed was a drink, but after what had just gone down, he didn’t have the guts to indulge. Instead, he locked the office door and headed for the back of the trailer. If he couldn’t get a release one way, he’d get it another. So he locked himself into the bathroom and proceeded to jack himself off.

  Chapter Three

  Detectives Amblin and Duroy were at the police precinct going over the hospital security footage. Earlier, they’d combed the parking lot for Jessup’s car, but hadn’t found it. So, either he’d never made it to the hospital, or he’d been murdered after he left. They were still waiting for a time of death from the coroner’s office and without a crime scene or witnesses, they were at a loss. Hopefully they’d get an answer to one of the questions from the tapes.

  They’d been at it for nearly an hour when Mike suddenly hit Pause and leaned forward, staring at the image frozen on the screen.

  “Hey, Kenny, isn’t that our guy?”

  Duroy compared the photo they had from the DMV to the face on the screen. “Looks like him. What’s the time stamp?”

  Mike glanced down. “7:40 p.m. So the daughter was right. He did go see his wife. What floor was she on?”

  Duroy scanned the list of info they had on the Sadler family. “Uh, third floor.”

  Mike flipped the video feed from the first floor to the third floor, matching the time and date. Within seconds they saw the elevator doors open and Jessup Sadler walk out. His steps were slow and plodding and his shoulders slumped.

  “Poor bastard,” Duroy said. “Wife’s dying. Got his ass fired and still keeping the secret. Wonder what he was thinking? It’s for damn sure he wasn’t thinking that he’d never see another sunrise.”

  Mike eyed the man as he walked, noting absently that Poppy Sadler must have taken after her mother because she looked nothing like this man, except maybe for the height. Sadler was a big man and Poppy was at least five foot nine, maybe even five-ten. But since thinking about her was immaterial to what they were doing, he set the thought aside and kept making notes of their findings. When Mike saw Jessup pause and then enter a room, he pointed.

  “Okay... he’s inside.”

  “Fast-forward to when he comes out,” Duroy said.

  Mike watched the occasional relay of nurses going in and out, noting a doctor who went in and exited less than three minutes later. But Jessup remained.

  “There! There he comes,” Mike finally said. “Time is 10:33. He’s walking toward the elevator. Now he’s making a run for it... ah... he didn’t make it. Gotta wait for the next car. Okay, now he’s getting in.” Mike flipped video again to the ground floor, waiting to see Jessup appear, which he did, walking out the same way he walked in. “...and there he goes. Damn it! Do we have footage on the parking lot?”

  Duroy shuffled through the stack and then handed Mike a tape. They fast-forwarded to coincide with the time stamp showing Jessup Sadler leaving the building.

  “That’s him,” Mike said, then paused. “No, my bad. That’s not him. Just another big man in a raincoat. It would start to rain when we needed to confirm this.”

  “Stop!” Duroy said, pointing the man in the raincoat. “Who is that guy? He looks familiar.”

  Mike hit pause, again focusing on what they could see of the face.

  “Well it’s definitely not Sadler and that car is not a 1999 Ford.”

  Duroy frowned. “I should know who that is.”

  “It could be anyone and it wouldn’t matter. Why do we need to know who’s coming and going? Sadler is who we’re looking for.”

  “I guess,” Duroy said, and gave up the notion as Mike hit Play.

  A few moments later they saw Sadler come into camera view.

  “There he is!” Mike said. When Jessup paused and unlocked an old car, he added. “And there’s the 1999 Ford with one black fender.”

  The footage wasn’t great, but the faint glow of light in the parking lot helped ID him. Even though the rain had already begun, there was no mistaking his broad shoulders or the slump in his posture as he moved. What they did note was he was almost running – they assumed to get out of the rain.

  They watched him start the car and turn on the lights then were startled by the sudden spurt of speed as he took off out of the parking lot, almost like he was chasing someone.

  Duroy frowned. “Wait. What the hell is that all about? Before when he was running I thought it was to get out of the rain. Now he’s out of the rain, so what’s the hurry? What are we missing?”

  “He’s either trying to follow someone, or maybe he got a phone call that caused him to leave in such a hurry,” Mike said. “Do we have his phone records?”

  “I’m not sure. Bonaventure is doing follow-ups on Sadler’s contacts and whereabouts for the last week.”

  “Go see what he knows,” Mike said. “I’m going to go back through the video and see if we can identify who and how many people l
eft just ahead of Sadler.”

  “Will do,” Duroy said.

  Mike hit rewind on the first floor video and then began watching it again, hoping to find something they’d missed.

  ****

  Poppy didn’t know how long she’d been walking because she’d left her wristwatch at home. She had no way of knowing the time it would take to walk from the restaurant in downtown Caulfield to her house, because she’d never done it. All she could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other until she was home.

  As she waited for a light to change, she glanced down at the trash rushing down the flood-swollen gutter and flashed on a memory from her childhood.

  It was summer - the best time of the year when school didn’t happen and days were twice as long and twice the fun. The sun was brutal, but she and Johnny were oblivious to the heat. They were playing outside when a sudden clap of thunder rattled the heavens. They looked up into a sky turning darker by the moment and when a flash of lightning struck near the bridge, their mother came running out of the house to call them in, although there was really no need. They were already in flight.

  At first they were disgruntled about having to stop in the middle of their game, and then Mama appeared with a tablet of paper, a box of crayons and some tape, and sat down in the floor beside them. All of a sudden, it was fun again.

  Curious, they watched as she tore a sheet of paper from the tablet and began folding it one way and then another until she’d turned it into a paper boat. She folded boats until the pad was all used up and gave them crayons to color the sails. When the storm finally passed, Poppy and Johnny had an armada. They took off like puppies turned out of a pen and began sailing their tiny, boats through the rain swollen ditches until the paper soaked through and the armada was defeated by saturation.

  Someone honked.

  Poppy jumped back to keep from being splashed by the backwash from a passing car, then wondered why it mattered. She couldn’t be any wetter.

  And just like that, the memory was gone.

  When she realized she’d missed her chance to cross, she just pulled the hood of her raincoat a little tighter around her face and waited for the next light.

  She lost all track of time as she kept walking south. Somewhere along Dupont Street she looked down and realized she was walking in water. Her shoes were full and spilling over with each step that she took, and she couldn’t even register dismay. She thought about taking them off then decided it was too cold to be barefoot, and too late to save the shoes, so she kept on walking while her head was spinning. The bottom line was that her daddy’s murder made no sense. The only thing that had changed in their lives, besides her mother’s cancer, was the fact that Daddy had been fired. Yes, that would have made him mad and it would have scared him, too. He wouldn’t have been able to provide.

  So who would he have challenged? The foreman at the mine? Justin Caulfield himself? Even if all those things had happened, killing him still made no sense. He posed no threat to anyone.

  The only other thing she could think of was that someone had killed him for the car, which was crazy. The car was old and on its last legs. Why murder for something that might not even make a getaway from the scene of the crime? Poppy was at a loss. She needed to make sense of a senseless act and it wasn’t happening.

  As she came around the corner, she quickly realized someone else was afoot in the rain. When she recognized the old homeless man, her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t think she needed to be afraid of him, but he was unsettling. She put her head down and kept moving without making eye contact, but it didn’t help. As soon as he saw her, he started to shout.

  “The devil is alive. I seen him. You gotta hide!”

  Poppy lengthened her stride, trying not to stumble, but her feet and legs were so cold she could barely stand upright.

  “You!” Prophet shouted. “He’ll get you next! Run girl! Run! The devil’s in the house!”

  When he reached for her, she panicked. All of a sudden she was running, tearing through the rain-soaked streets, taking shortcuts through the alleys just to get away.

  By the time she got to the bridge over the Little Man her heart was hammering against her chest and she was shaking so hard it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other. Just as she stepped up on the foot path to take her across the bridge she caught a glimpse of the roiling flood waters below.It was yet another mistake in a day filled with errors.

  She couldn’t look down without thinking of her daddy being thrown in there like so much garbage. She tried to look away, but it was too late. The river swallowed her up just like it had taken her daddy until she was leaning over the railing, drawn to the power of the water rushing past.

  The sound of a car horn broke the spell. Startled, she pulled back, and then moaned. Overwhelmed by the distance and growing weaker by the minute, she tried to talk herself across.

  Move, damn it! You’re freezing. Get over yourself and start walking. Just don’t look down. Don’t look down.

  She made it two steps further before another horror popped into her head. What if Daddy hadn’t been dead when he fell in the river?

  Oh Jesus.

  Had he struggled against the storm and the current, bleeding and in pain? He would have been frantic, thinking about her and Mama, knowing what a mess he would be leaving behind.

  Again she forced herself to look away from the river and focus on the other side of the bridge. From where she was standing she could almost see the roof of her house. So close, and yet it might as well have been a thousand miles.

  All of a sudden her legs buckled and she was on her knees, shaking too hard to get up. It was a bitch, coming this far and then coming undone. She slumped against the railing, then threw her head back and screamed. Assaulted by the downpour and the harsh sobs burning up her throat, she curled up into a ball and prayed to God to just let her die. The bridge was vibrating beneath her as the flood waters slammed against the pilings below. She wondered if it would collapse and take her with it.

  She didn’t hear the screech of brakes or see the man who jumped from the car. All she felt were hands pulling her up and a voice near her ear telling her to lean on him.

  So she did.

  ****

  When Mike Amblin learned Jessup Sadler’s missing car had been located in the parking lot of an all-night gas station, he took off to the site, leaving Duroy with Harmon. Because of the rain, the possibility that they might find evidence anywhere outside the vehicle was unlikely, but they could get lucky and find something inside.

  There were already two patrol cars on the scene when he pulled into the station. A large area around the vehicle had been blocked off with crime scene tape. A couple of uniformed officers were walking the area searching for evidence while another was directing traffic. As usual, everyone wanted to see what was going on. Even though he doubted this was the actual scene of the crime, they had to go through the motions.

  He parked and got out, flashing his badge as he approached.

  “What do we know so far?”

  The officer recognized Mike and began relaying information.

  “The car is locked but here’s a weird one. The keys are still in the ignition. A passing patrol car spotted it. The clerk’s name is Roy Parnell. He said it was there when he came to work at 6:00 a.m.”

  “Have you found any bullet casings or anything that would lead us to believe this was where the shooting occurred?”

  “No, and honestly, even if there had been anything here, it wouldn’t have lasted long. Look at the slope. The run-off is going straight into the gutters and then into the city sewers.”

  “What about security cameras?”

  The officer pointed to the corner of the building. “There are cameras. Don’t know if they’re operational or not. There’s a wrecker on the way to tow the car to the crime lab.”

  “Thanks,” Mike said, and headed into the station to talk to the clerk.

  The door chim
ed as he entered. He scanned the store for the clerk, spotting him behind the counter. Mike flashed his badge again.

  “I’m Detective Amblin with the Caulfield police department.”

  “Roy Parnell,” the clerk said, eyeing the water making a puddle around the big cop’s feet.

  “Nice to meet you, Roy. You got a minute?”

  “Yeah sure, anything I can do to help. Is this about the man who was murdered? The one they pulled out of the Little Man this morning? I heard it on the news.”

  “Yes. That car belongs to him. I understand you didn’t come to work until 6:00 a.m. this morning. Was the car already there?”

  Roy nodded.

  Mike pulled out the DMV photo of Jessup Sadler.

  “Have you ever seen this man before?”

  Roy took the photo and studied it for a few moments before handing it back.

  “I don’t know him. If he’s been here before I don’t remember him. We get a lot of customers through a day and the majority of them are regulars, but he’s not one of them.”

  “Who was on duty last night?”

  “Two different men, depending on your timeline. Hank McGowan worked until ten p.m. Then Billy Joe Fossey came on at 10:00 and worked until I came on at 6:00 a.m.”

  “I’ll need phone numbers for both of them.”

  The clerk scanned his cell phone, then read them off as Mike made note of them in his notebook.

  “Do your security cameras work?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, but even on a good night the images are shitty. I can’t imagine what they’ll show what with this damned rain and all.”

  That wasn’t what Mike wanted to hear. “I still need the tapes.”

  “Be right back,” Roy said, and went into a back room.

  The wrecker arrived as Mike waited. He watched them winching Sadler’s car onto the flatbed and thought of Poppy Sadler again. They’d found her car. She would be happy about that. At few moments later, the clerk was back.