Out for Blond

by V. J. Chambers

  “So, you asked her to come and visit?”

  “Well, not exactly. The moment that I knew about the child, I began to ask her for time with my son. But at first she wasn’t interested in communicating with me. It was only recently that she changed her mind, and she came back to the farm to talk things out.”

  “How was that going?”

  “What?”

  “Talking things out?”

  “It was going quite well.” He smiled another of his dazzling smiles. “As you can see, it would have been ludicrous for me to have killed her. I was finally getting what I wanted from her. She and I were on better terms than we’d ever been on.”

  “Was there a time you were on bad terms?”

  “I don’t know if you’d call it ‘bad’ necessarily, but when she left Clayton, she didn’t speak to me—or to any of us—for nearly six years. I certainly didn’t hold any grudges toward her, nor did I harbor her any ill will during that time, but, well, not speaking doesn’t exactly constitute good terms.”

  Right. Gunner spoke well. He had an air about him that inspired confidence, and I could see why people like Laura thought he was so great. But I wasn’t necessarily convinced. He was just a guy, nothing special. I’d been worried about being charmed by this man, but I shouldn’t have sold myself short. I could handle myself against him. He wasn’t pulling the wool over my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bray,” I said, “but I don’t think it’s ludicrous at all. Considering your relationship with Tess Carver, you’re actually a very good suspect for this case. If it were my case, I’d be looking at you.”

  “Please call me Gunner,” he said. “And I appreciate that you’re looking at every angle of the case. The truth is, I’m not guilty. I would never have hurt Tess. I would never hurt anyone. That’s not the kind of person I am. I believe in love. I believe love is the answer to the question that most of us don’t even realize we’re asking. And there’s nothing in what happened to Tess that speaks of love. It’s not what I’m about. It’s… obscene.” He looked away, casting his eyes down sorrowfully. The gesture seemed genuine, but I couldn’t be sure. He could simply be a very good actor. Still… I didn’t think so. He raised his gaze. “I think that as you examine all the facts, you’ll realize that I couldn’t possibly be the killer, and I’ll rely on your good investigative skills to bear that out.”

  Oh, he was smooth, all right.

  I smiled. “Thank you, Gunner. I’ll do my best. You realize, however, that if I come to a different conclusion—if I do think that you did it—I won’t continue mucking around, trying to build a false case against someone else just to free you? I’m not that kind of detective.”

  “I wouldn’t have agreed to see you if I thought that you were.”

  I looked down at my notes. “Well, what about your son? Where is he now? Is he residing on Clayton Farm?” If Gunner now had the child, it was a possible motive. Maybe Tess hadn’t been forthcoming with the visitation time, and Gunner had decided to kill her so that he could have his son full time.

  “No, I believe he’s with Tess’s parents. He did come to visit a few times, but Tess didn’t think it was appropriate for him to be living on the farm. In fact, she was fairly adamant that she didn’t want him spending time overnight there.”

  “Oh?” I said. “Why not?”

  Gunner sighed. “You know, life on the farm isn’t for everyone, and it turned out that it wasn’t for Tess. I respect that, and I think most of the members of the Clayton Society accept that. After all, it’s not as if there’s enough room on the farm for the entire world to live there. So, it must be a limited sort of lifestyle. But there are those among us who…” He sucked in a breath.

  “Yes?” I said. He was uncomfortable. I wanted to push at this.

  “Who take a bit of a dim view of outsiders, I suppose. They feel as if the life we live is superior to those in the rest of the world, and they… Well, Tess had expressed some concern about our son being confused. She didn’t want him to be taught that her lifestyle was wrong or inferior. I was completely in agreement with this, but she pointed out that I’m a busy man, and if our son were to be spending the night on the farm, he might not be under my watchful eye every second. Some of the more… intense members of the community might be exposed to him.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Me?” He sighed again. “Well, it was disappointing, but I understood her point. Mostly I just wanted to have some part of my son’s life. I didn’t want to be completely cut out of it. But I do have a lot of children, and I’m not always able to take an active role in their upbringing, so I understood why Tess might want to limit the visits.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You understood? You weren’t angry?”

  “I promise you, I wasn’t.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  He furrowed his brow. “Maybe sixteen.”

  I was stunned. “Sixteen?”

  “I’m not accustomed to counting them, honestly.” He looked away again, his face flushing. He was embarrassed?

  Interesting. “That’s a lot of children.”

  “Many of them are… grown now,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “I suppose when I was younger, I had a bit of a…” He took another deep breath, seeming to compose himself. He met my gaze again. “I love all of my children. I’m aware, however, that having so many different children with so many different women is so far outside of the norm that it makes people in society feel uneasy about me.”

  “It’s not something you’re proud of,” I said.

  He smiled again, but this time, he looked a little chagrined. “I suppose that, yes, even after so many years away from society, I’m not entirely free of its constraints. When I admit to an outsider what kind of lifestyle I’ve lived, I feel a little, uh, uncomfortable. I suppose I’m afraid of judgment, just like any human being would be.”

  “Well,” I said. “We’re all judging each other. People judge me too.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  I cleared my throat. “So, what you’re saying is you have so many children, you didn’t much worry about not having one more with you all the time.”

  “Now, that’s not what I’m saying at all.”

  “No?”

  “What I’m saying is that I’ve been through this before. I’ve had strained relationships with other women who were mothers to my children, and I’ve learned that it’s better to work with the woman in question than to push. Because pushing often means you get nothing.”

  “Or maybe,” I said, “it’s better to kill the mother and then you get everything.”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t kill Tess. And, honestly, if that were my motive, why this little boy? I’ve never met him. I’ve had closer relationships with other children who were taken away from me, and I’ve never even threatened violence against those mothers. It seems strange that I would start now, doesn’t it?”

  While I wasn’t sold on his story, not completely, I did have to admit that I was inclined to believe him. Not because he spoke well, and not because he had a dazzling smile. But because I tended to agree with him that, as a motive, it didn’t make much sense, especially if he didn’t even have the child anymore.

  I cocked my head. “All right, Gunner. We’ll start with what you’ve told me. I appreciate your candor.”

  He smiled again. “I’m an open book. Anything you want to know.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  After I finished my meeting with Gunner, I also wanted to visit the four Clayton Society members who’d turned themselves in for this crime. That spoke to a certain kind of loyalty that didn’t seem normal. It actually made Gunner look more guilty. It made him appear to be a lunatic cult leader who could indeed order his followers to do crazy things for his benefit. Unless, of course, they were telling the truth, and they really had done it.

  Ideally, I would have loved to get all four of the loony loyalists in the same room, but that was
n’t possible, so I met with them individually. I was already in the men’s section of the jail, so I met with Quinton Sampson first. He was a smiling blond man with a thick yellow beard and long hair, pulled into a ponytail like Gunner’s had been. He looked like one of the Beach Boys in the late sixties. Like, if I squinted, I could see a nice, clean cut boy behind all that hair.

  But I suppose I shouldn’t say boy. He was younger than Gunner, but he wasn’t a kid. He had to be in his late twenties at the youngest.

  “So,” I said by way of greeting. “You killed Tess Carver?”

  “That’s right,” he said, grinning. “Me, Kellen, Farrah, and Odette. We killed her.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “We were setting free her soul,” said Quinton, still smiling. “It’s an ancient Ocapotactu ritual. Really, we were honoring her. She was a sacrifice to the Great Spirit for the protection of our tribe.”

  I tried not to make a face. That was basically the most fucked up thing I’d ever heard. “Ocapotactu?”

  “The Indians,” he said. “We can’t be sure, but we think that the farm was built on their old stomping grounds. They were so much more connected to the land and to the sky and to nature.”

  “And to human sacrifice,” I said. And this time I couldn’t stop from making a face.

  “We really look at it as something ancient and spiritual,” said Quinton, who was beginning to resemble one of those creepy kids from Village of the Damned—all grown up and minus the glowy eyes.

  “And illegal,” I said, my sarcasm meter going off the charts.

  Quinton just grinned at me like an idiot.

  I went to see Kellen McFarland next. But if Quinton had been creepy, Kellen was worse. He was tall, with dark hair, sallow skin, and sunken eyeballs. His teeth were too big for his mouth. He attempted a smile when I saw him, but it was horrid—like something from a Tim Burton movie. He didn’t smile again, and I was glad of it.

  “Did Gunner Bray order you to kill Tess Carver?” I said, getting right down to business.

  “Of course not,” said Kellen. He had a soft voice, almost soothing. It was kind of creepy too. He didn’t seem the least bit thrown by my question, almost as if he’d been expecting it.

  “Did you kill Tess Carver?” I said.

  “We did,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “To free her soul.” He deadpanned that.

  I swallowed. “That’s it. The four of you got together and decided to enact some Indian human sacrifice for shits and giggles?”

  “There have been threats,” said Kellen.

  “Threats?”

  “There are people outside the community who seek to threaten it, to extinguish our light. We needed help. The sacrifice would help that.”

  What? “How would killing someone help?”

  “We consecrated her to the Great Spirit to secure the Great Spirit’s favor.”

  Eew. Was this guy for real?

  I went to see the ladies next. Farrah Zamora was waif thin. When she spoke, her voice was breathy and insubstantial. She looked like a leaf might blow her over.

  She spouted the same stuff to me about the Great Spirit, about protecting the community. “We only wanted the blessing of the Great Spirit,” she breathed. “And Tess wasn’t harmed. Her soul is free now, you see. So, it really wasn’t a crime. It was religious freedom.”

  “You don’t have religious freedom to kill people,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “So, why Tess Carver?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why’d you sacrifice her in particular?”

  “No reason,” said Farrah.

  “So, it could have been anybody? You could have picked anyone off the street to kill in this bizarre ritual?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And why you guys? Why did the four of you get together and decide to do this?”

  “We just did,” said Farrah. “It didn’t have anything to do with Gunner, you know. He had no idea we were doing this.”

  “Right,” I said. Interesting that she’d volunteered that right away. “What’s your relationship with Gunner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sleep with him?”

  “No.” She bit down on her lip. “It’s not like that. I don’t sleep with any of the men at Clayton. I’ve chosen to be celibate.”

  “Would you do anything for Gunner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you die for him?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be on his side.” She glared at me.

  The last of the Clayton Society members who’d confessed to the murder was Odette Spence. She was closer to Gunner’s age, probably late thirties. She had freckled skin, and a wild tangle of red hair. “You’re going to ask me if I’m sleeping with Gunner, right?” she said. Her voice was gravelly, as if she’d smoked too many cigarettes. “Well, the thing is, it’s not about that.”

  “You celibate, like Farrah?”

  Odette snorted. “What? Did Farrah say that?”

  “Yup. Isn’t it true?”

  Odette just shook her head. “You know what? Whatever Farrah says. She’d know better than me.”

  “So, were you sleeping with Gunner?”

  “Well, you’re an investigator, right, so you’ll probably investigate and find out that once upon a time, I did sleep with Gunner. Years ago. One of my kids is even his. But that doesn’t mean anything, you know. If you spend any time on the farm, you quickly realize that unless you declare yourself part of a couple, there’s no loyalty attached to having sex. It’s not that kind of place.”

  I squinted at her. Of all of them, she seemed the most on the level. “Tell me the truth, Odette. Did you kill Tess Carver?”

  “I helped,” she said. “There were four of us, and I helped. We all did it.”

  “Would you say you’re devoted to Gunner Bray?”

  She just laughed. “I’m devoted to the farm, okay? Gunner’s not anything special there. We’re all equals. That’s the whole point of the Clayton Society.”

  “Why’d you kill Tess?”

  “To free her spirit.”

  “You guys really practiced, didn’t you?”

  “Why don’t you believe us?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, and then hesitated.

  She jumped on the pause. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because you want to believe that Gunner is some kind of crazy cult leader. Charles Manson you can deal with. But the idea that releasing someone’s soul to the ether could actually be beneficial both to the individual and to the people who supposedly murdered her… well, that just blows your tiny mind, doesn’t it?”

  Okay.

  So, about her being on the level?

  Yeah, never mind.

  * * *

  “Jesus,” said Brigit. “This is like twenty people.”

  “All I need you to do is pull their bank statements,” I said. “I showed you how to do it. It’s easy.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think it’s legal,” said Brigit. “I mean this program you’re having me use—”

  “I got it from Eden,” I said. Eden Foxcroft was my computer friend. She helped me to access things that I couldn’t access easily. If I needed her to find a way, she would. Eden usually left the worry about whether a thing were legal or not up to me. I wished Brigit would do the same.

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” said Brigit.

  “Oh, come on. You like Eden. The two of you always make jokes at my expense.”

  “What if the bank traces this back to me?”

  “They won’t. You’re just pulling statements. You’re not hurting these people. You’re not messing with their money in any way. It’s no big deal.”

  Brigit ran her finger down the list. “Why so many? What is this even about?”

  “You know what?” I snatched the list back from her. “I’ll just do this myself. I mean, I’m paying you to be my assistant, an
d to do assistant-type jobs, but if you’re going to make a big deal about—”

  She yanked it back. “Don’t be silly. I’ll do it. I just want to know what it’s all about, that’s all. Does this have something to do with the Gunner Bray case?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Are you working on something besides that? Because if you are, you haven’t told me about it, and I need to know how many hours you’re putting in for billing. You are still working on an hourly rate, aren’t you? You didn’t just up and change that?”

  “Let’s say I’m looking into this for my own curiosity, okay?” I said. I wasn’t about to tell her that the list of people were all of the police who’d had access to the evidence locker, and that I wanted their bank statements to look for suspicious amounts of money, possibly dumped in by the O’Shaunessys. No, I was going to keep that information to myself for as long as I possibly could.

  “What? You want me to do this, and we’re not even getting paid for it?”

  “You get paid a salary,” I said. “I pay you the same amount no matter what, don’t I?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “No, I don’t. I’m the one who should be worrying about whether or not I decide to look into something that I’m not getting paid for. I’m the detective.”

  “And that’s exactly why you drive me crazy, Ivy.” She glowered at me. “You won’t let me in. You act like I’m just some dumb girl you hired, and you don’t acknowledge how much I help you around here.”

  “Brigit,” I said. “I appreciate everything you do. I really appreciate it. You’re the best assistant I ever had. But you complain way too much. Now, can you just do as you’re told for once?”

  “I only want to know why—”

  “Don’t worry about why,” I said. “Let me worry about that.”

  She pursed her lips. “I’m going to figure this out, Ivy. You can’t keep this from me forever.”

  * * *

  Clayton Farm was located on the outskirts of Renmawr. A long time ago, all of the surrounding areas near Renmawr had all been farm land, but that had seriously declined over the years, and now there weren’t many farms close by. The land outside of town had all been eaten up by strip malls and housing developments. Where cows had once grazed, people parked their shiny new BMWs and wandered into Target.