HIGHWAY HOMICIDE

by Bill WENHAM

  “There you go then, Dave, you just got yourself the Cooper’s Corners Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. And believe me, no one around here would dare argue with our Jude, not for one second,” Carl said with a grin.

  “I know we sure as hell wouldn’t,” Almost said in an exaggerated stage whisper.

  “I heard that, you cheeky monkey,” Judy told him, “I don’t know why I even bother to feed you guys.”

  “It’s because you love us so much,” Almost replied airily.

  Judy gave a faint smile. She knew Almost was making fun of her, but he’d hit the nail right on the head. She did love these guys. They were both more like sons to her than work associates, or bosses even. They were like the sons she and Mel had never had.

  She and Mel hadn’t been blessed with any children at all. Consequently, she reveled in her mother hen role, no matter how much she pretended to complain about it. These were her boys, her family, since Mel was now long gone, and it looked as though she’d just adopted another one.

  Judy piled more cheesecake on to all of their plates.

  “You’d have gotten more of that, Almost, if you hadn’t been such a smart ass.”

  Almost looked down at his practically overflowing plate and grinned at her.

  “You know something, Jude, if this is the worst punishment you can think of for me being cheeky to you, it’s never gonna stop happening. You know that, don’t you.”

  I sure as hell hope not, Judy said to herself with a secret smile, as she gave him a mock glare.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Right after his conversation with Errol Cook, Carl was feeling very pleased with himself. So pleased, in fact, he thought he’d take a run out to Lisa’s for a lunchtime hoagie.

  Thanks to Errol’s confession, he believed he’d now solved the oldest of the murders. He knew for sure that Errol was responsible and Carl was prepared to sit on it for as long as was necessary.

  Jack Finlay had now been dead for over five years. Whether Carl uncovered his murderer today or even a year from now, wouldn’t make one iota of difference. Putting Errol in jail for the last few weeks of his life wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to anyone either, except to Errol. All it would do would be to make the poor old bastard feel even worse than he did already.

  Carl knew Errol would be good to his word and would leave him a letter just as he’d promised. When Carl had taken away Errol’s driving license in exchange for not arresting him, Errol had complied with all the rules Carl had set. And never once in all those years had he violated Carl’s trust. Carl knew Errol wouldn’t let him down on this either. If Errol’s wife, Dolly, had also been dead for over five years, then there was no urgency to look into that either, was there?

  But something else was niggling away at the back of Carl’s mind since he’d talked to Errol.

  He knew now Errol had killed Finlay. That was now a fact, since Errol had confessed to it. He also felt sure, from what Errol had said, Dolly Cook was dead as well. At this point though, it was merely a supposition, not a fact.

  It would become a fact when Carl finally discovered the body. But Errol had insisted he hadn’t touched her. What was it he’d said? He’d worded it in a peculiar way. ‘Not while she was alive’, he’d said. That was it, wasn’t it?

  So, that told Carl a couple of things. First of all, since he’d quite freely admitted shooting Finlay, why wouldn’t he also admit to killing Dolly, if he’d done it. Because he hadn’t done it, that’s why. But when he’d said, ‘Not while she was alive’, he was admitting he’d seen her dead.

  Carl felt if Errol had known who was responsible for her death, he would’ve told him. Maybe it was something else that would be in Errol’s letter. The letter would tell Carl where she was, he knew that. And if she was dead, as Errol was suggesting, then he’d be telling Carl in the letter where she was buried. He would just have to wait a while to find out, that was all.

  As Carl sat at a booth in Lisa’s diner, he looked down at the paper napkin he’d been doodling on. He hadn’t even been aware he’d been doing it, but he’d drawn a series of interlocking triangles, like a necklace.

  Triangles? Carl thought. What would be the significance of triangles? A side road yield sign, maybe? No, that made no sense. But was his subconscious mind trying to trigger his brain into a particular line of thought, he wondered? Triangles? But why triangles, he thought in frustration?

  At that point, Rosetta arrived with his lunch.

  “Triangles, Carl?” she teased him. “I thought it was circles you guys always ran around in. That’s what Lisa says anyway.”

  Carl gave her an exasperated look.

  “Anyway, Carl, what happened to that nice looking guy you took away? Is he in jail?”

  “You mean Lisa’s pet felon with the cutest blue eyes? No, he’s free, Rosie. We let him go. You can tell Lisa she’s also free to get her claws into him if she’s a mind to,” he said.

  “I’ll do no such thing!” Rosetta retorted. “Good God, man, you’re so dumb, Carl Berger. She’s not interested in him! If you really want to know who turns her on, always has and always will, all you have to do is look in a mirror. But Mr. Blue Eyes now, I’d just love the chance to park my moccasins in his wigwam, I can tell you.”

  “Really, Rosie, I didn’t know that,” Carl said, “You’re a brazen little hussy, but he’ll be pleased to hear what you said. I’ll tell him when I get back.”

  Rosetta looked shocked.

  “You wouldn’t dare! Anyway, I was only joking. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Come on now. Rosie, sure you meant it. Who do you think you’re kidding? And I don’t blame you. For a suspected felon, he actually turned out to be a really nice guy.” Carl told her. “But don’t worry; your little secret is safe enough with me, so long as I don’t tell Almost. If I did, everyone in the whole County would know about it, wouldn’t they?”

  Rosetta was blushing furiously. “Thanks, Carl,” she said, “Enjoy your hoagie. I’ll bring coffee over for you in a minute.”

  “Thank you too, Rosie, and speaking of bringing things, I’ll make sure I bring Ol’ Blue Eyes in with me next time I’m in. I know you say you’re not interested, but he tells me he plans to stay in Cooper’s Corners now. He’s lodging with Judy at the moment,” Carl said with a grin, “But you didn’t need to know any of that either, did you?”

  Carl grinned as Rosetta flounced away, ponytail swinging and still blushing furiously.

  “Young love,” he thought, “How sweet it is.” As he thought, his gaze went down to the doodles on the napkin beside his hoagie plate.

  Love! Love triangles! It wasn’t just one person who’d been in love with Dolly Cook! It was two. Errol and somebody else. But who else? Dolly had never been leaving Errol for Jack Finlay, for Christ’s sake! She’d just said that to get him all riled up. She was leaving him for somebody else. But who?

  Carl wracked his brains throughout his meal, but with no success at all. Finally, in frustration, he paid his bill and drove back to the Sheriff’s office.

  When he got there, he went inside and plopped himself down heavily into his chair.

  “You okay, Carl” Judy asked.

  “Yeah, I’m alright, Jude, except the old brain isn’t worked too well today.”

  Judy was about to quip ‘only just today’ and had then thought better of it when Carl continued.

  “Something is nagging the hell out of me, but I just can’t think of it for the life of me,” he said.

  “Want to talk it out, Chief?” Judy asked.

  Carl gave a frustrated sigh.

  “Yeah, I guess so, Jude. It might just help. Right now it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Go for it, then, Carl. Where do you want to start?”

  “Not sure, Jude. That’s the trouble.”

  “So where were you this morning? I hardly heard from you at all.”

  “I just had a word or two with Errol Cook, that’s all,” he said.

&nbs
p; “Alright, then, so let’s start there,” she said.

  “Right. Here goes then.” He paused and thought for a moment. “How long have you known Errol, Jude?”

  “Gee, for years, I guess. You knew he was a good friend of Mel’s, didn’t you? That was before we were married actually. Before Errol was married too, come to that. Mel and I, together with Errol and Connie Bishop, would go to the dances as a foursome.”

  “Connie Bishop? What was Errol doing with Connie? I thought he was going out with Dolly.”

  “Oh, I’m going back a ways here, Carl. Before Errol and Dolly became an item, he was very sweet on Connie.”

  “And what was Dolly doing while all this was going on then?”

  “Well, Carl, she had, as we used to say in those days, set her cap at the new young doctor in town. He was young, but still a lot older than me or Dolly. We were very impressionable at that age.”

  “Young doctor? What young doctor was that?”

  “You may not believe this, Carl, we were all young once, even me.”

  “Did we have another doctor here at that time then? Before Doc Wayland?” Carl asked.

  “Carl, honey, you can be pretty dense sometimes. I’m talking about Doc Wayland. He was young and very handsome in those days. Still is, in my opinion.”

  But Carl was no longer listening. It all started to make sense now. A love triangle. Errol, Dolly and Doc! Why not. What was it Doc had said about jealousy and revenge being two of the prime motives for murder? Unfortunately for Carl, of all the things that Almost normally repeated word for word, he’d forgotten to tell him about Doc and Dolly dating.

  “Would you like a coffee, Chief? I’m just about to make one.” Judy asked.

  “No thanks, Jude, I’m off to see a Doc about a man,” he grinned.

  “Don’t you mean a man about a dog, Carl?” she said curiously.

  “No, you wonderful lady,” he said as he planted a kiss in the middle of her forehead. “I meant exactly what I said and I love you right now.” He grinned as he hugged her. “Gotta go, Jude. I’ve got important business to attend to, thanks to you.”

  “What in the world did I do?” she asked in astonishment.

  “I’ll tell you later,” he said as he dashed out of the office.

  He dropped by Doc’s office and found he’d gone over to Lisa’s for lunch. They must have even passed each other on the way but Carl had been too preoccupied to notice.

  He walked back into Lisa’s and waved to her. Rosetta was trying to look around him. “Next time, Rosie, I promise,” he said as he passed her.

  “Coffee, Carl?” she called after him as he headed over to where Doc was sitting. Doc nodded as he slid into the booth opposite him.

  Without any preamble, Carl said.

  “You know we’ve identified the skeleton as Jack Finlay, don’t you, Doc?”

  Doc looked up from his meal at him.

  “Well, and hello to you too, Sheriff. What’s gotten your shorts all in a knot today, Carl?”

  “Tell me what you know about Finlay and Dolly Cook, Doc. Please, Doc, its important.” Carl said. “What actually happened? Tell me, please.”

  Doc nodded and put his fork down.

  “It’s a good job I’m finished with this because what I have to tell you may take a bit of time,” he said.

  Before he could say any more Rosetta came over with Carl’s coffee and also refilled Doc’s. She saw the looks on the two men’s faces and quickly went away again. Usually they were joking with each other, but not today it seemed.

  Doc breathed out loudly.

  “Okay, Carl,” he said. “First of all, you know what the local gossip had to say about all of it, don’t you?”

  Carl just nodded.

  “Well, none of it was true. Jack Finlay wasn’t involved, never had been. Not with Dolly anyway. Dolly was planning to go away with her ‘fancy man’, Carl, but the fancy man wasn’t Finlay. It was me!”

  “You!” Carl gasped, feigning surprise, although that was what he’d expected Doc to tell him. “You’re pulling my leg, Doc, surely.”

  “I wish I was, but its true. At the time, Dolly and I had been having an affair for over a year. Quite easy actually, Carl, for a doctor with private offices. Half my patients come to me with imaginary illnesses anyway. Dolly needed to be comforted and I was there to comfort her.”

  “So you were having an affair. Then what happened,” Carl asked.

  “Dolly and her fancy man, me, were planning to go away together. That part of the gossip was true enough but they had the wrong man and the wrong place. We were planning to go to Maine, not California. I have a place up there. I was going to sell the practice and then Dolly and I would move there.” He smiled and added, “Two old farts living in sin, Carl, but what the hell, anyway. I don’t know where they got California from, but where do they get any of their gossip from?”

  Doc paused for a moment.

  “And?” Carl prompted him.

  “She changed her mind, Carl.”

  “She decided to stay with Errol then, did she?”

  “Yes.” Doc said simply.

  “And then what did you do?”

  “She called me and asked me to meet her outside her place. She didn’t say why, but she sounded very distraught.” Doc said and paused again.

  “Go on, Doc,” Carl urged him.

  “When I got there, I parked down the street a little way. As I walked towards her house I could see her out in the garden waiting for me. I went to meet her. I wasn’t concerned about being seen. There would be nothing strange about a lady having a casual word with her doctor, would there? But as I approached, she called out for me to stop and I did. I must have been about seven or eight feet away from her. She said she had something to tell me but she didn’t want me to touch her.”

  Carl watched the tears roll down the old man’s cheeks as he continued.

  “She told me she had changed her mind and she was going to stay with Errol and try to make it work. She was sorry, she said.” Doc wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “She was sorry, Carl, but I was absolutely devastated. I’d finally got her back after all these years, only to lose her again.”

  He looked over at Carl with tear filled eyes that were begging forgiveness.

  “I stepped forward, hoping to make her change her mind. Thinking I was angry, she stepped forward as well. She had her arms held out to ward me off. We were so engrossed in what was happening that neither of us noticed the upturned garden rake lying in the grass between us. It was dark in the garden, you see, Carl. Anyway, she stepped on it and it came up and hit her in the face. I don’t think it hit her that hard but it was enough to knock her off balance. She fell over backwards and hit her head on the stone garden edging. I hadn’t even touched her, Carl. I swear it.”

  “It’s alright, Doc, go on,” Carl said quietly, not wanting to stop the flow of words.

  “I rushed forward and knelt down beside her and felt for a pulse. I couldn’t find one at all. It looked to me as though striking her head on the stone had killed her instantly.”

  “And then what did you do? What did you do with her? Where did you put her?” Carl asked insistently.

  “I didn’t put her anywhere, Carl. But as I stood back up I saw Jack Finlay looking over the fence at me. He’d obviously just been passing and had seen what happened. And since I was the doctor, he’d just shrugged and moved on. I suppose he expected me to deal with it.”

  “What was he doing there then?” Carl asked.

  “I have no idea. As I said, I guessed he was just passing for some reason. But, Carl, that was when I did the most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I just left her lying there. There was nothing I could do for her now. She was dead. I expected to be called out in the morning by you guys, to the scene of a fatal accident, as I always am. And it was an accident, Carl. I never touched her, except to check for a pulse.”

  “But the gossip said she’d gone away with F
inlay, Doc. Why didn’t you correct the story?”

  “Because there was never any body, was there? And I thought I’d been terribly mistaken. That she had only been stunned and not dead at all. I wondered if she’d gone away, but on her own, because she hadn’t gone back to Errol obviously.”

  “And then Finlay went missing as well, Doc. Didn’t that make you just a little bit curious?”

  “Curious, yes. Carl. Curious enough to go looking into it, no. You have to remember I was hurting pretty bad. Dolly had just told me once again that she didn’t want me.”

  Carl had noticed Doc had referred twice to the fact he and Dolly had been together, which confirmed what Jude had told him.

  “I just wasn’t sure what the truth was and frankly, I didn’t want to know either. She was gone, one way or another and that was the end of it, as far as I was concerned. But I repeat, Carl, and I’ll swear on a stack of bibles that I never touched her and I certainly didn’t kill her either. Even if she is dead, and since I have no proof of that, I have no idea where she is now.”

  “Well, Doc, I can tell you this much. According to my sources, Dolly is definitely dead and has been for some time, I believe. Possibly since that night. I am truly sorry for you. But I wont know where she is for some time though. When I know, I’ll let you know,”

  Doc nodded sadly.

  “One more thing, Carl, am I in trouble with the law for what I’ve told you today?”

  Carl looked thoughtful.

  “Don’t think so, Doc. I don’t think there’s a law about walking away from a dead body. Especially since no one turned up dead. Maybe, if I ever get around to it, I’ll have to look it up sometime. In the meantime, don’t you lose any sleep over it, okay?”

  He reached over and shook the old doctor’s hand.

  “Gotta go, now, Doc. You take good care of yourself now.”

  As he got up to leave, Carl said, “There’s just one more thing I’d like to ask you.”

  Doc gave him a startled look until Carl added, “Its alright, this isn’t about you or Errol, Doc. It’s about Dave. I was wondering what would cause him to lose his memory like he did. It sure gave him a whole lot of grief.”