Bone Maker: Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 1

by D. F. Bailey

  A moment later she heard someone walking along the basement hallway toward her office. A shudder rolled through when she imagined it might be Gruman himself. A tap at the door, and Biff Winslow poked his head through the opening.

  “You still here?”

  She shrugged and examined the deputy sheriff. An old friend of Gruman’s, she’d never felt she could trust him. The two of them, and many others around town, played the old-boy network like a team sport. The only thing they needed was matching baseball caps. Besides, she simply didn’t like the look of Winslow: a bag of soggy meat and bones and a look in his eyes that detected conspiracy everywhere.

  “Why would I leave?” she said. “Today just gets weirder with every passing hour.”

  Winslow pasted a smile on his face and pulled at the chin hairs of his goatee. “Brace yourself, I think it’s about to get weirder.”

  “Why’s that?” Jennie tipped her head toward the empty chair.

  Winslow sat down and set a photograph on her desk. “Do you recognize that?”

  She took the photo in her hand. “It’s a fish trap of some kind. A shrimp trap?”

  Winslow studied her. He knew she was bright enough — a doctor, after all — but could he trust her? “It’s a prawn trap, same thing really. The one pulled onto the Osprey Nest with Donnel Smeardon last night.”

  “Right. I remember it now. This picture was taken on the deck of the boat by the forensic photographer.”

  Winslow nodded. “And what else do you see there?”

  Jennie narrowed her eyes. Why did she have to answer all these questions? She set the photograph back on the desk. “Biff, is there something you want to tell me about the prawn trap?”

  He nodded his head and thought a moment. He wanted her to see what lay before her eyes. That way, he wouldn’t bear any responsibility. He leaned forward. “I could lose my job for this. Or worse.”

  Jennie leaned back in her chair. She’d never seen so much group paranoia. “Look, I’ve been working here for almost a year now and it’s taken me that long to realize that every third person speaks in code. Or some kind of special dialect designed to skirt around the county gestapo. Now please, tell me. What is going on?”

  He nodded. At least she got it. “I need to know I can trust you.”

  She smiled. “That’s funny, you know, because I don’t know that I can trust you.”

  He lowered his eyes and looked at his hands. It would be easier to leave the room right now and forget about this entire conversation. And safer. He decided to plunge ahead.

  “All right. Look at the discoloration in this picture.” He pointed to a yellow badge attached to the trap frame.

  Jennie took a close look, then held a small magnifying glass over the image. “It looks like a brand tag of some kind. Maybe a manufacturer’s label.”

  “No. It’s an owner’s tag.” The deputy’s face began to relax. He was halfway into this now and he felt better about confiding in the doctor. “To get a license, every prawner is required to identify his traps.”

  “Really?” Jenny took a closer look at the image. “But can you make out someone’s name on this?”

  “No. But you can on this picture.” He set a second photograph on her desk, a close-up of the brass ownership tag.

  She looked at the image and turned her eyes to Winslow. “Mark Gruman,” she whispered.

  He nodded his head, a series of almost invisible motions, up and down.

  “And this trap was tied to Donnel Smeardon’s hand when he died. Am I right?”

  Winslow sat in silence. He ran a hand over his face and pulled at the end of his goatee again.

  “Biff, for god’s sake, tell me if Sheriff Gruman’s prawn trap was tied to Donnel Smeardon’s wrist!”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “It was.”

  Her heart jumped a beat and she paused to study him a moment. “Let me ask you a personal question. Why are you bringing all this to me? I thought you and Gruman were like this.” She held up her hand, index and middle fingers pressed together.

  “We go back, all right,” the deputy said. “And Mark was a hero in the first Gulf war. Hell, that’s why everyone votes for him. But this” — he shook his head and stared at the photographs — “this stretches beyond friendship. No matter how far back you go.” His voice dropped a tone. “I think Mark killed that boy.”

  Jennie sighed and glanced away. “Jesus.”

  “I know,” he said. “We have a serious problem on our hands.”

  ※

  When they heard more footsteps coming toward them along the hallway Jennie and Winslow cut their conversation. Once again Jennie thought it might be Gruman but then the steps hesitated, turned, walked away, then turned again. She glanced at Winslow and mouthed a question: Do you know who it is?

  He shrugged, no.

  Jennie’s heart began to race. She slid the two photographs into a file folder and tucked them inside a desk drawer. With luck, Gruman would never know she’d seen the incriminating images.

  “Dr. Lee?” A voice called softly from the corridor. “Is there a Dr. Lee down here?”

  With a glance to the deputy she let out a sigh of relief.

  “In here.” Jennie rose from her chair and walked to the door. “You must be Ben Argyle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on in.” She led him into her office and pointed to her chair. When she saw the pallor of his face, the way the boy’s head ticked nervously from side to side as he examined the office, she wanted to comfort him. “Take a seat, Ben,” she said with a smile.

  When he sat down she introduced him to Winslow and looked down at the boy.

  “We’ve met,” the deputy said. “Good to see you, Ben.”

  “Will Finch called to tell me you’d be coming by. Apparently you have something I’m to keep under lock and key.” She smiled again.

  Ben glanced at Winslow. A look of doubt crossed his face.

  “It’s okay,” Jennie said in a reassuring tone. “We can all trust one another here, can’t we, Mr. Winslow?”

  “Yes,” he said. Winslow realized he was in it with both feet now. Playing for the other team was his only hope for survival. “Yes, absolutely. Trust is all we have.”

  Jennie glanced from Biff to Ben. “Mr. Finch said you have a recording that I should listen to. Is that right?”

  Ben nodded, hesitated a moment and then drew the iPhone from his pocket. He pulled it from the plastic baggie, set it on the table, turned it on and touched the audio file. “The file’s sketchy in a few places, but you can still hear most of it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Will Finch drove the Ford Tempo up the rutted gravel track toward Bob Wriggly’s house. The mist had turned to a steady, thin rain and he was surprised to see Wriggly outside, working on a gatepost at the edge of his property. Finch pulled over and lowered his window.

  “You must be getting pretty wet out here,” he said and glanced at the shed housing Toeplitz’s car. “Is the Mercedes still in the shop?”

  “Liquid sunshine,” Wriggly said and smiled. He set his tools aside and ambled toward the Ford Tempo. A narrow rivulet of rainwater slipped from the peak of his ball cap. “What brings you up this way?”

  “I thought I’d pay a visit to the sheriff. He’s up the hill, right?” Finch pointed along the gravel track.

  Bob Wriggly frowned and brushed a hand over his face. “It’s the only place up there. A hand-made geodesic dome set back a hundred yards from the edge of the road. Nobody knows where he came up with the idea. Leaks like a perforated tin can, too.” He smiled, a look of amusement. “What’s cooking up there?”

  Finch took in the old man’s congeniality. If he managed to live into his sixties Finch hoped that he might develop something resembling Wriggly’s attitude. “I just thought the sheriff might help me tie up a few loose ends on the story before I head back to San Francisco.” He crooked a thumb to Wriggly’s workshop. “Speaking of which, what’s become of Toe
plitz’s car?”

  Wriggly shrugged. “Not a word from anyone since you were here. Still sits in its cage like a glorious black raven,” he said and smiled.

  Finch shook his head and glanced up the hill. Obviously Jennie had either done nothing to press for a criminal investigation of Toeplitz’s murder — or she’d tried and failed. Otherwise the Mercedes would be impounded by now.

  “If that changes, be sure to call or email me, would you?”

  “You bet,” he said. “I’ve got your card.”

  Finch smiled at him. “You’re a good man, Bob. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s my home-made granola, I guess.” He laughed and showed his discolored teeth.

  “Send me the recipe, would you?” Finch laughed and drove on to the top of the hill.

  ※

  After they listened to the recording, Jennie clicked off the iPhone and pushed it toward Deputy Winslow with her gloved hand.

  “Mr. Finch was smart to advise you to bring this in,” she said to Ben, then glanced at the deputy for confirmation.

  “She’s right. I know this has been hard on you, but you’ve done everything required by the law. And common decency,” Winslow added. “I’ll keep the phone locked in the evidence room. If there’s nothing else you want to add, then I need to speak to Dr. Lee in private.”

  Ben nodded, and as if he needed another moment to digest the deputy’s meaning, he paused and then rose from the chair.

  “One more thing.” Jennie held a hand in the air. “This took a lot of guts on your part. But look, if Sheriff Gruman wants to talk to you or see you, I want you to say no. Then I want you to call Deputy Winslow here, or me. Do not meet with him and do not speak to him. Do you understand me?”

  She gave him her card and he nodded as he gazed at the embossed lettering on the card.

  “All right. Now do you need a drive back home?” She glanced at Winslow, a gesture that assigned the task to him.

  “No, I’ve got my bike.”

  “Okay, then I want you to call me when you get there. How long does it take to pedal home?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “All right,” Winslow smiled with a stern look that carried a hint of affection. “If you haven’t called Dr. Lee within fifteen minutes, I’m gonna come and find you. Got that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Thanks, Ben.” Jennie led him down the basement corridor and watched a moment to ensure he closed the door. Then she locked it.

  When she returned to her office, Biff Winslow stood at the wall, his fists bunched on his hips as he studied a laminated poster that revealed a cut-away view of the human anatomy. “Too bad you don’t have a chart showing the details of the psychopathic mind,” he mused.

  “Yeah, I guess we could use that. Maybe it would tell us something about the real Mark Gruman. And about how many people he’s killed.”

  Winslow let out a laugh. “We could use a lot more than that,” he said and turned to face her. “With the iPhone recording, the slugs matched to the Glock, and the name plate on the prawn trap, all the physical evidence points to Gruman. We’re going to have to bring him in.”

  “In that case, better do it soon. Will Finch has just gone out to Gruman’s home to confront him.”

  “What?”

  She nodded and examined his eyes, saw the growing dread in his face.

  “I’m going to have to call in some help,” he said as if he felt an enormous weight pressing on his chest. “This is growing into one hell of a mess.”

  ※

  At first Mark Gruman felt a tinge of surprise when he spotted Will Finch drive up the gravel track to his home. For the past three years, after word had spread through the county that he’d installed surveillance monitors around his property, he rarely had any spontaneous visitors. Pop-ins, he used to call them. Finch might pop in unannounced, he mused, but who could say how he’d leave?

  He walked to a sectioned-off side of the dome he’d designed as his office space and unlocked the cabinet which he’d bolted to the wall. He studied the contents a moment and drew out the Smith & Wesson HP64 and ensured it was loaded. He moved back to the living room, opened the drawer in the coffee table, slid the pistol under a magazine and walked back to the surveillance monitor. He could see Finch ease out of his car, hunch his shoulders against the rain and make his way up the trail to the front door of the dome.

  He turned off the monitor and strolled into the living room, switched on the TV and clicked over to the Sports Channel. The Seattle Mariners versus the Toronto Blue Jays, bottom of the eighth, Jays leading seven to three. He decided the best approach to Finch would be to play a game of surprise me. Let Finch take the lead, say what he might, lay down his cards — and then gasp in shock at his little fantasy. Journalists. Fucking leeches.

  He didn’t answer the first knock, but after a brief pause Gruman padded silently to his front door and swung it open. He caught Finch glancing back at his car. The surprise now belonged to him.

  “Well, well. Look what the wind blew into my yard.”

  Finch turned and looked into the sheriff’s eyes. “So you are here.”

  “Oh I’m here, all right.” A weak smile fluttered on his lips. “And what drags you up to this end of the world?”

  Finch peered past Gruman into the house. He flicked his jacket collar and the rain fell along his neck. “May I come in?”

  “Depends on what you’re selling.”

  “I’m not selling anything. I’m giving you the chance to go on record about the murder of Raymond Toeplitz.”

  Gruman took a backward step and then leaned forward. “For the record,” he said as his voice hardened, “there was no murder of Raymond Toeplitz.”

  “That’s not what the evidence shows.” Will narrowed his eyes and locked them on Gruman. “Now can I come in to discuss this, or should I print the conversation you had with Donnel Smeardon and let the unedited transcript stand without your version of the facts?”

  Gruman nudged his jaw forward and set his teeth. What is he talking about?… Could it be?… Another moment passed before he made his decision. “All right. Besides, I’m in no mood to watch the Mariners lose to the fucking Jays.” He swung a hand into the room and closed the door behind Finch.

  Will took a few steps into the dome and examined the room. Gruman had patched together a geodesic dome based on the models of Buckminster Fuller. Some sections were made of glass and provided views into the front yard, others looked onto the forest that stood a few feet behind the farthest wall. The curving walls appeared to be constructed from scrap wood panels and fiberboard, and then filled with rough, unpainted plaster. The round ceiling was a patch-work too, and he could see five or six areas discolored by dampness. A mismatched collection of furniture divided the living space into two areas: a living room, where the TV flashed a replay of another run by the Toronto Blue Jays, and a kitchen that included a small table, refrigerator, electric stove and sink. Three free-standing walls, which stopped a good six feet below the cavernous ceiling, marked off areas that Finch assumed were a bedroom, bathroom and another room whose purpose eluded him. Finch could smell mold festering somewhere under the rot. If anything, Bob Wriggly had underestimated the water damage soaked up by the house over the past few years.

  Gruman clicked off the TV, sat next to the coffee table and leaned over the magazine in the open drawer. He pointed to the chair facing the kitchen. As Finch settled into the chair, Gruman tapped his protruding lips with his index finger. Whatever “evidence” Finch had would have to be neutralized, he thought. There’d be a way to do it, there always was, but he had to let Finch show his hand before he could devise a plan.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” he announced, “then I’m going to turn my attention back to the game.” Then, thinking he should offer a distraction, he added, “By the way, can I get you a beer?”

  “Not drinking right now.” Finch decided to skip any niceties. He would simply put his phone
on the coffee table, hit the play button and observe Gruman’s reaction to the Smeardon recording. As he reached into his courier bag he felt a vibration. An in-coming text.

  “Really? Now that’s interesting, Finch.” He paused and lit a cigarette. “Something we have in common. I like to keep a beer on hand for company like yourself, but personally, I haven’t had a drop since the Gulf war. Well over twenty years. How ‘bout you? You ever done any service?” He exhaled a column of smoke, certain that Finch would never have survived boot camp.

  “Four years in Baghdad,” he said and angled his head to catch Gruman’s reaction. “Gulf II.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows arched upward. “What capacity?”

  “Public Affairs,” he lied.

  Gruman leaned forward an inch. A smile crossed his lips. “Office boy, huh?”

  Finch glanced at his phone. A message from Jennie. He clicked on the message icon and studied the text: Gruman killed Smeardon. We have proof. He switched to the home screen and set the phone on the coffee table.

  Now he felt an anxious distraction. What could her message imply? He paused to re-focus. “I’m not here to talk about me, Mark. This is about you and Smeardon.” He leaned over and clicked on the audio file. Seconds later Smeardon’s voice began to rise from the phone:

  “The fuck are you doing?”

  “Careful, that’s a language violation, Smeardon…. But since you asked so nicely, I’m busting you.”

  As the audio file played out Finch watched Gruman’s face, waited for him to signal that he’d heard enough.

  But Gruman betrayed no emotion whatsoever, not a hint of surprise or anxiety. The moment he heard his voice rising over Smeardon’s near-illiterate rants he realized that a serious problem had to be eliminated. But how? He decided to wait until the recording came to an end, determine the extent to which he might be incriminated, and use the time to formulate a plan. He thought of the Smith & Wesson hidden under the magazine. He had the firepower, no doubt, but not the advantage of time. He knew he had to stall and somehow move Finch out of the house. The question of due legal process could well be on his side, too. He decided to play that gambit first, and see where it led. When the voice recording concluded he stubbed out his cigarette in one of the ashtrays scattered across the table and shifted his gaze back to Finch.