The Pact: A Detective Locklear Mystery
Page 15
“So, you’re a racist and a bigot but yet you were friends with a crook like Samuel Shank?”
Carter turned his face away from the company and spat into the empty fireplace.
“Don’t worry,” Locklear went on. “You’re in good company – my trooper here thinks I’m a misogynist and I’ve been told I’m an atheist who hates everyone including a god he doesn’t even believe in.” He glanced at Mendoza.
“I’m not like you – I love my son and my grandson and I love my God,” Carter answered. “I devoted my life to Lee and to my job. They were all I had in my life when his mother died.”
“Who beat you up?” Locklear repeated.
Carter moved his tongue around his mouth and tried to swallow more spit.
Locklear waited. Nothing.
“Did Lee tell you that it was the Shanks that tried to kill him?”
Carter looked away again.
Mendoza saw the sparkle of tears begin to well in his eyes. She moved forward and took the seat beside Locklear.
“What if they had killed him?” she said. “Would you stay silent then? When they’d taken what matters most in your life from you?”
Carter’s chin quivered slightly.
Locklear went in for the kill.
“By the state of your face, I’d say your friendship with the Shanks has recently come to an end. What did they want? To know what you knew about Anabel Schumer? Do you know she’s missing? I’d most likely say she’s dead, buried in some shallow grave off a highway.”
Carter’s composure wilted. Hot heavy tears welled in the man’s eyes.
“They said they just wanted to talk to her.”
“And you believed them?”
“Beth said she might have a job for her.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mendoza said.
Carter shot her a sharp glance. His tears dried instantly.
Locklear leant forward. “We have Lee locked up in an interview room at the station. Anabel’s father pegged him for the last person she talked to and the only person who knew exactly where in Minnesota she was going. If you don’t talk, Lee will be implicated in her disappearance.”
Carter lowered his gaze. Locklear could see the old police sergeant ruminate over his options. Save his son or himself. He was hoping Carter would choose the former.
“I want to talk to him.”
Locklear took the phone out of his pocket and dialled the station. He directed Ricci to put Lee on the phone. The call took about thirty seconds. Jeb Carter was ready to talk.
Chapter 17
Jo Mendoza placed two painkillers into water and handed them to the retired cop. He swallowed them quickly and wiped the drool that continued to drip from his mouth.
“Samuel Shank and I aren’t friends. Haven’t been for a long time.”
“But you were? Once upon a time?”
“My father was the vicar here and Samuel and he met regularly for inter-faith work in the community. My grandfather had also been the minister so my family and the Shanks go back a long way.”
“But you had a falling out?”
Carter shook his head and grimaced at the pain the movement caused him.
“Is this off the record? I don’t want Lee knowing anything about this.”
“Sure,” Mendoza replied before Locklear had a chance to refuse.
“We didn’t exactly have a falling out. We got along fine for most of my career. About fifteen years back I was working on a murder case. The perp was a drifter named Doyle and he’d been spotted previously trying to lure young girls into his car along the highway just outside town. Lots of young kids would wait there after the school dance for their parents to collect them. No one would think anything of a car pulling in to pick up kids. It was real clever. We came out and ran him but Doyle was persistent and came back only a couple of hours later. He abducted a nineteen-year-old girl and raped her only a few hundred yards from her home then dumped her on the side of the road. We picked him up out further on the highway with a flat tyre and no spare. Tested his DNA on what we got from the girl and it was a match. Shank’s granddaughter wasn’t long out of law school then and was cutting her teeth defending no-hopers before she took up her post with the family. She defended Doyle – the case was a no-brainer for her. If she lost no one would think it was her fault – there was enough evidence to convict him. If she won, she’d have proved her abilities from a young age. Well, she won and he walked because the girl had what Stoll described as a ‘reputation’. A few weeks later Doyle struck again, only this time he took a fourteen-year-old girl – he took the girl into the woods where he repeatedly raped her and then strangled her. She was only fourteen, a baby. She was the daughter of a friend of mine, Burt Gunderson. Burt lost his mind after she was found. He’d been fishing that day and was late picking her up. Blamed himself. A few days later he was found floating on Silver Lake. He’d drowned himself. He just couldn’t live with it. By the time we found the girl’s body, too much time had passed. The DNA was useless.”
“So you planted Doyle’s DNA from the first case on the body?” Locklear asked.
“Yes, and I don’t regret that decision. It was the right thing to do.”
Locklear inhaled deeply. “Only Bethany Stoll was on to you?”
Carter nodded. “She knew how long the body was in the woods because you can be sure he told her everything. Doyle was a monster and she saw nothing wrong with defending him against her own community.”
“So she blackmailed you?”
“Not her – Shank did. Said he’d tell her to make Doyle plead guilty in exchange for favours.”
“Did he say what those favours would be?”
“No.”
“Yet you agreed?”
“My career was at risk and the careers of the two cops who went along with it. They had families to think of and I … I couldn’t handle the shame. I couldn’t face Lee. I raised him to be upright, honest. I didn’t want him to know what I’d done. But there’s more. A few months after the case was over, Doyle appealed his sentence and was defended by a different lawyer. He didn’t want Stoll near him – told anyone who’d listen that she sent him down the river. Burt’s wife was convinced Doyle would get off this time. Mary Gunderson went to court on the last day of the case. No one knew that she had brought a gun in with her. No one would ever have suspected someone like her to even own a gun. When the verdict was read out, Doyle’s sentence was reduced to manslaughter. Manslaughter! He crushed that girl’s windpipe with his bare hands! Mary stood up and shot him dead there and then in front of the entire court. Guess she felt she had nothing left to lose.”
“Where’s Mary Gunderson now?” Mendoza asked.
“She’s in Wallens Ridge maximum security prison. It’s a tough place. Caters for serious offenders, mostly murderers. Last I heard Mary’s become as tough as the other inmates. Gives as good as she gets.”
Locklear sat a while and ruminated over the story. He needed to know how his gullible trooper fit into the case.
“Did Shank insist that Lee was on this case?” he asked, remembering how Kowalski had insisted that Carter stayed on. It was clear now that someone high up had put pressure on his boss.
“Yes.”
“And you made sure your son was stationed here so he could continue to feed you information that would be of use to the Shanks?”
“You’re wrong. I never wanted this for Lee – a life in the force – he certainly wasn’t cut out for it. Lee’s not tough, he’s no cop. I’m sure you’ve figured that out already. I was proud when he left this crummy town for university on a sports scholarship. He took three degrees. Majored in theology.”
“Theology?” Locklear was startled. Lee had kept that quiet.
“Yes – he also took history and anthropology and he was a great baseball player – an all-rounder. He loved theology but he knew I didn’t want him to be a minister like my father and grandfather. I didn’t want him working alongside Shank in t
his community or with whoever came after him. Only reason he came back here was because of his kid and his wife – she’s weak-minded. Took to her bed when the kid was born. Couldn’t cope with the fact that he would never walk. There was nothing much else to do around here. Lee had to give up everything he worked hard for and take a job in the very place I never wanted him to end up.”
“So, why did Shank have someone beat you up?”
Jeb Carter rubbed his throbbing jaw as though the blow had just happened.
“After they tried to kill my son ...” His chin began to tremble.
Mendoza leaned forward and patted his knee.
“I said that was it,” Carter said. “Let them expose me. I didn’t care anymore. Both of the cops I was covering for are dead now anyway. One to cancer – the other was shot in the line of duty. It’s just me now and as long as Lee is safe they can do what they like to me. But they came over a couple days ago and asked about Lee, said they might pay him a visit.”
“They?”
“Beth Stoll and her uncle.”
“Jacob Shank?”
“Yes. They had a couple of goons with them – I expect they’re the ones who shot Lee. The Shanks aren’t stupid enough to get their hands dirty.”
Jeb Carter stopped speaking and looked into the empty fireplace.
Locklear could guess what he was thinking. The Shanks’ visit was a chance for him to do something different but he didn’t take it. He kept on letting the Shanks use him and it had got Anabel Schumer killed.
“They asked about Anabel, said she was gone into hiding and asked if I knew where she was. They already knew that she had left Harrisonburg but they didn’t know where. God help me but I told them – not because they hurt me but because of Lee. I couldn’t risk them killing him because I made a mistake all those years ago.”
“And the suicide note from Sara Fehr? What did Shank have to lose by that getting out?”
“Samuel said it would devastate the family, that it was easier if no one knew that she’d planned to kill herself. I didn’t see any harm in that so I buried the note. I also didn’t want Lee to know. He loved that girl very much.”
“She didn’t try to kill herself by her own volition, Carter. Someone forced her to do it and you helped cover it up.”
“Shank?”
“Yes.”
Jeb Carter returned his gaze to the empty fireplace.
Locklear and Mendoza stood and made their way to the front door. They had what they needed, another piece of the puzzle but where it fit Locklear didn’t yet know.
When they got back to the station, Locklear opened the door to the room where Lee Carter was still being held.
“You can go – and your father needs to be taken to a hospital.”
A look of shock registered on Carter’s face. “You hurt my dad?”
Locklear stepped forward. “It wasn’t me, you dumb bastard!”
Mendoza moved between the pair.
“By the way, you’re off the case,” Locklear said. “And you’re suspended until I figure out what to do with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“Sarge, I’ve worked hard on this case. I even got shot and now … now I’m out! The least I deserve is to know why.”
“Ask your father.”
Chapter 18
Eric Stoll was the first of the three “missing” people Mendoza needed to track down and it wasn’t hard to find out that the man was working in a sawmill over a hundred miles away in the town of Bedford.
Locklear insisted on coming and, as the pair headed south-west on the 81, they settled into an uncomfortable silence.
“You don’t think you were a bit hard on Carter?” Mendoza asked eventually.
“Senior or junior?”
Mendoza frowned at him.
“He was feeding info on the case to his father!” Locklear said.
“Not maliciously. He didn’t know that his father was passing it on.”
“Doesn’t matter, Mendoza. It was classified information. Period. He’s out.”
Mendoza wrapped her fingers around the wheel tightly and focused on the grey expanse of highway ahead of her. She tried to think of something else to talk about.
“So ... you’re Native American, huh?”
Locklear blew out. He had hoped the trooper wouldn’t bring it up. He wasn’t even sure how Carter had figured it out. Not many people noticed and it wasn’t something that he ever discussed. He was ashamed that he knew nothing about those proud roots. He knew nothing about his tribe or where they were from so he avoided any conversations that might lead to questions about his nomadic mother and the unstable, rootless life she had subjected him to.
He had noticed Mendoza was out of uniform. “Why are you wearing that long skirt?” he asked.
Mendoza knew the conversation was over before it had even begun. “I figured Eric Stoll might not be comfortable with the uniform. I thought a skirt and jacket might be less intimidating.” She looked her casually dressed boss up and down. Locklear never wore a uniform – another thing she intended to ask him about but which she knew she probably wouldn’t get an answer to.
“Tell me about Eric Stoll,” he said.
Mendoza told Locklear as much as she knew about the man who, according to Bishop Rahn, had moved his family practically overnight from their farm outside Dayton and had disappeared. The town of Bedford where Mendoza had located him through tax records had no Mennonite church or congregation. According to Rahn, Eric Stoll was a quiet, unassuming man who lived an Old Order life. He was married to Rebecca and had two daughters, Marta and Bethany, both now in their early twenties.
“Bethany Stoll is his daughter’s name?”
“Yep, he’s actually a brother of our friend the lawyer. I checked back and Beth was also their mother’s name. Before she married, Beth Senior was Beth Shank – Samuel Shank’s daughter.”
“And you say Eric Stoll is living an Old Order life?”
“Yep.”
“What could make two siblings take two very different paths like that?”
“Guess we’ll find out when we talk to him. I think we should record the conversation. No one knows Beth Stoll better than him. He might give us something we can use in court.”
Mendoza leaned across and pointed to the record button on Locklear’s phone.
“It’s that one – in case you didn’t know.”
Locklear frowned at young trooper. “We’re not taping anyone, Mendoza. We have no authority to record so we won’t be doing it. Stay within the law – always.”
Mendoza shrugged and skirted roughly off the highway onto a secondary road that would lead them to the tiny village. Locklear groaned as his foot slid painfully towards the door. He placed his hands flat to the ceiling and pressed up hard to steady himself.
“God damn it, Mendoza! Take it easy.”
As they drove into town, Mendoza and Locklear passed a small convenience store which appeared to be closed. The sawmill also showed no signs of life. At the end of town the sign on a small diner creaked in the breeze. A dog outside the diner stood and barked twice at them then returned to its supine position to pant in the heat.
“I’m expecting tumbleweed to pass by any moment,” Mendoza said.
“I like these places,” Locklear replied. “They’re peaceful.”
Mendoza got out of the car and squinted into the midday sun.
“Maybe you can buy a place here when you retire.”
Locklear placed his crutches out of the car and gingerly raised himself onto his feet.
“I don’t plan on retiring until Kowalski forces me to. Come on, let’s check out that diner.”
Locklear chose the seats nearest to the door and their waitress Bonnie brought them coffee. They ordered lunch and when she brought it she wished him and his daughter a pleasant day.
Locklear grimaced. “Guess you were right. I do look old enough to be your father.”
Locklear grinned and settled back into the seat to eat.
When Bonnie returned with their bill, Locklear felt he had been pleasant enough to get answers to some questions.
“Why is the sawmill closed?”
Bonnie looked across the dusty road to the mill which sat across the street.
“It’s just closed for lunch, honey. It’ll reopen at two.”
Locklear glanced at his watch. It was only 1.15.
“Where would I find the workers from the mill at this time?”
Bonnie glanced down the counter at two men sitting side by side.
“Those men there are the owners.”
“I’m looking for one of the workers – Eric Stoll.”
“Oh, that nice man? He’s so quiet. He always goes home for lunch.”
“Which is where?” Locklear flashed Bonnie his craggy-faced smile and placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table.