Dead Rise: An Alex Penfield Novel

by Robert W. Stephens

  Ben pulled into the gravel parking lot of the marina, which was bordered by a series of tall Loblolly pine trees on one side and Mobjack Bay on the other. It was still early, and it was a weekday, so there were very few cars in the parking lot. The bad weather was another guarantee there would be few boaters out today. The air was still wet and frigid from last night’s rain.

  Emma climbed out of the car and looked toward the docks. She should have been able to see a combination of sports fishing boats and work boats, but thick fog still hung low in the air and obscured almost everything. She and Ben walked toward the nearest sheriff’s deputy’s car, which was one of three county vehicles there in addition to Ben’s. One of the other vehicles was another deputy’s car. Both deputies stood beside each other and spoke in low voices. Emma couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  The third vehicle was an ambulance. Its blue and red lights swirled and created long shafts of colored beams in the fog. Two paramedics stood near the back of the ambulance. Their empty wheeled stretcher was parked beside them.

  Emma could see someone seated in the back of the deputy’s vehicle that was closest to her, but their head was turned from her, so she couldn’t tell who it was. The person had long, unruly dark brown hair, the same color as Emma’s. It could have been either a man or a woman. As she and Ben got closer to the car, though, the passenger turned and made eye contact with them. It was a man. Emma didn’t recognize him, but she guessed the guy to be about thirty-five. Emma turned to her partner.

  “Know him?”

  Ben nodded.

  “That’s Bobby Tatum, one of the Guinea waterman.”

  They walked around the car and approached the two sheriff’s deputies. Ben addressed both men.

  “Dan, Jim.”

  “Morning, Ben,” Jim said.

  Ben turned to Dan, who was the more senior deputy.

  “What do we have here, Dan?”

  “It’s Bill Tatum. His body’s still on the boat.”

  Emma looked at two men who were standing halfway between the deputies’ cars and the docks. They looked like an odd pair. One of them was tall, maybe six-foot-four, and he was as thin as a rail. The other was much shorter. He would be lucky if he was taller than the five-foot-five-inch Emma. He had what looked like an extra twenty pounds packed around his waist. They were both dressed in the typical attire of the watermen of the area: work pants, dark brown coats, and black caps to shield their heads from the bitter cold air of the bay. She guessed they were about the same age as Bobby Tatum, so perhaps they were all friends.

  “What about those guys? Did they see anything?” Emma asked.

  “They called it in. Said they found the boat drifting,” Dan said.

  “Thanks, Dan,” Ben said.

  Ben nodded to the two witnesses as he and Emma walked past them. Neither of the witnesses said anything to either Ben or Emma, nor did they offer a return nod. Emma thought both of them looked worried, maybe even scared.

  As she got closer to the dock, Emma could finally see several boats through the fog. Ben seemed to know exactly which one they needed to see. Emma followed him to the outermost slip where she found a deadrise-style workboat. She looked at the stern and saw the name of the boat painted in neat, black letters.

  “Sally,” she read aloud.

  “It’s Bill’s wife’s name. I remember when he bought this boat. He said the name would bring him luck.”

  Emma walked to the edge of the boat and looked into it. There was a man on his stomach. He was wearing tan work pants and a thick brown jacket like the witnesses. His head was tilted toward the dock, and Emma could see that one side of his face was badly beaten. It was such a bloody pulp that she couldn’t recognize any facial features. She thought she could even see the white bones of his skull and jaw jutting through the jagged pieces of flesh. His blood mixed with the small amount of water on the boat’s deck. It created a shallow, pink pond around the body. There was a hammer lying just a few inches from the victim’s right leg. Blood covered the steel head. There were also a few red smudges on the wooden handle.

  “Jesus,” Emma said.

  She turned to Ben.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  Ben didn’t answer her. He just turned and looked out toward the fog-covered Mobjack Bay, which was one of several small bays and inlets in the region that were just off the York River and the Chesapeake Bay.

  “Were you friends with him?” she asked.

  “Bill didn’t have any friends.”

  Ben turned and looked back toward the two witnesses.

  “Let’s go see what those two have to say.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “Yeah. I know them.”

  It made sense. In the three years Emma had worked with Ben, she never came across anyone in Gloucester County who Ben Hall didn’t know. He seemed to have a unique gift for remembering names, too. There was never any hesitation when he’d greet someone with a warm hello, along with their first name or last name if they happened to be his elder. His familiarity and friendliness with the people was a huge advantage to the law enforcement duo. It was rare when Ben couldn’t get someone to open up to him. Of course, this could be a different situation. They were in Guinea this morning. The Guinea were notorious for hating the law. They preferred to work their problems out themselves.

  Emma and Ben walked toward the two men who had made their way closer to the dock. Ben nodded to both men.

  “Buddy, Donny,” he said.

  Neither of them said anything in response.

  “What happened here?” Ben asked.

  They still didn’t respond beyond the taller guy turning to the shorter one. Emma watched them closely. Maybe the taller one took direction from the shorter one. Maybe they were both secretly scared out of their minds. Perhaps they were about to tell her and Ben to go screw themselves. She couldn’t get a feel from their neutral facial expressions.

  Ben turned his attention to the shorter one.

  “Where did you find the boat, Buddy?”

  Buddy said nothing.

  “Come on, boys. Bill Tatum’s lying dead back there. I know he helped raise you boys, just like your daddies helped raise Bobby and his brothers. We need to find out what happened to him.”

  There was a long hesitation. Then Buddy spoke.

  “We saw it drifting. It didn’t look like no one was on it.”

  “What did you do then?” Ben asked.

  “We came up on it. Thought something might be wrong, and they might need help.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Bobby was crying. He looked up, and when he saw us, he screamed for help.”

  Emma looked down at the taller one’s boots. The fabric near the bottom of the boot where it connected with the rubber sole was stained red.

  “Is that blood on your boots?” Emma asked.

  Donny instinctively looked down. He turned his foot sideways, so he could get a better look at his boot. Then he looked back to Emma.

  “I jumped onboard after I saw Bill hurt. I tried to help, but he was gone.”

  “Where was Charles Ray?” Ben asked.

  “Don’t know. He wasn’t on the boat,” Donny said.

  “Did you bring the boat back here?” Ben asked.

  Donny nodded.

  “Bobby wasn’t able to do it. The guy was out of it.”

  “Did he ever say what happened?” Emma asked.

  “He said nothing, even when we got back. We kept asking, but he wouldn’t talk.”

  “We saw a hammer beside Bill. Was Bobby holding that when you came up on the boat?” Ben asked.

  Donny turned to Buddy, who answered the question without even looking back at him.

  “Don’t remember,” Buddy said.

  It was a bullshit answer, and Emma knew it. If he hadn’t been holding it, then Buddy would have definitely said so.

  “Anything else? Any sign of trouble before this?” Ben asked.
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  Buddy shook his head.

  “No. Everything was good.”

  “What about you, Donny?” Ben asked.

  “Everything was good,” he repeated.

  “Okay. We may need to talk to you later. You two should go home. Get some rest,” Ben said.

  The duo went back to remaining quiet. Neither seemed in any kind of rush to leave the marina.

  Emma and Ben walked back to the deputies. Emma saw that the department’s two crime scene techs had arrived since she and Ben had been down by the dock. The two techs stood beside Dan and Jim.

  Ben took another look at Bobby Tatum in the back of the car.

  “What do you want us to do with him?” Dan asked.

  “Take him back to the station. We’ll question him there,” Ben said.

  He turned to the two crime scene techs.

  “You guys can go down there now. There’s a hammer near the body. I want that printed as soon as possible. Bobby’s already in the system, so let’s compare those prints.”

  The techs nodded and took off toward the dock.

  “He’s already in the system?” Emma asked.

  “Mugged a couple of people when he was a teenager. Stupid kid stuff,” Ben said.

  Emma didn’t see muggings as kid stuff, but she didn’t want to argue the point in front of the deputies.

  “I just don’t know why Bobby would do this. Makes no sense. The Tatum boys would never cross their father.”

  “Who’s Charles Ray?” Emma asked.

  “Bobby’s younger brother. The three of them would always go out on the water together.”

  “So where is he? Why wasn’t he out there today?” Emma asked, even though she realized Ben couldn’t answer her questions.

  Ben turned and looked back to the dock.

  “What in the hell made Bobby flip out and kill his father?” he asked.

  Emma looked to the back of the deputy’s car. Bobby Tatum had his head hung low. His long hair still covered his face. It seemed like an open and shut case. Two men on a boat. One dead. One alive. They should have it wrapped up in a matter of hours. She had no idea how wrong she was.

  Chapter 4

  Charles Ray Tatum

  Ben and Emma watched as two of the deputies drove Bobby Tatum away. Ben turned to Emma.

  “Charles Ray lives just down the road. Let’s see if he’s home. Besides, we need to tell him about his father. He should hear it from us, if Buddy or Donny haven’t already called him,” Ben said, and he looked at the two friends of the Tatums.

  They’d moved away from the docks and were now lingering just outside the marina office.

  “Do you think those guys saw something they didn’t mention?” Emma asked.

  “Of course they did, but they’re never going to tell us. My guess is they knew exactly what happened as soon as they came up to that boat.”

  “Maybe there was a third person,” Emma suggested.

  “There would have been nowhere for him to hide.”

  “So he jumped overboard.”

  “In that water? He would have frozen to death before he got to shore. Seems like suicide for someone to try to pull off that stunt, and Bobby would have told Donny or Buddy about some other guy. You better believe they would have mentioned that to us,” Ben said.

  “So, it’s Bobby for sure.”

  “Don’t see how it can be anyone else, but I’d like to know why.”

  Charles Ray Tatum lived just two miles from the marina. Ben turned off Guinea Road and drove down another narrow road that was even more sparsely populated. He made a second turn onto a dirt driveway with a wooden mailbox that was leaning so far to one side that Emma didn’t know how gravity hadn’t pulled it all the way to the ground. Emma was surprised Ben had even seen the driveway. The mailbox and turnoff were mostly obscured from the road by high brush and weeds.

  They followed the bumpy, dirt path up a small hill and then down the other side. They drove through a large puddle at the bottom of the hill, and then they made a final turn before Charles Ray’s trailer was revealed. The white paint job was badly faded, and the trailer was surrounded by tall trees on three sides. There was a makeshift cinderblock fire pit several feet from the small front porch. An empty clothesline hung from one corner of the trailer to a nearby tree limb. Charles Ray’s pickup truck was parked just a few feet from the trailer’s door. The truck looked like it was worth three times what the trailer was.

  Ben parked directly behind the truck, and he and Emma climbed out. They hadn’t spoken much since they’d left the marina, and Emma couldn’t judge his mood. Ben climbed the three wooden steps. The tattered screen door squealed as he pulled it open. He knocked on the metal door behind it, while Emma stayed at the bottom of the steps.

  There was no answer, so Ben knocked again, this time a little louder. The metal door eventually opened, and Emma saw who she guessed was Charles Ray. His hair was long and dark like his brother’s, only it was a lot messier, like he’d just climbed out of bed. He wore an old T-shirt with a faded and peeling Washington Redskins logo on the front, and gray sweatpants. Ben didn’t bother to introduce himself.

  “Can we come in?”

  Charles Ray didn’t say anything, but he pulled the metal door open wider and stepped back. Ben pulled the screen door all the way open. He turned and looked back at Emma. He motioned for her to advance. Emma climbed the wooden steps and walked past Ben to go inside the trailer.

  It was even messier than she’d anticipated. There were several empty Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King paper bags scattered across the table in front of a brown sofa. The television was on, and Emma could hear some sports show in the background. She looked over to the adjoining kitchen and saw the counter was covered with dirty plates and glasses. She looked in the opposite direction and saw into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, and one of the few pillows was on the floor.

  Ben followed her inside, and she saw him taking in the mess as well. She thought he did a better job at hiding his disgust than she had.

  Charles Ray went to say something, but then he went into a coughing fit. Emma wanted to cover her mouth, but she didn’t. At least Ben hadn’t closed the door so that some fresh air could come inside.

  “We missed you at the marina,” Ben said.

  “I’m sick. I couldn’t go out this morning.”

  Emma believed him, judging by the way he looked and sounded.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your father was killed this morning,” Ben said.

  Emma studied Charles Ray for his reaction, but the man just stared at Ben. He then went into another coughing fit.

  Ben waited for him to stop coughing, then he asked, “When was the last time you spoke to him or Bobby?”

  “What happened? Was it a car accident?”

  “No. It happened on the boat,” Ben said.

  Emma could see the look of confusion in his eyes. Charles Ray walked over to the sofa and sat down. He just stared off into the distance.

  “Did your brother and father have any disagreements lately?” Emma asked.

  “What the hell happened?” Charles Ray demanded.

  “Your father was murdered. The only other person on the boat was Bobby,” Ben said.

  “That’s not possible. He would never do that.”

  “Was it normally just the three of you who would go out?” Ben asked.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Charles Ray repeated.

  “Would they have called someone else once they heard you couldn’t make it?” Ben asked.

  “No. There’s no money to pay anyone else.”

  “But has there ever been anyone else go out with you three?” Emma asked.

  “No. Never.”

  “Your father was killed with a hammer. Did you normally keep one on the boat?” Ben asked.

  Charles Ray nodded.

  “There’s a small toolbox onboard.”

  “How was Bobby in the last few days? Did you notice any
thing odd about him? Was he under any stress?” Ben asked.

  Charles Ray ignored the question.

  “Were your brother and father getting along, Mr. Tatum?” Emma asked.

  Charles Ray looked up at Ben.

  “They’d been fighting for a while. Dad didn’t want him living with them.”

  “What do you mean? I thought Bobby had his own place,” Ben said.

  “He did, but his wife left him. She kicked him out of the house. He was staying with our folks.”

  “How long ago did this happen?” Ben asked.

  “It’s been about a month. Maybe a little more. He’s been really upset about it.”

  “Do you know why they separated?” Emma asked.

  “She hooked up with somebody else. Some guy she works with.”

  “Was Bobby taking it out on your folks?” Ben asked.

  “No. It was the other way around. Dad told Bobby he couldn’t keep his wife. Said he needed to get her back.”

  “Did you ever see Bobby and your father argue, or was this just what someone else told you?” Emma asked.

  “I saw it myself. Over at the house and on the boat.”

  “When was the last time they argued?” Ben asked.

  “Just a few days ago. We’d just left the marina when they got into it pretty bad.”

  “Did you have to physically restrain them?” Emma asked.

  “No. It never got that far. Bobby wouldn’t have touched him. He would never do that.”

  “If Bobby didn’t do it, then who did? Who might your father have had beef with?” Ben asked.

  “You knew my father. He had issues with everyone.”

  “Yeah, but who lately? Who would have gotten on that boat this morning?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone who met my dad who’d have the guts to take him on.”

  Someone did, Emma thought, and the more and more Charles Ray talked, the deeper of a hole he dug for his brother.

  “We need to get back to the station to interview Bobby. Will you do me a favor and tell your mother what’s happened? I’ll try to go see her later today,” Ben said.