Reed Ferguson Mystery Box Set 5

by Renee Pawlish

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I swore as I bolted after him. When I reached the third floor, he was at his door, digging in his pocket. He looked up at me, then unlocked his door.

  “I’m busy,” he said as he hurriedly unlocked the door.

  “What the hell!” I sprinted down the hall and reached his door just as he got it open.

  He tried to slam it shut, but I put my shoulder into it, stopping him.

  “Hey!” He tried to push the door shut, but I was bigger than he was, and he finally gave up.

  “We need to talk,” I said as I held the door open.

  “I don’t got nothin’ to say to you.”

  “Tell me what you know about Masta Dig.”

  “No.”

  “Are you Masta Dig?” I asked.

  He burst out laughing. “Hell no. You think I’d be working at a Burger King if I was? I’d be cashing in the dough.”

  “You know who he is.”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  I took a step forward. “Tell me what you know or I’ll call the cops.”

  “And tell them what?”

  “That you know something about Gabe Culpepper’s murder. I have a friend who’s a detective, and she’ll make life miserable for you.”

  I was bluffing, but it worked.

  “No, don’t call anyone,” he said.

  He glanced up and down the hall, his eyes settling on the crime scene tape that was still stretched across Gabe’s door. Then he stepped back to let me in. He sat on the couch, but I stayed standing near the door. I crossed my arms and stared at him. He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

  “Masta Dig might know something about Gabe’s murder,” I said, “so you need to tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t know who Masta Dig is, but I’ve been around when they filmed some of their videos. I never saw Masta Dig without his mask.”

  “It is a man?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. Who else would it be?”

  “A woman with a deep voice?”

  “Nah. It was a dude. Sometimes he had a little device that would distort his voice as he talked, but it was a man.”

  I thought for a second. “Why’d they let you come along when they shot these videos?”

  “Gabe started showing me the videos and I thought they were hilarious, and we’d get to talking about Masta Dig. One time, Gabe was a little high, and he started bragging about how he knew Masta Dig.” Luis swore. “I told him I didn’t believe him, and that made him mad, but I just laughed it off. Then I saw him another time and he said he was going to meet Masta Dig and they were going to do some videos. He asked me to come along, and I did.” A smile spread across his face. “It was awesome, man. They had some stuff written down, like a little script, and Masta Dig would do his thing, and Gabe filmed it. But man, I should’ve filmed the outtakes. Those were funny, too. Gabe would get mad at Masta Dig if he wasn’t doing stuff right, and they’d argue. Gabe would be like ‘Hey, eh, do it like this,’ or ‘You gotta go here, eh.’ It was like he was Canadian, you know?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It was so cool.” His voice grew wistful. “I just wanted to be a part of it because they’re gonna hit it big.” Then he sat up straighter. “Actually, I was in a video or two.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I’d be like the straight guy, and Masta Dig would ask me questions or things like that.”

  “And you hoped some day they’d pay you?”

  “Well, yeah, only it never happened. But it was still cool to be in the videos.”

  “Maybe you wanted to be more involved, so you got Gabe out of the way.”

  He held up his hands and gestured at me to stop. “No! I don’t know who Masta Dig is. They even laughed at me because they thought it was funny that Masta Dig’s identity was secret.”

  I stared at him for a moment, and something in his eyes led me to believe him.

  “Where’d they film the videos?” I asked. “Masta Dig wore a mask, so wouldn’t that attract a lot of attention?”

  “If they’re in public, it does, but they film in private as well.”

  “Where?”

  “They go to the mountains, or I’ve seen videos in some kind of warehouse, but the only place I’ve ever been is this old farmhouse east of town. I don’t know how they knew about it, but we could film in the house, or the barn. And there was a big hill with a huge rock formation and we’d go there. Look, let me show you.”

  He got up quickly, and I braced myself, wondering if he was going to suddenly bolt past me. But instead, he grabbed his laptop off the desk, booted it up, and brought it over to me.

  “Look,” he said as he navigated to Masta Dig’s YouTube channel. He found a video and clicked on it.

  The video showed a long porch and just as it panned to the left, Masta Dig burst through a door.

  “Hey, hey!” he said, and then launched into a brief rap. When he finished, Luis appeared from the right. They talked for a moment about a party they were going to, and Masta Dig poked some fun at Luis’s expense, and that was it. It was short, and for whatever reason it seemed vaguely familiar. But it was not funny, in my opinion. However, the video had over two million views.

  “Hilarious, right?” Luis said. “And that’s me.”

  I pointed at the screen. “How do I find this place?”

  “You go out I-76, and it’s near Roggen. It’s not hard to find.”

  Roggen is a small town about an hour northeast of Denver. I cocked an eyebrow at him and he gave me detailed directions.

  “How often did they go out there?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Lots of times, I guess.” He put the laptop back on the desk.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Masta Dig?”

  He hesitated.

  I eyed him hard. “What?”

  “Man, I don’t want to get involved.”

  “Too bad, you are.” I was not in a sympathetic mood.

  He gestured toward the door. “Since Gabe died, a couple of times when I’ve come home, some guy in a hoodie has been hanging around the hallway. I think he might be trying to get into Gabe’s apartment.”

  Gabe had met someone at the McDonald’s who wore a hoodie, too. And I’d seen Davon in a hoodie just last night. Coincidence that a man in a hoodie had been hanging around Gabe’s apartment? I doubted it. But was it Davon?

  “What’d he look like?” I asked.

  “Not very tall, and I think he had dark hair, but it was hard to tell with the hoodie.”

  I went to the door, and as I put my hand on the knob, I tried to look stern. “If you’re lying to me …”

  “I’m not!” He stood with his feet apart, trying to look tough, but it wasn’t working.

  I gave him a curt nod and went out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I stopped by Sally’s apartment again, but she still wasn’t home, or she wasn’t coming to the door. I called her cell, but she didn’t pick up. She’d said she didn’t always keep her phone with her, but this was ridiculous. I frowned. Was she doing her disappearing act again? Or, if she was guilty, maybe she’d taken off. Something else occurred to me. If she knew more about Masta Dig than she’d told me, did she know about the farmhouse in Roggen? Could she have holed up there? It’d be worth checking.

  I stopped at Taco Bell for a late lunch, wolfed down a burrito, then picked up Interstate 76 and headed toward Roggen. Traffic was building, but it thinned some as I got farther from the metro area. Farmland was on either side of me, much of it still green. As I neared Roggen, lightning flashed across the sky and a moment later, a horrendous clap of thunder rocked the 4-Runner. Several big drops of rain hit the windshield but then stopped.

  The directions that Luis had given me to the farmhouse weren’t complicated. I turned off at Roggen – a tiny town without much of anything in it – and took Highway 73 south past Boulder Valley Poultry, a huge chicken farm. Beyond t
hat was a large farm, and after another mile, I took a dirt road west. I drove until the road curved north. Nothing was out here except farmland. Then I saw a house in the distance. It sat at the end of the road, with fields all around. I stopped the 4-Runner, pulled the binoculars from behind the seat, and scrutinized the property.

  The farmhouse was two stories, with a porch that ran the length of the house. The paint was peeling, the windows were broken, and some of the screens were torn and fluttering in the wind. Near the house was a small, weathered barn. I watched for a minute, but didn’t see any cars or people about. I put the binoculars away and drove slowly up to the house. The storm clouds were so dark and heavy, it seemed like night.

  I took my Glock and holster from under the seat and strapped it on, then got out and walked up sagging steps onto the porch. I tried to picture the video that Luis had showed me, and I moved to the spot where the cameraman had stood.

  It definitely could’ve been filmed here, I thought.

  The front door was shut, but not locked. I let myself in and called out. No answer. A musty odor assaulted my nose, and I coughed as I looked around. To the left was a living room, empty except for a rickety chair in the corner. A fireplace still held ashes of old burned logs. A few candy wrappers were strewn about the floor. Wind whistled through a broken window that looked out onto the porch. I pulled out my phone and tried to google Masta Dig, but I couldn’t get a signal.

  I took a few pictures, then put my phone away and moved into an empty dining area. On the wall someone had scratched the letters M and D. I took a picture of that as well, then stepped into a kitchen. I checked, but found nothing in the cabinets. I went to the sink and tried the faucet. No water. If Sally was holed up here, she hadn’t left any food. I looked in another room on the main level before going upstairs.

  Three upstairs rooms were also empty. I checked closets and found some old newspapers and footprints in dust that covered the floors. In a back room, I went to the window and peered out. About a hundred yards from the house was a hill and at the top was a large rock formation surrounded by dead shrubs. Everything was as Luis Hernandez had described it, but so far I wasn’t finding anything that would help me figure out Masta Dig’s identity. I traipsed back downstairs and found a door to the basement. I opened it and peered into the darkness.

  “Sally?”

  No answer.

  I found a light switch and flicked it on, but nothing happened. Not that I expected it to. I went back to the 4-Runner and got a powerful flashlight from the glovebox, then went back into the house. I turned on the flashlight and tiptoed down the steps into the basement.

  It was unfinished, with an old water heater and furnace in the corner. I shined the light around and saw nothing but cobwebs and dirt, but I walked around the room anyway, not sure what I was hoping to find. If Sally was staying here, I didn’t see any evidence of it. I had stirred up dust, and I suddenly sneezed violently. I cleared my throat and when I finished, I thought I heard something. I listened, then went to a small window high up on the wall and looked out. All I could see was dark sky. A rumble of thunder shook the glass in the window. But was there something else? I flicked off the flashlight and tiptoed to the stairs. I listened as I peered up toward the kitchen.

  Nothing.

  I finally shrugged, trudged upstairs, and let myself out a back door. I trotted to the barn and checked it out. It was empty, but a white sheet had been hung on one wall. I peeked behind it, but it wasn’t hiding anything. I went outside and jogged through the gloom across a barren field toward the rock outcropping. Lightning flashed, followed quickly by thunder, and it made me jump.

  So unlike Bogie, I thought.

  When I reached the rock outcropping, I looked around and saw where the earth had been trampled. Someone frequented this area.

  The rock on the side nearest the farmhouse was a sheer, sloping face that would be hard to scale, but a beaten path went around the outcropping and I followed it. Thin tire tracks from what I guessed was a bicycle were evident. At the back side of the formation was a spot where I could scramble up the rock. I shoved the end of the flashlight as best I could into my pocket and climbed to the top of the rock and scanned the terrain. Corn fields were to the north, and alfalfa to the south. A spectacular view of the mountains was to the west. I admired it for a moment, then turned to look at the abandoned house. I wondered who owned it.

  Light rain began to fall, and I started to climb down off the rock. The rain grew harder, and my footing slipped more than once. I was going to have to hurry before the fields were a muddy mess.

  I reached the ground and was walking back toward the front of the outcropping when a crack rang out. I had an instant of wondering where the lightning had been, and then shards of rock hit my face. Just as another crack split the air, I had an instant realization that someone was shooting at me. I fell to the ground and listened. All I could hear was the wind. I reached down and pulled my Glock from my holster and waited. When nothing happened, I raised my head. I couldn’t see anything. The rain grew harder and the wind picked up.

  I finally got into a crouch and dashed in between shrubs and into the rows of tall corn, where I had better cover. A third shot rang out and I dove for the ground again. It was muddy and wet. I peeked through the corn stalks and thought I saw movement. I stared in that direction, thinking it might’ve been a man in a hoodie, but it could’ve been my imagination. I waited a second, got into a squat and pushed through the stalks, my gun aimed in front of me. I thought I heard the corn rustling up ahead, but with the rain and wind, I couldn’t be sure. I made my way through the corn, and as I neared the farmhouse, I reached the edge of the cornfield. I bent down and looked out.

  Off in the distance, red taillights winked in the gloom. I emerged from the corn and ran to the front of the house where the 4-Runner was parked. I hopped in and started it, then pressed on the gas. My wheels skidded back and forth in the mud, and then I rocketed forward. I circled around and drove fast, but I didn’t see the taillights. I finally reached Highway 73, but I never saw another car. I hit the steering wheel in frustration, then took a moment to wipe my face off. I was soaked to the skin, muddy, and cranky. And I realized I’d lost my flashlight, but I wasn’t going back to try to find it. I turned north and headed back to Denver, but my mind was on what had just happened at the farmhouse.

  Someone hadn’t liked my poking around the house. But who?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “What happened to you?” Willie asked when I walked through the door.

  She had sample paint cards and she was holding them next to curtains she’d recently bought. Humphrey had been sleeping on the couch, and he got up, stretched, and then stared at me warily.

  “I got caught in a field in the rain,” I said as I stood by the door and shivered. I was a mess, with mud all over my front side and in my hair. Even walking through the rain from my car to the condo hadn’t helped with the mud.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me, and I started to tell her about my afternoon, but she held up a hand to stop me.

  “Why don’t you get out of those clothes and hop in the shower?” she interrupted as she came over.

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  While I stripped off my clothes by the door, I told her everything that had happened since I’d left, except for getting shot at. No need to worry her. She took my clothes and threw them in the laundry room.

  “I’m going to fix some lasagna for dinner,” she said when I finished. “Maybe that and a shower will help warm you up.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She kissed me, then wiped her mouth. “I love you, babe, but you’re a mess.”

  I laughed as I padded in my underwear to the master bath and took a shower. While hot water rushed over me, I thought about being shot at in the field. I was almost certain I’d seen someone in a hoodie. Had Davon Edwards gone to the farmhouse and used me for target practice? Was he Masta Dig?

  My though
ts turned to Sally. She’d never mentioned Masta Dig, but was that because she’d never heard of him, or was she hiding something? I needed to talk to her, and I’d called her again on my way home from Roggen, but she hadn’t picked up. I had no idea where she was, but I needed to find her after I cleaned up. I was starting to worry that she wasn’t just being a flake by having her phone turned off, but that something bad had happened to her.

  I finished showering, toweled off, and put on clean clothes, then went into the kitchen for a beer. I took a long gulp and watched Willie for a bit, but my mind was elsewhere. I finally asked, “Can I help with anything?”

  Willie must’ve seen the distracted look on my face, and she shook her head. “You have some work to do, right?”

  I nodded. “I need to look up some stuff on the computer, and then I need to find Sally Evans. She seems to be avoiding me.”

  She kept stirring the spaghetti sauce. “I’ve got this handled. Do what you need to do and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

  I leaned over and kissed her. “Thanks.”

  She was humming as I went into my office. Humphrey jumped into my lap as I put my beer on the desk and logged onto the internet. I googled “Masta Dig” and found his YouTube and Vine channels. I absentmindedly petted Humphrey while I watched a few Masta Dig videos, but didn’t see anything noteworthy, except the masks changed. Sometimes the eyebrows were heavy, sometimes the mouth was upturned, other times it looked like a frown. Other than that, it was a masked man with a voice that could’ve been anybody’s. There wasn’t anything particularly unique about his outfits, either. He was usually dressed in jeans and T-shirts, sometimes a hoodie, and the most distinctive thing about him was what appeared to be a tattoo on his left biceps, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I did recognize the farmhouse and the rock formation in some of the videos. And in others, Masta Dig was standing in front of a white background, which appeared to be the sheet that I’d seen hung up in the barn.

  After watching a few more videos – and still not seeing the humor in them – I went to Gabe Culpepper’s Facebook page and poked around. He’d posted a lot of pictures of himself deejaying at clubs around the city, along with his music videos. I watched a few and read some of his posts, hoping to find some clue to Masta Dig’s identity, but I didn’t have any luck.