In a Midnight Wood

by Ellen Hart

  Dave had already taken note of the scratches. He leaned in carefully and popped the trunk. Walking around to the rear, he removed his flashlight again to light up the interior. Nothing stood out.

  “Just more junk,” said Biggs.

  “Did you call in the VIN number?”

  “Yes, sir. Still waiting to hear back.”

  “Over here?” came a shout.

  “The crime-scene guys must have arrived,” said Biggs.

  Opening the rear driver’s-side door, Dave took one last look. That’s when something caught his eye. “Shit,” he whispered under his breath, feeling as if he’d just touched a wall socket.

  “Excuse me, sir. Did you say something?”

  It took him a moment to regroup. “No, nothing.” His hope was that it would get lost in all the other junk. He might be in charge of the investigation, but he could hardly tamper with evidence. Or could he?

  As two men, the crime-scene techs, and a woman, the other patrol officer, walked up to the car, Dave was engulfed by the heavy smell of bug spray. “I think we can do this pretty quickly. Set the perimeter and do a search of the area, just to make sure we’re not missing anything.”

  “We know the drill, Tamborsky,” said the taller of the two techs. His name was Morton. “That’s why we’re paid the big bucks.”

  Dave eyed him a moment before continuing, “We know who owns the car, or at least we will as soon as Biggs gets confirmation on the VIN number, and we know she died in a suspicious fire. My bet is that whoever tried to hide the car in the woods was the one who murdered her.”

  “You don’t say,” said Morton.

  Dave shot him a nasty look. “Get busy.”

  “You betcha, boss,” was the tech’s snide reply.

  Dave stayed for another half hour, watching the men work. Once the contents of the car had been bagged, he decided to shove off, knowing he would read their report later. For now, he had to figure out what his next move should be. This was a complication he didn’t need and had never seen coming.

  26

  Jane was late to the Flame Diner for her early morning meeting. Wilburn Lowry, the man she’d bumped into yesterday at the diner, the odd guy with the gray muttonchops who said he had something for her, was already seated at a booth by the windows, waving at her as she came in the door. She slid in across from him, noticing that he had a small notebook in front of him. He was wearing a light blue coverall with the words “Junk King” emblazoned in red on a white patch.

  “Junk King?” she said, looking up as a waitress approached the table. She ordered a cup of coffee, black. She was hungry, but since she’d made a date to have breakfast with Emma at the White Star Cafe at ten, she didn’t want to order anything more.

  “It’s one of my many jobs,” said Lowry, working on a stack of pancakes. “Me and my family, we do junk removal. We have an antique store just out of town on County Road 12.”

  “You make a living doing that?”

  “Well, I mean, I’m retired. I worked for the post office as a mail carrier for most of my life. Got to know the people in the town really well. When someone mentioned moving, they often bitched about how hard it was to get rid of stuff. Not just the decisions that come with a move, but hauling away all the old junk. Seemed like a business opportunity to me, so even while I was still delivering mail, I got my sons and one of my daughters involved in what we started calling ‘Dad’s New Gold Mine.’ I love junk. Always have. It’s kind of a dream come true to be allowed into people’s houses to root through all the crap they don’t want anymore.”

  “Why don’t they just have a garage sale?”

  “Plenty of people do. But when you’re under the gun for time, it’s easier to find someone to come in and do it all. We even clean the house, if they want. And we don’t charge an arm and a leg. I developed this contract—they give me the rights to anything I haul away. I don’t mind saying. I’ve found some real gems over the years.”

  Jane nodded her thanks as a waitress set a mug in front of her. “Is that why you call yourself a prospector?”

  “Exactly. It’s what I am. I’m a guy who’s out there looking for gold.” He shoved another forkful of pancake into his mouth.

  “So,” said Jane, eager to get to the point. “You said you had something that might help me with the Romilly investigation.”

  As he chewed, he pushed the notebook across to her.

  “What is it?”

  “About, oh, maybe ten years ago, I helped a woman clean out her basement. Her name was Anna Tamborsky. Ring any bells?”

  “Is she related to Dave?”

  “His mother. She and Dave’s father were getting a divorce, and, at the time, she thought she’d stay in the house and he would move out. Turned out that she left and moved away, but during the breakup, she hired me to come in. Me and her spent most of our time in the basement. It was crammed to the gills. I guess her hubby was a pack rat. One of the boxes she told me to take had a bunch of his police notebooks in it. I would think he might have wanted to hang on to them, but I was getting my orders from her, so I took it. You gotta understand, it’s just the kind of stuff that fascinates me. I guess, truth be told, I’m kind of a pack rat myself. When I was done reading through the notebooks, I put the box on a shelf in my basement, and when Sam Romilly’s body was discovered, it jogged a memory. I remembered that one of the notebooks recorded Mitch Tamborsky’s investigation into his disappearance. Take a look yourself.”

  Jane flipped the cover back. Mitch Tamborsky’s writing was light and thready, but legible.

  “I read through it again this morning. There wasn’t as much about the case as I remembered.”

  “You’re giving this to me?”

  He finished the last of his pancakes. “I consider it my civic duty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It may prove to be nothing more than a time suck, as my daughter would say. But you never know when something might be important.”

  “Honestly,” said Jane. “I really appreciate it.”

  Lowry downed the rest of his glass of milk. “I wish I could stay and talk, but I’ve got another job today. Actually, it’s with the woman who lives next door to Mitch Tamborsky. Lydia Mickler. Nice old lady. She’s moving to a senior facility. Both her kids have been pushing her to do it. She’s not happy about it, but … I guess it is what it is.”

  As he reached for his wallet, Jane said, “The least I can do is buy you breakfast.”

  “Well, now.” He smiled. “I won’t turn that down.”

  She thanked him one more time as he stood to leave.

  “Good luck with your investigation,” he said, shaking her hand before heading for the door.

  Jane had a good hour to kill before she was supposed to meet Emma. The cafe wasn’t as packed as it had been when she first walked in. Even so, she felt she should order something if she was going to stay. She asked the waitress about the desserts on offer, and settled on a fresh peach pie, which the waitress brought over to the table in a white box. Emma loved peach pie, and so did Cordelia.

  Centering the notebook in front of her, Jane took out her reading glasses and began to examine it. She flipped through the pages quickly at first, until she came to the night Diane Romilly called the police station to report that her son was missing. Much of what Mitch Tamborsky had written in the official police report was also detailed here: Going to the Romilly house; talking to Wendell and Diane; the fact that the younger brother, Scott, didn’t want to come out of his room; Diane’s firm belief that something bad had happened to her son; and Wendell Romilly’s equally firm belief that Sam was just being Sam, that he’d show up eventually.

  Jane sipped her coffee as she read. Nothing stood out until she got to the search of the woods, a week or so after Sam went missing. The official report, the one she’d already looked at, stated that Diane Romilly had hired a man who owned a bloodhound. The dog had alerted on a spot in a clearing. The field notes, however, adde
d a detail that hadn’t been in the official report: The spot in question was approximately thirty yards due east of the old mill ruins, specifically, the last remaining section of the east wall. Jane made a mental note to check it out.

  And there was more that hadn’t made it into the official report. Mitch wrote that the bloodhound, owned by a man named Judson, had somehow gotten away from him during the search. There was a comment about a broken leash, and, according to his notes, the dog, Harvey, had run off into the woods, with Judson running after him, shouting for him to heel. Mitch wrote a note sometime later saying that Judson had called him to apologize. He stated that Judson had finally located his dog in the graveyard behind Holy Trinity after one of the priests called him and reported that the animal was lying on a new grave, one, Mitch noted, without a headstone. Jane assumed it was Ida Beddemeyer’s grave. The dog had found Sam after all, though nobody had recognized it at the time. That left her with a question about the spot in the woods where the dog had first alerted. Was that where Sam had died?

  Jane read quickly through the rest of the comments, finding nothing that seemed of any importance. At the bottom of the last page, the word DUAL had been written in all caps and circled. Apparently, it was something Mitch had learned that had been intriguing enough to highlight, but not important enough to elaborate on. Dual. Dual what? Unless, she thought, the word had been misspelled and what he’d meant to write was DUEL. Neither, however, made any sense.

  Finishing her coffee, Jane tossed some cash on the table and walked back out to her truck. After sailing down Main Street, she found a parking spot half a block away from the White Star Cafe. She made a quick stop into the art center to see if anyone had bid on her dinner. The woman behind the desk looked it up and reported that there had been forty-seven bids. She expected more before the winners were announced on Friday morning.

  Feeling buoyed by the interest, Jane made her way down the street to the Lakeside Community Bank. She figured it was a waste of time, but decided that she’d ask, one more time, to talk to Wendell Romilly. She stopped at the round reception desk again to talk to the same woman she’d spoken to yesterday.

  “Oh, hi,” said the woman. “It’s you again.”

  Jane smiled, glad to be recognized.

  “Say, you were asking about Carli Gilbert. Did you hear that her car was found this morning? Someone hid it in the woods.”

  “Wow, no. Did the police make a statement?”

  “Nah, I got a friend who works at the station. She called me a few minutes ago with the news.”

  “Pays to have friends in high places.”

  The woman laughed. “Yeah. I hope it will help them find Carli’s murderer. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping you’d give Wendell Romilly’s secretary another call and see if he’s changed his mind about talking to me.”

  “I can try,” said the woman, picking up her phone. “Your name again was—”

  “Lawless. Jane Lawless.”

  “Right.” She spoke into the phone and then waited, her eyes skirting the room. A few moments later she said, “Really? When? Sure, I’ll tell her. Thanks, Viv.” Setting the phone back in its cradle, the woman said, “Mr. Romilly says that if you make an appointment, he’ll see you. Viv said he had an opening at nine tomorrow morning.”

  “Great,” said Jane. “Should I go to his office and tell her I’ll take it?”

  “I can do that for you.”

  “Wonderful. Thanks.” She still had some time before her breakfast with Emma, so she left the bank and walked over to Victory Park, where she found a bench and sat down. She checked her phone for messages. Seeing nothing from Leslie, she texted her to find out how her speech had gone the previous night. More importantly, she wanted to know if they were still on for dinner tomorrow. Jane didn’t care where they ate. She refused to overanalyze the relationship. She just wanted to spend some time with Leslie before she and Cordelia had to set off for home.

  27

  The police station was buzzing with activity when Dave returned shortly after ten. His first move was to stick his head into Grady Larson’s office and tell him the news. Grady was on the phone, so Dave waited.

  “Just a minute,” said Grady, shooting Dave an annoyed look. “What?”

  “We found Carli Gilbert’s car.”

  “I know. Good work.” He gave him a thumbs up, then swiveled his chair away from the door and continued with the phone conversation.

  Not exactly high praise, but then Dave couldn’t take credit for the find, which Grady undoubtedly knew. On his way to the locker room, he bumped into one of the patrol officers.

  “Hey, Tamborsky,” the guy said. “Saltus has Darius Pollard in the box.”

  “Right now?”

  “Started a few minutes ago. He had Jim Hughes in earlier.”

  “He learn anything?”

  “Nah. Total waste of time.”

  Dave didn’t wait to hear more. He ran down the hall and skidded to a stop outside the room right next to where the interview was being conducted. Once inside, he nodded to the officer at the monitoring station. Last year, the box itself had been completely renovated, covered in gray foam wall panels with a brown carpet underfoot. A new DVR and camera system had also been installed. Dave pulled up a chair so he could watch the computer screen and listen to the two men talk.

  Saltus was seated on a rolling desk chair and Pollard was sitting a few feet away on a folding chair.

  Saltus was talking:

  “And you have no idea how he ended up in Holy Trinity cemetery?

  “None.”

  “Did you spend a lot of time with him?”

  “We rode together. We both owned motorcycles.”

  “Where’d you ride?” asked Saltus.

  “Just around. We both liked being out in the country.”

  “He ever say anything to you about any problems he was having?”

  “With his father, yeah.”

  “What about his father?”

  “He was mean. Used to beat up on Sam.”

  “Did you ever see it yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Any other problems Sam talked about? Anybody who might have had it in for him?”

  “Not really. Except—” Darius hesitated. “There was this one thing that happened. It was at a party at Corey Lang’s family farm early in our senior year.”

  “You were invited?”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  Darius explained about leaving the party and finding Sam and Kurt Steiner sitting by his car. And then later being awakened and asked to take a girl home. “She’d been raped. It happened in a wooded area, not too far from where I’d parked my car.”

  Dave stopped breathing, gripping the arm of his chair.

  Saltus sat up straight. “You know that for a fact?”

  “I was asleep, but I know Sam caught the guy in the act.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. Sam never told me. The girl’s name was Becca Hill.”

  Dave was so relieved, he nearly gasped as his breath returned.

  “You never asked?”

  “I figured he’d explain, but he never did. All he said was that Becca refused to talk to the cops. She wanted to keep the whole thing quiet. He didn’t like it, but felt like he had to respect her decision.”

  “You think it really happened?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “She wasn’t just crying wolf?”

  Darius crossed his arms. It was his only response.

  “Tell me again where you were when this thing was happening?”

  “Asleep on the ground by my car.”

  “And the other guy? The one who was with Sam?”

  “Kurt Steiner. I don’t actually know what happened to him. He wasn’t around when I woke up.”

  Saltus paused. “This girl. Becca. Was she sexy?”

  “Huh?”
/>
  “Answer the question.”

  “Hell, man. I don’t remember.”

  “You must have had an opinion.”

  Darius stared straight ahead.

  “Did you ever ask her out on a date?”

  “What? No.”

  “Were you dating someone back then?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

  “Uh-huh.” Saltus scratched his chest. “Black dudes. They like to get it on, right? Especially with white women.”

  The patrol tech—his name was Meyer—groaned. Glancing over at Dave, he said, “You better tell the chief about this. He’s gonna hit the ceiling. Saltus is a disaster.”

  Dave didn’t disagree.

  Darius regarded Saltus with undisguised loathing. “Look, if you’re suggesting I—”

  “Just trying to understand, Mr. Pollard.”

  “Maybe I need a lawyer.”

  “I already explained,” said Saltus a little too quickly. “There’s no need for that.” It was all playing out in Dave’s favor. Saltus was conducting the interview so badly that none of it could be used—or even seen by the public. At the very least, Grady needed to take him off the case and give it back to Dave. At most, he should terminate his ass.

  “So let me get this straight,” continued Saltus, leaning back expansively in his chair. “Sam saved this girl from the clutches of some dastardly guy. Had she been drinking?”

  “It was a kegger. Everyone was drinking.”

  “Was she underage?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  Dave’s cell phone rang. Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw that it was his dad. He let it go to voice mail. Less than a minute later, the phone rang again. Exiting the room, he stood in the hall and said hello.

  “Dave? My car’s been stolen. You gotta get over here right away.”

  “Your car?” said Dave, trying to switch gears. “Dad, you need to calm down.”

  “How can I? Some asshole hot-wired my Impala.”