A Luring Murder (18 page)

Noah gave each of them one last squirt before lowering the sprayer.

“You two have always been two cats in a paper sack. You need to let the past go after all this time and get on with your lives.”

He toddled away dragging the hose behind him. The rest of us stood in stunned silence. Watkins and King sat in muddy puddles on the ground and blinked at Noah. My inner naughty child chuckled at the power of the old man and his hose.

I crouched between the two dripping men.

“What exactly was the old man talking about? What’s the bug-a-boo between you two?”

“You cheated me!” Watkins yelled. “And you made sure I didn’t get elected sheriff.”

“You’re not qualified.” King jammed a fist into the puddle sending brown droplets into the air. A few rained down on my head, and I felt a large mud chunk adhere to my left cheek. “And I didn’t cheat you!”

The sheriff part of that conversation made sense from what little I’d just heard. But the rest of the story was still as fuzzy as a television without an antenna.

I scraped the chunk of dirt from my cheek and put on my best counselor voice. “Why do you think he cheated you, Deputy Watkins?”

“Because he did.”

Christ, it was such a childish response. He even pouted under his layer of mud.

King laughed and used his fingertips to scrape the mud from his face. “I bought a few acres of land from him a few years back. When the county rezoned the land, I sold it for a profit.”

Watkins gave a grunt and tisked.

“It was a legitimate business deal.” Patrick locked eyes with the deputy the same way you would when talking to an errant child. “Watkins can’t seem to get over it. He never has been much of a business man.”

“Damn it, you knew they were going to rezone that land.” He stabbed a dirty finger toward King. “You bought it at less than a quarter of what it was worth, then you sold it.”

“You put the land up for sale two years before it was rezoned. How could I have known about the rezoning?”

“Oh, you knew.” Watkins got to his knees. “You just couldn’t stand the idea of someone other than you making a profit.”

Patrick shrugged mud covered hands palms up. “I didn’t even want the damned land. I was trying to help you out. You needed the money. You begged me to buy the parcel.”

Now everything was beginning to fall into place. Feuds had been started over less. Hell, murders had been committed over less.

“I bought the land and thought I could maybe use it for hunting. Other than that, that parcel was worthless to me. When the city finally rezoned the area, the land had been sitting unused and overgrown, eating up money in taxes. I was happy to see it go.”

King got to his knees, jammed his fists into his hips, and put his face in Watkins’s face. “It was just a business deal.”

Watkins struggled to his feet. Mud dripped off the back of his jeans like diarrhea. Not very attractive. I hoped Louise was taking note.

“That was my family’s land,” Watkins said. “Ours since before the town was founded. I should have been the one to decide if it was going to be developed, or not.”

“If the land meant that damned much to you, you should never have sold it to pay your gambling debts.”

Ouch. I’m sure Deputy Watkins was aware of his shortcomings, but having them thrown back in your face by someone you despised; that had to hurt.

“Stand up, King.”

Patrick held his arms straight out then let them drop to his side, and slap against his muddy pants. He squinted up at the Deputy. “Why?”

“I’m placing you under arrest.”

Patrick gave a short laugh and waved him away. “What the hell for? You can’t arrest me for Warren’s murder. You don’t have any evidence. I would have to sue you for false arrest.”

“No, not for Warren’s murder.” Deputy Watkins took his handcuffs from his mud-covered belt. “I’m placing you under arrest for assaulting a police officer.”

“Oh, please Watkins, we’ve been fighting for years.” Patrick stood. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“But today I’m in uniform. You have the right to remain silent.” Watkins took King by the wrist and prepared to cuff him.

Patrick King yanked his wrist away and shoved Watkins back a step. Watkins went red under the layer of crust on his face. He pulled his gun from its holster and aimed at Patrick. “Face down on the ground.”

“He can’t do this can he, Sheriff?”

The Sheriff frowned and nodded. “I’m afraid he can. Sorry, Patrick, but as long as he’s in uniform, you can’t take a poke at him like that, regardless of your history together.”

If you could call a uniform shirt and jeans an official uniform. I guess I should respect his point. I am an officer and I’d use the law if I had to, but Deputy Watkins’s motive for the arrest was not at all in the spirit for which the law was intended.

“I’m adding the charge of resisting arrest. Turn around and lace you fingers behind your head.”

Patrick followed Watkins’s order with an amused grin on his face, like they were still kids, and this was just for play. The whole situation did have elements of the ridiculous.

“Thomas, is all this necessary?” Sheriff Anderson tugged at the bill of his cap adjusting it first left to right, like a pitcher on the mound waiting for the right pitch to be signaled.

Watkins re-holstered his gun.

He took one of Patrick’s wrists. This time King didn’t resist.

“Well, that’s one way to make sure he doesn’t try to run while we wait for the results from Digs.”

“I guess.” Louise was watching Watkins read King his rights and handcuff him. I knew the look on her face, pure disappointment. She didn’t like Deputy Watkins using the law for his personal vendetta any more than I.

After Watkins put Patrick into the Suburban, Louise strode up to him. “I’ve changed my mind about dinner tomorrow evening.”

“What?” He looked like she’d just slapped him upside the head. “Why?”

“I have my reasons.” She smiled sweet. “But thank you for the offer. Besides, you’ll be busy guarding your prisoner. You won’t have time for dinner with me.”

She turned and walked away, leaving him with mouth open. If he didn’t close his maw quick he was endanger of eating a chunk of mud, that iceberged toward his lips.

I hurried to catch up to her. “Not that I disapprove of you breaking off your dinner, but what was that all about?”

“I didn’t like what I saw in the fair Deputy Watkins. That’s all.”

“And what was that?”

“Pettiness, jealousy, and a not-fair attitude.” She made quotes with her fingers when she said, not-fair. “Put them all together and they spell loser.”

“At least you still have Digs. He’s not petty or whiny, and he loves you.”

“He does not.”

“Yes he does.”

Digs sat behind the wheel of the van waving to us to hurry up. I scooted in next to him and helped pull Louise up.

“Hurry up.” There was a distinct up pitch in Digs’ voice. “Get in and close the door.”

Louise slammed the door. “Okay, we’re in. What’s the rush?”

Digs wheeled the van onto the road and sped away from the Marina.

“Okay, spill it Digs,” I said. “You’ve got something good.”

“How do you know, O’Brien?”

“Because you have that mad scientist look on your face. Like Doctor Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll, and a dash of Albert Einstein thrown in for good measure. What did you find?”

Digs pursed his lips together and grimaced at me. I wrinkled my nose and smiled.

Finally, he took a deep breath. “Whoever cleaned the place did an excellent job. There were no fingerprints anywhere.”

“Why would King clean finger prints?” Louise said. “We know it’s his boat. He would have only needed to clean prints off the weapon. That doesn’t make any sense.”

It made sense if someone was trying to hang Patrick King on the wall like the Mona Lisa.

“What else Digs,” I asked.

“The Luminol.”

Digs shoved his glasses up on his nose. “The floor of the boat glowed off the chart. He cleaned up pretty good, but there was blood. Lots of blood. Everywhere.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t fish blood?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure. There’s no way the amount of blood I found was from fish guts.” Digs took a corner so fast I slid across the bench seat and squished Louise against the door. He was too involved in his excitement to notice. “Not unless they gutted a whale.”

“Then Warren Pease was killed on King’s boat.” Louise elbowed me back to the middle of the bench seat.

“I was able to get some hair off the anchor.”

“The anchor was cleaned,” I said.

“As shiny as a new penny,” Digs agreed. “But the hinge trapped a clump of three hairs, with good follicles.”

“Digs, you are the best,” I said. “We’ll nail Patrick with this much evidence. It’s tailor made for a conviction.”

Louise nodded. “Yeah, that’s great, Digs.”

Her tone pricked at my ears with its lack of sincerity. She sounded as convinced as I wasn’t.

“There were other fibers caught in the seam of the Formica top, and I was able to get more of the residue on the table.”

Digs’ animated excitement disturbed me. I’d never seen him this excited. I could attribute part of his merriment to working in the field. Digs didn’t get out of the office very often.

“For as much cleaning as they did, they did a piss poor job,” he said.

“How long for the results on what you have?” Louise asked.

Digs wheeled the van into the resort and came to an abrupt stop outside of their cabin. The force of the stop sent me flying forward into the dash. Jeez, he and Louise, were a perfect couple. They were both horseshit drivers.

I referred to Louise’s Toyota Camry as the Chariot of Death, because I was certain I’d die in that car with her behind the wheel someday. After today, I think I was going to have to bestow the title of honorary chariot driver on Digs.

Neither Digs nor Louise acknowledged my bug through the windshield imitation.

“Depends on if I run into any snags. But if all goes smooth, I’d say a few hours.” He glanced over at her. “Why? What’s the hurry? King is being held for slugging Deputy Watkins. He’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She rolled her head from side to side. “You’re probably right.”

Digs scurried off to run his tests.

Forensic investigating was what Digs lived for; finding the unfindable. No matter how clever the killer, they would always leave some trace. Those who had the sense to realize what they’d done would clean and clean until nothing could be seen, but as invisible as the trace might be, Digs would find the left behind.

Louise and I opted for a stroll around the resort rather than spend more time staring at the water. After a few minutes of pointless small talk to fill up the silence, I finally stopped and turned to Louise.

“Okay, what’s wrong? You’re having a problem with this whole thing too, aren’t you? You don’t think Patrick King is our guy any more than I do, do you?”

She ran her hands over her braids. “I don’t know. I’m bothered by the prints. Why clean off all of your prints when it’s your boat.

“I know. Sounds like a frame up to me.”

“Then there’s the McMahan murder,” Louise said.

“Oh, now you think the two murders are connected?”

“No.” Her voice was full of regret. “I think that the conclusion is easier if they’re not connected, but the two have to be connected in some way. I just can’t figure out how.”

Silence ticked away between us as we mulled over the problem. Nothing in this investigation fit together nice and easy like a puzzle.

From what I could tell Patrick had come to terms with his wife’s affair long ago. Though he wasn’t thrilled about the two of them sleeping together, he had made his peace, and their arrangement worked for them. Why would King suddenly decide to kill Pease? There had to have been a catalyst of some kind, and we hadn’t found it yet. McMahan’s death had been one of opportunity, but why?

“Maybe King panicked,” I said, doing my best to play the devil's advocate. “If he hadn’t intended to kill Warren Pease, he might have panicked, and did the big clean without even thinking about what he was doing. He just wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe McMahan saw King bring the body on shore and confronted him.”

Louise considered what I’d said, or at least she did me the courtesy of pretending to before she shook her head.

“It’s possible but why would Warren go out on the boat with King in the first place? And why wouldn’t McMahan go to the Sheriff? It doesn’t seem logical to go sailing with your mistresses husband, or to confront someone you know is a murderer.”

“Good point.” I toed the dirt. “Either Pease was a colossal idiot, or he didn’t know Patrick was going to be on the boat. As for McMahan.” I scratched my head. “No clue.”

A group of kids in swimsuits screamed past us down the path toward the beach. After the group passed and was nearly out of sight, a small boy about three-years-old sped by. He tripped over a beach towel six times longer than he. Without so much as a whimper, he got to his feet and continued his pursuit.