“A hard ass?”
“Sorry to shatter your preconceptions, Deputy Blemings. He was bright, tight, and fit as a whippet. Looked good in camouflage combats, and came across as a man you could depend on in a crisis. Cool, calculating, not one to show his emotions. He didn't talk a lot.”
“Could you be any more biased?”
Val grinned, everyone in the department knew of his fierce loyalty to the corps, even after Nath died in the hellhole they called Afghanistan. It was as though anything less than full on support would be dishonoring his memory.
“How did he take his sister's disappearance?”
Val turned onto St. Helena. “Hard to say. I didn't get to meet him until almost eight years after her abduction. He had sought permission to trace his sister when she reached the age of eighteen. She did consent to meet him, but I don't think it went well. There was no big emotional sibling reunion, and she went missing eight months later. Harrell was serving in Germany at the time and therefore was never a suspect. He appeared to have accepted that she was dead and was not holding out any hope that she might still be found alive.”
“Maybe he was too busy holding a grudge against the cops.”
Val shook his head disapprovingly. “So young and yet so cynical. It’s as I said, he was hard guy to read. But I got the impression that he had lost his sister once before, so second time round it was easier to handle.”
Blemings shot him a judgmental look, as if asking now who's cynical.
The accident had happened just in front of a department store, one of Clinton’s oldest retail institutions. Friday evening was the busiest time of the week for the store and there was a heavy footfall of customers coming and going.
They swung into the curb, behind a garishly decorated patrol car.
“I see the crash investigation team is here,” Blemings said, nodding towards two men in Day-Glo jerkins who were taking measurements and recording their findings on a clipboard. A third was taking photographs of the scene. An ambulance and a doctor-on-call car were partially shielding Harrell's body.
“Let's go stamp on some toes,” Val said. He flashed his badge to the nearest of the crash investigators, and raised the blue and white incident tape so he and Blemings could duck under it. About a dozen shoppers were huddled in the still bright sunshine in the front of the store, their eyes fixed on the dead man. The police officer who had phoned Val stood next to the body, talking to a middle-aged black man who held a stethoscope in one hand. The doctor, Val concluded, proving beyond doubt that the sheriff’s belief in his investigative ability had not been misplaced.
Harrell was on his back, his head oddly misshapen, one arm flung out to the side, the other tight against his body. He wore a white t-shirt and denim jeans. It appeared that the paramedics had moved him a few feet away from the concrete bollards so they could attempt resuscitation, but a dark smear of congealed blood identified the one that had inflicted the damage. Harrell’s legs were splayed out, the left twisted at an impossible angle, its foot bare, the sneaker sent flying by the impact.
“More than a glancing blow,” Blemings remarked, interpreting the same signs as Val.
Lying on the tarmac, not far from the forlorn sneaker, was a plastic shopping bag, emblazoned with the name of the department store.
“And you are?” demanded the investigator with the camera.
“An interested party,” Val said.
His reply cut no ice with the investigator. “This is my crime scene. I decide who has access.”
“Deputies Bosanquet and Blemings,” Val said. “The victim is known to us from an investigation.”
“A current inquiry?”
“Not exactly. His sister disappeared eleven years ago, presumed abducted and killed. No trace was ever found.”
Val noticed compassion soften the officer’s face. It did not linger.
“So you'll have no objections if this one takes precedence. I do have a body, a fresh one.”
“Go right ahead. We won't get in your way,” Val replied.
They turned away and approached the victim. Other than his face being of a darker hue than when they had spoken, Harrell did not appear to have changed. Val expected that he would have caught the summer sun working outdoors. Harrell worked sporadically as gamekeeper for some of the fowling clubs, out on the bayous and lakes in all weather. He also ran a one-man welding and fabrication business from a workshop at his home.
As Val was about to speak with the doctor, the medic's cell phone rang and he excused himself to take the call.
The deputy altered tack. “Have you found his car keys?” Val asked the municipal cop.
“In his pocket,” he said, pointing to a dark blue Ford Taurus parked on the other side of the street. “I pressed the remote and the lights flashed.”
“Searched it?”
The officer bristled slightly. “I was about to do so when the investigators arrived. They told me to leave it to them.”
Val nodded. “They know best.”
“No cell phone?” Blemings chipped in.
“Not unless it's in the car.”
“Or it's been trousered,” Val said, scanning the faces of the group watching the scene. A couple of the onlookers dropped their gaze and shuffled their feet.
He walked over to the shopping bag and hunkered down. Using a biro to push back the plastic he made a quick inventory of the contents. A copy of the The Watchman, Clinton’s weekly newspaper; a carton of peanut butter cookies; a can of shaving foam; a twin pack of 60 watt light bulbs; a book of Sudoku puzzles. A final item struck him as bizarre.
He stood up and returned to Blemings and the officer. The doctor ended his telephone conversation and rejoined the group. Blemings introduced herself and offered her hand.
The medic gripped it tightly. “Doctor Luke Green. I'm a partner with a Clinton practice, brought in to confirm death.”
“The victim was a local man,” Val explained, taking his turn to shake hands. “Did you know him?”
Green nodded. “He was registered with the practice, but I rarely had to treat him. I wish more of my patients were as healthy as he was. Harrell took good care of himself: non-smoker; drank moderately and did a bit of running.”
“You knew him socially?”
“Not really. Saw him about. I bumped into to him at a couple of chamber of commerce social events; Fourth of July barbecue; a Veterans’ parade.”
Val grimaced.
“Sorry,” Green apologized. “Poor choice of words.”
“Ever see him with a woman?”
“No, can't say I did. Pretty sure he wasn't married, but I’d have to check our files to be certain.”
“Maybe he met someone recently,” Val said.
Green did not seem convinced. “He was always on his own. I think he was a man happiest in his own company. Pleasant enough to speak with, I thought, but not one for idle chat.”
The doctor's assessment of Harrell tallied with Val's own. Which made his recent discovery all the more puzzling. He now had a conundrum screaming out for a solution.
“We're done here,” Val told Blemings. They made their farewells and passed on details of where they could be contacted. The accident investigators were erecting a screen around the dead man. Val took one last long look at the body before he climbed back into the passenger seat of their vehicle.
Blemings noticed the intensity of his stare.
“Something not right?” she asked him.
He did not answer.
“Listening to the Doctor describe him,” Blemings went on. “You and Harrell could have been twins. Apart from the running, obviously.”
Depressingly, Val had thought the same thing.
Storm ditches and bayous crisscrossed the countryside around Clinton, the productive farmland part of the original cotton belt. The alluvial soil was so fertile farmers said that a Popsicle stick pushed into the rich loam would sprout leaves within twenty-four hours. The two deputies drove betw
een tracts of land planted with the summer soya crop, the neat rows reaching into the distance as far as the eye could see. As they drove past, Val could see the tangled vines heavy with clusters of fat pods ready for the vining machines that would soon be harvesting the crop on behalf of the numerous canning and freezing factories scattered over this part of Louisiana. As a teenager, he had spent his summers toiling in a canning factory. The hours were long, but the work was not that arduous and at that age, the wages had seemed little short of incredible.
Harrell's home was the former coach house of an antebellum mansion that a cotton mill owner had built twenty years before the War Between the States. Situated on prime farmland ten miles west of Clinton, fire had badly damaged the main house in the 1930s, the derelict shell later razed to make way for a Second World War flight school for long-range bomber pilots. The USAF kept the coach house to store supplies. It was too close to the runway to be habitable, and abandoned after the war.
A new owner dug up the runway in the sixties and returned the land to horticultural use. A year before the millennium, Harrell had made the landowner an offer for the crumbling coach house which had been accepted with alacrity. He replaced the roof and installed utilities. Apart from the addition of a bathroom and a kitchen, the interior had seen little improvement. Val recalled how he had broken the ice with Harrell by talking real estate renovation; explaining how he was working on his own project at that time.
"Home comforts could be described as Spartan," Val finished explaining to Blemings. "And that's being generous."
"Needs a woman's touch."
"That's it exactly. When I last spoke to him, it was clear that he was a man living on his own."
"Nothing wrong with that," Blemings said. "Maybe he was gay."
Val shook his head. "I shouldn't have thought so."
"Lacking style doesn't make him straight."
"There was a box of tampons in his shopping bag. What would a man like Harrell be doing buying tampons? Even if he had met someone, he wasn't the type a woman would ask to purchase intimate hygiene supplies."
Blemings mulled it over before she replied. "He may have wanted them for some other purpose. I've heard of sanitary towels being used as makeshift bandages; sterile and absorbent."
"Pull-throughs for cleaning shotgun barrels."
He signaled for Blemings to slow down. It was easy to miss the entrance to the track that led to Harrell’s coach house, it being just the other side of a farm's machinery store.
"There on the right," he said, stabbing a finger towards the partially concealed opening.
Blemings swung the SUV onto the track, which had a healthy crop of grass growing along its center. The pot-holed laneway was a quarter-mile long and ended in front of the single-story, ivy-clad coach house.
As Val looked around the somnolent rural landscape, it was difficult to imagine that Flying Fortresses once made the ground shudder as they taxied for take-off.
Making straight for the main entrance, a picket door set into in a pair of double doors in an archway, Val rapped strongly on the lion's head knocker. With his customary impatience, he did not wait to see if anyone answered but immediately started to walk around the exterior of the house, peering through the windows.
"Nobody home," he announced, testing a closed top light. He tried the next window and found it loosely latched. Val pulled a penknife from his pocket and used the blade to lift the casement stay, then pushed the window open. He glanced at Blemings.
"Duh, baby!" she said.
"Lend me your shoulder then." Val scrabbled up the ivy-covered wall and, using Blemings for support, launched himself headfirst through the open window, knocking over a large wooden bench upon landing. A few moments later, the front door opened.
Val rubbed a knee. "Stupid place to leave furniture."
They lost no time in searching the coach house. An inspection of the bathroom and the only closet confirmed that Harrell had still been living solo. Although very little had been spent on decoration, the house was clean, dry and inordinately neat. The bed was made, the furniture dust free, the floor swept. All of the dead man's clothes laundered and pressed. His shoes and work boots cleaned and shined. Utility bills paid promptly and filed by date. A heavy padlock secured a metal gun safe fixed to the wall. Old newspapers and magazines were folded tidily and stacked in order of publication. The dishes washed, dried and put away, the sink rinsed and wiped free of any water drops. Canned goods and food in the fridge arranged in reverse use-by date.
"A bit OCD for me," Blemings said.
"When was the last time you were in a house where the only TV was a black and white model?"
The rear of the coach house had been partitioned off and the resultant space used as a workshop. Harrell had not invited Val through on his previous visits and the deputy was surprised to discover just how skillful Harrell was in his metalworking. A number of completed items awaited delivery: an Old Father Time weather vane; a sign for Eden Farms Organic Hogs and an ornate hay manger intended for a stable. Along one wall was a lathe, bench grinder and a serious looking drill. Two gas cylinders, hoses and a burner were stacked in a corner. There was also an electric arc welding kit, the protective facemask and gloves lying on top. Plastic trays housed a range of nuts, bolts and washers. Saws, hammers, spanners were hung on peg racks. In the center of the workshop’s floor was an impressive double pedestal desk that looked like it may have dated from the same era as the coach house. Drawings for a set of ornate gates were lying on top, the draughtsmanship displaying the same neatness and meticulousness evident in the living area of the house.
"Our boy was a bit of a craftsman," Blemings remarked.
"He didn't learn this in Recon."
The sound of a vehicle drawing up outside brought an end to their observations. Val headed outside, Blemings trailed in his wake.
To say that the accident investigators were less than pleased to see them would have been considerable understatement, Val reckoned. The sergeant was apoplectic. His face turned a shiny red, then purple with blue patches. He was having trouble putting his rage into words. For a few moments, Val thought the man was going to suffer a stroke.
Finally, the irate investigator recovered his power of speech. "What the hell do you think you're doing?” he bawled.
Val smiled warmly. "We were securing the victim's residence for you. How would it have looked if some opportunistic thief had been at the accident and thought to take advantage? No need to thank us. I could see you had your hands full at the scene."
Val opened the door fully and waved the investigators in. The two uniformed men eyed Val suspiciously, before pushing past him.
"Let's not forget our training," Blemings said, pulling a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and making a show of putting them on.
The accident investigators moved deeper into the coach house. The deputies followed them, further irritating the uniformed officers. The sergeant had Harrell’s car keys with him and lost no time searching through them until he found the key that fitted the padlock on the gun safe. There were two shotguns and three boxes of cartridges inside. Next to the guns, was a leather gun case, with a cleaning kit inside.
Val and Blemings traded glances. Another theory crashed and burned.
The accident investigators’ search would not take long. Not through any lack of effort on their behalf, but because there was so little to search through. Harrell was not a conspicuous consumer. The bulk of his personal belongings would have fitted into a decent sized suitcase. No computers, no diaries, no hidden safe, not even a porn magazine under the bed.
“There is not a single photograph in the house,” Blemings whispered to Val.
“I don’t have many in mine.”
“Proves my point, he was a sad bastard.”
The accident investigators finished their search and were obviously keen to be on their way. The sergeant closed the window Val had climbed through, making a point of securing the st
ay. His companion carried the two shotguns and the boxes of cartridges out to their car and secured them in its trunk. The uniformed officers lingered out front, reluctant to leave until the deputies had exited the coach house.
Val waited for Blemings to step through the picket door, and then he stepped back across the sill and put an arm round the edge of the door.
“Allow me,” he said, pulling the door shut.
“I don’t think we need worry about thieves?” the sergeant said, as he climbed into the passenger seat of his vehicle. “There’s precious little worth stealing.”
The patrol car pulled away, its driver spinning the wheels to throw up a cloud of choking dust.
“Back to the office?” Blemings asked.
“Not just yet. I want another look inside.”
“How do we get back in?”
Val opened his hand and showed her a key. “I palmed this. Harrell was too much of an organized type not to have a spare. It was hanging on a hook behind the door.”
“Smoothly executed. But I don’t see any point going back inside. We’ve seen all there is to see.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Something you’re not telling me?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Back inside, Val made straight for the workshop at the rear. He crossed over to the desk and drummed his fingers on it.
“Odd place to put a desk,” he said. “Restricts the work space, and you would be forever walking round it. If it was me, I would have placed the desk up against a wall.”
The deputies cast an eye over the floor under the desk. Like the rest of the workshop floor, thick plywood sheets covered the original planking. They provided a non-slip surface, good insulation and were easy to sweep clean of metal shavings.