CHAPTER 45: DALE
I summoned Ravella to come out, but my telepathic powers had apparently waned since they had drawn Ravella from his apartment. He had been in the house approximately an hour. What were they doing? Perhaps Sutler had fired up a barbecue pit in the back on the chilly October morning. Doubt it. Perhaps Ravella and Sutler were holed up in the bedroom performing secret, sadomasochistic sex rites. I doubt that too. The guessing game rarely yields a winner.
I became aware of a small but threatening seed of a headache behind my left temple. Caffeine withdrawal no doubt. I had missed my Cuppa Joe’s and was starting to suffer the consequences. Hm. Like now. Jesus, I’m exhausted. Anyone else ready for a break? No? I’ll press on.
A pickup roared past me. Blue. It turned down Crestview Lane and parked in Sutler’s driveway. The man who exited the pickup was in his late fifties, early sixties. He looked like--I don’t know. A plumber? No. He was too well dressed. Well, that detail isn’t essential.
Anyway, he cradled something in his hands. My fevered fancy turned the object into a bomb, but sober eyes prevailed and I accepted it as a plastic bowl. So perhaps they had fired up a barbecue in the back after all. The simplest solution.
But I always thought Ockham was a bit of a naïf. After a patient pause, the dapper workman, rejected by the unanswered door, dolefully returned to his pickup sans bowl. Suspicious. I had induced at least two people inside Sutler’s--Ravella and whomever had let Ravella inside--and certainly one of them could’ve answered the door. Even if there had been a frolicking party in the backyard, one would surmise the noise of their merriment would have drawn the guest around the side.
So there was that mystery. Another pestering puzzle was the man’s identity. The possibilities were voluminous, as they almost always are where unknowing is involved. Ah, is there anything worse than not knowing? Well, I’d surmise knowing can be its own special hell. An ideal balance, I’m sure, exists in some world.
The cacophony coming from the pickup’s parts taunted me to tail him, but I resisted their beckons, even if the man was in fact the keystone to solving a hundred crimes. I jotted his license plate as he came up Crestview, and then ducked before he passed.
By the way, I unraveled the mystery an hour ago. During my brief chat with Brenda Sutler, I learned I had witnessed her father delivering a bowl of chicken soup. What a prognosticator the man must be, to provide a condolence dish for the bereaved before there’s a body to mourn. I know. Too far.
In any event, the right call I had made. Approximately a minute after the no doubt law-abiding father drove out of my rearview mirror, I heard a gunshot. Well, a shot of some sort. Perhaps an especially violent backfire. I retrieved my heater, a replica of my old service revolver. Yes, some still call it a heater. I had packed it in my briefcase that morning. Probably should’ve mentioned that earlier.
With my windows rolled up, the shot’s echo spread evenly across my car and I had difficultly zeroing in the exact direction from which the shot had originated. But Ravella was in the neighborhood, so I could make an educated hypothesis.
I considered peeling down the lane and barging into the house, yet my instinct held me back. I instead pocketed my revolver and left the sanctuary of my vehicle. I entered the woods on my right and crept until I had achieved an unrestricted visual of the front of the Sutlers’ residence.
While I had maneuvered to this vantage point, the garage door had opened. The first thing my investigative eye set upon was Ravella’s body lying on the garage floor. However, my aesthetic eye was not far behind and it briefly critiqued a canvass on the easel beside Ravella. Although the work was in progress, it was already bad with little hope of redemption. One almost pitied the paint to be smeared so artlessly.
A striking redhead, whose red was wet for some reason, a woman I later identified as Brenda Sutler, came from the garage. She surveyed the area as if she knew I was watching and she wanted to ascertain from where. She noticed--at the exact moment I did--a broken mug lying in the driveway. From her tortured reaction, one could be forgiven for assuming the mug was a precious heirloom. She pushed past her grief and pulled Ravella’s jeep forward a few feet. Say, ten.
She then exited the jeep and hooked her hands under Ravella’s pits and pulled. Obviously, she strained to no purpose, but the trooper took a breath and tried again, this time with some success, thus initiating the protracted event of inching him ever so slightly to the open door of the jeep. Her effort was valiant, yet painful to watch and in danger of sucking the drama from the scene. Oh how I itched to put an end to the tedium and come forth from hiding. But I trusted the reward I would receive when she reached her destination would be compensation enough for the drudgery of watching the journey, so I allowed her to continue.
Wise choice. I witnessed something I’d never seen before. After she had moved Ravella near the open door, she climbed into the jeep and pulled Ravella after her. This would’ve been impossible if she hadn’t received some assistance from an unexpected source. Ravella’s feet moved. In other words, the helpful detective was assisting in the transport of his own corpse. See what riches may come from exercising a bit of patience?
It remained to be seen where Sutler was during all of this. Wonderstruck as I was by the pantomime, they were surely planning on using the jeep to transport themselves somewhere else, so I returned to my car, discovering on the way how difficult it is to make limber movements while crouched, perhaps particularly on an uneven surface such as the floor of a woods. I reached my car the moment they passed. I ducked, but I’m sure Brenda Sutler made me. Perhaps not. I’m not positive. You’ll have to ask her.
In either case, I followed them.
Obviously, I considered calling it in, but aside from the sticky issue of my presence on the scene, I wasn’t positive what the “it” was I was to call in. Posing as a corpse? A misdemeanor if anything. I didn’t even possess hard proof that a firearm had been illegally discharged, much less if Ravella or Mrs. Sutler had had fired it.
The fact is, neither passenger in Ravella’s jeep had broken any substantial laws. Yet I was not discouraged. A bad wind was blowing. If not, I have no instinct at all.