A Promise Kept, page 14
part #1 of Rick Carnes Mystery Series
The chief stepped to a white pad on an easel off to the side. He used a black marking pen from the easel’s tray and wrote and underlined: BAD JOHN. He turned to us. “Sergeant, what have you learned about how the presumed killer arrived in our town?”
Sergeant Preminger cleared his throat. “First important note: the deli called. Their truck broke down. We’re not getting any sandwiches.”
“Damn. Well, it’s still early. We can all pick up something later. Okay, Sergeant, back to your report.”
“I showed his picture around the bus station. A driver for Calaveras Connect recognized him. The driver says he’s all but certain Bad John rode his bus in from San Andreas, arriving the day before Cordell was wounded.”
That means Bad John couldn’t’ve taken the shot at me.
I returned my attention to Sergeant Preminger.
“That bus arrived about ten in the morning. The driver wasn’t sure but thought our John had connected with his bus in San Andreas after coming in from Sacramento. Assuming that to be correct, at this point, we have nothing indicating whether John is local to Sacto or if he flew into the airport there.”
“Anything on what happened to him after he got off the bus here?”
The sergeant turned to Chief Warner. “Billie, you know, the cabbie with the big tatas, she picked him up in her cab and says she drove him to a daily rental out on Church near Raspberry Lane. That checked out. The old guy, Gus, who runs that place said John rented a room there by the day and paid cash in advance for two days. The old man hasn’t seen John since he checked in—I didn’t tell him that was because his tenant lay dead out near the cattle incinerator on the Jones Ranch. Gus is eager to get that room back up for rent. … If you want it run for prints, we need to get on it. The motel’s talking about moving out anything this John left in the room, putting it into storage and getting the room ready to be rented again.”
“What would they be moving out? What did you find in the room?”
The sergeant shook his head. “Nothing, Chief. I think Gus was just using a phrase he’s used a thousand times. The room has a bed, a chest, and a rocker with frayed arms. Hell, the paints peeling off the walls. The closet held a pair of khaki slacks and a white polo shirt. The newest thing I saw was a baby roach. Other than that, just a bunch of leftover odors. Specific to John, the room’s bare. Not even a toothbrush. It’s possible he didn’t plan on going back. If’n he’s a pro he might’a rented two days to give the appearance he’d be coming back, while his real plan was to finish the job and get outta town.”
The chief looked over at me. “What’d’ya think?”
“Being a daily rental, we’ll find lots of prints. Finding his will prove he was in that room. We could even get lucky and find a print that matches with one of the players in this matter. And that print could suggest who hired Bad John.”
The sergeant crossed his arms. “Whoever hired Bad John would be dumber than a rock to go into that room. He’d meet John somewhere teaming with people and keep it brief.”
The chief put down his marker. “You’re likely right, Sarge, but let’s do it. Get our fingerprint guy out there. But limit the scope. We’re looking for a print that matches what we got off the carcass of the John Doe we’re calling Bad John. If we find one—if—then look for fingerprints that match up with anyone else involved in this case: Cordell, Vance, Mother Jones, Susan, any of the wranglers, even Rosie. Be there when the fingerprint guy arrives to make sure old Gus doesn’t give him any trouble. When that’s established, leave and get on back.”
Sergeant Preminger dropped his pen and headed out of the conference room.
The chief turned to me. “While Abner’s doing that, let me fill you in on a few things the sergeant’s already aware of. First, the hairs on John’s pant cuffs, the hairs taken directly from Fluffy, and the hairs extracted from the bottom edge of Cordell’s bed all match. Bad John was in Cordell’s room leaning over his bed. Second, county forensics found a trace of dirt on the left trouser knee of Bad John’s denim pants. That trace matched the dirt in the Jones Family Graveyard. Forensics was able, somehow, to form the opinion Bad John was left-handed, how they know that I have no clue.”
“He’s left-handed.”
The chief looked at me. His expression tightened.
“That night in Bill’s when he approached me. He positioned himself a little to his right of the chair and pulled it out with his left hand. After he sat down, he poured my drink with his left hand.”
“Okay. I don’t see that as conclusive, but county forensics agrees so, for now, let’s take it as a working truth. In any event, this John character killed Cordell Carson IV. But that gets us no closer to identifying who hired him.”
“Anything else?”
“The markings on the bullet that wounded Cordell matched the bullet shot at you that you dug out of the tree near Millie’s. Same rifle for both shots. What we just learned about when John got to town, put together with when the shot at you was taken, tells us an interesting point: While both bullets were shot from the same rifle, both shots weren’t fired by the same shooter. John hadn’t gotten to town when you were shot at.”
“Hmmm. So, we’ve got at least one more live player.”
The chief nodded. “I’m betting two more. I don’t see the boss-man in all this bothering to take a warning shot at you. Looks like we’ve got two mystery guests yet to be found: who took a shot at you and the boss who’s ramrodding this whole shindig and killed Bad John.”
I sipped the last drops of my coffee. “Is that it—the stuff the sarge already knows?”
Chief Warner nodded.
“Then I’ve got something you should know that, frankly, I’d like to tell you before your son gets back.”
The chief topped off his half-full coffee cup and refilled mine. “Here you go.” He sat. “Let’s hear it.”
“Susan Jones is Millie’s daughter. As widely believed the father is Rupert Jones. Susan doesn’t know. Mother Jones does.”
The chief’s whistle interrupted me. He took off his hat and spun it on the table. “How sure are you?”
“Absolutely. I ran DNA. The results—”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Part of my cover. As an epigenetist, I wanted to confirm the relationships among the individuals accepted as family members. For all I knew, I might discover some hidden relationships which could play a role in this shindig, as you called it.”
The chief nodded, pursing his lips as he did. “Go on.”
“I confronted Millie. She confirmed it. She’s the one who told me that Susan doesn’t know, but Mother Jones does.”
The chief whistled again. This time without spinning his hat.
“Chief, assuming Millie and Susan are innocent of the matter we’re investigating, I promised Millie I’d talk with you about whether or not we can respect her confidence. At least for now.”
“For now. … Mebbe permanently. We’ll see.”
Sergeant Preminger came back into the room. He got a bottle of water and took a seat while the chief was telling me the inquiries with the ranch wranglers were finished. None of them saw a vehicle out near the cattle compost pile and incinerator where the sergeant found Bad John’s body.
Preminger gave his report: “The fingerprint guy’s doing his thing. Gus griped a little, but there was no real trouble. We should get the results sometime later tonight or early tomorrow. On a separate matter, on the way back here, I stopped to check on Cordell’s watch. He told me Cordell’s alarm was set to go off every night at midnight, just like Rosie said. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the watch to explain the reason for it. Now, what did I miss while I was gone?”
The chief smiled. “Your timing was perfect, I’ve been filling Rick in on the stuff you already knew—the bullets matching, and the DNA results proving all the cat hairs matched. Between the dirt on the knee of Bad John’s pantleg matching with the ground in the Jones Graveyard and the cat hairs on John’s pants, we’re on solid ground saying Bad John killed Cordell. Now we need to find who hired him to do it, not to mention who took the shot at Rick the other night when he was headed back to Millie’s.”
“Why wouldn’t that be Bad John? I mean we’ve got him pretty much tied to the rifle that was used for both shootings.”
The chief didn’t raise his head, just his eyes from the report in front of him to his son’s face. “Because you found out John got to town about thirty-six hours after the shot at Rick was taken.”
“Maybe at me, Chief. If it was, the shooter was a pretty poor shot.”
Sergeant Preminger slapped his open palm against his forehead. “Of course. Delete my question.”
The sergeant and his father sat looking at one another until I changed the subject. “We got anything more on the unidentified latents in Cordell’s house?”
“Sergeant, how’s that going?”
“I’ve talked with everyone we planned to ask and worked up a list of possibilities for the remaining prints, all female as the experts said they were. We need to interview those women and get their prints. Three are here in the Camp, the other one’s in Murphys. How do you want us to proceed?”
The chief pulled his pad close. “Give me the identity and location of the ladies. Then we’ll plan for the interviews.”
Abner Preminger took a pad from his uniform shirt and flipped over two pages: “We have a total of four of the area’s finest: Tracy, a waitress in Bill’s Tavern. Jodie who waits tables at Angels Camp Café. Carmelita, who owns and operates an art gallery in Murphys. And last, but not least, a lady familiar to us all, Dr. Carol Shenley.”
“That’s it?”
The sergeant closed his spiral pad and put it back in the pocket of his shirt. “Yes, sir.”
Chief Warner tapped the point of his pen on his pad. “Mebbe we can reason out one of them. Did Dr. Shenley go out to see Cordell after he went to his room? Mebbe before she left the ranch?”
“I don’t think so.” The sergeant pointed at me. “What’d’ya remember, Rick?”
“I agree. She treated him right where he fell. After the others left, Carol stayed with us to have a piece of Mother Jones’s cake. Then the doctor left, and Cordell went home. I remember Mother Jones insisting on walking with him. At that point, Dr. Shenley was gone.”
“Okay. Here’s our batting order.” The chief turned to his sergeant. “You drive on out to Murphys and interview the art gallery owner. While you do, Rick and I’ll talk with Carol Shenley. Then we’ll touch base by phone, compare notes, and decide how to split up the interviews of the two waitresses here in the Camp.”
I looked at the chief. “Is Dr. Shenley married?”
“No. She moved here about eight years ago and opened her office. No trouble with my department. Clean social reputation. Successful practice. She’s known as one of the Camp’s most attractive and eligible ladies.”
After Sergeant Preminger left for Murphys, I turned to the chief. “There’s another point we need to talk about.”
Chief Warner wrinkled his brow, got up, and motioned for me to follow. We walked into his office.
I sat facing him. His desk between us. “I’m not an epigenetist.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Nice you finally admit it.”
“I’m a recently mustered out Army Ranger. Eddie Jones, Mother Jones’s son, was with me when he died in Syria. Eddie saved my life at the cost of his own. As he died, he asked me to come here and help his family.”
“With what?”
“He died before he could say anything more than they’ve got problems. It’s obvious you and Mother Jones are awfully close. I thought you should know. To get familiar with the familial status of all the players, I had DNA tests ran on each member of the Jones family. Also on Cordell, and Millie.”
“That how you discovered Susan was Millie’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
When he asked why I included Millie in my tests, I explained about the picture album in Millie’s room and how I discovered it.
The chief crossed his arms and set them on his desktop. “Why do I sense you have another scintillating tidbit for me?”
“Because I do. Cordell Carson IV is Mother Jones’s son. His father was Cordell the third.”
“I can confirm that. Issy told me.”
“I thought she might have. Seeing Cordell’s murder is what we’re investigating, I needed to be sure you knew this background on the victim’s history.”
“Yeah, it’s been a hard year for my lady, Issy. Two of her sons have died. Eddie in Syria, and her secret son, Cordell, the night of her eightieth birthday.”
“It’s good she has you, Chief. So, she’s down to one son and one daughter, Susan, who was given birth by another woman. Strictly speaking, that reduces her to one full-blooded child, Vance, and one-half child, Susan, fathered by her husband but not blood-related to Mother Jones.”
After the chief nodded, I asked, “Who is the ranch’s current legally titled owner? Is it vested in Isabel Jones, or some family partnership or trust or whatever?”
“Titled straight to Issy.” As he said it, the chief nodded. “In her name.”
“Fact or hearsay?”
“Fact.” He added, “I’ve seen the deed.”
“Do you see any connection between the violent deaths of Mother Jones’s two sons?”
“Seemingly, disconnected. Eddie, with you during a firefight in Syria.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Seemingly.”
The chief looked at me hard. “Do you see a connection between the deaths of her two sons?”
“Not so as I can see. At least not right yet. … How much of this family stuff does your son know?”
“Abner doesn’t know any of it. The only way he would’ve learned is from Susan when they were married, but she doesn’t know Millie’s her mother. Or Cordell, when they were friends, but he died without knowing Issy was his mother. I can tell you, Issy’s heartbroken that Cordell died without knowing. She wanted to tell him a million times but didn’t want to tell half the truth. She felt if she did, she should also tell Susan that Millie was her mother—that’s the part she didn’t want to do.”
“And what have you told Abner?”
“I might’ve told him when he was getting set to marry Susan, but I didn’t know about it until after they divorced. Then, I saw it as none of his business.”
“It does explain Susan and Cordell being drawn to each other. They thought it was romantically. More likely it was an intuitive sense of being siblings.”
“Mebbe.” The chief nodded. “Sometimes I think Angels Camp is misnamed. That it should’ve been called Peyton Place West.”
We shared a grin.
“I suspect that’s the same everywhere, Chief. I wonder how many people have unknowingly given their doctors the health history of their parents, who weren’t their parents to begin with.”
The chief stood. “This also explains why Issy, in no uncertain terms, shut down the romance between Susan and Cordell.”
“Does that really explain it? Susan and Cordell don’t share a common father or a common mother. To each other, they aren’t blood relatives.”
“If you knew Issy better, you’d understand. Issy is Cordell’s mother. Her husband was Susan’s father. As Issy thinks of family, she sees Cordell and Susan as brother and sister.
28
Chief Warner and I waited in Dr. Carol Shenley’s reception area. She came out after ten minutes.
“Hi, Rick. Nice to see you again.” Carol turned to the chief, putting her hand on the side of his upper arm. “I’ve got twenty minutes or so before my next appointment. My master plan had this time penciled in for lunch. This about Cordell, or does Rick want to blindfold me and snap his fingers some more?”
“None of the above.” The chief smiled.
She glanced toward the window. “Is it raining yet? It was supposed to start a half hour ago.”
“No. The last forecast I saw was what you said. As to why we’re here, it’s purely routine stuff. We’re running down prints found in Cordell’s place. We’ve got three unidentified. All female—”
Dr. Shenley’s expression showed surprise. “They can tell sex from fingerprints?”
“Technology marches on. Anyway, we made inquiries to work up a list of possibles. You’re on the list. Best we recollect, you didn’t go out to Cordell’s room after he was wounded. Tell us how your prints got there?”
“That’s easy, Chief. Boy-girl stuff, you know. I hope you don’t need more specifics.”
“I didn’t know you and Cordell dated.”
“You likely don’t know many of the men I date. Cordell and I have—I guess I should say had—been sparking, as Mother Jones might call it, now and again over the past six months or so. Nothing serious. He was good-looking and we got along … man, it’s hard to think of Cordy in the past tense. Anyway, the most recent time was dinner in Murphys and drinks at his place earlier in the week he was killed. I think it was Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.” She opened her phone for a moment. “My calendar says Tuesday.”
“Okay. That explains it.”
“You still need my prints?”
“Yeah. If we can confirm you’re one of the three, that’ll reduce our unknown latents to two.”
“No problem. How do we go about it?”
“I’ll have an officer come by this afternoon. He’ll have a mobile fingerprint scanner. It’ll require only a minute of your time. There’s no ink used with it. It’s quick.”
“I’ll alert my receptionist to let me know when the officer comes in.” Then she pointed. “The rain.”
The three of us watched drops hit the window, intensify, and become small rivulets racing for the sill.
I stood and shook hands with Dr. Shenley. “Nice to see you, Carol.” We exchanged smiles. “Sorry about Cordell.”
She looked down. “Thanks. He was one of the really good guys. I’ll miss him.”
Chief Warner shook her hand, putting his other hand on top of hers. When he did, Carol Shenley stepped close and hugged him using her other hand on his back.
