Grave Undertaking (19 page)

“Yes,” said Tommy Lee. “The person who killed him must have known he had to locate Gentle immediately. If she’d stayed in Tennessee, she might not have been a threat. But back in North Carolina, she was a time bomb. As soon as Calhoun’s name hit the news, the girl would know what happened.”

“Somebody had access to court records, and drugs, and the report of the body in the graveyard. Remember, Sheriff Ewbanks came up personally to investigate.”

“Not unusual,” said Tommy Lee, “but in light of everything else, it could be important. Right after I spoke with Amos Slatterly, I called Mrs. Deal again. I asked her if Gentle brought a leather purse to Tennessee. The old woman wanted to know how I knew about it. Gentle never took it anywhere, but kept it packed away. Mrs. Deal got the purse out of her locker once, but Gentle wouldn’t carry it. She said a friend gave it to her, and she wanted to keep it new. The grandmother thought it had a lot of sentimental value.”

“It did,” I said. “The gift from the man who befriended her, and then disappeared.”

“I asked if she left the purse behind. Mrs. Deal started crying because she had just gone through Gentle’s room, looking for something to take to the funeral home for when the body arrived. The purse wasn’t there.”

I thought about the trailer last Friday night, the drawers scattered around in her bedroom, the closets disheveled. “Do you think that’s what the killer was looking for? Did he find the purse in Gentle’s trailer?”

“Maybe, but why would the murderer care about it? It’s just a purse. Nothing incriminating about that. I think he was looking for something else and he didn’t find it. The whole place was ransacked. Odds are he would have discovered it before tearing through everything.”

The scene came back to me. The sleet blowing behind me as I stood in the doorway, looking at the body of the girl. The tourniquet, the needle, the bag and candle on the table. No, it wasn’t a table. It was a footlocker used as a table. “The grandmother said she got the purse from her locker,” I said.

“Right,” agreed Tommy Lee.

“There was a locker in her living room,” I said. “It wasn’t opened.”

Tommy Lee’s eye sparkled with firelight. “Damn, I missed it.”

“So did the killer.”

“Yes, because it was used as a table, it appeared to be a table.” He sprang to his feet. “We need to go back to that trailer.”

I left my jeep at Susan’s and rode with Tommy Lee in his patrol car. Gentle Deal’s trailer was less than twenty minutes away, and we spent the first ten minutes of the trip in silence, lost in our own thoughts.

Suddenly, Tommy Lee floored the accelerator and raced down a quarter-mile straightaway. He took the next curve with tires squealing and again let the engine’s full power sling the car out of the turn. We rocketed another hundred yards or so before he slammed on the brakes and skidded into a dirt side road tucked behind a cluster of full white pines. He killed the lights.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.

“Losing our tail. Didn’t you notice the headlights come on after I pulled out of Susan’s complex?”

I had been thinking about Gentle Deal and how Calhoun had probably used her to prove his story.

Within ten seconds, a truck shot by us at what had to be seventy-five miles an hour. We lunged forward in pursuit, the blue lights reflecting off our hood as Tommy Lee lit up the patrol car like a Christmas tree. I glanced over at the speedometer, and my heart rose in my throat. The needle kissed ninety.

“Did you clock him?” I asked.

“Nah, we’re not going to arrest him. We’re going to play with him.”

At first, I thought playing with him meant rear-ending the back of his pickup because Tommy Lee came within a yard of the tailgate in a maneuver more suited to a NASCAR track than a mountain road. Then he gave several blasts of the siren which must have rattled the driver’s teeth. The pickup slowed, and Tommy Lee hit the brakes to increase the distance between us. He radioed in the tag number and kept the siren on a steady wail until the other driver found a spot along the road wide enough to pull over. Tommy Lee turned off the siren, but left the swirling lights cutting the darkness with their cold blue brilliance.

“What do you do now?” I asked.

“For the next few minutes, I do nothing. Let him stew.”

I stared at the green truck with flashing bands of blue reflecting off the cab’s rear window.

The voice of the dispatcher crackled on the speaker. “Tag is for a 1997 Dodge Ram pickup. Owner of record is Cliff Barringer, 465 Compton Lane, Asheville. Vehicle is negative stolen.”

“Barringer,” I said. “
NEWSCHANNEL-8
. After tonight’s report, he’s following either you or me.”

“And I’ll bet he’s working for whoever’s been giving him inside information,” said Tommy Lee. “The pipeline flows both ways. Let’s see what I can do to keep him curious. You stay here.”

Tommy Lee got out of the car and stood by the open door. He unsnapped the holster strap covering his pistol. “Barringer!” he bellowed. “Out of the truck with your hands over your head.” He whispered to me, “I love my job.”

The cab door opened, and a pair of brown, laced hiking boots hung in the air. After a few seconds, a weasel-thin man in blue jeans and a leather bomber jacket dropped to the ground. Gloved hands stuck up above his blue knit cap, and he squinted against the high beams and flashers of the patrol car. White puffs of breath rapidly poured from his mouth, betraying either fear or excitement.

“Identify yourself, please,” the man said in his best TV voice.

“You don’t know?” Tommy Lee asked sarcastically. “Aren’t you the hot-shit reporter?”

“Now wait a minute,” Barringer protested. He lowered his hands and started walking forward. “I don’t have to take this police harass—”

The boom of the pistol throttled the word in the man’s throat, and I jumped with such force my head hit the roof. Barringer’s arms shot up so high I thought they might leave their sockets. His face went white and his knees buckled.

“A warning shot,” Tommy Lee said over the fading echo. “I told you to keep your hands in the air. I don’t know if you’re drunk, drugged, or armed and dangerous. I do know you were doing over eighty in my county. Identify myself? All right, I’m Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins, the man you were tailing, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to run you in.”

“You’re crazy.” A definite tremble appeared in his voice. “Okay, I was speeding. I’m late for my deadline.”

“Really, what exciting things are going on in Laurel County that I don’t know about?”

Cliff Barringer said nothing.

“I didn’t think there was anything. That’s why you’re hanging on to my friend Mr. Clayton like a blood-sucking tick on a clever hound dog. I’m warning you for your own good, Barringer. The pieces are falling together, and when the picture’s completed, I think it will show you’ve been collaborating with a murderer.”

The reporter’s eyes widened. “You ain’t got nothing,” he said, but all the bravado was gone.

“Maybe not, but you know the people up here. They don’t take kindly to sex offenders who molest young girls, and they don’t take kindly to creeps like you who protect them.”

The white beam of the headlights magnified the surprise on Barringer’s face. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey, like you said. I ain’t got nothing. Now get the hell out of this county before I change my mind.”

The yellow crime scene tape made the rusted trailer look like a discarded Christmas package, too pitiful to even be opened. Tommy Lee unsnapped the padlock one of his deputies had bolted to the front door and we entered.

Not much had changed since the wee hours of the morning. Of course, the drug paraphernalia had been removed, but no one had straightened up the interior. I wondered how an elderly grandmother in Tennessee would deal with such final affairs.

A couple of celebrity magazines lay on the footlocker. Tommy Lee set them on the kitchen counter next to the telephone. “If I ever get too cocky, remind me of this trunk,” he said. “I should have thought to check inside it.”

Tommy Lee sat down on the floor beside the trunk and unbuckled the two clasps on either side of the center spring lock. “See if you can find a pointed knife or ice pick in the kitchen,” he told me. “Otherwise, I’ll have to break it open.”

A set of carving knives hung in a wall-mounted plastic case, but the blades seemed too broad. I rummaged through a drawer of candles, pot holders, and measuring spoons. At the back, I found a box of plastic toothpicks and tossed them over the counter. “Here, try these. I’ll keep looking for something better.”

“This will do,” said Tommy Lee, and he knelt down to get his eye close to the small keyhole. After a few minutes, he grunted and raised the lid until the flimsy metal hinges locked in place. “Now let’s see what we’ve got.”

The trunk was filled with seasonal clothes. Tommy Lee lifted out shorts, cotton dresses, and two bathing suits, a one-piece and a bikini. “There it is,” he exclaimed.

A large black leather handbag lay on top of a sleeveless blouse. He brought it into the kitchen where the light was brighter. Tucked inside was a small video camera. Tommy Lee flipped open the cassette sleeve. It was empty.

“I’m not surprised,” said Tommy Lee. “Whatever was on the tape was too hot to give to the girl.”

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I’d say it’s what Calhoun spent some of Annette Nolan’s money on. An 8 millimeter video camera with extended play that could record up to six hours. It still has mounting brackets on it. Calhoun must have given it to the girl when he’d finished with it.”

“Calhoun caught somebody on videotape?”

“Yes. Somewhere there’s a tape that Sammy Calhoun tried to use as blackmail.”

“Could it be in Tennessee?” I asked.

“No. I don’t think the girl ever had it. And I’m beginning to think Calhoun might not have been the total scumbag we’ve imagined. I mean, except for you, Susan can’t possibly be a total misjudge of character.”

A few hours ago, I would have taken offense at the comparison to Sammy Calhoun, but Tommy Lee made a good point. “You don’t think Calhoun set Gentle up to be sexually abused?”

“No. It happened too fast. I think he and Skeeter had been drinking buddies for awhile and Calhoun was already onto the story. Hinkle’s Department Store insisted on prosecuting Gentle and she remained in custody. Calhoun probably had the camera in place and could activate it with a remote. Some of those things can go through walls like a garage door opener. Then the girl was subjected to something. Maybe she was willing, but Calhoun had gotten her into the situation and I think he was going for a payoff for both of them. We know the charges were dropped.”

“Maybe that was in exchange for sex,” I said, “not blackmail. You think the killer ever found the tape?”

“No. But he knows the tape exists because Calhoun told him, or perhaps even sent him a copy. So he kills Calhoun, figuring to find the tape on his own. He pays an additional month on Calhoun’s rent, and then he has Calhoun’s furniture moved, supposedly to Texas. Instead, he probably goes through every item, but the tape never turns up. Gentle Deal is sent to her grandmother’s soon after Calhoun disappears, and the killer figures the heat is off. Nearly seven years later, you dig up the body. Susan and her father become convenient suspects, but Gentle is also back where she’ll hear about it. He can’t take any chance that she’ll come forward. He’s still looking for the video when he ransacks this trailer.”

The theory made sense. Unfortunately, it also led to one unpleasant conclusion. “Tommy Lee, if we don’t find the tape, then I’ll say I found it and try my own hand at blackmail. We’ve got to get whoever’s behind all this out in the open.”

“Yes,” he reluctantly agreed. “We’ll keep this discovery quiet. You may have to claim you came back here alone and found the camera and a tape. I hope it doesn’t come to that. Tomorrow, I’ll notify all the banks that we’re looking for a safe-deposit box for Sammy Calhoun. That’s one avenue we haven’t tried. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

I didn’t want luck. The only luck I’d seen lately had been bad. Bad for Sammy Calhoun, bad for Skeeter Gibson, and bad for Gentle Deal.