Authors: Mark de Castrique
“Any of those investors had a run-in with Jimmy Panther?”
“Not that I know. If it happened off-reservation, we wouldn't necessarily be informed.”
“Would Eddie Wolfe know?”
“Now that's more likely. I think we need to press him harder. My turn to play bad cop.”
The red Camaro sat in front of Eddie's trailer. An Infiniti sedan was parked beside it.
“Looks like he's got company,” Romero said. “That's not Skye's car.”
“DC plates,” I said. “I think you're about to meet Darren Cransford.”
Romero led the way up to the front door. It was ajar. He gave a single rap and entered without waiting for a response. Two steps inside, he froze. I had to move to my left in order to see around the hulk of a man.
Darren Cransford stood staring at us, his face pale as morning fog. The screen of the laptop on the counter behind him flashed a spasmodic display of tangled colors, broken by a spider web of cracks emanating from a hole in the center. With a stuttering motion, he slowly raised his hands. The palms were crimson.
At his feet, sprawled across the floor from the living room to the kitchen, lay Eddie Wolfe. Feathers covered his body like a dusting of snow. White snow and red snow. Snow as red as the blood beneath it.
Darren Cransford looked at his bloody hands. “I just found him. I swear.”
Romero drew his service pistol. “Sir, step forward. Slowly.”
Darren complied. Tremors visibly ran through his body. “I just got here.”
“You good with him?” I asked Romero. “I'll check Eddie.”
Romero waved his pistol, motioning Darren to move to the side. I crouched by Eddie's shoulders and felt his carotid artery. The skin was cool and the pulse nonexistent.
“He's gone. I'm going to check Darren's car.”
“My car?” Darren asked. “Don't you need a warrant?”
“Not to see if the engine's still warm.” Before Darren could reply I was out the front door.
Although the morning sky was sunny, the air temperature still held an autumn chill. I stood in front of Darren's Infiniti. Its gray surface was dry. I glanced at Eddie's Camaro next to it. Drops of dew beaded on the waxed red paint like sparkling sequins. I placed my palm against the middle of the Infiniti's hood. The metal felt warmer than Eddie Wolfe's body and the sporadic clicks from the engine confirmed it was still cooling down. Darren had been telling the truth about just arriving, but that didn't mean he hadn't shot Eddie earlier and returned to retrieve something.
I studied the adjacent mobile homes. Neither had vehicles parked in front. Up the hill, I saw Dot Swift's Toyota Corolla and figured she hadn't gone to her teaching job. Maybe her son was home. More likely, she sat by the phone waiting for news.
Inside Eddie's trailer, I found Romero and Darren exactly as I'd left them.
“Well?” Romero asked without taking his eyes off his suspect.
“Car's still warm. Probably hasn't been here more than ten minutes.”
“Pat him down for me.”
Darren kept his hands in the air while I checked for a concealed weapon. He wore a light windbreaker over a blue dress shirt, and other than car keys in one jacket pocket and a wallet in his pants, he carried nothing else. I stepped back. “He's clean.”
Romero lowered his gun. “I'm going to check the rest of the trailer. Keep him here and standing.” Romero squeezed past Darren, stepped over the body, and moved down the hall.
“I came to talk to him, Barry. Just like I told you yesterday.”
“This is a case for the Cherokee police, but I'll help you sort it out with them the best I can.”
Darren nodded, and then risked a quick glance at the body. “I knocked but no one came to the door. Since it was open, I came in.”
“Detective Sergeant Romero will get a statement from you. You should save your account for him.”
“But will you be with me?” His voice grew plaintive at the thought of being alone with the large Indian.
“Not my call.”
Romero returned from the back bedroom. “No one here. Looks like the rooms were tossed or Eddie was extremely messy.”
“Skye would know,” I said.
“Yep.” Again, he stepped over Eddie's body and checked the second, smaller bedroom.
Once assured that no one else hid on the premises, Romero moved into his investigative mode. “I'm going to the patrol car to radio for assistance. We could use the Swain County crime lab.”
“Anything from our department?” I asked.
“Not unless you've acquired some high-tech forensic equipment I'm unaware of.”
“No. We still call for support out of Asheville.”
Romero turned to Darren. “You come with me. I'll get a preliminary statement while we wait in the car.”
“How can I help?” I asked.
“Sit tight for now. Better for me to have our people interview the neighbors, in case testimony is required in court. But I don't mind your eyes going over the crime scene. There are shoe covers and gloves in the car.”
I'd examined murder scenes before but not one where the victim had been coated in feathers. The source lay near his feet. A twisted pillow apparently had been pulled from a bed and used as a makeshift silencer. The implications were confusing. Had the killer been Tyrell, I would have thought he'd come prepared with a suppressor. But the fact that a pillow was used still showed a certain degree of calculation. Rounds weren't fired in the heat of an argument. The pillow demonstrated resourcefulness once the decision to shoot had been made. Someone had come from a bedroom. Could Jimmy's sister Skye be that someone?
And there was the amount of feathers scattered over the body. More than what I thought bullets ripping through the pillow casing would have disgorged. It was almost like someone had shaken the feathers out. Feathers. Was this some sort of payback for the broken feathers sent to Archie, Luther, and Mayor Whitlock?
I left the body and carefully moved through the bedrooms at either end of the mobile home. The smaller one had a rollaway without a pillow. Work clothes had been dumped out of the closet and onto the floor. Several footlockers along the wall had been opened. They contained heavy winter clothes and boots. Some camo hunting gear was mixed in, and everything seemed to have been tossed around by a whirlwind.
The main bedroom had a disheveled double bed with two pillows, a dresser with drawers pulled out, and a closet with nicer shirts and slacks. These had been unceremoniously dumped as well.
The bathroom was unscathed, meaning the toilet tank and cabinet under the sink must have been too small to hide the object of the search. I noticed two toothbrushes in the holder, and I suspected one belonged to Skye Panther. They were both dry.
I returned to the living room just as Detective Sergeant Romero entered through the front door.
“Where's Darren?” I asked.
“He's locked in the back of the patrol car. Reinforcements are on the way. We'll take him to the station for a formal statement. You think he's good for it?”
“No. I don't think he's stupid enough to come back here if he was the shooter. Darren's working PR for the Catawbas. He told me he came to Cherokee to rally support from Jimmy Panther's followers. Eddie Wolfe is the logical place to start.”
“Maybe Eddie refused his support.”
“Maybe. But I think the ME's going to find he's been dead a couple hours. Blood surface is congealing and body temp is down.” I looked up the hallway. “There are two toothbrushes in the bathroom.”
“Yeah. I noticed that,” Romero said. “But I can't see Skye pulling the trigger or even owning a gun.”
“Maybe it was Eddie's.”
“And motive?”
I thought for a moment, trying to weave together the disjointed elements of my case. “If Jimmy planned to salt the new construction site, he would have kept that plan as secret as possible. But I don't think he would have undertaken the risk alone. How close is Eddie's workplace to the proposed casino?”
Romero's face lit with fresh enthusiasm. “Real close. Less than five miles. Eddie could have been there shortly after midnight.”
“Or even earlier. Skye said Eddie told her they clocked out at midnight. But she said on cleanup detail, they finish when they finish.”
“And I never checked,” Romero said.
“You had no reason before now. But think about it. Danny Swift saw Eddie and Jimmy together at the ball-play game. The artifacts were already loaded in Jimmy's truck. Stands to reason Eddie knew about them. He might have been the only one. If Skye's put that together, and she knows someone betrayed her brother,” I looked down at the body, “she has to figure Eddie Wolfe may have been that someone.”
Riding to Eddie's with Romero meant I was stranded until an officer returned to town. Tommy Lee would wonder why I hadn't checked in. With no cell service and Romero constantly on and off his two-way, I was forced to cool my heels.
Eddie's Camaro was the only free vehicle, but asking to use the victim's car as a personal taxi would be extremely presumptuous, especially since forensics hadn't examined it.
The smaller beads of dew had begun to evaporate from the Camaro's hood. I thought of Archie and wondered if I would have checked Darren's car if Archie hadn't first made the dew observation on Panther's pickup. I walked around the Camaro and stopped at the trunk. The dew no longer existed in beads but had been transformed into narrow rivulets that had flowed toward the rear window. Someone had opened the trunk, forcing the heavy dew to roll off the back.
Romero got out of his patrol car.
“Hector, take a look at this.”
The policeman joined me at the rear bumper. “Opened after the dew formed. But by Eddie or his killer?”
“If someone tossed the house, maybe he went for the car as well.”
“Did you see any keys inside?” Romero asked.
“No. Maybe they're on the body.”
Romero glanced at his patrol car. “I know you've got other things to do this morning. I was thinking of letting you drive my car back as soon as one of my colleagues arrives.”
“What about my taking Darren to the station in his car? Can someone record his statement there?”
“Yes. That works. But he's not to leave Cherokee till I question him again.”
“He asked about a warrant to search his car. Maybe we should trade his release from the scene in exchange for that search.” I looked at the trunk. “In case he moved something from this trunk to his.”
“Good idea. First, let me find a way into the Camaro.” He pulled latex gloves from his pocket and went into the trailer.
I waited by the trunk. Darren Cransford gave me a pitiful look from the backseat of the patrol car. A few minutes later, Romero returned dangling a set of keys from his right hand.
“They were in Eddie's front pocket. Whoever shot him must not have searched him.” He popped the trunk. “At least not after the feathering.”
The Camaro's trunk was small. As pristine as Eddie had kept the exterior and passenger compartment, the trunk had an irregular coating of soil. Stuffed in one corner lay an overnight bag. Still wearing his gloves, Romero unzipped it and spread the two sides apart. A couple shirts, underwear, and jeans had been jammed inside. The detective plunged one hand into the clothes and retrieved a brown envelope. Like the bag, the unmarked envelope was also stuffed. With hundred dollar bills.
“The box-making business pays well,” I said.
“Maybe we should both apply for jobs.” He pulled the money free. “Watch me count it so I've got a witness before logging it in.”
“One hundred fifty Benjamin Franklins,” I said, as the last bill fell on the stack. “Fifteen grand. Nice round number.”
“Yes.” Romero placed the money back in the envelope. “And I doubt if Eddie withdrew it from a bank.” He zipped the bag closed and set it aside, revealing a thicker coating of dirt beneath it. “What's this?” The edge of a stone appeared in the soil. Romero lifted it and blew on it like it was a cake full of burning candles. “An arrowhead.”
“One of Panther's?” I asked.
“That's my guess. And if your theory's correct, this dirt is probably from the casino construction site. Eddie might have retrieved what Jimmy planted. And the money was the payoff.”
“For that and for revealing Jimmy's plan that enabled Tyrell to get here ahead of time.” I looked back at the wadded clothes. “Eddie was running, which means he was scared. I guess he was right because someone got here before he split.”
“We need to pull a soil sample from that construction site. I suspect it will match this dirt and what you found on Jimmy's body.”
“I'd like to see the location.”
Romero nodded. “I'll catch up with you as soon as we wrap here. You think this is Tyrell's handiwork?”
“It doesn't strike me as Tyrell's style. Too sloppy. It's the way he should have killed Jimmy if he didn't want to be suspected. But I'm told he's a creature of habit, and I don't know what he'd be searching for.”
“Maybe the money.”
“But why would Tyrell pay a local guy?” I asked. “Let's say Eddie betrayed Jimmy. That would have been to the guy who hired Tyrell. Eddie didn't have the stomach for murder. He was Judas and told someone of Jimmy's plan. That person brought in a professional hit. Then the trouble at the cemetery gave them an opportunity to throw any investigation in a completely different direction. But there were two loose ends that could link the murder back to the casino construction. Danny Swift who saw Jimmy and Eddie with the artifacts and Eddie who might not have bargained for murder.”
“Why not kill Eddie the same night as Jimmy?” Romero asked.
“Eddie was probably making the runs to get the artifacts away from the site. Skye said he didn't come back here when she expected him. He told her his cleanup shift ran long, but I think we're going to find just the opposite.”
“So, maybe the search here was for the artifacts. If the plan was to get them back to Jimmy's, it didn't happen in time.”
Romero's conclusion made sense. But there must have been quite a few boxes, given the size of Panther's collection and the span of empty shelves in his house. I looked back at the trailer. It sat on cinder blocks with latticework covering the gap between ground and flooring. Laurel bushes were spaced across the front.
“Come with me,” I said.
Romero followed me around to the rear of the mobile home. The latticework continued along the side, but there was an open gap in the rear. Here, the ground had been dug out to provide more storage space for a lawn mower or other yard tools. The clear height was at least four feet.
A dirty blue tarp had been thrown across something stored beneath. Romero and I wrestled it free. Wooden apple crates were stacked three high. Those on top held pieces of pottery, some broken, some intact. We had found Jimmy Panther's collection.
“Now that soil sample is more important than ever,” Romero said. “If we get a three-way matchâJimmy's body, these artifacts, and the construction siteâwe'll have a clearer picture of what happened.”