South River Incident
South
River
Incident
by
Ann
Mullen
This book is a work of fiction. Any characters
portrayed, living or dead are imaginary. Any resemblance to actual persons is
completely coincidental. Any places, business establishments, locales, events,
or incidents in this book are the product of the author’s imagination, or used
fictitiously.
ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED
This
book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
The snow was knee-deep by
the time Billy and I decided to call it a night. Nothing was happening. I
warned him earlier that we were wasting our time, but as always, he had his own
agenda. I met him in the early spring of this year, and since then I’ve learned
that once he makes up his mind about something, there was no changing it. This
was one of those times.
“I know he’s guilty,” Billy
looked over at me and said. “I’m not going to give up until I can prove it. He
will not get away with murder if I can help it. People like him belong behind
bars!”
“Is freezing to death
another one of those things you have to do to make a point?” I could see my
breath inside the cab of his truck. “Let’s get out of here. I’m tired, and I’m
hungry.”
Billy finally agreed that
it was a waste of time to sit here any longer. We had been parked in the woods
for over two hours watching Doug Tyler’s house, and listening to his
conversations on the portable satellite snoop machine. At least, that’s what I
called it. Billy had a technical name for all of his equipment, but I’m still
new to this game and I haven’t learned all the proper terminology.
It was two days until
Thanksgiving, and snow had been falling off and on since Halloween. At first, I
relished the white flakes, but after the first ten inches, I’d had enough. Most
of the time, I could barely keep both of my feet on the ground.
My name is Jesse Watson. I
was born and raised in
Newport News
,
Virginia
. I’m thirty-two years old as of this past September,
single, and not bad looking. I moved to Stanardsville with my parents about
eight months ago. Mack and Minnie were seeking peace and quiet after Dad’s
retirement from the Navy, while I was just seeking a life. I got a job working
for Billy Blackhawk—a self-employed, private investigator with a few tricks up
his sleeve.
It was also around that
same time that I met Cole James. Cole turned out to be the man of my dreams. I
fell in love with him the minute I met him. He was so handsome. His blond,
curly hair and his beautiful blue eyes took my breath away. His muscular body
glistened with the shine of a fresh scrubbed, newly ripe apple. He towered over
me by a foot, and when he looked down into my eyes, I melted under his stare.
Cole is a deputy with the
Greene County Sheriff’s Department, and is in charge of protecting the citizens
where I live. Any relationship we have tried to have has been strained by the
fact that he’s a cop, and I work for a private investigator. We all know how
things go between cops and private eyes. They just don’t get along. To
complicate matters, Cole and Billy grew up together and have their own history
concerning past women in their lives.
Dad died from a heart attack
a few weeks after we moved here. He walked to the mailbox on a Sunday morning
to get the mail he had forgotten to pick up Saturday, because he’d been too
busy worrying about me. Not only had I been busy all day being the bad girl
that I am, I had spent the night at Cole’s house, while my parents spent the
evening worrying and waiting for me to call. The stress I put on both of them
made me worry that I had somehow contributed to my father’s death. I would have
to live with that thought for the rest of my life.
After Dad died, I found out
that my brother Jack is gay. He has a relationship with a guy named Dennis, and
trying to explain this to my mother was a different tale in itself.
My sister, Claire, has two
kids, and was married to Carl until a few months ago. She caught him messing
around and promptly picked up and left the rat—much to my pleasure, since I
disliked him immensely.
Unfortunately, as much as I
love my sister, it didn’t sit well with me that she was going to move into
Billy’s house. Billy lives in an apartment above his office, and was more than
glad to offer Claire and the kids a place to live. His house had sat empty
since his divorce from Ruth, his wife of many years. He wouldn’t sell the
house, and he couldn’t live there without her.
“It’s been over five years
since the divorce, and I still can’t bring myself to move back into the house I
shared with Ruth. We built that house ourselves, and raised our two boys in
it.” I remember hearing him tell Claire that at the Blackhawk’s 4th of July party.
When Claire accepted his offer, a knot started growing inside my stomach and
has only gotten bigger as time passed.
Claire has always had it
all and now she was invading what little I have in my life. Billy was a part of
my life and it wasn’t right that she could just slide in the back door. Not
only do I work for Billy, but we also have developed a very close relationship.
We’re not lovers—just friends. When you’ve been shot at and lived through some
of the most terrifying moments of your life together, it’s hard not to get
close. We have shared happiness, sadness, grief, fear, and an overwhelming
desire to choke each other to death at times. What more could you want? Claire
was now a part of all these feelings, and I didn’t like it one bit.
The past several months
played back inside my head. I’d spent most of my life doing nothing exciting,
and within the span of eight months, everything had changed. I now live with my
mother in a nice house in the mountains, and I have an exciting job. I have a
man in my life, and I’m happy. But yes, I have always been a little jealous of
my sister.
“Maybe you’re right,” Billy
said as he almost slid into the back of a truck at the intersection.
The roads were covered in
snow, and no matter how hard the Virginia Department of Transportation worked,
they just couldn’t keep up with the falling flakes.
“Watch it, Billy!” I
screamed. I slammed my hands on the dashboard and stomped an invisible brake
pedal. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? It’s too nasty out here for
you to be driving so fast! Slow down!”
“I’m not driving that fast.
Did you hear what I said?”
“All I heard was the sound
of us smashing into the rear end of that pickup truck, and our guts splattering
all over the road. I don’t know why you have to drive so reckless. The roads
are dangerous.”
“Jesse, you’re too
melodramatic. I had everything under control,” he said as he drove down Rt. 33
at a crawl. “What’s your problem? You’ve been tense about something for the
last two weeks. So give, `ge
ya
,
tell me what’s making you so
crazy. Is it this case?”
Billy is a Cherokee Indian
and he looks just like the ones you see on TV: a big man with a long, braided
ponytail, and skin the color of cherry wood. He’s 48, I think, and sort of
good-looking. He has the kindest heart in the world, but you don’t want to get
him riled.
“Can’t you see there is no
case?” I hissed. “Doug Tyler hired us to chase down the people who wrote him
those bad checks, and we did the job. I can’t help it if one of them turned up
dead—big deal. One doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other.
Besides, the police cleared him of any wrongdoing. We’re out of it, or we
should be. I just went along with you on this because you were so intent on
proving they were wrong. Let it go, Billy. It’s over.”
“I can’t let it go because
I led him right to her. If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive. It’s my
fault.”
“How can you say that? The
police said she was killed during a struggle with a mugger. Why would Doug
Tyler rob her if she had already made good on the check? It doesn’t make sense.
It was just a coincidence that he was looking for her, and later, she turned up
dead.”
“Oh, Jesse, you’re not
seeing the big picture. He didn’t care about the money. It was all a ruse. He
gave us a list of names, explaining that some of them had moved, and he just
didn’t have the time to track each one of them down. So we did it for him. I
even gave him a detailed itinerary of their whereabouts at any given time. A
few days later, one is murdered.”
“I’m sure that’s it, Billy.
I can see it all now. Tyler and the dead woman were having an affair. He got
tired of her, and broke it off. She wouldn’t let go, things got ugly, so he
killed her. It’s the same scenario played over and over. What I don’t understand
is, why involve us in some stupid check thing? What would be the point?”
“I haven’t figured that one
out, yet.”
“Would you still think
Tyler
was
guilty if the deceased had been a man?”
“I would if the man’s name
had been on that list.”
“I think we should just
write this one off and forget about it. Let the police do their job. We have
other fish to fry.”
“Maybe it’s time to move
on. We can’t seem to get anything on the guy.”
Billy appeared to be ready
to throw in the towel, but knowing him as I do; I knew he would not forget
about the case. He would pretend to put it aside, and when I least expected it,
the case would come back to haunt us both.
We crept across the
South River
Bridge
. The
new snow had covered the already packed-down snow left over from two days
before, making driving treacherous and turning me into a nervous wreck. One
thing I’ve learned from my first winter in the mountains is, when it snows, it
usually stays around forever.
“You still didn’t answer my
question. What’s eating at you, if it’s not this case?” Billy looked at me out
of the corner of his eye.
“Nothing’s eating at me!” I
yelled at him. I wasn’t about to tell him that I was irked about Claire moving
into his house. If I told him that, he would think I was being petty.
“Whatever,” he mumbled
under his breath as we pulled into the driveway. “Have it your way.”
Claire came out onto the
porch with an afghan wrapped around her shoulders. She waved at us to come
inside. Whatever was going on, I could tell from the look on her face she was
frantic.
“What do you think that is
all about?” Billy asked, parking the truck under the big poplar tree in the
front yard. “She’s going to freeze to death out here. It must be twenty
degrees.”
“I don’t know, but she
looks like there’s a fire somewhere.” I jumped out of the truck, slipped, and
then stumbled my way up to the porch.
“We tried to call you on
the cell phone, but all we got was a recording. Hurry, we have something to
show you.” She grabbed me by the arm and led me into the house.
Mom ran from the kitchen in
a tizzy. She was visibly upset and could barely get the words out of her mouth.
“Athena and Thor dragged something up in the front yard. They were barking and
fighting over it, and by the time I went out to check on them, they had carried
it up onto the front porch. It’s awful. You won’t believe it.”
“Calm down, Mom. They’re
just dogs. They’re always dragging stuff up in the yard.” I tried to soothe
her. “It can’t be that bad.”
Coming from a family that
wasn’t used to having pets (my brother Jack being allergic to animal hair),
Athena and Thor turned out to be a real challenge. I acquired Athena when my
roommate, Becky, moved out on me, and deserted her. Thor became a part of our
family this past Labor Day. We were having a cookout and a thunderstorm rolled
in. Everybody hustled inside, except Athena, who was across the road barking
like a mad dog. I braved the lightning and the thunder and went over to see
what all the fuss was about. To my surprise, I saw a tiny ball of brown hair,
with four scarred-up legs. The puppy was whimpering, yet trying to hold his own
ground. I scooped him up and ran back to the house. As soon as I put him down
on the floor, Athena came over and started licking the scared, little pooch.
They’ve been playmates ever since. Due to the terrible storm, we named the
puppy, Thor—God of Thunder.
“It’s in the utility room,”
Mom pointed to the closed bi-fold doors that separated the dining area and
utility room.
“It must be bad, you never
close those doors.” I looked at Billy, who was just as confused as I was.
“Shall we go check it out, Mr. P.I.?”
“Lead the way.”
I was not prepared for what
we encountered. On top of the washing machine, resting on a piece of newspaper
was what appeared to be the mangled hand of a woman. A huge diamond ring was
embedded in the ring finger. There was very little flesh left and the pinkie
finger and thumb were missing. I gagged, and fled to the bathroom. What little
food I had in my stomach was soon in the toilet. Slowly, I emerged from the bathroom,
wiping my face with a wet washcloth.
Billy was still standing in
front of the washing machine examining the grotesque sight, while Mom and
Claire stood back, probably fearful it was going to jump up and bite them. Thor
and Athena were curled up in a corner in the living room, licking each other,
and ignoring what was going on around them. They could have cared less.
It took everything I had to
make myself go back into the utility room. I’m the kind of person who gags at
the sight of someone spitting on the sidewalk, or the sound of someone clearing
his or her throat. So you can imagine what this was doing to my stomach. I
heaved a couple times, but managed to keep control as I looked at the hand.