“You mean the cop let it escape.” Kurt was scornful.
Tina jumped in before I could retort. “Mr. Rawlins, the deputy didn’t know that your father was dead. She believed she was chasing a low-level offender. But when the Saab almost crashed into another car, the deputy made a good decision and ended the pursuit. Then she came back here and found your dad.”
“And if she hadn’t gone that extra yard, your dad might have lain out here for days and Longstreet could have starved to death,” I added.
“God, I completely forgot about the dog. Where is Longstreet?” asked Kurt.
“At the animal shelter. You can take him home with you, if you’d like,” said Tina.
Kurt shook his head. “That’s impossible. I live in a townhouse. There isn’t room and I’m almost never home.”
“So you’re just going to leave him in doggie Gitmo until someone adopts him or they put him to sleep?” I blurted.
“I don’t have any other options,” Kurt mumbled.
“Well, if you decide to do that, you’ll have to go to the animal shelter and fill out some paperwork.” Tina made no effort to conceal the disapproval in her voice.
Maybe it was wrong for me to sit in judgment of Kurt. He’d just lost his father, and for all I knew, he really
didn’t
have any other options. But his decision to abandon Longstreet to his fate impressed me as being utterly selfish. I decided to drop the subject, however. There was no point in aggravating him and running the risk of derailing the rest of the interview.
I asked, “When was the last time you were out here to see your dad?”
“Three . . . no, four weeks ago,” said Kurt.
“Did he mention if he was having problems with anyone besides Mr. Tice and Mr. Lincoln?”
“No.”
“And can you think of anyone else who might have a grudge against him?”
“No. He was a good man and didn’t deserve to die with a freaking arrow in his chest.”
Tina pulled her notebook from her pocket. “Mr. Rawlins, I have your home address, but can I get your work contact information?”
“Why?”
“Just in case I need to call you during the day.”
Kurt removed a business card from his wallet and handed it to Tina. “I’m usually on the road, so call me at the number in the lower right-hand corner.”
Tina’s eyebrows arched. “You’re an executive with Chunky Chuck’s Burgers? I’m impressed.”
“Thanks. I’m the regional manager for northern Virginia. I supervise twenty-seven stores. I started flipping burgers for them at the Harrisonburg store back when I was sixteen.” Kurt looked over at the house and then sighed. “It was tough for Dad when I told him that I wanted to make a career in the restaurant industry. He always thought I’d take over the farm, and I guess I’ve got to now, but . . . damn, I hate this place.”
“Why?” I asked.
“This is going to sound stupid, but sometimes I think it’s cursed. My mom died over there.” Kurt pointed to the tree. “And now someone has murdered my dad.”
In a slightly hesitant voice, I said, “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but there is a possibility this was a hunting accident.”
Kurt seemed to shake himself from his gloomy daze and gave me a steely gaze. “My dad was murdered. You understand? The sheriff says you’re a good detective, but I sure haven’t seen any proof of that. Why don’t you get to work and find out who killed my dad?”
It was easy to imagine him using precisely that same brusque tone of voice with a dull employee who hadn’t mastered the intricacies of assembling a triple-decker burger and was on the verge of losing his job. It stung, but at the same time, I had no right to be offended. After all, I’d just spent the better part of ten minutes telling the poor guy all the things I
didn’t
know about his father’s death.
I said, “Fair enough. You can help me by answering a few more questions.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Just how big is this farm?”
“Why is that important?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know that it
is
important, but I like to have all the information I can about a victim.”
“It’s fifty-eight acres.” Kurt’s tone was a little less bellicose. “Some of it is used to grow field corn and hay, while the rest is pasture for the longhorns.”
“And, correct me if I’m wrong, the property up on the hills is unimproved timberland?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know if your dad was thinking about installing a fence up there along the property line?”
Kurt looked a little puzzled. “On the hill? No, he never said anything about that. Why?”
I turned toward the hill. “We were up there a little while ago and noticed that there are new survey pegs along what we think is the property line.”
“Huh. That’s news to me. Maybe Wade was going to put up a fence.”
“I wondered about that, too. But if Mr. Tice was begging your dad for money to help drill a well, he probably didn’t have the cash for a new fence.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. I don’t know. Maybe Dad
was
considering a fence. I know that he’d had it up to here with the poachers. “
“A fence would have been expensive.” I looked back at Kurt. “My father-in-law is a farmer, so I have an idea of just how tough it is to turn a profit from a small farm. Was your dad doing okay financially?”
Kurt’s features again grew stern. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Again, I don’t know. But, I’ve got to assume that your dad’s death—like most killings—was caused by one of the three eternal
-ances
.”
“The what?”
“The
-ances
are rom
ance
, fin
ance
, and venge
ance
. Maybe I’m jumping the gun, but I don’t think romance had anything to do with why your dad was killed. It’s obvious he loved and missed your mom.”
Kurt swallowed hard. “That’s true.”
“Which leaves money and revenge as possible motives for murder. That’s why I want to know about your dad’s finances.”
“He wasn’t getting rich, but as far as I know, he was doing all right. It wasn’t something we talked about.”
Tina asked, “How often did you talk?”
“Not as much as we should have. Maybe once a week on the phone,” Kurt replied. “Some son I am. I live two and a half hours away, but I could only spare him a phone call a week and a monthly visit.”
I said, “Mr. Rawlins, there’s no nice way to ask this, but did your dad have a will?”
“Yeah. He finally had one drawn up after Mom died.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“I think he had a copy in his office. I can go in and check if you’d like.”
Tina said, “That wouldn’t be a good idea, sir.”
“What? Do you have some sort of problem with me going into the house?” Kurt demanded as I thought,
Houston, we have ignition
.
“Actually, there is,” said Tina. “We’re still processing this as an active crime scene, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave for now.”
“You’re throwing me off my dad’s property?”
Keeping my voice serene, I said, “Mr. Rawlins, as far as we can tell, nobody witnessed your dad’s death except the person who caused it. That means we have to rely on this scene and the autopsy to tell us what happened. But if you stay here, you might contaminate or destroy vital evidence. I don’t think that’s what you want.”
“Point taken,” Kurt grumbled. “But when will you be done? There are arrangements to make and I have to be back at work on Monday.”
Tina said, “I understand, and we’ll do what we can to expedite the process. Are you going to be staying locally?” She handed him her business card. “I’ll let you know when we’ve released the scene.”
“Yes, and I’ll expect frequent updates on your investigation.”
“I’ll call you when I have something to report.”
If Kurt realized that Tina’s response was fundamentally evasive, he gave no evidence of it. Slipping his sunglasses on, he got back into the Lexus, made a U-turn, and drove toward the road.
As we watched the car leave, Tina kicked at the gravel and said, “I
am
sorry for his loss, but even though I never knew him when he still lived here, I bet that guy was a flaming jerk a long time before his dad died.”
Eight
As we drove back to the sheriff’s office, Tina radioed to ascertain the status of the deputy sent to the Massanutten Crest Lodge. The dispatcher replied that Mike-Three had just arrived at the station and was completing the auto theft report. We found Deputy Lonnie Bressler hunched over a computer keyboard in the tiny report-writing room.
Tina asked, “What are the details, Lonnie?”
Bressler looked up from the computer monitor. “Not much to report, Sheriff. The victim is a Sherri Driggs and she parked her Saab in the north lot, near the golf course, yesterday afternoon.”
“Time?”
“Around eighteen hundred hours. She didn’t check her watch, but does remember it was dark. When she came out this morning, the Saab was gone.”
“Was the car locked?”
“Yeah, and the alarm was set, but nobody remembers hearing anything.”
“What about the hotel security?” Tina asked Bressler. “Did they notice anyone suspicious hanging around the lot?”
“The security director had already called the two guards working last night, and they told him that nothing out of the ordinary happened on their shift.”
“How about surveillance video? There are cameras all over the complex.”
“But not all of them work,” Bressler said with a disdainful chuckle. “The security director asked me to keep this hush-hush, but they had a bad-ass lightning strike back in July during a thunderstorm, and it knocked out a bunch of cameras that they still haven’t replaced.”
I asked, “Was the car equipped with a GPS theft recovery system?”
“No, just the alarm.”
“Did Ms. Driggs show you the exact spot where she parked her car?” Tina asked.
“Yeah, and I got photos.” The deputy inclined his head toward a digital camera on the countertop beside the computer. “But there wasn’t any physical evidence.”
“No broken auto glass?”
“There was
nothing
on the pavement. I made sure of that, Sheriff.”
“So the thief probably used a slim-jim to pop the lock.”
I said, “What do we know about our victim?”
“Age forty-six, valid Georgia driver’s license, and lives in Alpharetta, which she made sure I understood is a ritzy suburb of Atlanta. She checked into the hotel on Tuesday and she’s staying in Room Three-Thirty-One. She’s scheduled to leave this coming Monday.” Bressler looked up from his notebook. “Oh, and Ms. Driggs ain’t happy that Deputy Lyon stopped chasing the Saab.”
“How did she hear about
that
?” Tina asked.
“It’s my fault, Sheriff. I accidentally mentioned it. Sorry,” said Bressler.
“Lonnie, what were you thinking? I hope you didn’t say anything about the car possibly being connected with the murder.”
“No, ma’am. Right after I’d opened my big mouth, I remembered you wanted that kept quiet.”
“Good, but I just wish you’d thought of that a little sooner.”
I asked, “Is Ms. Driggs traveling alone?”
“Nope. She’s on a working vacation and her gofer came along,” said Bressler, who sounded relieved with the change in topic. “His name is Jesse Hauck. Age twenty-three, lives in Atlanta, and drove up here in a Volkswagen Passat.”
“Good work, Lonnie. Put your report on my desk and download the photos into the death investigation computer file.” Tina looked at the wall clock. “And I’ve got to get started for the ME’s office in Roanoke.”
“One other thing, Sheriff,” said Bressler. “Ms. Driggs said that she expects to be kept up-to-date on the investigation to recover her car.”
Tina rolled her eyes and sighed. “That seems to be a real popular attitude this morning.”
As we walked out into the hallway, I asked, “With this bad leg, I’m not very good at genuflecting, but would you like me to roll by the hotel and talk to her?”
“She can wait. I want you to go interview Wade Tice.”
“All I need are the keys to the Cannabis Comet and I’ll be en route.”
“Do you want Lonnie to go along as backup?”
“It’s your call, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I followed Tina into her office. “If I show up there with a uniform, that’s a tacit message we view him as a suspect. I’d like to keep things nice and friendly for now. But if for some reason things go south, I still have Ash’s portable radio.”
Tina tossed me the keys to the Aztek. “Okay, but be careful.”
“I will, and can I ask a big favor? I got all preachy with Kurt over how he was treating Longstreet; meanwhile, my own dog has to stay in his crate all day. Would you mind if I took Kitch with me?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“It’s just for this morning when I go to Wade Tice’s place. I promise I’ll vacuum all the dog hair from the backseat.”
“And clean up his dog slobber from the windows.”
“Think of it as biodegradable window tinting.” When Tina didn’t reply and raised an eyebrow, I quickly continued, “The windows will be spotless.”
“Okay, I guess. But only this once.”
“Thanks, Tina. Oh, and one other thing . . . could you assign Kitch a really cool radio call sign like Hellhound-One or Lethal-Woofin’? It’d make his day.”
“Good-bye, Brad. I’ll see you when I get back from Roanoke,” said Tina as she headed for the door.
We went back out to the parking lot. Tina got into her cruiser and headed for the medical examiner’s office, while I fired up the Aztek. The vehicle’s digital thermometer said the temperature was up to forty-eight degrees, so I rolled all the windows down. That helped clear the air inside the car a little, but it still reeked of Shenandoah Valley sinsemilla.
As I pulled out from the parking lot, I briefly paused to admire the maple tree-lined main street of Remmelkemp Mill. The glorious fall foliage was past its prime, but the street still looked lovely. Instead of making the right turn to go home, I turned left and drove the half-block to Pinckney’s Brick Pit. I hadn’t seen Sergei in the better part of a week and was hoping to briefly stop at the restaurant to say hi. However, Sergei’s big pickup truck wasn’t in the lot, so I headed home to get Kitchener.