Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 7-9: Buried Alive, Her Last Scream, The Killing Game. J. Kerley A.
air seemed as cool as the storage units, he was sweating as I re-questioned him about the lost body. Caldwell was one of those folks who, when rattled, find security in detail.
“What time did you notice Mr Tanner’s disappearance, Mr Caldwell?”
“Like I told Detective Cherry, I always stop at McDonald’s for breakfast, carry-out, coffee, two Egg McMuffins and a—”
“Time?”
“Six fifteen. I came early to prepare the papers for the transport. There are seven forms to fill out, the one for—”
“Who was the last person here last night?”
“Wendell Nockle. He’s the janitor, or I guess today they’re called maintenance staff or—”
“Nockle left when?”
“He always leaves at seven thirty. Blanche’s Diner closes at eight. They always save Wendell a piece of pie. Apple. Or banana cream. Or cherry. I don’t mean you, Detective Cherry, I mean cherry like in the pie filling—”
I dismissed Caldwell before he started in on the fifteen-bean soup.
“You come up with anything?” I asked Cherry, the detective, not the filling.
“The parking lot’s in back. It’s not well lit, nor openly visible from the street. The perp could park back there, grab the corpse, drive away. All without arousing attention. It’s flat-out dead around here after eight at night, nothing to do.”
I studied the surroundings from the parlor parking lot, saw the backs of a couple warehouses, an antique store, a used-car lot. But less than the distance of a football field, I saw the rear of a small trailer park. There were a lot of windows faced this way.
Stanton was in the county adjoining Woslee and Cherry had a far better relationship with the cops than with Beale. Three uniformed patrolmen were happy to go door to door in the park, asking if anyone happened to be watching the parking lot behind them last night. They got a hit: a man named Gable Paltry.
Mr Paltry was a sallow and skinny man in his mid-sixties with a brown theme – brown eyes, brown teeth, thinning brown hair, brown scrofulous patches on his cheeks. His sleeveless T-shirt was stained with something brown, as were his pants. His shoes were brown. He was dipping snuff or chewing tobacco, and when we entered his living room he spat a thick glob of something brown into a paper cup.
“I’ll deal with Mr Charm,” I whispered to Cherry.
“I owe you one,” she said.
The guy looked sad when Cherry claimed she needed to make a call and peeled away. I pulled a chair close as possible without getting into the splash zone, pulled out my notepad.
“I saw a semi-rig,” Paltry wheezed, looking past me, hoping for another shot of Cherry. “It was red, old. Silver trailer. Sometimes drivers pull off the highway and use the lot to snooze. I saw me a big RV pull in there and stop. Stayed maybe ten minutes. Light color. Had bikes and crap roped to the back. A barbecue grill tied up top, too.”
A vacationer, I figured, checking a map or grabbing a quick snack and a few minutes of respite from the nighttime drive. Like the semi driver, probably.
“Anyone else?”
“Yeah. A couple parked back there, man and woman. It was maybe one in the a.m. She had red hair, but I couldn’t see much of the guy. They were there a half-hour or so and never got out of the car that I saw.”
I looked over the distance to the funeral parlor. Imagined it at night.
“You said she was a redhead, Mr Paltry?”
“Kinda long hair. Had on one of those tight tops. Halter top, pink. She was on the side facing me, passenger. She had a pretty decent set of—”
“What power are your binoculars?” I asked innocuously.
“What? I wasn’t spying on no one.”
The blast of red to his face confirmed my diagnosis. I figured Mr Paltry had been hoping to see a little action. A darkened parking lot just off the highway seemed the perfect venue for a fast pullover for high school kids with dates, or older types who can’t take the date home because the spouse would object.
It might have even been Paltry’s hobby: see a vehicle in the back lot and run for the binocs hoping for suggestive head bobbing or – joy of joys – a drunked-up couple that stumbles from the car and does it on the hood.
I gave him my squarest chin and most stentorian voice, the image I employ – infrequently – when receiving commendations from professional and civic groups.
“I encourage citizens’ watch groups to use the best equipment possible to assist in the fight against crime, sir. People should always pay attention to strangers in the area.”
Paltry puffed out his sunken chest, held up a finger, meaning back in a second, and padded into the next room, returning with a stubby black tube mounted on a tripod, stroking it like a kitten.
“Here’s my baby, a Bushnell spotter’s scope. See a gnat at a hunnert paces.”
I pretended to admire the instrument. “And you say the couple never got out of the car?”
“I had to pee a time or two while I was watching. It takes me a while cuz I’ve got the prostrate. And sometimes I couldn’t see them but figured it was because, ah, they was, uh …”
“Engaged in seditious acts of horizontal alliance,” I said. “Flagrant concupiscent involvement.” I took his scrawny claw and shook it. “God bless citizens like you, sir.”
He puffed out his chest even further. “One time I even saw a buncha Mexicans being sneaked down the highway. I called the cops.”
“Really, sir?”
“They was in a farm truck fulla dried cob corn. It was night and I was looking for, uh, things like you said. The driver got out and lifted a tarp on back. The corn started moving and three Mexicans stood up. They were eating and drinking some stuff when the cops rolled up.”
I flicked a well-done salute and walked away. Stopped. Something moved in my mind, but I didn’t see what it was, just that a thought had been ignited somewhere. I frowned its direction, saw Mexicans pushing from corn. Farm. Hidden. Farms have tractors and … hay.
I pulled my phone and called Harry Nautilus, my partner back in Mobile.
“I think I know how Bobby Lee Crayline got away,” I said.
“That was over six months ago, Carson. It took you this long to figure it out?”
“I’m not missing your humor, Harry. Odd, I know. The farmer’s name was something like Oakes. That’s it, Farley Oakes …”
“You think that really happened?” Harry Nautilus said after I’d laid out my thoughts.
“If it went down as I suspect, there are two possible reasons: coercion or a willing accomplice. Either way, the best approach assumes willingness.”
“He just drove away?” Harry confirmed. “The farmer?”
“It was dumb, but everyone got so busy with the dead guards and chasing a motorcycle with Crayline aboard that … well, it just happened.”
“I’ll see if I can’t get Babe Ellis and Sandhill in on this,” Harry said. “Could be fun. How’s the vacation?”
“Right now I’m helping look for a corpse that walked away from a funeral home.”
“Aren’t there more vacation-type things to do? Are there no pretty women in the area?”
“There’s one. I’m helping her look for—”
“—a corpse that escaped from a funeral home. Gotcha.”
Cherry was leaning against