Summerkill (3 page)

I damn well intended to keep tabs on what was happening and, bribe dispensed, went back out, establishing position near the
woodpile. Initially it didn’t look like much of anything was going on. This sheriff was not a bustling sort of person. If
having a murder to deal with got the old adrenaline flowing, it didn’t show in his movements. He was a good ten minutes making
his way over to the body. He’d take a couple of steps, look around, say something into that little recorder, take a couple
more steps.

Joe, meanwhile, had fetched a thick coil of rope from the trunk of their car. He tied one end around a scrawny white pine,
more or less at crotch level, then strung it along to the next tree the sheriff pointed to and made another attachment. And
on around three more trees, until he had barely enough rope left to get back to his starting point, thus completing an irregular
pentagon. Defining the scene of the crime, that must be. A keep-off statement of sorts: it couldn’t seriously be meant as
a barrier.

Once he got to where he could study the body close-up Sheriff Dye stood for what seemed like another ten minutes, talking
steadily into the recorder. He repositioned himself twice to check things out from other angles. Finally, sticking the recorder
in his shirt pocket, he made his slow, careful way to one of the rope perimeters, and leg-lifted himself beyond it.

Then he conferred with Joe briefly and they both climbed back inside the enclosure. They commenced to walk it excruciatingly
slowly in parallel lanes until the one or the other of them had managed to stare at every square inch of the ground. Several
spots they flagged with what, from my distance, looked like Popsicle sticks.

Only after this reconnaissance was completed did the sheriff go back to the car, get on the radio, summon others to the scene,
and start taking an interest in me.

When he came over to where I was standing the first thing he said was “Don’t you have a kid in Little League?”

I knew I’d seen the man around somewhere. My dentist’s stepdaughter, Stacey Dye, the bane of Alex’s batting average: this
must be her father. “My nephew, Alex Gutierrez,” I acknowledged. “He and his brother live with me.”

“Shortstop for the Eagles, right? The kid moves well.”

“Yep. He struggles with his hitting, still, especially when your daughter’s pitching. She’s a good little athlete.”

“If you ever want to tell her, leave out the ‘little,’” he admonished, smiling. “How many ten-year-olds do you know who weight-train?”

If she took after her father, as seemed to be the case, Stacey should have a good shot at her size goals, weights or no. He
was around my height, maybe twenty pounds heavier. Somewhere in my age bracket too, I guessed. Generic brownish hair thinning
on top, nice brown eyes set among otherwise unmemorable features, a little rumpled in appearance but well shy of the Columbo
look. Same profession, though, so why the hell were we talking Little League? I asked and he shrugged. “Supposedly people
open up more if you can establish some connection. But, okay, let’s get down to business. See how much of the groundwork we
can get through before the rest of the crew shows up. Mind if I record instead of taking notes?”

I was a little more forthcoming than my lawyer had advocated, but on the whole I thought Donna would have approved of my calm
manner and precise, not overly detailed answers. Sheriff Dye’s questioning was methodical. First he reconfirmed the name of
the victim, established that we were both associated with the Garden Center. He asked when I’d seen Ryan last, and looked
surprised at my claim of almost a week ago. “I spend virtually all my time on-site; Ryan was mostly in the office” seemed
to satisfy him as explanation. We were taking things chronologically from the time I found the body, and I decided to volunteer
about recognizing the pruner. Wouldn’t it look suspicious if I pretended otherwise? My initials were etched on the handle.

We managed to cover most of my ideas about that pruner before the first siren erupted. Over the next half hour or so at least
a dozen vehicles accumulated out front, discharging maybe twice that many people, ready to start bustling. Most were carrying
something: different sizes of black cases, a 35 mm camera, a Palmcorder, assorted tools and measuring devices. Not a one of
them turned out to be Calvin, the deputy I knew. My luck, he was on vacation that week.

More people on the scene did not signal a quickening of pace. The sheriff made everybody else wait beyond the ropes while
two guys, one with the camera, the other manning the Palmcorder, filmed Ryan and his surroundings from all angles. Then it
was the doctor’s turn. Once he was finished, several other men, who I concluded must be evidence collectors from the way they
kept putting things in plastic bags, were allowed in. When they were finally through collecting, the whole thing loosened
up and it became open season on Ryan’s remains; at least that was the visual effect.

The action was by no means confined to that area—people started tromping all over the place. The deputy named Joe wanted access
to the Bronco and thrust a consent form at me. His attitude would have won him a flat refusal, except it would be damn inconvenient
to have the Bronco off-limits for any length of time. So I signed my okay and unlocked it for him, then immediately started
regretting. I am careful with my things; I did not appreciate watching its contents yanked out and strewn around.

Roxy, indoors, was understandably outraged at her exclusion from the action. Normally she’ll give up barking at what she hears
if she doesn’t get to see it. That morning she sounded as if she could go on nonstop forever and fully intended to.

Just shy of eruption I butted into a conversation the sheriff was having with one of the oversized-black-briefcase toters
to announce that I was going inside.

“Good idea—it’s a zoo out here. Look, I’ll need to go over a few more things with you when I get a chance to take a break.
It shouldn’t be more than ten, fifteen minutes. Is that entrance your Bronco’s parked near the one I should use?”

“I’ll leave the screen door unhooked.”

It was more like half an hour before he came in. At least that’s what my watch said. My natural sense of time, usually pretty
good, had gone dysfunctional. And every pertinent train of thought I tried to board immediately derailed. I’d been sitting
at the dining-area computer, the one I let the boys use, botching up game after game of Tetris and feeling less and less on
top of anything at all.

“Nice back here,” he commented, going straight to the wraparound solar windows to check out the view down to the creek. “I
heard you’d done wonders with the place once you get past the front.” And then with a quicker gear shift than I’d have anticipated
from this man, “Do you have any idea why Ryan Jessup came to see you last night?”

I shut down the computer before turning to answer him. “Do we know he came to see me? He never got as far as ringing the doorbell.”

He pulled one of the dining-table chairs back out of the sun and sat too, which inspired Roxy to come over and plop her head
in his lap. The neck massaging resumed. “One of my men found his car ten yards or so in along that tractor path to the Berkmeiers’
pasture.”

“Beats me why he’d leave it there. It’s not like I’m short on parking space. Or maybe he didn’t know that. It would have constituted
a first for him to set foot on this property at all. As you will find out when you ask around, Ryan and I did not get along,
professionally. We had no relationship whatsoever beyond the office.”

“Gotta wonder what was on his mind. Were you and your nephews home all evening?”

“From somewhere between eight-thirty and a quarter to nine on. We went for pizza after the Junior All Stars game.”

“I thought I remembered Alex there. At any point after that did you leave the house?”

“No.”

“Not even to put the dog in her run?”

“Last year I made a doggy door on that side of the kitchen. When I’m home, I leave it unlatched till bedtime so she can come
and go on her own.”

He frowned. “I must’ve missed it. Good idea, though, the winters we get. Did she do any unusual barking?”

“Nothing like this morning, if that’s what you mean. Whenever Roxy hears movement, which is umpteen times a night around here,
she lets out a bark or two. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary last night.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“Around one.”

“Is that your usual hour?”

“Mine. It was late for the boys.”

“Those boys were up till one
A.M.
?” His tone was that of someone used to kids who conk out shortly after sundown.

“There was that Schwarzenegger movie on CBS, which ran long. And when Galen—he’s the seven-year-old—was channel-surfing during
one of the commercials he caught a promo for the
Tonight Show.
Leno was going to have Sandy Alomar, who happens to be Alex’s hero of heroes. Plus some or other band—the kids could tell
you the name—it’s the current rage of the elementary school set. So—” I spread my hands.

“Both boys are in the summer recreation program?”

“It’s two-thirds of my day care. They’re down the road with Sue Donnelly the rest of the afternoon.”

“We noticed what looked like a connecting path through the woods—a little ways up from the creek?”

“Right. The kids use it all the time.”

“Does it run in the other direction too?”

“Toward the Berkmeiers’? It’s farther from the creek that way and overgrown, but you could bushwhack through. I can show you
the entrance—it isn’t obvious.”

“Maybe later. That’s something I always wanted—water frontage. Step right out your back door and go fishing. How long have
you been here?”

“Right here? Four and a half years. I grew up in Albany and Danton Park, so I was familiar with the general area. After Cornell
I worked out in the western part of the state, and then down in Florida and North Carolina.”

“What brought you back?”

“Family considerations.” I decided that wanted a little amplification. “My brother-in-law died.”

“I’m sorry. Anyhow, about that path—we’re trying to work out how Ryan Jessup got from where his car’s parked to where he ended
up. With those layers of dry leaves and pine needles, it’ll be a miracle if we find useful footprints. Did you notice any
lights moving around out there last night?”

“No. But the only good view you get in that direction is from the back kitchen window. There isn’t much reason to look out
it unless you’re expecting somebody.”

He glanced back, verifying. “Okay, can we go over what you told me about the pruner again? You’re positive you haven’t seen
it in at least a week?”

“I haven’t used it in over two weeks. I’m pretty sure it was still there last Friday, when I was getting something else from
the back of the Bronco.”

“And you don’t remember seeing it since then.”

“I had no reason to look for it this week.”

“And since you don’t lock up except at night, you think anybody working with you at Mariah Hansen’s could have reached in
and lifted it?”

“Also anybody who was working at Hudson Heights on Tuesday. I spent close to an hour there in the afternoon.”

“Great! Now we’ve got most of the Garden Center contingent, plus Clete Donnelly’s Tuesday construction crew.” He shook his
head. “Does anyone in that lot come to mind as having something heavy against Ryan Jessup?”

“Not really.”

“How about you? You said you didn’t get along professionally. Why?”

“Ryan was brought in to stabilize the Garden Center financially. I didn’t go for some of the ways he went about it. Look,
it doesn’t break me up that he’s dead, but he wasn’t enough of a pain in the ass to remotely consider murdering.”

The crack in his bland expression might have been either smile or grimace; it closed too fast to tell. “We’ll need to find
out who thought otherwise, then. Would you mind sticking around here for a while?”

“How long is ‘a while’? I work, you know.”

“Can you take today off?”

I opted not to find out if I had a choice. “Okay. But I need to decide what arrangements to make about my nephews. When they’re
at Sue’s they often pop over here to get something or other. I want them exposed to this thing as little as possible. Are
we clear on that?”

“I’ll do what I can. The rec program lets out when, one-thirty?” He glanced at his watch. “That gives us over four hours.
The body should be gone well before that.”

“How about your rope construction?”

“Sorry—that’ll have to stay till we get clearance from the crime lab. Figure a couple days, minimum.”

“It should be almost as effective as a sign.”

He grinned. “There’s an upside. Since there’s no way to secure the crime scene, I’ll need to keep a round-the-clock guard
out there. Gives you a free built-in shield from curiosity seekers and the media.”

“That’s something, I suppose,” I said doubtfully. “Any idea when you might be finished with me?”

“Hard to say, at this point. Tell you what: I’ll get back to you by noon at the latest, and we’ll take it from there.”

S
hortly after Sheriff Dye let himself out, he and Joe took off in one of the department cars. I soon picked out who’d been
left in charge on-scene—a middle-aged guy with receding blond hair and a reddish face. Not much of a mover, but he looked
emphatic when he talked.

There was still a small crowd around the body. Several men seemed to have a project involving the woods on the eastern side
of the property, toward the Berkmeiers’; two others were continuing to check out my Bronco. A few weren’t doing much of anything.
There’d been an addition— two men and one woman clustered around a tripod-mounted video camera with a large Channel 5 on it.
They were well away from the body and probably couldn’t get a clear shot of it. I doubted this positioning had been their
choice.

Locking the kitchen door, I took the portable phone from its cradle and wandered back through the dining area to the living
room, concentrating on what I needed to do. The normal afternoon arrangement was for the bus to let the boys off at the Donnellys’
corner and I’d pick them up whenever, on my way home. Sue didn’t find variable retrieval hours a problem. With what was likely
to be an ongoing commotion, would that still play? I should sound her out.