Devil's Touch (21 page)

Chapter 23

There’s a smile on his unshaven face when the shop owner turns his old pickup truck onto he gravel road that leads to the cabin. His eyes scan the peaceful scenery before him and he sighs a little like he always does when he drives this way. When Nathan had bought the land, he had hoped that he wouldn’t subdivide it. Fortunately, Nathan had never even mentioned that idea and he was grateful for it. The final traces of yellow and pink have disappeared and left only a clear blue sky. It had been a cold night and the air is clear and fresh with a hint of winter in it.

"What?!"

He stops the pickup behind Nathan’s car and gets out slowly.

"Nathan?!"

His voice is clear as he walks over to the car. Then he sees the plastic tube that leads from the exhaust pipe to the window of the car. The window is open a little. He tears the tube from the window and opens the door with so much force that his arm hurts.

"Nathan?!"

Nathan’s body falls out of the car and lands on the ground before him.

"Nathan, no!"

The shop owner’s body collapses.

"I should have guessed."

He bends down carefully and touches Nathan’s face. It’s cold and the glass-like eyes are staring at him.

The shop owner stares patiently out over the lake as the phone rings. Finally he recognizes the voice on the other end and sighs.

"Vince, good to hear your voice. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never tried anything like this before. I’m at Nathan’s place. He’s killed himself."

It’s quiet.

"Vince, are you there? You’re so quiet."

He looks over at Nathan while he listens.

"When do you think the guys from the city can be here? I mean, I know you can be here in fifteen minutes. You can put the siren on if you want. But the guys from the city…"

He’s suddenly quiet.

"OK. OK Vince. I’ll wait and I won’t touch anything. I’ll go sit in my car."

He holds out the phone in his outstretched arm and presses the disconnect button hard.

"Hmm."

He pushes his head forward a little and squints. Then he presses a button and holds the phone to his ear.
”Hmm, I should’ve brought my glasses.”

"Hi honey..."

He’s quiet again.

"No, I’m OK. Do I sound strange..? Yes, I guess I do. I won’t be back in the shop for a while."

He gets annoyed when she interrupts him.

"No, Nathan is not OK. Nathan has killed himself and Vince is calling the cops in the city. He doesn’t want to handle it himself since it’s Nathan."

He stops and looks out over the lake again.

"Damn it, it’s Nathan. We all know him around here. I don’t know why he‘s so worried just because it’s Nathan."

He stops.

"Yes, of course Nathan had a lot of money, so maybe that’s why... I don’t know."

Then the voice on the other end interrupts him and it takes a while before he answers in a loud voice.

"He..."

His voice is suddenly very low.

"… He was in his car. He had taped the plastic tube that he bought to the exhaust pipe."

Surprised, he holds out the phone in his outstretched arm again and looks at it.

"She hung up on me!"

He presses redial and hears her voice again. She’s crying.

"No, honey, there’s no way we could’ve known at the time. I don’t think we could have imagined him doing something like this last night. I’m really surprised that he would do such a thing."

He almost drops the phone.

"You did… Did he? But I think he looked perfectly normal last night. No, honey, you’re making that up. He looked completely normal. Well, yes, I guess we all look a little tired sometimes. We can’t all go around laughing all the time. But, but. Well, I didn’t notice. You should have said something if you suspected that he was going to kill himself."

He sounds really annoyed now.

"Stop blaming yourself."

He stops when he can hear that his wife is crying.

"In any case, there’s nothing we can do now. He’s dead."

The shop owner looks down at the ground.

"How he looks?! Uh, rather normal. No, honey, dead people don’t look that different… He looks peaceful. No, no. Don’t come out here. You need to take care of the shop."

He stops to take a breath after talking so much.

"Vince says I can’t leave. But I can’t do that. Vince is the police and you can’t take over for me here. Honey, honey…?"

He stares at the phone in disbelief. Then he presses redial again.

"Come on, pick up!"

His one foot starts to twitch nervously and he doesn’t hear the car until it stops next to him.

His voice is really loud and Vince carefully pulls the handbrake before he gets out of the car and looks at him.

"It’s my wife. She’s on her way out here to see how Nathan looks when he’s dead. Can’t you stop her?"

He gasps.

"She’s probably leaving already..."

"Well, we can’t have that."

Vince walks back to his car.

"And you stay right there until I’m back. Not a step in any direction. Have you been standing there the whole time?"

"Almost."

"Well, you stay put now."

Vince picks up the police radio and after a couple of short sentences he turns to him and smiles.

"There, that’s taken care of."

"Thanks, Vince. I appreciate it.”

He sighs deeply.

"Don’t move."

The shop owner stops. A small sound by the car behind him makes him turn around and he sees a squirrel that has just landed on the hood of Nathan’s car. It’s running around on the shiny black paint and looks in through the windshield. Then it’s suddenly gone again.

"Denize loved squirrels."

"You still can’t move."

Vince’s voice is starting to sound tired.

Chapter 24

Fredericsson jumps in his seat when the phone rings and quickly answers it. He’s still feeling incredibly tired.

"Hmm."

It’s quiet on the other end.

"Is that Peter Fredericsson?"

"Yes."

"Were you sleeping?"

"Yes."

"So you’re home?"

"No."

"Oh, sorry."

"I’m in my car."

"But you said you were sleeping?"

"Yes, in my car."

It’s quiet again.

"I drove a witness to the station around four last night. Do you know if the sketch artist has arrived? The witness had to be back at work by eight."

"No."

"Hmm, I was really hoping you would say yes to that question. Is our witness still waiting?"

"I don’t know."

"A man... With a round face. Very nice and accommodating. He’s wearing sweat pants.”

It’s quiet again. Fredericsson blinks and looks at his watch.

"It’s eleven now, so you must know if the witness has been waiting."

"We have another dead body, Fredericsson. You were at Nathan Wilkin’s place yesterday. There’s a report that someone has possibly committed suicide on Nathan Wilkin’s property in the mountains. Looks like it’s Nathan Wilkins."

The line is quiet again.

"You have to drive up there."

"Are you kidding me? I haven’t slept in my own bed since… I don’t even know when, and…"

He’s interrupted.

"Yes, I know who Nathan Wilkins is... Isn’t it just a suicide?"

Fredericsson listens.

"Yes, I see. OK, I’ll drive up there."

He pokes around the glove compartment and then looks around in the car.

"Yes, I have some paper now."

"Yes, yes. Uh, I need you to check something for me. Then find someone else! I need a background check on Evy Schmidt, Stuart Pettersson, Nathan Wilkins, and a private investigator called Marc Jones."

He listens for a while.

"I have no idea how it’s connected, but they keep turning up in the cases you keep giving me. Oh, yes, since everything is connected, could you also check out Petra Jennings. No idea if she’s involved, but still."

The smile on his face suggests that his interest isn’t exactly related to the case.

"Will you also see if the sketch has been made?"

"Yes, right, but..."

Fredericsson scratches the side of his neck.
”Ouch, ouch!”

"Yes, I’m on my way."

He breaks off the call and throws the phone on the seat next to him. In the rearview mirror he takes a look at his red neck. He strokes it with his hand and looks out at the view. He thinks of his wife’s face and wonders how his life would have been if she had still been alive.

Chapter 25

"Vince!"

Vince sticks his head out the open door.

"I can’t just stand here. My feet are hurting. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here."

"You’ve been standing there for two hours."

"Two hours! Damn it, come on, Vince."

"You stay until they arrive."

"Can I at least sit down?"

Vince gets out of his car and a gust of wind makes his grey hair dance around his head. His slender and toned figure doesn’t reveal that he has just turned 60 a few days ago.  The whole town had celebrated him. Vince smiles at the shop owner as he approaches.

"Sure."

He checks carefully that the shop owner doesn’t move outside the area where his shoe prints have already made patterns on the dry ground. Then he walks back to his car.  The tired shop owner sits down on the ground. He can see Nathan’s face and the staring eyes that seem to follow him. He turns around so he faces away from them.

"What are you doing?! Are you trying to get me fired?! Stay put."

"I am, Vince, but I can’t stand the way he stares at me."

He nods in Nathan’s direction.

"OK."

The officer slowly gets back in his car.

"Vince!"

"Hmm."

"When this is over you owe me a beer."

"All right. Just stay where you are. You never know with those guys from the city."

"OK, Vince."

"Maybe you could ask them when they’ll be here."

"Yeah, I guess I could do that."

Vince grabs his radio while he watches a small dust devil forming and dissolving again.

"Really?!"

Fredericsson looks at his GPS and then at the trees in front of him.

"That’s not a road, that’s a path."

Fredericsson frowns as the gravel is still crunching under his wheels. The trees rise above him and finally he can see the lake between them. Fredericsson sees the police car and pulls up behind it. He gets out and looks around. Then he sees the black car and the man lying on the ground next to it. Finally, he looks at the man who’s sitting on the ground not far from the car. He shakes his head and looks around again. Vince stops in front of him and Fredericsson examines the marked features in the face below the grey hair. Without wanting to, he looks down at himself.
”I’m at least 30 pounds bigger than him and I’m sure I’m not even close to being in half the shape he is. I need to pull myself together!”

"There’s a..."

He looks around.

"A lot of fresh air out here."

He looks at Vince and forces out a smile. Vince frowns a bit. He leans over toward Fredericsson and speaks calmly while looking over at the shop owner.

"Are you even with the police or are you one of those reporters?"

Fredericsson looks at him for a while and then slides his hand down over his face.

"Yeah, I just need a shave."

"ID, please."

Fredericsson gropes around his pockets before holding out his badge, while Vince has calmly walked back to his car and put his hand on his gun which is lying on the dashboard.

"We’ve been waiting for over two hours. Don’t you city guys think we have better things to do?"

Fredericsson looks at him for a while and then he walks over toward Nathan.

"Stop!"

The shop owner gets up fast.

"I’ve been sitting here for three hours so I wouldn’t destroy any evidence and now you’re just going to walk all over the place?"

Fredericsson looks at him.

"All right."

He squats down and looks along the ground.

"Not quite three hours,"

Vince adds carefully. Fredericsson looks at him and then back at the shop owner.

"Show me your soles."

The shop owner lifts his leg and shows Fredericsson his sole.

"And the other one."

The shop owner repeats the movement. Fredericsson looks over at Vince and shakes his head.

"The ground is too hard for sneakers to make any marks. It looks like it hasn’t rained for a long time… And that fine dust."

Another gust of wind hits them and Fredericsson looks around.

"It looks like the wind is getting stronger. It’ll move the dust around, if it hasn’t already done so."

He shakes his head.

"I can’t see any other marks than those from his sneakers."

Fredericsson looks over at Nathan’s well-polished shoes and tilts his head to see the soles. Then he nods at the shop owner.

"There’s no traces from anyone else."

"Can I move now?"

The shop owner sounds surprised. Fredericsson looks at him and down over the ground again.

"Knock yourself out. There’s no traces of anything except you opening the door."

The shop owner’s voice is low when he walks past Fredericsson.

"You need a shower more than you need a shave."

Fredericsson looks at him as he walks over to Vince.

"Yeah, well, a shower would be nice."

Fredericsson’s voice, on the other hand, is loud and clear, so he’s sure they both hear him. Vince is angry and stares at the shop owner and walks over to stand next to him. Fredericsson looks at Nathan and then at the piece of clothing that was covering the crack so the air couldn’t escape from the car. He gets up and follows the tube to the exhaust pipe. Then he squats down again and looks carefully at the tape around the tube and the pipe.

"Do you know who that is?"

Fredericsson is talking to them both as he looks at Nathan. They both nod at the same time. Fredericsson looks from one to the other, but his eyes stay on Vince who nods again.

"OK. Who is he then?"

"Nathan Wilkins."

"Is that his cabin?"

Vince nods again.

"When was the last time you saw him?"

Fredericsson turns to look at Nathan.

"Alive."

Vince’s voice is a little hesitant.

"A couple of months ago."

The shop owner shifts his weight to the other feet and coughs a little.

"Yesterday."

"Hmm."

Fredericsson bends forward a little more so he can see the bottom of the car better. Then he gets up again.

"Where did you see him?"

The shop owner shifts his weight again.

"When was it? I mean at what time?"

"Nathan came into the shop and bought some things. It was in the early evening.”

"What things?”

The shop owner shifts his weight again and Vince looks at him carefully.

"Tell him."

Vince’s voice sounds tense and Fredericsson turns to look at the shop owner.

"Just some groceries. I was supposed to deliver them to the cabin this morning. That’s when I found him."

The shop owner speaks fast and Fredericsson notices how he stumbles over the words.

"But he also bought…"

He nods at the car. Fredericsson looks in the same direction, but quickly looks back at the shop owner again.

"The tube and the duct tape."

"The rag in the door?"

He shakes his head.

"That’s the sweater Nathan always wore when he was up here. I think he kept it in the car."

The shop owner looks down, and Vince continues.

"Denize bought it for him. We have a market here every fall and lots of different people put up stalls. There’s also a lot of tourists…"

Fredericsson sighs deeply and raises his hand. Vince slowly stops.

"Hmm."

The nap Fredericsson took earlier hasn’t really helped and he’s so tired he can’t think clearly.

"Please call the crime scene investigators if you haven’t already."

He walks over to his car but stops on the way and looks into the back of the shop owner’s pickup truck.

"The groceries for Nathan?"

The shop owner nods and Fredericsson looks in the bags before he walks over to his car.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yes."

He turns to face them.

"As you have been so kind to point out, I need a shave, a bath and some sleep. So that’s what I intend to get now."

He opens the door and gets in.

"You have just confirmed the identity of the deceased and nothing suggests that it’s a murder unless the investigators find something that isn’t visible to the naked eye."

He closes the door and puts the key in the ignition. Then he stops and rolls down the window.

"When did you find him?"

"Around ten."

Fredericsson nods.

"Stay here until they arrive. They’ll probably want to do some tests to rule you out as suspects."

He blinks at them and the shop owner’s eyes get bigger and bigger.

"I have to wait again?!"

"Maybe they’re faster than me."

He shrugs and smiles a crooked smile.

"Have you taken his statement?"

Vince looks surprised and Fredericsson smiles.

"You can do that until they get here. Send it to me."

He reaches out the window to give him his card. Vince stares at it and then slowly walks over to take it.

"I want the statement before you go home tonight."

"Is that really necessary?"

Fredericsson nods.

"I now have three cases that are somehow connected and this case is one of them. Watch out for evidence. If there’s anything at all that points to murder we need to find it. Do you understand? We need to find it. There’s too much at stake here."

"What do you mean?"

Vince can’t hide his irritation.

"You said it yourself, that it’s suicide."

Fredericsson starts the car and puts it in reverse.

"I hope so."

Fredericsson steps on the gas and backs up so he can turn the car around.

"Don’t forget to call the crime scene investigators."

Vince looks after Fredericsson as he drives away. The last thing Fredericsson sees in the rearview mirror is Vince and the shop owner talking.

"Well, they’ve had enough time to arrange a story if they’re somehow involved."

He stops the car when he can no longer see them. He’s in doubt.
”All my instincts tell me that it was suicide. All.”
He lets go of the brake and the car slowly rolls down the gravel road while he checks a text message that he just had. He smiles and puts the car in gear.
”That’s good. Now I have a picture of Eric’s dealer. Now I just need to find her.”