Saving Cecil (10 page)

I checked my watch. It was only three o'clock. I had plenty of time so I decided to take the long way around the woods instead of cutting through them. No sense risking another encounter with some UV—unfriendly varmint.

I have a complete mental list of UVs, and at the top of it, I placed dumb hunters, vicious moonshiners, and the scourge of today's ATF, the creeps that sneak onto the property of law-abiding citizens and plant patches—marijuana. They were way worse than any of the animals that call the woods and fields of North Carolina home.

From time to time while skirting the edge of the deep, dark woods, Tulip would liven things up with a startling bay followed by an impressive scratch off. She was trotting about thirty feet ahead of me when she decided to take off on one of those jaunts. She darted into the woods, spewing leaves and dirt behind her as though she were after Bigfoot.

When I reached the spot where she'd disappeared, I saw she'd taken another faint trail. Not only that, it was marked with the same type of scooped notch I'd seen earlier. In my mind, they looked like they were made by the same person or persons. I wanted to investigate, but had work to do, so I continued on to my destination where I planted my flag... again.

On my way back to the site, I took the same route, only this time I let my curiosity get the better of me. Though it was now almost five, I still had plenty of light. Besides, I'm a scientist, if I didn't let my curiosity overrule my practicality on occasion, I wouldn't be a very good one. I pushed my way into the woods, following the trail and the sound of Tulip already off on her own fact-finding mission.

From my earlier information gathering, I remembered this section of woods to be about sixty acres. And, according to my geologic map, a significant portion of it was underlain with red beds. One of the old county maps even indicated clay digs.

Perhaps some of Arthur's relatives from generations past used the clay for brick making. I practically tingled with anticipation of actually seeing the intersection of history and geology and hurried along. I was so excited, in fact, that I pushed aside the fact that a slight musky odor occasionally wafted my way.

Tulip's nose, however, remained on duty. About fifteen minutes into our transect, she trotted back to me, the hair on her back bristling, her eyes anxious. She heeled at my right side. When I stooped to comfort her, I saw her feet and legs were coated in red clay … the kind used for bricking. “What's the matter, girl?” I said soothingly. “Did you smell hog?” I petted her sides, stood and sniffed the air but the smell had gone. My excitement at seeing her clay boots had not.

“Let's go just a little further,” I said. “Then we'll turn back, I promise.” She gave me a dubious look and instead of her usual forward-scouting position, she trotted protectively by my side. I should have taken her standing hackles as a warning, but I didn't. I was only going a short ways. Looking ahead to where the path turned right, I decided that if I didn't see signs of a dig there, I'd turn back.

At the turn, the scant path merged with an old logging road and the hog odor increased exponentially. “Phew wee,” I said, looking down the path. “We must be getting close to one of their wallows, and something tells me that's probably right where I want to be.” Tulip whined. “Aw, come on now. I really want to see it. After all, I've got my Beretta.”

I unsnapped the safety strap that keeps the gun snugly in its holster—just in case—and walked on, my hand resting on its butt. The further I went, the more pungent the odor got. But something else was mixed in with the pungent odor of hog musk and dung.

I'd smelled it before.

Now I was really intrigued. Tulip wasn't. She was growling softly as the path turned sharply left and opened into a clearing. That's when I saw that neither my nose nor my memory had failed me.

A row of a hog pens stood before me.

“What the hell,” I breathed, counting the massive split-rail pens. There were five of them, attached side by side. There was also a shed—probably where the commercial hog feed, which was giving off the sweet, fermented odor I'd detected, was kept.

Upon seeing me, the hogs began to stamp and squeal. Tulip was now in fighting mode, her growl fierce, her lips curled. I tried to reassure her, but I was trembling too. “Something is out of whack here, girl,” I said, stating the obvious. It was one thing to keep hog pens away from your house to avoid the smell, it was another thing entirely to have them hidden deep in the woods, a mile or more away.

The reason for the subterfuge became clear with a quick inspection from a safe distance—past experience being my teacher. The first pen held a ferocious feral boar. The next two held domestic yearlings of both sexes. Another held a large domestic sow and the last, a larger one, was packed with varying ages and sexes of a cross between the wild and domestic breeds. I suspected such interbreeding was frowned upon by the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

Just then, I heard the sound of a truck engine. It was approaching from the far side of the clearing where the path picked up again. I ducked back in the woods so I could see if I recognized the truck. My instincts told me to get out of there, but I wanted to know who the hogs belonged to. Tulip, still trying to get me to follow, poked me with her nose. “Just a sec!” I hissed, giving her collar a warning tug. “Sit and stay!” Reluctantly, she sat and I turned back to part the branches for a better view.

The truck came into sight. It was one of the smaller variety of pickups, dark green with oversized tires and fancy rims, but it didn't appear to be new. As though the driver was looking for something, the truck rolled slowly forward across the clearing until I could see the emblem on the grill. A Toyota.

It was dirty and had scratches and dents reminiscent of my magic Jeep. One thing it had my Jeep didn't: a rear-window-mounted gun rack complete with scoped hunting rifle. Closer and closer it rolled until it was about fifty feet from me. Then it stopped. Unfortunately the tags were on the opposite end of the truck! Dammit!

A heavyset man of about fifty with mostly grey hair and a ruddy complexion got out and stood by the door without closing it. He rested his hand in the open window, an outdoorsman with the air of an executive. He was dressed for hunting with boots, flannel shirt, and heavy canvas hunting pants. “Hey?” the man called in a harsh, bullish voice. “You here?”

When he received no reply, he stepped a few feet away from the truck. Then, as if honing in by radar, he drew a bead on my location. He squinted his eyes and moved a little closer to the heavy underbrush and deep gloom concealing me.

Slowly I let go of the branches, withdrew my hands and stood stock-still, watching him. He hesitated, scanned left and right, then returned to his truck and started the engine. Figuring this might be a good time to leave, I stepped back a few feet to where I'd left Tulip. That smart hound was already at a smart trot, heading back the way we had come. I scratched off after her.

TEN

We'd run a little
less than a quarter of mile when I caught my boot on a greenbrier and went sprawling. The fall knocked the wind out of me. I lay still and caught my breath. After a moment when I didn't see Tulip, I pushed to my knees. There I saw another curious sight—as if I hadn't seen enough for one day.

Eye level with me on a pin oak tree was yet another trail notch. It was exactly like those I'd seen at other locations along the path. I stood and pushed the thick underbrush aside, revealing a fork in the path. I could hear Tulip's tags but I still didn't see her. I didn't want to call aloud or whistle, so I went to find her and in doing so, discovered the clay pit.

The trail followed a gentle slope to the bottom. Along the way, the soil changed from primarily sandy clay and gravel to pure red clay. It was about a hundred feet long, extending up the low rise on the other side for about thirty feet. A shallow dig, it was only about four feet deep at the most, but extended horizontally across ground for about sixty feet. I seriously wanted to explore it, but was still very nervous about being anywhere near what appeared to be a clandestine hog-breeding operation. Tulip's tags tinkled again and I saw her next to a tall clump of mare's tail weed. She was rooting under what appeared to be a large camouflage tarp.

It was about twenty feet long and covered a lower section of the old pit. Now what the heck was that doing out here? Was someone still working the clay pit? Local potters maybe. Maybe even amateur fossil hunters. Seemed logical, and I badly wanted to investigate, but I didn't feel safe.

“Tulip,” I called softly. “Get over here!” I had a bad feeling about this place. Whoever the mystery hog farmer was, he surely wouldn't want me nosing around. Stubbornly, Tulip ignored me, pulling harder on whatever was under the tarp. Then with a jolt, she fell back on her haunches, rewarded with a good-sized stick. I clucked softly to her and this time she responded and trotted past me, keeping at arm's length so I wouldn't take her treasure.

On the way back, we were about halfway across the second cornfield when my iPhone rang. I had been expecting Bud to call. It was only a little before 11:00 p.m. in Greece. A rush of warmth flooded over me. He was calling to say good-night. I forgot all about hidden hog pens and camouflaged clay pits and scrambled to dig the phone from my tote before it stopped ringing.

I tapped it on quickly. “Well, hello,” I said, doing my best to muster a sultry bedroom voice in the middle of a dried-out cornfield. “Are you all tucked in?”

“Uh, it's a little early for me,” Chris said with obvious amusement.

“Oh, man!” I said, totally disappointed. “I'm sorry. I was expecting someone else.”

“Nooo! Really?” Chris said sarcastically, then he got serious. “Hey listen. I've got some news to run by you. It's about the bullet hole in your tire.”

“I'm all ears. What about it?”

“I'm not at a very good place to talk right now. Let's meet for supper at the Spring Chicken since hubby-to-be is obviously somewhere in another time zone. Ehh, you did think that's who I was, didn't you … your hubby-to-be?”

“Of course I did!” I huffed. “I just have to finish in time to make my Krav Maga class at nine.”

“Wow,” he said. “Israeli street fighting. I'm impressed. Doesn't get much tougher than that.”

I shrugged, though he couldn't see me. The courses were something I'd promised myself for a while. Especially in light of some of the close calls I'd had over the last few years. “You never know when they might come in handy,” I said.

“This is true,” he said. “You think six-thirty will leave you enough time?”

“Sure. See you there.”

I still had time after I got back to the doghouse to pull up the online edition of the
Sanford Herald
on my laptop and find the article on Clinton Baker. Despite what the Lauderbachs and Sara had told me about him, I wanted to know more. When I finished reading the article, I did.

In fact, I felt even worse now that I'd read he was an Eagle Scout, a lettered high school athlete, a member of the debating team, an accomplished pianist and number one on the most-favored counselor list at Camp Morehead on the coast. The list of things he'd accomplished in his short life went on and on. Toward the end of the article, a mention of his passion for fossils, that he was majoring in Paleontology at UNC and even joined a local fossil-hunters group reminded me of what Sara had said about how he loved antagonizing creationists on their blog sites. Something I probably should mention to Chris when I saw him.

I checked Mickey. Time to meet Chris. Besides, staring at the article on screen and feeling sad wasn't helping me find out what happened to Clinton. Although it did fire up my determination. I turned off my laptop, locked the company logs in the floor safe, and padlocked the doghouse.

On the way to the Spring Chicken, I realized the minivan needed gas. Now seemed better than after dinner, so when I saw a small country station at the next intersection, I pulled in. Their gas was more expensive and it looked like they were having some sort of political shindig, but I like giving my business to locals.

Smoke coiled lazily from a pig cooker outside the station, perfuming the air with the delicious and unmistakable aroma of North Carolina barbeque. Under the overhang of the porch roof, the usual gaggle of old men in ladder-back chairs leaned against the outside wall of the station and smoked cigars. Inside, more folks were gathered, chattering and laughing.

I swiped my card, stuck the nozzle in the tank, and was just setting the handle to fill when Sheriff Stuckey moved into the open doorway. An obese man with a florid face and a cigar clamped between his teeth—a heart attack waiting to happen—took hold of his elbow before he could leave. Stuckey clapped him on the back as the large man pumped his hand vigorously. “You've got my vote, Clyde,” he said.

“Thanks, Elton,” said the sheriff, moving down the steps to shake hands with the men in the chairs.

He didn't see me and I watched as he greeted each with a comment that implied he knew them well. Then it dawned on me, this was an election year for him. That's what all the schmoozing was about. I'd almost finished filling the tank and was hoping to leave without him noticing me, but I didn't get my wish. As though sensing he might have missed a voter, he turned my way. His phony political smile vanished, replaced by a stony glare.

“Well, well,” he sneered as he walked up to me. “You saved me a trip out to see you tomorrow.”

“What? Aren't you going to ask for my vote too?”

“I know what you and Johnny and Buster are up to, thinking you can overturn your dad's conviction. But hear this, missy. You can't. The case against him is airtight. Besides, you won't be around much longer to do anything anyway. You'll be in jail … ”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Stuckey,” I said, pulling the nozzle from the tank and replacing it. “You're raising the bar for lunatics worldwide. Who, pray tell, are Johnny and Buster and what have they got to do with me?”

I knew who Johnny and Buster were. What I wanted to do was goad him into admitting he'd seen me at Johnny Lee's well-drilling shop. Meanwhile, some new voters had arrived at the little gathering and gone inside the station. Heart attack man came out and called to the sheriff. “Hey, Clyde, got some new supporters here that want to meet you!”

“Be right there,” Stuckey called, then turned and left, but not before squinting his eyes and shooting me with a finger gun à la Dirty Harry. He was clearly a lunatic. That he was also the sheriff was seriously scary.

I saw Stuckey's Interceptor parked on the side of the station as I pulled away. Wishing I'd seen it before making my refueling choice, I drove on, determined to get to the bottom of this latest mind-bending tidbit of information regarding my dad's long-closed case. At least I thought it was long-closed. Another call to Dad was in order soon as I got home after dinner and before my Krav Maga lessons.

Dinnertime at the Spring Chicken was crowded and noisy but Chris had arrived ahead of me and snagged a corner booth where it was relatively quiet. He'd also ordered me an iced tea. “Just the ticket,” I said, slugging down half the tasty brew.

“You know that's not Jack Daniels, don't you?”

“Of course. If it were, I'd have sucked down the whole thing.”

“Bad day at the office?”

“You could say that,” I said and gave him the condensed version of my latest little altercation with Stuckey. Wilma, our waitress, arrived and we both ordered the dinner special, meatloaf, mac and cheese, and fried okra. When she left, I asked, “So how do you get along with the sheriff? Don't you think it's a little odd, his bringing up my dad's old case, right out of the blue? Then, there's his insistence that I'm the prime suspect in the murder of Clinton Baker, despite the fact that I have no motive nor any past association with him.”

Chris seemed a little uncomfortable. “Well, as I said, opportunity is a consideration and you were there … ”

“I
found
him. Big difference. The killer was there, too, only a few hours ahead of me if the coroner is to be believed.” Wilma delivered our plates, dropping Chris's a little hard at the mention of the word “coroner.”

“Yes, there is that,” Chris said. “Which brings me to my reason for wanting to see you. One of them anyway. It's about the hole in your tire. I went back out to the junkyard. Dexter helped me pull the tire off the rim and we got lucky.”

“How's that?”

“The bullet was caught inside.”

I wrinkled my brow.

“Instead of going straight through, it hit the rim and stayed inside the tire.”

“Ah,” I said.

We ate in companionable silence while I considered how this might affect me. If it proved to be from Stuckey's gun, it would be so long Sheriff Stuckey. Not only would he be out of my life, but someone else, better qualified for the increasingly complicated job of sheriff in a rapidly growing county would be able to take the reins. After a while, I asked, “Can I see it?” It was Chris's turn to wrinkle his brow. “The bullet,” I reminded him.

“It's locked in my desk in an evidence bag, but I can tell you it was very likely from a hunting rifle.”

Is that a “no”
?
I considered his not offering to show it to me and wondered if he thought I was being irrational to think the sheriff could do such a thing. Then I put myself in his place, and well, it was a lot to take in. I worked on my dinner a little longer, then said, “Let me ask you something, Chris.”

“Shoot.”

“If you were to match the bullet with, say, one of the sheriff's hunting rifles, what would you think then?”

He drank some tea, then said, “I don't deal in hypotheticals. First I'd have to have a reason to confiscate his rifle. I can't just take it off the wall in his office and test it, you know. He'd have to be charged first. You willing to bring charges against him for attempting to kill you?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Does he know you have the bullet?”

“Not yet, but I'll have to tell him sooner or later.”

“Anything that says you have to make that sooner rather than later?”

“No, not really.”

Well, that's something, anyway
. “Good,” I said sarcastically. “After all, we wouldn't want to worry him, what with his trying to get re-elected and all. And, since he's already got me in his crosshairs for the Baker murder, making him even angrier seems a little counterproductive, don't you think?” Chris fiddled with his spoon. “You have to admit, you think it's possible he's the one who shot out my tire or else you wouldn't have told me about the bullet. You'd have just chalked it up to a hunter's shot gone wild.”

Wilma returned and took our plates. “Coffee?”

We both nodded in the affirmative. “I've thought of a few things I need to tell you about the Baker case,” I said, changing the subject. “Remember when I told you Clinton was quite the fossil buff, even to changing his major to Paleontology?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I forgot to mention that, according to Sara, he liked to antagonize the creationists and did so on their blog sites … a lot.”

Chris put down his spoon, showing renewed interest in what I had to say. “We've got his computer,” he said. “I'll have the analyst check it out. What else?”

“He belonged to a local fossil hunters' group.”

“What's that got to do with the price of tea in China? And, I believe I told you not to be playing detective in this case anymore.”

“Jeez, I read it in the paper. Calm down, I'm just trying to help here. Plus, I've been thinking about him lately. Like, why was he wearing camo? He wasn't hunting. Was he into military gear or … ”

“Now, you calm down,” Chris interrupted as Wilma set down our coffee and sped away to wipe up a spilled soda at one of the large family tables. “I told you I'd get to the bottom of this and I will, but solving cases like this—no witnesses and no real suspects—takes a seasoned detective. Not a geologist.”

“Have you got some other leads, other ideas, perhaps?” He didn't answer, just watched creamer mix into his coffee in big looping swirls. I couldn't help staring at his downturned eyes. Sooty lashes so long they seemed to rest on his cheeks. Damn he was pretty—and annoying. Obviously, he wasn't planning on sharing information. Well, two could play at that game. No need to tell him about the wild hog breeding operation I'd found. Not just yet anyway.

Chris squirmed in his seat. Something, it seemed, was still bothering him.

“Problem?”