Exposing Truths: A Sam Mason Mystery Book 3 Page 4

  Sam and Jo couldn’t investigate that through official channels. They weren’t supposed to be investigating at all. So Jo had a contact from her old job look into it. It had been an untraceable cash deposit. Had Sam been waiting for her to come up with more information on that all this time? Was that why he’d been acting so weird?

  “No. They couldn’t find anything because it was a cash deposit. It’s a dead end for us.”

  Sam nodded. “Mick’s still working the angle with the grandson.”

  Mick Gervasi, Sam’s best friend and a private investigator, often performed some of the work they couldn’t do officially. They’d hired Mick to look into a few things in Tyler’s case, including the stolen car that had been abandoned at the scene. The car had belonged to an older woman named Barbara Bartles, and Mick had managed to discover that her grandson was a little on the shady side. They’d hoped to tie him to the stolen car, but so far they’d had no luck.

  “I still feel like that kid might have something to do with it or know something,” Jo said.

  “Me too. And so does Mick. That’s why he’s still on it.”

  “Plus we haven’t exactly had extra time to do any work on it ourselves.”

  “Yeah. I guess we should get serious about hiring someone to replace Tyler,” Sam admitted, giving her the perfect segue into talking about the new hire.

  “Yep. Guess so.” Jo waited for Sam to continue, but after a few moments of silence she said, “So do you like any of the candidates so far?”

  Sam sighed. “I guess there’s one that could be a good fit.”

  “Maybe we should hire him. We might be looking for the perfect candidate that we’ll never find, and meanwhile we’re spread too thin.”

  Sam glanced over at her, a look of resignation crossing his face. “You might be right. I guess I’ve been putting things off because I sort of feel guilty about Tyler’s death.”

  “What do you have to feel guilty about?” Jo asked.

  Sam shrugged. “Nothing really. But everyone who works for me is my responsibility. Maybe I should have been the one on duty that night.”

  Jo’s heart twisted. “You can’t beat yourself up about that. Things happen. Then again, what happened to him might not have been so random.”

  They lapsed into silence. Jo sipped the rest of the now-lukewarm coffee from her mug as Sam headed toward the less-desirable part of town where Jesse shared a house with his partner in petty crime, Brian Carlson. Even though they rode in silence, it was the comfortable silence of partners who had worked together for years. Jo found herself wondering why she’d ever thought there was a rift between them.

  Sam pulled into the driveway of a faded blue run-down 1950s ranch. A few tufts of green grass dotted the dirt patch that was the front yard. Weeds had taken over what once had been a flower bed along the front of the house. A section of screen flapped down from the top corner of the front door.

  Jo put her coffee mug in the cup holder in the middle console. The mug was a little too big for the size of the holder, and it tipped to the side. Sam frowned down at it. Jo knew he was probably worried it would tip over. He was always getting on her about that.

  “Don’t worry. It’s empty,” Jo said as she opened her door.

  They let Lucy out of the back, and the three of them walked to the dirt-smudged front door immersed in the quiet stillness of a hot summer day. A cicada buzzed, bringing attention to the absence of the hard rock that usually blared from inside the house.

  “I hope he’s home,” Sam said. “Maybe we should have checked the auto body shop first.”

  “We’re here now, let’s see.” Jo knocked on the door, and they waited. After a few seconds the door cracked open and Jesse peeked out.

  “Chief Mason.” Jesse opened the door, his concerned gaze flicking from Sam to Jo to Lucy. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Sam said pleasantly. “We only wanted to ask some questions about those environmental activists in town. Nothing to do with you.”

  Sam’s words seemed to set Jesse at ease, and he opened the door and stepped back for them to enter.

  Lucy trotted inside and got busy sniffing the furniture, her nose zeroing in on a wooden box on top of the coffee table. Jesse glanced at the box nervously. Jo figured that was where he kept his stash. Maybe Lucy was going to be a good drug dog, too. But they weren’t here for Jesse’s drugs. Not today.

  “Do you want to take a seat?” Jesse gestured toward a lumpy couch that had what looked like a pair of dirty socks on one end and a pile of clothes on the other.

  “We won’t be staying that long,” Jo said.

  Jesse nonchalantly took the box that Lucy still sniffed and tucked it inside one of the doors of the television stand. “What can I do for you?”

  “There’s been a murder,” Sam said.

  Jesse’s eyes widened. “I thought you said I wasn’t in trouble.”

  “You’re not. The victim was one of the environmental activists, Ray Ingalls. I hear he hung around at Holy Spirits. Was wondering if you knew him.”

  Jesse pressed his lips together. “Ray Ingalls. Is he that photographer dude? Always talking about the owls? Yeah. Now that I think about it, that was his name. Wow! Who killed him?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jo said. “You have any ideas?”

  “Me? No. Well, he was kind of abrasive …”

  “Abrasive?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, you know, one of those loud and obnoxious guys. Type thinks his shit doesn’t stink. Real pompous. Self-important. He hung around with another guy and a girl mostly. Probably because he was such a dick he didn’t have any other friends.”

  Sam took a piece of folded paper from his back pocket. “Did you ever notice anyone with a tattoo like this?”

  “Yeah. In fact, one of that photographer dude’s friends has one. Derek something … or was it Dennis? Not exactly sure I remember his name, but I know he has the tattoo because he and Brian got into it a little bit at Holy Spirits the other night. I had to break up the fight.”

  “What did they fight about?” Sam asked.

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “Brian tossed something in the trash and missed. That guy started blabbing about the environment, and the next thing you know they’re swinging at each other. If you ask me, those environmentalists are strung way too tight.”

  “What about Ray Ingalls? Did he ever get into fights?”

  Jesse thought for a minute. “I don’t remember any.”

  “You said he was a jerk. Did he have enemies?” Jo asked.

  “Sure, who doesn’t?”

  “What about the guy with the tattoo?”

  “Nah, those two were always tight, like I said.”

  “What about Thorne and his people? Was there any trouble between the activists and them?” Sam asked.

  Jesse’s eyes narrowed. “Thorne? Why would I know about him?”

  Sam stepped a little closer to Jesse, and Lucy’s ears perked to attention. She wedged herself between the two men and smiled up at Jesse. With her oversized canines, her smile could be a bit menacing. Jesse looked down at the dog nervously.

  “Not Thorne so much, but, you know, his associates who run drugs,” Sam said.

  “I don’t know much about the drug trade,” Jesse said.

  “Come on, Jesse, we know that you deal sometimes. I only want to know if you heard anything from any of your contacts about Thorne getting nervous because of these activists. The owl protection area is near his construction site. Maybe all these people traipsing around in the woods is putting a damper on his side business.”

  Jesse shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything. But now that you mention it, things do seem to be a little slow in that other … um … business.”

  Sam stepped back, Lucy relaxed and Jo shifted on her feet.

  “So you hadn’t heard anything about the murder?” Jo asked.

  Jesse spread his hands. “No idea. Honest.”

  “Do you h
appen to know where any of these people are staying?” Sam asked.

  “As a matter of fact I do. Brian was so mad at that guy with the tattoo that he followed him when he left. He was really fuming. Anyway, they were camping near the old fairgrounds down by the fork in the river. There’s a little community of them sprung up down there. Lucky thing I talked Brian out of storming in and doing something. Who needs that trouble?”

  Chapter Seven

  Sam drove the Tahoe along the dirt road just off Watson Street, where he knew there was a path that led to the fork in the river. They found an old green Gremlin, a 1970s Dodge Dart, a Zephyr station wagon with woodgrain panels and a fairly new Volkswagen Beetle complete with a daisy in a vase in the console parked in a little pull-off area.

  “Looks like they’re here,” Jo said as she snapped photos of the cars with her phone, angling it to catch the license plates. They got Lucy out of the back and started down the narrow path toward the river. The smell of woodsmoke hung in the air as they threaded their way through the trees. Sam saw colorful swatches of tents through the trunks of the pines and the thick leaves from the oak saplings that grew up through the carpet of pine needles. A black fly buzzed near his ear, and he swatted at it, his hand slapping hard against his sweaty neck.

  The campsite looked like any normal campsite, with tents set up in a haphazard ring around a fire pit. Clothes hung on a makeshift clothesline, and coolers sat next to the tents. A portable shower had been set up beside a tree. The rock-ringed fire had a grate on top, a metal kettle sitting atop it. A few people stood around the fire. A few more stood down near the river, and two lounged on cheap plastic folding chairs that faced the mountain view.

  When Sam, Jo and Lucy emerged from the woods, they all turned, their faces registering uncertainty and then suspicion.

  One man who had been standing around the fire came forward. “We didn’t see any ‘No trespassing’ signs.”

  “We’re not here about that,” Sam said.

  “And we aren’t the ones who spray-painted the side of that hotel,” another man chimed in.

  “Not here about that either,” Sam said. “We’re here about Ray Ingalls.”

  A short, chubby guy got up from his lounge chair. “What about Ray?”

  The man’s voice held a mixture of indignation and concern. His stance radiated confrontation. Sam’s eyes flicked to his wrist, where he saw the turtle tattoo. “You know him?”

  “Yeah. So?” The man backed off a little, more uncertain than confrontational now.

  “Do you know where he was last night?” Sam asked.

  “What’s it to you?” The other campers had come forward to stand in a loose semicircle in front of Sam and Jo.

  Lucy was on alert, her back stiff, the hairs along the ridge raised slightly. It was comforting to know Lucy would protect them, but Sam figured there wasn’t going to be any trouble. They were just putting on a show. He scanned the crowd, trying to pick out which one could be Ray’s killer.

  Sam stood at ease, and Lucy relaxed slightly. He reached down to pat her head, a signal that all was well, and she trotted off to sniff her way around the site.

  “Seems like your friend might have gotten in a little bit of trouble,” Jo said.

  The first guy snorted. Sam turned to look at him. “Something you want to say?”

  “Well, I’m not surprised. He gets into trouble a lot. He kind of has an attitude.”

  “Yeah, he can get a little worked up,” a small blonde with big blue eyes said. “But that’s only because he cares about the cause.”

  “He’s a good guy.” A tall woman in a long rainbow-colored skirt with hair to match stepped in front of Sam and Jo. “Ray didn’t do anything wrong. What is your business here?”

  “My business?” Sam asked. “I’m the chief of police. Everything is my business.”

  “Oh, that’s it, is it? Everything’s your business.” Rainbow Skirt gestured to indicate the entire landscape. “Even the chopping down of the trees and the killing of the birds.”

  “Yeah, and the devastation of natural habitats,” someone yelled.

  “And polluting the waters,” another chimed in.

  Sam held his palms up in front of him. “Hold on, guys. I don’t like polluting waters or chopping down trees either.”

  “Yeah, but you’re one of them,” the big-eyed girl said.

  “One of who?” Sam asked.

  “The establishment. The rich people. The people in power.” Rainbow Skirt crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Sam and Jo. “So what is it you want anyway?”

  “We’re here to ask about Ray Ingalls. He was found dead this morning.”

  Sam studied their reactions. They all seemed suitably shocked. “Dead?” The first guy who had greeted them looked at the others.

  “No!” the big-eyed girl said.

  “What do you mean dead? What happened to him?” the turtle tattoo guy demanded.

  Lucy had completed her survey of the campsite and was now sniffing at a bag of trash.

  “Did he have an accident?” Rainbow Skirt asked.

  “No. I’m afraid he was murdered,” Sam said quietly.

  Silence settled over the campers as the weight of Sam’s words sank in. He slid his eyes toward Jo. She watched them intently. Jo had graduated with a degree in psychology, and human behavior was her department. Sam was better at noticing the little details. Things that were out of place. Many times these little things provided big clues. He used the shocked silence to do that now, looking over the campsite for anything unusual or out of place.

  Lucy was busy too. The trash must have been very interesting because she sniffed so hard it tipped over. Sam noticed an abundance of egg shells. These people must really like eggs. He glanced at Jo. She’d noticed too.

  “So he was an associate of yours,” Sam said.

  “Sure. Ray was a wildlife photographer. He specialized in endangered species,” Turtle Tattoo said.

  “And he wrote lots of articles for magazines,” someone said. “He was scribbling notes all the time. But I don’t see what that has to do with him getting murdered.”

  “Seems like you activists have caused a little stir in town. Maybe someone didn’t like what Ray was doing,” Sam said.

  The first guy snorted. “Lots of people didn’t like what Ray did.”

  “Including some of you?” Jo looked at him over the top of her Oakleys.

  The guy frowned and shook his head. “No. I mean he could be abrasive sometimes, but none of us would kill Ray.”

  “I’m going to need to get all your names,” Sam said.

  The group looked around at each other uneasily.

  “Just so I can contact you in case we have more questions,” Sam added.

  They looked to the rainbow-skirt lady. She shrugged then nodded. She must have been the leader, because they all started giving their names after that.

  Jesse Cowly’s memory wasn’t too far off. Turtle Tattoo’s name was Dennis Carter.

  The last in line was Rainbow Skirt, who claimed her name was Summer Solstice.

  “Summer Solstice?” Sam asked. “Is that your real name?”

  Her back straightened, and her mouth pursed into a thin line. “It certainly is my real name.”

  Sam glanced at Jo, and she raised a brow as she jotted in her notebook. Sam figured it was a note to look into Summer Solstice to verify it really was her name.

  “You didn’t tell us what happened to him,” Dennis said.

  “We found him in the woods near the protected area that’s set aside for the owls. Any idea why he’d be out there at night?” Sam asked.

  “Of course. Owls are nocturnal. He went out to photograph them,” Summer said as if talking to a two-year-old.

  Dennis ran his hands through his shaggy, dark curls. “No wonder he didn’t answer my texts.”

  “But why would someone want to kill him?” the big-eyed girl, Sally, asked.

  “That’s what I want
to know,” Sam said. “Do you know if he had any enemies? How well did you know him?”

  “Most of us didn’t know him that well,” Peter, the guy who first greeted them, said. “Dennis and Summer go way back with him, though.”

  Sam turned to Dennis and Summer. “Either one of you know if he had a beef with anyone lately?”

  They looked at each other, then Summer spoke. “No. I mean, he got into it with a few locals a few times, but so did Dennis.”

  Dennis let out a strangled laugh. “Yeah, I hope the locals don’t go around killing everyone they get into an argument with. You got a bunch of litterbugs in this town, and I’ve argued plenty.”

  “When did you last see him?” Sam asked.

  “I saw him in the morning. We had a rally by the State House,” Sally said.

  “I saw him at lunch,” Summer said.

  “I might have been the last one to see him,” Peter said. “I saw him last night outside that bar that looks like a church.”

  “Holy Spirits?” Jo asked.

  “Yeah. He was meeting someone. It looked kind of shady.”

  “Shady?” Sam asked.

  Peter shrugged. “Well, it was kind of weird because they were off to the side in that alley next to the bar, and the guy was wearing a hoodie. It was almost ninety degrees out. Who wears a hoodie in that kind of heat?”

  “Any idea what they were meeting about?” Sam asked.

  Peter shook his head.

  “You know, now that you mention it, I saw him meeting with someone weird, too,” Summer said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, but this guy wasn’t wearing a hoodie. He should have been with that haircut, though. All spiked up and orange at the tips.” Summer shook her head as if orange-tipped hair were more ridiculous than rainbow-colored hair.

  “Why do you think the meeting was shady?” Jo asked.

  “Well, they were all hunkered down in Ray’s truck like they were up to something, and when I asked him about it later, he acted all weird. Like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I haven’t seen that guy around, so I was curious.”