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CHAPTER 4
Dean recognized the pistol as a Remington M1911A1. The short trigger, the extensions behind the grip, the safety spur all told him it was the later model of the iconic pistol. One he had used himself in Hue and the bush, in places he could not pronounce the name of or had no sense of where he was.
He had Zach photograph the pistol before heading back to the farm for a chainsaw. Dean then picked up the cold gun, dropped the clip, and emptied the chamber. He held the pistol out and down toward the ground, looking into the chamber and through the barrel to ensure it was empty. He popped the bullets out of the magazine. Including the round in the chamber, he had five bullets. Assuming a fully loaded magazine, two shots had been fired—at least.
He stood and held the pistol toward the bloody spot on the tree, putting himself into the mind of the shooter. A few feet away. Up close, but cautious. Kept himself distant enough to avoid surprise.
He dropped the pistol, the magazine, and the loose bullets in a paper evidence bag and set it on a large tarp the officers had laid on the ground outside the clearing.
He looked back toward the clearing. All sorts of potential evidence could be buried under a foot of snow. Moving around without altering the scene was never possible in even the best of circumstances, but in these conditions, it was impossible.
Zach and James had found nothing around the edge so far. James, however, was certain a set of steps—covered by fresh and wind-swept snow—lead from the body northward. James pointed with his ungloved, thick fingers while leaning toward Dean. His breath foul with coffee. The same faint indentations in the pack Dean had seen when he walked into the clearing. With their condition, however, it was impossible to tell if the footsteps walked to or away from Billy’s body.
He shook his head and bounced up and down on his toes. They may have to wait for spring and the snow melt before they could find any buried evidence, and that was at least eight weeks away, and this winter had not suggested any kindness in moderation. He had no way of sealing off the clearing or even monitoring it.
When Zach returned, Dean told him to help Miles. James and Dean walked into the clearing and began a grid search, looking and feeling for anything. The saw made quick work of the tree. While the coroner carefully wrapped the section of the tree with its brain matter and frozen blood, Zach assisted with the grid search. Miles left with the body and headed back into town. Dean, James, and Zach took turns warming up in the Pratt house while the other two searched.
What had happened here? What had brought Billy Nimitz to this clearing? Billy had walked in. Assuming this was not a suicide, had Billy walked in alone? Had someone met him? Was that Billy’s gun or the killer’s?
Dean called off the search as darkness approached. They had found a black flashlight near the body, almost directly beneath the right hand. They bagged it. Other than that and a handful of sticks and some rocks, they found nothing.
* * *
Dean swung the car into the small parking lot to the north of the Shambles, one of the local watering holes. The restaurant and bar had been open since the early twentieth century, surviving two World Wars, the Great Depression, Prohibition, Korea, and Vietnam and now enduring the Cold War.
Designed to look like a log cabin from the last century, the wood had darkened over the years into a deep brown-red. Large glass windows punctured the facade. A paper Open sign with orange lettering hung on the door. Neon lights advertised Budweiser, Miller, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Dean parked the car, out of sight of the front windows. He took a deep breath, let it out, and turned off the Nova. He stepped out into a pile of slush left along the edge of the lot. The town was quiet that Tuesday evening. People were staying indoors, out of the cold. Still, the regulars of the Shambles or any of its other two main competitors braved the weather.
The front door creaked open, and Dean walked in, closing the door behind him. The bar proper was straight ahead, through the dining room, filled with four- and six-top tables and chairs with faded red cushions. Booths with the same red cushions formed an L pattern along the wall against the parking lot and the front windows. A hostess stand stood unattended by the door with a sign hanging from it: Please seat yourself.
The bar was separated from the dining room by a short, wrought-iron railing. A few bar tables with stools stood along it.
Three families sat at the tables and a half dozen regulars were already seated in their familiar locations at the bar. A waitress entered through the double-swinging door at the far end of the dining room holding two plates. She smiled at Dean. He nodded and walked toward the bar.
Joe Banks, owner of Banks Auto Repair on Elm Street and council man for the third ward, turned around in his stool, saw Dean, and smiled. Using one of his too-thin arms for a person his age, he nudged the man sitting next to him, who was dressed in the full dress blues of the Zion Police Department. That man grunted and raised a glass to his lips before saying, “What’s up son?” Eric Wallace turned around. The Zion Police Department badge spitting rays of light off its polished sheen.
Dean had not inherited his father’s linebacker bulk, a mass waiting to surge forth and crush, a physique that never seemed to waver despite his fifty-two years. Dean had seen photos of his father when he joined the Marines at seventeen. A scrawny kid notorious for stealing apples from Faston’s shelves. The Marines had transformed him, and then the Battle of Okinawa and transformed him again. The Marines had not transformed Dean. Not physically at least.
“Hey, Dad. We need to talk.”
“What I’m hearing out at the Pratt farm?”
“Yeah.”
“Have a beer and tell me.”
Dean looked at Joe and hesitated.
“For Christ’s sakes, you can talk in front of Joe. He and I just left the council meeting.”
“Ah, that’s why you’re in your blues.”
“Had to give the monthly update.”
Dean pulled out the stool and sat down, his father between him and Joe. He saw his dad was drinking whiskey. Wild Turkey. He was tempted but ordered a Pabst Blue Ribbon instead.
On the TV hanging above the mirror behind the bottles of liquor, Walter Cronkite covered the unrest in Iran.
“So it’s true?” Joe turned between Dean and the TV. “A body out at the Pratt farm.”
Dean nodded. “William Nimitz.”
Joe’s eyes opened wide. McCord’s Body Shop was the town competition for Bank’s Auto Repair, though they tended to specialize—Banks more on fixing engines and McCord’s more on the body—to avoid too much overlap. “Billy? Nice kid. I knew his family.”
In Zion, a town just over three thousand, knowing someone or someone’s family was a rather simple matter of getting out and about a bit.
“Details?” asked Eric.
Dean filled them in from the initial call from Wayne through the efforts of the day. Throughout, Eric nodded and asked for a few clarifying details.
“Suicide?” asked Joe, rubbing the underside of his nose.
Dean pulled out a pack of Camels, tapped out one part way, and used his mouth to pull it out completely. He said as he lit it, “Don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” asked Eric.
Dean inhaled deeply, held it, and then let the smoke out in a long exhale. “Exactly that. The gun was close enough to maybe have been used, but maybe not. Seemed a bit far away. Usually in a suicide, the gun just drops right there. Might bounce or something if it falls and hits right. Maybe animals moved it somehow. We don’t know if the gun was even fired. The coroner needs to do some work first. So it could be or it could be something else.” He shrugged.
“Jesus, people’ll flip out if they hear it was a murder.” Joe said the last word in a whisper. “The last time that happened was in—”
“Sixty-eight when Freddie got smashed and killed his wife, Jeanine.” Eric had been the Assistant Chief of Police at that time.
Freddie—Frederick Jarnkow—was thirty-two at the time and a notorious drunk and ne’er-do-well. Jeanine had put up with it for nearly ten years until he pulled the trigger on a loaded gun aimed at her chest. She was buried in Crown Point Cemetery just outside town off Route 23. Freddie was in prison outside Buffalo. When the murder happened, Dean had been in Vietnam several months into his tour witnessing and participating in sanctioned murder.
“Well, we don’t know what it is yet,” said Dean. “We’ll find out and then deal with it.” He looked at his watch: 7:12 p.m. “Shit, I need to tell his family.”
Eric nodded. “If this is a murder, I don’t want the state troopers here. Got it? It’s your case.”
“Okay. We really haven’t gotten to that point yet.”
“And we may not, but no troopers. Clear?”
“Sure. Yeah. The Sheriff’ll be calling too.”
Eric brushed the last fact aside. “I mean, this is what you did in the city down there, so do it here.”
Joe took a drink and looked away. He knew as well as anybody that Dean’s last homicide case in New York City had ended his career and his marriage. Like everyone else in Zion, he knew Dean was a cop in this town far from the big city because of his old man.
Dean hated Zion. Hated it. But he was stuck. He finished off the beer. “Yeah, Dad, yeah. I won’t call the troopers or the deputies.”
Eric nodded once. Joe kept looking away. Dean tossed five quarters on the bar and walked out.
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