The Occupied Read online

  “Do you blame him?”

  “Not really. But I pushed harder anyway. He opened up a little. From what he says, in New York you were dealing with some real-life Halloween horror stories.”

  “Well put.”

  “I told you that I had to settle some things before we could work any closer together. I needed to check you out. So, Detective Valentine was the last item on my checklist.”

  Things were looking up, way up. I asked, hopefully, “And?”

  “Just don’t embarrass me, that’s all.”

  “No guarantees.”

  “Then at least don’t get me fired.”

  “I can roll with that.”

  She relaxed in the booth and said, “Your turn now. Tell me what else is on your mind. Besides confessing to me, like a bad boy, that you lied about having to go potty.”

  I took a second. Then I laid it out for her. “Okay, one question. That thin scar on your face—was that from something that happened in the line of duty? Police-force related?”

  Her back stiffened. Her tone changed. “Gee, Trevor, you really know how to treat a lady.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know how to ease into it. You see, if I were totally open about what I think about you—about the way you look and how you think about it—well, it would spoil the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Not to mention a great partnership.”

  Ashley pushed herself back from the table like she was about to hike out of there. Then she erupted. “You’re arrogant and insulting, do you know that? And by the way, what gives you the idea that you know anything about me? You know absolutely nothing about who I am or what I’m thinking.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I added quickly. “About everything you just said. The thing is, if I told you how beautiful you were, and how that infinitesimally thin white line on your face doesn’t change anything about you, then you’d think I was a creepy stalker. But I’m boxed, don’t you see? Because I also figure that this might be the only chance I have to actually find out things about you, which is what people do when they care about the other person. Which includes that little scar, and wanting to know whether some very bad person, somebody out of a creep show, might have given it to you while you were being a police hero, sort of like your dad. Because you strike me as that kind of person.” I paused. “But then, what do I know?”

  There was a tense, confused look on her face. Seconds went by. She turned to the side in the direction of the window that looked out to the street, to where it was getting dusky and a streetlight had just lit up. When she started talking, she kept looking in that direction. As if she wanted to be outside at that moment, far away from me, yet at the same time also be inside, talking.

  After a long moment of silence, she said, “It happened while I was on the force.”

  I was about to tell her that it didn’t matter. That she didn’t have to tell me.

  But before I got the words out, she told me anyway. “There was a serial rapist on the loose,” she explained. “I volunteered to pose as his next target. Acting like I was inebriated, coming out of some bars. Looking vulnerable. Meanwhile, we had some fellow officers staked out around me. Ready to follow me. I was wired at the time, and we had a code word I was to say when I wanted the guys to close in and grab him.”

  “Did you ever give the code?”

  “I couldn’t. Never had the chance. I thought I could handle him. I was cocky and sure of myself, and I wanted to collar that vile pig myself, but he hit me from behind. It was a rookie mistake. The next thing I knew I was in the back of his van, tape over my mouth and hog-tied. He had found the police audio wire on me. Gerard Voxly, that was the guy’s name—he knew right then that I was a police plant, and he went berserk. He cut my face with a razor just for fun. But that was just the beginning.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Eventually the guys from the force tracked us down. They saved my life for sure. There is no doubt in my mind about that.”

  “So, all that ugly stuff. How did you handle it?”

  “I think you mean to say, am I ‘coping’ with it in a healthy way? Which is what my doctor would say. Not a shrink, mind you, but my GP. A friend of mine. She asks me that.”

  “On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with getting help from a psychiatrist when you need it.”

  “Which is why I go to one of those too.”

  I didn’t respond, but then I didn’t need to.

  “And yes,” she added, “I know that you saw me take my meds here in the restaurant,” she said. “So . . . oh, wow, Trevor. Nice. You have all the good stuff on me now.”

  “It’s not like that at all,” I assured her. “I don’t work for the defense. I simply agreed not to disclose my conversation with Donny Ray Borzsted, that’s all. This conversation between us is off limits. This is personal. You said it yourself. Just so you know, I would face a contempt of court order and some jail time rather than divulge to anyone what you’re sharing with me tonight.”

  She looked skeptical.

  So I added, “Hey, I’ve faced a lot worse than a scolding from a judge. After all, I jousted with Karlin Borzsted, right? I was the guy riding the white horse, defending your name.”

  She was fighting back a smile.

  “You got to admit: chivalry’s not quite dead. True?”

  On the other side of the table, a grin at my banter. “Okay. Yes. You were the real deal.” She nodded at something to herself, something private. Then she said, “It’s called GAD.”

  “What is?”

  “My diagnosis. As in, ye GAD, I’ve got generalized anxiety disorder. G-A-D.”

  “You’ve got guts,” I said, “talking about this.”

  She straightened up again where she sat. “Well, that’s all we are going to discuss on that subject. Change of topics. So, what is it exactly that you need to know about the Bobby Budleigh murder?”

  I was ready for that. “I assume from your comment at the hospital that it was the dental records that did it. Proving that the corpse didn’t belong to Augie?”

  “Correct, along with blood type of the message on the floor. I should know by tomorrow who the dead man really was.”

  “About the state’s case. The indictment said there were bootprints in the mud where you found Bobby’s body, linking Donny Ray to the scene.”

  “Clear imprints from size 12 Sierra Trading Post hiking boots. We found a pair in Donny Ray’s apartment.”

  “Any traces of mud on those boots, even microscopic?”

  “No. Clean as a whistle. Practically brand-new.”

  “Tire prints at the scene?”

  “Yes, but not matching the defendant’s car. Next, I suppose you’ll ask about the gun used to shoot Bobby in the head, so I’ll tell you about that too. We found a .38 in Donny Ray’s apartment. But ballistics tells us that the bullet that struck Bobby was from a nine-millimeter.”

  “What about the eyewitness?”

  “A female driving alone at least forty miles an hour past a car that she couldn’t describe and that was parked along Pebble Creek. She saw two men, a shorter one—presumably Bobby Budleigh—with a taller one, which she later photo ID’d at the police station as Donny Ray.”

  “Did your eyewitness have any prior knowledge about Donny Ray before the photo ID?”

  Ashley brightened. “Smart thinking. Here is how it came down. A couple of months before, she had seen a picture of Donny Ray in the newspaper. It was an article about a couple of Manitou residents who had all been given early parole, causing a community ruckus. The photo may have stuck. Anyway, it could have tainted her identification. And without going into the weeds too much, there were problems with the way the ID at the police station went down.”

  Then she added, “Of course possession of a weapon is a violation of Donny Ray’s parole. Which is why we are extending his rest stop in the county jail until his parole violation hearing. But all in all, I think the case for murder against him is very thin.”
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  She changed gears. “Now I need your help locating your high school buddy Augie Bedders.”

  I shot back, “But if the corpse wasn’t Augie, then the writing on the floor at the incinerator, which I took to be a confession, wasn’t written by Augie either. So he’s in the clear.”

  Ashley cocked an eyebrow and said, “It’s complicated. If forensics tells me tomorrow what I expect to hear about that dead man at the landfill incinerator, then we need to find Augie Bedders, and in a hurry.”

  40

  While we waited for the server to come back with my credit card, Ashley said that was all she could tell me about Augie for the time being. But then she added, “We need to find out more about Bobby Budleigh.”

  I thought she meant more information from his wife back in Colorado, or from his son, or about his environmental work at his Colorado foundation. But no.

  “I mean,” she explained, “about Bobby’s connection to Manitou. You were friends in high school. Like you, he left to pursue his professional life. Then he comes back, after all that time, and then we have a homicide. Our reports indicate that his return had something to do with his environmental interests. So where’s the motive? Just some random psycho killing? Or was it something else?”

  I had already begun sketching out in my mind an explanation, one that Ashley wasn’t going to like. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “The mutilation of his body, the heart extraction, is exactly like several homicides in New York. Ones you know more about than I do.”

  “Dick Valentine?”

  “Sure, he told me all about it.”

  “So . . .”

  “We’ve got a copycat murderer.” After saying that, she stared into my face like she was a mind reader and she was trying to hack into my cerebral cortex. “And your take?”

  “Depends,” I said, “on how you define copycat, I guess.”

  “Lawyers.”

  I could tell Ashley didn’t appreciate my playing close to the vest. I assured her that if I knew anything concrete about the identity of the perpetrator, I would tell her immediately.

  While she drove me back to my hotel, she said, “I bet you already have a theory about Bobby Budleigh’s death. Something weird. Otherworldly. But you’re being cagey and don’t want to tell me about it. Trevor, the fact is, you’re still chasing demons. Or at least you think you are.”

  The car pulled up to the entrance. We looked at each other. I took on a mock-solemn expression and said, “Well, if I’m chasing demons, then that makes you my perfect partner.”

  “And why is that?”

  “What better partner than an angel disguised as a cop?”

  Ashley rolled her eyes and gave a loud groan. “Did you steal that from some old black-and-white Bogart movie?”

  “Naw. He was way too smooth to say anything like that.”

  I suddenly had this crazy idea to kiss her good night in the circle drive before I climbed out. But I’m glad I didn’t, as it wasn’t a real date. Though it wasn’t strictly business either.

  I would have to sort all that out later. Along with something else.

  Her suggestion about Bobby had sparked a thought. His parents had moved out of Manitou years before, so they couldn’t fill in any gaps about Bobby. But there might be one person in particular who had a connection to Bobby and to his family back in the old Manitou days. And he might still be in the area.

  After I climbed out of Ashley’s unmarked, I stuck my head back in the window and said two things.

  “I really liked our time together tonight.”

  She replied only, “I’m glad.”

  Then the second thing. “Also, I’m pursuing a lead tomorrow. In case you were thinking about our teaming up together again.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t. This isn’t my only case. I’m also working some others. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Sure.”

  As I unlocked my room door I knew that Ashley’s parting words had been a blow-off.

  I threw some water on my face and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My ear was red and swollen from Karlin Borzsted having clipped me there with his fist. It didn’t look human. It looked like it belonged under glass in a butcher shop. And I was wearing a goose egg over my eye. No wonder Ashley gave me a rain check.

  I dropped into bed feeling sore all over, gave a last look at the green laser light in the ceiling fire alarm, and wondered whether I would get a visit from them again.

  That was when I told myself it was time for me to hammer a stubborn fact into my stubborn brain: that, just as surely as if I had been a train set upon iron rails, something much bigger than even my friendship with Bobby had set me on this journey. If God was in this mission, and he most certainly had to be, then he was in that room with me too.

  I pulled out my cell phone and noticed that I had inadvertently turned the volume off. There was a message. I hit the voice mail icon. When I was halfway through it, I began to laugh. Not because it was funny—except in a divine-appointment kind of way.

  “Trevor, Elijah White here, brother. Was praying about you today and had a thought. A God-planted seed, I do believe. Whatever you’re up to now, God wants you to know the peace that belongs to Jesus followers like you. Even if you’re a warrior who’s banging on the gates of hell. Check out the Gospel of John. Chapter 16.”

  Then I heard Elijah break into a hearty laugh. “Overcome,” he said. “Oh yeah, that’s what you’re going to read there, brother Trevor, in John 16. Overcome. Bless you, my man.”

  I pulled out Elijah’s Bible and turned to the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, where Jesus was telling his disciples about peace, even though it was right before the hammer was about to fall: his arrest, torture, and death were soon to follow. He said the world was full of tribulation, but they should cheer up because “I have overcome the world.” A paradox on the surface considering that, despite his innocence, Jesus was marching into a bloody execution. Unless, of course, by “overcoming the world” he meant something different. Something other than just escaping the pain of tribulation. Something miraculous.

  I closed the Bible, flooded with a sense of safety. And even more, with a joyful realization that I was actually being watched. Protected. Guided.

  It was late, but I decided to call Elijah back anyway and got his voice mail. My message to my friend was emotional.

  “This is Trevor calling. Listen, Elijah, you just delivered a message to me straight from the throne room. Faster than overnight delivery. Better than a winning lottery ticket. You have no idea . . .” But I started to choke up a little and had to take a second. Then I ended with, “Thank you, Elijah. Things have been a little rough at my end. You just made my day.”

  I clicked off the light on the nightstand and fell into slumber land.

  The next morning, after a decent sleep, I drove across town, past buildings I hadn’t seen for decades, like the county fairgrounds where my family and I would go every summer when I was a young boy—the place with the amphitheater and the animal barns and the big corrugated-metal exhibit building.

  When I arrived at the Covenant Retirement Village, I found a discreet parking spot for my Fiat behind the nursing home, hidden behind some small trees and bushes. It looked to be an overflow parking area. I hustled into the front lobby of the single-story tan brick building.

  I told the receptionist who I was and who I was looking for, and that I wanted to talk to him about Bobby Budleigh. She made a call and sat there on the phone for a full minute until someone answered. After giving my message to the person on the other end, she listened, then hung up and told me, “I’ll take you to the music room. He’s on his way.”

  She led me into a room with plenty of windows and sunshine, a piano at one end, and two music stands, three rows of folding chairs, and a sofa in the corner.

  My escort disappeared, so I strolled around, looking at the wall decorations: paintings of musical instruments and a still life of flowers arra
nged in a bowl. I wondered if I was wasting my time coming there. I wondered, after all the years that had passed since the one and only time I had ever met this man, whether he would even remember me.

  After maybe ten minutes I heard the slow, methodical clumping of a walker coming down the hall. I turned around.

  Rev. John Cannon, former pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Manitou, had come to a halt in the wide opening to the room and was gripping his walker with both hands. Even though it was summer, he was wearing a button-down cardigan sweater, and he was huffing and puffing. When he caught his breath he said, “Legs are the first thing to go. Can you help me over to the sofa there?”

  After the old man was settled on the couch, I pulled up a wooden chair and started in, explaining who I was and about my high school friendship with Bobby. I reminded him of my one visit with him as a teenager when Bobby had led me into his pastor’s study. Cannon stared at me, appearing unable to conjure up the connection. I finally told him that I had come back to Manitou to help find Bobby Budleigh’s killer.

  Time and gravity had laid deep, soft creases into Rev. Cannon’s face, but I could still recognize him. Our meeting in the pastor’s study must have made more of an impression on me than I had realized.

  Cannon moved his mouth around, a little like a cow chewing its cud. After a moment he asked, “Don’t you trust the police?”

  “I’m actually working with them, in a way.”

  “Terrible thing,” he said. “I read about it. Broke my heart. Bobby was a fine young man. Went into a scientific field of some sort . . .”

  “Environmental studies.”

  “I thought they caught the man who did it.”

  “They have someone in custody. But I just want to make sure. So do the police.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Anything you can remember about Bobby or his family that might indicate a reason why someone would want to take his life? Or take it so brutally?”

  He thought on that for a while. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. Other than the usual.”