Atonement (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

“Take
a seat, Ray,”  Sheriff Lyle Bumgarner said, pointing to a chair as he closed the door of an interview room situated at the rear of the small brownstone building that housed the Sheriff’s Department.

Ray sat where directed at the other side of a metal table that was bolted to the cement floor.  He was trembling, afraid for Tanya, and for himself.  Guilt was eating at him, but he hadn’t done anything, so was easy about talking to the sheriff, who he’d known all his life.

“Okay, son,”  Lyle said, turning the only other chair in the room round and sitting with his legs either side of the back of it, which he rested his arms on top of.  “Like we discussed at your house, we have the makings of a serious state of affairs here.  So I want to give you some kindly advice from the get-go, before you say anything that could wind up turning around like a mean old dog and biting you in the ass.”

“I’ve told you everything I know, Sheriff,”  Ray said.  “I have no idea where Tanya is.”

“Let’s go over it.  But first I need a cup of coffee.  You want some?”

Ray nodded.  His mouth felt as dry as chalk.

“I’ll be back in five,”  Lyle said.  “Think over what went down last night, before we get to a statement from you. And bear in mind that once it’s signed it will be an official document.”

Ray sat and gathered his thoughts.  Tried to think where Tanya might have gone, but couldn’t.  Maybe she had left the highway to cut through the woods to knock a mile off the walk, especially if she’d thought he would follow her and try to make things right between them.  She could’ve fallen and broken a leg, or worse.  He just didn’t know.

Lyle left him to sweat for twenty minutes.  Spent the time arranging for the PT Cruiser to be picked up from the motel and brought back to the fenced-in compound at the rear of the building.  There were deputies out searching for the girl, and even a local mountain rescue team.  He hoped that they would find her unharmed, but had a bad feeling.  Gut instinct told him that she was in serious trouble, maybe even deceased.

“Before this gets to be put down on paper, I want you to tell me all about last night again in your own words,”  Lyle said as he set the two paper cups full of black coffee on the tabletop.

“We drove over to a cookout at Manitou Springs,”  Ray said.  “Left around nine and set off home.  I admit I’d had a few beers.  And…and I was feeling kinda horny.  I pulled into the trail that leads to the Carver place and parked up.  Tanya got a little…
very
pissed with me.  We argued, and she got out of the car and set off for town on foot.  I was going to give it a few minutes and then go after her, but I fell asleep.”

“Hold it right there, Ray”, Lyle said.  “Have a mouthful of coffee, and then you can fill in a few details for me.”

Ray took a sip of the coffee, it was gritty and weak.  He screwed up his face.

“I know, the vending machine should be ripped off the wall, taken out back and thrown in the dumpster,”  Lyle said.  “So, to sum up, you parked off-road, got carried away, and being as how you were loaded and feeling frisky, you attempted to do more than Tanya was willing to.  Right?”

“Maybe I came on to her a little strong,”  Ray said.

“And you didn’t want to take no for an answer, so you pushed it.  Is that what happened?”

Ray nodded.  “I was being dumb.  I lost my cool and slapped her.”

Lyle picked up his cup, swirled it round and drained it.  Waited over twenty seconds and let the silence unnerve Ray.  “What else did you do to her, son?  Tell me.”

Ray stood up quick, knocking the chair over.  “I didn’t do anything else to her,”  he said in a loud voice.  “She got out of the car and stormed off.”

“Sit the fuck back down, now,”  Lyle said in a quiet but menacing tone of voice.

Ray picked up the chair and did as he was told.

“You’ve got a quick temper, son.”  Lyle said, turning as the door was knocked and then opened by Carl Purvis, one of his deputies.

“I need a word, boss,”  Carl said.  He was frowning.

Lyle got up and left the room.  Closed the door and walked along the corridor until he was sure they were out of earshot.  “Spit it out, Carl.  What’s the problem?”

“Kate Donner is out front, asking to see you.  Says that she wants to talk to her client.”

“What client?”

“Ray Marshall.”

“Shit, that’s all I need.  Okay, show her through to my office.  I’ll be there in a minute.”

Lyle went back to the interview room.  Said to Ray, “You’ve admitted driving under the influence, son, and of having assaulted your girlfriend, who is now missing.  Think hard and long about the position you’re in.  If you’re holding anything back, then be aware that as sure as night follows day I’ll find out.  If something bad went down, and it was an accident, you need to fess up before you dig a deeper hole than you’re already in.”

Lyle went to the men’s room for a leak and then rinsed his hands and face before going to his office.  Kate Donner was standing by the window, looking out at the mountains that were visible over the rooftops on Main Street.  Lyle liked her.  She was a good looking and intelligent woman, and had a sense of humor.

“Hi, Kate,”  Lyle said.  “How does a cup of coffee sound.”

“Sounds good to me, as long as it isn’t from that machine in the corridor that pumps out something that the Surgeon General would outlaw.”

Lyle smiled and went over to his own coffeemaker, which was wheezing industriously on a file cabinet.  He filled two mugs and set them on his desk.

“So you have a client that has not been charged with any crime at the present time,”  Lyle said, sitting down and gesturing for Kate to take the weight off.

Kate sat down and carefully crossed her legs, careful not to do a Sharon Stone, even though she was suitably clothed beneath the knee-length skirt of her charcoal-gray power suit.

“Ray’s only eighteen, Lyle.  And his father is obviously concerned that he has been taken in for questioning.”

“He voluntarily came down here to give a statement.  He was the last person to see Tanya Foster.”

“He told you that they had words and that she got out of the vehicle and walked away.”

“And vanished off the face of the earth, Kate.  Everyone that knows her has been contacted, and my take on it is that if she was okay she would have used her cell to make a call.”

“So you suspect foul play, and Ray is a person of interest, correct?”

“I’m not ruling anything out.  The kid has – of his own free will –already admitted to being drunk, and to assaulting her.  My concern is the girl’s wellbeing.”

“I’d like to see him, Lyle, if you have no objection.”

“No problem. But like I said, he is currently no more than a person that we need to take a statement from.  As a courtesy, you can go and talk to him, but I’ll still need to take an official statement from him before we kick him loose.”

“Thanks.  How are Barbara and the girls?”

“Just fine Kate.  We took the RV over to Echo Lake for a few days last week.  Made a nice change to chill and be out of uniform for a while.”

After a little small talk, Lyle walked Kate back to the interview room and left her with Ray.

Ray stood up and gave Kate a weak smile.  “Hi, Ms. Donner,”  he said.  “Did my dad send you to see me?”

Kate sat down opposite him. “Yes, Ray.  I need for you to tell me everything.  Because if anything has happened to Tanya, you will be a prime suspect.”

“I promise I didn’t do anything to her, Ms. Donner.  She got out of the car and walked away, and I swear that’s the last I saw of her.”

Kate studied his expression, his eyes, and his body language, and as he started to sob, she went to him and patted his shoulder.  “I believe you, Ray,”  she said.  And she meant it.

Logan pulled on a parka.  Got directions from Clifton to the location where Ray had said he’d parked up off the two-way blacktop, and borrowed Clifton’s pickup to go and take a look at the lie of the land.  He knew that there would be police at the scene, but did not let that concern him.  He had made the decision that he would investigate, and so was now involved and committed to finding out what had gone down, should the girl remain missing or turn up dead.

Parking on the verge a couple of hundred yards from where he could see a cruiser sideways on, blocking the trail, Logan climbed out of the truck and ambled up to it.

“Help you?”  a deputy said, climbing out of the vehicle and approaching him, his intense gaze taking in Logan’s features and appearance in general.

“Doubt it,”  Logan said as he looked past the cop, up the trail to where he could see several more cops spread out, moving slowly, working a grid pattern as they searched.  It was obvious that they were looking for a body.  They had already decided that the chances of finding Tanya alive were against the odds.  It was a small town.  Outlying properties had already been checked, although it went without saying that if the girl had had an accident and made her way to the nearest house, farm or ranch, then the police would have got a phone call.

“Just who might you be, sir?”  Deputy Earl Dempsey said.

“Just a concerned citizen,”  Logan said.

“Your name,”  Earl pushed.  He was just a little disconcerted by the stranger.  The guy was six-three or four, maybe two-hundred fifty pounds, and none of it appeared to be fat.  He used full eye contact, and was already standing inside what Earl considered to be his space, within arms’ length.  But Earl had no intention of backing up.

“I’m Logan.  Staying at the Pinetop Motel.  Clifton Marshall and his son are worried over Tanya going missing.”

“And so you thought you’d come out here and see how we were doing.  Right?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Well thank you for your concern, Mr. Logan, but I’d appreciate it if you went back to your car and left the scene.”

“You mean scene as in crime scene?”

“Ah, no, I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s how it sounded.  Do you think that the Marshall boy has murdered Tanya?”

“Jesus!  We’re looking for a missing teenage girl, and…I have nothing further to say on the matter.  I suggest you go back to the motel and leave this to us, Mr. Logan.”

Logan said nothing.  Just stared at the deputy for a few more seconds, then turned and headed back to the pickup.  He had made up his mind that Tanya Foster had been abducted on the highway, or murdered by Ray or an unknown person.  And he knew that the sheriff would be thinking the same, and would initially be looking at Ray Marshall as his only suspect.

Driving back to the Pinetop, Logan decided that until something broke, there was nothing he could do.

“Anything?”  Clifton said, approaching the pickup when Logan got back and parked at the front of the house.

Logan shook his head.  “There are cops searching the area around where Ray and the girl were parked up.”

“What do you think happened?”  Clifton said.

“Nothing good,”  Logan said.  “This isn’t somewhere like New York City that people can vanish in of their own choosing.  And I don’t think that Tanya had any plan to run away from home, which means that she didn’t make it back to town because she couldn’t.”

“The lawyer phoned me.”  Clifton said. “Told me that Ray is giving the sheriff an official statement, and then he’ll be free to come home.”

Logan had been back in his room for less than ten minutes when Clifton knocked on the door.  He looked ashen.  Had bad news written all over his face.

“What?”  Logan said.

“They found Tanya.  She…she’s dead.  The sheriff is holding Ray for questioning.  And they say that drugs were found in his car.  This is turning into a fucking nightmare, Logan.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Logan
drove Clifton into town to meet with Kate Donner, because the man seemed in no fit state to get behind the wheel.

“I’ll be in the diner up the street,”  Logan said, parking the pickup in a slot outside the hardware store, above which was located the office of the only lawyer in town.

“I’d be obliged if you sat in on this, Logan,”  Clifton said.  “I’d like you to hear what she knows firsthand.  Will you do that for me?”

Logan followed him up the narrow staircase.  There was a short landing at the top with a door facing them.  The upper half of the door was a frosted glass panel with
K. DONNER ESQUIRE
in gold leaf on it.

“Come in,”  Kate said when Clifton knocked lightly on the glass.

They walked in to a room that was a little small for the desk, chairs and filing cabinets that crowded it.  “Take a seat, Clifton,”  Kate said as she stood up to greet them.  “And tell me who this is you’ve got in tow.”

“This is Logan,”  Clifton said.  “He’s a friend and knows all about what is happening.”

“Then Mr. Logan knows a lot more than the sheriff or I do,”  Kate said.  “What interest do you have in this?”  she said, directing the question to Logan.

“You heard the man; I’m a friend, which makes me an interested party. And it’s just Logan.  Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ms. Donner.”

Logan gave her a small smile and put his hand out.  Noted a lot about her without taking his eyes off hers.  And her eyes were almost violet, like the actress Liz Taylor’s had been.  Kate Donner looked to be in her mid-thirties, about five-nine, and her hair cascaded onto her shoulders in mahogany drifts.  The dark power suit looked a little shiny, but did not detract from the slim and almost beautiful woman that wore it.  No wedding band.  Clear varnish on short, manicured nails.  No obvious downside, but as he was all too well aware, looks could be skin deep.

Kate shook the proffered hand.  Was surprised at how big it was, and noted the numerous white scars on the tanned knuckles.  The man seemed to fill her office.  He was very tall and powerfully built, with a craggy face and short mid-brown hair that had a little gray at the temples, which was the same color as his eyes.  She guessed that he was in his late forties.

“Okay Mr―”

“Just Logan.”

“Right, Logan.  I find this a little unusual, but if Clifton is happy to discuss this in front of you, I see no legal reason not to.”

Kate offered them coffee.  Clifton shook his head.  Logan accepted.

“Your son, Ray, is at this moment in time and by his own admission guilty of drink driving and being in possession of an illegal substance,”  Kate said to Clifton.  “And all that is penny ante when faced with the fact that he is now a murder suspect.”

“Ray wouldn’t have harmed Tanya,”  Clifton said.  “He thought the world of the girl.”

“I’ve spoken to Ray,”  Kate said.  “He swears to God that she walked away from the car and that he then fell asleep or probably passed out.”

“Do you believe him?”  Logan asked her.

“For what it’s worth, yes.  He seems to be genuinely bemused and distressed.”

“So what’s the official line?”

“Humor me, Logan,”  Kate said.  “Just who are you?”

“Just a concerned third party.”

“Bullshit!  You act like a cop, or a private investigator.  And you’re not local.”

“I’m an ex-cop,”  Logan said.  “I’d much rather just get on with being who I am now, but Clifton asked me to look at this, so here we are.”

Kate took a pack of cigarettes from a desk drawer and fired one up.

“They’ll kill you,”  Logan said.

“Probably, but I keep it to five a day.  And life kills us all eventually, whether we smoke or not.”

Logan smiled.  Her take on it was one he shared.

“Officially, what I know at the moment is very little,”  Kate said.  “Tanya’s body was found between where Ray had parked up and the ruin of the Carver house.  Until there has been an autopsy, we won’t get spit from the sheriff.  Unofficially, from a police source, she was strangled.  And that is all I know.”

Clifton lowered his head and cupped it in his hands.

“Was anything taken from her?”  Logan said.

Kate shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.  They recovered her purse and cell phone at the scene.”

That was it.  Ray was being held for further questioning.  He hadn’t been charged with anything, yet, but it looked to be cut and dried from a department point of view.  They had at that point no other avenue to investigate.

Clifton went to visit with Ray.  Logan walked down the street to the Steamboat Diner, sat at the counter and ordered a cheeseburger and coffee black.  As he finished up the sandwich, he got company.  One deputy either side of him.

“You mind if we join you, Logan?”  Carl Purvis said.

Logan said nothing.

“I’m talking to you,”  Carl said.  “Are you deaf or something?”

“Or something,”  Logan said.

“Wise guy, huh?”  Deputy Sheriff Earl Dempsey chipped in.

“Just grabbing a bite to eat,”  Logan said, picking up his coffee cup and moving to an empty window booth.

Carl and Earl followed him across the diner and slid onto the bench facing him.

“You a drifter or vagrant?”  Carl said.

Logan sighed.  “Just a citizen.”

“Not a local or a guy moved into the Creek looking to find honest work and pay taxes.  Am I right?”

“I’m on an extended vacation, moving around and taking in the sights of Colorado.”

“There aren’t many sights to see in Carson Creek, buddy,”  Earl said. “Probably time for you to hitch a ride out of town.  Maybe go see what New Mexico has to offer.”

“Thanks, I may just visit the ‘Land of Enchantment’ in a week or two.  Who knows?”

“I was thinking you should head out of town in the next twenty-four hours.”  Earl came back, emphasizing the suggestion by taking hold of Logan’s wrist in a firm grip.

“And I suggest you let go of my wrist, unless you really want to see that hand in a cast for the next few weeks.”

“That sounds like a threat to me, Logan.”

“Think of it more as a promise, son.  And don’t let the fact that you’re wearing a uniform go to your head.  There are at least a dozen townsfolk, two waitresses and the owner hanging on to every word.  You are harassing and intimidating a patron for no good reason.  I’m initially asking you politely to back off.”

Carl gave Earl a quick look.  Earl withdrew his hand and got up, knocking Logan’s coffee mug over, seemingly by accident.  “Twenty-four hours, Logan,”  he said.

“Did you see that old movie
First Blood
?”  Logan asked them.

“Yeah, so what?”  Carl said.

“It was a lesson for hick cops in a small town.  The message was to be extremely careful with an unknown quantity.”

“That sounds like a definite threat.”

“Just friendly advice,”  Logan said.  “Same as you’ve given me.”

Carl wanted to arrest Logan and throw him in a cell.  Earl shook his head almost imperceptibly. 
Wrong time, wrong place.
  They’d wanted to scare the guy off, but it hadn’t gone to plan.  They got up and headed for the door.

“Freshen your coffee?”  Amy Granger asked Logan.  Amy was the owner of the Steamboat; a fifty-something bottle blonde with a nice easy smile on her round face.

Logan nodded.

“You need to be careful around those two,”  Amy said.  “Carl is a mean piece of work, and Earl is worse.  They’re just overgrown schoolyard bullies in uniform.”

“Thanks,”  Logan said.  “I’ll be sure to keep on their good side.”

“They don’t have a good side, Mr. Logan.”

“Just Logan.  What about the sheriff?”

“Lyle is a fine man.  He keeps the law and cares a lot about the Creek and the folk in it.  I’ve known him for longer than I care to remember, and always found him to be a man of his word.”

“That’s good to know.  Have you heard about the Foster girl?”

Amy nodded.  “The grapevine in a one-horse town like this is quicker than broadband.  Poor girl.  Her parents, Wayne and Shirley, will be absolutely devastated.  I can’t rightly imagine what they’ll be going through.”

“You think that Ray Marshall did it?”

“He’s a good boy, Logan.  Loves nature and has always seemed a gentle person.  But I don’t know what happened out there.  I hope that there’s another explanation.”

Clifton entered the diner and sat down opposite Logan.  Amy put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder and squeezed gently before heading back to the counter.

“It looks bad for Ray,”  Clifton said.  “Lyle…the sheriff, hasn’t said as much, but I get the feeling he considers it to be cut and dried.”

“What’s his take?”  Logan said.

“That Ray was high, got nasty when Tanya wouldn’t come across, and ended up strangling her, then panicked, dumped the body nearby and left the scene.”

“Could’ve gone down that way,”  Logan said.  “Teenage couples fall out, and it can get physical.  Maybe Ray lost the plot, and the next thing he knew it was as bad as it can get.”

“He didn’t do it, Logan.  He said that he slapped her and immediately regretted it, but that she then called him a bastard, got out of the car and walked off.  If he had seriously hurt her by accident he would have called for help.  I know my boy.  He wouldn’t have just gone to sleep in the car and then driven home if he’d murdered Tanya.”

“Okay.  Let’s consider another scenario,”  Logan said as he raised his hand and intimated to Amy that he could use more coffee.

Amy brought a pot and a second mug, set them down and left, while Logan thought through what other circumstances could have resulted in Tanya’s death.

“It was late evening,”  Logan said to Clifton.  “If Ray is telling the truth, then we have a teenage girl walking along a dark highway at night.  It’s a country road that doesn’t get a lot of traffic.  Someone sees her in his headlights, stops, and she either runs off or gets in.  The guy attempts to, or actually rapes her.  We don’t know whether she had sex or not yet.  Tanya fights back, and maybe starts screaming, literally for her life.  The perpetrator panics and strangles her.  Maybe just trying to shut her up, but she dies.  He then takes the body back to where Ray is parked, stashes it nearby and resumes his journey.”

Clifton was frowning and nodding.  He liked the straw that Logan was holding out for him to hold on to.

Logan filled both mugs.  Took a mouthful of the strong brew.  “And just where else does that back road lead to, except into town?”  he said.

“Are you thinking that it was someone local that did it?”  Clifton said.

“I’m just looking at a viable alternative to Ray having done it, is all.  It’s pure conjecture, Clifton.  The law goes with facts, evidence, and high probability, not supposition.  Ray is what they have, and ‘smoking gun in hand’ circumstances that make him guilty unless proved innocent.”

“So what can we do?”

“Find the killer,”  Logan said.  “If we don’t, then Ray could wind up spending the rest of his life in prison.”

The County ME did the autopsy on Tanya Foster the next day.  The main findings were that Tanya had died as a direct result of her hyoid bone being fractured, leading to asphyxiation.  There was also a contusion on her left cheek.  She had not had sex, and was still a virgin.

Lyle talked it through with the medical examiner, Dr. Jared Wynn.

“What can you tell me doc?”  Lyle said.

“That the victim was manually strangled.  The perpetrator put both of his hands round her neck and dug his thumbs into her throat.  And she had been assaulted previously, by way of being struck on the left cheek by a hand.”

“Anything that would tie the marks on her neck and throat to an individual?”

“  ‘Fraid not, Sheriff.  It would appear that whoever did this was wearing gloves.

Lyle sat in his office and thought it through after the ME had left.  He had a strong case against Ray Marshall, and hoped that a pair of leather gloves retrieved from the PT Cruiser’s glove box would prove to have trace evidence that would give him the final confirmation he needed to charge the boy.  There was almost always a transfer of hair, fiber or other material when a crime was this up close and personal.  But it was to be expected that it would be apparent in this case, due to the suspected perp and the victim being in a relationship.  A confession would have been the cherry on top of the cake, but you had to work with what you’d got, and Ray Marshall kept telling him exactly the same story, which he needed to break.  Maybe the kid had not meant to kill Tanya, which ruled out premeditation, but Lyle was convinced that he was guilty.