Jason Deas - Cameron Caldwell 01 - Private Eye (13 page)

“No. The electricity actually comes from the other direction of the drive. The main road is only a tenth of a mile behind the house. When Billy built this house he wanted it to be inaccessible. He could’ve cut the road the other way, but he didn’t.”

“Well, I think he succeeded.”

“When we split up the first time he built a new home in town and gave me this one. Or I should say, he let me live in this one. Billy Prescott didn’t
give
anything to anyone.”

In the kitchen, Alice went to the coffee maker. “Coffee?” Cam shook his head. “Iced tea?” He shook his head again. “Cold beer?” He nodded his head up and down.

Alice handed him the beer and before he took his first drink he looked her in the eyes. His head snapped back and forth and his head filled with a vision. In his mind he saw Alice crumbling up a white powder and mixing it with whiskey and lemonade. The vision switched and he saw Alice standing over Billy in a hospital bed. She looked deflated.

“Thanks,” he said, twisting the top off the beer. “I guess you know why I’m here?”

“You working for her?”

“I am. How did your daughter take the news?”

“She cried her eyes out. I think it was more from the shock of the situation than from the loss. Since that long cry, she’s been fine. I actually think I haven’t seen her so jovial and stress free in years.” Alice poured herself a glass of ice tea and sat down across from him. “He was an evil man, Cam. Pure evil. Everything was all about him. He didn’t care for me. He didn’t care for my daughter. He cared for Billy Prescott and that was it.”

“Was he evil enough to kill?”

“Yes he was, but I didn’t do it. He’s made enough people mad to give you a list of suspects at least a mile long.”

“Who do you have your money on?”

“If my daughter was strong enough to dig a hole that deep I’d put my money on her. But she’s not so I’d have to go with either Claude or Daphne although I don’t think Daphne could dig a hole that deep either.”

“Who said anything about a hole?” Cam said, taking a long drink from his beer.

“Please.” Alice guffawed. “I guess you haven’t lived in a small town before. There aren’t any secrets.”

“Seems to me that there are more than enough secrets in this one.”

“In my book, a secret is something only two or three people know. There aren’t any secrets in this town. The only secret we might have is who killed Billy. And I don’t believe for a second that that’s a secret.”

“Answer me this question honestly and I’ll believe everything else you say.”

“OK.”

“Have you ever tried to kill Billy?”

This time she was the one who looked him deep into the eyes.

“How do you know things you’re not supposed to know?” Cam shrugged his shoulders. “You knew where to find Kaye without me telling you. You claimed you knew her name without prior knowledge. How do you do that?” Cam shrugged again. “Either you’re one hell of a shyster or you’re the world’s best detective.”

“Let’s go with that—the world’s best detective.”

“Jesus,” she said, gulping at her drink. “I think I may need something stronger.” Getting up, Alice opened the cabinet over the fridge and pulled down a bottle of whiskey. Her glass of tea was half empty and she filled it with the brown liquid. She replaced the bottle and shook her glass to mix the contents. “OK. I did try once. It didn’t work and it scared me to death. Billy got sick as a dog and was in the hospital for three days. Everybody thought it was some kind of serious food poisoning. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Alice began to cry.

“Stop,” Cam said putting his hand on hers. “I’m not going to tell anybody.” She sniffled a few times and dried her eyes. “If I had a kid and someone was trying to harm them, I would probably do the same thing you did. You overreacted. Let’s leave it at that. How old is Kaye? I’m guessing fifteen?”

“Fourteen. She just turned fourteen.”

“Of course. That makes sense. In Georgia, a child can decide which parent they want to live with at fourteen.”

“Yeah. The closer she got to fourteen, the tighter Billy’s grip on her seemed to get. He knew once she reached fourteen that he would never see her again and he didn’t know how to deal with it. Kaye was the way he controlled me and without her as a pawn he was spinning.”

“What kind of friends does she have?”

“Are you really asking me this? Do you really think Kaye would have some of her friends kill Billy?”

“I’ve been in law enforcement for fifteen years and I’ve seen crazier things.”

“No. She has good friends.”

Outside, thunder boomed. Rain began to fall. Alice got up from the table and looked out the window.

“You have to go,” she said. “Now.”

“Why?”

“When it rains the creek that runs across the road can only be passed with a truck. You’ve got about ten minutes before you’re here for the duration of the storm.”

Cam finished his beer in one long gulp and stood from the table.

“We’ll talk again later.”

“Sure. Just keep my baby out of this.” Cam assured her he would. “Oh. I’m not planning on going to town for a few days. Will you return some books to the library for Kaye?” Cam agreed. “They’re in my truck.”

Cam followed Alice to her truck. While she dug inside for the books, he looked around the open parking area under the house. Interestingly enough, next to one of the timber pillars holding up the house, he observed a shovel. The end of the shovel looked to be covered with fresh dirt.

Chapter Twenty

Cam had only one more beer on his trip to Dahlonega to find Darren. None of the Miner’s Bluff crew would give him an address. He had to resort to the Dahlonega Police Department for hopes of securing a location and didn’t want to show up smelling like a brewery. Once in town he went to a burger joint and ordered a sandwich with extra onions and jalapeños. He hoped the ingredients would do the trick covering up his mild alcohol intake. They did.

Still in possession of his old identification, he flashed it to the officer at the desk, gave him Darren’s first name and a vague description, and walked out moments later with an address and a crudely drawn map. Once again he was warned about the dogs.

Driving yet again down a dirt road, Cam wondered if all moonshiners and shady characters lived down dirt roads. Fortunately, Darren’s driveway wasn’t quite as long as Alice’s and there were no creeks to cross. The house at the end of the drive was a prefab deal that looked run down and in need of repair. As instructed, he honked his horn and waited.

He wondered for a minute if anyone was home until he saw the front door swing open. Three dogs ran out and surrounded the car. They were angry looking German Shepherds. Cam had never been happier for good intel. After the dogs came a gruff looking man. He wore a green Skoal hat and had the blackest beard Cam had ever seen. The beard covered his tight mouth and protruded from his chin a good six to eight inches. He wore overalls with no shirt underneath and no shoes.

“Pen!” he hollered to the dogs. They ran to the side of the house and into a chain linked pen Cam had not noticed. The man slowly walked over to the dog pen, closed and latched the door. He motioned for Cam to get out of the car and walked back to the house. Before he could question the gesture the man disappeared into the house.

Cam exited the car and hurried to the front door. He knocked and a gruff voice told him to enter. He did. The inside of the dwelling was just as run down as the exterior. It looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, if ever. The black bearded man settled into an ancient lounge chair and packed a pipe with tobacco.

“They told me you might try to find me,” he said, as he finished stuffing the pipe. He picked up a pack of matches from a side table, lit a match, and sucked as he put the match to the bowl. Once the contents of the pipe were burning he dropped the match into an ashtray on the same table. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m investigating a murder.”

“Yeah, yeah. Billy Prescott was murdered. I don’t know what you’ve uncovered so far but I’ll tell you this, he was a no good son of a bitch.”

“That seems to be a recurring sentiment. Nonetheless, good for nothing son of a bitches deserve justice too, don’t you think?”

“No.”

Cam waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

“How do you know Billy Prescott?”

“Like you don’t already know. What’s your name by the way?”

“Cameron Caldwell. And you are?”

“Darren Prescott.”

Cam’s face fell.

“I see I’ve surprised the law man.” Darren’s voice was as gruff as he looked. It was the voice of thousands upon thousands of cigarettes—or pipes full of tobacco in Darren’s case. He laughed. “I guess I do have some tight-lipped friends over in Miner’s Bluff. Can I get you a beer?”

“That’d be nice.”

“They’re in the fridge in yonder,” he said, pointing. “Go ahead and get me one too while you’re at it.”

Cam walked into the kitchen. It was a disaster. Food containers lined the counters and the top of the kitchen table was hidden under a mixture of trash and additional canned goods, cracker boxes, and empty bottles. Opening the fridge, he found at least fifty bottles of unlabeled beer. A rotisserie chicken sat on one of the wire shelves. The chicken was not in any sort of container. It had almost been picked clean. He quickly grabbed two bottles and shut the door.

“The maid ain’t been here in quite some time,” Darren said, as Cam reentered the room. He reached into his pocket and Cam froze. Darren pulled out a bottle opener and said, “Take it easy, kid. If I wanted to harm you, you’d already be dead or dropped down on the floor.”

He popped the top on the beer Cam had given him and handed the opener to Cam. He opened his beer as he stood in front of Darren and handed the opener back to him. Darren set it on the table next to him.

“I have a feeling you’re a man who can drink more than one, so it’ll be here when you’re ready for your next. Don’t feel the need to ask or wait for me to offer. When you’re ready, just get up and fetch one. It’s the way we do it in my woods.”

“Thanks.” He brought the beer to his lips and downed half the bottle before his backside hit the chair underneath him.

“You’re my kind of man,” Darren said, puffing on his pipe. “Now, like I said before, what can I do for you?”

“I’m still reeling from your last name. I feel like I’ve been sucker punched.”

“The black sheep does it again,” Darren said, relighting his pipe. “Let me tell you something about Miner’s Bluff.” Smoke billowed from his pipe. “Mostly good folks live there. You play your cards right and you may be let into the inner circle. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed in town. Seems I burned a bridge or two.”

“How so?”

“Nobody told you?” Darren asked. For the first time he was animated.

“No. I didn’t know you existed until I had some of your Killer Creek beer. And when I started asking about you, people kept telling me they’d tell me about you later. Nobody ever said you were Billy’s brother.”

“Billy disowned me soon after our parents died. Momma died first. A year later Daddy died. Being the selfish asshole he is, or was, he wanted all the land. He paid me to go away and I did. I relocated here to Dahlonega. In his mind I could’ve been as far as Timbuktu. He probably wished I was farther. Anyway, I got out here and after two years of being away a sentimental bug bit me in the ass and I wanted to go home.

“I’d talked to Billy a couple of times on the phone in the two years I’d been away. We’d never been close so I didn’t take his disinterest personally. I just figured he didn’t care too much for me and that was fine with me, because I didn’t care for him too much either. Something in me just wanted to go into my parent’s old home and walk down memory lane one last time. When I told him I was coming to town he got belligerent. I found out why when I got there. He had sold the place and all the contents. He had an estate sale. The son of a bitch didn’t have one sentimental bone in his body.”

Darren got up out of his chair and to Cam it looked as though he was wiping tears away from his face as he vanished into the kitchen. He returned with two more beers. He retrieved the opener off the table beside his chair and removed the tops from both. He set one beside Cam and sat back down in his chair.

“He never told me he sold it. When I got back to town, I parked my car in the driveway, got out, and walked inside without warning. It was my family home. I saw a woman I didn’t know and she screamed bloody murder seeing me. We finally came to a mutual understanding with the help of an officer of the law.

“I told him who I was and he gave me my brother’s new address.” Darren puffed at his pipe and took a drink from his beer. “I immediately drove over there and set his house on fire.”

“You did
what?
”

“I did. I parked my car in the driveway, got out, and started rounding up pine straw. I piled a bunch of it in one of the exterior corners. There was a nice forty-five right next to the porch. The house looked like wood. I pulled out my lighter and struck a flame at the bottom of the pine straw. It lit up and turned the side of the house black, but that was all it did. The cops showed up and I didn’t resist. I did two days in the city jail before my brother came for a visit.” Darren finished his pipe and looked for somewhere to tap it out.

Cam hopped out of his comfortable enclosure and fetched an empty coffee can he’d seen on the kitchen table. Before leaving the kitchen, he poured his beer into the sink so he could drive home somewhere near the legal limit. Cam set the coffee can on the table beside Darren. Darren was still in another world.

“He threatened me across those bars. He told me if I ever came back that he would bring me up on charges for trying to burn his house down. He told me without a care for who else heard that he now owned the town. He even made me repeat that it was ‘his town.’ I did. I was scared. I believed him, and I wanted out of there. I would have said it as many times as he wanted me to.”

“And you haven’t been back to town since then?”

“Not in the daytime.”