Jason Deas - Cameron Caldwell 01 - Private Eye (19 page)

“Who?” Dell asked trying to give his mind time to think of an answer that wouldn’t get him in trouble with his older brother.

“Cam. Cameron Caldwell.”

“Oh. That Cam. Nope.”

Kyle could tell by the way he was fidgeting he was lying.

“Have you ever been in the paper?” Kyle asked.

“No. Rowdy has though. They had his big old picture on the front page one time. It was back when our mom was alive and she was real proud.”

“I bet you’d like your picture on the front page.”

Dell’s eyes lit up as he imagined it. “Rowdy would be jealous.”

“We had a front page story a few weeks ago with a huge picture of a lady who found a diamond ring and returned it to the owner. She was a hero,” Kyle said, almost feeling guilty for his exaggeration. “If you could help me get my money back I would think of you the same way.”

“I … he’s … I don’t know,” Dell placed his hand over his mouth.

“If you remember,” Kyle gave Dell his most engaging smile, “call me. I’ll have my best photographer come over to take your picture for the front page.”

Dell nodded that he understood as he continued to hold his hand over his mouth. Kyle took one of his business cards out of his pocket and set it on the counter in front of him.

It took Rowdy two hours to make it to the state crime lab in Decatur, Georgia. He walked in the front door with the package clutched firmly in his hands. A young lady at the front desk greeted him, and Rowdy imagined her as the first person he’d talked to when he called.

He tried to act important when he said, “I believe I spoke with you earlier on the telephone. You transferred me to another lady who informed me my package had not arrived. Is she here?”

“I remember your voice,” the young lady said. “I transferred you to Dolinda. Are you sure you want to talk to her in person?”

“I’m sure,” Rowdy said, as he studied the fear in the young lady’s eyes.

“Okaaay,” she drawled out the word while picking up her phone.

A few minutes later, Dolinda emerged from the back. She spied Rowdy and her sullen face dropped.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Mr. Dancing Shoes?”

“That’s me,” Rowdy said. He put on his best fake smile and shook his shoulders as he stepped forward and back, then side-to-side.

“When they said white people couldn’t dance, they weren’t lying.” She walked toward him and reached her hands out for the package. Rowdy handed it to her.

“When do you think I’ll hear from you?”

“I make sure my favorite people get straight to the top of the priority list.”

“And, I’m not one of your favorites?”

“No,” she said, as she disappeared into the back.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Blanca and Cam sped toward the fire in a police car with the lights flashing and the sirens blaring. As soon as they left the department parking lot they could see the plumes of black smoke billowing into the air.

As the side of the road flew by his window, Cam said, “Could we stop and get a couple beers?”

“I hope you’re kidding,” Blanca said as she powered the car around a corner.

“Of course I’m kidding.”

“We never know with you, drunky.”

“What does that mean?” Cam asked as the car dipped to the right and threw his body against the window. Blanca’s hands bounced on the wheel as she fought the curve.

“It means that you’re a drunk. It means that everybody knows it. And it means we never know which
you
we’ll come across.” Blanca slammed on the brakes, slid around a corner and floored it again.

“Damn!” Cam said. “How did you learn to drive a car like this?”

“Don’t change the subject. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Cam was about to speak when Blanca pressed both feet to the floor on the brake. Cam’s head hit the dash as she goosed it again. His head shot back and Blanca timed it perfectly as she braked and shot his head forward to smack once again on the dashboard.

“You did that on purpose,” Cam said, rubbing his forehead.

“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. It might have knocked some sense into you. Our package didn’t include airbags. Not the way cops drive.”

Blanca slammed on the brakes once again when they arrived at the crime scene. Black smoke drifted through the trees and they both knew there was no doubt the fire was blazing close to the murder site. Blanca popped the trunk and grabbed a fire extinguisher.

Running toward the smoke they heard the sirens of the fire trucks getting closer. Directly on top of the spot where Billy’s body was found they discovered three tires, burning and billowing smoke. Blanca pulled the pin from the extinguisher and emptied the contents into the depths of the black. When the contents of the fire extinguisher were gone the bootfalls of the fire fighters crashed through the woods. Hours later, the flames had been killed but puffs still escaped from the red and orange lungs of the fire and would need to be monitored.

One of the firemen asked Blanca for direction and she told him to take his crew and leave. She told him she could handle it. When the last of the boots slipped away through the trees, she began walking around the fire site, studying the ground. It only took her a few seconds to find it.

“Here it is,” she called to Cam. Slipping gloves on her hands and pulling an evidence bag from her back pocket, Blanca hovered over the Indian head pipe. Taking care to pick it up she deposited it in the bag and turned to Cam. “Now what?”

“Well, now we have a reason to search Darren’s house legally. We’ll find Billy’s wallet and go from there.”

“Why would Claude try to frame Darren?”

“Aside from the obvious reason that he hates him, I don’t know unless he did it and is trying to get off by putting Darren in our crosshairs.”

“We need to find a reason to search Claude’s place and we can’t get a warrant by saying you broke into Darren’s and witnessed Claude planting evidence.”

“I have something I haven’t told you.”

“What?”

“I guess in a way I was trying to protect Claude because I thought there was no way he could have done this. He seems like such a nice guy. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I’m sorry.”

“Spit it out, Cam.”

“When we were at his house, I saw an old radio in a pile of his sculpture materials. The radio was missing a dial.”

She stared at him without saying a word. Dropping her head, Blanca began walking back toward the car.

“I said I’m sorry,” he called after her.

She turned, fire in her eyes. “You are sorry! A sorry excuse for a cop who got fired because he was a drunk. A sorry private investigator who can’t keep his mind on the case because he’s constantly thinking about booze. Most people would learn from their mistakes and change. Not you. You just keep doing what you’ve always done and you keep getting the same results. Cam, I hate to say this but you’re a real loser.”

She stormed ahead out of the woods. Cam let her go. He wanted to give her a chance to cool off before he got in the car. Cam counted to ten and headed toward the car as he heard her crank the engine. The next sound he heard was the spinning of tires and gravel. When he emerged from the woods she was gone.

Cam waited; he was certain she would be right back and was just trying to make her point. After ten minutes he knew she wasn’t coming back. He called Daphne.

“I need a favor,” he said, when she answered.

“You need a ride?”

“How’d you know?” Cam told her where he was.

Daphne pulled up and rolled down her window. She stuck her hand out of the window and handed him a beer. Cam opened it and poured the contents of the bottle on the ground at his feet.

“I’m done,” he said, as he looked her in the eyes. “Take me to my house and let’s get rid of the rest.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, as he climbed into the car.

“Positive.”

She drove away in silence. After they had navigated out of the woods and were off the dirt road and onto the pavement she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I think I need to make a change. I’ve been hiding behind my eyes for so long I’ve made a real mess of my life. I can’t keep doing this to the people in my life or to myself.”

“As much as I want to see you quit, you can’t do this for other people. You have to do it for yourself.”

“I know. I’m doing it for me.”

“OK. I’ll support you either way. Maybe you should sleep on it and decide tomorrow.”

“No. I’m done. Let’s do this.”

Cam asked Daphne to line up the contents of the fridge on the counter next to the sink. He explained he would find all the other bottles he had stashed around the house.

“Do you want me to pour them down the sink?”

“No. I think I need to do it.”

Cam made three trips with armfuls of bottles. When he’d checked all of his hiding spots he stood at the counter and paused.

“This is it, Daphne.” He breathed in and out, holding the counter like he was at the edge of the earth. “No more hiding,” he said, opening the first bottle of beer. He poured it down the sink and slid the empty bottle to the other side. Reaching under the sink he pulled out a large recycling bin and handed it to Daphne. “For the empties,” he whispered. Cam emptied bottle after bottle in silence as he slid them across the counter to her. The last one was the jug of shine. He removed the cap and held the container to his nose and sniffed. Cam closed his eyes and started to pour.

“Stop,” Daphne instructed. “Watch it go down.”

Cam opened his eyes and poured. The glug, glug, glug sound of the liquid going down the drain filled the quiet room. When the container was empty, Cam began to slide it to her and breathed out. As he held his hands tight to the counter a tear ran down his cheek. He passed the jug to Daphne. She dropped it into the bin as Cam fell into her. The flood gates opened as he cried like a baby and held onto her.

Chapter Thirty

Cam awoke the next morning without a hangover and chalked up one point to sobriety. His thoughts immediately turned to alcohol and his mind squashed them as he thought of how he needed to look into Claude’s eyes for answers. He didn’t have to wait too long. As his coffee dripped into the pot he heard Claude’s truck pull into his driveway.

Claude put his key into the lock and walked into the house.  

“The house is awake this morning,” he called.

“Are you surprised?”

“Yeah. It usually smells like a frat house in here in the morning. What’s going on?”

“I quit drinking yesterday.”

Claude was hard to surprise. His mouth fell open. “Great, but why?”

“It’s a long story, Claude. It comes down to this—I haven’t been seeing clear for a long time. I figured it was time for me to come out of the fog.”

“Good for you,” Claude said as he looked him in the eyes.

Cam’s head jerked one way and back the other. Time froze as he saw Claude over Billy’s dead body. Cam somehow knew immediately with the vision that Claude was not Billy’s killer. His sin was the cover-up of the murder. The image flashed and Cam saw him entering into Darren’s house, taking the pipe and hiding Billy’s wallet. Again, Cam got the overwhelming sensation that Claude was not guilty of the murder. His sin was the hiding of the killing. The next flash took him to an image of Claude standing over Billy’s lifeless body again. Claude reached into his pocket and pulled out the radio dial, he opened Billy’s mouth and inserted the dial. Claude began digging.  Cam’s head snapped down and the visions fled.

Cam looked away and back at Claude. He smiled, thankful that Claude was not the killer he was searching for.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like an angel,” Cam said. “I’m cooking the eggs this morning,” he said standing up. “How do you like them?”

“Over easy.”

“I can do that,” Cam said, with a giant smirk.

As the skillet sizzled, Cam handed Claude a cup of coffee and asked, “Who killed Billy Prescott?”

“I believe you’ll find out soon. I can see in your face that you don’t suspect me anymore. Why is that?”

“I believe you’ll find out pretty soon,” Cam said, cracking the eggs and turning away from Claude.

“The other day when you were in my studio, you thought it was me. I saw it in your eyes. Why is that?”

“I saw the old radio on the floor of your studio. It was missing a dial. They found an old radio dial in Billy’s mouth.”

“I can’t say if it’s the same one, but I can tell you a story about me and Darren and an old radio dial.”

“Tell me,” Cam said, dropping some bread into the silver toaster.

“When we were on speaking terms, I used to have some pretty huge parties at my house. Back in those days the stereo system you saw down in my studio was state of the art. Darren is a good old boy who only likes country music, and I’ve always enjoyed a more eclectic variety of tunes. I like country too, but I was also delving into some of the rap and hip-hop music of the day. For some reason, the music infuriated Darren. He got really drunk, as he usually did, and told me if I played one more ‘black’ song that he was going to make it so I could never play another one.

“I just assumed he was drunk and spouting off. After he had the chance to listen to half an hour’s worth of country on the radio, I tuned the radio to a different station playing rap. Darren had gone to the bathroom. When he returned and heard the music, he walked over to the stereo, tuned it back to the country station, and somehow with his drunken strength he ripped off the dial and put it in his pocket.”

Cam put a plate in front of Claude containing two eggs over easy, two pieces of toast, and grits with a slab of butter melting in the middle.

“So, if we search Darren’s house, what are we going to find?”

“I think you already know the answer to that,” Claude said, digging into his meal and giving Cam a hearty wink.

Although Cam didn’t need a ride into town, Claude gave him one for old time’s sake. In Claude’s mind, Cam wasn’t going to make it through the day without drinking and being able to drive home. Claude tried to make it seem like it would be a waste of his gas to have driven all the way out to his house without bringing him back to town. He didn’t tell him that he didn’t believe he could make it through the day without a drink. He lied and told Cam he needed to adjust one of the sculptures in the house that seemed to have been bumped. He told Cam he would find the tool he needed during the day and when Cam called to take him home he would perform the adjustment. Cam bought the story, thinking he must have bumbled over the art piece in a drunken stupor.