The Pact: A Detective Locklear Mystery Read online

  Locklear stood back and tried to read the writing: ud s s ca ot

  “Can’t believe she hanged herself,” one cop said behind him.

  Locklear’s head snapped around until he found the mouth from which the sentence had been uttered. It belonged to young Jones, Maguire’s new partner.

  “Do you see a ladder around here, Jones?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So you think she shinned up there?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And tell me, trooper, did she paint that writing on herself before or after she cut her own throat?”

  The rookie flushed. He looked fleetingly at Maguire and, embarrassed, rested his eyes on the dense woodland to his right.

  “Jesus!” Locklear sighed, wondering if the kid had a brain at all or ears to hear – surely Maguire and the others had been discussing the situation?

  He turned back and took a closer look at Wyss. Her head had now fallen slightly forward and her open eyes seemed to be staring at him. He looked away. Helena Wyss had endured a terrible death. He didn’t need an autopsy report to know that the woman had fought for her life. It had been a violent death. He looked at her bare feet and noticed that they rested exactly where her ancestor’s initials had been carved into the ancient tree more than a century and a half before. IF1861. The significance of this was not lost on Locklear. Like Isaac Falk, Helena Wyss had died for what she believed in. He tried again to read the words which continued to drip downwards, soaking into the ground below which held a pool of Locklear’s own blood.

  “Does anyone know what this writing means?”

  No response.

  “Maguire – get Carter up here.”

  “But, sarge, he’s at the hospital. The old sarge isn’t doing too good. They had to operate on his face, he got an infection and his heart didn’t cope so well. He’s in intensive care.”

  “But he’s alive?”

  Maguire nodded.

  “And he’s in hospital being cared for?”

  Maguire nodded again.

  “Then get me goddamn Carter and get him here now!” Locklear bellowed.

  Maguire threw his keys at the blushing rookie who happily set off to collect Carter.

  “Where’s her husband?” Locklear asked.

  “He works in Harrisonburg. Trooper went immediately to inform him but found he was out of town – his company has sent word for him to return at once.”

  “Where’s the girl?” Locklear asked, referring to Abigail.

  Maguire looked down at the blood-soaked earth. “Trooper out on the highway saw Luke Fehr’s truck speeding in the direction of Richmond at dawn. He said there were two people in the truck and, from what he saw, the passenger was a young girl. He gave chase but lost him.”

  Mendoza eyed Locklear from the periphery.

  He looked away. He wasn’t wrong. He was never wrong. Luke Fehr did not kill Helena Wyss. Locklear had a sense of grass growing under his feet. He squirmed and moved from foot to foot. The rain was breaking through the trees. He was losing time. He moved back from the body and stared at the brow of the hill that ran down to the Wyss farm. He tried to imagine how her killers carried her body up to this spot or if his suspicions were right and she was killed right here. He felt that he throat had been cut after she was hanged and that the lack of blood could be explained by the heavy rain which had washed Helena’s blood into the earth beneath her – a fitting death, he reckoned, for the woman who had fought hard to remain on the land she loved despite the ever-present threat from Shank. Twenty further minutes passed with Locklear staring into space. He did this at every murder scene, spent time in silence ruminating over the minutes or hours leading up to the point when the person took their last breath. He pictured himself there – in the middle of the scene, invisible to the victim and murderer and in that time visions would come to him, imagery of what had happened. Then all he had to do was prove it.

  “Shouldn’t we cover her up?” a voice asked.

  Mendoza cut in before Locklear unleashed his ire on another cop.

  “That would infect the crime scene,” she said gently.

  Locklear paced up and down like a caged animal.

  “Where the fuck are forensics?” he barked to no one in particular.

  At last Lee Carter made his way into the clearing with Jones. A silence fell among the group. Carter looked like a shrunken man. Dark rings appeared under his eyes and deep lines ran along the sides of his downturned mouth. Everyone felt sorry for the trooper whose father’s life hung in the balance and whose job was under threat.

  Locklear lifted his guilty eyes from the earth and looked at Carter. A brief moment of eye contact occurred between the pair, a reconciliation, an understanding.

  Carter walked up to his boss

  “Dad told me everything,” he said quietly.

  “Don’t judge him,” Locklear replied.

  “I don’t. But I want to come back. I want to help sort this out once and for all.”

  “Deal,” Locklear said as he shook the trooper’s hand.

  Locklear led Carter closer to the body of Helena Wyss. He felt the younger man stiffen and slow as they approached the tree. Carter Senior was right. His son was no cop and Locklear hoped that when the case was solved the bright man would return to the work he had been born to. Carter focused on the dollar coins littered on the ground around the giant tree. Locklear directed his eyes upwards. He knew little about religion but he did know that Helena Wyss’s death had some sort of sacred meaning or that someone had worked hard to make it look that way. He was anxious to know what the theologian thought about the fading writing on the woman’s breasts. The coins were going nowhere.

  Carter stood back and focused on the letters. Locklear saw his throat jump and knew the man wanted to vomit. He put his hand on his back.

  “Take a deep breath. It’ll pass.”

  Carter shot a look at Locklear.

  “I didn’t mean to ...” Locklear stopped talking. He always managed to say the wrong thing without intending offence.

  The group were intent as Carter read the letters. He finished and even though he didn’t need to, he knelt on the wet earth to count the coins on the ground. There were thirty. He stood and wiped the dirt from his jeans.

  “It says, or it did say: Judas Iscariot. Judas is known for the kiss and betrayal of Jesus for thirty silver coins.”

  “Matthew 27,” said Locklear.

  Carter looked at him in surprise.

  Locklear didn’t enlighten him.

  Mendoza sidled up and murmured into Locklear’s ear. “Looks like you owe me a beer.”

  “Whoever killed Helena is saying she betrayed them,” Carter summed up unnecessarily.

  Raised voices sounded through the trees. Recognising one of the voices, Maguire ran through the trees to stop Peter Wyss from seeing his wife. They all stood silently in the rain, praying that Maguire, who knew Wyss well, would convince him that it was better to remember his wife as she was.

  Maguire failed. Peter Wyss rushed to the tree and fell to his knees under his wife’s body.

  “Nooooo! Helena, nooooo!” he screamed.

  Mendoza ran to him and tried to lift the man off the muddy ground which was sodden with rain and the blood of his beloved wife.

  Wyss moved his eyes around the group.

  “Stop looking at her! Stop looking at my wife!” he screamed.

  Slowly, the cops, including Locklear, turned one by one and faced away from Helena’s semi-naked body.

  Peter Wyss ran to Locklear.

  “Please cut her down! Please! Haven’t you done enough to her?”

  Wyss grabbed Locklear by the shirt and tried to swing him around to look at his wife. Mendoza put her arms around him and tried to detach him from her boss who did not move a muscle to defend himself but the man could not be moved.

  “You did this!” he screamed. “Following her about at night when all she was trying to do was to keep a man alive, to b
e a good Christian. But you’re going to let him get away with murder. You can’t stop him. No one can stop him!”

  Mendoza hushed him. “We’ll get Luke Fehr, Mr Wyss. Don’t worry about that.”

  Peter Wyss’s mouth open opened wide and he began to cry. He looked around at the cops, the cars, the siren lights and his dead wife and between his tears began to laugh hysterically.

  “Luke? You fools! Shank did this! He killed my beautiful Helena!”

  Wyss circled the cops who still stood with their backs to the body. He moved closer into each of their faces.

  He stopped at Carter.

  “And I don’t care what you tell Shank. He has taken all that mattered to me. There’s nothing else he can do to me.”

  Wyss turned and looked again at his wife. His chin quivered. He moved to her and placed his arms around her bare feet.

  “She’s so cold,” he said.

  He stepped back for a moment and took off his shirt. Locklear moved to stop him but Mendoza held him back.

  Peter Wyss climbed the tree until he reached his wife’s upper body. Gently he placed his shirt over her breasts. He reached one hand over and cupped her face and then kissed her gently on the lips. He moved his mouth to her ear and whispered something. Mendoza turned away as heavy tears fell down her stained face.

  Wyss climbed down and stared at Locklear and then disappeared into the trees, away from the direction of his house and away from the life he had known.

  Chapter 24

  The call to Bishop John Rahn revealed nothing that Locklear hadn’t already known. He and his wife had woken that morning to an empty house. Andrew and Esther, who he now admitted to hiding, were gone. Four of the five Fehr children were on the run. Luke Fehr was not stupid – the man knew that his DNA would be all over Helena Wyss’s body. Samuel Shank would have made sure of that.

  In the incident room of Dayton police station, Locklear went over his notes, nursing a semi-warm coffee to rouse him after what had been a sleepless night.

  Mendoza, equally worn and dazed, sat in Carter’s seat under the window and studied Sara Fehr’s letters to Maria Whieler. When she tired of the banality of the correspondence, she moved to the large table in the middle of the room to study Sara Fehr’s suicide note. She still felt something about the note, about how it was written, was wrong but although she came back to it over and over, she could not figure out what was bothering her. She slumped down and eased her feet out of her shoes.

  “I slept in these last night,” she said.

  Locklear looked up from his notes.

  “I was so tired I just lay down on the bed and didn’t wake up until this morning.”

  Locklear took his reading glasses off and inhaled. “I didn’t sleep at all, so ... lucky you.”

  Mendoza leaned back and stared at her feet. A memory of how Peter Wyss had touched his wife’s feet surfaced and brought tears to her eyes.

  “Has anyone seen Peter Wyss since yesterday?” she asked.

  “Nope, Maguire saw him heading on foot towards the Fehr farm yesterday evening. He called him but he didn’t answer.”

  “Poor guy!”

  Locklear shoved his glasses roughly back on his face and studied the notes in front of him. Mendoza watched. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

  Locklear tensed and kept reading.

  “I mean it – you couldn’t have prevented this.”

  Locklear swallowed hard. Helena Wyss’s death was his fault. Someone knew he’d been watching her bring food and clothes to Luke Fehr but that person or persons had known that she’d been doing that all along. They had simply used Locklear and his revelations to Wyss to kill the woman, thereby throwing suspicion on Luke in the process. They had simply used Locklear’s visit to the farm that night, and his new-found information that Helena Wyss was caring for and regularly saw Luke Fehr, to place suspicion on Fehr. The silver coins were an awkward and ill-thought-out “clue” which the killer hoped would place Luke under police suspicion – and, more importantly, under Locklear’s suspicion. Someone very clever was using Locklear as a puppet and it was time to cut the strings and solve the case once and for all.

  The door opened and Carter walked in. Locklear looked up.

  “Lee,” he said.

  Carter shyly took a seat on the other side of the room. Locklear looked at Mendoza.

  “What time is it?

  She checked her phone. “Nine thirty.”

  Locklear stood and stretched. He walked to the window and leant against it, facing the room.

  “Nothing we’ve found out so far has progressed this investigation. We’re finding stuff out, sure – but none of it fits together enough to put Shank behind bars for the attempted murder of Andrew Fehr. Now, remember that was where our investigation started and a whole lot has happened since then. We need to figure out what’s driving Shank to keep people quiet – what it is that he is hiding. If we don’t we’ll never figure the rest of it out. Carter – no offence but it doesn’t look like these people trust you any more so you’re more use to me here. I want you to get back to studying the letters between Sara Fehr and Maria and phone me if you find anything useful.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mendoza – there are scores of small farms in Dayton yet the Shanks have only pressurised the Yoders, Ropps, Wysses and Eric Stoll to get out. I want to know why. I want to know what’s different about those farms or about those people. I want you to knock on doors – they must have distant relatives here. Appeal to their sense of righteousness. Sell them the idea that we want to put an end to the fear they’re living under but we can’t do it without their help. And take Maguire with you. Now, don’t get all irate with me. I know you can handle yourself but Shank is getting desperate and therefore more dangerous.”

  Mendoza nodded. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going back to New York. I’ve got a date with history.”

  The hour-long drive to Charlottesville Airport gave Locklear time to think about how he’d approach Letitia Grant at the school she attended in Westside. Landing in Newark, he hailed a cab to take him the last twenty-five miles of his journey towards what he hoped would be a significant lead in the investigation.

  As he waited in the foyer, he read the flyer advertising the school which catered for people for whom mainstream education had not worked. Locklear placed the flyer back into the plastic shelving and walked out the front door of the Edward H Reynolds School. He crossed the street and waited for Letitia Grant to finish her afternoon classes, hoping that if she could see him, if he didn’t surprise her, the woman might feel less threatened and might tell him what she knew about her ancestor and the time he spent in Dayton. Locklear leaned against the black metal fencing that ran along the park opposite the school and placed his hands in his pockets, feigning the look of a relaxed man who posed no threat to her or to anyone.

  The bell rang and scores of students filed out of the three front doors of the large school. The crowds dwindled and he watched eagerly as stragglers drifted out by him. Letitia Grant was nowhere to be seen. He turned towards the metal railing, lifted his phone and dialled Ling’s office number. It rang twice before he heard a voice behind him. He closed the phone and turned.

  “What do you want?” Letitia Grant asked.

  Locklear looked about, wondering where she had sprung from.

  “I saw you from the window,” she said. “Thought I’d surprise you this time.”

  Close up, Grant looked older than her thirty-two years. Her face looked fuller than in the photo Robbins had given him and she certainly looked healthier but her eyes were old. They were the eyes of someone who had seen more in one short lifetime than people twice her age.

  “Ling said I should talk to you.” She moved three heavy art books from one arm to another. Long needle tracks were still visible along her left arm, a canvas of her life. No matter how the woman put the past behind her, the scars were etched forever on her body.

  �
��I want to talk to you about John Grant, your ancestor,” he said. “You hungry?”

  Letitia settled into the booth of McDonald’s and ate her meal ravenously.

  “We could have gone somewhere better,” Locklear said as he lifted his coffee.

  She spoke with a mouth full of food. “This is the only place I can afford.”

  Locklear knew there was no point in telling her that he would have paid. The woman had lived on the streets for years. She understood the rules. There was no such thing as a free lunch. This way she owed him nothing and could leave anytime she wanted. She took a loud slurp of her Coke and shoved some fries into her mouth.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said.

  “I haven’t asked you a question.”

  She shoved another handful of fries into her mouth.

  “Look, mister, the only reason I’m talking to you is because Ling asked me to. She said I can help you with something but I can’t. I’m just sitting here so I can tell her least I tried. Ling’s been good to me.”

  “You don’t know anything about your ancestor John Grant?”

  “He was a horse thief. I took a pony once from a fancy house upstate. Guess it runs in the blood.”

  “He was also a war veteran. He fought for the freedom of black people in this country.”

  She swallowed her food and took another gulp of Coke. She thought of her 8pm curfew and of her convenience-store boss who was itching to phone Ling about even the most minor misdemeanour.