Blood Relative (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 4) Page 13

  I pushed the door open and called Winks’s name again. Nothing. Except for a bad odor, like rotting food. Then I saw something on the kitchen floor. It looked like an old, wadded-up rug. When I approached it, the flies rose, like tiny crows, and I saw that they’d been busy on one of Winks’s dogs.

  I unholstered the Magnum. Although I had the feeling that I was the only one here. Still, better safe than stupid.

  I stepped around the carcass toward the doorway. The refrigerator kicked on, and I nearly put a bullet in it. Okay, so I was a little tense. I stood in the doorway and scanned the living room—a dirty hardwood floor, some heavy wooden chairs, an ancient couch draped with an Indian blanket, a stone fireplace with a flintlock rifle above the mantelpiece. A boot.

  The scruffy brown boot stuck out from the other side of the couch, toe pointed at the ceiling.

  I entered the room. The rotting smell was stronger in here. I moved around the couch.

  The boot was on Winks’s right foot. He lay between the couch and the fireplace, faceup in a halo of dried blood. Half a face up. The other half had been blown off, apparently by the shotgun that rested on the floor beside him.

  Samuel Butler had told me that when he’d found Clare’s body, he could see her brain. Well, I could’ve seen Winks’s brain except for all the flies in there. They buzzed angrily when I covered him with the blanket from the couch.

  I put away the Magnum and looked around the room for signs of a struggle. There were no broken lamps or toppled furniture or bloody scuff marks on the dusty floor. Just Winks. An apparent suicide. At least it had been made to look that way.

  I was no coroner, but even I could tell he’d been dead for more than a day, perhaps as many as three. Westfall had talked to him Tuesday afternoon, and Winks had failed to show up at his office Wednesday afternoon, so it had probably happened Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Elementary.

  On the other hand, Winks may have failed to show at Westfall’s office for an entirely different reason, become despondent, killed his dogs—one in the kitchen and two in the meadow, for the crows—and then killed himself.

  No way.

  I felt certain he’d been murdered, probably by the same three shooters who’d tried to kill me Wednesday night. They’d probably come in politely, gaining his confidence, the way I had. Then they’d knocked him out, put the shotgun barrel under his jaw, and pulled the trigger. After that, they’d killed the dogs. Or maybe they’d killed the dogs first, while Winks was away, and then waited for him.

  However it had happened, Winks was a blameless victim. He’d died because he’d shared drinks in a bar with Samuel Butler. And because I’d found him.

  I could feel the guilt rising. I tried to quell it, tried to tell myself that his death wasn’t my fault. And logically, it wasn’t. I’d just been doing my job, trying to help Samuel Butler.

  But my insides disagreed. I’d located Winks and thus fingered him for the killers. They’d made me their accomplice—Jeremy Stone or his henchmen, whoever had done this.

  I phoned the sheriff’s department.

  I took a last look at Winks’s blanket-draped body, then went outside into the brittle sunshine.

  CHAPTER 22

  TWO SHERRIF’S DEPUTIES ARRIVED in a four-wheel-drive wagon with gold stars on the doors and a red, white, and blue light bar on the roof, turned off. They were big men with khaki uniforms and brown leather holsters. Their revolvers were still in the holsters, but they’d unsnapped the safety straps.

  “I’m the man who called. Jacob Lomax.” I had my ID out to prove it. “Mr. Armbruster’s body is in the living room.”

  The older of the two, who was still younger than I, went in to see for himself. The other one took my ID and looked me over with soft brown eyes. They were the only things soft about him. He pointed at the bulge in my coat.

  “Do you have a permit to carry a handgun, Mr. Lomax?”

  “Yes, sir.” I showed it to him.

  The older deputy came outside, still breathing through his mouth. He sucked in a lungful of fresh air.

  “Looks like a shotgun to the head,” he said to his pal, “possibly self-inflicted.” Then he turned to me. “Did you cover him with the blanket?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  And so began the questioning, which passed the time as we waited for an inspector and the crime-scene technicians. The inspector had half a hundred questions of his own, and by the time they’d let me go and I’d driven back to Denver, it was nearly two in the afternoon.

  I phoned Westfall from my office and gave him the bad news.

  “Winks dead?” He didn’t want to believe it.

  “An apparent suicide.”

  “This is disastrous. We needed Winks’s testimony. Without it I don’t— What do you mean, ‘apparent’?”

  “I think he was murdered.”

  Westfall was silent for a moment. “What do the police think?”

  “Probably suicide, unless they find evidence to the contrary. Winks was a bit off center. No one would be surprised if he killed himself. But you and I know there are people involved in this who are prepared to kill. And it was a little too convenient, Winks dying just before he was to testify on tape. Plus, there were the dogs.”

  “The what?”

  “Winks’s three dogs were killed, too. Maybe a suicide would take his pets with him, but I don’t think Winks would do it like that—two in the meadow and one in the kitchen. Too disrespectful. Those animals were his closest companions.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?”

  “No. It’s only speculation.”

  “But you believe it was murder.”

  “I do.”

  “Then Mr. Colodny and Mr. Stilwell may be in danger.”

  “That depends,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “On what you said to your people and Butler. Did you tell them that Winks was the only witness that mattered?”

  “I suppose I did,” Westfall said. Then, “Wait a minute. Are you implying that one of them gave that information to the killers?”

  “Do you have another explanation?”

  Westfall was silent for what seemed a long time. Finally, he said, “I’ve known my people for too long to believe they’d be involved in anything like that.”

  “Perhaps one of them let it slip inadvertently. Maybe somebody asked them what seemed to be an innocent question.”

  “I’ll speak to them.”

  “Let me know what you find out. In the meantime, I’ll talk to Butler.”

  An hour later, I was in the county jail, facing Samuel Butler across the smudged tabletop in our enclosed booth.

  He’d aged since I’d seen him four days ago, probably from lack of sleep. His face was pale, and there were bruised bags under his eyes. Even his green jumpsuit looked looser, as if he were shrinking inside it. He’d retained his scowl, but now it looked more the product of pain than anger. He slouched in his chair, shoulders hunched, eyes furtive, like a wildebeest in a cage.

  “Winks is dead,” I said.

  “Winks?” He looked at me dully.

  “Someone murdered him and made it look like suicide. Someone who wants you convicted.”

  “Killed Winks?”

  Butler’s mind was mushy. He wasn’t used to being alone, nor could he handle being a ward. All his life he’d been in charge of everything—his business, his wife, his children. His second wife had been a struggle, but at least he’d felt in control. Now there were people who told him when to shower and sleep, when and what to eat, what to wear, who he could see. Other people would decide his fate. He was powerless. It was driving him inside himself, probably to a place he’d rarely seen.

  “They killed Winks,” I said, “because he was your best witness. Who did you tell about him?”

  “What?”

  I tried not to grind my teeth. “Who have you seen besides Westfall?”

  “I don’t remember.”
>
  I could probably get a look at the visitor’s log, but I said, “Come on, Butler, snap out of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wake the fuck up!”

  Color rose to his cheeks. “You don’t talk to me like that, you son of a bitch.”

  Good. “What visitors have you had in the past few days besides me and Westfall?”

  He glared at me, but at least he was awake now. “Who do you think?” he snapped. “My children.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell them about Winks?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. What difference does it make?” He was sitting up straight now, face flushed, fire in his eyes. On him it looked healthy.

  “Somebody told the killer about Winks—either one of your kids or one of Westfall’s people. Inadvertently or on purpose.”

  “If it was from Kenneth or Karen or Nicole, it was inadvertently.”

  “Did you tell each of them?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” He forced air through his nose. “They visit me every day, and there’s not that much to talk about.”

  “Did you talk about Jeremy Stone?”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know him?”

  “No.”

  “Could he be involved with Butler Manufacturing without your knowledge?”

  Butler’s scowl deepened. “What are you getting at?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  His face turned a shade darker. He wished we were in his office so he could throw me out. Or maybe punch me out. Finally, he said, “It’s possible.”

  “So Jeremy Stone could be employed by Butler Manufacturing or be a customer or a supplier and you wouldn’t know about it?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been away from things for a few weeks.”

  “What about before that? Could he have been involved with your company before you were arrested?”

  Butler shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I suppose. Sure.”

  “I thought you ran the business.”

  “I do run it!” He came out of his chair, ready to rip off the tabletop and beat me with it. At that moment it wasn’t too hard to picture him standing behind Clare in their kitchen, a wrench in his fist. Now he glanced furtively at the window in the door. The guard was outside, looking in. Butler sat down.

  “I do run it,” he said with controlled fury. “Through Kenneth. And I’ll be running it again firsthand, just like the old days, as soon as I get out.”

  If you get out. I said, “By ‘the old days,’ you mean before jail.”

  He shook his head and looked down at his hands. “Before Clare.”

  The rage had gone out of him, and his color had returned to jailhouse pale. His thoughts were in the past. I gave him a few moments before I asked, “What was it like before Clare?”

  One corner of his mouth went up, and he shook his head again. “Simpler,” he said, still not looking at me. Now his eyes rose to mine. “Everything was simpler before her.” He laughed once, without mirth. “But, hey, who needs simple?”

  “What about the business. What was simple about it before Clare?”

  “The business was the same. I was different. More focused.”

  I waited.

  He sighed. “I built Butler Manufacturing from scratch, starting in my garage. When the business grew beyond what I could handle myself, I had a hard time hiring anyone. Not that there weren’t plenty of available people. But I wanted to find someone who’d love the business. Wrong. All I needed was someone to glue on emblems for an hourly wage. Once I figured that out, hell, I didn’t care if they hated the job as long as the finished product was up to my standards.”

  A prince of a man to work for. “But you knew the names of all your employees.”

  “Hell yes. At first. The business kept growing, though. When Kenneth graduated from C.U., I brought him in as my assistant. He had a bachelor’s degree in accounting, so naturally I let him do the books. And as we needed more people, I let him do the hiring, too.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I dealt with customers and sales reps and kept an eye on production. I spent half the day in the back, making sure things were done right, were made right, before they got shipped out. That’s the key to a business. Your end product.”

  “How could you be around those people four hours a day and not know their names?”

  “I knew their names. Some of them. First names, anyway. Hell, I’ve got thirty or forty employees. How am I supposed to know them all? They call me Mr. Butler, and I call them Hey You. What difference does it make? As long as the books show a profit.”

  A model businessman. “So at least you looked at the books.”

  “Damn right I looked at them. The bottom line, anyway.”

  “How about after you met Clare?”

  “Well, like I said, that’s when things changed. Clare was a distraction.” He actually grinned. A first, as far as I knew. It made him look stupid. “I started spending most of my time with her and very little time at work.” His grin widened. “For the first time in my life I had fun. We…played. Trips and shopping sprees and the rest of it.”

  “While you were playing, did Kenneth look after the business?”

  He nodded. “Naturally, I’d check in now and then, make sure everything was running smoothly.”

  “Check the bottom line.”

  “That’s it.”

  “And if—I mean, when you get out, you’ll assume command of the company.”

  “Right.”

  “Take it away from Kenneth.”

  “Well…he’ll still be my number-one assistant. He knows that.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Hey, he’s my son. He knows what’s what. He’ll take over everything when I retire.”

  Or when you go to prison. I said, “I’d like a look at the company’s books.”

  “What for?”

  “To see if Jeremy Stone is an employee or a customer or whatever.”

  “Why don’t you just ask Kenneth about Stone?”

  “I already did. He says he’s never heard of him. That’s why I want to see the books.”

  Some of the color returned to his face. “Are you calling my son a liar?”

  “I just want to cover every base.”

  “If he wants to show you the books, that’s his decision. He’s in charge now. But I’m sure he’s got nothing to hide.”

  I nearly said, Don’t bet your life on it. But he probably was. I said, “One more question. About Clare.”

  “What?”

  “Had she been doing drugs?”

  “Hell no.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Hey, she was my wife.”

  Right. Clare was his wife, Kenneth was his son, and Butler Manufacturing was his company—and he didn’t know squat about any of them.

  CHAPTER 23

  AFTER I LEFT SAMUEL BUTLER in the county jail, I drove to my office and phoned Oliver Westfall. He told me that both his secretary and his legal aide swore they’d told no one about Russ “Winks” Armbruster, nor had anyone asked.

  “Butler told Kenneth, Karen, and Nicole,” I said.

  “My God, you’re not suggesting that one of them had anything to do with Winks’s death.”

  “It’s possible one of them, or maybe Wes Hartman or Doreen, passed on the information, perhaps innocently. In any event, I want to go through the books of Butler Manufacturing—payroll, accounts payable, and so on.”

  “Why?”

  “To try to find some reference to Jeremy Stone.”

  “I’m sure Kenneth Butler will allow you—”

  “I’m sure he won’t. Can you force him to show me?”

  “On what grounds?”

  “That it’s crucial to his father’s defense.”

  Westfall hesitated. “Is it crucial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you h
ave any material evidence to present to a judge?”

  “No.”

  “In that case, no one can force him to open his books. Except the IRS, of course.”

  After we hung up, I turned to the phone book and found a pageful of Stones. No Jeremy. Plenty of J’s, though. I checked my watch—a bit after three. I’d have better luck calling these folks later, when they were all home from work.

  But as secretive as my Jeremy Stone seemed to be, he probably had an unlisted number. Of course, if he lived in Colorado, he almost certainly had a Colorado driver’s license. And that’s public information.

  I drove to the motor vehicle bureau on West Mississippi Avenue. It took me two or three clerks, but eventually I got Xerox copies of Jeremy Stone’s driver’s license. Licenses. There were three, each with a different middle name, description, and address.

  Jeremy Holcroft Stone was fifty-three, wore glasses, and lived in upscale Cherry Hills. Jeremy Thomas Stone, sixty-nine, of working-class Arvada, also wore glasses; his hair and mustache were gray. Jeremy Leonard Stone was twenty-six, lived in economically depressed west Denver, and had a scar over his left eye.

  I’d gone from zero Stones to three. Which was mine? Perhaps none of them. And I was dead certain if I asked each of them if they knew Kenneth or Doreen Butler, I’d get three negative replies.

  I needed some definite way to identify the Jeremy Stone. I needed a look at Butler’s books.

  I drove to Butler Manufacturing Company and found a place for the Toyota in the crowded front lot. Inside, the four women were still at their desks—two typing, two on the phone. Between phone calls I told one of them I wanted to see Kenneth Butler.

  “He’s with a customer in his office. You’ll have to wait.”

  “No problem,” I said, but she was already talking on the phone, wheedling money from a slow-paying customer.

  I wandered into the hallway. It ended at a door marked Employees Only. I glanced into the office. All four women were hard at work, and I sure didn’t want to disturb them by asking permission, so I walked down the hall and pushed through the door.

  The production area of Butler Manufacturing was a maze of long worktables and eight-foot-high shelves spread beneath a steel-girder roof. Fluorescent light fixtures dangled overhead from long, thin wires. From where I stood, I could see a few dozen workers—men and women, young and old. Some were pushing handcarts or stocking or emptying shelves. But most were busy at their worktables. A few people glanced my way, but no one ran over to throw me out, so I began strolling about.