Death on the Rocks (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  “Call Mrs. Townsend,” I said.

  “Yeh. And?”

  “Call Clarence DeWitt, her attorney. DeWitt and Associates.”

  “Yeh. And?”

  “Call Lieutenant Patrick MacArthur, Denver Homicide.”

  His expression didn’t change, but something in the air did.

  “And you know him how?”

  “We worked together for a few years.”

  Ives punched out a number on his phone, then looked me in the eye.

  “Lieutenant MacArthur, please.”

  It sounded funny to hear him say “please.”

  Ives said, “Pat, it’s Doug Ives. Good. Say, I’ve got a guy here says he knows you, name of Jacob Lomax. Uh-huh … un-huh … right. Okay, thanks.”

  He hung up.

  “Pat says I can believe anything you say as long as it’s backed up by three witnesses and two of them are my parents.”

  “See?”

  “He also says you used to be a good cop. Why’d you quit?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “Uh-huh.” He punched two digits on his phone. “Gladys, bring me the file on Townsend, Phillip.”

  He put down the receiver and rubbed his chin.

  “Sorry about the rough treatment.”

  “Forget it.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the jerks that parade through here.”

  Gladys brought in a manila folder. She wore a lime-green skirt and sweater, both too tight. Ives and I carefully watched her walk out. Ives flipped through the folder, then pushed it over to me.

  It was all there, routine and thorough. Officer’s report. Autopsy report. Investigator’s report. Some photographs, harshly lit by flash. They showed Townsend lying upslope from the wreck of his car. The Jaguar had been smashed almost beyond recognition. So had Townsend. He was lying on his back with one arm twisted behind him and his legs bent at odd angles. There was blood on his face and clothes. His mouth and his eyes were open, giving him a surprised look. The top of his head was gone.

  The officer’s report described pretty much what was in the photographs. It declared Townsend dead at the scene. No kidding.

  The autopsy report was six pages long, single-spaced. I read part of it.

  ANATOMIC DIAGNOSIS

  Extensive skull fractures and traumatic transection of brain stem.

  TOXICOLOGY

  Blood alcohol 0.110 gm%

  Blood drug screen Negative

  Urine drug screen Negative

  Urine alcohol 0.037 gm%

  Carbon monoxide Negative

  SUMMARY

  Death in this 35-year-old Caucasian male is attributed to transection of the brain stem with loss of the cranial contents through a large fracture of the cranium. These injuries are consistent with the history of an automobile accident with the head having been struck by the upper doorframe, possibly as the automobile rolled over the deceased. Blood alcohol was 0.110 gm%, sufficient to cause impairment of driving ability.

  EXTERNAL EXAMINATION

  This autopsy is performed approximately 10 hours and 30 minutes postmortem. The body is 69 inches long and weighs 162 pounds. Rigor mortis is well established. The scalp is covered with brown hair of medium length. The top of the head has been sheared off, with most of the scalp and portions of the skull remaining attached at the left side. The cranial cavity contains only the medulla oblongata, dura, and uncoagulated blood. All of the cranial bones have multiple, extensive fractures; and the body is accompanied by several pieces of skull in a paper sack and by the brain in a plastic bag. The Zygomatic and maxillary bones on the right side of the face are extensively fractured, as is the mandible on the left side of the face. Blood is present in the external ear canals. …

  I skipped the rest. It was obvious that Townsend had had a rough ride. I said, “If a man were severely beaten—with a weapon, I mean, like a ball bat—he could have a lot of these same injuries.”

  “That’s absolutely true,” Ives said. “He could also have a bruise or two if he rolled a quarter of a mile down a mountain.”

  I turned to the investigator’s report. It concluded that Townsend’s death was accidental, caused by driving under the influence of alcohol. It was signed by Ives.

  I closed the folder and put it on his desk.

  “Oh-point-one-one isn’t exactly drunk,” I said. “That’s what, three or four drinks?”

  Ives shrugged.

  “About. It was too much for him, though.” Before I could argue, he said, “Look, I know what you’re up against. You want what’s best for Mrs. Townsend and she can’t accept the fact that her husband died in a meaningless accident. She’s looking for sense. And there isn’t any.”

  “Maybe. What about suicide?”

  Ives shrugged again. He had the shoulders for it.

  “Possible. But the insurance company said no. They did manage, however, to burn Mrs. Townsend on the settlement.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They determined that Townsend was partly responsible for his own death. Determined last week, in fact. I guess they took their time because of the money involved. If it had been car failure or some other outside cause, they would’ve had to pay her twice as much. An even million.”

  “No kidding?”

  Ives shook his head. “Actually, it’s not too unusual for a car to go off that road. We get one or two a year. Not fatals, of course. This is the first fatal in seven, eight years.” He paused. “Also, we get cars pushed off, but that’s a different story.”

  “What do you mean, pushed?”

  “Junkers, I’m talking about. Kids. They’ll tow a car up there and push it over.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows? Kicks. To hear the crash. Parts of that hill look like a junkyard.”

  We were silent for a moment. Ives drummed his fingers. My time was up.

  I said, “What do you think Townsend was doing up there?”

  He started to shrug, then changed his mind.

  “That bothered me, too, after talking to his wife. But it didn’t relate to the accident. And I can’t spare the manpower to check out details like that. Not on something this obvious. To tell you the truth, though, I did some asking around on my own. Found zip.”

  Now his shoulders humped like fat cats. “Maybe he was up there banging some local broad. He has a few drinks with her, then leaves. He’s tired and a little tipsy. His mind wanders, he dozes, and he misses the curve. It could’ve happened that way. Guess we’ll never know.”

  “I guess.”

  The phone rang.

  Ives answered it, then covered the mouthpiece.

  “Anything else?”

  I got up.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  I started out.

  “Wait.”

  Ives put down the phone and walked me out of his office. Some uniforms were clustered around a desk across the room. Ives waved one over. His name tag said “Berger.” His green-and-gray uniform had creases sharp enough to peel an apple.

  “When do you go off duty?”

  “I’m off now, sir,” Berger said.

  “Okay, do me a favor. You know the place on Lookout where that guy drove over the edge last month?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take this gentleman up there and show him, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I started to tell Ives thanks, but he turned his back and went into his office. I guess he didn’t like long good-byes.

  CHAPTER 4

  BERGER TOOK NINETEENTH STREET across U.S. 6 and started up Lookout Mountain Road. I drove close behind his Camaro. At the base of the mountain there were houses with green lawns and rustic fences. Then the road switched back on itself and rose steeply. The houses gave way to rocky slopes splotched with scrub brush and thin, dry grass.

  We climbed. Six, eight, twelve hundred feet. The drop-off was now on my right, now on my left, as the road hair-pinned back and forth. The guardrail looked s
ubstantial, but I found myself steering toward the center stripe, away from the void. I’d been too long down in the city.

  Up ahead the shoulder widened on the right, the drop-off side.

  Berger pulled over. I stopped behind him and climbed out. We were partway around the mountain from Golden, surrounded by foothills. The air up here was hot and still, dry as kindling.

  Berger took a pair of binoculars from his car.

  “We’ll have to walk,” he said.

  Our heels crunched on the gravel shoulder. Berger stopped after a few hundred feet. The mountain fell straight down from the edge of the road. There was no guardrail here, no room for it. Just a waist-high railing of pipes set in concrete. Some of the pipes were missing.

  “Here’s where he went off.”

  A rock outcrop jutted out a hundred feet directly below us. Then the mountain sloped steeply away for a few thousand feet. Sunlight glinted on the glass and metal of a dozen derelict cars tossed among the rocks. At the bottom of the slope was Clear Creek, with U.S. 6 following it upstream into the Rockies. A cluster of houses squatted on this side of the creek.

  “He came through this opening, hit there, then bounced down to that yellow truck.”

  Berger handed me the glasses.

  I focused them on the rusted hulk of a pickup, maybe a Ford, its doors gone and its cab smashed down level with the bed.

  “A woman in one of those houses saw the headlights go over. She called it in.”

  “Where’s Townsend’s car?”

  “I don’t know. We impounded it to check for mechanical failures. There were none. We released it to the insurance company and I’d say they probably junked it.”

  Berger glanced back toward his car. He wanted to go.

  “How’d you get it off the mountain?”

  “We brought a big-ass tow truck right here, lowered a cable, and pulled it up.”

  I handed Berger his binoculars.

  “Is it certain that Townsend was driving down the road and not up?”

  “No question,” Berger said. “He left paint here on the railing, and glass and a headlight ring on those rocks. The angle says he was coming down the road.”

  “How fast?”

  “Not very, or he would have hit farther out. Fifteen, maybe twenty miles an hour.”

  “Any skid marks?”

  Berger shook his head. “Are we through up here?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  We walked back to the cars. Berger climbed in the Camaro.

  “You’d think there’d be skid marks,” I said.

  He leaned out the window. “Not if he went off on purpose.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “You saw the opening. He’d have to be aiming for it to hit it. He didn’t swerve or skid. If he falls asleep at the wheel, it’s a thousand to one that he’d leave the road at that exact spot. Am I right?”

  “Could be. Thanks for your help.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  He fired the engine, made a U-turn, and roared down the mountain. Probably on his way to his woman. Or a cold beer. Or both.

  I got in the Olds and headed up the road.

  The pavement wound around the backside of the mountain and found its way into tall pines. I drove through sunlight and shadow.

  Inspector Ives believed Townsend’s death had been an accident. Deputy Berger believed suicide. I wasn’t too sure about either theory. And I didn’t have much to go on. Drinking. Townsend drank his four final drinks someplace. Maybe I could find out where.

  I came out of the trees and into the sun. I was on top of the mountain. Below me and to the east, miles of flat land stretched to the distant city and beyond to the horizon. A hundred and fifty years ago it had been barren plains and muddy creeks. Now it was paved and planted and subdivided and crowded with two million souls. A big cow town trying hard to be a city.

  The road curved away from the view and turned south. I drove past a stand of radio towers, then a restaurant with boarded windows, then a motel with boarded windows.

  Then a bar. It was open.

  It was the type of place a man in Townsend’s class would avoid. I kept going. After a few miles the main road was intersected by a dozen access roads leading to mountain homes and a couple of subdivisions. Hundreds of houses.

  I could start knocking on doors and showing Townsend’s picture and asking if he’d been over for drinks. Or I could go back to the bar and have a cold one myself.

  I drove back to the bar.

  The sign said “Mountain Man Saloon. Dancing. Live Music. Closed Mondays.” Today was Wednesday.

  I parked the Olds in the gravel lot between a faded GMC pickup and three bikes. Bikers’ bikes. Lowslung Harleys with fat rear tires and sissy bars shaped like gladiators’ weapons.

  I pushed through the front door.

  Inside, it was dim and cool and loud. The bar ran along one wall. The rest of the place was filled with an empty stage, an empty dance floor, and dozens of empty tables. The noise was coming from the only occupied table. Three men and two women. They belonged to the bikes out front. They were drinking pitchers and shots. They didn’t invite me over, so I sat at the bar.

  There were two guys on stools down from me. Painters, with speckled coveralls. They ordered another round from the bartender. They called him Al. He brought them long-necked bottles of Bud. They sipped beer and cast nervous glances at the biker table.

  Al came over and I ordered a draw. When he set it in front of me, I had Townsend’s picture out.

  “Ever seen him?”

  Al squinted down at the photograph.

  He was a small man with a bow tie. His forearms were pink from years of washing glasses. He was bald on top, and tried to hide it with a few strands of lacquered hair.

  “Lots of people come in here,” he said. “Weekends you wouldn’t believe this place.”

  “Does he look familiar at all?”

  Al shook his head. “Who is he?”

  “Name’s Phillip Townsend. He drove off the mountain about six weeks ago.”

  “Hey, I read about that.” He picked up the photo.

  The bikers yelled for more beer.

  The painters finished theirs and said good-bye to Al.

  Al went back to the photo. “Bad way to go, a wreck like that.”

  “Not many good ways,” I said.

  “More fucking beer!”

  “That’s a fact,” Al said.

  “You’re sure you don’t recognize him?”

  “Hey goddammit, more fucking beer!”

  “Pretty sure,” he said to me, then yelled over my shoulder, “I’m not the waitress! You want more beer, you come up here!” He looked at me meekly. “Sorry. Darn kids.” He handed back the photo. “I think I would have remembered him. We don’t get too many suits in here.”

  There was movement in the mirror behind the bar. A couple of partygoers were making their way to the front.

  “You here all the time?”

  “Pretty much,” Al said. “I’ve got help comes in at five.”

  “Would you mind if I talked to them?”

  “Heck, no.”

  “We want some more fucking beer.”

  He was tall, wiry, and drunk. Stringy brown hair hung from his head and face. He wore a black T-shirt, crusty leather vest, and greasy jeans with a chain for a belt. His motorcycle boots were broken down from shifting gears and kicking puppies. “Duke” was stitched on his vest over his heart, if he had one.

  “Two pitchers,” he said to Al, but he was eyeing me. “What the fuck you looking at?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Asshole.”

  Duke’s girlfriend was more friendly. She put her elbow on the bar and her crotch against my leg. Her leather vest was tied in front with a thong. I got a good look at a creamy white breast. She was about twenty-five going on fifty.

  She belched. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “H
is name is Creep,” Duke said.

  Girlfriend threw back her head and made a sound like a goose. I figured she was laughing. She had a molar missing, upper right.

  “Why’ncha join us, Mr. Creep,” she said, and gave me her goose imitation again.

  “Some other time,” I said.

  Duke paid for the pitchers and picked them up. Foam ran down his hands.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “I’m gonna stay here with Mr. Creep.”

  She put her hand on my leg and I picked it off. Duke set down one of the pitchers, careful not to spill any. Then he slapped her hard across the back of the head. She fell into me. I said, “Hey,” and caught her and Duke threw an overhand right at my face and I blocked it and slid off the stool and dropped the girl and Duke threw a full pitcher of beer on me and kicked at my groin and I caught it on the leg and the girlfriend jumped on my back and went for my eyes and I tossed her against the bar and hit Duke with a left jab and he swung at me with the empty pitcher and I ducked it and hooked him in the ribs and moved away from a blur on my left and a folding chair crashed into a stool next to me. Duke’s pal raised the chair again and Duke grabbed me from behind. I gave him an elbow and tried to pull him around for a shield.

  A gun boomed and everybody froze.

  Al stood behind the bar with a 12-gauge Remington pump. He jacked another shell into the chamber.

  “The first one was cotton,” he said. “The rest are buckshot.”

  No one had any reason to doubt him.

  “Now you folks go sit down and I’ll bring your beer.”

  Duke let go of me. His buddy put down the chair. They helped the girl off the floor. “Fuck you,” she told me. They went back to their table. Their friends were clapping and laughing it up. They’d enjoyed the show.

  I picked up Townsend’s photo and wiped it off.

  Al put aside the shotgun.

  “Ready for another beer?”

  I looked at him. He was serious.

  I drove back to the city.

  CHAPTER 5

  I LIMPED UP THE stairs to my apartment.

  My leg hurt where Duke had given me the boot. It would hurt worse tomorrow. I peeled off my beer-sticky clothes and took a shower, then fixed a sandwich, popped open a Moosehead, and dug out my notebook.