The Geography of Murder Read online

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  subs balked at that final surrender. Jason had not only met my advances with enthusiasm, but pushed me further than I had meant to go.

  He wasn't awake when I left. I hoped he got his rest. I had plans for him tonight.

  She slapped her desk and stood up. "Come on, let's hit the road before he comes back to find out how messed up his senior detective is this morning."

  I followed her out to sign out a car. We had a busy day ahead.

  Our first stop was the victim's son, who lived in a condo near the ocean front. Raymond Dutton was a stout forty-something man who favored leisure suits and scuffed Adidas.

  He waved us in, apologized for the mess and promptly lit a cigarette. An overflowing ashtray sat on the glass topped side table. Beside it was a pale leather recliner he sank into.

  Though it was barely nine in the morning, a glass of suspicious brown liquid sat beside the ashtray. The chair squeaked when he moved.

  I started off with the normal spiel, "We're sorry for you loss, Mr. Dutton." We hadn't delivered the notification yesterday. That onerous task landed in someone else's lap. It was the part of my job I hated most. My dead people always seemed to hover over my shoulder as I broke the news to loved ones.

  He nodded his grizzled head, a shock of silvering hair falling over his forehead. He brushed it back. Flicked ash into the ashtray. He pointed at a sofa opposite him and Nancy and I sat.

  133

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  "We need to ask you a few questions, if you're up to it," I said.

  "What kind of questions?"

  "We just need to find out more about who your father was.

  Maybe get an idea of who might want to cause him harm."

  "My father was a sweet old man who never harmed anyone. I don't understand any of this—"

  "Yes, Mr. Dutton. These tragedies never make any sense,"

  I said. If the rumors and unfiled charges were true, Dutton senior had harmed more than his share of vulnerable children. I wondered if his son had a clue. Maybe even been a victim himself. With some people, denial ran deep.

  "I understand your father was in the Army? How long did he serve?"

  "My father was drafted to fight over in Korea when he turned eighteen. He went because he didn't know what else to do." Dutton shook his head and stared down at his drink.

  "It was a terrible war and he did terrible things..." He drained his glass. His haunted eyes met mine. The guy knew. He knew and it broke his heart. "They forced him to go over there then complained when they turned him into a monster."

  I don't think I've ever heard that excuse from a child molester; that the US Army had turned them into one.

  "Did he ever talk about his war years? A lot of men, they prefer to forget what they saw. Kind of a conscious amnesia."

  Another head shake. "No, he wouldn't talk about it. Not unless he went on one of his benders. Excuse me..." Dutton got up with his glass and retreated to the other side of the room where he poured himself another tumbler of joy juice 134

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  from what looked like a bottle of Crown Royal. The guy drowned his sorrows with some top-shelf booze. He sat back down in his recliner, looking sullen.

  "He talked about his Korean experiences, then?" I prodded.

  "He did. You have to understand something. My father was a sensitive man. He liked people and he didn't harbor any bigotry. But when he started drinking it was like another man emerged. A foul, hate-filled man." His voice broke and he gulped more whiskey. "He spewed filth about the gooks and the chinks and lousy trolls he had to work with. How this Lieutenant or that Sergeant needed fragging. The next day he wouldn't remember a thing. He was so tormented. They broke him then discarded him like a used roll of toilet paper."

  Clearly Dutton had plenty of time to build up resentment over the years.

  Nancy leaned forward, her hands folded in her lap. "Sir, how often did you see your father in the last six months?"

  "I tried to go once a week, but sometimes business kept me away, family..." He gave us a haunted look, asking for our forgiveness, like his neglect had caused this tragedy. "I was there for a few minutes the day before..."

  Nancy could turn on motherly gentleness like a faucet. She cranked it on full force now. "How long had he been like that?

  Dementia, right? When did the doctors diagnose him? That must have been devastating to your family."

  "Dementia and liver cancer. You have no idea. After the ugly things they said about my dad, then that."

  135

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  "Must have been rough," Nancy was all sympathy. I knew she had stronger feelings about child molesters than I did.

  The words castration and hot vats of oil often came up in her conversations. But I knew she could be all honey during an interview. Just like she could turn into a cobra in an instant.

  So far Dutton registered as honest on my bull-shit-o'meter. He had nothing but grief for his father and had compartmentalized the horror of what his father was so he could still love the man. It never ceases to amaze me what people are capable of believing when the motive is strong enough.

  It was time to bring this interview back on track.

  "Can you think of anyone who had it in for your father?"

  "I think it all the time. When people found out, and God knows they always seemed to find out, the threats would start. We moved here a year ago when he started getting sick. We thought we'd finally found some peace."

  "What happened, Mr. Dutton?" Nancy leaned forward. She would have touched him ever so gently if she were close enough. "Did the threats start again?"

  "I don't know ... I mean there was something, but was it a threat? I don't know."

  "Tell us, sir. If we know what it was maybe we can say if it was a threat and who made it."

  "I can do better than that." Dutton jumped to his feet.

  He'd had enough booze to make him wobbly. He righted himself then charged out of the room, to return seconds later with a shoebox he thrust at Nancy. "See, this is what those bastards sent dad while he was in the home. And they have 136

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  the gall to call him a monster. I already opened it ... you'll see."

  Nancy pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves and held the box, testing its weight. She moved it gently. Something slid around inside it. Finally she eased the lid up and peered inside. She grimaced and passed it over to me.

  I took the lid off. Inside, on a crisp bed of pale blue tissue paper, lay a bird. A crow, I thought. Dead, but ... I took a cautious sniff. No smell of decay. "How long ago was this delivered?"

  "A week, week and a half, maybe."

  "Who was it addressed to?"

  "My father."

  "Any return address? Do you still have the address label?

  It may have a post mark—"

  "I don't think it was mailed. I think it was dropped off in our mailbox when we were at the hospital visiting dad."

  "Was there a note of any kind? Any sort of message?"

  Nancy asked.

  "No, just that."

  We looked down at the bird in the box.

  Gingerly I reached in and picked the thing up all the while thinking of Jason and his bird fixation. Jesus, could he have

  ... No, I refused to believe it. I had to get home and ask him.

  I kept my panic to myself and hefted the bird in one hand. It was surprisingly light. I touched the glossy black breast and stared into the shiny black eye. And leaned closer. The eye was glass.

  "It's stuffed. It's a stuffed bird."

  137

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  "What kind?" Nancy asked.

  "I don't know," I said with some exasperation. "I don't know any
thing about birds. But I know someone who does." I swung around to face Nancy. "You got your camera with you?"

  "No, but I've got my cell and it has a camera."

  I instructed her to take several shots from various angles.

  "Email them to me, will you?" I instructed her.

  She did, then stuffed the cell back in her bag.

  Back to business. "Why would someone send you a stuffed bird? What's the message in that?"

  "I don't know." Dutton was distressed.

  "Do you know any taxidermists? Did your father?"

  "Taxi—No, is that who did this?"

  "A taxidermist would have had to prepare the thing. Guess we have to start looking at taxidermists. How many can there be in Cali?" I muttered.

  "We'll get back to that." Nancy's impatience showed. "Was that the only incident you remember?" she asked Dutton.

  "Did anything happen after the dead bird was delivered?"

  Dutton squinted as he struggled to remember. I'm sure the booze didn't help. "Do you know a man by the name of George Blunt?" I asked.

  "Blunt? No, I don't think so. Is he the person who did that to my father?"

  "No, he didn't."

  "Then who is he?"

  "That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it?" I repacked the stuffed bird into the box and closed the lid. I 138

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  bagged it in a plastic evidence bag and with my permanent marker I wrote the date and location of the recovered object.

  I'd include a more detailed history of it in my reports. "Where did your father serve in Korea? When was he there?"

  "His enlistment period was from July 1951 to June of '52."

  Dutton's face darkened. "It was '52 when the Army started making those wild accusations."

  "What accusations?" Nancy did her maternal 'I really care'

  voice again. "It's important that we know, Mr. Dutton. May I call you Raymond?"

  My partner was a sly one. That was okay. I wasn't above playing the same game when we interviewed a woman.

  "S-sure. That would be nice." Dutton shot me a look as though wondering where I stood in Nancy's life. I smiled at him encouragingly. He turned his full focus on Nancy. "I'm afraid the Army had it wrong. He never did those things to those village children. He loved kids. He was always coaching them or being a camp counselor for underprivileged kids.

  They were always so grateful—" He froze as though aware of what he was saying. "I don't mean that. I know that's what that prosecutor thought. She wanted to throw my father in jail because of the lies some gook brat told her."

  "Thank you, Mr. Dutton," Nancy said, cool as mountain ice.

  She stood up. I followed, clutching the box in one gloved hand. "We'll get back to you with any new developments."

  We made it to the car before she reacted to his words.

  "Jesus, you see how fast he turned? Guess daddy raised him well."

  139

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  "Think he had anything to do with Dutton's demise? Lot of strong emotion there. He has to resent the cloud the old man brought into their lives. How many times did they move because the local League for Decency ran them out of town?

  Kid's gotta grow up with a shit load of bad feelings about that. Or maybe daddy diddled him, too."

  "But why wait until the old man's on death's door before enacting his revenge? I think the military record needs investigating, both Dutton's and Blunt's. That's going to take a federal warrant. Plus I want a warrant for Blunt's place. We never considered it a crime scene, since we know the murder occurred on the boat. But I want to look the place over." I rolled my wrist over and checked my watch. "Want to grab some lunch? Go over some strategy for the rest of the day?

  We'll have to ask Garcia about pursing the warrant for the military records."

  "Sure. Let's drop this feathered doorstop off to forensics first. You want to meet someplace?"

  "IHOP suit you?"

  It did. Over a lunch that included three cups of black coffee, much to Nancy's amusement, we discussed the people we wanted to talk to, the angles we needed to run down. I'd write up the warrant to search Blunt's home this afternoon and get it into a judge by day's end. We could do the search first thing tomorrow.

  "Unis are running a canvass of the staff and residents at the home," I said. "Anything pops they'll let us know and we can do follow-up interviews. We need to follow that with those records searches. Check state databases. Maybe NCIC."

  140

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  I scribbled notes through lunch. We bounced ideas off each other until we had the whole week mapped. We would split up for the rest of the day, then meet back at the station at four to transcribe our notes. That way we'd have something to hand to the anxious Garcia in the morning and just maybe I could get him off my back.

  After we parted in the IHOP parking lot I returned to Rancho Verde, where I spent the afternoon interviewing the staff with the most day-to-day contact with Dutton senior. I came away with the sense that no one knew he was accused of anything. They saw him as a frail old man who was terminal when he came to them.

  I couldn't see any reason why anyone, even someone grieving over a distant event in the past, would bother to kill the guy at this point. I returned to the station before Nancy.

  When she came in I was buried in reports. I flipped one hand at her and never took my eyes off the screen in front of me.

  Later I took a break from keying in data, leaned back in my chair and stretched kinks out of my muscles. "Find anything?"

  "One old coot who used to run deliveries to the home.

  Over the counter drugs, pizza, groceries for those who were still mobile. He brought Dutton things—magazines, the odd newspaper. The magazines were catalogs for kids clothing stores. Guy thought he had grandkids he was buying for.

  Pretty blatant, you ask me. Cigarettes once, though there was no smoking allowed on the grounds. He thought that was quite scandalous. You come up with anything?"

  141

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  "A back that's killing me and calluses on my fingers from taking notes." I waved my hand. The wall clock told me it was time to go. I stood.

  "I'm outta here."

  "Got plans for tonight?" she asked, too casually.

  "Not one," I said cheerfully. "Going home and I can just about promise you I'll be going to bed early."

  "Yeah, well stop doing whatever it is you're doing."

  "I assure you—"

  "Yeah, yeah. Put it in writing. I'll see you tomorrow."

  I didn't think she needed to know that the source of my exhaustion was waiting for me back at my place.

  Some things are better left unsaid.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  142

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  Jason

  I had no idea at first where I even was. Then I moved under the heavy duvet and remembered. My muscles were so depleted I could barely push the warm cocoon off me, but my bladder demanded action and I obeyed. I shuffled through to the bathroom and stared groggily into the mirror over the sink. God, was that really me? My eyes were burning coals in a too pale face. Burns from Alex's beard left my face and neck red and raw. My lips looked like he'd chewed on them.

  Maybe he had. My hair was a rat's nest. I didn't even want to think what my mouth tasted like. I ached in places I didn't know I had. But over it all, I was tired but sated, relaxed into a place I had never been. It felt like home.

  Not ready to face the world I crawled back under the covers and let myself drift in and out of sleep. The bed smelled so much like Alex that I dozed in a semi-permanent state of hardness. Memories of last night kept me that way.

  I'd done some bondage play in the past when someone asked for it, but I had n
ever really gotten into the scene. But last night ... surrendering so completely to another person had been totally liberating. I had felt and done things I had never imagined possible before. I'm pretty sure Alex had the same experience. Certainly his enthusiasm had burned through the night and I was amazed he could get up and go to work today. It was safe to say neither one of us got much sleep.

  143

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  As I drifted down into a deeper sleep I wished Alex would come home. I needed him.

  Eventually I woke up, showered and went in search of something to eat. I wasn't up for anything heavy, so I settled for cold cereal and OJ. And coffee. Lots of coffee. I carried the fourth cup out to the neglected backyard. I had brought my Bushnell binoculars from home. I slid into the Adirondack chair and fell to scanning the shaggy crowns of white-limbed sycamores, twisted ficus and bare branches of cottonwoods that separated Alex's property from his neighbors.

  In my search through the kitchen I came across a set of house keys. I pocketed them. Alex hadn't given them to me, but he hadn't specifically forbidden me to leave the house, either. As the day lengthened I grew restless. If I'd had my car, I might have driven into town. Instead I decided to take a hike, literally.

  Along with my Bushnells I brought a pair of sturdy hiking boots. I rarely went very far without either.

  I wasn't planning on going far today. Maybe some other time I could plan a more extensive hike. I knew Goleta was in the shadow of the Los Padres National Forest and someday I planned to visit it. For today I would be content to cruise some of the back roads, see if I could scare up anything interesting. Trying not to look like some sissified city boy, I threw on jeans and a flannel shirt over a plain black T-shirt. I hung my binocs around my neck, grabbed a bottle of water from the well-stocked fridge, tested the key on the front door, wrote a short note for Alex—I knew he'd be pissed if he came 144

  Geography of Murder

  by P. A. Brown

  home and didn't find some explanation for my absence—and set off north, out of town.

  Alex lived on the northeastern side of Goleta. It wasn't long before I left the last straggle of houses and small ranches and entered wilder country. Large treed lots and fields of tule and rabbit grass crowded along the lower areas.