Delusions With Murder: A Rilynne Evans Mystery (14 page)

Rilynne backed out of the crowd as they began to throw the rotting food at the stage.  It was all she could do to fight off the tears when she came upon Ben again.

He seemed to have added another dozen balloons to the ones he already had in his hand.  “I really don’t want to go to this thing.  It’s just too much to take.  I don’t think I can do it.”

“What thing?” she asked.

“The wedding.  You can’t honestly expect me to do this.  You have to know it’s a mistake.”  He did not look at all like his normal, optimistic self.  Instead, it looked like he was facing something that would tear him apart.  Before she could ask anything else, he turned and walked away.

“Why wouldn’t he want to go to a wedding?” she asked herself aloud. 

Before she could even try to think of a good answer, a loud bang rang our across the grounds.  She turned in the direction of the shot to find the crowds had all vanished.  She ran through the maze of tents, and finally found the source of the heart stopping sound.

Nicole was standing over someone on the ground, wearing a long, white dress.  It would have looked heavenly, had it not been for the bright red splatter covering the front.  When she saw Rilynne, she stepped aside revealing a man on the ground at her feet. 

Rilynne ran forward to find Ben barely conscious, with blood flowing freely out of his chest.

“What happened?” she asked as she frantically tried to stop the bleeding.  She put pressure on the wound, but it did not seem to be doing anything to help.

“I said that I refused to go, that I refused to have any part of it.  Apparently it was the wrong choice, because the clown shot me.  I’m sorry,” he said as he closed his eyes and let out his last breath.

Rilynne stood up, hands covered in blood, and ran.  She didn’t know how she knew which direction to go, but she was positive it was that way.  Sure enough, she rounded the corner and found herself face to face with the clown.  His face was painted black with silver diamonds, and his clothes were set to match.  His eyes had a look of something that chilled her to the bone, pure evil.  In one hand he held the two-dozen balloons, and in the other he had Rilynne’s gun.

“How could you do that?” she yelled at him.  “What did he ever do to you?”

She charged at the clown, not caring that she was unarmed.  She had him cornered, so the only way he was going to get away was through her.  He just let out a wicked laugh and said, “You will never catch me.  I’m right here in front of you, and you can’t even see me.” 

With that, he dropped the balloons in his hand, which floated to the ground.  When the balloons cleared, the clown was nowhere to be found.

What a strange dream, Rilynne thought as she opened her eyes.

Chapter Twelve

T
he phones were already ringing off the hook when Rilynne walked into the station the next morning.  Judging by the look on the officers’ faces, there hadn’t been anything promising.  She even heard two officers talking about a man refusing arrest when they pulled him over for driving intoxicated, because he thought the officer was trying to lure him to his police car to abduct him.  While she did find it slightly amusing, she knew this would only be the beginning.

There was a stack of call reports waiting for her on her desk when she sat down.  Because of the high call volume, the police department was forced to concentrate their attention to the calls that required immediate assistance.  The remaining reports were being logged and given to the detective squad to look into.

Luckily, most of the reports were easy to rule as false alarms.  An eighty-six year old man reported one such case when a teenage boy offered to help him cross the street.  He apparently yelled, ‘You will not take me, devil spawn,’ before running as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Evans, Matthews,” Detective Wilcome called out just before nine.  “The bomb squad cleared the cabin, so the scene is ours.  The crime scene technicians are meeting us there.”

The cabin was almost completely destroyed.  The back wall, which had been made of stone instead of wood, was the only one still standing.  Because the cabin had been so deep in the woods, it had been nearly impossible for the fire department to do anything other than keep the fire from spreading.

“Begin with the house.  I want everything that looks like it could have any connection to the case collected and taken back to the lab.  Then I want the woods searched,” Wilcome said.  “Look for sheds, caves, or hidden bunkers.  Let’s get started.”

The majority of the floor had collapsed, leaving the basement full of burnt debris. It was not hard to find where the hidden room was, though.  “Good call on the basement,” Matthews told her as he stared at the burnt bed in the corner.

“What’s that under the bed?” she asked.

“Where?  I don’t see anything,” he responded.

She hadn’t either, but she knew it must still be there.  “I don’t know, I just thought I saw something.”

Matthews leaned down and started pulling the burnt boards away from the bed.  “Give me a hand with this,” he called to a tech as he handed them off.  “I think you’re right.  I see something… got it.”

He stood back up holding the charred bedpan.  “This looks like blood here on the edge.  We’ll have it tested,” he said as the tech held out an evidence bag. “There’s a good chance it belongs to one of the victims, though.”

They found the cause of the fire in what was left of the kitchen upstairs.  “It is some kind of rudimentary device that caused an explosion just big enough to spark the gasoline that was spread around the house.  The generator was left running, powering the devise so it could be put on a timer,” the arson investigator explained.

The cabin did not provide them much more to go on.  Even the surfaces that did not burn appeared to have been wiped clean.

The woods around the cabin did not give them anything either.  Although there were several caves in the area, the only thing they had accomplished by searching them was discovering where the local kids liked to go to party.  Judging by the amount of empty beer and liquor bottles, they were actually fairly popular hangouts.

“We are going to have fun trying to pull the prints off of all these bottles,” Ben said as he was bagging the last of them.  “You are welcome to help if you would like,” he shot Rilynne a playful smile.

“You know, I think I’m going to be busy later.  I’m going to have to… wash my hair, or something.  Next time, though,” she said.

Ben laughed, “Oh come on, detective.  Dust and a little brush.  What could possibly be more fun than that?”

“You are right, that’s how I have always dreamed of spending my afternoon.  It’s too bad I have all that other stuff to do.”  Rilynne tried hard for her best-disappointed look, but it quickly turned into a smirk.

Ben picked up the two filled boxes and led Rilynne out of the cave.  “You know, some of these bottles are so old that I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of my finger prints on them.  I used to come out here with my friends when we were in high school.  We used to drink and wander around the woods having scavenger hunts.”

“So, what you are telling me is you were participating in underage drinking,” she pulled her notebook out and started scribbling something down.  “And when did you say this happened?”

“Let’s see, somewhere between sophomore year and graduating.  I was drinking, though, so I wouldn’t be able to be more specific.”

She wrote a few more things down, before tearing the page out.  “You are aware underage drinking is a crime, aren’t you Mr. Davis?  I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you a ticket.”  She handed him the piece of paper.  “I noted the fine down there at the bottom.”

Ben looked at it and started laughing.  “One round of drinks?  Now, that is my kind of fine.”

“You can take care of that next time we go out,” she offered, glancing over at him.  He just smiled and responded, “Deal.”

“Hopefully the other caves turned up more than ours did,” Rilynne said as she pushed her way through the brush.  The woods were dense, making it hard to maneuver with the bulky boxes.  They had to backtrack three times to find another way through when their path became too thick to proceed.  After an hour of trudging along, Rilynne finally stopped and looked around.

“We should have been back by now.  Are you sure we are going in the right direction?” she asked. 

“Hey, I was following you.  I’ve been concentrating on not dropping the evidence, not which way we were going.” He sat the boxes down on the leaf littered ground and walked towards a tree at the edge of the path.

“What are you doing?” Rilynne asked when he reached up and grabbed the lowest hanging branch.  “I’m going to find out where we are,” he stated confidently as he pulled himself up the tree.  It took him almost no time at all to reach the top, and even less to make it back to the bottom.  He moved as if climbing was no more difficult than walking, not even pausing to decide where his next step should be. 

“There is a road about a mile that way,” he pointed as he landed back down beside her.  “Then we should be able to take it north back to the cabin.  What?” he asked when he caught sight of the look on Rilynne’s face.

“Are you part monkey or something?” she asked, shifting her gaze up the tree again.  “I have never seen anyone move through trees like that.  It was almost graceful.”

“Well, I don’t know about any monkey ancestors, but I have always liked to climb.  We had a big tree in the back yard that I used to go up when I wanted to get away from things.  It was too high up for the ladder to reach, and no one else could make it to the top.  My mom actually called the fire department once when I refused to come down,” he explained.

“Do you still climb?  You know, other than the occasional tree.”

“My brother got me into rock climbing when I moved in with him.  I will go on weekends sometimes when I don’t have to work.  Have you ever done it?” he asked picking the boxes back up off the ground.

Rilynne let Ben take the lead this time, not wanting to get lost again.  “I went up on one of those rock walls they have at carnivals once, but I’ve never done the real thing.  I have always wanted to, though.  It looks like a lot of fun.”

“I’ll have to take you sometime.  I think you would really enjoy it.  It will be a lot better than any wall at a carnival.”  There was a hint of loathing in his voice.  “I have never liked those places.  It’s the clowns that do it.  They totally creep me out.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she said.  “I actually had a dream about an evil clown last night.” She shuddered thinking back to the events in the dream.  Her dislike for clowns before was nothing compared to what it was now.

“I can’t believe you got us this lost,” Ben said as they stepped out onto the road half an hour later.  “I’m pretty sure we are about two miles from the cabin.”

The road was narrow, barely wide enough for one car to take.  The trees cascading over it provided just enough shade for the hot day. 

“It’s not like I have spent a lot of time out in these woods, and can find my way around like it’s nothing.  I happen to have grown up in a city where there were street signs everywhere telling you exactly where you were,” she said.

The walk back to the cabin seemed to take no time at all.  Other than Detective Wilcome, the other officers and crime scene investigators had already headed back to the station by the time they arrived.

“I was beginning to think that I needed to send out a search party,” Wilcome joked as they walked up.

“Yeah, we got a little turned around.  Did any of the teams turn up anything?” she asked.

“Nothing that stood out, but we are going to test everything.  Did you two have any luck?”  Wilcome asked, taking the top box from Ben and putting it in the back of the van.

Ben sat the other box down and shut the door.  “Just empty bottles.  It looks like a good place to check for underage partying, though.”

Rilynne shot him a quick grin before climbing in the van.

The station was fairly quiet when they got back.  Everyone not actively involved in processing the evidence from the cabin had been called out to investigate the calls coming into the call line.

“I want everything else in the lab put on hold and everyone available working on the evidence from the cabin,” Wilcome told Ben when the elevator doors opened to the third floor.  Ben just nodded as Rilynne and Wilcome stepped out.

Detective Skinner was the only member of the detective unit still in the office when they walked in.  Other than Steele and Tylers, who had gone to the lab to help process the bottles, everyone else had gone to investigate the calls that seemed to be more promising.

“I just received the owner information back on the cabin,” he said, hanging up the phone.  “The property is currently owned by the bank after a foreclosure thirteen months ago.  Prior to that, it was owned by a couple in California who rented it out to campers.  I just left them a message to see if they have records of who rented it.  I’m also trying to track down a…” he flipped through the notes on his desk. “Mr. Russell Turley.  He maintained the property for the owners in between rentals.”

“Good,” Wilcome said.  “Let me know when you are able to get a hold of them.”

“I’m going to go grab us some lunch,” Rilynne said after flipping through the large stack of call reports on her desk.