The Hardest Part (A James Bishop Short Story) Read online

  There was my marker.

  I sat on a space on the fallen trunk that was mostly free of moss and keyed in to my cell phone one of the numbers I’d unearthed during the early hours of that morning, while waiting for the rest of the world to wake up.

  After five rings, a deep groggy voice said, ‘Walters. Whossis?’

  ‘This is Bishop,’ I said, quietly. ‘We met briefly yesterday afternoon.’

  There was a brief pause. Then, ‘New York. What do you want? And how’d you get my home number anyway?’

  Ignoring the second question altogether, I said, ‘Listen, Sheriff, would I be right in assuming that you’d very much like to know the whereabouts of Leonard Williamson, AKA Leonard Maybourne? Because he’s currently about a hundred feet away from me. Or should I say, what’s left of him is.’

  Another pause. ‘You’re saying he’s dead?’

  ‘And has been for a long time. One of the two men responsible is currently in the process of digging him up so he can rebury him somewhere else, and I think it would be a good idea if you got yourself over here before he finishes.’

  ‘Bishop, if this is some kind of gag—’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Give me a name, then.’

  ‘I’ll give you two. Calvin Wilcox and Bobby Fairlane. Calvin’s the one doing the digging. Last time I checked, Bobby was at his place, sleeping off a bad hangover.’

  Walters sighed and said, ‘I’m not even gonna ask. Okay, where are you?’

  I gave him the general area first, then said, ‘How well do you know the woods in this section of town?’

  ‘I spent most of my childhood in ’em. Just tell me what you see and I’ll find you.’

  I’d barely begun describing the dry creek and the fallen oak when he interrupted me with, ‘Stop right there, I know exactly where you are.’

  ‘I hoped you might. And I’d advise you to come alone and with the minimum of noise, Sheriff. Calvin’s pretty paranoid right now.’

  ‘I’ll be there in less than seven minutes. Just stay where you are and wait for me. And don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘Just get here,’ I said, and ended the call.

  Pocketing the phone, I got to my feet and rubbed my eyes. I’d done my part. Now all I had to do was wait and let Walters handle the rest. Even so, I knew he was sure to have plenty of questions for me once he had Calvin and Bobby in custody, and I needed to make sure I had good answers to each and every one of them.

  With that in mind, I was about to head back to my previous position near the burial site when I heard the rustle of leaves behind me, and I turned and saw the fearsome sight of a grinning Bobby Fairlane less than four feet away, running straight at me.

  His right arm was already pulled back, his fist ready to fly.

  Instinctively I backed away, but too late. He was practically on top of me already. I saw the huge fist rushing towards my face, and there was a brief flash of light followed by a sharp sensation in my right cheek and my right eye, and the next moment the ground was rushing up towards me.

  XIV

  As I landed the pain began to kick in, and I could feel myself close to blacking out. The power behind the punch had been tremendous. The vision out my right eye was nothing but a foggy blur, and my head felt like it could explode at any moment. I fought against the darkness threatening to take over, knowing that Bobby was likely getting ready to tear me apart. Especially after what I’d put him through.

  I had to get up. That was the most important thing. If I didn’t get up, I was dead. Pressing an unsteady hand against the dirt, I pushed myself off the ground, expecting to see Bobby’s sneaker already rushing towards my face.

  But Bobby wasn’t there.

  Instead I caught a brief glimpse of the big man speeding off in the direction of Calvin, and then I immediately lost sight of him amongst all the foliage. So it was Calvin he’d come to see. I was merely a bonus. Fighting the dizziness, I got myself to my feet somehow and then I stumbled off in the same direction.

  Just a few seconds later I heard the sharp crack of a gunshot from somewhere up ahead and I sped up. Or tried to. I don’t know how much time passed before I reached the burial site, probably only a few seconds, but the moment I reached the open space I leaned against the nearest tree and tried to focus with my one good eye. I saw Calvin standing near the grave, gripping the same .38 Special I’d spotted in his bedroom drawer. He was aiming it at Bobby, who had his back to me. He was about ten feet away from Calvin, on one knee with one hand pressed against his left shoulder.

  ‘Double-crossing piece of shit,’ Calvin said. ‘Always knew it was a mistake trusting someone with your brains. Went and sold me out to the first asshole who came along, didn’t you? I should have known better.’

  Bobby said nothing. He got to his feet again, then slowly removed his hand from his shoulder and stared down at his palm, which I could see was drenched in blood.

  ‘But it’s a good thing you came now,’ Calvin said, pulling back the hammer again, ‘’cause it’s just as easy to bury two bodies as one. So long, dummy.’

  Bobby looked up at the gun that was aimed at him, then gave an animal roar and launched himself at his old friend. I don’t where he got the strength from, but he just sprinted towards Calvin like a rocket. Calvin shrieked something I didn’t catch and raised the gun and fired point blank at him. The explosion echoed throughout the woods and I know he couldn’t have missed from that range, but the big man didn’t even slow down. Clearly beyond pain, he just kept on running forward.

  ‘Die, you freak,’ Calvin shouted, and fired a third time. Then a fourth. And a fifth. I was sure each shot hit home.

  But Calvin didn’t have time for another shot before Bobby was on him, pushing him to the ground with both his hands around the man’s throat. Calvin struggled fitfully and clutched at Bobby’s face with his left hand, while his right pressed the barrel of the gun into Bobby’s side.

  I heard a final muffled explosion and Bobby jerked once from the impact, then he went back to the job of squeezing the life out of Calvin, blood gushing from his wounds now, drenching the man underneath him.

  ‘I ain’t no dummy!’ he screamed, still throttling Calvin. ‘You’re the dumb one. You, not me!’

  I stayed where I was and just watched. There was nothing I could do, even if I’d wanted to. They were both dead, one dying just a little more slowly than the other.

  Soon Calvin stopped struggling altogether and his arms went limp as the life finally left his body. Bobby either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He just kept on squeezing. Finally, it got through to him that he was wasting his time. He removed his hands from the dead man’s throat and looked up at the trees above him as he swayed from side to side.

  Then, without any fanfare, he just keeled over to the side and lay still.

  He didn’t move again. His upper body was a red mess, and I was amazed that he’d lasted as long as he did. But then, rage was always a good motivator. I stayed where I was and waited. A few minutes passed before I heard the rustle of movement from somewhere behind me. I called out, ‘Over here, Sheriff,’ and Walters came into view shortly after.

  He was dressed in casual clothes this time, and gripping a .357 in his right hand. But he looked wide awake. I didn’t see anybody else with him. He scowled at me briefly, then went over to the two bodies on the ground.

  ‘Heard the shots while I was running,’ he said. ‘So, Calvin Wilcox and Bobby Fairlane, as plain as day. Jesus, what a mess.’ He studied the partially dug grave. ‘And I assume the body of Leonard Maybourne is down there somewhere too?’

  ‘I’d put money on it,’ I said. ‘And I’m not even a betting man.’

  ‘So what the hell happened here?’

  ‘They killed each other.’

  ‘I got eyes in my head, Bishop. Do better.’

  So I gave him a blow-by-blow account of what had transpired here today, and then summarized the events leading up to it – or most
of them – all the way back to the robbery at the factory two years before. ‘I already had doubts about Lenny being the one behind that robbery,’ I said, ‘but after Kim told me she’d actually informed Lenny that he was going to be a father, I knew it couldn’t be him. It just didn’t fit with what I knew of the guy. So, clearly, somebody else did the job and framed him for it and then got rid of him somehow. And Calvin had the best motive. Lenny had stolen his girlfriend, after all. Even went as far as to father her baby, which must have really pissed him off.’

  ‘And Bobby?’ Walters asked.

  ‘Bobby was a loyal pal who did whatever Calvin asked him to do without question. I don’t know which one killed Lenny, but it doesn’t really matter. They were both in on it.’

  Walters stayed silent for a few moments, thinking over what I’d told him. Then he said, ‘So, basically, you played these two bozos against each other in the hope that one of ’em would end up leading you to the body.’

  ‘It was the best plan I could come up with,’ I said, rubbing my right eye. I still couldn’t see much out of it, and the headache was getting worse. ‘Anyway, it worked.’

  ‘I guess it did at that. Now I got a whole bunch of other questions for you, Bishop, but the one that’s really bugging me is this: what the hell is Leonard Maybourne to you?’

  It was an entirely reasonable question. So I told him.

  XV

  I parked on the street and switched off the BMW’s engine and sat there for a moment, looking at the modest two-storey clapboard house across the way. It was 15.23. Back at the Sagamore police station, after I’d finished answering Walters’ interminable questions and signed my official statement, I’d headed out to Cartright’s to hand over the rest of the balance in exchange for my vehicle before driving straight here.

  I’d chosen to omit one or two things in my statement, of course – such as my visit to EZ-AXS Storage last night, and my hiding the knapsack full of stolen money in Bobby’s bedroom cupboard this morning – but essentially it was correct. One of Walters’ deputies searched Bobby’s place earlier and found the knapsack where I’d hidden it, so even if Walters did have any suspicions about me he wasn’t about to rock the boat. Why should he? Not only had he finally closed the book on an almost mythical robbery and recovered the money, but he’d also solved the mystery of the missing Leonard Maybourne. Not a bad day’s work for an understaffed sheriff’s department in the ass end of nowhere.

  But for me, there was still this one last loose end to tie up.

  I got out of the car and walked down the empty driveway towards the front door. I knocked and after a short wait the door was opened and Kim Riley looked out at me with a puzzled expression on her face. I also noticed a faint, purplish discolouration over her left eye. It wasn’t exactly a shiner, but it wasn’t far off. I could guess who was responsible for it.

  ‘Hello, Kim,’ I said.

  ‘It’s you again,’ she said. ‘What is it this time? More questions about Lenny and me? On today of all days?’

  ‘So I assume Sheriff Walters has already talked to you, then?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, he came to see me at the shop a few hours ago. He told me about finding …’ She puffed her cheeks and let out a long exhale. ‘About finding Lenny in the woods. And Calvin and Bobby too, of course. He mentioned you were there, as well.’

  ‘I was there,’ I said, waving a hand at the bruising on the right side of my face. It still hurt, but it didn’t look as bad as I’d expected. ‘That’s where I got this, courtesy of Bobby. I assume Calvin was responsible for yours.’

  ‘Yeah. Last night I finally did what I should have done months ago and told him it was over between us. Except I forgot to duck in time. Maybe I should have just waited another day, huh?’ The girl sighed. ‘Sheriff Walters said your name’s Bishop, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right. You mind if I come in and talk with you for a moment?’

  After a brief pause, she pulled the door open all the way and said, ‘I guess.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I stepped inside and followed her into a neat little living room, with a couch and some chairs and various toys strewn all about the floor. Her daughter, Lisa, was sitting on the floor and busy stacking some large plastic multi-coloured building blocks. She looked up at me as I entered and said, ‘’Lo.’

  ‘Hi, Lisa,’ I said, but the little girl had already gone back to playing with her blocks.

  ‘Sit where you like,’ Kim said, and sat on the chair nearest to her daughter. ‘You want a coffee or anything?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, and sat on the couch. ‘Your sister not around?’

  ‘Beth’s at work today. She still doesn’t know about any of this, though, and it’s not something you can really talk about over the phone. She’ll be back in a couple of hours and I’ll tell her then. She’s gonna freak when she hears, I know that.’

  ‘What about you, Kim? How are you handling it?’

  ‘Well, I took a Valium earlier, so I’m okay for now. And having Lisa with me helps.’

  ‘It must have all come as something of a shock.’

  ‘You’re not kidding. Especially when you hear it all in one go.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But Calvin always had that look about him where you thought he might be capable of anything, and he was always real jealous over me too. Maybe that was part of the attraction when I was younger, I don’t know. And Bobby was always a pretty scary guy, too, so the two of them being behind that robbery at the factory didn’t come as a major surprise really. But hearing that they also murdered Lenny really shook me. And it still does. I guess I never suspected what Calvin was really capable of.’ As she looked over at her daughter playing, she wiped at her eyes with the palm of her hand. ‘Poor Lenny. He deserved better.’

  ‘He did,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, so am I. I kind of accepted that Lenny was gone for good two years ago, but it still hurts inside, you know?’

  ‘It’s bound to. He’s Lisa’s father, after all.’

  Still watching her daughter, she said, ‘Yeah, well, at least now when Lisa eventually asks about her old man I won’t have to lie about him being a decent guy. It’s not much, but it’s something.’ She turned back to me. ‘Look, no offence, Bishop, but you still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with you.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here now. To explain. And to tie things up as best I can.’

  ‘Tie what up? I don’t get you.’

  ‘Well, the reason I’m here at all is because of a man named Jacob Maybourne.’

  She frowned. ‘Maybourne? That was Lenny’s name. Before he switched to Williamson.’

  ‘That’s right. Jacob was his father. He and Lenny had been estranged from each other for a long time.’

  ‘But Lenny told me both his parents were already dead.’

  ‘He also told you his surname was Williamson, so I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t above stretching the truth when it came to his own background.’

  ‘You got a point there. So, what, are you like a private detective?’

  I smiled. ‘Far from it. No, I’m more like a friend of the family. See, many years ago Jacob and I both served in the Marine Corps. At the time he was a master gunnery sergeant while I was just a sergeant, but after I helped him out in a sticky situation in a bar one time we broke rank and ended up pretty good friends. We both left the service at about the same time, too, and while I went into the close protection racket he started his own lumber business and became pretty successful. But he always kept in touch and every now and then he’d invite me to come see him and his family in Florida. And I’d usually go.’

  ‘So you knew Lenny from back then?’

  I nodded. ‘I watched him grow up, but only at a distance and with long gaps between each sighting. Not enough to really get to know him too well, but well enough. Then about six years ago, Jacob and his wife, Patricia, were involved in an auto accident one night, and whil
e Jacob came out of it with just a couple of broken bones, Patricia’s injuries were more serious and she died from internal bleeding. Lenny was nineteen at the time, and he blamed his dad for her death. That same day, Lenny packed his bags and warned his dad not to bother looking for him and left. Jacob never saw him again.’

  Kim furrowed her brow. ‘Was this Jacob to blame for the accident?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know all the details so who can say? Anyway, for a number of reasons I didn’t see much of Jacob after that, until two months ago when he called me out of the blue and said he needed to talk with me. So I went to his place and he looked pretty sick. When I asked what was wrong, he told me he was suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia and that it was eating him up at a rate of knots and he only had a few weeks left to live. Anyway, we talked for a while and he told me the hardest part of dying wasn’t the dying itself, but not having his son at his bedside during his last moments. So when he finally got around to asking me if I’d locate Lenny before he went, I wasn’t about to refuse.’

  ‘Poor old guy,’ Kim said. ‘But if Lenny was using a phoney name—’

  ‘Right. It takes time to track down somebody under their own name, even for a qualified PI or skip tracer, and I’m neither. Anyway, long story short, three weeks ago Jacob succumbed to his illness before I’d made any real headway, which in hindsight was probably for the best. Naturally, I didn’t see much point in going on with my search until I received a call from Jacob’s lawyer a few days after the funeral. And he informed me that Jacob had made me the executor of his will, in which he’d left his entire estate to his sole surviving relative, Lenny. Since I wasn’t about to refuse a dying friend’s last request, that meant I was back on the job again.’

  Kim nodded. ‘So how big is this estate, or is it a secret?’