Watching The Bodies: a Jake Boulder Thriller Read online

  WATCHING THE BODIES

  GRAHAM SMITH

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  A Note from Bloodhound Books:

  Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire

  Confucius

  Copyright © 2017 Graham Smith

  The right of Graham Smith to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  PRINT: 978-1-912175-15-4

  1

  When the woman gets within twenty yards of the body he’s dumped, the Watcher presses his body into the earth and raises his binoculars to his eyes.

  She’s in her mid-fifties and accompanied by a Labrador puppy on a retractable leash. She’s relaxed, enjoying the walk and the time away from the stresses of work and family life.

  Her face is familiar. After a moment’s thought he places her. The woman approaching the body is Mrs Halliburton, his former history teacher.

  As she nears the body, his thoughts float back twenty years to a classroom full of bored children feigning interest in the Civil War. Details about the Confederates, the Union, and various characters like Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant are sketchy at best, yet he has total recall about the looks he shared with Jennifer Braidwood.

  He brings his mind back to the present as he sees the puppy straining at its leash, tail between its legs. Its nose points at the body as clumsy paws scrabble for purchase on the pine needles littering the trail.

  He sees the look on Mrs Halliburton’s face change. She’s spied the bare leg poking out of the bushes, just like he’d planned someone would when he laid the body there. He didn’t plan for her to be the one to find the body, but he did plan for it to be found.

  The Watcher sees her cross herself and rein in the puppy. With it stationed at her heel, she takes short, tentative steps forward until she is at the bush. She lifts one foot and nudges the exposed calf with the toe of her hiking boots.

  He waits for her to realise there won’t be a reaction. Every detail of her face is observed as she travels from concerned to afraid via a short detour to curious. He sees curiosity return.

  A shaking hand reaches out and parts the thin branches of the cottonwood bush. He watches her eyes widen as she sees the damage wrought by his knife.

  He imagines he can hear her gasp as she looks at the body. The mumbled words as she pats her pockets looking for her cell phone.

  Leaving her to her discovery, he rises and slinks through the undergrowth, his ghillie suit casting debris with every step. Five minutes later he is at a new vantage point, deep in the depths of another cottonwood.

  Mrs Halliburton comes down the trail, her feet moving with urgency. He watches as she unlocks a car and removes a cell from a bag.

  With his notes made, he leaves before either the cops or dusk arrive.

  2

  The guy in the check shirt makes two mistakes in quick succession. First, he throws a punch at me. Second, he misses.

  I coil forward from my ducking weave and introduce my forehead to his nose. The crunching thunk is more than a little satisfying.

  Before he has time to gather his wits, I grab him by the wrist, bend his arm up his back and use his already shattered nose to open the door. Giving him just enough of a shove to propel him down the three steps without capsizing him, I turn, ready to deal with anyone else who wants to be a ten-beer hero.

  Walking back into The Joshua Tree, I see three guys holding the one who’d picked the fight. They are having limited success in their efforts to calm him down.

  I have to shout in his ear to make myself heard over the strains of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. ‘I’ve tossed him out because he took a swing at me. You gonna make the same mistake?’

  A shake of the head is all the answer I get. I don’t expect anything more. Tom Kerslake is a local man with an image to keep. Getting his ass handed to him in a public place won’t be high on his wish list.

  I’d been expecting the fight to happen from the moment he’d walked in. A serial cheat himself, he’d been overly aggrieved when his wife indulged in a spot of revenge sex with the oil worker I’ve just ejected.

  Seeing the fight drain out of him, I give a curt nod and retake my position by the bar. From here I can see the whole room and observe everything that’s going on.

  As its name suggests, The Joshua Tree is a rock bar, where even the music has to be twenty-one or older to get in. Frequented by bikers, rockers, and horny women hoping for a bad boy to take home, it is the most profitable bar in Casperton.

  Serving homemade pastrami burgers with a chilli-based fry sauce as a speciality means the Tree, as it is known locally, also turns a steady dime throughout the days.

  I toss drunks every Friday and Saturday night. The extra bucks are always useful and the infrequent scuffles keep my appetite for violence satisfied.

  The MacDonald blood in my veins has a long history of warfare and when it boi
ls hot, I find myself spoiling for a fight.

  Before my mother had remarried and moved us from Glasgow to Utah, my maternal grandfather had taught me how to fight. Not boxing or any kind of martial art. Real everyday fighting. Down and dirty street fighting with fists, elbows and any other part of the body which could be used to inflict pain upon another human being.

  Grandpa’s teachings served me well. My burring Scottish accent got me into plenty of schoolyard fights back in the day. For some reason the local jocks took exception to a cocksure fourteen-year-old landing in their midst and winning the attention of almost every cheerleader.

  The fact I won enough battles to establish myself as handy didn’t help matters any. They just decided to come at me in a group. I put a few of them down before they put me in the emergency room. One by one I dealt with them, until all had received enough of a beating to keep them off my back.

  ‘Hey, Jake, you heard about Kira Niemeyer?’ The question comes from Alfonse Devereaux, whose family had migrated from France to Casperton to work the oilfields around the same time I arrived. Short and puny by nature, his bookish personality had attracted school bullies the way Capitol Hill attracts liars. His black skin hadn’t helped either.

  I’d taken him under my protective wing and we’ve been the best of friends ever since.

  ‘No. Why, what’s she done?’ Kira Niemeyer is one of the local party girls who lives life to the full.

  ‘It’s what’s been done to her. Her body was found up by Kangle’s Bluff. I’ve just had a call from her father. He wants me to look into her death.’ The concern written on his face isn’t just there because he’s never investigated a murder before.

  We’ve both known Kira the way single men know single girls.

  ‘Isn’t it a police matter?’ Alfonse’s detection skills are used to track errant husbands and embezzled money. I help him with the odd stakeout and provide some muscle as required, but the idea of trying to catch a killer is both exhilarating and unnerving.

  Alfonse’s raised eyebrow is enough of an answer. The Casperton Police Department has the mayor’s son and a bunch of his crones as its detectives. Ineffectual and incompetent are two words that spring to mind when thinking about them. The chief of police is a new guy who’s transferred across from somewhere in Idaho, but the detectives on the ground have the investigative skills of a half brick.

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I said I’d need to speak to my partner.’

  Partner is stretching it, but I’m his go-to person for advice and my work for him has steadily increased over the last year or two.

  ‘We’ve no experience at investigating murders. We’ll be little better than the cops and that’s saying something.’

  ‘It’s homicide, not murder. Do I take the case or do we pass?’

  He never fails to call me on my habit of still using British terms like murder. As with most ex-pats, not only have I retained my accent – it has grown stronger, as has my fondness for the old country.

  If we take the case, we’ll not only be up against a killer, we’ll also have to follow in the footsteps of the most useless police force since the Keystone Kops. They’ll have forensic information and coroners giving them aid. We’ll have Google.

  Tossing drunks out of a bar is one thing. Going after a killer is another.

  On the other hand, the killer is almost certain to get away with murder if we don’t take the case.

  ‘Have you talked money yet?’

  A nod. Three fingers were raised, meaning Niemeyer has offered treble our usual rate.

  The money is good, but it needs to be. Catching killers is work for police detectives who carry guns, not investigators who carry an iPad.

  ‘Call him and take the job.’ I look at my watch. The Tree is due to close in an hour. ‘You go see Niemeyer, I’ll start asking questions round here.’

  I scan the crowd with a practised eye to make sure no more trouble is brewing, then go over to talk to some people I knew hung with Kira.

  3

  Casperton’s police department is located on Main Street, just opposite the dime store. The red brick and clapboard building is half lit up but as expected there is a light on in the chief’s office.

  I park in one of the spaces reserved for detectives, lock my ’93 Mustang and go inside.

  An overweight sergeant behind the desk greets me with a scowl. My lack of popularity with the police is due to me tossing three detectives and a patrolman from the Tree last week. The fact they’d deserved it seems to have bypassed the rest of the department.

  ‘I’m here to see the chief.’

  The sergeant doesn’t bother to take his feet off the desk. ‘He’s busy.’

  ‘Then I’ll be quick.’ Not waiting for an answer I stride along the corridor and knock on the chief’s door.

  When he opens the door, I see a man carrying more than his own bodyweight of stress and tension. His eyes are full of intelligence, but the furrows beneath his iron-grey hair tell of his mood.

  ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’

  ‘I’m Jake Boulder and I want to talk to you about Kira Niemeyer’s murder.’

  His eyes may narrow but his hand comes out when he introduces himself. ‘Chief Watson.’

  I take the chair he points to and wait for him to take his own seat. As I look round the room I’m pleased at the lack of a trophy wall. Chief Watson isn’t trying to impress anyone with his history. Instead he’s more concerned with his job. I’ll bet good money the frame on his desk holds a picture of his wife and kids.

  With steepled fingers he appraises me. ‘I take it you’re not here to make a confession’

  ‘You know who I am, right?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re the guy who made a fool of some of my men.’

  ‘They didn’t need me to make a fool of them. I just stopped them before someone got hurt.’

  His eyes narrow as he assesses me. I sense his conflict between showing loyalty to his men and the fact he knows they don’t merit any.

  I hold up a hand. ‘Cards on the table?’

  He gives a short nod. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of me and I’m sure that in the four weeks since you arrived in Casperton, you’ve realised your detectives are a shower of useless idiots who only have a job because Lieutenant Farrage is the mayor’s son.’

  His face gives nothing away. But the way he settles back into his chair tells me I’m on the money.

  ‘Nobody in Casperton has any faith in the police detectives. That’s why Alfonse has such a good business.’

  ‘I’m aware of AD Investigations.’ His tone is soft but there’s steel in his voice.

  ‘Kira Niemeyer’s father has hired us to look into her death.’

  Once again his face reveals nothing. I’ll have to remember not to play cards with this guy.

  ‘And? You’re here to get my blessing?’

  ‘No. Your help.’

  A wry smile touches his lips. ‘How am I supposed to help you and why would I?’

  ‘The police have all the resources and information. Unfortunately, you’re probably the only man in the Casperton PD who knows how to use them. If you’re taking the case on yourself, we’ll call Niemeyer and take a step back. If you’re not, we’re your best chance of putting handcuffs on the killer.’ I make a humble gesture. ‘All I’m asking is you share forensic evidence and any other interesting news with us. In return we’ll share anything we find. If we solve the case first, we’ll call you to come and make the arrest.’

  I let Chief Watson mull for as long as he needs. I’ve made my pitch and now the ball is in his court.

  After a full five minutes he reaches a decision. ‘Lieutenant Farrage is leading the investigation. I cannot go behind his back to give you information. However, I will tell the coroner and other forensic specialists to answer your questions. I’ll also tell my staff not to obstruct you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I hadn’t anticipated any more help and my vis
it is more about courtesy than expectations.

  ‘Let’s be clear about one thing, Boulder. If I hear of you running your mouth about how I’m helping your investigation, all deals are off. I’ll personally make you and your buddy’s life a misery. His licence will be revoked and you’ll both be prosecuted for every minor transgression imaginable, including jaywalking and littering.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Chief. We have no intention of blabbing about your help. All we want to do is help catch a killer.’

  4

  Alfonse hands me a mug of coffee and opens himself a beer. I’m not a regular drinker as when I do drink, I tend to drink way more than I should. The last time I had a drink, I lost three days and wound up in a Salt Lake motel with no clothes and an empty wallet.

  ‘I can’t believe you went to see the chief of police.’

  ‘Had to be done. Our paths would’ve crossed at some point and by going to see him on his turf, I showed him respect.’

  Alfonse nods as he digests my words. By giving the chief a visit I’ve removed any possible animosity he may have felt when he heard we’d been hired by Niemeyer. Instead of our presence being a shock, it will now be expected. Instead of confrontation there will be grudging acceptance.

  ‘Never mind that. What did you learn from the Niemeyers?’

  ‘Nothing much if I’m honest. Kira lived by herself and wasn’t the greatest for keeping in touch with her family. They never knew she was missing, let alone murdered. If one of the detectives hadn’t recognised her, she’d have been labelled as a Jane Doe.’ He points to his laptop. ‘I’ve cloned the hard drive from both her cell and iPad.’

  I nod. I’d had the same information from the girls in the Tree. Kira was a girl who’d hang out and party with friends for a few days and then drop out for days at a time. Sometimes she’d keep a low profile for weeks before reappearing as if she’d never been away.

  Alfonse shared the details of her life that he’d got from her family and we made a plan of action for the next day.

  I read his notes and add my own to them as he starts to dig around in her iPad.

  Her father had made a fortune building a pipeline for the oilfields and gave her an allowance that made my eyes water.