Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

“I understand there are thirty thousand people in this county. Do you know them all personally?”

“Nope, but I knew Walt. Played high school football with him, in fact. He was a few years older, but I knew him.”

“How long ago was that?”

“More years than I’d care to recall,” Charlie said, unoffended. “But I think I’d still know him if I met him.”

“Would you? How about these people?” he said, passing Charlie the sketch pad. “Do you know any of them?”

Charlie riffled through the pages, quickly at first, then again more slowly. He frowned at the cartoon of the old/young woman, then smiled. “Nice work. I’m impressed. Where’d you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter. Do any of them look familiar?”

“Sure. All of them. They’re all Walter. Plus they’re general enough to resemble a fair number of folks.”

“Good. So if I show them around enough, someone might recognize someone eventually.”

“Possibly. People still spot Elvis now and again. An identification from a sketch doesn’t prove anything.”

“I’m not interested in proving anything. But if he’s here, there’s a good chance he knows what happened to my brother. And I think he’ll tell me.”

“I see. You know, Mr. Calderon, I lost a brother once. In Viet Nam. I came back, he didn’t. And it still hurts. And because of that, I’m not unsympathetic to your situation. But I can’t have you crashin’ around the countryside on some vigilante manhunt. Nothing’d come of it but trouble.”

“I haven’t broken any laws, Sheriff. But Walter McClain has. He attempted murder once, and maybe he’s still at it. Aren’t you interested in finding him? Or does his family have a little too much... clout?”

Charlie eyed him for a moment without answering, but a rosy flush began to creep above his collar. “If Walter McClain was in my county, Mr. Calderon, I’d bust him like any other wanted felon, family or no. But I don’t believe that he is.”

“You think my brother just happened to have an accident a few hours after he showed up looking for Walter?”

“No sir, I didn’t say that. I don’t know what happened to your brother yet. Neither do you. And I’m not ignoring the fact that he disappeared very soon after he arrived here, or that foul play might have been involved.”

“No one here had a reason to harm him but Walter McClain.”

“That’s correct. No one here. But your brother was on parole. Maybe his problems followed him here. Or yours did.”

“Mine?”

“I took the liberty of doing a little checking on you, Mr. Calderon, nothing official, just a friendly phone call to my counterpart in Norfolk. He said you’re a colorful character. That since you got out of the navy you’ve been running with some rough people. Some of the same people your brother was mixed up with.”

“We have some of the same friends,” Calderon conceded. “Which is why I’m sure my brother’s disappearance isn’t connected to anything back home.”

“But it could be,” Charlie said. “And from where I’m sitting, it’s a helluva lot more likely than Walt McClain hiding out under my nose. So I’ll tell you what, Mr. Calderon, we’re gonna do a deal, you and me. I’ll run a quiet background check on anyone who even vaguely matches up with these sketches, work records, driver’s licenses, and fingerprints if anything seems even slightly hinky. If I turn up Walt, I’ll fall on him like a landslide. But if they all check out clean, I want your word you’ll go back to Norfolk and leave the McClain family alone. God knows they’ve had trouble enough because of him.”

“How do I know you’ll actually investigate anything?”

“Because I just said so. Do you think I’d lie about a thing like this?”

Ray eyed him a moment, then shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t believe you would. Fair enough. If you can’t shake anything loose, I’ll go.”

“Good. I’ll take your word for it. Especially since I can make damn sure you keep it. I’ll take the sketches and you take yourself a nice vacation. And I’d better not hear that you’re harassing anyone. Clear?”

“I’ll stay out of your way,” Ray said. “Good luck.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Charlie said, rising. “Mitch, you take care.” He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, then turned abruptly and made his way out through the dinner crowd.

“A very tactful guy,” Calderon said, watching Charlie stalk off. “I think he wanted to warn you about me, but didn’t want to step over the line. Your line, not mine.”

“Warn me about what? That you’re a colorful character?”

“I plead guilty to being a character,” he said. “But color’s kind of in the eye of the beholder, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that you gave up that sketch book without much of an argument. And I’m wondering why.”

Calderon mulled the question over a moment, then shrugged. “The bottom line is, I believed him when he said he wants to nail this bastard as badly as I do. Plus, he knows the town and he can check out the people on that pad a lot more efficiently than I could.”

“True,” I said. “But there’s more to it, isn’t there? I can’t see you sitting around waiting for Charlie to turn something up. What are you going to do?”

“Since I’m technically on vacation, I think I’ll take in some of the countryside.”

“The countryside?”

“Right. The way I figure it, if Jimmy’s death wasn’t accidental, then there’s a reason why his body hasn’t turned up.”

“How do you mean?”

“The way I read McClain, he’s a headstrong, spoiled punk who turns violent when anyone crosses him. Let’s say he came on Jimmy after he left the house, maybe followed him, stopped him somewhere. They had words — and Walt killed him. Now he’s got a big problem. If the body turns up showing signs of violence, there’s a damned short list of suspects. But if Jimmy’s car is found in the river with no body in it, it’s an accident. Case closed. So maybe we didn’t find the body in the water because it was never there.”

“And where do you think it is?”

“I was hoping you could help me with that. I’d guess it would be somewhere nearby. He didn’t have time to do anything very complicated.”

“Even so, there’s a lot of open country around here, Ray, thousands of acres of state forest. Only...”

“Only what?”

“It’s bow-hunting season,” I said slowly. “Bow hunters are out in all kinds of weather, and most of them are pretty fair trackers. I don’t think he’d risk running into someone on open land or having a hunter stumble across the body. And he might not have to.”

“Why not?”

“Because the McClain family owns quite a lot of property in the area. Private land he’d probably be familiar with.”

“How much land?”

“A lot,” I said. “Hang on a moment, and I can tell you exactly how much.” I stepped into my office, rummaged through my desk and came up with a county plat-map pamphlet. I sat down beside Ray and flipped it open.

“These maps show property ownership for the county. According to this, the McClains own... several thousand acres.”

“Are you familiar with any of these places?”

“Some of them,” I said. “This twelve-hundred-acre section here is the plant. It’s fenced, well lighted, and runs three shifts, twenty-four hours a day.”

“Unlikely then. What’s this piece along the shoreline?”

“That’s the estate, where we were the first night. Possible, I suppose, but there are neighbors... I don’t think so.”

“What about this big area over here?”

“That’s hill country, southwest of the town,” I said. “It’s undeveloped, no houses. Loggers occasionally do some cutting up there, but that’s about it.”