Ray Elkins mystery - 03 - Deer Season Read online

  Deer Season

  Aaron Stander

  © 2009 by Aaron Stander

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication Data

  Stander, Aaron.

  Deer Season / Aaron Stander. – Interlochen, Mich.: Writers & Editors, 2009.

  ISBN-10: 0-9785732-2-6

  1. Murder–Michigan–Fiction.

  2. Murder–Investigation–Fiction.

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  For Beachwalker, who helps this all happen.

  1

  Gavin Mendicot III finished the pint of peppermint schnapps—pushing his tongue into the opening to get the last drop out of the inverted bottle. He shifted cautiously in his precarious perch, a tree stand strapped to the side of a large oak fifteen feet off the ground. With his left hand he tossed the bottle at the trunk of a tree directly across from him. It bounced off the trunk without breaking and landed in the snow. Mendicot moved his bow to his left hand and reached into his jacket, a worn and grease-stained camouflage coat, and pulled a Glock from his shoulder holster. He tried to hold a bead on the neck of the bottle, the only part still visible above the snow. A cold chill ran through him, and he started to shiver. The report of the pistol echoed through the woods, its recoil almost causing him to lose balance.

  The bottle was untouched. He fired a second round. Another miss. His world spinning, he tried to steady the weapon, concentrating on the target, and continued pulling the trigger until the magazine was empty. Finally, the bottle disappeared from view. He carefully slid the pistol back in its holster.

  Gavin looked at the horizon; the light was quickly fading. He hooked his bow to a line and lowered it to the ground. Then he unhitched his harness, turned, and started down the ladder. Three quarters of the way down he missed a step and fell the rest of the way, his descent softened by several feet of new snow. He clumsily brushed the wet snow from his already damp canvas bibs and started up the trail along the river, trudging through the deepening drifts. After a few hundred yards he stopped to catch his breath. He lit a cigarette and opened another pint of schnapps, the third of the afternoon. He shivered as he tightened the cap. The snow was falling heavier. He tossed the half-smoked cigarette in the snow and lit a joint. Leaning against a tree he inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long moment, then slowly exhaling. He opened the schnapps again and took a long pull on the bottle before he inhaled again.

  Gavin retrieved a compass from his upper jacket pocket. “If I go straight east I can get to the road faster than following the river,” he said out loud. He looked at the compass; the needle swung back and forth in his shaky hand. Gavin launched himself in an easterly direction. The first few hundred yards were easy; he stayed near the roots of cedars and avoided the soft earth between them. Then the trees thinned as he moved into a marshy plain. His boots sank deeper and deeper as he pushed himself forward. Pulling his boots from the mud became more difficult with each step. He could feel the water beginning to ooze in around his toes. A cold shudder ran through his body.

  Then he heard the choppers and the cannon fire. Bullets whistled overhead. Artillery rounds were exploding in front of him, their acrid smell burning his nose. The water continued filling his boots. He froze in place, looking for the enemy, crouching, and then moving forward.

  The ground became firmer as he moved into a heavy stand of cedar. He saw something move and dropped to his knees, slid on his stomach, his bow in front of him. A buck lifted its nose into the air and turned toward Gavin. It then raised its tail and moved in the opposite direction, first a few quick steps, then full flight. Gavin rose to his knees and sent an arrow in the animal’s direction. Then he pulled out his Glock, pointed it in the direction of the fleeing deer, and wildly squeezed the trigger. There was only a thin, mechanical sound; the gun was empty.

  Gavin pulled himself to his feet and ran to where he first saw the buck. He studied the snow in the dull, flat light of late afternoon, looking for blood on the thick white carpet. He could see none. He followed the tracks until they were obscured by the darkness.

  He pulled out his compass, illuminating it with a cigarette lighter, trying to hold it level. He started east again. The snow was thicker as he crossed a field, his feet burning, his breathing labored. Gavin could hear a snowmobile, could see the headlights moving perpendicular to his path. He struggled through the deep snow until he reached a road.

  Heading north directly into blowing snow, he stopped to take a drink from the nearly empty bottle. Just as he tossed it away, Gavin was startled by the chugging sound of an engine; a decrepit pickup paused next to him. He looked over as the window was rolled down.

  “Need a ride, mister?”

  Gavin moved to the side of the vehicle and looked at the grizzled man behind the wheel, his face dimly lit by the yellowish glow of the instrument panel. “I think my truck is just up the road.”

  “Better get in. Help ya find it. Too damn cold and dark ta be walking.”

  Gavin came around the front of the truck and climbed in, pulling the door shut behind him; he had to slam it closed a second time to get the latch to catch. The interior was warm and smelled of tobacco and whiskey.

  “What’s your truck look like?”

  “It’s a Blazer, black.”

  “Did ya park it along the road?” the man asked. He dropped his cigarette out of the vent window.

  “Just off, at the entrance to the camp ground.”

  The old man sort of laughed, three audible exhalations, cough-like, mocking. “Well you’re a lucky son-of-a-bitch. That’s three, four miles up. You’d-a-bin fucking dead in a snow bank ‘fore ya got there on a night like this. Yup, just fucking dead in the snow. County plow come through and toss ya sorry ass way off the road. They’d find ya in the spring after the crows got the best of ya. Want a drink?” He pulled a bottle of Jim Beam from under the seat and handed it to Gavin. “Leave the top off, I’ll have one after ya.”

  Gavin took a mouthful of the whiskey, swirled it around, swallowed, and took a second sip, larger than the first. “Good,” he said handing the open bottle over to the driver. “Name’s Gavin, what’s yours?”

  The driver took the bottle, lifted it to his lips, sipped, and handed it back. “Jake, Jake Janson. First time I had Beam I was in the army.”

  “Where?”

  “Korea. I was an eighteen-year-old kid. Weather like this— fucking freezing, no hot food for days, taking lots of casualties. I didn’t think I could stand it no more, so my sergeant gives me some Beam, stuff like this. Never had any before. Think I was drunk as hell with a swig or two. It helped me get through the night. Next day we got sent to the rear. Always like having a sip of whiskey when it storms like this. Reminds me of that time. You serve?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Iraq.”

  “No snow there.”

  “No, just fucking sand and smoke. Not much whiskey. Lots of beer.”

  Gavin went silent. He closed his eyes. He was in the chopper again. They were coming into the target area. He ran his hands over his gun. He was trying not to think. Just waiting for the order to get out of the chopper. Just
waiting to hit the ground, hoping to survive the day.

  “That ya car over there? Can’t tell it’s black, being covered the way it is.”

  Gavin opened his eyes. “Yeah, that’s it. Thanks for the ride.”

  “You okay to drive?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, sober as a judge.”

  “That’s not saying much. Fucking judges. Where ya stayin?”

  “Grand Marais, got a motel room there.”

  “Better get moving; road won’t be open much longer,” the old man said. “I’ll wait til ya get on the road. Don’t want ya out here alone. Probably die before someone else comes along.”

  Gavin slogged though the snow to his vehicle, pulled open the driver’s door, tossed his new composite bow in the back and got the motor started. He rocked the Blazer back and forth several times, then locked it into four-wheel drive, finally making it back to the highway. The old man waved and slowly drove away.

  Gavin lit a cigarette and waited for the defroster to clear the mist from the inside of the windshield. By the time he started down the road, the truck and the old man were long gone. He looked for his bow, trying to remember where he’d put it. It wasn’t on the seat next to him. He turned on the dome light, but couldn’t see it in the jumble of gear in the back of the vehicle. “Fuck,” he said groggily, “I must of left it in that old fart’s truck. Fuck hunting.”

  He reached under the dashboard and retrieved a small brown plastic prescription bottle. After struggling with the cap momentarily, he poured the capsules in his hand. He counted them twice, picking up two, one at a time, and putting them in his mouth. He cupped his hand and returned the remaining pills to the bottle. After secreting the bottle again, he washed the already half-dissolved pills down with a few gulps from a newly opened bottle of schnapps.

  “Fuck hunting. I’m going home,” Gavin said, putting the car in gear. He made a clumsy u-turn, almost getting stuck, and started south toward the narrow ribbon of steel and concrete that connects Michigan’s two peninsulas.

  2

  Clay Bateman was having a party, not a big party, just his two best friends, Drew and Zack, all high school seniors and members of the Cedar Bay football team. They were well into a case of beer and had another in reserve. Of the group, Clay was the biggest drinker; his two hundred and forty pounds of muscle and fat could absorb huge amounts of alcohol.

  They had started to party about 6:00, just after football practice, and by 10:00 they had collapsed on the couches and the floor in the living room of the Bateman’s modest home. A Rambo movie—the second of the evening—was running on the TV, the sound turned down; no one was really watching anymore.

  Gavin—Clay’s mother’s boyfriend—was in the U.P. deer hunting. His mother, Donna, the evening bartender at the Last Chance, was at work and probably wouldn’t be home until after 1:00 a.m.

  The increasingly inarticulate conversation focused on the physical attributes of the Cedar Bay cheerleading and pom-pom squads, starting with Ali Bealman and working through the ranks to Wenonah Zapinski. When the boys had exhausted that topic—one that they had discussed countless times before—they moved onto the next game, Friday night, the last game of the season, and their last game as high school players.

  “We should keep their fucking quarterback in the mud. We should blitz on every play. That’s all they got. We knock him outta the game, and they ain’t got shit,” Clay said.

  “Since when do we blitz every play?” asked Zack, his speech badly slurred.

  “Well, we could. It’s our last game; we can do anything we want.”

  “Ya got beer on the brain,” Zack responded. “Coach Fronz would put your butt on the bench for the rest of the night.”

  “What’s he gonna do? Play some skinny-assed sophomore? If he pulls any of us he doesn’t have a chance of winning. He sure as hell doesn’t want to lose to Sand River three years in a row.”

  “Ya got a bug up your butt if you think he’d keep you in if you’re not following the plan. He’ll pull you right away. Hell, if he could see us now, none of us will be playing on Friday, and if he knew about the mail boxes over in Sand River….”

  “Was that brilliant or what? How many mailboxes do ya think we got? Wake Drew up and ask him. He was supposed to do the counting.”

  Zack pushed the lifeless body next to him, “Drew, wake up. How many mailboxes did we get? Wasn’t it about twenty?”

  “Let me sleep, I don’t care about your mailboxes.”

  “He can’t do weed,” said Clay. “Right after he smokes he always falls asleep. That’s why Wenonah stopped dating him. They’d blow a joint, and he’d conk just when she wanted some good loving.”

  “How are we going to get him home?” asked Zack. “He’s totally out of it, and there’s a hell-of-a storm blowing.”

  “I’ll call his mom. Drew told her he was coming over here for dinner after practice. I’ll just say he fell asleep, extra hard practice tonight and the roads are too bad to drive him home. That dumb bitch won’t suspect anything. She just loves me; she believes anything I tell her. God she’s got big tits. I bet she’s a great….” “You asshole,” said Zack. “You got sex on the brain.”

  Clay went to the kitchen phone and dialed Drew’s number. Waiting for an answer, he looked out of the window over the sink. “What the hell,” he yelled to Zack hanging up the phone on the second ring.

  He hurried into the living room. “There’s a car out there, and I think they’re fucking with our mailbox.”

  “Whataya gonna do?” asked Zack.

  “Scare the hell out of those fuckers.” Clay disappeared into a back bedroom and emerged a few moments later carrying a worn shotgun.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” begged Zack.

  Clay ran from the house, leaving the front door open. As he raced toward the road, his gait unsteady, he yelled, “What are ya doing?” He stopped and raised the gun over his head in a menacing gesture. In his intoxicated state, he saw a vision of Rambo, glistening with sweat, bandoliers hanging across his naked chest, defiantly shaking his gun at the entire Red Chinese army.

  Car doors slammed and the car sped away, fishtailing wildly on the snow-covered road.

  An explosion jarred Clay just as he reached the side of the road, the tan plastic mailbox a few feet to his right tearing open and flying apart. Momentarily stunned, he staggered onto the road. He saw the brake lights of a car flash on. The car had reached the end of the road and would have to come back his way. “What are you doing?” asked Zack.

  “They cherry bombed our mailbox.”

  “Get rid of the gun.”

  “No, I want to scare them.”

  As the SUV came back in their direction, four headlights blazing in the blowing snow, Clay stood in the center of the road and raised the heavy weapon over his head so they could see him clearly. He was Rambo again, a squadron of black helicopters descending upon him.

  All at once Clay felt himself being hauled backwards off the road. He stumbled and fell backwards into the snow. “Why did you do that?” he demanded as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Getting your ass out of the way so you don’t get flattened,” Zack yelled.

  The large vehicle went flying by, throwing a thick sheet of slush in their direction. Clay ran back out onto the road, waving the shotgun, Zack grabbing Clay’s arm just as he aimed it at the receding taillights.

  The gun kicked violently as he fired both barrels.

  “You’re crazy,” Zack yelled.

  “I didn’t know it was loaded.”

  “What if you hit them?”

  “I didn’t. I was aiming way off to the side.”

  “That sounded like a war. Sure as hell one of your cranky old neighbors is gonna report the gunfire. The sheriff is going to be out here.”

  “It’s hunting season.”

  “It’s bow season, asshole. You can do the talking when the cops get here. I’m taking Drew home.”

  Clay didn’t offer t
o help as Zack half-carried Drew to his rusting pickup. After they were gone, Clay collected the beer cans scattered around the living room and tossed them in a black garbage bag that he pitched near the sink before crawling into bed.

  3

  Donna Bateman stood behind the bar at the Last Chance looking through one of the large windows on the opposite wall. Beyond the windows, snow swirled through the beams of the floodlights in the parking lot. And much to her surprise and relief, the three old timers who spent almost every evening at the Last Chance nursing a few beers—Willie, Ken, and Franklin—headed out into the storm soon after the eleven o’clock news. She cleared their bottles and glasses, wiped the bar and the counters. Then she locked the front door to prevent any more customers from coming in for a nightcap, not that there was much chance of that late on a stormy weeknight. She emptied the meager contents of the till into a zippered bank bag and locked it in the safe in the small office next to the kitchen. Then she turned down the lights and went into the back kitchen area to do some final cleaning and washing up. “The first snowy night,” she said, as she wiped and dried the long stainless steel counter. She hadn’t seen her longtime lover, Dirk Lowther, the one constant man in her life, in months. But he had promised he would see her the night of the first big storm, sort of an anniversary. And it would be so easy tonight; her current companion, Gavin, was in the U.P. hunting. She wouldn’t have to lie about why she was late coming home.

  Their last assignation had been in late August on the beach at Otter Creek; it was one of the warmest nights of the summer. The encounter followed a pattern she had known for more than half her life. Usually they’d have a few quick drinks followed by torrid lovemaking. And then he would be gone with no contact for six weeks, or sometimes six months. And this arrangement had continued over the years, uninterrupted by romances, affairs, or marriages.

  Their first tryst had taken place in the back seat of the big maroon Pontiac he drove back then. She had been baby-sitting the two small children he had had with his first wife. That night Donna could tell the couple had both been drinking heavily when they returned from the party. The woman asked her husband to drive Donna home, saying that she was too drunk to get behind the wheel. In the course of the evening Donna had been doing some drinking of her own, helping herself to small glasses of Baileys Irish Cream. There was always an open bottle in their refrigerator, and they never seemed to notice that any was missing.