Chapter 15

Chapter XV

At Six-thirty in the morning Pete and Ruby were on trail seven.

“Why did we take this trail again?” Ruby asked.

“How does someone shoot a rifle in the park and no one notices?” Pete answered with his own question.

“It was early, maybe no one was around.”

“If she was jogging it’s not reasonable.   Someone had to hear a shot.  How far from the road are we?"

“You thinking she was dumped?  Road should be right through here.” Ruby led Pete through the trees that were a buffer between the peaceful park and the city rush.  Three staggered rows of trees and some shrubs covered a fifty-foot distance to the street.

Pete nodded his satisfaction over their find and started back toward the trail.

“Four-thirty to five o’clock in the morning someone could easily stop a car there and drag a body to here without being seen.”

“Yeah,” Ruby said, “And we found her over there.  It wouldn’t be hard at all.”

“Police probably already thought of it,” Pete said, as they continued the run to the end of the trail.

“You going to call them from work?”

“Yeah, but I hope Spacer doesn’t want another ride. …Think I’ll call Al too.  He may know where she normally ran in the mornings.”

Ralph was permitted to stay in the observation room, while Kurtis and Spacer questioned Warren Tate.

Tate was uncooperative, but his shirt wasn’t.

Bakersfield police had told Kurtis and Spacer: when came off the bus and someone told security he had blood all over his sleeve.  They checked him out and called us.  We had your flyer.  Nailed him.  No DNA yet, but the blood type matches your victim.

Kurtis was tired of normal where-were-you questions.  He looked at the dried up little blonde man and said,  “Damn it, Tate, why you want to kill people?  You’re no good at it.  You do your wife with a PI watching.  Then you bring Dieter’s blood with you all the way from the crime scene.  Might as well send announcements: ‘I killed the guy.’”

“I cut myself shaven,” Tate snarled.

“Bled another man’s blood,” Spacer said.

“Blood’s blood,” Tate said, “I didn’t kill my wife.  That Dieter guy did.”

“That didn’t fly ten years ago and it don’t fly now,” Kurtis said.

“He ruined my life, tellin’ my wife lies about me.  She wanted a divorce.  Then he laid out all those papers, reports, told everybody things that ain’t nobody’s business.”  Tate leaned back.  He went on, “You think I care if you send me back there.  I got friends there.  They’ll be real proud of the way I tracked him down.”

Ralph stood, his fist clenched. 

The officer next to him in the observation room tensed his body ready to do battle but spoke calmly, “I can’t let you break that glass, Man.”

“That shit thinks he’s going home to be big man on campus,” Ralph raged.

“Maybe he doesn’t get to go back.  With the blood, if it matches, that sounded like a confession to me,” The officer said.

“This guy doesn’t seem smart enough to track down Dieter.  And what parole board would let a guy, who is so bent on revenge, go.  Something stinks,” Ralph said.

“You’re right,” the officer said.  He went to the door knocked and whispered something to Spacer, when he answered the knock.

Spacer nodded.  He smiled in the direction he knew Ralph would be, though couldn’t see him through the one-way glass.  Spacer took his seat and checked a paper, then he look at Tate.

“Who’d you get to?  Was it someone on the parole board wanted Dieter as bad as you did?  You tell him let me out and I’ll do him first thing?”

“I had to act.  Spent two years convincing ‘em, if I got out, I’d just do my job and be happy.  Stoker told me, ‘don’t even blink when you hear his name or you’ll never get out of here.’  Stoker’s smart,” Tate answered.

“Stoker the one that’s going to be proud of you?” Kurtis picked up on where they were headed.

“Yeah, he was my buddy.”

“He should be proud of you,” Kurtis continued, “I don’t know if I could have found Dieter, let alone killed him.”

Tate smirked.

After a pause, Spacer asked, “How did you find him?”

“Stoker found him.  He gave me the address where he worked, said I’d just have to go there and wait for him to show then follow him.” Tate smiled.  “Never went wrong  doin’ what ol’ Stoker said.”

“Must have been a good buddy.  He could have got in trouble checking that out on the prison computer,” Spacer said.

“He had a guy on the outside do it.”

“Why did Stoker want you to do Dieter?” Spacer asked.

“He just wanted to help me.”

“Stoker a first name or last name?” Kurtis asked.

“They just called him Stoker cause he was a stoker, stoked coal ‘for he was sent up.  Stoker Campbell’s all I ever knew.” Tate was happy to brag about his good friend.

Ralph and the officer in observation exchanged looks.  Ralph wrote Stoker Campbell in his notebook.  He was suddenly anxious to get moving. He had work to do.

Pete met Ruby for lunch.  First thing she asked what Spacer and Kurtis thought of their theory.

“They weren’t there.  They were out of town.  Got a break on the Dieter case.  I called Al.   He said as far as he knew Hope Styles never jogged in Heg Park.  She liked the high ground around Outlook Point.” Pete filled her in.

“Wonder what the Dieter thing is?”

“It’s out of town,” Pete said.  “I doubt it will turn up on the treadmill.”

They laughed.

“Dad’s going to take a break working on the house until the spa comes in.  You want to take a ride up to Outlook Point after dinner?”

“Sounds like fun.  I better get going now, can’t take an hour lunch all the time.”

“Yeah I’ve been pushing it a little too.  See you after work,” Pete said, standing and kissing her cheek.

“Think we could get Al to program Outlook point onto the treadmill?”

“It would probably take us right to where the deed was done,” Ruby joked.

They were anxious to get on with their day.  They didn’t want to be behind at quitting time since they had new avenues to explore.

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