Yokche:The Nature of Murder Read online



  YOKCHE

  a Chase Larsen adventure

  P.J. Erickson

  Copyright © 2001 by P.J. Erickson.

  Revised eBook edition 2015

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved.

 

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Author’s note

  About the author

  Contact P. J.

  Kill Devil sample

  Diary of an Airedale sample

  One

  Chase felt the change in the soft-packed sand as he neared the water. A three-quarter moon lightened the dark surface of the sea as it heaved slowly, gunmetal gray shot with silver, like some huge monster hulking in the shadows.

  In contrast, the velvet sky with its sprinkling of stars seemed so close and comforting that he wanted to reach out and wrap it around his shoulders like Merlin’s mantle. The warm breath of a jet stream breeze tickled his cheek like a woman’s sigh. Thick stands of Sea Grapes surrounded the tiny stretch of pristine sand that sloped smoothly to the water, not so much as a single shell marring its surface. Paradise lost.

  Chase carefully set the coffee can down. He sat cross-legged behind it, smelling the salt and the seaweed, absorbing the sounds of the night. Soft scrabblings stirred vague thoughts of turtles and crabs. For a while he soaked up the nature around him, communing with whatever great spirit was out there. Then, silently mouthing words of farewell, he picked up the can and hurled it far out into the ocean, as far as he had ever thrown. The sea seemed to rise up and accept the gift, silently drawing it down its cavernous throat. Done. As promised.

  Relieved, Chase lit an ultra-light, his concession to trying to quit. Dragging the smoke deeply into his lungs he gazed upward, searching for the tracks of a soul traveling at the speed of light. His grief washed over him. His shoulders shook and he swallowed convulsively, brushing angrily at the tears that trickled down his face as his mind ran the movie of memories that comprised his beloved baby sister. He let it run. Grief was something he knew all too much about.

  A gentle bump on his foot brought his attention back to the present. Idly he glanced down to see what it was, his mind refusing to acknowledge what his eyes saw. The can could not have traveled back so fast and directly to him? Ancestral instincts stirred in the depths of his belly, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Childhood tales of runes and witchcraft flashed across his mind and he was once again a terrified child, listening to the old folk’s stories from behind the stairs. He shook his head in disbelief, an inward smile struggling to reach the surface. That was Sophie. She didn't want to go. She always had been stubborn as hell.

  Thank God he’d had the presence of mind to slip the Jack Daniels into his saddlebags. Can't do a dirty deed on a dark night without Jack beside you. Chase took a long pull on the liquor. This was the second time that can had landed at his feet. After the service, not really knowing what to do with it, Chase put the can bearing his sister’s ashes in his uncle's favorite corner closet. The closet door didn’t close properly, but it had a good three inch lip sticking up from the floor, and earlier that evening, while he watched television, that can had rolled out of the closet and straight to his feet, damned if it hadn't.

  That had spooked him so bad he'd strapped the can onto the back of his Harley and raced up to the beach and into the sea grapes, only stopping to throw some palm fronds over the bike. He didn't want some yo-yo running off with his bike while he did his brotherly duty. He didn’t want the cops bothering him either. They patrolled this area regularly. He had been remiss in not complying with Sophie's wishes.

  Okay, there was only one thing for it. Thank god it was a calm night. Fortified somewhat by the Jack, but still spooked by the day's events, Chase gingerly picked up the can. He waded out a little way, thankful he was wearing jeans, not leathers; part of his mind gnawing on the knowledge that sharks and rays often came right up to the edge of the water. He was a pool man himself. A resident of Florida for most of his adult life, he never went into the ocean if he could avoid it. Between sharks, man-o'war and sea lice, he much preferred a nice clean, clear pool. He’d even read in the paper where a giant octopus had been found off the coast of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. Evidently, it had hitched a ride from South America on a merchant ship and decided this was a nice vacation spot. Who even believed in such things?

  Chase didn’t go out very far. He pried off the lid and with a few choice words for his ancestors and an apology for his sister, dribbled the contents onto the surface of the water. He hoped he'd said the right words, it had been a very long time since he had used the Norse.

  Back on the beach he threw the empty can out to sea again, keeping a wary eye on its general direction. It was done, his baby sister had finally let go, though she evidently didn’t want to. There was unfinished business here and Sophie was telling him so.

  Sophie had not died accidentally. Chase knew it. Her body had been found, half-naked, tossed like a piece of garbage, near the ninth hole of the exclusive Sand Hills Country Club in Jupiter. The medical examiner had listed the cause of death as a lightning strike, coincidental with a violent storm the previous evening. This had not satisfied Chase, nor had his meeting with the deputy in charge of the case.

  Chase would find the truth, but not tonight. The mystic side of nature, inherited from his ancestors and long suppressed, had gotten the upper hand tonight and Chase didn’t like being spooked. He was alone now. Sophie was the last of his family. He grieved for her, missed her so badly the pain was almost physical, but he must put the grief behind him, and quickly. He needed all his resources for the job at hand.

  Brushing off the sand, Chase retrieved the bike and savagely kicked it into life. The panhead was an extension of him. He had built it lovingly, piece by piece, refining and shaping it over many years until it became almost a live thing. It had never been ridden by anyone else, most likely never would be. It wouldn’t fit anyone else. He and the pan could outrun anything, even trouble. When the cobwebs were blown from his soul, he would commune with his pal Jack until death and memories were blotted away. Then he would be ready to explore the real truth about his sister’s death.

  The bike responded throatily and Chase rammed his way through the sea grapes until he was free, skidding onto the road sideways, tires screeching. He gunned the motor. Steel and flesh merged and raced like a rampaging monster into the night. Chase threw open the throttle, blind to danger. He felt only his pain and fury. The machine roared its pleasure and Chase howled his grief into the wind, viciously pushing the bike to its limits as he tried to blot out the picture of his dead sister.

 

  Two

  Brian Cavenaugh suppressed a yawn. Bored, he walked to the window and idly watched the life teeming below him in the busy streets of Johannesburg. The old man had kept him waiting for twenty minutes already, not that he wasn’t used to it. A life in the field had taught Brian patience first and foremost but he wasn’t in the field now. At the ripe old age of fifty-five, they had dragged
him kicking and screaming from his coveted position as one of South Africa’s most successful agents, to the humiliating, stultifying boredom of a desk job. All he was good for now was telling war stories to the rest of the round-eyed office staff and Brian knew he couldn’t stand it much longer.

  He had been considering retirement. The trouble was, he didn’t know what to do next. Most of his working day, with little else on his desk, was filled with the problem of what to do with the rest of his life, stretching ahead of him, empty and dull. What he wouldn’t give to go back out in the service of his country.

  “You can go in now.” The old man’s secretary spoke quietly but her voice was all business, sharply jolting Brian from his musings. She had worked there for as long as the old man and was as tough as nails. She was the only person in the place Brian couldn’t intimidate. There had been rumors about the two of them, her and the old man, but no one could remember what she looked like when she was young and no one dared to voice the thought now.

  Brian wondered what the old man had on his mind, but he knew better than to try to cadge it out of old iron drawers. It didn’t much matter anyway. One desk looked just like another. He got up and walked smartly into the inner sanctum just like in the old days.

  “Brian, my boy. Good to see you.” The head of South African secret intelligence waved Brian to a chair while he puffed mightily, attempting to blow some life into the remaining embers of his pipe.

  Brian sat. “It’s been a while sir.”

  “Too long.” The old man peered at Brian from under bushy white eyebrows. “You're looking fit. Arthur tells me you’re doing a wonderful job but I’m afraid I’ll have to pull you away from it for a while.”

  “Yes sir.” What now? Brian wondered. Would they relegate him to the mail room?

  The old man handed him a file, a red one. That meant top security classification. “Read that. Then pack your bags. You’re leaving for the States in two hours.”

  “Sir?” Brian couldn’t believe his ears. He was going back in the field. “Yes sir.”

 

 

  Three

  Chase surfaced slowly the next day. Despite the enormous amount of Jack Daniels he had managed to consume, Gentlemen Jack at that, he had not been able to sleep. Somewhere in that long evening he had forgotten that he was forty-six and could not drink like he used to. The twenty-three broken bones he'd collected over the years creaked in protest. His head wouldn't let him lift it off the pillow and his mouth felt like he'd smoked ten cartons of cigarettes at once. Still acclimatized to the deserts of the Middle East, from where he had been so sadly summoned, the raucous screech of the blue jays outside his window competed with his pounding headache and won out, causing him to wish he had a shotgun handy.

  Cautiously, Chase squinted his eyes against the sunlight poking through the drawn shades. It made patterns like strobe lighting, bouncing off the rotating blades of the old paddle fan and whirling round the room. Chase closed his eyes fast. He was starting to whirl too.

  When Chase opened his eyes again sometime later, it was to find dog breath in his face and Jake still sleeping, flat on his back, all four paws in the air, blissful in his comfort. Jake cocked one ear up but didn't move. He was not a morning dog. Like his owner, he was a night prowler, a macho hunter and unlike his master, a lousy watchdog. Jake needed ten minutes to come round from a sound sleep; it was comical to watch. If a noise required Jake’s attention while he was sleeping, he would jerk upright and lurch drunkenly around, trying to wake up enough to figure out what was going on. Chase had laughingly told Sophie she had better get an attack cat in case of burglars. More seriously, he had instructed her on the use of his.38 until he felt confident she would use it.

  Easing his way up, a bit at a time, Chase realized the place was a mess. A life on the road had not equipped him with good housekeeping skills. Sophie would have scolded him, even though she loved having him around to pick up after and cook for.

  Sophie had moved in nine months ago following the death of her husband. Chase was headed for another overseas trip, to Jordan this time. Sophie needed a break and Jake needed company. It had worked out perfectly. Until he got the call that is. It was hard to believe she was gone. Although she had kept all of her things in the spare room so as not to impose on him, Sophie’s imprint was all over the house.

  Feeling his way carefully, Chase finally made it to the kitchen, found the aspirin and managed to put on the coffee before he staggered to the bathroom. He stared critically at the face that looked back at him from the mirror, bleary-eyed. It was weathered and rugged from many years of riding into the wind. The cobalt blue eyes that faded with his mood like a pair of stonewashed jeans, were surrounded by a web of laugh lines and starting to hood a little with age. The beard and mustache surely had more gray than yesterday, and the nose - Chase hated his nose. Once straight and Nordic, it had been flattened late one night by a careless trucker who didn’t see Chase on the bike. He still had the hair of his heritage though, full and thick and the envy of other men his age. He was vain about his hair and wore it longish, deliberately thumbing his nose at the poor sods who couldn’t grow any, let alone wear it long. He was lucky that it was dirty blonde. The gray didn’t show too much. Even with the smashed nose it was a good face, a face of character. It had attracted a lot of women over the years and still did. Pleased with the inventory, Chase even managed a song in the shower.

  Later Chase fixed bacon and eggs for him and Jake. The combination of jet lag, the cremation and yesterday's bizarre happenings culminating in a massive drunk, had taken its toll. Today he would take it easy. He had plenty of time, six weeks before returning to work. That should be enough.

  He took his coffee and wandered into Sophie's room, idly looking it over. He was reluctant to start. Should he pack stuff away or give it away? He couldn't bear to keep it here, best pack it up quickly and stow it in the attic. Later he could decide what to do with it, when he could deal with it. There wasn't that much. Sophie herself had jettisoned all her personal possessions before coming to Florida and had brought only a couple of suitcases and some photographs.

  Chase opened all the drawers and closets and started throwing things in the cases, working his way around the room. Last of all were the cosmetics and jewelry lying on the dresser and a small wooden trinket box of intricately inlaid wood. Chase remembered that box, he had brought it back for her from New Guinea, and she had treasured it. Inside were only some odd-looking stones covered in sand. Some were thin and glassy looking and some were almost like bits of coral, branching, tube¬like pieces. He wondered why she had kept those. Well, they were important so they stayed in the box for now.

  Everything packed and stowed in the attic, he felt physically better but his sadness deepened and his resolve strengthened. Time to start looking for the truth. Annie should be in the office by now. He would start there.

 

  Four

  The courthouse was crowded as usual. The flotsam and jetsam of humanity bustled through, anxiously seeking to escape another crisis in their lives. It was always the same. Only the faces changed. Most of them. Dominick Wilding looked up from the divorce file he had been researching, unable to concentrate any more as the argument just outside the door intruded more solidly on his senses.

  “No and that’s final.” The speaker, obviously a lawyer, but no one Dominick knew, looked worn and harassed, most likely a public defender by the look of him.

  “What do you mean, ‘No’?” The other guy was aggressively argumentative, glowering menacingly at being refused. He was of medium build and height with gingery hair and pale skin. There was about him an air of seedy darkness as if nothing good had ever happened in his life. He wore a full-length leather duster like the ones the cowboys wore in all those new western movies. He was shaking so violently, hands clenched at his sides, that Dominick couldn’t decide if the man was so pissed off he wanted to punch out his lawyer, or if he wa
s just high.

  Dominick gave up trying to read the file. A couple of years ago he had fired his associates, cut down his office staff and switched his practice to divorce, hoping to make a better living, but it was grinding, thankless work. He missed the old days, a little contract work, a little personal injury, some criminal work thrown in.

  The argument had finished. The public defender left and the leather-coated junkie swore violently. He swung around and punched the wall in frustration.

  Dominick shut the file and handed it back to the clerk. Might as well find out what it was all about. He liked to keep a file outside his chosen field once in a while just to stay tuned. He picked up his briefcase and swung into the hallway handing a business card to the man as he went.

  “Dominick Wilding. Couldn’t help overhearing your argument here. Something I can help with?”

  The man looked up from the bench where he had slumped after punching the wall. “Why?”

  Typical, thought Dominick. You offer them help and they act like you just crawled out from under a rock. Dominick shrugged, ready to blow it off. “That’s what I do and you look like you just lost your lawyer.”

  The man looked Dominick up and down slowly. “You do criminal law?”

  “Now and again. What’s the charge?”

  “Grass, possession.”

  “First offense?”

  “Nah, but I never got a conviction.”

  Dominick thought for a moment. Well, why not? Money was money. He looked at his watch. “I’m late for a hearing. I can help you if you want. Call my office for an appointment.” Dominick was halfway down the hall when he turned and yelled back, “What’s your name?”