Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(35)

Joe pulled in behind the GMC Acadia and killed his headlights. Before they went off, he saw the deputy inside the SUV sit up and rub his eyes.

Steck had been sleeping in his car. Joe didn’t blame him.

The driver’s-side window slid down. “Hey, Joe, you caught me.”

“Hey, Ryan. Do you mind if I pop inside for a quick look around?”

Steck arched his eyebrows and thought it over. “Well, I could call the sheriff and wake him up and ask, I suppose.”

“Or you could sit tight in your warm car and I’ll drop off a pizza to you on my way back home.”

“That’s a much better idea.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” Joe said. “Did Gary finish all the forensics?”

“He said he’s nearly done and that he’ll be back tomorrow morning to wrap up.”

“Did he find anything that points to the killers?”

“Not that I heard. He’s gathering evidence at this point, and I don’t think he’s started analyzing it yet. What are you looking for, anyway?”

Joe said, “Marybeth had a theory that maybe Bert kept a stash of cash in his house that someone was after. It’s not a crazy idea, if you think about it. Why else would someone do that to him?”

“So what do you expect to find?”

Joe said, “Maybe an empty safe. Maybe nothing. Who knows?”

Steck rubbed his chin while he thought it over. Then he said, “Thin crust, pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, and sausage. Oh—and don’t touch or move anything inside.”

Joe patted the hood of Steck’s GMC to acknowledge the order as he walked toward the house. He pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and ducked under the crime scene tape.



* * *



—

    After turning on all the lights inside the house so he could see better and so Steck could keep an eye on him, Joe did a cursory search of the cabinets, the drawers, the closets, the refrigerator, and the freezer. He noted that black latent fingerprint powder had been left on most of the smooth surfaces and that numbered evidence ID tents were placed across the floor and on the countertops. He observed where swabs had been taken from the dried blood on the floor, walls, and ceiling. The tools had been bagged and removed from the kitchen and although the chair the victim had been bound to was still in the middle of the floor, the duct tape from its limbs had been removed.

From what he could see, Norwood had done a very thorough job. But the forensics tech had been documenting the crime scene. He hadn’t been looking for hidden cash.

Again, Joe looked over the framed photos on the wall. Most were much too small to hide a safe. Nevertheless, he tipped each one up and shined his flashlight behind it for a hole in the Sheetrock that he didn’t find.

He also glanced behind the framed large print of Charles M. Russell’s The Camp Cook’s Troubles for a safe that wasn’t there.

Joe peeled back rugs in the dining area and Bert’s bedroom for openings to crawl spaces, but found none.

In his experience over the years, he’d learned that people liked to keep their hidden valuables close to them. That meant in between mattresses or under their beds. Men who wanted to hide things from their wives favored toolboxes and garages as hiding places, but Bert lived alone.

He dropped to his hands and knees and shined his flashlight under the double bed. Beside dust motes the size of tennis balls, there was a green metal footlocker near the head of the bed. When he saw it, Joe felt his heart rate speed up. In the layer of dust on the hardwood were tracks. It was obvious that the locker had been pulled out and replaced very recently.

He reached in and grasped the footlocker by a metal handle and gently slid it out. He noted that it stayed within the tracks in the dust that had already been made.

Joe sat back on his haunches and took a photo of the footlocker on his phone. There was stenciled white lettering on the top and side that read:


R. W. Kizer

U.S. Army



He undid six metal side clips that held the lid on tight. A musty odor wafted up from its contents.

On top was a neatly folded green wool army shirt with stiff lapels. He lifted it out and placed it on top of the bed. Underneath the shirt were the uniform trousers and a tightly coiled belt. He removed those as well and put them beside the shirt. Next was a beret emblazoned with a patch of a parachute.

Joe hadn’t served in the military, but he knew he was looking at a dress uniform. On the bottom of the locker were a pair of highly polished combat boots and a set of dog tags. R. W. Kizer once had A-positive blood.

There was no cash to be found. But there was enough spare room in the locker, Joe thought, that there could have been several thick stacks of bills.

Joe guessed that the uniform had belonged to Bert Kizer’s father. It matched the one in the black-and-white photo in the front room.

He carefully replaced all of the items in the box. Before he did, though, he unfurled the shirt on the top of the bed. d. kizer was embroidered over the breast pocket. On the right arm sleeve above the single private stripe was a unit insignia of some kind.

It was in the shape of a shield with a ribbon below it. The shield was severed diagonally by a white lightning bolt. On the top left of the bolt were six white parachutes on a field of blue. On the bottom right of the bolt was solid green with the word Currahee in formal script on the ribbon.