Born To Be Wild

EIGHT

Goddard Bay , Oregon

Chief of Police Jack Wolf looked down at the metal table where Jason Maynard’s body lay, cold and gray, a green sheet pulled to his waist. His head no longer looked human from all the blows the killer had rained down on him.

The medical examiner, Dr. Washington Hughes, a big hulk of a man who’d played pro football defensive tackle for the Vikings in the ’80s, stood next to him. “What you saw at the scene is what you get, Chief. Someone struck him hard enough on the back of the head with the golf club to kill him instantly. As you can see, the murderer didn’t stop with the kill blow. So far, I’ve counted another half-dozen blows to the face. I’ve very seldom in my career seen a head and face this destroyed. The bloody golf club they found lying beside his body checks out as the murder weapon.”

Jack stared down at the man he’d known only well enough to speak with about the coastal weather when they chanced to meet on the street. Jack bought his insurance from Jason’s father-in-law.

He said, “It bespeaks a fine rage.”

“Sure does. Out-of-control rage at work here, Chief.”

It was impossible to tell now, but once Jason Maynard had been a handsome, fair-complexioned man with blondish hair and hazel eyes and a ready smile. “Okay, somehow, the murderer came up behind him, delivered the first blow to the back of his head. I’m thinking he bounced off the passenger side of the green Camry and fell onto his back on the garage floor. From the blood splatters, he didn’t hit the Mercedes, but collapsed between the two cars. Then the murderer struck his face, half a dozen times you said? I’m inclined to believe the murderer knew he was already dead, but it didn’t matter because he was in the red zone. And he struck only his face, to obliterate him? To make him disappear, no longer exist?”

“Did you ever see anything this bad in Chicago?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “I did, but I’ll tell you, Doc, it’s a shock to see it here in a quiet town like Goddard Bay. We may have someone walking around here who’s deeply disturbed. Looking at all the blood splatters in that garage and on the two cars, I’d have to say he was even beyond the red zone, he was crazed, no brakes, no functioning brain at work. He was over the edge. But now I bet he’s flying high because he thinks he’s gotten away with it.”

“A man did this, you think?”

Jack shrugged. “There isn’t any particular heft to a golf club. Could just as easily be a woman.” He looked down at Jason Maynard again. “Such a damned waste. It really pisses me off.”

“Glad you’re the one who has to nail him-or her-and not me.”

Jack looked him up and down, snorted. “Whoever it is, you could twist off his neck with one hand.”

Dr. Hughes grinned, flexed his hands. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t enjoy it, and I wouldn’t be any good at finding him.”

“Can you give me an idea of when this happened?”

“I’d say he was killed between six and eight hours before the time Mrs. Maynard found him this morning, sometime in the early morning, maybe around one a.m.”

“Anything from the tox screen on him yet? Alcohol levels? Drugs?”

“I’ll get that all to you by tomorrow, noon.” Dr. Hughes looked down at the wreck of a man he’d known only slightly, a good-looking young man of thirty-four, who, until early this morning, had a long life in front of him. “He was healthy as a horse until this. He was fit, took care of himself.”

“No defensive wounds?”

“None. As I said, the first blow to the back of his head took him down, killed him instantly. It had to be a friend, family member, someone he trusted, right? Someone he would have let follow him into the garage?”

Jack nodded. “We’ll find out who he’d been out with. We still don’t know who that golf clubs belongs to. If it was Jason’s, the club might have been right there when the murderer went over the edge and grabbed it. But there was no golf bag. Maybe the murderer grabbed the golf club out of his own bag and used it.”

“That means it would have been where? In his backseat?”

“Someplace handy, that’s for sure,” Jack said. “We’ll see. I’ll bet my Beretta he knew his killer very well indeed. And he didn’t think the person was a threat because he turned his back. I suppose someone could have been waiting for him, hiding in the garage without Jason Maynard seeing him, and come up behind him.” Jack frowned. “But it would have been hard to surprise him like that. No place to hide.” He sighed. “And that would mean premeditation. I can’t buy that. The person found out something, and lost it. This was sudden, uncontrolled.”

Jack picked up the golf club that was leaning beside the door in a plastic bag, already examined by the forensic people. “I don’t golf. What can you tell me about this?”

“It’s a Callaway, a Big Bertha Fusion FT-3 driver.”

“Expensive?”

“Very, but about the same as some of the other big names. They’re excellent.”

“Would there be a whole lot of them out at the country club?”

“Sure. This is an affluent area.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll be in touch.” Jack left the morgue, actually a converted room in the basement of the Goddard Bay Community Hospital. At that moment, Jack was very glad he wasn’t in Chicago with its chains of command and its protocols. He was free to do what he thought best. He punched up his friend John Goddard on his cell.

John answered, listened. When Jack finished, he said, “I thought I was going to throw up. I didn’t know a human being had that much blood in him-and other stuff. It was everywhere. That was pretty ugly, Jack.”

“Yeah, it was. Okay, I’m heading over to interview Marci Maynard. I’m betting she knows our murderer. You want to come?”

John thought about it. “No, I think it would be best if I stayed out of the investigation for now. This is a big case for us. I don’t want to be accused of crossing any lines, of manufacturing evidence for an indictment.”

“Okay, no problem. Hey, John, you don’t golf much these days, do you?”

“No, not much. Jason was hit over the head with a driver, right?”

“Yeah, a Callaway.”

“Good clubs, used by lots of pros, probably a lot of our locals as well. You might need some luck tracking that down. Oh yeah, Jack, something else. This isn’t about the murder. This is about-well, it’s a favor, a big one. I’m in a little trouble here.” He told Jack about Kelly Beverly, the engagement ring, and the reservations at Le Fleur de Beijing that evening.

Jack laughed, couldn’t help it. “She knocked you right out of your boots, did she?”

“She knocked them into the next town, Jack. I was a goner. You can take this to the bank: I swear on the grave of my crazy uncle Albert that I’m never going to do it again.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you used to say when we were hanging our heads over the john the morning after one of those sorority parties.”

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t want it again until I’m more mature, more able to control my brain afterward.”

“Think a moment about a guy’s hard wiring.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right. Will you help me out here?”

“So you want me to come fetch you at the Fleur de Beijing at exactly nine-thirty tonight, with something urgent about the case. That’ll give you an hour-you’re sure you’ll have gotten yourself off the hook by then?”

“If I haven’t, shoot me.”

Jack grinned into his cell. He knew John didn’t really need him to be there, only wanted some help to make a graceful exit after breaking up with Kelly. It had happened before. They’d met at Princeton, John a psychology major because he didn’t know yet what he wanted to do with his life, and Jack in many of the same psych classes because he knew all along he wanted to be a cop. As it turned out John had gone to law school, while Jack went on for his master’s degree in forensic science. The FBI had called, which was gratifying, but he’d wanted something local, and moved back to where his family lived, in Chicago. But now he was here, in Goddard Bay, largely because John Goddard, the newly elected district attorney, had called him at the perfect time. An eighteen-year-old boy, wasted on crack, had shot him in the side after missing him twice. Jack finally returned fire, killing him. Two months later, he was the newly elected chief of police in Goddard Bay. To his surprise, but not to John’s, he really liked the job.

Jack said, “Okay, you got an hour to save your ass before I come and haul it out. I’ll let you know what I find out from Marci Maynard. Wives, I’ve discovered over the years, always know something, if not everything.”