[Benny James 01.0] Birdsongs Read online

  Birdsongs

  Jason Deas

  Copyright 2009 By Jason Deas

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

  Jason Deas

  [email protected]

  Also By Jason Deas

  Fiction

  Pushed (Benny James Mystery 2)

  Brushed Away (Benny James Mystery 3)

  Private Eye (Cameron Caldwell Mystery 1)

  Middle Grade Fiction

  Camp Timber View

  The Big Stinky City

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 1

  The streetlights flickered with the summer storm. Benny’s umbrella pulled him down the boulevard like a mad dog on a short leash. With each step, water gushed from the soles of his boots. His toes flayed in rhythm with a flip-flop beat. Glad to have an excuse to splash around in the forming puddles, Benny kicked and jumped through the growing pools. A schoolboy grin spread across his face as light divided the charcoal sky. The boom that followed, like God cracking his knuckles, tickled his insides. The night’s endeavors were unsuccessful, with a stakeout resulting in naught.

  Benny strolled a mile and saw his ride. Michelle waited in his car as coached. She had the engine running, contrary to Benny’s instructions.

  “There’s smoke coming out of the damn pipes,” Benny said, as he slid into the passenger seat next to her.

  “I was cold,” Michelle drawled, fully equipped with a Georgian drip. “And I wanted to hear the radio.”

  In no mood for a fight, Benny said nothing. His face tightened.

  “Do you want me to drive you home or not?” Michelle asked.

  “Yes, please drive me home, rookie.” Benny relaxed as he decided it wouldn’t have mattered if she had honked the horn to the beat of the radio songs while flashing the high beams on and off. The guy he was looking for didn’t show. Nobody was out in this rain.

  “Do you want to go to your house or the boat?”

  “The boat.”

  The beat of the windshield wipers hypnotized Benny. The rain frizzled in his ears. He snapped out of it as they rode over the speed bump that accompanied the thirteen mile an hour sign at the entrance of the marina. “Do you want me to come in tonight?” Michelle asked.

  “Not tonight, I’m beat,” Benny answered. Jesus Christ, I only slept with you once. It was a mistake. Can’t we just forget it?

  Once home, Benny’s eyes found the clock on the microwave as he dropped his umbrella and shoes inside the door. His pupils narrowed in surprise as he realized it was past two o’clock in the morning. The city slept. Benny coveted the sight of his bed. The floor pulled at his eyelids and his head followed lead.

  He tossed his drenched shirt towards the kitchen. It slapped the floor with a startling smack. His pants trailed. Benny lifted his gaze. A blinking red light signaling a message on his answering machine gave him his second wind: A delivery driver had discovered a crucified body in a house under construction. Benny threw on a new set of clothes and just like that he was back in the rain.

  As he parked his Jeep behind a Blazer, Benny saw homicide detective Vernon Kearns leaning over, eying a muddy area along the gravel drive.

  “What’s going on here?” Benny asked as he climbed out and joined him.

  “Goddamned if I know,” Vernon answered, wiping his mouth and looking back at the muddy patch once more.

  Benny James was a retired FBI agent; he was not an official member of the Tilley police force. He was Encyclopedia Brown’s grown-up equivalent, a natural know-it-all crime solver, and the police department’s new best friend. The two men shook hands and locked eyes. Benny recognized the look. Vernon had thrown up.

  “Where’s the guy who called it in?” Benny asked.

  “Gone to meet Chief Neighbors. He was delivering and installing a bathtub. Owner left a key under a mat. He wasn’t supposed to be there, let alone dead.”

  Benny walked toward the house and saw the vomit on the ground where Vernon stood. Making his way into the house, he entered the vast bathroom and observed the staging and positioning of the body.

  “Jesus Christ,” Benny said.

  “Yeah,” Vernon answered, “I think that’s what our killer was getting at.”

  The victim, a young man, hung in a crucifixion pose, tied to a rugged cross made from two-by-fours that leaned on one wall. The killer had attached an odd assortment of items to the right side of the body. Rings from a bubble gum machine adorned all five digits. Benny queried over the pair of binoculars duct taped to the palm of the victim’s hand.

  “What the hell?” Benny looked over and saw Vernon sweating. “Vernon, go outside before you puke again.”

  Vernon nodded. “Don’t know how you can look at this without getting queasy.” He left quickly.

  The victim’s skin had turned purplish. Bracelets made of wire, pipe cleaners, and vines created a spider’s web of lines lacing his arm. Beneath his right foot lay a dead bird. Benny noted a bluish-purple line encircling the victim’s neck and concluded strangulation occurred before the hanging of the body. The victim had a jagged gash just below the ribcage.

  Just then, the newly-minted local rep
orter popped his head in the door and asked to come in. Jerry Lee was an eager young reporter for the town paper, the Tilley Bee. The small daily usually had a front-page story about a community center activity or something equally exciting. This scene was a Broadway opening night for Jerry Lee.

  “I was listening to the police scanner and came right over.” Jerry Lee didn’t wait for an invitation and entered the bathroom.

  “Holy Jesus and God’s mommy!” he exclaimed upon taking in the ghastly spectacle. “What in the Jim Lewis Larry happened here?” Jerry Lee loved to make up curse words after he found the Lord. These were his personalized “F” words in the greatest strength.

  “Aren’t you the reporter?” Benny asked, annoyed by his arrival. “This is a crime scene Jerry. I’m going to ask you once and only once to get out before you contaminate the scene with your big-ass clumsy feet.”

  “If you don’t get to stepping,” Vernon came back slowly into the room, “I’ll arrest ya’ ass for entering a crime scene without proper authority.”

  Vernon peered at the binoculars. “These are Johnsonville binoculars, Benny. Talk to your tech buddy Ned and see if he knows where they’re sold. I’ve never heard of the brand, have you?”

  “Nope.” Benny stared, grimacing, with his eyes about an arm’s length away from the victim’s midsection. “This cut in his side is enormous! Looks like some sort of sword made the incision.”

  Turning to Jerry Lee he said, “Put in tomorrow’s paper that investigators found key evidence at the murder scene. Say we sent it off to the state crime lab. That may put a scare in this asshole. Now do what we both asked of you and get out. And don’t touch a goddamned thing on your way.”

  Jerry Lee nodded sickly and scrawled something in his notebook as he left the house. “When your boys get here,” Benny advised Vernon, “make sure they note that Jerry Lee entered the crime scene at 3:03 a.m. and exited at 3:06 a.m. through the front door. Where is everybody else?”

  “Slow moving, Benny,” Vernon continued to inspect the body. “When was the last time anything like this happened in Tilley?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m sure those guys think their phones are ringing with wrong numbers. They’ll be here eventually.”

  By the time the official crime team arrived, Benny had seen all he needed to see. He had checked over the entire house and found nothing out of the ordinary.

  In the early morning hours, the next steps proceeded without Benny. Vernon’s boys sealed the scene with a radius wide enough to pick up any shoe prints or tire marks the perpetrator might have left behind. The photographer did his thing, and all aspects of the surrounding outdoor area were carefully and quickly scrutinized in the event wind or any other type of weather might destroy the available evidence.

  They searched the entrance and exit routes as well. A search for artifacts and traces of odd elements that could possibly provide clues also took place. Vernon wanted a minimal number of personnel on the scene to avoid inadvertent contamination of any items that might eventually link a suspect to the crime. The process of recording all of the evidence and the comings and goings of all involved took what was left of the night and a good part of the morning.

  Instead of heading back to the lonesome house with the peculiar brick red picket fence, Benny wrestled his body and mind back to the boat. Once on the boat, the fridge called him. He grabbed a frosty adult beverage, poured a stiff shot of bourbon and plopped down in one of his rocking lounge chairs on the outdoor deck.

  Benny’s mind creaked and rocked with the boat and his thoughts of murder. In his mind it was one thing to shoot, stab, strangle, or beat a man to death. To hang a body in a crucifixion pose after the fact added a demented element to the grisly murder.

  Chapter 2

  Ray Clint Boyd stared through the bars of his cell. His eyes were empty windows. He sat cross-legged, like a Zen master. His vision appeared to see simultaneously all and nothing. Like a wax figure, his body was motionless, yet it seemed to possess the ability to spring to life at any moment. In contrast to a Zen master, however, his mind was not clear and void of all thoughts.

  He was deep into his daily mental exercises that consisted of fantasizing about how he might kill a certain someone. There were so many methods, each painfully unique, that Ray Clint was sorry he could only kill this special someone once. The corner of his mouth twitched. A smile slowly crept across his face as he visualized the technique he doggedly believed would deliver the greatest amount of personal satisfaction—a good old-fashioned baseball bat bludgeoning.

  A rugged face surrounded his mouth that told the tale of countless cigarettes. Long, greasy, braided hair fell down his back. Given a guitar or motorcycle, he’d pass as Willie Nelson’s next of kin or a worn out Harley rider.

  For nearly three decades he stewed with an anger that bubbled and boiled in him like an evil spirit. He did his time in a nine by twelve cell in the Fairbrook County Penitentiary. He thought it was anything but fair being put away for a crime he swore and never wavered he did not commit.

  He impatiently waited for this day. He was about to receive his walking papers and stroll out of the prison gates. Ray Clint knew there was a high probability of a prompt return following his revenge.

  He told himself again he did not do it as he heard a guard nearing his cell. Inside one of his few books and the only one he decided to take with him, Ray Clint tucked an aged letter.

  “Ray Clint Boyd?” The guard called. “You ready to go out there and see how the world has changed?”

  “Come on Jimmy,” R.C. responded. “You knowed me o’er twenty years and you ain’t never called me that since day one.”

  “Gotta be formal on a day like this R.C.,” Jimmy apologized. “Warden’s here to supervise your release and I don’t want him in my craw.” Jimmy tuned his voice to a whisper, “Now go see my Uncle Sly at his diner. I told him you never caused a lick of trouble in here and you been our best cook. He said he has an old trailer—no electricity, but you’re welcome to stay there and work while you get some sort of plan for yourself worked out.”

  “Does he still got that old Gold Wing for sale?” R.C. asked hopefully.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy nodded. “Nobody wants that old motorcycle. Needs too much work I guess. He told me you could work it off.”

  “I’ll get ’er runnin’ good,” R.C. said with confidence. “It’ll keep me busy at night.”

  “Please, don’t let me down and cause no trouble. I’m really putting my neck out for you.”

  “I told you at least a hundred times,” R.C. snapped, “I ain’t never caused no trouble my whole life.”

  As Jimmy led him through the prison, R.C. said his farewells to former cellmates and friends with simple nods and a wink or two.

  “There isn’t one guilty man in here is there?” Jimmy grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth dark in his mouth.

  “There’s at least one innocent man,” R.C. responded, with a heavy look on his face.

  “I actually believe you.” Jimmy ended the conversation and straightened up as they neared the command station to check out.

  The sky was a sloppy Picasso. A graveyard of clouds hung like frozen skeletons above the Fairbrook County Penitentiary. R.C. took a deep breath he felt seep in and out of his eyes. He opened his hands from clinched fists and wiggled his fingers, feeling the blood coursing through his veins, pounding like a heartbeat in his fingernails.

  He scrunched his toes in and out and walked purposely on the grass near the side of the road, feeling the soft green earth that was so foreign in the concrete and steel bar jungle from which he had just departed.

  The desolate landscape was free from homes and businesses. No-one wanted to live or work close to the penitentiary. It was the first time in nearly thirty years Ray Clint Boyd was truly alone.

  It was about three miles to town. R.C. didn’t bother trying to hitchhike. There were signs warning motorists hitchhikers could be escaped convicts. He didn’t care how long it took. H
e was content to take in the surreal experience of being on the outside.

  Locked up since the age of twenty-three, R.C. was now fifty-two years old. Vegas boy, soldier in Vietnam, and convicted killer; this was his life. He walked on steadily, as if he had an invisible rope attached to his gut, pulling him towards an unknown destiny.

  His eyes blazed. They were not empty, nor did they seem the least bit meditative. They were cups, running over and spilling vengeance.

  Chapter 3

  As the rain pounded harder, Benny got in his car and drove almost blindly back to the houseboat. The Jane Says was his office. He sat down at his desk to make some notes and to check his messages again.

  He’d live on it for a short time after his ex-wife Jane told him to get the hell out. Since then he had bought a small house in town with a red picket fence, but he spent the majority of his time and many nights on the boat.

  Benny had been meaning to paint the fence white, but the curious red symbolized something he could not quite put his finger on. Until he could decipher the meaning of the former owners’ color choice, Benny decided to let it remain the peculiar red.

  The slip that held his forty-foot houseboat was rent free, since he was the marina’s security guard. The owner of the marina felt comforted by the fact a sign at the front gate warned passersby the area was under guard.

  Benny had the choice of a covered slip, but chose uncovered for nights like this. The rain drumming against the boat’s top was soothing in the early morning. Benny spent many nights stargazing in a rocking lounge chair on top of the boat. It brought him answers to his various puzzling questions.

  Benny was in the private eye business. His new message was from a Mrs. Clemmons. She was inquiring as to Benny’s progress in the case of her suspected unfaithful husband. Mrs. Clemmons was almost certain her husband had a girlfriend but she wanted some evidence to present in divorce court. She said to call at any hour since she was not getting any sleep. Benny decided he would take her word that she was an insomniac and get the call out of the way. Benny dialed the cell number and before the first ring was complete, she answered.