“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Jimmy Elmer rested his hand on Jillian’s bare knee as he drove. She became still, a statuette of total ambivalence, caught midway between responding to a wave of revulsion and a baser, animalistic thrill.

Her natural aversion faded and the physical response gave way to a kind of primal dread as they wended their way down the highway, leaving civilization farther and farther behind.

“Hauling me back to your cave?” she asked softly. Her voice was thick with drink, despite the sobering effect of her mounting apprehension.

Jimmy smiled knowingly and pushed the gas pedal closer to the floor. His hand left her knee long enough for him to shift and then resumed its measured advance up her leg.

Jillian clung to the hope that Danny and Fox were following some distance behind them, waiting for Jimmy’s Charger to pull off the road. The trouble was she couldn’t be sure. The headlights in the rearview mirror could belong to anybody. The comforting rumble of Fox’s Harley was faint enough to have become nothing more than the product of her over-active imagination.

Jimmy’s fingers ventured beneath the hemline of her skirt and traced circles on the pale flesh of her thigh.

“Place like Nick’s,” he said, “you could maybe end up running with the wrong sort.” His voice was soothing, even pleasantly distracting. “Folks around here tend to steer clear of the place, except for the occasional bump.”

The sonofabitch killed my sister’s husband, she reminded herself. He attacked a blind man and a teenage boy…

Jillian’s heart raced and she tried in vain to ignore the subtle pressure of his fingertips.

“You oughta be more careful,” he went on. His caresses seemed almost automatic, absent minded somehow, as though his intentions were less predatory than the scenario warranted.

Jillian kissed his neck suddenly in an attempt to hide her fear. Alarm merged with shame and adrenalin in a whirl of confusion and self-doubt.

Jimmy calmly assented, taking her chin in the palm of his hand and kissing her lightly on the lips.

This isn’t getting any safer the farther we get from town, she reflected to herself with increasing anxiety.

A new sensation, a surge of abandon and recklessness, overwhelmed her. She reached across Jimmy’s lap unbuckled his seatbelt. Leaning over, she whispered into his ear.

“You don’t pull this thing over pretty quick,” she said, “a girl could lose her nerve.”

Jimmy slowed to a crawl and aimed the Charger onto a numbered logging road scattered with gravel. He turned the engine off after about a hundred yards and switched off the lights. Jillian noticed with a certain amount of panic that no headlights had followed them at the turnoff.

Jimmy reached out for her and kissed her hard. He was upon her in an instant, ushering her into the backseat, and she had a struggle rolling him onto his back in order to retain the upper hand.

She silenced any lingering doubts by pulling her tank top off over her head.

She smiled lewdly and reached behind her to unsnap her bra.

“Hold on a minute,” Jimmy said reluctantly. Jillian frowned in mock consternation.

Jimmy sighed and smiled apologetically.

“You can drop the act,” he said, not unkindly.

Jillian flushed, but said nothing.

“I don’t mean to look a gift horse,” he said, “but you ain’t foolin’ nobody. You’re that Schaller widow’s sister. You been seeing that blind motherfucker came to my mother’s house.”

“I-I don’t know what—“

“Come off it,” Jimmy muttered. “How many good looking women happen through this burg, you think? People tend to notice.”

Jimmy held Jillian’s shirt up to her like an olive branch.

All at once she realized that she was straddling a homicidal maniac in nothing but a short skirt and a few pieces of underwear.

She jumped off him and slid into the front seat, simultaneously covering what little flesh she could and trying to create some space between them.

“Why’d you let me go on then, you sonofabitch?”

Jimmy laughed and shrugged good-naturedly.

“Can you blame me?” he asked.

She assessed herself for panic and realized with a start that she was more embarrassed than afraid.

An awkward silence passed between them. Finally, Jimmy spoke.

“You gonna tell me what this act is all about,” he asked.

“By this act—“

“I’d be referring to the lady of the evening routine.”

Jillian didn’t know why, but she decided to level with him.

“It was supposed to be a trap,” she said.

“No shit.”

“Danny and Fox were gonna ask you some questions.”

“Yeah, like they did at my mom’s place?”

Jillian smiled acidly.

“You shot at them,” she said.

“Actually, my mother did the shooting…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Fox’s menacing profile emerged from the shadows and the sight stopped him cold.

“Here we go—“

Fox had the door open in a flash and the two men were brawling before Jillian could get a word in edgewise.

She spotted Danny on the edge of the road and ran to him.

“This is all wrong,” she said.

“You’re telling me,” Danny said, touching her bare shoulder.

Jimmy was tearing into Fox like a wildcat, for all the good it did him. He took a heavy blow for every three he gave, but the balance of damage was clearly in Fox’s favor.

“Hold him,” Danny snapped.

Fox reeled with a series of blows to the stomach.

Danny took his silence for a bad sign and stepped toward the sounds of the scuffle.

It was a mistake.

Just as Danny came within reach, Jimmy pulled a short knife from a sheath attached to his belt and slashed out at Danny’s ribs. The blade found its mark and Danny went down hard.

Jillian screamed and ran toward them. Fox pushed her back and Jimmy took the opportunity to break free.

Fox ran after him into the deepening darkness of the woods. Jillian followed closely, leaving Danny sprawled on the ground.

Fox caught up with Jimmy at the edge of a shallow ravine. Jimmy seemed to have tossed the knife, because he met the man with closed fists.

“I didn’t hurt her,” Jimmy grunted. “I was just havin’ some fun—“ He landed a hard right that knocked Fox backward into the ravine. The two men tumbled downhill together, picking up where they left off at the edge of a black pool that served as a water cache for one of the nearby farms.

Realization dawned on Jillian an instant too late.

Fox ducked another well-aimed right and pulled Jimmy into the water with all his remaining strength, holding him under. Jimmy kicked and struggled in vain.

“He didn’t do it!” Jillian shouted in a voice touched with horror. “He didn’t kill Herb! He didn’t do it!”

Fox let go of Jimmy’s collar and stumbled backward from edge of the pool.

The boy lay motionless beneath the surface of the water. Somewhere off in the distance Danny cried out in pain.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

 
The holidays are over at last and we are finally picking up where we left off with Danny Stark and crew. Due to the interruption, we decided it best to preface Chapter 20 with a brief synopsis in order to bring you all back up to speed: “DEATH ON THE BREEZE” aims to pay homage to the early “pulp” or “noir” style suspense story. It features the improbable character of Danny Stark, a blind auto mechanic and small-time criminal who turns amateur sleuth after a close friend is murdered. The novel explores themes of betrayal, revenge, justice, loyalty and the indomitability of the resourceful. The story is set in Chelatchie Prairie, Washington, a small town surrounded by logging country and farmland, resting at the foot of the once ominous Mount St. Helens.The novel opens with a house fire that results in the death of our protagonist’s lifelong friend, Herb Schaller. Closer examination reveals that Herb’s death was anything but accidental, and Danny sets out to discover the truth about the circumstances surrounding his friend’s murder.

An unlikely alliance of misfits and ne’er-do-wells assist Danny in his efforts: Angie Elmer—college freshman and local girl—spends her spring break at Danny’s side, Loudon Bean—art school dropout and Danny’s sometime employee—goes above and beyond the call of duty and ends up in the hospital and the county jail for his trouble, Don Bauman—claims investigator—lends his expertise to Danny and Bean’s machinations, and Bill Fox and his inamorata Charlene—old friends, the both of them—bring a little muscle to bear on the situation at Danny’s behest.

Meanwhile, the Schaller family—Herb’s widow, Leslie, and their two daughters, Jenna and Lindsay—make do as best they can under the circumstances. A long absent sister—Jillian—shows up to help Leslie and her nieces during their trouble and leaves Danny smitten in the process.

By the time we arrive at Chapter 20, all signs appear to be pointing toward one Jimmy Elmer as the villain responsible for Herb’s death as well as a series of violent attacks on Danny, Bean, and Fox.

In Chapter 19, Jimmy’s mother—Lorraine Elmer—visits the garage and attempts to distance herself from her son’s violent and inexplicable behavior. The chapter concludes with Danny extracting Lorraine’s promise to aid them in them in their efforts to track Jimmy down and finally get some answers.

Chapter 20

Jillian had to drive all the way into Portland to find the right outfit for the job. Her own taste in attire, she knew, was insufficiently scandalous.

Her sister, fearing further involvement, had begged her not to go. They’d argued the previous evening after Danny had called to tell Jillian what he had in mind not twenty minutes after parting company with Lorraine Elmer.

“Danny Stark can do as he likes,” Leslie had concluded. “But you just stay the hell out of it, Jill.”

Leslie just didn’t think she could stand another loss. The fire had taken Herb. It had taken her treasured homeplace and consumed her fondest memories. It had destroyed her family photo albums and Christmas decorations, her children’s toys and stuffed animals, her grandmother’s china and the bedroom set she’d slept in since her wedding night. In a single evening, it had reduced a false sense of security to a smoldering heap of ashes and burned her heart to a blackened cinder.

And now her only sister wanted to serve herself up as bait, as some kind of lure to snare the sick sonofabitch who may very well have kindled their collective nightmare.

Jillian had paused in the doorway and faced her sister.

“I want to help,” she’d said. “I want to make myself useful and damnit this is something I can do.”

But she knew the real reason she’d agreed to Danny’s plan was something altogether more selfish. She was bored. She’d been back in Chelatchie Prairie less than two weeks and already the old ennui was settling in. Even the maudlin drama of her sister’s tragedy couldn’t keep the old demons at bay. It was why she’d left home so many years ago. It was the core truth behind her outward ambition, the base reality beneath all her industriousness and zeal. She could not sit still. After a few days cooped up in the old farmhouse with a gaggle of needy relations, the prospect of playing the part of a hungry vixen in order to trap a murderer held irresistible allure.

She had thought Danny’s recent rebuff had closed the door on any further collaboration, to say nothing of conjugal visits, and she had jumped at the chance to raise a little hell when he finally called and laid it all out for her.

“How do I look?” she asked Danny in jest.

He leaned forward in the backseat of the Volvo, inserting his head between Jillian in the passenger seat and Charlene behind the wheel.

“Those boys won’t know what hit ‘em,” he said with a grin.

“It’s the cheap perfume,” she muttered, opening the door and climbing out into the parking lot. “Devil’s in the details.”

All conversation stopped when she pushed through the door into Nick’s Tavern. A row of bikers looked up from their beers in unison, craning their necks to leer at Jillian like a fighter squadron turning in tight formation.

Jillian struck a pose. She pouted cartoonishly and cocked her head askance. She hoped the gesture was more provocative than palsied, but she couldn’t be sure. The tight tank and short skirt had the desired effect however, and the nearest stool was cleared by an eager lowlife before the door closed behind her.

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest as she gave her best impression of a maneater on the prowl. The welcome sight of Fox brooding gloomily in a far corner steadied her nerves a little and she accepted the obligatory complimentary cocktail from a mealy-eyed redneck with an enthusiastic flip of the hair and a lascivious, lip-smacking grin.

A line began to form.

An hour—and three free whiskey sours later—she began seriously to wonder if Jimmy Elmer was going to show.

She needn’t have worried. As promised, Lorraine Elmer had done her part.

At Danny’s behest, Jimmy’s mother had left word for him with Tommy Thompson. The message had been simple: “stay away from Nick’s Tavern on Saturday night.”

Like a walking, talking study in reverse psychology, Jimmy Elmer skulked through the entryway and pulled up a chair at an empty table in the middle of the room.

Fox slipped out the side door undetected, but not before he caught Jillian’s eye and nodded in Jimmy’s direction, letting her know that he was their man.

He didn’t look the part of the killer to Jillian. In fact, she thought with some trepidation, he’s kinda handsome even.

Jimmy seemed not to notice her at first. He kicked a chair loose, placed a big leather boot on the seat, cocked a long arm and rested an elbow on the tabletop. He scanned the room, nodding to familiar faces and scrutinizing those he didn’t recognize with unsettlingly pale blue eyes.

Jillian waited patiently. There wasn’t a lot of competition. The only other woman in the place was an ancient cocktail waitress named Barb.

Jimmy loped up to the bar next to Jillian and ordered a shot of Wild Turkey and a beer. She finished her drink and set it down with a decided bang in front of Jimmy.

“Your turn, pal,” she commanded, flicking the tip of her tongue defiantly against her teeth.

Jimmy smirked bemusedly and acquiesced without complaint.

She joined him at the table he’d claimed and the conversation quickly turned into a clichéd mutual assessment.

“Married?” Jillian asked.

“You see a ring?” Jimmy answered, splaying his fingers wide for her benefit.

“Girl’s got a right to wonder,” Jillian chirped, smiling. “Where all the womenfolk around here anyway? You keep ‘em all barefoot and pregnant or what?”

“Not me.”

Jillian glanced around significantly and raised her eyebrows.

“Doesn’t answer the question, fella,” she said with a shrug.

“Guess you got the field all to yourself,” Jimmy said, wrapping a rough palm around one of her dainty ankles under the table. “Where’d you say you were from?”

“I didn’t,” Jillian answered in an icy voice. But she slid the ankle into his lap and met his gaze with a challenging stare.

Out in the parking lot, Danny grew steadily more nervous as time wore on. He checked and double-checked the handheld transceiver that connected him to Fox until the man bellowed back at him to hold the chatter.

An agonizing half-hour later Jimmy and Jillian stumbled out of the bar arm in arm.

Jimmy led the way to a dusty black Dodge Charger and held the door open for her. She hesitated briefly, knowing she was taking her little game to a new and much more dangerous level.

Across the lot, Fox kick-started his Harley to life in the shadows. Reassured by the sound, Jillian climbed in and pulled the door shut. A light rain began to fall as Jimmy pulled out onto the highway and sped away into deepening darkness of the evening.

Charlene started the Volvo.

“I don’t like this,” Danny muttered as he climbed forward into the passenger seat.

“A little late for second thoughts,” said Charlene.

Danny sighed and spoke into the radio.

“You first, baby,” he said to Fox. “Lead the way.”

The radio squawked and Fox shouted over the growl of the hog, “You don’t gotta tell me twice.”

He jammed the radio into his jacket and roared off after the Charger.

Danny turned to Charlene and nodded.

“Let’s get moving,” he said.

Charlene stomped on the gas and they lurched forward after their quarry. Danny clamped his jaw shut and tapped the dash compulsively, feeling less like a hunter springing a trap than a gambler facing some very long odds.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Despite their immediate proximity, and the fact that they’d spent a lot of years living in the same county, Danny had no frame of reference to gauge Lorraine Elmer. Over the phone she’d sounded weak and frightened. In person her voice fluctuated like a chameleon’s skin.

“I’m sorry about what happened to that boy,” she said gravely. She navigated the little Honda competently. Danny wondered if it was the same car her son had used to transport Bean, wondered if she’d helped him force Bean into the trunk, helped him stifle the boy’s resistance, muffle his pleas for help.

The evening was cold, and Danny hadn’t dressed for a journey. He found the car’s heating unit and turned the knob from left to right. The fan whined and forced air through the vents.

“Jimmy turned up out of the blue a few months back,” Lorraine said. “I hadn’t seen him in years. I was so happy at first… but he—he’s changed. He scares me.”

Danny smiled at the plaintiveness of her tone. She noticed, and placed thin fingertips on the back of his hand.

“I tried to warn you,” she said. “I called the number—”

“I got the message. So did Bean.”

His voice was icy. She retracted her hand and they drove on in silence for several miles.

When they emerged from the emptiness of Chelatchie Prairie and crossed the intersection at the north end of Battle Ground, Danny picked out the telltale signature of the city. In town, even the quality of late night stillness is distinctive. The asphalt has a different resonance. Small noises carry further and echo more readily. The wind has almost nothing to rustle.

Lorraine pulled into the parking lot of a small Italian restaurant that was popular with the locals. When she turned off the motor, Danny spoke up.

“What are we doing here?” he asked impatiently.

Lorraine opened the door and slid one slender leg out.

“A glass of wine,” she said seductively, “and a quiet booth.”

Danny frowned. Lorraine stepped out of the car and leaned in.

“You came this far,” she murmured. “Humor me.”

Danny held the door from force of habit and followed her in out of the cold. A feckless teenage hostess showed them to a corner booth and signaled for the waiter. Lorraine ordered a carafe of table red and gave the young man a knowing look.

“Just the wine,” she said, handing back the menus. The waiter nodded solemnly and left.

“Thing is,” she began softly, “I really oughta thank you.”

Danny played along.

“What for?”

“I was in a tough spot out there.”

“Out there?”

“At my place. Jimmy was sort of, well, keeping me prisoner really.”

The waiter returned with the wine. He poured them each a glass and departed.

Danny raised his glass in a toast.

“To Jimmy’s health,” he said, before taking a sip.

“He’s my son,” she said. “I couldn’t turn him out… even if, if he…”

“Killed a man?” Danny volunteered.

“Killed a man? What—”

“Assaulted your friendly local mechanic. Kidnapped a teenager. Tortured him, left him for dead—“

“I don’t know what you—“

“Save it,” Danny said, slamming his empty glass down. “You made your bed.”

Lorraine took a deep breath.

“I wanted to tell you—” she began.

“I’m all ears,” Danny said. He was beginning to lose his temper.

“I wanted to say thank you,” she said with all the earnestness at her disposal.

“Christ,” Danny spat. “You want to plead for amnesty, lady, you come to the wrong man.”

Lorraine refilled his glass first, and then topped off her own.

“Now that you run Jimmy off… now the police been around… he’ll leave me alone. He won’t dare come back.”

“Glad I could help.”

“You think I’m lying.”

“I do.”

Danny polished off his glass, and made to leave.

“Let me take you home.”

“Now you’re talking.”

Lorraine paid the bill and drove them out of town.

As they wound northward, she played her trump card.

“He would have killed that boy,” she said. “If I hadn’t begged him to stop.”

Danny considered this. As incredulous as he was, he figured it was probably true. Unlike virtually everything else she’d said, it had the ring of authenticity and it made some sense of the phone call.

“I’m not lobbying for a medal,” she added. “I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with any of this.”

She neared the bend in the road just before the garage.

“What do I have to do to convince you I’m telling the truth?”

“Don’t know why you give a damn,” he said.

She pulled the car to a stop.

“Let’s say I have my reasons.”

Danny put his hand on the door handle.

“Alright,” he said casually. “How ‘bout you point us to your son?”

He opened the door and started to get out, but she reached over to stop him, taking him by the elbow and holding him firmly.

“I wanna help,” she said in low voice. “I just need some time.”

Danny shrugged.

“It’s now or never.”

Lorraine sighed long and hard.

“Have it your way,” she said at last.

She let go of Danny’s elbow and climbed out of the car.

[Ed.’s Note: We sincerely apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. Sometimes the Editors get ahead of themselves and just plain miss the mark. But we thank you for sticking it out with us - it’s a great mystery, isn’t it?]

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Danny stoked the fire and brooded. It had been an unusually productive day—he’d retrieved the boy wonder from jail, alienated his main squeeze, and made a token appearance at an old pal’s funeral. It was one for the record books, however you wanted to slice it.

Back at the garage, his pal Fox had spent the better part of the day sucking down cheap bourbon and gritting his teeth while a stoic Charlene pulled a dozen or so fragments of buckshot from his thigh.

He might have gone to the hospital like any sane person would have in his place, but Bill Fox had never been one for red tape and explanations.

“How wassa funeral?” Fox inquired, slurring his words.

Danny didn’t answer at first. He registered the sound of Bean rustling through the cupboards—no doubt in pursuit of hooch—and he was tempted to issue a dire warning about the possible hazards of killing his last few ounces of scotch.

But Bean—poor, miserable, unlucky Bean—had earned a few ounces of whatever happened to be on hand. Seventy-two hours in the pokey preceded by a day and a half of special time with friendly Jimmy Elmer was all the pedigree anybody needed to earn Danny’s patience.

“Hey!” Fox bawled. “You deaf?”

“Sorry…” Danny answered, snapping out of his reverie. “The funeral was great, a barrel of laughs. Too bad you missed it.”

Charlene giggled.

“Very f-funny,” Fox mumbled. He was sprawled out on Danny’s bed dressed in a bathrobe, his bandaged thigh exposed, a pint of Rebel Yell in his hand.

A crash from the vicinity of the kitchen cut the conversation short.

“Sonofabitch!” Bean exclaimed amidst the remnants of a punchbowl he had been attempting to wrestle down from a shelf.

“Don’t move, dear,” Charlene chided as she rose from her chair to assist him. “You’ll cut yourself.”

Fox roared with laughter. Bean didn’t think it was funny. He wasn’t sure yet he’d emerged unscathed.

“Sorry, Dan,” he muttered miserably.

“Don’t let the glassware getcha!” Fox teased between guffaws. “it ain’t quite buckshot,” he went on, “but it’ll do…”

Danny slipped out the door and down the hall to escape the commotion. He took his sweet time and detoured into the shop. He padded amidst the machines and empty space. Apart from the stolen Hummer and the Jag he’d worked over the night Jimmy Elmer had paid him a visit, these rooms had lain barren since Herb’s death.

Danny wondered if he should give up the ghost. Should I drop it or what? Should I let it go and get on with business as usual?

He paced the floor and genuflected.

Whattaya say, Herb? Why’d they kill ya? What’d you do, boy? How ‘bout you tell ol’ Danny just what the fuck went down? Cut me loose and find some other fool to haunt…

He waited in the silence for a feeling of surrender or resolve to wash over him. None came.

The price tag… the cost in blood… it’s too much, too much to ask…

But those were Herb’s words, Danny thought. Herb, who could never bring himself to ask a favor, would not have asked for this. It made little difference.

Danny thought back to the last time he’d seen Herb alive. They had marked the first thaw of the season by hitting the catfish hole in the narrows beneath the old single-span bridge above the falls.

Herb had remembered to bring a steaming thermos of Irish coffee. Only trouble was he’d forgotten to pick up the bait. They sipped coffee with their legs dangling from the roadside and laughed until they cried.

“Somebody did it,” Danny said aloud to the empty room. “And somebody’s gotta pay.” His words echoed back to him unanswered.

He turned on his heel and trudged into the office. He pulled the chair free from his desk and sat in the dark, wondering what to do next.

Without being aware of having made a conscious decision, he found himself dialing information and asking for Tommy Thompson’s home number.

The phone rang four times before the machine picked up.

“You’ve reached the Thompson residence,” a stately feminine voice intoned. “We’re not here to take your call right now. Leave a message after the tone and we’ll get back to you just as soon as we can.”

Danny hung up. He jerked open the desk drawer and fished out his tape recorder to make note of Thompson’s number.

After replacing the recorder, he crossed to the front door and stepped into the night.

It was still and cold. He shivered a bit and wondered when the weather would begin to match the month of the year.

He was about to lock up and rejoin the circus in the back when a car pulled into the gravel lot. The engine died and a long moment passed before the driver opened the door and emerged from the car.

Danny resisted the urge to call out. Hesitant steps approached him and stopped halfway to the door.

“We need to talk,” she said.

Danny had heard the voice over the telephone once before, and he guessed right in presuming it belonged to Lorraine Elmer.

“Fellas are inside,” Danny said, nodding his head toward the back of the building, “still lickin’ their wounds, I guess. Might not be too friendly just now.”

“I spose not,” she agreed. “I came to see you.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, skeptically, “you and what army?”

Lorraine said nothing.

“Where’s Jimmy?” Danny asked.

“I ain’t seen hide nor hair of that boy, not since you all run him off.”

Danny laughed.

“We woulda called first, but we were anxious to meet him.”

The woman sighed and turned back to the car.

“Come on, Stark,” she said, climbing behind the wheel. “Let’s take a drive.”

Danny shrugged resignedly and followed her to the car.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Three days passed before Danny could spring Bean from police custody. Danny spent the early part of the third day at Herb’s funeral. Later that afternoon he attended a formal dinner at Jillian’s house.

The Schaller women rushed in and out of the kitchen while the men sat more or less patiently at the big dining room table as it was piled high with food.

In the living room, the children fidgeted around a low card table, helping themselves to paper plates stacked with ham, casserole, French bread and the obligatory vegetables. A pair of partially closed French doors separated them from the adults.

Danny felt helpless—the gathered diners were all relatives of Herb’s: cousins, in-laws, parents, and even an aged uncle. Danny knew roughly half of them by name, but the rest were total strangers.

Jillian seated herself to Danny’s left and squeezed his knee under the table.

“How did I end up at the big kids’ table?” Danny asked in a hushed voice.

“We’re handicapped accessible here at the Schaller homestead,” Jillian whispered. She handed Danny a goblet of merlot and he took an indecorous gulp to calm his nerves and set it on the table.

A teaspoon rapped on crystal as Jillian’s father signaled for silence.

”Herb Schaller was a good man, a loving father and husband,” the old man intoned, holding his glass aloft. “To Herb!”

The collected diners touched glasses and sipped. Danny opted out of the toast lest he smash somebody’s glass by accident. In answer to some unspoken signal, the group began to hand plates of food right to left around the table.

Danny sat uncomfortably still as Jillian served him a helping from each dish as it was passed. He waited until the sound of clinking forks signaled the end of the rotation before reaching greedily for his goblet of wine.

It’s a far cry from scotch, he thought, as he hoisted the cup to his lips, but it’ll have to do…

After dinner, Danny and Jillian walked side by side down the drive to the Volvo. They had been the first to leave, and their exit had been slightly awkward.

“Sorry to drag you away,” Danny said. “I expect Bean is anxious to part company with our boys in blue.”

“Poor kid,” Jillian said, sounding wan. “After everything he’s been through…

They reached the car and got in. Jillian navigated the nameless roads from memory.

Danny reflected on the violence that had overshadowed their lives since the night of Herb’s death.

We ain’t seen much in the way of justice, Herb, Danny thought bitterly. But we sure have taken a beating…

Even as he thought it, Bill Fox was wincing in pain on Danny’s couch as Charlene changed his bandages. The buckshot hadn’t caused permanent damage to his leg, but it hadn’t done much to improve his disposition either.

Bean was waiting curbside in front of the jail when they rounded the bend into Amboy. Jillian pulled the Volvo to a halt and Bean jumped into the back.

“Fancy meeting you here…” he said, as Jillian started off toward Danny’s place.

“Figured they’d keep you as long as they could,” Danny said. “Can’t hold you longer than 72 hours without having you arraigned.”

Bean checked his watch.

“That Poveda’s a punctual bastard alright,” he said.

“Uh, huh,” Danny said, nodding, “regular as clockwork.”

They crested the edge of the valley that ringed the city limits and started down the far side into the flatlands that surrounded the mint fields of Fargher Lake.

“What did they keep him for,” Jillian asked, “if they weren’t going to charge him?”

“That would be my fault,” Danny said.

Bean was taken aback.

“You couldn’t have played nice?” he moaned after Danny relayed the gist of his conversation with Poveda.

“Let me ask you this,” Danny began, “they bring any big brawler types name of Jimmy Elmer into lockup while you were cooling your heels?”

“No, I-I don’t think—“

“That’s right,” Danny interrupted. “And they aren’t going to. They’ve known Elmer was holing up with his mother at that trailer for some time. Knew he had a record too. Tell me, they take a report before you checked out of the hospital.”

“Of course, but—“

“Then they could’ve run the same game we did, only faster. Elmer would be in a cell right this minute if those boys were interested in anything more than fucking with old blind guys and children.”

“Hey,” Bean objected, “I’m nineteen!”

Danny laughed. Jillian slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the highway.

“Get your ass inside and take a shower, kid,” Danny chided. “You stink.”

Bean ambled across the highway to the door of the garage and let himself in. He closed the door behind him and flipped on the floodlight illuminating the worn block letters that spelled “Danny’s Garage” over the work bays.

Jillian let the car idle.

“I knew Lorraine Elmer when I was little,” she said quietly. “Used to clean house and watch us girls when mother had errands to run.”

“Ever have a play date with her darling son?”

“Nope. I didn’t know she had any children.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

Jillian thought about it.

“Be years ago now…” she guessed. “I musta been eleven or twelve last time she came to the house. I was old enough to sit after that.”

Danny filed the information away, and made to leave. Visions of Talisker danced in his head, and he wanted to get inside before Bean helped himself to the remnants of the last remaining bottle.

Jillian placed a finger on his mouth to stay him when he leaned in to kiss her goodnight.

“Danny,” she said, with some trepidation, “I don’t think Herb would want you getting yourself killed over this.”

Danny froze.

“You divine the wishes of the recently departed now?”

“Send Bean back to Seattle,” she pleaded. “That boy has seen enough.”

“That boy,” Danny replied, “has seen more than you know.”

“Let me help you, damnit,” she begged. “I’ll come by first thing in the morning and we can work on this together.

“Listen here, lady,” Danny issued coolly. “I don’t need a guide dog to cross the street, and I don’t need you taking me on as a pet project.”

“You’re being dull,” she said. She reached out to touch Danny’s cheek, but he brushed her hand away.

“Then it’s a character flaw,” he said in a measured voice, “and you better get used to it.”

Jillian shrank back.

“Maybe I oughtta find a better way to wile away the hours…” she said. “Playing chauffeur to Sam Spade isn’t exactly my idea of heaven.”

Danny laughed and pushed open the door.

“Now that sounds sensible,” he muttered, climbing out. “Go home, Jillian. See to your sister and the girls. Leave the pursuit of justice to the lame and intractable.”

Jillian didn’t respond.

Danny closed the door and crossed to the garage. She watched him walk all the way to the door and into the building. She shook her head in disbelief and drove off into the night.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Danny scraped at a rock wall near what he hoped was the water’s edge, but only succeeded in bruising a shin and collecting moss under his fingernails as the current sucked him downstream.

He’d lost all hope of giving chase the instant he hit the water. The perceptible world was drowned out in the rush of rapids, numbness, and fear.

Danny gasped for air and craned his neck in search of a familiar sound. A blaze of white noise and echoed reverberations achieved the combined affect of total disorientation.

Somehow, he lucked onto a large boulder and lunged desperately for shore. Plunging his hands wrist-deep into sediment and sand, he wrenched himself out of the river and fell back heaving on a bed of pebbles and fir boughs.

Coughing and choking fiercely, he sat up, rubbed his numb palms together for warmth, and attuned himself to his immediate surroundings. He assumed his quarry had long since made it to the far shore and the highway beyond, but it never hurt to be cautious.

Above the din of the river, he could make out the passive music of the empty wood around him. The resident animal life had been frightened underground or into flight by the sputtering human in their midst; a light breeze rustled the trees, but no human sounds penetrated the relative stillness.

Danny was soaked to the core and stone cold. He gathered his strength and resolved to make his way upstream toward the spot where he’d tumbled into the river. He hadn’t marched ten paces when he heard the plaintive wail of police sirens off in the distance.

*      *      *

Shouted instructions greeted Danny as he emerged from the brush behind the trailer ten or fifteen minutes later.

“Hands in the air,” barked an unfamiliar voice. “Right now!”

José Poveda recognized Danny—sodden as he was—and waved off his deputy.

“That ain’t him,” Poveda yelled, sounding a little disappointed. “Lower your weapon, Sanders.”

The deputy holstered his gun.

Poveda approached Danny and guided him to a squad car. Deputy Sanders draped a wool blanket over Danny’s shoulders.

“Bill Fox is on his way to the hospital,” Poveda grumbled. “Matter of routine.”

“Is he alright?”

“Minor injuries. Your other friend is on his way back to the station with two of my deputies—and that woman.” He pronounced that woman like he was identifying a witness in court.

Danny slid into the backseat of the cruiser. Poveda slammed the door shut and climbed behind the wheel of the car.

Poveda rolled down a window and signaled to his deputy as he turned the key in the ignition.

“Post a watch with Jackson,” he instructed. “I doubt that sonofabitch is coming back…but you never know.”

“Will do, sir.”

Poveda backed the cruiser out of the driveway and motored slowly down the private road toward the highway. A thin pane of Plexiglas separated the man from Danny. Poveda opened it a few inches so they could talk.

“How’d you end up in the drink?” he asked Danny.

“Nice day for a swim.”

Poveda chuckled grimly.

“Fuckload of buckshot back there,” Poveda said, taking a different tack.

“I noticed that.”

“You did, did you? That’s good, very observant of you.”

Danny noticed for the first time that he was shivering. The blanket seemed to provide no warmth at all.

“Who is he?” Danny asked.

“Who?”

“The guy with the shotgun,” Danny snapped impatiently. “What’s his name?”

Poveda merged onto the two-lane highway behind a logging truck. He took his time answering.

“James Elmer,” he stated matter-of-factly. “AKA Jimmy. Lady on her way to the station is his mother.”

“Locals?”

“Mother is,” Poveda answered. “Son was released from Sheridan last August. You wanna tell me what you and your buddies were doing out there in the first place?”

Danny ignored the question.

“What’d he get sent up to Sheridan for?” he asked. “That’s a federal prison, right?”

“Hit his local credit union for a no-interest loan.”

“Bank robbery?”

“Uh, huh. Wasn’t too successful though, blabbed to a barroom full of buddies and one of ‘em turned him in for the reward. Been up here doing odd jobs for Tommy Thompson off and on for six months.”

And how does he know that? Danny wondered.

“Same Thompson builds shitty houses outta particle board for yuppies?” he asked.

”That’s the one.”

“How’d he hook into that?”

“Hard to say.”

An awkward silence passed between them as they barreled down the highway. Poveda swerved out of his lane to pass the logging truck and steered right back behind it as an oncoming Datsun appeared around the nearest bend. Danny pulled the blanket close and focused his attention on stilling his shivering body.

The silence lasted until Poveda pulled the cruiser into a reserved parking space behind the police station and killed the engine.

“Alright, Stark,” Poveda said, turning to face him. “Why don’t you level with me before we go inside?”

“Did you have your eye on this Elmer bastard when my friend Bean went missing?” Danny asked, his voice full of venom.

“What were you doing back there, Danny?”

“Answer the question.”

“You first.”

Danny grinned at him and threw up his hands.

“I plead the fifth,” he said, through chattering teeth.

Danny could feel Poveda’s eyes burning into him.

“Your pal Fox has quite the record.”

“You know Fox,” Danny said with a shrug. “Got a heart o’ gold and a hard-on for personal liberties.”

“And packing heat, incidentally,” Poveda interjected quickly. “You know he discharged a firearm—”

“Incidentally?” Danny laughed, interrupting him. “Didn’t you mention a fuckload of buckshot at some point?”

“You were on private property.”

“I didn’t see any signs, officer.”

Poveda grimaced.

“Cute,” he said. “But you’re in some very deep shit, Danny. You might as well give it to me straight while you have the chance.”

“What I’ve got,” Danny said, “is the right to remain silent. Now let me outta this fucking car. I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

Danny, Bean, and Fox talked softly in the cab of the truck. They were parked alongside an unpaved private road next to a driveway that led off a hundred yards or so to a nearby clearing in the woods.“The trouble is,” Bean said in a nervous voice, “I never actually got a look at the place.”

“This has to be it,” Fox said, jabbing his finger at a dot on the map where the road they were on intersected with the line Bean had drawn with his compass. “X marks the muthafuckin’ spot.”

Bean shook his head and muttered, “I don’t know…could be anywhere, for chrissake.”

Over the previous week, Charlene had volunteered to deliver the Hummer to a buyer in Seattle, and Danny, Bean, and Fox had made a daily routine of checking off the different routes on their map at a rate of two or three a day. Until now, their efforts hadn’t borne any fruit.

Fox opened the door and slid out of the driver’s seat.

“There’s one way to find out,” he said, pulling a snubnose revolver from a small duffle in the truck.

Danny exited the passenger side, followed by Bean, who stopped to fish a tire iron out of the utility box in the truck bed.

It was morning still, and the ground was damp with the previous night’s rainfall.

“What are we gonna do if we find him?” Bean asked, his face a set mask of fading bruises and fear.

Danny zipped up his jacket and pulled a beanie over his short hair.

“First thing we’re gonna do,” he said in a reassuring voice, “is pay him out a first-rate ass-whipping.”

Fox loaded the revolver and slipped it into his boot.

Without further discussion, the three of them started down the driveway.

In the clearing there was an old singlewide trailer and a ramshackle series of outbuildings.

Smoke issued from a cylindrical stovepipe in the roof of the trailer, but the place was otherwise dark and devoid of any sign of life. The only sound was the barely audible crunch of gravel under their feet and the rush of the river in the distance.

Danny suggested they check the outbuildings first, and work their way inward to the trailer. Fox peered in the window of the nearest structure. The panes were obscured by grime and cobwebs and he couldn’t make out much. Danny caught the scent of gasoline and cut grass.

Bean pushed open the door and slowly stepped inside. All he found was an old riding mower and a collection of rakes, shovels, and brooms.

“Nothing, “ he whispered, closing the door behind him.

A second structure contained wood scraps clearly intended for burning; old shingles, plywood, two-by-fours, and some pine boughs.

The last outbuilding was just opposite the trailer. Bean pushed open the door and gasped. A sullied black hood lay on the floor next to a bundle of cord and a short wooden bat, the sort of thing commonly used for clubbing salmon, sturgeon and other large fish.

Bean took an involuntary step backward and tripped on the lip of the doorframe, dropping the tire iron with a clang. He managed to right himself, but the commotion was loud enough to scatter a murder of crows from a nearby tree.

A light switched on in the trailer and Fox jerked the handgun from his boot and started across the yard.

Bean was frozen in place. Danny placed a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

At Danny’s touch, Bean turned and began to follow Fox, who was already climbing the makeshift steps to the trailer.

“Hello?” he hollered, pounding on the door.

Nobody answered. Bean mounted the steps behind him, but Danny hung a few steps back, listening intently.

“Hello?” Fox said again, banging the door. “Anybody home?”

“Who is it?” asked a timid female voice from behind the door.

Bean recognized it at once. He stumbled off the porch muttering, “It’s her…the woman…”

His eyes scanned the perimeter frantically.

“He-he’s here,” Bean stammered, trundling into Danny.

“Go away,” the woman yelled. “Git on outta here!”

Fox continued banging on the door.

“Open up, lady, we just want—“ but a load of buckshot blasted a hole in the door at knee level just inches to his right, and Fox went down hard.

Bean froze. Danny pushed him to the ground and listened.

“You know what they say,” shouted a familiarly menacing voice from inside the trailer. “A blind man makes a good guide on a dark night,” said the man, pausing to chuckle, “but come morning, only a fool follows a cripple…”

“Asshole,” Fox snapped, rolling onto one knee and firing two shots into the trailer.

Buckshot exploded through what remained of the door and Fox tumbled under the steps for cover, blood tailing behind him.

Suddenly, Bean found his courage and rushed forward. Fox hobbled to his feet and tackled him halfway to the door just as a third blast issued from a kitchen window.

The pair splayed flat in the wet grass and then scrambled for cover around the far corner of the structure.

A door slammed and someone ran off in the direction of a carport at the other end of the driveway. An engine sputtered to life. Bean got to his feet and ran toward it, Fox limping close behind him.

Danny crouched behind a fencepost and waited. He seemed to have lost his bearings in the chaos. A feeling of uselessness swept over him. He’s here… he thought to himself over and over, he’s here.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear Fox and Bean hollering instructions, and the sound of the engine died.

Then he heard it. In the sudden silence, he could make out footfalls leading away from the back of the trailer at a run. A wave of impotent rage engulfed him, and without thinking he leapt to his feet and gave chase.

In an instant, he was past the trailer and crashing into the brush. Leaves and thin branches whipped his face. The rush of his own feet plowing through the undergrowth drowned almost everything out, but he could just discern the rhythm of heavy feet pounding the earth up ahead.

The roar of a shotgun filled the air, but Danny wheeled forward, heedless of the risk.

The ground grew suddenly steeper and Danny stumbled, touching a knee to the ground before correcting himself and hurrying on with reckless abandon.

The hollow din of the river grew louder and the ground flattened out as the thick brush opened onto an open plain. Danny broke into a sprint, knowing he might lose his quarry in the rush of the river at any moment.

At the river’s edge, he stopped and cast about for a sign. An instant later, he was running flat out upstream along the bank.

Harsh laughter rang out as he approached a large outcropping of rocks. He pressed on, scrambling onto a chest-high boulder, expecting a load of buckshot or a rifle butt to the face, but unable to stop himself nonetheless.

The laughter ended and a new sound, the sound of a body entering the water, met his ears just as his right foot slid off the edge of the boulder. He waved his arms frantically, trying to catch his balance as he careened over a void.

Realizing he was too far gone, he pushed off with a kick of the leg and fell forward into the river with a splash.

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

In the morning, Danny sat at his desk with a topographical map of Clark County spread out between him and Bean. The kid was tracing inch lengths with a ruler along the highways, private roads and logging routes that led outward from the garage in every conceivable direction. It was tedious work, but he kept diligently at it until he had traced all the possible routes emanating from the garage for 40 miles in a 360° radius.

Bean was grateful to have an activity. A righteous headache thumped somewhere behind his left temple and memories of the torment he had endured at the hands of a maniacal stranger tortured his thoughts.

Danny’s mood was similarly black, but he kept his thoughts to himself, opting to spare Bean the bother of needless chatter.

Just as Bean completed his task, his cell phone rang, the ring tone indicating a business call of the automotive variety. He answered it, and handed it to Danny after he ascertained the caller’s identity.

“Valued customer.”

Danny tried to hand the phone back.

“You handle it then,” he said briskly. “It’s your job, remember?”

Bean refused to take the phone.

“Just answer the damn thing,” he said.

Danny relented.

“What’s up, sucka,” said a gravelly voice.

Danny recognized it at once.

“Fox,” he said, his own voice brightening considerably, “sorry about that, man.”

The man hesitated.

“What’s wrong with the kid?” he asked. “Sounds real happy, like his dog got run over.”

Danny made excuses for Bean and brushed the matter aside.

“You got some work for me?” Danny asked, getting down to business.

“I do,” the man said flatly. “You keepin’ regular office hours or what? I heard you closed up shop for the season.”

“Close enough,” Danny said blithely, “but for you, my doors are always open.”

The morning mist was burning off a few hours later when a giant man with long black hair, matching leathers, and acres of ink roared up to the garage astride a beastly Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Moments later, a petite brunette in a too-tight tank top steered a bright red Hummer into an open bay at the far end of the shop.

Bill Fox swung a huge leg over the seat of his hog and extended a closed fist to Danny, who brushed knuckles with him.

“Who the fuck wants a Hummer anyway?” Fox growled, nodding toward the monstrous SUV.

Danny had the make pegged, but could only guess at the model.

“How old?” he asked.

“It’s an oh-eight,” Fox answered with a chuckle. “Some dickhead left it running with the keys in the ignition.”

“Bite your tongue,” Danny chided. Ordinarily he’d have objected violently to this kind of disclosure, but Fox was an exception. Like Danny, he was Chelatchie Prairie born and raised, though he had long since relocated.

“Danny Stark, as I live and breathe,” said Charlene Fox as she teetered out of the shop bay in a pair of six-inch stilettos.

“You still trailing after this bum?” Danny asked her happily.

“You know this fool trails after me, baby,” she squealed, kissing Danny on the cheek.

He took the keys to the Hummer from Charlene and led them into the shop.

He ran his fingertips over the contours of the vehicle.

“How does the idea of a convertible strike you,” Danny asked.

They laughed.

“What color is it?”

Fox told Danny it was red.

“Alright then…” Danny said, pondering the possibilities. “A lemon yellow drop-top oughtta be just what the doctor ordered.”

They were haggling over the details of the job when Bean poked his head into the shop and offered his greetings.

“Damn, boy,” Fox exclaimed when he saw him, “you look like hell.”

Charlene hurried over to Bean to examine him more closely.

“You take a shine to the wrong mister’s missus or what, honey?” she asked, her voice full of concern.

Bean blushed and said nothing.

Danny led them back into the kitchen. He fished four beers from the fridge and set them on the counter top.

“A little early in the day, ain’t it?” Fox asked.

“You want I should make some coffee?” Danny countered rhetorically.

Fox roared with laughter and tore the cap off a bottle with a sizeable paw.

The four of them sat around the table sipping their beers as Danny explained the situation. He retrieved the map from the office and Bean drew a circle with a compass that delineated the area within which their mysterious attacker was likely to be located.

“It’s simple,” Danny explained. “Bean was in the trunk of that car for at least 30 minutes. If we check out each of these routes,” he said, pointing to the map, “we’re bound to stumble across the motherfucker eventually.”

Bean nursed his beer and nodded in agreement.

The group sat in silence for a long minute.

“Sounds like you could use a little muscle,” Fox said finally.

Danny smiled broadly.

“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll give that abomination in the garage a proper facelift, and you can pay me in manpower.”

Fox finished his beer with a long, slow swallow and slammed the empty bottle down on the table with a bang.

“Why not, Stark,” he said amicably. “You got yourself a deal.”

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

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

On the day Bean was released from the hospital, Angie’s father dropped her at the hospital parking lot and kissed her goodbye. Her very action-packed spring break had come to an end and it was time for her to return to her studies on the far side of the state amidst the plains and wheat fields of eastern Washington.

An hour later, Danny, Angie and Bean shared a plate of French fries in a diner near the Amtrak station at the Oregon/Washington border along the banks of the Columbia River.

Bean was uncharacteristically mute.

Angie dabbed a cold fry into a puddle of ketchup sullenly and tried to muster some enthusiasm regarding her imminent return to dorm life and the subject of business administration.

“Why so glum, girl?” Danny wondered aloud. “You’d rather be stuck in Chelatchie Prairie for the rest of your damn life?”

Angie frowned in consternation and said, “I’ll worry about you two. Who gives a rats ass about entrepreneurship and managing human resources anyway?”

“So change your major,” Danny said.

“To what?”

“Criminology?”

“Very funny…what’s next, Danny? It feels like we’re at a dead end.”

Danny prevaricated.

“You just keep your head in the books,” he said.

Bean peered out through eyes circled in blue-green bruises and held his tongue.

By the time Angie’s train arrived, the trio was engulfed in a foul mood. Angie squeezed Bean tightly, took his cheeks in her hands and kissed him. He forgot the pain in his ribs and smiled warmly as she wrapped her arms around Danny’s neck and whispered into his ear.

“Please be careful,” she said.

Danny said nothing. He released her and listened to her fading steps as she hurried to her train.

Danny and Bean were silent until they’d passed through Battle Ground and were winding their way through the farmland and thickets of timber north of the city.

“I’m scared, Danny,” Bean said as they neared their destination.

“I know.”

After they parked and let themselves into the garage, Danny brought a tumbler filled with crushed ice from the kitchen and fished an unopened bottle of Talisker from his desk. He topped off the tumbler, handed it to Bean, and settled back in his chair.

“Special occasion?” Bean asked.

“Lubricating the memory…” Danny muttered.

Bean paced the room square, taking quick sips of scotch.

Danny let the silence deepen.

Finally, Bean pulled up a chair on the other side of Danny’s desk.

“Alright,” he said, “let’s have it.”

Danny’s mouth curled at the edges in the slightest hint of a smile.

“When you came to after they grabbed you,” he began, “what was the first thing you noticed?”

Bean gulped the scotch, coughed violently, and set the empty cup in front of him for a refill. Danny obliged him.

Bean took a long swallow and shuddered.

“I was in some kind of shed,” he said slowly. “The floor was wood, but it was covered with dirt and gravel.”

Danny remained silent, waiting for Bean to go on.

“My hands were bound behind my back and I was blindfolded. After a while, he came and dragged me out of the shed into a trailer or something.”

What’s makes you sure it was a trailer?”

Bean thought for a moment.

“Well,” he said, “the floor had a hollow sound. And the whole place shook when he hauled me up the steps.”

“How far from the shed to the trailer?”

“Maybe fifty yards. It was a grass lawn. It was wet, freshly mown, he dragged me along the ground like a rag doll.”

“Did you take my tape recorder with you?’” Danny asked, taking a different tack.

“I did. He took it.”

“Who was the last person you taped?”

“The cook at CJ’s.”

“Dick Mattingly?”

“Yep.”

“What happened after you talked to him?”

“Nothing. I ate lunch and got jumped on my way to the truck.”

Danny opened the Talisker and took a swallow from the bottle.

“What can you tell me about the woman?”

Bean sighed.

“Not much,” he said.

“Same woman left the message on your phone?”

“Can’t be sure. She sure didn’t want to be there though.”

“What makes you think so?”

“She kept begging to leave.”

“She ever mention his name?”

“If she had,” Bean said gravely, “I’d be dead.”

Danny was quiet, thinking hard.

“How long were you in the car when they brought you back?”

Bean let out a groan.

“Man…it’s hard to say,” he said. “Honestly, I thought they were taking me somewhere to fucking bury me.”

Danny pressed him.

“But if you had to guess?”

“Well,” Bean said, “had to be at least a half-hour.”

“Why did they bring you back?” Danny asked.

Bean didn’t answer.

“It’s important, Bean.”

Danny refilled Bean’s glass once again and took out a brand new tape recorder, placing it on the desktop.

“You only gotta tell it to me once,” he said. “But I need to hear it.”

Bean stirred his drink with his index finger and took a recuperative sip.

Danny turned on the recorder and asked the question.

“What happened to you inside that trailer, son?”

“Death On The Breeze”
A Danny Stark Mystery
by James Walling

Thirty miles away in a sparsely appointed hospital room, Danny and Jillian sat by Bean’s bedside, watching apprehensively as the young man drew long, uneven breaths of air.

Silence prevailed as evening advanced, broken only by the periodic passage of nurses, doctors and patients out in the hallway.

A chart on the door cataloging Bean’s many injuries read like a litany of senseless abuse: three broken ribs, a mild concussion, bruising and abrasions around the mouth and eyes, severe dehydration, defensive wounds on the hands and wrists, and four ugly cigarette burns in a neat row across his chest. Bean had yet to regain consciousness in the hours since they’d found him curled in a ball in the gravel parking lot next to the garage.

“I’m going to phone Angie,” Danny said, rising to his feet.

“What are you going to tell her?” Jillian asked.

Danny shrugged.

“That he’s alive…and that she might as well go home. There’s no reason for her to hang out at the garage. I ought to have called hours ago.”

Jillian concurred and Danny made his way to the nurses’ station to find a pay phone.

He plunked two quarters in a phone in the main lobby and dialed his home number. Angie didn’t pick up.

“Christ,” Danny muttered. “Now what?”

Hoping that she must have gone home, Danny took the elevator back to Bean’s floor and rejoined Jillian.

The middle-aged, distinguished looking doctor who had originally tended to Bean’s wounds reappeared, checked the boy’s vitals, and spoke with Danny and Jillian. His prognosis did little to check their anxiety.

“Once the swelling from the concussion recedes,” he droned, “he will most likely regain consciousness.”

“Most likely?” Danny groaned.

“It’s hard to say for certain,” the doctor replied mechanically. “Head injuries are tricky. At this point it’s difficult to say whether there will be any lasting damage, but I wouldn’t worry too much. His concussion was mild, and he’s quite healthy apart from his other injuries.”

A nurse entered and announced that a young woman had left a message for Danny at the front desk. He hurried to the pay phone to return Angie’s call.

“Why didn’t you pick up?” Danny snapped impatiently when she answered.

“I had your headphones on,” she said, “I found a bag of cassette tapes in your desk that Bean made.”

“Nosey girl.”

“I was looking for your scotch.”

Danny sighed and realized how worried he’d been when she hadn’t answered the phone.

“I had him record his notes after he finished his interviews,” he said. “I’m blind, remember?”

“I get it,” she said irritably. “I was listening to them to see if you missed anything.”

“And?” he asked.

“Nothing, but Danny, the recorder is missing.”

Danny considered this.

“It should be in the same drawer.”

“I looked. Did he have it with him?”

“He didn’t have anything with him,” Danny said. “His wallet, his cell phone, his keys, all gone.”

“Was there anything in the truck?” Angie asked.

“I keep the registration and insurance in the glove box, but other than that, and some jumper cables behind the seat, there was nothing inside the cab.”

“Jesus, do you think he tried to question somebody, somebody who decided he knew too much?”

“Could be.”

“Has he said anything yet?”

Danny gave Angie a detailed report on Bean’s condition and told her to take the truck and head on home. After he hung up, he went to the hospital cafeteria and bought a couple of sandwiches, a bottle of water, and two coffees.

Jillian gratefully accepted a pastrami on rye and ate ravenously. Finishing her coffee, she kissed Danny dryly on the lips and gathered her things to go, insisting that Danny call when he was ready to go home.

Two days passed with no change in Bean’s condition. Jillian faded back into the routine of tending to her sister and the girls, appearing briefly to deliver a change of clothes and some home-cooked meatloaf.

On Wednesday morning, Bean emerged from the depths of slumber at last. “His face,” Bean muttered softly, “his face…”

Danny leapt to his feet from a slumped position on the couch that the nurses had moved into the room for him to sleep on.

“Bean!” Danny exclaimed as he knelt down next to the boy, whose eyes opened lazily, and were now darting around the room in confusion.

“Where am I…”

“You’re in the hospital, Bean. You’re okay.”

“His face…” Bean repeated, “I never saw his face, Danny. In all the time he had me…”

His voice broke and he stared blankly out the window, struggling to compose himself.

“It’s alright,” Danny assured him. “There’ll be time for all that. Just take it easy.”

Bean remained silent for a moment and then turned back to Danny, his voice suddenly clearer and more steady.

“He hit me with something when I was trying to get into the truck. By the time I came to, I was blindfolded. He wanted me to tell him everything I know about Herb, and about you. He kept hitting me, and then he—”

Danny stopped him.

“That’s enough, Bean. Take it easy.”

But Bean seemed anxious to continue.

“It was the same guy who attacked you at the garage, Danny,” he said emphatically. “He kept laughing about how he lost a fist fight with a blind guy, kept saying it made a great joke.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, “pretty funny stuff.”

“There was a woman there too,” Bean went on. “She kept begging him to stop hurting me.”

“Did you get a look at her?” Danny asked despondently.

“No.”

“Do you remember anything about him that would help us identify him?”

Bean thought hard.

“His voice,” he said finally. “I’ll never forget that voice as long as I live.”

Danny sat quietly for a moment and placed his hand on Bean’s wrist reassuringly.

“That makes two of us, kid,” he said gravely. “That makes two of us.”