Chapter Five
It turned out that Jo hadn’t needed to worry about Clayton getting the blame for Rick’s death because there was no sign of Rick’s death.
Jo had fallen asleep in the library chair, too afraid to go to a room by herself for the night. She was surprised that she’d been able to fall asleep at all. Her neck hurt from the odd angle of her head.
She’d jolted awake from the sound of Clayton poking at the fire. It was nearing dawn and Clayton had stayed up with Jo in the library for the night. The two had said very little beyond what was being communicated to the police over the phone.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Clayton fixed the log that had nearly come rolling out onto the library floor. “How did you sleep?”
Jo grimaced, “Not well. Did you sleep at all?”
Clayton shook his head. Jo leaned back against the chair and gently massaged her neck with her hand.
“Not the best sleeping chairs I’m afraid,” Clayton noticed the movement.
“Since we’re both awake anyway maybe we should go in now?” Jo pushed the soft blanket off of her body. She’d adjusted to the extra warmth and her skin prickled as she exposed it.
The police took Jack into custody after they received Clayton's phone call the night before but so far they'd been unable to locate a body, any blood, or evidence of a crime at all. Jo was asked to come into the station to make a statement today and take the police to the scene of the crime.
She was feeling unsure of herself. Her mind wasn’t working correctly, she needed real sleep, and a chance to release the tumult of her thoughts.
“Sure we could go early, we can get breakfast in town after you make your statement if you’d like?” Clayton was speaking again and Jo had to shake her head to make herself understand him.
“I thought you didn’t do anything in town?”
“I don’t,” Clayton stretched out his perfectly sculpted limbs with the hint of a smile.
Once they’d gone to the tiny local police station Jo sat down in front of two very tired police officers, who had clearly been up all night. She told them everything she’d seen and everything that had happened since.
With her statement made, they drove her back to the haphazard camp she’d been in only a few days earlier. It was empty as before but this time Rick’s tent and things were gone as well. Only her yellow tent remained.
She walked the group around the site the same way she’d done as she’d been looking for Rick’s car.
“His car is gone too,” she pointed in the direction of where his car had been. “I looked in his car and everything seemed normal, so I was walking back and then I saw something through the trees.”
Jo gestured to the approximate area before moving into the trees with the three men behind her.
It was light out now and when she’d been here before it had been dark. She moved forward, trying to recreate her own movements from that night.
“I think,” she looked around for a sign that she was in the right area, but everything looked perfectly undisturbed. “Maybe over here…somewhere.”
One of the cops nodded, “We did a real good search of this area last night, so far we haven’t found anything.”
“There was blood from the shot, so there should be blood or something…unless he did an incredible job of cleaning up after himself. He obviously moved Rick’s car and tent so those should be somewhere as well.”
Jo looked at the two police officers who nodded back at her.
“Well,” the one closest to her put his hands on his hips and looked around, “we’ll give it another look around. See if we don’t find something new. Right now we don’t have much to go on.”
“Well you have an eye witness,” Jo felt herself flush, “that’s got to stand for something.”
“It does,” the other police officer spoke now. “It’s just that it would be smarter for us to have a little more to go on before charging him.”
“You didn’t charge him yet? I thought you had him in custody?” Jo looked to Clayton who had given her the news in the first place. Clayton looked to the two men for an explanation and Jo returned her focus.
“There’s one hitch,” the officers exchanged a look, “Rick told at least two of the other protestors that he was closing up shop, going home.”
Jo stared at the police officer, “Well, did you contact his home? Find out if anyone has seen him?”
"We've tried but it was late by the time we got any good contact information on him. Hopefully, we'll hear something today," the police officer smiled at Jo in a way that made her feel like an infirm old lady.
“What are they doing?” Jo shook her head at Clayton.
The police officers had gone off, probably to sleep or eat donuts, and Jo and Clayton went back to her tent.
“It’s unbelievable, almost like they don’t believe me or something!” Jo paced around her tent putting things together. “Would anyone make something like that up?”
She turned to Clayton who shrugged.
"I don't know, maybe they're just being practical—I'll make a few calls today, see what we can find out," Clayton's voice was reassuring and infinitely less patronizing than the two officers. Jo gave him a look of gratitude.
“I guess I should get a hotel room or something, not exactly safe for me to stay in this,” she looked at the flimsy walls of her tent.
“You’re staying with me, if you are the only witness to a murder then you’re not safe,” Clayton spoke in a way that left no room for argument.
“But I…” Jo felt like she shouldn’t impose on Clayton, like she should be able to take care of herself, but she also knew the hard facts. She’d seen Jack murder Rick, it wasn’t theoretical to her, it was real. The only place she would feel safe would be with the man standing next to her.
His eyes glinted as he looked around the campsite, then his gaze came back to Jo. She realized that he was already on guard. Clayton was surveying the area, keeping his defenses up. A wave of feeling curled itself over Jo and she forced herself to focus back on her possessions and not stare openly at Clayton.
“We don’t want to get breakfast in town anymore, do we?” Clayton asked.
“Of course we should, maybe Jack will be there,” Jo dipped back into her tent and began to stuff her sleeping bag into its handy drawstring tote.
“So what is our plan?” Jo turned from the car window back to Clayton.
“Plan?”
“I mean, I know he killed my friend and the police barely seem to believe me,” Jo adjusted her seatbelt. She was coming close to tears again and didn’t want to cry anymore. “We can’t just let this guy go free.”
“We can’t?” Clayton turned to look at her and Jo looked out the window to give her eyes time to clear. “We can do whatever we want and I am of the personal opinion that we should leave well enough alone.”
“And let a murderer go loose?” Jo pointed the road she wanted Clayton to turn down. “Is this because of the scandal it would cause for your company?”
Clayton’s jaw went hard and Jo watched in silence as his body began to tense.
“Or maybe you did give some sort of directive? Not murder perhaps but an order to do whatever it takes? Something that might have been taken the wrong way?” Jo’s breathing was going short.
“I am not interested in protecting myself but I am interested in protecting you. Do you have experience in crime? Have you ever been a member of the police force? Military?” He paused but Jo refused to give into his questioning. “No, I didn’t think so,” he continued, “so leave it to the professionals.”
Jo exhaled loudly. This wasn’t going to disappear by itself and the longer they waited to act the less likely it would be for them to find anything. She needed to look through Jack’s work camp, a place that Clayton would be welcome, a place that he would have a reason to visit. But Clayton wasn’t going to be any help, she could see that now.
If she did nothing then this man would kill again, he would very likely kill her.
“This place?” Clayton parked the car in the tiny parking lot. Martha’s was a tiny mom and pop diner that had the marked distinction of being the only breakfast place in town.
“They don’t call it a greasy spoon for nothing,” Jo perked up at the prospect of running into one of the men she’d seen at Clayton’s house the other day.
Clayton, it turned out, was a bit of a food snob. He turned his nose up at grits, bacon, and the scrambled eggs that were set in front of him and opted to pick at his toast instead.
This did not bother Jo in the least, she had wanted to ask for extra bacon anyway but didn’t want to order it.
There was no sign of Jack or any of the men she’d seen arriving with him at Clayton’s house. She could tell that Clayton had the same idea as he was actively keeping guard all through their meal.
When they’d finished eating and there was still no sign of Jack or his men, Jo decided that she would need to take things into her own hands.
Excusing herself to go to the ladies room, Jo slipped through the exit conveniently located at Clayton’s back.
Jo, who had easily been able to snag Clayton’s vintage Range Rover keys, hopped into the car, grinding gears as she peeled away.
The men’s work camp was not far from the camp Rick had set up for the protestors and Jo could think of no other plan but to go there and look through Jack’s things while he was, hopefully, busy on the job.
She parked just out of camp on the side of the road.
What would Clayton do when he realized she'd run away with his car? She didn't want to think about the anger that might brew under the surface of such a man. The thought of him casting her out was almost enough to make her stop, but the image of Rick—the gun pointing right at him—was too much.
If she was going to have a life, a future, then she needed to at least cast serious suspicion on this guy.
Jo went through the trees instead of along the road that led into camp. The men went off scouting for various naturally occurring resources in the area, as Jack had said to Clayton at his house. During the protests the men had gone in shifts but now that the protestors were all gone Jo assumed that the workers had probably gone back to their normal hours.
She stood in the trees watching the tents, much more formal and well thought out than the ones the protestors had pitched, and looked for some sign of life.
No one walked through the tents. There were no sounds of someone whistling or moving things around at all.
Jo steadied her breath. Now that she was here she realized the possible futility of her mission. How would she even know which tent belonged to Jack? Even if she were able to find his tent then why in the world would he stash incriminating evidence in it?
“Ok, buck up,” Jo whispered to herself. She hit her legs with her fists in a hackneyed warrior display that didn’t seem to do anything to bolster her spirits. It was now or never.
Jo ran to the first and closest tent. It was military clean. Two cots one on each side, a duffle bag on one and a hard shell rolling bag on the other. There was very little that hinted at a personal life at all. Jo looked at a leftover airline tag on the suitcase.
Not Jack.
Guessing that he was a boss or one of the bosses Jo decided that she was probably looking for a tent with only one bed inside.
This insight proved helpful. Almost all of the tents housed two cots, and two large tents housed three and four. She was surprised at the number of beds. The workers had done a lot to hide the number of men actually on the job and in the camp. Jo had seen only a small fraction of the men actually out here.
There were three more tents that Jo hadn’t been in when she got to the first single cot tent. It was on the far side of camp and, where the other tents had all been drawn back and open to the breeze, this one was closed up.
Jo opened the flap and peered in before sliding her body inside the flap.
She could hear her own breath puffing inside the quiet of the space. It was clean like the others but this one had the added luxury of a small generator in the corner and a mini fridge. She opened the fridge. A few small bottles of alcohol, a six-pack of beer, a half-eaten sandwich. She closed it again and turned toward a little table with a stack of papers and next to those stacks of clothing.
Jo leaned over the paperwork.
Land permits made out in the name of the company, nothing with a personal name, signature, or address.
If he’d bloodied his clothing then would he have discarded the garments or been too cocky and decided just to wash and keep them?
She couldn’t remember what he’d worn anyway.
Jo went back to the edge of the tent just as the flaps flew open and Jack walked through.
“What the fuck...” he looked at Jo then looked around his tent. “All by yourself, prowling around a stranger’s personal belongings?”
Jo caught her breath and looked in her immediate vicinity for something she could use as a weapon.
“But then,” Jack moved closer, beginning to smile, “we’re not really strangers, are we?”
“I’m not by myself, Clayton Porter is looking through one of the other tents right now,” Jo lied. He wouldn’t really kill her, not now when she’d been the one to point the finger at him killing Rick. Wouldn’t that be a bit too risky?
Of course, the man had made Rick disappear.
“Oh, you brought your boyfriend to visit?” Jack cocked his head as if he were listening. “No, I don’t think you did.”
“Back up,” Jo picked up Jack’s Maglite flashlight, wielding the heavy end like a weapon.
"Don't bring a flashlight to a gun show," Jack began to reach for his cot and Jo panicked. She jumped toward Jack striking at him hard. She made contact and the unexpected hit threw Jack off balance but he was able to right himself and continue going anyway.
Jo screamed as she saw the hard black metal of the gun. He was turning it on her just as her scream was overwhelmed by a much more powerful sound.
Jack instinctively turned toward the sound and suddenly there was a rip of light. The tent had been torn away in the swiftest of movements and behind the tan canvas stood a massive grizzly bear, standing on hind legs, roaring like someone had just killed its only cub.
Jack turned the gun on the grizzly but the bear was too fast. He swatted at Jack like he was a pesky fly and Jack went tumbling through the air, past where the side of the tent had stood a few moments earlier.
The bear moved its body between Jo and Jack then pounced down on all fours, his body hovering over Jack's body.
Jo moved away from both of them, she backed up as she saw the bear turn its head. Its eyes met her eyes and Jo felt like she’d been the one thrown four feet away. There was no doubting, this was the same grizzly she’d run into in the forest near Clayton’s house. She recognized the same brown eyes, the largeness of the animal, its sound, and smell.
The grizzly looked at her then looked back to Jack who lay underneath of him. Was it possible? Was the bear…protecting her?
Jo backed up again, still moving slowly. She wasn’t supposed to run from a grizzly. The bear turned its head once more, one big paw holding Jack down, it leaned its head back and let out a giant roar. Jo felt like the bear was telling her, go...turn and run.
The feeling of the communication was so overpowering that Jo turned and she ran. She ran down the street, out to the car, she was shaking when her hands put the car key in the ignition.
Jo stalled out on her first move forward, she restarted the car and pealed away from the side of the road. She drove straight back to the restaurant where she'd left Clayton. Her body was vibrating from the adrenaline and she felt as if she was moving at a snail's pace.
She hopped out of the car and ran into the restaurant.
All six people inside turned to look at her.
“Can I help you darling?” the woman who owned the restaurant asked from across the diner.
“No,” Jo looked again. “No. Thank you.”