Page 35 of Deathmarch
“Lamm’s car?”
“Driveway and garage were empty when we got there. His car might be at the shop for an oil change or inspection. Too early to have the winter tires taken off, I guess. But who the hell knows? Nobody expected this late storm.”
“I’ll call around and check.” Harper rotated slowly around, taking it all in. “He was laying up too many supplies.”
“Probably figured the apocalypse will last a while. Myself, I personally think it’ll be a flash in the pan. Flash everywhere, actually. Nuclear bomb. Boom. Everything gone. Can’t prepare for something like that, so why bother worrying about it?”
“There’s a cheerful thought.” Harper scanned the six bunkbeds, all made up with military precision. “Who was going to sleep over? I talked to the next of kin last night, a nephew in San Diego. Only family Lamm had.”
“He didn’t really hang with anyone that I know of.”
No. Not even when he went into Finnegan’s for a meal now and then. Liked to sit at the end of the bar, eat his food, drink his beer, leave. Might have talked to Harper’s father behind the bar, but that was that.
“People called him the town recluse for a reason. And another thing… He retired from the paper mill, right?” The company had long since gone out of business, their work outsourced overseas. “How much could his pension be?”
“You mean how could he afford all that gold?”
“And the rest.” Harper scanned the crowded shelves that covered nearly every inch of wall space. “Somebody could open a Costco down here.”
“Maybe he had old money.”
“Family money?”Maybe.“I’ll ask my father. We keep missing each other, but I need to catch him, tomorrow morning at the latest, before he leaves for Louisiana for his annual hog hunting trip.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying that someday, but Luanne and the girls would never talk to me again if I shot a piggy. Hell, the other day I was commenting to Luanne as I was going out that nothing beats leather boots in this weather, and then the girls asked me where leather came from.” Chase made a choking noise as if the memory pained him. “You know that look women have, like when they’re trying to warn you that you’re about to put your head in a noose and there’ll be serious consequences? Well, it didn’t register with me until after the words were out of my mouth. I might have to get plastic boots. I’m being pressured on yellow rubber boots with duck faces, like the girls have.”
“And that’s why you’ll never see me enter the deadly maze of matrimony. One wrong turn, and you’re toast.” Harper kept looking at the shelves. “What if Lamm was in a secret prepper club?”
“Would make sense,” Chase said after a couple of seconds. “Several people pooling their resources. But why secret?”
“So nobody steals their shit from their headquarters. This was their bolt-hole. The rancher is reinforced. Beds in the basement. This is where they were going to live through the apocalypse.”
“Who was in the club with him?”
“I’ll ask my father that too.” Sean Finnegan ran an Irish pub, the exact kind of place where people liked to talk.
Since Harper wanted to talk to his father in person and that visit would have to wait, he calledBilly Picket on his way back to his cruiser.
“Hey, Harper Finnegan here. Is Old Man Lamm’s car in with you by any chance?”
“No, man. He has his Camry serviced at the dealership. Damn shame about him. Kept to himself, but he was all right, you know? Now my mother is worried about living alone. Told her you already have the killer zipped up at the station.”
“Suspect,” Harper corrected.
“Yeah, man.”
“Hey, unrelated question. Do you know what happened to Dicky Poole? Used to rent out one of his mobile homes down the street from you guys, the one on the corner.”
Harper hadn’t forgotten what Allie had told him about the landlord. Not something he was going to let go if the guy was still in town. And maybe not even if he’d left now and lived in a different police jurisdiction.
“Sold his rent-a-dumps and bought himself a fancy-ass rancher. Out in that development by the KarpetMart.” Sounded like Billy spat on the other end. “I was happy to see him go. My daughters used to bring me lunch, walk past his place, and he’d always be saying shit to them.”
“Should have told me.”
“What would anyone have done to him on the word of two teenagers?”
“I’d like to think Broslin PD would have taken it seriously.” But since Harper was investigating a murder at the moment, he dropped the subject.
He thanked Billy for the help, and as he headed to West Chester to talk to the coroner, he called the Toyota dealership next. Lamm’s 4WD Camry—2007, white, a little over 40,000 miles, according to their records—wasn’t there either. Neither was it at any of the other garages in town. Harper called them all.
