Dummies Can't Swim

Dummies Can't Swim

by Damon Nomad

Sheriff Curtis Fleming peered through the window of Jakes Sporting's Goods on Main Street, always a clever scene in the shop window. This one had two mannequins, a man and a young boy. The display was promoting the Ground Hogs, an outdoor club for boys six to twelve years old. The man was teaching the boy how to read a map and use a compass. The young boy in a full uniform and red hat of the Ground Hogs. Curtis smiled, good organization for the youngsters. His focus shifted to his reflection looking back at him from the window, he squeezed his cheeks with a frown. He was getting a little jowly. Lucille had recently been making cracks about what a bulldog of an investigator he was, poking at his recent fluctuation in weight. He shuffled down the street toward the office.

"Mornin Rufus", Fleming glanced in the direction of his deputy as he came through the front door. "What you looking at there, thinking of a fishing boat?" He knew that would get Rufus back to work, he didn't mind his young deputy taking some time for a little leisure reading, they weren't drowning in work.

Rufus pulled his feet down off his desk, turning his attention to his computer, "Taking a short break, I will get on that accident report. Get it to you shortly."
         
Fleming stopped at the small break area, pouring a cup of coffee, he could hear Lucille chattering away with one of her friends. He slipped slowly past her desk, mumbling just loud enough to be heard, "Policing business?" He didn't care, but it was good to keep her off balance, keep the upper hand in their long-running repartee of barbs and jabs. Sometimes skating on the polite edge, the two had been teasing each other since grade school, but never with real malice.

She turned away with a smirk and a dismissive wave, jabbering away. Holding up a hand, admiring her new nail polish.

Fleming plopped down at his desk, put the coffee cup down and opened a drawer, and got out the same fishing magazine Rufus had at his desk. Fleming quietly chuckled at the bit of hypocrisy. He leaned back lazily turning the pages, dreaming of a new fishing boat, and sipping his coffee.

Fleming heard Lucille answer the phone, "Berry Creek sheriff's office."

He peeked over the top of his magazine; she was jotting down notes it wasn't another social call. Lucille waved towards Fleming's office. "A call-out Rufus."

Fleming stuffed the magazine back in the drawer and leaned back fingers tapping lightly on the arms of his chair as Lucille and Rufus sat on the small sofa across from his desk. Lucille frowned glancing down at her notebook. "That was county dispatch, they got a call for a drowning at Quarry Lake. The ambulance is at the scene waiting for you, pastor Randy is dead."

It just kind of slipped out of Curtis' mouth, "Dandy Randy drowned." He knew Lucille was a regular at the church, minister Randal Cole had been there maybe fifteen years. Curtis thought him a bit too polished for a minister, with coiffed hair and expensive suits. He seemed to be quite popular with middle-aged women, including Lucille. But he did a lot of good around town.

Her eyes flashed with anger; Fleming recovered quickly gesturing for forgiveness. "Sorry, that was insensitive. Rufus, get your stuff, let's find out what happened at the lake."

Lucille grabbed Fleming by the sleeve, "The pastor can't swim, he wouldn't just jump in the water."

Fleming nodded, "Okay, we will keep that in mind. We will get to the bottom of it."

         *********

Fleming parked the SUV in the small gravel parking lot next to Quarry Lake, just the ambulance and one other car were in the lot. "Dead body, what does that mean Rufus?"

Rufus cocked his head with a squint, "Take nothin for granted, we need to know how and why. That's what the victim and their loved ones deserve."

Fleming nodded in agreement with a faint smile, Rufus was maturing in the job. "You focus on everything around this lake, ingress, and egress. Pictures and notes, eyes peeled for anything that stands out."

Rufus scurried down the walkway that led to the lake, his notebook and camera in his backpack.

Fleming recognized the EMT sitting in the back of the ambulance, the tall one of the Mutt and Jeff pair from the county. "Your partner back at the lake?"

The tall man stood up, head bobbing in response, "Yep. Him and the attendant who found the victim, the attendant pulled him out of the water."

Fleming stopped briefly at the entrance, a simple fence gate with a padlock hanging on it to keep people out when the place was not attended. An old faded sign, Open Sunrise to Sunset, No Entrance Fee. Under that, No Fishing and No Swimming Children Must Be Attended. Next to the gate was a small concession stand, there was a small sign on the counter, Attendant at the Lake - Honor System for Drinks & Snacks. It was a quiet scenic spot people could spend a few hours. Popular in summer and even more in autumn when the deciduous trees on the surrounding cliffs burst into an explosion of color, attracting artists and photographers from the city.

They walked along the narrow gravel path that led back to the lake, Fleming had not been out to the spot in years. He heard someone off to his left in the thick forest, must be Rufus looking for any footprints, the soft sandy soil around the trail would reveal them. Curtis saw the opening in the woods just ahead as they approached the large wooden deck, that looked out on the lake. A body covered with a blanket laying on a gurney, the short side of the Mutt and Jeff pair along with Emmet Hughes, a local boy. The two standing together near the gurney.

Curtis waved for the two to come over, "Emmet, you the attendant here? Classes not started yet?" Emmet grew up in Berry Creek a top student in the neighboring city high school and an all-state swimmer, Fleming figured he must be in his third year of college.

The two plodded slowly toward Fleming, Emmet nodded, "Yea Sheriff summer job, classes start next week." He sighed glancing back at the gurney. "It has been a great summer, until today."

Curtis surveyed the large wooden deck, "Tell me what you remember, go slow. Exactly what you saw when you found Reverend Cole this morning."

Emmet looked down, as he started to play it back in his mind. "Pastor Randy comes every Friday, like clockwork right at 8:00 all summer unless it is stormy. Usually stays until right around noon, and almost always has the whole place to himself. Says he meditates about the sermon for the coming Sunday. He stops and talks for a bit and usually buys a soda and some peanuts or chips on his way in. Same today, nothing different, he was the only one here."

Fleming was taking notes, "Do you go back to check the deck when you first get here in the morning?"

"No sir, I close up the concession stand at the end of the day. Then I come back here, collect the trash and make sure everything is in order on the deck, then lock up the gate and concession stand when I leave. I don't go back out on the deck when I first get here in the morning, unless there was a big storm or high winds, this morning I just opened the gate."

He paused thinking about where he left off, "When people are on the deck, I am supposed to make a quick trip back every hour, something the insurance company requires. I always make sure I do that."

Emmet waved at a floatation ring lying on the deck not far from the edge. "That was the first thing I noticed when I came back just before nine; the ring laying there on the deck. I knew something was wrong right away, pastor Randy can't swim he told me he is scared of getting near the water, he always sits here on this bench, right here next to the walkway." Fleming was sketching the deck in his notebook, the same thing Lucille said about the pastor and swimming.

The short EMT snorted, "The dummy can't swim!" He looked to the ground, averting their stares, "Sorry, didn't mean to speak ill of the dead."

Emmet continued, "I looked and saw he wasn't on the bench; I ran over to get a look in the water."

Fleming gestured for them to follow as he walked toward the lake, "Keep going."

As they got near the edge of the deck, Emmet pointed far out into the water, "I could see him right there floating near the buoy, its dead center of the lake."

Fleming shook his head with a puzzled look, "He was in the middle of the lake, that must be a hundred yards from here."

Emmet pointed emphatically shaking his index finger, "That is where he was right near the buoy, I stripped off my sweatsuit, I have swimming trunks on underneath. Dove in and pulled him back to the deck, I suspected he was dead. Got him up here and checked for a pulse or breathing, no signs of life. I ran back out front my mobile phone is under the front counter and called the county emergency number."

Fleming rubbed his chin, looking at the life preserver ring laying nearby, tied to a post on the edge of the deck, probably fifty feet of strong cord. There was something else he had noticed when he first got to the deck, a red ball cap not far from the spot. He walked over squatting down, putting on a latex glove he picked it up. He slowly waved the cap, "This was here, any of you touch it?"

Emmet shook his head, "I didn't notice it until I came back from calling the emergency line, I didn't touch it."

The short EMT held up a wallet, croaking out, "Forgot to give you this, from the victim got his ID from it."

The tall one chimed in, "We didn't touch the cap sheriff, we know not to disturb nothin."

Fleming waved the small ball cap with the Ground Hogs logo at Emmet, "This was not here yesterday end of the day?"

Emmet exhaled loudly as he thought about the end of the previous day, "I can't imagine it was here yesterday. I look around for any litter on the deck at the end of the day when I empty the trash."

Fleming scribbled some notes, "Surely the pastor didn't bring it in did he?" He glanced back at Emmet.

"No, he wasn't carrying anything except his notebook this morning, he writes notes for his sermons. The notebook is laying there on the deck next to the bench." He gestured back to the spot on the deck close to the walkway.

Fleming focused his gaze on the notebook lying next to an unopened can of soda and a bag of peanuts, looked like they had been dropped on the spot. The list of odd things surrounding this drowning was growing, he jotted down more notes. "You boys see any marks on the head, face, or neck?"

The EMTs both shook their heads. The tall one answered, "Nothing obvious indicating any kind of blow. You'll have to wait for the autopsy."

"Thanks boys, you can take the body now, I'll see what the coroner finds."

They rolled the gurney away, Fleming stared out at the lake, studying the steep walls surrounding it, nearly vertical cliffs topped off with thick woods. There was no access into this place that he could see, other than the narrow gravel trail. "There is no way to get a boat in here is there?"

Emmet shook his head with arms crossed on his chest, "No way unless you brought it down the path and it's narrow. Maybe a canoe, but there was no boat here when I got to the lake, there was nobody here it was empty, except the pastor floating out in the middle."

         *********

Curtis was in the conference room early on Monday, trying to unravel the puzzles surrounding this drowning. A list of questions he had written on the old-fashioned chalkboard, and he was doing some calculations, estimating potential current flows in the deep lake. He leaned back against the table staring at the numbers, mumbling to himself. "No way the current could move his body out to the middle like that."

He was surprised by a voice, "You do have quite a brain locked up in that big old head of yours." Lucille waved at the board, "Forget you were a professor of engineering sometimes Curtis." She sat down at the conference room table, "What is all the ciphering about?"

He turned from the board and took a sip of coffee, "The lake is slowly fed by percolating groundwater and rainwater there are no strong natural currents. It's roughly shaped like a rectangle an artificial quarry, pretty uniform depth of about fifty feet. Three sides are steep cliffs, fifty to a hundred feet above the water, and the other side where the entrance is has a thick forest of pine trees and leafy trees. Very little wind back there, the only real currents come from the differential heating of the sun. You know warm water rises, cools, and falls. I was trying to calculate how far he might drift in one hour. There is no way for currents to move him out to the middle that time of day with little wind, definitely not in one hour."

Curtis shrugged tapping his fingers on the table, "He can't swim, he sure as heck wouldn't be able to thrash his way out to the buoy. Even if he could swim, why would he head out to the center of the lake fully clothed?" He moved to a seat sitting across from Lucille, picking up the pastor's notebook.

Lucille nodded staring at the board, "He talked about his fear of water in several sermons, said he never conquered it. He was a bit ashamed about never facing it down." She looked at the series of questions he had written on the chalkboard, "What is the question about the red ball cap about?"

"We found one of those red hats for the Ground Hog boys group on the wooden deck, can't figure out why it would be there. Rufus checked with the men at the church who are in charge of the group, all twenty-five boys have their hats. They have a box in a locked storage locker at church, with hats no sign any are missing." Rufus told Fleming that both men said pastor Randy was a big supporter and very proud that the church sponsored the program, he did not regularly attend meetings or functions except the annual family awards celebration. They could not imagine him having one of the hats.

Fleming stared at the pastor's notebook, as Lucille quietly studied the chalkboard. Two letters a dash followed by a series of seven letters written on the inside of the back cover. Five sets of them, with no clear pattern. It finally clicked, the last set of letters were all between A to J, nothing above J. It was a simple code; the first two letters were initials and the next seven were a code for a phone number, A for zero, B for one right in order with J for a nine. He already had a theory of why Cole was using a code for secrecy, but nothing concrete to chase it down. Now he had a place to start, he wondered if he should just start calling the numbers.

Lucille could see the gears of his mind were turning, "You think someone killed him? Why would anyone do that? Couldn't he have just fallen in? Maybe he got close to the edge to face his fear and bumped his head on the deck. Maybe your calculations are off, it's been a while since you've been in the university."

Fleming slowly shook his head, "Too many unexplained things. But I can't figure out how someone would pull it off. How could they get to the deck without the attendant seeing them or leaving a track in the woods? How could they get the pastor from the bench over to the water? It's a good forty feet from the edge. He would have screamed out for help if he saw someone coming at him; the attendant Emmet would have heard him. Rufus and I tested it out, me yelling out from the lake while Rufus was at the concession stand. Emmet would have been there in less than a minute. No evidence of anyone coming into the place other than the path and its steep cliffs the rest of the way around." Curtis kept the possible motive to himself, no reason to spoil Lucille's opinion of pastor Randy. Curtis found out from a colleague that Randall Cole had trouble up north, at his previous church. Complaints that he had been noodling some of the married women in the church. If he was still doing that dirty deed, they might have a motive and the phone numbers in the notebook might point to a potential suspect.

Lucille heard the phone ring, she scampered off. Fleming stared at the back of the notebook, five initials, five women.

Lucille was back at the door, "I need to run out, that was Francine. She wants me to get her, gonna stay with me for a while. She is finally ready to leave that scum bag husband, he slapped her last night. Big and strong like a gorilla, hitting a woman."

Curtis frowned, "No problem, Francine Morgan right?" He stared at the last entry in the notebook, FM. He knew Francine was a regular at the church. He would check the phone number in a bit. "Her husband works down on the coast, what does he do?"

"Salvage diver, gone to the coast for two or three weeks, then comes back for a few weeks. She has never been happy since they got married. Be back in a bit." Lucille spun around and headed for the door.

Rufus zipped in just moments after Lucille left, rushing into the conference room. "I got an answer to one of the questions, but it's a bit strange."

Fleming leaned back in his seat, "Okay what ya got."

"I remembered Jakes Sporting Goods has a display with a mannequin in the window in a Ground Hogs uniform."

Curtis lightly pounded his fist on the table, "That's right I knew I had seen one of those hats just before all of this."

Rufus continued, "I stopped by and asked about where they had gotten the hat." Rufus had a trace of a smile. "Turns out the display originally had two boy mannequins in Ground Hog uniforms, someone broke in and stole one three weeks ago. Mannequin, uniform, hat, and all. They didn't report it, thought it was some kind of prank, expected it to show back up."

Fleming bolted up in his seat, "Dummies can't swim! I know exactly what happened. I need you to blow up those pictures you took of the cliffs along the lake, I think we missed something."


         *********

Daryl Morgan glared at Rufus and Curtis sitting across from them in the conference room. He had not grown up around Berry Creek. A big-city man, lean and strong, arrogant, and ornery. "You asked me to come in, I'm here. You two country goobers going to explain what this is about? I know your dispatcher is a friend of Francine. She making up stories about me? I never laid a hand on her in anger." He shrugged, "Francine's word against mine."

Fleming thought Lucille was pretty much on the mark, the guy was like a gorilla, thick black hair covering his arms. Curtis gestured to him with an open hand palm up. "You understand your rights, you don't want an attorney."

He smirked, "I don't need a lawyer to deal with you two bumpkins." He leaned forward the powerful muscles of his shoulders and neck rippling, he looked a bit like a bull ready to charge at them.

Fleming was not intimidated; the man was not going to attack a Sheriff and his deputy sitting in the office and Rufus was pretty darn strong and could handle himself. "You have suspected it for several months now. Lucille says you started going to Sunday services with Francine a while back, you wanted to get your eyes on pastor Randal Cole. Started studying his comings and goings, including his regular Friday trips to Quarry Lake."

Morgan laughed, "What is this about? The fool that drowned himself in the lake out there, should have learned to swim!"

Fleming cocked his head, "Yeah you knew he couldn't swim, you knew how to use that when you were sure he was having relations with Francine. She admitted it to us, feels guilty about it, she didn't tell anyone. She didn't think you knew but was afraid of what would happen if you did."

Morgan's lips tightened, his eyes narrowed, clenched his fists. Rufus was ready. Morgan leaned back relaxing, "Don't know what your talkin about, didn't know but good riddance to her."

Fleming laid a picture on the table, "See that thin line there, back in the far corner of Quarry Lake. You have to do quite a bit of climbing in the salvage business, you could make it up and down those cliffs with a rope, I couldn't imagine doing it. Rufus took the picture the day of the drowning, we missed that thin line. He blew it up for a closer look." Fleming laid the next picture on the table, "You can make it out now it's yellow and blue climbing rope all the way into the water. Not there anymore, you went back and got it, probably later that night, you were on a pretty tight timeline."

"Lots of people have yellow and blue climbing rope, stuff doesn't come with a serial number."

Fleming continued, "The rope was your way in and out, and you had watched the pastor from the spot before, probably several times on Fridays. He would get there minutes after eight, and sit on that bench far from the water. Right around nine, the attendant would come back to check on things so you had about forty-five minutes to pull it all off, a pretty tall order. But you have the skills, there is a piece missing though. Bait, you needed something to lure the pastor over to the water. You couldn't just go chasing him, he would scream out."

Fleming laid down a picture of the mannequin with the Ground Hogs uniform that was still on display at Jakes. He tapped the picture and looked at Morgan with a sly grin. "I am guessing you got there around seven, hiked up the hill got into your wet suit with those swimming shoes. Climbing down the rope dragging the mannequin on your back as well as a snorkel and mask. The mannequin's clothes in a plastic bag. Had about fifteen minutes to dry it off and get it dressed, a young boy in a Ground Hogs uniform right on the edge of the deck. Probably fishing line around the mannequin's neck and you held the other end. You slipped back into the lake just beside the deck a few minutes before eight. Peeking over the planks, holding onto an anchoring post of the deck, waiting for pastor Cole like a gator ready to strike."

Morgan shifted in his seat but kept his poker face as Fleming continued, "Cole comes up the walkway onto the deck, his eyes drawn immediately to what appears to be a small boy in a Ground Hog uniform right near the water."

Fleming snapped his fingers, "You tug on the fishing line and pull the mannequin over the edge disappearing from view, probably splashing some with your hands for some sound effects. Pastor Cole reacts wanting to save the young boy. He runs right for the life preserver the fear of being near the water overcome by his instinct to save the child. As he pulls it off the post you grab him by a leg pulling him into the water. The autopsy shows he has some bruising on his left side, from falling on the deck, and a bump on the side of his head. Must have hit his head on the deck as well. I'm guessing you stuffed something in his mouth as soon as he fell, to keep him from screaming out, speculating a bit."

Fleming glared at Morgan, "You are much stronger than him, you get him out to the middle and held him under maybe five minutes while you were partially submerged breathing through your snorkel. Left him right near the middle of the lake just to make sure, in case there was a little life left in him, he would never be able to swim a hundred yards back to the deck. Pulled whatever you stuck in his mouth out, so it would look like an accidental drowning. You thought people would not pay much attention to the details, like the lack of current to move the body."

Fleming tapped himself lightly in the chest, "Stupid local sheriff would just think he wandered over and fell in and panicked the water is deep with steep vertical walls, and he just drifted out to the middle. No one back there with him, you figured we would never give it a second thought."

Fleming tapped on his watch, "You probably got back up to the top of the cliff with the mannequin about ten minutes or so before the attendant showed up and dove in hoping he might save the pastor. I'm guessing you did not realize you had left the red hat behind until you got back up to the top. It had fallen off when you jerked the mannequin into the water. Made you a little bit panicky when you saw the hat laying there and you bolted without recovering your climbing rope. I am guessing you didn't even think about the life preserver laying there as another clue that this was something more than a simple accident."

Morgan shook his head, "Quite the tale, not much in the way of evidence. Got any prints on that hat?" He shrugged with a menacing glare.

Fleming leaned back arms folded across his chest, "No prints I am sure you were wearing dive gloves, but we have a warrant to search your house. We will head back there when we are done here, not you. We have enough to hold you, while we search. Francine told us about the false wall you installed in the attic for storing some of your expensive firearms; you haven't had enough time to get rid of anything yet. Maybe waiting for your next trip to the coast for work. Guessing we are going to find a clothed mannequin, climbing rope, and the wet suit and other swimming gear you used that day. You're a diver, you know that water in Quarry Lake has a very distinctive chemical signature, almost as good as a fingerprint. We are going to find some residue on some or most of it, you didn't count on getting caught. It was the mannequin that's how we figured it out; the dummies can't swim."

Lucille watched as Rufus put Morgan in the holding cell before they headed out to search his home. Frowning as she shook her head, "Pastor Randy and Francine, I guess he wasn't the man I thought he was."

Curtis put a hand on her shoulder, "He wasn't perfect, none of us are. But his last act on this earth was to face his fear to try and save a life. He ran to the water's edge knowing he couldn't swim and he wasn't a dummy."