Chapter 7. Barn Raising the Dead
BARN RAISING THE DEAD
WHITNEY
Deputy Swisher rounded up a roll of yellow cordon tape from the cargo bay, and headed through the mud to the back fence of the Victory Garden property.
He strung the tape from the fence post at the back corner of the pasture to a tree on the other side of the driveway.
He used his teeth to tear through the tape and was tying it off when Gail Pittman turned from the paved county road onto the private driveway, inching along in the muck.
She pulled to a stop behind the tape, her mouth gaping as she eyed the deputy and his SUV.
In the distance behind Gail, people came out from the Victory Garden and began to gather in the parking lot. No doubt they’d heard the siren and seen the flashing lights a few minutes before. Fortunately, they were too far away to spot Tyler Yee’s body. Thank goodness he’s hidden behind his car.
Deputy Swisher noticed the crowd, too. “We’ve got an audience. I’ll head down there and cordon off that end of the road, too. Otherwise, those folks might come up here and get an eyeful.”
Gail unrolled her window as the deputy ducked under the tape he’d strewn. “That’s my barn there. What’s going on?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I can’t share anything with you right now. Stick around, though.” He patted the hood of her car twice, in a stay-put motion. “The detective might want to speak with you.”
“Detective?” she cried, her voice going up an octave. The expression on her face said she had more questions, but the deputy had already walked past her and was heading down the side of the road, kicking up mud behind him.
Luckily, the muck kept most of the people at bay.
They waited on the Victory Garden’s paved parking lot rather than attempt to venture up the private road.
When two of them started up the drive, mud or no mud, Swisher waved them back.
As he tied an end of tape to a light post at the rear of the restaurant’s parking lot, the crowd accosted him.
I imagined what he might be telling them: Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
Whatever Swisher said, it didn’t satisfy their curiosity.
They remained standing in the lot while he strung the tape across the road, tying the other end to the PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING sign.
Behind him, a red car pulled out of the shopping center parking lot, turned onto the county road, and drove off.
I couldn’t be sure from this distance, but I was fairly certain it was the red Charger Hellcat I’d seen parked at the shopping center last week.
When Swisher returned, he climbed into the driver’s seat of his vehicle and eyed me in the rearview mirror. “How are you doing back there?”
“I’ve been better.” While the initial shock might have passed, the horror hadn’t.
We sat in silence until a quarter hour later, when a plain silver sedan rolled up next to Gail’s Genesis.
A middle-aged, lean, and long-limbed Latina emerged and opened a black umbrella to shield herself from the rain.
She wore a basic navy-blue pantsuit with a white turtleneck underneath and incongruous bright yellow rubber rainboots on her feet.
She’d tucked her pants into her boots to keep the legs clean.
Her hair was pulled up into a bun on the back of her head, making her look like a business-minded ballerina.
“That’s Detective Alonzo,” Swisher told me. “She clears nearly all her cases. She’ll figure out what happened here.”
I certainly hoped so. With Tyler’s life having been violently taken from him, the next-best option was to get him justice.
Deputy Swisher slid out of his seat, and I did the same, opening my umbrella even though I was already drenched. We stood by his SUV, waiting for the detective.
Detective Alonzo walked over to Gail’s car, and she and Gail exchanged introductions. On learning she owned the barn, the detective said, “I’ll have some questions for you.” She pointed our way. “Let me talk to these folks first.”
To get past the tape, Detective Alonzo lowered her open umbrella until her head disappeared from view and performed a graceful grand plié—the fancy ballet term for a deep squat—reinforcing the image of a prima donna in my mind.
Standing up on the near side of the tape now, she raised her umbrella and turned to walk over to me and the deputy.
She ran her gaze from the top of my matted hair down to the toes of my muddy boots and back up again, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was assessing me. “You are…?”
Traumatized? Bewildered? Distressed? “Whitney Flynn,” I said, transferring the umbrella to my left hand and offering my right.
She gave it a quick shake. “You’re here because…?”
Again, I filled in the blank she’d drawn.
“My cousin Buck and I flip houses.” I cut my eyes in Gail’s direction.
“Gail Pittman contacted us about remodeling the barn. We met here last week for a preliminary discussion. We scheduled a second meeting here for noon today to go over my design ideas. My sketches are in my car.”
She looked around, noting no vehicles in the immediate vicinity other than the deputy’s SUV and Tyler’s subcompact. “Your car is…?”
“In the barn.”
She pointed down at Tyler. “And this is…?”
“A freelance journalist named Tyler Yee. He was at the initial meeting Gail and I had last week. That’s when we met.
It was the only other time I’ve seen him.
He’s planning—” I caught my mistake and corrected myself.
“Was planning to do a story on the barn. Information about the remodel was going to be included in the piece. That’s why he was here today. ”
“Hold this for me.” She handed her umbrella to Deputy Swisher, and he held it over her while she pulled a notepad and pen from an inside pocket on her blazer.
After jotting down my full name, phone number, and both e-mail and home addresses, she launched into a series of questions, using her fill-in-the-blank style. “You arrived at…?”
“Around twenty minutes to eleven.”
“Before that you were…?”
“Shopping at the bookstore.” I pointed to the shopping center in the distance, noting the lights were back on in the parking lot and the coffee shop, which had windows on the end of the building.
“Before that I was at the Victory Garden, getting a cookie and a smoothie.” I moved my finger to indicate the restaurant.
“When you got here you…?”
“Parked inside the barn because it was raining and I didn’t want to get any wetter than I already was.
I had over an hour before my meeting with Gail Pittman and Tyler Yee, so I decided to take a nap.
I couldn’t recline the seats in my SUV because my cargo bay is full of carpentry equipment, so I climbed up to the hayloft. ”
She ducked down a few inches to see past the umbrella, and peered upward through the doorway at the hayloft. Her brow furrowed. “That loft appears to be full of cobwebs and dust. That would turn most people off. You went up there anyway because…?”
“I’m used to working around dust and debris. It doesn’t bother me. Besides, I’m dressed for it.” I gestured at my coveralls and boots.
The wind swirled inside the barn, carrying several more pieces of paper that had escaped Tyler’s backpack down from the hayloft and out the door.
Detective Alonzo took her umbrella back and motioned for the deputy to grab the papers before they blew away.
He engaged in a wild game of chase, having to stomp down on one piece of paper to prevent its escape.
Of course, now the document was muddy and had a footprint on it and might no longer be legible.
Detective Alonzo asked me a few more questions—whether I’d seen anyone else around, whether I knew anyone who might want Tyler Yee dead.
My answer to the latter two questions was an emphatic no.
“I didn’t know Tyler personally. I only know he worked as a freelance reporter and that he also had a podcast. It’s called Yee Spills the Tea. ”
“Wait here.” She donned a pair of latex gloves and proceeded to climb the ladder to the hayloft.
A few seconds later, she poked her head out of the hayloft door above and surveyed first the murder scene directly below her, then the surrounding area, her gaze shifting back and forth as it moved farther away from the barn.
When her gaze lingered for a moment, I followed it to the gravel easement that ran behind the restaurant’s fenced pasture.
Could Tyler Yee’s killer have been a utility worker?
Maybe one who’d come out to restore service to the area?
After a minute or two, the detective climbed down from the hayloft and exited the barn, walking over to the cordon tape to speak with Gail Pittman.
As they spoke, another whirlwind carried more papers out of the barn.
Again, Swisher played chase. A stapled, multi-page document blew out of the hayloft and swirled in the air above me, its pages fluttering, before falling to the ground at my feet.
I reached down, picked it up, and took a look.
The document comprised six pages and was a copy of a preprinted form titled Order of Protection, Tennessee’s name for what was commonly referred to as a restraining order.
Tyler Yee’s name was listed in the space for the petitioner, meaning he’d been the one seeking protection. But from whom? And why?
Farther down the page was information about the respondent, a man identified as Quentin Sanderson.
Boxes were checked to indicate his sex—male; his race—white; his hair color—blond; and his eye color—hazel.
Sanderson’s height was listed as six feet two, his weight as 226 pounds.
Under the section for “Scars/Special Features,” it was noted he had the name Bianca tattooed inside a red heart on the left side of his chest and that he wore ear gauges.
Whoever this Quentin Sanderson was, he was a big guy who’d succumbed to an unattractive, and now mostly passé, trend.
Why anyone would want their earlobes to look like knotholes was beyond me.
More boxes were checked in another section of the form to indicate that Sanderson had abused or threatened to abuse Tyler Yee, and that he had stalked Tyler as well.
The official court document ordered Sanderson to refrain from contacting Tyler directly or indirectly, including contact by phone, e-mail, text, mail, or any other type of messaging.
Sanderson was also ordered to stay away from Tyler’s home and workplace.
With Tyler being an independent journalist who roamed about in search of stories, workplace seemed to be a vague concept where he was concerned.
Had Quentin Sanderson been the subject of one of Tyler’s articles or podcasts?
The order had been signed and dated by the judge the preceding Friday.
The time of signing was stipulated on the form: 4:57 p.m. It had probably been the last item of business in the court that day.
Below the judge’s signature was a section titled “Certificate of Service—Respondent.” The section had boxes to be checked to indicate how the order had been delivered to the respondent—by hand delivery to respondent or their counsel or by mail.
There were also lines for the server to indicate the date and time the order had been served to the respondent, and for the server’s signature.
None of the boxes had been checked or filled in.
I hadn’t noticed Swisher approaching until he cleared his throat and tugged the order of protection from my fingers. He gave me a stern look. “Best you not touch evidence.”
A hot blush rushed to my cheeks. “I was trying to keep it from blowing away.”
“Looked like you were reading it.”
“Well, that too.” I bit my lip. “There’s more of Tyler Yee’s paperwork in my SUV. I was afraid it was going to blow away or get damaged by the rain, so I collected it and put it there for safekeeping.”
He eyed me intently for a moment, as if unsure whether to thank me or arrest me for evidence tampering.
Before he could do either, movement on the drive caught our attention, and we turned our heads in unison.
A crime scene van and a van from the county medical examiner’s office pulled up one after the other, the ME’s van careening in the mud.
Detective Alonzo held up a palm to stop the crews until she finished speaking with Gail.
When the two concluded their conversation, Gail performed a slow three-point turn and drove off past the vans in the direction of the county road.
Two people emerged from each van, plastic coverings on their feet to protect both the crime scene and their shoes.
Detective Alonzo sidestepped gracefully under the tape again and returned to the deputy and me.
“You’re free to go, Ms. Flynn, but your vehicle will have to stay put for a few hours until we’re done processing the crime scene.
One of the technicians will text you when you’re allowed back into the barn.
I’ll be in touch if I have any follow-up questions. ”
Deputy Swisher cast me a sidelong glance, then turned to the detective. “She gathered some of the papers that were blowing around before we got here. They’re in her SUV.”
“It’s unlocked,” I said quickly. “Feel free to look inside.”
She didn’t need my permission. My car was located in a crime scene and I’d put evidence inside it.
That gave her the legal right to examine every inch of the vehicle, and my personal property in the car, too.
Even so, I wanted to appear helpful. Often, the last person to see someone alive was the first person law enforcement suspected in a murder case.
Of course, with Tyler having passed on by the time I reached him, I wasn’t technically the last person to see him alive. His killer was.
Though Detective Alonzo had given me permission to leave, I was at least an hour’s drive from anyone who could pick me up. The round trip would take two hours or more. I decided to stick around until the crime scene was released. Where could I kill a few hours?