The Only One Left

by Pamela Beason

  Chapter 3

  Monday

  Finn knew two things about the Gorge Amphitheatre: One, with sunset views over the Columbia River and the Cascade Mountains and incredible natural acoustics, it was ranked a premier venue for outdoor concerts. Two, it was in the middle of nowhere.

  He did not plan to spend an hour driving from the small town of Evansburg to Nowhere, Washington, without some guarantee of results. So he tracked down the managers of the Amphitheatre, a married couple who lived not far away, near a tiny settlement named George.

  “Rex and I are on our way to the venue now,” Brynne Brady, the wife, told him. “Meet you at the main gate at four p.m.?”

  Finn checked his watch. “That should work.”

  On his drive through the Columbia Gorge canyon, he considered Kanoni’s bone. Where the heck had the baby gorilla picked up that gruesome treasure?

  He hoped the bone belonged to a bear. But even if it was human, it didn’t necessarily indicate any kind of foul play. The land around Evansburg had been settled by farmers and loggers since the 1860s, long before public graveyards and cremation services were available. Rural families often simply buried their dead on their property. Neema and Kanoni occasionally accompanied Grace on walks through the local hills, which was a disturbing image in his mind: two gorillas out for a stroll in the woods. Still, that, he decided, was the most likely explanation for the finger bone; it had somehow been exposed from a dearly departed in a historic grave, and the baby gorilla had picked it up. He’d have to ask Grace if she’d found any sign of burial plots on her land or on the surrounding national forest land.

  To say that the Gorge venue was out of the way was an understatement. There was not much of anything except desert scrub and wind turbines lining high bluffs along the Columbia River after he turned off Interstate 90. The area was home to petrified wood, rattlesnakes, and coyotes, and probably not much good for anything else. A bit farther east or west, with irrigation, this arid landscape became farmland for hay and potatoes. Oddly enough, in recent years, low energy prices and cool winds from the plateau had also made the nearby town of Quincy an attractive site for huge computer server farms. Finn wondered how the hi-tech set mixed with the farmers in that small community.

  Brynne and Rex Brady turned out to be younger than he had imagined, probably in their late thirties at best. For some reason, he’d expected them to be aging hippies in tie-dye T-shirts. Clearly he needed to update his mental vision from the Deadheads he‘d pictured.

  “We just manage the location,” the woman explained. Her sand-colored hair was cut short in a boyish style, and silver rings fringed the edges of her ears.

  “It’s more of a massive handyman position than anything having to do with music,” Rex Brady told him. “The bands bring their own technicians to handle all that.” He was the one with the ponytail and a ragged reddish beard.

  Finn watched the wind blow a seemingly endless wave of trash across the fields. A group of men and women dressed in jail uniforms with GCDC prominently displayed across their backs chased the bits and pieces with long claw-handled sticks, then stuffed the trash into bags slung over their shoulders. “I see there’s a janitorial aspect to the job,” he commented.

  Brynne rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. Most of the concert goers stay in the campgrounds, and believe me, they are pigs.”

  He was surprised to see the inmates handling sticks that could potentially be used as weapons. Not to mention that this was a privately owned venue, so he hoped they weren’t doing court-mandated community service. “You have inmates pick up trash?”

  “We pay ‘em,” Rex said. “They’re cheaper than anyone else, and since they’re supervised”—he jerked his chin toward a couple of armed Grant County deputies observing from the sidelines—“they actually do a great job. If I was locked up for months, I’d sure welcome the opportunity to get outdoors, wouldn’t you?”

  Finn couldn’t argue with that. But now he’d need to talk to the deputies and the Grant County Sheriff, too. He counted the inmates—nine in all—and made a note on his pad. “Do they work during the concerts, too?”

  Rex nodded. “A few of ‘em. Just specific hours during daylight, hauling out trash and stuff like that.”

  “Do the same ones come every day?”

  Brynne turned her head toward her husband, who shrugged and said, “Damned if I know. You’ll have to ask the Sheriff’s Department about that.”

  The wife looked back at Finn. “Are you asking because of that car? You want to see it now?”

  “Please.”

  They led him down a gravel path to the trashed campground. A Grant County Department of Corrections van and a Sheriff’s Department cruiser were parked in the middle of a huge field that was labeled Standard Camping on the map they handed him. No picnic tables, no cement pads, just grass and dirt.

  “Looks a little bleak,” Finn observed.

  “Try to imagine it with hundreds of tents and cars and thousands of people,” Rex told him. “Then it’s just one humongous party.”

  That image was even more disturbing to Finn than the current barrenness of the site. The red Ford Edge occupied a lonely position next to a tent made concave by the blowing wind. Three plastic bags were stuck on the car’s windward side.

  With the massive number of people involved and the wind that had blown steadily for the past few days, the general area was not likely to yield much of interest as a crime scene. But maybe the car would prove more informative. He bent at the waist to peer through a window.

  “It’s locked,” Brynne told him.

  He straightened. “You tried the doors?”

  She studied her hands for a quick second, seeming embarrassed. “Sorry. Never thought about fingerprints. I’ll give you mine, of course.”

  Rex said, “The festival ended at noon today, but sixty percent of the crowd left yesterday evening. When everyone was cleared out, we noticed the car and tent were still here. We called in the car license to the Sheriff’s Department; they said they’d call the owners. If they don’t show up in a day or two, the Sheriff will send someone to tow it.”

  Finn walked around the car. The Edge looked brand new except for a long scratch in the paint across the driver’s door. From what he could see through the windows, the glove box was shut, the driver and passenger seats empty. The back seat held a tangle of clothing. Four crushed diet cola cans littered the floor.

  “Why would someone just walk off without their car?” Rex pondered.

  Finn shook his head. “The Grant County Sheriff’s Department contacted the owners, who live in Bellingham. They claim their daughter drives it. She’s seventeen. Her parents last saw her on Friday morning.” He brought up the photo of the missing teen on his cell phone and held it out to the Bradys. “Darcy Jeanne Ireland.”

  Brynne’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

  “Seventeen? Crap.” Rex frowned.

  Rex’s reaction could have meant any number of things: crap, there’s a child in danger, or crap, there shouldn’t be teenagers on the loose here and there’s going to be trouble.

  In her driver’s license photo, Darcy had long, curly black hair, a square chin, and sturdy looking shoulders. According to the accompanying information, she was five foot eight and weighed a mere 115 pounds. Finn found the weight a little hard to believe, but then the DMV didn’t ask license applicants to step on a scale.

  He asked the couple, “Have you seen her?”

  Both shook their heads.

  “But then we wouldn’t have.” Rex ran a finger over his bearded chin. “Like we told you, we really don’t have much to do with what goes on at the concerts. Our events coordinator hires subcontractors to handle security and supplies and stuff like that, and we contract with food trucks, but all those people are on their own. We’re mostly caretakers, I guess you’d say, coming in to clean up and fix anything that needs fixing.” He made a face. “And believe me, a lot of things need fixing after
Sasquatch. It’s always a total mob scene.”

  “Sasquatch is the worst, since it runs Friday evening through Monday morning,” his wife added.

  It was a multiday festival? Finn gritted his teeth. That would make everything so much harder. The list of people he’d need to interview kept getting longer and longer. “I’ll need the names of subcontractors, along with the names of everyone you know who was working over the course of the Sasquatch Festival.”

  He eyed the grounds. Only a few light poles were scattered throughout the campground, and none of them sported video cameras as far as he could tell. “No security cameras?”

  Rex turned toward the huge amphitheater area. “There are a couple focused on the backstage area and on the aisles, one near the concession stand and another near the ticket sales booth. We don’t have any in the campground. Privacy issues, you know.”

  Finn didn’t know, but he supposed there could be issues with people crawling in and out of tents. As far as he was concerned, that was all the more reason to have security cameras.

  “The security staff could tell you more about all that,” Brynne suggested.

  “Any of those folks likely to be here right now?”

  “I think Vaughn’s in the office,” Brynne told him. “Vaughn Boylan. We’re in charge of the facilities, but Vaughn’s the general events coordinator, in charge of bringing it all together. Vaughn would know who worked security during the festival.”

  Finn wrote down the name. “I’ll need to talk to Boylan, and I’ll want to see whatever video is available for the last few days.”

  Brynne and Rex nodded in unison and then turned, presumably to lead him to this Vaughn guy. But a gray Highlander careened into their path, slamming to a stop only a few feet away, dragging a cloud of dust that rolled in their direction.

  When the dust cleared, a man and woman stood in front of them, posture tense, faces taut. “Where is she?” the woman wailed, holding her curly, dark hair away from her face with fingers sporting cherry-colored nails. “Where’s Darcy? She’s in so much trouble . . .”

  The man held out his hand toward Rex Brady. “Paul Ireland. This is my wife Andrea. Have you found her?”

  “Uh . . . well,” Rex stuttered. He shot Finn a hopeful look.

  The parents must have driven above the speed limit if they’d come all the way from Bellingham this afternoon. Finn stepped forward and thrust out his hand. “Detective Matthew Finn. I’ve been assigned to this case.”

  “Detective?” The mother’s hand landed on Finn’s jacket sleeve. “Oh my God. What case? They only told us that Darcy’s car was here.”

  “That’s it,” Paul Ireland said needlessly, pointing at the red Edge. “But that’s not our tent.”

  “Then you know as much as I do at this point,” Finn explained. “Nobody has seen your daughter since the festival ended at noon.”

  “Oh.” Andrea moved her hand from his sleeve to her throat, anxiously glancing around the area as if she might spy her daughter somewhere close by.

  A tumbling wad of paper smacked Finn in the leg, but the wind whisked it away before he could grab it. Turning to the Bradys, Finn asked, “Is there someplace we can get out of this wind and sit and talk?”

  The caretakers looked at each other, blinked. “Admin trailer,” Rex said. “C’mon.”

  The Bradys led their party down a gravel path to a white single-wide trailer hidden behind a privacy fence that was vibrating in the stiff breeze. Inside the trailer was an empty desk with a nameplate—Vaughn Boylan—and a small break area filled with folding chairs and a battered round dining table. The place smelled of burned coffee.

  Brynne lifted the scorched carafe from the machine on the counter and waved it at Finn. “Shall I make fresh?”

  “Please.” Finn slid into a chair. “We may be here awhile.”

  At that, Andrea Ireland glanced at her husband and crossed her arms, hugging herself as if she were afraid she might fall apart.

  Paul Ireland worked as a public relations consultant. Andrea was a paralegal. They’d been at home the entire weekend, going out only for local walks and dinner at a brew pub in Bellingham on Friday evening.

  “And you took that trip to the hardware store yesterday,” Andrea reminded her husband.

  Paul’s jaw tightened. He turned from his wife to look at Finn. “Yes, I went to Lowe’s on Sunday,” he said in a dry tone. “We needed a new garden rake.”

  Andrea continued, “The kids were gone. Samuel, our son, was competing in the Ski to Sea relay as their mountain biker, so he and his buddies were busy with that. And Darcy had volunteered for an all-girls team. Not competing, but hauling gear and helping and stuff like that.” She frowned. “Or so we thought. That’s what she told us, anyway.”

  Paul slid into a chair across from Finn. “Why do I know your name? Was there some write-up on you a while ago? Some case you worked on?”

  Finn didn’t want to introduce the old article about his involvement with a signing gorilla into this discussion. “So the two of you were home the entire holiday weekend, until you were called today. And Darcy was staying with this girls team?”

  “We—” Andrea began. The door banged open as she finished, “—thought Darcy was at Mia’s house.”

  As they all turned toward the entry, Finn asked, “Who is Mia?”

  Chapter 4

  Monday

  “Our daughter,” announced the blonde who stepped inside. “Mia Valdez.”

  The woman was petite, no more than five two, with a delicate frame to match her small stature. The man who accompanied her was a full head taller with a square, muscular build. His hair was more silver than dark brown.

  Brynne turned away from the coffeemaker toward a nearby cabinet. “I’ll find two more cups.”

  Finn stood up to greet the couple.

  The new man, presumably Mr. Valdez, ignored him and glared at the Irelands. “How could you let this happen?”

  Andrea pushed to her feet. “How could we? Darcy told us she’d be at your house.”

  The blond woman shot back, “And Mia told us you were chaperoning both of them when they weren’t at Ski to Sea.”

  “Ski to Sea?” Finn was perplexed why everyone was talking about this event with the weird name.

  Mr. Valdez frowned at Paul Ireland. “What is our tent doing out there? How could you let Darcy drive Mia all the way here? They both still have restricted licenses.”

  Finn’s teeth began to ache. There were two missing girls? He held out his hand. “I’m Detective Matthew Finn.” Gesturing to the chairs along the wall, he said, “Please pull up a seat, Mr. and Mrs. . . .?

  The couple introduced themselves. Robin and Keith Valdez, also from Bellingham, sixty and sixty-three years old, according to their drivers’ licenses. On reading Robin’s age, Finn had to stifle an urge to do a double take. She had blue eyes and a spatter of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her ash-blond hair was cut in a short, layered style that framed a pretty, heart-shaped face, but as he studied her more carefully, he noticed telltale wrinkles in her lips and forehead.

  Keith Valdez was handsome and olive skinned with a moustache that held even more silver than his hair. “This is what happens when you give a seventeen-year-old a car,” he said to Finn, shooting a scowl sideways at Paul Ireland.

  “Darcy never did anything like this before she met Mia,” Andrea Ireland shot back.

  Robin Valdez clutched at Finn’s arm. “Detective Finn,” she said. “We would never let Mia have a car at such a young age. She’s allowed to drive only when one of us is in the car with her.”

  Finn looked at the manicured fingers on his sleeve. What was with these women grabbing him, anyway? He gently slipped his arm away to pick up his pen. “Tell me about Mia.”

  Robin sucked in a breath, then said, “Her full name is Miracle Luisa Valdez.”

  Andrea jerked her chin up. “Miracle?”

  Ignoring the younger woman, Robin told Finn, “She was a m
iracle baby. You know, an unexpected gift. But she hates to be called Miracle; she insists on Mia.”

  “I see.”

  “Coffee?” Brynne interrupted, waving the pot of dark liquid in one hand and clutching a stack of Styrofoam cups in the other. When they all nodded, she handed the cups to Paul, who stared at them for a second, then slipped one off and handed the others around the table.

  Brynne poured coffee for all five of them, then placed sugar, powdered creamer, stir sticks, and napkins in the center of the table. Catching Finn’s gaze, she tilted her head toward the door, and when he nodded, she slipped outside.

  Removing a billfold from her purse, Robin flipped it open to a photo and held it out to Finn. “Here she is.”

  Finn took the billfold from her. The girl took after her mother in coloring. Her shoulder-length blond hair was carefully smoothed in the straight, flat style favored at the moment by most teen girls. Her face was heart shaped, her eyes were blue, and she had Cupid’s bow lips.

  “Pretty girl.” He handed back the billfold.

  Robin carefully deposited it back into her purse. “She is. She’s our baby.”

  Both girls attended a private, all-girls high school north of Bellingham called the Stanton Academy. Neither set of parents had seen their girls since the previous Friday morning.

  “But Mia texted me every day,” Robin assured him, “telling me what a great time they were having, being part of Ski to Sea.”

  “Oh, God.” Andrea Ireland buried her face in her hands. “Darcy did exactly the same thing.”

  “Ski to Sea?” Finn asked again, taking a sip of his watery coffee.

  Keith Valdez nodded as if that answered the question. “The high school division. The girls are not athletes, but we thought it was nice that they were supporting a local-area team.”

  The story that both Mia and Darcy had told was that they planned to help out with the Ski to Sea Parade on Saturday, and then they had volunteered for a team that was competing on Sunday.

  Ski to Sea turned out to be a relay race from Mount Baker to Bellingham Bay. Both couples made it sound like a really big deal.