Something Wicked

by Lisa Jackson

  CHAPTER 12

  The Lake Chinook job site was at the end of a broken asphalt drive, the result of too many construction vehicles breaking the pavement down with heavy loads. The road opened onto a headland with a spectacular view of the green lake far below. Concrete footings for three separate residences had been poured and were still surrounded by their plywood forms. The house farthest west was the furthest along; it was framed, sided, and rough plumbed, and looked to be in the process of rough electrical, but there was a red work-stoppage notice flapping in the wind. Construction had been red tagged, and the group of men standing just inside the framed house’s open doorway seemed to be discussing the situation with barely concealed ire.

  The rain had stopped, and the temperature was dropping. Savvy had traded in her raincoat for the dark blue ski jacket, and now she stepped carefully over chunks of two-by-fours and crumbling asphalt as she made her way to their group. An attractive silver-haired man saw her first and stopped talking midsentence. The taller, lankier man looked over at her. His long dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, and his eyes seemed penetrating, even from this distance. The third man, who she guessed was the building inspector, barely glanced at her as he said, “You’re over a couple of inches, and until you fix it, I can’t sign off.” Unlike the first two, he was heavyset, his features were close set, and his face pinched. He looked like the epitome of a government employee with a chip on his shoulder.

  “I’ll take care of it,” the silver-haired man said tersely. He was lean and hard, and his eyes were as dark as midnight. As the inspector walked toward his truck, he stood in the doorway with his hands planted on his hips and waited for Savannah to approach. “Clark Russo,” he said, holding out a hand.

  “Detective Dunbar,” she greeted him.

  “Ah, yes. You decided to brave the elements and stray from your jurisdiction. This is Neil Vledich, our foreman.” Savannah shook hands with Vledich, whose ponytail was a dark sable brown and whose eyes were a brilliant blue. Russo said, as if Savvy had asked a question, “The upper deck on this house is outside the twenty-five percent footprint, all that we’re allowed to build on a lot in this damn town. We’re going to have to cut it back to make it fit in.”

  “First, it was the trees,” Vledich said as Savvy pulled out her notebook.

  “We cut more trees down than the neighbors wanted,” Russo explained. “It was within city code, but there was a lot of noise, and they started complaining. Just been one delay after another. Give me Portland any day.” He shook his head and seemed to mentally dust off his hands. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m doing a follow-up on the Donatella homicides at Bancroft Bluff. . . .” She trailed off at his rapid nodding.

  “Right. Hale said as much. I worked that project. Neil didn’t. He was here. What do you want to know?”

  Before she could answer, Vledich put in, “A lot of people said they shouldn’t build there, but he ignored them.”

  “He?” Savannah asked.

  “DeWitt,” Russo answered. “If that guy were on the Titanic, he’d swear they hadn’t hit an iceberg rather than admit he was wrong. He still stands by his original assessment. Meanwhile, the whole damn dune’s falling into the sea.”

  “I ran into Sean Ingles in your office, and he said that Mr. DeWitt could be found at a local bar,” Savannah said.

  “Oh, he’s a big drinker, all right,” Russo answered. “Since the Bancroft Bluff debacle, he’s an even bigger drinker.” He motioned Savannah inside the framed house, to a hearth that was just the concrete blocks at the moment; the tile or granite or whatever medium they’d chosen to cover the blocks wasn’t there yet. Vledich went outside, and through the open doorway Savvy could see him break out a pack of cigarettes and light up.

  Russo went on, “Everybody wanted Bancroft Bluff to be a success, so Owen ignored everything he knew, and anything anybody said, and went ahead and green-lighted the project. It was lame-assed, but we all kinda kept our fingers crossed. I mean, nobody wanted a failure. When the dune started failing, we scrambled to put riprap down, trying to stop the erosion.”

  “Riprap?”

  “Big chunks of rock, mostly. Stuff to stabilize the slide and build up a wall, stop the erosion. We put it at the foot of the dune and piled high, but the bluff’s right on the ocean. Duh. That’s why people want to build there, and the elements don’t give a shit, if you know what I mean. The ocean eroded the dune behind the riprap, anyway. Big waste of time.”

  “Do you think the motive for the Donatella homicides had to do with the development failure?” Savvy asked.

  “Seems likely, doesn’t it? Isn’t that why you’re reinterviewing us?”

  “One of the reasons,” she acknowledged. “‘Blood money’ was written on the Donatellas’ wall with red spray paint.”

  “Yeah, I know. Somebody was really pissed off. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Russo mused. “Although . . .”

  “Although?”

  “Blood money sounds so . . . I don’t know . . . like revenge or something, and yet Donatella’s house is gonna go, too. Sure, it’s still standing now, but the whole area’s shut down and basically condemned. Donatella was hurting as much as the next guy.”

  Savannah nodded. Her own feeling was that logic wasn’t the overriding factor in the whole scenario. Why write “blood money?” Everyone knew about Bankruptcy Bluff and the fact that the Donatellas and the Bancrofts were taking it in the shorts, all the while trying to make good on the properties.

  It seemed more like misdirection the more she interviewed people close to the real estate debacle.

  She asked Russo a few more questions, reexamining where he’d been the night of the murders—to dinner in Seaside with two friends, who’d vouched for him then and would again. Then, as Vledich came back in, she posed a couple more questions to him for good measure. Vledich told her he was in Portland at the time of the homicides and had the word of his live-in girlfriend to back him up.

  Savannah asked him his thoughts about motive, and he said, “The can of red paint was just there. Available. Whoever killed ’em just used what was handy.”

  Vledich was echoing Russo’s thoughts and Savannah’s, as well.

  She checked her watch. Two p.m. “I would like to get in touch with Nadine Gretz and Owen DeWitt before I go, if at all possible.”

  “Nadine’s working at the eastside apartments,” Vledich said.

  “I thought she quit,” Savannah said, surprised.

  “She did.” Russo shrugged. “But she couldn’t find work in this economy, so we’re using her as a temp. Mostly she just wants to hang with Henry, though. He’s the number two guy after Neil here. If Neil’s busy on a project, Henry’s the man.”

  Vledich made a sound of disgust.

  Russo said mildly, “Henry would like Neil’s job.”

  “Henry Woodworth is an asshole.” Vledich’s brows were a sharp, dark line.

  Russo told her the address of the eastside apartment complex, and Savannah committed it to memory. “RiverEast Apartments. It’s on the sign,” he told her.

  “And DeWitt?” she asked.

  “Should be at the Rib-I. Place used to be a great steak house, but it’s kinda gone downhill. Did you hear? They found two dead bodies in an SUV there yesterday. Doesn’t do well with the clientele, I’d imagine.” Russo smirked.

  “Do you know of any theories on that?”

  Her cell phone blooped, and she saw it was another message from Lang. As if he’d heard her last question, he’d texted that Curtis wouldn’t be able to meet with her, because he was involved in a double homicide. Bound to be the same one.

  “We keeping you from something?” Russo asked.

  “No.” She tucked her phone away and waited, and Russo seemed to run their last few words around in his head and realize she was still waiting for an answer.

  “Love triangle, somebody said. The jilted lover killed ’em.” He shrugged.

  �
��Nah.” Vledich waved that away. “It was executed like a hit.”

  Like the Donatellas, Savvy thought.

  “All right,” she said, closing up her notebook and tucking it away. She started to walk toward her car, then stopped, turned back, and said to Russo, “Sylvie Strahan said she recommended you for the Portland job.”

  For the first time he looked cautious. “Yeah?”

  “Who was manager here before you?”

  Vledich snorted again, and Russo said, “Paulie Williamson. He’s the one who awarded the engineering job to DeWitt.”

  “I don’t have him on my list,” Savannah admitted.

  “Paulie folded up tent and moved to Tucson. Working on his tan and drinking mojitos now,” Russo said. “He ran like a rabbit after the Donatellas were killed. Told you guys he didn’t have anything to do with the project, which was technically true, other than being friends with DeWitt, and then took off. I think he was scared he’d be sued along with Bancroft Development.”

  “Asshole.” Vledich sniffed.

  “Do you have a number for him?” she asked.

  “Got a cell.” Russo pulled out his phone, scrolled through some numbers, then rattled off Paul Williamson’s number, which Savvy put into her phone list.

  She left them a few moments later and headed north and then east across the Willamette again, toward the RiverEast Apartments construction site, driving through a Taco Bell on the way and ordering two chicken gorditas and a water. She ate both gorditas while driving and was sipping the water when she saw the sign COMING SOON RIVEREAST APARTMENTS—which featured a schematic of the ten-story modern glass and steel building in the midst of a parklike setting—coming up on her right. The parklike setting was a dream for the future, apparently, as currently the site sported bare steel rafters and cranes, and men in hard hats walked around purposefully. It was a big project that would probably take years to complete. Savannah parked the Escape well away from the construction zone and walked back slowly.

  A good-looking man with dark blond hair and a full-wattage smile approached her, hard hat on his head, his walk a swinging strut, which she’d found common among the more handsome of the male species—or at least the ones who felt they were. He wore jeans and a gray work shirt, and he pointed his finger at her, then made a circling motion with it to encompass her belly. “What are you doing here, Mama?” he asked.

  “Are you Henry Woodworth?”

  He blinked in surprise. “Why, yes, I am. And who might you be?”

  “I’m Detective Savannah Dunbar with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.” She showed him her badge, then held out a hand, but Henry didn’t take it.

  “How did you know me, Detective?” he asked cautiously, and she explained about her meeting with Russo and Vledich.

  “Vledich,” he muttered. “Bet he didn’t have nice things to say.”

  “I was actually hoping to find Nadine Gretz. I was told you and she are friends.”

  “What do you want to see Nadine for?”

  “I’m doing a follow-up investigation on the Donatella homicides in Deception Bay last spring. Nadine worked for Bancroft Development then, and I understand she’s working for them again.”

  “Well, yeah, but just part-time. This isn’t . . . Nadine left because she didn’t want to work with Bancroft and St. Cloud. She—” He cut himself off.

  “She what?” Savannah asked, pressing.

  “She didn’t think they played fair. She’s not here, anyway.”

  “Do you have a way I can reach her?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, but he didn’t offer up her number.

  “I’ve already met with Mr. Russo, Mr. Ingles, and Mr. Vledich.”

  “What a powerhouse. And you, ready to pop.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “I can find her another way,” Savvy said evenly, “but it would save me some time if you could help.”

  “Just hold your horses, Detective.” He pulled out a cell phone, checked his call list, then told her Nadine’s number, which she inserted into her own list, just as she had Paulie Williamson’s.

  “Were you working at the coast during the Donatella homicides?” Savannah asked him.

  “Nah . . . not that day. We’d just finished a remodel on their house,” he admitted, waving a hand back to include the rest of the construction team. One of the men in hard hats had stopped what he was doing and was watching them. “The Donatellas moved out for a while, but they were planning to move back in. They wanted everybody to think that everything was A-OK, you know?”

  “But the dune was failing by then.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s why they were killed, right?”

  She was debating interviewing some of the other workers, but the one that had stopped and looked over at her was already back at work, and she knew she would be interrupting a project that hummed with energy like a hive of bees.

  Henry’s cell phone rang, and he drew it cautiously from his pocket. “Hey, babe,” he answered, his eyes on Savannah. They were clear and blue and had warmed at the sound of the caller’s voice. She realized he was talking to Nadine when he said, “There’s a cop here to see you. A detective from Tillamook County.” There was a tinny, fast answer, which had him comically pull the phone from his ear for a moment, before bringing it back and saying, “No big deal. She’s just doing a follow-up, and your name’s on the list.” More tinny screeching, and he suddenly held the phone out to Savannah. “Here she is.”

  Savvy was a little taken by surprise. Gingerly, she put her fingers around the cell phone and said, “Ms. Gretz?”

  “I never had anything to do with anything at Bancroft Bluff! I thought Owen was a dipshit from the start. Everybody did. It’s just a disaster, but the Donatellas . . . they were nice people. All we did was try to make a nice community, and look what happened. If you want to go after somebody, go after Hale St. Cloud and that old lech, Declan. They might not’ve killed Marcus and Chandra, but they pushed through that project when they knew better. And Hale’s wife, too. You should look into what she had going on. She was hot as lava and slavering over Marcus.”

  Savannah could feel her face heat at the accusation.

  “Whoa,” Henry said. He could hear what was being said because Savvy had pulled the phone about an inch from her ear.

  “You’re talking about Kristina St. Cloud,” Savvy said, pressing the phone close again and holding the emotion out of her voice with an effort.

  “I sure am. She was all over him.”

  Henry stuck out his hand and wiggled his fingers, mutely asking for the phone back.

  “You don’t believe me?” Nadine demanded into Savvy’s silence. “Ask Henry. She came on to him, too.”

  “Could I meet with you?” Savannah asked.

  “I just can’t. I’m running errands, and I don’t know when I’ll be done.”

  Truthfully, Savannah was somewhat relieved. The last thing she wanted to hear was a decimation of her sister’s character, and, anyway, she was starting to believe that no one at Bancroft Development knew anything more than what had already been gleaned earlier. She was also growing sick to the back teeth of listening to gossip and innuendo about people close to her. Nadine’s remarks about Kristina dug deep into her soul, far more than they should.

  “Can I call you again?” she asked, and Nadine said, “Okay,” somewhat reluctantly. She handed the phone back to Henry and thanked him.

  He nodded, then pressed the phone to his ear and said, “You’re not making the best impression in front of the law here, y’know,” as he took a few steps away. Savannah couldn’t hear her response aside from the same rapid-fire, tinny voice.

  She checked her watch. Five o’clock. The day had shot by, and she still wanted to stop by the Rib-I and see if she could connect with the much-maligned Owen DeWitt, if he was there.

  For a moment she was undecided. Truth be told, she felt the urge to head back to the beach and stop off at the Seagull Pointe care fac
ility to see Herman Smythe. Though her priority was the Donatella homicides, and she was on her last few hours before her forced maternity leave, she hadn’t forgotten about Catherine Rutledge’s request to find DNA on the knife that had allegedly killed her sister, and she certainly hadn’t forgotten about the other strange piece: Catherine’s genetics lesson, in which she’d intimated that the males of their clan possessed even more potent “gifts.” She also still wanted to follow up and learn the names of all the women living at Siren Song, and Herman Smythe was that connection.

  Throwing another glance at the sky, she scowled at the dark, forbidding clouds moving in from the west. The prediction of snow in the Coast Range later tonight wasn’t a good omen. Though she had chains, she didn’t want to risk having to use them; it didn’t sound like a winning proposition.

  With a wave at Henry, who apparently was still trying to soothe Nadine’s ruffled feathers, she headed back to her SUV, checking the GPS for nearby restaurants and finding the Rib-I was only about six blocks away. Owen DeWitt’s home away from home.

  “Where the hell is she?” Hale said aloud to the empty room.

  He was at his desk, and he’d been on the phone with his subs, seeing who was working on Saturday and who was planning to show up Monday morning, checking on material deliveries from Portland and beyond, wondering if he needed to bring Russo back to Seaside when Kristina had the baby or if he would be freer than he currently expected. Apart from his call to Savvy, he’d pushed thoughts of Kristina’s disappearance to the back of his mind. She’d done this kind of vanishing act before. There was, in fact, a period the previous spring when he’d wondered if the fact that her sister was pregnant had scared her so badly that Kristina had her own personal breakdown. She would disappear for hours, once all night long, only to show up weary and miserable and to admit that she’d checked into a motel to try to meditate away her anxieties. Hale had called the motel surreptitiously, checking her story, and had learned that yes, his wife had stayed there. He felt bad about it, but her behavior had worried him sick. They were having a baby, for God’s sake; he needed to know where she was at all times. But then things had seemed to straighten out, and until the past few days he’d thought—hoped—it was all going to be okay.