Point Deception

by Marcia Muller

  I stopped. Wanting to go down there and see what was happening. Wanting to run back to the cabin and hide in my bed.

  Noises in the bushes. Mountain lion! They lived in the hills. One of them snuck down into the canyon and ate Eric’s cat.

  Run, Chryssie!

  He’s getting closer!

  Then Jude came out of the bushes, nearly on all fours. Her hair had leaves in it and there was a big scratch on her face and her hands were muddy. She didn’t see me, went right by.

  I called to her and she stopped. Turned around. She was out of the trees, standing in a patch of moonlight. Her face looked as white as the moon and I’d never seen anybody that scared.

  “Chryssie?” she whispered.

  And then we heard him. A man yelling, “No no no please no!” And we heard the scream.

  It started low and went up and up till every little hair on my arms was standing up straight and my skin got all pimply. I put my hands over my ears but they couldn’t block out the shots. Rat-a- tat, over and over again like in a war movie.

  Jude grabbed me and we ran all the way back to the cabin. Leo was there with the bus. By the cabin door Jude squatted down so she could look me in the eyes and put her hands on my shoulders.

  She said, “Something very bad happened tonight, Chrystal. A grown-up thing you don’t need to know about. We’re never going to talk about it again. You understand that?”

  And I said yes, I understood. I didn’t dare ask any questions, not when Jude looked at me like that.

  Right away we went into the cabin and cleared out all our little stuff and packed it in the bus. Leo said to leave the furniture. And then we split for Oregon. In Portland Leo switched license plates with a car parked in a dark corner of some lot and we left the bus with the keys inside on the street. Then we hitched over to Vancouver, Washington, where he had a buddy who would let us stay with him for a while.

  We never did talk about that night again, not till last Saturday when Jude had that real bad seizure and was afraid another one would be the end of her. Yeah, she told me about the murders and the secret she kept all those years. But she sure didn’t tell me anything as scary as what I remembered today.

  Monday, October 9

  Afternoon–Evening

  Rho no longer felt as if she were sleepwalking. A moment before she’d connected with the events of that long-ago night on a visceral level. She watched Guy nod in reply to her question and said, “How can we know that the Wynnes just gave up, after all this time?”

  He shrugged and motioned for her to precede him outside, where she sucked in fresh air. Everything now looked different, as if she’d removed a pair of dark, distorting glasses.

  Guy said, “I’ve always subscribed to the theory that powerful emotions become trapped in the place where they’re experienced. A receptive person can tap into them simply by being in the physical environment. It’s similar to the so-called art of psychometry, where the receptor reads something about the owner of an object by handling the object itself.”

  “You believe that stuff?”

  “Yes and no. What I do believe is my experience of it.”

  “But you said powerful emotions. Resignation—that’s weak, passive.”

  “Not always. I’d define it as powerful when it comes to allowing yourself to be killed. And there’s another element operating here: The Wynnes may have been creating a diversion so their children could escape. In short, laying down their own lives for Heath’s and Oriana’s.”

  Too bad it hadn’t worked for Heath. Too bad he hadn’t run to the bunkhouse with his sister. “You know,” she said, “we always wondered why the Wynne children didn’t stay together. I assumed from where I found him that Heath was trying to get to the Scurlocks’ for help. But why didn’t Oriana go with him?”

  “Maybe they didn’t start out together.”

  “No, one of the few things she remembered was that she and her brother were in the dome’s play area when they heard the first shots.”

  “He was older and could run faster, so he was the one who went for help?”

  “Probably. But here’s another question we had: Given that the bunkhouse is an obvious hiding place, why wasn’t she killed?”

  “Either the shooters didn’t know about her, or they decided to go after their primary target, Ulrick, instead. If they did know about her, they must’ve counted on her being unable to describe them.”

  “I guess. It would be interesting to talk with her, see if she’s remembered anything more.”

  “I intend to try. Shall we take a look at the rest of the property?”

  Rho stayed outside while Guy examined the bunkhouses and the shack where Bernhard Ulrick had lived. The formerly blue bunkhouse and the shack had not been part of the crime scene, and she didn’t need to have another look at the little pink structure where she’d found Oriana. When he came out he was frowning, but shook his head when she asked him why. Holding something back on her, or simply disturbed by the emotions that surely must live there?

  Guy looked at his watch. “It’s after three. You want to keep going, or call it a day?”

  “Let’s keep going. I want you to see all of the canyon, but I’m not sure I can make myself come back another time.”

  They walked uphill on a path made narrow by encroaching pyracantha bushes. The ground was soft and muddy in places from heavy fog and recent rain. Guy didn’t speak, and Rho sensed he was working out something, rearranging facts he’d previously known to fit with what he’d learned today. Another plane droned overhead and she looked up in time to see its white tail section glide above the pines.

  “Wait a second.” Guy put his hand on her arm.

  “What is it?”

  “Someone’s walked along here recently.” He pointed down at a series of impressions in the mud. “Two people. From the size of the prints, I’d say a small woman, and either a large woman or a man.”

  She went over and squatted down to examine them. “They must’ve been made after it rained last Thursday. The larger ones’re superimposed on the smaller. Tread of the larger prints looks like athletic shoes. And look how deep they are—whoever made them was quite heavy. They go right, toward the stream, while the smaller ones go straight.”

  She stood up and began to follow the larger prints, ducking under thorny pyracantha branches that were heavy with red berries. On the other side of the thicket a ledge of rock extended over the stream bed. The footprints led to it.

  Guy was thrashing around in the bushes behind her and now he let out a yelp.

  “Be careful in there,” she called. “They’ve got big stickers.”

  He emerged, sucking his right thumb. “I already found that out.”

  “City slicker.”

  “Watch it, woman. You’re talking to a man who’s hacked his way through jungles.”

  “Then it’s a wonder you survived.”

  She started across the ledge, conscious of the rush of the stream and splash of the nearby waterfall. When she peered over the edge, she saw the drop was significant, eight or ten feet, and—

  “Oh my God!”

  “What is it?” Guy asked.

  She didn’t reply. A figure dressed in jeans and a blue jacket lay prone on the rocks below. Its left arm was out-flung, and the sun picked up glints from a diamond wedding band. Rho recognized it and the thick fall of red hair as Virge Scurlock’s.

  Guy came up beside her and looked down. “Jesus,” he said softly, “she did come here.”

  Guy stayed with the body while Rhoda went back to her truck to radio in. She’d been upset, but professionalism quickly took over, and she’d climbed down into the streambed to make sure the Scurlock woman was dead. Her neck appeared to be broken, she told him when she came back. She’d taken quite a fall and had probably died instantly.

  Guy watched her go, wondering if her assumption that Virge’s death was an accident had validity. He couldn’t get the image of the woman’s tense face out of
his mind, and if the canyon murders had affected her as strongly as Gregory Cordova claimed, he couldn’t imagine her venturing here alone.

  Three deaths: A murder. An accident. And now an apparent accident. Coincidence, maybe, but when deaths piled up, particularly in a remote and sparsely populated area like this, there was usually more to it. His journalist’s nose for trouble was smelling something unpleasant, but he couldn’t identify the odor.

  For a moment he toyed with the idea of climbing down to take a closer look at the body, but quickly dismissed the notion. He’d leave the investigation to the professionals. Besides, the tragedies that had occurred in the Signal Port area since his arrival were not the focus of his research. He could incorporate them into the book as dramatic counterpoint, but he should concentrate on the old murders. Plenty to think about there; the sensations he’d both experienced and not experienced on his two trips to the canyon disturbed and puzzled him.

  He’d told Rhoda he believed his experience of such phenomena, but that wasn’t quite true. They had happened too sporadically over the course of his career to be trusted, unless they could be backed up by hard fact. And he was no natural receptor. If he were, surely he would have been able to tap into the currents of emotion that had moved under the surface of those last days in Asia, before his blind selfishness had caused Diana to lose her life.

  No, he didn’t believe. Or receive.

  The lack of sensation he’d experienced in the little bunkhouse was proof of that. The child who had hidden there had been in extreme terror, yet he’d felt nothing. Perhaps he was only capable of tapping into adult emotions. Or perhaps the ability simply came and went at will.

  He considered the events of the fatal night, trying to reconstruct them in a logical fashion. The family who were squatting on the ridge had arrived in their bus before dark. At sometime after dark the killers entered the property, probably from the highway, since they had cut the utility wire. They shot the Blakeleys, then Heath as he fled, then the rest of the Wynne family. And last they shot Bernhard, who was probably hiding in his lab, hoping they wouldn’t realize it was tucked back there at the very end of the canyon.

  But what about the other family? Had they left before the killers arrived, or seen them and escaped? Chances were they’d seen something, or they wouldn’t have abandoned their cabin and most of their possessions.

  Damn! Those people were key to what had happened here, but no one alive knew their last name, where they had gone next, or what had become of them.

  Rho stood beside the muddy path with Ned Grossman and his partner, Denny Shepherd, while they waited for the photographer to finish with Virge’s body. It had taken a long time for everyone to assemble at the scene, and now the light was fading. The wind had risen, blowing chill and steady. Grossman, who possessed not an extra ounce of body fat, shivered and turned up his collar. Rho had just finished explaining Virge’s emotional state, and from the expression on the detective’s face she gathered that he was entertaining the notion that Virge hadn’t come to the canyon alone.

  “Where’s Gilardi?” he asked, glancing around.

  “I don’t know, sir. The last I saw him he was headed out with one of the search parties.”

  “Jesus, why’d he have to be the one who caught the call on Ackerman?” Grossman glared at Rho as if Wayne being the responding officer were her fault. “He wasn’t worth squat at that scene, and now when we could use his help, he doesn’t show up at all. Maybe it’s just as well. This way he can’t lose any of the evidence.”

  She stared at him.

  “Oh yeah.” He nodded. “When I first joined the department I made it my business to familiarize myself with both personnel and unsolved cases. After I met you and Gilardi it didn’t take me long to figure out that he was the type to lose evidence and you were the type to cover for him.”

  “How many people’re aware of that?”

  “Not many. But don’t take the blame for his mistakes again, particularly on any investigation of mine.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  Denny Shepherd had been standing apart while they talked, but now he came over and grinned nastily at Rho. “Swift, I hope you didn’t fuck up the scene down there.”

  She regarded him silently for a moment, deciding she didn’t like Shepherd. He was the type of short man who compensated for his lack of stature by acting tough and talking crudely—and impugning others in order to bolster his sagging self-esteem.

  “I did not fuck up the scene, Detective Shepherd.”

  “You said you went down there.”

  “Only to make sure the victim was dead.”

  “Hell, after all your years with the department, you can’t tell a stiff from, what, twenty feet?”

  Grossman said, “Shut up, Denny.”

  Shepherd shrugged.

  Rho looked around for Guy Newberry and spotted him squatting down on the path and examining the footprints in the mud. Most civilians were ill at ease at crime scenes, but Guy conducted himself with assurance. He attracted little attention and was careful not to touch anything or get in anyone’s way, but she knew he was cataloging every detail.

  Grossman said, “That the guy who was with you when you found the body?”

  “Yes.” She explained who he was.

  “We gonna have trouble with him?”

  “You mean is he going to put in a call to people he knows in the media? No. He wants to keep anything he finds out here for himself.”

  “Good. I want to keep a tight lid on this, so we don’t have a repeat of last night. Scene’s been secured, and everybody’s been warned that they talk to so much as one person, they’re looking for a new job. There’re some press people from Santa Carla staying at the Sea Stacks, but I’m banking on them heading home when there’s nothing further on Ackerman.”

  The department’s part-time photographer, Dave Moretti, struggled through the pyracantha thicket, loaded down with camera gear. He motioned that they were free to go down to the stream, and Grossman and Shepherd started over there. Rho remained where she was. She’d already seen the body, and would leave the evidence collection to the detectives and technicians.

  Guy straightened and came toward her. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. What had you so interested over there?”

  “The tread on Virge’s shoes. It’s similar to the tread on the shoes that made the footprints in the dome, and the ones in the Blakeley house. Same shoe size, too.”

  “But if she made those prints, it would mean this wasn’t the first time she came to the canyon.”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “Look, Guy, I noticed her shoes when I went down to check for a pulse. They’re Reeboks. You can buy them at any department store or factory outlet in the country.”

  “Well, it was just an observation.”

  And a good one. She waved to Dave Moretti and called, “You think you can get some shots inside these houses?”

  “With a flash, sure. What am I looking for?”

  She introduced him to Guy. “He’ll show you.”

  As the two men walked toward the dome, Rho pulled the zipper of her sweater all the way up and stuffed her hands into its pockets. Dusk was falling now, and her flesh rippled as the wind whistled in the far reaches of the canyon. Another person dead in this desolate place, this time a friend, yet she couldn’t muster up any feeling. The sensation of sleepwalking had returned shortly after she’d seen Virge’s body, coupled with a profound apathy. She was simply going through the motions.

  A disturbance by the bridge to the redwood grove drew her attention. Will Scurlock came scrambling up the slope to the driveway, wild-eyed and disheveled. He reached level ground, stumbled, and almost fell. As he righted himself his eyes met hers, pleading with her to tell him that what he’d heard wasn’t so. When he saw her expression he seemed to crumble.

  Quickly she moved forward, put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Will.” Inadequate words, but none were ad
equate at a time like this.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said, “why Virge? Why?” Then his knees buckled.

  Rho sank to the ground with him, cradled his grief-torn face against her shoulder, as long ago she’d cradled Heath Wynne’s. No more going through the motions. This was as involved as the job—as friendship—got.

  Guy came out of the geodesic dome with Dave Moretti and saw Rhoda on the ground with her arms around Will Scurlock. The man was sobbing uncontrollably. Will’s fresh grief brought his own, slightly tempered by the passage of time, to the surface. He swallowed, turned away, and motioned Moretti toward the Blakeley house.

  “Life sucks,” the photographer said.

  “Amen to that.”

  “No question about it. Take Will. He had this great family, then all of a sudden his boy’s gone. He and Virge weather the loss because they love each other, but then those murders happen and she starts to lose her mind. Now she’s gone, so what’s he got left?”

  “I don’t know. What?”

  “Nothing. Well, there’s all that land, but what d’you bet he sells it? Big house like that’s gonna seem awfully empty without her. There’s the business. Will’s always been successful along those lines, but work isn’t everything. For a while there was somebody on the side, and none of us blamed him, given the situation at home, but Will’s too decent a guy to keep something like that going for long, not loving Virge the way he did. So what’s left? Nothing.”

  “Who was the woman?”

  “Not your business, mister. She’s an okay girl, just kinda mixed up.”

  Interesting.

  They reached the Blakeley house and went up on the porch. Moretti shook his head. “Damned creepy. I’m glad I wasn’t working for the department back then.”

  Guy opened the door, motioned him inside, and with the aid of his small flashlight located the more distinct of the footprints. As Moretti worked, the camera’s strobe created a series of flash-frozen images: a black spider in its intricate white web; a Rorschach blot of bloodstains on the wall; frayed threads hanging from the arm of the sofa. And—