Dead in a Flash

by Brynn Bonner

  “So are you staying here for a while?” I asked.

  “You mean here in the States or here at the hotel?” she asked.

  “Either,” I said.

  “We’ll be in the country for at least two weeks, but J.D. can’t stay away from his work any longer than that. And we aren’t staying at the hotel, or at least only for a little while to visit during the day. We’re camping down by the lake.”

  “But I understand the owner of the hotel has offered free rooms to anyone in the senator’s party. That certainly applies to you—you’re family.”

  Gabriela smiled. “Yes, but it’s not what we’re used to. Everything is so, how do you put it? Clipped?” she asked, mimicking the motion of scissors, then pointing toward the window.

  “Manicured,” I said. “The grounds are all very manicured.”

  “But the lake is so beautiful,” she said quickly, “and we are enjoying being under the stars at night. We can’t see the stars much where we are deep in the rain forest. There is too thick a canopy. We love it by the lake—well, except for the night J.D.’s friend died. It rained so hard that night we had to get into the rental car and sleep there. It was so muddy we were afraid we’d be washed right into the lake. Everything we had with us got soaked. In fact, J.D. left me in the car and came up here to borrow some towels from the pool house so we could at least dry off. I got a little worried because he was gone so long and it was really storming. When he came back he ran the heater in the car and we dried a change of clothes on the vents.” Her eyes came up to meet mine. “We brought the towels back the next day, he didn’t steal them.”

  I put up my hands. “I’m not the towel police. So where you’re staying is nearby,” I said.

  “Oh yes, very nearby,” she said. “We were so close to the place where that poor man died, we might have heard something if we hadn’t been inside the car. J.D. is feeling a lot of guilt about it all.”

  “Guilt?” I asked. “Why guilt?”

  “He and Lincoln had an argument that afternoon. It was all so silly. J.D. brought me here. I thought it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t wait for me to meet his mother, so we came. He left me in the hallway while he prepared his mother and sister for the news. Lincoln saw me standing out there and asked what I was doing loitering. Is that the word, loitering?”

  I nodded and she went on. “Yes, loitering around Ms. Lenora’s door. And as I was trying to explain, J.D. came out and was very angry that Lincoln was speaking to me in that way. It was all just a big misunderstanding, but J.D. was still angry about it that night. He thought Lincoln had disrespected me, but I didn’t feel that way at all. He was just being protective of Ms. Lenora.”

  “J.D. shouldn’t feel guilty; they were both looking out for people they cared for,” I said. “And as you say, it was a misunderstanding.”

  “Yes, that’s what I tell him,” she said. “But he says that the last conversation he had with Lincoln before he left for Peru was also an argument. They argued often, mostly about environmental issues, I think. But usually respectfully. J.D. says their last argument before he left the States got out of hand. And now Lincoln is dead and they can never reconcile about it.”

  “I guess we all have regrets when we lose someone,” I mused.

  “Yes,” Gabriela said. “Most people think J.D. is really laid back, but he is not. He feels things deeply. That’s good, especially for me,” she said, stacking her hands over her heart with a demure smile, “but sometimes I worry. Once he gets something in his head, he doesn’t want to let it go.”

  * * *

  As I exited the hotel, again via the terrace, I passed the three suits who’d been meeting with Cyrus Hamilton. They wore serious faces. Then I saw the senator talking with Hamilton. They exchanged a few words and I was struck again by the similarities in their mannerisms. Hamilton headed back into the hotel, nodding to me with a forced smile. The meeting with the suits must have been stressful.

  I’d almost made my getaway when the senator called out. “Sophreena, would you have a few minutes?”

  I dashed off a quick text to let Jack know I’d be late and joined the senator as he started down the exercise trail. I had a hunch about where he was headed and he quickly confirmed it.

  “I feel the need to see the place where the boy met his end,” he said, his voice hoarse. “If you find this ghoulish, you may go on your way, Sophreena.”

  “No, I don’t find it ghoulish, Senator. I think it’s natural to want to know how a thing like this could possibly have happened.”

  “It’s a poor substitute for knowing why this would befall a young man with nothing but bright promise ahead, but I suppose we must commence our attempts to understand somewhere.”

  I told him about my conversation with Cyrus Hamilton earlier. “I think knowing how would be a comfort to him at least. He seems to be feeling some responsibility in Lincoln’s death.”

  The senator nodded and I concentrated on calculating how to match my stride to his. He was old, but his lanky legs covered more real estate in one stride than I could in two, and he wasn’t even winded. Lucky for me, Esme had given me plenty of practice at this pace and I was able to keep up and still carry on the conversation.

  “Cyrus does feel partly responsible,” the senator said, “though his lawyer and his insurance people have assured him that all proper safety precautions were in place at the lookout. I feel responsible because Lincoln was here because of me. And I’m guessing others are playing what-ifs of their own. I’m a believing man, but on this one I can but wonder what the Almighty was thinking when he took Lincoln in the prime of his life.”

  “I suspect if Detective Carlson was here, he’d tell you it had more to do with what the killer was thinking. And that even when you find that out, it still won’t make any kind of sense; these acts of violence seldom do.”

  “I expect he’s right. You have confidence in the detective?”

  “He’s a good man and an excellent detective,” I said. “I have the utmost confidence in him.”

  “I hope Lincoln’s father will take comfort in that. The man is destroyed. His wife passed more than a decade ago and four years ago he lost his daughter, Lincoln’s only sibling, in a car crash. Now Lincoln is gone. I cannot imagine the depths of his despair, yet I am keenly attuned to this particular loss. Over the years I’ve had many young people work with me—interns, aides, and staffers. I was fond of many of them, but the relationship with Lincoln was on another plane. We had a kinship, if not of blood, then of the mind, the spirit, and at the risk of sounding hopelessly corny, the heart. Lily Rose felt it, too.”

  “Where is Lincoln’s father now?” I asked.

  “Resting,” Senator Stan said. “I didn’t want to bring him out here unless he asks.” He stopped at the bottom of the slope that swept upward to the bluff’s overlook. “So there yonder is the place where evil came to ground.”

  We took the hill slowly and neither of us spoke until we reached the top. The overlook was a man-nature collaboration. The bluff was stone and jetted out over the lake, but to allow for safe viewing, a bowed concrete pad had been put down and safety railings installed, not only around the immediate overlook, but running down the slope at least twenty-five feet in each direction.

  We walked over to the railing, each of us lost in our own thoughts, and almost in unison we drew in breaths and looked over the side. I saw immediately what Denny had meant. The distance of the fall might have been survivable, but the rocks at the bottom almost ensured fatality. They were mounds of boulder-sized jagged rocks and they covered almost every square inch of shoreline directly below the bluff.

  “I understand this was an old rock quarry,” the senator said. “Years ago, before your time, they dredged for this lake and as a tip of the hat to history, or perhaps to some civil engineering purpose, they left this one rock ledge of the original quarry.”

  He ran his hands along the rail, then shook it. He waited a moment, then shook it harder
before letting his hands drop. “The faith I profess calls on me to believe there is a hereafter. I expect I’ll be seeing Lincoln again not too long from now, in whatever form our souls manifest in the sweet by-and-by. I suppose I must take succor in that.”

  I fantasized about telling him that, in that eventuality, it would be nice if he or Lincoln could say hello to Esme and let us know how they were getting on. But I couldn’t do that, so I simply stood with him until he was ready to go back.

  As we walked I told him about our scheduled luncheon with Nancy Collier the next day, and the senator slowed his pace, frowning. “The name sounds familiar, but I can’t seem to recall how I know it.”

  “She’s the granddaughter of the man who was the sheriff in Quinn County at the time of the fire.”

  “My, you have been busy. Still, I can’t imagine she’d know anything that could be helpful. She’d be far too young. James Ogdon’s own children hadn’t even been born then.”

  “Well, it’s a place to start. That’s often how it happens with these things—you talk to a person who has a little info and they tell you about another person who might know more and you keep talking to folks and connecting the bits until you get a clear picture. Esme says it’s like working a jigsaw puzzle, but without the box for guidance. We have to make our own picture.”

  “And what picture have you formed of the sheriff?”

  “A very vague one at this point,” I admitted.

  “James Ogdon was young to have been elected sheriff. It was the first office he’d ever held. Everyone called him Big Jim, both for his enormous size and because he had a big presence. He was a thoroughly decent man. But he was not a skilled investigator and some of the things he did, or didn’t do, caused unintentional harm. We can talk more of that in the days to come,” he said as we reached the terrace. “For now, my mind must dwell on the loss of Lincoln. Thank you for taking that walk with me.”

  “Good night, Senator,” I said. I couldn’t honestly say I’d been glad to go with him—I’d have the image of those lethal rocks stuck in my head for weeks. And now my psyche was trying to construct a soundtrack to go along with it.

  * * *

  Jack wasn’t in the least annoyed by my tardiness. That was yet another benefit of having been platonic friends for so long. He knew I was never late without a good reason, though good reasons seemed to crop up fairly often in my life. I apologized anyway and explained the delay.

  “No problem,” he said, stowing the paperback he’d been reading into his backpack. “I imagine that was pretty awful.”

  I could only manage a nod, trying to get the image of those rocks out of my mind. My hand was shaking as I reached for my water glass.

  “You’ll feel better after you eat something,” Jack said, knowing also my tendency to forget to eat. “I ordered for us, food’ll be out soon. Tell me, is Esme still planning to move next weekend? I want to make sure I’m available to help.”

  “No, there’s no telling when that’ll happen.” I went on to tell him about the kitchen repaint.

  “I could do it for her. I’m a really good painter.”

  “Nice offer,” I said. “But then she’ll just come up with something else. She’s stalling.”

  Our food came and as Jack had predicted, after a few bites I felt better. He asked what Emma had been doing at my house.

  “I felt bad for her,” I said. “I haven’t even had a chance to tell you about what she overheard the night Lincoln died.”

  I had no reservations about talking this through with Jack. Our group of friends has an uncommon bond. We’d come together years ago in a genealogy class I taught through Marydale’s papercraft shop. When the class ended we weren’t ready to give up one another’s company, so we formed an informal club. And since we were dealing with private family matters, we agreed to keep anything we shared strictly confidential. And in the years since, there’s never been one breach of that agreement. So I told him Emma’s story, trying to stick to exactly how she’d told it to me and Jennifer.

  “Oh man,” Jack said, “that’s gotta be rough. Did Chelsea and Lincoln fight a lot?”

  “I don’t think so. Emma made it sound like this was an unusual thing; that’s why it made such an impression on her. She asked if it was natural for couples to fight like that. I didn’t know the answer. Is it?”

  “For some couples, I guess,” Jack said. “In any human relationship there are annoyances and negotiations, but it seems like some couples need more drama, big blowout fights once in a while to clear the air.”

  “Will we have blowouts?” I asked.

  Jack shook his head and stole an onion ring from my plate. “Not our style,” he said. “We’ll have wobbles.”

  “Wobbles?”

  “Wobbles,” Jack repeated. “Those times when things aren’t quite in balance. Then we’ll figure out how to get things leveled out again and go on. That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

  “I don’t think Chelsea and Lincoln had a wobble. And the more I think about what Emma told me, it seemed like the relationship was hanging in the balance.”

  “Over?” Jack asked.

  I told him what Chelsea had related to Jennifer.

  “She thinks quite a lot of herself, doesn’t she?” Jack said, pursing his lips. “Nobody’s indispensable. I imagine there’d be a line of young people waiting to become Mrs. Dodd’s personal assistant.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but Chelsea already knows Dinah Leigh’s business, not to mention her personality and her habits.”

  “Still,” Jack said, frowning. “Let’s think about this. What exactly did Emma overhear?”

  I pulled out the notebook where I’d scribbled it all down.

  I went through the things Emma remembered with certain confidence and some of the phrases she thought maybe she’d heard. “Then at the end she heard Chelsea scream at him that she’d never forgive him if he betrayed her and disclosed it.”

  “Betrayed her? Disclosed it? That’s a weird way to talk about an engagement.”

  “Well, that’s what they were arguing about.”

  “Assumption,” Jack said. “Aren’t you the one always preaching against assumptions?”

  “Yes,” I allowed, “but in this case we have verification from Chelsea herself.”

  “You have what Chelsea said they were arguing about,” Jack corrected.

  “Why would she lie?” I asked.

  “Ah,” Jack said. “There she is. My skeptical Sophreena is back. And she’s asking a very good question.”

  nine

  ON THE WAY TO OUR lunch date with Sheriff “Big Jim” Ogdon’s granddaughter, Esme was optimistic we were about to find out something so compelling it’d wrap this up and we could write a report and be done with it.

  “Weren’t you the one telling me never to say a thing like that just a few short days ago?” I asked, wagging my finger at her.

  “Yes, and I meant it—still do. But after talking with Nancy Collier on the phone, I expect we’ll be able to learn a lot from her. She tells me she’s been bustin’ to tell somebody what she knows for years and never could get anybody to listen. She’s tried to contact Senator Stan several times over the years but she always got a polite note from a staff person saying thanks, but no thanks, for her interest.”

  “How solid do you think her information is?” I asked.

  Esme shrugged. “I don’t imagine it’d hold up in court, if that’s what you’re asking. And her information is secondhand. But it may be enough for our purposes. We’ll see.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what Denny said about how different things would’ve been back then as far as investigative tools and techniques. And fire investigation, too. It really was a different time. Nineteen forty-seven,” I said, and Esme rolled her eyes.

  When we do our scrapbooks, I always do an intro page to set the context for the political and social culture of the times. Doing that for so many years had embedded historical tidbits i
n my brain, and at the mention of a date, they sometimes come spewing forth.

  “Nineteen forty-seven,” I repeated, more firmly. “An average house went for sixty-six hundred dollars, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the average salary was below three thousand dollars a year, it was a lot. And a postage stamp was only three cents, so people wrote a lot of letters, which is very good for us. Let’s see, grocery prices? Bread was around thirteen cents a loaf, tomato soup, twelve cents a can. Throw in a little sliced cheese and a pat of butter and you could have a nice soup and grilled cheese for under half a dollar.”

  “Yes, but as you say, let’s look at the value of the dollar back then,” Esme said. “What was it worth in today’s dollars? Five bucks?”

  I did some mental calculations. “Closer to eleven,” I said.

  “So, not such a cheap meal after all. Now do tell, what else was happening back in nineteen forty-seven?”

  I knew she was being cheeky. Esme isn’t particularly enchanted by these little eruptions of factoids, but I ignored her and went on. “Germany was getting divided, Israel was getting created, and here at home, according to some very interesting folks, we had our first UFO land at Roswell. Oh, and The Howdy Doody Show premiered. You think maybe there was a connection?”

  Esme laughed, despite herself. “Could be,” she allowed.

  “Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, the first instant camera was presented to the public and so were the first long-playing records—that’s what LP stands for, did you know that? And that was also the year Bing Crosby dreamed of a White Christmas. Okay, I’m done.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Esme said.

  “Yeah, you say that now, but someday when you find yourself in a red-hot trivia contest with real money on the line, you’re going to wish you’d paid closer attention.”

  “No doubt,” Esme said as she slowed to make the turn into the parking lot at the Morningside Cafe. We were early, but Nancy was already waiting for us. She looked to be in her fifties and I pegged her as the outdoorsy type. We made introductions, the waitress came for our order, and Nancy wasted no time on chitchat. “I’m happy you called.” She waved both hands in front of her face and lowered her head. It looked like she was about to cry and I glanced at Esme. Had she set us up with a kook?