Stray Narrow (An Imogene Museum Mystery Book 7)

by Jerusha Jones

  She bought her clothes from one of those stores that does all the color coordinating for you and sells complete outfits instead of individual pieces. The clunky beads in her necklace were the exact same shade of dusty-orange-pink as the oversized flowers that cascaded over the left shoulder of her cardigan like a big, fake corsage. Her pointy patent shoes, more appropriate for sitting in an office than for tromping through a dark, icy parking lot and into the climate-controlled Muzak of Smithers’ IGA, were dyed to match. It was a uniform of sorts, nearly regimented enough to compete with his usual khakis, or any of the uniforms he’d worn in the Army previously.

  For the first time, he felt underdressed and a bit awkward in jeans and a waxed canvas field coat. He wasn’t going to hit on her. Not that he was any good at flirting, anyway.

  She just didn’t seem to be the sort that would be flattered by attentions from a younger man. Not that he had any experience in that regard, either. But the weary peckishness that characterized her demeanor—and the selections she was tossing into her cart—hinted at a response of sheer incredulity and quite possibly a sarcastic fit of giggles if he approached her that way. Or, even more possibly, a karate chop in the nuts.

  He held the shopping basket in front of him as he angled closer. He was just going to tell her the truth. Then she could wallop him, if she wanted to. Or scream. Or whatever.

  That Franklin County deputy had gotten pretty close in the stream of cars exiting SeedGenix—he had to assume his license plate number had been checked and cross-referenced and that Franklin County now knew they had an out-of-jurisdiction deputy from downriver nosing around, one who hadn’t bothered to place a courtesy call to their chief just yet. Sheriff Marge had warned him to be circumspect and discreet because SeedGenix’s tentacles were mighty long.

  Ms. Frump might be his last foray in attempting to recruit an informant before he was reeled in for questioning himself. “Hello,” he rasped. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m Owen. Owen Hobart.”

  Her head snapped up, and she glared at him narrowly. No sound was going to escape from those thin lips which seemed gummed together by the remnants of dried-out lipstick—in that same pinkish-orange shade that reminded him of vomit.

  The kind of vomit that occurs after you’ve eaten too much strawberry rhubarb pie. That was another vivid memory flash—actually, one of the happier ones—from his collection of experiences with all the foster families he’d been pawned off on as a kid.

  Owen shook his head and reaffixed his gaze, directly into her eyes, and vowed not to let it slip any further south to that disturbing color. “I’m a deputy sheriff from Sockeye County. I understand you work at SeedGenix.” He had his hand poised over his pocket, loose and ready, should she demand to see his badge and identification.

  Without meaning to, he’d dropped his voice another notch when he’d said the company name. That alone, all by itself, made her eyes—they were a nice, cool brown—widen. She paused for a fraction of a second, not moving any more or less than before, still glaring, but he could see her thinking, analyzing, weighing something. And then she nodded—once, short and to the point.

  Owen exhaled. Set the basket on the floor and carefully slid two papers out of the opposite pocket. He unfolded them and smoothed them out on the broad sides of the cereal boxes on the shelf beside him, holding them up as though they were pinned on the Most Wanted board.

  He didn’t have to say anything. She was already peering closely at the drawings, leaning over the handlebar of her shopping cart.

  Then she raised her own hand, and held it horizontally over the knit cap on the head of the man Burke had described as the boss, blocking that portion of the drawing from her view as though it distracted her.

  She nodded again, that single sharp movement, and straightened. She blinked at him, and finally said, quietly, “I think you’d better come for supper, young man. I assume, since you followed me here, that you can also follow me to my house.” It was a statement, not a question. She wheeled her cart around and resumed chucking things into it haphazardly.

  oOo

  Her name was Charlotte Vraible, and she was a terrible cook. Actually, she didn’t cook at all—she thawed and reheated. Chicken pot pies were on the menu. Owen accepted that offer, mainly because they would take at least forty minutes before they were edible, and he needed that time with her, to pick her brain. But he did turn down the offer of a pinkish-hued white Zinfandel which she tapped from a spout in the foil-lined box in the fridge.

  “I had to invite you home,” she stated matter-of-factly after her first, apparently soothing, sip. “I had to sign non-disclosures up the wazoo just to get a job interview with SeedGenix. Then another whole layer once they hired me. I can’t be standing, chatting about them, in the cereal aisle at the market. You know how it is.”

  Indeed he did. “Can you chat about them now?” he asked, glancing around her kitchen, which still sported dull goldenrod linoleum and dark cabinets waxy with decades of grease deposits. The walls were speckled yellow, and not because they’d been painted that way.

  She had to think about it for another intense half-minute. Then she countered with, “Is this about that girl? The one who was killed?”

  Owen nodded. “You know?”

  She blew out an exasperated breath. “Everyone knows.” But then she shrugged. “Maybe me more than most around here. My son is a senior at WSU this year. The news is all over campus. Can’t hide something like that, even if you wanted to.” She was studying him carefully, waiting.

  So he nodded again, and opted for the truth again. “It’s a fine line, in police work, deciding how much of the investigation to reveal. Which details will help us catch the killers and which would help them get away, or enable them to concoct confirmable alibis.”

  “And you think they have—or had—something to do with SeedGenix.”

  “So do you.” She wouldn’t have invited him into her home if she didn’t.

  “This all has to be anonymous,” she said suddenly, setting her glass on the countertop with a click. “I can’t have my name associated with anything I might tell you.”

  “You have my word. I just need help getting on the right track. Then I’ll do the legwork.”

  For the first time, a slight smile curved her lips. She’d been pretty, once. Owen was guessing she was divorced, and not amicably. She carried bitterness around like a cloudy aura. It was obvious she lived alone. Not even a cat to keep her company.

  He stayed for two hours, and mostly he talked. He ate the pot pie without even noticing if it tasted like cardboard or not. She queried him closely and in so much detail that he began to think of her as a prosecuting attorney. There was very little he held back, only a few questions where he had to give a terse “No comment” reply.

  “The problem is that I know I’ve seen him”—Charlotte flicked a hand at the sketches Owen had flattened on the dining table between them—“but I can’t place the situation, the context in which I’ve seen him. Which makes me think I’ve seen his picture, and not him in person.”

  “But he works at SeedGenix?” Owen prodded.

  “No. Definitely not. It’s actually a small company, and I know everyone on the payroll. The headquarters building mainly houses the administrative functions, the sales teams—when they’re in their offices and not out on the road—human resources, accounting, that sort of thing. It doesn’t house the brain trust of the company.” She gave him a wry, weary smile. “You don’t know how this works, do you?”

  Owen could only shake his head.

  “The science, the genetic modifications, the testing—all the research—is done by an indistinct and sprawling network of contracted scientists, many of whom run their own labs and collaborate or not as the whim or funding strikes them. There are a lot of strong personalities involved who don’t necessarily get along with each other. Scientists are a bristly and territorial bunch, rife with competition. That’s why they have to sign lock-tig
ht contracts and reams of non-disclosure agreements in order to get funding from the company. SeedGenix wants to own the results, but they don’t necessarily care how those results are obtained as long as no one talks about it.”

  “So each scientist, or each lab, could possibly be working on projects for competing companies at the same time?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. Guaranteed. They likely wouldn’t be able to earn a living otherwise. They’re expected to compartmentalize and have the paperwork to prove it.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “One—or all—of the interested companies will sue them into oblivion for breach of contract.” Charlotte shrugged. “It’s happened. The companies have insurmountably deep pockets.”

  “And our guy?” Owen gestured toward the boss, whose angry eyes were staring from the sketch.

  “He’s connected with one of the labs—I’m quite sure. I may have even processed payments for him. I handle all of the accounts payable, everything from the monthly utilities to the multi-year research grants. His name has definitely crossed my desk.” Her chin was propped on the heel of her hand, and she absently traced the copy of Ms. Oliphant’s graphite marks with a fingertip. “Or the name of the lab he works for, but I feel like it’s his name, that maybe his name is part of the lab’s name. Eponymous,” she murmured.

  CHAPTER 26

  You don’t wake somebody at 4:17 a.m. for a social call. Owen knew what this was. It was a low-key dawn raid, conducted when he would be at his weakest and most vulnerable. It was just disguised as concern for a brother-in-arms.

  He stood in the crack allowed by the chain on the cheap motel door and squinted at the two deputies silhouetted by the high-beam headlights of their patrol vehicle which were shining directly at him. They were all armed, and they all knew it. Nobody was pulling a weapon—nobody was flinching.

  The Franklin County deputies were protecting their own and not-so-subtly clarifying their opinion regarding his continued presence. As messages went, it was quite distinct, no matter how couched it was in fake bonhomie. They had people and businesses to watch over, and were territorial in their own right. He would’ve been upset if one of them had been stalking Sockeye County residents the way he’d been after their own people. It was fair, but that didn’t make it pleasant.

  “The sheriff wants to see you in his office at eight,” the heavier-set one said. “Just to shoot the breeze. Nothing serious. You on vacation?”

  “Yeah,” Owen lied. “Thinking about transferring out here where it rains less. Got any openings?”

  The skinnier, shorter one whose hat was backlit like an eclipse in the high-beam snorted, then spat. Chewing tobacco on the job. “You kidding? There’s been a hiring freeze for three years.”

  “Could be a lateral, take the place of a less qualified deputy. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of those.” The insinuation wasn’t even that—his threat was glaringly obvious, and they didn’t like it much. Owen grinned to himself. It’d taken them nearly four days to pinpoint his location when he wasn’t even hiding. Sloppy. And this early-morning wake-up call was even sloppier.

  The fat one pointed at him. “Eight o’clock. Sharp. The old man doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Owen closed the door with a thud. His boss didn’t like to be kept waiting, either, and his mission here was as complete as he could make it under the circumstances. Might as well pack up and head out. It wasn’t like he was going to go back to sleep. And it sure wouldn’t hurt the sheriff of Franklin County to be stood up.

  oOo

  Her call came at 10:34 a.m. Breathless, furtive, muffled—it sounded as though Charlotte was crouched under her desk, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

  Owen sincerely hoped she wasn’t calling attention to herself with unusual behavior as he veered sharply onto the gravel shoulder of State Route 14 and brought his pickup to a sliding halt. There was no one behind him, hadn’t been for miles, so he wasn’t creating a traffic hazard. He put his flashers on anyway, circumspect in all things, and pulled out his notebook.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “I’m down in the janitor’s supply closet. He’s been pilfering for a while, but following up on his inventory now is the perfect cover for the other unusual records searching I did this morning.”

  Owen wasn’t shocked, but he was a little surprised that the tactic of holding the pursuit of misdemeanor crimes in reserve as cover for deeper investigations seemed to apply in the sanitary white-collar world just as surely as it did in the law enforcement world. Perhaps he’d underestimated Charlotte. “Are you feeling threatened?” He just wanted to be sure. She was a nice lady, for all of her crustiness, and she didn’t need another hardship in her life.

  “Not at all,” she huffed. “Just easier to talk in here without being overheard. Besides, the sheriff is in the building this morning, in conference with our general manager. Consequently, everyone’s ears are pricked and twitchy. Cubicleville, you know. There are absolutely no secrets in this place.”

  “What time?” Owen asked.

  “What time what?” Now Charlotte’s voice was echoing a bit, probably bouncing off the concrete walls and metal shelving units in the janitor’s draconian preserve as her volume increased.

  “Shhh,” he reminded her. “What time did the sheriff arrive?”

  “Oh.” Charlotte sounded taken aback. “Um, I’d say shortly before nine. He’s still up there, as far as I know.”

  This new information was putting his wake-up call by committee in a new light. And made him even more glad he’d decided to skip the forcefully suggested invitation to meet with the sheriff himself. Who was in bed with whom? It was an interesting question.

  Instead, Owen asked, “What did you find?”

  “Nothing,” Charlotte squeaked. “And that’s just the point.” She was speaking faster, either agitated or excited.

  Owen decided not to interrupt, let her get it out, whatever it was. And quickly, so she could get back to her desk and start acting normal again.

  “I went through all the research contracts by reverse order of due date,” she whispered, “figuring that whatever led those men to murder Cassidy must’ve been somewhat urgent.”

  Owen nodded along, agreeing with her logic, and doodled in his notebook to keep himself from expressing the impatience that was building inside his chest. Arrows. Arrows were always good for indicating the direction both information and money flowed.

  “And then I went to the websites for the labs that have contracts with SeedGenix, just to get a feel for what kind of work they might be doing, to look at the pictures of their staff. They love to do that, you know, put up professional portraits that make their labs look good.”

  Just like SeedGenix’s own site, Owen thought grimly. It’s irresistible, that urge to splash your face all over the place when you’re an uppity-up. Something no street-level law enforcement officer would ever, ever, ever do—not if he valued his own life or those of his family. And especially not if that family included a woman with iridescent copper-red hair and incredible curves. He shook his head abruptly and fought to bring his attention back to the words being whispered into his ear.

  “I found him by not finding him,” Charlotte continued. “And it’s eponymous, like I thought.”

  “Back up,” Owen blurted, scribbling for real in his notebook now. “Who? And where?”

  “It’s an outfit called Truitt BotoTechnologies. Get it? Botany and technology? Their mailing address is in the next town over—Kennewick. The main principal is Gordon Truitt, and his number two, the head of research, is his brother-in-law, Russ Herren.”

  What a difference a few miles made. Both Kennewick and Pasco were part of the metropolitan area known as the Tri-Cities, but they were in different counties, separated by the Columbia River on the north-south(ish) stretch of her run near her confluence with the Snake River, and therefore had different sheriffs in charge with very different perspectives on wh
at, exactly, community-oriented policing means.

  “The men match the sketches?” Owen wanted to be absolutely sure.

  “No.” Charlotte rushed headlong into her explanation. “Their photos are gone. I’m sure they were there on the website before and everyone else who holds a title at the lab does have a photo up on the website, but not these two men. I think the photos have been removed, and recently, even though their bios are still viewable. But I did some more digging, looking for news articles online, reports in the local business journals, anything. I found another grainy photo of the two of them as part of a chamber of commerce technology task force about ten years ago. It’s them!”

  Owen’s phone vibrated as she sent an email with the website link. He clicked through, but she was right—the image was incredibly grainy, low resolution, something that had been printed on newsprint originally. He was going to have to blow it up on a larger screen, and then maybe even run the pixelated result past Ms. Oliphant and her keen eye for facial structure.

  “Every other lab website you looked at seemed intact?” he asked. “No gaping holes like this one?”

  “Right.” Charlotte’s voice was thick with satisfaction. The needle in the haystack—she’d found it. A case of guilt by intentional omission. Maybe.

  “Thank you.” Owen meant it.

  “Just, you know…get them,” she whispered into the phone. “Killing a young woman, a student. My son…” She breathed heavily. “A few variances in the situation, and it could’ve been him who was murdered to cover up whatever it is they’re hiding.” And then she added the clincher. “Well, if science can’t be transparent, then what? We base our whole lives on the research and reports these labs produce—the food we eat, the water we drink. What if they’re not true?”

  She was a woman who loved her facts. A woman after his own heart. “Be careful,” he reminded her. “Try to be around people this weekend, in public places, but nothing too much outside of your normal routine, either.” He shook his head, grimacing at the conflicting instructions which would be impossible for her to follow completely.