A Killing in the Valley

by JF Freedman

  Juanita’s ATV was gone.

  “Are you sure you parked it back by the stable?” Keith asked her. Steven’s problems with the law were none of his business, but he had to ask. Ordinarily, he didn’t probe into Mrs. McCoy’s personal affairs, but she had wrangled him into this. And he knew what a toll this situation with her grandson was taking on her.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Juanita answered. She was starting to get a headache. “This is all messed up,” she moaned. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “I need to think about what might have happened to Steven. And what I’m supposed to do about it.”

  That evening, a little after seven, Luke got the call at home. “Mrs. McCoy!” he exclaimed. “How are you up there? We’ve all been worried.” He glanced over at Riva, who was hovering anxiously near the phone.

  There had been no communication with anyone in the valley for the past two days, since the phone lines had gone down. Not being able to find out what was going on up there had everyone freaked out.

  Juanita, sitting at her kitchen table, looked out the window at the empty barn and the silent fields. “I’m all right,” she said. She was tired and she sounded like it. “We managed to save our property, including the old house.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Luke cried out. He gave Riva a thumbs-up. “The fire didn’t come to your property? I thought you were right in the path.”

  “We were,” she said. “But we staved it off.”

  “You stayed and fought it?” What in the world?

  “I’ll tell you all about it later, when I see you,” she said. “That’s not why I called.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “As long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

  He liked this old lady. The more he knew her, the more he cared for, and admired her. She was full of gumption. And she was soulful. Standing up for her grandson, when it was clear that his own parents weren’t going to be able to, had been a true act of love and devotion. And courage. Not every seventy-six-year-old, living out in the country on her own, would have been willing to take on such a difficult assignment.

  “Yes,” she affirmed. “I’m safe.”

  There was a lull. Luke filled the void. “You had a reason for calling,” he reminded her. “What is it?”

  Her hand that was holding the phone was shaking. She propped her elbow on the table to steady it. “I can’t find Steven.”

  Oh, fuck, Luke thought. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “This afternoon. About six hours ago.”

  “Where was he?”

  “With me. He was helping me fight the fire. He was right there with me and the firefighters, shoulder to shoulder.”

  This will be some tale to hear, Luke thought. But that wasn’t the issue now. “And then what?”

  “I don’t know. It was a madhouse out there. We fought off the fire that was coming right for the old ranch house. Right for it!” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Afterwards, everyone was at their wit’s end. It was very emotional, let me tell you.”

  “And where was Steven in all this?” he asked, nudging her back on track.

  “Well, like I said, he was with me,” she answered. “And then, he wasn’t. I thought he had gone with my foreman back into the property, to start seeing how much damage the fire had caused. Because by then the fire had burned its way through whatever part of the ranch it was going to burn. Do you understand?” she asked. She was talking rapidly, her mouth barely able to keep up with her brain.

  “More or less,” Luke answered. This was too confusing without knowing where all the pieces of the puzzle were. He would have to get filled in on that. But first, there was this problem.

  Riva, standing near him, mouthed “What is it?”

  “Trouble,” he mouthed back. Into the phone: “So you have no idea of where he might have gotten to.”

  “Not a clue.” Her voice rose in pitch again. “That fire is raging all over,” she cried out. “He could be in danger.”

  Or dead, Luke thought. That was chilling. “It’ll be all right,” he said. He sounded more optimistic than he felt. “If he does show up, call me immediately, no matter what time it is.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Another thought: “Have the police been checking up on Steven? Do they know he’s missing?”

  “No,” she answered. “They haven’t been in touch since the fire started.”

  That’s one good thing, Luke thought. He could finesse this until tomorrow, or maybe longer. Everyone’s attention was on the fire; the whereabouts of a kid out on bail, even for murder, was on the back burner. And Steven had been checking in with his handlers every day, so there was no reason for suspicion. Not yet.

  “I’ll come see you early tomorrow morning,” he told her. “Do you have someone up there to be with?”

  “I’m all right,” she reassured him. “It’s my grandson I’m worried about.”

  Luke picked Kate up at seven the following morning. He had asked her to come with him. She had a calming influence on Juanita McCoy. That might come in handy, because this meeting wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  They were at the ranch by eight. There was little traffic going in their direction—the stoppages and congestion caused by the fire had eased, now that it had moved away from the immediate area.

  Juanita sat them down at her kitchen table, offered them strong coffee and homemade boysenberry strudel, and told them the saga of how she saved her family’s ancestral home.

  They listened in astonishment as they bit into the strudel, which was delicious. “That’s incredible,” Luke said. “You’re an amazing woman, Juanita.”

  “Truly amazing,” Kate seconded with a mouthful of light, flaky pastry. Was there anything this woman couldn’t do? She felt blessed that Sophia had Juanita as a grandmotherly role model. She hoped that when this was all over, they would be able to maintain their relationship. That would hinge on what happened with Steven, both now and in the future.

  “I did what I had to do,” Juanita said modestly. “In hindsight, I suppose it was crazy. I wasn’t thinking, it was pure reaction.”

  “Well, congratulations,” Luke said. “You’re probably the only person in the valley who’s going to have a happy ending from any of this.”

  “If Steven shows up,” she said, bringing them back to earth with a thud.

  Kate sighed. “No word yet?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I’m so worried about him. He could be injured.” She hesitated. “He could be dead.” She covered her face with her hands, which were shaking.

  Luke pushed his coffee and cake to the side. This was not the time for tea and sympathy. “Mrs. McCoy.” He took her hands in his. “I don’t think he’s injured. And I don’t think he’s dead.” He made her look at him. “I think he’s gone.”

  She looked confused. “He’s missing, of course I know that.”

  He shook his head. “Not missing.” He glanced at Kate before saying the condemning word again: “Gone.”

  “You mean on purpose?”

  Luke nodded. “If your vehicle was here I’d have a different feeling about this. Who else would have taken it, except Steven?”

  “I don’t know,” Juanita answered. “Nobody, I guess. Do you think he might have run away?” she asked them.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Luke answered. “All I know is, he isn’t here, and that ATV is missing. I’m not going to pussyfoot around, Juanita. This is bad news. Have the authorities tried to contact him, since we talked last night?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s one thing in our favor,” he said. “For now. Because pretty soon, they’re going to. And if he isn’t here to talk to them, he’s in it up to his neck.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. She had been in denial, common in circumstances like this. The reality is too fraught to face, so you don’t, you emotionally bury it. “We can’t go to the poli
ce about this,” he told her, as Kate nodded in agreement. “We have to stay low to the ground for as long as we can. We’re going to have to hope he shows up before they try to contact him again.”

  He stood up. “I’m in a ticklish position here. As an officer of the court, I’m required to obey the law, even if it means going against the interests of my client. By rights, I should let the sheriff’s office know Steven isn’t where the stipulations of his bail say he has to be. If it gets out that I knew he was gone and that I hadn’t reported it, I could be sanctioned. I could even have my license to practice law suspended. Kate could lose her license, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Juanita told both of them, shaking her head in misery. “I should have paid more attention to where he was.”

  Luke put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You have no blame in this. It’s on him, all of it. He knew what was required, and he’s blown it off.”

  “If he took off,” she said, still holding out hope that Steven’s disappearance could be explained in an acceptable manner.

  Luke finished his coffee and motioned to Kate to do the same. “We’re going back to town. Call me if you hear anything. If the police do call, stall them and then let me know, immediately. Use the fire as an excuse if you have to.” He shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t tell you that, by the way. I wasn’t even here this morning, and I haven’t heard from you that Steven’s flown the coop. We’ll deal with all of that later—if we have to.”

  Luke was in a sour mood as he pushed the GTO over the pass on the drive back to Santa Barbara.

  “I can’t believe what an idiot Steven is,” he fumed, downshifting as they careened through a hairpin curve. “What could he be thinking?”

  “You’re sure he’s skipped,” Kate said, pushing her feet against the floorboards to keep from sliding out of her seat. She, too, had a pit in her stomach over this.

  “What other reason could there be?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “There could be a plausible reason,” she said, with little conviction.

  “What?” he asked impatiently. “Come on, Kate.”

  “Hey, don’t yell at me. I’m just a fly on the wall.”

  “Sorry. And you’re not, you’re in this as deeply as any of us.” Luke rolled through another turn. “If you have a good explanation, I sure would like to hear it.”

  She thought about that. “What if he thought they were being evacuated and he went to a shelter voluntarily, assuming Juanita would be there.”

  “And when he found out she wasn’t, he didn’t get in touch with her? No.”

  “Okay. Well, what if he took off with the fire crew and is fighting the fire somewhere else.”

  He looked at her like she was nuts. “Why would he do that?”

  “To pay them back for helping save the old house?”

  Luke laughed mirthlessly. “So now he’s an altruist? That’ll be the day.”

  She slumped in her bucket seat. “I tried.”

  “None of it washes. The missing ATV proves he took off.”

  She knew he was right. “But why would he, knowing it makes him look even more guilty than he already does?”

  “Sheer panic. Everything becomes magnified, even survival. Like how they could all have died in that fire. A rational person could claim that Juanita was reckless, and put lives in danger.”

  “She said she had an escape exit,” Kate reminded him. “The fire chief was there.”

  “Exits get blocked. And you know how she is, she’s an immovable force, impossible to stand up to.”

  Kate smiled. “Tell me about it.”

  “What I’ve worried about all along is that even if he knows he’s innocent, when no one else does, and most everyone thinks the opposite…”

  “He submitted to the DNA test voluntarily,” she reminded him.

  “This is true. But the case against him is strong, and he knows it.”

  They crested the final curve before coming back into the city. “So what can we do?” Kate asked.

  “Hope he turns up alive. With a great excuse.”

  The call from Alex Gordon came after lunch. “We’ve been trying to reach Steven McCoy up at that ranch, but we’re having a hard time getting through.”

  “Maybe their lines are down,” Luke answered. “There is a fire raging in their neighborhood, in case you haven’t been watching the news.”

  “The fire passed by there yesterday, wiseass,” Alex said. “And their place was saved, in case you didn’t know,” he added, throwing Luke’s sarcasm back in his face.

  “Who told you that?” Luke asked, feigning ignorance of the situation.

  “The fire chief. That old lady commandeered an entire squad of firefighters to save her place. They’re going to be telling the story in the forest service for decades. She’s a feisty one, that Juanita McCoy.” His voice turned somber again, “Seriously, Luke, we need to be in contact with Steven McCoy. The detectives running this case are getting antsy. And so am I.” Before hanging up, he added, “Nobody wins if I have to go see the judge about this.”

  Juanita came outside as she heard the detectives’ car pull up in front of her house. It was late in the afternoon—the sun was in her face. She shielded her eyes as she stared at Watson and Rebeck.

  “Hello,” she said pleasantly. She kept her voice neutral. “How are you today?”

  Watson knew that Rebeck, impatient, would cut right to the chase, so he jumped in first. “We’re okay, thanks,” he replied. He looked out into her property. “I hear you survived the fire. Better than most of your neighbors.”

  “We were lucky,” she told them. “Divine providence, perhaps. I don’t know about how others have fared, I’ve been busy here. And the phones were down until a short time ago.”

  “Is that why Steven hasn’t been checking in?” Rebeck interjected.

  Juanita frowned. “How could he?”

  “Right,” Watson said. Her answer was obvious, and it made them look like bullies. This was a nice old lady, and a powerful one. He didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with her. “Which is how come we drove up here.” He took a step toward the house. “Is he inside?”

  Juanita shifted, blocking him. “No,” she replied. “He isn’t.”

  Enough with the song and dance, Rebeck decided. “Where is he?” she asked harshly.

  “Out there.” Juanita made a vague sweeping gesture with her arm.

  “Out there where?” Rebeck pressed.

  Juanita stared at her for a moment. “I don’t know, precisely,” she answered. “It’s a big property. He’s checking for damage. He’s been gone since early this morning. Why? Is there a problem?”

  “We want to know where he is,” Rebeck persisted. “We need to document him being here, in the flesh. See him, or talk to him.”

  “Umm.” Juanita thought for a moment. “I don’t know how I can help you this precise moment, because as I said…”

  “He’s out there somewhere, I know.” Rebeck finished. She was in full ill-humor now. “Don’t you have a way of contacting your people? Walkie-talkies or something?”

  “Of course we do,” Juanita answered, the tone of her voice insinuating that the question was an insult. “Unfortunately, they aren’t functioning now. We used up all the batteries righting the fire. My foreman is picking up fresh ones when he goes into Los Olivos tomorrow,” she lied easily.

  Rebeck shifted her weight from one foot to the other. When was she going to stop wearing heels on assignments like this? As soon as they got back she was going to throw a pair of running shoes in the trunk for such contingencies. Looking good is important, but if your feet hurt, you can’t concentrate.

  Watson looked at his watch. It was almost six. In less than an hour, it would be dark. “What time will Steven be rolling in?” he asked. “He can’t do anything out there after dark, can he?”

  “No,” Juanita said.

  “So pretty soon, huh?” he asked optimistically.
He didn’t want this to go south. That would fuck things up royally, for everyone.

  “Unless he decides to stay out there,” Juanita told them.

  The detectives looked at each other. Was she shining them on? It felt like it.

  “Why would he?” Watson asked.

  “So he won’t waste hours riding in and out,” she explained. “It is a big ranch. Sometimes he stays out overnight.” She looked from one detective to the other. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? He is still physically on the ranch. I thought that’s what the bail agreement said. That he was confined to the ranch, unless given permission to leave. But it didn’t say where on the ranch, did it?” She made as if to turn away. “Should I go inside and read it over? I’m sure I understood it, but maybe I was mistaken. Do either of you happen to know?” she asked with an air of benign innocence.

  “It doesn’t say exactly where on your ranch,” Watson admitted. That had been a fuckup. They should have confined him to a more specific area, rather than allowing him to roam at will over dozens of square miles, most of it rugged and hard to get to.

  He eyeballed the high sign to Rebeck. “There’s no use us hanging around here,” he said. “But…” He raised a cautionary finger. “We must be in touch with him by tomorrow morning, Mrs. McCoy. Without fail. Or he’ll be in a lot more trouble than he already is.”

  Rebeck, driving away, saw Juanita in her rearview mirror. The old lady was staring at them. As they drove out of sight, she raised her hand in salute.

  “She’s bullshitting us,” Rebeck declared. She was badly pissed off.

  “You’re not prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt?”

  Rebeck brayed laughter. “No fucking way. She knew exactly what to say to be inside the letter of the law. Cunning old bitch.”

  “So?”

  “It’s the D.A.’s call. He’s going to have to go to the judge. Judge Yberra’s going to be shitting wooden nickels. He put his ass on the line for that old lady. He’s going to look like a fool if that kid flaked.”

  Watson nodded in agreement. “It’ll be hell to pay, all around.” He groaned. “We’re all going to look like assholes if this kid’s slipped us.”