Stray Narrow

by Jerusha Jones

  “Do you need to be held, too?” I whispered.

  He opened his arms to me, the tiniest sparkle returning to his gorgeous sapphire-blue eyes, and I clambered aboard.

  “This isn’t quite the same thing,” I objected, nestling into his shoulder with absolutely no intention of actually reversing roles.

  “Still does the trick,” he murmured against my neck.

  His hands were roaming proprietarily, and I squirmed against him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “So sorry—for all of this.”

  “I know, babe. We all are. We’ll make it as right as we can for Burke.”

  oOo

  We found Sheriff Marge in the ballroom, standing with her hands on her hips, glaring out through the double glass doors at the fairy dust snow that was starting to skim across the tire tracks in the parking lot, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

  But she must’ve heard us coming, because her first words were directed at our reflections in the glass as well as at the inclement weather on the other side. “I know who she is.”

  “That was fast,” I replied. “The medical examiner’s already—?”

  “Nope.” She hitched up her duty belt and continued glaring at the frigid dandruff outside. “She matches a missing person report out of Whitman County. That was Sheriff McNary on the line. He’s missing one university student who was reported absent by her fellow research assistants four days ago. Not too many twenty-seven-year-old blonde female doctoral candidates with a titanium knee bumbling around these parts. Looks like she got herself into a bad situation.”

  “You think she’s to blame?” I whispered.

  “No.” Sheriff Marge lifted her glasses with a finger and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, I don’t. Didn’t mean it to come out that way. It’s just that if our corpse really is Ms. Cassidy Kendall, then there’s a huge gap in her time line—longer than the four days anyone’s known about it, because the early reports are that she was last seen nearly two weeks ago, and I’ve got next to nothing to work with for an investigation.” She resettled the glasses and turned to pierce me with those steel-gray eyes. “Except our boy’s eyewitness testimony.”

  “Meaning you’re worried about his safety,” Pete said.

  Sheriff Marge’s lips flattened into a thin, pinched line. “His unusual circumstances, and the fact that he showed up out of the blue, have already generated some buzz in the community. Add to that the fact that it’s hard to keep an all-hands search on Gifford Mountain a true secret. Even harder to keep finding a murder victim under wraps. If those two men tap into the rumor pipeline and put two and two together, well…” She shook her head. “Given the vicious nature of the crime, I have no doubt they’d follow up in a similar vein if they thought it necessary.”

  “So we have to keep him hidden, out of the way…” I glanced around the festive ballroom frothy with bunting in Val’s chosen colors of pale, icy blue and silver, with its glittering accents, and a long buffet table set with the stainless steel bases for chafing dishes and coffee service. All that was missing was a disco ball, but even we’re not so redneck as all that.

  The setting was so incongruous—the trappings of the highly anticipated celebration all around us compared to the stark depravity we’d just been discussing. And how to mask the presence of a small boy in the midst of all this?

  Strength in numbers? In Sockeye County, where every single one of those numbers had eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary—just as Sheriff Marge had pointed out—I wasn’t so sure. But it wasn’t like we were going to lock him in a closet, either.

  I shuddered again, and it shook something loose. Or maybe I just wanted the distraction, but for some reason, the color scheme floating around me in gauzy layers reminded me of the titanium knee. “She was awfully young for a knee replacement,” I murmured.

  “Volleyball,” Sheriff Marge grunted.

  I squinted at her.

  “Star volleyball player for her high school team. Homecoming queen. All-around girl-next-door and sweetheart of the one-light town of Garfield, Washington. Recruited by the big leagues”—Sheriff Marge put air quotes around the term with her knuckly fingers— “of women’s college volleyball programs. Stanford, the Universities of Texas, Nebraska, Kansas. She had her pick, and then her knee blew out in a pick-up game the day after graduation. Extensive surgery sidelined her for a year, and she postponed college to focus on her recovery. Then a motorcycle accident nearly tore off that same knee six months later. Required a full replacement, but they did manage to save her leg. Apparently the other option was amputation. The whole town—no, the whole county—knows her history. Sheriff McNary spent ten minutes reciting it to me.”

  It sounded just like Platts Landing—this small community of Garfield. Even though I’d never been there, I could instantly picture it all, how vested the few hundred residents would be in the prospects of their shining star, how much pressure she must’ve been under. To have it all wrecked through a series of unfortunate accidents.

  Pete knew too. He’d had a similar situation with one of his knees. Not so extreme, but it still ruined his prospects for a football-scholarship-paid college education. So he’d chosen the Navy. “So she stayed close to home?” he asked.

  “Right.” Sheriff Marge nodded. “Smart girl. She got a partial scholarship on her academic merit and ended up at Washington State University in Pullman. Flying right through all their programs—bachelor’s, master’s, now doctoral. Apparently, she’s quite the research phenom. Majoring in Environmental Sciences, with a specialty in grain crops.”

  “Well, she’s in the right place, then,” Pete agreed with somber satisfaction. But then he winced. “Or was. All the farmers and co-ops I tow grain barges for rely on the research coming out of WSU to increase their yields and the grade of their crops. A tiny improvement can have a huge impact on their bottom line because of the sheer acreage involved.”

  “Do you think she was targeted? Or selected at random?” The words were barely out of my mouth when I remembered that Burke had said the men and Cassidy—it was both weird and strangely comforting to attach a real name to the image of the damaged woman in my mind—had been chatting amicably just before the men’s sudden change in intent became apparent. Not a likely scenario between a kidnappee and her abductors. So the answer was targeted. But what if they’d decided on the spur of the moment? What if their orchestrated actions had been rehearsed? Or implemented previously? Maybe they were a serial killer duo, and specialized in grooming their victims ahead of time, in gaining their trust.

  I jerked my thoughts away from that line of unreasonable and macabre speculation and added quickly, “Because if there’s a lot of money involved with what Cassidy was researching, then...?” I shrugged to fill in the blank.

  “She was a beautiful—and from all reports, personable—young woman,” Sheriff Marge growled. “There’s a huge spectrum of possible motives, and the methods also could vary from opportunistic to intricately plotted.” She heaved a sigh. “I have my work cut out for me.”

  I wanted so desperately to wrap her in a hug. Not that it would solve her problems. And probably more for my own sake than for hers, but Sheriff Marge isn’t a woman who receives hugs gladly. For one thing, all that equipment and the ballistic vest make it awkward, but I knew from experience that when in crime-solving mode—as opposed to her usual mother-hen mode, and the transformational process was occurring before my very eyes—she became more aloof, more reserved, more focused. In all her iterations, she’s a formidable woman, and I’d do anything I could to help her.

  But what to offer?

  It turned out I didn’t need to blurt out any bumbling suggestions, because Sheriff Marge knew exactly what to do next. “I’m going to have the high school art teacher come out to your place tonight. She serves as my sketch artist when the need arises. She’ll sit with Burke and get us some drawings of the two men to work from.”

  “Of course,” Pete responded. “But what abo
ut Burke? What did you find in the cabin? Is there anything we should be aware of in our interactions with him—about the murder, or about his past, his father?”

  We were clearly out of our depth in this new foster-parenting role, and I was so grateful Pete had asked that hard, open-ended question. I sidled over to him and slipped my hand into his.

  Sheriff Marge returned to pinching the bridge of her nose as though a migraine was setting in. “I still have calls out about that—to confirm things,” she replied. “But the early analysis indicates he was a university professor who was denied tenure under a great deal of contention. There was some paperwork in the cabin with Oregon State University’s logo on it which I skimmed through. Basically, he was fired—as fired as you can get in academia without having violated ethics regulations, at any rate. It seems he was sticking to his guns about a research tangent that the college dean didn’t approve of. Something the school didn’t want pursued. My guess is it was a messy political situation, probably grudges born on each side, possibly a crushed reputation. At any rate, it was sufficiently devastating that Professor Brightbill took his son and disappeared into no-man’s land.”

  Pete and I were silent for a long minute, letting the information sink in, my shoulder rubbing against his arm with each breath. Then, as though reading my mind, Pete said, “So Burke’s dad was fired for abiding by his conscience in a professional matter?”

  “That’s the gist of it.”

  “And his mom?” I whispered. “Any hints about her?”

  “Ah.” Sheriff Marge seemed to deflate even further under her gear. “Found that too. Cullen Brightbill kept organized files, even while living in the boonies. A copy of a death certificate. Four years ago. Ovarian cancer.”

  Layer upon layer of loss. I turned my face into Pete’s shoulder, and he cupped his hand around the back of my head.

  “I hate saying this,” Sheriff Marge continued, “but this actually makes Burke’s situation easier from a red-tape perspective because with these documents we have proof that he’s truly an orphan and truly a ward of Washington State. And therefore truly yours, for the time being. I’m not stretching my authority on that subject anymore. You’ve heard from Hester?”

  I nodded. “We have an interview appointment set for Monday evening. She’s coming out to check the house, verify that Burke’ll have a bedroom of his own, that we can feed him, stuff like that. She said she’d talk us through the training process, see what parts of it we could speed up.”

  “Good, good.” Sheriff Marge drew a deep breath and shoved her hat back on her forehead. “Best news I’ve had all day. I suspect our boy holds himself responsible for some of what he saw, if not all of it, and is thinking he should’ve prevented it in some way. He’s going to need to talk about it—in his own time—and he’ll need you to help him process. I can’t think of a better couple to handle this than the two of you.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The weight of the world. No, scratch that. The weight of the sin in the world. Which is greater. Much, much greater. Snatches of some of Pastor Mort’s recent sermons strung themselves together in my brain, reminding me again of how ill-equipped I am to handle this stuff on my own, and of the power of grace. How we need grace. Right now. In this very moment.

  It came in the form of Frankie’s head, popped around the corner from the gift shop. And then the rest of her efficient, organized, bustling form in short order. A big clump of keys jangled in her hand.

  “Locking up for the night,” she announced, darting glances from my face to Pete’s to Sheriff Marge’s and back again. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Tell me. You have to tell me.” She quickly strode to my side and squeezed my free hand with liberal commiseration. “What is it?”

  But she kept talking, filling in our reluctant silence. “It’s the young woman, isn’t it? Henry told me…some. Why did they leave her—just—exposed like that?” she finished in a rasping whisper.

  We were the recipients of one of Sheriff Marge’s long, drawn-out, scrutinizing gazes, as though she were testing us for leaks. After a moment, she decided and repositioned her hands on her hips. “I have a hypothesis about that as well. Didn’t want to tell you, actually, even though it’s all the more reason for us to keep Burke sequestered.”

  “Oh dear,” Frankie breathed beside me. “Oh dear.”

  I wanted to give Sheriff Marge a piece of my mind for not confiding fully in us, but what authority did I have? She was just taking her serve-and-protect role seriously, as always. So I stared at her instead, breath frozen in my chest.

  “This murder was either luckily nearly perfect, or the perpetrators were uncannily clever. I don’t know which yet.” Sheriff Marge pulled one of the rented folding chairs that had been draped over the back with a huge silver bow out from under the long skirt of a pale blue tablecloth and dropped onto it. “Sit…” She gestured wearily. “Mac and Val won’t mind.”

  Which was true. If we were careful, they’d never know we’d used their reception hall for such a stomach-roiling conversation. The rest of us quickly scrabbled into chairs of our own, and Pete shoved the exuberant centerpiece out of the way so we could all see each other clearly in the sparkly, romantic glow of the twinkle lights.

  “First of all,” Sheriff Marge said, “they left Cassidy exposed to the elements precisely so that the process that had begun would continue to completion, namely the natural order of things.”

  Which still wasn’t entirely obvious to me. I had my mouth open to request clarification, but Pete beat me to it.

  He had to clear his throat to do so. “You mean being eaten by wild animals.”

  I’d forgotten—already. He’d seen Cassidy’s body—with all that entailed. I pressed my hands between my thighs to keep them from trembling.

  Sheriff Marge nodded slowly. “Yes, and the decay process. Decomposition has a predictable sequence and time line, but there are a few factors that’ll either slow it down or speed it up. Ambient temperature and submersion, either in soil or water, are the two most important variables. Cassidy’s killers seemed to know this. By removing some of her clothing, they accomplished several things. One, the body would cool faster, thus slowing her decay rate. That would be a negative from their perspective. But they exposed more of her flesh to the elements, which successfully attracted the wild animals. Also, people suffering from hypothermia often get confused and misread the signals their body is sending them and they’ll remove their own clothing, thinking they’re hot instead of cold.”

  Pete tensed. I felt it like an electrical charge across the foot or so of air space that separated us. His leg was bouncing rapidly under the table. “They were trying to make it look like an accident.”

  “They were very careful,” Sheriff Marge hedged. “When I hear back from the ME, I expect he’s going to tell me she had no broken bones. There might be some scrapes on a vertebrae or two in her neck from the rope noose, but they’ll be minor and would’ve been inconclusive once her soft flesh was completely gone.”

  Frankie moaned quietly.

  “If we’d found her body when it was a more likely situation—say in March or April when the mushroom hunters start wandering around in the hills—we wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint her cause of death. It could’ve been any number of things—hypothermia, as I mentioned already; maybe a fall that wrenched her neck; or a traumatic subdural hematoma from hitting her head on rocks. Murder would’ve been much harder, if not impossible, to prove. Burying her would’ve made it obvious her death was intentional.” Sheriff Marge shrugged. “Not to mention the ground up there is incredibly rocky and frozen. Impractical for a number of reasons.”

  “So the only flaw in their plan is one little boy,” I murmured.

  “Exactly.”

  “Which they may or may not know about,” Frankie amended, with a trace of optimism in her hushed tone.

  oOo

  Rupert shocked me with the speed with which he soft-shoed down the staircase and just about
tumbled, roly-poly like, into the ballroom. His pace was possibly explained by the fact that he was hard on the heels of a thundering eleven-year-old boy.

  It was an instant dilemma. Did we all jump to our feet and pretend we hadn’t been embroiled in a serious, adults-only—and therefore intriguing—conversation, or did we lounge resolutely in those gaudily decorated chairs and aim for the impression that we’d just been shooting the breeze in a lazy fashion? Neither option was fantastic or in line with our normal behavior, but we all stayed glued to our seats as though by mutual agreement.

  “Well,” Rupert huffed, squinting around at our melancholy faces. “No success. Those Pinkerton items are proving elusive. I’m beginning to doubt their very existence, except as figments of my imagination.”

  I scowled at him. What was he suggesting?

  He was returning my glower right back, as though trying to divine the reason for the somber mood in our little cluster. I’d give him one out of three guesses, but it was obvious from his pitched brow and short, puffed exhale that he needn’t have guessed at all. He knew.

  “So,” he continued without the slightest hesitation, “I propose a continuance. Tomorrow, perhaps? I, myself, find wedding receptions rather boring and dull affairs. If Burke—” Rupert aimed a short bow in the boy’s direction—“would honor me with the pleasure of his company and nimble limbs for furthering the search tomorrow afternoon, I would be tremendously grateful. With your approval, of course.”

  And just like that Rupert solved our primary problem—how to keep Burke hidden during a mass community event. I gasped with relief, then realized he was eyeing me expectantly. What had he asked? Permission?

  Oh, right, the parental thing to do. Burke, too, was watching me with eager, if subdued, delight. How could I possibly deny these two boys—one old, one young—their treasure hunt?