Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2)

by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

  I joined Holly on the bench and placed my small cooler between us. “G and T or vodka and soda?”

  “Hell, why not? I’ll take a vodka and soda.”

  I pulled a couple of fruit-flavored fizzy waters from the cooler and handed him one. “Hank seems to be entertaining himself.”

  We glanced over at the boy. I loved that child. His little laugh, his occasional serious demeanor, his beautiful dark brown eyes and mahogany skin. The idea that tragedy could potentially upend his childhood was incomprehensible.

  “If he spots you over here, he’ll come running.”

  “Well, what kid wouldn’t?”

  “You’ve got a point there.” He took a swig of his drink. “I forgot to tell you, he calls you Aunt Maybe.”

  I laughed. “Maybe?”

  “Yep.”

  I sipped my water. “Maybe. It kind of suits me, doesn’t it?”

  “Whoa. Did you buy yourself a diamond ring?”

  “No, but Duncan did.”

  “You’re getting married?” Holly was incredulous.

  “Is that okay?”

  “Sure, just unexpected, I guess. I thought you were done with that institution.”

  “So did I, actually,” I acknowledged.

  “I don’t see Duncan browbeating you into saying yes.”

  “No. He just had a more compelling argument.” Although I couldn’t remember what that was exactly.

  “Well, congratulations. He’s a great guy. Lil thinks so too.”

  “Thanks. He’s an improvement over the last one, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Speaking of the last husband, anything new in the investigation?”

  Shoptalk was a welcome distraction from any conversation about Lil, or my upcoming third marriage, for that matter. “Um, the murder weapon might’ve turned up.”

  “Might’ve?”

  “Yeah. Bach and I went back out to Murderers Creek Guard Station yesterday. While we were there, a Forest Service work crew showed up to clean the cabin and outhouse. In the process, they found a Buck knife in the vault toilet.”

  “But I thought you’d already checked that out.”

  “I had. Twice. When they pulled the container thing out—can’t remember what it’s called, but it holds all the waste—the knife was brought to the surface when they stirred in some kind of chemical treatment.”

  Hollis took on a ghastly aspect. “God, disgusting.”

  “No shit,” I cracked.

  “Har, har.”

  I smiled. “Not sure the knife ever would’ve been found, except the work crew has to treat the waste before moving the container thing to wherever they move it.”

  “Can the lab even lift fingerprints from it?”

  “Not sure. And my guess is, determining DNA would be a fucking nightmare.”

  “To say the least. Anything else?”

  I went on to recount my chitchat with Sugar Muldaur yesterday and the conversation with Levi Hadley earlier today.

  “You might have to give up on Muldaur as a person of interest,” Hollis proffered.

  “It’s possible Levi could dig up something worth pursuing.”

  “Not the Levi Hadley I know.”

  “You worked with him?”

  “Nah. He attended a few surveillance trainings in Burns while I was stationed there. Dumb as a plate of hushpuppies, as my MomMom used to say.”

  “Your MomMom?”

  “You know, my mother’s mother,” he explained.

  “Ah, how quaint.”

  “No, she wasn’t quaint at all. Strong, her own person, like Lil. Speaking of which, Lil said she ran into you yesterday. You didn’t tell her you were getting married?”

  “Guess it slipped my mind.”

  Something about that answer prompted Holly to shoot me a somber look. For a moment, I sensed he was about to tell me about Lil’s illness. Or he had guessed I already knew.

  “Aunt Maybe, Aunt Maybe!” Hank carried his dump truck awkwardly as he made a lumbering beeline toward us from the toddlers’ sandbox.

  I threw open my arms to greet him. “Hank!”

  Our hug included the toy truck, with the sand in its bucket dropping fully into my lap. But I didn’t mind. Hank could do no wrong. Plus he had interrupted what might have been a sorrowful conversation that neither Hollis nor I were ready to have.

  Opening the station house door, I was greeted by a waft of feverish air. I switched on the swamp cooler, locked up again, and headed to Prairie Maid for a bite to eat.

  Angie Dennis, the owner and sole employee, was busy at the front counter, a typical occurrence on a sweaty Sunday afternoon. I got in the queue behind a family ordering up their soft-freeze ice cream cones and a group of noisy teenagers waiting their turn. I was in civilian gear, so the crowd of kids ahead of me was more boisterous than they might’ve been had I been in uniform. I especially liked those moments of near anonymity.

  “Sergeant Blackthorne. Almost didn’t recognize you,” Angie said when it was finally my turn to step to the order window.

  “How’s it going, Angie?”

  “Great. The day goes by a lot faster when I’m busy. Your usual?”

  I nodded. “Add a small soft-freeze cone, please—vanilla with chocolate dip and nuts.”

  As I watched her cook my burger and put together the fixings, I remembered how helpful she had been in solving the murder of old man Trudeau a while back. Prairie Maid abutted 395 and offered a view of comings and goings on the well-traveled highway. She’d inadvertently witnessed his killers following him from her parking lot. Bringing forward that tidbit had pretty much been the tipping point in the investigation.

  “Here you go, Sergeant.” She slid open the window, handed me the order, and took my cash.

  “Keep the change.”

  “Thanks, enjoy your lunch. I’d recommend you start with dessert, though. It’ll melt fast.”

  “Good thought.” I picked up the cone and tasted the layer of hardened chocolate and nuts. “Delicious.”

  “Have a good afternoon.”

  “One other thing, Angie.”

  I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. “I don’t suppose you noticed an old Toyota Celica—blue in color, a beater—speeding by this past Thursday morning. Would’ve been early-ish.”

  “I don’t usually get here till about ten or so.”

  “It’s possible the driver and passenger stopped by for something to eat later in the day. They would’ve been traveling in a newer pickup truck by that time.”

  “Thursday? Not sure I can help you, Sergeant. Bunch of vehicles in and out.”

  “If they came by, they’d be pretty distinctive.”

  “Your dessert’s about to dribble all over you,” she pointed out.

  I tongued the drips and took a large bite of ice cream and crispy cone. “Male and female in their twenties, possibly jacked up on something. Dark hair, both of them.”

  “Hmm. There was a couple that come by around noon on Thursday. Hassled the high school kids buying treats till I told them to get the hell off my property. Do you have a picture of ’em?”

  Out of habit, I’d stashed my pack in the Jetta before leaving Duncan’s place. “In my car. I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed the paper bag containing my lunch, scarfed down the rest of the cone, and retrieved the four-day-old alert bulletin with the mug shots of Vincent Cruise, Jr., and Anna Jo Porter from my pack.

  I set the bulletin on her small counter. “Take your time, and give those photos a good look.”

  She examined the mug shots for a long moment.

  “Did you see those two anytime Thursday?” I asked anxiously.

  “They were a little sleazier looking in person, but really studying their pictures, it sure looks like ’em.”

  “Can you come into the office tomorrow and make a statement?”

  “Okay, but I might be wrong about them two being the ones.”

  “You can ma
ke that clear in your statement.”

  “I close at four during the week. That work?”

  “I’ll make sure it does. See you tomorrow after closing time.”

  The rusty swamp cooler, its dreadful racket notwithstanding, had lowered the temperature in the office to a tolerable seventy-three degrees. I sat in the alcove and slowly ate my lunch, occasionally glancing at our murder board.

  I stood and added Vincent Cruise, Anna Jo Porter, and Edward Earl “Sugar” Muldaur. I slapped on a few question marks at the end of that list, and as an afterthought, underlined Murderers Creek. Not that any of it helped clarify a goddamn thing.

  “Sergeant Blackthorne?”

  The din of the swamp cooler had drowned out the sound of the front door opening and closing. I turned abruptly and found Trooper Vaughn standing next to his desk.

  “Damn, Doug. You scared the hell out of me.”

  His face reddened. “Sorry. Didn’t realize anyone was here.”

  “Yeah. That old black Jetta parked outside is mine.”

  “I really am sorry I frightened you.”

  “It’s okay. I forgot you were out on patrol today. And I shouldn’t be so jumpy.”

  He stepped into the alcove and stood reading over the murder board. “I was out on South Fork Road and had hauled the ATV along, so I drove on over to the Schneider Wildlife Area.”

  “You’re new around here, but everybody calls it Murderers Creek Wildlife Area. Even though it was changed to Schneider a few years ago, it still shows up on atlases with the old name. Likely, locals won’t know what you’re talking about when you call it Schneider,” I said a bit too officiously.

  “Thanks, I’ll remember that.” He contemplated his mud-caked boots. “I think I might’ve found something.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I should say I found something strange.”

  He was primarily a game warden, so I went in the direction that seemed most germane. “A strange critter?”

  “No, something else.”

  I paused so he could continue, the swamp cooler’s engine filling the small, enclosed office with its death rattle.

  “I’ll be right back,” was all he said.

  I’ll be waiting on pins and needles, I thought. The man didn’t perturb me quite as much as Mark Taylor, but he did have a similar inability to read the room on occasion.

  Vaughn moved to the lavatory in the far corner of the building, conducted his business, and walked back through the alcove to the front counter, where he gloved up and retrieved a folded roadmap and his mysterious find.

  He plopped a battered, army-green metal Proto tackle box down on the card table next to the empty takeout bag from Prairie Maid. “Guess what’s in here.”

  “Somebody’s fishing gear?”

  “There’s some of that in there, all right.” He pulled out an extra pair of latex gloves and handed them to me.

  I put them on and opened the box. An assortment of bait, hooks, fishing line, sinkers, lures, and colorful flies lay neatly in their various compartments.

  “Okay, what else?”

  Vaughn pulled out the top tray, revealing a larger storage area. It was filled with carefully bound bundles of dark brown powder.

  “Holy shit.”

  “That’s heroin, right?” he asked.

  “Believe so.” I inspected one of the bundles.

  “Isn’t it usually white?”

  “If I remember correctly, most heroin in the West comes from Mexico. And it’s usually sticky and dark brown or black. But I’m definitely not an expert.”

  “That’s good to know,” he joked.

  I smiled. “Where exactly did you find all this, Doug?”

  “You mentioned Murderers Creek.” He placed the takeout bag in an open chair, slid the metal box to one side, and unfolded his roadmap on the tabletop. “I got on my ATV and took the dirt byway from its mouth, where it runs into the John Day River.”

  He indicated the location and traced the route he’d taken. “Traveled through part of the Wildlife Area and into the Malheur Forest, all the way to the creek’s source—its headwaters, that is. Rough going some of the way, but it was worth it. A beautiful spot.”

  “And that’s where you found the tackle box?”

  “Yeah. There’s an old marker at the headwaters. The box was sitting next to it.”

  “I’ve never been there, but you say some of the roadway was hard to navigate?”

  “Can’t get there without backpacking in or going by mule or horseback. Or by using an all-terrain vehicle, and then only as long as you’re able to navigate the deep ruts to keep from high centering.”

  “Cell service?”

  “No, and I kind of assumed you weren’t out and about in your police vehicle, so I didn’t use the radio to alert you. I decided to call you from the station.” He raised his eyebrows. “But here you are.”

  “Did you see anything else interesting out there?”

  “ATV tracks. Pretty fresh, I think. Didn’t have an impression kit with me, but I grabbed a photo.”

  “Send that to me, will you?”

  Vaughn opened his phone and texted several photographs, the tire tracks plus a couple of shots of the tackle box where he’d found it next to the weathered place marker.

  “Thanks. The images are pretty clear, but I’m not sure we can ID the ATV from those shots of the tracks,” I said.

  “Yeah, I wondered about that.” He scanned the photos again. “Seems like a drop site, right? For drugs.”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.”

  He blithely covered and promptly uncovered his mouth, a tic I’d noticed before.

  “I’ve never come upon a stash of narcotics out in the woods before,” he said.

  “Neither have I. And seems like it’s a drop site about as out in the middle of nowhere as you can get.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  I examined the photos again. “The ground around appears pretty muddy for mid-August.”

  “Seeping spring water all year round. It’s the literal source of Murderers Creek, then lots of small tributaries join in as it flows down the mountain.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “I’m an amateur geologist. Part of the reason I asked to be stationed over here.”

  “A rock hound, huh?”

  “Kind of.”

  I glanced at the schoolhouse clock on the wall. Close to one o’clock. “You must’ve started out early this morning.”

  “Six a.m.”

  “Write up your report and head home. Meanwhile, I want to get the tackle box to our forensics guy.”

  “I’ll get right on that report, Sergeant.”

  “Doug, you really can call me Maggie. You know, when and where it’s appropriate. Like here at the office most of the time, and especially on a Sunday afternoon.”

  He nodded his agreement, his face reddening once more.

  I carefully placed the top tray back in the metal container and fastened it shut. “Good work out there today.”

  “I think I got lucky, Maggie.”

  “We could use more of that kind of lucky around here.”

  11

  Afternoon, August 16

  I contacted Harry Bratton and let him know we were ready to make use of his forensic services. He cheerily invited me out to the lab located on his property, twenty miles south of Canyon Mountain in the settlement of Silvies.

  Not a place with any amenities whatsoever, Silvies was more of a turn-around spot along Highway 395. Harry owned a small ranch house enveloped by frequently watered jade-green grass and elderly poplars, defiant botanical anomalies within the expanse of baked high desert. He had installed a modular building behind the house, in which he carried out his post-OSP retirement forensic analysis.

  Harry was outside watering his poplars when I arrived and signaled for me to pull on up to his lab at the end of the driveway. In my rearview, I observed him as he trailed after the dust of my Je
tta. He was a wiry, affable straight-talker, but I suspected people were occasionally taken aback by his protruding eyeballs and how they appeared to gaze in multiple directions at the same time. I could see how that physical characteristic might initially render him both fascinating and freaky.

  “Good to see you again, Maggie.”

  We shook hands, and he glanced at the army-green fishing tackle box on the front seat of my car.

  “Is that what you brought me to examine?”

  “Yeah, and it’s more interesting than you might think.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the murder of Sergeant Lake?” Harry asked.

  “Not sure, but I was thinking it might have something to do with those Oxy slingers who drove off a cliff on Aldrich Mountain a few days ago.”

  “Oxy slingers?”

  “Drug dealers. Opioids primarily.”

  “Oxy slingers,” he repeated and laughed. “Hadn’t heard that one before.”

  “I borrowed that bit of slang from a mystery I read a while back.”

  “It’s a good one, all right. Anyway, getting back to the people who ran off a mountain road, what’s the connection to the tackle box?”

  “Trooper Doug Vaughn, one of the Fish and Wildlife guys in my office, found it at the headwaters of Murderers Creek up in the Aldrich range. A good distance from where those two wrecked. It’s possible they were trying to make their way out there to pick it up and simply got lost.”

  He turned away from me briefly and spat a wad of chewing tobacco across the surface of the gravel driveway. “So, some drugs were found in the thing?”

  “Yeah.” I slipped on latex gloves and fetched the Proto tackle box from my vehicle.

  Harry eyed the green container. “Murderers Creek? Isn’t that where Sergeant Lake was killed?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Follow me.”

  Once inside the lab, he nodded toward an elaborate metal table affixed with shelves holding various forensic tools. “Just there on the workbench.”

  I took a guess at the appropriate spot to set it down. “Right here?”

  “Sure, that’ll work.” He put on his gloves and opened the lid. “There’s quite a bit of fishing shit in here, Maggie.”