Moving back onto Forest Route 21, I wanted to drive straight to my apartment and take a nap. But I needed to see about Janine, and I was expecting Angie Dennis later. She had agreed to come to the office sometime after four today to sign a statement about the Oxy slingers. Angie was relatively certain they had stopped by her burger joint last Thursday. Last Thursday, August thirteenth, the day all of this started, the day J.T. Lake was killed, the day I first drove out here and identified his tortured body.
I pulled into the parking lot at Blue Mountain Hospital and parked in one of the two spaces set aside for law enforcement. At the check-in station on the first floor, I asked for an update on Janine Harbaugh. The candy striper on duty invited me to have a seat while she conferred with Dr. Hilliard, the hospital director.
I found an old National Geographic—its cover missing—and a comfy chair and sat down. I glanced at my watch: two forty-five. God, this day would never end. Not counting the two mugs of ginger tea, I hadn’t consumed anything but a glass of milk today. Normally the gravitational pull of the snack dispenser in the corner would’ve had me checking out my options by now. But this afternoon, all I wanted was a cold glass of agua.
I sauntered to the water fountain near the snack dispenser and drank my fill. The candy striper returned and let me know Dr. Hilliard would be right out. I returned to my chair and thumbed through the National Geographic. It truly was ancient. Published in October 1958, it included an ad for winter trips on the original California Zephyr and a tattered article featuring a centennial tribute to President Theodore Roosevelt.
Dr. Hilliard rescued me soon enough and escorted me back to his office.
He gestured for me to sit. “I understand you found Ms. Harbaugh earlier this afternoon.”
Known for his serious demeanor and his white Rolls-Royce, the good doctor was also someone whose first name I hadn’t known until I saw the embossed sign on his office door: Dr. Avery Hilliard, Tulane University; PhD, Oxford University.
“That’s right. And I’d like to talk to her as soon as possible,” I said.
He paused. “I don’t think I’m breaking confidentiality when I tell you I’m not certain that will ever be possible.”
“I was afraid that might be the case. And I don’t think I’m breaking confidentiality when I tell you there is evidence that her fall wasn’t an accident.”
“Thus why you’re here?” Hilliard asked.
“That and I’ve known Janine a long time. If she…passes away, that would be a loss, and not just to my investigation.”
“Well, only time will tell at this point. Her injuries are severe.”
“I’d like a copy of the assessment of her injuries. Also, she has skin under her fingernails. A sample of that needs to be sent to the State Police lab in Bend.”
“I’ll get you a copy of the assessment, and I’ll make sure that sample is sent off.”
“Thank you.” I placed a business card on his desk. “Please call me if she wakes up and is able to talk. In the meantime, also refrain from sharing my suspicion this was no accident with anyone.”
“Of course,” he said rather indignantly. “I would never do such a thing.”
I nodded and removed myself from his tidy office.
Back in my rig, three delayed texts popped up one after another. Between spotty cellular coverage on Aldrich Mountain, the lack of rural Oregon fiber optic networks in general, and the intentional blockage of mobile phone service inside the hospital, it had taken some time for the messages to arrive.
The first was from Janine, sent while I was on my way to her fire lookout. At eleven thirty-five she had written, “Tried to call you. Red truck’s definitely a Ford. And it’s coming my way.”
The second message was from Harry. “What’s your priority, tackle box, ATV tracks, or casts?”
Duncan had texted the third while I was in the hospital waiting room flipping through the National Geographic. He said, “See you tonight, babe.”
I’d been a grouchy shit this morning, and he hadn’t deserved it one bit. I felt myself tearing up. Again.
Sherry Linn stood at the front counter chatting with Mark Taylor when I arrived at the office. I said howdy to both and made my way back to my desk.
“Excuse me, Mark, I need to talk to Maggie for a moment,” I heard Sherry Linn say. Several moments passed before she arrived beside my desk. “After I listened to your message this afternoon, I took the liberty of picking up a sandwich for you from the place across the street. Didn’t seem like you were gonna have time for lunch.”
She placed a paper bag on my desk.
“Thank you so much.” I wasn’t going to tell her I had no appetite at all.
“I hope you like turkey,” Sherry Linn said. “There’s a soda water in there, too. Also something else I thought you might need.”
“Thanks. You’re the best.” I stared at the bag, hoping like hell the something else I might need was a container of Alka-Seltzer. “How much do I owe you?”
She ignored me and swished back to the front counter.
I pulled out the sandwich, the water, and a small box—which wasn’t filled with Alka-Seltzer. I stared at the box. A home pregnancy test?
“Fuck,” I mimed to myself. Was that really what was going on with me? It had crossed my mind this morning when I discovered I’d entered nothing in my personal online calendar for over a month. Could I have been that careless?
I stuffed everything back in the bag, shoved the bag in my pack, and opened my computer.
I stared at the police report form for several minutes and peeked at my watch. It might be another hour before Angie Dennis closed down Prairie Maid and drove to the station to make her formal statement. But all I wanted to do was go to my apartment, take a hot shower, and climb into bed.
But that was not to be.
Sherry Linn stood at my desk again. “Maggie, a Trooper Levi Hadley is here to see you.”
“Fuck,” I mimed to Sherry Linn.
She smiled. “I’ll let him know you’ll be about five minutes.”
I gave her a thumbs-up, crossed my arms on the desktop, and cradled my sore head.
15
Late Afternoon, August 17
God, Levi Hadley was out front waiting to talk to me. I’d thought he seemed a little flirty over the phone yesterday, but I didn’t imagine he’d actually come all this way just to bring me some news about Muldaur. Or for whatever reason he’d bothered to drive the three plus hours between here and Condon. I pressed my hands down on the desktop and pushed myself up from my chair.
Looking at my fingers now splayed in a wide fan on the desk, it occurred to me this might be an instance where an engagement ring could come in handy.
I moved from our corral of desks hemmed in by bookshelves topped with several volumes of the Oregon Revised Statutes. Housed as we were in a pint-sized modular, the shelves and bank of large books provided officers a modicum of semi-private workspace discreetly cordoned off from the public area.
I stepped to the front counter and placed my hands on the fake wood Formica top. “Trooper Hadley. How can I help you?”
“Well, Sergeant Blackthorne,” he responded, pronouncing sergeant as if it were a joke. “I’ve got some information for you.”
I placed my left hand under my chin in an effort to display the engagement ring. “Sure, follow me, then.”
He came around behind the counter and traipsed after me to my desk. I sat down while he pulled a chair from an unstaffed desk and seated himself across from me.
“You look great, Maggie.”
I barely managed to avoid saying, I feel like shit.
“Honestly, Levi, you could’ve called me or emailed your information.” I sounded as annoyed as I felt.
“But then I wouldn’t be able to see you in person,” he said and winked.
Clearly the idiot remained clueless about the ring.
“So what do you have to tell me about Mr. Muldaur?”
; Hadley leaned back in the chair, one of those old-fashioned, uncomfortable oak ones issued to our office from the State of Oregon’s cache of surplus furniture. He spread his legs apart and smiled.
Jesus fucking lord, the man was displaying his junk like a twenty-year-old.
“Muldaur was fired from a teaching job in Colorado ten years ago,” he finally uttered.
“Okay?”
“The superintendent and school board in Craig, Colorado, found out Sugar was gay. And had gotten married to another gay guy.”
I shrugged. “A few states legalized gay marriage in the early two thousands, but it’s been legal in every state since 2015.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking ten years ago in Colorado, before it was legal there or in every state. I know, I checked it out.”
“Is that it? Muldaur was fired by some bigots? That doesn’t make him a criminal. And how’d you discover that little nugget, anyway?”
“You seem grouchy, Maggie. And after I came all this way just to see you.”
“The information about Muldaur is obviously confidential and something the Condon School District seemingly regarded as not relevant.” My voice had zoomed up an octave. “How’d you get a warrant to peruse personnel files that fast?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t need a damn warrant.”
“Who gave you that information about Muldaur?”
Hadley smiled. “I’m friendly with Wendy something, the bored little office assistant in the Condon superintendent’s office.”
“That is so against protocol, and you know it.”
“Damn, woman, you’ve still got that high-and-mighty act going, don’t you?”
“Get the hell out of my police station.”
“This shithole dump?”
“We’re done here,” I snarled. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”
“I get it. You’re a little jealous I could dig up something in Muldaur’s past. It’s okay. I’ll let you calm down and come visit you another time.”
“You do, and I’ll report you to your lieutenant.”
Hadley threw me another officious smile. “I’m tight with that bitch, too.”
He stood as if to leave, then turned back toward me. “There’s something else you might be interested in.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“I talked to the cops in Craig, Colorado. Before he moved to Oregon, Muldaur’s so-called husband died under mysterious circumstances. Left Muldaur a lot of money.”
The bastard ambled his way to the front counter, said something under his breath to Sherry Linn, and made his way out of the office.
I sat and steadied myself. The conversation with that bastard had unnerved me. I wanted to report his slimy behavior. All the years of putting up with that same kind of bullshit from white males—at college, at the Academy, as a rookie cop—I’d taken it. Because that’s what you do when you’re female, take it until the boys accept you or until you gain some power. And stupidly, I had fooled myself into thinking I’d achieved a tiny bit of that, and possibly the respect that came with being promoted to sergeant early in my career. But Hadley had managed to show me my position of authority meant nothing to men like him. Nada, nothing at all.
“Maggie?” Sherry Linn stood at my desk. “Angie Dennis is here to see you.”
Meaning it was past four o’clock at least.
“Thanks. Send her on back.”
After Angie had finished with her formal statement and departed, I opened a new incident report form and began to fill in the known particulars of Janine Harbaugh’s fall. Hollis had gone home rather than returning to the office. Not like him, but I knew what had prompted him to wait until morning to sit across from me and recap the day.
A few minutes before five thirty, Sherry Linn dropped by my desk again to say good night. “You look plum tuckered out, as my mom used to say.”
“My mother used that expression, too. And I am definitely plum tuckered out.”
“So you should go home, soak your feet, and rest.”
“You talked me into it.” I saved the incident report form and closed out of my computer. “What did Trooper Hadley say to you as he was leaving?”
“He said, ‘Apparently your boss is on the rag.’”
“The man’s a serious asshole.”
“That was apparent the minute he walked in the door.” She put on her light jacket, again covering up the florescent-green top that had nearly prompted a migraine earlier in the day. “Good night, Maggie.”
“See you in the morning.”
I heard the front door click shut and pulled my keys from my desk drawer. I nabbed my pack and lifted my cap from its hook by the door.
Pulling out of the lot in front of our office, I decided to stop by my studio apartment and pick up some more clothes. Duncan had cleared out the second closet in his bedroom, and I’d already hung a few things there.
The apartment was stuffy, so I shoved a couple of tops, some jeans, and underwear in a duffel bag and dropped it in the passenger seat of the Tahoe. I stared at my pack sitting on the floorboard. Without much consideration, I removed the paper bag with the turkey sandwich and soda water and the box with something else I might need.
Back upstairs I sat on the little cot I’d slept on for nearly four years now. I massaged my temples and waited. Some might’ve viewed Sherry Linn’s purchase of a home pregnancy test for her boss as inappropriate and presumptuous. In fact, it was both of those things, but I didn’t care. It was also girlfriend-like, and I hadn’t had a real one of those for a long time. My close relationship with Holly aside, I liked the thought of having a woman friend to laugh with and bitch to on occasion.
When my timer sounded, I withdrew the small strip from its container and sat for a while longer. Finally, I cleaned up, stashed the remains of the pregnancy test kit in the paper bag containing the now-spoiled sandwich, and stowed the soda water in the refrigerator. I took a last look around, locked the front door, and deposited the paper bag and the test kit packaging in Dorie’s small dumpster at the bottom of the stairs.
Duncan hadn’t yet made it home from the Feed and Tack when I arrived at his house. I canoodled with Louie a bit, refreshed his food and water, and took that hot shower I’d longed for earlier.
Afterward, I curled up in the nest of pillows on the daybed and gazed at the soon-to-be overdue novel from the library I’d been reading off and on. Set in England in the 1500s, it was the second in a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. I had devoured the first novel, but after everything that had happened over the past several days, I was having difficulty plunging back into the story of how the man masterminded a queen’s beheading.
In the first novel, Cromwell had a tendency to gaze at his alleged friends and presumed enemies through the tail of his eye, as the author had phrased it. I’d surmised it was the way he assessed danger and analyzed his chances of emerging victorious at the same time. I reminded myself the two books were fictive versions of historical figures. In all likelihood, the real Cromwell hadn’t possessed the made-up character’s guile, nor had he been as bold, witty, brilliant, and self-aware. Ultimately the real and the fictional Cromwell were each delusional in regard to their ability to survive treachery.
With that last rumination, I was reminded then of my own delusions, not of grandeur but of forever striving to present myself as a tough, droll, and clever smartass, when really I was as vulnerable and out-to-lunch as most people were on occasion. Thankfully I wasn’t as unscrupulous as Levi Hadley, or so I self-righteously told myself.
But the fact was, I wasn’t an innocent. Not by a country mile. The moment I learned the truth sitting on the cot in my apartment tonight, I decided to keep my news a secret from Duncan. I had to for now. At least until I found a killer.
The feathery tickle of Louie’s tail batting back and forth across my stocking feet woke me. I suspected his new best pal, home for the day, had encouraged that. I sat up.
“Were you asleep?” Duncan asked.
“I guess so.” I patted the book. “Old Cromwell must have lulled me there.”
“Well, at least you woke up in a better mood this time.”
“Ouch.” I stood and walked toward him. “Yeah. About that. I forgot I’m getting old. And forgot I could tire myself out. But that’s not an excuse for bad behavior.”
“You’re not getting old.” He cupped my face in his hands, kissed me, and wrapped me in his arms. “I had a long, shitty day.”
“Sorry about your day. Hope that wasn’t on account of my grouchiness this morning.”
“Nah. Just happens sometimes.” He took my hand and led me back to the daybed, where we sat side by side. “I heard from a couple of customers you saved Janine Harbaugh’s life.”
“I sure hope so.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“Not much. I got to her lookout shortly after she had fallen from the tower, and then I radioed for an ambulance. I stopped at the hospital later, and she was still hanging in there. If your customers knew about Janine’s fall, I’m sure Dorie’s got a prayer group already singing hymns for her.”
“Would Janine want that?”
“Does it matter?”
“S’pose not. Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” I answered, and it was true.
“Good, I bought a couple of New York steaks and a bottle of vino.”
“I’ll pass on the wine, Dun. I’m already going to sleep like a log tonight.”
“Okay, I’ll save it until all of this is over.”
“Meaning the investigation?”
He nodded. “This one’s taken a lot out of you.”
I wasn’t about to argue—more like I wasn’t about to start a stupid argument.
Sitting on the back deck, the morning was cool, a hint of summer yielding to the burgeoning autumn, always my favorite season, especially in the John Day Valley. In fall, the leafy beauty of the western Oregon Cascade forests were no match for the eastern Oregon high desert, ablaze in showy clusters of mountain alder, Douglas maples, black hawthorn, willow, cottonwood, and elderberry in thick groves along waterways, up canyons, and down broad valleys.
Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2) Page 14
