Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2)

by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

  Vaughn nodded toward the soil sample baggie. “Where did you find this?”

  “Took it from an all-terrain vehicle. We’re hoping to find out if the owner rode it out around Murderers Creek,” Hollis explained.

  “I have a sample to compare it to from when I drove to the headwaters of Murderers Creek and spotted that tackle box.” Vaughn drifted out the door, apparently to retrieve the sample from his OSP vehicle.

  “Go figure,” Sherry Linn said. “A police officer who collects soil samples.”

  Doug Vaughn obviously had an unusual hobby. On the other hand, maybe it would help us make a case.

  Vaughn rejoined us with his sample. “I dabble in pedometrics.”

  Holly tossed me a look, a warning to shut down any snark that might have bubbled forth. “What are pedometrics, Doug?”

  “Basically, it’s looking at soil properties. Requires a lot of calculus, which is not my strong suit.”

  I picked up the bag with Hollis’s sample. “Would you be able to give us a sense of whether or not this matches your sample?”

  “A sense, yeah. But not certainty, I’m afraid.”

  “How soon?” I asked.

  “I can compare the two samples tonight at home.”

  “Take the rest of the day, and tonight if you need to,” I said. “I’ll approve any overtime.”

  “I believe Mark Taylor and I were planning to check out the Rudio Mountain area today.”

  “Nah. I’ll explain to Taylor.” I turned to Sherry Linn. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “One of his kids is sick. He’ll be in soon.”

  “Maggie?” The detective stood behind the front counter in the clearing that opened onto the pod of officers’ desks and, further on back, the alcove where I’d set up the murder board. He looked pissed. “Are we going to try and solve these homicides, or is the team planning to stand around chatting all day?”

  This was what came of chastising the man for being patronizing, I deduced. “As a matter of fact, Al, Trooper Vaughn here has some expertise that I hope to take advantage of, and expressly for the purpose of augmenting one or both of our homicide investigations. He tells us that he dabbles in…what was it, Doug?”

  “Pedometrics. Delineating soil properties,” Vaughn said.

  “Doug has a sample he gathered at the source of Murderers Creek.”

  “Ah, yes. Where the tackle box packed with heroin and drug paraphernalia was found,” Bach said.

  “Trooper Vaughn’s going to compare it to the sample Hollis retrieved from Shannon’s ATV.”

  Al’s face reddened. “Apologies for my grouchiness, everyone. I just got called back to the homicide case in La Grande. I have to leave in an hour or so.”

  “No need to apologize,” I said. “This has been a tough week.”

  The detective nodded in agreement and returned to the alcove. Vaughn gathered Holly’s soil sample and left the office. Taylor arrived moments later.

  “Mark,” I said before he could take off his hat and hang it on one of the hooks by the door. “I know you were hoping to travel to Rudio Mountain with Vaughn, but I handed him a priority assignment.”

  “Yeah, I caught him on his way out. He let me know.”

  “I’d like you to take this hammer handle and one of these paper cups to Harry. We want him to check both for prints.”

  “Sure, I’ll head there now,” he said.

  I put on a glove and removed one of the cups from the evidence bag, put it in a separate plastic sack, and passed the bagged handle and paper cup to Taylor. “Let Harry know we’d like any results as soon as possible. And thank you for being willing to change up your plans.”

  “Well, you are the boss, Maggie.” He opened the door. “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  “Come on, Hollis, let’s join the detective,” I said, once Taylor had gone.

  “Before you do that,” Sherry Linn began. “Hollis, you have a voicemail from a police officer out of Craig, Colorado. Maggie, you have a voicemail from Harry Bratton.”

  I gestured toward the other paper cup. “Would you please send that via courier to the OSP lab in Bend?”

  Supposedly the Bend lab could tease out DNA profiles in about two to four hours, even for what they called forensic unknowns—individuals who’d managed to stay out of the criminal justice system. But so far, I’d heard not one word from them about the DNA makeup of the skin removed three days ago from under Janine Harbaugh’s fingernails.

  “We have a courier service in John Day?” Sherry Linn asked.

  “Yep. Can’t buy a good pasta dinner or a decent cup of coffee anywhere for hundreds of miles around, but you can rely on High Desert Express to deliver whatever, whenever. Instructions and contact info are in the protocol manual.”

  “Why haven’t I ever seen a courier service around town?”

  “Well, it’s a business run out of a private home, and I don’t think they have any signage on the minivan they use for deliveries. Anyway, you’ll also need to send the lab an email to alert them it’s on the way. And be sure and note ‘Jeremy Lake homicide investigation’ in the subject line.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Thanks, S.L.,” Holly said.

  “Ditto, Sherry Linn.”

  “My pleasure, team,” she mumbled under her breath as Hollis and I moved toward our desks and those voicemails. I took the addition of team to be a tiny dig at Al’s moment of surliness.

  I listened to Harry’s clipped message. “Bloody rag shows the same blood type as the sample you sent a few days back—AB negative.”

  I decided the rag needed to be sent along with the paper cup to the OSP lab and popped back to Sherry Linn’s desk. “I’d like you to call Harry Bratton and let him know that Taylor is on his way with a couple of items to check for prints. Also ask him to send the bloody rag back with Taylor so we can add that to the state lab’s courier package.”

  “Is his number in our contact file?”

  “Yep. I’ll be in with the detective.”

  As I passed by his desk on my way to the alcove, Hollis had just finished up his conversation with the police department in Craig, Colorado. “Anything interesting on Sugar Muldaur?”

  “A couple of things. I don’t think he’s our killer, but the officer I talked to said they had suspected Muldaur convinced his partner to sign over all of his wealth and property to him in his will. His partner died shortly after that.”

  “Levi Hadley mentioned that when he dropped by on Monday. Let’s go meet with Bach now, and you can tell the two of us all about it.”

  We walked to the alcove where Al stood staring at the murder board for the Lake homicide. “Unfortunately, I won’t have the opportunity to question Cecil Burney,” he said, “but I want the two of you to do that, if for no other reason than to cross him off the list of suspects. You might need to talk to the nephew again, too.”

  Since I viewed it as a waste of time to question Cecil, I had to be careful how I broached the topic with him. “What angle do you want us to go with first, the alibi he claims to have for the day Sergeant Lake was killed, or the disappearance of his green tackle box and Buck Guthook knife?”

  “I’d start with the tackle box and knife,” Al said. “He brought that information to you, so that’s likely something he’d be most comfortable talking about.”

  My thought exactly. “Hollis talked to law enforcement in Craig, Colorado. We thought you should hear what he learned.”

  “Not a lot,” Hollis began. “An Officer Tilley confirmed some of what Trooper Hadley had already told Maggie. That Mr. Muldaur convinced his partner to sign over everything to him in his will. The partner passed away not long after.”

  “Yeah, I saw that on your murder board. But an opportunist does not a murderer make,” Al said.

  Hollis continued. “Well, the partner was also his life partner. Before same-sex marriage was legal in Colorado. So unless he killed the man—and Officer Tilley apparently didn’t suspe
ct he had—it sounds to me like it was the partner’s choice to leave everything to Muldaur. But Tilley did say Mr. Muldaur was known for getting himself tied up in all kinds of fortune-making schemes that eventually went bust. The Craig School District got fed up with the impact all those ventures were having on his teaching responsibilities and decided to terminate him.”

  “Hadley told me Muldaur was fired there because he was gay,” I said.

  Hollis shrugged. “I’m just reporting what Officer Tilley told me. For example, he said the man was a bamboozler, a fraudster, and a fake, but Craig police never found evidence that Mr. Muldaur committed any crime.”

  “Why do you think the officer you spoke with remembers him so clearly after all these years?” Bach asked.

  “Sugar Muldaur is strangely memorable,” I said. “His pretentious way of using language.”

  “And, according to Tilley, his size.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t help noticing that.”

  “But, so far, I’m not hearing much that would point to Mr. Muldaur being homicidal,” Al pointed out.

  Hollis nodded in agreement. “Maggie?”

  “You’re probably both right.”

  Al sat in a chair next to the card table we used for breaks and staff meetings. “Now, let’s talk about Mr. Shannon.”

  I reeled off what I suspected. “His rare AB negative blood type. It matches the sample from the tower catwalk and the bloody rag left in the loaner he’d been driving. He could’ve easily taken his ATV up to the headwaters of Murderers Creek, either to drop off or pick up the tackle box. If he was dropping it off, and if we assume it’s the one stolen from Cecil Burney—”

  Bach interrupted me. “Those are two important ‘ifs,’ Maggie.”

  “I’ll give you that for now. But I’m also explaining what I suspect at this point. According to Burney, the tackle box also held his Buck Guthook knife, the same model found at the guard station and possibly the knife that killed Sergeant Lake.”

  “You’re suggesting he murdered Ms. Harbaugh and Sergeant Lake?” Al asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what was his motive?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe something to do with his bankruptcy?”

  “Bankruptcy?”

  “Sorry, I thought I told you. He’s now the manager of his sheep ranch, not the owner. He went bankrupt, an investment company bought it and hired him on as the manager.”

  “How can he afford expensive vehicles?” Al asked.

  “That’s one of the lingering questions.”

  “All right. I think we’re possibly heading somewhere, but I still don’t see what might’ve driven Mr. Shannon to kill Sergeant Lake. Or Ms. Harbaugh, for that matter.”

  “It’s possible that he, or whoever the perpetrator is, believed Sergeant Lake had caught him doing something nefarious,” Hollis added.

  “But where Janine is concerned,” I continued, “Shannon knew she had spotted those Oxy slingers driving around out there, something I’d told him my damn self. Maybe he was worried she’d seen him from the fire tower doing something he didn’t want anyone else to know about.”

  “Like what?” Al asked.

  “Dropping off the tackle box?” Hollis said. “Committing homicide?”

  “I wondered about that too, but I’ve checked a detailed map, and given the topography of the terrain, I believe she was too far away to have seen him or anyone else in either place. Even with her fire finder.”

  The detective sighed and peeked at his watch. “If you’re right, that’s what I’d call sad irony.”

  No shit.

  “I have to be going, I’m afraid. I’ll call you once I’ve resolved the problem in the La Grande case.” He gathered his pack and his other paraphernalia. “Again, I was out of line earlier. But you should know, I trust you completely. You’re one of the best teams I’ve worked with.”

  “We’re lucky to have you as our mentor, Al.” And I did mean that.

  He smiled. “Let me know how the discussion with Mr. Burney goes.”

  We watched him wend his way to the front door.

  “It feels like we’re missing a few links in the chain of events,” Holly whispered.

  “Well, here’s a possibility.” I explained I suspected Bob Cole was Shannon’s bio dad. “It’s striking how much he looks like Bob’s son Robbie. And Dorie says Bob fathered a child about twenty-eight years ago, right before his own stint at a boys’ correctional facility.”

  “That’s not a link, that’s a piece of gossip.”

  “Even so, we’re stopping in at the Ford dealership before we visit Cecil Burney.”

  24

  Afternoon, August 20

  Hollis suggested a call to White Salmon police department might be in order before charging over to the Ford dealership and letting Bob Cole know I suspected Dave Shannon was his son.

  “Maybe Mr. Cole already knows, or he doesn’t care,” Holly added.

  “You might be right, he already knows and/or he doesn’t care.”

  “And here’s a question for you. What difference does it make if Dave Shannon is his biological offspring?”

  “I have no idea what difference it makes, but maybe a conversation with Bob will give us more information on Shannon.”

  “Or it might just send us down a distracting rabbit hole.”

  “Humor me, okay?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Bob Cole was surprised to see us for a second day in a row, and I wouldn’t say he looked particularly pleased about our arrival at his showroom. Couldn’t blame him, really—we were cops, and we probably weren’t there to shop for new vehicles.

  “Afternoon, Bob,” I said. “We’d like to have a brief conversation.”

  “Let’s talk in my office,” he said and limped toward one of the glassed-in rooms where he likely cajoled buyers into tacking on undercoating and extra warranties to their purchase. The space held a round Formica table long past its prime and garnished with colorful brochures and a box of tissues. His corner desk was piled high with paperwork, and on the wall behind it hung a latch hook rug sporting the Ford symbol.

  Bob collected three of the folding chairs propped against the wall and placed them around the table. I closed the door, dousing the volume on Rosanne Cash singing “Seven Year Ache” from the showroom speakers, and we all took a seat.

  “How can I help you?” Bob asked.

  “We wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Dave Shannon.” I struggled to read his expression. Curiosity? Surprise? Indifference?

  “Okay?”

  I studied his face. His eyes were dark brown, like his son Robbie’s and also like Shannon’s. Each of the three had a cleft chin, and they all were tall and lean. In reality, the similarities in and of themselves meant very little.

  Harry Bratton had said the casts of the boot prints were from a men’s size fourteen, but I’d neglected to take a gander at Shannon’s feet. And when I disturbed Robbie’s nap in the park, I’d had no reason to check out his shoe size. However, Bob didn’t appear to have unduly large feet. Which also meant very little.

  I clasped my hands together on the tabletop. “Had you met Mr. Shannon before he picked up his loaner from the dealership?”

  “He didn’t pick it up. I delivered it to him.”

  “Had you met him prior to delivering the loaner?”

  “Yes, once. He came by a few months ago looking for a job, said his sheep ranch wasn’t working out. But we weren’t hiring at the time.”

  “And until you delivered the loaner, you weren’t aware he lived on the outskirts of Mt. Vernon?”

  “Why would I be?”

  “His stolen pickup was a brand-new Ford F-150. Since this is the Ford dealership, I assume he bought the truck here.”

  “My boss or one of the other salespeople sold it to him, I guess. I’d never seen him before he showed up hunting a job. What’s this about, anyway, Maggie?”

  I noticed a small framed pho
tograph on his desk. “Is that a picture of your son Robbie?”

  “Yeah. From years ago. Seventh or eighth grade.”

  “A good-looking boy.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s this about?”

  “Bob, I understand you fathered a child when you were a young man, when you were just a kid, really. About the time you were sent to MacLaren School for Boys.”

  Bob shrugged. “Is that gossip still making the circuit?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Never saw the baby. Or learned if it was a boy or a girl.”

  “Was the mother from around here?”

  “No. Came to stay with her grandmother for the summer.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Can’t you tell me why you’re asking me about all this?”

  “How long ago?”

  He appeared to be rolling the question over in his mind. Finally, he picked up a brochure touting some model of minivan called a Transit Connect, pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and made a quick calculation. “About twenty-nine years ago.”

  “So a child you fathered but never met would be around that old.”

  “Well, yeah, minus the pregnancy. And so what?”

  “Where was the mother from?”

  “Somewhere in Washington, but I don’t remember the name of the place.”

  “White Salmon?”

  Cole thought for a moment. “I think that’s it, but how’d you know?”

  “Was the mother’s last name Shannon?”

  “Christ,” he pushed himself slightly away from the table. “That’s her first name. Davidson’s her last name, or at least it was. The prettiest, sweetest girl I ever met.”

  I sneaked a glance at Hollis. He nodded slightly, tacit encouragement to keep going.

  “Bob, do you realize what this likely means?”

  “I know you think I’m stupid, Maggie, but I ain’t. You’re telling me Dave Shannon might be my son. But why are the State Police coming to tell me this news?”

  “We’re seeking confirmation he’s your son.”

  “You’d have to ask his mother that question if you really want confirmation. But I can tell you, it’s hard for me to believe Shannon Davidson would raise such a rude son of a bitch. He trashed that loaner, and my boss is probably going to sue him.”