White Cloud Retreat

by Dianne Harman

  “My husband and I know it’s wrong. Jim had to go out there one time to fix some problem they were having with their electrical power. He said it was an unholy sight, people sitting in a room with incense burning, and a statue of Buddha placed at the front of the room. He told me it sounded like they were chanting something, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Jim said it sounded like gibberish in some kind of a strange language. He told me he wished God would take Scott Monroe and if he didn’t, someone else should. Looks like Jim’s wish came true.”

  She put her head down, picked up her fork in her plump little hand, and began shoving mashed potatoes and gravy into her mouth. She didn’t see two of the other women at the table raise their eyebrows and exchange knowing glances.

  “You can’t be serious, Ellie. Are you really saying you’re glad someone was murdered?” one of the other women asked.

  “I sure am. We Christians should make sure that weird religions aren’t allowed in our city or anywhere else around these parts. There’s only one true religion, Christianity, and anyone who believes anything else shouldn’t be allowed to come into our community. I’m glad he was murdered. I’d like to shake the hand of the man or woman who did it and thank them.”

  Kelly couldn’t help herself. “Scott Monroe was a good friend of mine and one of the finest men I’ve ever known. I know of many people he counseled and helped. No, it’s not a Christian center, but that doesn’t mean anything. After all, most of the world isn’t Christian. He provided an alternate place for people to go who wanted to pursue their own spirituality. I think our community is going to genuinely miss him.”

  “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, dearie, but mark my words, we true Christians are glad he’s gone. Take my husband, Jim, for instance. He’s one of the purest men of God I know and he told me after he’d gone out to that Center, he’d like to see Scott Monroe dead sooner rather than later.”

  “I guess each of us is entitled to our opinion, but let me change the subject. I’ve got ricotta cake or peanut butter cookies for dessert. May I interest anyone in either of them?”

  Mae, who acted as the treasurer of the group, said, “Kelly, why don’t you bring us a large plate of the cookies and a piece of cake for each of us?”

  That woman and her husband have got to be certifiable nut cases. I can’t believe anyone who calls themself a Christian would be happy that someone was murdered. It’s unbelievable. I’d hate to think she or her husband was responsible for Scott’s death, but differences in religion over time have accounted for an awful lot of wars in the world. Wow. This is something else I better tell Mike.

  CHAPTER 16

  Darn. I haven’t been to the bank in two days, Kelly thought. They don’t close until 5:00 today, so I still have time to make a deposit. I remember when that drifter came in here a couple of years ago and robbed me. Don’t want that to happen again. Fortunately he didn’t get much, but with all the customers we’ve had in here the last two days, if it happened now it would cause some real financial damage to me.

  She filled out a deposit slip and put it in a cloth bank deposit bag. Five minutes later she opened the door of the First Federal Bank and walked over to the teller, her friend Patti. “Hi, Patti. How was your vacation?” Every time she saw Patti she wanted to tell her that wearing her hair in the Farrah Fawcett long blond curled locks look had gone out of style over twenty years ago. Patti looked like she was in a time warp and not a very attractive time warp. The style may have been popular at one time, but now it looked ridiculous on her.

  “Great. Over the kids’ school break, I took them to San Francisco, and we toured the town. I’d forgotten how many things there are to do in that city and I think we did them all – Chinatown, cable car rides, the street performers, seafood on the pier. It was really fun, but when I came back I was shocked to hear that Scott Monroe had been murdered. He was one of my favorite people. I took a lot of classes from him, including a meditation class for stress relief. I’ll probably think of him every time I sit down to meditate.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. I can’t figure out why anyone would kill him. Scott was a genuinely fine man.”

  “He was in here several times in the last couple of weeks. One time he was making a deposit and a beautiful young redhead woman ran into the bank and rushed over to him. I seem to remember her from some of the classes I took out at the White Cloud Retreat Center. Anyway, he shushed her and told her he’d talk to her later. I remember him saying something like, ‘This has got to stop. Please don’t follow me or take any more pictures. You can come to my classes, but that’s it.’ I thought that was kind of strange. I almost had the feeling she’d been waiting for him, you know, kind of like she might be a stalker. I’ve seen a couple of movies lately about women who stalk men and for some reason, that’s the first thought that came to my mind. Something else that occurred to me when I heard about Scott’s death was wondering if this woman would find some other man to stalk. I know that sounds farfetched, but she was really intense. Obviously, she made quite an impression on me.”

  “I think I know the woman you’re talking about,” Kelly said. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, she was in the coffee shop today and she was really broken up about Scott’s death. Did Scott come in here a lot to do his banking? I would have thought someone at the Center would take care of the business end of things so Scott would have more time to teach and pursue his spiritual interests. I know he wasn’t particularly interested in the day-to-day operations of the business.”

  “It struck me as kind of funny, too. Usually all the banking is done by the business operations director of the Center, John Williams. He’s been coming here a couple of times a week ever since the Center opened and still does. No, when Scott was here recently it seemed like it was different. He was concerned about some checks that had been drawn on the Center’s bank account by his brother, Luke. When Luke started working at the Center, Scott brought him in one day and put him on the account. It was almost as if Scott thought Luke was paying for things that Scott didn’t know anything about. I could be wrong, but that was certainly my impression.”

  “Interesting. Well, I suppose since Scott didn’t like being involved in the business operations of the Center, he probably didn’t know everything that was being paid for out of the Center’s bank account. Well, I’ve got a few more errands to do before I can call it a day. Glad your vacation was such a success. See you later, Patti.”

  Lady jumped in the back seat as soon as she saw Kelly walking up to the minivan. Kelly stopped at the market and then the bakery, both of which were far busier than usual. Because she was running late, she knew Mike would begin to worry about her. She took her phone out of her purse after she’d parked in front of Deidre’s apartment building and called him.

  “Mike, I know I’m running a little late, but I have one more stop to make and then I’ll be home. I should be there within thirty minutes or so. Loves,” she said in a voicemail message she left on his phone, thinking that he must be running late as well.

  When she finished leaving the message, she took the slip of paper with Deidre’s address and apartment number on it as well as her wallet from her purse and walked up the steps of the old brick building across from city hall that had recently been converted into an apartment building. There were three floors in it and Deidre lived on the top floor in unit 305.

  Kelly walked down the long hall to her apartment. Even though the door was slightly ajar, she didn’t feel comfortable walking in. She knocked on the door. When Deidre didn’t answer the knock after a minute or so, she pressed the buzzer located on the wall next to the door and said, “Deidre” in a loud clear voice. A few minutes later when Deidre still hadn’t come to the door, Kelly stepped into the living room and stood there in total shock. She looked around in disbelief. Every inch of wall space in the small apartment was covered with pictures of Scott and some were even full life-size blow-ups of him. Strangely, there were als
o pictures of feet, presumably Deidre’s, but some looked like men’s feet. She remembered what Roxie had told her about Deidre photographing her feet.

  This has to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. I think Patti was right. Deidre must have been stalking Scott, but why? And who takes photos of feet and hangs them up on the wall?

  She smelled incense and noticed what appeared to be a small improvised altar set up in the corner of the room.

  How could I have missed that? I must have been so preoccupied with the photographs I never even saw the altar. Good grief. Deidre must have just stepped out for a moment, because the incense is burning and so are the candles. There must be twenty-five photos of Scott on that altar along with fruit, flowers, and candles. From what I’ve read about Buddhism, I guess this is an altar to honor his death. How totally and completely strange all of this is.

  She took her phone out of her purse and snapped several pictures, knowing Mike would never believe what she had seen in Deidre’s apartment unless she showed him some photos. She put the phone back in her purse and rummaged around until she found a business card. She wrote a note to Deidre telling her she’d stopped by to return the wallet that Deidre had left at the coffee shop. As she turned to leave, she looked around the room one more time, still not believing what she was seeing.

  Deidre has got to have some kind of a major psychological problem. This is definitely not normal. Scott was old enough to be her father and this obsession with him doesn’t look like it’s a very healthy obsession. And why pictures of feet? Maybe I can find something out about her on the Internet, although I doubt it would explain her fascination with feet. I better get out of here before she comes back. I really don’t want to be in this room alone with her.

  She returned to her minivan and locked the doors as soon as she got in. “Lady, time to go home. I need to take a long hot shower. I want to get rid of the smell of incense and the memory of that room. It creeps me out to even think about it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Sorry I’m late, Mike. Hope you didn’t worry about me. I needed to run some errands and they took longer than I thought.” She walked over to where he was sitting in his favorite chair looking out at the ocean and enjoying the last rays of the sun reflecting off of the calm water. “I need to take a shower and I guarantee you’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  When she returned, she sat across from him, and took her phone out of her purse. First, she told him about her conversation with Diedre and then she showed him the pictures she’d taken in Diedre’s apartment. Next, she told him about the Bible study group and the conversation she’d overheard when they were at the coffee shop having their weekly lunch. She ended by telling him about her conversation with Patti. “Well, so what do you think?”

  “What I think is that the case is starting to have some suspects. Certainly Deidre seems like one and so does Ellie’s husband, Jim. Sounds like both Diedre and Jim probably had a motive to kill Scott. Not anything a normal person would think of as a motive, but from what you’re telling me, neither of those two people seems to be real normal. Plus, if Luke was embezzling funds from the Center, he would have had a motive to kill his brother, too. After all, we know Scott was down at the bank asking questions about the Center’s account. Maybe Luke found out about it and started feeling enough heat that it prompted him to take some dramatic action.”

  “So how was your day? Find out anything new and interesting?” she asked.

  He told her about his conversation with Bob Waters from the Department of Agriculture and the problems the state had experienced with the Pellino brothers.

  “Well, from what you’re telling me it sounds like Scott might have had more of a reason for killing them then the other way around. What did he ever do to them to merit death?”

  “Evidently they hated him for producing such a top notch pinot noir. Remember Jesse from down at The Crush told you they’d tried to bribe him to sell their pinot noir in his shop and not Scott’s, but he refused, saying that Scott’s was much better. From what Jesse said, coupled with what Bob told me in my telephone conversation with him today, it only confirms my initial feeling when I met them – that these are not nice people. Maybe they figured if they killed Scott whoever took over the Center wouldn’t be as good a vintner as Scott. That’s certainly a motive. I mean, if they can shoot and kill that many deer, they probably would have guns with silencers that could kill a man. I thought it was odd when I interviewed everyone at the Center after Scott’s murder, and even though a number of them were in the forest when he was killed, not one of them heard a gunshot, not even you. So I’m thinking that whoever did it must have used a gun with a silencer attached to the barrel.”

  “Mike, enough about the case. You look really tired. Are you feeling okay?”

  “This is going to sound really odd, but like I mentioned before, I’ve got this feeling I’m being watched. It’s the strangest thing. I’ll be walking somewhere and I feel like a set of eyes are on me wherever I go. Maybe I’m getting paranoid in my old age, but I’ve been in this business long enough to sense when something isn’t right. Plus, I’ve been getting a lot of hang-up calls from a blocked number. It’s only been for the last few days. I don’t know what’s going on. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that Rich called the phone company to get a copy of the mysterious phone calls that were made to Scott. Remember, Luke mentioned to you that someone had been calling Scott and hanging up. Well, they were from a blocked number and the phone company wouldn’t release the information without a search warrant. I’ve been reluctant to ask the court for one until I had some stronger facts on which to base the issuance of a warrant. Right now I don’t think I have enough for a warrant to be issued by the court.”

  “You’ve been in the law enforcement business for a long time and I know you’ve created some enemies along the way. Can you think of anyone who was scheduled to get out of prison and might be looking for you?”

  “No, no one comes to mind. Yes, I’ve been responsible for a lot of people going to prison, but I’ve never had a feeling like this. As I said, maybe it’s time for me to retire. I have enough years of service that I could if I wanted to. If I did retire, I was thinking maybe I could help you out at the coffee shop.”

  “You know you’re always welcome. I’m glad you’re taking Rebel to work with you. Between your gun and Rebel, I think you’ll be fine, but I would ask that you keep me up to date. I’m really concerned.”

  “I’ve been debating about whether I should tell you this, but I finally decided I should. I just didn’t want to alarm you. With the wedding coming up and Scott’s murder, I think your plate is full. I didn’t want to add to your problems.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I went over to The Crush to see Jesse and find out if he knew anything else besides what he had told you. We talked for awhile and he told me Scott mentioned to him he was having a problem with brown leaf spot on his vines and he was really concerned. He told Jesse he was going to call Bob Waters over at the Oregon Department of Agriculture and have him come out and look at some of his damaged vines. That was all Jesse knew. Here’s what I’m getting at. When I left The Crush and walked out to my car, I noticed that something had been written on my windshield, probably with a black marking pen. The words said, ‘You’re next.’ I have no idea what someone meant by that. I consider it a threat, but from whom and why, I have no idea. If someone has been watching me, which I’ve been suspecting, they would know that I was in The Crush and they had to have written the words on the windshield while I was in there. I’m sure it wasn’t a random thing. It would take a real idiot to mistake a car with the words County Sheriff written on it for someone else’s car.”

  “This is a conversation I wish we never had to have,” Kelly said. “That really scares me. I’ve always known your job was dangerous and that at times you’d be in danger, but having someone spying on you
and writing threatening notes…” Her voice trailed off as tears welled in her eyes.

  “Kelly, come here. We’ll be fine.” He held her in his arms and stroked her hair. “Trust me. I didn’t make it this long in this business by taking chances and with our wedding coming up in a couple of weeks, I’m definitely not going to do anything stupid. Okay?” He put his hand under her chin and tipped her face up to his, kissing her. “Actually, I think dinner can wait awhile. If anyone is watching me, I’d like to give them something special to look at.” He reached down, picked her up, and carried her down the hall to the bedroom. Rebel and Lady stayed where they were, their doggie radar on full alert to give their masters a little time and make sure they weren’t interrupted.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Kelly, you’ve got a phone call.”

  “Thanks, Roxie, any idea who it is?”

  “Nope. He didn’t say and I didn’t recognize the voice.”

  “This is Kelly. Can I help you?”

  “This is Luke Monroe. When you were out here the other day you mentioned that you had a big shoulder. I’m not going to cry on it, but I would like to talk to you about one of the men who works at the Center and is in the residential training program. His name is Blaine Wright and I think he’s been acting rather strangely. I’d like to know what you think about him. It may be nothing and I really didn’t want to bother Sheriff Mike about it. After I talk to you, I’d like to know if you think I should get in touch with him.”

  “Sure Luke, I’d be happy to talk to you. Have I previously met this person? I’ve taken a few classes and workshops at the Center over the years.”

  “I think you may have met him when you came out here the other day. He was the one who brought you back to my office that day. By the way, I also called to thank you for the casserole. It was delicious.”