Wash Her Guilt Away (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “This is bad,” he said. “Really bad. We now have a contaminated crime scene, in a case where the detectives could use a good one. In fact, they’ll need every break they can get. The two windows are locked from the inside. The chain lock was secured from the inside; you can see where Don broke it off. When we left our cabin this morning, there were no footprints going in and out of here. So you tell me: How did someone get into a totally locked cabin, murder her, and get away without leaving a mark in the snow and the cabin locked from the inside?”

  Gordon had no answer, so Peter continued:

  “I hope they send a good detective out on this case.”

  2

  HARRY ROGERS liked to think that he was a good detective — emphasis on was, in the past tense. Right now, he was a short-timer who felt no need to make an impression on anyone. After 30 years in law enforcement, everybody knew what he had done and could do, and he was looking forward to two milestones coming up in the next three months. On Friday June 30 he would be retiring from the Lava County Sheriff’s Office, and on August 2 he would be celebrating, if that was the word, his 54th birthday, most likely alone. Six weeks ago his wife told him she wanted a divorce because she’d had enough of being ignored, and she didn’t think the marriage could handle the strain of making it up after he retired.

  Confused and grappling with the impending changes in his life, he was assuming the mode he adopted for two years in the Army: Keep your nose down, do what you’re told, don’t volunteer for anything, and don’t be a hero. Every morning since the beginning of April, he had begun his work day by looking at the wall calendar in his cramped but tidy office and counting the days until retirement. Looking at today as day one, he had 37 days to go, assuming nothing came up that would require him to work over Memorial Day weekend.

  Lava County was not a high-crime area. It was geographically large, sprawling from the Sacramento Valley to the mountains to the east, but its population was relatively small. Red Gulch, the county seat, had a population of 60,000 people, and another 60,000 or so were scattered around small towns and the countryside elsewhere. Murder was a once-a-year occurrence, if that, and most of the work done by the small detective bureau was in the realm of property crimes and drug production. Rogers was killing his final days on the force trying to find a pattern to outbreaks of burglaries in two of the small mountain towns and came to work that Wednesday expecting to be reviewing reports, making phone calls, and perhaps taking a drive to one of the towns to see the crime scenes for himself. Nothing strenuous, nothing urgent, and that was the way he wanted it. He was hoping to fade away in a long succession of eight-hour days.

  Unfortunately for him, Eden Mills was just inside the eastern boundary of Lava County. At 8:40 a.m., he had reviewed the logs from the preceding day and had set out a dozen burglary reports on his desk for further review. He was thinking about how to approach the reports when Linda Barnes, the secretary, appeared at his cubicle.

  “LaDow wants to see you now,” she said.

  John LaDow was the only captain in the sheriff’s department. He was second-in-command to the sheriff and responsible for overseeing the patrol, detention and detective divisions. Rogers tolerated, rather than liked him, and knew better than to keep him waiting too long. He sauntered over to LaDow’s office, stopping to fill a paper cup with water along the way.

  “You still working on those burglaries?” LaDow said, as Rogers walked in.

  Pausing to consider the meaning of “still,” Rogers nodded his head, and added, “Just started yesterday.”

  “They’ll have to wait. We have a homicide.”

  Rogers felt his stomach tighten. LaDow continued:

  “The call just came in a few minutes ago. A young woman on vacation with her husband was strangled near Eden Mills. Patrol’s on the way over, and I’m getting the forensics team together to go out.” In a sheriff’s department of 75 men and two women, the Lava County forensics team consisted of a jailer and a patrol deputy who had each taken a couple of classes and were minimally trained. “It happened at a place called Harry’s Riverside Lodge.”

  “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me that joint is still there?”

  “Brings back memories, does it?”

  “It used to be the place to go in East County 30 years ago. I just assumed it had gone under by now.”

  “Well, the vic was a customer, so I guess not.”

  “Who’s going with me? Perkins?”

  LaDow shook his head. “You’re forgetting Sutton’s on vacation, so I need Perkins here. “You’ll have to take this one yourself.”

  “Isn’t that kind of irregular?”

  “Come on, detective. You know what the budgets have been like the past few years. We’ll be lucky to afford the mileage to get you out there.”

  “If that’s the way it is. But I don’t like it.”

  “All right. Let’s play ‘Complete the Sentence.’ When a married woman is murdered …”

  “It’s usually the husband.”

  “Now you’re talking. Chances are it’s an open and shut case, and you’ll have a confession out of him in 48 hours. Plus the deputy working out there day shift doesn’t have much to do. Pull him in as your assistant, and maybe he’ll learn a few things from the master. With any luck at all, you’ll be home for the weekend, and our ace forensics team won’t even have to testify.”

  “Anything else? If not, I’ll pick up a change of clothes and hotfoot it over there.”

  “Nothing else. You know as much as I know. Get out there and work your magic. You can do it.”

  Rogers went back to his cubicle feeling depressed. Five years ago, he would have leaped at the case, but now all he wanted was 37 days of regular routine. Apparently that was too much to ask.

  “Magic!” he snorted under his breath. “Magic!”

  3

  CYNTHIA HENLEY was dreading the prospect of another routine day. She had slept in a bit, knowing that she would be up late that night covering a water board meeting for the Lava County Beacon-Journal. When she woke up that morning, she began to think, as she had been wont to do lately, about how it had all gone wrong. She’d gone to Cal, been managing editor of the Daily Californian, and had acquired a master’s degree in journalism. In a sluggish job market after graduation, the best offer she got was to be the East County reporter for the Beacon-Journal. That meant living in Muirfield, a town of two thousand about 15 miles northwest of Eden Mills, and spending her days writing formulaic paragraphs about minor crimes and her nights covering school boards, water boards and fire boards — meetings where it was sometimes hard to tell who was more ignorant: the board members themselves or the people in the audience who were criticizing them.

  “Still,” she said, dragging herself out of bed, “it could be worse. At least I’m working for a daily newspaper. A lot of people in my class are stuck on weeklies.”

  In the bathroom, she took a good look at herself in the mirror. She was 28 years old, not trim, not fat, with pleasant features, a mop of curly chestnut-colored hair, and a winning smile when she bothered to flash it, usually when she wanted information from a source. Once dressed, she would put on a pair of designer glasses, her one luxury purchase in the past two years. She had been willing to spend the money because she felt the glasses both complemented her appearance and made her seem more trustworthy when she did interviews.

  Before getting into the shower, she flipped on the police scanner on the kitchen counter. Her apartment, in a 12-unit complex at the edge of town, was small enough that she could hear the scanner even with the water running. She was rinsing the shampoo out of her hair when the chatter picked up. There was a report of a dead body near Eden Mills, then a second report that death had been confirmed by a doctor on the scene, then two minutes later an announcement that the deceased had been strangled and the case should be treated as a possible homicide.

  Hair rinsed, she jumped out of the shower and toweled herself off briskly. Looking outside, she c
ould see that there was still snow on the ground; it had begun falling just as she was leaving a recreation district meeting the night before. But the road to Eden Mills should be open and she would drive carefully. After all, no other reporter would get there before her. As she dressed quickly, putting on a pair of brown slacks, a rust-colored blouse and a patterned sweater in various earth tones, she wondered briefly who the murder victim might be and felt a slight twinge of conscience about not feeling worse than she did that a fellow human being had left the world violently and prematurely. But the twinge passed. If what she’d heard on the scanner panned out, it would be her first big story in a year and a half with the paper.

  4

  ELDON LILLY had Zones 3 and 4 all to himself. That meant that on this particular morning, he was the only sheriff’s deputy covering the easternmost part of Lava County, more than 200 square miles. On a day like today, he thought, that was probably one more deputy than the area needed.

  All through the winter he had been working swing and graveyard shifts. Even in a sparsely populated, low-crime rural environment, there was some action at night — drunk driving arrests, crashes involving the drivers who hadn’t been arrested, barroom brawls and domestic disputes. The common denominator was alcohol, and his brief experience on the job confirmed in his mind that he had made the right call in being a Christian teetotaler. As he drove by a church with a large parking lot, fronting on the state highway and surrounded by forest, he reflected that the isolation and harsh weather in the mountains tended to make people gravitate toward either alcohol or religion, and sometimes both.

  Lilly was 24 years old, five-eleven, and of stocky but muscular build. His thick, wiry red hair was cut to a length of a half-inch or less, and his glasses with heavy black frames made him look more like a young high school chemistry teacher than an officer of the law.

  He knew the area he was patrolling well, and realized that on a cold, overcast weekday like today, his primary job would be to show the flag — to drive around the vast territory on the busiest roads, such as they were, and remind people that the law was present. When he checked in at the substation, there was nothing to follow up on from the previous night, and he figured the most exciting thing that could happen this day was an auto accident. He hoped it didn’t. He had no great appetite for carnage, and would much rather be helping schoolchildren cross the street at the end of the day.

  When the dispatcher radioed with the news from Harry’s, Lilly was momentarily taken aback. Still, he went through the checklist as he learned it in training and confirmed that he was on his way over. He knew the area by heart, so he not only knew exactly where Harry’s was (20 miles away, at this point) but also what county road would offer the best shortcut to it. He turned on his flashing lights, made a U-turn on the deserted highway, and hit the accelerator.

  A minute later, it began to rain.

  5

  WHEN GORDON AND PETER returned from the cabin, the mood at Harry’s, already tense, grew more somber. The previous night’s catfight had already strained relations between the guests, leaving them wondering what to say this morning. Now, with one of their party dead, shock had set in, and there was no social road map for how to behave. A sullen silence therefore prevailed.

  They congregated in the Fireside Lounge and sat in separate clusters, looking from time to time into the fire, which Don brought to a roaring blaze by adding three large, dry logs. Everyone was seated but Peter, who paced nervously and fidgeted, walking to the dining room and back several times. Gordon knew that his friend’s experience in emergency rooms probably gave him the best understanding of anyone present as to what the sheriff’s office might do or need, and what Peter had said as they were leaving the cabin indicated a high level of concern.

  Don and Sharon tried to put everyone at ease as much as possible, but it was an impossible task. Their own strain came through clearly; the murder aside, the publicity the case would bring could hardly be helpful as they tried to get Harry’s back to its former luster. Alan was disappointed at not being able to head out fishing, but understood that this was more important. Drew was uncommonly low key and unsocial, as though something was weighing heavily on his mind. Rachel made an effort to facilitate a conversation, but no one was responding and she quickly gave up. Stuart sat holding her hand, looking wordlessly into the fire. Johnny shook his head and said, “Bad business,” when Gordon and Peter came back, and was now on his third cup of coffee. Charles sat in the corner, hands in his face, emitting a choking sob from time to time. No one knew what to say to him.

  “Holy hell!” Peter said from the dining room, as he looked out the window. “I can’t believe this. Everything’s going wrong.”

  Gordon moved over and saw that Peter was looking at the rain that had begun falling outside. Just as he reached his friend, Peter walked past him as if he wasn’t there and opened the front door. Gordon joined him, and Peter motioned outside. They closed the door and stood under the wooden overhang.

  “Look at this,” Peter said, tapping the thermometer by the door with his hand. “Fifty two degrees. It was 37 when we came in for breakfast. Between the warming and the rain, the snow will be gone in an hour or two, and so will any evidence it might have offered. Whoever killed Wendy should buy a lottery ticket, because it’s definitely his lucky day.”

  “How do you know it was a he?”

  “Point taken. With that bungee cord, any reasonably strong woman could have done it. I feel sorry for the poor bastard in the sheriff’s office who draws this case.”

  They stood watching the rain, which seemed to be coming down harder. Already there were a few spots on the lawn where the snow had melted, leaving small circles of grass visible amid the whiteness. Gordon could almost see the circles growing in diameter as the rain kept falling. Ten minutes later, they heard a car engine and saw a Lava County sheriff’s patrol car — white with green striping and the county seal on the driver’s door — fishtail down the drive into Harry’s and come to a stop. The lone occupant hopped out, pulled on a waterproof jacket and headed for the front door.

  “Deputy Lilly of the Lava County Sheriff’s Department. I’m going to have to ask you to …” he stopped in midsentence.

  “Hello, Eldon,” said Gordon. “I’m glad to see you took that law enforcement class.”

  “Mr. Gordon. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Are you involved in this?”

  “Only as a witness after the fact. This is my friend, Dr. Peter Delaney. He confirmed that the victim was dead.”

  Lilly nodded. “Where is she?”

  “Last cabin by the river,” Peter said. “The door’s unlocked.”

  “I’ll have to ask you to get inside, please. I need to make sure nobody leaves until the detectives arrive. How many people have been to that cabin?”

  “The owner, Don Potter, was out there first and found her,” Peter said. “I went out to see if there was anything medicine could do, but she was beyond that. Gordon was with me as a witness.”

  “You forgot Charles,” Gordon said. “Her husband went out there first and knocked on the door to try to rouse her but he couldn’t get in. Then the owner went out afterward.”

  “Am I missing something?” said Lilly. “How come her husband wasn’t with her to begin with?”

  Gordon and Peter exchanged glances.

  “It’s a long story,” Peter said.

  “Might as well have had the whole town out there,” Lilly said. “I’ll stabilize the people inside and at least make sure nobody else gets near the scene.”

  He followed them inside and approached Don. After making sure that all guests and staff were in the building and accounted for, he told everyone to stay put and not to discuss the case with each other, not that he expected the second direction to be obeyed. Gordon and Peter followed him to the door to help orient him. As he opened it, they could see the figure of a woman in brown slacks and a sweater walking across the diminishing snow toward the cabins.

&
nbsp; “Hey! You!” Lilly shouted at the top of his lungs, and set off after her at a run.

  Intercepted halfway to the murder cabin, Cynthia Henley was ordered back to her car, where she sat, fuming. Her editors had made it clear to her that she was to cooperate with the police and follow orders from them at a crime scene, but she chafed at being put out of the way. There was no telling when other reporters might arrive, and her edge in getting to Harry’s first was beginning to erode. From the parking area, she could see Lilly, in a yellow rain slicker and rubber boots, protecting the cabin area. She found herself wishing it would rain even harder to soak him for his efforts, and for several minutes it did.

  6

  A LESS CONVIVIAL PLACE than Harry’s that morning would have been hard to imagine. With Van Holland present, no one felt like talking about what had happened, but it colored everyone’s thinking to such an extent that no one could talk about anything else. Alan and Drew asked an occasional question about what might happen next, but no one seemed to have any answers. At one point, Don disappeared for half an hour, and at the end of that time April came into the lounge with a pot of fresh coffee, filling cups for those who wanted it. Gordon and Peter wanted it.

  “Good to see you again,” Peter said.

  April looked around, and, seeing that the others were not paying attention or were carrying on quiet conversations between themselves, replied:

  “I caught a break. Don read me the riot act but said I could stay on under probation and that he’d deduct ten percent of my pay to cover the damages. That’s tough, but I guess it’s fair.”

  “He must have realized you were provoked,” Gordon said.

  “I still shouldn’t have lost my temper. I don’t know what it was, but she really pushed my buttons like nobody else.”