Mystic Falls

by Vickie McKeehan

  She laid her hand on his. “Any time. You mentioned Zeb, does he have any ideas?”

  “We’re still kicking scenarios around, but so far, Zeb has nothing solid.” He rubbed his forehead. “The thing is I’m sure Ballard is our guy. But…”

  “There’s no evidence to back it up.”

  “Just because he was the last one to see both women, it isn’t enough to arrest him. The guy seems rather harmless on paper. When it comes to his business, he has clean loans, clean debt, a healthy bottom line. But his personal life is a mess. He has three divorces. All due to his philandering. He can’t seem to stop sleeping with other people’s wives or girlfriends.”

  “Now see, maybe that’s a motive right there. Did you find anything in Collette’s car to link him?”

  “Not a thing. I asked Luke if Collette could’ve had a reason to be at the clinic that night on the Rez and he told me she wasn’t even a patient there. Another dead end.”

  “Hmm. Just a convenient place to ditch the car.”

  “Listen to you. You’re beginning to sound more and more like a cop.”

  “Well, I did binge-watch CSI the last two nights.”

  Lando chuckled. “Can you believe we’ve known each other for most of our lives? Who knew a dozen years down the road we’d be sitting here over fish and chips talking about murder? My mom wasn’t at the restaurant this late, was she? She’s been working too hard lately.”

  “Lydia wasn’t there. Leia waited on me. Does your sister seem preoccupied lately or is it just me?”

  “You noticed it, too?”

  “I did. I may not have been around much in years, but I can read body language. I’m going over to her house tomorrow night for dinner. Maybe I’ll be able to pry out the reason.”

  “If you’re successful, you have to share what you learn.”

  “No way. I don’t break a confidence. Leia used to be my best friend. We kept each other’s secrets.”

  “I thought I was your best friend.”

  “My guy best friend who morphed into my hubby. Close as we were back then, if Leia swore me to secrecy, I didn’t always share it with you. That would’ve been wrong, Lando. I have my faults but I’m loyal.”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “Hey, I left because of my mother, not because I cared for anyone else. You know it’s true. It’s hard to believe we started dating when we were so young, isn’t it? Fourteen was…insane.”

  “If by dating you mean when your Gram finally let me hold your hand, then yeah.”

  Gemma bumped his shoulder. “You held my hand plenty of times in other places, like when we snuck out to the movies.”

  “Yeah, but Gram didn’t know about it. She even told me once that she had spies everywhere. I believed her.”

  Gemma chortled with laughter. “I was so disappointed that you didn’t show up for her funeral.”

  “I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome. To be on the safe side and not cause a scene, I stayed away.”

  “Do you really hate me that much you wouldn’t show up to say goodbye to her, a woman you knew your entire life?”

  “I said my goodbyes to Marissa in a more private setting when she was at the funeral home. I didn’t need a choir singing hymns or a bunch of speech-making to say what I wanted to say.”

  “That’s so like you. Before I forget there’s something I need to tell you. I stopped by to see Tuttle this afternoon.”

  By the look on Lando’s face, their truce was about to shatter into pieces. “You did what? Why?”

  She held up a hand. “Just listen for a minute without biting my head off. It was Tuttle’s call that it was an accident. I don’t blame you for it. I know that now. I told him I thought otherwise. I went in there to explain that I thought the crime scene photos showed there was a struggle.”

  “You never said anything about a struggle in my office. How so?”

  “Gram was very picky about her gardening tools. She kept them hanging in a neat row on the wall next to her gardening bench with all her other supplies in one place. Those pictures look like there was a fight that went haywire just inside the garage. And during said struggle the rake and hoe and shovel were knocked down off the wall. Those tools ended up scattered next to her body. That tells me Gram fought with whoever attacked her and during the fight the tools came crashing down around her.”

  “What did Tuttle say he’d do about the COD?”

  “Tuttle was unmoved and therefore wasn’t persuaded to change her cause of death from accident to undetermined, certainly not to homicide. But I told him I didn’t intend to give up.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill Marissa?”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “If you don’t like me talking about psychic stuff you won’t like my answer.”

  “Gemma.”

  “Ballard was convinced that Gram was getting close to something important regarding Collette’s disappearance. I think the killer got wind of it and was waiting around outside in the bushes to attack Gram when she came home from work that day. The garage door went up and they ran inside. When she exited the car, they hit her on the head, knocking her backward against the wall. That’s when she fought back. I know you don’t buy that explanation, but you did ask. That’s what I believe. And until someone explains to me how my seventy-year-old grandmother just happened to get out of her car and trip over a rake that was supposed to be hanging on its peg on the wall, I’m not changing my mind.”

  Lando leaned back in his chair. His jaw tightened with a comeback, but nothing came out. Instead he remained quiet for several long minutes. He thought back to Marissa’s habits. He himself had been on the receiving end of her persnickety ways. “That’s actually a very convincing argument for…not accidental.”

  Her eyes widened. “You believe me?”

  “Crazy as it sounds, I do. Those tools were the giveaway, mainly because I did a few chores for her over the years. Marissa liked things neat and tidy and got on to me a time or two because I left her tools in the wrong place. Made me clean the dirt off every tool I’d used before she let me put them back. I need to figure out what to do about my change of heart. I could contact Tuttle.”

  “Does that mean you’ll actually help me get him to change the COD?”

  He cracked a grin. “I must need my head examined. But yeah. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Now we just have to find out who could’ve done something like that to an old woman. Any ideas?”

  “Not yet. Give me longer than five minutes to digest the fact that Marissa was murdered.”

  “Sure. But you gotta get up to speed faster,” she joked before turning serious. “It’s strange, but I never saw you as a cop.”

  “Didn’t you? It’s what I’d wanted to be since I was a kid, ever since Ben Markham died. Remember him, our favorite patrol officer with his uniform always pressed and always had his gun strapped to his side?”

  Gemma’s face looked mortified. “Ben Markham died on the job when that nutty tourist pulled out a cannon and shot him for no good reason. You wanted Ben’s job? Maybe you just wanted to wear the uniform.” She looked him up and down. “And now you don’t even bother with wearing one. You wanted to be a cop because Ben died stopping a car for a traffic violation? I’m glad I didn’t know that.”

  “Crazy, huh?”

  “Considering you never mentioned it…yeah. How is it we didn’t talk about stuff like that?”

  “I couldn’t see you as a lawyer either, but there you go.”

  “That was a mistake, a horrible one at that.”

  Lando’s cell phone went off and she watched his eyes flicker with…something before he answered the call. “Bonner here. Okay. I’ll be there in twenty.” He stood up and without thinking gave her a peck on the cheek. “Oops. Sorry. Old habit resurfaced there for a minute. I guess I got too comfortable. Anyway, I gotta go. Some tourists are making a fuss down at Babe’s after imbibing too much booze. Payce and Dale need help.”

&nb
sp; She grabbed his hand before he could turn to go. “Be careful out there, Bonner. You’d be missed if anything happened to you like it did to Markham.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not Ben.”

  “I know exactly who you are. And I’d miss you. Take care of yourself out there.”

  He traced his finger along her cheekbone. “I intend to. Same goes for you. There’s a killer out there. Remember that in the middle of the night when you’re tempted not to lock your door.”

  “I’m from the big city, remember? I’d bolt that sucker closed if I could.”

  “Just stay safe.”

  After he left, Gemma cleaned up the mess on the table and sat back down to finish off her beer. She looked over at Rufus, content to gnaw on his chew toy, a rubber duck they’d dubbed Daffy. “You have Daffy on a Friday night and I have…this beer. Choices, Rufus. Choices are things you’re stuck with, good or bad. Wonder how serious he is about Jennifer Hollis? I guess we’ll find out.”

  She retrieved her backpack and took out the turquoise rock, running her fingers over the smooth surface, admiring the golden-brown rhyolite as it glinted deep in the matrix. An unusual stone to be sure, thought Gemma.

  “Kamena said to keep it with me at all times. The only way I know to do that is to make a necklace out of it.”

  Leaving the dog snoozing in the kitchen, she went into the solarium, an eclectic sunroom with a gabled glass roofline that burst year-round with light---even on cloudy days.

  Decorated in warm woods and comfy wicker furniture, this extension of the house was Gemma’s favorite. Full of flowering plants and fragrant herbs that hung from the ceiling or grew bunched together in pots, it had an earthy feel to it. There were dream catchers hung everywhere, even at the other end of the room where the brick wall stood that her grandfather had constructed. The sturdy shelving he’d built held another collection of how-to books, mostly about growing things.

  In one corner was the niche designated as a craft space. Marissa Sarrazin had been a woman of many talents, much more than a candy maker. Gram had taken up a long list of pursuits. God knows where she found the time for them, Gemma wondered.

  After arriving in California, her Spanish grandmother had adopted many customs from her Native American neighbors. Basket weaving became one of her hobbies. There were other ways she passed the time. From her friend from Mexico, Marissa had learned how to use natural hemp to make macramé projects. Gemma had only to look around the room to see the creative ways her grandmother had knotted the cord into decorative wall-sized hangings, dream catchers, baskets, hangers for her plants, and even a chair.

  Gemma clutched the flat, smooth turquoise rock and realized she could do this. She remembered sitting with her Gram in front of the fireplace, watching for hours, learning to tie the macramé knots, feeling in awe of what they would eventually create.

  She opened one of her grandmother’s handmade baskets where Gram had kept her supplies and selected a pretty light blue and silver cord to use for a chain. Using a macramé technique, she began to knot a section into a long, braided rope, repeating the process until she reached the desired length that would dangle from her neck.

  Next, she began to knot the thin hemp around the stone, weaving an oval, keeping to the natural shape of the stone. This would be used to encase it ensuring the amulet wouldn’t fall out.

  To the longest length of rope at one end, she attached a jewelry clasp and wove another section into a loop to use for the closure.

  After she was done, she held the amulet up to the light, fastening the chain around her neck. She got up to stand in front of the mirror on the other side of the room. Moonlight drifted through the glass ceiling above her.

  Proud that she’d made it with her own hands, she wrapped her fingers around the turquoise stone and found it warm to the touch.

  Kamena had mentioned the power within, now Gemma felt it. As she stared at her reflection, she already began to feel a measure of confidence from a job well done. Did it mean she could conjure up even more power? She wasn’t as bold as that yet. But she did know she needed every advantage she could get, even if it was just from a pendant she’d made herself.

  9

  On weekends, Gemma followed her grandmother’s longstanding practice and closed the Coyote Chocolate Company. That suited Gemma just fine. Saturdays and Sundays were meant for errands, especially since she had a string of things to do. The list ran from ordinary stuff like grocery shopping to finding out more information on psychic phenomenon. She also needed to learn more about the history of Mystic Falls. Then there was the absurd notion that she might be able to find Collette or Marnie on her own.

  For the run of the mill stuff, she started at the library, going through the exhaustive history of the area and any maps she could locate of landmarks. All morning long she pored over volumes of historical data only to come up short. Even when she moved into the geography section, she discovered there was no mention of Mystic Falls anywhere in any of the topography records. She knew it existed, she’d just been there the day before. Why was the place such a secret?

  After that, she moved onto the parapsychology section, which turned out to be a lot more than “clairvoyant mumbo jumbo” as Lando had called it. There were books on precognition and telepathy, near-death experiences, reincarnation, and finally ghostly apparitions. She read the research and individual case studies. She even discovered that the government had once tried to tap into using ESP as a weapon. She skimmed through every book written about psychics including its detractors. Selecting a stack to take home earned her a funny look at checkout from Mrs. Kidman.

  “Shame you didn’t get a chance to talk about this with your grandmother firsthand,” Mrs. Kidman pointed out. “She knew this area like the back of her hand. So did Jean-Luc, of course. They were experts on the hiking trails and Native American legends.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to bone up on the subject now.”

  “What you need to do is find Marissa’s journals, save you some time instead of skimming over the boring pages in these books. I don’t think you’ll find what you’re looking for in there anyway. Seems to me you need a common sense, practical approach.”

  “And how do you suggest I get that if I have no idea what I’m doing?”

  “Find Marissa’s journals,” Mrs. Kidman repeated. “It’s the only way.”

  After leaving the library, she ran into Lianne coming out of the post office next door. “Hey, where are you rushing off to?” Gemma asked.

  “I have to go see about Collette’s horse. Apparently it’s one thing that fell through the cracks over these past few months. I forgot to pay for the boarding.”

  “Your sister owned a horse?”

  “Yeah. Collette loved horses. Last fall she finally got to have one of her own by rescuing a quarter horse named Rudy, a beautiful strawberry roan she fell in love with over at Wyndemere Farms.”

  “I don’t know anything about horses,” Gemma admitted. “What does strawberry roan mean?”

  “It means Rudy has a chestnut coat sprinkled with white. Collette sent me pictures of him. He’s gorgeous. Want to go with me?”

  “I don’t know. I should start cleaning out my grandmother’s closets, getting rid of some of her things, but I don’t think I’m ready to give her stuff to Goodwill just yet.”

  “I know how you feel. I woke up this morning surrounded by Collette’s things and wondered if I’d have to…do that…down the road.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad. You sound like you know a thing or two about horses yourself.”

  “Collette and I grew up on a farm outside Portland. We were around horses all our lives.”

  “Where did Collette keep Rudy?”

  “She boarded the colt at a stable near the reservation. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Long Shadow Stables?”

  Gemma laughed. “Owned by the Longhorn family. Sure. Zeb is the tribal police chief. Their property isn’t on tribal land though, it
’s across the county road from it. I believe he and Lando are coordinating on your sister’s case. Zeb’s a good guy. I’ll go with you and make the introductions.”

  “The stable called me this morning and reminded me that I needed to pay Rudy’s bill this month. I’m not sure I can keep Rudy what with all the other bills pilling up that my dad and I are trying to juggle. There’s only so much we can do.”

  “Let’s go try to work something out with Zeb. I bet we can.”

  Tribal police chief Zebediah Longhorn’s ancestors originated from the Hokan speaking tribe and had been on the same land for centuries, even before they’d been pushed onto the reservation.

  Long Shadow Stables belonged to his family. It was a ranching outfit started by Zeb’s great-grandfather at the turn of the century. Zeb’s father, Theo, made sure he did everything to keep the land belonging to a Longhorn.

  The stables had a dozen paddocks for all their livestock, a huge modernized barn to house the horses, and acreage that stretched on and on into a valley with rolling hills and thick forested basins on all sides.

  Zeb was the oldest of three children, the same age as his counterpart in town, Lando Bonner. Like Lando, he’d left the reservation long enough to get a degree in criminal justice from Oregon State University and then returned to the area to do what he could to improve life on the Rez. Despite his brief absence while at college, Zeb’s parents continued their important work on the reservation. They were both teachers, committed to making sure kids went to school every day and kept their grades up. They believed education made a difference. They believed it was the ticket to coming back to Coyote Wells and helping others out of their dire circumstances.

  Zeb’s long hours as the chief of police was proof he put his people first. But his passion for horses was a natural extension of how he spent his after-work hours.