Desperate Measures

by Patricia H. Rushford

  “After I saw you that morning, I went into town to see Crystal. We had a print job to finish for ARM. We finished there early, and I still had over an hour before I was to meet Mom at the restaurant. I went back out to the farm hoping to talk to Dad about planning a surprise party for my mother’s birthday. When I got there, Mom was already gone, and Dad was in the shop. When I saw that he had killed Sasha, I about went crazy. I wanted to kill him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. When I asked how he could do such a hateful thing, he turned his back on me and said he had more important things to do than waste his time talking to a turncoat daughter.” Aleshia raised clenched fists. “I hit him in the back. I wanted to beat him senseless. I knocked him down. Must have hurt his back again. When I saw the pained expression on his face … I, um—I guess the anger sort of drained right out of me. I felt sorry for him, you know. When I left, I ran into Jim in the driveway and told him what Dad had done. I also told him if he still wanted to marry me he’d better never talk to my father again. I don’t think he did. And now he never will.” Her voice collapsed in a sob.

  Crystal placed a comforting arm around her friend’s shoulders. Aleshia sniffed, raised her head, and dabbed at the moisture in her eyes with a tissue she’d drawn from her pocket. “I’m okay.”

  Jennie wanted to urge her on but remembered her grandmother’s advice about silence. “Silence opens the door for confession much more quickly than a barrage of questions.”

  After a few awkward moments Aleshia spoke again. “Jim walked me back to my car and we drove down to the lake. He held me for a while. He’s so sweet that way. When I’d calmed down, he said he had to get back to work. He walked back to the Bergstroms’, and I went into town to run some errands and meet Mom.”

  “Your dad was alive when you left?”

  “As far as I know.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “No one came while I was there. The only vehicle in the driveway was Dad’s truck. It must have been right after—unless—someone was hiding in the barns. I suppose that’s possible.”

  “Jim could have gone back to the shop and killed him after you left,” Jennie said. “Maybe his confession was for real—except that he said he’d put the fox carcass in the freezer, which isn’t where the police found it. Someone had thrown it in the trash.”

  “Why would he do that? It wasn’t Jim’s fox. It was mine. Besides, a pelt like Sasha’s would be worth around sixty-five dollars. There’s no way Jim or my father would throw it away.”

  Jennie puzzled over the information. Who• would throw away the pelt and why? “Jim could have done it out of anger. I’m sure he didn’t like the idea of your father hurting you like that.”

  Aleshia shook her head. “I can’t believe Jim did it.”

  “Well, someone sure did. One of your ARM buddies, maybe?” Jennie was taking a chance speaking out like that, but she had Aleshia talking now and felt duty bound to press the issue. “They left a mark. An X on his back.”

  “No. I’ll admit there are some fringe groups who affiliate themselves with ARM that could be responsible, but I seriously doubt that. You see, Jennie, when any of our members commit a humane act like releasing animals or protesting furriers, we do it for the love of animals. We want the world to know that we are responsible. Our members send communications to our spokesperson, who is not involved in the fieldwork. He works directly with the media. Since he’s only responsible for passing along information, he’s not involved in any kind of criminal activity. I know no one from ARM did it because if they had, there would have been a memo admitting responsibility.”

  Crystal placed a hand on Jennie’s arm. “Aleshia is right. As I said before, our credo is to protect animals, not to kill. Sometimes we’re embarrassed by the violent acts of people who claim to be part of ARM. Like any group we have our share of loose cannons who see ARM as a license to commit terrible crimes.”

  Jennie didn’t see anything humane in releasing mink. “What about the mink that died as a result of being released? Do you consider that humane?”

  “It’s a tragedy to lose any animal, of course, but we believe many of them will survive.”

  This wasn’t the time to debate the issue. They were convinced that what they were doing was noble and somehow above the law.

  But she hadn’t come here to argue. She hadn’t seen Scott yet and that worried her. “You said Scott was here.”

  “He is.” Aleshia nodded toward the stone building. “He’s asleep.”

  “I gave him some pain pills about an hour ago,” Crystal said. “It’s good he’s resting. He’ll need strength for the trip tomorrow.”

  “Trip? Where are you going?”

  Crystal removed the gun, which was still slung over her shoulder, and placed it in the back of the truck. “Until Scott is able to make it on his own, we need to protect him from the police and whoever is trying to kill him. That means we must keep moving.”

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Jennie stepped closer to the fire, holding out her hands to warm them. “Who tried to kill Scott? Personally, I think it’s the same person who killed Mr. Sutherland.”

  “I think so too.” Aleshia picked up a stick and stirred the fire. “This is why we know it couldn’t have been any of our people. While some ARM members might be capable of such a thing, they would never harm another member.”

  Unless someone in the group discovered he wasn’t really one of them. Jennie couldn’t voice the thought. Aleshia and Crystal apparently believed Scott to be a member. Which made little or no sense. If a member of ARM had discovered Scott’s duplicity, wouldn’t he or she have warned the others?

  Aleshia pulled a Thermos from the back of the truck, which was apparently where they kept their supplies, and poured something hot and steamy into a cup, then brought it to Jennie. “Here. You might as well relax.”

  Jennie took the cup. Hot chocolate. She sipped at it, letting the steamy heat warm her hands.and face. “I can’t stay too long. My friends will be wondering what happened to me. Besides, it’s getting late. Megan’s parents will be worried.”

  “It’s only nine.” Aleshia poured a cup from another Thermos and handed it to Crystal. She lowered herself to a log near the fire. She looked sad and almost vulnerable. Jennie felt sorry for her. She’d lost her father, and her fiancé had branded himself the killer.

  Her gaze shifted from the fire to Jennie. “Scott says you may be able to help us find the person who tried to run him down.”

  “I don’t see how.” Jennie sat on the other end of Aleshia’s log. “To tell you the truth, you were my main suspect. Jim was next. I’m not sure where to go from there.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it. Neither did Jim.”

  Jennie looked at the two women sharing the same fire with her. One a nurse, the other a fashion designer. “How did you come to join ARM?”

  “Me or Crystal?”

  “Both of you.”

  “We got involved our first year of college,” Crystal said. “I have always loved animals. In fact, I’m going back to school this winter. I’m getting my degree in veterinary medicine.”

  Aleshia smiled at that. “Crystal and I used to release mink when we were kids. I’ve always hated what my parents did for a living. When you’re a kid, you don’t have much say. Not that my father ever listened to me. He was always disappointed that I didn’t share his views. But I did gain a tremendous satisfaction in releasing one or two mink at a time. We’d wait until pelting season when he was too busy to notice.”

  “I don’t think he ever caught on,” Crystal said, “In college, we met a couple who told us about ARM. Their philosophy was so much like ours, we thought we’d like to join.”

  “How do you join? I mean, is there an application or—”

  “Oh no. Nothing like that.” Aleshia leaned forward and added another log to the fi
re. “Basically you declare yourself a member and start working on whatever needs doing. Once you’ve made a hit or done something significant, you let headquarters know.”

  “Is there an office or something?”

  “No, that would be too dangerous. I’ve heard that Sonja has a command center, but no one knows where it is. She—or he—moves around a lot. Most of us work out of our homes. We communicate via email and change our addresses frequently.”

  “But you don’t. You’ve been in the same area since—what?”

  “Aleshia’s been here all her life. My parents came in as migrant workers when I was twelve. We liked the area and decided to settle here. We’ve never been in on the kinds of activity that could land us in jail. My affiliation with ARM is a secret. Aleshia is the only one around here who admits to being a member.”

  “That was to goad my father. Sometimes I protest or march, but I don’t actually take part in the raids—neither does Crystal. We act as an information network for the Northwest. We put out an underground newspaper and distribute flyers eliciting support for the cause. It’s all legal under the First Amendment.”

  “Taking a patient out of the hospital is not legal.”

  “We didn’t take him. Scott wanted to go,” Crystal said. “We just made it possible.”

  “Tell me what happened at the hospital. You said earlier you would.” Jennie stretched her long legs out in front of her, amazed that she was beginning to feel comfortable with the two women she’d earlier branded as terrorists and possible killers.

  “Scott is a member of ARM. He’d asked a fellow ARM member in Florida to set him up with members in the area. She contacted us to let us know he was coming.”

  “Melissa?”

  Crystal’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know her?”

  “I met her through Scott when I was in Florida.”

  “Small world. Anyway, Melissa emailed us that Scott would be coming to scope out some of the farms in the area.”

  “Scott said he didn’t know you, Aleshia,”Jennie said.

  “He didn’t. Our, only contact was through email, using code names. Scott and I didn’t actually meet until after he was in the hospital. Crystal recognized his name and called me. We told him who we were, and he asked us to help him escape.”

  “I wish he’d have told me. I imagined all sorts of things.” Anger stirred inside her. She’d been worried sick about the jerk. What bothered her most was that he hadn’t trusted her.

  “He wanted to wake you, but we convinced him it was too risky.”Aleshia straightened and stretched, rubbing her side. “He’s a great guy, Jennie. Very dedicated. Melissa couldn’t say enough good things about him.”

  That struck Jennie as odd. Hadn’t Scott told Melissa he was leaving ARM because of his friend’s death? If Jennie were Melissa, she’d have been suspicious and would have imparted those suspicions along with a warning to the other members. However, if the FBI set Scott up out here, could they have used Melissa’s name? Could they have forced her to send the correspondence—or had they arrested her? Jennie’s head swam with possibilities.

  “According to Melissa,” Crystal said, “Scott is one of our most dedicated members. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be Sonja.”

  “That’s pure speculation. We’ll never know for sure.” Aleshia stood and said, “I’ll go check on our patient.”

  Minutes later, Scott emerged from the cabin on crutches. “Why didn’t you tell me Jennie was here?”

  Jennie rose and took a step toward him. She had so many questions yet feared asking any of them in case he really was gathering information for the FBI.

  “Hey, Jen.”

  “Hey. You look good for someone who’s been hit by a truck.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, I think.” He quickly closed the distance between them and opened his arms to her. Jennie stepped into them. Resting her head against his shoulder, they held each other.

  He felt so good and warm and solid, Jennie could have cried. “I’ve missed you.” His crutches fell to the ground, and he leaned heavily on her for support.

  Jennie leaned over and picked them up. “I think you have some explaining to do.”

  “Come on.” He tucked the tops of the crutches back under his arms and moved to the log Jennie had been sitting on. Looking back at his cohorts, he said, “Could you give us a few minutes?” “Sure. We need to scrounge up more firewood anyway,” Aleshia said. Taking a flashlight from the back of the truck, they headed into the woods.

  Jennie waited until they were gone, then whispered, “What’s going on with you? They think you’re Sonja. Whose side are you on, anyway? I was all ready to believe you in the hospital.”

  Scott leaned over and kissed her.

  Jennie backed away. “What was that for?”

  “To shut you up.” His arm went around her, pulling her close. In a voice so soft she could hardly hear, he said, “I had to get out of the hospital. I’m close, Jennie. I don’t know who killed Sutherland, but I know why. When I stopped by to see how he was doing that day after I left you, he said he’d found evidence that would destroy ARM. Said something about going to the source. I think he knew who Sonja was.”

  “Do you think Sonja killed him?”

  “I’d bet on it. Sutherland wasn’t very discreet. If he told me, chances are he mentioned it to others as well. I tried to get him to tell me more, but he just got mad again. I left and checked into a motel over by the freeway. That afternoon I got a call from a guy who said he knew who Sonja was and told me to meet him at Arnie’s Cafe in town. I never got there. I figure he was waiting for me by the side of the road. I don’t remember much more than seeing the headlights of a truck coming straight at me.”

  “If he called you at the hotel, he must have followed you from Sutherlands’. Did anyone see you talking to him?”

  “I don’t think so. When I got to the farm, there wasn’t anyone else around. I didn’t check at the house, just went straight down to the shop. I suppose Christine could have been there, but I didn’t see her car.”

  “Whew. Sutherlands’ must have been a pretty busy place. You, Aleshia, Jim, Tom, and Mary—I’m going to have to do a timeline to see who was where and when.” Lowering her voice again she added, “Aleshia says she didn’t kill her dad, but I’m not sure I believe her. Are you sure the person who called was a man?”

  “It was a deep voice, but now that you mention it, it sounded odd—like it had been distorted.”

  “Sonja.” Jennie turned around to look at the red truck. “I could be wrong, but I feel like the key to all this is in whoever hit you. You were heading into town. Did the truck hit you head on or from behind?”

  “Head on. I tried to swerve, but he kept coming at me.”

  “So the damage to the truck would be on which side?”

  Scott frowned and closed his eyes, apparently running it through his mind again. He opened them. “The left.”

  Jennie straightened, stepped over the log, then walked around the truck. “There’s a dent in the left front fender and the headlight is broken. I’ll bet anything this is the truck that hit you.”

  Scott hobbled over to look.

  Rustling noises in the bushes behind them sent Jennie’s heart skittering. “We’d better get out of here.”

  19

  “You’re not going anywhere.” A man stepped out of the bushes. In his jeans, flannel shirt, and utility vest, he looked like a hunter except for the gun—a .38 caliber, similar to the kind her father used. “FBI. Get your hands up where I can see them.”

  “What’s …?” Jennie stammered. “How did you—”

  “Are you Jennie McGrady?”

  Jennie swallowed hard. “Y-yes.”

  “Nice going, McGrady.” Scott glared at her in disgust. “I thought I could trust you.”

 
; “I didn’t know—they must have followed me.” Exasperated, Jennie lifted her hands above her head. She was more frustrated with herself than with the bureau. She should have known they’d put a tail on Sal—her, too, for that matter.

  On the other side of the camp, Aleshia and Crystal came into view, both handcuffed and escorted by three agents, one of them Agent Tucker. The women’s angry looks relayed the same message Scott had given her. Traitor.

  Jennie couldn’t bear to look at Scott for fear of seeing his anger. She wished there were something she could do. She listened helplessly while the agents read them their rights.

  Agent Tucker whipped out a radio and mumbled something into it about coming in. Part of her was glad the agents had come. Now that she’d seen the damage to Sutherland’s truck, she wasn’t so sure about Aleshia’s innocence. On the other hand, she felt certain Scott had nothing to do with the murder and couldn’t bear to think she’d been to blame for his arrest. What worried her even more was what they planned to do with her.

  “It’s a good thing they followed us,” Jennie said to Scott. “By the looks of that truck, Aleshia’s the one who hit you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aleshia glanced from Scott to Jennie.

  “The headlight is broken and there’s a dent on the left fender. You used it to run Scott down, didn’t you? You left him for dead. When he showed up at the hospital, Crystal called to tell you your efforts had failed. Then you had to convince him to leave the hospital with you. He played right into your hands.”

  Aleshia shook her head. “You’re crazy. I have no idea how the dent got there.”

  “Sure. And you have no idea how your father ended up in the gas chamber either.”

  “That’s right.” Aleshia collapsed in a sob. “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even take the truck until three this morning. It had a bunk in the canopy, and I thought it would be more comfortable for Scott than the back of my car. You have to believe me.”

  “Where were you last night when Crystal called?” Jennie asked.

  “Where do you get off asking me questions? I don’t have to tell you anything.”