Portrait of Vengeance

by Carrie Stuart Parks

Beth reached over and patted my shoulder. “You keep me safe from serial killers, rapists, snipers, and terrorists, and I’ll protect you from spiders. Okay?”

  “Deal.” I followed her up, pausing at the top as she flicked on the light. The attic stretched the length of the house, with only the middle of the room high enough to walk upright. The sides sloped down following the roofline, and murky dormers appeared every fifteen feet. A line of widely spaced, dim lightbulbs cast pools of light on the floor. The far end of the room held shrouded furniture. Surrounding us were dusty cardboard boxes and brown grocery bags. “We really could use a flashlight.”

  “How about this?” Beth nodded left. “You sit under that light. I’ll inspect each box and bag for arachnids, then bring it to you to check.”

  “That’ll work.” I moved to the agreed-upon spot. Night had fallen, and no light pierced the grimy dormers. The overhead illumination flickered every so often, as if to remind me that at any moment the room could be plunged into darkness. Scratching and light tapping—hopefully from nothing larger than mice—came from the wall nearby.

  Beth soon placed a folded box in front of me, then a second. Inside was a tie-dyed T-shirt, much faded, a necklace of blue seed beads, two torn and yellowed pocket paperbacks—In Cold Blood and The Andromeda Strain—and a pair of jeans. I knew without checking they’d be bell-bottoms. A quick peek in the second box yielded similar sixties-era items. The 5th Dimension started singing “Age of Aquarius” in my mind.

  A sack and box provided me with several cassette tapes, mismatched socks, single earrings, a belt, reading glasses, and men’s underwear. I left the undies alone.

  Beth kept bringing more boxes, sacks, bags, and crates of debris from distant travelers. My fingers were soon grimy, my nose burned, and my eyes itched from all the dust. By the time Beth slid an antique wood-and-tweed suitcase over, I was in a canyon of containers.

  “This is pretty much the last of the stuff.” Beth wiped her face. “There’s another section, but someone labeled everything, and the dates are wrong.”

  The suitcase’s latches were broken, and the material had been rubbed from most of the edges. It was definitely the wrong decade, but I couldn’t resist.

  I expected a treasure trove of forties or even fifties memorabilia. Instead I found women’s clothing, all small and well worn. “This looks like a guest left everything.” I held up a faded, blue-plaid flannel nightgown. “Though I can’t say that I blame her.”

  Beth sat cross-legged beside me. “You’re hardly a good judge of clothing taste. Those look like your pajamas.”

  “Mine are red.” Underneath some underwear was the book Charlotte’s Web. “I loved this book.” On the flyleaf, written in flowery script, were the letters L. H. G.

  I went cold. The book slid from my numb fingers. “We found it,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “This is Holly’s suitcase.”

  “Let’s take it back to our room. It’s creepy up here.”

  Beth didn’t have to ask me twice. I closed the lid, then followed her down the attic stairs. “Um, Beth, let’s take this to our room before telling Eric and Lila. I don’t want to explain what I’m doing . . .”

  “I’ll go tell them, you take it to our rooms.”

  The door at the bottom of the steps was closed. Beth grabbed the knob and twisted it. It didn’t budge. “That’s strange.” She rattled it again. It remained stubbornly immobile.

  “Is it locked?”

  “I don’t know. It’s for sure stuck.”

  Pushing past her, I tried the knob, then shoved against the door. I leaned back and hit the surface with my full weight. I ended up with a sore shoulder and a tightly shut door.

  “What should we do?” Beth asked.

  “This.” I banged on the door and shouted as loud as I could. “Help! Someone! We’re locked in!”

  “Shhhh, Gwen. You’ll wake up the whole house.”

  I looked at her. “You want to spend the night up here?”

  “Heellllp!” She beat on the door with both hands. “Help us!”

  In the distance, Winston started barking. “Well, if that doesn’t wake the dead . . . ,” Beth said.

  The barking stopped for a moment, then resumed, getting louder. Voices joined the rapidly approaching barking dog.

  Bang! The door moved as the 165-pound dog slammed into the surface.

  “Hang on!” Eric called. “Um . . . I can’t get close. Your dog is . . . guarding.”

  “Winston, sit. Sit,” I said.

  The knob turned, but the door remained stuck. “Just a minute.”

  Placing my head against the door, I heard a murmur of voices, someone running on the stairs, a metallic rattle, then—Bang! The door swung open. Eric stepped back and dropped a folding shovel into his gardening tub. The door frame was cracked. Lila and various guests in nightclothes stood in a semicircle around the seated Pyrenees.

  “I’m so sorry! No one goes up there anymore,” Eric said, glancing at Lila. “I never thought the door would stick.”

  Winston launched himself at me, shoving me backward. I hugged his furry neck. “I’m okay, ol’ boy. You did good.” Patting the dog one more time, I held up the suitcase. “May we examine this downstairs?”

  “Sure.” Eric smiled slightly and took Lila’s arm. “Once again—”

  “We’re fine.” Beth smiled. “And we’re sorry for all the commotion and making you ruin the door molding.”

  Winston cheerfully led us down to our rooms, where I discovered he’d ripped the nylon crate into shreds. “Aahh, Winston. Did you have to eat the crate?”

  “He figured he was rescuing you.” Beth stroked his massive head. “Good boy.”

  Satisfied that we were truly rescued, the dog flopped on the carpet with a thud.

  I put the suitcase on the table and carefully removed several pieces of clothing. Tucked into the side pocket was a pamphlet titled Understanding Adoption in Idaho. I showed it to Beth. “It looks like Holly was looking for a child.”

  “Apparently babysitting wasn’t enough.” Beth nodded. “And stealing a child believed to be dead in a plane crash is a whole lot cheaper.”

  I kept digging. At the bottom was a Lamb Chop puppet.

  “Ohhhh.” The air raced from my lungs as if I had been punched.

  Beth picked it up. “Holly, or your parents, must have bought this for you as a child. That’s why you got one for Jacob—you had a vague memory of your own.”

  “I’ll need to show this to Chief Kus. Maybe he’ll let me pursue . . .”

  “Go ahead and say it. You know Holly isn’t behind any of these events. There is, however, a trail leading to Jacob.”

  I sat at the table holding the puppet. This one was well loved, somewhat grimy, and had a twisted mouth from the threads coming loose.

  Beth cleared her throat. “This is intriguing.” She held up the directions for a child’s cold remedy.

  Blinking at it for a moment, I pulled out the sketchpad with one of my lists of knowns and unknowns.

  Under Known I’d written recognized Two Rivers house, locations where we moved and when we moved (roughly every year), Jacob, Holly admitted to state mental hospital. Now I added plane crash, John and Mary Smith, Holly guest at Two Rivers house, left suitcase, Lamb Chop puppet, giving child cold remedy, later raped?—Jacob result, in mental hospital for at least ten years.

  Beth read over my shoulder. “I didn’t think of it before, but the name Jacob means ‘supplanter’ or ‘replacement.’”

  “Like he attempted to supplant me?”

  She shrugged. “You did say she couldn’t look at him and may have abused him.”

  Under Unknown I’d written Why taken? What happened to Holly and Jacob after I left? Any connection with me and current homicide? When Holly admitted to mental hospital? I added Parents’ real names? What happened to bodies after recovered? Why in plane in first place? Was I left with sitter because I had a cold? When the plan
e was reported missing, did Holly see it as a chance to abduct me?

  “That make so much sense.” Beth sat at the table. “You wouldn’t take a child up in an airplane with a cold.”

  “I bet my folks made a last-minute decision not to take me on the flight. Maybe Holly offered to look after me that day, or maybe she was my regular sitter.”

  Winston barked softly in his sleep, his legs twitching as he chased a dream cat. I tapped the sketchpad for a moment, then sketched the puppet and wrote underneath, Lamb Chop common thread?

  Leaving the cold-remedy directions, book, pamphlet, and puppet on the table, I repacked the suitcase. “At first Holly would have been terrified of getting arrested for kidnapping me, but when I was reported dead, she could relax.” I paused. “But she never could know, at least for sure, that her secret would stay safe forever.”

  “There’s another possibility.” Beth raised her eyebrows at me. “Someday you might start asking questions, or looking into who supposedly murdered your parents.”

  “Which I finally did, only I waited over thirty years. The whole time I was with Holly, she told me my parents were murdered and she rescued me. She said the killer was after me, which is why we moved so much and changed our names.”

  Beth nodded. “Holly’s way of keeping your abduction secret. Right.”

  I rubbed the tiny hairs on my arms down. “But that backfired on her. The day she killed all the rabbits, I saw it as a time to run and never speak of what happened.”

  Beth’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then opened wide. “Holly might have thought you abandoned her.”

  “Jacob sure would have.”

  “You were his only protector.”

  “And for the next”—I did a quick calculation in my head—“twelve years, I left Jacob with an abusive and progressively more insane mother.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WE BOTH TOOK WINSTON OUT FOR HIS FINAL WALK OF the day, with Beth holding the leash and me watching for snipers. When we returned to Two Rivers, I went over the new video tapes for suspects. No one stood out. I paid particular attention to any young man who could possibly look like Jacob—assuming I knew what Jacob looked like. I could possibly age-progress the drawing I did of the four-year-old child, but the drawing was from memory, not a photograph, which is how age progressions are usually done.

  Leaning back in my chair, I absently stared at Holly’s suitcase. “You know, Beth, something just occurred to me. What we didn’t find.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My parents’ suitcases. Or mine. If we were staying here and believed to be killed in a plane crash, our belongings might have ended up in lost and found.”

  “Good point. Someone must have retrieved their things. I’ll double down on trying to find out their real names.”

  I collected my notes for the morning meeting of the task force. I had a pretty compelling story to tell Chief Kus to convince him Jacob was a valid suspect, or at least someone to be eliminated as a possibility, and that I needed to pursue that angle.

  I woke to my cell jangling beside me. “Gwen Marcey.”

  “It’s Seth Kus.”

  I was instantly awake. The clock by the bed said 5:32. “What is it? Did you find Beatrice?”

  “No. We found Kelli LoneBear.”

  “I didn’t know she was missing.”

  “We didn’t either. Yesterday was her day off.” He cleared his throat. “She’s been murdered.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Her body was found in a field south of Lewiston. Would you meet me there?” He gave me directions.

  After I hung up, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the phone. Could it be . . . I shoved the thought away. I’d know for sure soon enough.

  Opening a window, I checked the temperature. Cool, with a residual dampness from all the rain. After dressing in a rush, I woke Beth and updated her on LoneBear. “I’ll return—”

  Beth shook her head. “No, you’re not leaving me here another day. I’m your sidekick. I’m going with you.” She shot into the bathroom, emerging shortly wearing jeans and a mixed-media down jacket.

  “Ready?” I asked her.

  “As soon as you zip up your pants and get Winston.”

  “It’s early. No coffee,” I muttered. After zipping my pants, I put a leash on my dog, grabbed my forensic art kit, and headed to Beth’s SUV.

  Following Seth’s directions, Beth, Winston, and I drove south of town to a field that paralleled the road. The early-morning sun cast long, smoky-blue shadows, and few cars slowed our progress. Blue, red, and white strobes flashed from the variety of parked law-enforcement vehicles and lit the faces of the pajama-clad onlookers watching from across the street.

  I knew it would be futile to ask Beth to stay in the car with Winston. After opening a few windows partway, I opened the door to a cool wind that cut through the layers of clothing I wore.

  The unfenced field sprouted a lawn of green winter wheat stretching for miles. Stakes had been driven into the ground to hold the fluttering, cadmium-yellow crime-scene tape. Seth was standing outside the tape next to several officers. Officer Attao noticed me, nodded, then turned to another officer. Seth spotted me and motioned me over. “Morning, Seth. I’m so sorry.”

  Seth glanced at the motionless body. “Yeah. Me too. Lewiston PD has the case, but I told them about you and they agreed to let you take a look at her and see if you had any ideas.”

  Another cool gust of wind swept across the field, rippling the wheat into hookers-green waves. The faint rotten-egg odor of the pulp mill at the edge of town made my nose burn.

  I pulled my jacket tighter, ducked under the crime-scene tape, and followed Seth to the body. Kelli LoneBear lay on her back, eyes sightlessly staring at the sky. Several flies had discovered her. Seth shooed them away. Dried blood matted her hair on the right side. She was dressed in the department’s rain jacket over a blue T-shirt, jeans, and black Nike running shoes. Purple-red bruising circled her neck.

  “The man across the street saw her this morning,” Seth said. “He works nights. Said she wasn’t here when he left for work. Her car’s missing. We’re still looking for it.”

  “Did you want me to sketch or photograph—”

  “No. Just observe.”

  Crouching next to her, I peered closer at her earrings. They were a cluster of brownish stones with glowing golden linear centers. “Tigereye.”

  “What?” Seth asked.

  “You said you couldn’t find her car?”

  “Not yet.”

  Standing, I looked him in the eye. “Only two more questions. Was LoneBear familiar with how cars work?”

  Frowning, Seth shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean. Her brother is a mechanic at a garage in Lapwai, but I don’t know that she was interested in cars.”

  “How close were you two?”

  Seth held my gaze before looking off into the distance. “Is this important?”

  “Yes. But maybe the question I really want to ask is just how jealous was LoneBear?”

  “We dated some in high school.” Seth folded his arms. “I was never serious, but she might have been.”

  I stared at him.

  “Okay, yeah,” he finally said. “She married some loser right after high school, moved away, divorced him, then came back and joined the department. She seems to think . . . um . . . thought that we’d pick up where we left off. She was getting quite . . . insistent. Now tell me why you’re asking these questions.”

  “Are you two done?” A plain-clothed female officer approached us. “We need to continue processing the scene.”

  Seth looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes,” I said. “You’ll probably find her car in Orofino, parked somewhere near State Hospital North. That’s where she was abducted.”

  Seth’s mouth dropped. “How did you figure that out?”

  The officer jotted a few notes and nodded that we could leave. As soon as we pass
ed under the crime-scene tape, he turned to me. “What do you know about LoneBear’s murder?”

  “I think . . . I suspect LoneBear was trying to do something to my car. She used the long-reach tool to open the door, then popped the hood. She was wearing the same kind of jacket you gave me, undoubtedly with the hood up as it was raining. Her killer would have thought it was me. I noticed the blood in her hair, so someone came up behind her and hit her. She lost a stone from her earring when she fell, a tigereye. I found the stone near the long-reach.”

  “Why didn’t you mention—”

  “Um . . . I forgot I stuck it in my pocket.” How many other clues did I miss?

  “Why were you at State Hospital North?” His voice was cool and clipped.

  Pulling out a pencil, I twirled it between my fingers. “You remember the connection I wanted to follow up on between an old case and this one?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see any results. I see one dead officer.”

  My face grew warm and I stared at the pencil. “I’m sorry.”

  “You there!” A lanky detective in a navy shirt, tie, and slacks hurried over. I had to tilt my head back to look at his face. He briefly shook Seth’s hand, then turned to me. “I understand you might have some information about our homicide.” He pulled a small notebook and pen from his pocket.

  Tucking the pencil behind my ear, I updated the Lewiston detective. When I was finished, he asked, “Why do you think LoneBear wanted to damage your car?”

  Glancing at Seth’s face, I cleared my throat. “She . . . ah . . . probably felt I was an outsider . . . and . . .”

  “LoneBear was quite possessive of her . . . cases,” Seth finished for me.

  “You going to be around for a bit?” the detective asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Good. We’ll have more questions.” He hurried off.

  A news van pulled up and the line of curious onlookers across the street grew. Seth took my arm and moved me farther from the gathering of officers, technicians, and now coroner. His hand on my arm felt good. Blake’s arm around my shoulders would feel better.

  He let go. “You think the killer mistook LoneBear for you. And this same killer was the sniper who shot at you yesterday?”