Portrait of Vengeance

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  My mouth tasted sour. I got up and paced. “It was long gone before I got there.” I looked at my friend. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’ve kept my head in the sand my whole life. I left Jacob, an innocent four-year-old, with an abusive mother, not seeing the abuse. I didn’t even bother to check out what happened to Holly that day, why all the blood. I just ran—”

  “You were only fourteen!”

  “If I’d stayed and found out she wasn’t hurt, I could have asked her about my folks before her mind was gone.” My stomach twisted.

  “But if Holly lied to you for all those years about your parents’ fate, why would she ever tell you the truth?”

  I picked up a pencil from the table and twirled it in my hand. “That’s my MO. Take the easy way out. Don’t get to the bottom of the problem. That’s why my husband divorced me. That’s why my teenage daughter is alienated from me. If any man shows interest in me, like Blake, I don’t have time—”

  “Are you quite done?”

  I gaped at my friend. “Um . . .”

  “Shoulda-woulda-coulda. You’re one big pity party today.” Beth’s face was flushed. “Yeah, you got handed a raw deal when your folks died, but you lived. You weren’t a perfect teenager, surprise surprise, because you didn’t notice child abuse. Guess what, Sherlock, professionals sometimes miss abuse. You ran when you saw evidence of murder because you’d been told your whole life to run. You put your past into a box and didn’t open it for over thirty years.” She stood and glared at me. “But you’re looking now. We have work to do and no time to indulge in your meltdown!” She pointed at the foam board and map.

  Slowly I sank to my chair. “Where did that come from? You sounded like—”

  “You.” If possible, Beth’s face got even more crimson. “I just imagined what you would say to me if I were talking like that. You’re rubbing off on me.”

  “But is that a good thing?”

  “It worked, didn’t it? I’ve told you this before. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

  Silence stretched between us as I let her words sink in. “The last thing Seth said before heading to LoneBear’s funeral was for me to connect the dots.” I looked at my friend.

  “We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. Jacob isn’t going to stop until you’re dead.”

  “Which I don’t intend on becoming.” I picked up another pencil. “Okay, so we’ll connect those dots.” I pulled out my sketchpad with all my notes and opened it to the first page. Under Known I read recognized Two Rivers house, locations where we moved and when (roughly every year), Jacob, Holly admitted to state mental hospital, 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, my drawing books damaged, need court order to process.

  Under Unknown I read Why taken? What happened to Holly and Jacob after I left? Any connection with me and current homicide? When Holly admitted to mental hospital? 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 plane was reported missing, did Holly see it as a chance to abduct me? Why fly over dam?

  I opened a new page of the sketchpad and listed what I needed to learn about my parents.

  1.Was my dad with a law-enforcement agency?

  2.If so, which one?

  3.Undercover for that agency?

  4.Who or what were they investigating?

  5.Death should be noted on that agency’s honor roll/memorial.

  “I think I’ve found some connections.” Suddenly hungry, I took a bite of baklava. Heavenly. “For now, we’ll ignore who my folks were and what they were doing prior to the crash.” I circled What happened to Jacob?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I STEPPED OVER TO THE FOAM BOARD. “NOW WE NEED to build the case. If we can prove that my research into my past wasn’t some kind of dereliction of duty . . .”

  “You’ll get your job back!”

  “Well, maybe.” I shrugged, then touched the pin in Lapwai with the current date. “I had time to think about how Jacob could recognize me after all these years.”

  Beth nodded. “So did I.”

  “You go first.” I sat beside her at the table.

  Beth had sorted all her notes, placed pale-lavender Post-it notes on some, and somehow found purple floral file folders. She pulled one out. “Jacob would have no way of knowing if you changed your name or what you’d look like. He’d have to wait until you went looking for some piece of your history.”

  “That’s what I thought too.”

  She held up a list. “We identified and I marked on that map seven children he potentially took and presumably murdered over the past eight years.”

  “Right.” I tapped my pencil on the table. “He wanted to draw my attention, but not the attention of law enforcement. He abducted kids from places where we’d lived, just in case I’d moved to one of them.” I stared at the map. “But I didn’t bite.”

  “He must have moved on to phase two, the letters to the editor in Holly’s name.” Beth opened a file. “If the similarity between the child abductions and murders didn’t get your attention, he thought eventually you’d look into your history and search for Holly.”

  “Wait.” I stopped tapping and grabbed the file. “Look. The last letter was over a year ago.”

  “Right. I told you that.”

  I stood and taped the last letter to the editor to the board.

  “Then what did you just figure out?”

  “What if he assumed his traps weren’t working—the letters and the murders staged to resemble the story Holly told me about my parents. He decided that I wasn’t going to return. He gives up writing the letters, but the murders fulfill his needs—his fantasy.”

  “Okaaaay. I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

  “Stay with me, Beth. Just as he concluded he’d never identify me, I showed up and somehow gave myself away as the Gwen who’d betrayed him so much earlier. His trap has sprung. I’m here. Instead of hiding, he provides the body of an earlier victim.”

  “Why not just murder Beatrice and lead you to her?”

  “Then we wouldn’t have looked at the past, looked for the pattern of murder and abduction.”

  She nodded. “He goes back to plan A. He now wants to let you know it’s him. He tries to abduct you—”

  “But he gets Kelli LoneBear instead.” I tried not to think of her body lying in that field. “He’s frustrated. Angry. No more subtlety. He tries to shoot me in the police parking lot, gets into our room here, and later attacks Eric, then, out in the wilderness, kills Phil Cicero.”

  “And almost kills you with that cougar.”

  I grinned at her. “According to Dan Kus, the cougar was to be my spirit guide. Apparently if I wear a symbol of that spirit throughout my life, nothing will harm me.”

  “Seems to me you’re already doing that.” She pointed to the cross I wore around my neck.

  “So I am.” I touched the cross.

  “So.” Beth tugged the drawing I’d done of the four-year-old Jacob. “Why don’t you age-progress this drawing to what Jacob might look like today?”

  “I could, but the drawing is from memory, not a photograph like we usually use, so it will be a guess at best.”

  “You’ve told me often enough that a drawing may do more than eliminate those faces that aren’t similar.”

  “I am rubbing off on you. And I still don’t know if that’s a good thing.” Beth had brought my old light box with the rest of the supplies. I found it in my room and brought it to the table in the game room. Taping the sketch to the light box, I then placed a clean sheet of bristol paper over the top. I sketched the top of the head down through the eyes, then slid the paper down to lengthen the bottom part of the face. I removed the top drawing and set it on my drawing board. A child’s eyes are wide set with larg
e irises. I increased the white around the eyes as well as enlarged the medial canthus—the inside corner of the eye. Thicker eyebrows and more depth to the eyes came next. After broadening the nose to bring it to adult size, I added more shading to enlarge the sides. The lip shape remained the same but would widen as the lips stretched over adult teeth. I increased the size of the mandible, keeping the shape similar to the child’s jaw. Leaving the hair shaggy over the forehead meant I didn’t have to figure out his forehead shape.

  “Done.” I showed her the drawing.

  “Your sketches look more like portraits.” She took the drawing from me. “As you said before, a portrait of vengeance.”

  Someone softly knocked at the door.

  Winston sauntered over and sat in front of it. Beth stood and opened the door.

  Eric smiled. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “No problem,” I said. “How’s the head?”

  “Healing.” He wasn’t wearing the bandage now. His blond hair was shaved on one side, and a three-inch purple line rose horizontally from his temple with a neat row of black stitches.

  I winced.

  “Lila and I are glad you made it back safely. Beth here was quite distraught when you missed dinner.”

  “I’m so sorry about that.”

  Lila joined him in the doorway. “Did you ask them yet?”

  “Since you missed dinner with us last night,” he said, “we’d like to try it again tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  They both nodded. “Everyone’s checked out so we have the place to ourselves. We’d like the company.”

  “In that case, that sounds great,” I said.

  Lila glanced at the table strewn with papers and drawing supplies. “Oh! Is that one of your sketches? Is that the man who took the little girl?”

  “It’s an age progression, and yes, I think he’s the one responsible.” I held up the drawing so they could see.

  “He looks familiar,” Eric said slowly.

  Beth’s eyes widened. “Was he the person who assaulted you?”

  “I didn’t see who hit me. He was behind me.”

  “Can you think of where you might have seen him?” Beth said. “Were you at the Easter egg hunt?”

  I frowned at her leading question, but no one seemed to notice.

  “No.” Eric scratched his chin. “Maybe . . . maybe it was someone who came to the door selling something?”

  I thought about the composite I’d done of the man standing at the Sinopas’ door the night before their deaths. Both drawings had dark hair and were about the same age.

  “Let me think about it,” Eric said. “Dinner at seven in the parlor.” The couple left, closing the door behind them.

  I looked at my sketch of the adult Jacob. “Beth, Eric’s right. He does look familiar. We need to compare this to everyone I’ve met since coming to the Clearwater valley. There’s no doubt I’ve already met him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  WHILE I MADE A LIST OF EVERY PLACE I’D VISITED AND people I’d seen, Winston stood, stretched, then headed to the door.

  “I’ll take him out.” Beth picked up his leash.

  “Before you go, do we have a different color pin? And maybe an enlarged map of the Clearwater drainage?”

  “Sure.” She went to her room, returning with black pins and a folded map, then handed them to me. “Be right back.”

  After she left with the dog, I opened the smaller map and mounted it on part of the foam board. I jabbed a black pin in Kamiah and one in Orofino. Another set of pins went into the casino and Lapwai. On the top of the board I taped the age-progressed drawing. Picking up a final pin, I looked at the map, then picked up the business card Dan Kus left and called him. He answered immediately.

  “Hi, Dan, Gwen here. I have a question for you. Thomas Wolf, the young man you work with at the center . . . What do you know about him?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well . . . ah, you seem to know a lot about his background, his parents . . .”

  “And if you remember”—Dan’s voice was serious—“I also told you to steer clear of his dad, Nick Wolf.”

  “I plan on it. But—”

  Dan’s sigh came clearly over the receiver. “Nick, Lorraine, and I go way back. Nick’s been in a lot of trouble with the law, though he’s doing well now. He was very active with the American Indian Movement and paid dearly for his activism. I took Thomas under my wing when he was in his teens. Troubled kid, but coming around. I didn’t think he would make it.”

  “Oh? Was he sick or . . . ?”

  “Foster child. The Wolfs were foster parents.”

  I chatted further before disconnecting. Taking the black pin I still held in my hand, I jabbed it into the tiny town of Spalding.

  Beth and Winston returned. “Beautiful afternoon. You should smell all the flowers.”

  “I’m sure all of Eric and Lila’s flowers now smell of Winston pee.”

  “Winston only watered the trees,” Beth said righteously. “And one tire on my car.” She took off his leash and finished placing and looping yarn on the cases. “What are the black pins for?”

  “Each pin represents someone I met who fits Jacob’s profile. We know what made him start, what he’s done, where he’s been. Now we need to figure out who he is.”

  “Do me a favor. Draw each suspect.” Beth handed me a sketchpad. “We may not want to look at the faces of the missing children, but don’t we want to look for him? Plus, how many detectives can draw like you?”

  “More than you think,” I muttered, taking a seat. “And all of them will be lining up for my job if I can’t make this work.”

  “You’ll convince everyone.”

  “Okay then, I’ll do a quick sketch, then we’ll go through the likelihood of him being Jacob. Of course, we could be totally off base and it could be someone not on our radar.”

  “Naaah.” Beth took a piece of baklava. I was pretty sure it was her third or fourth slice. How she kept her minus-zero clothing size was beyond me.

  “By any chance do you have a tapeworm?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. We want to look at males in their midtwenties, dark hair and eyes, overhanging eyelids, slightly fuller mouth, medium skin tone. Maybe rounder face or with pronounced cheekbones.”

  “Got it.”

  I sketched a face. “The first person I met when I reached the Clearwater valley that fits the description was Officer Attao with the Nez Perce Tribal Police. He was at the Sinopas’ murder scene, LoneBear’s dump site, supposedly found Phil’s horses, and was at the site where they found the child’s body. He was the first officer on the scene when the sniper attacked in the parking lot of the police station. Come to think of it, the shooting stopped before he arrived and didn’t resume.”

  “He looks like your sketch. Who better than a police officer to keep a watch for you and know how to get away with murder?”

  I wrote Attao under the sketch. “He’s definitely on the short list. Next is Peter Otskai, assistant manager of the hotel and casino.” I drew his face with a few deft lines. “He could easily have planted the notes trying to throw off the investigation. He knew I was staying at the B and B, and you took a photo of him at LoneBear’s murder site. He lied to me during an interview. He also claimed to keep close watch over people coming and going at the hotel.” Otskai’s name went under his drawing.

  “He has a rounder face, but otherwise looks like your drawing. So two possibles.”

  Concentrating hard, I developed a rough sketch of Randy Wait. “Randy here”—I stood and attached his sketch to the board—“was the witness who lied to me in Kamiah. It’s not unusual for some killers to want to insert themselves into the investigation. In a sense, he called me, so I can’t exclude him, but . . .”

  Beth nodded. “He looks a bit young, and we haven’t seen him at any other place.”

  I sketched another face. “What about t
his?” I held up the finished drawing.

  “I’ve never seen him.”

  “Jay Pender. Holly’s nurse. Holly called him Jacob, and he was at the hospital when LoneBear was taken.”

  Beth took the drawing from me and studied it. “If someone was waiting for you to show up, what better place than near Holly?” She attached the sketch to the board. “Is that the lineup?”

  “One more. Thomas Wolf, the guy who works with Dan Kus at the museum. Dan said he talked to Thomas about Phil Cicero as an outfitter for me. He knew exactly where I was going, and, through Dan, would have known of my arrival here in Lewiston long before I met him.” I swiftly drew in his features.

  “Didn’t I hear about parents—”

  “He’s a foster child.” I finished the thumbnail and handed it to Beth. She taped it to the board, now quite crowded with images.

  I stood and looked at each image, comparing it to the age-progressed drawing of Jacob.

  A clatter of dishes, the clinking of silverware, and the smell of baking cheese and bread foreshadowed the call to dinner. Winston stood and moved expectantly to the door leading to the parlor. “Let’s get you some kibble so we can eat in peace.” I filled his food dish and added fresh water to his bowl.

  “I’m starving. Let’s not wait.” Beth opened the game room door. “Oh! You startled me.”

  Lila stood in the hall with arm raised about to knock. “And you startled me. Dinner’s ready.” She blinked at the foam board covered with maps, drawings, and case information.

  “Looks like you’re making progress.” She turned and strolled to the parlor. After closing the door to the game room behind us, Beth and I followed.

  Tapered candles in silver holders rested on either side of a bowl of pink tea roses. The round oak table sitting in front of the carved fireplace was covered with a white linen tablecloth. The tossed green salads were already on the table. A small fire crackled in the fireplace.

  “This is exquisite.” Beth lifted a white bread plate painted with pink roses.