Where Echoes Live

by Marcia Muller

  “No,” I had said, trying to maintain a light tone, “you’re being nice because you’ve got a touch of the Helpmate about you.” The Helpmates were the wimps of his schema.

  Normally George would have laughed, but he was adept at picking up on my vocal undertones. “Sharon, what’s wrong?”

  I had hesitated, one ear tuned to my flight’s first boarding call. My annoyance was both illogical and ill defined; certainly it would fade before I next saw him. “I’m just upset about having to cancel,” I finally told him.

  But I must have sounded unconvincing. “We’ll have to talk when you get back,” he said.

  “Yes, we’ll talk,” I agreed.

  Now I found the memory of the conversation unsettling enough that I didn’t care to dwell on it. While Hy spoke into the Citabria’s radio, I turned my thoughts to my investigation.

  Start with Mick Erickson. He found out about the gold-mining potential in Stone Valley from his old co-worker, Ned Sanderman. Since he had a degree from Colorado School of Mines, he might have been aware of the patenting process as a way to purchase federal land. Wait a minute here— wouldn’t Erickson have already known about Stone Valley, since his father-in-law owned the defunct Promiseville Mine?

  “Reno Ground, this is Citabria seven-seven-two-eight-niner….”

  All right, maybe Erickson’s talk with Sanderman jogged his memory, got him to thinking about the land to be had in Stone Valley. Sanderman might even have unwittingly supplied Alvin Knight’s name by telling Mick how the Coalition had filed a complaint against the geologist for allegedly falsifying a mineral survey.

  “Two-eight-niner, squawk is oh-one-three-five….”

  Erickson probably knew that Ong was looking to buy large parcels of land in attractive locations for Transpacific resorts. So he went to Ong with the idea of developing Stone Valley, demanding a finder’s fee, of course. He persuaded his father-in-law—or perhaps Margot did—to sell his property to Transpacific, and arranged with Alvin Knight to obtain the adjoining 700 acres.

  “Clearance Delivery, this is two-eight-niner. I’m VFR southbound for Tufa Lake with Delta …”

  Everything had gone as planned. Title to the BLM land passed to the fictitious Tarbeaux; Transpacific in turn bought it from him. Knight played his role as supervising geologist and made a pretense of taking core samples, then shut the site down. My guess was that Transpacific intended to wait through the winter before making the public announcement that they had been duped by the conveniently missing Tarbeaux. With their public relations people smoothing the way, they would then unveil plans for the Golden Hills project, no doubt making much of the new prosperity that the construction and, later, the service jobs would bring to Mono County.

  “Ground Control, this is two-eight-niner. Request permission to taxi for takeoff.”

  “Two-eight-niner, taxi to runway thirty-four right.”

  The little plane eased into motion. I watched the other small aircraft slip by and, after we turned, saw a jet taxiing on the parallel runway. Even at this distance, its size made me feel vulnerable. I clasped my hands tighter, turned my attention back to the case.

  Okay, I thought, everything went as planned. But then Erickson made a secret trip to Tufa Lake—so secret he went to great lengths to keep it from everyone, including his wife … estranged wife. A few days later he was shot and dumped in the lake. Hopwood had already more or less vanished, and now so had Lionel Ong. And yesterday someone had roughed up Margot Erickson; she’d also taken off for Tufa Lake.

  Quite a gathering might occur there, should Ong turn up in the area, as Knight and Ripinsky seemed to believe he would.

  If Hopwood surfaced and Knight decided to make the trip, it would be a reunion of co-conspirators.

  “Reno Tower, this is two-eight-niner. Ready on thirty-four right.”

  “Okay, two-eight-niner. Clear for takeoff. Right downwind departure.”

  Hy increased the engine power; the little plane strained and trembled. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. The plane jerked forward, began rushing down the runway, wheels bumping and jarring my spine. I closed my eyes, felt the thump as the tires left the ground. The plane canted even more sharply; I was thrust back into the seat, planted my feet more securely on the floor. We climbed at a steep angle, kept climbing for what must have been a couple of miles, and then leveled out some. I opened my eyes.

  Hy banked the plane, and I saw the neon glitter dusting the hills and flatlands to my right. “Hey, McCone,” his voice said in my ear, “you still with me?”

  I twisted sideways and pressed my nose to the window. “I’m here.”

  “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.” Turbulence caught the plane, rocked it. My stomach lurched, but I kept my nose to the plastic, watching Reno grow smaller. The next updraft didn’t bother me; instead I felt an excited flutter. It was the old half-remembered thrill of being cut loose from the earth. More than that: of having been cut loose from the bonds of the present, the past, even the future….

  God, I’d forgotten how much I loved to fly!

  Hy said, “The way we’re heading, you’ll be able to make out Lake Tahoe if you look hard. That’s Carson City dead ahead, and from there we’ll just follow the road home.”

  “You mean three ninety-five?”

  “Uh-huh. Not much between Carson City and Bridgeport except a few small towns. The highway’s a good landmark, so why not use it?”

  I settled back, enjoying the motion.

  “So,” Hy said, “you want to brief me on what you found out in San Francisco? Anne-Marie seems to think we’ve got the problem knocked.”

  “…I’d just as soon go over it with both of you at the same time.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  We flew in silence for a while. I left off thinking about the case, watched the lights of Carson City appear and recede behind us. Then there was only blackness below, relieved occasionally by a few dim beacons. Now and then an updraft buffeted us. The first made me suck in my breath, and Hy said, “Hey, that’s nothing.” After that, as he would have said, they were a piece of cake. When a particularly strong one hit us just as the lights of Bridgeport appeared, I laughed. Hy’s answering chuckle contained a note of pleased surprise.

  “Getting into flying again, are you?”

  “I’d better not be—it’s expensive. That was why I stopped before.”

  “Hell, I got an instructor buddy owes me favors; I could get your lessons for free.”

  “But then what would I owe you?”

  He laughed.

  Wistfulness stole over me. The idle chatter was amusing, but I knew there would be no flying lessons. No future light conversations between Ripinsky and me, either. Once I’d finished with this investigation—

  He said, “By the way, you like that rose I sent you?”

  “… You sent me?” I was stunned.

  “Uh-huh. Bet you thought it was from your boyfriend.”

  It was lucky I’d kept forgetting to thank George for it, especially in light of his present disappointment with me. “I did. How’d you know about him?”

  “Anne-Marie told me. Sounds like a smart fellow.”

  “He is. Why’d you send me the flower?”

  “Hell, McCone, why does any man send a woman a rose?”

  I didn’t respond, but after Bridgeport had vanished into the darkness I asked, “Why a yellow one?”

  “You’re not traditional enough for red, not sentimental enough for pink, and definitely not virginal, so white was out.”

  “Well, thank you for sending it. Yellow’s my favorite.”

  “I think I kind of guessed that.”

  For a while after that we didn’t speak. I stared at the back of his head, my thoughts and emotions in turmoil. Then he reached back and touched my knee, motioned at the left side of the aircraft.

  Tufa Lake spread to the south, lights of the town strung along its near shore. Among them I could iden
tify Zelda’s sign at the tip of the point, its crimson bleeding into the water. The runway of the airstrip was outlined in a string of yellow lights to the west. And in the distance the alkali plain gleamed white in the moonlight, the black cones of the fire mountains looming over it.

  The plane dipped and began its steep descent. Hy said, “Tufa Tower, this is double-luck-two-eight-niner, coming home.”

  Twenty-two

  When we got to Hy’s ranch house, he pulled my bag from the carrying space of his Morgan and set it next to the Land Rover. “You sure you won’t come in and get warm?” he asked. I shook my head.

  “It’s late; Anne-Marie will worry.”

  “Suit yourself.” He fiddled with his key chain, then held one out to me. “There’s a spare in one of those magnetic cases under the left rear bumper. Registration and insurance card in the glove compartment. Baby it a little when you start up in the morning—it’s no more of an early riser than I am.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the lift down here.”

  “Glad to be of help. Tomorrow we’ll talk about what you found out.”

  Not replying, I tossed the bag onto the seat of the Land Rover and climbed in after it. The engine caught right away, and I eased the vehicle into gear and turned around. As I drove off, I glanced into the rearview mirror; Hy was standing where I’d left him, looking melancholy.

  At the road I turned right toward Vernon, but after I rounded the first bend I made a U-turn and parked on the verge near the sheep pen. The moon was a luminous disk suspended above the peaks; its chill glow frosted the barren countryside. The sheep huddled together, their wool resembling drifts of snow. The stick-and-barbed-wire fences stood out against the pale meadow as if etched on ice.

  The green numerals of the digital clock on the dash showed it was after eleven. I settled back and waited—five, ten, fifteen minutes. Then I restarted the engine and drove swiftly toward Stone Valley. As I passed Ripinsky’s ranch house, I noted that its windows were dark, the Morgan where he’d parked it. Still, I kept a weather eye on the rearview mirror until I was certain he hadn’t spotted the Land Rover and followed me.

  As I topped the rise above the ruins of Promiseville I slowed, scanning the valley. No lights on the mesa or in the town. In the icy moonglow the fractured and shattered hills were reminders of the earth’s violent self-destructive forces. The twisted skeleton of the old stamp mill sprawling down the side of the mesa and the sagging husks on the valley floor spoke of what those forces had done to the people who attempted to tame them.

  The vast emptiness and silence threatened to overwhelm me. I gripped the steering wheel, pressed down on the accelerator. Drove into the valley, pushing aside intimations of futility and mortality. And kept my eyes on the road ahead as I passed the graveyard.

  The Land Rover handled the rough trail next to the streambed effortlessly. I kept its speed down and switched to the parking lights as I neared the little box canyon. A short distance away I stopped and proceeded on foot.

  Before I could see Hopwood’s cabin, I heard the rush of the falls. Moonbeams played on the stream’s eddying waters and lighted my way. The rocky walls narrowed on either side of me, and then I spotted the crude pine structure tucked under the cliff’s overhang. No van or Miata stood in front of it, no light showed in its windows.

  So where was Margot Erickson?

  I stopped some twenty feet away, searching the shadows. The same sense of wrongness that I’d felt Saturday afternoon came to me—more strongly now. I went up to the cabin’s door and pounded. As I expected, there was no response. Then I circled it, looking for something I might have missed the other day. Hesitated behind it, rationalizing what I was about to do.

  The situation had changed since I’d come here the first time. Mick Erickson had been murdered, and there was a possibility the killer had gone after Hopwood, too. Margot had left San Francisco early this morning, should have arrived here by now; she had already been roughed up, might also be in danger. Technically I should have reported my suspicions to the sheriff’s department, but it was a long way to a phone. Besides, I was working with them…

  I located a metal drum in the assortment of junk below the rocky overhang and dragged it beneath one of the windows. Upended it and climbed on top, attempting to look inside. Dirty white curtains blocked my view. I shoved upward on the sash, but the lock held.

  I climbed down and scouted the junk pile until I found a pick with a broken handle. Carried it over, raised it in both hands, and shattered the glass. After pulling the more jagged shards from the frame, I pushed the curtain aside. The window let into a kitchen. I undid the lock, thrust the frame up, hoisted myself onto the sill, then dropped to the plank floor.

  I’d locked my purse in the Land Rover, but had thought to bring along my small flashlight. Now I pulled it from my pocket and shone its thin beam around the room. The kitchen was even more primitive than the one at Lily Nickles’s house and gave evidence of Hopwood’s indifferent housekeeping: dirty plates and a pot full of a long-encrusted substance stood on a table near the propane burner; a loaf of bread had turned dark and fuzzy, its plastic wrapper nibbled by rodents.

  A doorway led into a second room. Through it I could see an old-fashioned overstuffed sofa like the one at All Souls. I went in there, found a wood stove and a platform rocker. And saw that one of the end tables had been overturned, an oil lamp shattered on the floor. Beside it lay a crumpled rag rug covered with dark stains.

  I squatted next to the rug, trained the flashlight beam on it. The stains were brown and dried; it looked as if the rug had been used to wipe the floor. I examined the planks more closely, saw smears on them and crusted brown matter down in the cracks. Part of the beige sofa was covered in a fine spatter pattern.

  Blood, I thought, old blood. But how old?

  I swiveled and trained the flashlight on the spatters on the sofa. The small size of the drops indicated they’d been produced by a high- to medium-velocity impact; that meant anything from a blow with a hammer or ax to a gunshot. Although their shape had been distorted by absorption into the fabric, they appeared to have hit the sofa at a slightly downward angle.

  All right, I thought, standing up. Someone was about here in front of the sofa when he or she was hit or shot. Fell this way, knocking over the lamp and table. But who? And when? By whom? And why? Those were questions that no amount of examination of spatter patterns would answer. I needed to call the sheriff’s department so a lab crew could go over the place, but while I was here …

  Quickly I began to search the rest of the cabin, being careful not to disarrange anything or destroy possible fingerprints. It was a simple job—there was only one other room—and as I went I gathered shreds of the lonely life that had gone on, and perhaps ended, there.

  On the bureau in the small bedroom was a single framed photograph showing a young Margot Erickson, dark blond hair styled in a bouffant, shoulders covered in the sort of black velvet drape popular for high school graduation pictures of that era. Pretty Peggy, as Ripinsky had said they called her, smiled for the camera, but there was a tension in the curve of her lips that suggested—at least from the advantageous perspective of hindsight—a near-desperate urge to break loose from her clinging father and the small town that confined her. I wondered if today Margot felt the ensuing years had been worth their cost.

  The bureau drawers contained nothing but clothing, a great deal of it unworn and some of it still in boxes from such pricey San Francisco stores as Bullock & Jones—unneeded and unwanted gifts from a daughter attempting to assuage her guilt at having abandoned her father. Hanging in the closet were the things that Hopwood actually wore—denims and khakis and a small selection of inexpensive polyester sports clothes suitable for the casinos in Nevada. The only reading material was a Bible, which lay open and face down on the single nightstand next to the metal bedstead.

  I picked it up, saw that Hopwood had been reading Revelation. A phrase at the top of the right-hand
page caught my attention: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

  Soothing bedtime reading, I thought as I set down the worn volume. I’ve never understood the appeal of the fire-and-brimstone varieties of religion; life is difficult enough without the constant specter of damnation looming over us each time we stray from some stringent and preordained creed. Perhaps it was the fact that I’ve never considered myself one of the righteous who would find the welcome mat spread before the gates of Saint John the Divine’s envisioned holy city, but I was certain that had I lived in the vast isolation of Stone Valley, I would have sought more cheerful reading matter than his apocalyptic ravings.

  I made one more brief pass through the living room and kitchen, then secured the cabin and got out of there. I’d drive to Vernon and report the bloodstains to the sheriff’s department—and hope they accepted my rationalization for breaking in there.

  There was a lighted phone booth outside the filling station that Hopwood used to run, so I pulled in to make my call from there rather than driving all the way to the lodge. Kristen Lark wasn’t on duty; when I asked for her partner, Dwight Gilford, I was told he was on vacation. The deputy on duty wouldn’t give me Lark’s home number, but after some wheedling on my part, he took my number and said he’d phone her; if she wanted to talk to me, she’d call back. I propped the booth’s door open so the light would go off and waited in the darkness. Vernon was pretty much shut down by now, although Zelda’s sign still glowed red against the post-midnight sky. I remembered how from the air the neon had made it look as if the lake were stained with blood, and my thoughts returned to the all too real bloodstains out in Stone Valley. When the phone rang, I started.