Crisis Shot

by Janice Cantore

  The mill owner and his descendants operated the “Tour through the Hollows” for years, until the big flood of the 1960s, when a portion of the mill, the bridge to the Victorian, and part of the main street were washed away. Houses and neighborhoods on high ground survived. It was questionable whether or not Rogue’s Hollow would make it, but it did, and it slowly rebuilt.

  The town hung on even with business gone and the Victorian deserted. The caves were almost forgotten until the 1970s, when the state realized their value and rebuilt the bridge to the area. They took over the caves and renovated the historic gift shop just north of the Victorian. Tess had toured the caves the first month she’d been in town, been fascinated from a law enforcement standpoint at how intricate the cubbyholes and hiding places were, formed by nature but utilized by devious minds.

  The downtown area was resurrected at that time, and as logging faded out, the demographics of the town changed again. Small businesses brought tourist trade in, and the neighborhoods filled with retirees, outdoorsmen, families, and people who enjoyed the quirky nature of the town.

  The Victorian remained boarded up for years, threatened with demolition now and again, until Cole and his wife, Charlotte, bought it and renovated it into a bed-and-breakfast.

  Tess loved the inn where she was staying, but she had to admit the bed-and-breakfast was special. The Markarovs had built a beautiful and cozy place. Tess guessed that it was all Charlotte, really. The touches were too feminine and homey to be from the guy Tess had met at her interview. She’d heard Cole had little to do with the running of the B and B; Charlotte did it all and wonderfully.

  Tess’s mother and brother had stayed there when they came to Rogue’s Hollow for Tess’s swearing in. They only came for the weekend, but both said the bed-and-breakfast was wonderful, worth the price, and a place they’d stay again. And from what she could see, it was an inviting place. Tess had met Charlotte briefly. The woman was a whirling dervish of activity and the perfect hostess. Cole had been out of town that weekend.

  Jeannie had already purchased plane tickets to fly up in November, and she would stay there. Tess looked forward to the visit. She missed her friends being a short drive away for spontaneous lunches or movies or just goofing off.

  Thoughts of Long Beach brought with them the realization that she hadn’t heard from Jeannie yet. Usually she got a text every morning, a kind of security to send and receive a message from a friend.

  Tess sent off a text to Jeannie as the sting of Casey’s admission that she hadn’t voted for Tess’s hire faded. Instead she felt a sort of relief that even though two months ago she hadn’t wanted Tess to be here, now the woman was extending her hand in friendship.

  Her phone pinged with a return text. Tess laughed. Jeannie had sent the results of an election poll. Connor-Ruiz was polling dead last in the three-way race for mayor of LB.

  Will I ever find a friend as good as Jeannie here? she wondered. Then she thought of Anna and put a reminder on her phone to check in with Pastor Macpherson.

  Breakfast was tasty, and she was glad Addie had forced the issue. As she ate her oatmeal, her thoughts latched back on to the homicide. Busyness was what she wanted. Serious police work would help her lose herself in a puzzle and ease the pain of missing people back home. She had just been getting used to life without Paul when the shooting happened.

  Once she finished her breakfast, she gathered her things up to leave the dining room and looked around at the place filling with patrons. As nice as it was here, and as good as Addie and Klaus had been to her, this wasn’t a home; it was a temporary place to stay. Did that have something to do with the reason she felt so unsettled? She’d not felt motivated at all to look for a place to buy or rent. Most of her belongings were still in storage in Long Beach.

  When she had time on her hands, she wondered if she hadn’t looked that hard for a home because she didn’t truly feel she could keep this job. She served at the whim of a city council that had barely hired her.

  In her strong moments, she didn’t mind the slim margin of her hire. After all, the city council was only four citizens and a mayor, all part-time. She had the job and the knowledge to be good at it. But in her weak moments she felt so inadequate. She’d been confident and proactive in Long Beach, and had just been doing her job when the shooting happened. What if she was involved in a shooting here? Was it possible this whole town would rise up and kick her out? Where would she go then?

  She pushed those thoughts from her mind and left the inn. She’d stop at the station, log in the bullet, and then head for Wild Automotive.

  This August morning was as pleasant a late summer day as she’d ever seen. The tourist trade was still active, rafters were preparing to be shuttled to launch sites, fishermen dotted the river, shoppers walked River Drive, outside seating at the coffee shop was full, and the days were warm while the nights and mornings were cool. Tess realized, with some chagrin, that she had a fleeting thought about what winter would look like here. Was it a good thing she considered the future here, or was it scary?

  20

  Standing in front of the inn, Tess looked across the main street, River Drive, at Wild Automotive. This was essentially where downtown Rogue’s Hollow began. The business district had a simple layout. The Hollow bridge was the turnoff from Highway 62, and once over the bridge and Rogue River, past the town’s only stoplight, River Drive began. On the riverside was the Rogue’s Hollow Inn and Suites. The church grounds took up the rest of the river frontage, extending all the way to Midas Creek. Wild Automotive began the business district on the other side of River Drive.

  She crossed the street to the station and spent a few minutes logging the bullet Casey Reno had given her into evidence. She placed herself on duty and told Sheila that she’d be out talking to people in town about Glen.

  From the station, Tess decided she’d walk this morning, not take her car. It would be easier, she thought, to get a feel for where Glen went last Thursday when he arrived in the Hollow. River Drive ran east-west on the south side of the Rogue River through downtown. Heading east from the highway turnoff, the drive was only about four blocks long and eventually made a right turn to run along Midas Creek. To reach rural Rogue’s Hollow one had to drive west on River Drive.

  Tess headed to the auto repair yard first. Besides a repair shop, Forest also owned a mini-mart and a gas station, the only one between Trail and Prospect. Forest was in a tie-dye T-shirt and Tess could see him in the garage before she stepped onto the lot. Forest employed a lot of people: pump attendants, a couple of clerks for his small convenience store, and around five mechanics. Tess never remembered seeing any of them idle. She’d heard that Forest was the guy to see for any auto or motorcycle repair job in Rogue’s Hollow—and most of the Upper Rogue, for that matter. He had the city contract to service the police cars. Forest had a solid rep as a man who did good work at a fair price.

  Tess had quickly discovered that here, in this southern Oregon valley, word-of-mouth reputation was as good as gold. Unlike Southern California, where services proliferated and so did consumers, and businesses could get by with shoddy work or poor customer service, here word got around quickly. If someone couldn’t be counted on, people would take their business to a more reliable place.

  “Hiya, Chief.” Forest saw her and stopped what he was doing as she walked toward him. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands as he greeted her. He was smiling; in fact, every time she saw Forest, he was smiling.

  “Hi, Forest. You sound as if you expected me.”

  “I did. I heard about Glen. That’s his Jeep over there.” He pointed to a battered two-door Jeep off to the right. “He dropped it off a week ago, Thursday to be exact, and asked me to do a little work on it, which I did. He never came back and he owes me $200.”

  Tess strode to the Jeep, noted that there was a messenger bag on the passenger seat. Glen had nothing on him but an empty wallet and some change in his pocket. What was i
n the bag?

  “Was that the only reason he was in Rogue’s Hollow—to get his Jeep repaired? Did he mention being here for any other reason?”

  Forest shook his head. “All we talked about was the Jeep. Something was wrong with the four-wheel drive. Said he was planning to take a trip on some rough old logging roads and needed the four-wheel drive to be working properly. I had to order the part, so I told him it would take a couple of days. He didn’t seem bothered, just told me to call his cell when it was done. I called and left a message, never heard back.”

  Cell. Casey had seen him talking on a phone. But Glen hadn’t had a phone on him or near him. She should have known that he would have a phone. It was amazingly easy for homeless people to get cell phones these days.

  “Can you give me the cell number you had for him?”

  “Sure thing.” Forest rattled off a number and Tess entered it into her phone. Phone records needed to be obtained. This could be a good lead.

  “How did he seem to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he nervous, angry, uneasy, jumpy—anything like that?”

  Forest rubbed his hands together and thought a moment. “No, he actually just looked mellow and at peace.” He shrugged. “I mean, I’ve seen him tweaking and stoned in the past, but come to think of it, that day he wasn’t stoned, just happy. He had his dog with him, as usual. Killer is a sweetheart. I’m an animal lover. I heard you were able to save her.”

  “Yeah, I guess she’s a tough animal. Did Glen have any close friends that you know of?”

  “Tilly.”

  “Tilly?” Tess had heard that name before.

  “She’s an unbalanced girl, homeless mostly. Glen tends to look after her.”

  “But she wasn’t here that day?”

  “Not with him. He might have been trying to find her. When she’s in town, she hangs out near food places, looking for handouts, digging in the trash. I was letting her sleep behind my place.” He hiked a shoulder. “I just wanted her to be safe. But my insurance guy thought it was a liability, so I had to tell her no more.”

  “Have you seen her lately?”

  He stroked his beard. “I can’t think of when I last saw Tilly here. I think I heard that she was staying in Shady Cove. In fact, Glen generally spends more time in Shady Cove. I’ve seen them both in Aunt Caroline’s Park, across from Shady Kate’s—you know, the antique store? But I can ask my guys. The mini-mart is open 24-7; they might have seen her.”

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to them.” Tess walked into the mini-mart and quickly got the attention of the two clerks. One was a woman Tess guessed was well past sixty-five and probably supplementing Social Security with the job, and the other was a twentysomething guy with a safety pin through his lower lip. Neither had seen Tilly lately, but they did see Glen when he dropped his car off. They promised to call if they did see Tilly.

  Walking back to Glen’s Jeep, Tess asked herself some questions. Was Tilly with Glen when he was killed? If she was, had she fallen into the creek and just not surfaced yet, or did she survive and was now hiding somewhere? She didn’t know Glen and worked to form a picture of the guy in her mind’s eye. In her prior experience, homeless drug addicts were an unpredictable lot. The men usually stole to support their habits, and unfortunately the women often sold themselves to do the same. Thinking of the hopeless lifestyle sent a shiver up Tess’s spine.

  The vast majority of murder victims knew their killers. Unless Glen was hiking early in the morning and stumbled on someone who decided to shoot him, it was a good bet he’d met his killer there for some reason. A bracing thought struck her: in this small town where everyone knew everyone, his killer could be hiding in plain sight.

  That led her to motive. On the surface, it appeared that the person with the strongest motive for murder was the one whose money Glen brought to Anna. But maybe after she learned more about Glen, a stronger motive would surface. She needed to keep an open mind and learn as much as she could about her victim.

  There were a lot of things to consider, and the timing still bugged her. Glen dropped his Jeep off on Thursday, then gave the money to Anna Friday night and showed up dead a week later. Where was he in the interim?

  “If they haven’t seen her lately,” Forest said when Tess returned, “it’s not unusual for the daytime. You might come back and ask the night shift.”

  “Thank you. I see there’s a bag on the front seat. Did he have anything else? Did he take something with him?”

  “Just a small backpack. I saw him put dog food in it. He also bought some bottled water from the store.” Forest pointed toward his small convenience store. “That’s about it.”

  If Glen didn’t come here with the money he handed to Anna Macpherson, Tess wondered, where did he get it? And when? More questions.

  “You say he owes you two hundred dollars. Does he usually pay you? I mean, I’ve heard him described as a homeless drug addict. How did he keep his Jeep gassed up and running, and pay you?”

  “Glen makes money under the table doing odd jobs and grunt work. Yeah, he was homeless, but he did earn enough to take care of what was important to him. His dog, his car, Tilly—not necessarily in that order. I would sometimes give him work to pay his bill.” He pointed to the area behind his station. “I was planning on having him clear the brush back there if he didn’t have the cash this time.”

  Tess considered this for a moment; then her attention went back to the vehicle.

  “Is the Jeep open? I’ll need to take the bag and anything else in the vehicle and place it into evidence.”

  He nodded. “Have at it.”

  Tess grabbed the door handle. “If you need a receipt, come by the office later and I’ll have one for you.”

  “No problem.”

  She slid into the front seat and turned back to Forest. “Would you mind keeping the Jeep secure for me?”

  “Not at all. I’m still out two hundred bucks.”

  She went through the car carefully but found it was mostly full of trash, dog hair, candy bar wrappers, and fast-food bags. But being that she’d been told Glen lived out of his car, it was surprisingly clean. Taking the messenger bag and then locking the Jeep, she thanked Forest before continuing her search for information about Glen Elders.

  After Forest’s yard ended, the business walk on River Drive began, starting with Casey’s bookstore. She walked past the bookstore, a woman she’d not met yet behind the counter. Next was Hotshot Fishing, a sandwich shop on one side and a fishing/outdoor shop on the other side. Tess had had a sandwich or two at the place, but since she didn’t fish, she’d only glanced at the other half. They also rented bikes and did raft trips, one day and multiday. She wanted to take a raft trip but decided she’d probably wait until Jeannie made a summertime visit. It would be a great lure to convince her to make a second trip.

  The woman behind the counter remembered that Glen had bought a sandwich to go and then continued on down the street. Next door to Hotshot was the police station/city hall and a small post office. Glen hadn’t stopped there. Tess stopped inside to drop off the bag she’d retrieved from Glen’s Jeep. She’d go through it later.

  Across the street from the station, on the river side of Hollow Drive was the church property.

  Tess paused, still bothered by the coincidence of Glen’s death and his cousin Anna’s disappearance. After a minute she continued to the next business, the Hollow Grind, where Casey had gotten her coffee and a place Tess visited often. Beans were roasted on-site and the smell was heavenly. Oregonians loved their coffee, something Tess truly appreciated. If it wasn’t a quaint coffee shop like this, there were numerous drive-through coffee huts all over the valley where a person could get a coffee fix.

  “Hey, Chief, the usual?” Pete, the owner-operator, greeted her, though the place was busy.

  “No coffee today, but I had a couple of questions to ask. Do you know Glen Elders?”

  His face fell. “I did. My m
orning customers were already talking about that, that—” he frowned—“well, his death.”

  “Had you seen him lately?”

  “He was in here last weekend. He actually paid me back some money he owed, and he started a tab for a friend of his.”

  “A tab?”

  “Yeah, he has a homeless friend. I’ve complained to the cops before about her. She begs in front of the store and once or twice got aggressive with tourists. Anyway, he put forty dollars down in her name. So when she shows up, I’ll give her coffee and food until the money runs out. He didn’t steal the money, did he?”

  “Not that I’m aware. I’m just trying to retrace his steps. This homeless woman, is it someone named Tilly?”

  He nodded. “Tilly Dover.”

  Tess had thought about this name since Forest said it, and she knew she had heard it before. Or read it. Then it came to her. In her studying up on local laws and problems, Tilly was listed and described as an unpredictable bipolar homeless woman. She’d been arrested numerous times and then kicked out of jail because of overcrowding. Tess had never seen her, had only heard stories.

  “Was Tilly with him?”

  Pete shook his head. “She did come in on Monday, by herself, clean and half-normal. Got coffee and a couple of breakfast bagels. Haven’t seen her since.”

  “Thanks. If you do see her, could you give me a call? She’s not in trouble. I just want to talk to her about Glen.”

  “Will do.”

  On the other side of the Hollow Grind was a vacant storefront. At one time it had been a thrift store, but now a big For Lease sign graced the window. Rumor was, it would soon be a real estate office.

  PSS, Platinum Security Systems, occupied the next slot. There was a sign on the door with a clock, the hands showing that someone would be back at noon. Tess had met Beto Acosta a couple of times. He’d tried to talk her into upgrading the security system at the PD, but that was something he needed to talk to Mayor Dixon about. He was nice enough, but to Tess it was as if he tried too hard. And he was a close talker; he liked to encroach on personal space, and Tess hated that.