by Keaton, Elle
“Just a couple cups of coffee,” Mat requested as she got closer.
Martin was in the kitchen; Mat could hear his voice and see him through the pass-through. He wore a dingy white T-shirt and checkered chef’s pants partially protected by a white apron tied around his waist. He must’ve heard Mat’s voice, because he turned and glared at them through the small window.
Brenda looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening at the expression on Martin’s face—it was not pleasant.
Mat called out, “Martin, can we chat for a moment?”
“Why do you gotta come into my place of work and cause trouble?” Martin whined through the tiny window.
“We’re not here to cause trouble for you, Martin. We just have a few questions.”
Martin pushed through the swinging doors that separated the kitchen from the dining room and stood at the end of the counter, his burly arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Did you hear about the body at the marina the other day?”
Martin’s eyes narrowed. Of course he’d heard. The islanders were likely talking of nothing else.
“Yeah, what of it? I was at work, ask anybody.”
“It was Duane Cooper.”
Martin didn’t flinch at the name. “Yeah? And?”
“You know a lot about what goes on around Piedras. Have you ever heard anything about Cooper?”
Brenda sidled over to them, dropping off two mugs of coffee and a saucer with creamers stacked on it before gliding away. Mat drew one of the mugs closer to him, grabbed a creamer, peeled back the lid, and dumped it into the hot brew.
“If I do know something, will it keep you guys off my back?” Martin demanded. “I didn’t know Cooper. He was way older than me; we didn’t run with the same crowd.” His glance moved right and left. Martin had something.
“But…?” Mat probed.
“Well,” Martin waggled his head, “if a guy wanted some sockeye or something out of season, I heard Duane could hook you up.”
That tidbit didn’t surprise Mat. It had been almost fifty years since the Boldt decision affirmed Native Americans’ right to fish in their traditional waters in Washington State and keep 50 percent of the annual catch, and non-Native fishermen were still pissed about it. The case basically went all the way to the Supreme Court but had been upheld.
Martin’s information didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could have been that Cooper was on good terms with one of the tribes and they gave him fish. On the other hand, it could’ve meant Cooper fished illegally, which… he’d had the equipment and the opportunity.
“Nothing else?”
Martin shook his head. “If you’re done wasting my time, I got orders to cook up.” Without waiting for a reply, he stalked back into the kitchen, the doors swinging behind him.
Mat paid Brenda but left his half-finished coffee; Birdy hadn’t touched hers. By mutual agreement, they left the Hook and walked back toward the station. It was a short walk; Mat enjoyed the chilly edge to the air. Fall was his favorite season.
“It’s like he can’t help being a jerk,” Birdy said.
“I think the word you’re thinking of is ‘asshole.’” Mat nodded toward the marina. “Let’s head over and see if Bellows has anything to add about Cooper.”
The dockmaster looked surprised to see them at his door; his bushy eyebrows rose toward his nonexistent hairline.
“Good morning, Sheriff, uh, Deputy. Come inside.”
They crowded into the small office. Bellows moved to sit at a wooden desk crammed into one corner, big enough there was no room for extra chairs. The walls were covered with dog-eared marine charts of the islands and locations farther afield. Piles of papers and an older laptop sat on the desk. Bellows was obviously one of those people with his own special organizational skill set.
“Thanks, Tom.” Mat leaned against the frame of the open door. “We just have some more questions about Cooper.”
“Sure, sure.” Tom turned slightly so he was facing the two of them.
“I know you said you didn’t know Cooper well.”
Tom nodded. “He didn’t keep a vessel here.”
“Right. Wondering, though, what you knew about him. Had you heard anything… that seemed out of the ordinary?”
As they were talking, it occurred to Mat that Tom was the right age, that he and Duane Cooper probably had known each other for decades. Even if they hadn’t been friends, it was impossible to live on Piedras for any length of time and not know something about just about every resident.
Tom’s eyes shifted ever so slightly.
“He’s dead,” Mat said, “and we’d like to bring his killer to justice. We know he was involved in some illegal activity.”
“I wasn’t involved.” Tom was nervous as hell now.
“Okay,” Mat said reassuringly, “you figured it out somehow?”
Tom latched on to the lifeline Mat had tossed him. “Yes, that’s what happened.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know the details—I didn’t want to. Cooper paid me to look the other way.” His words were rushed. “If I saw him, or his friend, here, I didn’t record it. I just let them moor and stay. They never stayed long, maybe a night or two, and then they were gone again.”
“Who was his friend?” Birdy asked, her tone gentle—as if she was only curious.
Tom squeezed his eyes shut. Fear, Mat thought, flashed across his face. “I didn’t know his name.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
He shook his head. “No, not for a few months.”
“Would you be willing to describe him for us? From the sounds of it, this person is not someone who lives on the island.”
Minutes later, Mat and Birdy left with a fairly vague description: a White male maybe in his forties, tall, maybe heavyset—but he’d been wearing a sweater the one time Tom had seen him on the dock—with dark hair and a beard. Tom had never spoken to him and never seen him close up.
“Great. It could be almost anyone.” A beard was something that could come or go. Mat wasn’t going to concentrate on that descriptor, and besides, it applied to most of the men on the island, both residents and visitors.
“As long as they’re a middle-aged White male,” Birdy said.
“That’s still about half of the people who visit the islands. I wonder if we should try to get him to come down to the station so we can try to put together a composite.”
“Yeah, but…”
“It’s the only lead we have—of any kind. Dammit.” Mat ground his teeth together in frustration. “Maybe I need to talk to Jeffrey Reynolds again.” The last thing he wanted to do was talk to that creep.
“Sir,” Birdy said as Mat pulled the station door open and they walked inside, “I’m not convinced he has anything more for us. Even if he does have information that proves your father’s death wasn’t an accident, is it worth it to help him get some sort of deal? I’m not saying Sheriff Dempsey’s death wasn’t a tragedy, but it happened a long time ago, and wouldn’t opening up the case again also open old wounds?”
“I don’t believe my father was a saint. I know he wasn’t perfect. But if he was somehow involved in this same scheme Cooper was—smuggling? I don’t know. I think it will come out anyway.”
He needed to talk to his mother. More than anything, he did not want her hurt. If it turned out that his father had been… at least looking the other way, and at worst involved enough that Cooper or one of his cohorts had him killed, she needed to know before the entire island was talking about it.
12
Thursday—Niall
Just after the noon hour, Shay dropped Ryder off with a glance at Niall that said he’d done his part for the cause for now. Niall had figured it was just as easy for him to finish up the last of the paperwork for the Langley case while Ryder was on Piedras as it would be to do it after he left that evening.
“I’ll talk to you later,
” Shay said through his rolled-down window. “I’m heading over to help Claribel with some paperwork.”
“Better you than me,” said Niall. He and the matriarch of the Delacombe family had an uneasy relationship. Shay rolled his eyes at Niall before driving off, and Niall turned to Ryder.
“Your place is amazing; I can see why you stayed up here instead of moving to the Bay Area.” Ryder’s eyes were wide. He seemed to be trying to take in everything at once. “What’s up with the crime scene tape? Are you practicing? You know, keep up the skills so it drapes just right?”
“Funny.” Niall raised an eyebrow at his coworker. “Mat and I found some old bones in the woods last night.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Niall shook his head. “Nope. Marshal Soper, the volunteer coroner, will be here in just a few minutes to decide if it’s a body dump or—unlikely—a Native American burial.”
Niall wouldn’t have thought it was possible for Ryder’s eyes to grow wider, but they did.
“Can I watch?” Ryder asked, somewhat breathlessly, as if he was getting to see the Book of Kells firsthand, or possibly the Holy Grail.
“Behave yourself. No pictures or blabbing about it.” Niall knew Ryder wouldn’t say anything, but he enjoyed the younger man’s indignant expression and was unable to keep from baiting him.
“Dude,” Ryder squeaked, “I can’t believe you think you have to tell me that! Have you told Leo and Kimball?”
No, he hadn’t mentioned the bones to Leo, as the man had been injured worse than Niall and was recovering from an actual concussion, not just the possibility of one.
The sound of tires crunching against gravel reached their ears. They turned to see Marshal coming their way, driving his prehistoric, faded red Land Cruiser.
“Ooh,” Ryder exclaimed, distracted. That’s a serious vehicle!”
“It is. He’s very proud of it. Don’t say anything, or we’ll spend twenty minutes hearing about its provenance.”
Marshal opened his door and climbed out. “Afternoon. Mat’s going to join us in a few minutes. Does everyone have gear?”
Mat and Deputy Flynn arrived minutes later. Leaving Fenrir inside the yurt—and not happy about it—Mat and Niall led the others to the location about 150 feet in from the tree line. Even at midday the wooded area was dimly lit, the sunshine throwing odd shadows that intersected each other at wrong angles.
At the site, Marshal tugged on latex gloves and made sure his camera was fully charged. He also grabbed a bag of small tools, and they all pulled on plastic booties over their shoes so they wouldn’t track more foreign matter around the scene.
“All right, let’s do this,” Mat said.
The Douglas fir harboring the remains had fallen or been blown over recently, exposing its root ball. The area around the tree was covered with pine needles, scrubby shrubs, ferns, and lots of nettles. They were lucky they hadn’t landed in the nettles last night.
Marshal stood there for a moment, looking down at the partial skull and the other bones.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done anything like this. Here.” Setting his bag down, he unzipped it and grabbed a wad of gloves. “Everybody put a pair of these on. We’ll do a quick zone search to try to determine if this is all we have to work with or if there are pieces spread farther away. Since the remains are old, I don’t expect to find much… but you never know.”
Marshal took hundreds of photographs as he worked, starting at the skull and working outward in three-foot-square blocks. The terrain was not conducive to discovering much. Niall was fairly sure the skull, the femur, and what looked like a hip bone were all they were going to find. The smaller pieces had been absorbed into the earth or taken by animals.
So, of course, it was Ryder who found it. It had taken over an hour, but he and Niall had made their way about nine feet from the fallen tree, deeper into the wooded area. Ryder was, Niall had to admit, very thorough and professional. They were sifting through pine needle debris and other plant matter when something caught Ryder’s eye.
“What’s that?” Ryder scooted forward, brushing at the thing with his gloved hand.
Niall leaned forward to peer at the object. “Huh, I don’t know. It doesn’t look like a root or rock.”
Mat stopped what he was doing and came over to where they were kneeling.
Something decidedly not animal or vegetable was half hidden underneath a mass of root tendrils. Niall thought the twisted shard was a zipper. It was definitely a twisted, rusted piece of metal.
Marshal came around to kneel next to Niall. Shining his flashlight on it, he said, “Ah, a zipper.” Glancing around, he said, “Likely the remains are modern—at least, not earlier than the 1930s. Probably much later. I think we can rule out Native American remains.”
They all stared at the jagged piece of metal.
“Could the zipper have come from something else?” Ryder asked.
“Sure,” Marshal said, “but for now we’re going to assume due to the age and proximity to the body that it was part of what the person was wearing. Mat, it’s your call. Do we disturb the remains further, or do we call in someone from the state to exhume them?”
Niall sighed. He knew the answer—and it was the right call, but now he was going to have strangers stumbling around his property, disturbing his peace and quiet and generally fucking with his peace of mind.
After carefully covering the area with a tarp and tying it down so it wouldn’t blow away, they trooped back toward the parked cars.
“I could be wrong, but from what I could see of the hip, I think the remains are male. Which also means they were past puberty.”
Marshal’s words sent a shock of relief through Niall. If the remains were male, they couldn’t be his mother. After finding them last night, his first secret thought had been that, somehow, she’d ended her life in those woods.
He didn’t have a difficult time imagining his gruff, quiet grandfather burying his own daughter. Not taking her life, but if Ana had returned and overdosed or… something, Od and Jo would have mourned her privately. Niall knew his grandparents had loved their only child, but Ana had spun wildly out of control and left them wondering where they’d gone wrong—if there’d been something they could have done for her. And in the end, or at least the last time Niall had been in contact with her, she was nothing like the happy, smiling girl he’d seen in the few family albums he’d inherited and the photos Shay had sent him last spring.
After twenty years in police work, Niall knew Ana’s troubles weren’t his grandparents’ fault. She had fallen into a drug habit all on her own. But once she’d started, she’d been unable to stop, and no one could help her.
He shook his head, pushing aside his macabre thoughts. The bones weren’t Ana’s. Od Hamarsson had not been forced to bury his daughter alone and in the dark of night. Niall was ashamed for even thinking he might have. But now they needed to figure out whose remains they were.
They were coming around the front of the yurt when Mat stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, letting the others go ahead.
“It’s not your mother,” Mat said, pulling Niall closer. They were just out of sight from everyone. Mat stared into Niall’s eyes, cupping his face between his hands, which were warm from wearing gloves.
“I know.” Niall grimaced. “Now I know.”
He allowed himself to look deeply into Mat’s blue eyes. They were full of love—something Niall was still getting used to—and worry.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Mat asked.
“I don’t know. If I said it out loud it might come true?” He shrugged.
“God, I love you.”
Mat leaned in and captured Niall’s lips with a hot, claiming kiss, as if he knew that what Niall needed right in this moment was to be owned, to be Mat’s and only Mat’s.
His lips parted, letting Mat inside. Their tongues brushed against each other, the start of a captivating dance. Niall let his hands co
me up and rest on Mat’s hips. He felt himself starting to get hard… and, Jesus, this wasn’t the time. As much as he needed Mat to calm him, Mat had a job to do.
Reluctantly, Niall pulled away. “You need to go find bad guys,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, you’re right. But…” Mat quickly kissed him again, “tonight we’ll restart this discussion. I have some phone calls to make, and Flynn and I are going to stop in and talk to Sharleen Dixon. I won’t be late.”
Niall cocked his head, “Sharleen?”
“I’ll fill you in tonight,” Mat assured him. Then he squeezed Niall’s ass and continued walking toward the cars. Niall followed after first adjusting himself. No one needed to know the sheriff had given him a hard-on.
13
Thursday—Mat
Mat didn’t want to leave Niall, even though Ryder and Marshal were still at the property. He’d suspected Niall was worried the remains might be his mother’s but hadn’t realized just how worried until his man had noticeably sagged after hearing Marshal’s words.
Living or dead, Ana Hamarsson was a specter. She haunted Niall’s life, a permanent ghost. Niall couldn’t mourn her properly, and neither could he confront her about the choices she’d made. She was the reason Niall woke up with nightmares about fires and being locked in small places… but she was also the reason Niall was a tenacious investigator who took every lead to its finish, who refused to give up. Mat knew Niall still dwelled on the cases he hadn’t solved while with Seattle PD.
“Are we still going to stop by Sharleen’s?” Birdy’s voice cut through Mat’s thoughts.
“Yes, thanks.” He snapped himself out of his reverie and flipped the turn signal from indicating left out of the driveway to right, toward Sharleen’s house.
Mat parked the cruiser next to Sharleen’s banged-up old truck. They got out, glancing around before crossing from the driveway to climb the porch stairs. The property seemed a bit more… rumpled than it had when he and Niall had been there a few months ago; the lawn was shaggy, and the flower beds had an air of abandonment to them. They definitely needed to be cleared out. Invasive weeds had taken over, crowding out the more delicate native plants.
