Cyanide Wells

by Marcia Muller

  “But you said the case was solved.”

  “Yes, but it takes more than a few years to build up a good department. It’s getting better, but recently there have been some disturbing incidents.”

  “Such as?”

  Carly sat up straighter, ran her fingers through her hair. “An overzealous pursuit of a speeding tourist in an SUV by a new deputy—it rolled, and the driver, his wife, and two young children were killed. A hostage situation during which an estranged husband and his five-year-old daughter were fatally shot by deputies who wouldn’t wait for trained negotiators to be brought in. Another fatal shooting, this time of a ten-year-old boy whose father was using him as a decoy while stealing at a convenience store.”

  “Jesus.”

  “What I’m saying, Lindstrom, is that our deputies are not well enough trained to evaluate a situation and protect the innocents who are involved in it. Too often they shoot first and make excuses afterwards. If for some reason Ard and Nat are still in the county…”

  “Okay, I understand. But I don’t see the connection between what you half remembered in the Talbot house and the current situation.”

  “I just have a feeling there is one. Call it woman’s intuition, if you will, but it’s very strong.”

  Carly’s expression was close to pleading; asking for this favor must be costing her a great deal. And what would it cost him to do as she asked?

  Taking photographs in an empty house wasn’t like knocking over a liquor store.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll do it.”

  After the truck’s taillights disappeared down the long eucalyptus-lined driveway, Matt waited, fingering the key Carly had slipped from her ring and pressed into his hand. He was sure they’d been followed here, having glimpsed a pair of headlights in the distance behind them, and a car moving slowly past after they’d turned in. Now he wanted to make sure it tailed Carly back home. After an interval of no more than thirty seconds it drove by again, more swiftly—a nondescript dark sedan. Soon the sound of its engine faded into the distance.

  Matt continued to wait, listening in case another car arrived. There was no logical reason for the sheriff’s department to maintain a surveillance on him; they must not yet know he was Ardis’s former husband, since they hadn’t mentioned him during their interview with Carly. But he decided to play it safe anyway.

  Rustlings in the underbrush. Tree branches soughing. A distant howl: coyote. The wind picked up, warm, bringing with it a familiar scent. He breathed in deeply, felt a tug of emotion. Gardenias…

  A formal affair at the faculty club in Saugatuck, in honor of some visiting dignitary whose name and field he’d long since forgotten. Near the end of the spring semester, a warm, balmy night. Men ill at ease in dinner jackets, many of them rented; women in long dresses, purchased at great strain to the academic family’s budget. He and Gwen in their first public appearance as a couple, she in dark blue silk, his gardenia corsage on her wrist. An appearance of professor and student made possible by the diamond ring on her left hand.

  Unsettling rumors about Matt Lindstrom and Gwen Standish had circulated through the tightly knit college community for months, so his colleagues’ reactions were more relieved than surprised when he presented her as his wife-to-be. Better to marry, even unsuitably, than to burn in academic hell. The chairman of his department told her how lovely she looked and how fortunate Matt was; the president of the college took her hands and held them longer than was proper, saying she’d make a fine faculty wife.

  As the party was winding down, they walked across the wide lawn to the lakeshore, where other couples stood admiring the play of the Japanese lanterns on the water. “That wasn’t so bad,” Gwen, who had been dreading the evening, said. “Not bad at all,” Matt, who had been looking forward to showing her off, replied. “They loved you,” he added. “I love you.” As he kissed her, she put her hand on the back of his neck, the gardenias brushing his cheek, their scent becoming one that would forever take him back to that night…

  His face was wet. He put a hand to his eyes. Crying, for all the lost nights and lost days. For the woman he’d only imagined Gwen was.

  Angrily he brushed the tears away and got out of the Jeep, turning on its headlights so he could navigate without stumbling, grabbing his camera bag. He was furious that he could still allow Gwen’s memory to wound him, and fury made him careless. When a car’s engine roared to life nearby, he froze, looking around.

  Headlights bore down on him from the rear of the property, where Carly had said the stables, studio, and garage stood.Boxy vehicle, a van gathering speed. He threw himself to the side, sprawled down. As he tried to pull himself up, scramble out of the way, he saw Gwen behind the wheel, mouth set in a grim line, face pale in the wash of his own headlights.

  She wrenched the wheel—too late. Their gazes were still locked when the van smashed into his lunging body…

  A hand touched his forehead, light and cool.

  He tried to open his eyes. Couldn’t.

  Couldn’t move, either.

  Footsteps hurried away.

  Pain. His chest, his hip, his arm.

  Something draped over him. Warm.

  Sleep…

  Motion. Flashing light in his eyes.

  “Get him stabilized.”

  “What the hell happened here?”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Medevac chopper’s on its way.”

  Pricking in his arm.

  Darkness…

  “Matt?”

  Carly’s voice.

  He opened his eyes. Winced and shut them. His head hurt like hell.

  “Matt?”

  “Don’t shout.” The words came out a croak.

  “I’m not. Here, let me give you some water.”

  When he opened his eyes this time, he saw her face. Strained, tired. She looked almost as bad as he felt. She raised his head, made him sip through a straw, but most of the water dribbled into his beard and onto his chest. She took the cup away, swiped at him. “Is that better?”

  “Some. Feel smithereened.”

  “I don’t think that’s a word.”

  “Don’t care. How I feel.”

  “You’ll mend. Nothing serious was broken in the accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “Now.” He tried to grab her arm, but it hurt too much to raise his hand.

  “Later. You need your rest.”

  Thursday, May 16, 2002

  Santa Carla, California

  She did this to you? That bitch! I’d like to—”

  “Carly, stop.”

  “I will not stop! This is the absolute last straw!”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  She compressed her lips, glancing back at the door to his hospital room and frowning.

  He said, “She didn’t know it was me. When she realized who I was, she tried to turn the van away, but it was too late. She covered me with a blanket, called for help.”

  “And cut and ran again, accepting no responsibility. Left you lying there. You could’ve been dying, for all she knew.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.”

  “And where was Nat while Ard was running you down? Did she see the whole thing happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What the hell does Ard think she’s doing, skulking around the Talbot place like some demented ghost?”

  “Carly, please stop. The pain medication finally kicked in, and you’re making my head hurt all over again.”

  “This pain medication—it doesn’t make you woozy?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Because Ned Grossman’s out in the hall, waiting to speak with you. I think you should tell him the whole story.”

  “That I was struck by an unknown driver.”

  “It’s too late to play these games.”

  “This is not a game.” He grasped her arm. “There is unfinished busi
ness here. Our business, yours and mine. I want us to be the ones who conclude it.”

  “If the doc hadn’t told me differently, I’d say you sustained brain damage along with the cracked ribs, concussion, and sprained ankle.”

  “Don’t forget the assorted scrapes and bruises.”

  She glared at him.

  “Lighten up, McGuire,” he told her. “And get ready—we’ve got a job to do.”

  “You didn’t get a look at the van’s driver, and you can’t identify the make or model,” Detective Grossman said.

  “It was dark, and the headlights blinded me.”

  “Perhaps we could start from the beginning. What were you doing at the Talbot property?”

  He closed his eyes, took a moment to frame his reply. “My employer, Ms. McGuire, phoned me and asked that I drive her there to retrieve her truck.”

  “Why you and not her attorney? He drove her back to Cyanide Wells.”

  “I assume because he charges by the hour. Besides, she’s been having difficulty with the truck—something wrong with the starter. I fixed it for her the other day, and she wanted me there in case it acted up again.” An easily verifiable explanation—the story of his getting his job because of his mechanic’s skills had made the rounds.

  “So you drove her there. Then what?”

  “The truck started right up. She drove off and…” Jesus, where was he going with this hastily improvised scenario?

  “Mr. Crowe?”

  “Could I have some water, please?”

  Grossman picked up the cup on the nightstand, handed it to him. Matt thought furiously as he sipped through the straw.

  “Okay,” he said. “I was going to follow her, but as I started to leave, I noticed another vehicle tucked away in the shadows. Ms. McGuire had told me the property is vacant and up for sale, so I decided to investigate. I guess I frightened the occupants, because the driver started the engine and peeled off. I didn’t get out of the way in time.”

  Grossman frowned. “Previously you said you didn’t see the driver, but now you say occupants, plural.”

  “I had the impression of two people. Teenagers, I suppose, parking in a place where they didn’t think they’d be interrupted.”

  “Possibly.” Grossman paused, studying his fingernails. “There was an anonymous call about you to nine-one-one. Came from a pay phone at the entrance to the national forest. A woman. And someone covered you with a handwoven blanket.”

  “So the doctor told me.”

  “Do you have any recollection of them covering you?”

  “No. I guess it was the people in the van.”

  “That was our original assumption. But one of my men found the door of the house ajar; he entered to see if anyone was hiding inside, and found a matching blanket on the back of the sofa in the living room. Then he searched the premises. There were signs of recent occupancy.”

  “Maybe the people in the van were using the house for a tryst?”

  “If so, they had a key. There were no signs of forced entry. Is it possible that someone with access to a key had reason to lie in wait and run you down?”

  “I don’t know who would have a key, detective. And I’ve only been in Soledad County ten days. I haven’t had time to offend anyone to that degree.”

  “Are you sure of that…Mr. Lindstrom?”

  Hearing his real name sent shock waves along his spine; he couldn’t think of a reply.

  Grossman added, “When Detective Swift heard that John Crowe, the newspaper’s new photographer, had been injured in a hit-and-run, she contacted me and told me about her encounter with Matthew Lindstrom on the highway last weekend. One of the names had to be false, so we ran a check. The real John Crowe is running Matthew Lindstrom’s charter business in Port Regis, British Columbia, in Lindstrom’s absence.

  “Matthew Lindstrom is not listed in this state’s criminal files, and the FBI has no record of him. He hasn’t committed a crime—that we know of. But a man doesn’t leave a profitable business and a community where he’s liked and respected to live elsewhere under an assumed name. Unless, of course, there is something that draws him to that community. Something that he wants to keep secret.”

  Now, Grossman, who had been standing the whole time, pulled a chair uncomfortably close to Matt’s bed, sat, and placed his hand on the mattress. In a confidential tone he said, “I’m no world-beater, Mr. Lindstrom. I don’t make much money, have terrible luck with women, worse luck at poker, and even my dog doesn’t much like me. But I am a good cop, and to me that means being impartial until all the facts are in. You help me, and I guarantee I’ll do my best to help you out of whatever trouble currently has you by the short hairs.”

  In the absence of a viable alternative Matt told Grossman his story—part of it, anyway. Gwen’s disappearance. The suspicion that had destroyed his life. The anonymous phone call. His decision to come to Cyanide Wells, photograph and confront her.

  “She must’ve seen me somewhere,” he concluded, “and was afraid I’d come here to harm her, because she’s taken her little girl out of town. Even Carly McGuire doesn’t know where they’ve gone.”

  “And did you intend to harm her?”

  “Emotionally, maybe. But not physically.”

  “Strange, you and the other husband appearing at around the same time.”

  “I guess one of us was to be backup, in case the other didn’t show.”

  “And you’ve got no idea who your caller was?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Care to share your thoughts with me?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Fair enough. When you came here, did you know Ardis Coleman had married again?”

  “No.”

  “Or that she was living in a lesbian relationship?”

  “No.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “I have a flare gun aboard my charter boat.”

  “No handguns? Rifles? Shotguns?”

  “No. I don’t care for firearms.”

  “Have you ever been to Westport?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, let’s talk about Carly McGuire: Did she know who you were when she hired you?”

  “No.”

  “Does she know now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d she find out?”

  “Detective Swift mentioned rescuing me on the highway to Severin Quill, the police reporter. He told Carly.”

  “And what was Carly’s reaction?”

  “I’m lucky to still be alive.”

  Grossman smiled thinly. “Obviously the two of you have gotten past that, since she’s paying your hospital bill.” He got to his feet. “Okay, Mr. Lindstrom, I’ll get back to you.”

  After the door closed behind the detective, Matt expelled his breath in a long sigh. Then he reached for the phone on the nightstand, called Carly’s number, and left a detailed message about the talk with Grossman on her machine. Finally he phoned Sam at the Chicken Shack.

  “John!” she exclaimed. “I went to the hospital, but you were sedated and they wouldn’t let me see you. How are—”

  “The doctor says they’ll release me this afternoon. Can you pick me up? There’s something I need to do.”

  Carly McGuire

  Thursday, May 16, 2002

  In the time it took to drive from the hospital in Santa Carla to Cyanide Wells, Carly formulated a plan. Not the best of plans, perhaps, but one that would make her feel she was doing something, plus keep her mind off what Ard had done to Matt.

  When she’d been admitted to his hospital room the first time—a privilege extended to her because she was his employer and paying his bill—he’d seemed diminished, more a hurt boy than a man. His groggy confusion and the scrapes and bruises that covered his face and arms wrenched at her, and she regretted every caustic word she’d spoken to him over the past week and a half. But today she’d witnessed the return of his steadiness and strength—his quiet determination, too,
as he’d insisted that the two of them would see this matter through to its conclusion. Alone she might not have attempted that, but Matt was a person she could lean on. She’d come to respect this man who had been far too good for Ardis.

  Just as I was far too good for her.

  Giving mental voice to the concept failed to surprise her, as it might have yesterday or the day before. For years she’d been accustomed to making excuses for Ard’s actions and failings, had taken her back and forgiven her. But when Matt had said, “Ardis was driving the van that hit me,” the past fourteen years’ worth of abuse from her partner had become inexcusable, unforgiveable. And she’d allowed herself to see the relationship for exactly what it was.

  Just like that. In an instant. Truth.

  As she drove through town and headed east toward the Knob, she noticed an old brown station wagon following at a discreet distance and smiled wryly. Deputy Shawn Stengel’s family car. He couldn’t have maintained surveillance on her in his cruiser, but did he really think she hadn’t seen him toting his brood around in that oversized machine? Either Shawn wasn’t as smart as she’d thought, or he underestimated her powers of observation.

  She drove past her own turnoff at Drinkwater Road and, after three quarters of a mile, signaled left onto Spyglass Trail. The two-lane blacktop snaked north into the hills, between rocky outcroppings where stubborn vegetation clung, passed through a grove of aspen, then hooked in a series of switchbacks to the west. After a mile or so, the Spyglass Roadhouse appeared.

  Its central portion resembled a log cabin with a peaked roof, and jutting off it were long rough-board wings, windowless with flat roofs. On one of them sat an enormous satellite TV dish. A few cars were in the unpaved parking lot, but now, at two in the afternoon, the place had a lifeless look. Carly pulled up near the entrance and went inside, momentarily blinded by the darkness.