Sullivan shook his head. When he reached Ashlyn and Nolan he started to talk about her valuable contributions and that he hoped she felt settled and like part of the team. Placating her because of Campbell’s comments, compounded by Tain’s sexist jabs and his own inability to quash them or discipline his men. That’s what she suspected. The fact that Sullivan hadn’t even tried to give Tain instructions hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Whatever Tain was working on, it trumped the body from the fire, and it seemed he was getting his instructions privately.
A voice from the back of the room cut through her thoughts.
“Sergeant Sullivan? There’s a man here to see you and Constable Nolan.” Ashlyn turned to see the same uniformed officer who had escorted her and Nolan through the woods only a few days earlier, the one Nolan called Getz.
Sullivan muttered an apology as he marched from the room, Nolan right behind him. Ashlyn let out a breath.
It only took a moment for her to get back to her desk. She folded the slip of paper with Mrs. Wilson’s information on it and stuck it in her pocket and took a look at the new messages that had come in, skimming them one by one.
Mrs. Wilson hadn’t called back, but as she flipped to the last message in the new stack she saw that Mrs. Bird had. Mrs. Bird had even conveyed her address, which had been written down on the slip of paper.
If Ashlyn waited, she’d be having her second conversation with Mrs. Bird in a matter of minutes, while Nolan left her behind. She grabbed her coat and made a decision, but she was too late. As she turned around and looked up, she saw Nolan walking toward her.
“Thanks for backing me up on the tip about the trucker,” he said.
“Sure.” She resisted the urge to add that she’d just been doing her job. “Did…whoever it was have something for you?”
“Oh, not really.” Nolan waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing pressing anyway. You know, it’s a shame you got transferred in just as this case exploded. There really hasn’t been a chance to show you around.” He sat down on the edge of his desk. “We’ll have to find some time to do that.”
“That would be good.”
Nolan had a charming smile, an intensity in his eyes that hadn’t gone unnoticed but had been overshadowed by his attitude. He was also smart and calculated, and there was no doubt in her mind that his decision to sit instead of looking down at her was part of his new strategy. She had information he wanted, and he knew that trying to finesse it out of her by making her feel like part of the team, like she was working with him instead of for him, was best.
With Sullivan under pressure for results and Tain looking for any way to upstage Nolan, she guessed Nolan felt he needed to keep Ashlyn happy and cooperative. He had his hands full and didn’t need any more problems.
Ashlyn knew what he was doing, but she found herself fighting the urge to talk to him about the case. The naïve side of her clung to the idea that if she could just get him to see her as an asset instead of a liability, he’d work with her willingly.
“Campbell’s a bit of a loose cannon,” she said.
“It’s his job to coordinate with tribal police, and in the past year reports of criminal activity on the Reserves have nearly doubled. There have been several murders, and Washington State Police have been calling, trying to get us to work with them to crack down on cross-border smuggling. Everything from cheap cigarettes to pure cocaine is finding its way back and forth, and most of it that’s headed our way ends up on Native lands. That’s what Campbell was dealing with when they threw the task force together.”
“Shouldn’t he be happy to have a chance to look at shipping information then?”
“He’s not too happy about a rookie officer making him look inept.”
Ashlyn flushed. “That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”
Nolan waved his hand. “I know. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “So, what’s this lead?”
“I—” She paused, forced a smile of her own. “I know you’re busy and have so many things to follow up on. I can handle it for you.”
Nolan lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Nobody’s disputing that, but I need you to look after something else for me.”
“The sergeant said—”
“Divide and conquer.” He smiled. “It’s not like we’ve got a first-class team to rely on, filled with the best and brightest. Tain’s a bit of an ass, Oliver and Aiken have focused on community policing and an investigation like this is new terrain for them. Campbell’s taking it personally. I need someone here who I know will get the job done.”
She knew where this was going. “And that’s me?”
“Look, I admit I was a bit of a jerk when you started. It’s only been a few days, but I know I can count on you. You’re catching on quick. There’s no doubt in my mind that you were given this assignment because you could measure up, and that’s exactly why I need you here. You understand, right?”
“Sure.” Baiting her with false praise. “You want me to keep chasing down the calls that have come through.”
“Exactly. There have to be some flakes of gold amidst the dross, and you’re the only person I can think of who will be thorough enough to find them.”
She forced a smile. Let him believe she took his crap seriously.
“So, where’s the message?”
Ashlyn had a half second to think about what she was about to do as she grabbed her pen, scribbled an address on the slip of paper in front of her and passed it to Nolan.
“Thanks, Hart. Oh, and good work.”
She dug her nails into her palms as he turned and walked away.
The car crawled along as she swerved to avoid potholes and braked for the dip. Part of the road had no shoulder, and it was barely wide enough for two vehicles, which she found out when an oncoming truck clipped her mirror.
She glanced at the slip of paper she’d taped to the dash. It was the right road, but she hadn’t passed a house for at least a mile. As far as she could tell, Mrs. Wilson’s place was the last on the road. Ahead, she could see a small truck had pulled over to the practically non-existent shoulder, but she couldn’t see a driver in it, and there weren’t any brake lights on.
To her right, the foliage gave way to a dirt driveway, marked by a faded mailbox leaning at an awkward angle. The W, I and S were most clearly visible, with the stem of the N and half of the O just barely legible.
She turned down the driveway, and the curtain of leaves that had blocked the property from view from the road gave way to a small yard that led up to a sagging bungalow. Ashlyn parked her car and got out.
The steps moaned as she walked up to the porch and knocked on the door. After a moment she knocked again.
“Mrs. Wilson? It’s Constable Hart from the RCMP.”
A call answered with silence. Ashlyn knocked again, then checked the address on the slip of paper she’d pulled from her pocket, although she didn’t need to. It was the right house.
She took a step back from the door and turned around.
There was a stillness to the house that told her it was empty. For a moment she tapped the slip of paper and considered her options.
Hurry back to the station and hope Nolan didn’t find out she’d left? Play dumb when he asked about the information she’d given him? Ashlyn wondered if she could lie that convincingly.
The other obvious choice was to wait and hope that Mrs. Wilson returned before Nolan figured out the information she’d given him was wrong and figured out where she really went. There were call records. And there were files of slips. He’d have to spend the time cross-referencing them, but it wouldn’t take long before he found the number that was missing and traced it.
Nolan may not like chasing paperwork in the office, but he was smart, and Ashlyn was sure he was capable.
Especially if he was motivated, a fact proven by how he responded when goaded by Tain.
The steps groaned as she walked down them and stuck the slip of paper in her pocket
. From the front of the house, she had a clear view of the mountain slope where they’d recovered Mary Donard’s body. A sea of green was all that was really visible between the road and the tree line of the mountain, but although Ashlyn hadn’t had much time out of the office to orient herself, she was confident she knew approximately where they’d found their first official victim.
Ashlyn started to walk around the side of the house. The paint was peeling off the wood in some places, and below the eaves a hornet’s nest hung among the tattered cobwebs. Gravel crunched beneath her feet, and by a basement window a faucet dripped.
She thought about the small truck she’d seen pulled over on the road. If it was Mrs. Wilson’s vehicle, why wouldn’t she just park in her driveway?
Behind the house there was a small shed beside a garage, which looked like it had been painted recently. It stood out in stark contrast to the dingy appearance of the house, but she realized structurally the house was solid. Most of the repairs it needed were cosmetic.
The backyard stretched out from the house with a gentle downward slope to the point where it overlooked a hill. Ashlyn was getting used to the deception of the mountains. They’d look like they went straight up, without a break in the trees, but once you started driving up them you’d find they had hills and cliffs in different places, that you could be heading up a mountain and actually driving down for periods of time.
On the far side of the house was a separate area that contained an overgrown garden. The grass was creeping in under the fence and had infiltrated some rows, and in other places there were weeds almost as tall as the plants that had been ignored.
“She’d sneak into the garden and steal the strawberries.”
Ashlyn spun around at the sound of the voice she recognized as the one from the phone earlier. Mrs. Wilson wasn’t a tall woman, and she couldn’t have been accused of being slim either, but she wasn’t chubby. She was solid, with stocky legs and arms that matched her body, short white curls that framed a round, weathered face.
“Mrs. Wilson, I’m Ash—”
“I know who you are. You called your name at the front door. Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes, my ears, or my head, and I may be old but that doesn’t make me forgetful or confused.” Mrs. Wilson nodded toward the garden. “She was a little thief and on track to be a good-for-nothin’ two-bit whore like her mother, but she was murdered all the same.”
“Mrs. Wilson, I have to ask how you know that.”
The woman’s face looked like it was twisted in a scowl most of the time, but she found a way to make the creases deepen. “Problem with you young folk these days is you don’t sit still long enough to know anybody. Move from one place to another and think we’re all just the same, just swap out the names. You want to know this town, you have to be in this town. Then you wouldn’t have to ask.”
“Then why not call one of the other officers, the ones who’ve worked locally for a long time? Why not talk to them?”
Mrs. Wilson’s dark eyes narrowed. “They’re why I’m talking to you. I hear you got problems down at the station.”
“You hear a lot. Especially considering nobody’s identified the body from the inn. I’m trying to work out how you’d know who it was…” Ashlyn let her voice trail off at the end.
The old woman cackled. “What? You think I put her there? Missy, if you aren’t gonna take this seriously, you’re wasting my time, and that of the taxpayers, come to think of it.” Her face hardened. “Jenny Johnson’s mother lives about a mile down the road, that way.” She nodded again, out past the garden. “You’ll find she’s got one sorry man after another goin’ in and out of the house. Been that way since before the girl was born. Everybody ’round here knows it and ignores it. ’Bout half a mile back toward town there’s a dirt road. First turn off’s for the house, the driveway. The road narrows up some then, but snakes its way out to this hut where Jenny stayed. You can see the shack from the road, easy. The road dead-ends not far past it. By the time she was a teenager, she’d all but moved into that little shack. It’s right near the property line. My fences run right up to the road.”
“Did she still live there?” Ashlyn was trying to remember the last known address listed in Jenny Johnson’s file. She couldn’t remember the specifics, but she knew it wasn’t her mother’s address.
Was it possible Jenny had just run off from problems and been mistakenly reported as missing? Jenny was the last girl who’d had a file opened, and her disappearance had ultimately prompted the creation of the task force.
“She lived there most of the time for a few years. And then she was gone, into all sorts of trouble, and would only show up out here from time to time.”
“You know a lot about her.”
“When you got a neighbor kid who steals things off your property, you pay attention. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was her mother who put her up to it. Stealing carrots and potatoes and tomatoes. And strawberries. Mostly, she liked her strawberries. I always thought she’d start comin’ after the TV and the stereo someday, maybe try for the truck. Never did, though.”
Mrs. Wilson started walking past Ashlyn, toward the garden. Ashlyn turned, but didn’t follow her. “You have to give me more than that if you want me to take you seriously.”
The old woman stopped walking. “I had the greenhouse built two years back. Let the garden go a bit in time. Too hard on the back at my age.” She was silent for a moment and still didn’t turn back to face Ashlyn. “Your bunch is sayin’ she hasn’t been seen in a few months now, but I saw her not three weeks ago at the little shack. I’d only gone for a short walk, to check on the signs I got posted at the far end of the property. You think it’s bad to have a kid stealin’ from your garden, but what’s worse is havin’ them damn hunters turn up on your property, shootin’ at deer.”
Ashlyn paused. “Mrs. Wilson, if you saw Jenny three weeks ago, why didn’t you report it?”
The old woman turned. “She was out there with one of the men you work with. They were arguing.” Mrs. Wilson held up her hand. “All I know is it was something about a delivery truck and Blind Creek Inn.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mrs. Wilson shook her head. “That fool of a girl had been running with Bobby Hobbs from the time she was a child. Him and that friend of his, Eddie, they’re no good. Bobby was always the leader, but there was something in Eddie’s eyes, ’specially since his mother died. Something was wrong with that boy. No surprise to me that they got her into some trouble. That cop, he was beggin’ her to keep her distance, to stay at the shack. Just a few more weeks, maybe a month, he said.”
“What did Jenny say?”
“That if they found her, they’d kill her.”
“Who? Bobby and Eddie?”
“Well, that cop, he should know, shouldn’t he? Talk to him.” Mrs. Wilson shook her head. “You go out there, see the shack yourself. Then you’ll understand.”
“Mrs. Wilson, I—”
“I got nothin’ more to say to ya.”
For a moment Ashlyn stood and watched the old woman walk away. She’d taken a gamble coming out there alone, and now she wasn’t sure if Mrs. Wilson was credible. The wizened old woman certainly seemed lucid, but she’d given Ashlyn nothing to back up her claims about the identity of the body recovered from the arson scene.
Ashlyn returned to her car and drove back the way she’d came, watching the odometer closely until she found the dirt road Mrs. Wilson had mentioned. She turned.
It wasn’t long before she passed the entrance of the driveway, which curved to the right shortly after the turnoff. Ashlyn couldn’t see the house from the road, but the driveway was marked by a faded sign with nothing but the Johnson name.
The road narrowed, and some of the branches hung low enough to brush the roof of her vehicle. When the trees thinned a bit, she could see the small shack, which seemed to be made of tin and wood and sat on a small hill nestled between three trees that seemed to serve as support b
eams.
How could anyone live there?
Ashlyn parked her car and slowly approached the shack. A quick survey of the woods revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and behind her she could see the gap in the brush that revealed the fence marking Mrs. Wilson’s property.
Instead of approaching the makeshift door, which appeared to be made from a sheet of tin somehow secured over an opening in the wood behind it, Ashlyn walked around behind the structure. Near the ground there were some holes that had been dug out by small animals but no evidence of pipes or plumbing. Around the back there appeared to be an outhouse. Beyond that, there was the start of a path heading through the forest, back toward the house where Jenny’s mother lived.
The only other thing of note from the back was the dingy window covered by plastic. As she circled around, she also saw a metal vent that looked like it might be for a wood stove.
Ashlyn paused in front of the shack. There was no doubt that she was trespassing. Did Mrs. Wilson’s statement give her probable cause to enter and search the building?
A quick glance at her watch told her that she’d been gone from the station for long enough now that somebody must have noticed. If she returned empty-handed, it would cost her.
Still, she felt uneasy as she stepped toward the door. All the lectures about calling for backup, following procedure, not overstepping your boundaries…Everything her mentor had drilled into her for months ran through her head. It was all good in theory, but what could you do when you had an uncooperative partner and were stuck on a dysfunctional team?
She took a deep breath, reached forward and pulled at the door. The hinges groaned as light spilled into the small space. A rat scurried across the makeshift floor as she coughed, and it disappeared in the dark corner behind the wood stove. On the far side of the room was a small stove, but Ashlyn could tell it hadn’t been used in days. A layer of dust had settled on the scattered furnishings, including the hammock strung between two of the trees the shack had been built around.
In a gap between one of the trees and the back wall of the hut a small patch of sky was visible.
Lullaby for the Nameless (Nolan, Hart & Tain Thrillers) Page 44
