Grave Danger

by Rachel Grant

A timeline was posted along one wall. He read through the dates and events again.

  August 19, 1979: Jack and Jason leave Seattle and drive to Spokane to visit Jack’s parents. The departure is witnessed by a neighbor. Their arrival in Spokane is noted by several people, including business associates with whom Jack conducts meetings throughout the following week. Jack is not unobserved long enough to drive or fly to Seattle or Coho.

  August 21, 1979, 12:00 p.m.: Angela leaves her office at UW. She tells Dan Parker she is going to collect research for her dissertation. Dan Parker is the last person on record to see her.

  9:00 p.m.: Jack claims he received a phone call from Angela, during which she stated she was in Coho. The phone company is unable to provide any record that such a call occurred. The call was not collect and was not made from the Shelby house, the Montgomery house, or any of the other houses the Montgomery family had access to in Coho. A search of pay phone records for all of Coho was not conducted in 1979. Pay phone information is no longer available.

  August 24, 1979, 10:00 p.m.: Jack reports Angela missing. After being unable to reach her for three days, Jack calls the Coho Police Department. A car is sent to the Shelby house. Officers report the house appears vacant. No evidence is found to indicate Angela ever arrived in Coho. Jack calls the Seattle PD, with the same results.

  August 25, 1979: Jack and Jason return to Seattle. After a brief stop to check their Seattle home for Angela, Jack leaves Jason with a friend and drives to Coho. He files a formal missing person statement in Coho just before midnight.

  September 3, 1979: Hikers camping over the holiday weekend find Angela’s vehicle on an old logging road in the North Cascades. No fingerprints or any physical evidence is recovered from the vehicle.

  From there, the investigation was coordinated by the Seattle PD, because Seattle was where Angela was last seen, along with assistance from the Coho PD, where she was supposed to be when she was reported missing, and the National Park Service, who managed the land where her vehicle was found.

  Mark’s own officers had pathetic little to add to the investigation:

  April 9-10, 1984: The Warren lot is covered with fill to level the area for paving.

  April 11, 1984: The Warren lot is paved.

  This year:

  July 12: Human remains are found during an archaeological excavation at the Warren lot.

  July 15: The human remains are suspected of being a woman of Euro-American ancestry, buried just before the lot was paved in 1984.

  July 16: The medical examiner finds the clavicles on the wrong sides of the skeleton, indicating the remains were moved post-mortem and post soft-tissue decomposition to the Warren site on April 9th or 10th 1984. A fake spearhead found with the remains indicates the person who buried her knew the Warren lot was an archaeological site and attempted to make the remains appear to be a prehistoric burial.

  July 19: DNA tests confirm the remains found at the Warren site are those of Angela Caruthers.

  July 22: Mount St. Helens ash found with Angela’s remains indicates she was originally buried in Eastern Washington.

  Mark looked at the pathetic list of dates and leads. Basically, they had nothing. No one knew whether Angela ever arrived in Coho on August 21, 1979. Jack had long been suspected of lying when he said he spoke with her that evening. Mark had spent several hours today interviewing Dan Parker. His story remained consistent with what he told police in 1979. He was forthcoming about the affair. His manner didn’t trigger any investigative instincts. He was another dead end.

  Mark looked at a snapshot that had been in the Seattle PD file. Angela and Jason stood on a ferry deck, a much smaller Seattle skyline behind them. A happy grin lit up Jason’s face, revealing a gap where a tooth should have been. Angela had her arm around her son and laughed as the wind whipped her hair. Jason had his mother’s eyes.

  The photo was a painful photo to look at. Angela’s laughing gaze begged the viewer to find her. She was young, beautiful, vibrant. A mother.

  Mark had seen all this before when he worked for the Seattle Police Department. The only difference here was that he was less hardened. His time in Coho had softened the shell that had allowed him to investigate senseless death.

  The son in the photograph grew into a man. People moved on. Tragedy faded. He knew all this, yet he looked at the picture and imagined Jason at nine. At nine, Mark’s life had been simple. He’d spent his allowance on Legos and Micronauts. His sisters were aged four and two and his mother’s attention stayed on them, leaving Mark free to ride his dirt bike and explore the Skagit Valley farm country where he grew up.

  His world, his childhood, was vastly different from Jason’s. Two months after this photo was taken, Angela disappeared. Mark didn’t want to think about Jason’s trauma of losing his mother. He didn’t want to think about Jason, period. Every time he did, he saw Libby in Jason’s arms, and another hairline crack appeared in the concrete shell he’d built to protect himself from his feelings.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  LIBBY SPENT THE AFTERNOON going through the notes Dan gave her. The box was almost entirely filled with information on the union, which surprised Libby. The union, while important to the development of Coho, was off-topic for an ethnographic study. No Indians had been members of the Washington Logger’s Union, Local 223, yet Angela interviewed several union members. She’d asked questions about union development and Lyle Montgomery, never once mentioning the tribe or tribal/union relations. The answers Angela received were guarded. After all, Lyle Montgomery’s granddaughter was the interviewer.

  From Angela’s research, Libby learned that one man was pivotal in the unionization of TL&L, Nathan Simms. Nathan moved to Coho in 1938 and tried to organize a union. He left in 1942 for the war, was wounded, and returned in 1944. In 1946, the union formed in Coho. Nathan Simms was local president.

  Libby knew more of the story. With both Lyle and Billy dead, the mill workers she’d interviewed had spoken freely about the unionization of TL&L. James Montgomery wasn’t the only one eager to talk about Billy and how he facilitated the union in ways that would have made Lyle flip.

  Angela conducted her research, however, while both her father and grandfather still lived. The mill workers she interviewed would have been guarded in their answers. And she would have been careful about what she put in writing. Everything Angela learned about Billy’s action to support the union would have endangered him. Prior to unionization, one organizer had been killed.

  Had Angela interviewed Nathan Simms? There was no record of such a conversation but record keeping would have been unwise. Libby looked up Simms in the Coho phone book. No listing. How old would he be today? He could have children or grandchildren who knew the true story of how the union developed in Coho.

  Libby searched the Internet and then made phone calls. She learned that Local 223 was part of a larger union that was now based in Portland, Oregon. She called union headquarters and maneuvered her way through the phone tree, eventually leaving a message for the union archivist who maintained all the old union records.

  Two hours before her dinner meeting with Jason, she received a call from Jack, asking whether she was available for a quick meeting at the Dawes house. She agreed and headed right over.

  Built in 1882, the Dawes house was second in size only to the Montgomery mansion. The house was heavily decorated with Queen Anne gingerbread, carved trim, and other Gothic embellishments. Inside, the house had all the detailed woodwork that proclaimed construction in a different age but the furnishings were thoroughly modern.

  The ground floor served as the Coho office for Caruthers Commercial Development. A receptionist waved Libby into Jack’s office, which at one time was a sitting room. She faced Jack with trepidation. Was he worried about her legal troubles? Was he going to fire her?

  Jack circled his desk to greet her. Libby sat in the chair he indicated, and he leaned against the front of the desk just inches from where she sat. He crossed his ankles
, his posture relaxed while he towered above her.

  Libby’s tension mounted at the power of his position versus the weakness of hers.

  “A few years ago, the City of Coho contacted me and said they were planning to build a new facility for storing and repairing the school bus fleet. They no longer wanted nor needed the Warren lot. Without the tax-deduction that donation had provided, I decided it was time to sell the land.”

  This didn’t sound like the introduction to being fired. She sat up straighter and wondered where he was leading.

  “I kept the lot after Angela disappeared for sentimental reasons. She bought the land—she said it had something to do with her grandmother—but I never really knew what she meant by that. I looked through my files for the title to the land.” He picked up a red spiral-bound notebook from the desk and handed it to Libby. “I found that in the file with the title.”

  Libby studied the cheap notebook. She flipped through the pages. Angela’s now familiar scrawl filled the first half of the book. She looked up at Jack. “Is this a journal?”

  “Of a sort. She kept a log detailing the purchase of the land—her dealings with George Warren, her plans for the property. There is much more in there than she ever told me.”

  Libby tightened her grip on the notebook. Did she include information on her search for the will in these pages? Did Jack understand what she was after? “Why did she want the land?”

  “Her grandmother died there. Angela believed Lyle killed her. She wanted to prove Lyle was a murderer but couldn’t. Short of that, she decided to buy the property and build a cultural center in Millie’s honor. Angela felt that because Millie had a good relationship with the Kalahwamish, it would be fitting to honor her with a center that bridged the cultural divide between the tribe and the rest of the community.”

  “And after you found this notebook, you decided to go forward with Angela’s plan?”

  “Yes, except I planned to dedicate the Cultural Center to Angela, not Millie. Angela worked just as hard as her grandmother to improve relations between the Kalahwamish and the rest of Coho.”

  “Why haven’t you told anyone you’re building the Center in Angela’s honor?”

  “It’s hard enough to raise investment capital. If I told everyone this was a sentimental project, they might believe I wasn’t looking at this as a business deal and balk on the assumption that the Cultural Center isn’t financially viable.” He paused. “Plus, doing this for Angela was personal. Private.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “I’d been debating whether or not I should share her journal with you since you first asked for her research notes. I wasn’t sure if what she wrote in the notebook is relevant. There is a lot in there about Jason and me.” He uncrossed his ankles and straightened his shoulders. “Now you’ve found Angela, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I’ve decided you should have it. It might help with your research on Lyle. She mentions him often enough.”

  “Thank you, Jack.”

  He leaned back and she felt his scrutiny. She held his gaze. More than anyone else in Coho, Jack’s opinion of her and her legal situation mattered. If he didn’t have faith in her, he could use her legal troubles to break their contract. Libby would never recover, not financially, not professionally.

  “I’m going to be honest,” he said. “You weren’t my first choice for the Coho project. I was leaning toward Seaver and Associates.”

  She did not let her dislike of Amy show on her face. “They are a reputable company. You would have done fine with them.”

  “You’re being generous considering the things Amy said about you to the Seattle Times.”

  “I didn’t read the article. Truth is, I don’t like Amy, but she hires good people. I don’t find fault with her work.”

  “Well, I think Amy Seaver has behaved abominably, and I think your work has been exceptional. I’m glad James pushed me to hire your company.”

  “James Montgomery selected us?”

  “Yes. He’s a major investor in the Center and has actively participated in the selection of the consultants. He’s a huge asset to the project because I can’t be in Coho full-time.”

  “I’ll have to thank him the next time I see him.”

  “You can do that right now,” James said from the doorway.

  Jack pushed off his desk and greeted James with a handshake. Libby stood as well. She greeted James and studied him, looking for something, anything that would tell her how much he knew, whether he could possibly be the man who had attacked and framed her.

  “I was just telling Libby how much of an asset she’s been to the Cultural Center project. I was about to tell her I intend to keep her on no matter what happens with her legal situation,” Jack said.

  James smiled and looked like nothing more or less than the earnest man she’d interviewed over a week ago. “I knew you were the right choice. Amy Seaver was too eager to bad-mouth you. Very unprofessional.”

  So Amy’s backstabbing had backfired. Interesting. Of course, given everything that had happened because she won the Cultural Center project, she couldn’t help but wish it had been Amy who’d been the successful bidder.

  Jack left James in his office and walked her to the door. “Have you given the police a copy of this notebook?” she asked.

  Jack flinched. “No.”

  “Should I make them a copy?”

  “Not yet. Before the Coho PD gets a copy, Jason should read it.”

  She wondered whether he wanted Jason to read it as Angela’s son or as Jack’s lawyer. “He hasn’t read it yet?”

  “No. He doesn’t know this journal exists.”

  “I’m meeting Jason for dinner tonight. Can I show it to him then?”

  He hesitated. “Fine,” he said at last.

  She stepped outside and stared at the notebook in her hands. A surge of excitement coursed through her. She practically ran all the way to the Shelby house, where she settled down on the window seat in the living room with a fresh cup of tea and Angela’s journal and began to read.

  April 17, 1976

  Today George Warren agreed to sell me the property where Lyle killed my grandmother. I’ve been making offers for months now and he finally caved. It was the cultural center proposal that cinched the deal. I still have to figure out how I’m going to tell Jack about my plans for the cultural center. He’s going to kill me when he finds out about the promises I made.

  But I don’t care. I want that land. Ever since Frances told me about Millie, I’ve wanted to own that property. I want to build the center and put Millie’s name on it and tell Lyle that I know what he did. I even know why.

  If I can just find the proof I need, I can go after Lyle. I can’t fix the past but I can do something now.

  Libby read on. Angela never once stated explicitly she was looking for Millie’s will, but it was there, in the words in between. As Jack said, she mentioned Lyle frequently. She appeared obsessed with taking him down.

  She chronicled her reluctance to tell Jack about her plans for the cultural center. In early 1978, she made the decision to tell Jack “everything.” Libby suspected she meant both the cultural center and her search for the will. Then Angela came face to face with evidence Jack was having another affair. She feared she would lose him if she told him what she’d done. She feared he would be angry if he knew her search would result in giving Jason’s inheritance away.

  That was as close as Angela came to outright mentioning the will.

  Over time, the book became less an account of her plans for the cultural center and rant against Lyle and became more of a journal. She described a Jack Libby knew well: a handsome man with charisma that could be overpowering when focused intently on a person.

  Angela expressed pride and anxiety over the fact that she thought Jason had the same gift. She didn’t want to watch her son follow in his father’s footsteps and use his charm to get what he wanted all while remaining emotionally reserved
from his prey. And that was how Angela felt. Not Jack’s partner, not his friend, but his prey.

  She believed he had chosen her because she fit his needs. Pretty and wealthy, she had polish and education. She was the perfect wife for all his business functions.

  Angela felt out of place at Jack’s business functions and saw the way his secretary had stepped into the wife’s role. Devastated, she’d thrown herself into her studies, desperate to have her own life and her own feeling of importance, separate from her husband, separate from her son. Her search for the will was an extension of that need.

  She said she loved Jack intensely but he wasn’t and couldn’t be there for her. Eventually she turned to her ever-present and ever-available officemate, Dan Parker. Libby set the book down, shaken to the core. It was obvious why Jack hadn’t given the notebook to the police. Even Libby had trouble holding on to the idea he was innocent of his wife’s murder.

  She forced herself to read the rest. Angela’s last entry was dated August 19, 1979, two days before her disappearance. She said she’d ended her affair with Dan. In spite of his affairs, she loved Jack and wouldn’t leave him.

  Was it possible Angela’s search for the will had nothing to do with her death? Had Dan killed her after she dumped him? Dan could easily have gotten the Clovis point found in Angela’s hands. He would have quickly recognized the signs that he was digging through an archaeological site. He would know exactly how to make bones look like a prehistoric burial.

  But Dan had approved the scope of work. He’d outlined the methodology and leaned on Jack to pay for the ground penetrating radar. It wouldn’t make sense for him to do that if he’d killed her. She returned to the only logical conclusion. Jack and Dan were innocent. Angela was killed because she was looking for Millie’s will.

  She closed the journal and wondered how Jack had reacted after reading about Angela’s affair and then finding out he needed a permit from Dan Parker or he wouldn’t be able to build the Cultural Center in her honor. What an ugly tangled mess. Even messier than Libby’s life.