Downpour g-6

by Kat Richardson

  “What if they didn’t know?”

  “You’re suggesting an ignorant mage.”

  “At least one of them is self-taught. Which is sometimes the same as mud-ignorant.”

  “I don’t think Willow killed her father.”

  “Then it must be the mysterious number five.”

  I sighed and sipped the weak tea Quinton had made by warming up cups of water on top of the Franklin stove. “I still have no idea who that is. Or if it’s the rogue or the child. I can figure out the nexus and the puppeteer—that’s Jewel Newman and Elias Costigan. I know the east must have been Jonah Leung or Willow’s mother, because they’re both dead. Willow could be the child, but she could also be the rogue.”

  “Think about it from the ley weaver’s viewpoint. They’re his terms, so the titles are based on his ideas.”

  “Which is something I can’t begin to fathom. And it’s not helping.”

  “Then leave it for now and we’ll need to attack a different part of the problem. What’s on the last sheet of paper?”

  “It’s Alan Strother’s car log for the day he died. It shows the locations and times where his car stopped. For most of these, I can tell whom he went to see by looking up the residents on the other list. I also see when he clocked back in, how long he was out of the car—that sort of thing. But there are these holes. . . .”

  “So he checked out the houses on the list and then what?”

  “He drove around. Back and forth a few times. It didn’t make a lot of sense and I’m still trying to figure out the pattern.”

  “Who’s still on your list to talk to?”

  “Almost all of them. And now I want another look at that rock, too.”

  “I guess we’re driving back to Port Angeles, then.”

  Faith was curious about why we wanted to look at the rock. “It’s not some kind of precious stone. It’s just a rock. Probably fell into the car when it sank.” But he pulled out the box of personal effects that weren’t too rotted to touch and let us have a look anyway. He did insist on our wearing gloves when we handled the stuff, though. Just in case.

  Out of the water, the objects no longer exuded a Grey mist. Most were so inert, they looked like shapeless blanks in my sight—but not the rock. It glowed green and gold with something burning in its core like a banked fire, and it whined and whispered like distant radio signals. If it wasn’t the anchor, it was something equally magical. Quinton looked at the rock while I talked to Faith.

  “Not much to go on,” I commented, stirring the smaller items with my gloved fingers. “Screwdriver and pliers are interesting. . . .”

  “We’re thinking whoever sabotaged his brakes and fuel line left them—they don’t match the set in the back,” Faith said, confirming my belief that he was no fool. “It’s too damn bad they’ve been down there so long that we’ve got no viable traces on them. The cold water preserved a lot more than we could have hoped for, but it’s still pretty slim pickings.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. I could see Quinton rummaging in his backpack, but I ignored him for now and did my best to keep Faith’s attention off him, too.

  “So are we all. What do you make of this stuff?”

  “Not a lot, I have to admit. Looks as though he was prepared for any contingency except being murdered and dumped in the lake.”

  “Yeah, Leung was a careful guy, but he was a little superstitious, from what I’ve picked up. Believed in demons, I’m told—Chinese demons, that is, the sort who can’t turn corners and are afraid of the color yellow. You know he always wore something yellow or red?” He nodded to himself. “That’s what I’m told.”

  “It must have made him easy to see in the brush.”

  “Don’t know about that. Never went hunting with the man. Judging by the rifle, though, he wasn’t averse to it. Some folks think it’s cruel, but round here it can be the difference between making it and going on welfare.”

  Quinton held up a meter of some kind with a couple of probes hanging off it. “Do you mind if I test this crystal?”

  Faith gave him an odd look. “What sort of test?”

  “I just want to see if it’s holding an electric charge.”

  “It’s been underwater for a while.”

  “I understand, but some materials don’t dissipate electricity in water. If it’s charged, Leung might have been convinced it was something magical.”

  “I’m not sure . . .” Faith started.

  “I won’t cause it any harm. I’m just going to poke it.”

  Faith frowned. “Oh, I suppose you can go ahead. But if it explodes or breaks, I’m going to be a mite put out with you.”

  “Understood.” Quinton stuck the probes on the rock in various locations and poked at it in silence until we got bored of watching him and went back to our own conversation.

  I started. “But Leung wasn’t shot, was he?” I almost hoped Faith would say he had been, and we’d at least have ballistics to catch the killer by.

  “Nope. ’Cording to the doc, head trauma would have killed him if the fire didn’t. Just waiting on the formal autopsy report to confirm which it was, but it’s been pushed back, so it’ll be a few more days.”

  “Why?”

  “Murdered cops are a little more important than guys who’ve been dead for five years.”

  My turn to nod. Of course they’d push the death of Alan Strother up the priority list.

  This was especially true since it was a fresher killing that had a better chance of clearing and might solve Leung’s murder at the same time.

  Faith didn’t seem to notice when something gave out a bright, hard note in my inner ear like a soprano breaking a glass. Quinton yelped.

  Faith and I turned to him.

  “It sparked. Not a big deal. I just wasn’t expecting it,” Quinton explained.

  “Sparked?” Faith asked.

  “Yeah. This thing’s mostly quartz and it’s electrically active. Most quartz is, but this one might be some kind of conductor.... Can I take this rock with me?” Quinton asked. “I’d like to see what else it does.”

  Faith made a face. “I’d love to get rid of it, but until we have more information, I can’t let you.”

  I chimed in. “You know he wasn’t beaten to death with it, so how is it material?”

  “Probably not, but it’s in the inventory and it’ll have to stay. Why would you want it?”

  I gave it some thought before I replied. “I think Leung wasn’t the only superstitious one around the lake. His killer might have put it in the car to frighten him. . . .”

  “You mean all that mumbo jumbo about Elias Costigan laying Voodoo curses on folks to keep ’em away from his place?” Faith snorted. “I think he’s managed to put a good scare into a few people, but that’s all it is. I’d take it more seriously if one of the Quileutes or Makah were shaking feathers and bones at me.”

  “Why?”

  “I figure the Indians might know a bit about the spirits around here—if there are any. But a self-proclaimed Voodoo witch doctor? He’s a crank.”

  “Even a crank can be dangerous, Faith.”

  “I don’t deny it. But all you’ve got there is a spare finger and a rock that sparks. Voodoo curse or not, it’s no smoking gun.”

  I needed that rock, but Faith wasn’t going to let me walk out with it until the case was solved. I’d have to try another approach. “What’s your take on Brett Ridenour?”

  “What about him?”

  “I’ve been thinking that if Strother’s killer is someone from the lakes and we’ve eliminated most of the full-time residents, what about the nonresidents who are around all the time? Ridenour certainly fits that description, and he’s a little obsessive about ‘his’ lake and ‘his’ park. I imagine that if he thought there was a threat to it, he might think he had cause to take drastic action.”

  “Ridenour? I’m not sure about that . . . but he can be a little overzealous, I guess.”

  “And
he has a personal spite for Willow Leung.”

  “True—he blames her for his wife running off and leaving him. But it’s not Willow who’s been killed.”

  “Maybe his dislike is based on more than his missing wife. Maybe he thinks Willow knows something that could incriminate him in her father’s death.”

  “And good luck finding that out. Willow Leung is harder to catch than a snowflake at midsummer. Alan Strother was the only person who ever got close enough and he didn’t manage to catch her, either.”

  “That might have been because he was in love with her.”

  Faith stared at me. “In love with her? He didn’t know the girl except through her jacket and one meeting when he was fresh out of training.”

  “Not true. They’ve known each other since high school. Ridenour arrested them and they were in juvenile together.”

  “No bull? How do you know? Juvenile records are sealed. Did Ridenour tell you?”

  “Willow told me.”

  Faith rubbed his hands over his hair. “Paint me blue. You’ve talked to that crazy woman? Why didn’t you call me, catch her, something?”

  “I didn’t have any cell service at the graveyard in Beaver and what was I supposed to do—throw a blanket over her and tie her up? She thinks I can find out who killed Strother and her dad. She was willing to talk to me because I’m not a cop.”

  “Can you get to her again?”

  “Not reliably. She finds me.”

  Faith huffed and frowned. “Damn it. Damn it! You have to get that girl to talk to me.”

  “She’s not going to walk in here and get herself arrested.”

  “I’ll go to her.”

  “What could she possibly tell you? If she knew who killed her father or Strother, she’d have told me already.”

  “She knows what happened to her brother and Timothy Scott.”

  “Scott was the phone lineman she shot?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure about it.”

  “She says she did it.”

  “On purpose? Lying in wait? That doesn’t sound like something a nineteen-year-old girl does no matter what Ridenour says about her. If you’re telling me the truth, she’d already done a stint in juvie and, believe me, she wouldn’t want to go to jail after that, so I can understand her running. But what does a kid that age know? She doesn’t have any perspective on the world. She thinks everything is her fault and she blames herself even if it’s an accident. She probably thinks she’s responsible for her mother’s death, too, one way or another.”

  “You talk as though you know.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of screwed-up kids. They come in two kinds: the truly hard and the scared shitless. Willow Leung’s crimes aren’t the acts of a bad kid, a hard kid; they’re wild-kid stuff. Except for the murder, which makes no sense at all. A young woman whose rap sheet is trespass, joyriding, petty B and E on abandoned buildings, and smoking dope doesn’t lie in wait and murder a man she’s never met. Not without cause.”

  I knew why she’d really done it, but I was sure Faith didn’t; yet he seemed unconvinced of her guilt and that made me curious. “The report she gave was that he raped her and she shot him when he came back to try again.”

  “Total bullshit. Her dad wouldn’t have let that slide if there had been such an incident. He’d have come after Scott himself. But Tim Scott had never been on that route before, so there never was a chance for him to have raped her and come back. I would bet you my salary for a year it was a pure accident. She didn’t even know him. I think she cooked up the rape story because she was scared and it’s more sympathetic than ‘I thought he was a bear.’ ”

  “You don’t think she did it?”

  Faith shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, I’m pretty sure she shot him. I just don’t think she murdered him. I don’t think she killed her brother, either, but I think she does know what happened to him and it’s made her scared. Look, her mother died, her half brother died, her dad was a little preoccupied with their deaths, and her half sister ain’t exactly Miss Sweetness and Light.”

  “Hang on. Half brother and half sister? Willow’s mother wasn’t Jewel and Jonah’s mother?”

  “Nope. Kind of surprised you missed that in your background on Leung.”

  “It wasn’t a full report—I only spent two hours on it,” I objected, stung.

  Faith shrugged and he went on. “Leung’s first wife, Doreen Fife, divorced him and moved down the hill to town when the two kids were in their early teens. Eventually she moved back east and got remarried. She kind of divorced the whole family, really. Stopped having contact with them once she had a new family to occupy her time,” Faith added with a snort of disgust. “Steven married Sula Yu a couple years later and Willow came along a couple of years after that. That house on Lake Sutherland’s been in Sula’s family since they built it back in the settlement days.”

  “Sula’s family was Chinese?”

  Faith nodded. “You don’t hear much about ’em, but there were a handful of Chinese out here as workers when they were building up the railroads. Mostly they left afterward, but the Yus stayed. Dodged the Exclusion Act by keeping to themselves up on the mountain. Mostly quiet, law-abiding folks far as I can tell. Until this generation. Willow’s been in j-camp, and she’s run a little wild, but—except for shooting Scott—her worst crime appears to have been getting on the wrong side of Brett Ridenour.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “I like him well enough and I’ll give you that he’s dedicated to his job, but he’s bitter and he’s got an inflexible mind. As far as he’s concerned, there’s Ridenour’s way and there’s the wrong way.”

  I considered that and I couldn’t disagree. I sighed. “If I can get Willow to talk to you, will you let us . . . borrow that rock?”

  “No. But I might misplace it for a couple of days.”

  I held out my hand. “I’ll let you know.”

  Faith unfolded his arms and shook my hand. “Be careful, Ms. Blaine. You’re walking in some damned tricky territory.”

  I just nodded, and Quinton and I left Faith to his desk and the box full of waterlogged evidence.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “What do you think?” I asked as we returned “ to the Rover.

  “It’s piezoelectric—most quartz is—but it’s got some other electrical properties as well. It’s a big piece, so I’m not quite sure what the effect would be, but it kind of reminds me of old-fashioned radio crystals. . . .”

  “It’s very high-pitched.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I think it was a Grey sound. Faith didn’t hear it, either.”

  “Huh . . . I wonder if it’s tuned in some way . . .” Quinton mused.

  “Tuned?”

  “Yeah. Well, quartz has some interesting properties. Aside from the piezoelectric effect—”

  “What is that?”

  “It produces electricity if you deform it—that’s how the pilotless ignition on your stove works—or, if you give it electricity, it deforms in response. It’s a useful effect for transducers and—”

  I interrupted him. “I’m going to take your word on that. What else does it do?”

  “I’m not sure. But given that it seems to be Grey, I’d make a rough guess that it influences the amplitude or direction of magic. When it’s in place. Tuned crystals, like the ones in rudimentary radio sets, resonate to a specific frequency. In this case, it might be a specific frequency in the Grey. I wish I had some of that crystal myself. It might overcome the problems with my Grey detectors. . . .”

  His excitement made my own skin buzz, and I could almost see the calculations in Quinton’s eyes as he thought about it and made mental schematics for new devices to track ghosts.

  I cleared my throat. “I was actually wondering what you think of Faith and his ideas.”

  Quinton blinked. I rarely ask him his opinion of people I’m working with. “He seems . . . pretty reaso
nable. Which means he hasn’t any idea what’s going on.”

  “What about you? I mean, you don’t see ghosts. . . .”

  “Sweetheart, we were attacked by walking dead things last night. I may have never seen a ghost, but I’ve heard them and I have met vampires, zombies, witches, and two-headed sea monsters that turn into homicidal canoes. I think I’m allowed to draw some conclusions from that.”

  We got into the truck and I started driving up the hill. I kept thinking about the complications around the Leung children and their homes. The Newmans’ house sat nearly on top of the power nexus under the lake. That and money explained why people jumped when Jewel said “frog,” but the big glass-and-wood house hadn’t existed as long as the smaller house at Lake Sutherland with its old, time-etched circle of power and its quiet, old family who kept to themselves, sitting as firmly as Mount Storm King on the deep blue torrent of the east/west leyline. . . .

  “What do you think about the case?” I asked.

  “Well . . . I haven’t met any of the suspects, so I can’t say for sure. Faith did seem pretty convinced that Willow’s not a killer. You seem to agree with him.”

  “Not entirely—and that doesn’t mean she’s not a troublemaker, because she is. I know she shot Timothy Scott, but Faith may be right: It was an accident for which she still feels guilty. She told me someone had ‘stolen’ the magic circle beside the house after Jonah died. It was her mother’s circle when she was born and since Willow was her student as well as her child, it should have been her circle when Sula died—or at least after her half brother died. Maybe she mistook Scott for the thief, shot him, and then realized she’d made a mistake, but then it was too late.... She was still young then. She’s powerful, but she’s not well trained. She’d already been to juvie and she might not have known at the time that her records were sealed. She probably freaked, thinking they’d send her up as an adult with one strike. Plus her other crimes, she might have believed they’d put her away for life, so she came up with the rape story to buy some time and then she ran for the woods. She seems to have an extraordinary connection to nature here—right down to animals and the plants. Maybe that was why she went to the greenhouse.”