Murder in Mountain Springs

by Alene Anderson

  “Did you want to talk to me about something?” Jake asked.

  “If you men wouldn’t mind stepping outside, I’m finished here and need to lock up,” Kate said.

  “No problem,” Jake said, stepping aside to let her pass.

  Kate took the keys out of her pocket and locked the door as the two men walked toward Jake’s cabin. She couldn’t help but wonder what Jake would say when he heard Dave’s request. She wasn’t sure he would agree to silence. After all, he was an attorney. If he had information he thought might be helpful, surely he would want to pass it on.

  As far as she was concerned, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She had made no commitment to Dave to keep silent. Maybe she should talk to Stephanie before she said anything to the authorities about Dave knowing the murdered woman.

  He had called her ‘Kioko.’ She wondered how much he knew about the woman. If he knew anything which would help solve the murder.

  She thought about Jake. She actually knew very little about him, she admitted to herself. He never talked about himself and his life before he came to Mountain Springs. It was as though his life had only begun since his arrival at the lodge.

  Was it merely a coincidence he had checked in a few days before the murder? He talked to Hank a lot. Maybe he knew something about Jake she didn’t. Both she and Hank had often wondered what he did when he disappeared for hours at a time. Could a person really spend that much time exploring the area?

  She went to the kitchen, where Hank was bending over the oven checking out his pies. Apparently satisfied they were baked to perfection, he reached in and began to remove them, one at a time, setting them on racks to cool.

  “Umm, smells delicious,” she commented as she set her cleaning box down behind the kitchen door.

  “Dave was in here lookin’ for ya. Did he find ya?”

  “Yes, now he’s talking to Jake. Wants to commit us to silence about seeing him in the National Forest.”

  Before Hank could ask any more questions, she asked, “Does Jake ever talk to you about his life in Los Angeles or where he grew up?”

  “Never talks about his time in LA, but he has talked about growin’ up in Brooklyn and how he went into the Navy when he was seventeen. Lied about his age. Then he got himself into the Navy Seals.”

  He stopped talking as he lifted mixing bowls out of soapy water in the sink, rinsed them in hot water and set them to drain.

  “Was in the Navy Seals for several years and traveled all over the world. Did ya know he speaks several languages?”

  “No, I didn’t. He never talks about himself to me,” she said, wondering why.

  “Do ya know what ya have to go through to become a Navy Seal?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tough trainin’. Very few pass it. Takes thirty months of trainin’ and that’s not to git ya in shape. Ya already have to be in shape. Jake said when he was accepted into the Navy Seals, he could do a hundred sit-ups in two minutes, a hundred push-ups in two minutes, and twenty-five pull-ups. Plus there were certain requirements for swimmin’ and runnin’. Then after he got out of the service, he graduated from Georgetown University with a law degree.”

  Kate couldn’t help but be impressed, but a little hurt Hank would know more about Jake than she did. But maybe it was her fault. When she was alone with Jake, he made her feel uncomfortable. She was never able to relax enough to ask him any questions. And she knew he took some kind of pleasure from teasing her. Usually her only thought when she found herself alone with Jake was to get away from him before she did or said something she would later regret.

  She realized she had to work on that. She did feel she had made some progress in not allowing him to intimidate her. But now, she needed to be able to carry on a normal conversation with him like she did with her other customers.

  She admitted there were personal things she would like to know about him. For instance, had he ever been married? Did he have any children? Did he have siblings? Were his parents still alive? If so, where did they live?

  She wondered if she would learn the answers or would he be leaving before she had reached the point where she felt comfortable enough to have a normal conversation with him. He affected her in a way no other man had.

  No, she admitted to herself as Jake walked into the kitchen and his dark eyes met hers. No man had ever made her feel the way Jake did.

  Chapter 5

  Kate spent a restless night as she went over and over in her mind what she was going to say to Stephanie. Off in the distance she could hear the wild dogs howling as they often did at night. When she had first come to Mountain Springs she had thought the howling she heard was coyotes, but Hank had told her packs of wild dogs roamed the mountains disturbing the locals with their howls.

  When she went down to the kitchen, Jake was nowhere in sight and she didn’t want to ask Hank where he was. After she had eaten the omelet Hank prepared for her, she went into the office to use the phone. She called Stephanie and made an appointment to have lunch with her at noon at a Mexican restaurant.

  After she finished cleaning the cabins, she hurried back to the lodge and up to her apartment. She couldn’t help but wonder where Jake was. His Jeep wasn’t in front of his cabin. He must have gotten an early start. She had to quit thinking about him, she scolded herself.

  After showering, she blew her hair dry and put on a light touch of makeup. Opening the closet door, she stared at the clothes inside wondering what she should wear. She reached for a pair of black slacks and matched it with a white blouse with a black design woven throughout.

  As Kate drove down the highway toward Lava Cove, she debated how she was going to tell Stephanie about seeing her husband with the murdered Asian girl, Kioko. In spite of hashing it over the previous night, she had not yet come to any conclusion as to how she should handle it.

  Kate had made up her mind she wasn’t going to listen to Jake or Hank’s admonitions. She regretted not having had any warning about Walt. She had never suspected her husband could be involved in the murder of a blackjack dealer from Las Vegas until the night of his arrest.

  What an unbelievable story it had been. Carol Petersen had been an art teacher from UCLA whose husband, Wes, had taught American Indian history. He had become involved with a younger woman and while with her one evening, he had experience a fatal heart attack. After his death Carol had moved to Lava Cove as she and Wes had planned to do after their retirement. She had bought a piece of land at the edge of town and hired Walt Potter to build an Indian Cultural Center.

  Hiring a detective to track down the young woman Carol held responsible for her husband’s death, it took him only a few days to find her dealing blackjack in one of the casinos in Vegas.

  Walt’s love of gambling had been his downfall. He had borrowed money from Carol’s building account, sure he could pay it back with his winnings. When Carol discovered funds were missing, she threated Walt with exposure unless he cooperated with her.

  She had rented a limousine and Walt picked the young blackjack dealer up in Las Vegas and brought her to Lava Cove with the promise that someone wanted to help with her career.

  After killing the girl, Carol had insisted Walt take the body and dump it in the desert on the other side of town where it had been found the next day by a dog who was with a woman jogging on a nearby road.

  Kate still remembered the horror and disbelief she had experienced when the police found her and told her Walt had been arrested. She felt as though she had been dropped into the middle of a terrible nightmare.

  To this day, she found it hard to believe she had been living with a man who was capable of murder. Well, not the actual murder, but he had certainly been an accessory.

  While he had not fired the shot killing Sarita, he had been the one who had picked her up at the De
sert Winds Casino in Las Vegas and driven her to Lava Cove. Carol Petersen had been the one to confront Sarita and fire the deadly bullet that had ended her life. But Walt had been the one who had dumped her body in the desert.

  She wouldn’t want her worst enemy to experience what had happened to her after the townspeople of Lava Cove heard about the conspiracy involving Carol and Walt. Many of them had treated her as though she had been a part of it.

  If someone would have had the kindness to warn her, she could have been prepared and protected both herself and her daughter from the terrible questions and looks, which had been directed at them.

  She couldn’t stop the tears as she thought of her daughter’s denial when she had to tell her of Walt’s arrest.

  “Daddy didn’t do it,” Jennifer had sobbed. “I know he didn’t. They’re lying. He wouldn’t do anything like that. Where is he? I want him to come home.”

  Whatever Walt’s faults had been, he had always been a good father to Jennifer. At least until he had gotten involved in the gambling. Once that happened he had spent less and less time with Jennifer.

  After Walt’s arrest, she couldn’t begin to describe how angry she had been. From that day on, she had not spoken to him again. She had done all her communication through an attorney.

  She had read in the paper that Zach Landel, the owner of the Desert Winds, where Walt had met Sarita, had sold the casino shortly after the murder. He was now devoting his time and money to the destruction of land mines in war torn countries throughout the world.

  She had also read shortly after the sale of the casino, he had married Maggie Garret, a plastic surgeon in Lava Cove, who worked with wounded service men returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan. It was Maggie who had been jogging in the desert with Zach’s dog when they had discovered Sarita’s body.

  In the interview, Zach admitted he hated gambling and what it did to the people who became addicted to it, causing them to lose their homes, their families, sometimes everything they had.

  Zach certainly had that right, she thought. Look what Walt’s love of gambling had done to their family. Not only had he lost everything important to him, but he was sitting in prison convicted of being an accessory to murder.

  As she arrived in the outskirts of Lava Cove with its golf courses and large rambling estates, she glanced in the mirror and grimaced when she saw how tears had streaked her makeup. She would need to repair it before she met Stephanie.

  When she reached the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant where she and Stephanie were meeting for lunch, she saw it was full. Driving around the block, she was able to find a place on the street. Before climbing out of the car, she took a compact out of her purse and touched up her face.

  As she walked through the parking lot she looked for Stephanie’s car but didn’t see it. She decided to go in anyway and get a table. The hostess greeted her and led her into the dining room, promising to let Stephanie know where she was sitting.

  Stephanie arrived a few minutes later and was shown to Kate’s table. Kate had to admit she was very attractive, but she had never been fond of her. In her opinion, Stephanie thought too much about wearing designer labels, driving the latest model of car, and living in a big house. Sitting down, Stephanie flipped her long red hair back over her shoulder and gave Kate an assessing look.

  “You’re looking good,” she said. “I can tell Mountain Springs must be agreeing with you.”

  “I’m enjoying it. All the cabins are booked for the summer and into the fall for the hunting season,” Kate said. “If it continues like this every year, I think it will be a success.”

  The waitress approached the table to take their order and Stephanie asked her to give them a few minutes while she glanced over the menu. After they both decided on an enchilada, with Stephanie ordering a coke with hers, they settled back to catch up on the latest gossip of Lava Cove.

  In a few minutes, the waitress placed steaming enchiladas in front of them. With a warning to be careful of the hot plates, she left them.

  Waiting for hers to cool before taking the first bite, Kate said, “There is something I want to talk to you about.”

  Stephanie took a sip of her Coke.

  Kate was silent for a moment and then decided the only way to approach the problem was to jump right in.

  “Have you heard about the Asian girl being murdered in Mountain Springs?”

  “I read about it in the paper.”

  “I saw Dave with her when I was horseback riding in the Cedar National Forest.”

  “Oh, Kate,” Stephanie said in disgust. “Dave warned me you would tell me about seeing him. He said you thought they were kissing. She had stumbled and he caught her. It was all perfectly innocent. They had walked out into the forest where they could talk privately. She didn’t want her boss to know she wanted to leave Mountain Springs Health Spa.”

  “If it was all very innocent, why did Dave find it necessary to come to my place and try and swear me to secrecy about seeing them together?”

  “Just because Walt was involved in a conspiracy of murder doesn’t mean Dave would be. I can’t believe you would think something like that about my husband.”

  Kate stared at the other woman. It was obvious Dave had convinced Stephanie that being with Kioko was not what it had appeared to be.

  “I know what I saw and I just don’t want any surprises being sprung on you the way they were for me.”

  “Just because you were married to a man who took part in a murder doesn’t mean I am. And if you care about Dave and me at all, you won’t mention what you saw to anyone.”

  “Do you want me to lie about what I saw?”

  “Dave says you were mistaken.”

  “I know what I saw,” Kate repeated firmly. “And if the police question me, I will have to tell them.”

  Stephanie stared at her, her brown eyes dark and full of resentment.

  “You obviously can’t stand to think I have a wonderful relationship with Dave while your husband sits in prison. You pretend you are trying to protect me, but in reality you are just trying to undermine my marriage. I refuse to listen to anymore.”

  She grabbed up her purse and rushed out of the restaurant, leaving her lunch untouched on the table.

  Kate stared after her in surprise. She had only been trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time her principals had caused an acquaintance to become upset with her.

  She looked at the two plates of food on the table. Darn, now she was going to be stuck with the whole check. If that was the case, she thought, she might as well enjoy her lunch. When she had finished her enchilada, she reached over for Stephanie’s plate and switched it with the empty plate in front of her.

  Later, as she walked out of the restaurant, she wondered if she had made a mistake by eating both of the enchiladas. Her stomach was bloated and she felt like throwing up. If she would have been smart, she told herself, she would have asked for a doggie bag and taken Stephanie’s untouched enchilada home with her.

  She turned the corner to cross the street to her car and bumped into a tall man in a suit. As his hands reached out to steady her, her eyes traveled from the man’s chest up to his face. Her heart began to beat rapidly and her mouth grew dry.

  “Jake,” she exclaimed. “Imagine running into you . . . and in a suit, no less.”

  He ignored the jibe about the way he was dressed and asked instead, “What are you doing in town?”

  “I came to have lunch with Stephanie,” she said in a defiant tone.

  “Did you tell her about seeing Dave with the Asian woman?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And how did she take it?”

  “She got very upset and walked out,” she admitted. “Didn’t even touch her lunch.”

/>   “I can understand that, which must explain the miserable look on your face.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t her walking out on me, but her enchilada that’s bothering me.”

  He stared at her with raised eyebrows. “Her enchilada?”

  “Yes, since I was stuck with the check, after I finished my enchilada, I ate Stephanie’s. Now I’m not feeling very good.”

  She stared at him as he threw his head back and roared with laughter.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” she said, pushing out her bottom lip in a pout.

  “Why would you eat her enchilada?”

  “I never could stand to see food go to waste. I think it’s a throwback to my childhood when my father always insisted I eat everything on my plate. You know, parents’ favorite saying about starving children in Africa.”

  “Doll, you are something else.” Jake shook his head, his eyes twinkling down at her.

  She couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve got to get back to the lodge. I have a group of men checking in late this afternoon and I want to be there when they arrive and I don’t want to miss Jennifer’s daily call.”

  As Jake walked toward the National State Bank, he smiled to himself. Sometimes it was all he could do to keep from pulling Kate into his arms and kissing her until she begged for mercy. He had never met anyone like her. She was . . . He searched for a word to describe her and could only come up with one word. Real. There wasn’t a bit of artifice about her.

  He had been against her talking to Stephanie because he was sure it wouldn’t set well with Dave or his wife, but Kate had seemed to take it in stride. She was sure it had been the right thing to do and she had done it. He realized everything for Kate was either black or white. There didn’t seem to be room for any gray areas.