by Rich Foster
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know. He lived over on Carson in that Victorian next to the park. I heard talk he was moving but that was years ago. I think he blamed me because I took over after him. We never talked. Where he ended up, I couldn’t tell you.”
*
Twenty minutes later Harry found the house. A family owned the Victorian and had for twelve years. The woman wished she could help, but had never met the former owners, they only dealt with the agent. If there was ever a forwarding address she did not remember it. The only useful information Harry gathered was that Lanski Real Estate closed the deal.
*
Herb Lanski operated Bayshore Realty out of an office along 218 near the heart of town. Twenty years in Red Lake failed to remove the nasal New York twang from his voice. He was the ‘hail fellow, well met type’ who mixed hard sell with an excess of handshaking or back slapping.
“Harry! Looking to move up?” Herb warmly called from a doorway across the room.
Grim sidled past the receptionist who had been poised to stop his advance. When Harry reached Lanski’s office he took Herb’s proffered hand.
“No, but I do have a few questions for you, though.”
“Have a seat. Anything at all for a good client.”
Always the hard sell, Harry thought. He had bought only one modest house from Lanski.
“Do you recall Sheriff Whittier?”
Herb reflected. “Sure, the Victorian on Carson, one of my bigger listings that year. Must be at least a decade back.”
“Twelve years.”
Herb’s head bobbed in agreement, “Could be.”
“Do you know where Whittier went?”
“They were down-scaling. Moved over to Beaumont, less snow over there, something about the low pressure fronts being compressed against this side of the mountains.”
“Do you know where in Beaumont?”
“Some retirement place. I can’t think of the name.”
Harry rose to go.
“Sure I cant show you a property? I have a great listing with a deep water dock.”
Harry demurred. Changing the subject he asked, “What can you tell me about Alison Albright?”
The question caught Lanski off guard, as evidenced by the color draining from his cheeks. Harry thought his realtor might faint. When Herb spoke, he stammered.
“I really didn’t know her. I, I, …don’t know.”
“What is it you don’t know, Herb?”
“How she got there. Who killed her”
Harry chose to go for the throat and not ease into it. “Who did you have sex with on graduation night?”
Lanski’s color was ashen. “None of your darn business, Harry!”
He snapped out the words, resorting to anger as a defense, but the use of 'darn' instead of 'damn' made his ire appear silly..
“I’m told you went with Becky Fenton, Garner back then.”
“Yeah. So if you know, then why are you asking who I had sex with?”
“Because it wasn’t her!” Harry moved a few objects casually around on Herb's desk, if only to invade his space and shake his caution.
Herb squirmed nervously, “It's none of your business. Besides that was twenty years ago.”
“Yeah, two decades and Alison is still dead.”
Harry brushed at a piece of lint on his sport coat and flicked it away with one finger. “Think about that night, Herb. If you remember anything, you know my number.”
In the parking lot, free of Herb, Harry glanced at his watch, Too late to go over the pass, might as well go to the office and try to get a line on Whittier.
The afternoon was almost spent, though the summer sun rode high above the horizon. Harry looked forward to a relaxing summer evening, after the day's heat broke and the fireflies lit up the night
When Harry reached the office. Paula was gone and the door locked. Inside the air was hot and stuffy. He pulled up the double hung windows and swung the transom window above the door. Hoping to clear the air he switched on a floor fan but it proved a futile effort.
The online white pages showed no listings for Todd Whittier in the Beaumont area. He searched the name and came up with a few obituaries but none that fit. Next he typed in retirement homes and the name, Beaumont. Four listing came up. The first was an active seniors residential community. If Whittier was there it seemed he should also be in the white pages. One was a senior housing project for Parsons County, and the last two were convalescent homes. The latter two were most likely to have a receptionist. He dialed the number.
“Hillcrest Convalescent Home.” The voice brimmed with youthfulness.
“Yes, I am trying to reach my uncle, Todd Whittier.”
“I’m sorry we don’t have a resident by that name. Did you try Golden Oaks? I could give you their number.”
“I’ve got it, thank you.”
The woman who answered at Golden Oaks sounded as old and venerable as the homes name. “How may I direct your call?” she asked. The last words faded as she ran out of air.
“Todd Whittier, please.”
“One moment.”
The phone rang a half dozen times.
“That party is not answering. Dinner is at five. You might try back after six. Calls are not put through after eight.”
Harry hung up. A wave of disquiet about the golden years swirled around him. They were still several decades off but the thought of being told when to eat, when to sleep, or when one might receive a call left him irritable.
He poured himself a shot from the bottle on the office sideboard. The bottle was a nod to his love of film noir detectives. The drink burned as he tossed it down.
As he thought about his case he realized what was troubling him, he felt dirty. Something about the Albright case stank. Too many nervous eyes and hesitant answers stirred his suspicions.
Perhaps Whittier can put a few questions to rest?. Then there were the girl’s parents; I need to talk to them. So far he had no sense of who Alison was. Nobody has much to say about Alison. In fact, Mrs. Quince was the only person who acknowledged knowing her.
Harry picked up his phone and called the Clarion.
“Give me Lou Harding.”
“Who is calling, please?”
“Harry Grim.”
“One moment, please.”
Harding always dreamed of the big story. In years past, the pursuit of one caused his wife to die by a car bomb meant for him. Her death took the wind out of him. He left the newspaper business and Chicago. He settled in Red Lake.
However, after an unsuitable retirement, he went back to reporting, working at a third of his old pay for the Red Lake Clarion. The previous year, his expose on the prison ADX Praxis earned him the Pulitzer he coveted. Lou was indebted to Harry.
Lou came on the line. “Harry! You got another story for me? I can always use another Pulitzer prize.”
“If I do, you’ll be the first to know, Lou. I need some background on a Jane Doe from 1991.”
“If you mean the Albright thing, that was 1992.”
“No this one was in '91.”
“Do you have a closer date?”
“July. The body was found at Cold Creek campgrounds. The investigation came to a dead end. The only thing that resulted was the last sheriff got squeezed out of office.”
“I’ll check our archives. Anything that old won’t be electronic but I can scan the old articles and send it over to you. I’m putting a story to bed right now. Is tomorrow morning good enough?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“No trouble. Just remember my number if something comes up. Good exposes are rare around here.”
Harry called it a day. He left the window open a few inches. The office was on the second floor. If a prowler wanted in, it was easier to force the hallway door than climb the building's stone face. He left the fan running to bring in the cool night air that would roll down from the mountains. Then he locked the door.
&
nbsp; *
Paula was swimming off the boat dock. Harry stood on the porch and watched the even stroke of her arms and legs. Whenever he watched Paula he got an ache in his chest. She was one of very few things he feared losing. I think she knows that, he thought, but he found putting it into words impossible.
He thought of the time the bad guys grabbed her, he risked his life to get her back. Then he put their relationship in even greater peril by sending her back to her ex-husband until the danger was past. Brad was a cop. Harry knew she would be safe with him. But Paula found she wasn’t safe by herself. Old habits died hard. They almost led her away from Harry.
She chose to come back, he reminded himself. Prying her loose from bad guys was easy. But you can’t pry someone away from their past if they are still in love. Paula saw him and waved. He thought, I should be working out, too, but settled for hoisting a cold beer to his lips.
She stroked hard toward the dock and seemed to swim up out of the water and onto the rough planks. Her small bikini would fail as a handkerchief, little more than a slash of yellow across her hips and breasts. As she walked toward him, Harry felt hypnotized by the sway of her body. She shook her head, sending water flying like a golden retriever, then patted her face with a towel and trotted up the path to the house.
Harry took her in his arms. He felt the coolness of her skin and dampness as her wet body pressed against him. They kissed slowly.
“Still have your mind on that office sofa, Harry?”
“No, I was thinking how much I love you.”
“That bad, Harry?”
“What do you mean?”
“You start telling me you love me when there is trouble in the air.”
“No trouble. I‘ve been looking into the past; at things other people lost. It reminded me of what I have to lose.”
Paula smiled and gave him a kiss.
“Keep talking big guy and you might get lucky tonight.”
She turned away, as she walked into the house, Harry held onto the tie strings of her swimsuit. The top and bottom fell away. Paula glanced back over her shoulder and beckoned him with one finger and a sultry look.
Chapter 6
The sun created long shadows that flowed from the shore trees onto the lake. On the western shore the early morning light already glared off the granite peaks. Near Harry’s cabin a morning dove called in the woods. The cabin was chilly after the night. The coffee Harry poured was hot and black. He sipped from the thick porcelain mug while he waited for his e-mail to open.
The first message was from Harding, sent at ten-thirty the night before. Harry smiled. The man likes to pay his debts; he could have put it off until morning. Several attachments came with it. He opened the first and saw a picture of a blonde girl. To anyone with morgue experience, she was obviously dead. The less informed might think she was asleep. The caption read, “Do you know this girl?”
In the black and white photo, Jane Doe appeared attractive. A blonde, with an oval face and thin lips. The girl was probably late teens, although kids looked younger and younger to Harry as he aged.
Reading the articles added little.
Harry opened his notebook and pulled out the picture of Alison Albright he'd cut from the Clarion Newspaper. Her hair was dark and short, her face a bit rounder. He saw some similarity but not a lot.
Paula was still asleep when Harry pulled out. He took the shore road into town, then turned south on 218 toward Beaumont. The drive was scenic but two times in two days was more than Harry cared to do. An hour later he pulled up to the Golden Oaks Convalescent Home which was a cluster of one-story, cement block buildings. They reminded Harry of boot camp. A yellowed, weedy lawn surrounded them, the grass punctured by a few sickly pines that were as brown as an abandoned Christmas tree.
Surrender all hope, ye who enter here!, echoed in Harry’s head.
The woman at the desk was older than her voice. He assumed she was a resident who volunteered, to help pass the long minutes of old age.
“Room 136, for Todd,” she said with familiarity.
Harry knocked on the door.
“Come in! The damn door doesn’t lock,” a gruff voice shouted.
Two beds filled a quarter of the room. Each half was cluttered by the detritus of past lives, as the residents strove to hold onto something of what they once were. Photos lined the dresser tops taken at in a different place and time. A wizened man of at least eighty years sat hunched in an overstuffed chair that was as worn as himself. The other side was empty.
“Sheriff Whittier?”
“Not a sheriff anymore. They ran me out. You come to say they’re sorry?”
“Harry Grim. I’m a private detective.”
“A damned snooper, eh? What the hell, any visitor is a good visitor. Pull over that chair.” He pointed to a chair in the far corner. Harry hesitated.
“Don’t worry Joel won’t care. He died last night. Always jabbering about how he was going to get out when he got better and go back to his god-forsaken farm. His daughter said they sold the farm eight years ago!”
Whittier picked up a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. His fingertips were yellowed by nicotine. He took his time getting it going, doing the small ritual that smokers develop around their habit. He shook the match hard and dropped it into a cluttered ashtray, then tilted his head back and sucked in deeply.
“They let you smoke in here?”
“Can’t stop me. I took a smoking room when I moved in. The administrator tried to ban it but we got ourselves a lawyer and they gave up. This is the only smoking building left at piss oaks.”
“Do you recall a Jane Doe up in Red Lake?”
“Which one? I pulled Jane Does out of the lake, from crumpled cars, and out of motel rooms.”
The old man made Red Lake sound like a warren of homicide and disaster.
“Twenty-one years ago. The Jane Doe found at the campgrounds.”
“Don’t dance around it young man. You mean the girl that got me run out of town.” He puffed harder and faster as his bile rose.
“What can you tell me about it?”
“Not a lot, because there wasn’t much to tell. The body was found while I was on vacation. Dibbs handled the case, if you could call it that. Forgot to sweep the site before he let every jackass and his brother roam all over the camp.”
Whittier blew another curl of smoke toward the ceiling. “Never did identify the girl, pretty thing as I remember. By the time I got back from fishing over in White Fish the body was chilling in the morgue and the whole town was in an uproar.”
He stubbed the cigarette out viciously. “We never had a thing to go on. People blamed me. The sheriff job was always political; the county council let me know it was time to go or I might not get a pension. Don’t know if they could have done that, but I didn’t stick around to find out.”
“Any ideas at all?”
“Perhaps a drifter. Maybe a runaway dumped by a long haul driver. I thought it possible the Green River killer came over this way, but that Ridgeway fellow never copped to it. Maybe he didn’t do it or perhaps there were too many for him to remember. Anyway we waited, then the girl left the morgue for the cemetery and I left the department.”
He looked around his Spartan room. “We kind of ended up the god damn same.”
Harry rose. “Thanks for your time.”
“Sure thing Mr. Getts.”
“The name’s Grim, Harry Grim.”
“Grim reaper, eh? Well you already got Joel, but I’m not ready to go, so get lost!”
Whittier’s hands shook as he lit another cigarette. He waved his hand at Harry as if brushing away a pesky fly. “Go on! Get out!”
Harry left him shouting and blowing a cloud of smoke. In the hallway he almost collided with an aide who hurried toward Whittier’s room.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. Her dark eyes, hair and skin reflected her Filipino ancestry.
“He seems to be upset.”
“The s
heriff gets confused.”
“Maybe it’s because his roommate died?”
“Did he tell you that? It’s been three years since Mr. Webster died and he keeps thinking it was last night. He has a new roommate, insists on calling him Joel.”
“He’s crazy?”
“No, confused. The present is all muddled for him. In an hour, he probably won’t recall you visiting. The cigarettes don’t help; it’s self-inflicted hypoxia.”
“How is he on the past?”
“That seems to be clear. He is quite precise about the old days. I assume it is mostly accurate.”
Harry was glad to see Golden Oaks recede in his rear view mirror. The aroma of rot and medicine followed him. He tried and failed to shake the image of the shrunken, old man, who thought he was the Grim Reaper. Harry often faced death. In Afghanistan he observed it in many horrid forms, but he seldom saw it taking root in the slow decay of old age. The skeleton with the scythe was well named.
*
By ten o’clock Harry was back in Red Lake. He drove out along the west side of the lake, past the airstrip, the Prop Shop Bar that filled an old Army Quonset hut, and the Sleepy Shore Motel. They brought back memories of his buddy Barton Dirk, the man who covered Harry’s back in Kandahar Province and who was with him when the Fat Man came after him in Red Lake.
The road followed the shore of the lake, rounding headlands. Gradually the land closed up around him and he was driving through a tight gorge along a cascading river that came down from Mount Justice and Desolation Peak to feed Red Lake. Harry watched the water roil and curl over hidden rocks; he eyed languid pools of quicksilver that hid trout in their depths, he thought about time and how he would rather be standing in his waders casting, than seeking the killer of a young woman.
Mason Forks was a logging town fifteen miles north of Red Lake. The future passed it by, now poverty clung to the village. Harry easily found Jack Albright’s house. It was a rural version of urban decay. Trash encircled the house. The porch was cluttered with car parts, rusted tools, and several bins of crumpled beer cans. The man who answered the door was in his late fifties.
