Mother Nature

by Sarah Andrews

  The first person I saw was the manager, her eyes soft and deep with concern. My vision swam. I wanted to put my head against her bosom and wail.

  Metal clicked against metal as the medics adjusted the gurney to the height of the bed, and a moment later, I was shifted onto it, my head cradled in a brace to keep me from turning it.

  “Okay, Ms. Hansen, what happened in here?” Dexter demanded.

  “Hands—” I began, but a rip of pain in my throat stopped me.

  “Did anyone else see anything?” Dexter asked, turning back to the manager.

  I started to say, Janet did, but knew that wouldn’t do. Then I began to worry. Had I really seen Janet? No, I had heard her, or no, seen her words. Like beautiful ribbons. And now she was gone. Or was she? Was I hanging on to her, like Suzanne said? Hanging on to those ribbons of speech streaming out across an infinite void. Why not? They were beautiful, they were—

  “No,” the manager replied. “It’s been very quiet, no one in the nearby rooms. I’m the only one here tonight, except my daughter and the baby. The baby called to me just as I was coming. I feel awful. If I hadn’t gone to him, I might have seen—”

  “And been assaulted yourself. Any strange vehicles parked around here? Anyone hanging around?”

  “No, but a person could come from any direction. Except I guess the freeway.”

  “Anyone come to the desk and ask for a key? Any phone calls for her, asking the room number?”

  “No. Just her aunt called this evening.”

  Frida? Frida had called? That meant Elyria had called her, and … My head began to pound with pain.

  A medic spoke. “We’re ready to move her. You can question her at the ER later on.”

  Dexter bent down toward me. “Do you have any idea who did this?”

  I tried to speak, but still could not, my nightmarish fear of not being able to cry out visiting me as I woke. I began to shake. I closed my eyes and pressed back tears.

  Dexter stood up and turned away. “Take her away.”

  25

  Deputy Dexter never came to the hospital. An officer who identified herself as a member of the Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Unit arrived at the hospital with the ambulance and stayed with me, asking questions as the doctor and nurses examined me and took pictures of the bruises on my neck and at the base of my spine. She was just going over the problem of where I was going to stay that night—the detectives were still combing my room for evidence, she said, and another room at the same motel was no more secure—when this problem resolved itself. I saw a familiar face: Aunt Frida, poking her head around the doorframe of the examining room.

  Frida’s intelligent eyes shone with both pleasure and pain at seeing me. As usual, her short hair stuck out in inelegant, unkempt tufts, but it was grayer than the last I’d seen her. When had that been? She hadn’t been at Father’s funeral. I struggled to remember why. Or had I ever known? So much had been left unspoken on that most painful of occasions.

  Having caught my eye, she stepped the rest of the way into the room. She seemed stooped, and her aging eyes were framed with worry. She had moved away from Wyoming when? Five years earlier. Had it been that long since I’d seen her? She shook her head at me. “Is that Emmy Hansen I see here, the little whippersnapper who tried to ride my worst stallion when she was only four?”

  “Hi, Frida,” I sighed. I immediately began to relax enough to feel jittery.

  “Well, you little marmot, what the hell you gone and gotten yourself into this time?” She crossed the room and touched my cheek with a cool, rough hand. “Hah. So you’re a private de-tective now. Don’t you know you could have got yourself killed doing that? Stick to breaking horses, Emmy; they let you down kinder.”

  I tried to smile. “Who let you in here?” I rasped. My throat felt like I’d been gargling broken glass. “I mean, how’d you know to come?”

  “Oh … this woman calls herself Elyria Kretzmer phones up and says, ‘Secure the livestock, Em Hansen’s in California.’”

  “I’m not sure that’s exactly how she’d put it.”

  “Words to that effect. Anyways, I tried to call you earlier, do my Christian duty and get you out to the ranch to dinner. Well, but you weren’t there, were you? No, you were out playing Lone Ranger. I had quite a little chat with your motel lady. She allowed as how you already ripped a knee and near to lost your hand somehow, and how it looks like you been living on tap water and the glue off of old cans. I told her that warn’t no surprise; you’re half coyote and half goat, and more stubborn than either parent. And dumber.” Her expression sobered. “She’s smart; she called back soon’s this happened. Well, hospitals make me sick. Let’s get you out to the ranch and get you rested up.”

  About then, I would have cuddled under her jacket like a newborn lamb in a spring blizzard. The need was so strong it scared me. “I can’t go yet,” I blustered. “Deputy Dexter hasn’t taken my statement yet.”

  Frida screwed up her face. “You under arrest or something?”

  I scowled back. “No, I’m the assaultee, not the assaulter.”

  “What’s wrong with that lady cop who was in here with you just a moment ago? She ain’t doin’ her job?”

  “Well, yeah, she asked a bunch of questions, but I’m not letting Deputy Dawg brush me off.”

  “You want a date with him or something?”

  “Goddamn it, Frida, this ain’t funny!” I snapped, briefly sucked into the family aw-shucks speech patterns. Then, pulling myself up on my dignity, I said, “Whoever did this killed a woman just like me, and I’m not going to let him get away with it!”

  Frida’s eyes turned to flint. “I know that, missy. Don’t you think I been all over the Sheriff’s Department like a cheap suit already? I got a phone in my truck, and we had quite a little talk while I was driving in here. I told them come morning to put on their saddles, as we’d be riding them ’til they’s broke. Nobody, but nobody messes with my flesh and blood without payin’ for it. But right now, missy, you’re going to get a square meal and some sleep!”

  * * *

  DETECTIVE MULLER GREETED us the next morning with the same breezy, uninformative manner he’d used two days before to brush me off. He showed me into the same tiny room, inviting Frida to stay outside. Frida insisted on coming in. She stood behind me rather than sitting, and fixed Muller with her nastiest stare. Muller appeared unmoved.

  I chose the direct approach. “It was Matthew Karsh,” I asserted. “Or Valentine Reeves.” I didn’t mention Pat Ryan. I couldn’t stand to even think that idea, and the last thing Pat needed was the cops down his collar. “Or even Curt Murbles.”

  “Who?”

  “Janet’s father’s personal assistant. But it was Matthew Karsh.” Why was I saying that? Through the night I had tried again and again to dispel his image from my mind, his hateful eyes, his grasping fingers, but I could not. On the way to the Sheriff’s Department that morning with Frida I had promised myself that I would deliver my evidence and—and yes, demand action, but try to maintain an open mind, try to remain in some small way a scientist, ready to consider all possibilities. But now I had let my emotions get the better of me. I could see in Muller’s eyes that he thought less of me for it, and would discount whatever I had to say.

  Muller raised his eyebrows politely. “And how do you know that, Ms. Hansen?”

  I jerked open my collar in reply. “I measured his glove size.” Between my teeth, I added, “Strangulation from behind and attempted rape. Same M.O. as Janet Pinchon. And when I swung my arms behind me, I hit … someone sloppy.” That was true, I had. Murbles was a slender man, and Reeves seemed fit. Had my assailant just been wearing a heavy jacket? But there was more, a sense of why I knew not who it was, exactly, but what he had been like. I just couldn’t put my finger on what that sense was telling me.

  Muller stepped forward and took a look at my neck, examining my throat with the same interest a stone cutter would show the crown jewels.
“Hmm, hmm. Yes, those are nasty bruises. My problem is, though, that it says here in your statement that you did not actually see your assailant. So how do you know who it was? Did he speak to you?”

  “The son of a bitch tried to kill me!” I snapped.

  Muller nodded. “I’m so pleased that you survived.”

  “And rape me, Goddamn it!”

  Muller looked at the report in his clipboard. “Yes, a nasty bruise, but there’s no mention here of semen.…”

  I heard a rushing in my ears, and my body began to shake. I felt Frida’s strong hands descend upon my shoulders. I closed my eyes. “I’m not naive. I know damned well that a great many rapes are not performed with penises.”

  Muller continued to speak as if we were a couple of government employees discussing a recipe for Christmas cookies. “I understand that, but you see, we need physical evidence to connect us to a particular rapist.”

  I took a long, deep breath and continued. “You know what case I’ve been working on.”

  “Case?” Muller’s already peppy frame straightened up even further.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Janet’s Pinchon’s father hired me to look into her murder.”

  “You’re a P.I.?”

  “I am a geologist.”

  “You’re saying a—Mr. Pinchon, would it be?—hired a geologist to investigate his daughter’s death?”

  “I am looking at things from the perspective of the deceased.”

  Detective Muller sat down on the edge of the table and draped his hands over one knee. “And what have you discovered?”

  “Where’s the camera?” I demanded. I was tired of the runaround. It was time to show him that I knew a few things, that he should respect me.

  “The what?”

  “And the audio pickup. Come on, Detective, I know the drill. Who’s listening in? I’m not the criminal in this investigation, I’m one of the good citizens who’s trying to help.” It was a stupid display, and probably only went further to convince the detective that I shouldn’t be trusted.

  Frida stepped around beside me and stretched herself up as tall and as intimidating as her five-foot-three-inch frame could muster.

  Muller tipped his head, giving me his Botticelli angel impression. “Ms. Hansen, you may rest assured that the crime against your person is being taken very seriously, and investigated thoroughly.”

  Frida butted in: “Didn’t you even check this Karsh fellah out?”

  Muller blinked at Frida, turned back to me, smiled a Mona Lisa smile. “Ms. Hansen, we want to make sure that, while obeying the law is every citizen’s concern, enforcing it is the work of our department and the courts. I think you ought to know, just so you’re not tempted to get confused, that we visited Matthew Karsh last evening, and were told by his mother that he was with her all evening, ever since riding straight home from the Spaghetti Feed with her—which he did because he does not drive a car. He was, in fact, there with her when our deputy arrived at their house directly after securing the scene of last night’s crime and turning it over to the detectives.”

  I pressed doggedly onward, furious that I couldn’t clear my mind of my emotions and lay out my thoughts and evidence logically, cooly, compellingly. Some detail kept eluding me. I wasn’t getting through.

  “How long after he—after I was hit? Jaime Martinez could have driven him. Was he agitated or sweating? Can he prove he was there the whole time? And what about Reeves? Where did he go after the Feed?”

  Detective Muller gazed blandly into my eyes. “Let me be even more direct. I understand that you’re upset, Ms. Hansen, but for all we know, that murder and your assault are not even connected. Now, don’t you think it better to leave this investigation to us?”

  * * *

  FRIDA HELPED ME down the shallow steps in front of the courthouse like I was an invalid. About then I felt like one. “Let’s go back out to the ranch,” she said soothingly, “maybe take a ride. Life always looks better between the ears of a horse.”

  “But I know things.”

  “I believe you.”

  “But, Frida—”

  “But, Em, these Sheriff guys is slick as wet soap.”

  “They treated me like I was the criminal.”

  “Now, that’s not altogether true. They got a job to do, just like you, and you kind of tried to tell them what their job was. And they’re right, it’s best you leave any contact with suspects to them. So why don’t you just get off the skyline for a while? A woman could get shot out here in the open.”

  I barely heard Frida’s words. I felt dirty, stupid, and scared. My legs were shaking too hard to carry me onwards. I sat down on the bottom step. Why had I gone into that motel room when it had so clearly been violated? Had I lost the capacity to care about myself?

  Pieces of the puzzle spilled about in my mind, spinning, looking for connections. Valentine Reeves and his construction projects. Senator Pinchon hiding in the weeds, trying to cover some political bombshell. Rauch and Hollingsworth stealing from their clients and firing their most dedicated employees. Jaime Martinez prowling like a fox around the Laguna. Missing sisters. Aging catatonic fathers, attack dogs, and redheaded secretaries with attitudes. Just how were they all tied together, and what secret secured the knot?

  I felt Frida tugging at my arm. “Come on, I’ll let you chop a cord of wood and then muck out the stables. You’ll be fine.”

  As I rose again to my feet, I glanced around, taking in the array of two-story government buildings around me. “This the County Administration Center, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  An idea was forming in my overheated brain. “Then the Assessor’s Office is near hear. I’m going there.”

  26

  If you ever want to know who owns what and since when, take yourself to the County Assessor’s and Recorder’s Offices. They’re usually right across the hall from each other, and they keep the records of all births, deaths, marriages, and deeds. Sonoma County’s records were in good shape, all nicely reduced to microfiche and microfilm and carefully stored in pleasantly decorated public offices. I asked a few questions at the counter, getting my bearings on the local filing system, and then took Frida over to one of the microfiche readers to get started. Within an hour, we were beginning to see what the rub was with Family Karsh.

  For a dollar a page, I purchased photocopies of parcel maps that showed the area on both sides of the Laguna near Sanford and Ferris roads. Matching up the parcel numbers with the ownership records (numerical listing), we quickly found out that the Dierdre F. Karsh Trust, Wilbur Karsh, trustee—and not Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Karsh—was the listed owner of not just the twenty-acre tract of land on which Mrs. Karsh’s house stood, but also of myriad other parcels nearby.

  The Dierdre Karsh Trust. Was this the third piece of the monetary pie that Valentine Reeves had been dividing? And if so, if Dierdre Karsh had such enormous trust holdings, why would she need a piece of Reeves’ pie forked back to her under the table, as it were, out of sight of both the lenders at the bank and the trustees?

  Turning to the alphabetical listings, we looked up all other current holdings deeded to the Dierdre F. Karsh Trust, and found hundreds of acres of choice agricultural land and one five-acre parcel zoned commercial/industrial. This last parcel was registered as Misty Creek Winery.

  Moving over to the Recorder’s Office, we searched back into prior ownership of each parcel, digging for the source of the Dierdre F. Karsh Trust. It was rough going; my eyes burned from staring into the microfilm screen, and my throat began to throb, but bit by bit we uncovered a fascinating picture. A man named Rheingold J. Ferris had bought all of the holdings between 1915 and 1970, and then deeded them all at once to the Deirdre F. Karsh Trust in his last will and testament. It seemed that he had been her father.

  His will was on record. Handwritten, no less. It made such good reading that I carried the microfilm to the desk and requested a photocopy.

  I, Rheing
old J. Ferris, being of sound mind and body, bequeath the sum and total of my worldly estate with the exception of that forty-acre parcel on Ferris Road which is my home to my sole heir, Dierdre Ferris Karsh, to be administered in trust. Upon her death, I decree that the trust shall pass to her children, Matthew James Karsh and Sonja Ferris Karsh.

  I appoint Wilbur Henry Karsh, husband to Dierdre Ferris Karsh, as trustee of the Dierdre F. Karsh Trust, and assign him the office of executor of the estate, for all portions excepting that forty-acre parcel of land on Ferris Road which is my home. It shall be the task of Wilbur Henry Karsh to maintain the rest of my estate in its totality, neither selling real assets nor drawing moneys from it, excepting that he shall be given a yearly salary equal to one-half of the net income from the operation of the industrial facility of which enterprise he is currently manager. Wilbur and Dierdre Karsh may continue to inhabit the house on Sanborn Road which is a part of my estate and will be part of the trust.

  That forty-acre parcel of land and improvements thereon on Ferris Road which are my home shall be held in separate trust for my granddaughter, Sonja Ferris Karsh, to be deeded to her on her twenty-first birthday. Until her twenty-first birthday, said property shall be under the trusteeship of my daughter, Dierdre Ferris Karsh, to be maintained for Sonja Ferris Karsh. If Sonja Karsh does not survive until her twenty-first birthday, the property shall be deeded instead to the German Emigrants’ Pension Fund, to be disposed of as they see fit.

  All other income and assets derived from the operation of the estate shall be invested and managed by the firm of Jordey and Hawke, Santa Rosa, who will administer both trusts toward the future well-being and maintenance of my grandchildren and their children, and their children’s children. During the lives of Deirdre Ferris Karsh and Wilbur Henry Karsh, moneys may be drawn from the estate only to support the educational attainments of my grandchildren.

  Upon the death of Wilbur Henry Karsh, the trusteeship of the estate, and the half income as above stated, shall be assigned to a qualified person to be identified at the appropriate time by Wilbur Henry Karsh.