In the German bakery, I ordered what sounded like my beloved Egg McMuffin gone Bavarian—bratwurst, egg, and cheese on a pretzel roll. I ate it while strolling down the sidewalk and checking my phone. People were shopping for lederhosen, Christmas ornaments, everything German. I was searching for directions to the local Sheriff’s office.
I found a police annex at the edge of town. Another chalet-style building. But inside, it was the typical American cop shop. Acoustic tile ceilings, indoor-outdoor carpeting, and the acrid scent of cheap coffee. Behind the reception counter, a young woman with long brown braids and a Bavarian beer-maid’s costume was making more coffee.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I was looking for the sheriff. Is he around?”
Her face tensed. She set the coffee grounds next to the machine and wiped her hands on her costume’s white apron. “Are you reporting a crime?”
“No.”
“Something related to Oktoberfest?”
I shook my head. “I’m looking into the murder of Annicka Engels.”
Her gaze shifted. She glanced over my shoulder. I turned, but nothing was there.
“The Engels family hired me,” I added. “I’d really like to speak to the Sheriff.”
Her face didn’t relax. “I’ll go see if he’s available.”
* * *
Seven minutes later, I was seated in a vinyl-and-chrome chair in Sheriff Felix Grubman’s small office. He was one of those small men who looked powerful—compact as a coiled spring—with steel gray eyes middle age hadn’t filed down.
I explained why I was there, that I’d just come from the burial site, that Peter and I would appreciate his help.
I handed him my card.
Grubman read it. More than once. “You say the family hired you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much you gouging those people for?”
“Pardon?”
“You find the body and you get those poor people to pay for your—” he raised his hands making air quotes around the next word, “investigation. How convenient. For you.”
“Actually this is completely inconvenient.”
“That so.”
“I don’t consider a six-hour drive convenient.”
“State police took your statement, according to my deputy.”
“Deputy Seiler? Yes, he and Officer Wilcove got there within minutes of our finding the body.” I was feeling extra cautious. If he hoped to get anywhere on this case, Peter would need the sheriff’s cooperation. And already, the sheriff wasn’t cooperating. “Would you like me to give my statement again?”
“We’re a small town.” He leaned back in his large chair, as if in relaxed command. But in truth, Sheriff Grubman looked more like an aging elf in Santa’s workshop. “Everyone knows about you. And you oughta be ashamed, taking money from those people.”
“The Engels hired us.”
“Us?”
“Peter Rosser.” I nodded at the card. “Former head of the crime lab in Spokane. I’m sure he’s helped your department on several cases. We’re colleagues.”
He dropped the shame tactic but kept asking what, exactly, we planned to do. I was getting tired of repeating myself—we’re forensic geologists, not magicians. But I wasn’t in a position of power these days, I wasn’t backed by the Feds anymore. Instead I was like a character from Eleanor’s plays, relying on the kindness of strangers. I explained, ad nauseam, how forensic geology worked, how I’d collected soil samples from the burial site, how Peter would be examining them to find trace evidence. “Our hope is to help y’all with your investigation.”
He smiled. It looked a lot like my FBI smile. “Your plan, is it.”
“Sheriff, I don’t see why—”
“A case like this can go on for years. What’re you gonna do, keep charging the Engels?”
I bit my tongue. Pride wanted to rear its head, snarling about how many murder investigations I’d already worked, how these cases didn’t go on for years—sometimes they stretched out for decades—which was why small departments like this one should be thankful for any extra help.
But I was learning to shut up.
I dispatched my own law enforcement smile and said, “Sheriff, I want this case closed as soon as possible. And if we work together, we can hold down costs for the family.”
“Work together. How?”
“Bring me up to speed. Mr. Engels seems convinced Annicka’s boyfriend was involved in her death.”
He leaned forward. “Johann told you that?”
“And he sounded certain.”
The sheriff thought about it. “We checked out the boyfriend. We don’t think he was involved in her disappearance.”
“What about her murder?”
He gave me a cold look. “Same thing.”
“You have no doubts whatsoever about the boyfriend?”
“I got doubts about everybody.”
I smiled. “We have a lot in common.”
The sheriff’s steely eyes ground into me. “Geologist.” He made it sound like undertaker. “You just look at the dirt, what’s that about?”
“Mineralogy. Trace evidence. I worked for the FBI’s Materials Analysis unit in D.C.” I didn’t want to brag, and didn’t want to mention my time as an agent. Local enforcement didn’t have warm feelings toward FBI agents, often for good reason. “Now I’m an independent contractor.”
He picked up my card. He looked at it like it just came off the Xerox machine at Kinkos. “Still mighty convenient you found that body.”
Dear God. I got to my feet. Let Peter deal with him.
“If you think of anything else,” I said, “please give me a call.”
* * *
I broke the speed limit driving over the mountain pass, then swung by a post office to overnight the soil samples to Peter in Spokane.
I bombed into Tacoma.
Eleanor wasn’t home—spending the day with her thoroughbreds at the local racetrack—so I left her a note, gathered Madame, and broke another speed limit to reach Western State Hospital on time. Back when my dad was alive—instead of showing up in fevered dreams—we decided my mom shouldn’t know that I worked for the FBI.
“You’re a geologist,” he said. “Tell her that. It’s not a lie.”
David Harmon never lied.
We both figured that someday, we would tell her the truth. Someday. The day she got well. The day when everything went back to normal. But that day evaporated the night David Harmon was killed. Soon after, I left the FBI mineralogy lab, applied to Quantico, and graduated to special agent.
I still told my mom I was a geologist. Not a lie.
Not totally.
But Shakespeare once said, The truth will out. And the truth outed me during our summer cruise to Alaska. And when a paranoid schizophrenic realizes they’ve been lied to—by the people they’re closest to—it’s like throwing kerosene on that strange fire already smoldering inside their head. When the ship docked in Seattle, those proverbial “men in white coats” were waiting. They brought my mom to Western State.
I vowed to never again lie to her.
I was keeping that promise. Barely.
Holding Madame in one hand, I signed the visitor’s sheet and waited for the buzzing locks to release the heavy steel doors. I gave the dog one last pat, and climbed the stairs.
Sir Post-it was waiting.
CHAPTER TEN
After my daily dose of crazy land, I drove Madame back to Eleanor’s, changed clothes, and climbed back into The Ghost. Alone.
I was just in time for Seattle’s rush hour traffic. The crawl up I-5 gave me time to watch dusk paint Puget Sound with a brush made of violet-gray dove feathers. Across the water the mountains cupped the setting sun, as if rock alone could hold back time.
Beside Lake Union, I parked in a small lot and walked down a wooden dock toward a cluster of houseboats that hugged the lakeshore. Each houseboat looked different. One was painted
orange, like a squared-off pumpkin. Another had window boxes spilling herbs. Another hoisted three rainbow windsocks from its sod-like roof.
At the end of the dock sat a tidy cedar-shingled saltbox. It faced the lake water and across the water, the Space Needle positioned at the bottom of Queen Anne hill. A now-familiar float plane was tied to the dock, which also held a two-seat rowing shell. For several moments, I watched the sky melt into the water. Somewhere behind me, piano was playing in one of the houseboats, a soft riff that sounded less like someone reading sheet music and more like someone coaxing emotion from the keyboard.
“Nice shorts, Harmon.”
Jack stood at the door. He wore a white rowing singlet and black lycra shorts, just like mine.
“It’s getting dark,” I said.
“Is it really?” He gazed at the gloaming sky, then back at me. He raised his eyebrows. “Was there something you want to do with me in the dark?”
“Row.” I ignored his grin. “You said we could row.”
“Oh,” he said, as if just remembering. “Right. No dog with you?”
“I didn’t realize you were so attached to her.” Madame deserved a break after the asylum. And I didn’t think she’d enjoy riding in a rowing shell. “You want me to go get her?”
He stepped out, closed the door, and picked up the fiberglass shell from the dock. He held it canoe-style, under one arm. His bicep knotted. Shoulder muscles striated.
I gave my heart a swift kick. Quit fluttering.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No.” You sound defensive. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Amazing that unemployment can do that.” He set the shell on the water. Liquid amethyst ripples rolled across the surface, disappearing in the dark.
“How are we going to row in the dark?”
“Be patient.” He reached for the pointed prow of the shell and clicked a button. A light beam gleamed forward, bright as any high-powered flashlight. He clicked a second light on the shell’s back end. The shell seemed to elongate. “And since you’re such a tough girl, you can be anchor. But try not to capsize us.”
I stepped into the shell. It wobbled. During two fall seasons at Mount Holyoke College, I’d stroked an eight on the Connecticut River. I liked rowing, it gave me a peace I’d only found in running. But I quit when the long practices took me away from the geology lab. That was eleven years ago. Now, as the shell bobbled, I threw out my arms and prayed to keep my balance while Jack, naturally, did nothing to help. I crouched, lowering my center of gravity, and managed to position myself on the rear slide board.
Jack climbed in front, whistling.
I yanked the straps, tightening my feet into the slanted platform, and shoved at the bad question in my head. Mr. Alpha Male has a two-person shell? Who’s his rowing partner? I tested the cleats. Made sure my oars were locked in place.
“You done putting on your lipstick?” he asked.
“Are you?”
He pushed us from the dock.
I grabbed my oars.
When we cleared the dock, we slid forward on the roller seats, dipping the oars. As soon as he started back, I pressed my feet into the platform and muscled the oars against the water. My shoulders felt stiff. Another slide forward. I let out my breath. Slid back. Better.
A motorboat chugged past our port side, green lights blinking on the rippled water. I kept my oars timed to Jack’s movements. The motorboat’s wake splashed cold water on my arms. I shivered. We slid back, pulling.
Oars up, slide forward. Back, pulling. Forward, back, forward, back—we hit a rhythm—the movement as timed as a weaver’s baffle and loom.
Jack slid back, turning his head. “Good day?”
Forward. “Long.”
His oar feathered over the darkening water. I slid with him, dipping in tandem. The shell shot forward. His shoulders flexed, grew wider.
I glanced away. “How’s your day?”
“Paperwork.” His elbows kicked out. “Almost envied unemployment.”
“I’m employed.”
His oar thunked, missing the catch. The shell bobbled, recovered. We slid forward and back.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“What a novice.”
In four strokes, he had us back in sync. But now his rhythm was faster, our seats shuttling top speed, the rollers making a whisk-whisk-whisk sound. My shoulders burned.
He slid back. “Employed … how?”
Cool night air seared my throat, torched my lungs. I blinked. His back glistened with sweat, his muscles as solid as river rock. I shifted my gaze, begging the blue-black sky. Please. Show me something other than his muscles. The breeze blew across the water. My pony tail flipped. His scent came with the wind.
Male. Musk. Delicious.
Thanks a lot.
“Harmon?”
“What.”
“Can’t you row any faster?”
My legs were on fire. I pushed with my quads, pulled with my shoulders and back. The boat shot like an arrow across the water, the light slicing through the darkness like a sword. I counted out the rhythms, the split-seconds, and soon a trance fell. I surrendered to the pain, stared at his back, and felt that euphoria of exertion. We were leaning so far back at the end of each kick that Jack’s head nearly touched my legs. I gazed up at the sky, pleading with the night. Blot out all my feelings.
What did that get me? An image, that last moment before Madame barked. Jack’s lips were on my ear. He was about to ask a question—
“Curious.”
“What,” I panted.
“Work?”
“Leavenworth.”
“Cops called?”
“Family.”
His oar snagged the water, the shell sank on the right. I shoved both of my hands down, raising my oars from the water before they flipped me out of the boat. But Jack’s oars were stuck underwater. The shell spun. I gasped, closed my eyes, dizzy. The shell tottered. When the movement slowed, I opened my eyes. He was gripping the oars like a man trying to choke someone to death. My heart pounded. Adrenaline. Ache. The water so cold, so black, so—
“I got it,” Jack said.
“Famous last words.”
We bobbled and took in some water. I waited for Newton’s laws to teach us all about force and momentum. But Jack lifted one oar from the water, then the other. We coasted under the Ballard Bridge. Car tires thrummed over the drawbridge’s metal grooves. He let the right oar drift, raising his right hand, signaling me to turn the shell around. We were heading back.
My arms felt like mushy linguine.
Raggedly, we made it back to the houseboat. But my solar plexus was spasming under my rib cage, that horrible sensation that comes right before vomiting. When Jack let go of his oars, letting the shell coast for the dock, I leaned forward and kept my head between my knees, sucking in air until I stopped hyperventilating and my head stopped spinning.
“Sorry about that,” Jack said. “Just surprised me.”
“How?” I managed.
“You said the drive up there was too far.”
“Only prelim work.” I willed my voice to steady itself. Stop panting. “And already done.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “The Bureau needs a consultant up there.”
I raised my head. The front light beamed onto the houseboat’s cedar shingles.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to get pulled in. “So get a consultant.”
“Harmon, I flew you over there for that reason. But that mutt ruined the whole agenda.”
A brick dropped on my heart. “So it was a work trip?”
“I’ve got a hate crime case up there.” He turned, trying to glance back at me. “And hate crimes are your specialty. Right?”
“Uh-huh.”
He lifted the white singlet, wiping his face. “But when that body turned up and you had to get back here, I decided not to bring it up. But we cou
ld use a consultant on this case.”
So it wasn’t a date.
What was I thinking?
“Harmon.”
“What.”
“Someday you’re going to realize we’re two of a kind.”
I lifted my oars from the locks. This is how DeMott felt. He assumed we had a relationship. But I was just adding him to my work schedule. My heart ached. For DeMott. For me. For life.
“Well, it’s too late now,” I said. “I just went to make sure the soil evidence got collected. Get the case rolling. That’s all.”
“Wait a minute.” He grabbed the dock, steadying the shell. “You finally get offered a real job and you still turned it down?”
“I can’t—”
“Forget it.” He lifted his other hand, signaling me to stop. “Don’t say a word. It makes perfect sense—for you.”
He climbed out of the shell. I followed on wobbly legs, carrying the oars as Jack clicked off the shell’s lights and picked up the boat. I lowered myself into one of the deck’s Adirondack chairs. He went inside, clicked on a lamp in the front window, and returned with two towels. He tossed one to me. I wiped down my face. The amber light from the lamp spread over the dock’s weathered wood. My heart pounded.
Jack whistled. Wiped down the oars and the shell, put them away, then he sat down in the Adirondack chair next to mine. I kept my gaze on the houseboats that gathered on the opposite shore. Their lighted windows sparkled on the dark water, as if sparks were falling off the Space needle.
“I’ve got another case up there,” he said. “It’s what you might call agricultural.”
“Marijuana, grown in the federal forest.”
“Harmon, I can’t tell you. And since you know I can’t tell you, your question is even more egregious.”
I turned toward him. “Egregious.”
“Yes. And I know what the word means.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” The light from the window lit half his face, outlining that powerful bone structure. “It means you’re a very, very stubborn girl.”
“You better check Merriam-Webster.”
“I did.” He grinned. “Your photo is right next to the word stubborn.”
The Waves Break Gray (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries Book 6) Page 5
