I spotted the stump right away, at the edge of a ravine that probably filled with water in the winter but was filled with nothing now but the crisp remains of last year’s leaves. Antonia, her face still swollen red from all the crying, walked ahead of me and pointed at a spot one foot to the right of the stump. I stepped up beside her, testing the ground with my foot. It was so soft I hardly needed the hand shovel I’d brought with me.
“Look,” I said, “I’m going to try to reason with you one more time. I really don’t want to take this money.”
“Please,” Antonia said. “If you don’t take, very much hurt me.”
“Your husband doesn’t have a lot of money. It should go to him.”
Antonia shook her head adamantly. “He only waste it on drinking. Please. You must have money. You brought Katya home. You brought her to her father. He may drink too much, but he is still good and loves her so. It is the only way I can thank you.”
“For God’s sake, Myron, just take it,” Billie said. “You came all the way out here, didn’t you?”
“All right, all right,” I said.
It took only a moment to dig up the Folgers can, buried as it was only a few inches under the surface. A station wagon with a bad muffler rumbled past and we all tensed, but it didn’t stop. I brushed off the dirt and removed the plastic lid. Inside, in yet another, smaller plastic container, was a thick wad of bills tied with a rubber band. Flipping through the cash, it was a mix of denominations, but mostly twenties.
“It’s too much,” I said. “There has to be at least two thousand dollars here.”
“Two thousand, one hundred, fifty-nine,” Antonia said, intoning the words as precisely as a Jeopardy contestant. “And it is all yours, Myron Vale.”
“You really sure about this?” I said.
“Myron,” Billie warned.
“Okay, fine.” Then, looking at Antonia, I said more softly, “Thank you. Really. It’s not necessary, but thank you.”
She looked like she might cry again, but she blinked a few times and kept them in check. She reached out with her right hand and hovered it over my chest.
“A good heart,” she said. “Your wife very right. Now I go. I walk home to be with my husband and daughter.”
She walked out of the grove, gone before I’d even thought to offer her a ride. I looked at Billie, who was shaking her head at me. I had the hand shovel in one hand and the money in the other.
“What?” I said.
“You’re not going to put that money back, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
“Someone might find it, then. I’m going to open a college savings account for Katya instead.”
Billie sighed. “How am I not surprised? But you know, you’re going to have a hard time making a living as a private investigator if you never accept any payment.”
“Who said I’m going to be a private investigator?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No way. This was great, glad I did my part, but it was a one-shot deal.”
“I see.”
She started out of the grove, back toward the Prius. I followed.
“I mean it,” I said.
“I know you do,” she said.
“Then why are you smiling like that?”
“Because,” she said, smiling even wider, “I know something you don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
Chapter 23
Driving out to Beth’s cabin at noon, I was in an odd state of mind. Still reeling from that last conversation with Billie before she again walked out on me, my thoughts were whipped up with anger, but my body was still pumped up with lust from the sight of Karen’s magnificent naked body. It was a strange brew of emotions and impulses, careening me just on the edge of chaos. I’d never felt more out of control or more alive.
It was no way to work. I grabbed a burger on the way out of town, hoping a little food in my stomach might settle me down. It helped a little. The long drive helped a little more. The cabin was located just outside Government Camp, in the foothills of Mount Hood and a good sixty miles from my house on US-26. Before I’d gone far, however, I noticed a distinctive black Ford Explorer in my rearview mirror, three or four cars back, and I took a brief detour through the little town of Sandy to lose them. That helped focus my mind as well.
No longer hungry, no longer followed, I continued up US-26 under a gray-blue sky that was like an amateur’s watercolor, all the colors blurring into a muddy mess. As the city fell away, and then the occasional farmer’s field and pasture, a smattering of firs and pin oaks began to line the four-lane road, growing thicker in number as the Prius slowly gained elevation. By the time I passed the little towns of Brightwood, Welches, and Rhododendron, the highway dropped to two lanes and there were slender-trunked Sitka spruces mixed in with the firs.
I tried not to look in the trees, but I couldn’t help but notice the ghosts close to the road—or what I assumed were ghosts, of course. Two Native Americans in deerskins trotted along the shoulder, each carrying bloodied tomahawks in one hand and scalps in the other. A burly, bearded man was skinning a black bear on a rise. An old man, naked, tan, and wrinkled like a prune, was pointing a revolver at his own head and weeping. Two teenage girls dressed in denim were trying to wave down cars with no luck. I almost stopped until I saw that one of the girls had maggots crawling out of her eyes.
The strangest ones were the not-quite-humans loping through the shadows, prehistoric people with tiny foreheads, wide noses, and jutting jaws. I’d only spotted a few over the years, usually from a distance, and they always made me wonder how far back this ghost thing went. I’d never seen a ghost of an animal, including those closely related to humans, like chimpanzees and monkeys. Did that mean they had no ghosts? Or did it mean I only saw the ghosts of humans and their predecessors because their DNA was most closely related to my own?
I did my best to force these thoughts from my mind. This was just the rational side of me trying to make sense of something that wasn’t rational.
Just outside Government Camp, a dusting of white appeared here and there in the trees, but most of the ground looked sodden and wet, the rains having washed away the early-October snow. Lots of muted greens and reds and browns. As remote as Beth’s cabin was, it wasn’t too hard to find, just north of the Zigzag River a few miles from town, a cozy little place with a covered porch supported by four wooden beams. It was at the end of a long gravel road rutted with puddles, nestled in among the spruces and firs, far removed from any other house. With a warm yellow glow in the paned windows, a wood shake roof littered with fir needles, and a forest looming dark and endless behind it, the cabin seemed like something out of a fairy tale.
A red Prius was parked under the tiny carport, which brought a smile to my face. A woman after my own heart. Beth herself was just emerging from the cabin, a bulging white trash bag in hand, when I parked my own Prius behind hers.
She stopped just before the steps and stared at me, tennis shoes impossibly white, her Nike windbreaker zipped up to her chin. The jacket was the same color as the fir trees, which made me wonder if it was deliberate. The photo of her in Bernie’s office hadn’t done her justice. While she was shorter and blockier than her sisters, with something of a hooked nose and brown hair that fell severely straight on both sides of her face, she had her own kind of beauty.
Getting out of the car, I stepped into mountain air that nipped at my bare face. Taking a deep breath through my nose, the air smelled strongly of fir and was noticeably thinner in my lungs.
“Somebody after my own heart,” I said to Beth.
“What?” she said.
“You drive a Prius,” I said.
“Oh. Right. You must be Myron.” She had a clipped, no-nonsense way of speaking, as if she was always in a hurry to get to the next sentence.
“Ah. My reputation precedes me, then. Who ca
lled you?”
“Janice,” she said.
“And after I paid her all that money and everything to keep quiet.”
“What?”
“Just a joke.”
“Oh, right. I have garbage here.”
“So I see,” I said.
She watched me for a little longer, as if waiting for me to see some deeper meaning in her comment, then nodded curtly and headed to the carport. As she passed, I caught a whiff of the garbage—rotten milk, spoiled meat, and other unpleasantness. I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do, so I waited while she deposited the bag in a brown plastic can behind her car and headed toward the cabin. I caught some movement in the trees behind her, but it was a tall black man with a deer draped over his shoulder, dressed in a deerskin cap and with a rifle musket slung over his shoulder, just passing through without looking our way. Beth moved like she spoke, crisply and with purpose, and she took no notice of the black man. Another ghost, then.
“I have to get back to writing,” she announced, without stopping or even glancing my way.
“I just want a few minutes of your time,” I said.
“I don’t want to think about Karen’s death. It just makes me sad.”
“Tony’s not here, is he?”
That got her to stop, abruptly, with one foot on the step. She whirled around, face aghast. Since she’d barely showed a hint of emotion since I’d arrived, such a blatant display of it was a bit of a surprise.
“Karen’s husband?” she said. “Are you crazy?”
“He’s not?”
“Of course not! Why would he be here? I detested that man and how he turned Karen into a drunk, weak-kneed, simpering nymphomaniac. I would never let him hide here. How could you say such a thing?”
“I’ve just learned that Mr. Neuman has a certain way with women.”
“Well, not with me! He ruined my sister and just may have killed her, too.”
“So you think she was murdered?”
“I do. My opinion was in the minority, though. I hope you catch him, but I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. I don’t know what I could tell you that you haven’t already learned from Dad and Janice. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m in the middle of working on a sonnet and I don’t want to lose my train of thought.”
She shook her head as if she was trying to shake off her encounter with me and proceeded up the steps. Her reaction hadn’t seemed faked it all—I’d obviously touched some kind of nerve—but I still really wanted to see the inside of the cabin. Or at least to see how hard she would work to keep me out of it.
“It’s been a long drive,” I said. “Mind if I use your restroom before I go?”
“The gas station on the highway has a public restroom.”
“Please. I was also hoping for a glass of water. I know I’m imposing.”
She sighed, her back to me. I felt a strange thrill, as if she was about to confess that Tony was inside, but then she turned slowly and nodded.
“All right,” she said, “but only for a moment.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“I’ll have you know, though, I have a gun.”
“What?”
“Inside the cabin. I bought it a couple years ago.”
“Okay.”
“For protection,” she added. “I had an incident a couple weeks ago, a couple of Mexicans came up here asking if Tony had ever been here or ever given me anything. They were not nice men. They wanted to come inside. I told them no. They asked again and I pointed the gun at them. They left and didn’t come back.”
“Did they say what Tony would have given you?”
“No, but when I came back a week later, one of the windows was broken and it was obvious they’d searched the whole cabin.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m just glad I had the gun when they came the first time.”
“Right. Well, I don’t think you have to worry about me. You can ask your father or sister if you’re not sure.”
“I already have.”
She said this the same way my mother once told me that she’d already talked to my fourth-grade teacher when I protested that she could call the school if she really wanted to know if I was listening in class. I already have. Beth regarded me silently for a while, long enough that I felt the need to smile, which only increased the awkwardness, or at least mine, then she turned toward the house. She didn’t ask me to come in or even wave for me to follow, but she did leave the door open.
Overwhelmed by her sense of hospitality, I followed her into the cabin. My jacket was unzipped, and I kept my hand where it had easy access to the Glock, just in case. I eased into the room, ready for Tony to jump me, but it didn’t happen. The cabin was a cozy affair with deeply stained oak paneling, a low-nap taupe carpet almost as smooth as hardwood, and a high ceiling with exposed beams that made the place seem bigger than it was. A fire crackled in the large stone fireplace, the room’s most significant and attractive feature.
Since Beth immediately plunked herself in front of a laptop at a picnic-style kitchen table, I closed the door. It was so warm inside, I already felt myself sweating.
“Bathroom’s down the hall,” she informed me.
She certainly didn’t seem to be acting as if someone was hiding in the cabin. Still, I stayed ready as I used the facilities and glanced in the two bedrooms next to the bathroom, finding nobody inside. Neither of the rooms had closets. When I returned to the main room, she was still at the computer, but a glass of water sat on the far end of the table.
“There you go,” she said.
The galley kitchen was through an alcove and fully in view. I didn’t see anyone in there either. It was possible Tony was in some nook or cranny I’d missed, but I doubted it. I picked up the glass and found it cool to the touch.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked.
She squinted at me. “Is that another joke?”
“You don’t seem to be smiling, so I guess not.”
She went back to her computer. The humming of the laptop seemed loud in the silent room, and when I took a drink, I was embarrassed at the sound of my own gulping. The water was ice cold and there was a slightly mineral aftertaste. I put the glass down and waited for her to look at me, but of course she didn’t.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell me that might help?” I asked.
She sighed.
“I know,” I said, “I’m being a bit annoying. It’s a habit I’m trying to break. I’ve been told he might have owed some people money. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” she said.
“I heard he might have been selling drugs.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Why is that?”
“He just seems like he’d be into that sort of thing.”
“But you don’t know if he was or wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Did you know Karen changed her will because she was afraid Tony might be thinking of killing her?”
“No.”
“Did you know Janice was having an affair with him?”
This, finally, got her to look up from her keyboard. With her hair flanking her face, it was as if she were lifting a hood. I saw a glimmer of surprise, then her eyes narrowed and took on a cold, reptilian quality, focusing not on me but on something beyond.
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me either,” she said.
“Why is that?”
She frowned and stared at her computer. “I think I’ve said enough.”
“All right.”
“It’s just that being with a man was never about love for her. It’s always about winning. So of course she has to take Karen’s man, too. That proves she’s winning.”
“I see.”
“Our whole family is very competitive.”
“But not you?”
“I really think you should leave now.”
“
Okay.”
“But of course I’m competitive. It’s the way the Thornes are made. But I found the best way to be competitive is to play my own game. I have my own vision of my life, and I don’t require their approval to manifest it.”
“Manifest,” I said. “Nice word, seldom used.”
“Another joke,” she said.
“You’re a tough crowd.”
“I don’t laugh much, I know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must return to my work.”
This time, her goodbye had a note of finality to it. I still waited a few extra beats, just to see if she’d talk again, but no such luck. She concentrated on her screen with the intensity of a high school student taking her SATs. I thanked her, received a grunt in reply, and showed myself out.
The air had cooled noticeably. Standing there on the porch, checking the time on my cell phone, my breath fogged in front of me. I barely had one bar on the phone, blinking in and out. It was not yet three o’clock, but the gray, gauzy quality of the light and the deepening shadows of the tree trunks made it feel later. There was something bothering me, something about my encounter with Beth that didn’t add up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Approaching the Prius, I saw that there was a man sitting in the backseat. I reached for the Glock, closing my fingers around the handle. The glare of the light, weak as it was, made it hard to see who was inside until I got close. It was a middle-age man with thinning gray-blond hair, dressed in a bright blue military jacket with a red collar, a style that hearkened back to the Revolutionary War.
I opened the door. The man didn’t look at me until it must have dawned on him that I was staring right at him, then he flinched. The buttons, the white pants, the shiny black boots—it was definitely military dress from a much earlier era.
“Ghost?” I said.
He had a long nose and small mouth, giving him a youthful appearance, but his skin had the cracked and weathered quality of old bark. “You—you can see me?” he stuttered.
Ghost Detective Page 22
