Fire Mountain

by Vickie McKeehan

  And then the vision came. Murky at first before clearing the way to see a struggle take place, a scuffle that ended any hope of a future.

  Gemma came back to the present in time to see Mr. Lewis slam the door shut in Lando’s face. She saw the set of Lando’s jaw as he turned to walk down the steps of the porch. She knew the minute he spotted her waiting across the street. “What are you doing here?”

  “Leia told me about Talia. I wanted to see where she lived with Brandt.”

  He knew better. “And what did you see standing here in the street?”

  She leaned back against the vehicle and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t think he did it, Lando. I don’t think Brandt Lewis did anything to his wife. They had an argument, she packed up a suitcase, then she got in her car and left. Something happened to her after she drove off.”

  Lando looked perplexed. “What do you mean you don’t think he did it? You don’t know the full story about Lewis. I do.”

  But Gemma was unmoved. “Have they found Talia’s car yet?”

  “Not yet. Look, before I got here, I’d planned to keep an open mind about the guy. But after talking to him just now, Lewis is my main person of interest. He’s hiding something, and he’s already lawyered up. He hasn’t done a thing to find his wife. Nothing. Plus, that bullshit about him owning a tech company is just that. He’s never owned a company in Silicon Valley or anywhere else. Lewis is a software developer, plain and simple, who once worked at one of the online retail giants as a programmer. But five years ago, he lost his job for being difficult to work with, and then lost his shirt in bad investments. I suspect he might’ve married Talia for financial stability.”

  “Because she inherited some money. I get it. But…” Again, Gemma showed no signs of changing her mind. “Brandt might be a liar. He might even be a cheat. But I don’t think Brandt is the one who killed Talia.”

  Exasperated, Lando tried again. “Then why is he not doing more to help find her?”

  “Because he didn’t really love Talia. He’s glad she took off. Like you said, he wanted her to keep him afloat financially. This marriage was merely a stop-gap measure. She’d been paying off his debts since they married.”

  “See, that’s a perfect motive. Talia found out she’d been tricked, so he killed her.”

  Gemma smiled. “I’m the amateur sleuth. You’re the pro. I’ll leave solving murders to you.”

  “Murders? So Talia is gone?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed for more. “Gemma, since when do you leave things to me? Maybe I don’t want you to.”

  She looped her arm around his. “I’m mayor. And since I’ll likely be too busy doing mayor stuff, solving murders falls to you.”

  “I’m not sure I like that.”

  “You’re kidding? For months now you’ve wanted me to butt out, now you want my help?” She elbowed him in the ribs. “Make up your mind. I’ve told you what I saw. Brandt didn’t kill his wife. He didn’t like her very much, but he didn’t kill her. And yes, Talia’s dead. I’m not sure where it happened though. But that night, she was walking out on Brandt. She didn’t intend to come back any time soon, other than to get her stuff and eventually file for divorce.”

  “You saw all that?”

  “She’d met someone else. That’s why she packed a suitcase, just a few things she needed for a trip out of town.”

  “Talia Lewis was taking a trip, huh? Isn’t that interesting? I know someone else who packed a suitcase, several in fact. Peter Woodson was headed somewhere else, too.”

  Gemma sent him a strange look. “Talia and the guy who died in the plane crash?”

  “Yeah. The guy with the mysterious past. Is Woodson ATF or not?” Lando told her about Robert Sykes and the Maryland ID. “This Sykes is just a couple of years younger. Their descriptions are very similar.”

  “You think they were one and the same person?”

  “I’m not sure what I think. If the two are connected and Talia was running away with Woodson, then why didn’t we find her at the crash site?”

  “Is there any way that her body is still out there? Could it be on the mountain somewhere and you guys just missed it?”

  “No way. Zero. Fifty or more people scoured that entire area. My guys, plus the county sent out ten deputies. Zeb even directed his crew to search the other side of the mountain on the Rez. There was no second set of remains found.”

  “Then where is Talia? And where is her car?”

  “You aren’t really serious about not getting involved anymore, right?”

  She kissed his cheek. “Me, butt out? I won’t go slowly into the night. Had you going there for a minute, though, didn’t I? Besides, when Leia gets worked up, how can I possibly say no? Although I do think things will likely change once I morph into mayor. I probably won’t have time for sleuthing.”

  “With a stinky office, you won’t be able to think in there.”

  “You know about that?” She handed him her phone with the pictures on it. “That’s what it looked like.”

  “Disgusting. Why would anyone leave fish guts for you to find on your first day back?” he said, his voice rising the more photos he saw. After staring at the wet mess for several long minutes, he forwarded the images to his own cell. Maybe he’d open a report on what could be deemed as vandalism. “Why are people such assholes?”

  Rufus and Rolo reacted to the loud voice by hiding in the back of the panel truck, ducking their heads like they were in trouble.

  “You’re upsetting the dogs,” Gemma pointed out. “Besides, Suzanne and I got it out of there. I’d like to think someone played a practical joke and leave it at that. But…it is worrisome. Did you know I only won by a very slim margin? Thirty-one votes. It seems Harry Ashcomb mounted a vigorous write-in campaign leading up to election day. It almost worked.”

  “The druggist? I’ve known Harry my whole life. He came sniffing around my mom after my dad died.”

  Gemma lifted a brow. “Same here. He had the hots for Marissa after my grandfather passed. But is he such a lousy loser that he hid rotting fish in what would be my office closet? I don’t think so.”

  “Fleet then?”

  “Paloma thinks Fleet was too busy dealing with the Feds to retaliate. It makes sense. That’s why she thinks it was someone else who had access to City Hall…after hours.”

  “Getting any vibe on who that might’ve been?”

  “Not yet. I was too busy trying to air out the office. I went through two cans of air freshener. The room smells like a mix of green apples and stinking fish.” She scrunched up her face and crossed her arms over her chest again. “My first official act as mayor will be to requisition another fragrance other than green apple. Lavender maybe.”

  “It still stinks. That’s why I had maintenance put in a new floor. You’ll have to settle for whatever wood they have on hand, though.”

  “That’s fine. I can’t wait to see what it looks like after the ceremony tonight.”

  “It should be ready by then. I authorized overtime pay to fix the situation. The maintenance crew was ecstatic. I watched part of it go in before looking up Brandt. The new wood already makes the room smell better. Replacing the floor seemed like the only way to get that odor out of there. You probably didn’t notice it, but that closet floor was ruined.”

  “I noticed.”

  Lando peered through the back glass on the truck. “What’s all this stuff?”

  “I’d planned to do a little redecorating, settle in. You know, put plants around the office. Put out some photos, hang stuff on the walls. A few mementos on the shelves. I even brought some books of my own. But now, I’m not so sure I want to leave any of it there. City Hall isn’t the secure place I thought it would be.”

  “That’s not saying much for the police department, is it?”

  “I was trying not to say anything at all. But yeah.”

  “We could change the locks in the entire building.”

  “But how much
would that cost? I don’t want to stick the taxpayers with the bill. I’m already getting a new floor. Some might see that as extravagant, indulgent even.”

  “Typical response out of a politician. If the building’s security has been breached, it’s a necessary expense.”

  “Like I said, it might’ve been nothing more than a prank. Should we wait and see if this person does anything else?”

  “I’m not a big believer in wait and see.”

  “I knew you’d say that.”

  When his cell phone went off, he glanced at the screen. “It’s Jimmy. Whatcha got for me?”

  Gemma watched Lando’s face, watched as his expression went from jovial to grim. She recognized that demeanor.

  “Payce found remains at Woodson’s place…in an old trunk.”

  “Is it Talia’s?”

  “Nope. Been there too long for that, he says.”

  “Then whose?”

  “I’d say Woodson’s partner in crime, whoever that might be. Want to come?”

  “I really should take the dogs home and get ready for my big night. Will you be done with…at Woodson’s place…by this evening? Because I really don’t want to do this without you there.”

  He took her shoulders and leaned down to plant a kiss on her lips. “I’ll be there. I promise.”

  Once Lando reached Woodson’s A-frame cabin, Payce led him to where the body had been kept. They walked several yards away to a ramshackle shed big enough to store odds and ends and leftover crap from the house.

  Mere yards from where Woodson went to bed every night, an old steamer trunk had been hidden behind a wall of cardboard boxes.

  “It’s a wonder you even bothered looking here,” Lando told Payce.

  “Hey, you said to look everywhere, I look everywhere.”

  Lando hooked his fingers in his pockets and smiled over at his oldest patrol officer. Ducking his head under the small doorframe, he stepped into the shack and held up his own flashlight. “You’re becoming a first-rate detective. You know that? What have we got here?”

  After hoping he could leave and go stand by the cruiser, Payce’s chest swelled at the praise. He pointed to the back wall and the trunk. “I didn’t touch a thing except to open the lid.”

  The box held a female’s body, left there to rot. All that remained now was matted hair and bones.

  Lando peered down into the steamer trunk, a tiny space for a human coffin. Revulsion, swift and hard, hit him at the waste of a life. “No signs of clothing means she was probably nude when she was placed inside. We need to get these boxes out of here before the crime scene techs arrive, so they have room to work.”

  Payce began to clear a space when he looked up to see Jeff Tuttle standing at the entrance. “It’s a tight fit.”

  “I see that,” Jeff murmured.

  Lando made room for the coroner. Angling toward Payce, Lando recognized that look on his officer’s face. “You can get out of here now. Go finish up at the house with Jimmy. Tell him I want a second sweep of everything. Tear the place apart if you have to, floorboards and all.”

  Grateful for the directive, Payce nodded and took off for the back door of the cabin.

  “She was probably young and attractive when she died,” Lando uttered, doing his best not to stare at the corpse. But it was hard not to.

  After sizing up the situation, Tuttle agreed. “No more than twenty, I’d say. Been in there at least four years, maybe longer.”

  “Woodson moved here five years ago. This is his place.”

  Tuttle cocked a brow. “The guy splattered on the side of the mountaintop this morning? That’s a fitting end if he’s the one who did this to her. Tell me something. Why is it you come back to town after a peaceful quiet two weeks, and all hell blows up in your face?”

  “I’m not exactly thrilled about seeing you twice in one day, either. You tell me what you discovered about Woodson and I’ll own up to just about anything.”

  “Nothing much to tell so far. Massive injuries, head trauma, burns. But since the plane dropped out of the sky at about five-thousand feet, that’s to be expected. And before you ask, I don’t have toxicology yet. I haven’t had time to send off samples to the lab because you and your men keep finding bodies.”

  “Long day. A lot going on. Was it just this morning we woke up to what sounded like an…?”

  “A bomb going off? Yeah.”

  “I was gonna say an earthquake. And now this. We also have a woman who’s gone missing?”

  Tuttle bobbed his head. “Heard about it on the local news about a week ago. Let’s hope she fares better than this girl did. Some days it sickens me to see what people are capable of doing to each other.”

  “What do you think happened to our Jane Doe here? Your best guess?”

  “No visible marks on the bones, no cuts or breaks that I can see. That makes me think she was probably strangled or suffocated. She was certainly dead before getting stuffed in this box.”

  “Why would Woodson keep her around, though? Why wouldn’t he dispose of the remains? There are miles of wooded areas around here he could’ve used for burial. Why would he keep her like this?”

  “Somehow special to him? I don’t know. You’re the man who figures out that kind of stuff. I just figure out how they died.”

  “You’ll remove the entire box, right? Take the whole thing back to the morgue?”

  “It’s the best way without damaging the remains.”

  They were losing the afternoon light. Soon it would be dark. “We need to get lights set up in here.”

  “The crime scene techs will do that,” Tuttle added.

  As if Tuttle had just promised a miracle, the techs began to carry in remote area lighting stands that ran on three-hour battery packs so they could see what they were doing. The small shed was soon illuminated from wall to wall.

  Lando glanced at his watch. “Then there’s no point in me hanging around here any longer.”

  “Got a hot date?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” Lando started to back out of the shed when he spotted something glinting underneath their victim’s bones. In the brilliant light, he squatted down again next to the trunk. “What is that underneath her?”

  Tuttle leaned in to take a closer look. “Are those gold coins? Krugerrands maybe?”

  Lando grabbed one of the standalone lights and brought it closer. He shined the beam directly into the contents of the trunk. “Not Krugerrands. These are twenty-dollar gold pieces. See the date? 1921. See the shape of the Roman figure. And on that one over there you see a double eagle.”

  “How many do you think are here altogether?”

  “Loose coins that cover the bottom of the trunk? I’d say a hundred, maybe more.”

  “Don’t even think about reaching in and grabbing one. I’ll need to take the bones out first. Give me three hours for extraction, then come by the morgue. I’ll let you stick your hand into the box and collect the coins.”

  Lando kept the light directed on the box. But as he stood up and bumped his head on the low ceiling, he realized he wasn’t going anywhere, at least not for a while. “All these cardboard boxes will need to be gone through.”

  “Don’t tell me those could hold more gold coins,” Tuttle stated before his face fell. “Or more body parts.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you,” Lando said as he took out his phone to text Jimmy and Payce.

  5

  There was rain on the horizon. But for now, a full moon danced golden in the night sky, shining between a wave of purple storm clouds, slowly rumbling and building up to thunderheads. They had maybe thirty minutes before the deluge hit.

  Seventy-five supporters had come to City Hall to stand on the steps to watch Gemma take the oath of office.

  She’d worn one of her old business suits, a charcoal gray outfit, the kind she’d worn most days as a lawyer. Looking out into the sea of faces, it occurred to her she might’ve taken a step backward. She’d moved here to ge
t away from a high-stress environment, to pick up where her grandmother had left off and live a quiet life. Now, she’d given up her chocolate shop and her downtime for this, a demanding job at best with a no-win outcome that would likely end up frying her non-politician brain. Her heart hadn’t been in the law. She was certain it wasn’t in politics.

  While Gemma’s insides flopped with misgivings, Lando showed up with five minutes to spare before the ceremony got underway. He looked around at the faces and wondered if one of their own could have been friends with Peter Woodson and schemed to kill or betray. But there wasn’t much time for that kind of speculation before Judge Ferris got down to business.

  Wearing her black robe, the judge took out a Bible she’d brought from home and handed it to Lando. “It’s customary for the spouse to hold this while the official takes the oath of office.”

  “I can do that.”

  Ferris looked over at a nervous Gemma. “You’re not on the chopping block. At least not yet. Take a deep breath before we get started.” When she saw no signs of Gemma’s uneasiness abating, the judge leaned closer. “It’s time. Now please raise your right hand and place your left hand on the Bible.”

  Hands shaking, Gemma did as she was told.

  “Now repeat after me.”

  Gemma cleared her throat, swallowed hard, and began to recite her oath. “I, Gemma Bonner, do solemnly swear that I will perform the duties of the office to which I have been elected. I do solemnly swear to support the constitutions of the state of California and the United States of America and to faithfully perform the duties of the office of Mayor for the town of Coyote Wells, Del Norte County, California.”

  Judge Ferris smiled and announced, “I’m proud to say that the town of Coyote Wells has a new mayor.”

  Cheers went up. A round of applause broke out. Zeb and Luke tossed cans of confetti in the air.

  Lando wrapped his wife up in a big hug.

  A few minutes later, she was surrounded by her extended family—Paloma had brought Van and Nova and their children, Allie and Daniel.