Fire Mountain

by Vickie McKeehan

  Lucien bobbed his head in agreement. “You know something else you should address is that big hole in the wharf near Thackery’s Pub. The wood’s rotted. I’d like to see the pier fixed up so I could tie up my trawler there and be able to unload my catch in that spot because it’s closer to the market. As it is, I have to tie up halfway down the waterfront near businesses that don’t want me there.”

  Gemma felt her head begin to throb. “So, you’re saying the wharf needs patching? Jeez, the town’s falling apart, and no one seems to be doing anything to fix it. What does the town council have to say about that?”

  Lucien shifted his feet. “Those three are as bad as Fleet.”

  Those three were David Border, Natalie Henwick, and Tully Beacham. Not the most easy-going lot to reason with, Gemma mused. “So they always voted with Fleet, did they?”

  “Yup. That’s why you’ve got your work cut out for you,” Lucien noted. “You want a list of problems that need your immediate attention? Just go around and do a survey of all the business owners. They’ll tell you what’s what and what the council refuses to do about their concerns.”

  “That’s not even taking into account sidewalks that need repairing,” Joe Don added.

  After the two men left, Gemma tossed back three aspirin and started making a list of recommendations to bring up to the city council. Where would the money come from? she wondered. She’d already checked the town’s accounts and found out Coyote Wells wasn’t exactly brimming with extra cash.

  “Oh, Fleet, how many ways did you screw us over?” she muttered as she considered ways to raise the money.

  Suzanne’s rapping on the door broke into her thoughts. “Excuse me, Mayor, but Inez LeMond is outside in the lobby. She says she’s here to complain about people dumping trash near the kennels. She says it amounts to illegal dumping and she wants it to stop. In fact, she wants to bring you out there and show you herself.”

  Gemma rubbed her forehead, wishing she was back at the shop. “Okay, I’ll talk to her. Send her back. But I could really use more caffeine.”

  “No problem. I was just heading to the breakroom myself. I’ll bring you back a cup. How do you take it?”

  “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver. No cream. No sugar. Straight up.”

  “You got it,” Suzanne said as she disappeared out of sight at the same time Inez appeared in the doorway.

  Inez was a no-nonsense woman. Her husband had made his money in construction during the heydays working for real estate developer Marshall Montalvo and left her well off when he died some years back.

  “Protect the Paws might be in a rather remote area of town, but our location doesn’t mean people have the right to dump their unwanted refrigerators and the like on the side of the road and use my property for a garbage dump. I don’t bother anybody. My animals don’t either. But it’s not right for me to get back to town and see crap strewn about all over my land.”

  “You’re absolutely right. What have they tossed out this time?”

  “For one, it looks like a perfectly good mattress and box springs dumped not twenty feet off the road. To my way of thinking, the only way to fix the problem is for you to see it yourself. If you’re to stop it, then you should see the issue firsthand because I’m tired of it happening every other weekend or so.”

  “Okay. Okay. Fine. Let me grab a to-go cup of coffee and follow you out there. How’s that sound?”

  “More than Fleet ever did,” Inez muttered.

  For the second time in less than an hour, Gemma wanted to scream from the rooftop. Instead, she quietly reminded Inez, “Just remember, I’m not Fleet Barkley.”

  Gemma called to the dogs so they would follow Inez out into the lobby. But as she approached the reception area, she stopped in her tracks. “Did you say someone got rid of a mattress? Has that happened before?”

  “No. Usually, it’s smaller items like a dented cooler or an ugly chair they want to get rid of, sometimes a rotten sack of trash. The mattress might be a first.”

  Something about the way Inez said it made Gemma’s mind click into gear. “Look, you go on ahead. Let me get my coffee, and I’ll be right behind you.” With Lando, she decided on the spot. “I’ll see you there.”

  Inez’s wrinkled face broke out into a smile. “You might make a decent mayor yet.”

  While Gemma had dealt with a litany of complaints from constituents, Lando had been down the hall, hard at work on his two cases. He’d already sent off one of the coins to an expert in Crescent City and now was trying to recreate Talia’s last movements the night she disappeared.

  Dale tapped the keys on his laptop. “The last handshake from her cell phone pinged off the north tower just this side of town. That’s confirmed by her cell carrier. She might’ve been driving up the coast road the night she went missing and then for whatever reason turned it off. That would explain why there’s just the one ping.”

  While pacing in front of his desk, Lando rubbed the back of his neck. “But what was her destination? Where was she headed? Who was she meeting? And why can’t we find her car?”

  “Maybe she left the area entirely,” Dale offered. “Turned off her phone and kept driving north into Oregon.”

  “But you’ve found nothing on her hard drive or in her emails to suggest she planned on leaving town with anyone else?”

  “Nope. She might’ve had a burner phone or another computer. But the laptop Lewis handed over to us has nothing much on it other than the usual Word docs and Excel spreadsheets she used for general stuff. On it, she kept the household expenses in a database. Went through those but nothing jumped out as weird.”

  “Weird? This whole thing is weird, don’t you think? I mean, I thought everyone keeps everything on their laptop these days. Or on a phone. Why didn’t Talia?”

  “Because she was hiding something,” Jimmy offered. “Most likely the affair she was having.”

  Lando thumbed through the papers Dale had printed out. “We don’t know that as fact. Besides, I’m not convinced there was an affair, that it was the reason she left town. Wonder if Lewis could’ve wiped the computer clean before he handed it over? Dale, check to see if chunks of files have been deleted recently. Send it to the forensic lab if need be. Because the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. And when the husband doesn't cooperate…”

  “Gets our imagination pumping into overdrive,” Dale finished.

  Gemma, coffee in hand, tapped on the door. “Sorry to interrupt. But I might have a lead for you guys.”

  Lando cocked a brow. “Really? What’s that?”

  “Time for show and tell,” Gemma said. “You up for a drive down the coast highway. I’ll explain on the way to Protect the Paws.”

  “You dragged me out here to see a mattress?” Lando moaned from behind the wheel of his squad car. “My plate’s really full right now, what with a missing person, a mummified body in a trunk, and a plane crash victim who supposedly worked for the government.”

  Over in the passenger seat, Gemma made a face after getting her first taste of what passed for Suzanne’s coffee. “How do you drink this?”

  Lando glanced over. “We don’t. That’s why we have our own coffee pot in my office. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”

  “I certainly will not. I’ll simply take over making the coffee. Better still, I’ll give Suzanne a few pointers.”

  “Good luck with that. The first week, Payce tried to convince her to use more coffee. Her response was that she was on a tight budget and got used to drinking it weak. Could we get back to why you want me to look at a mattress?”

  “Right. Before you make a snap judgment, think about it. A woman goes missing. A mattress and box springs show up during the same week that wasn’t there before. It’s at least worth a look to see if it ever belonged to Talia.”

  “I thought you said the husband should get a pass?”

  She breathed out a loud sigh, desperately needing to dump the contents of the to-go cup she’d bro
ught with her. “It isn’t in concrete, now is it? I’ve been around you long enough to know you need proof. No visions are good enough for Lando Bonner.”

  “Gemma…”

  “No, that’s fine by me. I’m trying to steer you to a real piece of evidence that might be relevant. That’s all.”

  “Sorry,” he murmured, picking up her hand and giving it a squeeze. He headed north on the coast road, crossing over the wobbly section of Wolf Creek Bridge. “Be a boon if you could fix this old thing.”

  “Takes a lot of steps to get there first. I’m learning on the job, and the job is messy. Fleet Barkley was a terrible mayor.”

  “But you’ll give it everything you’ve got. I know you will,” Lando said as he made the turn down a paved lane toward the kennels.

  Gemma spotted Inez waiting by the front entrance. From the back of the property, she heard the dogs set up a din, barking at the intrusion. In the backseat, Rufus and Rolo sat up to see what was happening. Ordering them to stay put, she got out, taking the opportunity to dump the disgusting coffee onto the ground. After recapping her reusable cup and leaving it in the patrol car, she turned to greet Inez. “I brought someone else who might be able to do something about the illegal dumping.”

  “That’s fine, but if someone doesn’t do something soon, I’ll have to take care of the problem myself.”

  Gemma looked around at the mess, litter that spread from the roadway up to the animals’ outdoor enclosures. “How? Put up a fence or maybe dig a moat to keep your property off limits,” she cracked. When the comment landed flat, she quickly added, “Sorry. Bad joke. But it seems to me people drive by here and toss out anything and everything out of their moving vehicles. You need volunteers out here to pick up the trash.”

  Stone-faced, Inez crossed her arms over her chest. “Not just moving vehicles. Some stop and dump their trash right in front of me. And you try to get people to volunteer. No one has time for anything anymore unless they get paid for it. What you’re looking at here is just the tip of the iceberg. Want to see the rest or not?”

  Lando followed Inez as she picked her way through scattered piles of rubbish, walking through what could only be described as a mini landfill. There were plastic water bottles, paper cups, wadded up wrappers, and dirty diapers that had been around for months. Newer and larger items like plastic jugs and cardboard boxes filled with trash had been dumped more recently.

  Gemma brought up the rear, taking pictures of the lot with her phone. When she reached the mattress and box springs, they were not as described, but rather in ratty shape, which probably meant the items had nothing to do with Talia. “I can’t believe Inez thought they were newish,” she whispered to Lando. “Looks like I brought you out here for nothing.”

  “Not nothing,” Lando remarked. “What’s happened out here is a crime. Treating the land like this is a downright shame. While I might not be able to track down every person who tossed out a soda can, I should be able to install a camera on that light pole across the road and catch the biggest offenders.”

  Gemma studied the landscape stretching out to the foothills. “Hmm. That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I could talk to Judge Ferris and persuade her to give the offenders the option of either a steep fine or spending a weekend out here picking up trash and hauling it off.”

  “Paying their fines by community service? I like that,” Lando agreed.

  “In the meantime, I can probably round up enough volunteers to get rid of some of this on a Saturday.” She kept snapping photos of the junk until something odd appeared in the frame. “Lando, over there. Look. What kind of car did Talia drive?”

  “A 2015 silver-gray Kia Soul, four-door hatchback. Why?”

  “Because it’s parked right over there near that line of trees, hidden from the roadway by the hedges. Looks like the car crashed into the rock wall that separates Inez’s property from her neighbor’s.”

  Lando followed the track of her eyes until he spotted the Kia. “I’ll be damned. I’ll get forensic techs out here to go over it.” He narrowed his eyes on Gemma. “This wasn’t about the mattress at all, was it?”

  “Sure, it was.”

  “Uh-uh. You got a vibe the car was out here.”

  “Maybe. But the mattress was as good a reason as any. I thought I might be wrong about Lewis, thought he might’ve cleaned up after getting rid of Talia, I didn’t realize Inez would think the soggy mattress was close to like-new.”

  Lando considered her explanation for about two minutes before he notified the county and his own men. “You stay put while I go check and see if Talia could still be in that vehicle.”

  Gemma was pretty sure she already knew the answer but watched him take off for the grove of trees. The location was only a mile or so away from the crash site on Fire Mountain and a short distance from the landing strip where Woodson had stored his plane. Maybe the two deaths were related after all.

  Standing there, her brain whirred with images, a blast of visions bombarded her senses. It was clear that whoever had killed Talia knew the area and had tried to hide her Kia in a hurry. Perhaps in a rush to conceal it, he’d made mistakes. Why else would the killer pick a kennel with a bunch of dogs on site that would surely alert the owner to someone on the property?

  “Inez, did you see or hear anyone recently, in the early morning hours—say, in the last week—someone who might’ve driven that car here and left it?”

  Inez shook her head. “I told you I just got back this morning from a trip to see my sister in Redding. I’d been gone a week. In my absence, I left Ebbie Lucas and Corkie Davenport to look after the animals. They’d planned to switch off, you see, take turns coming out here and staying the night to check on things, keep the dogs fed and safe.”

  “Ah, and when you got back this morning and saw how the trash had built up, it made you angry?”

  “To be honest, I got red in the face. I’d tried to do something about the littering before I left. But who was there to complain to once Fleet had gone? Nobody. I’d been complaining to no avail for months for someone to come out here and look at the mess. Fleet told me it was my problem. The garbage collectors told me it was a city issue. The waste management people said it was the county’s problem.”

  “You were getting the runaround. Big time. So the night the car was left here, it was probably Ebbie or Corkie who had been left in charge, right?”

  “That’s right. I don’t see my sister very often. She usually comes to visit me here since your grandmother talked me into this little project. But this time she had surgery and I had to go. Don’t get me wrong, I love the animals. They keep me company. But it’s a lot of work. If not for Dr. Song and her staff, I’m not sure how successful this enterprise would’ve been.”

  “You need more help out here, don’t you? I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  Inez gave her a smile. “You’re just like Marissa. You know that? Always trying to do the right thing.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “What’s that man of yours up to anyway? What’s he doing now?”

  Gemma turned to see Lando waving down Payce along the lane and caught her breath. “I’m sorry, Inez. But I’m afraid he’s just found, Talia Lewis. You might want to prepare the dogs for a lot of people showing up. Maybe put them somewhere else for the next few hours.”

  7

  County deputies arrived along with Tuttle and scores of crime scene techs. They flooded the grounds with people and equipment, poring over the hills and scouring the turf for evidence.

  Protective of his crime scene, Lando supervised, hovering and checking IDs as the individuals approached the Kia.

  Met by the defensive attitude, Tuttle scoffed at having to show his badge. “What do you think the killer’s gonna do, come back disguised as a county employee?”

  Lando ignored the dig. “No idea. But until I find out who murdered this woman, everyone’s a suspect.”

  “You know it’s murder, do you?” Tuttle fire
d back. “Then why am I here?”

  “Stuff it. A woman’s been left in that car’s backseat for a week. She was strangled, and someone tried to hide the car. Just get in there and do your job.”

  “Touchy, aren’t we? By the way, your plane crash victim had a titanium rod in his leg. I traced the serial number. It came back to a man who supposedly died in a horrific tanker explosion twenty-five years ago outside Salt Lake City and was pretty much incinerated by the ensuing fire. The victim was a man named Peter Olson.”

  “So what you’re saying is this Olson didn’t die. Instead, Olson became Woodson. And you know that because our guy had a titanium rod in his leg?”

  “Yeah, well, something else to consider. Olson’s fingerprints aren’t in the system.”

  Lando frowned. “That means he couldn’t have been an ATF agent working undercover.”

  “Nothing slow about you. Nope, Olson or Woodson was no government agent of any kind, not FBI, not CIA, not anything. He was never in the military, either. The fingerprint check came back without any match to any government agency.”

  Lando ran a hand through his hair. “Wiped clean maybe on purpose?”

  “Dunno.”

  Lando scratched his head. “An ID found with the name Sykes on it to throw us off. Woodson was really a guy named Olson. And neither one was a legit G-man.”

  “Oh, before I forget, you can add five years to the female found in the trunk. All four of her wisdom teeth were in, so she’s older than I originally thought.”

  “Twenty-five then?”

  “I’d say twenty-five to thirty.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not yet but I’m just getting started. With all the bodies popping up I haven’t had time to focus on just one yet.”

  “A town the size of Coyote Wells has two of its residents end up dead within a week of each other. What’s the likelihood of that being a coincidence?”

  “Not likely,” Gemma added from ten feet away. “Lando, I need to talk to you.”

  “Good,” Tuttle said. “Keep him busy so he stays out of my hair.”