Mistake in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  She looked down at the files on the table.

  “Unless you came along, too, Cinnamon. He said if you came along, then he’d tell me everything I wanted to know about the cases. Including what he remembers from the files that went up in the sheriff’s station fire.”

  I found myself completely speechless.

  I stared numbly at the wooden boards of the table.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t give into a demand like that,” Vicky continued when I didn’t respond. “And most of all, I wouldn’t ever want to put you in a vulnerable position. I know what Sully did to you, and I wasn’t even going to ask you this. But Daniel said he knew you’d want to help if you could.”

  She drew in a deep breath.

  I could tell that she was very uncomfortable asking this of me.

  “Why… why does he want to see me?” I said, the words coming out in a strange tone I didn’t recognize.

  She looked out the window for a long while.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “He didn’t give a reason. Only that you coming along was the condition.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to think of Sully’s angle on this.

  There was nothing I could do for him now. Nothing anybody could do for him now. He had to sit and serve out his sentence.

  So why did he want to see me?

  To apologize for what he did?

  I doubted that. Sully was as cold as they came. He would have killed Marie and me over those diamonds, and would have had no remorse whatsoever.

  I rubbed my face.

  “Do you really believe he knows something that could help?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know that either, Cinnamon,” she said quietly. “Coe may know nothing, and he’s just trying to take advantage of the situation for some purpose of his own.”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry to ask this of you. But this Greyhound Girls case… it’s…”

  She trailed off and cleared her throat before starting again.

  “I have to solve it. It’s why I turned down a promotion with the Portland Police Department and took the lieutenant position here instead. I thought if I came here, to the site of where they were last seen, then I’d be able to finally figure out what happened to them.”

  She shook her head.

  “Because if I don’t find out, then I…”

  She trailed off.

  I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

  Sully Coe wasn’t at the top of the list of my favorite people.

  In fact, I was fairly certain I could go the rest of my life without hearing his name again.

  But I’d never been one to turn my back on a person in need

  And I wasn’t about to start now.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, interrupting her. “But I have a condition of my own.”

  Vicky raised her eyebrows, waiting for more.

  I took in a deep breath.

  “You tell me about your sister’s case. I want to know everything there is to know about it.”

  If I’d been surprised when Vicky brought up Sully Coe, she seemed to be equally surprised that I knew Amelia was her sister.

  Chapter 34

  Later that night, I furiously scrubbed down the wooden counters of the bread bakery’s kitchen until the whole place sparkled more than a crystal champagne flute. When I was finished with that, I waited on the batch of cherry hazelnut pies in the oven and listened to some soothing Van Morrison songs on my phone, trying to calm down.

  But as good as Van was, his music didn’t help me much that night.

  Because the truth was, I was shaken.

  Shaken by the thought of seeing Sully Coe again.

  And shaken by seeing Vicky’s pain, still so raw after all of these years.

  We’d had a long conversation at the pie shop about her sister Amelia and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. And though Vicky hadn’t said it exactly, I could tell that she blamed herself on some level for what happened to her sister. Amelia had been on that bus to see Vicky at Boise State when she disappeared. And I could tell that she felt somehow responsible for that.

  I learned from our conversation that Vicky and Amelia had grown up in a difficult household. Their mother and father divorced when the girls were young, and their mother had gotten full custody. Vicky said their mother was a very strict, critical woman who was verbally abusive to the girls.

  Vicky left home to go to college at the age of 17. Amelia, meanwhile, still lived with her mother after high school. At least, she kept her belongings there, Vicky said. Amelia didn’t get along at all with her mother, and often spent weeks away from home at a time. Living with friends and running with a bad crowd.

  When Vicky’s mother called that day in February of 1993, saying that Amelia had stolen money and taken off, Vicky considered the possibility that she’d just run away from home. But as time passed, and nobody heard anything from her, it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong.

  Knowing that Amelia didn’t have a car, Vicky checked with the airlines and the bus lines out of Portland.

  She found Amelia’s name on a passenger manifest for a bus headed out to Boise. She spoke to the bus driver, who said that she wasn’t on the bus after the stop in Christmas River.

  “She was young and reckless, and she didn’t always think of others,” Vicky had said to me at the pie shop, looking about two decades older than she really was as she recounted the story. “But I’ve always had a hard time believing that she would leave us like that. Deep down, Millie was a good person. She loved our mom, even if she was cruel and spiteful. She loved me, too. Something happened to her out there on the highway.

  “Something really bad.”

  Their mom was in a nursing home back in Portland these days, Vicky said. She suffered from dementia and she wasn’t completely lucid most of the time. But Amelia’s disappearance still haunted her.

  The way it had haunted Vicky for so long now.

  Now, standing here alone in the kitchen of the bread bakery, Vicky’s words echoed in my ears and somehow seemed even more pained than they had when she spoke them.

  When I asked Vicky if she had any thoughts about who might have abducted Amelia, she said that since she started investigating her sister’s disappearance, there’d been very few leads. She’d tracked down the bus driver who’d been driving, along with almost every other passenger who had been on the bus that day. She’d spoken to the former owner of the Marionberry Truck Stop Diner, to a couple who had seen Amelia as they pulled out of the parking lot just after the bus arrived. To just about everybody who might have been in the vicinity of the restaurant that day.

  Nobody had seen a thing.

  Vicky had said that a few months after Amelia went missing, she’d received a letter in the mail with five words on it, pasted together from magazines.

  “It’s Not What You Think.”

  There was no return address.

  Vicky said that she’d brought it to the police, but that nobody took it too seriously. Most of them believed that Amelia was just another runaway. Not until Laura Baynes went missing a year later did anyone take it seriously, but by then, there was nothing they could gather from the note.

  Vicky believed the letter got stuffed into a file and was never investigated thoroughly.

  And unfortunately, that file had been one of the ones to go up in flames during the Sheriff’s fire.

  I let out a sigh, shaking my head, feeling an immense wave of sadness sweep over me.

  What had really happened to Amelia and Laura?

  And just what did Sully Coe know about it? Would he be able to shed some light on the case all these years later?

  Or was he just looking to take advantage of the situation for some dark reason of his own?

  I couldn’t answer any of those questions. Some of them I wasn’t sure even if I wanted to know the answers to.

  All I knew was that tonight f
elt very dark, and I wished I wasn’t alone in the bread shop kitchen. I wished I could have brought Huckleberry and Chadwick with me here to keep me company. I wished that—

  Just then, I heard the sound of keys scrape against the back door lock.

  Chapter 35

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The young woman’s thick eyebrows drew together in an expression of confusion as she glared me.

  If I hadn’t recognized her from the picture up in the far corner of the bakery kitchen, I might have been jarred by somebody coming in at this late hour and interrogating me.

  But luckily, I knew who she was.

  She had the same tall frame as her father and the same sloped, flat nose as him, too.

  “You must be Mr. Longworth’s daughter,” I said, dusting my hands off on my apron.

  Her eyebrows slouched down even further.

  I put a bright smile on my face and went over, sticking my hand out.

  “My name’s Cinnamon Peters. I’m the owner of Cinnamon’s Pies.”

  Her expression remained unchanged.

  “My oven broke,” I said nervously. “Your dad was kind enough to let me use the kitchen here during the off hours.”

  “He never said anything to me about it,” she said in a standoffish voice.

  “Well, it’s only until after Valentine’s Day. As soon as the warranty people get me a new oven. So, um, so you work for your dad here?”

  I remembered now that Frank mentioned something about dreaming of handing the bakery keys over to his daughter one day.

  “Part-time,” she said. “I help him with the books.”

  She shifted her weight between her feet uncomfortably.

  “I forgot my bag in the breakroom. I just came back to get it.”

  I nodded silently and she headed into the small office off the kitchen. A moment later, Frank’s daughter came out carrying a backpack.

  Her expression hadn’t turned any sunnier.

  “I don’t think your dad ever told me your name,” I said, trying to make small talk, even though it was clear she wanted nothing less.

  I guess I couldn’t help myself. It seemed like the polite thing to do.

  She hesitated before answering.

  “I’m Spider,” she finally said.

  I couldn’t exactly conceal my surprise at the odd name.

  “Sonya, really. But my brother gave me that nickname growing up because I was skinny. I know it’s weird, but it’s just one of those things that stuck.”

  I smiled.

  “Well, nice to meet you, Spider.”

  I cleared my throat when she didn’t respond.

  “You know, I just pulled out a batch of fresh cherry pies. I don’t know if you’re a fan of cherry pie – you’d be surprised how controversial that flavor can be. But I’d be happy to cut you a slice if you want—”

  But Spider was already shaking her head before I offered.

  “I’ve got to get going.”

  She backed away, heading out the door.

  “Oh, okay, then. See you—”

  The door shut before I could finish that sentence, too.

  I supposed that friendliness just didn’t run in the Longworth family.

  Chapter 36

  “And I thought that I was the one who was gonna be home late tonight.”

  I watched as the pooches scrambled across the living room’s wood floor, assaulting an exhausted-looking Daniel with a barrage of licks, squeals, and tail-wags.

  He reached down, giving each of them some good pets and attention. Then he took off his jacket, hung it up on the coat rack, and leaned over the sofa. He kissed the side of my neck.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “Things got busy.”

  His eyes drifted over to the TV. It was nearly midnight, and I was tired, but my old pal insomnia had moved in and I knew that even if Daniel had been there, I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. So I’d spent the evening sitting in front of the television, mindlessly watching QVC and wondering whether I should buy some massive solar-powered glass globes to adorn our driveway.

  I was glad when Daniel walked in and interrupted me – the phone had been in my hand and I had almost bought the ugly and overpriced lawn ornaments.

  Although I guess they would have gone well with the lopsided dog garden statue I’d bought after one bad bout of insomnia a couple of weeks earlier.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, noticing his silence.

  He came around and let himself fall into the sofa next to me. He took his hat off, placing it on his lap.

  “Booze Bandit struck again.”

  I looked back at him in disbelief.

  “Really?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Three robberies in one week? That’s got to be a record of some sort.”

  “It’s a definite streak, that’s for sure. He hit The Stupid Cupid Saloon over in Broken Hearts Junction just after five tonight. Made out like… well, like a bandit.”

  I was glad at least to see that Daniel could joke a little about it. The tired, haggard expression on his face when he had walked in had worried me.

  “You guys any closer to catching him?”

  Daniel didn’t answer for a long moment.

  “Trumbow got to the scene first,” Daniel said. “He spotted the getaway car and chased it for a few miles, but he ended up spinning out on some ice and losing him.”

  “Is Trumbow okay?”

  “He’s fine. Only thing injured was his pride. He likes to think of himself as an expert when it comes to car chases – the man watches enough movies with them, that’s for sure. But between you and me, he doesn’t have the steady hand and cool head required for a car chase.”

  I felt a smirk cross my face.

  “And just what gives you the right to judge the former Sheriff Trumbow so harshly, Mr. Brightman?”

  Daniel shrugged.

  “Experience, I guess. I’ve seen a car chase or two in my day. You know, I never told you this, but back in Fresno, the other cops used to call me Speed Demon Brightman because I was so good at them.”

  I let out a sharp, uncontrollable cackle.

  “Speed Demon Brightman? I don’t believe that story for one minute. Sounds as bad as one of Warren’s fishing stories.”

  “You think I’d lie to you about something like that?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He smiled at me mischievously for a moment.

  I smiled back, wiggling my way closer to him and resting my head on his shoulder.

  He took in a deep breath and sighed.

  “You know, this Booze Bandit case isn’t as clear-cut as any of us thought. It took an interesting turn tonight.”

  “How so?”

  “It looks like this guy isn’t motivated by money, the way we suspected.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “He left something with the bartender he robbed this time. A, uh, well… I guess you might call it a manifesto of sorts.”

  I furrowed my brow, turning in my seat to face him.

  “A manifesto?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Apparently, hitting places where they sell alcohol is intentional and not just because it’s easy. This guy is claiming to be a vigilante of sorts, here to rectify the evils of the liquor business by robbing places where they sell it.”

  “What?”

  Daniel ran a hand through his hair.

  “He said in his note that every bar, pub, and drinking establishment within the area is going to pay for their evil ways and for preying upon people’s weaknesses.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  I knew that some people were against the entire notion of alcohol, and I respected that. I myself believed that there needed to be better education about the dangers of abusing alcohol, and that repeat drunk drivers should face harsher consequences.

  However, robbing local businesses like my grandfather’s wasn’t helping any of that.


  I sighed, thinking about how the robber had pushed me halfway across the barroom floor that night at Geronimo Brewing Co.

  “I respect that this guy has a cause,” Daniel said. “But there’s got to be a better way of going about it than hurting and scaring people like this. He’s only hurting small business and the livelihoods of honest, hardworking people like Warren. People who have never hurt anybody.”

  I raised my eyebrows at the compliment he’d just given my grandfather.

  “You still think you’ll catch this guy before our trip?” I asked.

  “I’m betting all the potatoes in Ireland on it, darlin,’” he said with a smile.

  I put my arms around his waist and rested my head back on his shoulder, feeling good to be near him after the long day.

  The ladies on QVC had moved on from the hideous glass garden globes to some sort of magic wind chimes that one of them claimed sounded just like garden fairies singing.

  “Look, Cin. For only $24.99 we can have our very own garden fairies singing out back. That’s a steal of a deal, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” I said.

  Daniel let out a chuckle.

  We watched the TV for a couple of minutes in silence, listening to the two women give us the hard sell on the wind chimes, making it seem like our lives would be pitifully dim if we didn’t call in the next five minutes.

  “Say,” Daniel said, grabbing the control and turning down the volume.

  I looked at him, noticing the serious expression that had come across his face.

  “Vicky told me that she talked to you about Sully. And that you agreed to go see him later this week.”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t have to do it, you know,” he said. “I mean, I know how you are. I know that you literally can’t see somebody in pain and not try to help. That’s a good quality to have. But it’s also good to be a little selfish sometimes, Cin. And if seeing Sully Coe brings up too many bad feelings for you, then I don’t want you going there this week. And you shouldn’t feel bad about that either. Sometimes, you just have to think of yourself in situations like this.”