But now there was this whole other thing that had happened in the gorge: Alger Whitecloud had straggled into town and given him a long interview at two o’clock this morning. In hindsight maybe he should have pressed Truck Boyd harder on the dead hiker, but a guilty person isn’t going to help you anyway. Sheriff Craig would be talking to others in the case later today when he drove to Seattle.
He found Truck Boyd’s metal desk under a sheet of filthy wet plywood. He heaved away the trash.
Sheriff Craig’s hands were large and he believed himself to be clumsy, so he took care with the wet paperwork he found in Truck Boyd’s desk. Truck, he figured, would have sneaked into town, wanting to take certain things with him, but found the garage underwater and had to leave everything.
The sheriff went through the desk methodically. Boyd’s receipt books were unopenable, the paper too thin and sodden for the pages to separate. He felt something small inside a plastic zippered night deposit bag. It was a spiral-bound pocket notebook, its pages sturdier and only damp.
On the first two pages Boyd had written the names of local banks, each followed by an account number, and the amount “$10.”
Alger Whitecloud had told him what the private detective had said about the deposits by the Silver Coast executive in Seattle. (The executive suddenly and dramatically deceased, he had learned this morning.) No reason for Truck to have noted the five-thousand-dollar deposits here, this was just his method of keeping things straight. Sheriff Craig expected the accounts would be emptied out by now. Boyd would just have had time to do that.
On the third page of the notebook—it had been new, purchased for this reason—Boyd had signed his name once. Then on the fourth page he had signed a new name, Mike Stone. He signed it different ways: Michael Stone, Mike Stone, Michael P. Stone, M. P. Stone. Then he had settled into Mike Stone, Mike Stone, Mike Stone.
“Huh,” said Sheriff Craig into the empty space of the ruined garage.
The sheriff knew Truck Boyd’s penchant for caution and practice before committing himself to anything. When Boyd had bought a new truck from the Ford dealership in Port Angeles, he’d taken not one, not two, but three test drives. Long ones. This story had been told by the salesman to one of his deputies.
No telling at this point, but Sheriff Craig got a strong feeling that Truck Boyd could have tracked that random hiker and killed him for practice, before doing it for money. To see if he could do it, before promising Kenner de Sauvenard he’d murder his brother for him? It’d fit Truck’s personality; he’d want to test his technique. A dry run. Might never know, though.
The Lance de Sauvenard case was another thing entirely.
If Sheriff Craig had to disappear with a murder on his hands, a hundred grand in his pockets, and a mark on his face, he’d head for Canada, as high in the territories as he could go. He’d’ve headed for Canada as soon as he walked away from Joey Preston on that ledge.
The sheriff thought about Truck’s leaving his own son to die like that. He cleared his throat. Human cruelty didn’t shock him anymore.
He cleared his throat again, the sound echoing across the mud-slathered floor.
He took the notebook to his car and got on the radio to Border Patrol. Not that he thought Truck would be all that catchable at this point. Maybe he, Sheriff Craig, would go up to Canada himself for a working vacation soon.
Later, he parked his car at the Harkett bridge washout and got out to take a look. Be a while before the county’d get to fixing this. He’d need to inspect what was left of Camp Saskee-wee-wit soon. Too bad it got abandoned; he’d been a camper there too, had learned to swim there. Learned how to skin out a raccoon there.
He tried to remember what had shut down the place. Something about money—some accusation that the director had taken the funding and gone to Hawaii or someplace. Old man de Sauvenard had gotten so mad he simply shut the place down.
He checked in at the post. Deputy Grolech told him that the Forest Service had just picked up Kenner de Sauvenard.
“What happened?”
“He tried to mug a couple of hikers for money at the Hooked Pass trailhead, except the hikers happened to be a cop and his wife from Portland. They’d been in the backcountry waiting out the storm and didn’t know the bridge was out. Forest Service is in now, from over Dewlap Mountain.”
“OK. What about Rusty Bjornquist and the female?”
“Dendra Biswell. I was just gonna tell you!” Deputy Olive Grolech got irritated easily.
Sheriff Craig waited. “OK, what?” he finally said.
“I took it upon myself to stake out Dendra Biswell’s mother’s house this morning even though it’s a wreck from the flood and Mrs. Biswell isn’t even there, she’s at the shelter, and sure enough.”
“They showed up there?” Sheriff Craig was baffled.
“Yeah!” Deputy Grolech cackled like a triumphant grouse.
“Why the hell would they—”
“Looking for money or stuff to sell!” shouted the deputy. “Mrs. Biswell took her jewelry with her, though! Dendra and Chopper thought they’d grab what they could and get out of town. But I grabbed them!”
“You—”
“I mean,” Deputy Grolech’s voice leveled off, “I called Emmons for backup, OK, but I got ’em. Dendra’s face got messed up bad, I think Bonechopper must’ve hit her, though of course she wouldn’t say.”
“Good work, Olive.”
That was the thing about deputies: the best ones had the ability to think exactly like scumbags, which was unsettling if you considered it too much.
Chapter 33 – Rita’s Touchstone
I rested my forehead on the cool windowpane in Gina’s room.
My sister slept. Her expression was totally peaceful, which it had been, come to think of it, ever since the Coast Guard medic jumped out of that helicopter, pulled off his helmet, and said with a big smile, “Hi, my name is Jim! Need some help?” She and Joey Preston had been admitted here at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle late last night, and they both should recover completely, doctors said after X-rays and tests. They planned to operate on Gina’s shoulder either tonight or tomorrow morning.
“Not that much to do in there,” said the orthopedic surgeon, a robust woman with a toothy smile. “She needs a little cleanup is all.” She said she’d be repairing a little fracture at the head of Gina’s humerus, as well as a couple of ligaments in her shoulder, the names of which went over my head.
They had found no significant internal injuries in Gina; the CT scan showed a slight laceration to her spleen, which was essentially healing itself, as Alger had said such an injury might. In spite of the fluids we’d helped her drink, she’d been quite dehydrated, which helped explained her torpor during George’s inquisition of Kenner.
She was snug in bed, an IV line in her arm, and the doctor had said that after the surgery she’d be good to go in a day or two. I had safety-pinned her dazzling ring inside my bra for safekeeping. I couldn’t help wondering how much it was worth.
They were going to put hardware in Joey’s leg this afternoon. I wondered whether the police would charge him with anything, like conspiracy. He’d discussed murdering Lance with his dad, yet how could he have known for sure what Truck was going to do? I wanted to talk it over with my law school study group; my brain was tired.
I hadn’t really slept yet, though I’d dozed against George’s shoulder as we waited for the initial tests to come back on Gina.
Daniel, who had guided the helicopter to the camp, was back in Harkett with Petey, to try to figure out how to extricate Daniel’s Porsche and George’s rental car from the wilderness. Petey’s appetite for challenge was limitless.
“Can you get her ready?” the Coast Guardsman had asked, as he and Daniel worked to package up Joey.
“Sure.”
Dehydration or no dehydration, the prospect of rescue had immediately improved Gina’s condition. “Get me out of here,” she said, smiling faintly at Jim th
e Coast Guardsman.
When I drew back her sleeping bag, I was startled to see a long knife in her fist. A single-edged kitchen knife and quite rusty, but it came to a sharp point.
“What the hell is this?”
“Oh,” she said, relinquishing it and speaking slowly to conserve her strength, “Petey found it somewhere. He wandered in here with it the other day, and I convinced him to hand it over to me. I’ve kept it. Forgot I was holding it.”
“Ah.”
Exhausted and hurting, she grasped my sleeve. “At first I thought Joey might try something with me—I don’t know how, but I didn’t like being alone with him during the day. But then I started wondering about Kenner. When I heard—” She coughed painfully.
“When you heard our fight?”
“Yeah. He wanted to kill me, just to make sure of his inheritance. And you know what?”
I lifted a curly tendril from her brow. “What?”
She dropped her voice, which only made the guys go quiet to listen better. “I wanted him to come for me. This is the only way I could have killed him. I wanted to kill him; that’s what I wanted to do. I was gonna shove this knife right into his belly. Would’ve been a good angle, up into his chest then. I hoped.”
“I wish you’d had that chance. Gina, did you and Lance get married?”
“I wish we had. Wish to God we had.”
Now she was safe and we would go back to Los Angeles together.
I thought it would take me a week to get totally dry. I’d taken a hot shower and changed into the cleanest clothes I had left, which I’d snatched under my arm just before I hustled Petey into the helicopter: blue jeans and my black turtleneck sweater. Yet still I felt wet.
It was like phantom limb pain. Phantom damp feeling.
Well, a week back home in West Hollywood should cure me. That or a weekend in Death Valley. My God, yeah, that’s what I needed: I’ll get Daniel to detour us through Death Valley on the way home. Because suddenly I wanted to bake myself on the hundred-and-ten-in-the-shade flats of Furnace Creek where they get 1.7 inches of rain per year, not per hour. The very idea seemed preposterous right now: How could such a desiccated place exist?
George had gone to the lounge at the end of the hall to make some phone calls.
Gradually, as my head and eyes cooled, the street below solidified in my vision.
I watched a woman walking up the street across from the hospital. She stood out from the other pedestrians because of the stunning white coat she had on, but beyond that—there was something in her posture: unusually erect, yet lively, with no trace of stiffness or awkwardness. You know how some people are just extraordinary and you can tell it from any distance?
Something about a person’s carriage, her presence. I couldn’t see her face, but this woman was extremely attractive, with a self-possession that far exceeded that of the rest of the people schlepping along. Well, she sure had good taste in clothes, with that soft riffling white coat and the black accessories.
I studied her gestalt, because that’s what actors and actresses do constantly: Why and how does this person achieve her effect?
She wasn’t young, I don’t know—fifty, sixty? Iron-gray hair swirled in a barely contained updo, buffeted by the wind. She would look good with a well-dressed, successful man at her side.
Or not, I realized.
She was complete the way she was, although a man would complement her. The right man, anyway.
The right man. That was always the trick, wasn’t it?
I wondered how I would look in that coat. Not that great, I had to admit: you need some height to wear a coat like that, you’ve got to give the fabric room to move. I’d look like a wigwam with feet.
The right man had been angling for me; he’d been there in plain sight. He hadn’t given up on me, though I’d rejected him any number of times.
He’d never tried to force it, and that, I think, was his key attribute: he was a very patient man. George wanted me, and he hadn’t panicked when things looked grim. If he hadn’t gotten me, he would not have committed suicide or turned to junk food and become a sad, tubby, unshaven drunk.
He’d have squared himself and gone on.
A complete man. A whole man.
How many such men had I known in my life? Off the top of my head I could only think of three.
Daniel.
Petey.
George.
“I never knew what the hell love was,” I told my reflection in the window, superimposed over the small figure of the woman still striding along the street in the surging cream coat.
I’d known mother love, sure, that fierce tenderness that eclipses your life as soon as you give birth.
I’d known familial love. I’d risked everything for Gina. But that was just such a given, such a constant. You’d do anything for your family, and you’re secure that they’ll be there for you.
I’d known friend love. Daniel and I were each other’s Stonehenges: the place you go for comfort, healing, and weird celebrations.
I’d known infatuation—God, don’t talk to me about infatuation. I’d known passion; I’d known sex. Yeah, yeah.
I’d known basically-giving-a-shit, would-walk-across-the-street-to-tell-him-the-building-was-burning-down love.
And I guess it’s fair to say that I’d known hate. On so many levels. I’d known all that.
But deep, true, rich, romantic love?
I was like a blind and deaf person feeling the ocean lap my toes and thinking oh, what a nice bathtub. I’d had no idea.
George, by saying nothing—making no drama out of it, not head-butting his way into my spotlight—he had shown me what love was.
Love was service.
Love was a smuggled plate of smoked salmon.
Love was being there, and being really there, and being fully there.
Love was that, and because of that, it was infinitely more than that.
I still didn’t know, but at least now I knew that I didn’t know what love was. And I knew that the person I needed to explore the question with was George.
Those thoughts had taken only seconds to race through me, as the woman in the white coat neared a corner, but right then something happened. She appeared to stumble, and veered to steady herself against a building. My heart caught, watching her lean there trying to pull herself together.
After a minute her head swiveled slightly; then she opened her purse—not too big, not too small, black like her other accessories—and withdrew a cell phone.
She listened, phone to ear; then she brought her other hand up to hold the phone in place, as if the first hand wanted to throw it away.
She spoke a few words, a question.
She bowed from the neck and listened for a minute, two minutes, three.
And gradually she straightened, her head coming erect, and I could see she was a woman with a hell of a backbone. She continued to listen to whatever devastation was coming to her through that little device. Her expression cleared and she nodded slightly. Yes. Yes. I accept it. I accept it.
I turned from the window feeling too much like an intruder, which for me is saying a lot. I had been privileged to witness a display of...what? Dignity? Grace? For all the pain that woman was enduring, I felt uplifted.
If a woman’s complete, she’s complete. Saying yes to George didn’t mean that I had to stop being a complete woman. Was that what I’d been fearing?
A few minutes later he came in, somberly, quietly.
“You OK?” I said.
“Yes.” He smiled softly at, perhaps, the same human mysteries that had been on my mind.
We kissed, and I felt his vitality, his giving of his life force to me through his kiss, his mouth, his body. His hands settled on the small of my back. He had washed this morning too, but I found myself searching for the woodsy guy-musk he’d emitted for the past couple of days, and I thought I caught an essence of it, there somewhere on his neck, a crushed-herb smell wafting from the v
icinity of his top shirt button.
When I looked out again, the woman in the white coat was gone.
I’ve thought about her a thousand times since. You might say I’ve used that experience—those few offhand minutes observing a stranger being brave, being complete—as a touchstone.
George held me away from him, looking at me, sensing something new in me, seeing what I was feeling.
All he said was, “I know a nice place where we can get some lunch and talk.” He offered me his arm.
__________
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