One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2)

by C. R. Chandler

She immediately shook her head. “I don’t think an employee number of some sort has ever been put on the badges.” At least she’d never noticed one.

  “I’m thinking more like a batch number from the company that made them,” Dan said. “But I need to do some research first to determine if the badge makers, whoever they were, did that kind of thing way back when.”

  Ricki made a sound of agreement and opened the second attachment on her phone. She scanned the autopsy report. Dr. Naylor was as thorough as usual, and she could easily imagine TK standing over his shoulder, prodding him on. “Did Clay forward you the autopsy report along with the picture?”

  “No. Just the pictures.”

  She sent him the report, then continued eating her now cold sandwich while he read through it.

  “‘Male. Estimated at twenty-five to forty years of age at time of death,’” Dan read out loud. “‘Probable cause was a gunshot wound to the heart.’”

  “Hmm.” Ricki added a nod as she chewed and swallowed the last bite of her food. She looked around and caught Marcie’s eye. She pointed at herself and then Dan before making a drinking motion with one hand. When the waitress nodded, Ricki turned her attention back to the ranger. “There are a couple of things that are more interesting. Dr. Naylor’s best guess at how long our unknown ranger has been dead is over twenty-five years, and he stated it could easily be double that.”

  “Big window to work with,” Dan said.

  Yeah, it is. She tapped a finger against the tabletop. “Rob was the forensic guy. His contact number is on the report. Give him a call and have him take a more thorough look at that badge. Maybe he’ll see a number on it.”

  Marcie bustled up to the table, carrying the mugs in one hand and a coffeepot in the other. “Here you go, boss.” She set the drinks down and smiled at Dan. “And who might you be?”

  “Ranger Dan Wilkes,” Ricki supplied. “Dan, this is Marcie.”

  Marcie laughed. “Long introductions aren’t something we usually need in the Bay. Most of us have been here a while, and they never were one of Ricki’s strong points.” She held out a hand. “I work here, along with Anchorman, who I know you’ve met.”

  Dan tried to get up, belatedly realized he was trapped by the table, and sank back down in his seat with a mumbled apology.

  “Stay right where you are, Ranger Wilkes,” Marcie said. “Just tell me how you like your coffee.”

  He stared at the pot she was holding up. “My coffee?”

  “Black,” Ricki said. “He drinks his coffee black.” She scowled and considered giving him a swift kick beneath the table. He seemed fascinated by the coffeepot. He briefly looked up at Marcie before returning his gaze to the pot in her hand. The man had lost his marbles.

  “Black it is,” Marcie declared cheerfully, completely ignoring the ranger’s strange behavior. “I’ll just leave the pot right here for you and let you both get back to work.”

  Dan’s eyes followed her as she walked across the room, forcing Ricki to lean over the table and snap her fingers in front of his face. “Hello? Badges? Autopsy reports? A dead body?”

  He kept his gaze on Marcie but nodded absently. “Yeah. Good. I’ll call the forensic tech.” He finally sighed and shifted his gaze to Ricki. “A couple of things. You said there were a couple of things more interesting in the report besides the victim being shot. How long he’s been in that lighthouse is one thing. What else?”

  Satisfied he was finally focusing back on the case, Ricki picked up her phone and scrolled to the entry on the report that had caught her eye. “There were still some cloth fragments around and underneath the bones.”

  “So?” Dan prompted. “Does that mean he wasn’t wearing his uniform when he died?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. The picture shows a bullet hole in the front jacket and the shirt underneath. So he had to be wearing it.”

  “I’d say someone took it off him after he died,” Ricki said slowly. “His uniform but not his underwear.” She turned her screen around. “See here? The report states the cloth fragments are a light cotton, the kind that undershirts and boxers are made from.”

  Dan paled a little. “Do you think he was sexually assaulted and then shot?” He stared off into the distance for a long moment, before rubbing a hand across his forehead. “No. He had the uniform on when he was shot, so he would have had to have been shot and then undressed and assaulted?” The ranger’s lip curled up in distaste. “That’s some sick bastard who would do something like that.”

  The world is full of sick bastards, Ricki thought, but stayed silent as she read through the rest of the report. It could have happened the way Dan said, but something about it seemed off to her. The body was posed as if someone had cared about the way it had appeared, but then left it in a place where it wouldn’t be found. She frowned as she turned that little oddity over in her mind. A show of respect from his killer? Or maybe remorse?

  “Anything else you need me to dig into?”

  Ricki slowly lifted her gaze from her phone. “Once we get the timeline narrowed down as much as we can, you can start going through the personnel records.”

  “Back in DC? Those would be kept there, wouldn’t they? Old computer disks maybe, or an electronic archive somewhere?”

  “Maybe,” Ricki said. “If our vic went missing in the last twenty years. But if Dr. Naylor is right and we’re talking about more than twenty-five years ago? Then we’re talking paper records.”

  “I’m sure they’ve digitized a lot of that old stuff.”

  “Digitized could mean microfiche.” Ricki raised an eyebrow when Dan grimaced. “And they might have done that back in DC, but the records here were just stored away in boxes.” When his eyes widened, she nodded. “Stored in the basement right there in Edington.”

  “How many years are down there?” Dan asked.

  “I haven’t been to the basement in a while, but there are a lot of boxes.” When he propped his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands, Ricki grinned. “Luckily it stays pretty cold and dry down there, so you shouldn’t run into much of a mold problem.”

  His head immediately shot up. “Mold?”

  She went back to studying the report on her phone. “Uh-huh. But you might want to take a mask with you, just in case.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ricki pulled into the parking lot of the headquarters shared by the park service and the Bay’s police department an hour later than her usual time to check in. While Eddie had been getting ready for school, she’d completed and sent a report to ASAC Hamilton on the progress of her assigned cases. Most of it involved finishing off the details of investigations in other parks in the Pacific-West region the Seattle office covered, and there was the one close to home that hadn’t technically happened in the park.

  The one with a dead ranger who no one remembered had gone missing.

  She sighed and got out of the car, slamming the jeep door twice before it finally stayed shut. She glared at the offending piece of metal that had lost most of its paint. Clay was always trying to float her a loan so she’d get something more reliable. She had to admit she was running out of patience with simply being aggravated by it, not to mention with wearing out a good pair of hiking boots from kicking the tires every time the touchy thing gave her grief. Deciding she had enough things looming to ruin her morning without adding the jeep to it, she turned her back on her four-wheel problem and strode across the gravel lot.

  Working from home had its upsides, but she made a point of coming in every morning. She enjoyed having a cup of coffee with Clay, or any of the park’s law enforcement guys who were hanging around before their patrols. It gave her a feeling of being connected and put off the start of the nagging daily aggravations that dogged anyone trying to juggle three jobs, a kid, and an ex-husband. And oh yeah. There was still the matter of the dead guy.

  Two cars away, a lone figure emerged from a mid-sized SUV. Ricki smiled at the slightly bent man wrapped in
a thick wool jacket, with a scarf draped over his head.

  “Ray,” she called out, picking up her pace when he turned around and waved at her. “You’re getting in later than usual.”

  He smiled and gave her a broad wink. “So are you, Special Agent James. My nephew came in last night and we were up late catching up.” His smile widened. “I left him setting up his temporary office in my dining room. It should work out fine since we prefer to eat at the kitchen table.”

  “I’m glad you can spend some time with him,” Ricki said. “Maybe even take a few days off so you can enjoy that fishing you were talking about.”

  Ray’s head bobbed up and down underneath the scarf. “In our special spot. I’m looking forward to it, but lots depends on John’s schedule since he’ll still be working.” He pushed his hands into the pocket of his coat and started walking toward the building’s entrance. “Not sure who you’ll be having your coffee with this morning. I don’t see Clay’s car.”

  Ricki adjusted her quick, long-legged stride to match his much slower one, and gave him a sideways, speculative glance. “That’s too bad, I wanted to ask him something, but maybe you could help me?”

  “Be happy to. Ask away.”

  “It’s about the lighthouse.” Ricki looked over when Ray didn’t say anything. “The one up near Massey?”

  “Oh. That one.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said slowly. “That one where the dead body was found.”

  Ray huddled deeper into his coat. “Yep. Yep. What about it?”

  “Do you know who owns it?”

  The elderly man lifted one hand from his pocket and lightly rubbed the end of his nose. “No one, as far as I know,” he finally said. “It’s always been there, so I figured some fool government agency built it and has been ignoring it ever since.” He turned his whole body so he could look at her from beneath the edge of the scarf hanging down to his scraggly eyebrows. “I seem to recall someone mentioning it might have been one of those projects the government did to help people get work right after the Great Depression. That would have been what, almost ninety years ago?”

  Ricki considered it. It was possible, but those projects had been commissioned by the federal government, and if that were federal land, she thought she’d probably have heard that by now. Or at least would have when she was a park ranger right out of college.

  “Why is that important?” Ray asked. “Something to do with the chief’s murder victim?”

  “More for me,” Ricki said easily. “My son was trespassing on that land, and I was wondering who he should apologize to.”

  Ray laughed. “Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, every kid in the Bay will need to do some apologizing. I figure most of them have been up there one time or another.”

  She nodded as they started up the five steps together. “True enough. It was just a thought.”

  Ray paused at the top and drew in a couple of quick breaths. “Not as young as I used to be.” He slowly unwound the scarf and tucked it into one of his coat pockets. “If it’s really that important, you can always make the trip over to Port Jefferson. The land records would be in the county offices there.” He put a hand on her arm when she started to open the door into the building. “But I imagine there’s been more than a couple of fires in the last hundred years, so you might be disappointed at making the trip for nothing.”

  Ricki pulled open the door and held it for Ray. She could put Dan Wilkes on the problem of tracking down the owners, letting him make the trip over to Port Jefferson. But in a small town like the Bay, the county offices weren’t the only source of information. Deciding she would pay a visit to one of her neighbors, Ricki walked inside.

  Ray was already behind the lobby desk, waving a small piece of paper in the air. “Got a note here from the chief. Says he’ll be out most of the morning, but he can be reached on the radio. Want me to let him know you’re here?”

  Disappointed at missing their morning coffee together, she shook her head and did an about-face. Now that she had a plan in mind, there was no time like the present to stop by and say hi to that neighbor.

  “He might be out patrolling,” Ray called after her. “I can give him a ring on his cell phone.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll find him.” Ricki waved her hand and headed back to her jeep. Fifteen minutes later she turned onto a small lane leading off the main highway, about a mile from Brewer.

  She passed a few cabins, and more than a few sheds, before coming to the narrow dirt driveway leading up to a white clapboard house set back from the road. More in the cottage style than the log cabins that were more popular in the Bay, the small house had a tidy postage-stamp-sized yard and a wide front porch with two rocking chairs.

  Ricki brought the jeep to a stop and grinned at the pair of chairs. Wanda Simms had made it very clear to the entire population of the Bay that she only entertained one visitor at a time. And for a very good reason. Wanda was the keeper of all knowledge about the Bay, its history, and all its residents, both past and present. In other words, she was the grand lady of the local gossip. Pete paid her regular visits, and so did anyone else in Dabob Bay who had a juicy tidbit or two. If Wanda didn’t know about it, then it never happened.

  She’d barely shoved the door shut when Wanda herself appeared on the porch, carrying two of the largest ceramic mugs Ricki had ever seen. They were a good size for serving beer, but it was definitely steam coiling off the tops as she made her way across the porch and set the mugs down on a small table strategically placed between the two rocking chairs. She then turned, walked over to the porch railing and leaned over it, adjusting the tiny wire-rimmed glasses she always wore on the tip of her nose.

  “Well. If it isn’t Richelle McCormick James.”

  Ricki laughed. Wanda was one of the few people on earth who ever called her by her full name. The only other two were her uncle and her mom, when Miriam McCormick had been able to remember who her daughter was.

  She lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey, Wanda. How are you?”

  “Doing well, doing well. You come right up here and have a sit. I already have some coffee for you. If you’re hungry, you best bring some of those rice cakes you keep in your car. The biscuit dough is still rising.” She slanted her head to one side and straightened away from the rail. “I don’t usually have visitors this early in the morning.”

  Ricki doubted that, but she gave an amicable nod before crossing the short distance to the porch steps. Wanda was still settling into her favorite chair when Ricki took the seat next to her.

  “I’m just going to mention it’s a pretty day,” Wanda said, “to get it out of the way. I know you aren’t here to talk about the weather.”

  “No. I’m not.” Ricki smiled. She appreciated the fact that Wanda had never required a lot of small talk before getting down to business. “Do you know who owns the old lighthouse on the hill above Massey?”

  “Where those two bodies were found?” When Ricki scowled, Wanda laughed. “How long were you thinking to keep that second one a secret, Agent James?”

  “Longer than this,” Ricki mumbled.

  “It isn’t out much yet. Just found out about it myself this morning.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how you found out about it?”

  Wanda laughed, setting the layers of wrinkles on her cheeks and neck into motion. Her steel-gray hair was pulled back from her face and fixed into a small, tight bun at the nape of her neck, and age spots covered most of the skin on her hands. But her brown eyes were as sharp as they’d ever been as she stared at Ricki over the rim of her glasses. “No. And I wouldn’t tell you that if we were sitting in front of a jury and you were trying to get it out of me.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I also heard that second body was only bones, and a ranger’s uniform was folded up next to it.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how long those bones have been up there?” Ricki asked dryly.

  “No, I don’t.�
� Wanda settled back into her chair and stared at Ricki. “Do you?”

  Fully aware that Wanda worked strictly on a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” basis, Ricki had already decided on the one piece of information she was willing to part with. “We aren’t sure yet, but it looks to be at least twenty-five years.”

  For the first time in Ricki’s memory, Wanda looked completely taken aback. One frail hand came up and covered her mouth. “Who is he?”

  “No idea.” Ricki reached for the coffee mug nearest to her and carefully lifted it to her mouth. “Know of any rangers who have gone missing?”

  “There’s never been one,” Wanda declared. “So whoever he was, he must not have been from around here.”

  “Maybe not.” Knowing that might be the plain truth, Ricki focused on the information she’d come for. “I was hoping you’d know who owns that land.”

  “I know, but I can’t tell you,” Wanda said. She chuckled at Ricki’s sudden frown. “What I mean is that I can’t tell you right this instant. I wrote a book a while back on Massey’s history.” She waved a hand in the air. “It’s still sitting on a few shelves in a couple of the shops up there.”

  “So it’s in the book?” Ricki asked, already making plans to track a copy down if that was what it would take to save her or Dan a trip to Port Jefferson.

  Wanda shook her head. “Oh, no, no. The original owners are listed, of course. As I recall, they built that old lighthouse as a guide for lost hunters, not for ships, and to be honest, I’m not sure they ever did get around to putting a light in it.” She paused as her forehead wrinkled in thought. “But they sold the land to someone else right after World War II. Those people still own that whole section above Massey as far as I know, but they’ve never done a thing with it. So of course, I didn’t include that in the book.”

  Ricki’s hopes sank. So much for getting a small break on the case.

  “But I do have the information in my notes.”

  Ricki set the mug down and braced both hands against her knees. “Do you still have those notes?”