One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2)

by C. R. Chandler

  “Well, you’re certainly in full official mode this morning.” TK’s voice sounded even fuller of gravel than usual, a loud testament to his lack of sleep the night before. “I’m returning your call, which you made close to the crack of dawn this morning, according to my answering service. And I don’t care what kind of special this-or-that title you have, it’s a damn good thing you didn’t claim it was an emergency and drag me out of my bed. I didn’t see much of it last night as it is.”

  Ricki waited patiently through the expected scolding. Somehow the familiarity of TK being, well, TK settled her own nerves a bit. Once he’d wound down, she made the expected apology and then went silent.

  “Not much change,” TK finally said. “I know this is hard to believe, but that’s a good thing. Fentanyl is a dangerous drug at best, and when given in too great a quantity, will kill you. Given that Anchorman is still breathing, it could have been a lot worse.”

  “When he pulls out of this,” Ricki said firmly, refusing to use the word “if”, “what kind of care will he need? I can get started arranging it.”

  There was the slightest hesitation before TK answered. “Anchorman’s family should be in on that discussion, Ricki.”

  “I already have Dan researching that,” Ricki said. The last call she’d made before crashing on the couch had been a voice mail to her assistant partner, telling him to do a search for any relative of one Norman Beal, aka Anchorman.

  “He works for you, doesn’t he?” TK barked out. “Don’t you know who he put down as his emergency contact on those forms everyone has to fill out? You did ask for that information, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t bother to point out that those forms had all been stored in a desk drawer in her closet-sized office located in the kitchen, so they were now a pile of ashes just like everything else in there. “I asked, and he filled it out.”

  “So, let’s talk to that person,” TK demanded.

  “You are talking to that person,” Ricki shot back. The whole thing with Anchorman, the diner, and everything that had gone on before making frustration bleed into her voice. “He put me down because he said if anything happened to him, he wanted to be sure I knew why he couldn’t make it into work.”

  “Stubborn idiot,” TK muttered.

  “Always,” Ricki confirmed. “Now, about those arrangements?”

  The old doctor sighed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We need to wait and see what’s going on once Anchorman wakes up. Then we can do an assessment and go from there.”

  Ricki’s heart sank. If she were a betting woman, she’d put her money on TK not being optimistic about Anchorman’s chances of coming out of this whole again. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I’m going to be heading over there with Marcie and Sam later this afternoon. I know they have a family rule about information and visitors and all that, but could you let the hospital staff know that right now, we’re all the family Anchorman has?”

  “I can do that.” TK’s gruff voice dropped into a softer tone. “You watch your back, Special Agent Ricki James.”

  “I can do that,” Ricki said, echoing his words before disconnecting. She relayed the conversation to Clay, who listened quietly.

  “He’ll pull through,” he finally told her. “He’ll never let a drug beat him. Pride alone will have him waking up, ready to beat the shit out of whoever did this to him.”

  She hoped so, really hoped so, as she watched Jonesy exit the building, his face and clothes smeared with soot. The investigator did his trademark trot over to them, his mouth pursed so tight that his lips all but disappeared.

  “Amateur,” he announced without any preamble. “The accelerant’s path couldn’t be clearer if he’d drawn a chalk mark around it.” Jonesy pulled off his helmet and ran a hand over his bald head, leaving a wide streak of black in its wake. “Whoever did this just walked in and splashed it everywhere. If he threw a match in there, he’s lucky he got out without being seriously burned himself.”

  “Just walked in?” Ricki asked. “What makes you think the guy just walked in?”

  Jonesy didn’t look up from busily writing notes on his clipboard, using the old-fashioned method of pen and paper. “I took a quick look at the back door. It’s lying on the ground out back. The wood is in bad shape, but the metal lock is old and pretty sturdy. I didn’t see any signs of it being scratched or beat up like someone had tried to force the lock open. Of course, they might have gone the simple route and just used a crowbar on the door or one of the windows.” He paused in scribbling away and looked up at her. “You would be better at determining that than I am. It’s more your area than mine, but it looks to me like he just walked in. Maybe the back door was unlocked?”

  “Was it?” Ricki asked mildly. “Unlocked, I mean. Did you notice if the deadbolt was still engaged?”

  At first Jonesy looked chagrined, and then he sent Ricki an admiring look. “Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the simple stuff when it isn’t in your wheelhouse, isn’t it? No. That deadbolt wasn’t engaged, as you put it. It was flush against the door.” He frowned for a moment. “Of course, the firefighters might have done that, I guess.”

  When Anchorman’s keys were missing? Not a chance in hell, but she smiled and politely agreed. “They could have.”

  Jonesy’s brown eyes turned a shade darker, and his mustache drooped even more. “I hear someone was hurt in the fire.”

  “Not in the fire, but related to it,” Clay said.

  “Bad business, that is,” Jonesy declared. “I’m going to poke around a bit more so I can give you a solid report. And I still want to take a look at that roof.”

  Ricki thanked him for his time and work. When she told him where to send a bill, since he wasn’t on any official clock, he shook his head. “This one’s on the house, Agent James. Your chief here is a friend, and I’m glad to be able to help.”

  While Clay hung back to have a few more words with the investigator, Ricki headed for his SUV and climbed into the passenger side. She buckled her seat belt and stared straight out the front window. It was bad business all right, and whoever had hurt Anchorman, caused Amanda Cannady’s death, and then burned down her diner was going to find out just how bad it was.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Clay shut the door to his office and walked over to take his seat behind the desk. He leaned back and smiled at Ricki, starting out by asking her the question that had already become routine between them. “Okay. What do you think?”

  Since she knew he’d ask, she’d already lined up her thoughts during the drive to headquarters. “It’s centered around Graham. He’s the key.”

  “Why?” Clay asked bluntly. “We still don’t know what Hardy was looking for up at that lighthouse.”

  Curious, Ricki’s brow furrowed. “What makes you think he was interested in something up there?”

  “He was a big guy,” Clay pointed out. “Too big for someone to haul up there, which means he made that climb up the hill under his own power.”

  She relaxed against the back of her chair and considered it. As a theory, it ran parallel to her own. “There’s something about that lighthouse or the land it sits on.” She let her thoughts flow out from the tight ball she’d been keeping them in. She reached for her phone and pulled up a document with a number on it. Punching it in, she waited through four rings before someone picked up on the other end. Identifying herself, she asked to speak to Barbara Metler. Several minutes later, she hung up, a satisfied smile on her lips.

  “Well?” Clay prompted.

  “Mrs. Metler said that the last conversation she had with her brother was the first time he ever brought up the land.” Ricki stared out the window and considered it from the different angles. “So, we have two different versions of the same thing.” She tapped a finger against one knee. “The friend, Christopher, says Graham had no interest in the land. He was even going to recommend to the foundation that it dump the holding. Then the sister says that Graham asked her
to tell the foundation that he wanted to buy the land. Something she doesn’t tell Hardy for decades, finally mentioning it just a few weeks ago.”

  “When he makes another trip to Washington, looks into it, and ends up getting shot, just like Graham, by the same gun, and dumped in the same place,” Clay said, taking up the narrative. “But you don’t think the land is at the center of all of this?”

  Ricki shook her head. “Not directly. I think the reason Graham wanted the land is why he got killed, and trying to follow the breadcrumbs to find Graham, Hardy stumbled onto something that got him killed.”

  Clay leaned back in his office chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling. “Great. Then all we have to do is figure out why someone has a fifty-year-old hard-on about a remote piece of land.”

  “And a very old Smith & Wesson .22 caliber gun,” Ricki added. She sighed. “Piece of cake.”

  “At least we know what makes this asshole nervous.” Clay glanced over at her. “The bodies being found and then you asking around about the land was followed by your tire being shot out. And when you interviewed Christopher Toner, the Sunny Side Up became an arson target.”

  “I’d argue that I was just a target of opportunity and the real agenda was to shoot you, but then it wasn’t your diner that was set on fire.” Ricki frowned as she turned it over in her mind. “But then again, both of those things were a guaranteed way to keep us both occupied doing something besides investigating two murders.”

  Clay dropped his hands to the desktop and folded them there. “Then Maxwell Hardy would be at the center of this case, and we both agree it’s Graham. Which is your case, not mine.”

  “Whether its fifty years ago or yesterday, why do men kill?” Ricki pointed at Clay before answering her own question. “Money, a woman, or revenge. Take your choice. “

  There was a knock on the door before Dan stuck his head around the edge. “Okay if I join you?”

  Clay beckoned him forward while Ricki’s foot pushed on the empty chair next to her.

  “I was about to call you,” she said. “Did you get that information on Anchorman?”

  Dan strode across the room and sat in the offered chair. He began to sift through the pile of notes he was carrying. “I did, but there’s nothing to report.”

  Ricki sighed. She had a feeling that Anchorman might have gone off the grid. If he had, and knowing her cook, finding his family wouldn’t be easy. “So you hit a dead end?”

  The ranger lifted his head, looking insulted. “I found his family. There’s just nothing to report about them. His closest living relative is a first cousin in Denver. I called, just to verify, and the man said he had a cousin named Norman Beal, but last he heard, Norman was in the military.” Dan shook his head. “He didn’t have any idea how to get hold of his cousin, and didn’t throw out one question about why I was asking. Aside from that, there’s only a smattering of second cousins and a couple more distant relations, mostly by marriage and not a bloodline.”

  Even though Dan’s findings were no surprise, Ricki felt a pang of sympathy for Anchorman, but it didn’t last long. It wasn’t as if the ex-sniper was all alone in this world. He had his Sunny Side Up family, and a couple of close military buddies he could call on at any time. But she’d have to get hold of TK and let him know that she was indeed Anchorman’s next of kin. There simply weren’t any others. She’d need the doctor to clear that with the hospital.

  Putting that on the back burner for the time being, she nodded at Dan. “Anything on the land?”

  Dan shuffled a few of his notes around. “Nothing to report there either. No mineral rights or any other claims filed. It was bought by the Lillian M. Young Foundation after World War II, and the title was transferred to Barbara Graham Metler forty-three years ago. After that, there’s nothing, except the annual property tax bill.”

  “Then we have a couple of other things we need you to look into,” Ricki said. “We were just talking about women and money.”

  Clay’s lips curved into a rueful smile. “You were talking about women and money. I was just sitting, waiting to hear what you had to say.”

  Dan lowered his notes and stared at Ricki. “So what money trail, and what woman?”

  She grinned. “You already answered the question about the money.” She switched her gaze to Clay. “Remember what his sister said? Graham stated he wanted to hang around a little longer to take care of a personal debt.”

  “And the land would be a way to do that,” Clay mused. “So maybe he was a gambler as well as a womanizer.”

  “Which brings us to the second reason, and what we need you to research,” Ricki said to Dan. She had set an envelope on top of Clay’s desk, and now she handed it to Dan. “You remember the photo of the ranger group? I want you to look into a couple of backgrounds.” She pointed at the envelope he was holding. “I’ve taped a note with a couple of names on it to the photo.” She waited while he pulled the picture out and removed the note, putting the photo into Clay’s outstretched hand.

  “Aren’t these the names of other rangers?” Dan asked. “What am I looking for?”

  “Spouses. Or former spouses, who once lived in the Bay, or maybe even grew up here.” When Dan still looked puzzled, she filled in the blank. “We’re looking for the other guy, or the OG in Benjamin Graham speak. The jealous boyfriend, or maybe even a husband. And since Graham was spending time in the Bay, she must have lived here back then.”

  “If this person even exists,” Dan countered. “But okay. I’ll take a look.”

  Clay tossed the picture back across the desk. “Not the sharpest image I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah,” Dan agreed, replacing the photo in the envelope. “It's a lousy picture.”

  An hour later, Ricki and Marcie were on their way up the shoreline, headed for the Edmonds–Kingston ferry that would take them across Puget Sound, just north of Seattle. With any luck, they would make it to the University Medical Center in two hours, just in time to get Marcie settled into her hotel room and then look in on Anchorman. Sam wouldn’t be arriving until the early evening, but he was also going to stay over with his sister, so Ricki could get back home that night to her son. It was a juggling act, but with everyone helping out, they’d get it done.

  Ricki smiled when Marcie reached into the large paper sack she’d placed between them on the front seat of the truck and pulled out a rice cake. “I know you like to keep all your meals in balance, and I’m sure you had pizza for lunch.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Marcie took in a deep sniff of air. “I can still smell it. You must have eaten it in the truck.”

  “I did,” Ricki laughed, “but I’ve suspended the balance rule for the time being. Sometimes you just need the carbs to keep going.”

  Her waitress patted a solid hip and sighed. “I’m the one who should adopt that balance rule. You’re as thin as a snake.” Marcie looked her boss over with a critical eye. “Thin but not skinny, and filled out in all the right places. Sometimes it just isn’t fair.”

  “I’m also twenty years younger and have had five fewer kids than you have,” Ricki pointed out.

  “That’s true. And you still have time to catch up on the kids.” While Ricki laughed, Marcie reached into the bag again and pulled out a baggie filled with sugar cookies. “Here. You eat those. I’ll have the rice cake.” Ricki set the baggie on the dashboard and counted off to ten as the waitress bit into the rice cake and then made a face. “Ugh. Balance is overrated.” She reached across and grabbed the baggie. “Give me one of those sugar cookies. You shouldn’t eat all these anyway. It’s bad for you.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ricki grinned. “Why the sudden concern with an extra pound or two? Does it have anything to do with your new social life?”

  Marcie’s face beamed with a broad smile. “It’s more than a pound or two, and yes, it does.” She took a bite of cookie and slowly chewed as she eyed Ricki. “I like him. I really do. And I t
hink he likes me.”

  “He’d be a fool not to.”

  The older woman let out the breath she’d been holding. “Do you think so? I mean, are you all right with the two of us, well, you know, being together?”

  “I’m all right with the two of you dating,” Ricki said firmly. “What you do on those dates is none of my business.” She turned her head and gave Marcie a quick warning look before returning her gaze to the road. “And don’t you make it my business either.”

  Marcie’s laughter bounced around the cab of the truck and was infectious enough it had Ricki grinning too. “That’s a good sound. I haven’t heard it in a while.”

  “Not much to laugh about, I guess.” Marcie set the baggie of cookies back on the dashboard where Ricki could easily reach it. “I appreciate you making this trip, but I wish it didn’t take you away from everything.” She paused. “I like Eddie, and the bot building session yesterday went pretty well. No one got hurt, nothing blew up, and your uncle seemed to enjoy himself.”

  “Uncle Cy always likes spending time with the guys,” Ricki said. “No matter what age they are. He likes talking sports, which Eddie keeps up with, fortunately. It’s the one thing my uncle misses about Bear.”

  “Cy has been a bachelor too long,” Marcie pronounced. “We should work on finding him a wife.”

  Ricki made a choking sound partway between a laugh and a snort of disbelief. Now wouldn’t her uncle just love her to get involved in something like that? “You find him a wife. Leave me out of it.”

  “I might just do that.” She chuckled at Ricki’s look of horror. “What are he and Eddie going to be doing tomorrow while I’m in Seattle and you’re out doing your investigating?”

  “Uncle Cy is going to take him over to Tacoma to see Mom.” Ricki wished she could go with them, but just couldn’t stretch her time to include a visit to Anchorman and to the Golden West Home where her mother was slowly slipping away to Alzheimer’s. “I hope Mom recognizes Eddie. She seems to remember him more often than she does me.”