A Desperate Place

by Jennifer Greer

  A DESPERATE PLACE

  A McKENNA AND RIGGS NOVEL

  JENNIFER GREER

  For my mother Lillian Olivia Whiteley

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First of all, thank you to my agent, Mark Gottlieb at Trident Media Group, for finding a home for my manuscript.

  Thanks to my publisher, Crooked Lane Books, for taking a chance on a new author. And special thanks to Jenny Chen, my editor, for her enthusiasm and amazing editing advice.

  Tim Pike, medical examiner detective in Medford, thank you for providing a rich foundation for my character Riggs.

  A special thank-you to family: first to my children, Morgan and Whitney, for all the hours listening to my brainstorming, and to my father for his generous support in helping me raise my daughters while I wrote this book. To my sister Eddie, my stepsister Lisa, and my brother Chuck, thanks for reading and providing valuable feedback.

  To my husband, Jeff Crosswhite, I give all my love and thanks for providing a beautiful work space and endless encouragement.

  CHAPTER

  1

  “THIS IS HELL,” Whit McKenna grumbled.

  The sun’s blazing heat rose from the asphalt in a haze and merged with billowing black smoke from the roof of a pale-yellow turn-of-the-century Victorian. The mansion was nestled on a quiet tree-lined street amid other carefully restored homes of a bygone era. Flames engulfed the turret on the south side and the siding wasn’t putting up much of a fight; the crisp old wood succumbed to the fire with little resistance. A gust of hot wind pushed the smoke across the well-manicured lawn and up into the branches of an old oak tree, emerging like a dark ghost into the pale-blue August sky.

  Standing on the blacktop in the middle of the street, Whit felt as if she’d stepped into an oven. Temperatures had soared over a hundred the past three days, and forecasters for Southern Oregon projected at least another week of sustained triple-digit numbers. She could only imagine how the scurrying fire crews must feel in their heavy protective clothing. Four massive fire trucks and other emergency personnel flanked the corner house.

  Always alert to potential stories for the crime–and–emergency services beat, she’d followed the sirens. Although a fire was not prime news, she was a forty-two-year-old journalist returning to work after a much-publicized fall from grace as a prized reporter with the L.A. Times. After eight months of posttraumatic stress, she considered herself a survivor dredging the bottom of the news media swamp at a small-town newspaper. Still, she could at least do the historic home proud and turn the house fire into a feature and make it read like Hemingway.

  As she tried to gauge her best vantage point, a trickle of perspiration trailed from her forehead, and she flicked it away irritably.

  Upon seeing the fire chief emerge from around the backyard through a haze of smoke, Whit eagerly crossed the street in pursuit. She was halfway onto the well-manicured lawn, her arm raised to flag him down, when a sudden explosion from the center of the house sent flames bursting through the downstairs windows, tossing shattered glass and flaming debris into the air like projectiles.

  Whit and the fire chief hit the ground hard. Her right knee slammed into an exposed tree trunk and her chin slid across the grass. Bits of burning debris sailed in the air around her. For an anxious second she pictured her long red hair sparking into a mini inferno, so she held up her steno pad, which was obviously not enough shelter. Her knuckles felt the heat from the fire as she choked on acrid smoke.

  The blast tore a large hole in the side of the house, exposing the interior living room and what looked like a gas fireplace, which would explain the explosion.

  “Lady, get back. Get back!” The chief hauled her up by the arm just as she caught sight of a man in a semi-sitting position, wedged between the partial wall and a smoldering upended living room chair. A thin man, shirtless, his naked chest badly scorched and blue plaid pajamas singed into the flesh on his legs. One side of his face was blackened bone, teeth exposed by lips drawn back in an eternal scream, as if the heat had shrink-wrapped his skin to his skull.

  Though she’d seen every kind of war-torn body and accidental disfigurement, this was shocking even for her. She sucked in her breath.

  The fire chief tried to pull her along, but she pushed back. “Look!”

  He caught sight of the dead guy and shouted at two other firemen, who hauled one of the hoses closer and aimed water at the flames around the body, but she was certain the guy had no possibility of being alive.

  Tugging on her, the chief half carried, half dragged her across the street. She stumbled over fire hoses, but his grip forced her upright. He deposited her in a small group of neighborhood gawkers, paused just long enough to ask if she was all right, and rushed away, yelling commands to fellow firefighters.

  Heart still thumping wildly in her chest, Whit hurriedly snapped some pictures, zooming in to get a better look at the corpse with her iPhone just before a tarp was thrown over the body. Not that the Medford Daily Chronicle would publish any pictures of the victim, but it might help her identify him later. She was lucky she hadn’t been any closer.

  A woman standing next to her pointed out, “You’re bleeding.”

  A trickle of blood trailed down her shin. After further inventory she decided she hadn’t fared too badly, with only a minor scrape and a couple of singed spots on the shoulder of her white blouse. She tore off a piece of paper from her steno pad and dabbed the blood from her knee, then flexed her chin a few times. Everything seemed to be working.

  Her phone rang. She grimaced at the tune for her editor—a song by Taylor Swift, “You Need to Calm Down.” Emma, her fifteen-year-old daughter, thought it was amusing, so she’d downloaded it. Whit had to agree. Stu was a wiry little guy who seemed to always be on the verge of hysterics.

  “Hey, Stu.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at a burning house that just exploded.”

  “Yeah. Heard it on the scanner. A photog’s on the way. Anyone in the house?”

  “Yes. At least one victim.” She glanced across the street. The vic was being transported to an ambulance for either “dead on arrival” at the hospital or a trip straight to the morgue. All the activity had shifted back to the house. Two firefighters hosed the roof and four others tugged a hose around back. “No luck in saving the house or the vic, I’m afraid.”

  “A shame. Find out who lives there. Talk to the neighbors. Talk to the fire crew. Find out if there are any more victims. Kids, pets.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, trying not to react to Stu’s penchant for telling her what to do at every turn as if she were a novice reporter. With twenty years of reporting under her belt, it was all she could do to bite her tongue, but this was her life now.

  Hopefully there were no more victims, especially children. There was nothing worse than covering the death of a child. She’d written her fair share—homicides, drownings, fires, car accidents, war zones—and it never got any easier.

  “I’ll check it out. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Listen, McKenna. Got another story. Here’s the deal. It came across the radio as a bear mauling, out in the Applegate, up by Gin Lin Trail.”

  “A bear mauling out in the Applegate?” The woods … “Don’t you think this fire takes precedence?”

  “Not when this story is a homicide.”

  Whit frowned. Sometimes Stu got ahead of himself and dished out critical information in spurts that made no sense, usually with agitated little hand movements. Especially if the story was hot. When he started stammering, it was a surefire sign that she was about to be gifted a front-page lead.

  “Did ya hear me? A homicide!”

  She couldn’t resist a little
goading. “A homicidal bear?”

  “Ha-ha!” Stu slurped maddeningly on a straw, reminding Whit of her parched throat. “I said it came across as a bear mauling. But I don’t know. Fifteen minutes later it sounded like dispatch had upgraded the call to a possible homicide.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, after I heard ‘homicide’ on the radio, the cops got sneaky and switched to cell phones.”

  “How conniving.”

  “Yeah. Classic, huh? But as usual I outsmarted them. I called my forest ranger buddy. He confirmed. Now we have a possible homicide. I need somebody to go check it out. That’s you. If it pans out and we have a homicide, I’ll toss the fire story over to the new intern, George.”

  “Any stats?” She turned and noted the crowd that lined the road, kids on bikes mostly, a few neighbors and a young woman wrapped in a beach towel, hair dripping. An ice cream truck, its carnival music playing from a loudspeaker, cruised to a stop not far away. Drive-by rubberneckers paused for a better view. They were all potential quotes. And ones she’d need to move on before the wolves descended.

  Too late. Two news crews arrived just then, parking half a block away. A blazing house fire was always great footage for television news.

  Stu was shouting into the phone. “What’s that annoying racket?”

  “An ice cream truck. Hold on, I’ll move.” She sprinted away from all the noise, pausing under a shade tree near a lawn gnome. The gnome was sitting on a toilet reading a book, half hidden in the ivy. Tacky. “Go ahead, Stu.”

  “The woman’s body was found up by Gin Lin Trail. I already sent Bryan out for photos. So far all I have is … Caucasian, female, no age yet.”

  With more than a little trepidation, she asked, “How far into the woods?”

  “The trail starts right off the road there. Don’t worry, you’ll find it easy enough. The place is probably crawling with cops by now.”

  Her stomach shrank into a hard knot at the thought. “Ah …”

  “What?”

  If she didn’t jump on this lead, he’d just toss the treasured front-page homicide to another reporter. She was hardly in a position to pick and choose her stories. Damaged goods.

  “Give me another thirty minutes here, and I’ll finish by phone later.” She glanced at her watch; it was nearly four thirty PM on a Friday. With any luck, Stu would be the first to figure out the body in the woods was a homicide. Getting a jump on the other reporters was half the battle, but she’d be faced with five o’clock traffic.

  As if reading her mind, Stu said, “Take the Upper AppleGate road. And McKenna? Don’t hog the info. Let me know as soon as you have some firm details.”

  She hung up with a sense of urgency, her nerves buzzing. And something else … just the tiniest bit of terror.

  Did it have to be in the woods?

  She realized she was white-knuckling her phone and relaxed her grip.

  “Hey,” a guy in his early thirties called to her from the driveway of the vulgar-gnome house. He wore khaki shorts and a purple Hawaiian-print shirt and held a Samuel Adams beer in his beefy hand as if he were at a barbecue. His gaze traveled over Whit’s slender figure, lingering on her long tan legs, exposed by her above-the-knee skirt. His heavy-lidded smirk raised her hackles.

  Don’t go there, barbecue boy …

  When his inspection finally traveled back up to her face and he caught the drop-dead look in her cool blue eyes, he changed course, scratched behind his ear, and nodded toward her pad.

  “You a reporter?”

  He was a lush, and possibly a perv if the gnome was any indication of his character, but he was an eyewitness nonetheless, and she was running out of time.

  She forced a smile. “Whitney McKenna, Medford Daily Chronicle. You know who lives there?” she asked, nodding to the burning house.

  “Yeah, man. He’s an attorney. DUIs.” He took a step toward her and gave a conspiratorial laugh. “He’s good too. Got me off.”

  The fact that this guy bragged about driving drunk came as no surprise. “You have a minute for an interview?”

  He beamed, his ruddy face glistening. “Sure.”

  Down to business now, Whit stuffed her unease about the woods to the back of her mind. She swapped the pad for a digital recorder from her shoulder bag and fired off questions in rapid succession.

  The guy was a treasure trove of quasi-personal information on his neighbors. Borderline peeping tom, he probably used binoculars; but if the details were accurate, then she had hit pay dirt.

  CHAPTER

  2

  THE APPLEGATE ROAD ambled through green vineyards and acres of farmland partitioned with white picket fences. During the drive, Whit chugged down a diet Pepsi and munched a McDonald’s burger from a drive-through on the outskirts of town. She hadn’t eaten today, so she hoped the food would tamp down the fluttering wings in her stomach.

  She turned right onto South Stage Road and cranked up the air conditioning in her Chevy Tahoe, aiming the vents at her hair. She reeked of smoke. She’d interviewed the fire chief standing near the smoldering ruins of the house. Information that she needed to share with Stu. She reached across and tapped her car speakerphone. Stu picked up almost immediately.

  “What’s the scoop?”

  “The fire chief is listing the fire as suspicious. The explosion was caused by a gas leak that blew out the wall and exposed the body. I saw it up close and personal. The guy was pretty badly burned. The fire chief said they were investigating the actual cause of the fire; ID to be announced by the medical examiner.”

  “Stories heatin’ up! No pun intended.” He laughed at himself.

  Ignoring his attempt at journalistic humor, considering she still had the mental picture of the ghastly fire victim in her mind’s eye, she continued. “I interviewed a neighbor who shared some interesting tidbits. The fifty-something attorney, Bobby ‘Bo’ Delano, the married homeowner and probably the fire victim, was having an online affair with a twenty-one-year-old Czechoslovakian woman.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yes. Last month Delano’s wife discovered his indiscretion and fled their home amid a flurry of moving vans, according to the neighbor.”

  “That’s interesting, but I still don’t see the point. Oh, wait. Don’t tell me. The Czech chick moved in?”

  “Good guess.”

  “No guess, superstar. That move is right out of the divorcée handbook. All the best midlife-crisis guys know that one.”

  “Well, I’m glad life has not made you jaded.”

  “Naw … just realistic.”

  “Anyway, a few days after the wife left, the Czechoslovakian woman—or as the neighbor described, ‘lanky blonde’—took up residence with Delano, along with her Chihuahua and Siamese cat. Yesterday, during a screaming match with the attorney in his front yard in which the woman called him a ‘madman and lunatic,’ the blonde packed up her belongings into a taxi and vacated the property, taking her pets with her. One would assume the affair is over.”

  “Titillating info, for sure.”

  “You have to wonder if the wife or the girlfriend doubled back for revenge.”

  Stu chuckled. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “My bet is the victim is the cheating attorney.”

  “You’d make bank on that one. Are you almost to the Applegate?”

  “Yes, I’ll call you when I head back.”

  Whit hung up, her thoughts turning to the Applegate victim. She had no illusions. She’d been in the business too long. This assignment might pan out as a lost hiker who perished in the woods and was later eaten by a bear, or maybe a bear attacked some hapless camper who stupidly left food inside his tent. She still held out hope for a delicious crime story, but she had to be realistic. Nine times out of ten, initial reports were bogus. The victim could be the result of a car accident or any number of things. She’d learned a long time ago not to jump to conclusions.

  Eager to get
to the site and find out the real story, she pressed on the accelerator, slowing briefly as she drove through Jacksonville, an old mining town–turned–tourist destination with a one-street storefront, then accelerated once again, zigzagging through lush wooded hillsides flanking Highway 238.

  When she turned right onto Upper Applegate Road, she could feel the tension building with each passing mile. A nameless dread.

  Just breathe, girl.

  Ten minutes later she pulled up behind a circus of law enforcement vehicles parked along the single paved road. Whit spotted a blue F-150 belonging to Katie Riggs, medical examiner detective and new best friend. She had Katie to thank for encouraging her to reenter the gritty world of journalism. They’d bonded at a book club over their life crises when Whit first moved to Medford and frequently met for coffee or a glass of wine. The relationship had a rocky start, but they were able to overlook the obvious: police viewed reporters as vultures and journalists suspected every government entity of corruption. The new friendship had certainly helped Whit keep her sanity the past six months. Katie was a rock.

  Whit popped a piece of mint gum into her mouth to cover the onion breath from the burger. She angled the rearview mirror and studied the scrape on her chin. It was only skin-deep, but pink- and red-streaked from a grass burn. A dab of face powder from her compact and she was good to go.

  Resigned to walking a long way to the crime scene, she was glad of her flat sandals. She grabbed her tote bag and stepped out into the searing heat. The paved road hugged the Applegate River to the left and the entrance to Flumet Flat Campground to the right. The sweet, pungent scent of pine and the musty smell of dank earth and bramble along the river rekindled the spirit of anxiety that had haunted her for eight months. She sensed it now, creeping like poison from her adrenal glands, forcing her heart to pump faster.

  Ignoring her body’s traitorous response to the woods, she increased her pace. In minutes the steep road had her catching her breath. With a derisive smirk, she was grudgingly thankful for her early morning boot camp. The one-hour kick-your-butt six AM exercise had not only toned her muscles but, more importantly, relieved some of her anxiety. Katie had challenged her to try the class. Now she was in the best shape of her life—physically, anyway. Whit neared the police barricade, about a football field past the campgrounds. It seemed everyone from the camp had gathered as close to the scene as possible.