Miranda fled the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, and flew to her laptop. She checked her guest records, looking for the exact date Steve Galen left the B & B. Then she opened the lab report Dr. Cynthia had sent on Rusty’s only stool sample, produced shortly after he’d thrown up on the same day Steve Galen checked out. If Isaac Markowitz interrupted Galen before he actually put the poison he and Angela had prepared into the juice enzymes, then surely he’d have gotten rid of the stuff before leaving the B & B. Poor Rusty. She dropped to her knees and threw her arms around her dog.
In the note accompanying the lab report Dr. Cynthia had typed, “Don’t worry! He’s fine. But try to keep him from eating plants.” Miranda felt reassured. The cooler weather and coming snowfalls would make plants scarce anyway. She hadn’t even bothered to read the lab report. But reading it after Sheriff Carson’s visit, she saw that “Rusty’s stool sample contained trace amounts of only one chemical that might have caused him to vomit, oleandrin.” Riddled with guilt, she Googled oleandrin and learned that it’s found in oleander, a flowering shrub originally grown only in Asia. Now this deadly plant is also grown in the US in warm places like California where it’s often used to decorate highway dividers. Because dogs have been adversely affected by eating its leaves, oleander is considered part of the dogbane family. Its leaves are also particularly toxic to children.
Recalling how warm and friendly Angela Lacey had seemed, Miranda shuddered and hugged Rusty again. She would know about oleander and be able to get it. How could that woman, a mother-to-be yet, conspire to poison children? Miranda knew she couldn’t very well use Crime Stoppers to direct the sheriff to Angela Lacey without risk of revealing her own identity. But if Carson didn’t unmask her himself and fast-forward the investigation soon, she might have to.
She finished her chores mechanically, without taking her usual pleasure in the fresh scent of just-dried linen and the reassuringly antiseptic aroma of her vinegar-based cleanser. When Michael arrived with a floorboard and drilled a peephole, she made cheese quesadillas for the two of them. As they ate, she didn’t say anything to him about her new insights, but pumped him for news of his classes and of Colestah. When he began to work, the drone of his power tools and the banging of his hammer bugged her, even when she took refuge upstairs. She had to get out of the B & B for a few hours. “Michael, I need a change of scenery. I’m going to take a ride to one of those tourist attractions that I’ve sent guests to but never visited myself.”
“Cool. Which one?”
“The Stonehenge replica in Mary Hill. It’s not far, so I’ll be back by six. The only new guest coming tonight is due after that.” Wearing snow boots and her parka, she leashed Rusty and set out in the truck.
The snow-sprinkled fields and hills glittered in the sunlight so that they looked like what Mona had called “Christmas card scenery.” The wind turbines whirling atop the white hills warmed Miranda’s eco-friendly heart. But she was sorry not to see any of the wild mustang ponies. There weren’t many cars, either. She speculated that a few of the passenger vehicles sharing the road were headed for the Mary Hill Art Museum just a few miles beyond the Stonehenge replica. The acclaimed gallery was on her list too, but that afternoon she wanted to take Rusty with her, and she doubted that her energetic hound would be welcome in an art museum.
She couldn’t miss the large circle of tall uniform columns overlooking the Columbia River. From the monument’s parking lot, Washington’s own Stonehenge seemed more Roman coliseum than Druid calendar and shrine. She wasn’t surprised that on that day in late November her truck was the lonely only vehicle in the lot. Because they had the place to themselves, she unleashed Rusty who raced off to explore. She, too, explored the standing stones and a flat man-sized altar, all encircled by those identical gray columns.
Miranda read the plaque explaining that a Quaker named Sam Hill who made his fortune paving area roads built the monument out of poured concrete. She also read that he believed, perhaps mistakenly, that Druids created the original Stonehenge to offer human sacrifices to their deities. Hill’s version of Stonehenge opened in 1918 and was designed to memorialize Klickitat County soldiers killed in WWI and also to show that Americans still sacrifice people to the gods of war. The dead soldiers’ names were etched on the stelas inside the circle of columns. The center of the monument supposedly aligned with the sunrise during the summer solstice. Miranda found the place too grim to offer the pleasant change of scene she’d hoped for. But the view of the river below redeemed it, so while Rusty gamboled about, she stepped between the columns behind the monument and took pictures of the mighty Columbia down below and the tiny town of Mary Hill nestled on its bank.
Then dutifully she reentered the monument and began to circle the interior standing stones. The sun was lowering and the stelas cast long shadows. It occurred to her that the least she could do to pay proper respect to the named war dead was to say Kaddish for them even without the requisite ten other mourners and even though most if not all of the dead soldiers weren’t Jewish. So first she walked from stone to stone reading aloud the names on each. That done, she chanted the “Mourners’ Prayer.” Finished and feeling a little better, she walked over to the altar, brushed off the snow from a spot on one end of it, hoisted herself up, and perched there. She didn’t feel like a human sacrifice. She felt like a protein bar. She unwrapped the one in her pocket and contemplated the neat circle of boot prints she’d made in the virgin snow.
She looked up when she noticed some footprints she hadn’t made intersecting with hers at the circle’s edge. She assumed they signaled the arrival of another off-season tourist, but when she glanced around, she saw no one.
She was peering between stones and columns in an effort to see the parking lot when a woman’s shrill voice distracted her. “Miranda Breitner. Small world, isn’t it?” The speaker stood in the shadow of one of the perimeter pillars, so it took Miranda a moment to recognize Spa Lady, the B & B guest who owned a spa in Napa Valley and had come to the Yakima Valley looking for property where she could build a second one. Her real name was Gloria Derrinsman, but Miranda thought of her as Spa Lady because that was part of her e-mail address. She was on the list Miranda had given Sheriff Carson. The woman had left a glowing review in the B & B guest book. So if she was visiting the Valley again, why the hell wasn’t she staying at Breitner’s?
“Hey, Gloria. What a surprise!”
It wasn’t until Miranda jumped down from the altar and walked towards the newcomer that she saw the gun in Gloria’s suede-gloved hand. She froze mid-stride, her heart racing and her brain struggling to make sense of this armed apparition.
“It’s your last surprise.”
“I don’t understand.” Gloria had been a model guest. She must be having a psychotic episode. Maybe she was drugged. “Are you okay?” Miranda heard her own voice, thin and high pitched.
“No. I’m not okay. But I’ll feel better after I shoot you and leave your body here for the wolves and cougars.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how, in a minute or two, I’m going to kill you.”
Miranda wanted to keep her talking. “What’d I ever do to you, Gloria?” That’s when Miranda realized that it wasn’t Angela Lacey who supplied Steve with poison. It was Spa Lady. She’d mentioned several times that her spa’s masseuses used only organic herbs to make their “emollients.” Spa Lady knew from poison.
“Steve says you’re the only one who could’ve seen that Mexican whore and realized she could ID him. And it was you who got her to testify. She said so. All you muds work together.” Miranda was close enough to see Gloria’s eyes gleam. “So Steve’ll go to prison. And for what? Ridding the world of one more Jew? That’s a public service. You Jews are taking over this country, running it down. Steve and I were just trying to get rid of a few more Jews before they got old enough to be really dangerous. Our plan was foolproof. No one would connect us
to puking and dead Jew brats all over the country.” Gloria sighed and stopped talking.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Your redskin houseboy told me.” Miranda saw Gloria shudder. “He took a message. But you won’t get it.”
After fighting off Alex Ladin, Miranda thought she was pretty tough. But lust had literally disarmed him. The hate that animated this crazy-eyed aspiring child-killer spewing venomous clichés was different. Spa Lady clung to her gun, and that gun was a game changer. There would be no chance for heroics.
Gloria shook her head and spoke again. “But Steve’s not stupid. They’ll take a few years off his sentence if he gives them a name. That name would be mine. That bastard will give me up in a heartbeat.” Miranda heard her captor choke back a sob. “He couldn’t have set up this operation without me. When Tammy said she wouldn’t be able to rip off poison from the hospital, I stepped up. I grew those plants in my herb garden and drove them all the way up here. And I chopped all those fresh leaves. But when that damn Jew came in asking questions like he owned the place Steve lost it, couldn’t resist killing the mud. I even helped him with that later on. I took that goddamn bloody antler off his hands and cleaned it up and got rid of it for him.” Gloria’s voice was no longer shrill. It was flat and low, the voice of a robot. “I’ve loved him for years, but he’ll give me up. So I have nothing left to lose. I’ll let the cops finish me off. But I figure before I go down I might as well get rid of one more Jew. And that would be you.” She actually spat on the snow before she stepped forward, raised her arms, and, holding the gun in both hands, aimed it at Miranda’s head.
Only about six feet away, Miranda couldn’t stop staring at the little hole in the revolver that the bullet would come through. She closed her eyes and prayed aloud. “The Lord is my shepherd….” She hadn’t even gotten to the part about green pastures when, Spa Lady screamed.
Miranda opened her eyes to see Rusty gripping one of Gloria’s forearms between his sharp-toothed steel-trap jaws. Her other arm flailed about in the air. She didn’t have the gun anymore. Miranda spotted it and rushed over to pick it up where it lay just outside a circle of snow yellowed by the pee trickling over the would-be shooter’s running shoes. Miranda watched as Gloria cursed and struggled to free her arm from Rusty’s grip. Then she stiffened where she stood until she was still and silent as the stela behind her. The red stain blossoming on Spa Lady’s khaki sleeve told Miranda that any motion Rusty’s captive made only cued the onetime army-trained animal to tighten his grip.
“Good, Rusty.” Miranda held the surprisingly heavy handgun gingerly as if it were a tongue-flicking serpent or a lit firecracker. But then, picturing NCIS’s Ziva David, she pointed the business end of the firearm at the chest of the woman who had intended to kill her, held the weapon steady in one hand, and repeated, “Good Rusty. Good job.”
With her other hand, she reached in her pocket for her cell phone, prayed for a connection, and, when it came, dialed 911.
CHAPTER 26
Guest book: “Nice place you got here. I been away for a while, it surprised me to see how solid you made this old place. They were going to tear it down. It was nice staying here even if I was back here for a funeral.”
“By now you probably have 911 on speed dial, Ms Breitner.” Sheriff Carson’s quip was wasted on Miranda. She’d driven with Rusty from Mary Hill to the sheriff’s bustling office in Yakima where, with Harry and Rusty at her side, she’d been answering questions and filling out paperwork for hours. She wasn’t in the mood for witticisms.
“My arm was tired. I was real glad when those two FBI agents showed up.”
Sheriff Carson nodded. Harry paled. She’d called him from her truck on the way there. She didn’t want her lover to learn about her latest brush with death via the local TV news, and she wanted her lawyer with her when she pressed charges. Again.
“Sheriff, what made you call in the FBI?” She admired Harry’s ability to compartmentalize. Her lover looked sick, but her lawyer was on task.
Sheriff Carson leaned back in his padded swivel chair and guzzled water from a bottle. “When I took over the investigation of Isaac Markowitz’s murder from Detective Ladin, I reviewed all the paperwork. In his autopsy report the doctor said the tox screen showed no poison in Isaac’s system.” The sheriff shrugged. “So because Isaac wasn’t poisoned, Detective Ladin wasn’t inclined to look for a toxin. And for the same reason, our own overworked state lab techs never tested Isaac’s clothes specifically for traces of toxins.”
The sheriff whirled back and forth in his chair, as if to signal a change of subject. “Another thing is Detective Ladin doesn’t set much store by Crime Stoppers. But when I read the leads coming in from that site, I realized that we might be looking at more than a homicide. We might be looking at a hate crime. So I shipped everything I had to the FBI lab and put a rush on it. They tested Isaac’s clothes and, would you believe, they found tiny oleander leaf particles on his shirt and pants and even stuck to his bootlaces.”
Miranda just couldn’t let this sloppy police work go unremarked. “I understand their reasoning and I know you’re understaffed, but your deputy and your lab techs cut corners, right?” Harry gave her a look.
“Now you’re starting to sound like a reporter.”
Harry was quick to defuse any developing friction with a less hostile question. “Okay, so, Sheriff Carson, tell me how did the FBI get a handle on this Gloria Derrinsman who tried to kill Miranda today?”
“The FBI did detailed background checks on the names on the list Ms Breitner gave me. There weren’t many names, and the feds have a data base you wouldn’t believe.” Sheriff Carson shook his head to stress the bottomless depths of the FBI’s file. “They really liked a young mom for a co-conspirator, because she’s a pharmaceutical rep, so she might have been able to access poison. But her mother is Nez Percé, so she’s not likely to belong to a white supremacy group. The feds kept digging and found that this Gloria Derrinsman’s been charged with discriminatory hiring practices at her members-only spa. She settled out of court. Membership at that spa is limited to white Christians. She’s on a Southern Poverty Law Center watch list. Talk about red flags!” Carson waved his hands in what Miranda assumed was his “impersonation” of a flag.
“So the feds put eyes on her and early this morning she flew to Seattle. Two Seattle FBI field agents began tailing her as soon as she got off the plane.” He paused and drank from his water bottle again. “We needed her, because thanks to Crime Stoppers we were onto Galen, but we couldn’t find him. The feds figured Gloria might lead us to Galen.”
“Instead, thank God, she led them to Miranda.” Harry took a deep breath and exhaled. Miranda noticed that his color was returning.
“Thank God and Rusty.” Miranda’s hand met Harry’s as they both stroked the big dog. “But they didn’t find Galen. Remember, Sheriff, I told you Gloria said she got rid of the murder weapon for him. I guess that means you’ll never find it or him now.” Miranda wanted to hear if the shofar she’d gone to such trouble and expense to provide offered any evidence of Galen’s guilt.
Sheriff Carson’s phone rang. Later Harry swore that the lawman’s ring tone was a few notes of the theme from Longmire, a western series featuring a squeaky clean Wyoming sheriff that Miranda hadn’t watched. Carson took the call. His contributions were short and mostly questions. “Where?”
“Which Vancouver? BC or Washington?”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’.”
“In this weather?”
“No problem. We don’t need DNA.”
And finally, “Nice work.”
He jammed his phone back into the holder on his belt and his smile broadened into a satisfied grin. He leaned back in his chair, inhaled, and announced, “We got ‘im.”
“Where?” Harry and Miranda spoke in chorus.
The sheriff stood and pointed to the window through which they could see a coupl
e of TV cameras and several people standing around with mics and phones and tablets poised. “I gotta talk to those reporters in a minute. They’ve been pickin’ at me for weeks like wolves on a sheep’s carcass. Finally I got a fresh kill for ‘em.” Miranda thought the successful manhunt had revived Carson’s sense of how a western sheriff ought to sound, because he began dropping his selected initial consonants and final gs.
“You’re not leaving this room before you tell us where they found Steve Galen.” Harry made his voice playful, but the sheriff sat down again.
“The bastard’s been hidin’ in plain sight, workin’. He’s been restorin’ stone monuments honoring Civil War Veterans who served in the Confederate Army at Jefferson Davis Park near Vancouver, Washington. Just off Route 5.”
“Here in this Washington? Not DC? We have a Jefferson Davis Park? Are you serious?” Disbelief sharpened Miranda’s voice.
“Yep, Ms Breitner, I’m serious. It’s a private park and they got a Confederate flag flyin’ alongside a Betsy Ross one with the thirteen colonies on it. A smart state trooper made inquiries there and recognized him from that photo we have. He tried to get himself shot, but the trooper took cover behind one of them monuments and let him run out of ammo and then arrested him.” The sheriff shook his head and stood again as if he were about to dismiss them.
Murder in the Melting Pot Page 28