Her thin shoulders were jerking with sobs. I wrapped her up in a muddy, streaky, vehement hug and rocked her, murmuring shushing things her into her hair.
Beside me, Vaughn was working out the knots in his tense muscles, a sort of intentional releasing of anger and frustration—an action I could both feel and see as his lips regained fullness and the skin around his eyes softened. He blinked almost lazily at me, his pupils hard pinpricks. I was awed by his remarkable training and control.
He would have broken the case much sooner and without the risk to others if Willow had attributed more significance to her minor bout of drug paraphernalia kleptomania. But she was a kid. And she had issues.
“It’s embarrassing,” her voice came out muffled and whimpery from where her face was pressed against my chest. “You don’t want other people to know when you’re a kid…and your mom’s…and he was a lot like my mom. I just didn’t think.”
I felt Vaughn’s absence in the gusting cold breeze that he was no longer blocking for me. But he returned from his pickup just as quickly, with a paper evidence pouch in his hands.
“So Heath knew you had the syringes, then?” he asked.
Willow nodded and peeled away from me. “I asked him what he was looking for. He told me modern clutter. He said he was worried that Dr. Zales had contaminated the site with his insulin syringes. He wanted to wrap that up before they closed the investigation, for the sake of Dr. Zales’ reputation. I told him not to worry about it, that I’d picked them up.”
The back of my throat seized up at that first, seemingly innocuous, lie Heath had provided, even though Willow’d had no way of knowing that the investigation was under Chloe’s authority. That Heath had no say in whether it was closed or not. Why wouldn’t she believe him? He’d become a practiced liar in the past several days—maybe even longer than that if the ethics complaints were true.
Willow shivered again, violently, but she braced herself, arms stiff and hands clenched into fists, to continue, “When he asked me what I’d done with the syringes, that’s when I knew. The look on his face.” Pink splotches blazed low on her cheeks, but she bit her lips until they were bloodless. “So I lied. Said they were at my house. Another mistake. I should’ve known he wasn’t able to leave without the proof of what he’d done. I think he was trying to figure out how to make me go to my house and retrieve the syringes for him without alerting anyone.”
“So you ran from him?” Vaughn murmured.
“Damn straight I ran.” She looked so fierce and so tiny and so white and so terrified and so belligerent, that I wanted to burst out laughing and to cry my eyes out and to smother her in a hug all over again.
But Vaughn just nodded somberly as though she’d selected the most viable course of action—which, of course, she had. Between the two of them, they carefully turned Willow’s pocket out and dumped the syringes into the pouch.
Then I hit a speed-dial button on my phone and pressed it into Willow’s hand. “Let your Gran know you’re not dead.”
CHAPTER 23
It was a conversation I should not have overheard. I tried really hard not to, and Vaughn helped distract me by skimming his hands over my arms and asking exactly why he wasn’t allowed to touch me.
That man and his questions. But then his thumbs found the first of many bruises on my body, and he understood, even though that didn’t keep him from complying.
I am not usually subject to morose introspection—well, okay, sometimes. And at this particular time, it seemed appropriate. I’d found a lost girl by getting lost myself. She’d likely saved her own life by hiding in the carnage of a wreck that had taken the lives of a pilot and a gunner decades ago. Fragments had come together and shards had been flung apart.
Vaughn was putting me back together again by holding me tenderly while Willow whimpered into the phone with Roxy. Those two women—one mature and one just budding—with gaping holes in their lives had been battered and made whole again, but Heath was coming out of the woods with a hole in his body, and in his prospects, and quite possibly in his soul.
I wrapped my arms around Vaughn’s neck and cried into his shoulder, taking comfort in his strength and his warm, spicy scent.
“It’s okay, darling,” he murmured. “It’s just the adrenaline wearing off.”
He could think that if he wanted to, but I knew better.
oOo
The next few hours were a crazy flurry of activity. To survive them, I needed all the adrenaline I could get. And a long, steamy shower.
But not necessarily in that order.
First, Vaughn and I escorted Willow to the farmhouse and reunited her, physically, with Roxy. I knew I was going to cry again, witnessing that scene, but Mrs. Delgado did me proud and gave me something else to do by shoving a stale cinnamon roll and mug of hot coffee into my hands.
“Fuel for the battle,” she clucked. “Got to keep up your strength.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
Volunteers streamed into the farmhouse close on our heels. Willow’s boyfriend, Cy Watson, was the third person through the door, and he made a beeline for her. And proceeded to envelop her in a very clingy hug that made my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline.
I sidled around to where I had an unobstructed laser-like line of sight on him—my eyes to his eyes—and nailed him with the variant of my infamous stink-eye reserved for teenage boys whose hands are perhaps edging toward places they shouldn’t be. He gulped, blinked, and quickly shifted those long, skinny fingers up to Willow’s shoulder.
He re-earned my good graces by immediately offering to give Roxy and Willow a ride home. He was so right—they needed out of the burgeoning melee, and pronto. If anything, Willow was more bruised than I was. And Roxy had a sort of dazed stupor about her that still hadn’t lifted. Both of them needed peace and quiet and rest for a good, long time.
I stretched out and squeezed Roxy’s hand and they shifted toward the doorway.
Her eyes glittered just a bit, and she rasped, “Go on, girl. We’ll catch up later. You have more importunate considerations.” Was that a hint of a wry smile underneath her exhaustion?
If Roxy could pull out a four-syllable word I didn’t know the meaning of on such short notice, I supposed she was going to be fine.
In the crush of bodies, I was suddenly surrounded by the marina ladies. Bettina led the charge, practically strangling me with a fierce hug. I winced and endured—but truthfully, it felt really good. And Gloria’s jubilant backslap packed a wallop that would have sent me flying across the room if there’d been any gaps between people. As it was, I bounced off and then stepped on the toes of the uniformed man behind me.
“And this is Ned,” Bettina announced, latching onto his arm and pulling him around to join our group. She poked him in the ribs and beamed up at him. “Now you’ve met all my friends.”
He was wearing the colors of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, but his badge clearly identified him as a reserve officer.
I gladly shook his hand. “Thank you, Ned. Were you involved in the…?” I flicked my fingers meaningfully, not wanting to say the word shoot-out in an overcrowded room.
“I’m retired now, so I was support. Just support,” he said in a scratchy, gravelly voice that rattled pleasantly in my ears. It was like his voice box had been etched with time and experience and tinged with sardonic, self-deprecating wisdom. “Been out of the main fray for a while myself, but that young fella, Jack, had it under control. Smooth as clockwork.”
He also had fabulous, bushy white eyebrows, full of springy, wiry hairs that all seemed to have minds of their own. It was apparent he’d made no effort to tame them. His name patch said Haggerty. I liked him immediately.
“Ned,” I said, “do you like cruising? Not in police cars,” I added quickly. “I assume that’s a given. I mean on luxury ships. To the Caribbean. Or maybe Alaska? The Panama Canal?”
Those pert, bright brown eyes under the static-y shock of bobbed
orange hair were giving me a calculating stare. I just grinned down at her while Ned rubbed a rough hand over the white stubble on his chin and answered with a thoughtful affirmative. “I suppose. Provided the company was agreeable.”
“Huh,” Bettina grunted.
Denby extricated me from what could’ve become an awkward situation. “The upstairs bathroom’s all yours. I laid out some clothes. Take your pick.” She shook her head ruefully. “My wardrobe isn’t professional in the least, and it’ll most definitely run short on you, but it’s entirely at your disposal.”
“Anything’s better than mud-encrusted,” I murmured back. “And did you see this?” I pointed to my cheek.
“Couldn’t miss it,” she replied, nipping back a smile. “When that happens to me, I just try to think of slug slime as an enzyme-peel facial. Good for the pores. Have you ever seen a slug with blackheads?” She gave me a squeeze. “I didn’t think so.” And then she whispered, “I’m just so relieved, Eva. When I think about what could have been…”
“Don’t,” I whispered fiercely, returning her squeeze. “What-iffing is not allowed. I’m going to do my best to get all these people off your property and out of your hair so you can get back to that thing you love—farming. Just hang in there for a few more hours.”
oOo
I kept my promise.
Once I was presentable—clean hair, clean skin, clean clothes, and enough make-up to cover the dark circles under my eyes and the scratches on my face and neck—I held a press conference. In the usual place—out in the ditch at the edge of the county road.
I wasn’t able to give them all the answers, but the reporters were happy with the information that the missing girl had been found safely and in good health and that the Fidelity Police Department had a suspect for Dr. Zales’ murder in custody. It was the first time anyone had confirmed that his death was more than suspicious and that there might be another person responsible for it. A one-fell-swoop sort of announcement which set them to jostling each other and scribbling madly on their little notepads. The microphone booms slid closer, looming overhead. No one wanted to miss a word.
Press conferences are a lot like a sport—maybe even a contact sport. Some strategy, some brute force, and an arsenal of diversionary tactics. Play it right, and you’ll have them eating out of your hand. It also really helps if you can promise that there will be more information at a later date. Job security for all involved.
I knew Vaughn was rushing those precious little syringes straight to the lab. But the results would take a while to come in.
CHAPTER 24
I’d slept for sixteen hours straight. And awoken as a creaky old woman. So I was out on the rooftop deck applying the rejuvenating benefits of yoga by relaxing into a corpse pose (which looks a lot like lying on the ground with your arms outstretched—a good place to start, considering, although I could’ve done with a different name for the position) when I heard a soft yoo-hoo from below.
I rolled over and crawled to the railing.
“I was knocking, but I guess you couldn’t hear me,” Marcy said, peering up from under the folded brim of an impressively high-tech fleece hat.
Could have been because my muscles were screaming in my ears. “I’ll be right down,” I croaked and hoped she had a book to read or something while she waited for me to drag my objecting body down the stairs and across the living room.
“I came to see how you are, but also because I thought of something,” she said in a rush with an apologetic look on her face when I finally opened the door.
I waved her inside. “I was just brewing coffee,” I lied. But it was a great idea, and I definitely should’ve thought of it sooner.
“No, really,” Marcy said quickly, “I can’t stay. I’m heading out to a job in Wyoming, and I’ll be gone for a couple weeks at least. But I need to pass on some information before I go.”
They were like catnip, her words. Why can I not avoid the juicy tidbits? I propped myself against a wall and waited.
“You see,” Marcy said hesitantly, “I heard some things, while we were out searching. Things about a gravesite—in addition to the bomber wreckage I knew about before, from when we were talking at the party...” She paused, her light-green eyes scanning my face. She spoke as though she was choosing her words very carefully, very precisely, just like a scientist. “I can understand why the Frasers wouldn’t want the existence of a gravesite to be common knowledge just now, but it rang a bell for me because I’ve heard of that kind of thing before, especially on farms from that era. You know, the old history-hound hobby I have.”
She certainly had me hooked now. I shuffled over to the kitchen, calling over my shoulder, “Please come sit, even if it is only for a minute.” I was going to prepare the proffered coffee, regardless.
Her ultra-performance, moisture-wicking clothing crinkled as she hiked herself up onto a bar stool. She laced her fingers together and examined her cuticles before continuing, just as cautiously as before, “It has to do with the effects of war. World War One was particularly brutal. PTSD, mainly—although that wasn’t a recognized diagnosis back then—and some of the related conditions which were commonly known as shell shock or battle fatigue. When those boys came home, a lot of them weren’t prepared mentally, psychologically, to return to their old lives, or to make the transition from boyhood to adult manhood that society expected of them. And their families often didn’t know what to do with them, either.”
“Are you saying the psychologically wounded were sent to farms instead of to asylums?” I squatted to my haunches to stretch my hamstrings and reached into the fridge for the half-and-half.
Marcy nodded. “Especially if the young men were from families that could afford to send them to the country. Large cities weren’t a good place for them with the loud noises, the crush of people, the stress.”
“Makes sense.” I went the opposite direction, standing on my tiptoes to reach a canister of whole spices. Maybe chai was a better option, since I’d had the invigorating inspiration of a visit to Pip’s to base a little recipe tinkering on. “Sounds like a mission of mercy, though, from the farmer’s perspective, and that doesn’t really equate to a mass grave.”
“There’s an uglier side to it. Medical treatment for the conditions back then was experimental at best. A smorgasbord of drugs were tried. Things that we now know can easily be lethal. Laudanum, barbiturates, amphetamines when they came along. The poison’s in the dose, obviously, but it’s so easy, when something appears to be working, to think that more would be even better. Addictions developed, sometimes, and then the men couldn’t go home, even if they wanted to. There was a huge social stigma attached to both the cause and the attempted cures. Remember, the temperance movement was going gangbusters during that time, too.”
I let that idea percolate while I crushed a whole nutmeg, a couple cinnamon sticks, and a half-dozen green cardamom pods with my mortar and pestle. Marcy didn’t even flinch at my vigorous pounding.
“So they buried them in anonymity,” I queried, “out of compassion?”
“Or necessity.” Marcy shrugged. “Hard to read motive into it at this point. But the crazy thing is, there probably was a lot of good in the farming life for those soldiers. There’s a bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae that’s naturally occurring in soil and that has recently been attributed with possible antidepressant qualities.” For a fleeting moment, her face lit up with a wide smile. “Maybe that’s why I love my work as a geologist so much. There’s nothing better than getting your hands in the dirt. It always lifts my mood.”
I shared her smile, and it suddenly occurred to me that I should’ve been taking notes. Better yet, Chloe should’ve been taking notes.
“Could you—” I held up a finger, “tarry a bit longer and tell someone else exactly what you just told me?”
Marcy gave me a quizzical nod.
It was a Saturday morning. What were the odds that my favorite archaeologist was working?
High, as it turned out. She answered on the first ring.
I gave Chloe a brief introduction to Marcy and a short explanation of her history-sleuth tendencies, then shoved the phone into the geologist’s hand.
From the speed with which the conversation escalated, it was obvious that Marcy’s information triggered something that synced with Chloe’s investigation. I heard a couple squeals from Chloe’s end as they jabbered together. And Marcy was more animated than I’d ever seen her.
She was actually panting by the time she hung up, and she was still beaming as she slid off the bar stool. “Chloe’ll be able to explain it better than I can. But I think she has some good news for you—or for the Frasers, rather.”
I passed a thermos across the counter to her. “For the road. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Try some magnesium spray for your sore muscles.” Another grin, and she was gone.
oOo
It was like sitting on pins and needles—the waiting. Well, that and the magnesium spray, which had a tingliness all its own. But that stuff also worked wonders. Leave it to a geologist to know the possible medicinal properties of an earth metal.
So when Vaughn called on Sunday afternoon to see if he could collect on his rain check and take me out to the new swanky little bistro, I jumped at the offer. From the weariness in his voice, I guessed he needed the break too—something normal and far outside the world of crime or the paperwork on his desk.
By six o’clock, downtown Fidelity was dead. Almost literally. The streets were deserted, and a steady drizzle angled down, coating us and the storefronts and the sidewalk in a light layer of mist. But the bistro’s interior lights were on—faintly—and about half of the tables were occupied by venturesome eaters. It was difficult to get a true head count in the deep, atmospheric shadows.
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