Shadow Ridge

by M. E. Browning

  Jo took her cue from Squint and remained nonchalant. “We are grateful for everything your husband has done for our agency,” she said. “But this is a different matter.”

  The gloomy morning light stripped Alice’s face of vibrancy. “I heard you mention Tye—”

  “Don’t say another word, sweetheart. They’re fishing. Why, I have no idea. Perhaps one of you detectives can enlighten me as to why you’re questioning me about a man who suicided?”

  Jo had no intention of appeasing his curiosity. “If there’s nothing in your files regarding Mr. Horton, then you have no reason to worry. We can end this all right now.”

  “What’s in my files is none of your business. And I resent the implication that it is. Tye Horton killed himself. That it happened on our property is unfortunate, but not criminal. Frankly, I don’t know why you feel compelled to make this into something that it is not.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say at the moment, but I’m here as a professional courtesy. If I need to pursue a warrant, I’ll be forced to discuss things that could be harmful to your reputation with the local judiciary.”

  Alice bristled. “My husband has nothing to hide. Do your darn search and be gone.” She said it like an incantation to expel the detectives from her home.

  “Sweetheart, stop—”

  Jo broke in. “This is your husband’s office. Permission must come from him.”

  “Zachary.” She twisted so they faced each other. “You and I both know there’s nothing in there. Let them do their job. It’s time to end this charade.” She raised on her tiptoes and kissed her husband’s cheek. Whispered something.

  He dropped his arms. “Go ahead.”

  “I want to confirm that you are giving me permission to search,” Jo said.

  “Yes.”

  Before he could change his mind, Jo selected the file cabinet Alice’s eyes had marked earlier. She pulled on the top drawer. Locked.

  “Sir, I’ll need the key.”

  The set of the DA’s jaw made it abundantly clear that he was reconsidering. Jo asked again.

  Alice raised her hand. “Detective?”

  “What is it?” Jo asked.

  Alice pulled her husband’s hand to her lips as if trying to reassure him, then spoke to Jo. “The key is in the top desk drawer.”

  Squint placed his hat on the edge of the desk and guided the Walsenbergs to the club chairs. Alice glared, but sat. “This will only take a few moments,” he assured them.

  The first key opened the cabinet, and Jo methodically searched the drawers. The DA maintained orderly records; there was enough room to view the contents without lifting the file from the drawer, and each folder was properly labeled. Even with her back to the silent room, she knew they watched her every move. Tracked each file she scrutinized. Their silence encouraged her.

  She finished the first cabinet and moved to the second. Behind her, the Walsenbergs resumed speaking in hushed tones. Were they no longer worried about what she would find?

  Jo’s disappointment mounted with every clean file. The truth was she hadn’t anticipated finding the database printouts, but based on the DA’s blinks, she’d expected to find something. Maybe not a smoking gun, but a cat dish receipt would have been nice.

  When Jo closed the final drawer, Alice rose. “I hope this puts an end to whatever misconception you harbored about my husband.”

  “Thank you—both of you—for your cooperation. I’m sure you understand that we want to be as thorough as possible in our investigation. Ruling things out is as valuable to an investigation as actually finding things.” The DA had been right. She’d been fishing, but she had one more fly to cast. “My hope this morning was that since Derek and Tye were friends, you would have remembered something more about their relationship.”

  The DA took the bait. “That’s a faulty assumption, Detective Wyatt. I wouldn’t say my son and Mr. Horton were friends.”

  “No.” She set the hook. “That’s probably a mischaracterization of their bond. Especially since they had a sexual relationship.”

  Confusion fell across Alice’s face. “Are you implying they were lovers? Derek and Tye? What—”

  The DA flushed purple. “Out. Now.”

  “Thank you again.” Jo signaled to Squint. “We can show ourselves out.”

  “The hell you will,” he replied. He gave Alice a perfunctory kiss. “We’ll talk tonight. I’ve wasted enough time this morning.” He waited for the detectives to precede him from the office and then dogged their heels down the hallway, picking up his keys along the way.

  In the foyer, the Walsenbergs’ daughter peered at them from beside the Christmas tree. Unlike her father, the girl didn’t blink.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  45

  The bell above the door jingled as Jo entered the Echo Valley Tobacconist. A warm earthy scent of pipe tobacco wrapped itself around her, and she couldn’t help but take several deep breaths while she took in the dark woods and leather seating areas in the store. Holiday lounge music played softly in the background. Add a fireplace and a snifter of brandy and she’d consider moving in. The place was everything she needed after a day spent waiting for the DA to file a complaint.

  An elf of a man wearing an argyle sweater and the weight of the world shuffled out of the back room. “Good morning to you, Miss.” His voice sounded as if it hadn’t been used in a while. “If you’re looking for the marijuana dispensary, it’s around the corner and up three blocks.”

  “No, sir. I’m right where I want to be.”

  “Excellent. How can I help you?”

  “I’m interested in a pipe.”

  “You truly are in the right place.” He pressed his ample belly against the glass case and pushed aside a shallow velvet-lined box so he could peer into the glass display case. “We’ve got pipes made of briar, meerschaum, corncob, and clay. As for styles, well, we have acorns, calabash—that’s the style favored by Sherlock Holmes, you know.” He moved down the counter. “Then there’s chimney bowls and nose warmers,” he continued.

  Jo dug the photograph of the pipe she’d collected from Tye’s place out of her bag and laid it on the counter along with her credentials. “Actually, I was hoping you could tell me something about the pipe in this photo.”

  “Ah, a churchwarden.” The shopkeeper’s eyes practically caressed the pipe before flickering back to Jo. “May I?”

  “Please.”

  He raised the photo to eye level, scrutinizing the details through thick eyeglasses. “Churchwardens have elongated stems, typically between nine and eighteen inches long. There are a couple of competing theories about how the shape came about. Some speculate it harkens back to when churches remained unlocked and the night watchmen needed pipes that didn’t block their vision while they kept watch. Others suggested that the length of the stem allowed the smoker to rest his pipe on the pew in front of him.”

  “Can you tell me anything about this particular pipe?”

  “Indeed I can.” He placed the photograph on the counter facing Jo and pointed. “The bowl is mallee root burl—an Australian eucalyptus.” He moved his finger. “The stem is beechwood, a fairly standard wood, but if you were to look inside it, you would see it’s lined with acrylic. Much easier to clean.”

  “How can you tell from a photo that the stem is lined?”

  The shopkeeper shook out a ring of keys until he found the right one, then walked to another case. “The artisan who crafted this pipe is out of Santa Fe.” He unlocked the curio cabinet and removed a similar-looking pipe from the shelf. He placed it carefully on the display pad in front of Jo, next to the photo of Tye’s pipe, and she discovered that the two pipes were nearly identical.

  “Do you know how I can contact the artist?”

  “I do. I can also give you some information on the person who bought the pipe in your picture.”

  Jo smiled. “That would be even better.”

  “She came in as I was
closing one evening. It was a Friday night, and I was putting my weekly deposit together in the back room.”

  She. Even disguised, no one would ever mistake Zachary Walsenberg for a woman. Had Tye’s sister-in-law, Leila, bought him a gift?

  If the tobacconist was aware of her disappointment, he didn’t show it. “She asked if I had anything elven.”

  “Elven,” Jo repeated.

  “Oh yes. The churchwarden is quite a popular style now, what with Renaissance fairs, Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien, and the like. The churchwarden style had never completely lost its appeal, but long-stemmed pipes saw a resurgence in popularity after the Lord of the Rings films came out. The Harry Potter films clinched it. Dumbledore and all. Everyone wanted to be either a ranger, a wizard, or an elf. That, I’m happy to report, required a long-stemmed pipe.”

  “May I please get a copy of the receipt with the woman’s name on it?”

  “I can give you a copy, but it won’t do you any good. She paid cash. I remember, because the more expensive pipes are almost always purchased with a credit card, but she pulled out her wallet. Seemed in a hurry.”

  “I see.” Disappointment soured Jo’s mouth, but maybe there was a way to salvage this. She’d seen the discreet red light of a surveillance camera in the upper corner of the room almost hidden in the crown molding. “It appears you have security cameras.”

  “You have a good eye, most people don’t see them. You’re welcome to review the footage. There are cameras covering the entrance, the cigar humidor, my office, and the rear door.”

  “That would be wonderful, thank you. I don’t suppose you know the name of the woman?”

  “No, I’m sorry.” He returned the photo to Jo. “But her picture was in the paper on Sunday—the same day yours was. She’s the woman putting together that suicide prevention group.”

  46

  Alice had lived in the old Victorian forever. Her mother forever before her. Men might have held title for a year or two, but the house always belonged to the women in the Ambrose family. It was as if something beyond reason intuited that only the women could keep its secrets, tend to what needed to be done, appreciate its scars.

  Olivia’s namesake had been the mistress of the house when it was built, and she’d added two hidden niches to the design. Their whereabouts passed between generations. Alice had found one on her own after reading about hidden passages in one of the many Nancy Drew mysteries she’d voraciously consumed the summer she turned eleven. She’d pressed and probed the house for three days, despite her mother’s admonition to go outside. Finally, a decorative panel had yielded to her pressure and revealed the cubbyhole in the room her husband had since claimed as his study. It was a room she’d found to be dull and oppressive as a child, and even now, as she sat in it waiting for Zachary to return home, the darkness seemed reluctant to retreat despite two burning lamps.

  She’d had to wait seven more years before her mother showed her the hiding place in the pantry: a false wall that made Prohibition easier to bear and still held two bottles of illegal hooch that no one had the courage to taste.

  Now the grandfather clock in the hallway struck six o’clock. Her husband was late. Not a particularly uncommon occurrence, but one that tonight smacked of avoidance. Alone with her thoughts, she felt her confidence lessen with each minute that passed until she no longer knew what she wanted to say. The half hour had already chimed by the time she heard the rumble of Zachary’s car in the driveway. It seemed forever before his keys clattered into the silver tray on the hall table—the signal that he was in for the night.

  Her husband made the rounds, his progress marked by clues that allowed her to track his whereabouts: his heavy tread on the stairs, the floorboards of his bedroom creaking while he rid himself of the tie he considered a work-noose, the flush of a toilet.

  She waited.

  At last he shadowed the doorway. If he was surprised to find her in his study, he didn’t show it. “Where’s Olivia?”

  “Upstairs, doing homework with her headphones on.”

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  “I’m good.”

  He rolled his head to stretch his neck—he always held his tension in his neck and shoulders. “I’m going to pour a Chardonnay. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

  She wanted plenty of things. Answers, mostly. “No.”

  He returned a short time later holding a sweating glass. In a western town of whiskey drinkers, her husband favored wine. It said something about him, but she wasn’t sure what.

  Her first salvo was planned. “What were the police hoping to find?” Zach had two choices: confess to the files, or prevaricate.

  “They were fishing.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.” Although in some ways it told her everything she needed to know.

  “Whatever it was, they didn’t find it. Perhaps you can tell me why not?”

  Living together as many years as they’d been together, she’d learned to recognize the way he manipulated discussions. Sidestepped the question. Redirected the focus. Parried with a question of his own. Evade, feint, strike. It made him a brilliant litigator.

  Over the course of their marriage, she’d adopted some of his strategies. “Did you know our son was gay?”

  A silence so deep she thought she’d drown in it swamped the room.

  “Did you know our son was gay?” she repeated.

  “He knew.” Olivia’s voice startled them both.

  The door concealed half her body; an Echo Valley College sweat shirt nearly hid the rest. Derek had one like it, purchased right after he’d been accepted into the digital arts program.

  “Darling, your father and I are having a private discussion.”

  “Tell her, Dad.”

  He swigged the last of his wine. “Not now, Olivia.”

  “Tell me what, Zachary?”

  Olivia remained in the doorway, poised as if to flee. “Tell her how you reacted the night Derek told you he was gay.”

  “I said, not now!”

  But he’d said enough. He had known. “When? When did he tell you this?”

  Zach rubbed his eyebrows as if he had a migraine. “One night.”

  Olivia was crying now. “Not just any night.”

  “Which night?” Alice’s voice rose. “Goddammit, Zachary. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Her husband hung his head. Silver frosted his temples, but his gray lent him a distinguished air. In truth, this moment marked the closest she’d felt to her husband in all of the past year. He finally looked as miserable as she’d become.

  Olivia sobbed—a display Alice’s mother had taught her to consider undignified. Ambrose women were above such histrionics. “Leave us, Olivia.”

  She snuffled.

  “Now.”

  Olivia spun out of the room, leaving Alice and her husband to their truths.

  Her son was gay.

  “He told you the night he killed himself, didn’t he?” How much had she known? Guessed? Ignored. “Why you?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “Why did he tell you and not me? We were always closer than the two of you. Why would he trust you with such news before telling me?”

  “He didn’t tell me.” Zach sat down heavily on the edge of the desk, upending his pen holder. “I found out.”

  The time for evasiveness had passed. “Explain.”

  Zachary raised his head. His eyes were red. Anguished. “He was on some sort of video conference with Tye Horton. He didn’t hear me come up behind him, but as soon as he knew I was there, he slammed his laptop shut. But it was too late.”

  “Quit dribbling this out in bits and pieces, Zachary. What do you mean, too late?”

  “I’d heard him say ‘I love you.’ To Tye.”

  “Tye? Maybe it didn’t mean what you think it did. The detectives were wrong. Just goading us.” Alice was grasping, trying to make sense out of something she should have had a year
to process. “There’s all kinds of love. It didn’t mean—”

  “They’d fucked, Alice. All right?”

  She jerked as if he’d punched her, although she couldn’t say if it was from the vulgarity or the thought.

  “You want the particulars?” he asked. “They were in a relationship that had nothing to do with that stupid game he’d been playing. He admitted it to me. Came right out and said it.”

  Her throat closed. Only a hoarse whisper escaped. “And what did you do?”

  He blinked. That goddamned blink that meant that even after all he’d said, he hadn’t yet disclosed the worst of it.

  He reached for his neck as if to loosen the tie he’d already taken off. “I said no son of mine was a faggot.”

  “And?” Her rage built beyond the etiquette her mother had instilled in her.

  “And what? That’s it.”

  “It’s not it. What did you do?” Alice lunged. “What did you do to my son?”

  He raised his arms. She rained blow after blow on him until he grabbed her biceps. “Enough, Alice.”

  She jerked out of his grasp, heaving. “Tell me.” She lunged again.

  “Stop it!” Olivia stood by the door again, her eyes wide. “Both of you! He hit him. Okay?” Tears and snot streaked her face. “Dad hit Derek. There, you know. Just stop fighting.”

  Olivia sank to the ground. Her beautiful, sensitive daughter slumped in a mass in the center of the doorway.

  Zach righted his lamp and then retreated behind the wooden monstrosity of a desk as if hiding behind a barricade. Bloody furrows marred his cheek.

  Alice ran her thumb across her broken fingernails. She drew her shoulders back. Smoothed her hair. Tugged her sweater straight and walked past the outstretched hand of her daughter.

  Overbright light spilled from the chandelier in Alice’s bedroom, and she blinked in the sudden glare. Her legs seemed oddly disconnected as she walked with the excessively careful steps of a drunkard to her dressing table. Dumping the trinket box, she rummaged through the earrings, safety pins, and buttons until she latched on to the key.