Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island

by Sandy Frances Duncan

  Jordan Beck sounded hungover. Talking slow, measuring each word. Celebrated late last night? “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Last night, after you left Thor’s, this guy came in and we got to talking. My group and I, we were partying a little.”

  “Yes?”

  “We got to know him because he was asking about Susanna. Rossini.”

  “Okay.”

  “Seemed like a nice guy, we told him what we could.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Frank. Can’t remember a last name.”

  “So why was he asking?”

  “Said he was a friend of a friend of Susanna’s cousin Trent who was at Reed College with her, and if Frank ever got to San Juan he should look her up. Said they’d have a lot in common.”

  “Anything else?”

  “That’s about it. Except I’m still worried about her. You have a chance yet to talk to her father?”

  “Yeah, in fact he was at that meeting. He says she’s off camping in the Cascades—no way to contact her, should be back soon, she’s off to UW in September.” Why was he prattling so?

  “I hope she’s okay. You can get hurt in the mountains, too.”

  “I’m sure she’s all right.”

  “Okay, thanks. Talk to you.”

  “Bye.” He ended the call. Then immediately made another.

  Raoul had just returned to his hotel room when his phone rang. He noted the display. The boss. “Hello . . . Come on, we’ve talked about that; you said you only wanted to scare him. I can’t help it if they’re still here . . . Wait, slow down . . . What do you mean, wrong? . . . But how can that be? . . . Well, I agree there . . .” He waited and listened hard. His face drained of color. He said, “Hold on, hold on . . . That’s pretty extreme . . . You really think that’s necessary? . . . Okay, I’ll call him . . . Yes, right away . . . How should he deliver it? . . . Yeah, I guess, that’d work . . . Of course I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

  He pressed End. Well, isn’t this a piece of shit. Who would have thought? The boss had talked with headquarters. No news there; that happened every day. But this time the word was that the Visualizer algorithms didn’t work—just so much formulaic misdirection. So the boss was furious—nobody likes being made a fool of. Raoul had brought the algorithms along with the other stuff from that PO box. After careful examination the pronouncement had come: It’s the real thing. And now this reversal. Good reason to be furious. Nearly three weeks of setup, all for naught. So the boss wanted revenge, and right away. Revenge that would put some real pressure on Rossini. Raoul could see that was necessary, but like this . . . He knew it had to happen. But how the hell to make Fredric do something like that?

  And he was still pissed off that the bomb didn’t scare the detectives away.

  Raoul needed to think, hard and long.

  Peter had given Noel a key to the condo. He and Kyra would drive there to debrief and plan. As they turned onto Little Road, Noel’s phone rang. He reached into his pocket and brought it out. Kyra grabbed it away from him. “Don’t talk and drive. Hello?”

  “Oh, I thought I had Noel Franklin’s number.”

  “You do. This is Kyra. Hello Peter.”

  “My voice, or my name on the screen?”

  “Both actually. Noel’s driving but he can call you back when he stops. Oh, he’s pulling over now.”

  “That’s fine, I can tell you both this.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Just had a call from Jordan Beck, the non-plagiarist. He said someone at Thor’s last night was asking about Susanna Rossini.”

  Noel tried to pull the phone from her but she pushed him away.

  “Who was it?”

  “Name was Frank. Said he was a friend of a friend of a cousin of Susanna’s, Trent somebody.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “That’s about it. Mainly he asked questions. Jordan and his friends did most of the talking. Is this of any importance?”

  “Hard to say. Think he’ll go back to Thor’s today?”

  “You’ll have to ask Jordan. Hold on, I’ll give you his number.” Peter did.

  “Thanks, Peter. Anything else?”

  “That’s all I know. Tell Noel to call me when things slow down a bit.”

  “Will do. See you.” She gave the phone back to Noel.

  “He didn’t want to talk to me?”

  “Later. Call him. This was business. He wanted to talk to Triple I.” She told Noel what Peter had said.

  “Hmm. Be good to have a chat with this Frank.”

  “How can we track him down, do you figure?”

  “If we had his last name, there’d be the San Juan phone book.”

  “Yeah, if. Peter said Jordan didn’t know it.”

  “The cousin, Frank’s friend? Cousin makes him a nephew of Larry Rossini. Bet cousin Trent would know how to locate Frank.” He found Rossini’s last call and tapped the number.

  “Yes, Noel?”

  “Quick question. How can I locate your nephew Trent?”

  Silence on the line. Then Larry said, “I don’t have a nephew named Trent.”

  “You sure? On your wife’s side maybe?”

  “I know my nieces and nephews. I don’t have that many.”

  “So Susanna doesn’t have a cousin with that name.”

  “I’ve just told you.”

  “Okay, got it,” said Noel. “Thanks.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Not sure yet. Talk to you later.”

  “But why—”

  Noel broke the connection. “Susanna doesn’t have a cousin named Trent.”

  “So who’s this Frank guy?”

  “Someone curious about a young woman who’s been kidnapped.”

  “Better talk to Jordan Beck directly.”

  Why would Noel be asking about a nephew who doesn’t exist? He’d demand clarification. But right then Toni was about to leave, and she seemed upset. She’d been abstracted since leaving the lab. Had the dream images unsettled her? She’d been in the guest bedroom with the door closed since they’d come back.

  He climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. “Toni?” No answer. He turned the handle, pushed, and stepped inside. She was lying on the bed, dressed as earlier in that highly complimentary blue suit. She didn’t move as he approached. Very much unlike her, her usual spirit so diminished. “You okay?” When she didn’t answer, he walked around to the far side of the bed and sat. He took her hand, which felt cold. “Toni? What’s the matter?”

  She turned to him, seemed to try to smile, failed. Her head moved a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I should be so—so happy for you. For your dream visualization work. It’s remarkable, what you’ve done. But it’s just left me—exhausted.” She sighed long and loud, took away her hand, and sat, lowering her bare feet down the other side of the bed. “I need to be on the 11:30 ferry, Larry.” She stood. “I can’t miss the Geneva flight.”

  He smiled. “Then you have an extra five minutes. The ferry leaves at 11:35.”

  “All right! All right. Whenever it leaves.”

  He scurried around to the other side of the bed. He took her hand. “Toni. You have to tell me what’s wrong.”

  She smiled, her eyes sad. “You wouldn’t believe me.” She slipped her feet into her shoes.

  “Try.”

  She walked over to her closed suitcase. “I’ve got to go.” He reached for her case. She grabbed it first. “I’ve got it.”

  He followed her down the stairs. At the bottom he took her by the elbow. “Toni, I can’t let you go off like this.”

  She glared at him. “How would you like to let me go, then?”

  “A little more calmly. With an explanation.”

  “There aren’t any explanations that you’d like to hear. Maybe one day. Not today.”

  “Is it me? Have I done something wrong?”

  “That’s quite possible.”r />
  “What? And how can I make it right?”

  “We’ll talk about this later. Perhaps. But now I’m going.” She kissed his cheek lightly. “It’s been—fun.”

  He pulled away, stunned. “You mean you’re leaving completely? For good?”

  “Let’s just say, for now.”

  “I could follow you down to the ferry. You’ll have a long wait. We could talk.”

  “Not now.” She stepped up to the front door, opened it, walked out.

  Larry trailed her as far as the drive and watched her get into her car. She started it up. He waved. She didn’t look back.

  He realized he was trembling. This wasn’t happening. Nothing left of the past wonderful time, really? Impossible. What had he done? Had she really left forever? Toni gone. No no no! His throat felt chokingly tight, his chest full of pounding pain. He realized he was crying. He hadn’t cried in years.

  Yes, Jordan Beck was home; of course Noel Franklin could come by.

  Five minutes and Kyra and Noel arrived, a room in a house on Gillis Road. He met them at the door. Noel introduced Kyra as a friend. They sat in wooden chairs on the deck.

  Noel said, “We need a small favor from you.”

  “Sure. Anything. Go ahead.”

  “I’ve just spoken with Peter Langley. You partied last night at Thor’s.”

  “Yep. He told me my thesis was accepted and I’m getting my degree.”

  “Well, congratulations. Look, Jordan, Peter said that last night somebody named Frank tried to find out anything he could about Susanna Rossini.”

  “Yeah, but she’s okay; she’s off in Oregon.”

  “It’s this fellow Frank we want to talk to now.”

  “Oh. Sure.” He blinked, raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why?”

  “We’d like to find him. You know his last name?”

  Jordan shook his head and grimaced. “He said, but I can’t remember. He didn’t talk much, just asked questions about Susanna.”

  “Anybody else talk to him when you weren’t around? Who else was there?”

  “Well, a guy named Spider Jester, and Raina Gadwich; they’re sometimes a couple and sometimes not. And Tom Fergusson, he came by himself but by the end he was with Sara something; she’s new. They went off together. Leger! That’s his name, Frank’s.”

  Kyra said, “Got a phone book?”

  “Yeah, but he won’t be in it; he’s just here for a month, going to do some painting. That’s what he said. It’s a vacation.” His eyes opened wide. “Wait a minute. Raina said she’d seen him before. He’s rented a house on her road. You better talk to Raina.”

  “She’d be at home now? Or working?”

  “She’s at work, Chamber of Commerce. Cute kid, short black hair.”

  Noel nodded. “I think I’ve met her.” Good. He knew half the people around that table at Thor’s. “Thanks, Jordan.”

  To the car, to the Chamber. Raina, intense in conversation with a tourist. When the tourist left, Noel stood across the counter from her. “Hello.”

  “What can I help you with, sir?”

  “You already have. You helped me locate Spider Jester.”

  “Oh, I remember. You found him then, did you?”

  “With your help. And now I need your help again. I’m trying to locate a man named Frank Leger. He was at Thor’s last night helping Jordan Beck celebrate. Jordan said you know where he lives.”

  She giggled. “I do, actually. I live up the road from him. Just saw him this morning again. I wanted to be neighborly. He didn’t.”

  “Do you know the address?”

  “The Odlum place. On Mount Dallas Road. No idea about the address—I can look it up.” She checked the phone book. “Yep.” She wrote the number down. “You probably won’t find it even with a number. But it’s halfway up the road, left-hand side going uphill. Sort of green, two floors. You’ll see it from the road. Can’t miss it.”

  Larry Rossini took a second shot of Laphroig. His temples were already buzzing. Crazy to be drinking Scotch at eleven in the morning, but it did dull the pain.

  Last night he’d felt himself to be the luckiest man in the world, today the least lucky. The inventor of a revolutionary technological process. In love with the most marvelous woman. Toni dangled before him, then snatched away. Had the Dream Visualizer been the cause? Because everything was fine until she watched the visualizations. She’d come to his side; he could feel her electricity watching the screen, watching Karl. How could she seem so loving and tender in the lab, then so completely distant, then gone minutes later? He didn’t understand.

  But if it turned out that the Visualizer was the cause of her leaving, then he would get rid of it and the research that lay behind it. Morsely University could have it all. Richard O’Hara take it and be damned!

  The Visualizer was definitely the reason for Susanna being kidnapped, her life in danger. She’d told him she was fine, just locked in a room. Impossible to believe. Had his ego, his stubbornness, been the cause of this malevolence that had entered his life?

  Out along Douglas to Bailer Hill Road. “Okay,” Kyra said, “what do we know?”

  “Okay. Susanna has been an invisible entity for nearly three weeks. The Sheriff’s office has found no trace. Then some guy named Frank appears, asking questions. We know where he lives. We hope we can find the place.”

  “But why is he looking for her? Not because ‘cousin Trent’ told him to look her up on San Juan.”

  “We’ll just have to ask him, right?”

  Onto West Side Road and soon Mt. Dallas Road. Lots of roads on San Juan Island, Kyra thought. None of them paved with the right intentions. Twisty windy road, Mt. Dallas. As a road that climbed a mountain should be. They looked for numbers. Saw very few. Reached the turnaround at the top. Too far, back down. Halfway up, Raina had said. At least now they knew how far all the way up was. Noel headed down.

  “It’ll be on the right, now.” Kyra, making what was obvious sound appropriately banal. “Green, two storeys,” she muttered.

  They passed three West Coast cedar-sided houses, several driveways heading into the woods where the houses weren’t visible, a gray house, a stone house. Around a curve, partly behind trees, a green two-storey house. Coming downhill, easier angle for spotting it. Car beneath a carport. “Maybe somebody’s home,” said Noel. No room to park on the road, so he pulled into the driveway and stopped. Kyra grabbed her purse and they got out. They walked up steps to the stoop, glancing through a window to its left. Looked like a living room. No one there. The front door was waist-to-top smoked glass with an oak frame. To the left, a white plastic doorbell. Noel pressed it and he heard a ringing inside. They waited. No response. He rang again.

  Kyra said, “Let’s go explore.”

  Not too long ago, Noel would have taken that as trespassing. He still didn’t enjoy this part of any investigation. But he agreed.

  Kyra glanced at him. “It’ll be okay.”

  “That obvious?”

  “Not as much as it used to be. At least we’re not breaking in anywhere.”

  “Course not. We’re looking for Frank Leger. He could be out back in the garden.” A gate stood between carport and house. Behind it a fenced-in area. Kyra opened the gate.

  Noel passed through the fence and pulled the gate closed. “Keep out the deer.” He followed Kyra along a little trail. The garden had seen better days. Raised vegetable beds, overgrown with weeds. Salal and Oregon grape had taken over the flower beds, and such grass as remained was infested with dandelions. Bracken coming up at the edges where the fence ran. Some large fir branches down. A onetime rose garden gone to Himalayan blackberry brambles—from thorns to thorns. “I don’t think Leger is here,” he said.

  “He sure isn’t a gardener,” Kyra noted. “Course he’s not the owner.”

  “Just here for a month. Hmm.” He glanced around. The door at the back was reached by a small deck. Looked like a kitchen inside. Beside the door, a window. W
as that some kind of movement in there? He studied the window, the door. Might have been. “Come on, let’s ring again.”

  They passed around to the front and locked the gate. Not that the deer would be interested in anything in there. Up to the stoop, again the bell. They waited. Then, yes, the sound of someone coming. The door opened a slit. Kyra noted a safety chain in place.

  A man’s face, maybe thirty, curly hair. Shirt open at collar. Slacks. “Yes?”

  “We’re looking for Frank Leger,” said Kyra.

  “Uhm, that’s me.”

  “May we come in and talk?”

  “Uh, about what?”

  Noel handed him a Triple I card. “We’re investigators and we’d like to chat with you for a few minutes.”

  “I’m kinda busy right now; maybe you could come back?”

  “You on vacation, Mr. Leger?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You shouldn’t be busy on your vacation. And we’ll be out of your hair in five minutes.”

  Leger gave that a few seconds’ thought, then nodded. He closed the door, released the chain, and opened it widely.

  They entered. The pleasant interior of a house in the woods. A hallway looking down to the kitchen, to the right stairs heading up to the second floor. Noel looked around. A door beneath the stairs. A living room with three chairs and a couch, a fireplace set for burning. “Have a seat.” Connected, a dining room. Maple table with six chairs, two corner cupboards filled with dishes and glassware, a side table, the kitchen beyond an open doorway. Kyra and Noel each took a living room chair, Leger the couch. “So what do you want to talk about?”

  Kyra began. “You and we have similar interests, Mr. Leger.”

  “We do?”

  “We’re all looking for the same person.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Your curiosity.”

  “Yes? About what?”

  “Not what. Who.”

  “Who?”

  “Susanna Rossini.”

  “What makes you think—Oh, I know.” He smiled but his eyes remained guarded. “I was asking after her last night. At a bar in town. Know how I could find her? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Actually we were hoping you could tell us where she is.”