by R. J. Noonan
“Damn privacy laws,” Frazier said.
“That’s because I was just an anonymous voice on the phone,” I said. “It could have been anyone calling. But in person, in uniform . . .” I knew we could get an answer.
And we did. Frazier and I drove over to the campus and tracked down the professor, a Dr. Rawlings. Thirtyish and dynamic, with sparkling blue eyes, he seemed interested in contributing to our investigation.
“This has something to do with the Jameson crash?” Rawlings’s face was lit with interest. “I’ve always enjoyed his books. Did you read the one about the chemistry professor who dies when someone switches the labels in his lab?”
“A classic,” I said, though I hadn’t read the book. Dr. Rawlings remembered seeing Heather Erickson at class, but he checked his roll book just to be sure. “Yes, she was here. A good thing for her. These students get dropped from the class if they miss more than one session.”
And so that little tangent had reached a dead end.
“No shame in that,” Omak had told me. “Not every theory is going to pan out. You investigate and eliminate.”
Although I understood deductive reasoning, I had to acknowledge that all clues did not lead to Andy Greenleaf as a suspect. If he had been involved with Kyra, wouldn’t there have been some indications? The people who lived and worked at the ranch must have known about it. I wanted to ask around, but Omak wanted to do a search before anyone tipped Andy off.
And so we headed to the Jameson ranch with a warrant to search the cottage and barn for evidence that he was involved with Kyra Miller’s death. We bypassed the main entrance to the Jamesons’ compound and took the access road that swung along the ranch perimeter and ended at the barn. Decked in a green rain slicker, jeans, and work boots, Andy Greenleaf sliced open the netting on a hay bale in the pen. Two of the animals seemed interested in his work; the others were scattered toward the back, following a rust-colored alpaca in a zigzagging line. When he peered out from under his hood and saw it was us, he put the wire cutter back in his pocket and stomped over to the fence.
“Aw, come off it! Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“Wow. I get the feeling you’re really not happy to see me,” I said, trying to keep things light as my boots squished through a patch of wet earth. It had stopped raining, but a mist hung in the air, a fine rain that couldn’t decide which way to fall. “This is Lt. Omak. He wanted to meet with you and the people on your staff.”
“Staff?” He pulled a face. “Like it’s all official.”
“Are they in the barn?”
“They’re all gone now. Cleared out of here once you came through. You cops have a habit of clearing places out, especially when you go and blame things on innocent people.”
His animosity surprised me a little, but then he was on the defensive end.
Omak let the comment roll off him. “So tell me about the people who work here. Where do they live?”
“They all flock in from out there.” Andy flung an arm toward the wooded hills beyond the barn. “They come out of the woods when they need food money or a place to warm up. Mr. K says it’s our moral obligation.”
“Your girlfriend mentioned the homeless people in the woods,” I said. “She said you were wary of them.”
“They don’t scare me. I been there, sleeping in the woods myself.” Defiance glimmered in Andy’s eyes. “But I gotta look out for Heather, and those panhandlers can be really sketch. Not for nothing, but they already ruined Portland, and now they’re infesting the woods. I don’t want my girlfriend anywhere near that.”
“If they make you uneasy, why do you hire them?” I asked.
“That’s what Mr. K. wants. And some of them do a good job. Blane is pretty steady, and Eden, that girl you met this morning, she’s quiet but a good worker. By the way, she is eighteen. Case you were wondering. They come and go.”
“How many young girls come and go, Andy?” the lieutenant probed. “Do you employ underage youth? Doesn’t that violate the terms of your probation?”
“Whoa—whoa! Those charges were seven years ago, and I’ve been on the straight and narrow since then. But if my job has me hiring street urchins for the day, there’s nothing wrong with that, Officer. Yeah, I got saddled with trumped-up charges, but I’m an American citizen, and I’ve got every right to life, liberty, and the pursuit o’ happiness in the good ol’ US of A.”
“Listen, son,” Omak said, “I’m going to level with you. We’ve identified the driver of the vehicle as being an underage youth. That’s one dead girl whom we believe had close proximity with you. And we’re still concerned about the whereabouts of Lucy Jameson, whom you knew well.” Omak shook his head. “None of this looks good for you, Andy.”
“I told her before, I didn’t do anything!”
The desperate look he gave me tugged at my sense of fairness. If Andy was telling the truth, he hadn’t really done anything wrong. Yes, it was a violation for him to be around underage girls, but to feed them and help them? On a human level, that was an act of kindness.
“Come on, Andy,” Omak pressed him. “Pretty girls, young and on the run. Hungry and cold. I’ll bet they fall hard for a guy like you.”
“If girls like me, it’s because I’m a nice guy. I am. But I don’t play around. I’ve got a girlfriend, and she’s over twenty-one. And that is all you need to know about me.”
“Don’t be that way, Andy.” My tone was soft now. “We’ve got some other bad news for you. The girl who died in the Karmann Ghia last night? It was Kyra Miller.”
He shook his head. “That name means nothing to me.”
“Really?” I opened a photo of Kyra on my cell phone and expanded it to full size. “You can honestly say you’ve never met this girl?” I asked, holding up the screen.
His eyes flickered in reaction. “Her?” His head began to retreat into the collar of his plaid shirt. “Her name’s Blossom.”
“Blossom?” I asked.
Andy shrugged. “A lot of the kids take street names.”
“So you did know her,” said Omak.
When Andy didn’t respond, I answered for him. “Yes, he knew her.” The lurid details from Kyra’s diary swirled in my mind. She’d been so in love with Andy, the older guy with “magic hands.” “According to her journals, you were intimately involved, right, Andy?”
“No!” He winced. “No way. I only knew her because she worked here a few months. She was one of the workers who came in from the woods.”
“And you liked her. Tell us about Blossom, Andy,” I coaxed him.
“She was a good kid,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “Blossom loved the animals. She was a big help around here until . . .” He looked away.
“Until you got involved with her?” I asked. “Relationships tend to muddy the waters. They can really mess things up.”
“That wasn’t it. Things changed when she moved in with Lucy. She stopped coming around here.”
Kyra had lived with the Jamesons? “When did that happen?” I asked.
“She moved in with them in the summer. August, I guess. And I was sorry to lose her because she was good with the animals. That girl would get in the corral and try to think like an alpaca. She used to talk to the alpacas like they were her babies. Singing them songs and telling them stories. Like fairy tales and stuff. I had to tell her to go at the end of the day. She used to say she’d been an alpaca in a previous life. She was a really good kid.”
“How long did she work here?” Omak asked.
“I don’t know. A few months.”
“Did you know she was underage?”
“I never saw a job application, if that’s what you mean. Mr. K wanted her to be on the payroll, so I gave her work. That’s all up to the Jamesons. For all I know, they might have kept her on the payroll when she moved into the house even if she didn’t have time to work. Apparently it’s a full-time job being Lucy’s pet.” He poked a fingernail at a knot in the wood fence. “
I can’t believe she was the one in the car—that’s just so wrong.” He frowned. “I feel awful about . . . about everything.”
I believed that he felt bad, but that didn’t vindicate him from involvement with Kyra’s death.
“Can you tell us how Blossom ended up in that car yesterday evening?” I asked.
He shifted from one foot to another, his eyes flicking from me to the lieutenant. “I didn’t even see Blossom yesterday, I swear! I was at Heather’s house all night.”
“But your alibi doesn’t hold up, Andy. Heather didn’t get home until around eight fifteen, and her parents didn’t see you arrive at their house. No one can account for your whereabouts at the time when an underage teen was seduced, drugged, and killed in a car crash so that she cannot tell us her story.” I reached into my jacket for the envelope containing the search warrant. “We have a warrant to search the premises, Andy. We’re not trying to set you up; we just need to know what happened to Blossom. Can you help us out, Andy?”
His face grew tight, his eyes bulging in a panic. “I got nothing to say to you.”
“That’s too bad.” Omak turned to me. “Call in Frazier and Rivers.” They were checking on the parking areas of Stafford Woods, waiting to join the search. I was already sending a text to Frazier to come on in.
“I’ll talk to Andy while you three conduct the search,” Omak said, his eyes on Andy.
“I’m not talking to anyone.” Andy turned away, goading two alpacas away before unlatching the gate. “I got work to do, and I don’t need to be poked with any more questions. We’re done.” He stomped into the corral, slamming the gate behind him. He remained in plain sight as he crossed the field, talking to a group of alpacas and heading toward a lean-to where bales of hay were stacked.
Omak and I observed in silence. If only the alpacas could talk.
“Do you believe him?” Omak asked under his breath.
“I feel sorry for him. But I think he’s hiding something.”
“Agreed.”
After retrieving an evidence kit and gloves from the Jeep, I started on the cottage. The door opened to a cozy space with rustic wood floors, braided rugs, and a woodstove. The main floor was a U-shaped plan with a living room that opened up to a dining area, which led to a kitchen.
With gloved hands, I looked in closets and drawers, searched under cushions, and felt under tables and counters. The rooms were fairly tidy, though closets and drawers had a lot of papers and junk jammed inside. I found birthday and anniversary cards from Heather, but no correspondence from Kyra. Not even short notes with her star-shaped A and looped K. I realized Andy might have known not to hold on to something like that, especially if his girlfriend came here, snooping around, although the drawers of grocery receipts, matchbooks, and junk mail indicated that he was not quick to toss anything out.
I sorted through a crate of DVDs that included all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. On the bookshelves, I found two binders of a baseball card collection along with a fairly complete set of Kent Jameson’s novels. As the spines of the books didn’t seem to be cracked, I suspected Andy wasn’t a fan and that these had been stocked by the Jamesons. I was about to head up the narrow stairs when Frazier and Rivers arrived.
“I’m just finishing on this floor,” I told them. “Do you want to head out to the barn and I’ll join you when I finish up here?”
“I’ll do it,” Frazier said, snapping at a latex glove, “but I’m staying away from those horses. Those giant teeth could do some real damage.”
“They’re more likely to kick you,” I said. “Don’t get behind them. And they should be out in the pasture right now.”
“I hope so,” he called over his shoulder.
The upstairs contained a tiny room with a desk and two file cabinets. Half of the cabinets were empty, and the other one was stacked with monthly financial reports for the ranch. I remembered Talitha telling me that all the ranch operations were handled through Martha’s office, so I assumed these were just copies to keep Andy up to date. The bedroom was tidy, the bed made with a black-and-gray-striped comforter. On the nightstand sat two books about the Vietnam War, one bookmarked in the middle.
“Nothing here,” I said, standing at the top of the stairs and looking over the place one more time. The walls were barren in a buttery shade of yellow, and the ceiling was textured white, except for a square cutout by the bedroom door. A hatch to the attic.
Hardly easy access, but I had to take a look. The chair from the desk allowed me to reach the dangling cord. I pulled it down, and a ladder unfolded with a creaking noise. I didn’t want to go up there. In movies, nothing good ever happened in dark attics filled with cobwebs and vermin. But this was my job.
My pulse began to quicken as I turned on my flashlight and climbed the bottom rungs.
Don’t panic, not now.
Panic attacks came at the worst times, usually unexpected. But often they weren’t linked to conscious fear. I hoped that my thudding heartbeat and sweaty palms were just symptoms of genuine fright.
The ladder creaked under my weight as I climbed up, testing each rung with a boot before I trusted it. My first glimpse of the attic revealed rafters stuffed with insulation and dusty plywood flooring. Plenty of dust and some cobwebs, but no crawling insects or bats in sight. No skeletons.
In fact, the attic space was fairly empty but for some furniture: a brass headboard, wire box springs, and some metal folding chairs. I swept the beam of my flashlight across the space.
Nothing to see here.
My pulse began to even out as I climbed onto the planking. This would only take a minute. Just then the light caught a gold, rectangular object on the floor about a foot from the hatch.
What was that? I reached for it: a slim envelope, oddly placed and isolated, as if someone had dropped it without noticing.
I took a photo of the envelope’s position with my cell phone before I opened the prongs and looked inside.
There were a few pages of photographs—and my first impression was that the subject was naked and provocative. In the first shot the young woman stood with arms lifted overhead to rake her hair back, her breasts high and glossy.
In the second shot, I recognized her face.
Fifteen-year-old Kyra Miller.
16
Omak’s jaw clenched as he glanced quickly through the photos.
“They’re a poor quality,” I said. “Probably taken with a cell phone and printed on a personal computer.”
“You combed the house, and this is it?” he asked.
I nodded. “No notes, though we know Kyra was a writer. I didn’t see a laptop, but I’m sure he has a cell phone.”
“Which we can confiscate if he’s arrested.” Omak seemed to be considering this as he stared out at the corral. “We might find more pictures on his phone.”
“It seemed a little odd to me that they were sitting there, just above the hatch,” I said. “Also, the attic was dusty, but the envelope is fairly clean. Like it was placed there recently.”
“He might have shoved it up there when he knew we were investigating him,” Omak said. “Get it out of plain sight.”
“Or someone else might have left it there.” I couldn’t ignore this possibility. “Someone could be trying to set Andy up.”
Omak winced. “It’s possible, but right now we don’t have much choice, do we? With his arrest record, no real alibi, and now these, we need to bring him in.”
When we approached Andy with the envelope, he reacted with disinterest.
“Do you want to tell us about these photos?” Omak asked.
Andy protested that he didn’t know anything about the envelope or the photos inside. “What’s in the pictures?” he asked.
When I explained, he let out a curse and slipped into a funk.
“But I didn’t have anything to do with those photos. This is so unfair.”
But we have motive, means, and opportunity, I wanted to say, but this was
no time to argue, especially since he hadn’t confessed to being involved with Kyra Miller. Feeling not entirely secure in my role, I read him his rights and cuffed his hands behind his back. As we were guiding Andy into the back seat of the car, Omak got a call he had to take. I made sure that Andy was as comfortable as possible before I closed the door.
The call was brief, but the lieutenant was scowling when he ended it. “That was the police chief giving me an earful.” We were a few feet away from the car, out of hearing range. “Apparently Martha Jameson called and asked that we ‘kindly withdraw’ our officers from Stafford Woods now that the case is solved. Solved.”
“Does she think we won’t investigate because the dead girl was homeless?”
“How would she even know that?” he asked. “We haven’t revealed the driver’s identity yet.”
“The Jamesons have to know that Kyra was driving the car. The girl was living with them. They’ve been holding out on us. I’m not sure why, but I don’t appreciate it.”
“Such a nice way to say that the Jamesons are liars.”
“Manners matter,” I said, hearing my mother’s voice once again. I’d better watch that.
“I need to swing over there and do some damage control. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll probably have to set up a time to bring Chief Cribben over, since the Jamesons demand special attention. I have no patience for this political shit.”
Inside the car, talk of the Jamesons ceased, and we drove in silence toward the woods that loomed, still and eerie, beneath a pearly sky. Somewhere in there was a flock of hippie campers. I braced myself, warding off a bad memory of those woods that I had tried to forget.
As we pulled into the parking lot, two women were heading toward the main house from the semicircle of buildings. One was Martha Jameson with her neat blonde bob. The other wore a dark dress and a hijab in a deep shade of royal blue: Talitha Rahimi.
“Lieutenant?” Martha Jameson called. “I thought that was you. What’s going on?”