River Road

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  He released her waist and grabbed her hand. Together they sprinted for his car. He wondered briefly how a woman could run in high heels, but there was no time to reflect on the particular skill set required for the task.

  He had the engine revving and was pulling away from the curb before Lucy finished fastening her seat belt. She sat tensely beside him.

  “It could be something else,” she suggested. “A barn, maybe.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But it isn’t going to be a barn, is it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The house was engulfed in flames. The fire roared through both floors. Black smoke billowed into the night sky. Fire trucks, police vehicles and an aid car crowded the driveway. Hoses coiled like pythons on the ground. Streams of water ran down the driveway.

  Mason found a place to park on the side of the orchard lane. He and Lucy walked toward the scene. The heat was intense, even from a distance.

  Mason approached one of the cops.

  “This is Lucy Sheridan,” Mason said. “She owns the house.”

  The cop nodded at Lucy. “Heard Sara Sheridan left the house to a niece.”

  “I was getting it ready to put on the market,” Lucy said. “But stuff seems to keep happening.”

  “Yeah, like finding the body of a rapist in the fireplace,” the cop said. “Now this. The chief is not going to be happy.”

  Someone yelled at the cop. He hurried away.

  One of the firefighters came forward. The name on his jacket was Leggett.

  “You’re the owner, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Any chance that there was anyone at home tonight?”

  “No, thank heavens.” Lucy folded her wrap around herself. “The house was empty. I’m staying in town.”

  “That’s some good news, then,” Leggett said. “Sure hope you had insurance.”

  “Yes, the premium was paid through the end of the year,” Lucy said. “Do you have any idea what might have started the fire?”

  “Not yet,” Leggett said. “The house was old. Could have been any number of things, from wiring to transients. There will be an investigation after things cool down. That will take a couple of days.”

  He walked away to rejoin his crew.

  Lucy looked at Mason. “I’m betting it won’t be the wiring.”

  “That’s a sucker bet,” Mason said. “I’m not taking it.”

  “I seriously doubt that the fire was the work of transients, either.”

  “Might depend on your definition of transient,” Mason said.

  “Why in the world would anyone burn down Sara’s house, and why now?”

  “Maybe because whoever did it couldn’t find what he was looking for last night and figured that the safest way to make sure any incriminating evidence disappeared was to torch the house.”

  “What evidence could Sara possibly have possessed?” Lucy asked.

  “She knew that Brinker was the Scorecard Rapist. Maybe she knew other things as well.”

  “Maybe. But in that case, I would have thought she would have concealed it with the body.”

  “Not if she concluded that innocent people might be hurt if the evidence was ever found,” Mason said.

  “You’re right.” Lucy thought about it. “But if she believed that was true, trust me, she would have destroyed the evidence thirteen years ago.”

  “Whoever burned down the house couldn’t have been certain of that.”

  Lucy contemplated the burning house. “I guess this takes care of the problem of packing up Sara’s things and bringing in an appraiser.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “One thing for sure, this date didn’t end the way I thought it would.”

  “Yeah, I had a different ending in mind, too,” Mason said. “I think we should leave town for our next date.”

  Lacy glanced at him. Her face was unreadable. Her eyes were mysterious pools.

  “Got any suggestions?” she asked.

  “What do you say we drive over to the coast tomorrow?”

  “This isn’t going to be a real date, is it?”

  “When I hit a wall in a case, I sometimes find that it helps to visit the scene of the crime.”

  “Wow, an out-of-town date to visit a crime scene,” Lucy said. “See, this is what was missing in all those matchmaking-agency dates.”

  “What?”

  “Originality.”

  25

  Lucy sat in the passenger seat and watched the rural scenery flow past. The drive from Summer River to the coast was only about forty miles, but the road was a two-lane highway that wound through a rolling landscape. A few miles back, the picturesque vineyards had given way to small farms. Goats and dairy cattle wandered across grassy fields. Signs advertising homemade cheese and antiques appeared at the side of the road.

  Lucy could not escape a sense of adventure. They were on their way to a crime scene, but in her imagination the drive to the coast loomed as a turning point of sorts in her relationship with Mason.

  She was not sure how she felt about that. But for reasons she did not want to examine too closely, she had tucked a few personal items into her tote. She knew that Mason was probably thinking along the same lines, because she was sure she had seen him slip a small leather overnight kit into the trunk of the car. Then again, maybe he was in the habit of always taking a few masculine essentials with him when he set out on a short road trip.

  “It’s a relief to get away from Summer River for a while,” she said. “I’m tired of being the main attraction at the inn. This morning all anyone wanted to talk about was the fire.”

  “Can’t blame everyone for being curious.” Mason slowed for a right-hand turn. “This is the road Sara and Mary would have taken to visit the old commune, right?”

  Lucy caught a glimpse of a weathered sign. The lettering was so faded that it was difficult to make out the words Rainshadow Farm.

  “Yes, this is it,” she said. “Sara and Mary brought me out here a few times. They met each other on the farm. Eventually, they moved to Summer River, but Sara often returned to give yoga and meditation lessons to the small crowd that hung on at the commune for a few years. The last of the Rainshadow Farm residents abandoned the place a year or two after Sara sent me away from Summer River. But Sara and Mary always made it a point to stop there on their way to the coast. It was very special to them.”

  “Do you happen to know who owns the land?”

  “Sara mentioned that when the last members of the alternative community left, they donated Rainshadow Farm to a nature conservancy.”

  The narrow strip of blacktop had not been patched or repaired in a long while. Mason slowed the car, easing over the gashes and wounds in the road.

  The remains of the blacktop gave way to an ancient graveled track, and then the wooden skeletons and rusted trailers that had once housed the residents of Rainshadow Farm came into view. Mason stopped.

  Lucy opened her door and got out. Mason came around the front of the car to join her. Together they contemplated the remains of the commune.

  “Doesn’t look like the new owners have taken much interest in this place,” Mason said.

  Lucy put on her sunglasses and studied the weathered buildings. “Maybe they’ve forgotten about it. Or maybe they just don’t have the funds to clean up the area. There’s a great view from up there in the trees. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The old path was still partially visible. It climbed the hillside, cutting through low-lying scrub that swiftly transitioned into Douglas fir and a thick undergrowth. The light breeze stirred the leaves and carried the scents of the woods.

  It felt good to be out here sharing the warmth of the summer day with Mason, Luc
y thought. Her spirits rose. For the first time since she had arrived in Summer River, she began to relax.

  “We should have brought a picnic basket,” she said.

  “Stop,” Mason said. It was an order, and it was given in very soft tones.

  Her first thought was that he had spotted a snake. She paused and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “What?” she asked.

  But he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was studying a thick, green patch of bamboo.

  “Oh, crap,” she whispered. “Definitely not native.”

  “It’s a screen to cover the line,” Mason said.

  Then she saw it, too; a thin black tube snaked through the bamboo.

  “I guess we can forget the scenic view,” she said.

  “Right.” He looked around, quartering the landscape. Light sparked on his sunglasses, but evidently he did not see anything unduly alarming. He took her arm and positioned her in front of him, pointing her back down the hillside. He gave her an urgent little push. “Go.”

  She did not argue.

  “Can you drive a stick shift?” Mason asked.

  “Well, yes, at least in theory.”

  “Good. You’re driving.”

  He gave her the keys. She got behind the wheel and took a deep breath. I can do this.

  Mason slid into the passenger seat. “Go.”

  He leaned over, reaching under the console. She heard a click, as if a lock had just opened. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him remove a gun from the concealed compartment.

  Crap. He was serious.

  “Guess that explains why you don’t do rental cars,” she said.

  Mason did not answer.

  She got the engine going without any problem, but there was a distinct lurch when she put it in gear. Gravel spit under the wheels. She winced.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Just drive.”

  She drove, gritting her teeth every time the sleek car bounced over a pothole.

  Mason was half turned in his seat, watching the trail behind them.

  She checked the rearview mirror and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that there was no one behind them.

  Mason did not turn around in the seat until they reached the end of the gravel road and jolted onto the main road. Only then did she sense him relax.

  “We lucked out,” Mason reported. “No sinister-looking SUVs with blacked-out windows and no motorcycles with armed riders on board behind us. A good day to go sightseeing at an illegal pot farm.”

  She took another breath, possibly the first one since she had put the car in gear.

  “Okay, that was a little scary,” she said. “I wonder if the nature conservancy that bought Rainshadow Farm knows that someone is growing pot up there on the hillside.”

  Mason stowed the gun in the console box. Lucy heard another click when he locked it.

  “Probably not,” he said.

  “It looked like they were using the line to draw water from the old well on the property.”

  “That pot farm might explain what happened to Sara and Mary,” Mason said. “If that’s the case, it blows your Colfax family conspiracy theory all to hell.”

  “Do you think Sara and Mary may have been the victims of drug thugs protecting their crop?”

  “It’s a possibility. But that bamboo looked like it had been planted fairly recently to cover the waterline. Sara and Mary might have come along just as the growers were setting up the plantation. The big illegal farms often bring in armed guards along with their own crews of migrant workers to tend the plants. There’s a lot of money to be made, and sometimes innocent bystanders get killed.”

  “So someone might have followed Sara and Mary from the farm and forced them off road?”

  “It would be a convenient way to get rid of a couple of women who had seen too much.”

  “True,” Lucy said. “But the growers are drawing water from the old well. Sara and Mary knew Rainshadow like the backs of their hands. I think they would have noticed the waterline and the new bamboo immediately. They would have known what it meant, just like we knew. They wouldn’t have hung around, either.”

  “I think you’re right. There’s something else here that doesn’t quite fit. Forcing a car off the road is a messy and inefficient way to get rid of two people. You can’t guarantee the results. People survive car wrecks all the time. Also, a crash scene always attracts cops. If the growers wanted to use lethal force, they would most likely have shot Sara and Mary, buried the bodies somewhere in the woods and dumped the car a long ways from here.”

  Lucy tightened her hands on the wheel. “And what does this tell us?”

  There was a moment of silence before Mason spoke.

  “It indicates that whoever murdered Sara and Mary—assuming they were murdered—is not a pro. The car accident feels like the work of a determined amateur, maybe someone who has seen one too many car-chase movies.”

  “Someone with very little impulse control.”

  “Lack of impulse control is a defining characteristic of about ninety-eight percent of the criminals I’ve encountered.”

  “What about the other two percent?”

  “They’re strategic thinkers. They are more likely to have realistic exit strategies. But the vast majority of bad guys never do good contingency planning. Probably because they’re too obsessed with achieving their goals. Obsession is another defining characteristic of the ninety-eight percent.”

  “They don’t know when to walk away from the table.”

  “More like they can’t bring themselves to walk away.”

  “Sara had excellent impulse control,” Lucy said. “Probably all that yoga and meditation. She was also very smart.”

  “Which is why the murder of Tristan Brinker remained unsolved until after she was gone. Like I said, the best plans usually revolve around the three basics.”

  “Shoot, shovel and shut up.”

  “Right. You can stop here; I’ll take the wheel now. Nice driving, by the way.”

  The praise warmed her for some ridiculous reason.

  “A little rough, I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s been a while since my father taught me how to drive a stick shift. He said it was a skill that gave a driver a more intuitive feel for the handling of a car.”

  “I think Deke said something like that when he taught me how to drive. Also, the only vehicle we had at the time was the truck.”

  She pulled over to the side of the road. “But now you drive a stick shift because you like to drive a stick shift.”

  Mason smiled. “I like to work with good tools.”

  She stopped the engine and looked at him. “Like that gun you keep in the console safe?”

  “Believe it or not, I hardly ever use a gun in my job. But on the rare occasions when I do need one, I take comfort knowing it’s a good gun.”

  26

  A couple of miles farther down the highway, Mason turned off onto Manzanita Road. Lucy remembered it well. When she was a girl, it made for an exciting thrill ride. The winding strip of crumbling blacktop was cut into the hillside. The pavement was so narrow there was barely enough room for two vehicles to squeeze past each other. Not that there was ever much in the way of traffic, Lucy thought. Manzanita Road had been abandoned years earlier when the highway to the coast had been built. But the old road remained a favorite of adventurous backcountry drivers, bicyclists and motorcycle enthusiasts.

  What made the drive an adventure was the dramatic manner in which the hillside dropped steeply away from the ragged edge of the serpentine road.

  Lucy shivered. “I see they still haven’t bothered to install a guardrail.”

  “No,” Mason said. He glanced at the GPS readout. “We’re coming
up on the curve where Sara’s car went over the edge. There’s nowhere to pull off the road, but there’s also no traffic. I’ll stop on a straight stretch and put on the flashers. We can walk back to the scene.”

  A short time later, Lucy stood with Mason at the edge of the road. Together they surveyed the steep slope and the rough terrain below.

  “It’s hard to believe people died here,” Lucy said quietly. “There’s no sign of the crash.”

  “It’s been three months. Nature heals quickly.” Mason studied the tight curve. “It’s the ideal place to try to force a vehicle off this road.”

  “The killer must have known that,” Lucy ventured.

  “It could have been a murder of opportunity, but I’m with you. It’s more likely that it was the work of someone familiar with the road. Whoever did this could not have picked a more dangerous curve.”

  “I suppose that doesn’t exclude the pot farmers.”

  “No, but given what happened to Sara’s house last night, I’m leaning toward your theory.”

  Mason went silent. She looked at him and saw that his attention was on the scene.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking that if I had gone to the trouble of setting up a car crash with the aim of killing two people, I would follow up.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’d make sure the plan had worked.”

  “Oh.” A whisper of shock went through her. “Yes. I see what you mean. Oh, my God, do you think that the killer went down there with the idea of making sure they were dead?”

  “There hasn’t been much rain this summer. Dry conditions are good for preserving evidence. I’m going to take a look.”

  He got a pair of gloves and a small, lightweight backpack out of the trunk of the car. He walked to the edge of the road. After a couple of minutes’ contemplation, he started down the hillside at a steep angle, using the manzanita bushes and scrub for handholds.

  When he reached the bottom, he walked slowly around the area, pausing now and again to take a closer look at something she could not see from her position on the road.