Conard County--Traces of Murder

by Rachel Lee

  “You get into the mountains in Afghanistan very much?” he asked, although he didn’t expect an answer.

  She shook her head. “You know I can’t answer that.”

  Which told him all he needed to know. How had he not heard of the Valkyries operating in Afghanistan? He’d known Norwegian troops had participated as part of the allied operation since the beginning, but no word about a unit this unusual? Secrecy was common, but the novelty of the Valkyries must have been burning in someone, trying to burst out.

  Sitting there with Hillary, he was impressed by the deep cover that had apparently shrouded the Valkyries. “You have any problem with keeping secrets in the Jegertroppen?”

  She cocked an eye at him. “Last time I looked, we were human.”

  He laughed. And once again he was avoiding the issue of Allan. God, he needed to stiffen his spine. The grief of this task was going to tear him apart. “I don’t want to do this.” As sorry a statement as he’d made in his entire adult life.

  Hillary didn’t ask what he’d meant. “I don’t, either. Brigid. What if all this somehow had to do with her?”

  Trace felt her words like a jolt. She had thrown it on the table. He’d been trying to avoid thinking about that possibility. Something untoward might have happened involving Brigid, but even so, why would it have reached around the world to Allan? Why would anyone come after him?

  Maybe that was the question that needed answering.

  He spoke. “Allan put their emails in encrypted files. Unfortunately, he created those files all on the same date, which makes searching them difficult.”

  “I’ve found a few written letters from her. Maybe the answer is there, if I can recognize it.”

  “They might have communicated elliptically. Not saying it straight out.”

  Her sandwich done, she reached for her beer and swallowed nearly half the bottle. “That worries me.”

  It worried Trace, too, but they had to keep trying. Or at least he did. “If their deaths are linked, then it’s a helluva problem.”

  * * *

  AFTER THEY FINISHED their dinner, Hillary stepped outside to clear her head in the fresh, chilly air. She had a feeling that Trace wasn’t going to stop for hours yet, and, despite her internal clock, she wanted to help.

  She needed the time in the fresh air, though. Just a bit.

  Looking up at the stars overhead, she noticed she didn’t see as many or as clearly as she did while skiing and marching through mountainous terrain. Too much ambient light from streetlamps, and maybe dust.

  But she clearly recalled traveling over snow, across glaciers. At night she could see many more stars than here, like a sparkling diamond coat thrown over the world.

  But never had she stood under such stars thinking about a man. Trace kept slipping into her mind, bringing warm syrup to her veins. She’d felt strong attractions before, but this was powerful. And pointless. She would be going home to her real life before long, job done or not. Trace would be left far behind to become only part of her memories.

  Thoughts of Brigid were not far away, either. Her throat tightened, and her chest ached. So much loss. So much waste.

  Determined to answer the questions Brigid would have asked about Allan’s death and maybe her own, Hillary turned and walked back into the house. Sleep and fatigue had become irrelevant.

  * * *

  SO THE WOMAN was moving in, Witherspoon saw as he watched. Brigid’s friend, the grapevine said. Why was she staying? Hadn’t her visit to the cemetery been enough? Or was she getting sweet on Mullen? It was possible. Women were often drawn like moths when it came to men like him. Strong, hardened, dangerous.

  Or maybe it was something worse. Because Mullen had been quite convinced that Allan’s death wasn’t suicide and had made no secret of his belief. Damn him. Mullen should have accepted the decision of the cops and the inquest. Despite his protests, they had listened to him and then ignored him.

  After the determination of suicide, Stan had hung around to make sure it was over. He had to make sure, because a mistake could cost him his life.

  But since this woman’s arrival, he couldn’t stop sweating it. No matter how many times he told himself it was too late, that nothing further would be done, he couldn’t escape the sense of threat, no matter how many boilermakers he put away.

  Brigid had seen him twice. He’d had her killed. When the hammer didn’t fall on him, Witherspoon had decided she hadn’t reported up the chain of command. Hadn’t caused trouble for his boss. Until the man told him to take care of Brigid’s husband. The boss must have heard something.

  Stan had been all over this ground so many times his head ached from the unending spiral of his worries. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t going a bit mad over all this.

  Then had come Brigid’s friend. A friend close enough that she’d come all the way to visit a grave.

  Well, he’d worried constantly that the boss was right about the husband. He’d taken care of that. Now he was worried that Brigid had mentioned the matter to her friend.

  God! His worries just kept getting stronger. They were beginning to overwhelm him. Mad or not, he wondered if he’d be able to think through this clearly, to figure it all out to his advantage. His brain seemed to have escaped him.

  He felt like a rat in a maze, unsure which way to turn. He didn’t want to kill again. That seemed like hanging his butt out too far into the breeze.

  He kept telling himself that if Brigid had talked to anyone, he himself might be dead by now. But no one would consider her report important enough for her to be killed. Except him. Hell, if she’d reported it, who would really listen? One woman, a couple of sightings of something she knew nothing about.

  He’d made that argument to himself countless times.

  But he was getting lost in the maze, unsure how much he was lying to himself. He’d been afraid enough to kill two people. Now a third?

  Were money and a hazy threat really that important?

  Well, it had gone past money. It was racing toward jail or possibly his own death. He had to tie up loose ends. He couldn’t risk any ends to unraveling.

  He had become a man wandering in a warren, hiding in bushes, losing his marbles. He had come to that.

  Hell.

  * * *

  TRACE TRIED TO shut it down for the night. He knew what an eight-hour jump in time zones could feel like. But Hillary refused to go to bed.

  She was determined to glue herself to his side and help him. He figured, given who she was, that she had at least as much determination as he did. No backing down. An argument was pointless.

  Besides, he didn’t want to argue with her. After her shower, the aromas of shampoo and soap had clung to her, and the enticing scent kept distracting him.

  Trouble there, he reminded himself. Big trouble. Plus, she was Brigid’s friend, and he didn’t want to do the least little thing to offend her.

  His own shower had disturbed him. Allan’s shampoo. Allan’s bar soap. Familiar scents. At least Hillary must have brought her own things. He might have gone nuts if he’d smelled Brigid as well as Allan.

  There was nothing more evocative than smells, as he knew from shooting at the gun range outside town. The smell of burned powder could sometimes throw him back into battlefields he’d left behind. Bring a resurgence of memories that should be erasable.

  He sighed, rubbing his forehead. Maybe he needed some glasses for this job. His eyes were growing tired.

  He glanced at the time and saw it was nearly midnight. Nearly 8:00 a.m. in Norway. Her body must already have awoken to a new day.

  “Are you going to bed?” he asked. “You need some sleep.”

  “I’m wide-awake.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “You can go sleep if you want to. I can continue here, and for you it is lat
e.”

  He smiled. “It’s rumored. I’m fine. Maybe a little caffeine to help.”

  “Sounds good,” she answered, her eyes on the papers she was sorting through. “I’m making a pile of Brigid’s handwritten letters to go through when I’m finished. Odd that she wrote letters as well as emails.”

  “Good idea.” He paused, studying her, with an unending curiosity about her that seemed to be growing. Little things. Maybe later some big things. “Do you ever get worried about avalanches? Or blocks breaking off glaciers and falling on you?”

  She shook her head a little and glanced at him. “We are well trained to look out for the dangers. If we make a mistake—well, we get what we deserve.” She shrugged.

  He shared the same kind of training, although not about glaciers. It had been a dopey question, he supposed, but it had probably sprung from his fogged brain. Time to make that coffee or give up and go to bed. Since she’d already worked her way through her own fatigue to help him, he wasn’t going to leave her working on her own. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d sacrificed sleep to a mission.

  And this had become a mission in the truest sense.

  Chapter Six

  In the morning, although worn out from the long night, Hillary and Trace took off for a run. Each strike of her foot invigorated Hillary, as did the fresh morning air. The rhythmic movement was also soothing, calming. A lot of tension began to drain from her.

  Thinking about their search for a clue, she wondered if it would yield anything truly useful. Yes, she believed Allan had left his passwords to Trace for a reason, but that didn’t mean the documents would have anything at all to do with his death. Or Brigid’s, which was probably an even crazier thought. A rocket-propelled grenade had killed Brigid during a mission in dangerous territory. Easy enough to understand in the circumstances.

  Even if they found anything useful, it wouldn’t change the inquest verdict. Trace must be doing this for his own peace of mind, niggled by the concern that maybe Allan had died by suicide. Or maybe to find a killer. Allan’s killer.

  Of course he would want that. She fully understood. But with only emails and handwritten letters, they probably wouldn’t find any kind of description of the murderer, even if he existed.

  Hell! And now this situation had made her worry about Brigid’s death. Now she couldn’t stop, couldn’t just say she needed to get back. Now she had a powerful need to know when before she hadn’t even wondered about it.

  She wished she hadn’t thought of the linkage between the two deaths, at least not in the way she had. Were the deaths related? Probably, but most likely only because Allan had despaired after losing Brigid. That was the most sensible explanation.

  When they reached the top of the ridge, she wanted to stay there. To continue this brief rest away from their self-imposed task. To maybe think very seriously about returning to Europe and resuming her interrupted plans.

  Not that she would. She’d made a commitment here and she honestly didn’t regret it, even if it turned out to be a waste of time. There was something to be said for paying full attention to the death of a friend, to settling with oneself before returning to daily life. Even finding nothing at all could bring a measure of peace.

  Or maybe they would tumble into some information that recorded the details of Allan’s descent into despair. The part of him he’d probably kept to himself even while expressing it through alcohol. Trace wouldn’t like to discover that. He’d hate it. But at least then he wouldn’t have to wonder.

  As they approached the outskirts of town, she saw a man standing beside the road. Young and slender, maybe thirty or so. With an unshaven face, as was so popular. Dark hair.

  He stared at them as they approached and passed, and she felt a tremor of unease. When they had left him behind, with the Mannerly house just ahead, she wondered aloud, “Why was he staring at us?”

  “Maybe because he’s never seen two lunatics running like this without being chased by an angry bull.”

  Amused, she chuckled. But the sense of uneasiness had taken hold and she couldn’t help looking back. In the distance, the man was walking away. He’d probably decided he’d had his entertainment for the day.

  “Let’s grab some breakfast,” Trace suggested.

  She didn’t argue. It had been twelve hours or more since that sandwich had filled her, and right now she could do with a bit of sweet pastry, or whatever passed for it at the truck stop.

  She needn’t have wondered. She hadn’t looked closely at the menu before, but now she turned to the back side of the four pages. The sweets were clustered on the back of the menu, a good selection. And down at the bottom was oatmeal, nearly invisible.

  At the top, beside a stack of doughnuts, was something labeled Danish pastry, although it looked to her like Viennese bread. Whatever the name, she liked the pastry.

  Now she had a breakfast that would do. A double order of oatmeal and two pastries. Plenty of carbohydrates.

  When their food arrived, Trace spoke. “You looked a little troubled when we were up top.”

  “Just thinking about what we’re doing. If we’ll get any satisfaction.” She didn’t mention she’d thought about going home. He might try to send her on her way again, and there was no point growing irritated with him.

  He grew serious, putting his fork down. “I know we might be wasting time. We might find out that there was no murder. That I was wrong.”

  She ached for him. He had been plowing alone through a painful emotional abyss. “But you need to know anyway. At this point, so do I.” She reached for a piece of the so-called Danish. The delicious, sweet, flaky pastry pleased her.

  “I admit,” she said presently, “that it was easier to accept Brigid’s death when I thought it was the result of ordinary combat. A common attack from insurgents. Now I feel unable to accept it.”

  He finished a bite of toast. “Exactly.”

  They shared a look of understanding, and Hillary experienced the first real camaraderie with him.

  A while later he asked, “What are you going to do with that salmon you wanted?”

  “Try to remember how to cook it.”

  That caused him to laugh. She liked the crinkles around his stormy gray eyes when he did so.

  “You’re invited,” she said. “You might even enjoy it.”

  He nodded. “Thanks. Anything you need me to bring?”

  “Yourself. I’ll have to think about anything in addition.”

  “Think away.” But as they approached the house once again, he said, “That man we passed really bothered you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Battle sense, I suppose. It can get overactive at times.”

  “Maybe.”

  At least he hadn’t tried to dismiss the observer again. Uneasiness still clung to her like cold, wet leaves. Somehow that just hadn’t been right.

  She dreaded spending another day in those mountains of paper. Hours of inactivity looking through items, including utility bills, that probably had no relevance at all. Her friend hadn’t spent a lot of time making files.

  She might have sighed, but she didn’t want Trace to hear it. It was difficult to appear impassive all the time so that he wouldn’t feel guilty about her decision to stay.

  Commitment. It meant as much to her as duty and loyalty. She had committed herself of her own free will.

  * * *

  THAT MAN HAD bothered Trace, too. A small thing. Maybe the guy had been gawking only because it was rare to see a man and a woman running in step around here. Different leg lengths usually would have made that difficult, especially about being in step, but as he had remarked, in a unit not every leg length was the same. They had all learned to adjust their strides to the same length.

  Hillary was tall. How many times had she adjusted her stride when the soldiers ran as a unit? Sh
e had a hell of a lot of experience doing it.

  After their showers, Trace began to feel angry. “What the hell happened, Allan? What is this all about? Another reason to drive me mad?”

  Hillary looked at him, clearly a bit astonished, then said quietly, “I share your frustration.”

  “I bet you do. Neither of us is inclined to sit on our butts for endless hours. We need activity. Action. But I’m not going to get truths out there running my behind off. Left to my own devices, I’d probably be doing that run twice or more a day. Do you people ever run such distances twice a day?”

  “Depends. For conditioning, yes, sometimes.”

  “Then we start feeling the lack of all the rest of it.” He wiped a hand over his face. “I’m going to buy more beer, or something else. Any preferences?”

  “Pilsner, if your stores carry it. It’s what I drink mostly at home.”

  “I’m sure I can find it. Anything else?”

  She tilted her head, as if considering. “Aquavit is excellent.”

  “I’ll get some if it’s available. We might need a few shots before this day is over.”

  She hesitated then stood. “If you can wait a moment or two, I’ll go with you.” She didn’t want to make any kind of splash in this town, to get noticed too often. It went against her training and instincts. But he was right about needing activity.

  “I’ll wait. I’d really like the company.”

  Teamwork. They were both used to it. And being covert in strange places.

  This time she allowed her sigh to escape. He was right about the inactivity. Before long they were going to feel like prisoners in this house.

  * * *

  TRACE RENTED A room by the week at a gracious house on Front Street. He ran in to get a change of clothing but didn’t take long. He’d never tried to rent a place long term because he was so rarely in town. A room was plenty, and Brigid and Allan had often made their tiny guest room available to him.