by Gwen Moffat
‘And?’ asked Oliver.
‘And what?’
‘You stopped suddenly. Go on: trying to trace the woman driver – ’
‘And once they found her they would hope to be able to retrace the movements of the car back to – well, ideally to when Carl and Fleur saw it leaving Sundown.’
Attention switched to Fleur, even Oliver’s attention. This evening they seemed volatile as children, for which Miss Pink was thankful; she’d had an odd feeling there that Oliver knew she was holding back, and what she was withholding was information that concerned him and the fact that (if he’d spent the night somewhere en route) he could have been on the road next day, when Andy and Gayleen might have picked up a hitch-hiker.
At nine o’clock next morning the coast was blanketed in fog and Miss Pink drove with her heater on and the windows closed. About fifteen miles north of the village she came round a bend to see twin red eyes flaring in the gloom and, stopping in time, prayed that following vehicles would have heeded the warnings, ‘Flagman Ahead’ placed along the shoulder.
More vehicles arrived, stopped, and waited like patient animals. After a while the line edged forward and moved left as the tarmac became single-lane. Machinery loomed on the right, faintly yellow, and there were glimpses of people in fluorescent orange. The convoy crept over mud and gravel with a low vegetated bank on the left above the drop. The cars kept as far away from the abyss as possible.
At the end of the roadworks they came back to the correct side, passing the pilot car with its huge notice, ‘Follow me’, and the line of traffic awaiting its turn. The northbound cars picked up speed, Miss Pink wondering idly how they closed the stretch at night, and then remembering someone saying that they put earth-moving machinery – bulldozers and the like – across the single lane. There could be no way round the obstructions: the precipice was on one side, steep slopes and the landslip on the other. They closed the road at six; she must make sure she was back by then. She’d looked at her map and seen that a detour would involve roughly four sides of an irregular figure: around 180 miles of paved road, although there were forest tracks that were only a third of that distance. But what stranger would venture on sixty miles of dirt roads in the dark, roads that could have been washed away since the map was produced, had fallen out of use or were even barred by locked gates? No, she had to be back by six.
It was important to keep an eye on the time because at this moment she didn’t think she would be coming back early. She wanted to stay out until the fog cleared and here it was ten o’clock and still no sign of movement in the dense cover. It was frustrating to see nothing more of the country she was driving through than the low gnarled shore pines and what looked like banks or barrows that must be tangles of vegetation.
A sudden confusion of coloured lights ahead: the familiar twin red eyes waxing bright, the exciting, disorientating effect of flashing police lights: red, white, blue. She slowed and stopped; this was not her day.
But in a way it was. Waved forward, then halted by a large Highway Patrolman, she lowered her window and heard an unexpected question, but one for which she realised she should have been prepared.
‘Good morning, ma’am. Were you on this road last week: Tuesday, 22nd, in the afternoon?’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Andy and Gayleen,’ and was, of course, directed to pull off the road, where Laddow came to her five minutes later, unable to conceal his disappointment as he approached and saw whom they’d caught in the net. He looked chilled and hesitated for only a moment before getting into the warm car.
‘What is all this about?’ she asked and, anticipating a reluctance to answer, went on, ‘You might as well tell me; you know it will be all over Sundown, if not the whole coast, by this evening, including television.’
‘You’re right.’ His tone sharpened. ‘You’re always right.’ He stared through the windscreen at the pines and the fog all in shades of grey. They were in a big lay-by among other cars, some unmarked, others police vehicles. Out on the highway the stationary cars were perceptible only by virtue of their headlights. ‘We traced the Chevy back to here,’ he told her: ‘Moon Shell Beach.’
‘This is Moon Shell Beach?’ She peered as if she could pierce the fog. ‘I thought you got this far when you were working north.’
He pursed his lips. ‘We turned back from here because we phoned from a call-box up the road; that’s where we got the word about the girl’s body and came back to ask for descriptions of her clothes, remember? We attached no significance to Moon Shell Beach. We didn’t know it was important until now.’
‘There have been more developments? The latest we heard was that there’s a drug addict who is supposed to have sold the Chevrolet to a pimp.’
‘He did, if you can believe them, and I think, in this case, we believe all of them because murder is involved and everyone’s very much concerned not to be charged as an accessory, let alone as a principal.’ He grinned like a shark, searching her face. He saw that she understood and went on, ‘So I think that here we have a true story, give or take the odd omission.’ He paused, apparently assembling his thoughts. ‘We start from here,’ he said slowly. ‘The addict was on Moon Shell Beach that day – some of these beaches are not resorts, ma’am, not family places like Sundown; I’d steer clear of them if I was you.’
‘Drugs?’ She was astonished. ‘On beaches?’
‘Oh, yes. It started in California and, like all the wrong things: multiple murder, drugs, cults, you name it, it’s spreading. Anyway, here’s this guy – Kelsey’s the name – came down with someone else in the other guy’s car; friend disappears with a girl, leaves Kelsey without a lift back to the city. What does Kelsey do? Why, he wanders up to this Vista Point of course, looking for someone to give him a lift home, and there are several cars parked, and a guy just getting into one of them, hand on the door handle. So Kelsey shouts, comes over and asks for a lift back to Portland. Other guy takes his hand off the door, says, ‘Be my guest’ and walks off.’
‘This is the Chevy?’ Miss Pink asked. ‘Empty? Abandoned?’
‘Well, no one in it, no one obvious. So Kelsey walks round to the passenger side – he’s had an invitation, hasn’t he? – gets in, thinking the owner, the guy he took for the owner, will be back, he just went to the bathroom, keys are in the ignition, everything ready to go, but the guy doesn’t come back. After a while Kelsey gets to thinking the guy’s not going to show because he was planning to steal the car, and the real owners are down on the beach some place snorting coke and here’s their car, keys in the ignition, luggage in the back, and Kelsey with scarcely a dollar to his name – and he could get five hundred for the Chevy and, who knows what’s in the luggage? Cameras, maybe.’
‘So he drove away.’
‘He drove away to Portland and next morning he takes the Chevy to a crooked dealer he knows but he’s not buying a car with a locked trunk – did I say there was no key to the trunk on the key ring?’
‘No. And the trunk was locked at this point, here in this lay-by.’ Her eyes were glazed.
‘And you couldn’t get at the trunk by taking out the rear seat because it was jammed, so the dealer forced it – and guess what he found.’ The clown’s face registered horrified amazement.
Miss Pink humoured him. ‘Gayleen’s body,’ she said.
‘Correct. And Kelsey’s thrown out of the garage, out of the area, warned never to show his face again … We’ve seen the dealer: straight as a ruler so far as the world’s concerned. Funny thing though’ – frowning fiercely – ‘he didn’t report it to the police. Still, that’s by the way. Now Kelsey’s driving around Portland with a body in the trunk, but he’s greedy, and he’s not very bright. He’s got a car and a Nikon to sell (he’d gone through the luggage during the night) and the only people know about the corpse are the dealer and the killer, and neither of those is going to talk about it. So he waits till after midnight when there aren’t many people about and he gets rid of the body
and in the morning – this is Thursday – he sells the car to a pimp, and the rest you know – except that seeing as it’s hot in Portland right now, the car began to smell. But the pimp, he was greedy too, and after all he could always say he thought the previous owner’s dog died and he had taken the body to the pet cemetery which is, in fact, exactly what he did say.’
The fog was lifting, the shore pines showing against blue, not grey, wet bark catching a glint of sunshine.
‘So the body was in the trunk at this spot,’ she said. ‘The Chevy never got to an airport; it was stolen from here. Where is Andy Keller? Are you thinking in terms of his being the killer? No, you’re looking for his body. That’s what all this is about.’ She gestured at the other vehicles.
‘We’re doing two things; we’re trying to find someone who was passing here last Tuesday afternoon, who may have seen something— ’ He checked as Hammett came quickly across the gravel. Laddow opened his door. Miss Pink opened hers, got out and stretched. Over the roof of the car she saw the excitement in Hammett’s eyes. He turned his back, talking urgently. The two of them walked away and she followed. A cluster of people in plainclothes and uniforms, women among them, gathered about the detectives like acolytes and everyone crossed the road and moved along a track that was green with lank grass but marked by wheels. There was a smell so foul that it made the eyes water: not just skunk but dead skunk. There was litter and used tissues: an unpleasant place, the kind of place where unpleasant things happened. On either side was a matted mass of scrub. A densely wooded depression lay below, while chaparral climbed the slopes above to gaunt rocks on the skyline.
The track dipped and turned and after some fifty yards ended at a wall of jungle. Cars that had come this far would have to reverse; there was no room to turn.
They stopped before the end of the track. A uniformed man in his shirt sleeves was waiting there with a yellow Labrador on a leash. The crowd stood like an audience, Miss Pink peering over shoulders. Laddow and Hammett advanced to a small post like a surveyor’s post which had been stuck in the ground. They squatted on their heels and Laddow parted the grass blades with the delicacy of a surgeon. After a moment they straightened and stared at the dog. Its handler was expressionless. Laddow asked a question and Hammett responded. They stepped back and everyone retreated as a man came forward and started to take photographs. They returned to the road and an orange tape was strung across the mouth of the trail.
The people around Miss Pink were talking without inhibition. Not Press, she thought; they were all from Forensics and the Medical Examiner’s office: detectives waiting their turn to gather evidence from what to all appearances was the scene of a crime. She listened to the talk.
‘ … no doubt,’ a voice was saying. ‘You didn’t see him: he was digging in that grass like he’d buried an old bone there.’
‘He’s that good? It was supposed to be a downpour that night.’
‘All I know is what I saw. That dog says there’s blood, maybe it washed off the grass but it’s still in the dirt underneath. It’ll show in the samples.’
A third man approached and said feelingly, ‘We’ve got to search that?’
Everyone looked at the fecund jungle on the inland side of the highway.
‘No way,’ someone said. ‘It was only a week ago: drag a body in there, the track’s got to show. Look at it, man; that stuff hasn’t been disturbed this season.’
‘We’ll search. Wanna bet?’
The dog was sent in although it was obvious that no body could have been deposited in this place, not without leaving a trace. Miss Pink watched and waited, anticipating the moment when Laddow would have her continued presence brought to his attention and he would be forced to ask her to leave. Forced, because it would mean he’d have to speak to her again, but after a while she realised that there was nothing, or nothing fresh he could say. She guessed that, until the laboratories had analysed the samples, the foetid trail could tell them nothing more.
She guessed correctly. When Laddow came back to the lay-by and saw her standing by her car he blinked in surprise. He had forgotten her, moreover it appeared that he hadn’t seen her among the horde of technicians.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I was called away. I’m leaving now. Did you want to see me about something?’ People were getting into their cars, starting up, pulling out on to the road.
‘Was the girl killed over there?’ She indicated the mouth of the track.
‘You’ve been talking to someone.’
‘Listening. I’m not deaf, Mr Laddow.’
‘Yes, well’ – he was grudging – ‘the dog is interested in the place. We’ve taken samples; it could turn out to be where he killed her, yes.’
‘He? You mean – ’ She let it hang.
‘There’s no other body here. He put her in the trunk, reversed the car to this spot and walked away, leaving the keys in the ignition.’
‘Then he would have to hitch a lift northwards, or south.’
‘Or east: another few miles and the road crosses the coast range to Portland, and to the interstate.’ He stifled a sigh. ‘He’s got eight days’ start on us.’
‘You’re pretty certain now?’
He looked at her. ‘He left Sundown with the girl. She was dead at this point, and she was almost certainly killed here; even if rain washed away the blood the dog was on to something. But there’s no second body. I never did believe in a hitch-hiker; that was his wife: wishful thinking. Who wants to believe her husband’s a murderer?’
Chapter 10
‘How was she shot?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘Why not?’
Miss Pink regarded Leo Brant in surprise, not at the other’s belligerence, which was her natural manner, but at her own omission. In imagination she recalled that meeting with Laddow yesterday at the Vista Point above Moon Shell Beach.
Sadie said, ‘I’m amazed he gave you any information at all, but then you invite confidence.’
‘Quiet!’ Leo ordered. ‘There he is.’
The others looked where she was looking and saw the pileated woodpecker lurching up a snag, its crest flaming in the sunshine. They held their breath but it was no good; three people and three rucksacks were alien objects in the bird’s territory. A plastic bag flapped, the woodpecker gave a shriek of alarm and dived for the timber.
‘Time he got used to us,’ Leo grumbled. ‘He sees us often enough.’
‘He’s always spooky,’ Sadie pointed out. ‘She’s much more amenable.’
‘How do you tell them apart?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘She doesn’t have the red whisker,’ Leo said. ‘But it’s easiest to distinguish them by behaviour. You can’t always see the whisker against the light – or its absence.’
‘Are you a superlative birder or do you just have eyes like a vulture?’
Leo looked at her friend. ‘Which is it, Locke?’
‘Something of both,’ Sadie said, then, gently probing: ‘So we still don’t know what calibre gun was used on Gayleen.’
Miss Pink wrenched her attention back to the question of firearms. ‘Not yet. And who’s going to ask?’
‘No one now. Poor Lois.’ A pause. ‘And poor Andy,’ she added. ‘It had to be a crime of passion.’
‘What the hell difference does that make?’ Leo glared. Miss Pink stared at the canopy where the woodpecker had disappeared. The words hung between them.
They had climbed out of the timbered basin by way of Porcupine Gulch to lunch on Pandora Ridge. There were places here on the crest that were clear of trees and they had stopped on a rock platform from which there was an extensive view. This was mostly forest, although there was the sea to the west and Cape Deception north of the cove, but all the land was covered by trees except for a ribbon of cliffs under the cape. There was a certain variation in texture because creeks and canyons had their counterparts in spurs and the timber traced such irregularities meticulously; the far side of the basi
n was a design of shaded folds, soft as green velvet.
‘He didn’t tell you much,’ Sadie remarked after a time. ‘He merely confirmed what we were all afraid of.’
Leo turned slowly. ‘Since when were you bothered Andy Keller would turn out to be a murderer? What about “Spotted Owls Roasted”?’
‘Don’t, Leo.’
‘He deserves all he got.’ She checked in astonishment. ‘What am I saying? He’s the one that got away, except he hasn’t; Laddow traced him pretty quickly to Moon Shell. Andy had to hitch from there; once it goes out on television, whoever gave him a lift will come forward within minutes.’
‘He’s had over a week to get lost,’ Sadie said.
‘Now where would he go?’ Leo looked at Miss Pink. ‘Stay out in the boondocks, he’s noticeable. He’ll hole up in a city, don’t you think? San Francisco or LA?’
‘He needn’t be noticeable in a wilderness area,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘A certain type of criminal could do it; it’s been done often enough. And there are all the marijuana growers in the coastal ranges; he could well find sanctuary with them.’
‘Well, there’s one thing’ – Leo started to pack her rucksack – ‘he’s got to stay hidden, so he can’t come back here. We’ve seen the last of him, thank God. Why are you looking at me like that, Locke? What did I say, apart from the obvious?’
‘Only that it’s a good thing there wasn’t a second body.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone hated that man. He was mean.’
‘Don’t talk about him in the past tense; it’s borrowing trouble.’
When everything came to be known about this day, Miss Pink was to wonder why they had talked in this way, but at the time she paid it no more attention than she did any of the speculation rife in Sundown, and an hour or so later she forgot it completely, at least for a while.
Their business here was the spotted owl and below them now, on the northern slope of Pandora Ridge, dropping towards Bobcat Creek and Porcupine, was the old-growth forest of hemlock and spruce and red cedar. The party, with Leo leading, descended Pandora to the point where the subsidiary spur broke right, pointing towards the village. They were back in the trees and shortly they came to the signpost that pointed in two directions to Sundown. Here, instead of continuing to follow the spur as Miss Pink had done shortly after her arrival, Leo dropped steeply down the trail that would take them through the old-growth. Within half a mile they came to the lip of the big landslide.