Point Deception

by Marcia Muller

  “Since when is she missing?”

  “Disappeared from her bed sometime last night. They’re putting together a civilian search party, calling for volunteers, but…”

  “Odd, these things happening immediately before the anniversary of the murders.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Guy hesitated, looking down into the mug he held and swirling the coffee. “Mr. Cordova, before I left here yesterday you said that you know as much as anybody else about the murders. And then you added, ‘More, maybe.’”

  The old man nodded.

  “You also told me that it’s time to take the skeletons out of the closet and dust them off.”

  “I seem to recall saying something of that nature.”

  “Well, how do you feel about picking up that dust rag and going to work?”

  The Rhoda A was a forty-year-old CrisCraft that had once been named the Mary A for Rho’s mother. After Mary left town with an itinerant bartender who had briefly worked at the hotel, Jack Antolini renamed the cruiser and maintained her well till Rho went off to college. Some of Rho’s fondest memories were of the time she’d spent aboard her namesake. But when she moved back to Signal Port she discovered that her father had let the craft deteriorate, and since he’d moved onto her after his forced retirement, he’d done little maintenance. Now the Rhoda A was shabby and barnacled and rode low in her slip, the only tenant of the abandoned marina.

  Jack came up on deck as Rho approached: a big man with several days of gray stubble on his face and broken veins on his broad nose, wearing rumpled work clothes and an Oakland A’s cap. When he saw who was coming he broke into a wide grin that revealed tobacco-stained teeth and called, “Permission to come aboard granted, Deputy.”

  She stepped onto the boat and hugged him. He smelled of Irish whiskey and cheap cigars and probably hadn’t bathed in days, but the solidity of his chest and arms called forth memories of the nights when she would wake from dreams of abandonment and chaos, crying for her mother. Jack had always been there to comfort her when he wasn’t working, and only a quick radio patch away while on duty.

  They went down to the cabin, Jack leaning heavily on the railing to compensate for the bad leg that had resulted from his car crash. While she seated herself at the small table, he turned down his scanner and poured them both coffee, lacing his liberally with Irish. Rho held back the critical words that automatically came to mind. They would only lead to a quarrel, and besides, she was not one to talk. She may not have satisfied last night’s craving for alcohol, but only because it had eventually been overwhelmed by exhaustion following her overlong shift.

  “So where’s that mutt of yours?” Jack asked. He was Cody’s biggest fan.

  “I left him at the substation. Valerie’s had a gift for him in her desk for days—a new chew bone—and I couldn’t tear him away from it.”

  Jack snorted. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t knitted him one of those things she makes. Someday you’ll leave him there and when you pick him up, he’ll be wearing it and looking like an idiot.”

  “She means well, Dad.”

  “You think I don’t know that? She’s a good woman, has had a hard life. Of course, you could say the whole damn town’s had a hard life. What’s your take on these latest developments?” Jack leaned forward, eyes glittering greedily.

  Rho brought up her guard. These work-related discussions always went badly. “Well, we don’t have the autopsy results on Chrystal Ackerman yet, but I think we can safely say it was rape-and-murder. Our appeal for people to come forward with information places her at Point Deception somewhere between fifteen hundred fifty and nineteen hundred hours, but nowhere else, and we doubt she was killed there. Clark County, Nevada, is trying to contact next of kin, and if whoever that is can’t shed any light on where she was going or why, I guess Ned Grossman or Denny Shepherd’ll have to fly down there, go over to her apartment, talk in person with the people who knew her.”

  “Any chance the Lindsay woman’s death is related?”

  “There’s nothing to indicate that was anything other than an accident.”

  “There’s a circular out on her jewelry and credit cards.”

  “Someone robbed the body, yes.”

  “Someone who caused the accident, maybe.”

  “There was no damage to her car consistent with involvement with another vehicle.” She heard her language become stilted, as if she were trying to justify her theories to Station Commander Iverson.

  “What about the Scurlock woman?” Jack asked. “Is her disappearance related to the murder?”

  “Only in the sense that the murder made a previously unstable woman flip out.”

  “You taking a good look at Will Scurlock? Cases like that, you always look at the husband or wife.”

  “There was nothing in his behavior to make me suspect him of any wrongdoing.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jack’s tone was skeptical.

  “Look, Dad, I was there, and you weren’t!”

  Hurt flickered in his eyes and he looked away. Rho bit her lip, ashamed both for snapping at him and for reminding him that he hadn’t been and never again would be officially present at a crime scene. He drained his mug and went back for more—straight Irish this time.

  “Who’s this Guy Newberry you’ve got a BOLO out on?” he asked, his back to her.

  “You don’t miss a word that comes over that scanner, do you?” She tried to force affection into her tone, lighten the atmosphere.

  “I was a deputy for over thirty years, Rhoda. I can hear scanner broadcasts in my sleep.”

  Rhoda. He really was hurt. He’d always called her “honey” or, since she’d joined the department, “Deputy.”

  “Well, Guy Newberry is a writer from New York City. He came out here to do a book on the Cascada Canyon murders. At least that’s what Wayne heard. I want to talk to him about the project, but I can’t locate him since Hugh Dawson kicked him out of the Sea Stacks.”

  Jack turned and leaned against the counter. “Why’d Dawson do that?”

  “Because of the book.”

  “Well, Hugh’s an asshole, but he’s got a point.”

  “Does he? I wonder. Besides, kicking him out of the motel isn’t going to stop a man like Newberry. I’ve met him.”

  “He’s got to be stopped.”

  “How?”

  “You should know, Deputy.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There’s stuff in the property room at headquarters. Plenty of incriminating stuff. Plant it on him, pick him up, give him the option of leaving the county or going to jail.”

  “Oh, come on, Dad!”

  “Goddamn it!” Jack exclaimed. “Where’s your backbone? This town has suffered enough. The department’s been embarrassed enough. No New York City writer who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the problems we’ve got here should be allowed to ridicule us in print. And he sure as hell shouldn’t be allowed to ridicule my daughter!”

  Here we go, she thought. He’s really into it now. “Why would he ridicule me?”

  “Do I have to point out the obvious? I guess I do. One, because you panicked and didn’t get a dying statement from a witness. Two, because you disturbed a crime scene. Three, because you took an incomplete statement from another witness, and the omissions weren’t caught till the FBI stepped in. Four, because you broke the chain of physical evidence. Are those enough reasons for you?”

  Rho gripped the table’s edge, fought for control. Her father’s anger filled the small cabin.

  “We’ve been over this before,” she said. “I’ll go over it again, but this is the last time. Ever. I couldn’t get a statement from Heath Wynne; he was only a little boy, dying in extreme pain. The shed I took Oriana Wynne out of wasn’t technically a crime scene. Yes, I was distracted and unfocused when I took Virge Scurlock’s statement, but show me anyone who wouldn’t’ve been after what I’d gone through. And as for breaking the chain of evidence…”

&n
bsp; “Yes? How’re you gonna justify that?”

  She voiced it, for the first time ever. “I didn’t misplace those blood samples, Dad. Wayne did.”

  Gregory Cordova remained silent when Guy finished summarizing what he already knew about the Cascada Canyon killings. Finally he said, “You may know a lot about those people, but I know things the sheriff and even the FBI didn’t find out.”

  “Why didn’t you share them with the authorities?”

  “I had my reasons, but they’re not important anymore.”

  “Then shall we get started?” Guy turned on his tape recorder.

  The old man looked askance at it, then shrugged. “Okay, first thing is about that couple who used to visit the canyon with their little girl. Squatters in an abandoned cabin on the ridge. Sometimes I’d see their old bus parked under the pine trees when I passed the canyon on my way to town. But a lot of times they were there without the bus.”

  “Meaning they knew about the deer track past the pond and used it.”

  “I’d say they used it most every day. Their little girl was always playing with the canyon kids in that meadow by the highway.”

  “So they could’ve had something to do with the murders, come and gone unobserved.”

  “Except on that night they drove straight through the gate.”

  “You saw that?”

  Cordova nodded. “I was fixing my fence at the far north end of my property. Damn fishermen were always pulling it down till I decided to give them access at the turnout. This was about an hour before dark. Bus was still there when I went back to the house.”

  Interesting that he hadn’t reported their presence. “What d’you recall about the family?”

  “They were kinda raggedy. Man was maybe in his midthirties, the woman younger. Little girl around five or six. Parents were standoffish, but the little girl was friendly. She’d see me working around my property and wave.”

  “Can you describe the parents?”

  “Woman had beautiful red hair down to her ass. Man played the guitar, sang. Sometimes I’d see him sitting in the van with the side door open, keeping the Wynne fellow company while he worked on his car, and he’d be making music. Wasn’t very good, but at least he could carry a tune.”

  “The newspaper said that Oriana Wynne could only give a first name for the little girl, Chrissy. There was no mention of the parents. You ever hear their names?”

  “No.”

  “Is it possible they could’ve killed all those people?”

  The old man shook his head. “No way. Would’ve taken more than a man and a woman—and a slothful man and woman at that. No, I think they saw what happened and took off.”

  “So that’s all you know?”

  “About them, yes. Now, there was somebody else living in the canyon for a while, a man maybe in his late twenties. Was there for around a month, but two weeks before the murders he was gone.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Tall, thin, blond hair. I saw him in the meadow a couple of times, clearing land for a fall vegetable garden. Got it spaded up and had sacks of fertilizer and compost there, but it never got planted.”

  Guy considered. The man probably didn’t have anything to do with the killings, but the timing and abruptness of his departure was interesting.

  “There’s one other thing,” Cordova said. Excitement rippled under the surface of his voice and he leaned forward.

  This is it, Guy thought. He’s saved the best for last.

  “That Blakeley woman, she had an outside interest. Couple of times I saw her leaving the property up north by the speed-limit sign. Came down a path through the bushes near where the stream runs under the highway in a culvert. Would be a car waiting for her. She’d get in and off they’d go. I found that kinda interesting, so I played detective. Waited there to see how long they’d be gone. Two hours at most and he’d drop her off. Big clinch before she got out.”

  Guy asked, “Did you recognize the man?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t tell the sheriff’s department about this, either.”

  “No. The man was somebody I didn’t want to make an enemy of. Had a reputation for violence, even back then.”

  “Who was he, Mr. Cordova?”

  The old man’s eyes glittered as he gave up his secret. “Deputy Wayne Gilardi.”

  “Wayne misplaced those blood samples?” Jack stared at Rho in disbelief.

  “You heard me, Dad.”

  He came back to the table, slumped on the bench seat. “And you covered for him all these years?”

  She nodded.

  “Why, honey?”

  “Because he was my mentor from the day I joined the department. He stood up for me against the guys who didn’t want a woman to be a deputy. Besides, Janie was pregnant and he was up for promotion to a higher pay grade. An error like that would’ve screwed his chances.”

  “He ask you to take the blame?”

  “No.”

  “He tell you not to?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you did it anyway.”

  “Right. I didn’t have as much to lose.”

  Jack looked at her with respect. “I’m proud of you, Deputy.”

  “Well, everybody made mistakes—at the scene and later on. None of us, right on up to Detective Lieutenant Marx, were prepared to handle a crime like that. I didn’t see any reason for Wayne to suffer. I was a rookie; it was to be expected of me.”

  Her father shook his head. “To be expected of you by everybody but your old man. I was tough on you. Too tough, and now I’m sorry.”

  “Not as tough as some.” She thought of Will Scurlock’s tirade. “Besides, you’re a perfectionist, and you were frustrated because you couldn’t help out.”

  “Still, I should’ve been more supportive of my girl.”

  She made a gesture of dismissal. “I could use some support now.”

  “Name it.”

  She hesitated, unsure if she could trust the sudden change in Jack’s attitude. “I’m worried about Wayne, Dad.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s changed. I didn’t fully realize how much until I was talking with Will Scurlock about the gradual change in Virge. Wayne was always on the tough side, but he’s graduated from knocking around drug dealers to roughing up anybody who crosses him. Last night he was right on the edge—kicked ass before he ran some people in for petty infractions.”

  “Not good in a sensitive situation like this.”

  “No, and it’s not just his professional life that’s messed up. He’s got at least three different women on the side, and Janie’s threatened to leave him. Her coworkers at the cable TV office tell me she’s turned up with bruises on her face and arms more than once. Wayne beat the shit out of Lily’s boyfriend last month, and Saturday night he jerked her around in public.”

  “So what’s causing this?”

  “I think that Wayne, like the rest of us at the department, feels guilty because we never solved those murders. Guilty and angry, and he’s taking it out on everybody else.”

  Jack was silent for a moment. “Before, you said you didn’t think this Newberry fellow could be stopped from writing his book.”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “You also seemed to wonder if trying to suppress it was a good idea.”

  She nodded. “Maybe it’s better if he brings it all out in the open. Maybe then we’d have closure.”

  Again Jack was silent, and she knew better than to interrupt his thoughts. Before he spoke, the set of his mouth told her he’d reached a hard conclusion.

  “If that’s what you want, then you know what to do.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, you do, Deputy. But since you seem somewhat confused, allow your old dad to spell it out for you.”

  Guy had been back in his room at the bed-and-breakfast only minutes when someone knocked on the door. He sighed, thinking it was either Kevin Jacoby or Becca Campos. B
oth were pleasant enough but seemed needy, and at the moment he was in no mood to lend a sympathetic ear. He’d claim to be working, put off whoever it was till later.

  When he opened the door, however, Rhoda Swift smiled up at him. She wasn’t in uniform, just jeans and a heavy hooded sweater, but the brittle quality of the smile told him this wasn’t a social call. Her eyes moved past him to his file boxes and laptop. “I hope I’m not interrupting your work,” she said.

  “Not at all. I haven’t even unpacked yet. So you’ve heard I’ve been banished from the Sea Stacks. How’d you find me?”

  “I put out a BOLO—be-on-lookout—on you, and one of the other deputies spotted your car. I want to invite you to a search party. Virge Scurlock is missing, and her husband’s organizing it. Those of us who have the time are to meet at their place at one. They need everybody they can enlist.”

  Both her quasi-official manner and the nature of the invitation intrigued him. “I’ll be glad to help. Let me get my jacket.”

  Rhoda insisted on driving, and once he’d belted himself into the passenger’s seat of her truck, which was covered in the Lab’s hair, he settled back to admire the way she handled the highway’s curves. A police-band radio muttered under the dash, and after a minute he asked, “Do they require you to have a radio in your personal vehicle?”

  “No, but most of us do. We’re understaffed and the county is hard to police. If there’s trouble in the vicinity or someone needs backup, we want to know so we can be there.”

  After that she spoke little, only to ask if he found his new room comfortable, and resisted his few attempts at conversation. As they drove south he occupied himself by noting the landmarks: the entrance to Cascada Canyon; Point Deception turnout; Gregory Cordova’s dirt driveway. About a mile beyond Cordova’s place Rhoda cut sharply to the left and they followed a paved drive that led high onto the ridge. A sprawling yellow house stood in a clearing, its vintage early fifties or perhaps late forties, with a glassed-in porch. An abundance of gnarled rose bushes that still bore papery-looking flowers surrounded it, and a couple of outbuildings with a disused appearance stood nearby.