by Paty Jager
Table of Contents
Title Page
copyright
Acknowledgement
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Tarnished Remains
About the Author
Double Duplicity
A Shandra Higheagle Mystery
Paty Jager
This is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
DOUBLE DUPLICITY
Copyright © 2015 Patricia Jager
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Name of Press except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Windtree Press
Beaverton, Oregon
Visit us at http://windtreepress.com
Cover Art by Christina Keerins
Photography by: Tim Norman Arts
Published in the United States of America
ISBN 9781940064932
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Tim Norman Arts for the use of their gallery and people for the staging of the cover photo and to Tim Norman, my brother, for his insight into how bronze statues are made and assembled. His knowledge of the art world is what helped me conjure up my character, Shandra Higheagle.
Chapter One
The Bluetooth in Shandra Higheagle’s Jeep rang, interrupting the memories and drumbeats swirling in her head. She shook the past couple days off and pushed the green phone icon on the radio screen.
“Shandra.”
“Hi Shandra, this is Paula Doring. I know this is short notice, but I really would like to speak with you if you’re coming down off your mountain today.”
Shandra rolled her eyes. Of all the gallery owners in Huckleberry, Paula was her least favorite. The woman didn’t understand artists and thought only of the dollar.
“I am off my mountain. I should be rolling into Huckleberry in about twenty minutes.”
“Perfect. Could you swing by my gallery? I have a new acquisition, and I think a couple of your vases would look wonderful partnered with it. See you in twenty.” Paula hung up.
“Great! One more thing to interfere with getting my vases to Ted and Naomi.” Ted and Naomi Norton, owners of Dimensions Gallery, were expecting her to deliver more vases for the art event beginning tonight. They were her best supporters and showcased her vases in their gallery.
She only had one piece at Paula’s gallery, aptly named after her, Doring Art Gallery. Paula was known to only take in artists she felt would propel her gallery to a status, rather than taking in artists that she liked. But she’d insisted on having at least one piece of Shandra’s art so she could also say she had one thing from all the local artists.
As much as she didn’t care for Paula, who was a backstabber, she did want her pieces seen and having more than one in the Doring Gallery for the upcoming art event that was the most publicized show in the Pacific Northwest was a good move on her part. Her latest gourd-shaped pieces were recently the focus of a story in the Northwest Art Magazine. The exposure had garnered her more sales and attention. While she liked traveling to shows, right now, her heart was at home with her animals and her clay.
The resort village of Huckleberry Mountain sat fifteen miles off Idaho I-90 at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains. Shandra turned onto Huckleberry Highway and soon slowed to turn right toward the town. Turning left would take her to the Ski Lodge. Art collectors who had gathered at the resort for the event would be dining at the Lodge’s five-star restaurant tomorrow night after schmoozing over cocktails and appetizers with the local artists.
Shandra didn’t care for the schmoozing, but the people who bought the high priced art sold in the galleries wanted to be on a first name basis with the artists who envisioned their pieces.
She obeyed the twenty miles per hour signs driving down Huckleberry Street. The speed felt like she was crawling after keeping the cruise on seventy most of the way from Nespelem and her grandmother’s funeral. Driving fast hadn’t dislodged the uneasy feeling her grandmother had requested she attend the seven drum ceremony for a reason. “But what reason?”
Shandra parked the Jeep at the curb across from the Doring Gallery. She caught a glimpse of her friend Naomi, jogging across the side street.
Where could Naomi have been coming from? “The bank, the bakery?” Shandra said out loud as she’d become accustom to talking to herself from hours spent alone with her animals as she crafted her art.
She stepped out of the Jeep, straightened her leopard print, tiered skirt, smoothed a hand over her denim shirt, and shifted the concho belt around so the dangling end was at her right hip. She slung the fringed leather bag over her shoulder and headed across the street, dodging the slow moving traffic. Her cowboy boot heels echoed when she stepped onto the tiled entryway of Doring Gallery. The buzz of her entry died in the stillness.
“Paula? Paula, it’s Shandra.” She continued through the middle of the partitions spattered with various sizes of paintings and prints and pedestals honoring handcrafted masterpieces.
“Paula?” It wasn’t like Paula to leave the gallery unmanned, or as the case may be unwomanned. If Paula wasn’t here, where was Juan, her assistant? A shiver slithered up Shandra’s back as she moved deeper into the building.
A display of Native American art caught her attention. Vibrant photos of twenty-first century ceremonial dancers covered one partition while paintings of historical depictions covered the other. The crease in the partition at the apex of the V reminded her of the world she’d just come from at the reservation. Her grandmother’s funeral had been half modern and half the old ways. It had been the ceremony of the old ways that lightened her sad heart.
An abstract horse and rider stood four feet tall in the middle of the V-shaped display while two four-foot tall warriors stood guard on either side. One held a bow, the other a spear. The convergence of the abstract modern piece and the steadfast, solid bronze statues that depicted the way Native Americans are seen in history mirrored her life.
Shandra dismissed the pondering about her roots and pulled her gaze from the bronze six-pack on the warrior with the spear and headed toward the office. She had to give Paula credit; the gallery owner knew how to display art to its fullest advantage.
“Paula?” A light shone around the edges of the partially open office door. Shandra pushed the door open. “Why aren’t you answer—”
Paula’s arms hung splayed away from her body that w
as cradled in her leather office chair. A large red patch spread across her body and lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Shandra backed out of the room. She couldn’t swallow for the lump of fear and vileness she’d just witnessed.
“Think… Call the police.” She punched in 9 as sirens shrieked and grew louder. “Maybe they’re coming here.” They had to be coming here. This town is too small for there to be two incidents where the cops are needed at the same time.
She put her phone in her bag and strode toward the front of the building.
The door buzzed. A young officer she’d never seen before burst into the building with his gun held in front of him.
“Stop! Put your hands in the air!” he shouted.
Shandra squeaked and raised her arms.
“Did you call the cops?”
“No. I—”
He advanced on her so fast she didn’t know what was happening until he wrenched her arm behind her back.
“What are you doing?” she asked as pain twinged up her arm.
“I’m detaining you until I can search the premises.” He cuffed her and started to haul her to the door.
“Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not going into a squad car and looking like a criminal when I’m not. I just arrived and found Paula in the office. I was starting to call nine-one-one when I heard the sirens.” Shandra dug in her boot heels. There was no way she’d have the whole town see her sitting in a cop car. She’d done nothing wrong.
“Who’s Paula?” He tugged on her, but she refused to be humiliated for nothing.
“The owner of the gallery. She’s in her chair in the office. Dead.” That stopped the zealous officer.
“We received a phone call of suspicious activity.” He changed course, pushing her ahead of him to the back of the building and the office.
Shandra complied. She’d rather stand by the office door while he did his thing than be seen in a cop car.
At the office, Blane, his name tag said, stood her next to the door. “Don’t move. You’re still a suspect.”
She nodded. She’d stay here all day if she didn’t have to look at Paula again.
He entered the office. “Holy shit.”
Shandra couldn’t have said it better. She heard him moving around before he came back out. He pushed the button on the radio receiver clipped to his shoulder.
“Dispatch, this is Blane. We’ve got a homicide over at Doring Gallery on Huckleberry Street. I have a suspect in custody.”
“Now wait a minute—”
He silenced her with a swipe of his hand through the air.
“Don’t let anyone else enter and don’t leave the premises until a detective gets there.” The excitement in the dispatcher’s voice reminded Shandra this resort town rarely had excitement of this magnitude.
This was big news for Huckleberry. Sad news, but big news. She didn’t like to think someone from their small town could be a murderer. She knew most of the locals.
She’d purchased the old Whitmire ranch thirty miles north of town two years ago. That was three years after she’d graduated from college and received enough of an inheritance from her maternal grandmother to try her hand at pottery. Her search for a place had taken a while. One of the reasons being she needed land with a certain type of clay soil. She found it on the ranch. The clay had become her signature in her pottery.
Officer Blane yanked on her arm. “I’m gonna sit you in the extra chair in the office.”
“Oh no, you’re not. You bring that chair out here. I’m not sitting in there and staring at Paula. The one glimpse I had is enough to haunt me.” She glared at the man, thankful he was only a few years past puberty and she stood several inches taller than the officer, making it easier to intimidate him.
He ducked into the room, pulled the extra chair out, and Shandra gladly sat down. For all the bravado she showed the officer, her knees were knocking together. She was his only suspect for the killing. She was innocent. But growing up, she’d witnessed more than one Native American person be railroaded. It was the reason her mother and stepfather forbid her to talk about her father’s family. They felt she would be persecuted. The small ranch community in Montana where they lived was tolerant of very little.
Chapter Two
Detective Ryan Greer slowly unfolded from the unmarked Tahoe he used as a Weippe County detective. He’d moved back to northern Idaho to escape the crazies he’d battled while a detective with the Chicago Police Department. He hadn’t been back two months and he received a call from the Weippe sheriff asking him to take this job. The highbrow resort town of Huckleberry had been way out of his league growing up, but now, as a county detective, it was part of his jurisdiction.
Dispatch said they had the killer in custody. He’d have to high-five the local P.D. for acting so quickly and apprehending the culprit. He’d only received the call an hour ago. Having a suspect in custody made his job easier. He slung a backpack with his forensic kit over one shoulder and walked up to the entrance.
He raised the yellow crime scene tape and ducked under to enter the building. A buzzer announced his entry along with the echo of his boot heels on the tiles as he walked into the art gallery.
“Hello?” He studied his notebook. “Officer Blane?”
“Back here!”
Ryan walked to the back of the building. His gaze landed on the woman with long dark hair who sat as ridged as his grandmother’s straight-backed dining chair. This couldn’t be the murderer, could it? As the thought emerged in his mind, her head swiveled slowly toward him. He was struck first by the light golden color of her eyes and second by the raised chin and defiance etched on her face.
A pimply-faced kid dressed in the local P.D.s uniform stepped out of the shadow of an open door.
“Officer Blane,” the kid said, sticking out his hand.
Not taking his eyes off the woman seated in the chair, Ryan gripped the upstart’s hand a bit firmly. “Detective Ryan Greer.”
He directed his first question to the woman. “Who are you?”
“Shandra Higheagle.” Her voice was husky and not at all what he’d expected.
He turned to Blane. “Why is she handcuffed?” He placed a hand under Ms. Higheagle’s elbow and helped her stand.
“I found her in here when I responded to the suspicious activity call.” Blane pulled out his notebook.
Ryan dipped his finger into his jean pocket and pulled out a handcuff key.
“Hey! She’s my suspect,” Blane said, stepping forward.
Ryan stopped him by raising the hand with the key. “What are you doing here?” he asked Ms. Higheagle.
“I didn’t kill Paula. She called me to meet her here. I arrived and found her…” The woman nodded toward the open door.
“What did you do after you found her?” Ryan kept his gaze steady on the woman. It wasn’t a hardship to study her high cheekbones and wide expressive golden eyes.
“I backed out of the room and started to dial nine-one-one when I heard sirens coming, so I walked to the front of the building and officer Blane came in like a cop on some TV show, all guns first and not listening to my side of the circumstances.”
Ryan shoved the key into the cuffs and released the lock. When the cuffs were removed from Ms. Higheagle, she rubbed her wrists and glared at Blane. Ryan studied her hands and clothing. He didn’t see any blood or evidence of a weapon. He’d search her more closely once he determined the manner of death.
“Would you remain here with officer Blane while I take a look at the victim? I’ll have more questions for you once I’ve had a look around.”
She nodded and sat back down on the chair.
His gut told him she wasn’t a murderer, but he had to see the cause of death to be able to rule her out. It didn’t sound like she’d had enough time to stash a weapon or clean up before Blane arrived.
He slipped his pack off his shoulder and extracted booties and latex gloves from the outside pockets before swinging
it back onto his shoulder. He pulled the booties over his cowboy boots and wrestled his hands into the latex gloves.
The metallic tang of blood assaulted his nostrils as he stepped into the room. The scent stopped his feet and sent his mind spinning back in time to the gang fight he’d walked into in Chicago. There were many who left the alley in body bags. The scent of blood had permeated the whole alley where the two gangs had used every weapon they could get their hands on to annihilate the other.
His month long hospital stay, six months of grueling rehab, and then facing the leaders of the gangs as he testified at their trials was one horrendous bad dream. As soon as his part in the trials was over, his resignation hit the commander’s desk and he came home.
Ryan shook his head clearing it of the past and stared at the woman sprawled in the chair, staring at the ceiling. His gaze immediately landed on the large dark spot covering her chest. From lack of blood on the floor, if it was a bullet, it didn’t exit the back. Making it a small caliber and less likely anyone heard the shot. He peered closer. The large amount of blood and ripped clothing around the wound dismissed his thoughts of it being a bullet that caused the wound.
He slipped a hand into the outside pocket of the backpack and pulled out his digital camera. The click of photos, one by one capturing the scene from all angles, triggered his detective mode. He forgot all else, moving in a circle, closing in on the body. Standing over the body, he looked straight down at her chest. The torn clothing at the entry sight and the gaping hole with pink foam…this wasn’t caused by a clean stab of a knife, it was viciously twisted to cause maximum damage.
The click of the camera continued as he took photos from every possible angle of the wound and the body. Halfway through his inspection and photos, he spotted drops of blood on the desk. One on a paper, another on what looked like an abstract of a… He crouched down eye level. It was two bodies entwined in the act of sex.
Ryan shook his head. Where had that come from? Staring at the object from a standing position it appeared to be a stack of sticks. Shoving the impression of the art piece from his mind, he concentrated on finding more drops.