Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2)

by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

“Oh, I see it now on their website.”

  “It’s basically just a cabin, an outhouse with a vault toilet, and a shed. Just look for a State Police vehicle or two parked out front.”

  “Let me know as soon as you can what time you’ll need me, Sergeant. I have to prepare the chapel this afternoon for tomorrow’s early morning service.”

  “The homicide detective and the ME should arrive around six, so why don’t you plan on being here around seven?”

  “All right, Sergeant Blackthorne. I’ll see you then.”

  I’d known Sam since he was a towheaded kid and I was the teenager next door, so his rigid deference to my authority always struck me as strange.

  When Hollis arrived, he brought news about the missing Volvo. He’d ducked into that wayside located off the main road about a mile from the cabin and found J.T. Lake’s black SUV sitting in the parking lot, undisturbed and locked.

  “Didn’t see anything suspicious, but then I couldn’t get inside the vehicle.”

  “The ME will check pockets for a key.”

  “Oh, and I called Whitey Kern and arranged for a tow truck. He was on another emergency over in Fox Valley, so I’m meeting him at the wayside a little after seven.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Now what’s this about you needing me around for backup?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty sure Detective Bach doesn’t want me to have much to do with the investigation until he’s satisfied I’m not the killer.”

  “What the hell?”

  “You know how the guy operates. Dot Is. Cross Ts.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  I shrugged. “Jeremy Lake and I had a rocky relationship. I knew he was in the area. And theoretically, he could have told me he was coming out here.”

  “But he didn’t tell you anything of the kind. Even if he had, you’ve had motive and opportunity multiple times in the past, and you didn’t trouble yourself to kill the jackass.”

  “I came close once. Had the gun pointed right at the man’s head.” And on a regular basis ever after, I fantasized about having gone through with it. Until today.

  “You’re probably not the only one to ever consider offing J.T. Lake.”

  “Dorie would tell us not to speak unkindly of the dead.”

  “Well, I guess your landlord is bigger-hearted than most of us.”

  “Definitely.”

  3

  Early Evening, August 13

  I was pleased to see Dr. Ray Gattis hop out of the front seat of Al Bach’s Ford Interceptor once he pulled up next to the cabin. Over the last year and a half, the doc and I had shared a few email exchanges, mostly gossip and bad jokes. She had been the medical examiner in the Nodine and Trudeau murders a while back, and we’d hit it off from the start.

  Ray, impeccably dressed as usual in her leather Frye boots and trendy outfit, leaned in and hugged me. “Maggie, Al is pissed as hell that you haven’t joined the murder squad yet.”

  “I didn’t exactly put it that way, Sergeant Blackthorne,” Bach countered and smiled. He turned to Hollis standing across from me. “Good to see you again, Trooper Jones. I understand you recovered quickly and fully from your gunshot wound.”

  “That’s right, Detective. Almost like it never happened.”

  “Bet your wife was relieved. I know Maggie was. And I have to tell you I was too. I blame myself for that incident,” Al said.

  “I blame the man who shot me.”

  Bach nodded. “Traveling here from Bend, I heard the dispatch report. You found Sergeant Lake’s vehicle?”

  “Yep. Right where my boss suggested I take a look,” Hollis said.

  The detective eyed me, possibly wondering whether I’d known all along where J.T.’s Volvo was parked. But he took that question no further. “And Maggie, you’re sure the victim is Sergeant Lake?”

  “I’m sure, Al.”

  “Let’s take a look at the crime scene, then,” he directed.

  “Follow me,” I said.

  The four of us marched to the backyard and assembled around J.T.’s blanketed corpse. I removed the wool covering.

  “Jesus,” Doc whispered. She tied back her golden-brown hair, donned gloves, and photographed the body where it lay on the ground.

  The rest of us slipped on gloves and stepped in closer. Suddenly overcome by a powerful urge to retch, I paused to steady myself. Gratefully, Holly seemed to be the only one who noticed.

  “What do we know about the couple who reported finding the body?” Bach inquired.

  I cleared my throat. “Hollis conducted a background check before driving out here. Upstanding citizens, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not even a parking ticket,” Hollis added.

  “They’re in the cabin waiting to speak to you, Al,” I said.

  Ray removed her autopsy gear from her kit. “Probably anxious to get the hell out of here, I’d expect. So let’s get on with it.”

  Al took numerous photographs of the scene, after which, we raised J.T. slowly onto the doc’s portable exam table. Doing so was the ordeal I’d feared, made more so when his head shifted and revealed the bloody nub where his left ear had been. Reminded me of that sickening scene from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

  “Christ,” I cried. “How in hell did I miss that?”

  “His head was leaning leftward, toward the ground. I’m sure we all missed it.” Bach’s tone was somber.

  Ray continued her exam, matter-of-factly recording a description of the knife wounds and the extent of the damage. All of which exacerbated my distress. But I told myself I would be equally bothered taking in those details if the cadaver lying here had been a perfect stranger rather than one of my ex-husbands. I also knew I had to pull myself together.

  “I’ll be inside talking to the folks who found the sergeant.” Bach ducked under the awning we’d erected to protect Dr. Gattis from the still blistering sun.

  As he walked toward the cabin, I signaled for Hollis to join me for a side conversation. We moved across the dry sod to our Tahoes parked side-by-side just off the gravel driveway.

  “Hey,” I said, leaning against my rig. “Thanks for not letting on that I almost lost my lunch back there.”

  “What are you talking about? I was concentrating on not falling over in a dead faint.”

  I’d forgotten about Holly’s squeamish nature. Kind of counterintuitive, especially coming from a trained officer, one who’d been a heavyweight boxer back in college.

  “It’s not like you to let that kind of thing get to you,” he said. “But it doesn’t surprise me. It’s a lot to take in.”

  I scanned the area around the guard station. “According to his fiancée, J.T. was supposed to be scouting out Forest Service cabins for their honeymoon.”

  “Which explains why he was here.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I gestured toward the small cabin. “I don’t think the front door lock works properly. In fact, I know it doesn’t.”

  “But you were careful not to leave any trace of going inside.”

  “Of course. I didn’t find any bloody knife blade, and I left dusting for prints to Bach. Assuming we can access J.T.’s OSP background check, we’ll compare whatever Al collects here to J.T.’s prints on file.”

  “We can definitely access Lake’s background check. And then what?”

  “If he was able to enter the cabin, maybe the killer was too.”

  “And it’ll be a lot easier to lift prints from inside the cabin than the backyard, I expect.”

  I nodded. “Probably easier than collecting prints from the shed and outhouse, too.”

  “I suppose.”

  “How hard is it to avail oneself of the western states fingerprint databank?”

  Hollis smirked. “Piece of cake.”

  “Knew I could count on you.”

  “Maggie, you know I’m not a fingerprint tech. We have to wait until regional IDs any prints. Or maybe call on Harry Bratton again,” he said.
>
  Bratton, a retired OSP forensics guy living in the area, had contracted out his services to us a year and a half ago. He was smart and efficient, and he’d helped us ID the killers of Dan and Joseph Nodine, twin scofflaws who’d gotten in over their heads.

  “Or we could do both, and possibly speed up things on our end,” I suggested.

  “What about Detective Bach and his concern with your involvement?”

  “You watch, Holly, he’ll have chatted with J.T.’s fiancée, you, Duncan, and everyone else on the list of names he ordered me to put together. Besides, even if he is a slave to protocol, he also trusts us and needs our goddamn help.”

  “He likely also knows you’d never refrain from being involved in the investigation of any homicide in your district, even one you probably shouldn’t be involved in.”

  “Neither would you, Holly.”

  “You got that right.”

  To the southeast, a dark wash of clouds could be seen gathering above the Alvord Desert, portending thunder and the ominous prospect of wildfire sweeping through rangeland tinder. The air, now redolent with damp alkali and parched sagebrush, had drifted north, ahead of the oncoming storm.

  I inhaled the pungent scent and gestured toward the cabin. “Looks like the Curtises are free to go, Holly.”

  We watched as the couple carried knapsacks and luggage in the direction of the parked Subaru, the detective following close behind with their large cooler in tow.

  “Let’s join them,” I said.

  After the vehicle was loaded and before the Curtises could slip into the front seats of their car, Bach handed each a business card. “Thanks for your patience, folks.”

  Mrs. Curtis nodded. “We’re heading back to Portland. Kind of late to unpack at a different cabin, only to get up in the morning and pack to go home.”

  “This little vacation’s been a bust, anyway,” her husband added.

  “Once we have a suspect in custody, we’ll let you know. The DA may want to question you,” Al explained.

  The two of them grew more somber. Even so, they were seemingly resigned to the possibility of further involvement in the entire sad affair. Offering no protest, the Curtises climbed inside the Subaru and backed slowly down the short gravel driveway.

  After they sped away, we ambled toward the doc’s portable exam table.

  “Seems like Dr. Gattis is just about done,” Bach said.

  Ray had taken off her gloves and other gear, and Jeremy T. Lake’s body was now covered with a canvas tarp. She looked up as we approached and pointed to the three small plastic bags displayed on the exam table. Each baggie held an item extracted from J.T.’s pockets: his wallet, his phone, and the remote key fob to his Volvo.

  She held aloft a larger plastic bag containing bloody clothing. “There were multiple stab wounds to the chest and torso. Had to take scissors to his shirt.”

  The blue-flowered pattern was unrecognizable.

  “And once I cut away the shirt, it was obvious the front of his belt had been removed.”

  I hadn’t caught that detail when I arrived at Murderers Creek Guard Station. Now, thinking back on J.T.’s visit earlier, I remembered something else about his attire. “He was wearing a large belt buckle when he came to my office this morning. Had a replica Oregon State Police star on the front.”

  “So, Ray, in addition to the obviously fatal neck laceration, the severed ear, and the buckle being sliced off of the belt, there were also multiple stab wounds to the chest and torso?”

  “Yeah. Preliminarily, I’d say they were inflicted after he was already dead.”

  In the silence that followed the doc’s gruesome statement, a roving gust of wind pestered a small grove of Western juniper standing just beyond the property line.

  “I’ll never understand such senselessness,” the detective said. “Anything else?”

  “Not that I can confirm at this point. But it does appear someone rifled through his wallet. Sergeant Lake’s police ID was still inside and covered in what I assume is his own blood.”

  “There is one other thing,” I put in. “He was also wearing a cowboy hat today. A large black Stetson.”

  “Are you suggesting Sergeant Lake’s hat is missing too? And what about his service revolver?” Bach’s voice registered a notch higher than normal.

  “Maybe he left both in his Volvo. The wayside where it’s parked is only a mile away. I can head over there with the key fob and take a quick look,” Hollis volunteered, indicating the bagged items Dr. Gattis had collected from the body.

  “He wasn’t wearing his sidearm this morning, Al. He was off-duty, so I’m guessing he left it at home or locked it in his rig. Add to that, Trooper Jones is already planning to meet the towing company guy at the wayside at seven,” I said.

  Bach mulled that over. “Let’s finish searching the property.”

  I signaled my agreement and moved on. “Did you learn anything new from Mr. and Mrs. Curtis?”

  “They were worried they might’ve messed up the crime scene before discovering Sergeant Lake’s remains. Plus they were concerned about leaving his body exposed in the backyard. Felt compelled to cover him with a blanket.”

  “You learned not much, then, I take it.”

  He shrugged. “Apparently the Forest Service website says check-in is two p.m., and they assured me that’s precisely when they entered the cabin.”

  “Yeah, I already confirmed that with the local office,” I added.

  “So, it turns out the Curtises are not only rule followers but exceedingly cooperative. I took their statements and fingerprints and searched their belongings. But they’re not suspects in my mind.”

  “That’s my take too,” I said. “Where do we start our search?”

  “I’d like you to assist me with the structures.”

  Again, I saw no reason to mention I’d already taken a brief tour of the cabin.

  “Hollis,” Al continued, “I know it’s close to sweltering out here, but would you mind checking out the grounds on your own?”

  “I’m a big fan of the heat. Besides, I smell a cloudburst heading this way. Wouldn’t do to have any evidence wash away.”

  “All right. Ray is already packing up her evidence and supplies, so let’s get to it.”

  After our search, we all washed up at the cabin’s kitchen sink and took a break, gathering around the small dining table. Our inspection of the buildings, including the outhouse, had turned up a frustratingly large number of fingerprints but not much else. In the meantime, Holly had made two careful passes of the guard station grounds and a swath of the woods beyond without finding anything suspicious.

  “No tire tracks anywhere, either?” the detective asked Hollis.

  “Nothing on gravel driveway, of course. And the sod everywhere else is too hard to yield any tracks.”

  Al nodded and appeared to consider what our next steps might be.

  “We could call the sheriff and request a search party to assist us with scouring more of the forested area,” I suggested weakly.

  “Your sheriff? Are we still talking about Dirk Rhinehart?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “We haven’t got much to go on yet, and if we did, I’d be calling out my forensics team for assistance, not the sheriff.”

  Dr. Gattis quietly joined us at the table.

  Bach leaned in. “Any thoughts on time of death, Ray?”

  “Still have to run some tests and take a few more samples. Maggie, were any insects present when you identified the body?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “And probably no odor?”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t seem to be.”

  “Well, I’m still not ready to pin down TOD, but I’d estimate Sergeant Lake was killed about an hour before the Curtis couple arrived.”

  “They called me around two, Al,” I said. “And they also told me after I arrived that they hadn’t seen any other vehicles on their way out here, so might the killer have hightai
led it going the opposite direction?”

  He reflected a moment. “Seems like a possibility.”

  “There’d be plenty of places to hole up if you continued going west on Road 21.”

  “That’s unfortunate. For our investigation, anyway.”

  “Maggie, has Sam Damon been notified?” Ray slipped in.

  “He should be here in the next twenty minutes or so,” I replied.

  “Good. I’d like to use the lighting in his mortuary to finish examining the body. And apparently Al’s needed elsewhere, so I’ll ask Sam for a ride back to town.”

  Wouldn’t have been my choice for hitching a ride into John Day.

  “I’d be happy to give you a lift to Sam’s,” I offered.

  “Thanks. Would you mind taking me to the airport later? I ordered up a flight to Baker City for ten o’clock tonight.”

  “What’s in Baker City?” I asked.

  “Suspected double suicide early this morning.”

  “I saw the report from regional earlier,” Hollis said. “Teenage twins. Messy.”

  Ray eyed the canvas-covered cadaver outside under a makeshift awning. “From one fucking mess to another.”

  4

  Late Evening, August 13

  Hollis borrowed the baggie containing the Volvo key fob and went to meet up with Whitey Kern at the wayside. Sam Damon arrived at the cabin shortly thereafter, anxious to load J.T.’s body bag in his hearse and deliver it to his refrigerated locker. Claimed he needed time to finish his prep for tomorrow morning’s funeral gathering. Seemed more like somebody headed for a hot date. No matter, it meant the rest of us were spared his traditional death scene blessing for the newly departed.

  Still, I tried to make a little small talk before he got on the road. “Will graveyard services follow tomorrow’s chapel rites?”

  Sam shook his head. “It’s for old Angus Humphreys. Family chose to cremate. I better get going, Sergeant Blackthorne.”

  While Doc Gattis collected her kit and folded up her portable exam table, Bach and I watched Sam carry away the body of Jeremy Lake. Al bowed his head in what must have been prayer, and I experienced a strange, emotional charge I couldn’t shake. I didn’t understand how such a reaction was possible given the virulence between us in our marriage and ever after.