“All right, Mr. Muldaur.” I scooted a pad of blank paper across the counter. “Please write down your contact information for our records. I may have more questions for you, and I may need you to clarify in court your interactions with Mr. Cruise and Ms. Porter.”
He took the pad and pen. “Happy to, constable.”
“And let me give you some advice, Mr. Muldaur. Next time, you might want to be more up-front with a police officer when there are circumstances connected to the accidental deaths of two people and possibly the murder of a third.”
Muldaur finished jotting down his contact information. “I assure you, during our first encounter, my decision to be less than straightforward was made on the spur of the moment, in order to avoid seeming suspicious.”
“And yet you made me quite suspicious, enough so that our office contacted authorities in Condon, as well as in Craig, Colorado.”
“I see. Well, this is one of my insidious quirks. I generally believe I am far more intelligent than most, and then I come to find out that’s not necessarily true in every case. Apologies for underestimating your investigative acumen.”
“No apology necessary. But I do have work to do now.”
He rather bowed. “Have a splendid evening.”
A voicemail was waiting for me when I got to my desk. The message came from Evie Kwan, Lead Forest Technician in charge of the cleaning crew that had stumbled upon a Buck Guthook knife last Saturday. It was likely the weapon used to kill J.T. Lake two days before.
“Sergeant Blackthorne,” Evie began. “I thought you’d want to know, it appears someone might’ve thrown a party on the grounds at Murderers Creek Guard Station. I can wait a few minutes to hear from you, but if you’re not able to call me back right away, I wanted you to know I found a bag of what might be drug paraphernalia. I assume the items belong to whoever was out here partying. The cabin has a new lock, so I’ll leave the bag just inside the sliding door of the shed. Just so you know, any bookings for the cabin were cancelled after that, um, officer was killed. Oh, and I remembered to use gloves when handling the bag.” She’d left her contact information before hanging up.
I noted the time. “Damn it.” Evie had called more than an hour ago.
Another voicemail blinked from my desk phone, this time Al Bach. “Afternoon, Maggie. I’m here in La Grande for another day, but get in touch with me right away if anything breaks in either case.”
I wouldn’t call anything that had surpassed since he’d headed out earlier in the day breaking news. There’d been a couple of interesting tidbits, though.
Bach’s message continued. “I did finally hear from the forensics lab in Bend. The Buck Guthook knife is a likely match to the wounds Sergeant Lake sustained, but there isn’t a method for identifying the perpetrator’s DNA. Also, none of the fingerprints lifted from the Murderers Creek cabin were found in law enforcement data systems.”
Well, the question about DNA on the knife was finally answered, at least.
I heard Sherry Linn return from her supply-shopping trip and moved to the counter to razz her about her response to Sugar Muldaur’s visit. But I didn’t get a chance after Harry Bratton walked through the door right behind her.
“Harry,” I said. He was a little too busy giving Sherry Linn the eye. “This is Sherry Linn, our office manager.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sherry,” he said.
“Yes, we’ve talked on the phone,” she answered.
“What can we do for you, Harry?” I asked.
“I have a couple things to discuss with you.”
“Follow me.” I led him past our circle of desks and into the alcove, where we sat down at the coffee table.
“Before we get down to it,” he began. “Your office manager, is her last name Linn or does she go by Sherry Linn?”
“Sherry Linn. Perkins is the last name.”
“Is she attached?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I like her phone voice.”
Sherry Linn had made the same comment about Harry, but I kept that to myself. I was pretty sure he hadn’t come in to have me play matchmaker. “You said you had something to discuss with me?”
“I enlarged the photos Janine took with her phone and brought copies.” He indicated the manila envelope he’d carried with him. “They’re still pretty blurry. Also, the prints from the paper cup you sent me earlier today match the ones I shipped off to the state lab in Bend for identification.”
“Harry, that’s everything. The paper cup came from a guy who calls himself Dave Shannon. Well, from the trash waiting to be torched in the man’s burn barrel.”
“I’m not a cop, but I bet that’s enough probable cause to haul him in and fingerprint him.”
“Bach’s off working another case, but he’d shit a brick if I did that before checking in.”
Harry nodded. “I hear you. And there’s something else. I blew it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You recall I contacted the state lab in Bend about the matching prints from the phone and the tackle box, hoping they could retrieve a name from the FBI’s files?”
“Of course. On Tuesday, day before yesterday.”
“Well, it took that long before I remembered to run the third set of prints on the tackle box through the western states database.”
“Christ, I forgot all about that. Too many puzzle pieces in this case.”
“Yeah, I can tell by the looks of your murder board.”
“And the third set of fingerprints?”
“A juvenile delinquent who spent some time in Eastern Oregon Youth Correctional Facility but got out last spring.”
“Robert Cole, Jr.?”
“How’d you know?”
“I didn’t. But it might fit with a couple of other puzzle pieces.”
Harry extracted the photos from his envelope and handed them to me. “Do you recognize the guy?”
I splayed the photographs across the table. “So, Robert Cole, Jr., goes by Robbie, and Janine had claimed that it was Robbie who’d pushed her off the tower. But I’d suspected she misremembered.”
He picked up one of the photos. “This dude looks too old to have been recently incarcerated in the Burns youth facility.”
“He’s probably Robbie’s half-brother, and he resembles Robbie quite a bit. Again, it’s the guy who calls himself Dave Shannon, an alias he’s used since he moved to the county around six years ago. But just today, Hollis learned his actual name is John Robert Davidson.”
“God, a confusing mess,” Harry said.
“The slide with the blood sample from the broken catwalk, you identified it as AB negative. Dave Shannon is AB negative.”
“Speaking of that slide, Mark Taylor brought it back to your office this afternoon so it could be added to the items you were sending by courier to Bend. Janine’s phone, too.”
“For DNA analysis, right?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at his watch. “Jesus, it’s almost five thirty.”
“Excuse me, Maggie.” Sherry Linn was at the entrance to the alcove. “I’m about to take off, but I wanted to check in and see if you needed anything before I leave.”
I could tell she’d touched up her makeup. “I’m good, thanks.”
Harry stood. “I need to get going, too. Call me if there’s anything more I can do.”
“If you hear from the forensics people in Bend before I do, I’d appreciate you sending them my way.”
He nodded and followed Sherry Linn from the alcove. I heard the two of them chatting at the counter before leaving the building at the same time. Then they stood outside and continued their conversation. I was mildly interested in eavesdropping, but I was too tired and there were too many knotted threads of info to mull over.
Reluctantly, I tore off another sheet of chart pack paper, this time taping it to the only remaining swath of blank wall space. I removed the cap from an odor-free marker and wrote Dave Shannon (John Robert Davidson)
on the new murder board page.
I began at the beginning: 8/13 @ 8:30 a.m., Shannon/Davidson reports theft of new brown Ford F-150 truck. Fugitive drug dealers Cruise and Porter (C&P) stole it and dumped their older Toyota. Angie Dennis later reports C&P may have stopped by Prairie Maid @ noon that day. Q: If Angie’s correct, where were C&P between @ 8:30 and noon, and where did they go afterward?
I continued on: 8/14 I inform Shannon/Davidson that C&P were killed when they wrecked his truck. 8/15 I spot Shannon/Davidson driving a loaner vehicle = red Ford F-150. 8/17 Janine Harbaugh reports red truck (no ID for make/model/plate #) driving around Aldrich Mountain, possibly looking for something. Someone pushes her from the lookout catwalk before I arrive to investigate, and she dies 3 days later, but not before accusing Robbie Cole of being her attacker.
I kept going with my notes until I’d listed everything we’d pieced together regarding Dave Shannon. I went back over the whole enchilada, circling what I regarded as every particularly pertinent fact. I was putting most of my chips on the photos and the fingerprint match on the phone, tackle box, and the paper cup Holly found in Shannon’s burn barrel. I convinced myself a DNA match would seal the deal, and we’d have enough to press him for answers, maybe even get him to confess to killing Janine.
But none of that would answer the question about Robbie Cole’s prints also being on the tackle box. Or whether or not Burney’s Buck Guthook knife was the murder weapon. Or who killed J.T. Lake.
I took off from the police station at about six forty-five, heading for Murderers Creek Guard Station, hoping the bag of items Evie had left for me was still in the shed.
About halfway there, Duncan rang me up.
“Hi, Dun. I’m making a quick trip out to Murderers Creek Guard Station.”
“Now?”
“I need to pick up a bag of stuff found by Forest Service staff.”
“You need to do this now?”
“Yeah, before it disappears.” I probably should’ve skipped the exercise of adding more mystery to our murder board and driven to the cabin earlier in the evening.
“Sun’s going down soon,” he informed me.
“Not until seven fifty, I checked. I’ll be on my way back before then.”
“All right. But promise me something.”
“I’ll be careful. And I just re-upped my firearms certification.”
“Good to know, I guess, but I want you to promise me that tomorrow night we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate our engagement.”
Who the hell knew what might be going on tomorrow night? “I promise, Dun.”
The tall Sierra lodgepole and Ponderosa pines surrounding the cabin at Murderers Creek Guard Station now blocked the rays of waning sun from striking the small building. I moved from the Tahoe, traipsed to the shed, and slid open the door. The bag Evie had left for me sat on the bare ground, seemingly untouched.
Back inside my rig, I turned on the overhead light, gloved up, and opened the bag. It held a pack of hypodermic needles, a tarnished spoon, a shoelace, a lighter, three cigarettes, a small bong, and a book of matches from Cecil Burney’s service station.
I considered today’s visit with Cecil. “You better be telling the truth, old man.”
I started up my SUV and noticed a small, silverish-colored car pass slowly by the guard station entrance along Forest Road 21. The driver stopped and idled for several seconds and then continued on. I sat under the canopy of evergreens and the umber shade of Earth edging toward night and waited.
Within a few minutes, the same vehicle—an older sharp-nosed Ford Fiesta—headed back past the entrance traveling in the opposite direction. I moved up the driveway, out onto the road, and followed a short distance behind the Fiesta. When it sped up, I sped up. When it slowed, I slowed.
If I hadn’t been tailing the car, I’d have pulled over, dialed up DMV records on mobile comp, and checked the plate number. Once I finally hit a patch of open meadowland offering up cell service, I phoned Hollis at home.
“Sorry to bug you tonight,” I said when he answered.
“What’s up?”
I explained my trip to the guard station and why the silver car on the road right in front of me had piqued my curiosity. “Can you run an Oregon plate from home?”
“Does a bear? Give me a sec, and I’ll log in to my work computer.”
While I waited, the Fiesta slowed to a crawl, as did I. Whoever the driver was had just made it easier for me to stay within cell tower range for a bit longer.
“All right, license plate number?” he asked.
“TKR S17.”
Holly tap-tapped his keyboard. “2016 Ford Fiesta, registered to Robert Cole, Jr.”
“Jackpot! I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning, but I need to get a sack full of evidence to Harry right now. Send Lillian my apologies for intruding.”
“Lil’s taking a hot bath. She doesn’t even need to know.”
I continued dogging Robbie Cole, noting there was no passenger in the car. Our little caravan maintained a mellow pace until we exited Forest Road 21 and drove east on Highway 26. At that point I lagged behind some but made sure the Fiesta was always in my line of vision. In tandem, we traveled through Mt. Vernon and John Day proper, turning south on 395 and on into Canyon City, where he turned up East Road toward the cemetery and the house he shared with his father.
Now wasn’t the time to confront the boy. He’d likely been nervous I was tailing him, but there wasn’t anything to connect him to the paraphernalia—not yet, anyway. And as I’d noted to Hollis earlier, the gossip about Robbie being a heroin dealer amounted to nothing more than a rumor about a rumor.
26
Late Evening, August 20
I drove on toward Seneca and into Silvies and Harry Bratton’s place. I’d left him a voicemail, but I hadn’t heard back. Even so, I’d decided to take the chance he’d gotten my message about the items Evie had collected for me. The lights were out in his house and modular forensics lab when I arrived. If he’d listened to my message, it appeared he’d chosen to ignore it.
I was exhausted, and it was past sundown, but I’d been compelled to ride that kid’s ass all the way back to town, drop off more possible evidence at Harry’s, and get this long, shitty day over with. Resting my head on the steering wheel, I heard Bratton pull in and park.
Harry stepped out of his truck, and I sidled out of my SUV. We stood in the space between our two vehicles, like two gunslingers in an old Western.
I was already attuned to my newfound sensitivity to certain odors and now picked up on a bevy of smells wafting across the short distance between us. Chief among the offending scents was the striking, god-awful fragrance of Sherry Linn’s perfume. It was all I could do to avoid retching right there in Harry’s driveway.
“Did you get my message?” I asked him.
He pulled out an old-timey pocket watch. “It’s long past quittin’ time, Maggie.”
“I know. Did you get my message?”
“Nope.”
Quick as that, I felt light-headed and leaned abruptly and heavily into the driver’s side door of my Tahoe. “Shit.”
Harry scrambled to my side and put his arm around me. “Are you all right?”
“Just a little pregnant is all.” Half the damn county was going to know I was expecting before I got around to telling Duncan. “And I’ve put in some long days this week.”
“Come inside, and I’ll make you some tea.”
“Nah. I just have a bag of stuff that someone left at the guard station sometime after Lake’s body was found and we searched the place. Anyway, I think I know who this crap belongs to, but I want you to confirm.”
“Sorry I ignored your message.”
“I’m guessing you had a spur-of-the-moment date with Sherry Linn.”
“What? Is that some kind of cop intuition?”
“No, just women’s intuition. Anyway, you don’t have to answer. Not my business.” I extracted myself from Harry’s frie
ndly arm, opened the driver’s side door of my rig, and retrieved the bag of items Evie had found in the shed. “Here you go.”
“I’ll take a look tonight,” he said, taking the bag.
“Tomorrow morning’s fine. The moment I get home, I’m hitting the sack.”
I began feeling more like a human being on the twenty-five-minute drive from Harry’s to Three Flags Landing and Duncan’s little house. Along the way, my thoughts briefly strayed to Zoey, and I wondered if she had been happy when she realized she was expecting a child. As a young girl, I knew in my bones she cherished me. At least that’s how I remembered it. It was only during my teens that I began to sense the dark shadow, one having little or nothing to do with me, which eventually carried her away and drove her to take her own life.
Crossing the bridge over Canyon Creek and heading up the hill to Duncan’s place, I realized I was beginning to view it as our place. Things were happening fast, though, and I wasn’t completely sure how I felt about the prospect of having a child. I hadn’t expected to get pregnant just yet, if at all. Then again, I hadn’t expected most of what had gone on in the eight days.
Louie welcomed me in his usual fashion—lifting his head from his cat pillow and eyeing me suspiciously.
“Hey, boy,” I said to him and scratched the back of his neck.
Duncan greeted me with a kiss and a bear hug, apparently not miffed I was arriving long after I’d predicted. “How about baked salmon and a glass of wine?”
I remembered back to the very first meal he served me, right here in this very kitchen/dining room: baked trout and some hideous, grassy white wine.
“I love salmon.” Most of the time, anyway.
He pointed to the pink steaks sitting on the counter, seasoned and ready to pop in the oven. “These have been in the freezer awhile, but they should still be good.”
He placed the salmon in the preheated oven and set a basket of sliced bread and a bottle of bubbly on the table. “Sit and enjoy.”
Murderers Creek (Maggie Blackthorne Book 2) Page 24