He continued, “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m doing rounds and I have a date in Black Rock tonight. Joanie and I met on Tinder.”
“Tinder?”
“It’s online dating,” Finn explained with an eye roll. I knew he’d die before looking for love online.
I laughed. “I know what it is. I’m just surprised it works.”
Raising his eyebrows up and down in a manner that I believed he thought was suggestive, the Squirrel said, “Some of us aren’t lucky enough to work with such fair specimens of both sexes. We have to look for romance outside the workplace.”
“As should we all,” I quickly said. “Do you have something for us?”
He nodded and deposited a piece of paper on my desk. It was a list of names of parolees who had moved into one of our fair towns. Many would move out as soon as their parole was met, getting as far away from the system as possible, disappearing into the wind. But for now, if they didn’t want to get their parole revoked, they played by the rules.
We didn’t do much with the list; it lived in a file folder and, every once in a while, one of us would cross-check it against any local crimes. It was a formality. For the most part, we respected the system: as Kent Starbuck had put it, these men and women had done the crime and done their time.
“Thanks.” I took the list and put it on top of a stack of other papers on my desk. I moved the nearly empty bowl of popcorn closer to the Squirrel. I wasn’t about to eat any more, not after he’d had his fingers in it. “Please, finish it.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said and, perching on the edge of my desk, took the last handful. He snickered as he ate it.
The Squirrel was the only person I’d ever met who actually snickered in real life.
“You can tell Chavez I brought the popcorn in. But it’ll cost you. Dinner?”
“Um, thanks anyway, but I’ll take my chances with the chief,” I said, and checked my watch. “Well, it’s getting late.”
The Squirrel reluctantly slid off my desk and hoisted his pants up under his belly. “Another day, another dollar, am I right?”
Finn and I nodded. Finn added, “Right as rain.”
Finally, the Squirrel moved away from the desk and, with a farewell waggle of his fingers, he was gone.
“I can’t stand that guy.” I gave a mock shiver. “I want to jump in a chemical shower every time he comes near here.”
“No kidding. I feel dirty just breathing the same air,” Finn said. He jerked his chin to the parolee list. “Long list?”
I picked up the paper and glanced at it, shrugging. “The usual.”
I scanned the names and stopped short halfway down the list. “Son of a bitch.”
Finn leaned over and plucked the paper from my hands. He read over the names and then looked at me with surprised, round eyes.
“Well, well, well. The plot thickens.”
* * *
When Jake Stephens didn’t answer his phone, I called Mac, who gave me their cousin Nicole’s address. Finn and I drove together and, as we parked, I noticed a black sedan with tinted windows slowly pass us then speed up and take a right at the next street. The back license plate was smeared with mud and I could only make out the last two letters: AT.
“What’s up?”
“That car. I think it was following us.” I jotted down the partial license plate in my notebook, then climbed out of the car.
“You recognize it?”
I shook my head. “It’s probably nothing.”
The home was a narrow townhouse on the east side of town, nestled among a dozen other homes that looked as though they’d been built in the 1980s. The tiny front yard was tidy, recently mowed. A battered old blue Ford pickup with California plates was parked next to a sleek black-and-chrome motorcycle under the shade of a beautiful blossoming cherry tree.
“Nice bike.” Finn whistled.
“Yeah? I don’t know much about motorcycles.”
I picked up a few days’ worth of newspapers from the front stoop then knocked on the door. Jake answered in a pair of plaid boxer shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. His eyes looked heavy and tired behind his eyeglasses.
I held up the newspapers. “Special delivery and a few questions, if you’ve got the time?”
“Uh, sure. Let me just put some pants on,” he said. “I was taking a nap.”
He gently closed the door. Finn and I waited on the front stoop, enjoying the warm breeze. We’d already decided that I would handle most of the questions. After a long five minutes, Jake returned and invited us in. He’d put on jeans and a ball cap. I introduced Finn to him, and they shook hands.
“Do you want some water? Or juice? I’m on a bit of a health kick. I don’t even have any coffee to offer you,” Jake said. The house had an open floor plan and he moved into the kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator, staring into it. “There’s some sparkling water.”
“We’re fine, thank you. So, no coffee, but alcohol and marijuana are okay?”
Jake pulled his head from the fridge and looked back at me. The quizzical look on his face made him look more like his cousin Mac than I’d yet seen. “Huh?”
“You all drank quite a bit up at Lost Lake. Drank wine, and smoked weed,” I reminded him as I walked around the living room, checking out the place. Finn took a seat in a corner armchair. The couches were brown leather, the coffee and end tables granite. An enormous flat-screen television took up most of the south wall and scattered all around were framed photographs of exotic locales.
I moved closer to one, a full shot of a great white shark’s mouth. The photo showed one of the shark’s eyes, and I stared at the black rimless orb.
After a minute of silence Jake responded. “Oh yeah. I never thought of that, but yeah, you’re right. Well, isn’t that life for you. One step forward, two steps back.”
I moved from the photograph of the shark to a picture of a tiny purple frog balancing on an electric-green leaf. “What does your cousin do?”
“Nicole is a freelance nature photographer. These ad companies, they fly Nicky out to awesome places—Bangkok, Egypt, Dubai—all expenses paid. All she has to do is point and click,” Jake said. “Can you believe that? And she’s a woman, no less.”
I turned from the photographs to watch as Jake came out of the kitchen with a glass of water. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He took a seat on one of the couches and flushed. “Ah, come on, don’t bust my balls. Those are dangerous places for a chick.”
A tall woman with stunning red hair suddenly appeared behind Jake and gently hit the back of his head. She looked more like a supermodel than an adventurous nature photographer.
“Hey, watch it,” he whined. “What are you, my mother?”
“If I were, I’d kick you out for all that sexist crap you say,” the woman said. She turned to Finn and me, giving Finn an appreciative once-over. “I’m Nicole Stephens. You two cops?”
We nodded and introduced ourselves. I said, “I left you a message this morning.”
“Yeah, sorry, I got it and then accidently deleted it. I couldn’t remember your name, and I was too embarrassed to call the police and explain all that. I figured if it was important, you’d track me down. So, what is it?”
Jake stood up. “Nicky, they want to know about Saturday night.”
“Last Saturday night? What about it? We left my friend’s party early because it was lame. Jake fixed up my pool table and we played a few rounds, then watched a movie. I think Jake went to bed around one, and I was probably up until three. I’m a night owl,” Nicole said. She gave Jake another thump on the back of the head. “What’s the screwup supposed to have done, anyway?”
“It’s not a joke, Nicky. They’re here about Mac’s girlfriend, Sari. And stop fucking hitting me,” Jake said. He raised a hand then quickly lowered it. “We’re not kids anymore.”
“Poor Mac,” Nicole said, and sobered up. “I can’t believe Sari’
s dead. I really liked her.”
“You knew her, too?” Finn asked.
She turned to him and once more gave him a look that was way too suggestive. “Sure. It’s a small town, and we’re a close family. Sari was fun. She had a lot of positive energy. We liked the same sorts of things, nice dinners, weekend trips. Mac’s other girlfriends were all so boring.”
Nicole glanced at her watch. “Damn, I’m going to be late. Listen, if you need anything from me, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call.” She handed Finn a business card and, with a swish of her red hair, left through the front door. A moment later, the motorcycle outside roared to life.
“So, did you get what you need?” Jake sat back down on the couch. He shot a glance at Finn, who gazed back, a neutral, relaxed expression on his face. “Can I go back to sleep?”
“No. Detective Nowlin and I learned something very interesting about you this morning.”
A look of wariness crept into his eyes. “Oh yeah? What?”
“Prison, Jake? Really? You didn’t think to mention this when we first met at Lost Lake?”
He stood up. “Ah, man. Come on. I served my sentence. I’m trying to do things right. I’m looking for work, I’m checking in all the goddamn time with Stinky Nuts, my parole officer … I didn’t think it was important to say anything. I haven’t done anything, so why say anything?”
I stared at him and raised my eyebrow. “Assaulting a woman is a serious crime, and when you are involved in a case where a woman has disappeared, you mention these sorts of things to the responding officer. Because when you don’t, that makes me angry. It makes me wonder if I can trust you.”
“But the whole thing was an accident! It wasn’t my fault,” Jake whined. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s the goddamn story of my life. Nicole got lucky, her old man paid for photography classes … Mac’s a damn humanitarian … And me? I’m the fuckup. The black fucking sheep of the family.”
Finn spoke for the first time since entering the house. He muttered, “Wrong place, wrong time … I’ve heard that before. It’s a weak excuse for poor behavior.”
Jake slammed his glass of water down on the coffee table. Water sloshed over the rim and spread across the granite surface, but he didn’t seem to notice. “It’s the truth. I wasn’t supposed to be in LA that night. My buddy Clark told me about this sick night club where the booze was cold and the girls hot. We must have dropped five hundred dollars that night, but this bartender, this chick with short black hair and muscles like a dude, she wouldn’t let up on Clark. He served in the Marines, and this bitch, after she saw his corps tattoo, she would not shut up. She kept going off on Gitmo, torture, blah, blah, blah. I tried to get Clark to pay the damn tab and get the hell out of there, but he was too proud.”
Jake took a breath. Calmer now, he shrugged. “And, well, you know the rest.”
“Not quite. The report said you spent six months in county jail for misdemeanor assault. How did you end up knocking out the bartender’s front teeth?” I asked.
“This stranger, this random dude, he tried to pull Clark back from the bar. Clark has PTSD and he lost it, man, just lost it. A punch got thrown, and then all hell broke loose. I could see the bartender creeping up behind Clark with a bat, and I shoved her. Harder than I meant to. She fell against the bar and that was it,” Jake said. He drew a hand over his tightly drawn mouth. “I’ll tell you what, though. Those six months in jail are all I’m ever going to do. I’ll die before I go back. Jail is no joke. I made friends really quick with an Aryan Brotherhood gang, so I was protected, but the stuff I saw, well it scared me straight. I’m a changed man.”
“What happened to Clark? The report didn’t mention him.”
Jake exhaled. “Clark was not so lucky. During the fight, someone got Clark in a headlock and broke a few bones in his neck. He’s in a wheelchair and lives with his parents in San Diego. I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah, well, it’s over now and I’m here, just trying to live my life. Okay?”
“Sure, whatever you say,” I said. “So what did you think of Sari?”
Jake seemed relieved by the change in direction of the conversation. “I didn’t know her. I’d only met her that day, that day we went camping.”
Finn jumped in again. “Come on, man, you spent the whole evening together, hanging out with Mac and Ally. You and your cousin, two hot chicks. You must have formed some kind of impression.”
“She was fine, I guess. I got the sense that she made Mac happy,” Jake said after a moment’s thought. He stood up and paced the length of the living room, parting the curtains at the front window and peering out, then coming back and sitting down again.
“Do you think Mac made Sari happy?”
At this, Jake smiled knowingly and pointed a finger at me. “Now I see it.”
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Why you’re a good cop. I wasn’t sure before, but it’s clear now. You ask the right questions. Trust me, I’ve spent a lot of time with cops, and there’s good ones and bad ones. Did he make her happy?” Jake replied. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
Jake paused a moment, thinking. Then he moved to the photograph of the great white shark and pointed at it. “See that? The shark is what’s called an apex predator. This guy is at the top of the food chain. That was Sari. Beautiful, smart. Mac is chum compared to that. Of course he couldn’t make her happy, not for very long. Not after she had her way with him.”
Finn stood and straightened out his arms, adjusting the cuffs of his suit jacket. In a bored, almost detached voice he asked, “So what do you think happened at Lost Lake?”
“Me?” Jake asked, removing his eyeglasses. He cleaned them on the hem of his T-shirt and then replaced them. “I think someone else was there. Someone we never saw, never heard. A silent killer.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
I’ve never been a big fan of cemeteries.
There are three of them in Cedar Valley. The Latham Group owns and manages the largest, Latham-Windsor Cemetery. Latham-Windsor is a sprawling, open space of gentle rolling hills and verdant green lawns, with sleek flat grave markers, marble memorials and headstones, and stately mausoleums. It’s conveniently located near two churches and one synagogue and prides itself on being the area’s premiere burial ground for all religious backgrounds (that is, according to their ad in The Valley Voice).
The next largest is Cedar Valley Cemetery, a municipal cemetery that’s owned and managed by the city. My parents are buried at CVC. Every year on the anniversary of their death, I lay a dozen roses on my mother’s grave and play a recording of “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony over my father’s grave.
Years after my parents had died, I came across an old video recording of them from before they were married. In the video, the two of them are in an art studio somewhere on the college campus where they met. My father is painting, but the easel is turned away from the camera and I can’t see the artwork. My mother is standing next to him, her hand to her mouth, a look of concentration on her face. A radio is playing in the background, soft classical music. A familiar Chopin tune fades and “Ode to Joy” begins. My father flings the painting to the ground, jumps up, and picks up my half-screaming, half-laughing mother and proceeds to twirl her around the room. I don’t know who was filming, but whoever it was, was laughing so hard the camera shook.
I hope that wherever my parents are, they’re still dancing.
River Street Methodist Church has the third and smallest cemetery, and it was there that I headed after receiving an urgent and cryptic summons from one Ruby Cellars, the church’s current caretaker and the Cedar Valley History Museum’s former employee. The message had been left on my voice mail while Finn and I were interviewing Jake Stephens.
One of the oldest buildings in Cedar Valley, the historical church was situated on a dozen acres at the foot of Mt. James
, just half a mile from the remains of the original mining camps that had come to define this entire stretch of the valley.
In the daytime, the simple white clapboard structure glowed as though lit from within against a stunning background of grassy meadows, colorful wildflowers, and the conical peak of the valley’s tallest mountain.
But it was dusk when I arrived, and the church was dark. The single bell tower rose into the blackening sky, mirroring the look of the hundred or so tombstones that filled the graveyard next to the church. Half a dozen horses moved in the shadows in a corral near a weather-beaten wooden barn.
Nearby, light spilled from the windows of a small two-story house. A tiny woman stood on the front porch and waved to me. I pulled up alongside the porch, parked, and climbed out of my car. The air smelled of hay and horse manure, pine trees and rich earth.
“Mrs. Cellars?”
“Please, call me Ruby. Thank you for coming.”
Barely five feet tall with tawny-colored eyes set deep into a narrow tan face, the caretaker wore the clothes of a cowboy or a cattle rancher: jeans, boots, a long-sleeved button-down shirt, and a Stetson, which she removed as we stepped into the house.
“Can I offer you a glass of water?”
“Thank you, yes.”
She moved into a narrow galley kitchen, and I took the opportunity to glance around what must once have been the parsonage. It consisted of a main living space, with the kitchen and what I assumed to be a bathroom or closet tucked in the corner. A set of stairs led to what were likely a couple of bedrooms and a bath or two on the second floor.
The living room was decorated in a classic Western style; a longhorn cow skull hung over the stone fireplace, where a small fire offered a warm and ambient glow, and the soft suede couches were accented with brick-red cushions. The bookshelves were lined with worn paperbacks, thick hardcovers, and children’s books. I vaguely recalled that Cellars was a widow, with kids, and I wondered where they were at the moment.
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