Fatal Fall

by Diane Capri

  Laurie nodded. “Yeah, right. Nights. Yeah. Two. I think.”

  Johnny shook her arm.

  “Right,” she said. “Two. For sure.” She lifted her head and parted her hair. Her mouth hung open. Her face was white. She had intense blue eyes that somehow had no shine or depth. A line ran down her forehead and carried on past her nose and over her lips. A crease line. Folds in the fabric of the bedsheets in which she had lain, face down.

  “Good girl,” Yukon said.

  Jess squeezed her lips together. She breathed deep, clenching her fist. Her blood boiled. Chemicals charged her muscles and expanded her lungs.

  She could absolutely understand Charlene Mackie’s desire to pound him flat. To kick him so hard he never walked again. She breathed out. Hard. The only thing she could do that wouldn’t unleash her anger on the waste of a human life that was Johnny Yukon.

  Laurie’s gaze drifted. Jess wanted to reach forward and take the girl from this snake pit. But Laurie turned and staggered back upstairs. A dull thump overhead. Probably her, collapsing on a bed.

  Yukon shrugged. “Big night.”

  Jess’s gaze bore into his miserable, greasy face. She took a deep breath, swallowed hard, pushing bile back down her throat. “We need a DNA sample.”

  Johnny frowned. “Who are you?”

  “Jessica Kimball.”

  “You a cop?”

  “I’m a reporter for Taboo Magazine.”

  Johnny’s eyes widened. “Reporter?” He straightened his back and smoothed his hair down. “What you doing here?”

  “Like Captain Nelson said, new details in Crystal Mackie’s disappearance.”

  Johnny closed one eye, struggling to concentrate. “What details?”

  “We can’t say.”

  Johnny’s open eye stared at her. “You found some blood or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  He opened both eyes and looked at Nelson. “This what you here for, too?”

  “DNA would clear some things up.”

  Johnny shook his head. “I know my rights. I didn’t have nothing to do with her going missing. She up and walked out on me.”

  Jess clenched her fist. The jerk was infuriating. She forcibly relaxed her muscles. “Then you have nothing to worry about, and my magazine would reimburse you for the inconvenience.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “It’s simple. Wipe a couple swabs in your mouth, and you’re done.”

  Johnny snorted. “I’m busy. I got things to do.”

  “Right.” Jess fought to keep her voice level. “Perhaps two hundred would help?”

  “Two hundred?” He scowled.

  “Dollars.”

  Johnny scoffed. “More like five hundred.”

  “Two hundred.”

  Wrinkles of concentration lined Johnny’s forehead. “Four…no, five…no three hundred. Yeah, three hundred.”

  Jess put her hand in her bag and pulled out a roll of notes. She counted three hundred and wrapped an elastic band around the bundle.

  Johnny reached for the money. Jess wrapped her hands around the notes. She looked at Nelson. “You have the DNA kit.”

  Nelson took out a small bag.

  Johnny rinsed his mouth with water and swabbed each cheek twice. Nelson sealed the samples in sterilized bottles. He wrote the date and Johnny’s name on each bottle in small capital letters.

  Jess held out the roll of bills. Johnny snatched them away from her and wrapped his fist around the roll.

  She glared at him. “You seem a little desperate.”

  “Money for old rope.”

  “You’re not worried what we might find with your DNA?”

  He shrugged. “You won’t find anything. I didn’t kill her or abuse her or anything.”

  “She was pregnant.”

  He doubled over with laughter.

  Jess fought back the urge to reach out and punch him. “What’s so funny?”

  He slowed his laughter and leaned back in his chair. “You don’t know, do ya?”

  She stared.

  He gestured to himself. “I’m sterile. An’ you paid for my DNA for nothing.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He shook his head. “Trust me. I got tested right after she told me she was pregnant.”

  “Why?”

  “Ain’t that obvious? I didn’t trust her. Not an inch.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hey, we were living life to the fullest. I didn’t come back some nights, an’ she didn’t come back some nights. Days an’ all.” He shrugged. “We weren’t exclusive or nuthin’.”

  “Where did she go? The nights she didn’t come back?”

  “Who knows? She never told me. I never asked.”

  “You never asked?”

  Yukon shrugged. “She had her own life. We just…like…intersected sometimes.”

  “She had another lover.”

  He shrugged. “So? I ain’t jealous.”

  “And you don’t know who?”

  He shook his head. “Only thing she ever talked about was her work up at Meisner’s place. Work and Meisner, two things that don’t do nothing for me.”

  “What did she say about Meisner?”

  “Nothing. Just about the stuff he was doing. Politics. Another thing that doesn’t do it for me.”

  Jess frowned. “But she was a maid, wasn’t she?”

  “So?”

  “Did she talk to him a lot?”

  “Nah. I don’t think so. Anyway, she had a short attention span. The novelty wore off, and she stopped talkin’ about him.”

  “Then did she start talking about anyone else?”

  He shrugged. “That was about when she disappeared.”

  Jess cocked her head. It wasn’t unusual for employees to talk about the boss. Being a senator made Meisner famous, if not really a celebrity. Some people liked to be near power. No matter what the job, they thought they gained some sort of prestige from it.

  Yukon yawned. “Are we done?”

  “Not quite,” Nelson said. “Get Laurie.”

  Yukon frowned. “What for?”

  “I’m taking her home.”

  Yukon’s frown turned to a scowl. “She’s a big girl. Don’t need no big daddy to look after her anymore.”

  “You want me to search this place?”

  Yukon glared.

  “I’m pretty sure it would be worthwhile. Turn up some interesting stuff. Illegal stuff. Stuff with your prints all over it.”

  Yukon inched backward.

  “Tell her to bring her things,” Nelson said.

  Yukon skulked out of the room. There were muffled voices upstairs and a few dull thumps. A few minutes later, Laurie was at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister to hold herself upright, the other gripping two plastic trash bags.

  Nelson led the way out to his cruiser. Jess guided Laurie into the rear seat and sat beside her. The girl sat with the bags crumpled on her lap and said nothing.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Blackstake watched the police cruiser leave Sunshine Estates. The cop stared forward. Intent. Focused. The reporter was in the back seat with a girl who looked like she’d been on an all-night bender. They’d found something. He pursed his lips. Things were out of his control. Unacceptable.

  He watched the cruiser disappear in his rearview mirror. It headed out of town, not toward the station. It wasn’t an arrest.

  He flexed his fingers. The cop would be back. That was the way with police business. Leg work and repetition.

  He took a small bag from the glove compartment and checked the contents.

  Whatever had happened in Yukon’s hovel of a house was done.

  He couldn’t change history, but the future was in his own hands.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Nelson drove out of town to a small two-story house with a picture perfect garden. The front door had opened before he had come to a stop in the driveway. A middle-aged man and
woman stood on the step.

  “Laurie’s parents,” Nelson said.

  They descended on the cruiser, helping Laurie from the rear seat and into the house. She didn’t protest. Nelson talked up a rehab facility in Seattle, and they promised to take her.

  A few minutes after they had arrived, Nelson was back on the road.

  “Is Yukon a dealer?” Jess said.

  Nelson shook his head. “He’s too pathetic.”

  “But he’s on drugs.”

  “Perpetually.”

  “And he hooked Laurie, too.” She shook her head. “Isn’t there anything you can do about that?”

  “We’ve just done the best we can.”

  “But he has to be buying hardcore drugs from somewhere.”

  Nelson turned to Jess. “I’ll work on it. He’s been inside twice and sent for outpatient rehab at taxpayer expense at least three times already. What’s the point of sending him back?”

  Nelson stopped at the traffic light in the center of town. “I just try to make Yukon as unpopular as possible in the hope people won’t go near him. There’s no perfect solution.”

  “I can think of one.” She took a deep breath. “But how long for the DNA results?”

  “We can get preliminary results sufficient to prove paternity in about twenty-four hours.” He shrugged. “But not much point if it’s true that he’s sterile.”

  The light turned green, and Nelson drove to the station. He parked in his space, right outside the front door.

  “And if he was lying?” Jess said.

  “We’ll pay him another visit.”

  “Promise me you’ll take me with you.”

  Nelson laughed. “You want to see the smile wiped off his face. Not a surprising reaction. Most of Randolph feels that way.”

  They walked into Nelson’s office. The evidence boxes were lined up against the wall. Somewhere in the musty files was the answer to Crystal Mackie’s disappearance. Someone knew the truth. Someone knew if she had abandoned her past, her family, and friends, and started life anew. Someone knew where she was now.

  She pulled one of the boxes of evidence toward her. “The answer to Crystal’s disappearance is here. It has to be. Your predecessor was thorough. He collected enough statements for a Presidential assassination investigation.”

  “And plenty of people have been over every word, multiple times, and found nothing helpful.”

  “But the person that knows what happened to her is mentioned in here, I’m sure of it. He must be.”

  “Or she.”

  “Do you think Crystal could have been headed to Meisner’s house the last night she was seen?”

  “She was one of the maids, but she hadn’t been there in a week. Because of what you and Charlene found out, we now know she’d been in Portland at Kid’s Own Medical Center delivering her baby.” He shrugged. “It was late. I doubt she was going to pop over and catch up on what had happened in her absence.”

  “What if she was going to see someone? Maybe not Meisner, but someone at the house.” Jess flipped through the stack of statements. “It’s a big place. A friend? One of the staff, perhaps?”

  Nelson looked over several boxes before picking one up, and placing it on his desk, in front of Jess. “This has all the statements from folks in the Meisner household at the time.”

  The box was filled with hanging files. Labels poked above the level of the green folders. Jess thumbed her way through the first few. “A lot of names.”

  “Like you said, it’s a big house with a big staff. There’s a stables and offices. His campaign staff and consultants of one kind or another are always coming and going, too. And the security team.” He shrugged again. “Maybe more. I don’t know if there were people doing work on the grounds back then, but it’s likely. A place like that requires a lot of upkeep.”

  She pulled a random file from the box. It contained an interview with the Meisner’s chief gardener. “Chief” implied they had more than one. Even a team, possibly?

  “You really think she was headed to Meisner’s house?” Nelson said.

  “There aren’t a lot of other options.” Jess hummed and flipped through another file. A farm hand. A round, friendly face with character lines. From the length of the statement, he liked to talk.

  Nelson settled into reading the papers on his desk. Jess worked her way through the statements taken at the Meisner house.

  Everyone had been concerned for Crystal. Everyone asked to be informed of what the police found. Everyone seemed to be her friend. There were statements galore to back up their claim that she was fun and a hard worker. A responsible person.

  No one mentioned that she might have been a different person outside of work. No one hinted that her idea of fun was a little beyond ordinary. No one suggested she was into anything illegal.

  Jess shook her head. Crystal Mackie had been living with Johnny Yukon, practically the definition of a reckless streak, and yet everyone who knew her said she was as pure as the driven snow.

  The statements were thorough. Consistent questions. An even tone. The answers recorded verbatim. Nelson’s predecessor had been a good officer. Disciplined. A good listener and a good observer. He hadn’t been able to find Crystal Mackie, but he had left everything he’d learned well organized for those that came after him.

  She reached the last file in the Meisner box. A maid. Her statement echoed the sentiments of the rest of the staff. Jess squeezed the folder back into the box.

  She frowned. “There’s no statement from Meisner.”

  Nelson shook himself out of his reverie and waved at the boxes. “It’s in another one. His prepared statement.”

  “Why isn’t his statement in this box with the others?”

  Nelson shrugged. “I probably moved it. Nothing much there. You know politicians.”

  She nodded. “Strange that everyone else in the house was open, helpful, and complimentary to Crystal. But Meisner gives a formal, attorney approved statement.” Jess leaned back in her chair. “Why get so formal unless he knew something bad had happened? Something he needed to manage. Politically, at least.”

  Nelson shook his head. “He probably does that with everything. He got someone to handle it, and bingo, a formal statement rather than a casual chat.”

  “I still think it’s worth following up with him,” Jess said. “Crystal was pregnant. There has to be a father. We know it wasn’t Johnny Yukon. Could have been someone she worked with.”

  Nelson shook his head. “I have enough to deal with. I don’t need to add to my list. Come up with a good lead, and we’ll chase it down. Until then, I’m not hassling Meisner.”

  Jess leaned over the box of statements and pulled out one with a familiar name. Alistaire Meisner. She slid the other papers into the box. “Okay. So what’s next?”

  Nelson shook his head. “Some of us have work to do.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Jess left the police station and drove to a store she had seen earlier. The windows were barred, and there were several stern notices on the door, warning would-be criminals of cameras and the full force of the law. They contrasted with the large neon sign that read “Wolfhound Willy’s Guns and Ammo—Come and get ’em!”

  Inside, the store was lit with powerful fluorescent lights. The walls were covered with racks of guns in wire-framed cupboards. She gravitated to the more expensive end of the display cases and the weapons she either recognized or had used before.

  A man in sunglasses and a long white beard, who was a dead ringer for a member of a southern rock band, stepped forward.

  “I need a gun,” she said.

  “Got your license?”

  Jess held out her Colorado driver’s license and concealed carry permit.

  “No reciprocity here with Colorado.” He shook his head. “Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Idaho, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah only.” He recited the states with the same enthusiasm as a middle sc
hooler on a geography test.

  “How long to get a Washington concealed carry license?”

  “First you’ve got to buy the gun. For non-residents, that’s up to sixty days.” He grimaced.

  “Any way around that?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m a lone female, I could do with something for defense.”

  He pointed to the opposite side of the store. “We have knives. Pretty good deterrent value.”

  He lined up several plain mid-length knives on the counter. Jess tried a couple in her hand. They felt cumbersome. She eventually settled for a switchblade. The retaining mechanism was strong, and the blade flicked cleanly into place. She might never use it, but she felt vulnerable without her Glock, so she paid and left.

  She realized she was hungry all of a sudden. The easiest place to grab a quick bite was Biscuits. She drove on and parked by the front of the building. The lot was as empty as on Jess’s previous visits. For the first time, she noticed the sign over the door said M. Harvey. Jess grinned. No wonder Elisha had wanted to support the place.

  Jess grabbed her bag, headed inside, and took the booth where she had met Elisha. Fifties music echoed from a tinny speaker somewhere behind the grill. A couple of truckers at a table near the other end of the room stared at Jess before going back to their food.

  A waitress walked over with a coffee pot in her hand. There was a mug, ready on the table. Jess turned it over, and the woman filled it with coffee. She left no room for cream, nor did she ask.

  Jess ordered a salad and an omelet.

  “Anything else?” said the waitress without looking up.

  “Is the owner in today?”

  The waitress looked at Jess. “Why?”

  “Elisha Harvey is related to the owner of this place, right?”

  “Marion Harvey. That’s right,” the waitress nodded.

  “I’d like to meet her. Is she here?”

  “You’re the reporter?”

  Jess nodded. “Why?”

  “Nothing.” She walked away.

  Jess curled her fingers around the mug. The coffee was hot and strong. Steam curled up into the chill. Jess blew on it, twisting and turning its path in the air.