by T. E. Woods
“What’s pulling you away?” Agatha’s voice dropped to a worried whisper. “Is it Allie?”
Mort’s breath caught the way it always did whenever he heard his daughter’s name. His lovely, brilliant, talented, headstrong firstborn. Allison Edith Grant had been a stubborn handful as a toddler, a willful challenge as a child, and a rebellious test as a teenager. Now Mort could no longer deny what kind of adult Allie had become.
His beautiful daughter, the woman with Edie’s eyes and his nose, was a murdering criminal living a life inconceivable to him. A life in the shadows. On the run from everything Mort had dedicated his life to protecting.
Agatha was one of the few people with whom Mort discussed his daughter. She knew his frustration and anger, but she didn’t know the details or the magnitude of Allie’s crimes. There was only one other person who did. Another young woman. A woman who’d become a surrogate daughter to him. A woman so unlike his own firstborn, yet sharing one common experience. Both Allie and Lydia had killed.
“Allie’s always going to be my rain.” Mort shook his head. “But I’ve got another cloud on my horizon. Maybe that’s what you’re seeing. You remember my friend Larry?”
“The whole world knows L. Jackson Clark, Mort. But, yes. I know your friend Larry. I met him when he helped move you in and again when you made that wonderful pot of chili. I brought the corn bread. Larry brought perfectly ripe avocados and told me that story about the time you and he decided to see which of you could eat the most jalapeño peppers. Really, Morton. He’s a Nobel Prize winner and you’re chief of homicide. Surely you two must have known how that would turn out. I like him very much. He’s nothing like one might expect a man of his accomplishments to be. He’s very human. Very real. What’s happened? He’s not ill, is he?”
“No. Unless you count heartsick as an illness.” Mort told her about Larry’s visit to his office earlier in the day.
“Larry was married. A long time ago. To a lovely woman named Helen. She was the daughter of Abraham Smydon.”
“The Seafood King of Seattle?” Agatha asked. “That Smydon?”
“He’s the one. Helen was Abraham’s only child. Story goes he had plans for her to take over the business from him someday. But Helen met Larry, fell in love, and that was that.”
“What became of Helen?”
Mort breathed deep and let the salt air blow away the sorrow he felt for his friend. “She died. She and Larry weren’t married a year.”
“Oh, my word. What happened?”
“She was murdered. Well, kidnapped first, then murdered. Abraham Smydon was having a birthday party up on Orcas Island. Helen didn’t show. Turns out she’d been kidnapped before she could get there. Chained to a tree in the middle of some godforsaken forest. Her body was found with her skull bashed in. Larry couldn’t make the trip up to Orcas. He was a new professor working hard to make a name for himself. Helen went alone. You can imagine how he blames himself for not going with her.”
“My word,” Agatha said with a gasp. “I had no idea.” She sounded stunned. “I’ve read everything the man’s written. There’s no hint he’s living with such tragedy.”
“There wouldn’t be. Larry believes we manage our own reactions to what life brings to us. He was devastated when Helen was murdered. When Edie died I thought I’d never draw a happy breath again. Wasn’t sure I wanted to. But Larry reminded me I can have my own pain and find a way to build beyond it. Larry aches for the loss of his life with Helen. But he sets it aside, honoring the love of his life by making the decision to thrive.”
“Now that theme comes through loud and clear in his books. It’s all so much more meaningful knowing he’s had that kind of pain.” She paused. “So why is his heart breaking more today? Is it an anniversary?”
“No. It’s Helen’s uncle. He was one of the people killed in that sweat lodge incident.” Mort went on to explain about Helen’s father and Larry’s estrangement from him. How Carlton Smydon, Helen’s uncle, had grown dear to him over the years. “He was a connection to Helen. And the two of them shared a love of learning, too. Especially about the spiritual side of things. Carlton’s death is a loss in itself, of course, but it’s also the end of Larry’s link with the wife he lost twenty-five years ago.”
A gentle compassion settled on Agatha’s face. “My heart breaks just hearing it. To have two people he loved so dearly both taken from him so brutally. From what I read in the paper, the scene was quite gruesome. Larry must be paralyzed with loss.”
Mort shook his head. “He’s grieving, all right. But he’s nowhere near paralyzed. He’s on a mission. That’s why he came by. He wants me involved.”
“In what?”
Mort took the last sip of beer as the sun disappeared over the horizon. “He wants me to solve Carlton’s murder.”
“And you’ll do it, of course.” Agatha reached across and held Mort’s hand. “That’s what you do, isn’t it, Mort? You take care of people. You help them when they ask.” She withdrew her hand and patted his before standing. “Just make sure you take care of yourself, okay?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I have a feeling you’re heading into dangerous territory. There’s too much death and grief around you. Too much loss. All the time. This isn’t going to be some routine case you and your team make such a habit of solving.”
“Aggie, if you say ‘This time it’s personal,’ I’ll throw you into the water.”
“Morton Grant, I expect a full apology for even thinking such a cliché would come from my mouth.” Her tone softened. “All joking aside. You know what I mean.”
Mort didn’t have to respond or even say goodbye as Agatha left his boat, crossed the boardwalk, and boarded her own.
He knew exactly what she meant.
Chapter 7
“Sam Adelsburg, age forty-eight, resided right here in Enumclaw.” Rita Willers read the list of victims from the folder in front of her. “Owner of Tall Oaks Lodge and spiritual guide for the sweat lodge ceremony. Then there’s Carlton Smydon, sixty. Lived in Seattle, no known occupation. Oscar Vargas, age thirty-one. Recently released following seven months in Pierce County jail for narcotics possession. Last known address was in South Tacoma. Monica Doyenne was a thirty-six-year-old elementary school teacher from Leavenworth. According to the folks at the lodge, she shared a room with thirty-eight-year-old Audrey Moe. Audrey was also a teacher at the same school and died alongside her colleague.” Chief Willers closed the file and looked up toward Mort. “You got any initial thoughts on what may have happened out there in that field?”
“I know what I’ve read in the papers and what you’ve told me just now. I’m here to learn and to help any way I can.”
“No hunches at all?” she asked. “No place your gut tells you to look first?”
“Vargas had a drug past. From what I’ve read, the scene was brutal.”
Rita Willers raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been to mass murder scenes that weren’t?”
Mort felt a tug of embarrassment at his careless remark. “What I meant to say is people with drug involvement leave themselves open to dangers that are just part of doing business. Turf, money, distribution, you name it. Competition can get fierce. Vendettas can be ugly.”
“The kind of ugly we saw at the sweat lodge. So you’d start with Oscar Vargas?”
Mort nodded. “Good a place as any, I’d say.”
Rita Willers stared at him for several seconds. “I expect this department to be a full and equal participant in this investigation.” The chief’s tone suggested she wasn’t sure she could trust him. “If you’re harboring any ideas of turning Enumclaw into some running gag back at the Seattle PD, you can turn around now. This isn’t Mayberry and I’m not Barney Fife. I hold no illusions about you being Eliot Ness, either.”
Mort understood Rita’s sensitivity about her town. Sleepy Enumclaw’s last brush with notoriety was back in 2005 when Kenneth “Mr. Hands” Pinyan
made headlines when he died after receiving anal sex from a horse. Mort had driven through this small town often enough over the years, but he’d never met Enumclaw’s chief of police before today. He was certain any woman who could rise to the rank of chief while still in her early forties wouldn’t be impressed by his big-city credentials. Mort was equally sure Rita’s five-three, 110-pound frame didn’t help her much in the ultramasculine world of police work. Her reputation among King County law enforcement was sterling. She’d be a partner he could count on. They had five people dead in a spiritual exercise gone bad. The chief would naturally have her radar up for anyone looking to turn this into tabloid fodder.
“You were expecting someone from Sheriff Barton’s team. I get that,” Mort told her. “But I asked for this assignment. I’ve worked with jurisdictions outside Seattle before. I could give you names if you want to call and learn how I operate on someone else’s turf.”
Chief Willers declined the offer. “I know your work, Detective Grant. Your cases are big and I read the papers. I know you’re a good cop.” She lifted her chin and stared at him. “What I don’t understand is why you? Why now? Things so slow in Seattle you need to come here to make headlines?”
Mort let the dig pass. “I’ve got a great team handling things in Seattle. I have a personal interest in this case. I’d appreciate the opportunity to lend a hand.”
“You connected to one of the victims?”
Mort pointed to a chair and asked if he could sit. She nodded her permission. “A friend of mine is related by marriage to a man killed in the sweat lodge. His late wife’s uncle. They were close. He asked me to see what I could do to help find the killers.”
Chief Willers reached for her pen. “Killers? What makes you sure we’re looking for more than one?”
She was testing him. He’d do the same thing if he was in her shoes. “Five people in a tight space. That’s a lot of arms and legs defending against whatever was coming at them. No way one guy takes down five. There’re two assailants at least.”
Willers nodded. “You said guys. You certain we’re not looking for a couple of women?”
“Like I said. Five folks facing a threat like that in a tight space are gonna put up a fight. I understand the owner of the lodge—one of the victims—goes by the name Tall Oak. And from the way my friend describes his wife’s uncle, he wasn’t exactly small, either. No offense intended, but I don’t see women overpowering five frantic people.”
“No offense taken.” Rita Willers reopened the file on her desk. “Which victim was your friend’s family?”
“Carlton Smydon.”
Rita ran her eyes down the list of victims. “The black guy?”
“He has a house in Seattle. Carlton was raised here. He travels a lot but visits several times a year.”
“Fits with the lodge’s ID,” Rita said. “They had him checking in with a well-stamped passport. Your friend from around here, too?”
Mort nodded. “He’s a professor at Seattle University. L. Jackson Clark.”
Chief Willers’s eyebrows shot up. “The philosopher guy? That L. Jackson Clark?”
Mort sometimes had to remind himself his longtime friend was famous. “That’s the one. He prefers to be called Larry. And it’s more religious studies than philosophy.” Mort shrugged. “Personally I don’t get the difference, but he seems to make a big stink about getting it right.”
“I’ve seen him on television a couple of times. Charlie Rose.” Rita Willers smiled and Mort caught a glimpse of a soft loveliness she needed to conceal on the job. “Barbara Walters once. I liked him. He made a lot of sense. Always promised myself I’d read his books one day, but I never seem to find the time.” Her smile ended and she was again all business. “Your friend pull some strings to get you assigned?”
“He asked me to do what I could to find out what happened. Carlton Smydon was his only link to his late wife.”
Chief Willers was silent for a moment. Mort got the impression he was on a job interview and the boss was trying to decide whether to make him an offer. She slapped the folder shut and tossed it to him. “Let’s get started,” she said.
In less than ten minutes Mort knew everything she had on the killings.
“So you’ve identified the five bodies and came up short on the missing two.” Mort flipped through the file. “They were registered at the lodge as Sam and Ernie Andrews.”
Rita nodded. “Said they were brothers out of Moses Lake. But they weren’t asked for any ID when they checked in so there’s no way of knowing where they’re actually from.”
“Yet Carlton Smydon was asked to produce his passport.” Mort let the insinuation hang in the air.
“My guess is the desk clerk was new on the job.” The look in Rita’s eye warned she wasn’t interested in being distracted by any racial inferences.
“What did you learn from Moses Lake?” Mort asked.
“What you’d expect. There’s a few Andrews families. But no Sam or Ernie. No one matching their description.”
Mort handed her back the file but asked for his own copy. “So we know there were at least two bad guys. Any sign of a vehicle up at the sweat lodge?”
Rita shook her head. “The site’s pretty remote. Only tracks in came from the van the resort used to drive the participants up there. It’s September. Ground’s hard. But I caught a trail heading east. Two sets of footprints.”
Mort studied Rita’s jet-black hair, square jaw, and razor-sharp cheekbones sitting directly under dark eyes. “You a natural tracker, are you?”
She waited a moment before answering. “Salish Indian. Educated here in town, but I stay close to my roots. Like I said, the two walked east. They caught a well-traveled logging road about three miles from the sweat lodge. Eighteen-wheelers churn up that road a couple times an hour. I lost their trail.”
“They probably had a car stashed. Or someone was waiting for them.”
“Can you introduce me to your friend?” Rita asked. “L. Jackson Clark…Larry…whatever he likes to be called.”
Mort was disappointed. “Let’s stick with the case, Rita. When we’ve caught the bad guys I’ll get you an autographed copy of his latest book. How’s that?”
She held him with a searing glare. “Take another look at the coroner’s preliminary report, Detective Grant. You’ll see I have five corpses with slashed throats. Your friend’s uncle also had his eyes stabbed out. You may want to start with the drug dealer, but my gut’s telling me different. Gouged eyes…now that’s something you don’t see every day. To my way of thinking, Carlton Smydon was the target, and the other four were just unlucky bystanders. Even the kid who did drug time. Now, I could be wrong, but these murders are on my turf and you’re down here assisting. So we’re going to follow my hunch first. As such, I’d like to know your buddy’s ideas about who might have had Carlton Smydon in the crosshairs.” She got up and opened her office door. “Tomorrow’s okay. Today’s better. And, Detective…around here they call me Chief Willers.”
Mort called Larry as soon as he pulled out of Willers’s parking lot. Larry said he had a lecture to give at noon, but he’d cancel it.
“Finding Carlton’s killer is my priority. Does Chief Willers want me to meet her in Enumclaw or will she be in Seattle?”
It was nearly ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. Mort turned west on Washington 164. The countryside was flat and green as he headed toward Interstate 5. He’d be in his office before eleven. “Give your lecture, Larry. Wrap yourself in the familiar before getting tangled up talking about Carlton’s murder. I’ve got stuff back at the office. Can you meet me there at two? We’ll drive back down to Enumclaw together. I’m pretty sure I stepped on the good chief’s toes this morning. Delivering you personally may help smooth the waters.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors.”
Mort was glad to hear the jest in his friend’s voice. He hoped knowing the investigation was moving forward was lightening his burden.
“I’ll leave the wordsmithing to you and let Chief Willers know we’re coming. See you at two.”
—
“We keeping banker’s hours these days?” Jimmy DeVilla walked into Mort’s office trailed by the largest German shepherd ever to have been commissioned into the Seattle Police Department. “Or is life on the lake luring you away from the hustle and grime of big-city homicide?”
“One of those for me?” Mort nodded toward the two paper cups the chief of forensics held.
“Don’t I always think of you?” Jimmy handed him one, sat in the chair facing Mort’s desk, and popped the lid on his own cup. Bruiser, retired from the canine squad after a near-fatal gunshot wound slowed his step and robbed him of his ability to bark, settled on the floor next to him. The furry behemoth was no longer on the force, but his service record made the dog a legend who was welcomed anywhere a Seattle cop needed to be.
“You down in the valley this morning?” Jimmy asked.
“I was. Chief Rita Willers. Ever met her?”
“I gave a presentation at last year’s Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs’ conference. Willers came up afterward and introduced herself. Smart woman. We ended up having a cup of coffee and discussing the finer points of DNA analysis. I told her she should apply for a spot in our shop. Bigger pond and all. She let me know she was happy where she was. I guess being chief in a small town beats rank and file in the Emerald City.”
Jimmy rested his left hand on Bruiser’s neck, massaging the scar tissue below the dog’s right jaw. It was a move so reflexive, Mort wondered if Jimmy was even aware he was doing it. Bruiser closed his eyes and leaned against Jimmy’s chair. It would be easy for someone to assume the animal was resting. But anyone taking a step toward Jimmy would soon be introduced to this amazing creature’s ability to snap to immediate attention. And should some unfortunate soul make an unkind move toward Bruiser, Jimmy would make sure they regretted they ever held the thought.