Grave Danger

by Rachel Grant

  She didn’t know anyone in town yet, and the weekly exodus of the crew made for some lonely weekends. Company for dinner tonight would be enjoyable, if only Jason weren’t related to her client.

  At six o’clock, she locked up the RV. The dig was located on the edge of a light industrial area, with the road seeing very little traffic. The area was quiet, serene. Coho through and through.

  Out of habit, she inspected the site, looking for tools to lock up or bags out of place. One portion of the site had been filled in and paved in 1984. Prior to excavation, the asphalt had been removed and the fill dirt scraped away by backhoe. A crescent-shaped mound of yellow fill dirt ringed that part of the site, giving a volcanic appearance. In the center of the crater lay the burial, now covered with a cedar bark blanket provided by the tribe.

  Blue and green tarps sheltered other open units. Bright orange string sectioned off the grid in areas where entire blocks were being excavated. Part of the site sloped down along a dried riverbed and continued more than a hundred meters to the shore of Discovery Bay. Waist-high sea grasses tilted gently in the breeze.

  Standing close to the cedar bark blanket, she wondered about the person, buried here five hundred years before Columbus set sail on a voyage that would forever change the Americas and the people who lived and died here. What had made this person laugh? Cry? Despair?

  She always wondered about the unknowable. Through archaeology, she could understand what a person ate, how they worked, lived, and sometimes, even died. But she could never understand the similarities of their human existence to her own. What had this person dreamed about? What had he or she feared?

  During the excavation, her crew would unearth tools that hadn’t been touched by human hands in four thousand years, tools made by people who were different from her in culture, sustenance, and survival. But perhaps not so different in thoughts and feelings?

  In her mind, she could see the landscape as it once was, with the now-dry river flowing swift and fierce down to the bay. During spawning season, its banks would have overflowed with salmon. She imagined a longhouse at the heart of the village. White clamshells covered the ground. The shells had crushed smaller and smaller underfoot, defining the well-traveled pathways. Hundreds of people lived together, worked together, loved, laughed, cried, and died together. Now, all that remained were piles of broken shell, charcoal, fire-cracked rock, discarded animal bones, and the occasional tool. Artifacts that were once a matter of survival.

  What had Angela Caruthers wanted to know about the Kalahwamish people? Were she and Libby at all alike in what drew them to their chosen professions? Perhaps Jason could shed some light on that.

  She grabbed a blue tarp and carefully draped it over the burial, covering the cedar bark blanket. Only a handful of people knew they’d discovered human remains, and she wanted to keep it that way. Sometimes looters were drawn to open burials.

  She turned toward the parking area and approached her truck, the crunch of gravel underfoot a distant echo of the sound the shell walkways would have made a thousand years ago.

  She stopped suddenly. The Suburban looked lopsided. She walked around the vehicle. Dammit, one of the rear tires was flat.

  Movement in the thick blackberry bushes along the road caught her peripheral vision. Probably a squirrel or raccoon. She ignored it and studied her truck.

  A loud, gravelly cough came from the blackberries.

  She whipped around. “Who’s there?”

  A choking, gurgling noise followed. The sound was human, but with a menacing tone. Someone being strangled?

  Instinctively, her hand touched her own neck as adrenaline-laced fear spread through her. She glanced at her flat tire, and then back at the shaking blackberry bushes. Someone was watching her from less than ten feet away. Had they slashed her tire?

  Her busy workday had allowed her to ignore what happened last night. But now she knew with certainty. Someone was threatening her.

  She grabbed the best weapon she had, a shovel, and then pulled out her cell phone and called 9-1-1.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “TWO-LINCOLN-ONE RESPOND to archaeological site at 6200 Discovery Bay Road. Possible suspect still in the area. Reporting party states person or persons unknown have tampered with her vehicle. She believes suspect might be hiding in bushes nearby.”

  Mark was in his woodshop making furniture for his four-year-old niece’s playhouse when he heard the call. He grabbed the radio, “Three-Oh-One to Two-L-One, what’s your location?”

  “I’m at the intersection of Highway 119 and Olympic, Chief.”

  The officer was a good ten minutes away from the site. Mark was closer. “HQ, I will respond to that call too. I’m nearby.” He ran to his work vehicle.

  A half-mile from the site, he hit the siren. As he approached, he recognized Libby Maitland standing by her truck, holding a shovel in front of her like a weapon. He pulled into the gravel lot and cut the siren.

  She lowered the shovel and ran toward him. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Terror showed in her wide eyes. “There was a man in the blackberries.”

  “I’ll check it out.” He pulled his gun and approached the thick, tangled blackberries that bordered the road.

  The bushes appeared to be empty. He circled the vines, searching for evidence that someone had been there. No footprints, no trampled vines. No gaps wide enough for a person to pass through. In the distance, he heard his backup’s siren. He radioed to disregard the call and the siren stopped.

  He glanced at Libby Maitland. She stood with her back against his SUV as though she wanted to absorb the safety the police vehicle represented. Was she repeating an old pattern? The image fit with what he’d learned in the background check. Was she just another cop groupie, looking for attention in a new town?

  He approached her. “If there was someone there, they’re gone now.”

  Her face flushed. “If? There was someone there.” Her voice was flat, angry.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She told him about finding the flat and then hearing a cough. “After I called out, he—”

  “He? Why do you assume the suspect is male?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess the cough was deep. Loud. Masculine. After I called out, he made another sound, which sounded like someone being choked—strangled.”

  “What does someone being strangled sound like?”

  “Gasping for breath, wheezing, a struggle.” A convincing shudder passed through her. “Look, I know what choking sounds like, and the point is: someone was in the bushes making sounds meant to threaten me.”

  “Why do you think it was a threat?”

  “All I could think was that he was trying to scare the hell out of me. Maybe that was the point of taking my truck last night, too. To scare me. It makes sense.”

  “And who would do this to you?”

  She looked away. “I don’t know.”

  A lie. Was her whole story one big lie? If so, she was a fine actress.

  The late afternoon sun shone on her medium-length, dark hair, revealing warm red highlights he’d missed the night before. Her simple beauty caught him off-guard, but it shouldn’t have. He’d noticed last night, before he discovered her complaint was bogus.

  It was time to find out if she had a thing for cops. He took a step closer and reached out, lifting her chin in a reassuring gesture and flashing a warm smile. He could act, too.

  Her eyes conveyed tension and suspicion, but still, an electrical current of attraction arced between them, disturbing him with the way it went both directions. He didn’t do groupies. “Why would someone try to scare you like this?”

  “I have no idea.” She stepped back, breaking contact, but the unsettling electrical undercurrent remained. Her gaze turned to the blackberries. “I think he wanted me to know he was there. That he’d been waiting for me.”

  “He who?”

  She faced him again. “I don’t know.”

  He
r denial squelched his foolish reaction. “He staged all this just to threaten you?”

  “Either that or he didn’t expect me to have a cell phone—which would be stupid.”

  “He may not have expected you to be so quick to grab a shovel.”

  “He had plenty of time to come after me before I got the shovel. Why cough and draw my attention to him? Until that point, I thought the flat tire was an accident.”

  “Let’s talk about the tire,” he said, moving to examine the flat. He glanced over his shoulder to gauge her reaction. “This looks like a normal flat. Here’s the nail.”

  She stared at the silver nailhead, her frustration evident in her pinched lips. Finally she said, “It could have been set up to look like a normal flat.”

  “Which do you think is more likely?”

  “Well, since there was someone in the blackberries making horrid sounds, I’d say I think someone put a nail in my tire while I was working in the RV.”

  “Are you familiar with the theory of Occam’s razor?”

  “When given two possible explanations for a phenomenon, the less complicated one is the most likely. I know what you’re implying, but you’re wrong.”

  “You don’t think you could have picked up a nail in this gravel lot? Or that an animal rattled the bushes and then made sounds you mistook for something else?”

  “Listen, if you’re not going to bother investigating this, I’m going to change my tire and go home. I’ve got things to do.” She pulled a jack out of the Suburban.

  “I’ll follow you home and check out your house.” He grabbed the tire iron. He didn’t know whether he believed her or not, but he wouldn’t ignore the possibility that she could actually be in danger.

  With her back to him, she positioned the jack. He knelt next to her with the tire iron. She stared at him for a moment and then said, “Thank you.”

  Ten minutes later, they were both on the road to the Shelby house. He turned in to the alley that ran behind the historic houses on her street and parked next to her in the two-car driveway. He took her keys and climbed the back porch stairs. “I’ll go in first.”

  He searched the house from the basement to the attic while she waited in the kitchen. He’d been in the Shelby house once before, after a prowler complaint, but the house had been vacant at the time. Until now, Jason Caruthers had kept this house for his personal use. The same antique furniture filled the rooms then and now, telling Mark nothing about Libby Maitland. He returned to the kitchen. “House is clear.”

  She opened the back door, ready to dismiss him.

  “We’re not done yet.”

  She looked at him warily. “I wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time.”

  He smiled. “I can decide for myself what wastes my time.”

  “Look, you’ve already told me you think I drove over a nail and heard an animal in the bushes.”

  “It’s my job to consider every possibility.”

  Her expression softened, and she closed the back door. “But what do you believe?”

  “I saw nothing to indicate there was anyone in the bushes. The vines didn’t look trampled or crushed. There were no footprints.” He paused. “You believe your truck was stolen last night. That could have put you in a mind-frame to misjudge what you heard today.”

  “My truck was stolen.” Her voice shook with frustration. “It was gone then returned to a different spot.”

  “But it makes more sense that you parked your truck on the street and forgot. You could have parked in that lot sometime in the recent past, then been confused last night. You were tired and indicated you’d had a stressful day. It happens.”

  “No. I parked in the lot in front of the restaurant.” She took another step closer and planted her hands on her hips. “You’ve spent more time trying to convince me I’m crazy than investigating my call. What kind of cop are you?”

  He’d given her an easy out, and she’d not only refused it, she’d gone on the attack. He leaned toward her. “I’m the kind of cop who questions a victim’s story about a stolen vehicle when that vehicle is found fifty yards from where it was allegedly taken.” He held up a hand and ticked off his reasons one by one. “A vehicle with a cold engine, a full tank of gas, not hot-wired, and with no sign of forced entry. The kind of cop who answers a suspicious circumstances call when the victim has a flat tire with a nail and assumes it’s a set-up because she hears rustling and gasping from bushes that show no evidence of anyone being there. I’m the kind of cop who follows that victim home and checks out her house for her. This is the same victim who refuses to tell me who she suspects is threatening her.”

  The distance between them could be measured in inches. The heat between them could boil water. “So, you want to tell me about Aaron Brady now, or do we just call it a day?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LIBBY FELT THE BLOOD DRAIN from her face. She should have known it would come to this. “You’re just like all the other cops, aren’t you? You’ve already made up your mind.”

  “What have you given me to work with other than two bogus calls? You want me to change my mind, Libby? Start by answering my questions. Start by telling me the whole truth.”

  She’d be damned if she let him address her informally while she called him Chief Colby. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you about it, Mark. I’ll bet you’ve already formed an opinion.”

  “Humor me. I want to hear your version.”

  She wished she could call what she was feeling déjà vu, but she knew exactly when she’d lived this moment before. She began to pace the wide aisle between the two counters that ran the length of the one-hundred-twenty-year-old kitchen. “As I’m sure you know, Aaron Brady is a Seattle cop. He was also the brother of a client. He came out to visit a project I ran for his brother. I gave him a tour, and afterward he asked me out.

  “He seemed nice enough, so I was a fool and said yes.” She stared out the window above the sink. Four years ago, when she first met Aaron, she had been twenty-nine years old and had just started her own company. The world was wide open, and Aaron Brady had been another new opportunity.

  “We went out a few times. There was nothing wrong with him, per se. There was just…no spark. I wasn’t interested. The ending didn’t go well.” That was an understatement. “I worried how my client would react to my dumping his little brother, so when Aaron continued calling me, I put up with it and pretended I wanted to remain friends. But then he started to say things to let me know he was keeping tabs on me. He knew what time I got home at night, where I’d been, and what I’d been doing. He seriously creeped me out, so I told him to stop calling me.”

  “But that didn’t stop him.”

  “No.” She allowed a bitter smile. “That was only the beginning. Aaron started to show up wherever I went—in his police uniform. As a cop, you must know how unnerving that is. No one wants trouble with the police.”

  “What else did he do?”

  “He followed me to business meetings in his patrol car. He drove by the excavation several times a day and sometimes parked nearby for long periods. I couldn’t ask him to stop because he only bothered me in public places. And the site was his brother’s project.

  “I began to avoid leaving my house, knowing he would follow wherever I went. If I wanted to see an art house movie, one only seven other people would make the trek on a rainy night to see, I didn’t go. Seven wasn’t a big enough crowd. And forget dating. He’d made that impossible. Finally, I confronted him in a crowded coffee shop. I told him if he didn’t stop following me, I would call his supervisor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I needed to stop following him.” She returned to that moment in her mind, feeling again the sickening dread that infused her as the light glinted off Aaron’s badge, reminding her that among cops, his word would be more valuable than hers. “That night, I heard someone trying to break in my back door. I called 9-1-1.”

  “And Aaron re
sponded to the call.”

  She nodded, leaned back against the counter, and met the police chief’s gaze. “Imagine you live alone, and someone tries to break into your house. You can hear the screen being ripped off the hinges. You call the police, and soon after, hear sirens. You open the front door to your savior, only to see the person you know damn well was at the back side of the house minutes before terrifying the hell out of you.”

  “So you reported your suspicion to his supervisor,” Mark prompted, his voice flat, but there was something like sympathy in his eyes.

  “And I found out he’d been documenting my ‘stalking’ of him. He accused me of faking the attempted break-in and calling the cops that night just so he would answer my call. He said I was a cop groupie who wouldn’t leave him alone.” Libby shuddered. She’d learned a cop groupie was a whack job who hung out at cop bars and gave officers blowjobs in the parking lot.

  “What did his supervisor say?”

  “He wanted solid evidence against Aaron. At that point, it was just my word against his. And my word wasn’t worth a damn thing.” By the time Aaron’s captain was done questioning her, she was hysterical, her credibility shattered. This was where her sense of déjà vu came from. She wouldn’t make that mistake here.

  “How did the other officers in the precinct respond to your charges?”

  One look at his face and she knew. “C’mon, Mark, you know that. I bet you even spoke with some of them today.”

  His head dropped in a slight nod.

  “His partner backed him up, claimed he couldn’t have been at my back door at the time of the attempted break-in. And his buddies vouched for him at other times, or said they’d witnessed me following him.” She took a step toward him. “What about you? Do you always side with the one with the badge, even if he’s a Goddamn loon?”

  “My job isn’t to side with or against other cops. It’s to find the truth.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. “Tell me how you finally got the Anti-Harassment Order.”