Cold Case Reunion

by Kimberly VanMeter

  “W-water…it’s the w-water… F-father know—” A death rattle choked off whatever else he’d been trying to say and within a heartbeat, Darrick Willets had lost his grip on life.

  Alarms and monitors went off and a team rushed in. As Mya and Angelo moved to make room for the medical personnel it was hard not to feel the acute loss coupled with confusion from Darrick’s last words.

  “The water?” Angelo repeated, mostly to himself. “What does that mean?”

  Mya wiped at the tears tracking down her cheeks, grieving for the loss of a tribal member whose spirit had walked with his best friend so many years ago, and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she answered. “I need to call Randy—”

  “Wait,” Angelo said, halting her in midstep. “He said something about his father knowing…what if he meant that whatever is happening, Randy knows why?”

  Mya sniffed back tears, trying to focus. “Maybe, but someone needs to tell him that his son is dead and I’m not going to let a stranger do it.”

  Angelo nodded, relenting. “Of course. I’ll meet you outside in the lobby.”

  Mya jerked a short nod and went to find a private place to call Randy Willets. In her career as an emergency-room doctor and clinic physician there were times she’d had to deliver bad news, but it never got any easier. Particularly when she was faced with the prospect of telling a parent that their child was dead, no matter their age.

  She knew Randy lived with regret. This news wasn’t going to lighten that burden.

  Angelo had told Mya he’d wait for her in the lobby but as soon as he’d reached the empty room, he’d kept walking, right out the front doors. The bracing cold air hit his face like a damp, frigid fist and he welcomed the blow. The sensation felt real, solid, tangible and he knew how to deal with it. His face to the wind, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply the air of his homeland. His ancestors had traveled these woods, floated down the waterways, and traded with the neighboring tribes on this soil. He hoped what peace had eluded Darrick in life had found him in death. And another part of him—a quiet and almost imperceptible part of him—hoped Waylon was there to greet his long-lost buddy, to take him where their ancestors dwelled in happiness. A song—if you could call it that—welled in his chest and fought to be free. Tears sprang to his eyes and he didn’t know where they came from. He felt he needed to sing the song for Darrick, for Waylon, for Papa…even for Bunny. Their ancestors used to put their dead in a cedar canoe and set them on their return journey to Creator, the canoe ablaze until it sank in the water. They’d mourned in song, their voices rising to the heavens as one. He choked up. Where was this coming from? Was he losing his mind?

  White Arrow, fly straight, fly true…

  He whirled, grinding the moisture from his eyes, half-terrified that he’d see Waylon or Papa standing there, but when he turned he saw Grace and Mya exiting the hospital together. Pull it together, he told himself sharply. Perhaps he was losing his mind.

  Mya must’ve sensed something was off. She came to him with worried eyes. “You okay?” she asked and he shrugged off her concern.

  “Fine,” he said, immediately regretting his clipped tone, but he had too much going on in his head at the moment to explain. “Did you talk to Randy?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “He’s understandably upset.”

  “I’m sorry for his loss but I’ve got questions that he’s going to answer whether he likes it or not. I’m done with chasing ghosts. I want to know what’s going on and I aim to find out.”

  “The man just lost his son,” Mya reminded him quietly. “Let’s give him some time to grieve.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. Grace and I will talk with Randy. I need you to go back to Hettie and see if she’s ready to talk. I think she knows something, too. There are too many damn secrets in this tribe. It’s time to flush them out.”

  Chapter 22

  Mya found Hettie holed up at her niece’s place, which wasn’t far from her own little house near the river.

  Hettie didn’t look pleased to see her, either.

  Mya exchanged looks with Hettie’s niece, Faith, who simply shook her head. “She doesn’t want to talk to no one,” Faith said. “But I think she needs to get to the clinic. She’s got a sore like Uncle Bunny had, except hers is on her leg. I’m worried.”

  Mya rested a hand on Faith’s shoulder to reassure her, said, “I’ll do what I can,” then followed in the direction Hettie had disappeared. She found the older woman standing by the window, staring out at the bend in the river, a thick blanket tucked around her.

  “I knew you’d come sniffing around again,” she said. “Why can’t you just leave things alone?”

  “Because people are being killed. Our people, Hettie. Whatever you know you need to tell me.”

  “It’s not going to do no good, except get me put in the ground just like my Bunny,” she said with a sniff. “I’m an old woman and I shouldn’t have to worry about these kinds of things. We were doing just fine until people started asking questions about things that ought to be left alone. Maybe Bunny would still be here if that agent hadn’t started asking about that boy.”

  “Hettie, let me see the sore on your leg.”

  Hettie looked sharply at her, surprise in her expression until Faith came around the corner and she surmised how Mya had known. “Girl, I told you it was nothing,” she growled at her niece, plainly incensed that Faith had shared her business. “It’s just a sore from a scratch I got. It festered, is all.”

  “Same as Bunny’s?” Mya asked. “That was no ordinary wound, so if yours is the same, I need to get you to the hospital. You could get blood poisoning and die.”

  “At least I’d be with my Bunny,” Hettie said with a watery sniff. “I can’t believe he’s gone, the grouchy old badger.”

  “Auntie, please,” Faith implored Hettie, true concern in her eyes. “Just let Dr. Jonson take a look real quick.”

  Hettie’s mouth pinched, but when she saw the worry etched on her niece’s face, she relented with typical ill humor. Mya didn’t care as long as she got to take a look. Hettie shucked her blanket and hitched her pant leg to show Mya the seeping wound on her ankle. It looked painful and raw. Mya held back her gasp when she saw it. “When did you get this?” she asked, trying to remain cool and calm. “Around the same time as Bunny?”

  Hettie shrugged. “I guess. We were down at the river. He was fishing, trying out some new lure and I was collecting river stones for my new garden. I slipped and cut myself on one of the rocks. It just never healed right. Hurts real bad,” she finally admitted, risking a glance at Mya to see what she thought.

  Mya’s first concern was getting Hettie to a lab to take samples. She had a terrible feeling about that wound, the same feeling she’d had when she’d seen Bunny’s. As far as she knew neither Hettie nor Bunny were diabetic, which would preclude ulcerous sores due to insulin imbalances. So, why did both Hettie and Bunny have matching sores?

  Darrick’s last words floated into her mind.

  “The water…” she murmured.

  Faith stepped forward. “What about the water?”

  “Don’t go there,” Hettie warned, fear flashing in her eyes. “They’ll find out somehow and that’s how Waylon died.”

  “They who?”

  Hettie compressed her lips but clutched at Mya’s hand. “Just leave it be. You’re a good girl, don’t let this ruin everything that you’ve built.”

  “Hettie, what’s wrong with the water?” Mya asked, not allowing the unsettled lump of fear forming in her gut to show itself in her voice. “What did Waylon find out?”

  Hettie squeezed her eyes shut and a tear escaped. “We just wanted to be left alone. But they started coming around, dumping stuff in the water during the high-water season… Take a sample of the water…it’s in there now. It’s what’s killing the fish and killing the spirit of the Hoh. And it’s been going on for a long time. Waylon was going to do something about it.
”

  A sixteen-year-old boy? Mya thought incredulously, but she couldn’t ignore the facts as they were appearing. Waylon had been silenced, as were Agent Hicks and Bunny, and God knows who else. That brought them back to Randy Willets and what he knew.

  Mya looked to Faith. “Do you have a zippered plastic bag I could use?” Faith nodded and went to get one. Mya returned to Hettie. “I’m going to take a sample of the water. Where is the water most contaminated?” she asked.

  Hettie seemed reluctant to answer but did anyway. “There’s a spot over where Darrick put his tent. Where the water pools you can find a ring of brown and yellow muck. That seems to be a spot where the stuff collects that doesn’t get washed out to the sea. But be careful, they’ve got eyes everywhere.”

  They? Who are they? She kept her questions to herself, but she had a feeling Hettie didn’t know who was behind all this anyway. She’d save those questions for Randy. She tried to reassure Hettie with a smile. “We’re going to get this figured out and no one else is going to get hurt. In the meantime, I want you to let Faith take you into the clinic. We need a sample and you need some antibiotics at the very least. That sore could turn gangrenous and then you could lose your leg.”

  Hettie blanched. “Lose my leg?” At Mya’s nod, she gestured to Faith, saying, “I ain’t losing my leg after everything I’ve been through. I figure I’ve already lost enough. Get your keys, Faith.”

  Faith sent a silent expression of gratitude Mya’s way for convincing her aunt to get help.

  But as Hettie disappeared to get properly dressed to go out, Mya said to Faith in a low voice, “Is there some place you can stay for a few days? I’m not comfortable with you two here on the river given the circumstances.”

  “We could stay with my mom—she moved to Port Angeles—but Auntie and my mom don’t really get along.”

  “Try to find a way. It’s not safe right now.”

  “Okay,” Faith agreed. “I’ll find a way. My auntie…she’s not as hard as she seems. Deep down, she’s a very kind lady.”

  “I know.” Mya smiled. “And you’re a good niece for protecting her.”

  Mya took the plastic bag and headed for the river.

  Angelo knocked on Randy Willet’s front door while Grace did a quick perimeter check. He had time to knock twice more and for Grace to return with an all-clear before Randy opened the door, looking like hell raked over.

  “I’m not up to visitors right now,” he said dully, his normally neatly groomed hair completely unkempt, as if he’d just been roused from bed, and his eyes swollen as if he’d been crying. Angelo felt a momentary twinge for Randy’s loss, but his son had died bearing a burden that wasn’t his to bear. Angelo suspected Randy knew this, too. “Go away.”

  Randy tried to close the door, but Grace stopped him with the flat of her palm against the door and Angelo pushed forward, compelling the older man backward. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I have questions and you, I suspect, have the answers.”

  Randy sent Angelo a sour glare. “You’re a heartless thug with a badge,” he said, but Angelo was way past taking offense. He was too focused on finding answers. He was like a hound on a scent and he smelled his quarry. “My only son died today.”

  At that Angelo acknowledged his loss. “I know. I’m sorry. I remember him being a good kid.”

  Randy’s lip quivered. “He was.”

  “So what happened?”

  The bald question was probably in bad taste but Angelo was being ruthless. Randy was vulnerable in his grief, and his guard was down. There would be no better time to squeeze him for answers.

  “Get out.”

  “Say it like you mean it or don’t waste my time. What happened to your son? And what does it have to do with my brother?”

  “Waylon,” Randy gasped, as if the name alone had the power to cause him pain. “Waylon…”

  “What about Waylon?” Angelo demanded, sweat popping along his hairline. “What do you know?”

  Randy’s legs seemed to go out from under him and Grace was there to catch him and deposit him on the couch. “Maybe we ought to call for an ambulance,” she said, but Angelo wasn’t ready to relent.

  “What is it? Darrick said you knew what was going on. Something about the water? What water? The drinking water? The river? What?” Randy paled and his skin became clammy, but Angelo was ready to scream, knowing the answers were so frustratingly close. He grabbed Randy by his collar and shook him, causing Grace to jump after him. “What killed my brother?” he yelled.

  Grace yanked on his arm, but he shrugged her off with a growl. “Back off, Grace,” he warned, ready to return to Randy, who was visibly shaking in his grip, but Grace wasn’t one to push around and he should’ve remembered that.

  “Stand down,” Grace demanded, the steel in her voice jerking him around. “Stop and think about what you’re doing.”

  He glared, his adrenaline pumping. “This man knows who killed my brother and why.”

  “This man is about to die of a heart attack,” she said, not backing down. “Last time I checked, dead men don’t answer questions.”

  Angelo returned to Randy and saw what Grace said was true. He swore under his breath before saying, “Call a damn ambulance. He’s not going to die without coughing up what he knows.”

  Grace flipped her cell phone to her ear and made the call and Angelo, sparing one last look of disgust for Randy, stalked from the house to simmer down.

  He’d lost his cool, his objectivity. Frustration unlike anything he’d ever known ate at him, biting into his calm and his professional ability until he was consumed by a roiling mass of choking rage and desperation, acting like a rookie on his first case. That wasn’t him. Not by a long shot. And yet, here he was, blowing hard from the adrenaline and behaving like a wild man out for revenge, not an agent seeking justice.

  Angelo nudged a rock with the toe of his shoe, trying to come back to the case with a fresh perspective. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Mya.

  She picked up and just the sound of her voice calmed him—until he heard the subtle tremor.

  “Angelo, I think I may have found the source of Bunny’s and Hettie’s sores. There’s something in the water, something that’s not supposed to be there. I think it’s contaminated. I’ve taken a sample and I’m on my way to the hospital now. But there’s something else I found when I was collecting the sample and you’re going to want to see it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, Darrick’s camp was near the sample spot and I found some of his things. I started gathering some of his personal effects in case Randy wanted to keep them and I found some pictures hidden under his pillow.”

  “Pictures? What kind?”

  “Really old ones. A few are of Darrick and Waylon when they were kids, but others are of people dumping something in ten-gallon drums into the water. I think Waylon and Darrick stumbled onto— Wait, what the—” Mya’s voice cut off as metal crunching metal rang through the phone, causing his heart to stop. “Mya?”

  “Angelo!” Her voice sounded frantic in his ear. “Someone is trying to run me off the road!”

  “Where are you?” he asked, sprinting for the car.

  “Heading for the Pititchu Bridge, almost there— Oh, God, here he comes again!”

  Another crunch of metal and squeal of tires and then the line went dead.

  “Grace!” he shouted as he skidded around the car, jerking open the door. She appeared just as he climbed inside. “Trouble. Someone’s trying to kill Mya. Keep an eye on Willets. Don’t let anyone near him. This is about loose ends and he’s definitely that for whoever is involved with this.”

  Grace acknowledged him with a firm nod before disappearing inside again, no doubt locking the door behind her.

  He peeled out of the driveway and on the way dialed Sundance. “Mya’s in danger. En route to the Pititchu Bridge. Situation not secure. I repeat, situation is not secure.”

  “On my way
.” Sundance’s curt response was followed by a click. Angelo tossed his phone onto the seat and pressed the gas pedal harder.

  Chapter 23

  Mya slowly became aware of freezing-cold water hitting her ankles and rapidly climbing her legs. She was disoriented for a moment and took a second to realize what had happened and what kind of danger she was in.

  But the shocking bite of the water filling her car snapped her into panicked action. She jerked at her seat belt—it stuck. Murky river water hit her waist and she screamed for help, still yanking on the caught belt. Whoever had run her off the road had managed to push her off right before the bridge, sending her car hurtling down the steep embankment to land nose-down in the water and she was sinking fast.

  “Help!” she screamed again, the fear putting a wild shrill note to her voice. She couldn’t die this way. She had too much to do still. She was too young. She wanted to be a wife, a mother, a grandmother!

  Angelo’s face flashed in her memory and she yanked harder in desperation as tears rained down her cheeks. She took deep, gulping breaths as the water hit her chest and her purse floated by. Nooooo! She grabbed her purse and twisted the strap around her arm in a hopeless attempt to hold on to the important pictures inside.

  She wouldn’t die without having the chance to tell Angelo how much she still loved him. She couldn’t let whoever was responsible for all this pain go unpunished. She thought of Iris and Sundance and how much she loved them both and how her last words to Iris had been sharp. She’d do anything to take them back. She pictured all the people in her life whom she loved and cherished and, as the water closed over her head, she took one last desperate breath and realized her time had come.

  Great Spirit was calling her home.

  Angelo saw the back end of Mya’s car slip into the dark depths of the water and he jumped from his car and broke into a sprint. He didn’t hesitate, just dove into the water.