by Clover Tate
Frank looked at me with what I hope wasn’t pity. “I’m happy to help if I can.”
The dining room was lively with conversation. The hostess led a couple to a nearby table, and she gave me a curious look as she returned to her station. Had she heard about Avery, too? I’d have to get used to the stares. Deep in the restaurant near the bar, a flash of pasty skin and red hair, rose then disappeared.
“Do you know much about Sam Anderson?” I asked.
“A little. Not much. Why?”
“I just wondered if he was from Rock Point.”
“Not sure. I doubt it, though. I think he saw a nice opportunity for a gastropub and relocated his family here.”
“So it was a business decision.”
Frank shrugged. “Probably more than that. Living by the ocean is wonderful for kids, and I know Sam loves to crab. But, yes, in the end, business probably had a bit to do with his decision.”
“A restaurant like the Tidal Basin would be an expensive proposition. I can’t imagine he’s making a fortune,” I ventured. No matter what Deputy Goff said, I wasn’t letting Sam off the hook that easily. He had a motive for killing Miles, even if it was a weak one. And he’d been on the dock.
“These restaurants always keep tight margins. The smart thing would be to factor in more stable income, through a hotel or something like that.”
“But you don’t know if he’s having money trouble.”
“No. I don’t have any business dealings with him.” Frank drew his eyebrows together. “Why do you ask? Do you think he has something to do with Miles’s death?”
“Someone has.” Attitude, Emmy.
Raised voices near the restaurant’s front door drew our attention. “Before he was killed, chef Miles Logan—”
“You can’t come in,” the teenaged host told the reporters we’d overheard.
Diners’ heads swiveled as Sam Anderson rushed past them. “Put down the camera. This is private property.”
A small woman in navy blue waved the cameraman to point toward Sam. “May I have your name?”
“You’ll have to leave. Now,” Sam said. He turned toward the bar. “Luis?”
A meaty guy with a dirty apron and a towel slung over his shoulder had been lurking near the divider separating the bar from the dining room. He had to be the dishwasher who’d tossed out Ron and Monica, the mushroom hunters. The reporter and cameraman didn’t need a second invitation to leave.
“It’s starting,” Frank said, his expression grim. “It’ll only get worse when it goes to trial.”
I couldn’t take any more. So much for a relaxing evening. “I appreciate your goodwill gesture, but I should go home.” I reached into my purse for my wallet and saw that my mother had left eight messages on my cell phone.
“Let me take care of the bill. And don’t worry about Avery. Justice is on its way. Just let it unroll like it should.”
Justice was rolling along all right. Right down a hill and off a cliff. I would not let that happen, not to Avery.
In the parking lot, the news van occupied a spot under a light. Annabelle stood nearby, the reporter’s microphone stuck under her mouth. “Rock Point isn’t that kind of town,” she said. “We’re peaceful here. Happy. What happened to Miles was all a mistake.”
* * *
All night I tossed and turned. The house groaned in the wind, and rain battered against the windows. I felt so alone, so far from anyone else. Avery was sleeping in some cold cell. Frank’s words about not trusting anyone still rang in my brain. Could we really lose the house? The fear I’d felt standing face-to-face with the mushroom hunters rose again. What should I do?
Bear, immersed in his own dreams, growled from his bed.
Deep, deep from some recess of my brain that only sleep pierced, I remembered, too, my asthma attack and being in the hospital with my mother and father around me and a mask clamped to my mouth. I’d felt so small—I was so small. But that was a long time ago. I was an adult now. This was my life, these were my problems to solve alone.
When I woke, it was still dark.
chapter eighteen
I clenched my coffee cup as dawn stained the horizon apricot. Stella wouldn’t arrive for at least another half hour. My thoughts careened to Avery once again. She’d warned me—rightly—that I could screw up her case by getting in the sheriff’s way or collecting evidence illegally. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t sit while nothing happened. Besides, this morning’s plan was straightforward: get Ron and Monica’s license-plate number and hand it to the sheriff. That’s all. I plopped on the couch and let my head roll against its back as I waited for the purr of Stella’s Corvette.
We decided to take my old Prius so as not to attract attention. I wasn’t sure whether it was the early hour or Stella’s reluctance to have anything to do with the mushroom hunters, but we drove to the burnout in silence. No joyriding this morning—not that the Prius was much of a powerhouse on the roads.
“We should park out of the way,” I said.
“Good idea,” she replied, but that was all.
The sun had come up by now, but there wasn’t much traffic. I pulled the Prius onto a side road a few hundred yards past the burnout and parked, figuring that anyone headed for the burnout would have parked at an earlier turnoff. I’d brought the same tools I had yesterday—a couple of sandwiches and my sketching things—but I’d emptied my wallet this time. No use tempting fate.
“We’ll have to hike from here.” My eyes ached from lack of sleep, but at the same time I felt good to be doing something to help Avery.
“That sounds good to me,” Stella said. “We watch; we take notes; we get out of there.”
I let a moment pass before replying. “You seem awfully quiet this morning. I hope you’re not still mad.”
She looked toward the woods. “I’m not angry. It’s just that this is dangerous. We shouldn’t be messing in someone’s morel territory.”
“We won’t be picking them.”
“They won’t know that.”
“They will if we don’t have any mushrooms with us.”
“If they take the time to check, sure,” Stella said.
“Should we go home?” This was frustrating. I paused, not sure if I should take the keys from the ignition.
“No. We’re so close. Let’s get it over with. Besides, I know you’d come right back without me.”
She was right. I slung my tote bag over my shoulder, and Stella led the way down a path through the woods that I never would have found on my own. The forest’s pine-needle floor smelled fresh and damp. We tramped through the woods for a few minutes before Stella lifted an arm to stop me.
“Through there,” she said.
In a clearing where a wildfire had flattened the underbrush and seared the lower branches from the trees, new undergrowth pushed through. Dampened patches that might hold morel mushrooms peppered the Douglas-fir seedlings.
“Let’s stay here,” Stella said. “We can see into the burnout, but we’re out of the way. As long as they park in the closest spot”—the spot we’d passed—“they’ll come from the other direction.” She was already settling in to wait.
I took a thermos from my pack and sat on a log. The damp seeped through my jeans.
“We want to find out their license-plate number, and we aren’t going to see it from here,” I said.
“We can’t go any closer. We don’t want them seeing us.”
“True.” Stella was clearly nervous about our expedition, which was funny given how brave she’d been on the dock.
“How about this?” I proposed. “When we find someone who fits the bill of Ron and Monica, I’ll hike out to the road until I find their car. Then we’ll get out of here.”
“That sounds safest to me.” After scanning the burnout once more, Stella slid an issu
e of ARTnews from her pack and settled in to wait.
I leaned against a fir and took out my sketch pad. Might as well dream up some new kites. Half an hour went by with both of us engrossed in our pursuits. No one entered the burnout.
When Stella put down the magazine, I spoke. “Do you know Jack Sullivan very well?” I’d been wanting to ask her but was embarrassed to bring it up, especially if he and Annabelle were an item.
“A bit, I guess. I know he was good friends with Miles. Why?”
“No reason. Just wondered.” I let a moment pass. “Do you think he has a thing for Annabelle Black?”
“Why?” The hint of a smile played on her mouth.
“Last night I was at the Tidal Basin and saw them together. That’s all.”
“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” she said.
It was a frustratingly inadequate answer. “Oh,” I said.
“You like him, don’t you? Miles once told me—”
Just then, faint voices drifted our way. I set down my pad, and Stella and I exchanged glances. A man and woman came into the burnout, each carrying plastic buckets. From behind them, a little girl, not much older than kindergarten age, charged from behind a fallen log.
“Boo!” she yelled.
Her parents seemed unimpressed. “Honey, don’t run. You’ll trip on something,” the mother said. The adults picked methodically, only exchanging words every few minutes. The girl amused herself by chucking rocks into the woods in our direction. Thankfully, she was too far away to hit us.
“Ron, keep an eye on her,” the woman said.
Ron. “I think that’s them,” I whispered. Ron and Monica. I leaned toward Stella, close enough to smell her lily-of-the-valley perfume. “I’m going to find their car. You stay here, and come after me if they leave.” It seemed safe to hurry off now, while they were still busy.
Stella glanced at them, then turned to me and nodded once.
I crept through the underbrush, my tote bag still slung over my shoulder. Within a few minutes, I reached the road. I kicked the pine needles and dirt with my shoes so I’d know where to turn again, then I headed down the road, expecting I’d run into a car pulled over close to the burn.
The mushroom hunters would surely still be picking morels for a while. After all, they’d only just arrived.
At the turnoff we’d passed earlier, an older Subaru wagon was parked at the side of the road. It had to be theirs. I looked up and down the road and didn’t see any other reason someone would be there. I slipped my bag from my shoulder and reached for my pad to jot down the car’s license-plate number.
“What are you doing?” a small voice asked.
I spun around. The morel hunters’ daughter stood behind me. She wore a stained pink sweatshirt and denim pants. Her mousy hair was pulled into a ponytail.
“Where are your mom and dad?” I answered as a knee-jerk reaction.
“Where are your mom and dad?” she said.
“What’s it to you?”
“What’s it to you?” she repeated. “Are you supposed to be out here?”
“Are you?” I said quickly. We stared at each other.
“I asked you first.”
This was getting nowhere fast. I jotted down the Subaru’s license-plate number and returned the pad to my bag. “My name is Emmy. What’s yours?”
“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” the girl said.
I nodded. “Uh-huh. And I bet you’re not supposed to leave your parents, either.”
She edged toward the car a few steps, then leapt to the door, jerked it open, and locked herself inside. She pressed her nose against the glass and stuck out her tongue for good measure.
Shoot. I had the information I needed, but I couldn’t leave the girl alone. It wasn’t safe. At the same time, I could hardly wait around until the mushroom hunters returned and found me. I glanced down the road, then back at the car. The girl pressed a coloring book to the window. It showed a scrawled pink house with orange smoke billowing from its chimney. She tossed the coloring book aside and hung her head.
The girl was in the car, waiting for her parents. Her parents, who had threatened Miles—and maybe worse. I had the license-plate number. I could simply return to Stella, but I hesitated.
“Hannah?” a woman’s voice shouted. “Hannah, where are you?”
Twigs cracking in the woods made up my mind. As quietly as I could, I jogged out of sight into the trees and along the road. Up where I’d initially emerged from the woods, Stella was already standing on the shoulder.
“They left,” she said as we walked toward the Prius. “They only picked for half an hour or so, then noticed their daughter had run off. I was just about ready to come after you.”
“It’s all right,” I said as I caught my breath. “I got their information.”
“Satisfied?” Stella asked. “This should give the sheriff everything he needs to find the people who threatened Miles.”
I unlocked the Prius. “Their daughter came back to the car. I didn’t want to leave her there alone, but I heard her mom.”
“Do you think she’ll tell them about you?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “She might. I hope she’s known for her imagination.” Somehow I guessed she was. I imagined the girl at dinner, telling her parents about me. Shoot. I’d told her my name, too.
“They probably rely on their mushroom sales to pay the bills,” Stella said.
I wanted to find the person who’d killed Avery, not split a family apart. Seeing the girl made it all too real. I backed the Prius into the road. “Did you get a good look at them? Was it anyone you’d seen before?”
“I’ve seen Ron—if that’s him—shopping at the grocery outlet. I don’t think they live right in Rock Point. I’ll ask Jeanette at the post office. I’ll tell her about Ace’s meditation hideaway in trade.”
“Good idea. If anyone will know, she will.”
When we arrived at the house, Stella refused my offer of a cup of tea and went straight to the Corvette. I did a double take at her bulging tote bag.
“Your bag,” I said. “I didn’t notice that you brought so much stuff.”
“Stuff? I only brought my magazine.” Stella opened the Corvette’s door and bent to slide in.
“Are you sure?” She was being cagey. After her silence earlier that morning, it made me nervous. “Nothing’s wrong, is it? I really do appreciate it that you came with me this morning. I know you didn’t want to.”
“You’re right.”
“But you came anyway. Thank you.”
“No,” she said. “You’re right about the bag.” With a guilty smile, she pulled it open and showed me. It was full of morels. “I picked them when you were down the road. Maybe this outing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”
chapter nineteen
I opened Strings Attached and started the teakettle in the back before I reached for the phone. This time I would talk to Sheriff Koppen and not the deputy. This time I’d make sure he had all the information and would promise to follow up on it. This time I’d keep my cool.
“You again.” As I’d feared, Deputy Goff had answered the phone.
I ignored her icy tone. “May I speak to Sheriff Koppen?”
For a moment, I heard nothing, as if Goff were tempted to hang up. Finally, the line buzzed. Miracle of miracles, the sheriff was in. “Koppen here.”
“What’s with Deputy Goff? I know she’s not wild about me, but she’s being downright rude.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” the sheriff said in a tone indicating that he couldn’t care less. “How can I help you?”
I clutched the phone tightly. “I have some important information about the Miles Logan case. Can I come by?”
He let out a long breath. Whether it was from frustration or hope, I
couldn’t tell. “No. That’s not a good idea at the moment. Are you at the shop?”
“Just got here.”
“I’ll come see you.” He hung up without waiting for my good-bye. A few minutes later, Sheriff Koppen opened the front door, his body a khaki-clad pillar among the colorful kites rustling around him.
“Tea?” I asked, and felt a little foolish. This wasn’t a social visit. Besides, the sheriff looked to be a coffee man. Black.
“No thanks. I understand you’ve been dropping by the office.”
I went to the kitchen in the workshop but kept the door between the shop and workshop open. I fidgeted with the teapot and took a little more time than necessary setting up the mug and strainer. “You seem pretty certain you’ve found Miles’s killer. I’m not so sure.”
“I didn’t say that.” Again, that impassive expression.
“But you’re holding Avery in jail and won’t even let her out on bail. To me, that says you feel certain.”
“Not necessarily. What it means is that the prosecutor convinced the judge not to take any chances. We’re talking about a homicide.”
“I know.” I slammed the electric teakettle on its base and remembered my vow to rein in my temper. “I mean, I know how important this case is to Rock Point and to Avery. I simply want to make sure you’re following up all your leads.”
“You told me you had information for me. What is it?”
I brought the teapot and mug to the sales counter. Now for the big reveal. “Have you checked out the morel hunters, the ones who threatened Miles in front of all those witnesses?”
“Deputy Goff said you were concerned about them.”
“Well, I have their first names and license-plate number, so now you can follow up.” I pushed a piece of paper across the counter.
“Ron and Monica. Sure. Ron was laid off at the lumber mill in Clatskanie and has been gathering morels to make a little income. Had to move to his mother-in-law’s house with his wife and daughter.”