Spirit Lake

by Vickie McKeehan

  “When can we bring him home?”

  Cheyenne’s lips curved. “He’ll be well enough to leave the clinic by Wednesday.”

  Gemma let out a sigh. “There goes our trip to the cabin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cheyenne said. “You were going out of town?”

  “Were,” Lando stated. “Thursday afternoon. Just for a couple of days. We were coming back on Saturday. Unless Rolo can travel.”

  “I don’t think it’d be a good idea so soon after his ordeal.”

  “Even a short trip to Spirit Lake? That’s right outside town.”

  “You could, I suppose. But I still recommend that you take the necessary time to make sure Rolo’s settled into his new home, around his new people.”

  “We can do that,” Gemma said, looking directly at Lando.

  But Lando had already moved on to another issue. “Did you happen to test those bones I brought in?”

  “I sent them off to the lab at UC Davis. It’s faster because there are grad students who do that sort of thing for their thesis. I should know something by the end of the week, especially if arsenic was the method of choice.”

  “You’ll call me as soon as you know something then?”

  “I will. I’m anxious to get the results back myself. Look, I need to get going. I’m leaving here happy that little Rolo has a ready-made family waiting for him.”

  “That’s us,” Gemma stated as she walked Cheyenne to the door. “I’ll try and drop in to see him tomorrow.”

  “That’d be great. You guys let me know if there are any problems.”

  Over supper, Lando put their decision to cancel their plans in perspective. “We’re staying home because of a stray dog.”

  “A new member of the family,” Gemma corrected. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “We get a sitter. Weird idea, huh?”

  “Not necessarily. I wonder if Radley would do it. He mentioned he sometimes walks his neighbors’ dogs to supplement his teacher’s salary. It’s summer. He could use the money. He could stay here during the time we’re gone.”

  “I vote we ask him. I could push Cheyenne into letting us bring Rolo home a day early in time to get him settled with us. We make the little guy feel at home before we take off for two days. It’s just two days.”

  “I haven’t even put in for the time off yet.”

  “Why not? What’s up with that?”

  “When I brought it up, Sam Wells gave me a hard time about it. And Arlo certainly won’t be in my corner. Not that he ever was. The rude awakening is that one of these guys will be my boss soon. The idea of it is depressing.”

  “We have to find someone else to step up and run against these two.”

  “What good will it do? Everyone knows Wells is a shoo-in.”

  “This problem isn’t going away, is it?”

  “No. But you can bet that I’ll fight anyone to get those two days off, even Sam Wells.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. We won’t let Sam push us around.”

  13

  As soon as the clinic opened the next day, Gemma was there waiting to see Rolo. Still hooked up to intravenous fluids with his back leg in a cast, the Westie lifted his head when he spotted his visitor.

  With all his fur gone, he looked like a completely different dog than the scruffy-looking thing Rufus had stumbled across on Sunday.

  She ran her fingers over Rolo’s short coat. “You’re coming home with me, big guy. Today I’m buying a doggie bed and some of your own toys because I doubt Rufus will want to share Mr. Sock Monkey with you no matter how injured you are.”

  The Westie nuzzled and licked her hand.

  “You’re gonna be just fine, Rolo. You’ll see. I promise you that Lando and I will love you like we do Rufus. You’re a member of the family now.”

  Cheyenne stood in the doorway, listening. “He’s a great little guy with a good disposition.”

  “I see that. I wanted to run something by you. We’ve decided to go ahead and go out of town for a couple days. We’re lining up a dog sitter. Is there any way Rolo could come home with us tonight to spend a few days with us before we leave on Thursday?”

  “Let’s see how he does with his food when we take him off the IV. How’s that for an answer?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  While Gemma took care of a few other errands, Arlo’s bail hearing had come and gone. It was a no-brainer. The judge let him out of jail by mid-morning after he posted a two-hundred-dollar bond, agreeing to appear in court in two weeks.

  “He didn’t even get a lecture,” Lando grumbled on their way to the jeweler.

  “Did you really think he would?”

  “I had hope. I got a call from Crescent City. Those remains in the parking lot did belong to Cheri Taylor. Maybe that’s why it’s so frustrating watching my main suspect post bail without so much as harsh words from the judge about a mayoral candidate starting a fight in a bar.”

  Gemma stopped walking and came to an abrupt stop as a thought occurred to her. “Only two victims out of four have been identified. Cheri Taylor and Chloe Pendleton. And it was by accident that someone came across Cheri underneath that pavement. If the current owner of the strip mall hadn’t decided to expand, no one would’ve ever found Cheri. Ever.”

  Puzzled, Lando simply said, “Okay.”

  “Two victims with names that begin with the letter C? C, Lando. Cheri and Chloe. That’s a weird coincidence.”

  “That’s an angle we should explore.”

  “But how?”

  “Dig deeper into Chloe’s and Cheri’s pasts. See if there’s a connection to Arlo. I’ll ask Zeb if he still talks to Chloe’s parents. We’ll re-interview them. Want to come with me when I talk to Cheri’s family?”

  She stared at him. “You mean it?”

  “Yeah. I think you could bring some serious game to the questions.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  After learning the jeweler could have the ring done by the second week in August, Lando contacted Cheri Taylor’s mother directly. Since Cheri’s disappearance, Kay Armargosa had divorced Cheri’s father, remarried, and divorced again. Upheaval had become her norm. But the grieving mother was willing to talk to them, talk to anyone really who could help find Cheri’s killer.

  They headed over to Seabluff Village, an area south of Crescent City where Kay now lived in a quiet mobile home park.

  Fifty-nine-year-old Kay had short brown hair with gray streaks beginning to pepper the top of her head. She greeted them with sad, brown eyes that showed fifteen years of worry about a child she’d hoped would one day come back home.

  The minute they settled in, they could see Cheri’s photographs were still an integral part of Kay’s domain. Pictures of the fifteen-year-old lined the walls and were set out among the knickknacks, proudly focusing on the girl’s short life.

  Lando got comfortable on the edge of a lounger while Gemma sat next to Kay on the couch. They paid attention while Kay poured her heart out.

  “She was my youngest, a sweetheart of a girl who’d help anybody with anything,” Kay began. “She had two older brothers who’d already left home and were off doing their own thing. That was probably one big reason we were close, or as close as a teenage girl can be with her mother.”

  “What were some of the things she liked to do?” Gemma asked.

  “She loved to read, was a bit of a romantic, and hoped one day to become a writer. She already had her eyes on college, something my boys didn’t give a hang about. But Cheri was different. Even though she grew up here and had a bunch of friends, she went her own way much of the time.”

  “Did that include boyfriends?”

  “For some reason she wasn’t infatuated with any of the local boys around here. Which is probably the reason she turned to using the computer. Fifteen years ago, the online stuff was becoming the thing to do, the place to meet and talk to other people from around the country. Because she was
so shy, Cheri used our desktop computer a lot more than she was allowed. I found out after she went missing that she preferred hitting the chat rooms. I didn’t know about it at the time. She defied me on that when I refused to let her sign up at some of the sites she’d mention over breakfast or in a passing comment. You know when your teenage daughter is complaining about rules, you barely listen because, let’s face it, they complain a lot. I even grounded her a couple of weeks before she went missing for sneaking off in the middle of the night to meet people she’d met online. I told the detectives all this after she disappeared. They took our computer and did a thorough search of her online activities. I never heard a thing back from them, but I’ll go to my grave believing that’s how she met up with her killer.”

  “Did they ask you about any specific names that popped up?”

  “A few. But I didn’t recognize any of them. Then about five years ago a cold case detective stopped by and mentioned that the names were all phony anyway. They didn’t lead to anyone who was real. It seems Cheri was talking to a bunch of fake profiles using made-up names. I’m hoping now that they’ve found her, they’ll get to work on who killed her and buried her under all that asphalt. You know that’s what they used to smooth out parking lots. It’s a disgusting sealer that smells bad. Imagine, my baby under there all this time, and no one knew it. A couple of years ago I even went to that same shopping center to help my niece pick out her wedding dress. I was right there twenty feet from Cheri and didn’t even know it.”

  Gemma reached out to hold Kay’s hand. “It’s horrible I know, but the monsters who do things like this are a different breed. They don’t think like we do, they don’t show empathy or care about people.”

  “Why are you here exactly?” Kay wanted to know. “You’re from Coyote Wells.”

  Lando scooted closer. “I have an unsolved murder of a teenager from some thirty-odd years in the past. Then there’s another murder from five years ago. We think both were murdered by the same person who killed Cheri.”

  Kay’s shoulders dropped. “He’s done this before to more than just my Cheri?”

  “We think so,” Gemma said, going into more detail about their theory.

  Kay dabbed at her eyes. “Your suspect, does he have ties to the area?”

  “Somewhat,” Lando answered, vague on purpose. “That’s why we’re here talking to you about your daughter, trying to connect the dots even further. We think thirty years ago Jane Doe might’ve been his first victim. We’re going on the premise that he was around the same age as his first. Fifteen years ago, Cheri was his second. The bones along the Oregon border, his third; and five years ago, a woman by the name of Chloe Pendleton out at Spirit Lake.”

  “There might be others,” Gemma offered. “But if there are, they haven’t surfaced yet. So if you can think of any other information that might help us, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “You’re after a serial killer,” Kay said quietly.

  Gemma nodded. “We are. That’s why we need to find out who he is and stop him.”

  On the trip back to Coyote Wells, Gemma sat quietly in the passenger seat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You wanted us to be completely honest with each other, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay. Here goes. I’m not convinced Arlo Stokely killed anyone except Gretel, Felix’s dog.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I’ve been taking a hard look at Arlo. I mean, do you really think Arlo could charm young girls into meeting him online? Think about it. First, he has to say all the right things. Second, he has to present himself, even online, as a caring person. Unless he’s a heck of a poet deep inside his soul and we just haven’t seen that side of him⸻can you picture Arlo sweet-talking anyone into doing anything? He’s more of an in-your-face kind of guy, not exactly a candidate for Casanova.”

  “Wow. You’re right. Arlo doesn’t even have a sales background. Whoever killed these girls had to sell themselves in a chat room first and foremost to get a response.”

  “A bunch of responses. The killer had to connect in some way, on some level. I don’t think that remotely sounds like Arlo Stokely.”

  She shifted in her seat. “Did you talk to Radley?”

  “He’s happy to dog- slash house-sit for a couple days.”

  “Great. Then let’s go shopping for Rolo. He needs supplies.”

  Lando went back to work and Gemma spent the next few hours whipping up batches of chocolate treats, all the while explaining to Leia and Lianne what they’d found out from Kay Armargosa.

  “Cheri was obviously going behind her mother’s back to meet new people online. Strangers. If just one of them had sinister intentions and lured her out the night she went missing to kill her, maybe they did the same thing with Chloe.”

  Leia made a point to show her disgust. “One reason not to have kids. They do dumb stuff. I remember sneaking out of the house plenty of times to meet Van. Did you know your jerk of a brother doesn’t even acknowledge me to this day and hasn’t for years?”

  “Off topic,” Gemma stated. “I can’t control what Van does or how he thinks any more than I can control you.”

  “You don’t think it’s weird though?” Leia asked.

  “Yeah, I do, but he’s a married guy with kids. I get the impression he doesn’t want to give off the slightest hint that he’s anything like Michael Coyote with a wandering eye. Nova is well aware of his father’s, our father’s, indiscretions. I saw that for myself on those home videos I watched at Paloma’s house.”

  “Huh? I never thought of it that way.”

  Lianne elbowed Leia in the ribs. “You actually sat around and wondered why a former high school boyfriend didn’t come around anymore?”

  “Well, yeah. He never brings his family into Captain Jack’s. I see them around town eating out at other places, but never the Bonner-owned restaurant. It bothered me.”

  “I can see that,” Gemma noted. “Now that we’ve solved the decades-old mystery of why Van won’t give you the time of day, can we please get back to the subject at hand⸻four murders we’re no closer to solving than Caulfield was.”

  “Sorry, Miss Bossy, to hijack the conversation away from murder. Jeez,” Leia muttered. “But we don’t all live and breathe it like you and Lando.”

  “Sorry,” Gemma stated. When she caught Lianne staring at the wall behind the kitchen prep area, she turned to look, too. “What are you looking at?”

  “I wonder if I could raise the money to tear down that wall and put in that bookstore Collette wanted.”

  Leia tested another piece of chocolate. “Why the change of heart?”

  “Because I think it was a good idea. And because this town could use a bookstore.”

  “What about asking the bank for a loan?” Gemma prompted. “We could go in together. It was something Marissa wanted as much as Collette and Marnie did.”

  “Wonder how much it would cost? I wouldn’t want to go into a deep hole with the project or ask Vince to back it again.”

  “I like Vince, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that either. We could do a proposal and see if it’s even feasible.”

  “Let’s do it,” Lianne decided. “I think we should do it for all three of them. We could name it after them using their initials, CMM Bookstore.”

  Leia frowned at that suggestion. “Maybe something a little more catchy or creative. But then you guys can argue about it later.”

  Gemma slid another tray filled with dark chocolate and creamy filling into the cooler to set. “So where were we? Back to murder. Cheri. Chloe. Two names that begin with C who might’ve met the same killer online.”

  Leia nibbled on another discard, a badly-shaped leftover shaped like an ink splotch. “Zeb has kept his communication open with the Pendletons over the years. He’s Skyping with them right now to find out if Chloe ever went online to meet guys.”

  “And if she did, was it serious enough to leave w
ith said guy during her shift at work,” Lianne noted.

  “Now if we could just get a name for the Jane Doe found on the beach. Lando says not to bug Candace, but let’s face it, the identity of that girl is in the hands of the professor and her students. Plus, he’s trying to contact state authorities to see if they’ve done anything about the remains found near the border. It’s been four months since that discovery.”

  “Do you really think Arlo could be the guy?” Lianne said, her tone laced with doubt.

  “Honestly, I’m beginning to have my own doubts,” Gemma admitted. “No one’s denying he’s a squirrelly guy. After all, it looks like he killed Felix Spivey’s German shepherd out of spite. Who kills a dog like that? Then he goes to bury Gretel and gets caught in the act by Leia and Zeb. I can see Arlo doing that, but sweet-talking young girls into meeting up with him…?”

  Leia shuddered. “Eww. No. Just. No.”

  “Exactly.”

  “By the way, if you’re still going to the cabin, stop by Mom’s house before you take off and pick up bedding. Last time she was there, she tidied up and brought all the towels and sheets back to be laundered. There’s nothing on the beds or in the linen closet.”

  “Lando forgot to mention that. When’s the last time you were there?”

  “Zeb and I spent last New Year’s Eve there. Someone had their own fireworks display out over the water. We watched it from the second-story deck.”

  Gemma shifted looks to Lianne. “You should get Luke to take you up there. It’s gorgeous and peaceful this time of year.”

  “We’re spending this weekend horseback riding. But I definitely want to see this cabin with a second-story deck. When I think cabin, second-story balcony doesn’t come to mind. How luxurious is this place?”

  Leia let out a laugh. “It’s been remodeled a couple of times over the years. We used to spend a week at Christmas up there when we were kids and needed more room to spread out. We were all piled into bunk beds and didn’t like to share a room. Mom got tired of hearing us bitch and moan and hired guys to add on a second story. Now it can sleep six people easily without getting on each other’s last nerve.”