He said nothing.
“But you guys already searched her bedroom, right?”
He sipped his shake.
“She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
He looked up, into the rearview mirror. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Me, neither.”
He held my gaze. “I heard you worked for the FBI.”
I bit, chewed. Small town, Johann told me, everybody knows everybody. The sheriff probably told every lawman within a fifty-mile radius that I used to work for the FBI.
“How long were you with them?” Wilcove asked.
The French fry waited, poised for enjoyment. But Wilcove was staring at me, expecting something. Two days ago—could it have been just two days ago?—it was hard for me to tell him and Seiler apart. Both beefy farm guys with shaved blonde hair. But where Seiler’s eyes were narrow with suspicion, Wilcove’s eyes slanted down at the outer corners. A wistful boyish expression. And right now, his gaze in the mirror looked like a six-year-old meeting a fireman.
“I was with the Bureau about ten years.”
“Wow.” His eyes widened. Six-year-old learns the fireman once saved a baby from a burning building. “But you don’t work with them anymore?”
“It was mutual.”
His forehead tightened. Boy learns fireman dropped baby. “And now you’re a … geologist?”
Fireman turned fry cook.
“I’ve always been a geologist.” I explained the forensic mineralogy lab at the Bureau. And I would’ve explained how minerals show up in everything from cosmetics to car bombs, but Wilcove had another question.
“Did you ever work as an agent?” He really wanted to know what happened.
“Yes.” I looked down at the wax paper where my cheeseburger was waiting. “I became an agent after my dad was murdered.”
“Oh.” He stared out the windshield. “I’m sorry.”
He’d backed his cruiser into the parking lot of the burger joint, well-trained to keep an eye on things. At 10:14 a.m., the cruiser was the only customer vehicle here—which is why we received the freshest grease of the day. Beyond us, traffic kept its steady stream down the Front Street. Problems probably started after lunch, when the German lager kicked in.
“Was it hard to leave that, after ten years?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“I tended to ignore the rules.”
He looked up. “What kinda rules?”
“Well.” I glanced out the back window. Did I really want to have this discussion? Behind us, a pluton of granite loomed like a cliff. Half my brain was noting the chemistry, how tiny garnets were embedded in the quartz veins, stones as red as drops of blood. The other half of my brain wondered why my heart was suddenly accelerating. I set my fries on the vinyl floor mat. Madame wagged and dove in.
“The FBI has a rule that agents have to be armed at all times. But I didn’t take my weapon with me all the time. I got attacked by some guys. And I was rescued by a civilian.” Named DeMott Fielding. The same civilian who asked me to marry him, then asked me not to.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Wilcove said, sounding just like that six-year-old boy.
“True.” Madame’s tongue rasped, licking all the salt on the wax paper. “But I kept bending the rules.”
His dashboard radio crackled. I heard something about a wolf. Or a coyote. It had wandered into someone’s front yard. Chickens were at stake. Another unit was responding. Maybe even Seiler. Wilcove’s pale eyes came back to the mirror. Another question.
I beat him to it.
“You’re wondering if I’m buying you breakfast to get something out of you.”
“I’m not dumb, I know why you called.”
“I really did want to eat.” I reached into my pocket and found Fritz’s note. “But I’m also curious about this guy Mason Leming.”
He bit down on a fry. “I can’t talk about it.”
“The Engels believe he killed Annicka.”
“I know.”
“You know they think that—or you know he could’ve killed her?”
“Mason’s got an alibi.”
“Do you believe it?”
He placed his shake in the dashboard cup holder.
I could feel my opportunity closing. “I’m just trying to find out what happened to Annicka. We both want to know. Let’s help her rest in peace.”
He looked down. In the rearview mirror, all I could see was his buzz-cut hair.
“I promise,” I said. “Despite all my rule bending, I never once compromised a source’s identity. And I never will. This conversation is confidential. I just need to know if Mason Leming could be guilty, and there just wasn’t enough evidence to hold him.”
“You don’t understand.” His kept his attention on the traffic. “Leavenworth needs tourists. Every job here is tied to tourism. Even mine.”
“Bad publicity, I get it.” I watched him. “You knew her, right?”
“Everyone knew her. Annicka was, like, famous. She was a star. But she never snubbed anybody. She was always nice.”
“What about Mason Leming, is he a nice guy?”
“I really don’t know him.” He sounded bitter.
“You think he killed her.”
“There you go again.” He snatched the shake from the cup holder. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Look, I’m not asking you to convict the guy. Just tell me why he might’ve killed her.”
“Because he was in love with her.”
Love. Only in this broken-down fallen world can love be a motive for murder.
“But his alibi—”
Wilcove sat up as a black 4-by-4 truck roared into the parking lot. As soon as the driver saw the patrol cruiser, he swung left and crossed to the lot’s far side. For at least a minute, nobody got out of the truck. Wilcove’s attention didn’t shift, even when my cell phone went off. I checked the screen. Unidentified Caller. Jack. I let the call go to voice mail and looked up to see two white guys getting out of the truck. One had dirty-blonde dreadlocks. The other wore a T-shirt with a huge cannabis leaf on the front. They studiously ignored Wilcove’s car. I wondered about Jack’s agricultural case. Wilcove tracked them into Das Burgermeister.
“About Mason,” I said, as the diner’s door closed.
“I don’t know…” His voice still had wonder, but now it was the bad kind. “I’m starting to believe anybody can do anything. Like, all they need is the right circumstances.” He looked up into the mirror. “You know what I’m saying?”
Yes. The weight of it suffocated my heart. “It’s the price of admission.”
“What?”
“This work changes you.” My voice was heavy, remembering.
He turned in his seat to look at me.
“My first case in the lab was a pair of lungs. They were so small.” I held up one cupped hand to show him. “I found soil inside the air sacs, lodged deep in the tissue. Do you know what that means?”
He shook his head.
“It means somebody buried that child when she was still alive. She breathed the soil into her lungs.”
“Oh, man,” he said softly.
“And that was my first assignment for the Bureau.” I stared down at Madame. She lay at my feet, content with a full belly. “I went home that weekend and told my dad I wanted to quit.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” I paused, recalling that moment burned in my soul. “My dad said, ‘Raleigh, I don’t always like being a judge, because some cases never let you forget. But we’re called to live beyond our fears. And we can’t pretend evil doesn’t exist. The stones cry out. They cry out for justice. And the only way to get justice is to listen to those cries.”
“Geology.” He blinked, then nodded. “You stayed with it.”
“And that’s the price of admission. We’re here to get the truth. For the dead.”
Wilcove loo
ked away. “There’s another girl.”
I held still.
“Another girl …” He turned all the way around, looking at me directly through the cage. “Another girl was bled out.”
“Sorry—what?”
“Bled out.” He said it fast, like he didn’t want the words in his mouth. “Annicka was bled out.”
My mind flashed to the burial site. The soil. Her body. The hand waving. “Bled—”
“You can’t tell anyone how you heard this.”
“You have my word. I promise.”
He faced forward. “Six years ago, there was another girl who died the same way. Somebody slit her throat and bled her dry.”
I felt sick, my stomach churning. That’s how Annicka died? No wonder her father didn’t want to see the autopsy. I swallowed. “How old is Mason Leming?”
“Nineteen.”
So six years ago, he would’ve been thirteen. Too young to kill the other girl? “Is that why he was dropped as a suspect, because of this connection?”
The agriculturalists stepped out of Das Burgermeister. They carried a dozen white bags. Munchies, no doubt. Wilcove tracked them to their black truck, and watched closely as they backed up, ever so slowly, and flicked on a blinker to indicate a left turn onto the road. They weren’t giving the cops any excuse to pull them over. Wilcove’s face was almost pressed to his side window, his breath clouding the glass. “They didn’t tell us about the link to the other girl until yesterday. One of the detectives is working the case, in the sheriff’s office. Nobody wants any reporters to find out.” He looked up. “You know?’
I nodded. “Can you tell me the other girl’s name?”
“Esther Heller.” He sighed, more breath condensing on the glass. “I always heard that Esther was murdered. You know, small town talk. But nobody said how—the tourism, you know.” He looked up in the mirror. “You sure you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Her parents run a hotel, just like the Engels. So now we’re trying to go over both the guest list. See who might’ve stayed in both places.”
“Over a six-year span? That’s a long list.”
He turned around again, pleading. “This can’t get out. Do you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“I should get going,” he said. “Thanks. For breakfast.”
“My pleasure.” I grabbed my backpack, slung it over my shoulders, and gathered up my food wrappers. Madame stood.
Wilcove started to get out—the back seat of cop cars don’t have handles—for obvious reasons.
“Just one more question,” I said.
He groaned. “What?”
“Where would I find the Hellers?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Officer Wilcove drove away. Madame inspected the pine trees at the back of the parking lot. And I listened to Jack’s voice mail.
“I’ll pick you up at the Waterhaus, eleven-thirty.”
I checked my watch. Ten-forty.
“And you can stop checking your watch,” Jack said. “I’ll get you back to Seattle in time.”
I disconnected the call, feeling an odd resentment. I check my watch that much? And so what, I’m concerned. Big deal.
Madame trotted back to me.
“Ready?” I asked her.
We jogged—a slow, full-belly jog—down the main drag. Despite sun shining high above the snow-capped peaks, the air still felt crisp with autumn. Sweater weather. With sweater-wearing tourists strolling past the shops full of German knickknacks and roasting bratwurst and nutcrackers. In the city park, an oompah band was setting up. The sunshine’s alchemy turned the brass tuba into gold.
Even if Wilcove didn’t tell me where to find it, I couldn’t miss the Eiderdown Inn. The hotel swallowed an entire block smack-dab in the middle of town. White stucco walls criss-crossed with dark wooden lathes. Painted scenes played on the stucco. Lederhosen farmers steered Clydesdale horses through wheat fields. Or maybe it was hops, for the German beer.
Madame took a shady spot near the four huge planters of mums at the entrance. Inside, the air smelled of cinnamon and apples. Three pretty blonde girls worked the front desk, each swaddled in those Bavarian outfits, taking care of the long line of cheerful guests. Accordion music floated from ceiling speakers. I looked around for someone like a manager, but another clump of guests walked in. They carried tiny white dogs and chattered in French.
I walked back outside. Madame was still waiting in her sphinx-like pose. “Good girl.”
We circled the block and found an alley that cut behind the main building. A Tyrolean-style sky bridge linked the main hotel to another building. Madame investigated the green dumpsters—cleanest dumpsters I’d ever seen—while I gazed up at the five stories of rooms. Windows opened to the fresh mountain air, their white lace curtains billowing in the morning breeze. Further down the alley, I found what I was looking for. Just like that sign at the Waterhaus:
Private Entrance. No Guests Allowed.
A tarnished brass doorbell stuck out from the white plaster. Nobody answered my first, so my second press lasted longer, vibrating like a wasp’s nest.
A voice called from the other side of the door. “Deliveries go to the Front Street entrance.”
“I’m looking for the Hellers.” I yelled back.
There was no reply.
“It’s about their daughter, Esther. I’m working with the Engels. They hired me to—”
The door gapped four inches, just enough to see a woman’s face. It was as pale as the building’s stucco.
“What d’you want?” she asked.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” I held out my card. “I’m working for the Engels family and—”
The door opened further. Her pale hand snatched my card. “This about Annicka?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She glanced furtively down the alley, then motioned for me to come inside. “Hurry up!”
I patted my leg to call Madame and scooped her up. “Sorry, she’s—”
“Just get in here.”
The door closed so fast wind blew my hair.
“Martha Heller,” she said, in some kind of introduction, lifting the reading glasses that hung round her neck. She peered at the card. The knuckles of her hand were knotted from arthritis. Her hair was short and platinum blonde. When she looked up at me, her brown eyes seemed impossibly dark against the pale skin and hair. “How do you pronounce your name?” she asked.
“Raleigh. Like the city.”
“Tea?”
She didn’t wait for a response.
I followed her quick steps through another bunker-basement. But that’s where the comparisons stopped. These walls had been troweled smooth with plaster, and displayed painted scenes like the ones outside. No farmers though. And no plough horses. Only small woodland creatures. Rabbits hiding in grass. Birds swooping through blue skies. Leafy trees arching over ponds and meadows.
“Take a seat.”
The kitchen wasn’t much bigger than Annicka’s bedroom. And it was cluttered. Thin paint brushes stood in milky water glasses by the sink. I took a seat at the small wooden table with two chairs and set Madame on the floor next to my backpack. Martha Heller filled a kettle and clanked it onto an electric stove. The burner looked dirty.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“If that’s no trouble.”
She didn’t reply.
I heard voices above us. The accordion music, too. Footsteps marched back and forth, back and forth. I imagined the girls behind the front desk. Or the guests streaming into the lobby.
“Serve yourself.” She plunked a chipped china cup and saucer in front of me, followed by mismatched cream and sugar containers. All chipped. The tea came black as coffee. I loaded up the cream and sugar while Martha Heller sank into the chair opposite mine. She gripped her own chipped tea cup.
“Engels hired you?” She leaned forward, eyes black as obsidian.
“Johann.” I stirred t
he tea. “I just came from their place.”
“Somebody told you about my daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Now you’re wondering if her murder’s connected to Annicka’s.”
I watched her carefully. The pale skin, pale hair. But those eyes, black as forged iron. They anchored her face. “My understanding is there are some similarities. But also a long period of time between their deaths. I know it’s difficult, but if you could tell me—”
“What’re you going to do with the information?”
I held her gaze. Somehow she reminded me of a bank vault, where the steel door is open but might slam shut at any moment, locking me out. “My father was murdered.”
I saw something flicker in her intense gaze.
“We still don’t know who killed him. So I understand your reluctance. I’m trying to find out who killed Annicka. Maybe the same person killed your daughter Esther. I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”
She rubbed a knobby index finger over the chip in her china cup. “Got something to write with? I’m not gonna say this twice.”
I opened my pack, took out my notebook and pen. Madame lay under the table, and, sensing something, she placed her head on my right foot. When I looked up again, Martha Heller’s dark gaze focused somewhere over my right shoulder.
“My husband didn’t want our kids to get spoiled,” she said. “We make money here. A lot of money. So when they were old enough to carry a towel, he put them to work. In the hotel.”
“How many children?”
“Four. Three boys. Esther.”
A dog barked. Then another. And another. It was coming from upstairs but Madame lifted her head, growling. I glanced at the small window above the sink. Were the dogs in the alley, rioting?
“Upstairs,” Martha said. “We allow pets. You get used to the barking.”
She shifted right back into talking about Esther. She described a quiet, diligent, artistic girl. An only daughter who never gave her parents one moment of trouble. When I asked if Esther had a boyfriend, the arthritic finger tapped the teacup.
“No. Esther liked solitude. And work. At least, she enjoyed making money. She saved every penny to pay for college. But then she got a full scholarship to an art school in Seattle.” The finger tapped. “She didn’t go.”
The Waves Break Gray (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries Book 6) Page 8