Cold Aim

by Janice Cantore

  “Chief, if I tell you everything I know, and why I know it, I need your word that you will not arrest me on the spot.”

  “I can’t make an agreement like that.”

  “We’re at an impasse.”

  “We are, and I’m not going to blink.”

  After a long, tense moment, Harp did blink and strode to the door, stopping with her hand on the knob. “I’m serious, Chief. Maybe you have no reason to trust me, but you can pick up the phone and let the people at Faith’s Place know that anyone with a little computer savvy could find out they’re sheltering a witness there. Please tell them to be extra vigilant. Cyrus Beck is evil personified.”

  She opened the door and was gone. Leaving Tess wide-awake and feeling as if she’d just been through a washing machine spin cycle.

  26

  Oliver listened to Tess tell him the story of the late-night visitor. Six thirty in the morning and they were eating breakfast at the Hollow Grind, a rare and pleasant way for them to start the day.

  “I’m amazed that she came to talk to you. She came to talk to me once shortly after she moved into her mystery mansion.”

  “What did she want to talk about?”

  “She had Bible questions. As I recall, she wanted some proof the Bible is true. And she wanted an explanation for all the evil in the world.”

  “Oh, she had easy questions, huh?” Tess grinned at him.

  “We talked; I invited her to church.” He shrugged. “I’ve only seen her briefly once or twice since then, and she doesn’t seem interested in talking to anyone. How are you going to handle this?”

  “I called Agent Bass right after I called Bronwyn and Nye and asked them if everyone was okay. Things have calmed down since the market fiasco. But it worries me more than I can say. Harp knew the girl was there, knew her name. The whole episode spooked me a bit.”

  She sipped her coffee and picked at her breakfast. Oliver could tell she hadn’t gotten much sleep.

  “Bass has no idea how anyone could find Chevy via the computer. There is no record of her anywhere on a public domain. She’s in a secure law enforcement system, and that’s not public. He was rattled about that and the market incident, but a text I got from him this morning said he wants her to stay put anyway. He’s completely tied up in the court proceedings and extremely worried that part or all of the evidence will be excluded. If he is able, he will find out exactly who Livie Harp is.”

  The angst in her voice got to him. Oliver reached out and put his hand over hers. “Tess, you’ve done everything humanly possible to keep that girl safe. And Bronwyn and Nye are capable as well. I wish I knew more about Livie Harp and what would possess her to come to you like that.”

  Tess gripped his hand; her hands were always warm, and Oliver loved the firm touch of her hand in his.

  “She said she knew about predators, that she recognized how dangerous Cyrus Beck could be. She also said that if she told me her whole story, I’d arrest her on the spot. All night I ruminated over that remark, wondering now if she’s hiding because she’s wanted somewhere.”

  “That idea was kicked around when she first came here.”

  Tess sighed. “I can’t find anything to indicate that she’s wanted. But it all struck an echo of a memory with me. Bass brought up a cold case when he talked to me about Chevy.”

  “And?”

  She told him a horrific story about Isaac Pink and a prostitute named Heather Harrison. Oliver felt cold, slapped at the brutality of the tale.

  “Are you thinking maybe she could be Heather Harrison?”

  “That’s not possible, right?” Tess rolled her eyes. “It’s too fantastic, a completely crazy idea. Harrison was an eighteen-year-old prostitute when she disappeared. She is most likely long dead. But I need to digest all of this.”

  The shop door chimed as it opened, and she looked toward the entrance. Oliver turned and followed her gaze. Officer Bender came toward them. His expression told Oliver something bad had happened.

  “Sorry to bother you, Chief, but we’ve got a missing woman.”

  “Who?” Oliver and Tess spoke in unison. Sheepishly, Oliver gave Tess the floor.

  “Who is it?”

  “Tami Vasquez, works at the market.”

  Tess frowned and nodded. “Yeah, I know her. What’s happened?”

  “Hopefully it’s nothing, but she didn’t show up for work today, and she was scheduled to open up. And earlier this morning, Jonkey made a note about seeing her car abandoned at the Stairsteps lot. The store called Tami’s mom, who hasn’t heard from her either. She filed a missing report.”

  Tess sat back, and Oliver saw the worry cross her face ever so briefly before she composed herself and her expression became all cop. His thoughts lingered on the Isaac Pink story. At times he wished she could be talked out of her profession—so much pain and hardness there. But it was who she was, and she was good at it, very good at it.

  “I’ll go with you. Thanks for breakfast, Oliver.” She stood, and so did Oliver.

  “Of course. Please let me know what you find. Tami is a fixture at the market.”

  Tess said she would, and she and Bender left the shop.

  As Oliver was busing his table, his gaze met the decidedly disapproving expression of one of his parishioners. He smiled, and Alana looked away. Sighing, he wondered if he should nip this in the bud. He’d heard from the Rogue telegraph that several women in the congregation were not happy with his relationship with Tess. They were all women who’d been with the church since its very beginning. They liked Tess . . . they just didn’t think she was a good match for him.

  “Her work is antithetical to your work. It’s dangerous,” Addie Getz—councilwoman, parishioner, and friend—told Oliver one day. “And these women are very protective of their pastor.”

  He decided to step over and talk to Alana about the issue, but his phone buzzed. The text was from Jethro and it was about Tami. Her mother was at the church asking for prayer. He threw the remnants of his and Tess’s breakfasts in the trash and left the shop, concern lingering over what exactly he could do to assuage Alana’s fears.

  –––

  “No sign of a struggle—or theft, for that matter,” Bender said when he and Tess reached the car.

  Tess noted that it was at the far end of the lot, as if the place had been crowded when Tami picked the spot, or she wanted a semiprivate space. It wasn’t all alone as it had been in the early morning hours when Jonkey had noted its presence; now there were a few tourists on the overlook for the Stairsteps, despite the cold weather. A front had moved in last night, and it had rained a little then. Morning temps had hovered around thirty-eight. Now, with the sun covered by a thick veil of dark clouds, the temp had dropped probably a few degrees since daybreak. Intermittent sprinkles were appearing on the pavement.

  Overnight parking was prohibited here. Jonkey had run the car but not cited it because she knew who it belonged to. Tess read the notes her overnight officer had left. She’d looked the car over, called Tami’s roommate, and was told Tami was out on a date and that she believed the car would be removed by the morning. So Jonkey had left a note for day shift to follow up, which Bender had done when he got the report about Tami not showing up to work.

  “On a date?” Tess looked at Bender, who shrugged.

  “Her mom hadn’t spoken to Tami for a couple of days, so she knew nothing about a date.”

  “Any idea who the date was with?”

  He shook his head. “Her roommate also works at the market. I’ll be talking to her.”

  Tess carefully surveyed the area around the car. There was no indication that a crime had occurred here. She shifted her gaze to the inside of the car. Likewise, it appeared neat, nothing out of place. She donned gloves and pulled on the door, which was unlocked. Tami’s purse was on the backseat.

  “It’s obvious she had a passenger. When I’m by myself,” Tess said as she grabbed the purse, “I have my purse on the seat next
to me. I only put it in the back when I have a passenger.” She set the purse on the hood and began to look through it. Nothing in it stood out; it was a normal assortment of things a woman might carry in her purse. The wallet contained twelve dollars in cash, an ID, and a debit card.

  Tess turned to Bender. “I have my kit with me. I’ll dust for prints before I call Forest to come tow it. You go ahead and follow up at the market.”

  He nodded and left.

  After she readied her kit, she stood and surveyed the few people on the overlook. They were bundled up against the wind that had just picked up, and none were concerned with what she was doing.

  Not feeling the cold, Tess bent to the task at hand, but it wasn’t long before she noticed something unusual. The car had been wiped clean; every surface where she was likely to pull a print was clean as a whistle. A line of clean above the dirt was noticeable on the passenger door. Steering wheel, dash, mirrors, all spotless.

  A sick feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach. Unless Tami left in someone else’s car and was playing hooky from work, something bad had happened to her—something very bad.

  27

  Tess finished with Tami’s car as an icy rain began to fall. It was early for this type of cold storm, and Tess wondered if it foreshadowed a long, harsh winter. She did a cursory walk-through of the parking lot and viewing area while waiting for Forest Wild, local automotive shop owner, to arrive and tow the car to his facility. Tess saw no reason to put a hold on the automobile, so Forest would keep it until Tami’s mother could pick it up.

  Tess had spoken to Tami from time to time, like everyone in town had. She was the normal day cashier at the only market in Rogue’s Hollow. She’d been divorced once, so the first place they’d look would be the ex. Tami had no kids and lived not far from her mother, behind the station in a small house she shared with a roommate. She always walked to work in the summertime. She was a likable, if a little talkative, woman.

  Before she would even voice the idea that foul play might be involved, a question bounced around in Tess’s head: Who would want to hurt her?

  She chewed on that question and her lower lip as she drove to the market. Bender was writing on his notepad as she parked. He’d finished by the time she walked to where he stood.

  “The other cashier at the market told me that Tami’s date was with one of the guys on the cleanup crew,” Bender said.

  Irritation spiked inside, and Tess frowned. “The cleanup crew again? At the rate they’re going, they’re likely to have done more harm than good.”

  “I hear you. No one got a name on the guy, but two of the other women who work at the market said the guy was older but hot. I’ve got a call in to the supervisor who was overseeing the cleanup. They’d be here by now if they were working today. Their work is almost finished. Pete’s talked about ending the detail early.”

  Tess nodded. Pete had told her that the most devastated and at-risk properties were as good as they could make them. If a big storm hit, he didn’t foresee anything catastrophic happening. So the work detail was ending, and she’d have to get her mind back onto Tami and off things she had no power over at all.

  “As I recall, she was divorced. Any bad blood with the ex?”

  Bender shook his head. “Divorce was about three years ago. I know Frank, the ex; he lives in White City with his new wife. He’s happy as a clam, not the type to get physical. But to be thorough, I asked Jackson County Sheriff’s to run by his house and talk to him.”

  “Okay, so it sounds as if we really need to look into the work crew. Did anyone see her leave with this ‘hot guy’?”

  “No, all I got was that he might have been riding a motorcycle. You know the night crew at the market is light. Everyone was busy with their work when Tami left with her date. I’ll keep asking.”

  Tess went back to her car. She pulled up the work crew roster on her car computer. She’d put the list into a file after the incident with the theft. When she’d run all the names for wants and warrants, she learned a couple men and one of the women had prior records—they were homeless, so they had the associated convictions: loitering, drug possession, littering, suspended license—but nothing violent or serious. Two had out-of-state licenses, one from California and one from Washington, bordering states, so that wasn’t a big deal.

  “I’ve been impressed with their work,” Pete had said. “They got a lot of hard work done before the weather turned bad. I think the one you arrested was an aberration. He gave in to easy temptation.”

  Tess had visited the crew once or twice, and she struggled to remember if any of them stood out as “hot.” She was chagrined that she hadn’t paid closer attention. But then, hot was a matter of taste. To her, Oliver was completely hot. Would Tami and her coworkers see him that way?

  She sat in her car for a few minutes as the rain tat-tatted down. She grabbed her phone and called Steve Logan and filled him in on the situation.

  “Ah, I know Tami. She’s a talker but all heart. And I hate to tell you, but earlier, around 3:30 a.m., medics picked up a Jane Doe at the Shady Cove boat ramp.”

  Tess sucked in a breath, taking a second to process this information. “The boat ramp—that’s what, ten miles downriver? That can’t be Tami.”

  “I’m reading the call now. It looked as if she came out of the river, was hanging on at the ramp. She had a lot of superficial injuries, but they did find a pulse and transported her to the hospital.”

  Tess’s heart dropped as she considered the possibilities. If this was Tami, could the current have taken her down Midas Creek into the Rogue River near Shady Cove? And could she really have survived the trip?

  “What are the odds of Tami going in the water here, ending up there, and still being alive?” she asked.

  “Not good. Look, this Jane Doe had no ID. I’ll head out now, go to the hospital and check on her. I know Tami. I should be able to give you a yea or a nay.”

  Tess thanked him and hung up as her queasy feeling turned to anger. If there was a monster on that work crew, she’d find him. Monsters deserved to be in cages.

  –––

  Thoughts of Alana’s snub fled from Oliver’s mind when he saw Rosita Vasquez. While Tami only attended sporadically, Rosita was a member of his congregation, always at church.

  “Pastor Mac! Tami didn’t come home last night. That’s not like her. She’s a good girl; she always comes home. I’ve called all of her friends, but no one has seen her.”

  Oliver placed an arm around the woman and pulled her close. She was trembling with fear and anxiety, and he did his best to calm her. Off to one side of the sanctuary there was a small prayer room. He looked over Rosita’s shoulder at Jethro.

  Jethro met his gaze with a knowing nod. “I called on the prayer team. A couple of them are already in the prayer room.”

  “Rosita, let’s go to prayer. You know I believe that’s where we should take every issue, large or small.”

  “Yes.” She dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “I believe that too. I’m praying for a miracle.”

  Oliver, Rosita, and the other members of the prayer team prayed for several minutes. And then Rosita wanted to talk. She chatted about Tami, what a good girl she was, but that she was lonely. Rosita was clearly afraid that her daughter had somehow gotten involved with a bad man.

  Oliver listened, still praying quietly that Tess would come to the door with good news, that it was all a misunderstanding and Tami was safe. He left to go to his office when several other members of the prayer team arrived, and he knew Rosita was in good hands.

  –––

  Fifteen minutes later Steve called Tess back. He talked in a low voice, and from the sounds on the phone, Tess could tell he was in the hospital.

  “You won’t believe this. It is Tami, and she’s still hanging on.”

  “What?” Tess froze. This was wonderful news—would it stay that way?

  “Yeah, and get this—the doctors were about to notify us
. She’s been shot at least twice.”

  “What?”

  “Besides that insult, she’s severely hypothermic. I barely recognized her. She’s beat up from being in the water, her lips are blue . . . One of the doctors thinks that being in the cold water may have slowed her blood loss. She’s listed as critical.” Steve sighed. “It’ll be amazing if she pulls through.”

  “Yes, it would be. Please keep me up to speed. I’ll go tell Oliver.”

  Tess hung up, energized and angry at the same time. She rubbed her hands together, praying for Tami to pull through and for the break she needed to catch a bad guy.

  –––

  Oliver was going to text Tess when he saw her SUV pull into the lot. He perked up as soon as she stepped out of the car. She had news, and it didn’t look as if it would be bad. He met her in the parking lot.

  “Tami?”

  “Tami is alive. Deputies found her in the river down by the Shady Cove boat launch.”

  “In the river?” Horrified, Oliver felt his body go numb, thoughts swirling about what this meant. He doubted with every fiber of his soul that Tami went into the river voluntarily.

  Tess nodded. “It looks as if she was shot and shoved into the river. Steve said she’s listed as critical.”

  “Shot?” Anger coursed through Oliver and pushed away the horror. “Could she tell Steve who did it? And how on earth is she still alive?”

  Tess shook her head. “I don’t know. All I know is what Steve told me. Deputies responded to a Jane Doe. Tami had no identification on her, but Steve went to the hospital to check on her personally. According to Steve, she’s in bad shape but alive.”

  “A miracle,” Oliver said, hope and amazement mixing. “Rosita prayed for a miracle.”

  Tess didn’t disagree. For Tami to have survived from somewhere around 6 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. in the frigid river with a bullet wound, it would have to be a miracle.

  “Rosita is in the prayer room. I’ll let her know and take her to the hospital.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Tess said. “After we tell her what happened, maybe she’ll have an idea about who might have done this.”