The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set

by Elizabeth Sims

  “No, they’re not stupid.”

  He smiled encouragingly, a man near exhaustion, trying to politely handle one more goddamn thing. “I wish I could call up a search for them right now. But my men and I’ve been up for thirty-six hours, and there are still people we know are stranded on the far side of the Harkett out from town, because a tree took out that bridge where the S bend and the elk herd are? Residents, some of them with medical needs. The river’s swelling already, all heck’s breaking loose out there, and Noah says nothing but more storms on the way.”

  “Noah?” I asked, startled.

  “Noah,” said Deputy Grolech contemptuously. “N-O-A-A. The national weather thing.” She creaked her chair again.

  The sheriff said, “One thing I will tell you: I will do everything in my power to help you, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to do a very difficult thing first.”

  “Absolutely. What is it?”

  “Be patient.”

  Dammit. “What about, like, helicopters?”

  “The Coast Guard’s got theirs, all both of them, out on the Strait and in the ocean looking for two missing salmon boats, nine people missing. And shuttling trauma cases to Port Angeles and Seattle.”

  Something at the core of my brain kept me from flying into hysterics. I understood abundantly that tears and yelling would not, right now, do any good.

  Chapter 7 – Rowe Digs; Rita Plunges In

  Keeping moving was the key for me.

  As Daniel drove on from the sheriff’s post, I pictured Gina crushed by a tree, her hair matted by rain and mud, her eyes staring vacantly into the uncaring wet sky, Lance either crawling for help or lying there with her, their fingers touching in a final gesture of love.

  I pictured Gina lost, panicked, plunging through the woods in a wide arc away from any road or trail. Why hadn’t I given her my compass, as well? I fingered it in my pocket.

  We heard a radio report—my heart leaped—that a hiker had been found somewhere, but it was just his dead body, some poor guy from Tacoma; the signal was engulfed again by the forest before we could decipher more.

  I thought about Gina’s down jacket—pink—and plastic $1.98 poncho that she’d insisted would be adequate against the elements. As we were saying goodbye next to Lance’s car on Curson Street in the warm West Hollywood sunshine, it was hard to believe anything more could be necessary. Her stupid little sneaker-boots with mauve piping.

  “It’s soft cherry,” she’d said irritably, “not mauve. You’re just being a bitch calling it mauve.”

  “God,” I muttered.

  “Huh?” Daniel steered us up the forest roads.

  As long as I was in motion, on mission, I was OK. As soon as we stopped for any reason—to eat, rest—the knot in my stomach tightened like spring steel.

  _____

  George Rowe straightened his collar as he strode through the lobby of the Sauvenard Building on Fourth Avenue downtown.

  Over the years he’d experimented with different color combinations in his quest for a foolproof phony uniform, and had found that forest-green pants with a beige work shirt, such as park rangers and Boy Scouts wear, with brown work boots and belt, worked best. He could be a pest control guy or a janitor, an electrical expert or a window-washer, a government air-quality tester or a gardener. He’d slung an official-looking photo ID around his neck. The ranger color combo had a calming effect on people; much more so than navy blue, it made them relax and assume that his motives were solidly benign. Good posture was essential, of course.

  He’d learned the answers to all sorts of questions when tricked out this way. Children playing on the street tell you which tree has the best view of a certain backyard; building guards confide their favorite loafing spots; hookers tell you who they think gave them AIDS; car salesmen reveal the true markup as well as who they get their dope from. And you can clamber all over roofs and basements, everyplace.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard had furnished him with a key card to the building. She’d rooted in her purse for her master interior-door key. “I’m afraid I always go in during business hours when everything’s open. My main office is at home, you know. But here it is; you’re in luck.”

  She had summoned Leland Harris to meet her at a restaurant in Ballard for lunch today, the day after she had met with Rowe in his hotel. Rowe had watched him leave from a doorway across from the garage exit: silver Jaguar sedan; tufty silver hairdo; tanned, moonish face.

  Harris’s admin went to lunch whenever he did, Mrs. de Sauvenard had told Rowe, and probably locked the office behind her.

  “Ever eat at her desk?” he’d asked.

  “No, Big Kenner discouraged that—he wanted people to refresh themselves away from the office, plus he hated smelling hamburger wrappers in somebody’s trash while he was standing there talking to them. So it more or less became policy.”

  Rowe had asked his new client to obtain, as quietly as possible, the transfer records on that first payment of $3 million. He wanted to know which bank in Thailand the money went to, and what company’s name was on the for-the-benefit-of line.

  The office layout was as convenient for his purposes as Mrs. de Sauvenard had described—an older building with narrow corridors and discrete office suites. Silver Coast took up the upper four floors of the ten-storey building.

  He nodded politely to the employees he encountered in the top-floor hallways—mostly young guys in smart shirts and ties talking to each other in numerical sentences, assistants plugging themselves into their music devices and plucking at their spiky bobs.

  Harris’s office spoke of him, as all offices spoke of their owners. Quickly but attentively Rowe scanned the framed photographs and certificates, noticed the crystalline trophies for whatever business or charity triumphs.

  Several pictures of Harris with Big Kenner. (Rowe could see Big Kenner’s charisma: frank expression, no arrogance, straight bearing.) Harris with Mrs. de Sauvenard, standing on a sailboat deck, her hand authoritatively on the wheel, hair streaming, him squinting seriously into the sun like a good matey-o.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard was right, Harris’s head did look like an eggplant, smooth and soft, but with a sheen of individuality—what was the expression on his face: defiance? Maybe a bit of underdog-made-good. Yeah, he was a striver.

  And oh yes, there was the wife.

  Half a dozen photographs of the beauty to the beast. Smoking hot, a knockout, a trophy to be sure, Rowe thought, though he knew he wasn’t supposed to objectify women like that—a girlfriend prior to Rita had told him so; thank God Rita was different. Didn’t need to act preachy about the differences between the sexes. Rita. Rita. Goddamn it.

  Harris’s wife possessed a cascade of shining honey-melon hair, gigantic, knowing eyes, a naughty twist to the mouth; oh, she would have slashed male hearts to ribbons starting in kindergarten.

  He had learned from Mrs. de Sauvenard that Kitty Harris was the former Kitty Holtmore, of the San Francisco branch of the family. Rowe didn’t know the name. Mrs. de Sauvenard had told him that Kitty’s grandfather had invented something in plastics in WW II, “but they were West Coast old money to begin with.”

  After a look in the credenza—file drawers with nothing of obvious interest, a stash of energy bars, a fresh shirt, deodorant—Rowe rifled Harris’s coat closet and desk; nothing was locked. The rug was lose-your-shoes-in-it plush. He turned on Harris’s computer using the passcode Mrs. de Sauvenard had given him.

  Of course he hadn’t time to read every file in the man’s system, but he searched on a handful of likely keywords. He found nothing, except legitimate-seeming e-mails about this Bangkok deal. He printed out a few and folded them into his pocket.

  This guy Harris was either hiding his activities in plain sight or operating this scam from a different computer. Or he was innocent.

  Rowe would dig deeper into the hotel deal once he got the money-transfer information from Mrs. de Sauvenard. At this point he mostly wanted to get a feel for just how d
irty this guy might be.

  What could be going on in Leland Harris’s life that he’d want to risk his good name as a lawyer in order to pull some monkey business for money when he was already making a good salary, and his wife was loaded to boot?

  No weapons, no weird paraphernalia, no black book tucked into a crevice.

  Often when a person is involved in one illegal thing, he or she is involved in others.

  Dope addiction can lead to blackmail.

  Blackmail can lead to gambling debts.

  Gambling debts can lead to thievery.

  Thievery can lead to illegal investments.

  Illegal investments can lead to money laundering.

  Money laundering can lead to con rackets.

  Rowe sighed, brushed his hands on his pants, and started for the door.

  Then something on a side table caught his eye. He’d missed it before, something bright peeking out from beneath a sheaf of Silver Coast financial printouts: the corner of a magazine or catalogue with a yellow sticky note on it, as if the printouts had been thrown over it to bury it.

  Carefully lifting the business papers, he slid the magazine out.

  OCEAN STANZA CUSTOM YACHTS, in bold white letters over a stunning sailboat cutting through a heaving sea, the boat piloted by a brawny executive type, a pre-orgasmic-looking babe on his arm.

  The picture stirred Rowe in spite of the cheesiness of the models. He loved to see well-crafted sailboats slicing through the waves, so noble and free.

  The yellow note was stuck in the middle of the picture, bisecting the mast. In babyish letters and green glitter ink, the words “Pretty Please?” Below that, a full-sized lip print in scented burgundy.

  “Ah,” said Rowe.

  Using the machine in the outer office, he photocopied all thirty-six pages of the slick brochure, finding a second sticky note inside on the page featuring the company’s flagship motor yacht, a low-slung 160-footer that slept twelve, aside from crew. This sticky note had a star drawn on it, and another SWAK. He made sure to get a good image of the salesman’s business card stapled to the front.

  Guys think their offices are sacrosanct, just because there’s a bugger with a badge eating corn curls in the lobby.

  _____

  Daniel pulled up at a place called GB’s Garage, a sorry-looking gas station-plus market, beyond which we could see only forest and a narrowing of the road into it.

  In the rain and gloom, I thought I could make out that the paved road turned to dirt.

  We’d driven past a hardware store and one hair salon after the sheriff’s post.

  “I guess that was town,” I remarked.

  “What town?” Petey said. “There weren’t any houses.”

  “The people here live very spaced out,” I told him.

  “Are there any kids?”

  “I’m sure there must be a few.” Petey and I got out and Daniel backed his Porsche to the single gas pump, which looked like it’d been installed in 1930.

  Petey and I clumped up wooden steps to the market. A bulletin board was nailed next to the door, its wooden frame trimmed with eye-catching green festoons. Moss, I realized ickily, there’s moss growing on this bulletin board, shielded though it was by the porch roof. The notices were the usual stuff about babysitting and hauling and secondhand washing machines.

  The place was so dark I hesitated to try the door, but its greasy knob turned in my hand and I went in.

  The market, too, I guessed, had been built long before fluorescent tubes and modern candy racks were invented. The floor eased disconcertingly beneath me as Petey ran to a plywood bin filled with random Chunkies and Almond Joys.

  One metal-shielded lightbulb burned weakly over the middle of the floor; everything else was shadows. Suddenly we heard breathing, and Petey and I both jumped. My eyes, adjusting now, scanned the store for a dog or a wolf, I guess because the breathing didn’t sound entirely human, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

  Then I heard a cough, and saw a pile of laundry behind the cigarette counter move slightly.

  “Hello?” I said. “Hello.”

  Daniel came in saying, “The gas pump’s off.”

  “It’s busted,” answered the pile of laundry in a phlegmy voice.

  It was a woman who, as her characteristics emerged from the shadows, made Deputy Grolech look like Holly Golightly. Either she had a wad of snuff tucked in her lip or a tumor was pushing it out. Below that, her jowls moved loosely. A polka-dotted kerchief turbaned her head, and plastic-rimmed glasses caught the light from the filthy window.

  “Truck or Joey could fix it, but shit, all I can sell you is groceries. Best selection in town!” She made a grandiose gesture, cough-laughed, then spat violently into a cardboard box filled with torn-up newspapers. She looked like she had three sweatshirts on.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Let’s go back to the other gas station,” muttered Daniel.

  “You go; we’ll get some food.”

  “Get twice as much as you think we’ll need.”

  “I want to go with you.” Petey ran after Daniel.

  I piled six loaves of bread, a tub of peanut butter, Vac Pacs of salami and bacon, canned beans and potatoes, two dozen eggs, a heavy box of raisins, two packages of toilet paper, and two pounds of coffee on the counter. The food actually appeared fresh, although the light was too dim for me to check expiration dates with any level of politeness.

  Politeness, there you go, I’m worried about appearing polite in a place like this! But I had an agenda.

  I told the woman I was hoping to meet up with my sister and her friend, and described Gina and Lance. “Have they been through here?”

  The woman pondered, finger on chin. Though her face seemed to sag to the right, the snuff-tumor, on the left, balanced things out. A dusty TV set sat unplugged on the counter near her, its blank screen dully reflecting me and the store behind.

  I added, “I’m sure you can’t remember everybody who comes in here; I’m sure lots of people—”

  She cackled. “Oh, I can, I sure can remember everybody who comes through here! All five of them since last week, ha-ha!”

  I waited.

  Politely.

  Having milked the moment, she said, “Red BMW?” She enunciated BMW in a fancy-pants way while lifting her little finger.

  “Yes!”

  “Naw, I don’t remember them! Haha!”

  “OK,” I said coldly, “I’m going. What do I owe you?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said placatingly, realizing that her audience was about to disappear, “they were here. Bought some stuff last week, middle of last week.”

  “Have they been back?”

  “They’re still in the forest.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shifted on her stool. “‘Cause everybody who stops here on the way in stops here on the way out. We’re the first civilization going backwards, and even if they sniffed their nose at this place the first time, they come in like starving dogs on the way back. Everybody needs their Coke and Cheetos after the woods.”

  I realized the wisdom in that and turned and grabbed a big bag of potato chips and a fistful of candy bars. I went to the cold case and hauled a twelve-pack of Miller and a six-pack of Coke to the counter as well.

  “That’s more like it,” she said. “If I was rez, I could sell you liquor too.”

  Whatever that meant. Reservation? “Uh, that’s OK. Did they say anything about where they were going, exactly? I’d really like to find their campground or whatever.”

  Another cackle. “Here, get one of these maps too. Aren’t any real campgrounds up that way. It’s primitive, just a few trails and Forest Service roads. That car a you guys ever been on a Forest Service road?” Daniel’s embarrassingly effete Porsche.

  “Yes, I’m sure it has, probably.”

  “You’ll rip out your oil pan before you even get—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Nothing to be done about tha
t now.

  “Go up to the north fork of the Quilmash, you can camp in the state forest there; they’ve got campgrounds. That’s twenty-six miles up the road.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t going to do us any good.

  “If Joey was here, he could tell you, maybe, something more.” The woman seemed to be trying to warm up to me. I exuded friendly understanding.

  She went on, “I misplaced my sister in the woods one time too. Couple years back. Two and a half years July, in fact.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Eventually found her. Had a run-in with a cougar.” She waited.

  “Yeah?” My heart sinking.

  “That runty male that lives in them ledges up the ridge? He took her dog; she was walking up there with Ricky. All she saw was that dog’s hind legs getting dragged into the salal. She goes after it, gonna get Ricky back! Yelling. She slides down a slope, busts her hip, didn’t find her for three days. Lucky the cougar got full on Ricky.”

  I swallowed. “Is your sister OK now?”

  “More or less.”

  I got out my wallet.

  “Like I say,” continued my hostess, “Joey might know more. He ’n’ that fella Lance—that’s his name, right?—had quite the conversation.”

  I looked up from the money in my hand to find her peering at me closely.

  “Hey,” she said. “Hey.”

  “What is it?” I touched my hair in case a bat had gotten into it.

  “You were on TV.”

  “Uh—”

  “Callahan Square! Callahan Square!”

  No way.

  “I seen you on TV!” She slammed her arm on the TV set. “This here’s broke or I’d have it on right now!” She glanced at a 7UP clock over the beer case. “Yep, I’m missing it now. You were on the one where Skeeter Callahan comes back from Iraq and tries to kill Daronda’s cousin because he thinks she poisoned Professor Shoalt three years ago. And because he’s messed up from Iraq.”

  I gaped at her, dumbstruck.

  “You played the nurse who tries to take his blood sample in the hospital after they—”

  “Oh, my God,” I said.