The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set

by Elizabeth Sims

He noticed the painting again, and found himself staring frankly at it. You could see the texture of the canvas as well as the paint that added dimension to it.

  Rowe learned stuff all the time.

  “I see you like the picture,” said Kitty Harris. “It’s a Gene Delwaukee.”

  Even Rowe knew who Gene Delwaukee was. Successful artist, respected, subject of PBS specials, and so on. Famous for his handsome seamed face, his gaunt figure, and the large, subtle abstracts he painted.

  “Yes,” Kitty went on, “this is Delwaukee at his peak, I feel, perhaps ten years ago. I saw this canvas and wanted it, and Leland picked it up for me when it came on the secondary market.”

  Rowe noticed two tiny humps of plaster dust on the molding below the picture, where the mounting screws must have been set. “You got it recently, then,” as if he knew something about the art market.

  “They delivered it last month. Yes! I think it pulls the room so together, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. What a generous guy your husband is,” Rowe said warmly. “I’m very impressed he could just—you know—up and buy something like that. Well, we’re here talking fifty-meter motor yachts.” He gave her a full-on look. “I’m sure there’d be no problem funding such a purchase, would there?” Her face clouded for a painful instant.

  She retrieved her smile. “Oh no. No problem at all.”

  “After all, only an elite group of individuals and families have the means to acquire such a vessel.”

  “Well, yes. But I’m used to things like that; you see, I’m a Holtmore.”

  “Ah!” He gazed at her admiringly. “I didn’t know.”

  She adjusted her already smooth hair and flung an arm over the back of her soft couch, lifting her upper body and rounding her chest. Boy, oh boy.

  They talked yachts. He’d memorized most of the sales brochure, and BS’d his way through the rest. She nibbled at a cake. He ate another.

  “I think one reason I like that picture,” he remarked, “is it reminds me of the light in Southeast Asia at a certain time of day: late morning, I think. I look at that, close my eyes, and I almost think I’m in—Bangkok! What a city. Up-and-coming these days. Have you and Mr. Harris ever been there?”

  “No, but I’d love to go someday. We’ve been to Hong Kong and Singapore. Oh, the shopping, the shopping!” She laughed at herself and winked at him.

  Rowe had to be careful. She was married and a subject in an active investigation; even one quickie with her would be against his code, and dangerous to boot.

  And then there was Rita.

  He was through with Rita.

  Finished, he reminded himself.

  Rita.

  His cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket and he knew that would be Mrs. de Sauvenard with the banking information on the $3 million.

  Harris was not in a position to buy a yacht unless it was with his wife’s money. That couldn’t be the case, however, because Rowe had found out that while the Holtmore name still opened doors on the West Coast, the family fortune had been thoroughly squandered by Kitty’s father. He’d had four daughters, and in that competitive environment Kitty Holtmore would have easily convinced herself to latch onto a promising MBA or law-school type like Leland Harris, eggplant or no eggplant.

  And he’s in sexual thrall to her, and he’s working like a donkey to appease her increasingly extravagant tastes. When work isn’t enough, a donkey can turn to crime, and then the picture changes.

  Chapter 9 – Gina and Lance go Wild

  Gina knew that when she really put her mind to something, she achieved results. Given a bit of luck. This had happened many times before. But now was different.

  Lance was remaining cheerful. His dignity prohibited either of them from uttering the L word: lost.

  What is lost, really, but a frame of mind? Yes, a frame of mind, which means it’s a matter of choice. We can choose to be lost, or we can choose not to be lost. Choice and semantics.

  They had grown so close so soon that they did not need to voice these thoughts. In spite of being wet and dirty, they touched each other often.

  Lance had constructed a shelter of fir boughs, which he’d stripped from trees by hand, overlapping them like shingles so the water ran off. It was a decent little lean-to.

  Sitting on his haunches beneath it as the rain thrummed on the ground all around and streamed from the trees, he mused, “You know, I just thought I’d remember this territory. Thought I’d just remember it in me bones, you know?” When he wanted to be light, he talked Irish like that, saying me for my. In me bones. His eyes roved the foggy woods like a mystic’s, non-judging.

  Gina, at his side, listened supportively.

  “But things change,” he went on. “The trees are bigger; the sightlines I used to know are gone. Bushwhacking shouldn’t be this challenging, the route I was trying for. Well, this isn’t such a bad place to spend some time! It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Smell the air.”

  Gina said, “I’d just as soon get back to the car.” Then, guiltily, she agreed, “Yes. Yes, it is really beautiful here, sweetheart.” The air did taste great, she had to admit, so fresh and cedary and wholesome. Her butt was cold.

  Not having thought about it all that much, she had expected the terrain in Washington to be similar to the rolling, benign land of Wisconsin where she’d camped out with her cousins in pup tents in the woods back from the farm with its mature canopy, open forest floor, and lazy streams.

  But this was the fucking mountains, steep and rocky. The trees were second growth and the understory was a thicket of glossy-leaved shrubs, mini trees, and vines that caught your ankles. Where was the ground, even, half the time? They’d struggled over great stretches of old slash, treetops and downed rotten logs and mold-slimed limbs the size of your waist, where your planted foot suddenly slides into a tangle of twigs with no real bottom.

  They had been lost for four days. Lance had stuffed his pockets with candy before they’d left camp on Saturday morning, so at least they’d had that. Touchingly, he had used his belt knife to divide the last two candy bars, one Snickers, one 3 Musketeers, so that Gina, who couldn’t make up her mind which she wanted, could have half of each.

  He saw her admiring the knife, a rugged beauty with a checkered wood grip and a hunting blade. “Yeah,” he said, “I could dress out a moose with this.” He paused, laughing. “If one came along and fell over dead in front of me!”

  She reached out to stroke his cheek, his auburn stubble prickly to the backs of her fingers.

  Today, Wednesday, dawned their fifth day in the woods. Last night and this morning they’d spent in this little lean-to, where Lance had made a teensy fire of what bits of dry lichen and punky wood he could scrounge. He could not make a really good, warming fire or it would have burned down the shelter. There they rested, hungrily.

  The place certainly was rife with wild creatures, which they could hunt and eat if they knew how. They’d heard many more birds and mammals than they’d seen, of course. Little screams in the night.

  “We just need a weather break, that’s all,” Lance said. “Then I’ll be able to get a bearing on something.”

  He had led them cross-country to try to find a particular waterfall on a particular tributary of the Harkett River, but which tributary he didn’t remember, exactly. He’d brought no map or compass, preferring to use the seat of his pants, which had never failed him. He had a great sense of direction, and he had roamed these woods as a boy (though that had been summertime). Besides, he liked the serendipity of wandering.

  Now, the November rain had flattened the daylight so much he couldn’t even tell west from east. The moss on the trees? Elsewhere you can tell direction by the fact that moss grows predominantly on the north side of trees and large rocks. But here, moss engulfed the tree trunks more or less uniformly. He found that an interesting fact and pointed it out to Gina.

  She nodded. There were not too many flying bugs in these woods—she guessed the rain
was keeping them down—but plenty of really icky ones at ground level. You’d kick aside a rotting branch in order to squat on a level place to pee, and find segmented creatures and stomp-proof beetles. She had begun whining fairly soon, on their first day of tramping around photographing locations for Kenner’s film.

  Lance had actually found her aversion to dirt and bugs cute, and had made a game of protecting her from it all the best he could. He held branches for her, allowed her to boost herself on him to get across big logs. He even slung her over his shoulder to cross small creeks. The bigger ones were too dangerous for that, and he simply held her arm and they waded, slowly, together.

  Whining had benefited Gina in the past, many times: when a picnic got too anty, when a fireworks night got too cold, when a cloudburst wiped out her hairdo—all such occasions warranted whining, and whoever she whined to usually helped her: sprayed the Raid, brought her a blanket, got her back to the car. And outta there!

  However, once she and Lance became lost with only what was in their pockets to sustain them, she’d left whining mode. Lance could not push a button and cure her discomfort and fear. You can’t whine about the big stuff. They both wished for food, of course, but they didn’t lack for clean water to drink; Lance’s red jacket, when spread wide under the rain, caught enough to quench an army. Plus there were pristine-looking rocky rivulets all over the place.

  Gina’s plastic poncho sucked. Whenever she raised a hand to grab a branch or wipe her face, cold rain streamed down her jacket cuffs to her elbows. The poncho with its little hood was at least keeping her head and shoulders somewhat dry. Her down jacket had gotten wet around the waist, where the poncho gapped and flapped. The moisture was creeping upward. Her lower pant legs were wet, and her feet were wet, but Lance had insisted that she don a pair of his wool socks that last day when they’d set out from the tent, so her feet weren’t cold. But the fear in her bones was growing: if they stopped moving today with no hot food, no sizable drying fire, they’d be in trouble.

  Moreover, Gina did not like to pee and poop in the woods. One huge reason she really wanted to get back to the car was to reunite with her stash of tampons. She was feeling PMSsy and could only shudder at the idea of being out in the woods in this extraordinary situation with nothing between her and total pelvic savagery.

  “Are there any more Certs?” she asked. They had reserved the breath mints for last, after eating the more-substantial chocolate items.

  “No, that was it last night. Alder-roasted Certs, my specialty.” He cleared his throat, and she knew he was sorry.

  “The little hiking I’ve done before,” mentioned Gina, “I seem to remember, like, trails. You know, trails through the woods.”

  “Well, this isn’t public land. You gotta bushwhack or you don’t go. Except for around the boys’ camp.”

  “I wish we’d stayed there.”

  Gina’s head ached. The old fracture along the left side of her skull from her fall into the construction pit, so long ago, always acted up in cold weather. Her head hurt down into her neck.

  “Things change,” he said vaguely. “I wonder if I’ve lost my touch. But don’t be scared, honey; I’ll get us home.” He paused. “It’s funny. This is Silver Coast land, you know. My family owns it, so in a sense, we are home.” He smiled, his white teeth gleaming through his stubble. “That makes me feel better.”

  It didn’t make Gina feel better. Now rested, they set out, leaving their little shelter behind. Lance’s waterproof pocket watch said two thirty. The pocket watch, of some rare Swiss make, was one of his personal touches that Gina liked.

  She looked back once, missing the shelter already, but the woods had swallowed it.

  Softly she sang, “Here’s That Rainy Day” until Lance suggested she switch to “You Are My Sunshine.” An intolerable song, but she sang it for him because she loved to see his face as he listened.

  Fairly soon, they came to an enormous log that served as a footbridge across a chasm. The log was seventy or eighty feet long. The river pounded below. Which river?

  “Could be the Harkett,” speculated Lance. “Either that, or it’s one of the larger tributaries to the Quilmash. Unlikely to be the latter, though, given where I think we are. Where I hope we ought to be. I wonder who made this bridge.”

  A little piece of trail had materialized near the bridge, took up on the other side, but then quickly reverted to wilderness. The bridge was merely a tree that had been felled across the river, then planed or chopped smooth on the upper side so you could walk on it. An insubstantial-looking railing made of branches had been added.

  Lance stood looking for some time after they crossed it, looking at the trail where it disappeared.

  He decided they should work their way around a rock outcropping to another ridgeline.

  As they scrambled up a short slope, Lance’s boot slipped and in catching himself he grabbed violently at a rock with his bare hand. He didn’t yell out, but when Gina saw the cut she was shocked; the gash ran almost the whole way across his left palm and welled instantly with blood. He let it bleed, shaking the drops from his hand. “Clears it out this way,” he explained, forcing himself to wink at her. “Plus I’m right-handed, so that’s lucky.”

  Her heart went out to him, he was being so brave. She thought of the first-aid kit in the car, God knew where.

  Lance cupped his hand to the rain, and the cold rainwater mixed with the blood. He shook it off again and again.

  She began to remove her poncho, but Lance read her mind and said, “No, don’t give me any of your clothes for a bandage. Help me pick some moss.”

  She peeled handfuls from a tree, the clean moss coming away in easy clumps. He balled up some in his hand and they continued their difficult path.

  Lance kept having to use both hands, however, and the moss kept falling out. She gathered more for him, but the bleeding did not seem to slow.

  As they scrambled along, he said, “Our land butts up against the whole Harkett Wilderness Area, and there’s only like two trails in the whole Harkett. To come across one of those—well, that’d be lucky.” He laughed. “Either lucky, or thirty miles of bushwhacking!”

  “Is that smoke?” Gina said suddenly. “I smell smoke.”

  Lance had halted ahead of her and was looking at the ground. “Somebody took a crap here. Kicked a hole with their boot heel, made their deposit, then stomped it over with leaves. See the Vibram marks?”

  They looked up to find three scraggly people staring at them.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Gina.

  The people were silent.

  Gina said, “Are you lost too?”

  “We’re not lost,” Lance contradicted.

  The three people looked at each other. Mostly it was the flanking two, a man and a woman, looking at the man in the center. He lounged a step forward of them, his posture kinked in a rebel slouch. He was tall, maybe as much as six feet five, and lean. A gray-brown beard crawled over his face, growing high on his cheeks. He wore a dirty buffalo plaid black-and-white jacket.

  Gina noticed that Lance’s teeth had begun to chatter; she saw his jaw do a flutterlike spasm as he worked to keep his lips closed.

  “Were really lost,” Gina blurted, her reserve crumbling entirely. “We’ve been lost for four days!”

  The slouching man, she perceived, commanded the attention of his mates exactly like Ed Burris used to do back home in Wisconsin. Every greaser slacker deferred to Ed because he was the only one who wasn’t afraid of anything. Vibe-wise, he treated life as one big prison yard, kill or be killed, where any show of fear was fatal. There was always a sense of dangerous fun around such guys.

  The second person was a woman with a biker-chick aura to her, standing beneath a gigantic umbrella like golfers use, yellow and red panels stark against the unremitting green gloom. She looked like she might be friendly. She was smoking a cigarette, holding it elegantly in fingers lengthened by white nail polish. White nail polish, out here. Oh, broth
er.

  Gina added the unnecessary sentence, “Are we ever glad to see you!”

  The third scraggly person, a small guy with copper skin, a heavy face, and his hair pulled back in a ponytail, noticed Lance’s hand.

  “Do you need help?” he asked softly, his voice barely audible above the barrage of rain.

  “I’ll say we do,” said Gina. She couldn’t understand why Lance didn’t speak up. “Were you looking for us?”

  “Why should we be looking for you?” said the woman, who wore maroonish-brown lipstick (in these woods! in this rain!) but no eye makeup.

  As they stood shivering in the brooding beauty, Lance did something strange: he shucked off his jacket, saying, “I’m hot!”

  Gina said, “What?”

  The slouching man said, “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am, I’m really hot!”

  “No, you’re cold.”

  Gina picked up Lance’s jacket and put it around his shoulders. When he didn’t move, she stuffed his arms into it like a two-year-old. His eyes looked odd.

  Slouching Man said, “He’s hypothermic. So are you, your lips are blue. Let’s go.”

  A trail materialized beneath their feet. Lance stumbled once. He tried to take his jacket off again, but Slouching Man grabbed him and said roughly into his face, “Pull yourself together, buddy. Come on.” The rain eased to a wet mist.

  To Gina’s surprise, the group hiked only a short distance when the brush gave way to a clearing. A couple of small tents were set up, as well as a head-high tarp strung between the trees. A clothesline beneath it drooped under the weight of three pairs of wet socks. The clearing was small, maybe only thirty feet across. Gina noticed another tarp pegged down over a pile of stuff that looked oddly angular.

  The guy with the ponytail, who, Gina saw, was younger than the other two and very slightly built beneath his jean jacket, went over to some smoldering coals beneath the shelter of a tremendous evergreen. He stirred them with a stick and added three pieces of split wood. The woodpile was in the shape of a doughnut around the base of another massive tree. Spruce trees? They shed the rain like the spruces she’d known back home.