The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set

by Elizabeth Sims

  I asked him, “Did you see a guy and a gal hiking around here?”

  He grunted unintelligibly and rolled his head from side to side as Daniel checked him over.

  “Some of this is gonna hurt, buddy,” Daniel told him, “but guess what, you might be sleeping in a bed tonight. Gonna carry you as far as I can, but we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. What happened—you lose your balance hiking along here?” He checked Joey’s pupils and grunted with satisfaction. “His brain’s OK, I think.”

  Daniel had learned emergency medicine during his mountaineering days; he’d once told me his motto: “Stabilize the bones, keep ’em out of shock, and book like hell for the trailhead.”

  He cut poles for splints as I comforted Joey, wiping the blood from his face and speaking soothingly. Petey coiled the rope and dressed it with a neat holding knot.

  Joey’s left lower leg was twisted almost backward while blood seeped from a long gash in his thigh, through his shredded pants. I wished Petey hadn’t seen how it looked when Daniel cut away that torn pant leg.

  Joey grunted with the pain. His head lolled, and he seemed to slip in and out of consciousness. I smelled his blood and his musk, his sweat and his fear.

  “What happened, buddy?” asked Daniel, trying to keep him alert.

  “Mom,” said Petey. “Mom.”

  I ignored him, helping Daniel wrap bandages around Joey’s thigh wound. “Once we get this bleeding stopped,” said Daniel, “then we can deal with the lower leg.”

  “Mom,” Petey insisted quietly.

  I whirled on him. “What, honey?”

  He stood unruffled, rain dripping from his hat. “There’s somebody else down there.”

  I dropped the bandage and, holding Petey tightly, I bellied over to the drop-off.

  He pointed downstream and all the way to the bottom of the gorge. There I could just make out a pair of legs in blue jeans bobbing on the river’s roiling surface.

  “Looks like they got their head stuck under a rock,” Petey observed.

  “Oh, my God.” I pushed down hysteria. “Give me your telescope.”

  _____

  “Every once in a while,” Bertrice de Sauvenard told George Rowe, “I like to do a three-day weekend, just by myself. A retreat, you know? Most times I go sailing, and usually weather like this doesn’t bother me, but right now—well, I’m tired of beating into the wind.”

  Rowe nodded.

  She looked relaxed, wearing black slacks and a gray turtleneck with a string of creamy pearls around her neck. The slacks had some kind of silver thread running through the cloth. “The staff loves it when I surprise them with paid time off!”

  Friday afternoon at the Sauvenard estate felt restful to Rowe, too. He didn’t care for the fabric swags and the antiques; he just liked the feel of the quiet home overlooking the busy city and the mountains beyond. From here the Seattle sky seemed to glow with more energy than the dreary sky of Renton.

  His client had never heard of a Gilbert Boyd in Harkett. She said, however, “Funny that Leland should have a connection all the way out there; whatever for?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s a good sign,” said Rowe.

  “Harkett,” she mused. “He’s transferring Silver Coast money to some guy in the sticks? How could this have escaped Don’s monthly audits? This would certainly stand out.”

  “Your accounting guy goes over every senior officer’s expenses once a month?”

  “Well, I’d say he takes a snapshot, anyway. I believe he gets a little more thorough every quarter end.”

  “Harris knows that, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “So if he moves money in, then out again quickly, there’s not necessarily going to be a noticeable spike.”

  She pressed her lips together, then blew out a breath. “God, you know, all the underlings have to jump through such hoops to get their expenses covered, while I suppose our treasurer could take off with a hundred and fifty million dollars and be in Brazil before we know it.”

  Rowe laughed.

  “You gotta watch both ends, that’s for sure,” said Mrs. de Sauvenard.

  “Yes.”

  “So can you find out who this Gilbert Boyd is?”

  “That’ll be my next step.”

  “Harkett,” she murmured again. “I know it, of course, used to be a healthy little settlement, now it’s mostly a welfare town, what’s left of it. One of Silver Coast’s largest holdings is out there, bordering the gorge. Been thinking of selling it, but who’d want forty-five thousand acres of timber you might never be able to log? My land’s effectively controlled by the environmental lobby. They’d love for me to kiss their bran-muffin asses, but I won’t do it!”

  “I’d like to talk about Ivan Platonov again.”

  “The corrupt Russian copper baron! I have his number for you.” She passed him an index card. “Do you think Leland could be working more than one scam on Silver Coast?”

  Then she clapped her hands. “Oh, my gosh! I wonder what else my Kenner’s up to! Do all roads lead to Harkett now?” Rowe asked for clarification, but she put a hand out. “Wait, I hear something.” They listened to a faint chime coming from somewhere outside the room.

  “That’s the front gate,” she said. “Who could it be, ringing today? I’m not expecting—”

  “Let me go check,” said Rowe, rising.

  “No.” She patted his shoulder. “Wait here; I’ll just be a minute.”

  Rowe didn’t know when he’d enjoyed a client’s company as much as Mrs. de Sauvenard’s. He sat back down.

  There had been a non-reigning Bavarian prince for whom he’d located a wayward daughter (ski bum in Aspen), and that guy was definitely fun: meetings aboard his private jet which the prince himself had at one point taken the controls of, in order to buzz the new Cunard liner as it plowed across the ocean.

  Rowe remembered the people on deck, bundled up against the North Atlantic wind, pointing and marveling at the plane as much as the people on the plane were marveling at the massive ship. “Must leave quickly,” said the prince, banking the jet sharply, “in the event the crew decides we are terrorists.”

  “What could they do?” asked Rowe.

  “Today? Don’t you think a ship such as that has anti-aircraft guns? Ach, a ship such as that is well prepared!”

  Yes, the prince had been a cool dude, but he decided he liked Mrs. de Sauvenard better: she was so—intelligent, so politically incorrect.

  She returned carrying a colorful, dirty, scuffed box. It was a Budweiser twelve-pack, sealed shut with duct tape. “Well, this is unusual,” she said.

  Rowe looked at the beer carton, taped on one end. From the way Bertrice de Sauvenard held it, it obviously contained something much lighter than twelve cans of beer. She set it on the corner of her desk.

  “Quite a scruffy girl there at the gate. She gave me this, saying, ‘Now you’ll see we’re serious.’”

  “A girl?” Rowe asked. “How old?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—a young woman, OK? She looked a little—feral, if you know what I mean.”

  “Unkempt?”

  “That too. Ha!”

  “Have you been threatened lately?”

  “Heavens, no.” She opened her desk drawer. “I’ve got a blade in here somewhere,” she muttered.

  “Wait.” He leaned forward and inspected the parcel closely. It didn’t smell of chemicals; it wasn’t leaking anything oily—that was favorable, at least. “It’s not ticking, but it sure looks suspicious.” Here in Bertrice de Sauvenard’s private study, an aristocratic room, a clean, composed room, the taped-shut beer carton looked as menacing as a Hell’s Angel shambling into a Kennedy wedding. Something.

  “You mean maybe it’s a bomb?”

  “Well—maybe. We ought to call—”

  “Nonsense!” She drew a flat box cutter from her drawer. Rowe put a hand out as if to stop her, then let it drop.

  A strong sadness came over h
im.

  It was not dread.

  It was sadness.

  The box would be opened, and it would change everything. He could not have explained how he felt to anyone.

  Except possibly Rita.

  He sighed.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard paused, looked at him, then back at the box. She muttered, “Well, I can’t not open it.” She sliced through the tape and flipped open the lid.

  “Huh!” She half-pulled, half-dumped a crumpled safari shirt onto her desktop.

  Much of the khaki shirt was soaked through with a dark red liquid, which had dried and stiffened the crumples. It looked like a piece of roadkill.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard did not recoil.

  Rowe stood up.

  “Huh,” she said again.

  Rowe thought there might be something wrapped in the shirt and did not want Mrs. de Sauvenard to handle it, so he stepped forward and began to uncrumple the shirt.

  Both of them could smell the blood, as well as the dampness that rose from the shirt.

  Rowe tried to block her view, but she crowded in. She watched him smooth out the cloth. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this with his bare hands—he should be using nitrile gloves—but if he didn’t, she would.

  She reached in and plucked up one of the cuffs, saying, “Aha! Yes, it’s Kenner’s, all right, here’s his monogram. Ha! You see how determined he is.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rowe felt in the shirt’s pockets, nothing. No amputated finger, no toe, no ear. Well, OK.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “Kenner’s been bugging me to invest in this movie he wants to make. I said no. Now he’s enlisted some lowlifes to stage a kidnapping for ransom. This is ridiculous, it’s laughable except for the fact that I really ought to be angry. No has always meant no with me.”

  Rowe stared at her.

  “Mr. Rowe, I know my boys.”

  He cleared his throat. “You said the woman who delivered this told you—what again? ‘Now we’re serious’?”

  “Yes. Look, I received a call last night from someone claiming to have abducted Kenner and demanding—get this—one point two million dollars. I just laughed. I mean, really.”

  “Where did they ask you to send the money?”

  “Some street address in Harkett, I don’t remember it.” She was getting annoyed.

  “Harkett, for God’s sake? Have you heard from Lance?”

  “No; actually he’s supposed to be out that way too, with Gina. Huh, I bet Kenner’s got Lance in on this gag too.” Speechlessly, Rowe gestured to the shirt.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard laughed. “So he cut his finger and dripped blood on his shirt! So what!”

  “This is rather a lot of blood. Not a few drops.”

  “Well, guess what, Mister Detective: it might not even be human blood. Right?”

  That was so.

  “From what’s on the news,” she said, “I don’t think they’re having a very pleasant campout.”

  “There’s too much going on in Harkett, Mrs. de Sauvenard.”

  “Do you know what that country’s like?”

  “I guess pretty rough. I’ve never been out there.”

  “It’s about one step beyond the covered wagons and longhouses. Look, I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. Let’s just let Kenner’s—tantrum—play itself out. That’s what I say.”

  “But if this thing with Kenner’s related to what Harris is up to—”

  “I don’t care if it is! If I give in to this, I’d be a fool.” She touched his arm so reassuringly, so motherly, he was almost convinced.

  But he excused himself and took out his cell phone. Neither Gina nor Rita answered her phone. He knew that if no one else was keeping track of Gina, Rita would be.

  He tried Daniel’s number.

  Nothing.

  That was enough for him.

  Chapter 17 – A Body in the River

  Despite the aid of Petey’s telescope, I could not ascertain whose upper body—if any—was connected to the bobbing pair of legs in the river. I could not tell if the butt was male or female; I could not tell what brand of jeans.

  Joey was too incoherent to tell us what happened to him, or whether he had had any companions.

  “If we get him back to the boys’ camp, get him warm and hydrated,” Daniel said, “I bet he’ll come around. Good thing he was wearing such a good coat, or he’d be dead from hypothermia.” Joey had been able to sip some water, and at moments he’d mumbled urgently as if trying to tell us something, but he couldn’t get the words straight.

  “We’ve got to recover that body!” I said.

  “Right now,” Daniel said evenly, “I need you to keep helping me.”

  As he eased the last of Joey’s torn jeans from beneath his broken lower leg, both bones of which had to’ve been snapped at the same place, he said, “Petey, I need ten smooth stones about one inch by one and a half inches.”

  “I’ll get ’em!” He hustled off.

  “What are the stones for?” I asked. “So he won’t watch?”

  “Yeah.” Gently, he removed Joey’s boot and sock.

  Joey went out cold when he got a look at his grotesquely crooked, swollen leg. It really is shocking to see a human limb with an angle in it like that.

  “OK, he’s providing his own anesthesia,” said Daniel. “I’m gonna straighten this leg right now. Rita, can you hold his thigh just above the knee? Hold it tight. I gotta align the foot with the kneecap.”

  I did so, getting some traction from the thigh bandages we’d installed.

  “He’s getting a little shockier,” Daniel noted, grabbing the space blanket and spreading it over Joey’s upper body. “See how he’s sweating, but his skin’s pale and cold? Well, let’s get this done.”

  He grasped Joey’s splayed-out foot with one hand and wrapped the other around the ankle. In one smooth move he pulled the leg and turned the foot so the toes pointed straight up. The sound of the broken bones was like dense, splintered wood grating against itself. “The foot looks good; the blood supply’s OK. You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK, now you hold his foot and ankle just like this while I apply the splints.”

  I did so, feeling the weird instability of the leg bones and the creepy sensation of the broken pieces shifting slightly as Daniel worked. Joey’s foot, long and hairy, was clammy.

  “Gonna splint only the lower leg so I can carry him better, then maybe I’ll put on longer sticks when we get back to camp.”

  As soon as Joey was as first-aided as he was going to be, I repeated, “We’ve got to recover that body!”

  “Rita, we can’t! Come on, we’ve gotta get this guy out of here. That leg could get infected before long. I’ve got some antibiotics in my kit in the cabin, and I want to start him on them right away. Whoever’s down there is dead and we can’t help them.”

  “But—”

  “Look, we’ll come back as soon as we can. That’s the best we can do.”

  Petey watched me for calming cues, which somehow I was able to give. You always can do it for your kid. “Everything’s all right, honey.” I managed a reassuring smile. “Our mission now’s to help Daniel, OK?”

  “OK!” he shouted, picking up Daniel’s daypack, now lighter from the water we’d drunk and the first-aid supplies now on Joey. It occurred to me that maybe Petey would never get his inside voice back again, with all this free and easy outdoor yelling.

  “Pete, stash that rope here safely someplace,” Daniel told him. “We’ll need it when we come back.”

  Petey dropped the pack and ran with the rope to a cedar tree. He shinnied up and hung the tidy coil from a branch stub. I helped him get the pack on his shoulders and snug the straps.

  Daniel reckoned we were perhaps two miles from the camp. Two miles is so nothing when you jog it around your neighborhood in West Hollywood. It hadn’t even been all that hard hiking it here. But thinking about toting Joey through the dripping, tangle
d forest, two miles seemed like two hundred.

  “Rita, help me stand him up. Come on, buddy, you just gotta stand so I can get under you. Hey!” He slapped Joey across the face. The man moaned, roused, and realized what was required of him. With our support, he grunted to a more or less vertical position, and in one move Daniel squatted and took him over his shoulders.

  He stood up, squared himself, and our eyes met.

  This is how we made it to the camp:

  Petey carried the daypack and scouted the easiest route for Daniel and his 180-pound load of deadweight, while I held branches, trampled vegetation to make Daniel’s footing easier, and served as a portable post. I’d stand firm on the other side of a log, and he could reach for my shoulder to steady himself as he eased over it, Joey’s splinted leg sticking out awkwardly. I did what I could to keep the leg from catching on anything.

  It was late afternoon by the time we got Joey back to the camp, pausing a few times for Daniel to rest.

  Our evacuee groaned the whole way but seemed to rouse at one point, during a rest stop. “I tried to save ’im,” he mumbled, his eyes momentarily clear, as if seeing something again.

  “Who?” I asked. “Joey, you tried to save who?”

  “Unnhhn.”

  _____

  George Rowe did not waste time returning to his hotel room in Renton. As his car waited in the Bainbridge ferry holding lot downtown, he sprinted uphill to a convenience store on First Street for a few toiletries and some food. He also picked up a second cell phone there, using one of his fake IDs.

  Mrs. de Sauvenard had, in the space of five minutes, outfitted him with foul-weather gear, a rucksack, two banded packs of hundred-dollar bills (“Never hurts to have extra!”), a map of the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, and a bottle of Canadian Club. “You’ll need it, believe me.” She smacked his shoulder. “Keep me posted. If you see Kenner, tell him to shape up. Life doesn’t have to be that serious. Hugs to Lance.”

  She suggested a route through Bainbridge Island, across the Hood Canal, thence around the tip of the peninsula and down to Harkett.

  As he paced the upper deck of the gigantic car ferry, he relaxed himself and breathed the good salt air of Puget Sound. The city got littler, and he faced forward to the snaggled peaks of the Olympic Mountains.