One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2)

by C. R. Chandler

  “Why?” Clay asked bluntly.

  “Because he recorded the interview, but somehow what I said didn’t make it into the transcribed report.”

  Clay let out a soft whistle. “Then he’s the one who doctored the report?”

  “Someone did.” Ricki leaned in and gave Clay the short version of the changes in the report. When she was finished, Clay’s gaze had gone flat.

  “You hit the gunman and the deputy denied it?”

  She appreciated the fact that he hadn’t questioned her version of events for one second. It was a far cry from the way Deputy Marshal Olyman had insisted she was confused about what had happened that night. “I told Josh I wanted to be there when he questioned Olyman.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being there myself,” Clay said. “Something stinks about that whole investigation.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, but there was more to it. She was sure of it. And she’d bet the diner that Josh was too. “The question is, why does it stink, and how high does that stink go?”

  Her phone interrupted them with a loud beep, indicating a message had arrived. It was from Bear. She frowned at it. “It seems my ex can’t make it back to town tonight and wants to know if my mother-in-law should come pick up Eddie.” She quickly tapped in a “No. He can stay at home,” and sent it off before looking over at Clay. “Now, why would a man who took a last-minute trip with some clerk over at Mountain Outfitters that he has the hots for suddenly need an extra night away from his own bed?”

  Clay immediately held out both hands. “Whoa. That is a loaded question, and I’m not answering it.”

  Ricki laughed, then caught sight of Ray and his nephew making their way across the diner. She reached over and poked Clay in the arm. “Saved by your volunteer. I thought you said Ray went to Olympia?”

  “That’s what his note said.” Clay glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like it was a short trip.”

  “Chief!” Ray waved at Clay and then winked at Ricki. “And Special Agent James.” He stopped and shifted to the side to let the man following in his wake step forward. “Ricki, do you remember John?”

  She smiled and held out a hand. “Sure. How have you been, John?”

  John took hold of her hand and gave it a firm shake. “Fine, just fine. Even better now that I’ve had a chance to spend some time with my uncle.” John was close to six feet tall, with thinning brown hair and a friendly smile. There had been quite a gap between them in school since he was close to fifty, so Ricki hadn’t seen him much while she was growing up. John had been gone and on his own when she’d barely been out of diapers.

  “I called in to make sure everything was going okay without anyone at the front desk today.” Ray smiled at Clay. “Deputy Tucker told me that you were looking for me to give Dan Wilkes a hand in the basement.” He turned his attention to Ricki. “And that you wanted me to take a look at some picture Dan found down there.”

  Surprised that piece of information had gotten back to Ray so fast, Ricki automatically shifted her own smile into neutral when she nodded. “That’s right. But I’ll catch up with you whenever you’re in again.”

  “What kind of picture?” Ray persisted. “Deputy Tucker didn’t know.”

  Ricki shot a quick look at Clay, clearly conveying the message that he needed to have a talk with his chatty deputy, before giving Ray an easy shrug. “Nothing too exciting. It’s a picture of a group of rangers from 1970. I was just wondering if you might recognize any of them.”

  Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Ray’s eyes widened until they looked like small moons. “Wow. That’s a long time ago. Does this have to do with that missing ranger you asked me about?”

  “Maybe,” Ricki hedged. “I’m not sure.”

  “I don’t know if I can help you much. I didn’t hang out with any rangers back then.” He wrinkled his nose and squinted up at her. “I might know a couple of people who could help you out. Do you want me to ask them?”

  “No,” Ricki said. “If you’d write their names down, I’ll contact them.”

  “Sure thing, sure thing, Ricki. I’ll get right on that.” He let out a mournful sigh. “Not a lot of us left, you know. Pete’s only been here forty years, so he doesn’t go back that far. No one else in the group does, I guess.”

  “Well, it was only a thought,” Ricki said.

  “We need to get something to eat, Uncle Ray.” John wrapped a hand around one of his uncle’s thin shoulders. “I think we’ve bothered Ricki and the chief enough.”

  Ray didn’t make any protest as his nephew led him away. Ricki watched them claim a booth on the far side of the room and settle in with menus before looking over at Clay. “What was that all about?”

  “Anxiety,” Clay said distinctly. “Ray’s always calling in and worrying whenever he’s not at his post in the lobby.”

  “Hmm.” Ricki let the noncommittal sound stand. Clay was probably right. Ray did consider his presence at the station vital to keeping it running smoothly, which was why he was there seven days a week.

  “Anchorman’s waving at you,” Clay said, tilting his head toward the long cutout window between the dining area and the kitchen.

  Sure enough, the cook’s long arm was sticking through the opening, his index finger pointing at her. Shaking her head at how ridiculous it looked, Ricki stood and told Clay she’d be back in a few minutes. She walked over to the center of the window, shooing Anchorman off once she came into his line of vision.

  “I’m coming,” she hissed. “You look like an idiot.”

  “We need to talk about the schedule,” he shot back.

  She didn’t bother to answer but stalked through the swinging doors. Five minutes later they still hadn’t come to any agreement on what time, or even what days, Sam, who had slid into the job of relief cook, would be scheduled to work. She was about to point out that Anchorman had given all the early mornings to Sam and none to himself when the doors to the kitchen swung open and John walked through them.

  “Who are you?” Anchorman demanded.

  Well aware of Anchorman’s small tolerance for anyone invading his space, Ricki stepped in front of him. “Calm down. He’s Ray’s nephew.” She took a step closer to John, who was looking around with wide-eyed fascination. “Did you need something?”

  “Believe it or not, I’ve never been inside a commercial kitchen.” John turned a sheepish smile on her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge in. My uncle said the bathrooms were past the swinging doors.”

  “He meant to the right of the swinging doors,” Ricki said. She pointed behind John. “Back that way.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.” His mouth turned down. “My uncle’s been getting a little more confused lately.”

  “I haven’t noticed it,” Ricki said.

  “Well, it’s mostly when he’s somewhere he hasn’t been in a while. I guess he doesn’t go out to Mom’s grave much, because today when we stopped by the cemetery in Olympia, he couldn’t remember where it was.”

  Ricki’s gaze softened. With her own mother in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s, she could certainly sympathize with that. “It’s all part of the aging process, John. And Ray does really well. You don’t need to worry about him.”

  “Thanks. I do worry. I was going to try to catch you before we left, but since I seem to have made a wrong turn here, I might as well put it to good use.” He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a business card with a number inked onto the back. “I heard what you said to my uncle. You could keep asking around, looking for someone who might remember those rangers back in the seventies, but I thought I’d save you some trouble. Uncle Ray’s memory isn’t what it used to be, and it isn’t likely he’ll remember anyone back that far, so I thought I’d let you know that and save you some time.”

  He held the card out to her. “That’s my business card. MMG is my company in Seattle. You can call the number on the front and ask for me or call the number on the back. It’s my personal cell phone.” H
is gaze turned apologetic. “My uncle is getting on in years, and, well, if anything happens, or he needs some extra help at home, I’m hoping you’ll give me a call.” He sighed and his chin drooped a little. “I don’t think anyone here in the Bay has my number any longer. I’ve been gone for almost thirty years.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Ricki tucked the card into her shirt pocket.

  “Thank you.” John took another look around and smiled. “Well. I’ll get out of your way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Wednesday morning, or as she’d come to think of it, the first full day of her five-day countdown, she’d just sat down at her desk in the corner of the living room when there was a loud knock on the front door, followed by a raised voice.

  “Hurry up, Ricki. These are heavy.”

  Wondering what Dan was doing on her doorstep before 8 a.m., Ricki opened the door just in time to catch a file box that was in danger of tumbling off the stack that Dan was juggling with her one good hand and a forearm.

  “Hang on, hang on.” Ricki managed to get her arms around the falling box without upending the contents, then quickly set it on the floor. Reaching up, she helped steady the teetering box on top, then eyed the ranger over its top. “What is all this?”

  “Personnel files.” Dan peered back at her. “Can I come in?”

  Ricki answered by stepping aside. She shoved the door shut with one foot while Dan headed straight for the kitchen island.

  He dropped the last box onto the laminate top, then wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “That was a close one.”

  “Why didn’t you just make two trips?”

  “Too far, and I thought I could do it in one,” Dan said. “But those damn boxes somehow got heavier on the drive over here.”

  She looked out the front window. Dan’s SUV was parked right behind the truck, making the walk to the cabin about fifty feet at a stretch. “Too far? You’re kidding me.” She eyed the small beads of sweat dotting the ranger’s forehead. “You really need to get out and get in some of that hiking Cy told you to do.”

  He grinned. “Too much work.”

  She walked over and plopped her box onto the counter next to his and then went back for the third one, easily lifting it and carrying it over to the counter. “You picked a weird profession if you think hiking is too much work.” She slapped a hand on top of the nearest box. “What are you doing with these, anyway?”

  Dan turned and pulled out one of the stools tucked under the overhanging lip of the island. He sat and hooked the heel of one work boot around a lower rung. “I pulled them out of the basement last night and was going to put them in the conference room, but some of the guys were working late on the new safety regs, and they were using it for a pizza break. So I hauled them out to the car to bring over here. I thought you’d want to see them first thing.”

  “Uh-huh.” She should have objected to him taking official files out of the building without permission from his supervisor, which she was sure he didn’t have, but he was right about one thing. Her hands were itching to go through them. Inside one of those boxes could be the key to the unidentified ranger, and maybe why he was murdered. Provided he was a ranger at all. The sooner she found that out, the better.

  She slid the nearest box off the counter and carted it over to her makeshift coffee table in front of the couch. “Look for anything that seems out of place.”

  “Yeah. That’s specific enough,” Dan grumbled as he plopped down onto a stool and pulled one of the file boxes across the counter.

  Ignoring him, Ricki began sorting through papers yellowed with age. An hour later she suddenly stood up, her gaze glued to the folder she was holding in her hands.

  Dan looked over from his perch next to the island. “Did you find something?”

  “Maybe.” She stood up without taking her eyes off the paper in her hand. “Maybe.”

  “I’ve got a couple of guys here who quit in 1970, and one who died in a climbing accident,” Dan said. “But no one who has gone missing.” He glanced over at her. “Are you looking at the 1971 box?”

  “Yeah.” Ricki’s eyes narrowed as she reread the short separation note, signed by a supervisor and tucked away in a forgotten file.

  When she didn’t say anything else, Dan got up and walked over to the couch to look over her shoulder. “That file is stamped ‘Resigned.’ I didn’t think we were looking at anyone who’d left the rangers.”

  “It seems there were steps to leaving the service, even back then,” Ricki said. She tapped a slender finger against a piece of paper yellowed around its edges and clipped to a handwritten letter. “This says he missed a few of them.”

  “Who did?” Dan asked.

  “Mr. Benjamin Graham. As in last name starts with a G, Graham.” Ricki’s gaze gleamed with satisfaction. This was her guy.

  “And that’s important because . . . ?”

  “Same initial used by Barbara G. Metler, the owner of the lighthouse.” Ricki flipped over the page and started down the next one.

  “That’s interesting, but it’s still a common initial,” Dan argued. “Have you got anything else?”

  “He was a ranger for less than two years, and stood five ten, brown on brown,” Ricki said, more to herself than to her assistant partner, who had hopped down from his stool and was now breathing down her neck. She didn’t know about the eye and hair color, of course, but the height fit the ME’s estimate for the skeleton.

  “What step did he miss?” Ricki suddenly turned around, almost knocking Dan over, forcing him to take a quick jump backwards before repeating his question. “What step?”

  “He put in a resignation letter. It even gave his last day of work as April 10, 1971. But according to his supervisor, he never showed up for his shift that day, and failed to turn in his badge. He wasn’t in the enforcement unit, so he didn’t have a gun.” Ricki’s smile held more than a hint of smugness. “The badge is missing, and we also have the approximate date he went missing. The tenth.”

  “No badge.” Dan rubbed his hands together. “Okay. That’s better. But it’s still a coincidence and not a solid link.”

  “Oh, it’s solid enough.” Ricki turned the report around and held it up. “Take a look. Three lines down.”

  Dan leaned forward and squinted a little. “What is that?”

  “Someone recorded the numbers on the new badges that were handed out, and that one was issued to Ranger Benjamin Graham.” Ricki pointed to the box on line three. “See what that says? Badge 286. Graham is our guy.”

  Dan’s jaw dropped. He snatched the file out of Ricki’s outstretched hand, staring as if he’d never seen anything like it. “There it is, plain as day. Two-eight-six.” When he looked up, his eyes were gleaming. “But he resigned, so technically he wasn’t a ranger when he was killed.”

  “Technically, he never finished the process,” Ricki countered. “And if he never showed up for his last shift, then the odds are he was killed before that, when he was still a ranger.”

  Dan stuck his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and nodded. “That might work.”

  “That’s a fact,” Ricki said. “Benjamin Graham was still a ranger when he was murdered, so the case is mine.”

  “And the chief has the dead PI.” Dan retreated to his stool and sat down again. “How do the two relate?”

  “Don’t know,” Ricki said, still flipping through the file. She paused on the last page and stared at the name listed under next of kin. It just put a seal on the whole thing. “It seems Ranger Graham wasn’t married. He listed his next of kin as his father, Herbert Graham, and put down a second name. Barbara Graham.” She looked up and grinned at Dan. “Sister.”

  “Holy shit, holy shit!” Dan gasped. “The dead guy is related to the woman who owns the lighthouse? Do you think she killed him?”

  Ricki had no idea, but those two things definitely put Barbara Graham Metler at the top of the list of suspects.

  “You said the
accounting firm that pays the tax bill is in Chicago. Do you think this guy’s sister is there too?” Dan pointed to the laptop sitting on her desk. “If you don’t mind me using that, I can take a look.”

  “You’re welcome to try, but I already did a search when I got home last night,” Ricki admitted. “Couldn’t find a Barbara Metler in the greater Chicago area.”

  He gave her a pitying look. “Did you try a Google search of her name?”

  Ricki sniffed. “Three hundred and fifty thousand results.”

  “How about narrowing it down to Chicago?”

  Now she rolled her eyes. “Fifty-five results, Mr. Know-It-All.” She jerked a thumb toward her desk. “But you’re welcome to give it a try.”

  While he crossed over to the desk, Ricki pulled out her phone and called Clay. The internet wasn’t the only way to get information.

  When he answered a moment later, she skipped the usual greeting.

  “I need Demi Lansanger’s number. Do you have it on your phone?”

  “Hi to you too.” His deep voice sounded amused. “I’ll text it to you. Anything else?”

  “We got an ID on the dead ranger.”

  There was a brief pause before he asked, “So the vic was a ranger after all?”

  “Yeah. Benjamin Graham. Went missing April 10, 1971.”

  “That’s a story I really want to hear,” Clay said. “But I’m tied up right now.”

  Since she’d clearly caught him at a bad time, Ricki promised they’d exchange notes later, then hung up and waited for his incoming message. She didn’t have to wait long. It showed up thirty seconds later. She tapped in the number as Dan opened her laptop. She had a hunch all these pieces were connected somehow, and she was about to find out how.

  “Hardy Investigations,” the bright voice on the other end chirped out. “Mr. Hardy is out of the office today, but I’d be happy to help you.”

  “Out of the office” was such an understatement, Ricki rolled her eyes. “Ms. Lansanger? This is Special Agent Ricki James from the National Park Service. Do you remember me?”