One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2)

by C. R. Chandler

  “Close.” Ricki consulted her notes. “Barbara Metler last talked to her brother on the eighth, and the shift he didn’t report to was the morning shift on the tenth, so he was killed sometime between those two dates.” She looked up. “Before the supervisor processed the paperwork.”

  The senior agent in charge did not look convinced. “He wasn’t on park land and was likely on his own time.”

  She’d already thought of that and had an answer ready for it. “Not on park land,” she conceded, “but since no other clothing was found, he was wearing his ranger uniform, so he could have been on park service business when he was killed.”

  Hamilton made a snorting sound that ended in a chuckle as he leaned farther back in his chair. “Technically, he wasn’t wearing anything at all, and you’re pushing it, Special Agent James. But I’m going to let it slide for the moment. Once the body is positively identified as that of former park ranger Benjamin Graham, what’s our next step?”

  Now it was Clay who spoke up. He kept his eyes on the screen as he propped one foot on top of the opposite knee. “We’ve already arranged for a follow-up interview with your vic’s sister, in surroundings that don’t look like a version of an interrogation room.” He waited for Ricki’s quick nod. “Mrs. Metler doesn’t want to accompany the dental records to the Tacoma Police Department. Instead, she’s asked if she could see the lighthouse where her brother was found.”

  “Understandable.” Hamilton turned his head, looking directly at Ricki. “What questions are you going to ask her?”

  “If her brother had ever mentioned any friends. Someone we can track down who might know what he was doing here in the Bay.”

  “According to your theory, he was doing job,” Hamilton put in. “Weren’t you the one just making a case that he was on park business when he was killed?”

  “Yeah.” Ricki chewed on her lower lip. “And it’s possible that business, whatever it was, got him killed.”

  “Or he could have been on his way home? Maybe he rented a house or a room around here?” Dan’s voice floated over Ricki’s head.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But in 1970, the park service headquarters was in Port Angeles, just like it is today. And it didn’t lease any additional space out here for another twenty years after Graham was murdered. So why would he live out here and take an hour or more to commute to his job?” She tapped a finger against the top of her thigh. No. There was some other reason Graham had been in the Bay the day he was killed. She’d bet on it.

  “Fine,” Hamilton said. “So what we have is a ranger traveling to the Bay, probably in his uniform, for some unknown reason that might, or might not, have gotten him killed.” Hamilton shrugged. “And since he came from money, it could be he had a habit of carrying a good sum around with him. He might have been killed for that.”

  “Then why take off his uniform and fold it so neatly?” Ricki argued.

  “Something you’ll need to find out, Agent James,” Hamilton concluded. “And fast. We don’t have the resources to spend a lot of time on this.” He laid his hand on top of several folders stacked neatly on the desk in front of him. “And quickly. There are other parks in our jurisdiction, and other crimes we need to look into, and the word is out you’re back on the job. I’ve already gotten several requests for your help, so you need to wrap this one up.”

  Ricki and Clay exchanged a quick look before she said, “Yes, sir.”

  The ASAC’s expression softened. “I’m not even sure I can spare you for a whole week on this one, Ricki. I’m going to have to put a hard stop on it sooner rather than later, but we do have some time. The brass back in DC aren’t too thrilled at someone taking a potshot at you either.”

  She shook her head. “I’m still not sure that was specifically aimed at me.”

  “Maybe you’re not. But I am.” Hamilton paused and then frowned, tilting his head to look past her.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Ricki closed her eyes and gave a silent groan.

  “Hey there, Anchorman,” Clay called out. “Can I help you with something?”

  Anchorman’s gaze swept the room, settling on the floating face on the iPad screen before he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Yeah. Who’s that?”

  “I might ask you the same thing,” Hamilton snapped out.

  Wanting to strangle Anchorman and toss him out the door all at the same time, Ricki kept her gaze on her boss while she jerked a finger over her shoulder. “That’s Anchorman. He’s my cook.”

  Hamilton blinked. “At that diner of yours? The same guy who pulled your collective butts out of the fire on that last case?”

  “Yeah. That was me. And yeah again. I’m the cook at the diner. Her pay doesn’t exactly run to a personal chef,” Anchorman said as he strolled across the room. He stopped by Ricki’s chair and gave her a short salute. “Hi, boss.”

  “What are you doing here?” Ricki hissed out.

  “I came to talk to the chief.” Anchorman rocked back on his heels as he clasped his hands behind his back. “I pay my taxes, so I’m entitled to talk to him.”

  She rolled her eyes and pointed at the door. “When we’re done, Anchorman. This isn’t a public meeting we’re having here. That’s why the door was closed.”

  “Agent James.” Hamilton’s brusque, no-nonsense tone brought Ricki’s gaze back to him. “I’ll let you and Chief Thomas get back to business. Remember what I said about a hard deadline. We’ll talk soon.” The senior agent’s face abruptly disappeared, leaving all of them staring at a blank screen.

  “Nice to meet you too,” Anchorman muttered, then smiled at Cy’s good-natured clap on his back. “How’re you doing, Cy?”

  “Good enough to know I don’t want to be part of this discussion.” Cy grinned. “I don’t even want to know what it’s about.” He reached out and gave Ricki’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “I meant to tell you that I need to head over to Port Angeles for a few days. We all have a boss to answer to. I’ll leave the office unlocked, so you can use it whenever you want.” He nodded at Clay and Dan, then turned around and headed out the door.

  Ricki waited until her uncle had pulled the door closed behind him before slowly standing up. She turned to face her cook, resting one hip on the edge of the desk.

  “What’s so urgent, Anchorman?”

  He pulled the chair she’d been sitting in farther away from the desk, turned it around, and straddled it as he sat facing Clay. He glanced over his shoulder at Ricki and gave her a polite smile. “I came to talk to the chief, remember?”

  She crossed her arms and stared back at him. “Okay. So talk.”

  Anchorman rested his thick forearms on the back of the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. “I want to be put into the rotation to have her back.”

  Ricki’s mouth dropped open as she straightened away from the desk. “Excuse me?”

  “I know you aren’t buying this whole ‘that guy could have been shooting at anyone’ bullshit,” he went on as if he couldn’t hear Ricki sputtering behind him. “And this agency she’s joined up with doesn’t seem to believe in having backup.” He stopped for a moment and then deliberately raised his voice. “Something I would have mentioned to the talking head if he’d stuck around for a moment or two.”

  “That talking head is my boss.” Ricki reached out one long leg and gave his chair a solid kick. “You know. Superior officer? You might vaguely remember one of those?”

  “So when do you need me to take a shift?” Ignoring her, Anchorman went right on talking to Clay.

  When Clay glanced her way, Ricki shot him a warning glare. “Don’t encourage this. He’ll only get worse.” She took two steps to the side until she was directly in front of her annoying cook. “I don’t need a babysitter. And I’d like to point out that you already have a job.”

  Anchorman snorted. “Which I can cover with a few tweaks to the schedule. Sam has already agreed to work any extra hours necessary until this mes
s is cleaned up.”

  Ricki’s eyes narrowed, spitting out a blaze of blue fire. “Enough is enough, Anchorman. No tagging along where you don’t belong. This mess, as you call it, is a fifty-year-old homicide that needs solving, not some combat mission, and I already have backup.”

  The former Marine sniper twisted around in his chair to look up at Dan. “Is she talking about you?”

  Dan scowled. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Nope. Except you need more time on the gun range,” Anchorman said bluntly. He turned back toward Ricki. “And what the hell is an assistant partner, anyway?”

  “I’d like to hear that explanation myself,” Dan muttered.

  “Oh for . . .” Ricki slapped her good hand against her forehead. “You both give me a headache.” She pointed at Dan. “You keep digging in those stored files. See if you can find any duty rosters from April 1971.” She then aimed her finger at Anchorman. “And you go back and keep an eye on the Sunny Side Up.” She turned a glare on Clay. “And why haven’t you told him we don’t take civilians along on official investigations?”

  Clay shifted his weight in the chair, his gaze going from Ricki to Anchorman and then back again. “He has a point, Ricki.” When she shook her head in denial, he shrugged. “Yeah, he does. This isn’t the only thing on my plate. I have the towns to see to, along with a department to run. I can’t dedicate all my time to the case, and given the short leash Hamilton put you on, that’s what it will take.” His jaw hardened along with the look in his eyes. “I know your agency can’t give you much by the way of backup. There aren’t enough of you to go around as it is. But we’re talking murder here, and while your case is fifty years old, Maxwell Hardy’s murder is not. Someone very much alive today killed him and probably took that shot at you since the two cases are tied together.”

  Anchorman straightened up. “Tied together? How?”

  “Two bullets, two victims, one gun,” Clay said before Ricki could stop him.

  While Anchorman let out a low whistle, Ricki turned on Clay. “He didn’t need to know that. We don’t involve civilians.”

  “I can go with you and Mrs. Metler up to the lighthouse tomorrow, but I’m tied up in a council meeting tomorrow night, and I know you have something on your agenda.”

  “The VFW,” Ricki said reluctantly. If Clay couldn’t come along, that left her in a bind to find another military vet to get her in the door. She caught Anchorman’s grin from the corner of her eye and groaned.

  “I don’t suppose you were in the service?” she asked Dan, not surprised when he shook his head.

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “Guess that leaves me by default,” Anchorman declared.

  There was just enough smugness in the look he gave her that she growled back at him. “After our visit to the VFW, you’re fired.”

  “Again?” His mouth drew down into an exaggerated pout. “That makes the third time this month already.” In a flash, his grin was back. “But then I’ll have lots of time to tag along after you.”

  She closed her eyes and barely kept herself from screaming out in frustration. The last thing she needed was a burly ex-Marine sniper with an overdeveloped protective instinct dogging her every step. But she did need him to get through the doors of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. Like it or not, she only had a few days to find out what had happened to Ranger Benjamin Graham, and she couldn’t waste any of it waiting for Clay to free up his time. Which didn’t sit well with her at all, but right now, she couldn’t see a way around it.

  Fine,” she groused. “You can tag along one night. If you do any more than that and you get hurt, don’t expect any sympathy from me.”

  Anchorman chuckled and then winked at her. “No sympathy from you. Yeah. I got it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Here? My brother died here?” Barbara Metler looked around the small clearing of brush and overgrown grass that surrounded the old lighthouse. She half lowered her large sunglasses, wrinkling her nose in an obvious sign of distaste before turning to stare at Ricki over the rims. The edges of the scarf covering her hair ruffled in the light breeze. “This can’t be right. Benny would never have come to a place like this. It’s too isolated, too . . .” She waved her hand to include the shabby structure in her assessment. “Too rough.”

  “Too much nature?” Ricki inquired politely. Fighting not to roll her eyes when the woman solemnly nodded her agreement.

  “Exactly.” Barbara looked around again and shuddered. “He never would have come here. It’s far too primitive for Benny’s taste.”

  Ricki propped a boot on the log Eddie and his friends had occupied barely a week ago. “He was a park ranger, Barbara. They tend to work a lot in primitive areas.”

  “I told you. It was just a lark on his part. He certainly had no intentions of making a life around this kind of thing.” She pulled her cardigan sweater closer and folded her arms in front of her.

  Everything she had on, from the slacks, to the shoes, to the sweater, was a perfect color match of soft green. Only the dark-brown blouse offered a contrast, which was a good thing. Otherwise, the woman might have faded away into the foliage. Not a very charitable thought, but Ricki wasn’t sorry for it either.

  Barbara Metler seemed oblivious to the fact that everyone else in the clearing earned their living in the very place she was curling her lip over. Ricki smiled when Clay shook his head at her. She bit her lip and reminded herself that she wasn’t going to insult a possible source of information, although it was a close thing.

  Dropping her boot on the ground, Ricki walked slowly over to the door of the lighthouse and released the police tape Clay had draped across the front. She lifted the rusty latch and gave the door a good shove before stepping aside. Taking a flashlight out of the pocket of her windbreaker, she flicked on the switch and pointed the beam of light into the interior. “Let’s take a look.”

  Clay gently guided a hesitant Barbara toward the door, then put conventional manners aside to step in first and light up the interior with the lantern he’d brought along. “It’s fine. There’s nothing in here now but a staircase and a dirt floor.”

  With a hand at her throat, Barbara gingerly stepped over the threshold, stopping when she was barely a foot inside. Ricki came up behind her, shining the flashlight over Barbara’s shoulder. When Graham’s sister didn’t move inside any farther, or make a single sound, Clay started talking, his voice soft and calm.

  “Mr. Hardy was found first.” He pointed to his right. “Over there.” He turned and gestured in the opposite direction. “Your brother was found over there, along with his uniform and badge.”

  Barbara took another short step inside and stared at the spot where Clay was pointing. “Fifty years?” she whispered. “How long did he lie in there all alone in the dirt before he became a pile of bones?”

  “That depends on a lot of things,” Clay said slowly. “How cold the winters were, and how hot the summers, or if there were any leaks coming in from rain.” He shook his head. “There’s no way of knowing for sure.”

  “But years? Wasn’t it probably years that he waited for someone to find him?”

  Feeling a small bubble of compassion bump up against her guilt for her earlier thoughts about the woman, Ricki let out a long, slow breath. For all her snotty tone and attitudes, Barbara seemed to have genuinely loved her brother. “It could have been years, Barbara. But your brother wouldn’t have felt any of that. He was gone.”

  Barbara pivoted around, her hand still at her throat, her sunglasses in her hand. Her wide brown eyes had taken on a hollow look. “How do you know? Maybe his soul or spirit, or—hell, I don’t know—his ghost? Maybe he did hang around, watching his body dissolve away, waiting for someone to come, waiting for someone . . .” Her voice caught on a sob as her bottom lip trembled. “Someone to care.”

  Since she looked on the verge of collapse, Ricki reached out and curled a hand around Barbara’s arm, gently pulling he
r out of the lighthouse and leading her over to the log. Barbara sat down without even a wince at the rough bark scratching against her very expensive pantsuit. Wishing she’d thought to bring along a canteen, Ricki squatted in front of her, sympathy in her deep-blue gaze.

  “Would you like to go back to the station to have a talk? You could have some water. Be more comfortable.”

  Barbara blinked, then cast a quick look around before her shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “This is fine.” She sighed and lifted the purse that she’d dropped onto the ground beside her and set it on top of the log. She kept it from tumbling off its precarious perch by keeping one hand firmly around it. “I knew you’d have more questions, so I brought what I thought would be helpful.” She reached into her purse, withdrawing a picture with a single sheet of paper clipped to it. “That’s a picture of the house Benny rented. He sent it to me.” When Ricki took it, Barbara leaned over and pointed at the smiling figure in front of a modest structure with a wide porch. “That’s Benny.” A ghost of a smile played along her lips. “He was very handsome.”

  He was standing so far away in the picture, it was hard to tell what he looked like, but Ricki dutifully nodded. “Yes, he was.” She slid the paper out from under the paper clip. “Is this the address?”

  Barbara nodded as Clay walked up and stood beside Ricki.

  “It’s in Port Angeles,” he said.

  Ricki studied the photo before glancing over at Barbara, who was watching her. “Did he live there alone?”

  “I don’t know,” Barbara said. “He never actually said there was anyone else living there, it was just an impression I got.” She paused, her brow furrowed. ”I remember him complaining once about someone drinking the last of the coffee and saying he’d better replace it.” She drew back a little at Ricki’s suddenly fierce look.

  “He? Your brother said he’d better replace it?” Ricki asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Barbara cleared her throat and pulled a regal demeanor around her like a thick cloak. “I’m sure that’s what he said. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but I did feel he was talking about someone else who lived in the house, and Benny definitely used the word ‘he.’” She sat up a little straighter. “Oh, and something I told Maxwell. Benny was coming home, but he intended to keep the lease on the house for another few months. He said there was still some business he needed to deal with here, and of course he wanted to finalize the purchase of the land.”