“Morning, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo.” His face looked slack, like someone who’s peered into an abyss. “You have anything planned for this afternoon?”
“Not that I know of.” I sat at the pine table. “Why?”
“Maybe we could go shooting.”
“Sure.”
I turned away from Bureley’s property, riding the river road, yet could still feel the ache in my heart, fifteen years later. That image of my dad on that morning. All his good cheer. Getting up, making a special breakfast. Because he loved me. And that was love—setting aside your sadness to let someone else feel joy. But even as a teen, I knew something more. “Dad, are you okay?”
He’d turned, caught off guard. The blue in his eyes was prismatic as cut crystal. “Why do you ask?”
“You seem…tired.”
He carried my plate to the table and sat down across from me with only a cup of coffee for himself. “Thanks for noticing.”
“Anything I can do?” My heart was pounding. I wanted to know. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to know. “Anything?”
He sipped the coffee, met my eyes, and looked away. He gazed out the French doors to our empty patio where the wrought iron chairs wore black winter clothing. “Sometimes the cases that come through my courtroom deeply affect me. So much tragedy happening to nice people.”
I picked up a slice of crisp bacon, snapping it in half. “So what do you do?”
He looked back at me. “Pardon?”
“What do you do, when a case affects you?” My heart beat faster. Maybe he would tell me why he was crying. I wanted to know. I didn’t want to know.
Instead, he asked me, “Did I ever tell you what John Wesley said?”
Normally, I groaned. His “did I ever tell you” questions irritated me. But this was love. I said, “No. What did John Wesley say?”
“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”
“Oh.” I snapped another slice of bacon. “And that’s how you cope?”
“It helps.” He almost smiled. “One day, you’ll understand.”
Driving away from the dying geologist’s house, I stared into the gathering dark and changed my plans, heading for the Washington Coast.
Because now I understood.
16
For the first half hour of the drive, I thought about the details in Krystal Jewel’s murder. When the rain came, it drummed its fingers on The Ghost’s roof and sent shivers down my spine. After an hour, I switched on the radio and scrolled the AM dial, hoping somebody could keep me awake for the next two hours.
Within five minutes, my blood pressure was jacked.
On the local news, the lead story covered the new developments in the D.B. Cooper case. Where the money was found, how much, that the FBI was actively pursuing leads.
“We need people to come forward.”
Before they even named that voice, I recognized it. Agent Grant.
“If you have any information about this money,” he was saying, “or how it came to be buried in that riverbank, please call the FBI immediately.”
I leaned into the dashboard, yelling. “You told me no press!”
The newsreader broke in. “—found in the town of Raymond, the twenty-dollar bills match serial numbers believed to be in the possession of infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper.” There was even an FBI “special hotline phone number” for tips, repeated three times.
Then came the weather report. More rain. Surprise!
I snapped the dial to silence, and sped up.
Forty minutes later, mist spritzing the night air, I drove through Raymond and saw what we’d wrought. Flocks of people stood on the muddy banks of the Willapa, flashlights scything the darkness and shining on the water. Beside the road, bedraggled men held signs labled PARKING $5. Cars streamed into the nearby campground.
Grant wanted to close this case. That was clear. But it ticked me off that nobody updated me on releasing information to the media. And if I needed to get anything from that riverbank, that search was now futile, contaminated by the hordes hunting for the legend of D.B. Cooper and the stolen money.
I sped up again, zipping past the Olympic peninsula’s misty estuaries. Logging trucks rumbled in the other direction, winding around the deep evergreen forests. I tried to imagine how a man wearing dress clothes could parachute from 10,000 feet into this rugged landscape—at night, during a storm—and leave no trace whatsoever. Not even one shred of clothing caught on a tree branch. Not even one lost shoe. Who could do that?
Maybe only a legend.
It was close to seven o’clock, The Ghost’s pop-up headlights once again pointed at the Pacific Ocean, when I took that same main drag through the town of Long Beach. On a side street, I found the small wooden house. Tidy, simple, it sat one block away from the beach with a picket fence shedding white paint. I checked my GPS. This house was exactly .75 miles from the Jewel’s place. A fact noted in that binder Tom O’Brien gave me.
I got out, taking a moment to stretch my legs and twist my torso to release the kinks from a long drive. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, drinking in the fresh scents. Brine and sea. Air coming straight off the ocean.
“Who’re you?”
I turned. A small girl stood at the white picket fence. A front light on the house illuminated her blonde hair, pale as saltwater taffy.
“My name’s Raleigh. Who are you?”
“Lily. Why are you here?”
“I’m looking for Joel Fisher.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk to him.”
“Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Lily.”
“I bet you do, too, Raleigh. And that’s why you’re here. To ask a lot of questions.”
I closed my car door and walked to the fence. I had a feeling. “Is your dad around?”
“My dad doesn’t teach school anymore. You should find someone else to answer your questions.”
The door opened. He was leaner than the mugshot photo in the file. And looked twenty years older than his thirty-two years. He came down the three front steps, wiping his hands on his jeans and stood beside the girl, placing one protective arm over her shoulder. “May I help you?” he asked.
“Joel Fisher?”
The reaction came like lightning. Fear, fury. Then firm resolve, a parent who refused to react in front of their child. “Do I know you?”
I glanced down at the girl. “Do me a favor, I’ve been in that car for a long, long time. Could you get me a glass of wat—”
“Lily, no!”
But the girl had already slipped from his arm, running up the stoop, darting into the house. She called out something, but I didn’t catch her exact words.
“Who do you think you are coming—”
“Mr. Fisher, neither one of us wants your daughter hearing my questions.” I took out my business card. He snatched it from my hand. “My firm’s been hired to work on the case. I’m here to ask a few questions. Would you mind?”
That same lightning strike of fear and fury flashed in his eyes. “Who hired you?”
“The state.”
His face looked struck, as if I’d pistol-whipped him. But the girl had appeared on the steps, holding the glass of water in one hand and a leash in the other. And at the end of the leash was a cat. Wearing a hat and clothes.
She handed me the water glass. “This is Miss Vogue.”
I was at a loss. What do you say about a cat wearing a white bonnet and a tiny tulle skirt? “How old is Miss Vogue?”
“A lady never tells her age. I’m nine.”
“You’re eight,” said her father sternly. “And you may walk Miss Vogue to the corner.”
Lily opened the picket gate. “What about around the corner?”
“No.”
“Not even to the—”
“No.”
She sighed. “Alright.”
I waited until they passed The Ghost, then turned to speak to Joel Fisher. His gaze was pinned to the girl, her pale hair and clothing glowing against the darkness. I wanted to start asking questions, but the look on his face stopped me. His eyes shone not with pride, but a wound. Some fracture, an interior break where feelings leak out. “Mr. Fisher, even the state has doubts about—”
“I have a phone.”
“And if I’d called, you would’ve talked to me?”
His gaze faltered. Lily reached the corner stop sign and looked back at us.
“No questions in front of my daughter. That’s all I ask.”
“You have my word.”
He gave me a strange look and called the girl inside.
We four—the accused, his daughter, her fashionable cat, and the unwelcome forensic geologist—were in the compact kitchen. I sat at a rustic but seaworthy kitchen table. The girl climbed a step stool and removed four plates from a cupboard.
“Not at the table, Lily.”
“But Miss Vogue enjoys pot roast.”
“She can enjoy it after we’re done eating.”
“Miss Vogue says that’s an insult.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You speak cat?”
“Fluently.”
I laughed. Joel Fisher threw me that look, that teacherly expression of annoyance. But it was mixed with the slightest bit of understanding. His child was precocious.
Climbing off the step stool, Lily picked up the leash while the cat batted its white paws at the bonnet’s dangling ties. Lily addressed her father, hands on her hips. “When will the pot roast be tender?”
“Twenty-five minutes.”
“We shall retire to my room.” She turned to me. “I mean, if that’s alright with you. You’re the guest.”
“Perfectly alright.”
“Nice adverb—perfectly. Don’t you love adverbs? I do. Like, adoringly.” She led the cat, adoringly, down a hallway made of batten board. Wood knots protruded through the thin gray paint. Lily stepped into a room and closed the door.
Joel Fisher twisted the oven knob down to zero. “I’ll give you nineteen minutes.”
What, no pot roast? I kicked myself—that was not the right question. “Do you own a rock similar to the one found beside Krystal Jewel’s body?”
He gave me that teacherly look again. “You’re the geologist, use the proper name. Unless you think I’m too stupid to know what a pegmatite is.”
“You’re far from stupid. So why did you tell Krystal to go to the beach that night?”
Fury and fear flashed again. We stayed like that, holding, holding, holding our stares. “I didn’t just tell her. I told all my students.”
“Did anyone else go to the beach, too?”
His shoulders slumped. “They asked if going would affect their grade. When I said no, they all laughed. All except one student.”
“Krystal.”
“She was my best student.”
Something in his tone made my radar quiver.
He guessed my thought. “And nothing was going on between us.”
This was another reason I didn’t phone ahead. The element of surprise worked in my favor. However, I didn’t count on his eight-year-old daughter, who showed none of the hallmarks of abuse—no shame, no pathological shyness, no painful lack of confidence. “Is Lily’s mother around?”
“No.”
“When will she be back?”
“Never.”
“That soon?”
“She left me the day after they locked me up at the Grays Harbor jail. Dropped Lily off at my parents’ house. I haven’t seen her since, but my lawyer’s telling me to make plans. She’s filing for divorce and…” He looked away. The window over the kitchen sink framed two feet of black night. Fisher stared at his reflection looking back at him. “I wanted my daughter to live in a place where she would be connected to nature. I’ve loved living here. Lily, too.”
I didn’t have time for soliloquies. “Mr. Fisher—”
He whispered, “You think I killed her?”
I shifted in my chair. “That’s not for me to decide.”
“Another vote of confidence.”
“Would you like me to say yes?”
His whisper sounded like a hiss. “If I killed Krystal, why am I talking to you?”
Any number of reasons. I’d interviewed some of the most charming people in the world, stone-cold sociopaths who lied to family and friends, all the people they purported to love. “Your DNA on the pegmatite—”
“That’s another thing.” He was still whispering. “If I owned a pegmatite, why would I use a pegmatite to murder somebody?”
“You still own it?”
As I entered Joel Fisher’s garage, an eerie sensation swept over me, bordering on déjà vu. Long tables displayed everything from jellyfish floating in formaldehyde to dried seahorses. The rock samples ranged from weathered sea glass and sandstones to limestones and marble. And, yes, one pegmatite. I stared at the rock’s bulky contours and thought of my high school science teacher. His spare room looked just like this, a museum of natural wonder. The born teacher’s hobby space.
“Here.” Fisher walked over to the far table and picked up the bowling ball-sized dark stone, hefting it with one hand, inadvertently proving he could handle it just fine.
I needed both hands, turning it to examine the mica sheets and globs of quartz.
Fisher crossed his arms. “You might as well have it since you work for the state. My lawyer—when he speaks to me—says that rock’s going to be some ‘clue’ for the prosecution. I was ordered to keep it. Which is nuts. But then, this whole thing is nuts.”
In the dark host material, green crystals the size of peppercorns erupted. I ran my finger over their contours. Sharp, the many-faceted crystal structure of tourmaline.
“You’re just looking into the geology?” Fisher stood across the table.
“Why?”
“It was the lunar eclipse.” He picked up a dried sea urchin, tapping his fingers against the calcified points. “I’ve learned you need to capture the imagination of middle schoolers. By high school, it’s gone. So I kept telling them to go see the eclipse. Krystal went. Probably to get away from her mother.” He put the urchin down. “There I said it. Avis Jewel is a rotten mother.”
“How many people live in this town—full time, five hundred?”
“Six hundred.”
Avis would talk. She would tell people there was a new investigator on the case. She would talk if only for another chance to raise her own victimhood and run down Joel Fisher. Maybe Fisher had heard, maybe he was prepared for me to come here. “Police report said you claimed to have missed the entire eclipse.”
“We had a fight. My wife, that night when I left the house? She threatened to divorce me. Take Lily. I was upset, I walked around the block. Three or four times. I had to get myself under control. I teach middle schoolers. You can’t show them any weakness or they turn into jackals.”
“And when you finally went to the beach, you found Krystal?”
“She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts.” He picked up the urchin. “I was taking off my jacket for her, it was cold—”
“Cold, in May?”
“Yes!” He steadied himself. “Wind comes in from Alaska. Even in summer. Did Avis Jewel happen to mention she didn’t even know her daughter went out that night?”
He knew I’d talked to Avis. “Meaning, what?”
“Meaning she thought Krystal was home. The police had to tell her.”
“What’s that got to do with the girl’s murder?”
“A lot. Something’s going on in that house. Avis hooks up with all kinds of detestable men. Any one of them could’ve followed Krystal to the beach that night.”
“Yes. And Avis is a rotten mother. But how would you react?”
“What?”
“How would you react,
if your daughter died like that?”
I expected anger. I wanted it—anything to crack his controlled demeanor. But he only moved back, staggered almost, and set himself on a metal stool beside the table. “I suppose I deserved that. But I’m fighting for my life. It’s my word against everything else. Nobody can back up where I was when she was killed. Lily was asleep. My wife…soon to be ex-wife…”
He didn’t finish. The case file noted that his wife had told investigators she didn’t remember arguing with her husband. Didn’t remember what time he went out. Couldn’t remember if he owned two pegmatite specimens. All she would say was that her husband acted “strange” all afternoon.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
I checked my watch.
When I looked up, Lily and Miss Vogue appeared at the door. I wondered how long she’d been listening. A child that smart, she must know something. I lifted the rock, speaking to Fisher as if I never saw his daughter standing there with her wise eyes. “Thanks for letting me look at this specimen. Where did you find it?”
“Outside Seattle.”
“Granite Falls?”
“Farther north, toward Bellingham.”
Lily pushed forward into the garage. “Father, surely the pot roast is tender now.”
“Ten more minutes,” he said, before adding “please.”
She sensed something, I could see it in the way she and the cat silently walked away, carrying an invisible set of questions. Fisher and I both waited for a sound… her door closing.
He sighed. “I’m sure Lily’s going to want you to stay for dinner.”
“Thank you, but I need to get going.” Tom O’Brien had questions, so did I. But I didn’t want to get charmed out of objectivity. I lifted the rock. “Can you give me the address of the quarry and when you were there?”
He pushed himself off the stool. “Can you keep me off death row?”
When I left his house five minutes later, I still hadn’t answered his last question.
17
I drove The Ghost to the end of Joel Fisher’s road, where the sand dunes rose like walls. When I stepped out, wind coming off the ocean blew back my hair. I twisted the strands into a ponytail, tugged off my boots, and jogged onto the beach.
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