The Moon Stands Still

by Sibella Giorello

  “I made it clear in the beginning,” McLeod continued. “This case belongs to Grant. Neither of you checked in with him.”

  “With all due respect,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair, “we had a sudden break last night. I’m putting together the 302.” He glanced at Grant. “Unless you want to do the paperwork yourself. But it might mean missing the Seahawks game.”

  Grant jabbed a beefy finger at him. “Your job is to keep me informed. I shouldn’t find out anything after it happened.”

  “You’re right.” Jack nodded, calmly. “I applied weeks ago for a crystal ball. That way, I can tell you about things before they happen.”

  The silence burned.

  “Look, Jack.” McLeod pinched his Twelfth Man jersey. “My wife’s tailgate party includes the mayor, a man of great stature.” He looked over at me, then frowned. “What happened to your face?”

  “Nothing.” I glanced at Grant. His stony gaze hardened. In his hierarchy, a discarded FBI agent like me didn’t deserve so much as a Hello.

  Jack was reading aloud from the 302, scrolling down the page. When he got to the thief paste, Grant’s face snapped toward McLeod. Oh, the satisfaction. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, keeping the smile off my face.

  “And that’s where you walked in,” Jack said.

  McLeod’s bear-gaze turned to me. “Raleigh, continue.”

  “The bills were buried in two completely different locations, but volcanic ash is on both sets. Most likely, Mount St. Helen’s ash. But I examined the soil from the second set of bills using a scanning electron microscope.” I glanced over. Grant’s eye twitched. “That’s how I discovered the high fluorite content, which almost certainly came from thief paste.”

  McLeod frowned deeper. “Keep going.”

  “I need to check the soil from that first set of bills, run it through the SEM.”

  Grant stepped toward me. “We don’t have dirt from 1981.”

  “Actually.” I restrained another smile. “We do, thanks to Tim Burely, the first geologist.”

  “Really.” McLeod crossed his arms. “You spoke to Bureley?”

  “Yes, sir.” I glanced at Grant. Still stony, like a man of statue. “He was very helpful.”

  Grant almost grunted. “You asked him about this fluorite?”

  “Not yet. But the ash combined with the fluorite—”

  Grant cut me off. “Yeah, we got it from the 302.”

  McLeod kept his focus on me. “Good work, Raleigh. Anything else?”

  “Yes, but it’s less scientific. Nothing that could go in a 302.”

  Grant started to open his mouth, but McLeod raised a bear paw, silencing him.

  I plunged ahead. “I’ve been thinking about the burial depths. Or lack of it.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I think whoever buried these bills wanted them found.”

  Grant laughed. “Who’re you—Lucia Lutini?”

  McLeod didn’t laugh. “Did you call Lutini in on this?”

  Jack shook his head.

  I glanced at all three of them. You never lie, he told me. “Sir, in the interest of full disclosure, I did meet with Lucia.”

  “You what?” Grant whirled toward McLeod. “You see what I’m saying?”

  McLeod’s slow, careful shake didn’t reassure me. “Jack?”

  Jack help up his hands, as if surrendering. “I had no idea.”

  “Then who gave her permission?” Grant asked.

  “I didn’t ask for permission.” I kept my focus on McLeod, hoping my tone didn’t sound defensive. “I met Lucia for dinner, and we discussed a different case. The state case, it has nothing to do with the Bureau.”

  Grant glared at me. “You helped yourself to our profiler.” He looked at McLeod. “That’s unacceptable. She should be fired.”

  “Lucia and I were having dinner.”

  Grant gave another laugh. “Is that how your face got ruined?”

  I turned to McLeod. “Sir, I told you about the case for the state. It’s a murder out on the peninsula. A girl was killed with a rock and—”

  McLeod lifted his impatient paw. “Let’s return to the Cooper bills. It sounds like you’re coming up with a theory.”

  “Theory might be too strong a word at this point. But it’s definitely something worth exploring. The fact that this money wasn’t buried deep, in either location, might tell us something.”

  “That’s it?” Grant said. “That’s your theory?”

  “Part of it.” I stayed focused on McLeod. “Why wouldn’t somebody burn these bills if they wanted to get rid of them? Or bury the money deep enough that nobody would ever find it. And the locations, they seem peculiar.”

  McLeod nodded. “How so?”

  “The kid on the Columbia River, he found the bills while digging a fire pit. Near a campground. It’s not some remote location. I’d say the same for that stretch of riverbank where I found the second set. People were camping nearby, ready to dig for clams on the Willapa River.”

  “And concretions,” Jack muttered.

  “Right. My friend knew to go there for marine fossils. Why would somebody bury money in those places, unless they wanted the money to be found?”

  McLeod set himself down on the edge of a desk. “You mentioned this idea to Lutini?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t even discuss this case.”

  “Call her. Now.” He looked at Jack. “ASAP. I want her to work up a profile based on Raleigh’s discoveries.”

  Grant was looking at me, begrudgingly. Like he might have to admit he was wrong. Or not. “We still need to know what the hell happened to her face,” he said.

  Jack was typing again. “What happened to her face is, she found us a sudden break in the Cooper case. Would you like to hear every detail of the entire story? It’ll only take until half-time.”

  “Raleigh,” McLeod stood up. “Anything else you want to add?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah.” He swiveled his computer monitor toward them. “Have a look at this before you go.”

  Both men leaned down. I walked over, struck again by the similarities between McLeod and Grant. Two large men with decades in federal law enforcement. Gruff. Tenacious investigators. McLeod still married, but Grant was—understandably—divorced. I shifted around his bulk and read Jack’s screen. The document looked like some kind of police report. I saw the words breaking-and-entering. Something else stolen.

  Jack pointed to one line.

  Contents: Unknown.

  McLeod straightened. “What’re you showing me?”

  “Check the location.” Jack leaned back, catching my eye. “It’s that bar in Chehalis.”

  I leaned down again. “Sally’s bar?”

  “None other.”

  If there was any green in his eyes, it swept past me in a thundercloud of thoughts. I scanned the report again, catching the important words. Sally Carlson. Filed a police report on a stolen safe. Four years ago. When asked to list the safe’s contents, she said, “Unknown.”

  “Who doesn’t know what’s in their own safe?” I asked.

  Jack looked up at McLeod. “This is the same woman who hosts the annual D.B. Cooper festival.”

  “Yeah,” Grant said. “I’ve been there. She was on my radar.”

  McLeod looked over. And maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but Grant’s face seemed to redden with embarrassment as he told McLeod about his visit to Sally’s bar. He kept emphasizing the visit didn’t yield any “actionable” evidence, but he also omitted the crucial detail that Sally ordered him to leave and tried to get a restraining order. “But here’s another matter,” he said, pointing at us, “they went as civilians. And they didn’t tell us until after it happened.”

  Jack ignored him. “We need to get a search warrant for this bar. And contact the locals to see if any of the safe’s contents ever turned up.”

  McLeod shook his head. “Attorney won�
��t give you a search warrant based on a festival and a stolen safe. You need more.”

  “Raleigh.” Jack leaned back in his chair. “She saw that entire room dedicated to D.B. Cooper. Maps, flight patterns, inside information.”

  I could almost hear Grant grinding his teeth.

  McLeod crossed his arms over the number 12 and gave another one of his prodigious sighs. “Raleigh, I hope this isn’t some pigment of your imagination.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “That’s my hope, too.”

  40

  While Jack put together a search warrant for Sally’s Bar, I headed for my office, driving through downtown Seattle. On Sunday morning, the city felt abandoned. Flickers of litter tumbled down the bare pavement, collecting in gutters. Empty city buses waited at equally empty loading zones where the bus drivers read the Sunday comics page. Winter wind howled between the purged skyscrapers. I rolled down my window and let the cold brush over my burning face, and then I parked where no homeless people could see me walk into the Smith Tower.

  A new guard sat in the lobby. He asked to see my ID. All good changes. But as I climbed the stairs, the tight frightened feeling remained. Even as I was opening my office door, the hallway cleared of any threats, I jumped when my cell phone buzzed.

  The caller ID read Charlotte Harmon.

  I stepped inside and quickly closed my office door. “Hi, Aunt Charlotte.”

  “Raleigh, I need some advice.”

  I gazed around the space. Maybe it was just me remembering, some kind of reaction to last night. But the room felt different.

  “Raleigh?”

  “I’m here.”

  I moved deeper into the main area. A chilly finger of fear tapped my spine.

  “Raleigh?”

  “Yes, Aunt Charlotte, still here.” I checked the bathroom. Both monogrammed pink hand towels looked untouched. The pink sink was dry. But when I stepped into the main room again, the air smelled bitter—the burnt coffee, I decided. “Aunt Charlotte, go ahead.”

  “I hate to tell you, but it’s about your mother.”

  All the cold fingers wrapped around my neck. “What happened?”

  “My psychic envisioned a great orange orb. It was glowing from my aura, giant waves of spiritual energy. She thinks it could—”

  “What about Mom?” I stood at my desk, where my geology maps were strewn across the top. But didn’t I leave the maps on the floor when I delivered the deadly coffee? I didn’t come back in here and clean up. “Aunt Charlotte, what’s going on?”

  “Your mother wants me to take her to church.”

  “Okay.” I looked up. The gray clouds were as opalescent as stained glass. “When?”

  “Well, today. It is Sunday.”

  “She wants you to take her today?”

  “Yesterday that psychiatrist called me, the one you don’t like?”

  Dr. Norbert. A.k.a. pseudo-Freud. “What did he want?”

  “Your mom asked for permission to leave the ward for church. He called me and said as long as she goes with me, it’s okay.”

  Naturally. Just don’t let me near my own mother. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  I opened my desk drawers. The top drawer held pencils, pens, paperclips, one wooden ruler, a dowel rod. Everything in its place. Bottom drawer still held my paper files. I squatted, flipping through the plastic tabs. Aberdeen Gypsum, Blaine Water Supply, Engels, Leavenworth Plutons… I flicked through the rest. Then back again. “Wait a minute.”

  “Oh, I can wait,” she said. “I can wait forever to go to church.”

  “Not you, Aunt Charlotte.” I flicked the tabs. One of my files was missing. Krystal Jewel. It was gone. Maybe I left it in the car.

  “Raleigh, I’m glad you don’t sound sold on this idea. That psychiatrist told me about what happened with you, how you didn’t have the dog and all? He claims that’s why I need to take her to church. Did he call you? He said he was going to call you.”

  “No.” I stared at the files without seeing them. “He didn’t call.”

  “He sounded like his aura was black.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s mad. I think about you not having the dog.”

  “Madame had to go to the vet.” My headache was coming back, full force. “And I think what made her sick was visiting that asylum.”

  “You should tell him. He’s going to call you.”

  “I look forward to it.” Like eyeball surgery performed with toothpicks. “So back to Mom. You’re taking her to church, or not?”

  “Well, that’s just it, honey. I’m not real sure. You know how none of us communicates all that well with your mother? I mean, not like your dad. He could really open up her chakras. But that’s love for you. And right now, all she loves is that dog.”

  I walked to the coffee maker. Last night’s liquid assault weapon had dried into a black crust, lining the bottom of the glass carafe. “You want me to bring the dog to church, is that it?”

  “I knew you’d figure it out.” Aunt Charlotte sighed with relief. “I already asked the pastor, he said it’s fine.”

  Aunt Charlotte. Totally nuts with New Age theories, but forever ready to help her family. I picked up the carafe and carried it into the bathroom, rinsing it in the pink sink. “I can bring the dog. When’s the church service?”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “The service already started, and, well, it’s weird.”

  I set the carafe down. “What do you mean, weird?”

  “I mean, really weird. All that holy roller stuff. I’m standing outside, calling you and I don’t know if I’ll go back inside. But your mom’s gonna need that dog.”

  41

  I blasted down the interstate to Eleanor’s house. Ran inside, grabbed the dog, spoke three words to Eleanor—“Call you later!”—and sped ten miles south to Steilacoom.

  Lasting Hope Bible Church was wedged into a strip mall, sandwiched between a legal marijuana shop and one of those stores where everything was priced at 99 cents. I parked next to the church’s yellow van where the doors said “Everyone Is Welcome.”

  We walked up the handicap ramp. I grabbed the handle to the church’s front door and glanced down at Madame. “You’re the world’s greatest dog. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Inside, a foyer collected shoes. Rubber-soled men’s slip-ons. Worn-out boots. Birkenstocks (my aunt’s, most likely), and many pairs of fuzzy slippers, the kind issued to mental patients like my mom. Slippers had no laces. Laces were dangerous for people who hear voices. I took off my boots. The tambourine rattled.

  Dog at my side, I walked in stocking feet to the main room. A long rectangular space, it looked like a restaurant cleared of all tables. A crowd filled the front, warbling voices harmonizing with a badly played electric piano. I scanned the swaying figures, searching for family, and found the reason behind the bad music. The woman at the piano was watching her hands, searching for the right keys. When she found them, she looked up at the sheet music, resting her fingers until she could locate the right line again.

  As the hymn wheezed to an end, I saw Aunt Charlotte, rubbing a crystal necklace like it was a rosary. In front of the crowd, a short man in a blue suit strode across the room. His pant cuffs dragged behind him. And then I saw my mom.

  She was wearing that vague uniform of the asylum, clothing that looked like rejected thrift store donations. Black polyester slacks with an elastic waistband, blue sweatshirt sagging at the shoulders. And every curl of her hair looked scared, like the strands could hear the thoughts inside her head, spiraling up, waving for help. I looked down at Madame. She wagged.

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” said the man in the dragging suit, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

  I whispered to the dog. “Follow me.”

  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

  He was striding across the front of the room, dust-mopping the worn floor, one beatitude rolling out after anot
her—“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”—the great wash of Jesus’ words crashing like waves, maybe the way the sermon came two thousand years ago, spoken by a homeless Jew who kept company with fishermen, tax collectors, zealots. And a betrayer-to-come.

  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

  I moved forward, dog still at my side. The rhythm of the words had a cadence beyond music, a rhythm of seasons. Sunrise, sunset. Moon and tide. A deep music, written before time.

  “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

  And now I realized why Aunt Charlotte called me in such a panic. All those slippers by the door, the handicap ramp outside. I passed three wheelchairs, the black nylon backrests stenciled with the words Property of Western State Hospital. I glanced around at the greasy hair. The medicated eyes. The bodies fighting thoughts inside their own heads. Patients. These parishioners were patients.

  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

  I lifted the dog into my arms, weaving through the crowd, smelling odors I refused to identify. Standing behind my mother, I set down the dog. Madame didn’t hesitate. Like a lost child finally spotting her mother in a crowded store, she ran for her mother. The dust-mop preacher stopped, glanced at the dog, then looked up at my mom. My mom looked down.

  “Oh, my lands!” The exclamation of a holy miracle.

  She picked up the dog and glanced around, searching for the source of this miracle. I held my breath. Our eyes met. And I saw her gaze drift down the side of my wounded face. For one split second, she looked sorry.

  “Blessed are you when people insult you,” the preacher continued.

  She narrowed her eyes, suspicion tightening her face. She turned away from me.

  I turned for the exit.

  The preacher said, “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven …”

  42

  I wanted nothing more than to run. Run in boots and jeans and shove that shimmying tambourine out of my head, running until I felt nothing but the burn of muscles and searing lungs, the peculiar fire that could incinerate this pain in my heart. But as I took my first step, my phone rang.