I pulled it out, checked the number. I didn’t recognize it. “Raleigh Harmon.”
“It’s me, Tammy.” When I didn’t reply, she added, “Tammy Franklin, Long Beach police?”
“Oh, hi. What’s up?”
“I got Krystal’s sketch book.”
“Nice work.”
“Thanks.”
I could hear the smile in her voice. “How hard was it to get?”
“Avis Jewel wasn’t exactly cooperative. But since I already screwed up letting her have it back, I told her, ‘Give it to me or I’ll get a search warrant.’” Tammy paused. “We could, right?”
“Doesn’t matter now. But she handed it over, like that?”
“No. First she told me it was all my fault her daughter was murdered.”
“How’s she figure that?”
“She said I should’ve been patrolling the beach that night. Because, you know, it was an eclipse. I told her, ‘When there’s no light that’s when I need to watch neighborhoods and businesses.’”
“Not to mention there’d never been a murder on the beach before.”
“Yeah, that too!”
I leaned against The Ghost. Tammy’s enthusiasm was buoying my mood. “Did you get a chance to look through the sketch book?”
“Yep. And you’re gonna want to see it, too.”
The door to the 99-cents store swung open. Two women stepped out carrying oversized plastic bags. They seemed giddy.
“What was in the sketch book?”
“Her drawings.”
“Such as?”
“Like, you know those creatures that are half-horse and half-human? You know, bottom is like a horse, top half is a naked man.”
“Satyrs?”
“Is that what they’re called? Okay. Krystal drew a bunch of them. But with horns coming out of the man’s head. Like the devil. And … well…”
“What?”
“She added full male anatomy, if you get my drift.”
A queasy feeling swam in my stomach. “Graphic?”
“Really graphic. But the face on the man? It’s super clear. Detailed. And it’s the same face in all the drawings. So I took the sketch book over to the school nurse—”
“Tammy, you’re doing great.”
“Yeah, not screwing up any more.” Her tone was resolute. “The nurse looked at the drawings and her face turned white as Kleenex. I thought it was because, you know, it’s almost like looking at porn. But she said, ‘It’s Mr. Marston.’ I said, ‘Who’s Marston?’ And she said, ‘The art teacher.’”
I stood up, tingles running down my arms. “The stomach cramps.”
“You remember. Yeah, the nurse had told me about Krystal getting stomach cramps, always during art class. And then, man, you look at these drawings. I’m not a detective—”
“But you might be. How soon can you run a background check on Marston?”
“Already did it.”
My phone buzzed with another incoming call. I let it go to voice mail. “What came up on his background?”
“Nothing. Guy’s your total Boy Scout. I mean, literally. Marston runs the local scout troop.”
“Crap.” I leaned back against The Ghost. “Does the sketch book show anybody else?”
“No. Just lots of beach scenes. That’s it. But I did see a page missing.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s furry paper. Thick. You know, when you rip something out, it leaves that trace in the spine.”
“Tammy, you need to consider detective work.”
“Wait—there’s more!” Her chipper voice rose a notch. “That missing page is right after her last drawing.”
“What was the last drawing?”
“Full moon at the beach. Seems like the next drawing would’ve been the eclipse. Right?”
The church door opened and electric piano music droned out. The preacher kicked a doorstop into place. Wheelchairs appeared, slumped patients inside them, pushed by large women wearing nurse’s scrubs.
“Tammy, I’ll call you back. Stay on the art teacher. Something’s not right.”
“I’m on it. When can you get out here?”
“Maybe tomorrow.” I watched the door, waiting for the appearance of my aunt, the dog. My mom who didn’t think I was her daughter. “Call me if anything else comes up.”
I disconnected that call and checked voicemail. Nothing. But one text message from Jack.
Search approved. Want to join the fun?
By the time I reached Sally’s Bar, a pale amethyst dust cloaked the afternoon clouds. And the parking lot no longer held only trucks. Now an assortment of government vehicles clogged the gravel space, including one familiar black Jeep.
After telling Madame she was my hero, I cracked the car windows and got out. Two uniformed state troopers guarded the main entrance. I made my way around back and found a young female agent. Standing by the open doorway, she wore a dark blue FBI windbreaker, her strawberry blonde hair brushing her shoulders. I introduced myself. She looked skeptical.
“Could you let Jack Stephanson know I’m here?”
She lifted the radio clipped to her belt. Her expression was as straight as her red-gold hair. I smiled at her, wondering if I was ever this serious. Yes, I decided. And then some.
She holstered the radio. “He’s coming.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She nodded.
Jack appeared, looking like the happiest man alive, and escorted me down the back hallway. The bar still smelled like cigarettes and stale beer.
“Sally’s on her way,” he said. “And she’s not a happy camper.”
“But you are.”
“Harmon, this is the first real break in the Cooper case in decades. Do you have any idea what that means?”
We stepped into the back room with the Cooper shrine. Technicians were prepping items for collection, tagging and bagging the accounting books, taking detailed photos of the maps before removing them from the wall.
“Did Sally happen to explain the missing safe?” I asked.
“She claims her employees locked their stuff in there, too. That’s why she can’t identify the contents.”
“She couldn’t just ask her employees?”
“She claims they were fired,” he said. “And claims they all left the area.”
“Sally sounds like a defense attorney.”
Jack grinned again. “She’s going to need one.”
A voice shouted from the barroom. When Jack and I stepped into the hallway, Sally herself was striding toward us, looking nothing like the confident bartender from the Cooper festival. Her face had a blown-back shock to it—and fury. She pointed at us.
“And you! I know you!”
I started to say something, but realized she was pointing at someone over my shoulder. I turned.
Agent Pierce Grant’s cold gaze locked on Sally. The frozen stare was followed by an even more chilling smile. I wondered how long he’d been standing behind us. In the gambling room, or did he just arrive? Maybe he was hoping to catch me doing something wrong.
“I kicked you out of here once.” Sally steered toward him. “I can kick you out again.”
“I doubt that.” Grant’s smile solidified, like bedrock. He put his hand on my shoulder. “This excellent investigator has made sure you can’t.”
I felt the weight of his hand, an anvil on my shoulder. Excellent investigator? A tech moved around us, squeezing by with a cardboard box.
“Hey, where are you—” Sally spun, pursuing the tech.
“Jack,” Grant said. “You want to corral her?”
“You got it.”
I shifted, moving out from under Grant’s hand. Somehow the weight of it remained. “I’ll go see if Jack needs help.”
“Hold on.” Grant’s smile faltered. He glanced over his shoulder. The young female agent was still guarding the open back door. He looked back at me. “Can I have a moment, in private?”
I held his gaze. The two of us like dogs determined not to show weakness, or submission. I was done with that. We were here collecting evidence because of what I found that night at the Cooper festival. In the same place that booted out Grant. “Whatever you need to say, say it here.”
He hesitated. Another tech moved around us carrying a black bag. When he was gone, Grant nodded. “I owe you an apology.”
I said nothing.
“Frankly,” he continued. “I didn’t think you had the backbone to work this case. But I was … wrong.” The last word seemed to require extra effort. “You’ve done a good job, and you took initiative. I’ll make sure McLeod hears about it.”
My phone buzzed. I pulled it from my pocket but kept my gaze on him. Let him stew in his late apology. “Raleigh Harmon,” I said into the phone, still staring at Grant.
“Raleigh, it’s Tim—Tim Bureley—you got a minute?”
“Sure, Tim.” I stepped around Grant, moving for the back door. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been digging through all my old records. And I found something.”
“In the geology?”
“Yes. And you’re going to want to see it.”
As I passed through the door, I glanced at the strawberry blonde. She pretended to be evaluating the grassy field behind the bar. But as I walked to the parking lot, I sensed her peripheral gaze keeping track of my movements. “Can you send the information to the Bureau? I’m a little tied up.”
“Oh?” He sounded eager to know. “Did you guys get a break?”
“Looks like. They’re collecting evidence now. I can’t say any more.”
“Then you need to see this information. Right away.”
“Okay, overnight it to the Bureau. I’ll make sure you get reimbursed for costs.”
“I’m really not strong enough to get to the post office.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t bother you like this but it’s also not the kind of information you want floating through the mail system.”
I stopped, staring up at the sky, running his words through my mind. A purple dusk gripped the day’s last light, one golden band hovering on the horizon like a crack in the door separating heaven and earth. “What kind of information?”
“You need to look at it before the Bureau can.”
Another tech whisked past, hefting a computer tower. I glanced back. Through the open back door, I could see Grant’s hefty back. This was his show now. And Jack’s. Both agents giddy with sudden success. “I’m not sure I have time to drive down there right now.”
“Let me put it in these terms,” Bureley said. “If we were evaluating gem stones right now, this information would rank in equivalence to the Hope Diamond.”
My heart flickered with adrenaline.
Grant appeared at the back door, speaking to the young female agent. She nodded at him and pulled up her radio again. He glanced across the parking lot, then went back inside.
I walked toward The Ghost, my boots scuffing over the gravel.
“Tim,” I said into the phone. “I’ll see you in about an hour.”
43
When I pulled up to the octagonal house on the cliff, I left my headlights on, allowing Madame to run around and stretch her legs.
But she refused to get back in the car. And I didn’t blame her.
“Alright.” I turned off the headlights. “But there’s a cat, so you can’t go in the house.”
No lights were on inside the house but I assumed Bureley was here from his phone call, and because the truck with the PANGEA license plate still waited in the driveway. I gave the front door one knock, then remembered he’d answered the back door. Flicking on my cell phone’s flashlight, I walked us around the house’s side. The dog disappeared into the thick darkness, running far ahead.
“Madame!” My breath misted the cold night air. “Come back!”
I started jogging, fighting back an image of her running over the cliff edge. Calling her name, I ran into the back yard. Two tiki torches flickered over a fire pit, their orange flames tilted toward each other like joisting fires. Beside a fire pit, in one of two chairs, I saw the back of Tim Bureley’s balding head. The fire pit burst with bright yellow sparks as I crossed the wide lawn. It felt even larger than before.
I came up beside his chair. “Tim?”
His eyes had a glazed hypnotic trance. “I’m glad you came.” His jaundiced skin looked burnished gold in the firelight. “It’s a beautiful night.”
I glanced around for Madame. She was racing diagonally across the open space, nose to the grass. “I hope you don’t mind, my dog’s with me. It was a long drive and she needed—”
“She’s fine.” He stared into the fire again. “What was happening in Chehalis?”
I sat in the chair beside him. “How did you know I was in Chehalis?”
“You said you’d be here in an hour.” He looked over. “Something happened?”
“There’s a D.B. Cooper festival. We found some suspicious activity.”
“Like what?”
“Enough to get a search warrant.”
“Life’s like a geode. Isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Things hide in plain sight.” He reached into his chair and pulled out a black binder, handing it to me. “You do excellent work, Raleigh.”
When I lifted the top cover, I saw my geology notes on the soil and the D.B. Cooper money, including the St. Helen’s ash. But I hadn’t put these notes together. Jack must have. And Grant sent them here, probably to check up on my work. I set the binder on the ground, a moist dew already clinging to the scrub grass. Bureley looked worse, haggard. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than I have in years.” He smiled, the jaundiced skin folding back. “So you think somebody wanted the money to be found?”
I hesitated. I’d only mentioned that idea this morning, in the meeting with McLeod, Grant, and Jack. Did Jack call him? Or Grant. Again, running my theory past his geologist. “Just an idea. Based on burial depth.”
“But you’re correct.”
A gust of wind swept over the field, lifting his thin white hair.
I searched his face. “Tim?”
“You’ve been wondering why somebody didn’t incinerate those twenty dollar bills. That’s the best way to make them disappear. Not burying them at shallow depths.” He picked up an iron poker resting beside the fire pit and stabbed the logs. Sparks flew. “Raleigh, that kind of thinking is what makes you an excellent geologist. You question everything. You don’t settle for coincidences.”
“I don’t discount coincidences, either.” I watched him set the poker down, the tip resting inside the fire. “Sometimes coincidences are miracles dressed up like accidents.”
He smiled, more sadness. “Your words?”
“Something my dad used to say.”
The skin around his sunken eyes tightened. “Sounds like a good man.”
I nodded, watching him. He was struggling to make eye contact.
“Is that what drives you?” he asked.
A radar signal went off inside my head. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
His eyes glassy stared at the flames. “You have a hunger that goes beyond curiosity. I think you need the truth, the way most people need food or water.” He looked over. “It is a hunger, isn’t it?”
The radar made a sound like the fire alarm. “Tim, what did you need to tell me?”
“You’re not like most people, Raleigh. You’re a good person.”
“Nobody’s all good.”
“Ah.” He glanced up, staring into the darkness above us. “Your Christianity tells you that.”
But I never mentioned my faith to this man. “And ten years investigating crime.”
The wind whistled. I pulled my jacket tighter, wondering about my gun. But it was Bureley, the geologist, he wouldn’t—
He turned to me. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“The way I’ve live
d my life.” He glanced at me. “I had the chance to do the right thing. Several chances.”
The sadness on his face. It was regret, shame. The weight of holding something terrible inside for too long.
“Tim?”
He almost whispered. “Do you think God hates me?”
My heart slammed into my ribs, the alarm screaming in my head. “Why would God hate you?”
The wind passed over the winter grass, flattening the blades. He turned away.
“Tim—why would—?”
“I made a mistake.”
I waited, sensing his confession as if it hovered at the edge of the cliff. “What kind of mistake?”
He looked over. A bottomless pit of terror filled his eyes. “If God is just, he has to hate me.”
“Why—what happened?”
“You’ll find out. In fact, you’re halfway there.” He reached into his chair again, pulling out another object. In the firelight I saw the metal glint.
I started rising from my chair as he lifted the gun.
“I’m very sorry, Raleigh,” he said.
And pulled the trigger.
44
The wind whistled past me. Tim Bureley’s body lay sprawled back against the chair, arms flung out as if he’d dropped from the sky. The revolver dangled from his index finger. The tiki torches burned. I refused to look at his face.
Madame came running at the sound of gunfire, then circled Bureley’s chair, her black fur prickling on her spine. From the shape of her neck, I could tell a growl rattled in her throat. But I couldn’t hear it.
“It’s okay.” My voice was echoing inside my head. “All done. It’s all done.”
I walked toward the house. She followed. The whistling sound kept coming. But there was no wind. I felt dry grass snapping under my boots but couldn’t hear it. At his patio door, my reflection in the glass showed a dark black figure silhouetted by distant fire.
I opened the patio door, told the dog to stay. Stepping inside, I felt the same kind of numbness that came over me at the asylum. I took my phone out, hands shaking, and pressed the number for the last incoming call. The screen said the phone was dialing, dialing, dialing … No signal. Call disconnected. I put the phone back in my pocket and walked through the living room.
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