You Can't Escape (21 page)

The chief sprang to his feet as if zapped by a cattle prod, his face florid. “Who’ve you been talking to? It’s that kind of rumor that starts real trouble. I don’t appreciate you making up stories about upstanding citizens.”

“So, Bernadette’s father is an upstanding citizen.” Jordanna stood, too.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said tautly.

“Not a chance of abuse.”

“If you want to find out who the dead man is, be my guest. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But don’t think you can come back here and smear reputations. That’s not how it works in Rock Springs.”

“Especially for members of Green Pastures Church.”

She hadn’t believed his face could get any redder, but it turned a mottled magenta that made her worry about possible popping blood vessels. “Now you listen. You leave the Freads alone. Bernadette’s taken off before and she’ll come back begging for mercy, just like always. She’s a good kid, but a bit of a trial to her family. That’s all you need to know. Go talk to the ME in Malone, if you want to know about the homeless vic. That’s all I’ve got to say for now.”

Jordanna’s pulse was pounding, but she met his gaze squarely. “I’d still like to speak to Officer Drummond.”

The chief slowly got himself under control, and that whisper of a smile was back. “I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

She left, wondering why he seemed so amused by that idea.

The house on Aurora Lane was on the outskirts of Laurelton, barely inside the city limits. Beyond its backyard was a green space with a copse of firs, pines, and oak trees that September knew eventually opened to a small lake that had once had summer cabins ringed around it like a necklace. Over the years, the whole property had devolved into an abandoned outpost, the lake itself having pulled back from its banks into little more than a large, algae-choked pond. She knew this because the Raffertys had once owned property there, which her father had sold when things started going south. Recently, however, September had read that there had been renewed interest in the area, with developers tearing down the rotted cabins and building new ones as the lake waters had returned, fed by underground springs.

But Aurora Lane was not seeing the same rejuvenation. It was a long street with few houses, each residence on a five-plus-acre lot so that your nearest neighbor wasn’t within shouting distance. They were in a kind of zoning no-man’s-land, not quite farmland, yet not like anything inside the rest of the Laurelton city limits, either. September was well acquainted with the street because she’d had a high school friend who’d lived for a while in her grandparents’ house, the first one on the left as you turned onto the broken asphalt road.

The house they pulled up to was near the far end of the lane, just before the road itself petered out. There should have been a cul-de-sac put in for easy turnabout, but the road just came to a stop. Gravel had been strewn over the dirt and grass for the unwary who made a wrong turn and found themselves facing the greenway and copse of trees. September supposed you could make a U-y, but there was a strong chance a tire or two would slip into mud, so the prospect was iffy.

“Who called you to this house?” September asked, looking at the older two-story home. Its shingles were painted dark green, its white trim blistered and rotting. She could see a window below the siding, which indicated there was a basement, where the “skeletons in the closet” had apparently been found. The place looked like a true handyman’s delight, the kind that needed a serious overhaul from years of neglect. The only thing new about it was the crime tech’s white van parked in front.

“A woman named Carol Jenkins hadn’t heard from her sister in a long while so she flew from Florida to see what was wrong, but when she got to the house, she was stalemated by her great-niece and the niece’s husband. They wouldn’t let her in the door. She set up a clamor, and eventually got a court order to be allowed in, and the niece and husband appear to be minor drug users and dealers. No sign of the sister, until, what do you know . . . a pile of bones in the basement.” Gretchen’s eyes were bright and glittering at the prospect of what lay ahead. She loved being involved in sick crimes of all sorts, though September was far less eager to delve into the strange, warped, and amoral world that seemed to so fascinate her partner. Literal “skeletons in the closet” definitely appealed to Gretchen.

As September slammed the passenger door shut, her eye on the dilapidated concrete steps that led to the narrow front porch, her cell phone buzzed. Pulling it from her pocket, she looked down at the number and sucked in a breath.

“What?” Gretchen demanded, her head swiveling September’s way.

“It’s my sister, July. She’s past her due date.”

“Oh.” Babies did not interest Gretchen.

September quickly hit the talk button. “Hey, there,” she said, unable to contain the excitement in her voice.

Immediately, July said, “No, no, nothing new. Just wanted to talk to you. I’m blimping around over here, waiting and waiting. Tomorrow I’m going in to see what’s what. God knows I’m sick of being pregnant.”

July was September’s older sister, who’d decided not to let the whim of love or fate decide when she would have a child. Instead, July had gone to the sperm bank and picked out a father. She’d learned a few months earlier that she was having a baby girl in May, and, in keeping with one of the strangest Rafferty traditions—naming a child after the month in which it was born—she’d decided to name her baby girl May.

But now they were getting very close to the end of the month, so September queried, “How do you feel about June?”

“Kinda wanted May, you know.”

Their oldest sister, May, had been killed as a teenager and, upon learning the baby was due in May, July had wanted to honor her sister by giving her baby her name. “I know,” September agreed. Gretchen was staring at her, making the hand motion that meant for her to wrap it up.

“Oh, who knows . . . maybe I’ll name her Gilda,” she added impishly.

They both laughed as Gilda was the name their stepmother, who was younger than both of them, had wanted for her own daughter, born the previous January. But of course Rosamund had bent to their father’s wishes and the baby had been named for the month she was born as well.

“I gotta go,” September said. “But if anything happens—”

“I’m calling you first,” July promised.

September had to hurry to catch up to Gretchen, who was eating up the walkway to the porch with ground-devouring strides. As she reached her, her phone rang yet again. Gretchen blew out a raspberry in frustration, but September looked at the screen and said, “Auggie.” She clicked on. “Yeah?”

“Jordanna Winters,” he said.

“What?”

“Danziger’s girlfriend. Jordanna Winters. She’s a freelance reporter. Maybe she’s worked with him. I had a still picture of her from the hospital camera and showed it to some of Danziger’s colleagues. One of them recognized her. The guy had crossed paths with her in the course of work. Apparently she’s written articles for smaller papers.”

“Jordanna Winters,” September repeated thoughtfully.

“Just wanted to let you know. Oh, and I met with the feds who don’t want to share. We both know ’em.”

“Donley and Bethwick,” September said, recalling the two FBI agents she’d worked with the previous fall.

Hearing the names of the two agents, Gretchen groaned and said, “Frick and Frack.” She’d had run-ins with them before, and September had danced around them as well.

“You got it,” Auggie said. “They’re focused on the Saldanos, so I’m keeping the Winters information to myself for the moment. I’m going to go by her apartment, see if there’s any chance she and Danziger are there.”

“What about Carmen?” she asked.

“I’m not telling her jack shit, and don’t you, either.”

“This is your case, not mine.”

“For the moment, anyway.”

“Stay on it,” September advised her brother, and he grunted an assent before she clicked off.

“Are we ready now?” her partner asked her sardonically.

September nodded and followed her inside the house and down the stairs to the basement, where the crime tech crew was just finishing up. “What can you tell us?” Gretchen asked a young man with a pencil-thin mustache and a glittering ruby stud in one ear.

“Looks like the bones from two separate human adults, maybe more,” he said.

“More?” Gretchen repeated, but the tech had moved past her on his way out.

Gretchen’s curly, black hair seemed to shiver as she growled to September, “Come on. Let’s interview the stoners I took to county. They weren’t giving up anything about the skeletons before, but maybe they’ve had a change of heart by now.”

“How old are the stoners?”

“Early twenties maybe.”

September followed after her into a warming afternoon, where a watery sun gilded the needles of several large Douglas firs. Though she should have been more intrigued by the case, her thoughts had turned to Jordanna Winters, who may or may not be Jay Danziger’s girlfriend and who may or may not know a hell of a lot more about the Saldano bombing.

She, like Auggie, wished she could stay on that case.

Dance worked his way into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water from the tap. He had the vial of painkillers in his pocket and he shook out two tablets, stared at them a moment, then put them back in the bottle and just drank the water. Yeah, his leg hurt. It hurt like hell, and there was a low-grade headache hanging around that was making him testy. Still, it was better than feeling dull and stupid. Jordanna had told him to stay ahead of the pain, and though she was probably right, he wasn’t going to listen.

He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he hadn’t eaten since she’d left, so he opened the box of Triscuits and ate about ten before he couldn’t stomach anything further. He hated being an invalid.

He gazed down the scrubbed counters toward the microwave. The refrigerator sat against the adjacent wall, but though Jordanna had plugged it in, its days of usefulness were apparently over. It had irked Jordanna, and she’d growled under her breath about her father, but Dance didn’t much care one way or another. The way he saw it, they were camping. They’d both run away from life as they knew it, but soon enough they would be returning, or at least he would. Whether she copped to it, or not, whether she even realized it yet, Jordanna had reconnected with her roots through the unidentified vic who’d been found near her father’s property.

He was still standing in the kitchen, leaning on his crutches, when he heard her car approaching. Thumping his way back to the living room, he sank onto the couch, tucking the crutches to one side. He hated the crutches, too. In fact, he pretty much totally hated the situation he was in, except maybe for Jordanna. Sure, she was after a story, and she’d certainly taken advantage of his infirmity to that end, but she was helping him and she was entertaining to boot.

And maybe she could help him in the Saldano investigation. Though he’d told her she was all wet in her theories about them, the audiotape said differently. The same audiotape that had undoubtedly been blown to smithereens. Still, he had a copy....

Footsteps rang on the floorboards of the woodshed. Dance straightened in shock. They were too heavy for Jordanna’s. This was a stranger. Quickly, he struggled to his feet, grabbing up the crutches, calculating just how he could use them as a weapon when the kitchen door opened and the footsteps clomped inside. Boots, he realized dimly, lifting one crutch with his right arm and hand to use like a bat, if necessary. His weight was balanced on his right leg as well. Awkward, damn near impossible, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

The man who appeared in the aperture between the kitchen and living room was about six feet tall, somewhere in his fifties, and a complete stranger. He wore cowboy boots and jeans and a leather jacket. He stared at Dance and Dance stared back.

“Where’s Jordanna?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Dance responded.

“Dayton Winters. The owner of this property. If you’re not with my daughter, you’re trespassing, and if you are with her, I’d like to know what you’re doing here and where she is.”

Jordanna picked up the bag of burgers from the grill counter inside Baxter’s Pharmacy and hurried outside to the RAV. She’d wanted to drive straight home after her encounter with Chief Markum, but she’d waited around awhile, lurking inside her car, hoping Peter Drummond would return. In that, she’d failed, but she had seen Rusty Long’s cousin, Todd Douglas, entering the pharmacy so she’d hurried up the street to meet him.

“Hey,” she’d greeted him, when she realized he was going to the grill counter. It was four o’clock, but he was seating himself on one of the stools and picking up a plastic-covered menu. “Early dinner?”

“Jordanna,” he said, smiling. “Yeah, I’ve gotta head home, but I missed lunch. Heard you met Rusty at the Longhorn last night.”

“Yeah, and some ex-classmates as well.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Oh . . .” She’d waved toward the north, in the opposite direction of her father’s current house, the opposite direction from the homestead. “I just talked to Chief Markum about that branded victim. He wasn’t very forthcoming.”

“You didn’t talk to Pete?”

“He wasn’t there. The chief said I should speak to the ME.”

“County morgue’s in Malone,” Todd said.

“Yeah, I know, and that’s where you’re from.”

“You want a ride over there?”

“No, I just was looking for some information, I guess.” She hesitated, and that’s when Loretta, behind the counter, had asked if she wanted anything to eat, so she’d placed an order for two burgers.

“You’re either extra hungry, or you’re feeding somebody else,” Todd had observed.

“I may be heading back to Portland tonight,” she’d lied. “You know, I also ran into Martin Lourde today.”

“Don’t think I know him.”

“He has a dairy farm right next to the Freads’ property. Bernadette Fread is the missing girl.”

“Oh, yeah.”