A Lonesome Place for Dying, page 15
Flowers? Jazz’s rose bush had fared poorly since she left, but was still alive. Maybe it was time to pull it up. Or admit that he, Ethan Brand, a former marine and current police chief, was quite fond of roses himself.
Throwing himself into the yard work allowed the case to percolate. Laura Dill’s homicide had involved planning and precision, a coordination between her killer, Bob Galvin, and the woman impersonating her. Galvin was now dead himself, possibly suffocated by his accomplices. Somehow Jody McCandless was involved. Maybe Jody’s sister, too. Add a man named Nazareno Fulci who seemed to radiate violence, and what did you have—a conspiracy? Or just a mess?
There were far simpler ways to kill someone. Explosives, for instance. An improvised land mine made of fertilizer and human waste and glass. One minute a person was on patrol with their team, half-distracted by radio chatter and hunger and heat and the thought of his upcoming leave. The corporal suggests a spot they cleared days ago, a spot that looks untouched. The point man checks but he’s grumbling about getting stuck with the egg and cheese MREs again, asking if anyone will trade hard candies for M&Ms.
A foot on a pressure plate. A whiff of gasoline and shit and the world upends.
Corporal Ben Henriquez, whose wife had entered one of his photos in Smithsonian’s photo contest and won the runner-up prize. PFC Bradley Dobbs, who told Ethan that a year after coming out to his family, his mother had finally written to him. Lives that needed to move on ahead, worthy lives, far worthier than his own.
Scientifically, taking a life was an easy thing to accomplish. Figuring out how to live, that took daily improvisation.
The front yard needed a fence with a proper gate. Some landscaping and grass seed, too. He kneeled down to pull weeds. Noticed someone watching him from the street. Ethan freed the hand rake from the soil before looking up.
Collin Rusk hesitated, then started up the drive, coming around to lean his skateboard against the front tire of the Dodge. From where Collin stood he was hidden from the street.
“I saw the girl,” Collin said. “I mean the dead girl. I mean before.”
“You saw Laura Dill?”
Collin nodded. “There’s this old stump near the tracks where sometimes kids leave beers and stuff. I was waiting for Shooter and kind of trying to remember where it was, and I heard that ATV go by. She was on the back, riding double with some guy.”
“And this was when?” Ethan asked.
“Like earlier the same day. Seven o’clock or something, I dunno. Before Shooter got there.”
“You saw Laura Dill the morning she died? Who was she with?”
“I was crouched down and didn’t see the guy. Just her and her backpack.”
“You sure it was her?”
He shrugged. “Looked like her.”
“Why tell me this?”
Another instinctive raise of the shoulders. “I guess ’cause you got me that job.”
Ethan stood and nodded. “Thank you.”
He was about to ask the kid to come with him to the station, tell him again in detail as he wrote it down. But with a flip of the ankle, Collin Rusk dropped his skateboard and pushed off, disappearing into the evening.
Ethan went inside, thinking this was confirmation. Laura Dill wasn’t on the train.
* * *
His recurring dream was of a shipwreck. The aftermath of a shipwreck to be precise. Rolling into a black shore at night on ash gray waves. The details changed from dream to dream—a moon, a lighthouse. Sometimes he was in the water, holding on to a piece of rudder or mast. Sometimes he was in a lifeboat.
What was consistent was the feeling, the water drawing him on toward a dangerous and unknown land. A feeling of being alone and yet surrounded by others. As if all he had to do was turn his head and he’d see a ragged armada of men and women adrift on boards or clinging to the gunwales of boats. All of them being carried toward something they would never reach.
Ethan didn’t put much stock in what dreams meant. The feeling needed no interpretation. Borne on the waves, carried to new danger. The story of life.
Tonight, though, the unease of the dream quickly faded. The air grew warm and stung of salt. He was on the deck of a yacht in the Adriatic, making love to Steph Sinclair. The ship anchored somewhere off the Adriatic coast. Her hair wet from the sea, strands on his face, her arms locked tight around his shoulders. Afterwards they’d hold each other, their backs on the smooth, polished teak, rocking with the waves.
He woke up to see Steph sitting on the edge of his bed. Her white raincoat on, a dreamy smile playing on her face. Steph’s hand brushed his cheek and down to his chest, fingers cold.
“Still dreaming?” he murmured.
She giggled. “You or me?”
As she leaned to kiss him she slipped, her elbow jabbing him in the throat. Laughing as she nestled her weight on top of him. Beads of rain on the coat absorbed by his chin.
“I’m getting married soon, and I’m already married,” she said. “How do you like that?”
“What are you here for, Steph?”
“If that isn’t obvious, Mr. Police Chief Sir, then you’re not much of a detective, are you?”
Steph’s hand moved down beneath the blanket, patting him more like someone trying to remember which pocket she’d left her keys in.
Ethan took hold of her hands, stilling them. Steph tensed and relaxed, then kissed him. Despite the booze and pills she’d taken, the desperate circumstances she found herself in, Ethan responded to it, invited it, wanting her. He kissed her back fiercely.
“Mmm,” she said. Her body rested over his and he realized Steph was naked beneath the coat. “You know something, Ethan? I love you.”
“No, you don’t,” he said.
“But I do. Didn’t even know what that meant before you. Just a good little society wife. Two point whatever kids and a ten year lease on the car.”
Delicately and slowly, Ethan extricated himself, pulling away despite parts of himself very much not wanting to.
“In the morning when you’re sober, you’ll realize this was a mistake,” he said. “You have a husband you love and two kids.”
“I love you. Can’t you hear me? I know what I feel. And I know you love me too.”
“Yeah,” he said.
In her left pocket he found the house key he’d given her, along with a vial of prescription antidepressants. Mixed with wine, that would explain how this happened. He didn’t want to care whether her feelings were genuine or brought on by chemistry. He’d be happy not to know. Happier still to join her, chase a couple of these with some rye. There was a bottle of Crown Royal in the cupboard. Forget about the dead man he’d seen this afternoon, all the others it brought back. They could warm each other in his bed. It was tempting.
Instead, he took off her shoes and wrapped her in his blanket. Holding her. Steph didn’t resist. Soon she was snoring softly.
It was three twenty. He looked through the kitchen window and saw her Jaguar parked diagonally to his truck. His house was set back far enough not to invite looks from the neighbors.
He dressed and thought about how best to handle this. He couldn’t do it alone. Ethan phoned Wynn Sinclair, told him what the score was, hung up, and made coffee.
28
Some people seemed to go to bed well-groomed. Steph’s husband arrived less than twenty minutes after his call, bestubbled but otherwise looking as smart as he always did. Wynn and Ethan nodded at each other and worked silently. Steph stirred as they helped her to the passenger’s seat of Wynn’s Lexus.
“What’s wrong?” Jess’s voice was similar to her mother’s.
Neither of them answered.
Ethan followed in the Jaguar, up to the Sinclair home, an acreage about the same size as Ethan’s but overlooking the bay, and most of it filled with house. Lights snapped on along the avenue with the precision of motion sensors. No one was awake. Ethan carried her as Wynn got the door.
He’d never been inside the house before. Carrying Steph across the high vaulted foyer, he followed Wynn to a downstairs guest room, set her on the bed. Steph promptly went back to sleep.
As he walked back through the foyer, admiring the seascapes and abstracts on the walls, Ethan saw Jess Sinclair at the top of the grand staircase. The teen was in her sleepwear, arms across her chest. Worried.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Wynn shushed her and whispered, “Your mother had a little accident. No harm done. She’s in bed now sleeping it off. Everything’s fine.”
“Can I see her?”
“Go to sleep, Jess.”
“I want to see her.”
“Wouldn’t hurt to have someone keep watch,” Ethan suggested.
Wynn seemed irked by the suggestion, but nodded. Jess padded down the stairs, visibly grateful to be included.
“Jess is so much more aware of the tension in the house than her brother,” Wynn said. “I worry about her. About them both. Let me drive you back.”
“I don’t mind the walk,” Ethan said.
“I insist.”
The two drove back in a silence as awkward as Ethan had experienced. What could either say? In Wynn’s place his emotions would be in turmoil. But Wynn Sinclair kept his eyes on the road.
When Kickerville Drive came in sight, Ethan said, “Just so you and I are clear, nothing happened tonight before you got here.”
Wynn nodded, pulling in next to the Dodge. “I appreciate you saying that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Calling me was the best thing to do. Steph has done this before. I worry she—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. No tears came, but he closed his eyes and shuddered. The car idled, and Wynn’s hands left the wheel. They bent into fists which he drove into his temple.
“I just wish I knew what to do,” Wynn said.
Ethan’s hand left the handle of the door. “Do you want a drink, maybe just to sit for a minute?”
“Thank you.”
Inside his house, Wynn sat on the couch next to him. Ethan poured coffee, lacing Wynn’s with rye. For someone always so composed, up close Wynn Sinclair wore a haunted, unraveled expression. He stared at the floorboards, hunched forward. Words came, directed less at Ethan then the universe itself.
“I don’t come from people who are particularly good at conveying their emotions. We Sinclairs tend to bottle things up. Especially the men. The number of times my father said he loved me, was proud of me … but I knew he felt that. The way Steph must know how much I love her. Mustn’t she?”
Ethan couldn’t say.
“Show me a couple married for as long as we have, who don’t have problems, miscommunications—infidelities. Not judging her. Or excusing myself. But I love her, Ethan. Her hair and her smell and the way she is with the kids, her sense of humor, the bony ridge of her wrist. She’s my ideal. My rock. Always has been. I know Steph’s family didn’t run in the same social circles as mine, and my mother wasn’t thrilled by our marriage. But I was, I am, and I never looked down on Steph. She raised me up. Made me, or remade me. Without her I would be … inconsequential.”
“Good word,” Ethan said, just to say something.
Wynn Sinclair drank his coffee and gestured to the pot. Ethan refilled it, adding a shorter pull of rye this time.
“After Sunday, things will be different,” Wynn said. “There’s an awful amount of pressure on Steph because of this. You’re coming to the ceremony, aren’t you?”
Of all the ways to spend a day, watching the woman he loved renew her marriage vows to her husband wasn’t top of his list. “If you’re sure you both want me there,” he said.
“We do. We insist. A renewal is exactly what it means, and what it will be. The past left behind, a new start.”
Wynn drank quickly, unfazed by the booze or the heat of the coffee. He set down his mug and stood up. “Thank you for everything, Ethan. We’re fortunate to have you as our friend.”
Ethan shook his head, thinking friend wasn’t the word he’d use.
At the door, Wynn said, “You won’t repeat any of this, of course, or speak about what happened.”
“Goes without saying.”
Wynn smiled. “Good. If you did, I’d have to kill you.”
“Is that a threat?”
Ethan watched Steph Sinclair’s husband struggle into his coat, smooth the fine black hairs along his temple.
“Hardly,” Wynn said eventually. “I’m a coward in most ways. Good night, Chief.”
The sun was coming up. Ethan watched him drive away.
29
No sense in trying to go back to sleep. He was at the station early, with the goal for the day to confront Sissy McCandless about the tickets she’d booked for Bob Galvin. He wanted to be at the travel agency when it opened at nine, perhaps a bit earlier. But the morning had other plans.
On Ethan’s desk was a note from Mayor Eldon Mooney, requesting an update on the Laura Dill homicide. Ethan was to be in the council chamber promptly at ten, ready to defend the work he’d done and the decisions he’d made. Ethan wasn’t surprised, though the timing was less than ideal.
Moira Sutcliffe had forwarded a preliminary report. Robert Jon Galvin, 43. A former assistant manager at a big box electronics store, Galvin had been unemployed for the past year and a half. Friends described him as easygoing, a big kid who never grew up, a little gullible, kind when he was sober.
A former coworker explained that Galvin had lost his job after showing up at work drunk and refusing to go home. A screaming match with the store manager in the cell phone aisle didn’t help his employment prospects. Galvin had no children or spouse, no steady girlfriend. His closest relative was his mother, who lived in Tucson. He carried debts of about eleven thousand dollars. The house he lived in was his mother’s; every month, Galvin sent her a nominal rent.
The autopsy would be performed later this afternoon in Bellingham. Sandra Jacinto was handling it. Another decision to make: go himself or send Brenda Lee? He hadn’t seen Sandra since the night of their date. Moira would likely be there, and Sandra might not want to broadcast that her work and personal life bled into each other. But then, if he didn’t go, the doctor might think he was avoiding her.
What was the protocol for a no-strings relationship? Nothing could ever be simple.
Looking over the stolen vehicle sheet from last night, the name McCandless jumped out at him. Last evening, Jody McCandless had reported the theft of a Kawasaki all-terrain vehicle, black with custom flame decals on the side, to the Whatcom County sheriff’s office. The ATV had been stolen from the McCandless property. Jody hadn’t seen who took it, but he heard the motor start up. Regrettably, he’d left the key in the ignition.
Any evidence related to the ATV could be argued away as having been left or contaminated by the thief. Jody was proving to be smarter than his older brother, more forward-looking. Unless they found the murder weapon or something equally incriminating, there would be little physical evidence to connect Jody to the crime.
Which meant the case depended on witnesses. The Laura Dill impersonator was one, Sissy McCandless the other. Between them, he’d need to learn something that could connect the homicides to Jody.
Of course, that was assuming Jody was the culprit. Was it possible he was the intended target instead? Laura Dill was his girlfriend and worked for him. Maybe a rival had eliminated her to weaken Jody’s organization, to steal his money, or to pay him back for some grievance.
And maybe Jody had nothing to do with any of it.
Ethan had time to stop by Sissy’s place of business before his appointment at City Hall. On his way to the truck, Jon Gutierrez asked if he had a minute.
“A very quick minute,” Ethan said. “What’s up?”
“My husband Warren—you met him at the Christmas party—he got us a kitten last year. Sparky.” The civilian administrator held up the framed photo on his desk showing himself and a handsome man around the same age, on either side of a mackerel tabby. “Warren and I are responsible cat dads, so naturally we made an appointment to have Sparky spayed, which they can’t do until she’s six months old. Before her operation, there was an incident at home involving the garage door opener—Warren says it was malfunctioning, but personally I think he was just negligent.”
Realizing his answer had been everything but quick, Jon made a speeding-up gesture with his hands.
“Long story short, our Sparky now has six healthy kittens of her own. Warren has an uncle who worked at an animal shelter, and knowing how they operate, Warren refuses to—”
“You want to put up a poster in the break room?” Ethan guessed.
Jon nodded vigorously. “If that’s all right.”
“Of course. I’ve got to go.”
“Uh, Chief?”
Hand on the front door handle, Ethan grimaced and searched for patience.
“Nothing,” Jon said. “Only, I know you live alone out at the house now.”
Ethan understood. “I’ll think about it.”
“There’s one with snow paws and a cute little wishbone on her forehead. We could hold her in reserve for you?”
Chuckling to himself as he drove toward the beach, Ethan considered the offer. The companionship would be appreciated. But he already had a pet—well, a familiar animal around the property. He hadn’t seen the coyote last night. Was it strange to worry about a wild creature? Maybe a person couldn’t help who they worried for.
* * *
The sign on the door of Breakwater Travel said CLOSED, but Sissy McCandless was inside the office. Ethan tapped on the glass. Sissy let him in, her expression calm. Classical music was playing.
“I like to start the day with a little Glenn Gould,” Sissy said. “My roommate in college turned me on to him. Reminds me there are more important things than packaging airfare and hotels—what’s this?”
Ethan had placed a photo of Bob Galvin’s tickets and receipt on the counter. Sissy adjusted her glasses and peered down.
