Beyond Confusion, page 8
“What about it?”
“Do you think Ms. Jackman was behind it?”
“I do not know. You’ll have to ask Rob.”
“Did Chief Thomas believe she was behind it?”
“For that you’ll have to ask Chief Thomas.”
He dropped the subject. Once more he took her through her movements during the window of time in which the murder had been committed, and he asked her to clarify her own relationship with Marybeth—from the beginning. Meg repeated herself without self-contradiction, or hoped she did.
At that, he rose, thanked her formally, and took his leave. She felt wrung out and hung up to dry. Henry Perkins hadn’t said a word.
It was well past the lunch hour, and Meg was hungry. She found a power bar in her desk, made herself a cup of tea, and munched and sipped. What now? Carla. Putting the call off another day wasn’t in the cards. Resigned but apprehensive, she poked out the number for Edwin Jackman in Camas. On the third ring, a woman’s voice answered. She didn’t sound like Carla.
Meg took a guess. “Mrs. Jackman?”
“Yes, this is Phyllis Jackman. What do you want? I don’t do surveys on the phone.”
Meg could hear a television or radio in the background, some kind of commercial. “This is Margaret McLean at the Latouche Regional Library. May I speak to Carla, please?”
“She and her father are out together. I don’t know when she’ll be in.” She sounded marginally friendlier.
“I see. I was her mother’s supervisor. Has Carla set a time for the funeral?”
“Carla doesn’t want a funeral. Marybeth will be cremated whenever the police release the body.”
No funeral? “Er, what about a memorial service?”
“I don’t know, Ms. McLean. I guess that would be up to the library. You say you were her boss?”
Meg cleared her throat. “I’m head of the library system.”
“I see. Well, you should make your own arrangements. I’m sorry, but I don’t think Carla will cooperate. She’s very hostile. Very difficult. She refuses to talk to the police, though of course she’ll have to eventually. Her father is trying to calm her down, but he’s not having much luck. He always indulged her, and the last two years she’s been out of control. Thank God she turns eighteen next week. She’ll be old enough to live on her own.” The woman heaved a sigh. “That sounds awful, I know, but she’s so hard to deal with. Always has been. I have two boys, Ms. McLean—eight and ten. She’s a bad influence on them. Ed doesn’t see that, but it’s true. And that boyfriend of hers...”
Meg made what she hoped was a sympathetic sound.
“Well, I’m sorry, but he scares me. And he’s older, maybe twenty-two or -three, with a motorcycle and these awful tattoos. Ed checked him out. He went into the army right out of high school, and they let him go after one tour in Iraq. That was suspicious, I thought.”
“Suspicious?” Meg didn’t have to feign confusion.
“They’re keeping those poor kids in for two or three tours, unless there’s something really, really wrong with them. Ed tried to find out what it was, but he couldn’t get to first base. Privacy laws.” She clucked her tongue. “He could be a rapist or a murderer, and they just let him loose on the unsuspecting public.”
“What’s the boyfriend’s name?” Meg tried to keep her voice mild, uninterested, as if she were oozing mere sympathy. She held her breath.
“Pascoe. Aidan Pascoe. She’s going to marry him, she says, and stay in her mother’s house. There’s nothing to stop her when she turns eighteen.” Another sigh. “And that’s fine with me.” Perhaps Mrs. Jackman thought she’d said too much, for she excused herself almost at once, promising to let Carla know that Meg had called.
Meg wrote the name of the boyfriend down phonetically and tried a couple of plausible spellings. There was a town in eastern Washington called Pasco.
Something to tell Rob. Something to distract Rob. Jeff’s question about blackmail made Meg very uneasy. What if she hadn’t been open about her relationship with Rob, about her unwed motherhood? Would Marybeth have threatened her with exposure?
It was hard to envisage Jackman blackmailing for money. She had thought about contesting her great-aunt’s will, so she was capable of greed, but trying to wring large sums from the library aides who were her probable victims seemed like an exercise in futility.
Meg glanced at her watch. It was almost four, and she hadn’t yet read Marybeth’s Budget Committee file. Well, she’d read her own. Pit stop. She used the loo, splashed cold water on her face, combed her hair, and took several long, calming breaths. The Budget Committee meeting was her first encounter with senior staff in a clump since Marybeth’s death.
Pat, Nina, and Tessa were waiting for her, subdued and silent. Tessa looked sick. The other survivor of the five-member committee was Wendy Resnik. Meg had time to wonder how she had been so dim as to permit Marybeth a majority of allies on a crucial committee.
Each library department created its own budget. The Budget Committee did a reality check and negotiated differences—or was supposed to—though with Marybeth, negotiation was apt to feel like a sharp blow from a hammer. Fortunately, the procedures were designed to make the group’s decisions transparent, and neither Pat nor Nina was easily squashed.
Feeling hypocritical, Meg uttered funereal platitudes and said something vague about how difficult it would be to replace Marybeth, but that she intended to ask Abby Torres, the Middleton branch librarian, to join the committee. She herself would sit in until the members could choose another chair. “You can’t do that today. Wendy won’t be back until Tuesday.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Pat, innocent as a babe.
“She’s upset,” Tessa snapped. “She was supposed to have dinner with Marybeth on Thanksgiving.”
“How awful,” Pat murmured.
“Is it true Marybeth was murdered?” Nina, avid.
Tessa’s hands flew to her throat.
Meg said, “I’m sorry, Tessa. Didn’t you know? There was an announcement on the radio this morning from the sheriff’s office. The medical examiner believes she was pushed.”
Tessa burst into tears.
Meg jumped to her feet. “Somebody get her a glass of water.” She fumbled in her handbag for a tissue.
It took a while to calm Tessa down. Meg’s e-mail to the staff had gone out too late to reach Tessa before she left home. She had driven in from Azimuth after lunch, listening to an audio book rather than the radio during the hour-long journey, and when she got to the library no one had told her anything, just that a deputy might want to talk to her before she went home. All of this came out in incoherent bursts.
Apparently Meg’s strategy of isolating Marybeth’s cronies from the rest of the librarians had worked a little too well. She felt sad and guilty. The distraught woman had lost a friend and was clearly in shock. She was making accusations left and right, of course, most of them directed at Meg, but some at the other members of the committee.
“You hated her,” Tessa sobbed. “All of you.”
“Oh, put a sock in it,” Pat snarled. “We didn’t hate her. She hated us. She’s been a bitch to work with ever since Meg got the top job, and she wasn’t a peach before Meg came. If you have an ounce of honesty in you, Tessa, you’ll admit it.”
Tessa sniffed and blew her nose hard.
Pat’s voice softened. “We didn’t want her dead. Since she is, we’ll have to take up the slack. Marybeth was a pro. She got the job done. We’re going to miss that, even if we don’t miss her snide remarks and nasty little schemes.”
“Uh, Pat,” Meg said.
Pat scowled. She was wearing a red sweater and a cheery reindeer pin. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around the truth, Meg. You should have fired her ass after your first levy failed. She undermined you every way she could. We all knew that. She bragged about it.”
“Not to me,” Meg said mildly, though she wanted to scream. “Let it go, Pat.” She wondered what other dark secrets her staff cherished. “Would you like to postpone this meeting, Tessa? We can convene again next week. I know you intend to make changes at Azimuth.”
Tessa nodded, her face in a damp Kleenex.
“All right. I have a couple of things to tell you all before you leave. First, I talked to Carla Jackman’s stepmother. Apparently Carla does not want to hold a public funeral for her mother.”
That provoked gasps and startled looks. Tessa peered at her over the tissue.
“If that’s the case, we’ll want to plan some kind of memorial for Marybeth here at the library. I welcome suggestions, but perhaps we should wait until the police investigation clarifies things.” Such a euphemism. Until Jeff makes an arrest. Meg did not feel optimistic. “In the meantime, contributions to the adult literacy program seem appropriate, if patrons should ask.”
She cleared her throat. “The other announcement concerns the budget. Chief Thomas and I are working on a proposal to the board that may free up some of the levy money. We’ll see. I’m also going to look into whether we can redistribute Marybeth’s duties among the senior staff in order to avoid Reduction in Force later.”
“Not replace her?” Nina’s mouth formed an O.
Meg nodded. “As you know, the economy is in a tailspin. That’s already affecting our revenues. I do not want to have to cut staff next year. Marybeth did a lot of hard work for the library system. That work will still have to be done. I’ll take on some of the tasks myself, and I know I can count on all of you.” She cringed at the hypocrisy. All of them had full loads. She was asking a lot and knew it.
To her surprise, everyone looked more cheerful, even Tessa, if cheerful was the word. At least she was no longer spewing accusations.
It was nearly five. The library stayed open until nine, but Meg had had enough. She drove home and started cooking, which is to say she boiled a pot of water and threw in a couple of vacuum-sealed portions of venison stew. She also made a crisp salad and thawed a loaf of artisanal bread. That would have to do for dinner.
While she waited for Rob to appear, she checked her e-mail and zapped the spam. Then she listened to her phone messages. There were six, five from reporters wanting comments on the murder of one of her staff. The sixth was from her brother Duncan.
“Meg, it’s Dunc. Give me a call, will you?” Her youngest brother’s voice sounded tired. “It’s about Mom.” He left a number.
Chapter 9
Rob dropped Meg off at Portland Departures before five A.M. for a seven o’clock flight to Los Angeles.
She needed some time alone, she said. When she had checked in, she’d eat a croissant at their favorite bakery and read a little before subjecting herself to Security. Wasn’t it lucky she’d got a seat, what with the holiday traffic? Lucy would drive down from Palo Alto and join her later that afternoon. Meg would stay at a motel while Lucy bunked with friends at UCLA, and she’d call him when she knew more. All very polite and fragile.
Meg’s mother was in the hospital, suffering from congestive heart failure, a diagnosis that covered a multitude of possibilities. Rob’s grandmother had died of congestive heart failure. But not immediately. It wasn’t necessarily that kind of problem. People lived for years with congestive heart failure.
Rob pulled into the left lane of I-84 and surged past a two-trailer rig that was billowing water from every orifice. Sleet and road-scum spattered the windshield of his pickup. The wipers cleared the windows every third pass. He sprayed wiper fluid. There was no other traffic on the road, though a long line of rigs had pulled over onto the shoulder eastbound. Maybe they knew something he didn’t. Apart from their red reflectors, it was as black out as the inside of a cow, as black as his mood.
Rob was a loner. At least, he’d always thought of himself as a loner. Aside from his brief unsuccessful marriage to Alicia and two short-term relationships, he’d lived alone his whole adult life—until Meg moved into the house next door.
Four years ago, when he found he was living with her and visiting his own house, he asked her if she minded. She said no, she loved it. She loved him. God knew, he loved her. He felt lost without her, but she wouldn’t marry him. That much was clear, and it was also clear that her objection to marriage had to do with estrangement from her family.
Maybe this crisis would lead to reconciliation. Maybe she would change her mind. He didn’t think so, but he was usually a little inclined to pessimism.
He pressed the accelerator, discovered he was doing eighty, and fell back to the legal speed limit. Why hurry? He could do nothing at five-thirty in the morning. The windshield wipers swished. The Oregon State Patrol had closed the Bridge of the Gods because of high wind, so he chugged past Cascade Locks. East of town the sleet eased a little.
His mind drifted to Madeline Thomas and the vandalism at Trout Farm, the hate crime. The damage had been superficial but nasty, and definitely directed at the Klalos. But why the torn books and why Trout Farm?
An oncoming car flashed its lights, and he dimmed.
Meg had already found thirty or so titles from Miss Trout’s book list. Fern Trout. Sophomore biology. Rob’s sophomore year at Klalo High School had been unhappy. His hormones flowed like the Columbia at flood crest, he kept falling in love with Older Women (juniors and seniors), his voice fluctuated between alto and baritone, and he was five feet four inches tall. As a teacher of biology, it was likely Miss Trout had known all that. She had been kinder than he deserved, at any rate.
He remembered little of what she taught. She was probably fifty at the time, so he thought she was older than God, but he liked her. She’d taken the class on a field trip in the spring to see the wildflowers at Catherine Creek, not a destination at the top of his adolescent list. He still drove out to Catherine Creek every spring. He’d never taken Meg. Next year...
A big rig passed, spraying him with gunk. He turned the wipers to the fast setting and squirted fluid onto the windshield again.
His mind slid back to Trout Farm. He’d gone out to have another look the previous afternoon. The crime scene cleaners had done a good job. He thought the house would make a fine library. Since few of the lab results had come in, the investigation was stalled.
As he’d driven up in front of the house, Harley Hoover had leapt onto the porch, yelling a challenge. He calmed down when Rob identified himself. Volatile. Meg hadn’t liked him. When Rob asked Harley who he thought had trashed the place, he mumbled and looked shifty, but Rob couldn’t imagine any reason why the kid would have been involved in the vandalism, so he wrote the reaction off as cop aversion. All the same, Harley knew something. He’d hunkered down in the kitchen while Rob looked things over.
Rob had a soft spot for young Nancy Hoover, Beth McCormick’s protégée, who had been a crucial witness in a murder case. The Hoovers were a vast matriarchy, and he remembered Harley as a big dozy teenager, never in serious trouble. The boy’s forthright grandmother had been horrified when he joined the army. After all, she said, he didn’t have to. Here he was, home again. Rob was inclined to cut veterans a little slack, so he didn’t push.
That evening, though, when Meg was packing for the California trip, she’d told him about the biker who had showed up during her own encounter with Harley. She even found the receipt on which she’d written the partial license number. Rob put that and her tale about Carla Jackman’s biker boyfriend together. Unlike Hoover, the name Pascoe meant nothing to Rob, but he asked Todd Welch, who was on nights that week, to check out the bike and the boyfriend and to give the boyfriend’s name to Jeff, who probably already had it.
The vandalism. Could it be Harley’s rejection of matriarchy? Strictly speaking, the Klalos were matrilinear rather than matriarchal, but the young man had just stepped out of a heavy-duty patriarchy and was bound to be confused by military ideas, above and beyond the horrors of combat. On the other hand, the Klalos had always had male war chiefs. Rob thought he’d have another talk with Harley. Or maybe with Jack Redfern, Madeline’s husband. Jack was a Vietnam veteran and must have experienced a similar confusion of values. Rob wanted to talk to Jack anyway.
As the Starvation Creek Trailhead neared, Rob’s cell phone rang. From that point east, there was service most of the time. He pulled into the parking lot at the rest area and checked caller I.D. Todd Welch. The phone stopped ringing before Rob set the brake. He called the number.
“I’ve been trying to reach you, sir. You need to know somebody firebombed Aunt Maddie’s house. The call came at four thirty-two A.M.” Todd was Madeline Thomas’s nephew.
“Jesus. Are they okay?”
“Maddie’s coughing. They took Uncle Jack to the hospital—smoke inhalation, burns on his hands from fighting the fire with his extinguisher. Neighbors and the fire department saved most of the house. The lodge wasn’t touched.” The lodge, a big attached room where Maddie met with the tribal elders, was full of priceless Klalo artifacts. Whoever tossed the bomb didn’t know much.
“Who’s on it?” Rob meant which deputies.
“Just about everybody. Linda took the lead.”
“Okay. Tell her to use whatever she needs. I’ll warn Corky.”
“He’s already in Two Falls.”
“Good. You at the courthouse?”
“Yes.”
“Tell Dispatch I’m back in range, but I’ll go over to the hospital before I come in.”
“Okay. Uh, where are you?”
“Coming up on Hood River.” Rob put the pickup in gear. “Maddie is at the hospital with Jack.” Not a question.
“Yes. She’s pretty upset.”
“Tell her I’ll come straight to her.”
Todd agreed, sounding more like his usual self. Rob signed off, wheeled the pickup to the on-ramp, and roared back onto the freeway ahead of a truck pulling a huge metal cylinder, part of a wind turbine. Wind farms were springing up all over central Oregon and Washington in response to the rise in oil prices.
He made it across the long Hood River toll bridge going forty-five, twenty miles over the limit. He avoided that bridge whenever possible, but his mind was on Madeline and Jack. Only as he approached the span over the ship channel did he flash on the day, nearly four years ago now, when he had watched a woman plunge her car off the roadbed into the river.
