The Waves Break Gray (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries Book 6) Page 15

  No, they didn’t tell me that part. But at this point, it was Mason Leming’s word against the world. Not to mention all the evidence, motive, and opportunity—including elephant hair tying him to the crime scene.

  “Mason, why would—”

  Buster lifted his trunk and screamed. When he stopped, I heard the distant thunder sound, and turned. Preston Baer rolled across the wooden planks into the barn.

  “How are we doing?” he asked.

  “I gotta get back to work,” Mason said.

  He didn’t ask for permission. He simply walked away.

  “Did you get what you needed?” Preston Baer asked me.

  “I think so,” I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  On my way out of town, I stopped by the Waterhaus and found Johann. He was working in the courtyard beside the pool where stainless steel parts scattered across the browned lawn. A rubber hose snaked among the parts. The pool was still green.

  “Johann?” I asked.

  He looked up. His white beard was ragged. “You have news?”

  “I just learned Annicka worked at the petting zoo.”

  “Oh, for many years.” He took a blue rag from his pocket and wiped grease from his long hands. “Loved animals, especially sick ones.”

  “Yes, you mentioned her love of animals. But it would’ve helped if I’d known about her working at the zoo.” I tried not to sound annoyed. The man was as undone as the pool’s water filter. “I was surprised. Not in a good way.”

  “But.” He picked up a wrench. “She didn’t work there. Not anymore.”

  “It seems she might’ve been sneaking in. To see the elephant?”

  “Her heart.” He seemed to want to sigh, only it would require too much effort. “My daughter’s heart, it was too big.”

  “What can you tell me about Preston Baer?”

  “What do you need to know?”

  “He takes in sick animals?”

  Baer used to breed animals, Johann said, for circuses and zoos. He was wealthy and came from a hard-working German family who built their regional apple brand. The special Crispins, I guessed. Although Johann described a man revered by the community, something in his tone sounded tempered.

  “As a person, outside of business, what’s he like?”

  “Wasn’t nice. But the accident, it changed him.”

  “What accident?”

  A car accident, he said. Baer was driving his Jaguar over the pass to Seattle when he was struck by a semi truck. “Different man after that.”

  “In what way?”

  Johann reached up, touching neck. “Snapped. Spine. And changed his heart.”

  After the paralysis, Baer stopped breeding the exotic animals and started taking in circus animals which otherwise would’ve been euthanized. “That’s when he hired Annicka.” He gazed at the green pool. “We needed her here. But Annicka begged to work there.”

  I thought of what Mason said, about Johann fighting for Annicka. I’m sure Helen Engels wanted her daughter working here instead. “Do you think Annicka would still work there, even if Baer didn’t know about it?”

  “For a sick animal? Yes.”

  “How about so she could see Mason Leming?”

  His fingers tightened around the wrench. “I did not like it.”

  “The relationship?”

  “They ran together.”

  “You mean literally ran?”

  He nodded.

  I lifted my hand. Clouds had been blowing across the sky, blocking the sun, but they parted suddenly and the light stabbed the pool, gold turning green to blue. “I heard Fritz assaulted a maid.”

  In the white beard, his mouth parted.

  “Mr. Engels—”

  “Johann.”

  “Johann, I need to know everything. I can’t stress that enough. Otherwise I can’t work for you. Do you understand?”

  He wiped the wrench with the blue rag. Something quivered down my spine. He wiped the tool like someone wiping down a murder weapon.

  “I need you to tell me the truth about Fritz.”

  “My son is adopted.”

  I waited. I was adopted—by David Harmon. “Adoption is no excuse.”

  He nodded toward the lobby windows. “We could not have children. My wife, her mother was adopted—”

  I held up my hand, stopping him. More details that were essential. Especially if DNA was part of the evidence. I tried not to sound frustrated. “You’re saying Annicka was adopted?”

  “Fritz.” He tapped the wrench against his leg. “Only Fritz.”

  That explained the wide age gap between their two children. Johann said more than a decade passed before “a miracle” happened. I almost winced, imagining how an adopted ten-year-old feels hearing his parents describe his new baby sister as a “miracle.” Annicka was the late child, that gift older parents never expected. And then she grew up to be, in the words of Officer Wilcome, “perfect.” Was that enough motivation for Fritz to kill her? I was thinking that over as Johann went on a tangent about adoption, why it’s so important, why Catholics believe in it, how Mrs. Engel’s own mother was adopted as an orphan after WWII.

  “Four orphans,” he said. “They came from Germany. After the war. Our church did that.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “Our Lady of Snows.”

  His long face filled with even more sadness. “You don’t trust me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You researched my church. Because you don’t trust me.”

  “No, sir.” I explained how Father Anthony told me about the adoptions from Nazi Germany. “I’m working on that star burned into the grass. Jack hired me to—”

  “My God, what has happened to our town?” His voice sounded metallic. “Hate. It is hate doing this. Why do people hate us? We are simple people. Hard working. Why is all this happening?”

  I couldn’t answer that. Yet. But my job was to get the truth. I took a deep breath and once more went for the jugular. “Who paid off the maid, you or your wife?”

  He drew a quick breath.

  “When I said I needed the truth, I meant all of the truth.”

  “Fritz works hard.”

  “Again, that’s not an excuse—”

  “It never happened again.”

  I hated provoking this man, this grieving father. It felt cruel. But my job wasn’t to be his friend. Or to trust him. Or to make this go on any longer than it needed to. “I appreciate your talking about it,” I said.

  He nodded, somberly.

  “This morning I left Seattle in a hurry,” I said. “Unfortunately I forgot some of my equipment.”

  “You need something?” he asked. “Anything. What.”

  “A shovel,” I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I didn’t borrow a shovel from Johann.

  I borrowed two.

  Both were rusted and chipped, and perfect for all the wrong reasons. I carried them to The Ghost and snapped on latex gloves. Using the Ghibli’s long door to block any sight of me, I contemplated taking fingerprints from the handles. But I knew any decent defense attorney would just come back with, “Fritz works at the hotel, of course he touched that shovel.”

  I inspected the metal faces and found enough grains within the rusted divots to put in a baggie. No hair, not that I could see at the moment. But if any of these grains matched the soil from Annicka’s grave, I had a forensics’ slam dunk.

  But there was more to test.

  With the shovels riding shotgun, I drove to the Icicle Creek trailhead. Only one other car was in the parking lot, a red Mini Cooper with a white racing stripe. I parked The Ghost directly across from it, hoisted my pack, and carried the shovels down the trail. The first half mile wasn’t bad, but after that, I began sweating hard. Maybe it was from the weight of memories. That early morning run with Jack. That perfect moment, when he grabbed me and … now here I was. By myself. Toting shovels for a murder investigation. How quickly things change
.

  When I reached the cave, two people were sitting by the river. They snuggled side by side on the riverbank, watching the water rush past. The Mini Coopers, I presumed. Two people in love, all the time in the world.

  I hefted the shovels over my shoulders and climbed up the boulders. Sweat rolled down my back, making the pack feel even heavier. If Annicka Engels ran this route every Sunday, she was beyond fit. She was a human goat. And that only confirmed my hunch that no stranger killed her. Her murder was calculated, by someone who knew her. And knew her dog, too.

  I reached the meadow where wind combed through the brittle grass. Her grave lay open, the yellow police tape already sagging and faded. I set the shovels down and took off my pack. The wind sounded like someone asking for quiet. Sh-sh-shhh. As if the open grave was a cradle. I opened my pack. A shadow passed overhead. When I looked up, I saw clouds. Dark, foreboding clouds. Rain was coming. And it would wash away all the evidence.

  I laid the shovels perpendicular to the grave’s long wall, then lay down across from them on my stomach, staring at the metal edges above the open ground. The soil smelled dry yet rich, that mineral-heavy soil of desert mountains. I closed one eye.

  The first shovel’s edge was rusted, ragged as a torn fingernail. The second shovel looked newer, in better shape, but it had two indentations at the tapered tip.

  I took out my Nikon and shot close-ups both of shovels and their position above the grave’s wall. I zoomed in on the horizontal layers of soil, making sure to capture that vertical line that ran through the bands of soil as if drawn by pencil. I stood, brushed the soil from my shirt and jeans, and prayed.

  Please.

  Picking up the first shovel, I held the rusted spade above the ground just like the person—or persons—who dug this grave. I closed one eye and gazed down the handle to the metal face. But I already suspected this wasn’t the right shovel. Its heavily rusted face would’ve left bits of iron in the soil, and made even more ragged vertical marks. I set it down and picked up the second shovel.

  Please?

  When I lowered it to the edge of the grave, the dents seemed to match that vertical line. But there was a problem. The shovel face had two dents. It would’ve left parallel vertical lines. Still, I raised it, lowered it, raised it, as if digging the grave. One word pounded through my head.

  Please, please, please.

  I kept the digging motion going, but only out of frustration. For one split second, I could see how tempting it was, how easy it was for good cops to go bad. I wanted this shovel to be the right tool, because I suspected Fritz was guilty. My gut sensed it. He wasn’t reacting to his sister’s murder in a normal way. No signs of grief. Or even sadness. But guilt for a crime and heartless behavior were two different things.

  And I wasn’t God.

  I packed up my equipment, hoisted the pack, and carried the shovels down the mountain. I also checked my watch. I still had four-and-a-half hours to reach Eleanor’s and pick up Madame for the visit to Crazyland. I was cutting it close. Maybe now I’d find out if Eleanor was serious about paying my speeding tickets.

  As I came to the trail’s steepest part above the boulders, I used the now-innocent shovels as walking sticks. I glanced once at the river bank. The Mini Coopers were gone. Probably because the wind was kicking up. The sun was disappearing. Bad weather coming, soon. I picked up my pace down the trail but stopped to adjust my pack.

  He stood in the middle of the river.

  Mason.

  The river splashed on his bare stomach, his jeans soaked all the way to his skinny waist.

  I stepped off the trail. Pine needles crunched under my shoes.

  He stretched out his arms and lifted his narrow face to the sky. His eyes were closed. But his lips were moving.

  Was he talking? Crying.

  Confessing?

  I moved down the river bank, using the shovels like staffs because the soil was so dry my shoes were surfing on it. Right before I hit the water, I threw a shovel forward to brace my fall. The iron spade hit granite—TA-thoing!—and he turned.

  His face seemed whiter than the breaking waves. Panic. Terror. He splashed toward the opposite bank.

  “Mason! Stop!”

  He stumbled, got up. Looked back. He sloshed forward, kicking at the powerful current.

  I tried to gauge the river’s speed. Could I make it? And what if I fell, got swept away. Mason wasn’t going to come looking for me—or tell anyone what happened.

  I looked across the water. He was out, taking the dry slope on all fours. His jeans stuck to him like second skin.

  I spun around and zig-zagged my way up the bank, stabbing the shovels like pick axes. At the top, I looked back. Mason, still on all fours, was climbing toward an empty white truck waiting beside the road.

  I threw the shovels over my shoulders and took off in a full sprint. When I reached the parking lot, I tossed the shovels into The Ghost and blew gravel peeling out of the parking lot. I turned left.

  Just in time to see Mason going the other way.

  Spinning on an Italian dime, I pulled a U-turn and punched the gas pedal. His truck was screeching around a curve. Within twenty seconds, The Ghost was close enough to see his eyes flicking at the rearview mirror.

  Terror. That’s what I saw in his face. Sheer terror.

  He hit the brakes.

  “Crap!”

  I hit my brakes.

  The Ghost fishtailed, rubber skidding down the pavement. I slammed the clutch but it was too late. The engine coughed, died. I shoved the gear shift into First and turned the key.

  Mason’s truck disappeared around the next turn.

  I caught him again on the edge of town. Traffic clogged both lanes. I downshifted into First again, and double-footed the gas and brake. Adrenaline hammered my veins.

  Mason suddenly took a left. The oncoming vehicle blasted its horn.

  The white truck burned rubber up Ski Hill Drive.

  “You rat!” I glared at the oncoming traffic. “Come on, come on, come on—”

  At the first opening, I swung into traffic and up the hill. The white truck was gone.

  I turned down every side street, still riding the brake and gas. All I could see were chalet-style houses and pastures of sheep, goats, and cattle. Fifteen minutes later, I turned back onto Ski Hill Drive and climbed the cresting. Up ahead I could see the six-pointed star burned into the grass. And in the parking lot, the white truck.

  “Nice try, jerko.”

  I parked directly behind the truck. The cab was empty.

  I ran for the church’s front door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Inside Our Lady of Snows, a woman was vacuuming the crimson-colored carpet. With one hand, she shoved the roaring machine back and forth. With her other hand, she dusted white powder over the carpet. The air smelled like manufactured lilacs.

  “Hello?”

  She wore ear buds.

  I moved closer, glancing left and right for signs of the rat. Whatever music she was listening to, it kept her dancing like a crane, elbows out, forward and back with the machine, up and down with the powder.

  I stood beside the front pew and waved my arms.

  “Take a seat,” she said loudly. “Somebody’s already in there.”

  “Who?”

  She yanked out an ear bud. “What?”

  “Who’s already—”

  “I can’t tell you! That’s private.”

  I brought out my FBI smile and screwed it onto my face. “I’m looking for someone who just came in here.”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “Who?”

  “Mason Leming.”

  “Why?”

  All she needed to ask was where and we’d have all five Ws of good investigating. Except this wasn’t good investigating—it was an excruciating exercise in yelling over the vacuum, which she refused to turn off, and breathing air choked with a scent that only a laboratory could describ
e as floral.

  “Is Mason Leming here?”

  “What’d he do?” she asked.

  The Bureau smile came out again. “That’s private.”

  Everybody knew everybody in this town. And she knew Mason, guaranteed.

  Replacing the earbud, she made her way to the other side, crane-dancing across the crimson carpet. When she reached the wooden door in the wall, she popped out the ear bud and leaned into it. She listened for a good fifteen seconds before flicking her thumb on the vacuum’s switch, killing the engine. Then she continued to listen on the door.

  So much for privacy.

  “Father Anthony?” she said, finally rapping a knuckle on the door. She kept her ear to the wood. “Somebody else is here.”

  The door opened. The priest kept his body in the opening, blocking the view into the room. He peered across the sanctuary, found me, paused thoughtfully, and stepped out holding the door tight to his back until it was completely closed.

  The cleaning crane yanked out the other ear bud. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Nothing, Kayleen. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Hey, you’re the padre.”

  She put one ear bud back in, and flicked the vacuum back on. The priest made a wide circle around the area, walking only where she hadn’t vacuumed.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” His tone made it clear. He already knew I wasn’t here to talk about the burned grass.

  “I’m looking for Mason Leming.”

  He was so still, he didn’t even seem to be breathing. If it wasn’t for that white collar, Father Anthony could’ve won the world championship in poker.

  “Father, I know he’s here. His truck’s parked out front.”

  He raised an eyebrow, and guilt grabbed me by the throat.

  “Okay, I should’ve said that first. But I really need to talk to him.”

  Another eyebrow.

  “It’s for his own good. Really.”

  “My obligation isn’t to law enforcement.”

  “It is if he knows something about Annicka Engels’ murder.”