The Moon Stands Still Read online

  Inside the dimly lit Bernie’s Bar, the air smelled of yeasty beer and boiled peanuts. Three television screens glowed, each screen playing a different sports show. At the narrow bar, three guys were hunched over draft beers. All three glanced over as I walked in, mildly interested, then returned to the sports show. The female bartender called out, “Sit anywhere.”

  Her description was on target—5’3”, short sandy blonde hair, 112 pounds. What wasn’t depicted was her narrow facial features. Close-set eyes and a nose and mouth that could’ve been applied by a single strip of tape. I chose the table closest to the bar.

  Janeen Fisher walked over and tossed a cardboard coaster on the table. The coaster stuck where it landed. “Waiting for someone?”

  “Yes.” I smiled.

  She didn’t smile back. “You want to order something now or wait?”

  “I’ll take a Coke, no crushed ice. And an order of fries.”

  “Hold the food ’til your friend comes?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll take it now. And a side dish of mayo.”

  She walked to the wall behind the bar where a rectangular cutout framed a kitchen that looked nothing like Donato’s. Scribbling my order on a scrap of paper, she pushed it across the opening’s shelf and sauntered back to her station behind the bar. One of the guys shoved his empty glass forward, his gaze never leaving the TV. Janeen filled the glass under a tilted Pabst tap, then shoved it back at him.

  The fries appeared too soon on the kitchen shelf. Janeen squirted some Coke into a glass and carried over the order.

  “Still waiting?” she said.

  “Yes.” I smiled again. “Could I get some mayonnaise?”

  She frowned, her features gathering toward her nose as if they were conspiring, but she said nothing. Walking back to the kitchen window, she said something I couldn’t hear, and a man appeared—black curly hair, hardened brown eyes. He smiled at Janeen, then glared at me over her shoulder. I gave a small wave. Just in case. One more witness that I was here.

  Janeen carried over a plastic squirt bottle of Kraft mayonnaise. Not my favorite, but pretend customers can’t be choosers.

  “Thank you,” I said. “When do you get off work?”

  Her eyebrows conspired with her nose. “Why?”

  “I don’t want my tip to go to somebody else.”

  “Oh.” Her face relaxed, spreading. “I close at 11:30.”

  She walked away.

  I glanced at my watch. Twenty-two minutes.

  I spent the next twenty-one minutes watching the sports shows. They were a mind-numbing compilation of various basketball, football, and hockey games, combined with sports chatter that was nowhere near as entertaining as the Lutinis. One clip featured a basketball player dunking the ball into the net. The shows played it over and over. But all I saw was that pegmatite, slamming into Krystal Jewel’s skull.

  The fries had the texture of rain-soaked sand. I snowed them with salt, dunked them in mayo, but nothing helped. I nibbled the edges to pretend, and tried not to think about Donato’s masterpiece sandwich. Every six minutes or so, I glanced at my watch, then the door, as if expecting someone.

  At exactly 11:27, Janeen Fisher picked up three different remote controls and clicked off the televisions. Like trained circus animals, the three men automatically climbed off their bar stools and walked out the door.

  I got up and placed my five-dollar tip on the bar.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  I walked back to the table and started putting on my coat, slowly.

  Janeen yanked the money out of the cash register and was counting it as she passed me and turned down a hallway where arrows pointed to the restrooms. I counted to three and followed. She had bypassed the bathrooms, heading for the swinging double doors that looked like they led into the kitchen.

  “Janeen Fisher?”

  She turned, gripping the bills in her small hands. I watched the bad kind of recognition sweep over her narrow features. “Who sent you—Joel?”

  “Nobody sent me.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Then we’re even.”

  She glanced back at the double doors, going up on tiptoe to see through the cloudy porthole windows at the top. Then she threw me a look. Her voice was a hot whisper. “What d’you want with me?”

  “I want the truth about your husband and Krystal Jewel.”

  “I already went over everything.”

  “Not with me.”

  Her features formed a fist in the middle of her face. “I don’t even know you.”

  I handed her my card. She tipped it toward the kitchen door, reading it under the light that slivered through the portholes.

  “Geologist.” Her voice sounded appalled. “Joel sent a geologist?”

  “It’s about the rock, Janeen.”

  She pointed a short finger at me. “How many times do I have to—”

  “At least once more because we need to figure out who killed Krystal Jewel. Do you think it was your husband?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  She moved for the double doors but paused. On the other side, heavy footsteps were approaching, tromping closer and closer until a shadow fell over the round windows. Janeen stepped back as both doors swung out and the same dark face appeared as was in the kitchen. Now I got a second glare. He turned to Janeen, his face softening. “You need some help?”

  “Maybe.”

  His dark glare swarmed toward me. “Who’re you?”

  “Just another tourist.” Who got charged full price for old fries.

  He looked back at Janeen. “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re just having a little chat.”

  “It’s alright, Bernie.” She handed him the money, the bills crumpled from her tight grip. “Could you count up for me? I’ll go take care of this.”

  He hesitated, then took the money back into the kitchen.

  Janeen Fisher’s forehead glistened with sweat.

  28

  Rain pattered softly on The Ghost’s roof. I flicked on the pop-up headlights and followed Janeen Fisher’s small red Toyota truck down the road. Less than a mile from the tavern, she turned left toward the ocean. Two blocks later, she stopped in front of a short harbor where one white light gleamed from a lichen-smothered pylon. At two short docks, several small sailboats clustered in the drizzle and dark, looking as if summer was never coming back.

  I watched Janeen get out, then reached into my glove compartment for the Sig Sauer that Jack gave me in September when I left the Bureau. I shoved the barrel into the waistband of my jeans and followed Janeen to the docks. She had a bandy-legged walk, like a cowgirl who lost her horse in a bad bet. The dock swayed beneath her. I followed her to a narrow sailboat bobbing on the water. The hull needed scrubbing.

  “Don’t judge me,” she said.

  Too late.

  She grabbed the boat’s short metal rail and jumped onto the deck. The hull bobbed, exposing the strands of green algae clinging to the fiberglass. Janeen looked back. “You’re not coming onboard?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t matter, I gotta bail.”

  “You’re leaving? You just told me to follow you to—”

  “No, stupid.” She snatched a blue pail sitting beside the small cabin. She shook it at me. “Bail. Water. Get it?”

  She took two bowlegged steps to the cabin door—slightly larger than a pet door—and disappeared below. When she emerged moments later, the pail held water. She dumped it over the side. The splash sounded abnormally loud in the cold winter air. She went back into the cabin. When she appeared again with a full pail, her narrow face was pinched with frustration. “Hurry up and ask what you gotta ask.”

  I watched the water splash into the harbor. “Why didn’t you tell the police everything?”

  “I did.” She spun toward me, her rubber-soled tennis shoes squeaking on the damp deck. “I told
them everything.”

  “You didn’t tell them what the fight was about.”

  “Okay. So I forgot.”

  “Your husband wanted to get to the beach that night. Maybe for more than a lunar eclipse.”

  She dropped the pail, letting it roll toward the cabin. “Say what you want to say.”

  “Your statement said you claimed not to remember what the fight was about. Funny thing, neither could Joel. Which means the two of you fought about Krystal.”

  Under the pylon’s fluorescent light, her pale face looked as white as pulverized bone. “Okay, so we fought about her. Joel talked about that girl all the time. His best student, he kept saying. And I knew that family. Jewels are dumb. No way that girl was even interested in science. I had a feeling about things.”

  “Just a feeling?”

  She glanced up the dock. The other boats didn’t seem occupied.

  “Janeen, if you had such a bad feeling about him, why’d you leave your daughter with him?”

  “He—” Her lips snarled. “He and me fought all the time. And I can’t be expected to remember—”

  “Sure you can. Because your husband got mad about your accusation. Right? And somewhere inside, you know what you’re doing to him now is wrong. You need to tell the police the truth.”

  She moved for the cabin. “How’d you find me?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I shifted my stance, keeping my hands free in case I needed to grab the gun. Janeen Fisher was winding up tighter and tighter. “The real question is, why do you want to punish your husband?”

  “That ain’t what I’m doing.”

  “Every statement I’ve read says Joel Fisher was that school’s best teacher. Mr. Nice Guy. Good neighbor, popular in the community. If you wanted to divorce him, he’d probably get custody of your daughter. But if he’s convicted of this murder, he goes to prison—forever—and you keep the child. Is there some social security coming from the state, too?”

  She snatched the pail, flinging it at me. I was ready for something and jumped out of the way. The pail tumbled over the dock and splashed into the water.

  “I’m right,” I said.

  “You and your fancy car, coming here to shame me. Try livin’ my life, see how long you last with a husband that don’t love you.” She saw the look on my face. “That’s right. He married me ’cause I got pregnant. That’s all.”

  “And for that you’ll let him rot on death row?”

  “I’m gettin’ outta here—with my daughter. They’ll figure out Joel didn’t kill Krystal. You did.”

  “I’m not the prosecuting attorney.”

  Her narrow face went rigid. “I hate this place—I hate him—and now I got a chance to leave, start over. Why’s that such a bad thing?”

  “Because you’re destroying lives. What about your daughter?”

  She dropped back against the cabin wall, hanging her head, the thin sandy hair falling forward. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “The right thing. Your daughter’s going to miss her father.”

  “Lily’ll get over it.” She shrugged, and smiled. “I’ll find me a new husband.”

  “He won’t be her father.”

  “Neither is Joel.”

  I opened my mouth. She cut me off.

  “Yeah, that’s right. She ain’t his kid. You wanna judge me for that, too?”

  I drew a deep breath and tasted the stagnant harbor water. “Does he know?”

  Another shrug. “Probably. But now he don’t care.”

  I felt authentic disgust for this woman, a stench about her like stagnant harbor water. “Leaving him is your call. But your statement is not factual. And you swore under oath that it was.”

  “The state got him a lawyer.”

  I wanted to shove her into the water. “Do the right thing, Janeen. Tell the truth.”

  “Why, cause you’re gonna tell ’em what I said?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Your word against mine. And I was there that night.”

  A light shone behind me. I looked up. A vehicle had parked beside her red truck. The door opened. The man from the kitchen got out, standing there, hands on his hips.

  When I looked back at Janeen, a rolling wave was crossing under the sailboat, swaying the deck. But the bowlegged woman stood perfectly balanced.

  “You won’t win,” I said.

  “I already won.” Her narrow mouth spread into a tiny cruel smile. “Now get off my dock.”

  29

  I should’ve driven home.

  Should have.

  But something pulled at me. Something urgent. As the dual beams of the pop-up headlights scissored across the peninsula’s inlets, my foot sank into the gas pedal. By the time The Ghost was soaring over the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the vertical spans flickered past my window in a blur. The feeling inside clawed deeper. I blasted past the Tacoma Dome, shooting up I-5 before my brain could get rational, the Italian panther car zooming into Seattle through the subway-tiled tunnel onto Mercer Street, finally coming to a stop in the gravel lot beside Lake Union.

  Gray mist rose from the water, vaporizing into a charcoal night. I got out, softly closed my door, and walked down another wooden dock, this one leading past a community of houseboats. At the far end, a cedar-shingled home waited. The windows were dark.

  I lifted my hand to the front door, ready to knock. But the lake water whispered, lapping against the wooden pylons. No, no, no.

  I stepped onto the attached decking, and lowered myself into an Adirondack chair facing the water. Across the lake, lights shone from another houseboat. The solitary figure inside crossed back and forth, back and forth in front of the window. We, the insomniacs. We, the people who find night a lonely battle of solitaire. I closed my eyes and drank in the sounds of lapping lake water.

  Moments later, I heard the front door open. I didn’t open my eyes. “Did I wake you?”

  Jack didn’t respond.

  I looked over.

  He held a flashlight directly above the Glock, positioned for night defense. But the gun wasn’t what made my heart turn over. It was his hair. Sleep-whipped, wild, like he’d spent a restless night in bed. I wanted to pull him close.

  He lowered the gun. “Something bothering you?”

  “I’m going to fail.”

  “Maybe.” He dropped into the Adirondack next to mine. “Why the sudden revelation?”

  “This case with the state.” I explained how it came to me, because the senior lab examiner had doubts. “The main suspect is a schoolteacher, way out on the peninsula. He’s got no money. No political pull. And his overworked public defender hasn’t called me back. Best of all, his soon-to-be ex-wife is sandbagging him for the murder. It’s like the truth doesn’t even matter.”

  “To some people, it doesn’t.”

  “But—”

  “Harmon, you can’t carry all the responsibility.”

  “I know that.”

  He sighed. “But you can’t let go.”

  “Not when it feels like evil is winning.”

  “The suspect is innocent?”

  “It’s possible. He could just be a guy who wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people to defend him.”

  “Tell that to the state.”

  “You know that’s not enough. If I don’t find the killer, then this case goes to trial and the schoolteacher winds up on death row.” I stared at the lake, a black wash speckled with city lights. Above it the hillside neighborhood of Queen Anne was dark, except for one window. And another insomniac. Another pacing member of the tribe of troubled souls. My tribe. “And then this D.B. Cooper mess,” I said. “Who jumps out of a jet at ten thousand feet into a winter storm above a massive forest—and leaves no trace? Something is not right there.”

  “Or here.”

  I turned, heart pounding. “What?”

  “Harmon, we’re not like other people.” He stared at the water. “We’re not lawyers or poli
ticians. Not judges, like your dad. We’re investigators. We dig up facts. We search for the truth. We fight against liars and crooks and thieves—”

  “And murderers.”

  “And murderers.” He turned his face toward me. “Why?”

  “Why—what?”

  “Why do we keep digging?”

  “Because there are victims.”

  “Right. And because that’s how you’re built, Harmon. You fight for the truth, no matter what. No matter who gets offended. No matter who wants to fire you. As long as the truth prevails, you will fight.”

  I looked away, holding my breath for a long moment. “You make that sound like a good thing.”

  “It’s not a good thing.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s a great thing.” He looked right at me. Then turned back to the black water. “But here’s the problem.”

  I knew it, here it comes…

  “You can’t get fixated on the results. You find the truth, but the results are out of your control.” His bedhead appearance looked tortured now, like all his dreams turned into nightmares. “Even after the truth comes out, cruel people will still inflict pain on the innocent. Thieves walk free. Murderers live to kill again. All we can do is search for the truth. And hope for the best.”

  “If this was supposed to be a pep talk, it’s not working.”

  “Don’t you understand?” He turned to me, leaning forward in the chair. “Even if all the rotten people in this world walk free, we never give up. Never.”

  I wanted to crawl into his lap. Whimper for a kiss. Just one kiss. Here in the dark, where nobody could see. But I only wanted that if it was what Jack wanted, too. And he didn’t.

  “Harmon, what can I do? I’m here to help.”

  Forget platonic. That’s what you can do. Put your hand on my hip again. Spin me around that dance floor. But neither of us was built that way. Because honesty had no middle ground.

  You can get me the bills,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The money. Both bundles of Cooper money.”