The Waves Break Gray (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries Book 6) Read online

  “You are totally wrong!” Bad Knight shouted. “Totally!”

  “Raleigh?” Peter asked.

  “Still here.”

  “The state police are gonna need some help with this case,” he said. “The new guy, one who took over for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “He isn’t a geologist. How about you drive up there tomorrow?”

  I said nothing. The chief shrink here had already warned me. If I missed one day of visiting hours, I’d lose every inch I’d gained with her. Paranoia was a wily enemy. It sprung to life on the tiniest changes. It would probably come alive just from my phone ringing.

  “I know,” Peter drawled. “You got some obligations. But my case load’s filled the barn or I’d wrangle up there myself. Plus you got that mighty quick car of yours …”

  We stepped into my mom’s room. She held Madame and sat down on her bed. The mattress had no sheets. Sheets were dangerous. Instead, plastic covered the mattress. Plastic the color of skim milk. She placed Madame beside her. The plastic crinkled. The crowd stood at the door.

  “Burt Bacharach is not made of glass!”

  “What about Sinatra!”

  “Raleigh?”

  “Still here.” I stared into her hazel eyes, dark with cloudy thoughts. All that medication. The suspicion. Me. “It’s great to hear from you, Peter.”

  “You want me to call back later?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  I disconnected the call, slid the phone into my pocket, and smiled so hard my eyes hurt.

  “I say, Smash all the glass!”

  I pushed the door shut. It slammed.

  My mom jumped.

  “Sorry.” I leaned against the door. “Didn’t realize it was so light.”

  She stared at me. After a moment she turned toward the putty-colored wall above her bed. With a finger, she traced invisible letters on wall. “Lease.” She spelled it on the wall. “Least. East.” Her fingernails were ragged.

  “Mom—”

  “Once upon a time, once upon a time. Once upon a time, he was nice.”

  My hands went numb. “Who’s that?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  The door pushed against my back. I stepped away, ready for the assault, but it was the nurse. She held a small tray, topped with the muffin cups of pills. And small paper cups of water. The kind Father Brother used.

  “Raleigh,” she said. “These doors must stay open. You know the rules.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  She walked over to my mom. Her name was Sarah. She had red hair that was the color of autumn maples. “Nadine, are you feeling alright?”

  “Henry said Madame was vermin.”

  Henry, that was his name. Maybe.

  Sarah glanced back at me. The expression in her blue eyes made me swear to never to complain about any job ever again. “Was he acting up?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Madame isn’t vermin,” my mom said.

  Madame wagged her tail.

  Sarah offered a muffin cup of pills. My mother looked inside. Then looked at Sarah.

  “You know me, Nadine.” The nurse smiled. “I was here yesterday. And I’ll be here tomorrow. And the next day. I’m here to help you.”

  I held my breath as my mom lifted each pill slowly, as if she expected them to explode.

  “You’re doing great, Nadine.” The nurse took the muffin cup and water cup, and passed me on her way out.

  “Four minutes,” she whispered.

  I sat down on the bed. Madame, symbolically, sat between us. My mom scooped her into her arms.

  “Will you be here tomorrow?”

  I couldn’t tell who she was asking. So I said, “We will.”

  Twenty-two hours until the next visit. And each goodbye felt worse than the one before, like some Greek curse—say goodbye again and again and again. Say goodbye today, say goodbye tomorrow. Say goodbye forever.

  “Will you be going out tonight?” She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Not tonight.” My throat ached with every word. “But earlier today I went on a date.”

  She looked up. I saw a familiar light in her eyes. Hopeful. Good light. “What did you do?”

  “Hiked.” My eyes stung. “In the mountains.”

  “Was it with DeMott?”

  DeMott. My former fiancé. From Virginia. The man my mother spent years praying I’d marry. I opened my mouth, wondering how to explain—Mom, we are not in Virginia, and DeMott is gone—the electronic bell rang.

  Visiting hours were over.

  I stood. My legs felt made of ice.

  My mom leaned into the dog, and whispered in her ear. “I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Thirty-two minutes later, I opened the back door of a historic Victorian in Tacoma’s North End and leapt from the fire into the frying pan.

  “You’re late,” said Eleanor Anderson.

  I held the door for Madame who was relieving herself on the back lawn. “Traffic messed with my time.”

  “Time?” Eleanor was eighty-four, tiny as a teacup, yet had a bellowing voice that could reach the cheap seats. The projection was left over from her days acting in a Tennessee Williams troupe. To this day, the playwright’s lines still fell from her lipsticked mouth. “Time rushes toward us with its hospital of infinitely varied narcotics.”

  Like that.

  I closed the door.

  “Who said that?” she asked.

  “You did.”

  Madame trotted across the large kitchen to her water bowl.

  “Tennessee himself uttered those words.” Eleanor stabbed four stuffed green olives with a long toothpick and dropped them into her martini glass. Every night, at precisely five o’clock, she enjoyed a dirty martini with a splash of lecture.

  “Never forget those words, Raleigh.”

  I opened the fridge, found a can of Coca-Cola, and followed Eleanor into the living room. She wore yellow ballet slippers that somehow matched her violet trousers. They helped her sashay over the oriental rugs. Even by my historic Virginia standards, this old house was impressive. But it was jammed with ten million knickknacks from Eleanor’s world travels with her late husband, Harry, a wealthy businessman.

  “We could toast your health,” she said, gracefully depositing herself into her favorite plush green chair. “But you’re ingesting poison.”

  Just for that, I opened the Coke can slowly, savoring its singular sigh of carbonated splendor—fffffffttt. Raising the can to Eleanor’s martini, we sipped. Her keen brown eyes peered through rhinestone eyeglasses.

  She set the martini on an Italian coaster that protected the French walnut side table. “Do I dare ask what that brute Stanley made you do today?”

  “His name’s Jack.”

  “A prosaic name.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “I liked DeMott.”

  Just like my mother.

  “I liked DeMott too,” I said. But last month, while I was still employed by the FBI, DeMott flew out here from our home state of Virginia. Two days later, he flew back. Our engagement was over. “But DeMott’s gone so let’s fast-forward.”

  “Alright. Tell me what that knuckle-dragger made you do today.”

  “We went to Leavenworth.”

  “You drove?”

  “He flew his plane.”

  “What a showoff.” She sipped again. “And once you got there, what did you do?”

  “We went running.”

  “How utterly awful.”

  “And there was a dead body.”

  “You’re much too patient.” She waved her toothpick of olives. “I would’ve killed that man weeks ago.”

  “Jack’s still alive.”

  “Pity.” She bit the olive.

  “Madame found the body.”

  “Raleigh, this is totally improper cocktail chatter. Please, continue.”

  I described our morning above the Icicle River
, how the police interviewed me three times, how Jack thought I made myself look suspicious by instructing the evidence recovery crew, and how Peter asked me to take the job. I was explaining why I turned down the job when my cell phone went off again.

  “That ring!” She rolled her eyes. “The man’s a troglodyte.”

  Just for that, I let the ring go on. Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. A ringtone programmed by Jack, after he gave me a cellphone that the Bureau was going to throw out. I let the ring go on. And on.

  “Answer it!”

  I looked at the Caller ID and swiped my finger over the screen. “Hi, Peter.”

  “They want us.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The family. I just called ’em. They wanna hire us.”

  “What family?”

  “State police just identified the body. It’s that girl who went missing. The runner.”

  Eleanor’s gaze was glittering rhinestones.

  “I’m sure they’ll be glad for your help.”

  “Not my help—yours.”

  After I resigned from the FBI—before they could fire me—Peter offered me a position. After decades of working for the state, he was opening a private forensic lab. It was located in Spokane, on the far eastern side of Washington. Peter needed a geologist around the Seattle area. And I certainly needed a job but I didn’t take his offer. “That drive to Leavenworth would—”

  “—would go really fast in your sports car.”

  I glanced at Eleanor. My last assignment with the Bureau was undercover. Eleanor posed as my rich aunt and had me drive her classic 1972 Ghibli. It was fast and white and gone before you saw it. I nicknamed it The Ghost.

  “I can’t do it, Peter.”

  “But the state lab doesn’t have a geologist.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We both know how many answers are hunkered in that soil. Government’s gonna take weeks getting to that evidence.”

  “I don’t have the time—”

  “Time!” Eleanor bellowed.

  “What’d you say?” Peter asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Time!” Eleanor repeated. “The longest distance between two places. Who said that?”

  “Where are you?” Peter asked.

  “Not where I was before. But there are similarities.”

  “Fine,” Eleanor said. “I’ll tell you. The Glass Menagerie.”

  “Raleigh …”

  “Still here.”

  “This girl was really young.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The family’s hurting. Badly.”

  “And I’m sorry for their loss.”

  “They really want to hire us.”

  I grit my teeth.

  “Her daddy was practically begging me.”

  “Peter, if I could, I would. But my afternoons are non-negotiable.”

  “But you got to Leavenworth and back today.”

  “Because somebody flew me in their plane.”

  “Aw, man.” He sighed. “I hate saying No to these people.”

  “So do I. But that drive’s six hours round trip. I can’t—”

  “I know, I know.” He sighed, like a cowboy whose horse was dying. “You change your mind…”

  “You’ll be my first call.”

  I disconnected. The dark silicon screen showed my reflection. Forehead even more tortured by worry.

  “I’ll pay for it,” Eleanor said.

  I looked up. “Pay … for what?”

  “The speeding ticket you’ll get doing real work.”

  “I’m not taking the job, Eleanor.”

  “So you’re turning down a job?”

  “Yes.” For once in my life. “I’m choosing my family over my work.”

  “And that dead person just stays there, in the dirt?”

  “She’s not in the dirt, Eleanor.”

  “So it’s a woman?”

  “A girl.” I sighed. “The state police collected her body.”

  Eleanor lifted the hand not holding the martini and laid it across her forehead. The rings glittered. Diamonds and rubies and emeralds in carat sizes that defied even my calculation. I braced myself. Her chin was rising, Tennessee was coming.

  “Nothing human disgusts me unless it is unkind.”

  “Eleanor—”

  “Who said that?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t care.” I shoved the phone in my pocket, picked up my can of Coke. “Because I’m not taking this case. End of discussion.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  But it wasn’t the end of the discussion.

  Of course.

  Eleanor was on the war path.

  For dinner, she served lentil soup with too many do-gooding vegetables and more lecturing. Normally, after these healthy dinners and attempts at pounding good sense into my head, I took Madame for a walk—straight down the hill to the local McDonald’s.

  But tonight, the dog and I both crashed.

  And yet, the discussion continued.

  I was at the ocean. A deserted beach. Those same dark gray clouds, the ones weighted with rain, hovered overhead. Wind gusted and whirled the sand. I turned my back to keep the sand out of my eyes and saw a black house on the dunes. On the widow’s walk balcony, my mother paced—back and forth, back and forth—clutching a black shawl to her shoulders, muttering to herself. On the porch below, my sister Helen slashed a charcoal pencil across an artist’s canvas. I could see her pictures from where I stood. They were pictures of women, screaming.

  I turned away, knowing I shouldn’t go to that house. In the sand, footprints led down the beach. They seemed like the only safe path. But safe only if my bare feet stepped inside the impressions. I followed them down the sand until a foul stench filled the air. It was the smell of that cave that Jack and I ran to, the cave above the trail.

  When I looked up, fish covered the sand. All of them were trying to reach the water but it was too far away. They twisted their bodies, mouths opening and closing, choking on air. Scales fell from bodies and littered the sand. The air smelled like ammonia. Like death.

  I started running. I wanted to get away. But my dad suddenly appeared. I stopped. He wore his usual Saturday outfit, old chinos and a T-shirt from the University of Virginia.

  “Dad?” My words drifted down the beach. The surf muffled my voice.

  “Dad!”

  He picked up one of the dying fish and walked toward the water. Waves crashed at his knees, soaking his pants. But he waded deeper, then leaned down and held the squirming fish in the water until the waves swept it out to sea.

  “Dad?” My throat ached.

  He walked back to the fish on the beach.

  I waved my arms. He didn’t see me.

  But now thousands of fish smothered the sand. A dying silver sea. My dad picked up another one, carrying it into the surf, and releasing it into the ocean. Then walked back for another.

  I ran. I ran and ran and ran until I stood beside him. But he still didn’t see me. As he reached down for another fish, I tugged at his shirt. The material tore in my hand.

  “Dad?” I felt like sobbing. Here he was, right here. Alive. But he couldn’t see me. “Dad it’s me. Raleigh. Say something!”

  “Help me.” His blue eyes glowed.

  “Help you—what?”

  He swept his arm through the wind, taking in the ocean and the dying fish that now covered almost every inch of sand. “We have to save them.”

  “But there’s too many,” I said. “We can’t—”

  He reached down for another fish, carrying it into the water. This time, when he walked back, I stepped into his path.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  “Please?” He picked up another fish. It struggled in his hands, twisting, the silver scales falling from its body like shards of mercury.

  He carried it to the water.

  “Dad!” I yelled at his back. “You can’t save them all!”

  He set the fis
h in the water but turned to look at me. His deep blue gaze pierced my soul.

  “I know we can’t save them all.” He released the fish, and watched it swim away. “But I was saving that one. And to that one, it matters.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At 4:55 a.m., The Ghost was cresting Blewitt Pass when I called the last incoming number. I put the cell phone on Speaker. The ringing went on for a long time.

  Peter Rosser answered with a grunt.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked.

  He took a moment. “Raleigh?”

  “I’m heading for the crime scene in Leavenworth.”

  “Raleigh?”

  “I need to stop for coffee, but I’ll be at the Icicle River in about an hour.”

  The phone crackled. It sounded like Peter had rolled over in bed. Maybe checking the clock.

  “I know it’s early,” I said. “But could you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Contact the family. See if someone can meet me there. It’ll save me some time.”

  “Diggity do.” His twang was happy. “And here I went to bed thinking this case was a bag o’ nails.”

  “Yeah. How about that.” I regretted my next words even more. “I need to tell you, I can only do the preliminary work. The early exam, a couple interviews. After that you or the state police or whoever will have to take it.”

  The Ghost blew past an abandoned mining town. The sagging wooden shacks were dove gray in the dawn light. Somebody took all the gold, then left.

  “Peter, you there?”

  “She getting any better?” he asked.

  When he offered me this position, I didn’t say much about my mom. Mostly because my throat ached with suppressed sobs. But Peter had spent thirty years investigating crime, interviewing victims, three decades of wondering why people do the things they do. He figured it out.

  “Kind of,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t explain it better.”

  “Happens,” he twanged. “Everybody’s holding something back. It’s how we’re built.”

  Alongside the winding road, autumn leaves fluttered in the breeze as if torn by the wind of my car. Their colors shimmered like fish scales.