Old Chaos (9781564747136) Read online

  Meg congratulated her and agreed to go for a walk. “Let me dump my briefcase first and change my shoes.”

  It never ceased to surprise her that she and Tammy had become friends in the few short months she had lived in Klalo. Tammy was a recovering alcoholic, an abused wife, now a widow, and uninterested in the library. Being loyal herself, she would support the levy, but she wasn’t sure what a levy involved. Her late husband, a Libertarian, had opposed all levies on principle, insofar as he had had principles.

  In LA, Meg’s carefully chosen friends had shared all kinds of things—profession, taste, social attitudes, political affiliation. Here you took your friends where you found them, down the block in Tammy’s case. It was an interesting change for Meg. Later, over dinner, she meditated on the luck of finding friends down the block and across the street, and a lover next door. She wondered what she’d missed in LA.

  She hadn’t missed Marybeth Jackman. Marybeth was an all-too-familiar type. At one time she must have been a good librarian, but disappointment at home and work had soured her disposition. She enjoyed inflaming conflicts, even when the sparks burnt her. Marybeth was on her way out, one way or another. She didn’t have friends, just cronies, fortunately for Meg.

  “She threatened to out us,” Meg said darkly.

  Rob stared at her over the rim of his coffee cup. He looked as if his mind had been a million miles away. “Who? What?”

  “Marybeth. Our fornicating ways.”

  “Ah.”

  “I laughed. I told her that blackmail is a two-way street, that she’d better not have any secrets.”

  Rob set his cup down. “Marry me.”

  Her turn to stare. “Are you running for public office?”

  “No way.”

  “Then I don’t see why.”

  “I love you.”

  “Prove it.”

  His grin started in his eyes. “I might just rise to that.”

  Well, it had been a problem, what with his bad back and slashed arm and all his medications, not to mention the overall gloom. She was glad he felt better.

  Very glad, she decided, somewhat later. They lay abed upstairs in a peaceful tangle, both of them drowsing but not asleep. Downstairs, all the lights in the house were still on. Scandalous. She thought of Marybeth and snickered.

  “What?”

  She reached over and tweaked a nipple. “Marriage. Not necessary.”

  “You don’t like the idea?”

  “I don’t know what I feel.” She rose up on one elbow, looked at him, and said, very serious, “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  His mouth relaxed in a smile that was at once tender and languorous. “We don’t want to scandalize the librarians.”

  “Or our daughters.”

  They drifted downstairs after another interlude. Meg made another pot of coffee.

  She turned off most of the lights. “Feel like telling me about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Your investigation.”

  “Jesus, Meg.”

  She poured two shots of single malt and set the tiny glasses on the kitchen table beside their coffee cups. “Maybe if you talk about it you won’t thrash around so much in the middle of the night.”

  “Have I been doing that?” He looked sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

  “You did propose marriage. This would be an issue.”

  He didn’t respond. His eyes darkened.

  “Openness,” she said. “Either I’m trustworthy, or I’m not. I would never betray you, and I certainly wouldn’t blab sensitive information to the media or my friends. True, I told Beth about the landslide hazard, but that was an extreme situation.”

  “But why—”

  “I believe in words. Talking things over is a way of understanding, oh, everything, not just this case, but who you are, and who I am, and what kind of community I find myself in. If something is so awful you can’t bring yourself to talk about it, just say so. That I can understand. So how about it?” To cover her uneasiness, she took a tiny sip of scotch.

  He sat down slowly, opposite her, and raised the shot glass. To her surprise his hand was not steady. “I’m afraid. Superstitious.”

  She turned that over in her mind. “You’re afraid that Inger may be dead.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s dead.” He tossed off half the whisky. “I’m afraid she was murdered.”

  “But I thought—” She bit her lip. “Okay, yes. I see. Saying it may make it so.”

  “Sounds stupid.” He set the glass down with care.

  “Word-magic is a primeval thing. We all use it.”

  “Thank you.” He made a wry face. “I’m afraid she was killed, and afraid I won’t be able to prove who did it.”

  “But you think you know.”

  “Yes.” He toyed with the shot glass, then met her eyes. “I won’t give you the name. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Not fair to the killer?”

  “Not fair to you, Meg. You’d look at the suspect differently. Believe me.”

  She did see. What a burden. “All right. I understand. What are you going to do? Do you have leads?”

  “I have some facts.” He told her about the phone calls from care-givers and the drug that had made Fred Drinkwater helpless to resist his killer, half-drunk as he was after a day of guilt and vodka. He told her about Inger’s friendship with Darla, Matt’s truculence, Karl’s nervousness, Warren Bjork’s spite, even about the shoe that washed up on the bank of the Choteau.

  She had asked for it, so she poured more coffee and tried to sort through the spate of information, looking for patterns. “Care-givers, anxiety medication.”

  “Right.” He blew on his hot coffee. “But the only notably anxious soul around—apart from Beth and Larry, of course—is Karl Tergeson.”

  “He’s a commissioner. If he was the one who suppressed the hazard warning, he’s bound to be anxious.”

  “He’s worried about his daughter. No sign that he’s thinking about the trouble the county’s in.”

  “He’s a dentist,” Meg persisted. “Wouldn’t he have access to drugs like that?”

  “That’s a point to ponder.” Rob savored his scotch.

  Karl might have killed Fred, but he would surely not have harmed his daughter. Meg’s mind skittered. “Care-givers.” She shook her head. “That just doesn’t make sense.

  “Try thinking of them as telephones.”

  “Oh, you mean somebody used their phones?”

  “Maybe. That would eliminate one absurdity at least. It’s touchy figuring out who they’re working for, and yes, we have asked. They tell me about the nursing homes, the hospital, hospice, even the small foster-care facilities, but they’re cagey about naming private patients.”

  “Nursing homes,” Meg interrupted. “Kayla!”

  “She’s not a suspect.”

  “I know, but I bet she ran into these people. She could ask around and find out who they’re working for.” She saw doubt on his face. “Okay, there are privacy issues as far as the law is concerned. I could ask her to find out.”

  “Or I could get Beth to interview them, ask them for references,” Rob mused. “She’s looking for somebody to take care of Peggy.”

  “Hah!”

  He smiled and raised his coffee cup in salute.

  “You already know this.” She felt an absurd degree of disappointment.

  “That I need to find out who these people are working for, yes. It will take time. Linda’s on it already, so don’t call Kayla in. She has enough on her plate without cross-examining her friends. You might ask her how easy it would be for someone to use a care-giver’s private cell phone, though. Nobody uses mine. It’s on my belt or in the charger….” His voice trailed.

  “I imagine some employers would ask care-givers not to make personal calls while they’re on duty. A kindly employer could volunteer to charge the cell phone while it wasn’t in use. Most people would never notice that the phone had been
borrowed. Do you check every number on your monthly statement?”

  “Sounds plausible.”

  Meg brooded. “Have you found out who could have done it? Administered the choke hold, I mean. I gather it’s a police thing.”

  “The proper term is neck hold or stranglehold.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I could do it,” Rob said mildly. “So could any of the deputies I’ve trained. It’s a standard submission hold in most martial arts. Some police departments prohibit it, because it’s damned dangerous when the victim struggles, but it’s easy enough to do. A relatively small person can apply the hold successfully.”

  “Especially if the victim is already unconscious.”

  “Or even groggy. You could put a big man like Larry Swets out cold in less than ten seconds.”

  Meg shuddered. “Choking somebody.”

  “No, it’s a blood hold. You compress the carotid arteries, cut off the supply of blood to the brain. The person in the hold passes out immediately—within five seconds. If he takes five seconds to pass out, it will be ten seconds before he comes to.” He stood up and walked around the table. “Shall I show you?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “I’ll just use my right arm. I would put my arm around the neck like this.”

  She felt his warmth and scent, the soft fabric of the shirt he’d put on when he came downstairs. His arm closed on her neck.

  “Then I grab my own hand with the left and pull back, compressing your…you okay, Meg?”

  She blinked black spots from her vision. “I…yes, but that’s enough. I see what you mean.”

  He backed off, walked around the table, and sat down. His face was gentle, his eyes dark with concern. “All right?”

  She gulped and nodded.

  He finished off the shot of whisky. She took a snort of her own. She needed it. She knew he was a trained and effective martial arts practitioner, but she hadn’t really taken in what that meant. In his own way, Rob was a very dangerous man.

  That night Rob slept like a lamb. It was Meg who thrashed around, and her mind was not on marriage.

  JACK REDFERN CALLED on Rob’s cell phone at half past seven the next morning. Damp from the shower, Rob stood in his boxers looking out the back window. Meg was still asleep. As he spoke, she stirred and turned over.

  “You got to come out here.” Jack sounded upset, almost disoriented. “Somebody’s been messing around at my fishing shack. You know the place—upriver from that turnaround where Nancy found the Volvo.”

  “Okay. Warn Maddie.”

  “Already did.”

  “I’ll have Jake Sorenson drive me. Give me forty-five minutes.”

  Rob could have driven himself, but he always wanted backup when he faced an encounter with Maddie. He was down in the kitchen chewing toast by the time Jake arrived with the blue lights revolving. It was a dim morning. An hour earlier, when Jack must have made his discovery, it would still have been dark out.

  Rob took a gulp of coffee and left the kitchen in a mess. At least he’d made a pot of coffee. Upstairs, Meg said something. He called a good-bye.

  Across the street, his cousin watched from the driveway. It almost looked as if Charlie meant to take Kayla’s Civic to work. Rob waved as Jake pulled away, and Charlie waved back. On impulse Rob had Jake stop at a convenience store on the way out of town. He ducked in and bought a pack of cigarettes.

  “Gonna take up smoking?” Jake peeled out and headed for Highway 14.

  “No. We’re dealing with Jack and Maddie.”

  “Oh, yeah, the peace pipe.”

  Rob smiled. “Something like that.”

  “Todd says it’s a ritual they have.”

  “Several rituals, I think.”

  Jake nodded.

  Todd Welch had been Jake’s partner, the other deputy Rob had transferred from the uniform branch when he reorganized the department. Todd was also Maddie’s nephew, her sister’s son. Rob wasn’t clear about Klalo relationships, but sister’s sons apparently had a special role in the scheme of things. He probably ought to have called on Todd, but Jake drove well and fast, and unlike Todd, didn’t chatter.

  Rob let his mind drift back to the abandoned Volvo and the missing county clerk. A striking woman, Inger, intelligent and assertive. Nevertheless, she had never left home. She had commuted to college in Vancouver and married a local man. If she owed her position to her father’s influence with the voters, she kept it because she did a good job.

  Everything Rob knew about Inger indicated she was exactly what she appeared to be, an able public servant, committed to serving the community. Clearly she liked being a large frog in a small pond. What in the world had driven her to collude with Fred Drinkwater? Passion? Rob could see Inger as Freya or one of the Valkyries. She was undeniably Wagnerian. He did not see her in the role of Isolde, however, and Drinkwater was no Tristan.

  What if she was innocent? Then who?

  Mack? Of meddling with the geologists’ reports maybe, but not of murder.

  Rob groaned.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. Just expressing my feelings.”

  “My ex-wife used to tell me to do that, but when I did she got mad.”

  Rob gave a matey laugh and focused on the landscape as they passed Two Falls and headed up the Choteau. They found Maddie and Jack huddled together in the pickup, waiting. Even seen through the foggy windshield, Jack looked miserable and Maddie angry.

  “Peace pipe time,” Jake chortled. Rob left him in the car.

  As Rob approached the pickup, Jack slid out the driver’s side and Maddie got out, too. Jack nodded but didn’t speak. He led Rob on wet grass to the river’s edge, avoiding the rough path around the cedar cabin. As they neared the place, an outdoor light came on. Motion-sensitive, Rob assumed. It cast odd shadows on the gray morning. The Choteau was roaring so loud they couldn’t carry on a conversation without shouting. Rob didn’t even try to talk. He held out the opened pack.

  Jack’s eyes widened and Maddie’s narrowed, but both of them took cigarettes. As Rob raised his to his mouth, he remembered he should have asked the clerk for matches. Fortunately, Jack whipped out an ancient Zippo of the kind sailors used to use in a high gale. Even with that, it took a while to light all three cigarettes. Rob did not disgrace himself by coughing, though he felt like it.

  They stood silent, smoking, and looked at the river. Rob stared downstream, along the bank they had not searched because he’d been so sure Inger had gone into the river at the turnaround a mile further down. Salal and Himalayan blackberry grew down to the water. He couldn’t see anything but brush along the shore, but that didn’t mean nothing was there. The light was still not good.

  At last, mercifully, Jack flicked his cigarette butt into the torrent, and Rob followed suit. Maddie kept on smoking, while Jack pointed out what he had brought Rob around to see. About five yards upstream from where they stood, someone had dragged something from the shack to the water. It was not obvious, though the security light made the signs clearer. Rob might not have spotted them if he hadn’t been looking for them—broken grass blades and twigs, turned stones, patches of bare earth where the mast of leaves and needles had been scraped away. A bootprint showed at the edge of the drag area.

  Jack pointed to the print. “Mine.”

  “Okay.” Rob gestured at the door of the shack, which opened to the river, and raised his voice to be heard. “Do you lock it?”

  Jack shook his head no and led them back to the road where it was possible to talk without shouting. “We lock it summers and hunting season.”

  Rob nodded. “Drunks.”

  “They get a load on, they’ll steal whatever isn’t nailed down. It’s not locked now. Wasn’t locked. I come over for an old creel.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  “I dunno. I saw the bottle and backed out. Figured I shouldn’t touch anything.”

  Rob nodded. “Smart. Bottle?”

  They eyed each
other, and Maddie watched them both.

  Jack sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He was looking easier. “In there, on the floor. Plastic bottle rolled under the trash burner. It’s a sports drink, the kind runners take with them. I seen it advertised on TV. Hell, they stock it at Safeway. I don’t drink that shit and neither does Teon.” Teon was his brother. “You said Inger Swets is a runner.”

  “She is.”

  “Somebody tried to frame my husband.” Maddie, her voice tight with fury.

  “Well, it didn’t work,” Rob said. “Shall I send for the incident van?”

  “You’re asking me?” Her mouth was still set. She tossed the butt of her cigarette.

  “You’re the chief.”

  Silence. All of a sudden, Maddie began to laugh. “My God, Rob, unfiltered Camels?” Then all three of them were laughing. It cleared the air. Jake peered at them from the patrol car.

  The doctors let Kayla go. If she hadn’t been an RN, they would not have permitted her to leave at all because of the danger of infection, especially in her sinuses. They made her sign releases, loaded her up with antibiotics and pain pills, and demanded that she return by ten a.m. Tuesday.

  It was Saturday, and Charlie had a long morning lab to teach, so she was dressed and packed, and had signed out, by the time he got to the hospital. The only fly in her ointment—of which she had a lot—was that she would have to stay at the hotel with her mother and spend most of the time lying down. Since Dede had taken a suite with two queen-sized beds, she would not have to rent another room.

  When Kayla called, her mother was still in bed but would have driven in to Portland at once if Kayla hadn’t forbidden her to come. Kayla explained all that to Charlie, babbling as he helped her into the Civic.

  He set her suitcase and a sack of medications in the hatchback beside his box of tutelary rocks, closed the back of the car, inserted his long legs into the driver’s side, settled behind the wheel, and leaned over to fasten her seat belt. “Shut up,” he said amiably. “You’ll give yourself a jaw ache.”

  She was so happy to leave she kissed him on the nose. She was aiming for the mouth.

  He rubbed his nose and his intensely blue eyes met hers. “Don’t do that unless you mean it.”