CHAPTER 30
In the afternoon Trey Curtis called Lang back and
said that Kay Drescher was driving to the Tillamook County morgue
to identify Stephanie Wyman’s body because, even though Kay was
just a friend, Stephanie was estranged from her only living
relative, her father, who lived somewhere on the East Coast,
anyway.
“Kay Drescher doesn’t believe it’s her
friend,” Curtis warned Lang. “Just won’t believe it, but is
concerned enough to make the trip. I think she thinks she’ll get
there and be able to tell you that the body is someone
else.”
Lang thought of the photo ID, and
Drescher was going to be disappointed. The woman in the morgue was
Stephanie Wyman or her identical twin. “I’ll tell
O’Halloran.”
“Found her car yet?”
“Not yet. Got a few other things going
around here.” Lang sketched Curtis in a little about the double
homicide at Bancroft Bluff. “Clausen and Delaney are on-site, and
I’ll probably be heading that way.”
“Wow. All we got going around here is a
TriMet bus driver in a wrangle with a bicyclist that’s turned
nutty. Fistfight. Threats on the Internet. Lots of play in the
news.”
“Is Pauline Kirby on it?” Lang asked
with distaste. He’d had a wrangle with her himself not so long
ago.
“Of course.”
“She’s everywhere,” Lang
said.
“Uh-huh. And she’s really milking that
story about those entitled teen criminals in Seaside. You got any
part of that?”
“No. Different jurisdiction, thank
God.”
“I saw her on the news last night. She
says they broke into their wealthy friends’ houses and didn’t so
much steal as pretend like they lived there. Kind of like the teens
that broke into the famous people’s homes around Hollywood and just
hung out.”
“They stole a few things, too. I read
Harrison Frost’s accounts in the Breeze,”
Lang said. “And Clausen’s stepson knew one of the
victims.”
“Sheeeit. And then you’ve got psycho
Turnbull, who killed Stephanie Wyman.”
“Allegedly. But yeah . . . he
did.”
“Maybe he’s left your area,” Curtis
posed.
“I hope not,” Lang responded grimly. “I
want to get him.” At that moment Lang’s cell phone buzzed, and he
picked it up and examined the caller ID to realize it was Savannah.
“Got a call coming in. I’ll check with you later.” Hanging up the
desk phone, he pressed the green ON button
on his cell. “Hey,” he answered.
“Burghsmith found a silver Nissan,” she
said tersely. “Looks like it was abandoned at that strip mall where
Phil’s Phins is. He ran the plates, but they belong to a Ford
Taurus, not a Nissan compact.”
“Turnbull switched
plates?”
“Uh-huh. The Taurus belongs to a Gerald
Moncrief, who’s currently living at Seagull Pointe. Turnbull
probably switched ’em out when he dropped off the Jane Doe and
smothered his mother.”
“So, it’s like we thought. Then
Turnbull attacked Jane Doe for her car, then left her dying at
Seagull Pointe when he came to kill Madeline. Maybe he meant for
her to die, maybe not. Either way, she’s gone, and now he’s
abandoned her car. We have a possible on who she is. A woman named
Stephanie Wyman from Portland.”
“Someone coming to identify the
body?”
“A friend,” Lang said.
“Man . . . ,” Savannah said on a
sigh.
“I know.”
“We gotta get this guy,” she said,
shaking off the moment and sounding determined.
“Yep. I’m going to update
O’Halloran.”
“I’m heading over to the double
homicide,” she said. “You coming?”
Lang considered, then said, “I think
you’ve got it covered. I’m going to follow up on Turnbull. When
you’re finished there, come on back and we’ll put our heads
together and try to figure out what he’s driving now.”
Harrison pulled into the parking lot at
the Breeze, climbed from his car, and turned
his face toward a watery sun that looked like it could build up
some real heat as soon as the marine layer burned off. He had gone
to the Deception Bay Historical Society and asked for the history
of the Colony and was given a once-over by a middle-aged woman
wearing narrow-lensed glasses. She informed him that they possessed
an undocumented history, and when he said that was okay, she led
him to a bookshelf, where she pulled out a slim volume that was
more a manuscript with a laminated cover than a real
book.
She then told him that many people
seemed to have an interest in the women who lived at the lodge and
asked what his particular reason for searching into their
background was. He thought about telling her that he knew one of
them personally, then decided that was a bad idea. But when he said
he was a reporter and was doing background work on a story, he
thought she was going to rip the missive from his hands. And then,
when he wanted to borrow it for a while outside of the building,
she visibly paled, as if the thought of a world outside her control
might make her swoon.
Before she could find a way to wrest
the book from his grasp, he’d walked over to a chair by a window
and sat himself down. She hovered nearby, worried, but he ignored
her and concentrated on the book.
There wasn’t much to learn. The
narrative read more like a family tree than an account of their
lives, and it stopped at Catherine Rutledge and Mary Rutledge
Beeman, the last descendants of their family. There was a branch
that included Madeline Abernathy Turnbull. Maddie’s father, Harold
Abernathy, was a cousin to Catherine and Mary’s grandmother, Grace
Fitzhugh Rutledge.
“Apparently, Mary was married to
someone named Beeman,” Harrison said aloud. “And she and Catherine
are distant cousins to Madeline, who married someone named
Turnbull.” He glanced up at the woman, who had stayed within
earshot.
She pressed her lips together, torn
between freezing him out and bending an ear to gossip. Gossip won,
and she came a few steps closer, taking off her glasses and
polishing them. “There are no documented marriages,” she said,
warming to her story and, he thought, really wanting to let him
know how much knowledge she’d accumulated. “Madeline Abernathy’s
mother was the daughter of a Native American shaman who moved in
with Madeline’s father, Harold, when she was only fifteen and
against her father’s wishes. She died giving birth to Madeline.
Madeline’s father, Harold, who by all accounts was a very strange
man indeed, raised Madeline on his own, and she became the town
oddball, a kind of idiot savant, actually. She began reading palms
and telling people their futures as a means to make a living. She
was in her late forties when she gave birth to Justice in nineteen
seventy-five, but this account ends around nineteen seventy. You
can see that pages have been ripped out of the back. That’s the way
it came to us.”
“How do you know about Justice
Turnbull, then?”
“Oh, I’ve volunteered here for years.
Was told the year of his birth by Dr. Dolph Loman. He’s a doctor
who’s lived around here forever, on the staff at Ocean Park, I
think. Anyway, he gave us this account upon the death of his
brother, Dr. Parnell Loman, over fifteen years ago.”
“Maybe Dolph Loman has the rest of the
book,” Harrison suggested.
“Or maybe it’s been lost.” She
shrugged.
“So, there’s no record of Justice’s
father or this Beeman whom Mary married?”
“Not here.”
Harrison thanked her, and she seemed a
little more inclined to trust him after their talk, so she left him
and moved back to her desk. Before giving her back the book,
Harrison studied it a bit longer. There was definitely some
intermingling with the Native American population, and there were
several shamans listed, as if the Abernathy-Fitzhugh-Rutledge clan
couldn’t keep away from them, even though no marriages were
listed.
There was also the mention of “dark
gifts,” which seemed to present themselves mainly in the female
descendants of the Abernathy-Fitzhugh-Rutledges. There was even
speculation on Loman’s part that said female descendants found
relationships outside their marriages with said shamans, but there
was no written proof of these rumors.
Harrison closed the book thoughtfully,
wondering if Lorelei truly possessed some of those “dark gifts” or
if she’d been spoon-fed the idea of such a thing and the power of
suggestion had taken over from there. Was he being too cynical? But
what was the alternative? To believe she and Justice Turnbull
shared a mystical bond of communication?
If not a mental, telepathic link, then
at least some weird connection Harrison didn’t
understand.
He handed the slim volume back to the
woman at the desk and said, “I met the chronicler of this account,
Herman Smythe.”
“At Seagull Pointe?”
“Yep. He seems a little foggy now, but
he’s the one who compiled this information?”
“His name’s on the book,” she pointed
out, again puffing up with her specific knowledge of the
area.
He left the historical society building
and placed a call to Laura, glad when she answered right away. She
was still at his sister’s, but getting ready to go to work. From
the sound of it, she’d had a wonderful morning with Kirsten, who
had gone to work but was planning to take a break from the bakery
to drive Laura to the hospital soon. Laura had tried to dissuade
her, but Kirsten refused to listen. Harrison remarked that
stubbornness was a trademark of his sister’s.
“The police,” he reminded her, but
could tell, before Laura said so, that she was going to refuse him
again.
“I have a dinner break. If you still
think it’s necessary later this afternoon, then I’ll
go.”
“I don’t want to talk to them again,
either. But yeah, I think it’s necessary.”
“Okay,” she agreed reluctantly, and
they made a date for him to pick her up from work at her dinner
hour.
Harrison then flirted with the idea of
heading to Zellman’s house and seeing if the good doctor was up for
an interview, but the Deadly Sinners story still required a few
final touches, so, though it chafed him, he decided to wait on that
till later. Instead, heading for the Breeze,
he put a call into Dinah, Herm’s daughter, his curiosity about the
Colony definitely on an upswing. But he reached her voice mail, as
ever, and ended up leaving his name and number.
Buddy was coming out of the back when
Harrison entered the Breeze offices. He
signaled that Vic Connelly was in his office, and Harrison walked
along a short hallway, then knocked on a frosted glass door and
heard Vic’s gravelly voice call, “Yeah?”
Harrison stuck his head inside. Vic’s
wild white hair was especially flyaway today and looked like pale
cotton candy. “Just checking in,” Harrison told the
editor.
“You following up on those teen thieves
some more? We’re getting a lot of good feedback from that Kirby
woman jumping on it. People want to talk to you.”
“What people?”
“The ringleader’s dad, for one. Bryce
Vernon. The land developer? Thought he was gonna blow a gasket.
Acted like you’d slandered his little darling. But then the little
darling himself called for you.”
“What? Noah Vernon called the
paper?”
“Sure did,” Vic said. “Buddy took the
call but wasn’t sure you wanted to give out your cell number. What
the hell’s that all about?”
Swearing, Harrison turned on his heel
and strode to where Buddy was seated at a computer. Buddy, smiling,
picked up a piece of paper and waved it at Harrison, who snatched
it from him.
“I told you to give out my number,”
Harrison growled.
“Is that a full green
light?”
“Don’t be a pain in the ass. Yeah.
Whatever. What time did Noah Vernon call?”
Buddy glanced at the clock. “About
seventeen minutes ago. I knew you were on your way, so I thought
I’d wait and give you the message in person.”
Harrison was out the door before Buddy
finished speaking, pressing the buttons on his cell phone once
again, this time with Noah Vernon’s number. It rang several times
and then Noah himself answered with, “Yo. Who’s this?”
“Yo. It’s Harrison Frost. You called
me.”
A moment. Then, “Oh, yeah, the
reporter. Well, I’m offering you an exclusive for a little
cash.”
Harrison laughed. “You don’t need the
money. What is this?”
“I do need the money. My old man’s
cutting me off.” He sounded offended.
“I’ve got thirteen dollars and
twenty-nine cents on me,” Harrison said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Noah, I’m not going to pay you for
your exclusive. A lot of this tale’s been told already. But if you
want your voice heard, I’ll put it in the paper. That’s all I can
offer you.”
“I’m under eighteen, man,” he said,
testing.
“Until tomorrow.”
“You’re dialed in,” he said,
surprised.
“Do you want to meet?”
“I’m, like, under house arrest by my
dad,” he admitted with repressed fury. “But he’s a dickhead and I
could use a smoke. Can you pick me up?”
“What about being under house
arrest?”
“My dad’s at work. He can bite me,
anyway. I don’t give a shit. Come by the house.” He rattled off the
address, though Harrison already had scoped out where the kid
lived. “He’ll be pissed but that’s his problem,” Noah added with a
certain amount of relish.
“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Harrison
told him, and then made good on his promise by driving ten miles
over the speed limit to pull up in front of a beautifully restored
turn-of-the-century home on a sidewalk lined by trees on J Street,
one of Seaside’s alphabet letter blocks.
Noah must have been waiting for him,
because he came through the front door as soon as Harrison pulled
up to the curb. He wore pants that looked like they would fall off
his hips and a long blue T-shirt that stuck out from under a black
nylon jacket. A black watch cap was stuck snugly on his head, and
if he wasn’t careful, he was going to bake beneath the growing heat
of the sun.
He slid into the passenger seat of the
dusty Impala and said, “Nice car,” with a smirk.
“Do you always dress like you took your
clothes off a street bum?” Harrison rejoined.
“Yeah.” He glared at Harrison through
fiery blue eyes.
It was with a bit of surprise that
Harrison realized Noah Vernon was an exceptionally handsome young
man. It irked him that someone so blessed with looks, money, and an
obviously caring family, no matter if Noah thought Dad was a
dickhead or not, could thumb his nose at every gift he’d been
given.
“I can’t wait to hear why you’re so
messed up,” he told the kid. “Really. It looks like life’s really
knocked you down.” He glanced back at the immaculately groomed
property.
“Well, fuck you,” Noah
said.
“Back at ’cha,” Harrison replied as
they drove out of town. He had sized Noah Vernon up immediately
and, almost without thinking, knew how he was going to treat the
kid: like the loser dirtbag he’d shown himself to be.
“Where are you taking me?” Noah
demanded as soon as they left Seaside’s city limits and headed
south down 101.
“Don’t know yet. Where do you want to
go?”
“This is kidnapping!”
Harrison actually laughed. “Really?
That’s all you’ve got? Lame, Noah. You know absolutely nothing
about anything, yet you think you have all the
answers.”
“You can’t say that to me!” he
declared, shocked. “Wow. I thought you were cool. You’re a
reporter! You’re supposed to take down what I say.”
“I’m not cool with people who threaten
someone close to me,” Harrison said in a cold voice.
“What are you talking
about?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Harrison said. He had
no intention of telling him anything about how he knew the woman
Noah had caught eavesdropping. “Just wanted to be clear on how I
felt about you.”
Noah blinked in disbelief. “How
you feel about me?
Seriously?”
Harrison told him, “I don’t like you.
But I’ll write up your story, let others make a judgment on you. Is
that what you want? To be heard, Envy?”
“I got a right to be heard.” His blue
eyes were searching out the window, half panicked, as if he truly
believed Harrison was taking him somewhere against his
will.
“I’m all ears,” Harrison said. The
little shit had everything going for him, and he was determined to
be as ungrateful as he could possibly be. Pauline Kirby was right:
he did think Noah should be given more than a slap on the wrist for
his exploits.
“Okay,” Noah said.
“Then we’ll stop at Ecola Park and you
can tell me all about it.”
Kirsten dropped Laura off at the
hospital, and Laura turned and waved her a good-bye, to which Chico
wagged his tail wildly in response.
It was strange, but Laura felt like
she’d really made a friend of Harrison’s sister, who’d been
fascinated that she was a member of the “cult.” Laura had managed
to convince her that they weren’t as weird as the locals made them
out to be, but equally, Kirsten pointed out that their behavior and
chosen way of life set them up to be targets of gossip and
innuendo.
But then the conversation had
eventually turned from Laura and moved to Kirsten and Didi and the
tragic situation that had brought them to the coast. “I miss him,”
she said, after telling Laura how she’d met Manny Rojas, how he’d
made her laugh, how she’d fallen in love in one minute. “I’ve put
the bad stuff behind me, pretty much,” she said, her smile faint.
“But I wish I had him back.”
“I’m sorry,” Laura said, meaning
it.
Kirsten shrugged, as if shaking off the
depression and gloom physically. “So, okay, we’ve covered your
family and mine. Tell me more about you and Harrison. If you tell
me there’s nothing between you, I won’t believe you.”
“There’s nothing between
us.”
“I don’t believe you.”
They both laughed and then Laura said,
“I’ve just gotten a divorce. I’m very far away from a relationship
with anyone else for a lot of reasons.”
“Like what else?”
For one crazy moment, Laura had wanted
to confide in her about the baby. But reason reasserted itself, and
in lieu of answering, she said, “Justice is after me and my family.
Harrison’s helping me. We’re going to the authorities later today,
and I’m going to tell them that . . . Justice attacked me. That’s
why we showed up at your house.”
“What? You
didn’t say that before!”
So, Laura explained about the events
the prior evening that led Harrison to take her to Kirsten’s
cottage, and Kirsten, now aware completely, insisted they both stay
with her again that night. Laura agreed, conditionally, needing
Harrison’s vote on the decision as well, though it was undoubtedly
a slam dunk. She didn’t want to go home. Ever. Well, at least until
she fixed the door Justice had broken in, and even then she worried
she might never feel safe there again.
Now, as she entered the hospital and
headed for her locker, the first person she ran into was Byron. He
was standing outside the staff room door, as if he was waiting for
someone. Her? Or, just anyone to sweep into his trap?
He watched her as she approached, and
she couldn’t contain the groan that passed her lips. How,
how, had she ever thought she was in love
with him?
“You look even worse than the last time
I saw you,” he told her, his laserlike gaze raking over her with a
surgeon’s impassivity.
“Hi to you, too.” She turned toward the
room, but his hand caught the crook of her arm.
“You are pregnant,” he stated flatly.
Then, “See, you’re not the only one who can diagnose around here.
Is it mine?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I’m not pregnant. I guess I am the
only one who can diagnose around here,” she challenged, hoping the
lie didn’t show on her face.
“If it isn’t mine, whose is it?” He
leaned closer to her.
“Is the issue that you’re worried there
might be a host of little Byrons incubating around the area? Maybe
you ought to check with a current girlfriend or two and leave your
ex-wife out of it.”
His lips parted in true surprise. “When
did you turn into such a witch?”
“I’ve always been a witch,” Laura said
with a trace of bitterness. “Ask anyone around town.”
She left him with a lost look on his
face that was priceless. It made her almost laugh. He didn’t know
her history, of course, and therefore didn’t know she was
associated with the “cult” at Siren Song.
But as soon as she’d taken ten steps
away, she was seized by a wave of reality-based fear, and she
leaned against her locker as she opened it. The truth was, she
was pregnant. And it was his baby. And no amount of wishing and hoping was
going to change that fact. Sooner or later, she was going to have
to stop shoving the issue aside and face it head-on.