Agnes Hahn (28 page)

Jason and Bransome were partway through processing the cabin when a commotion outside drew their attention. A young woman was pleading with one of the officers.

“Can you do without me for a few minutes?” Jason said.

A head nod answered his question.

Jason stepped around the blood spatters and onto the porch. Thank God. She had come in an unmarked vehicle. Yolanda Torres looked like a college student in her tight jeans and short cropped button-up blouse. An inch of flesh separated the garments, revealing a silver ring in the tight skin of her navel. She was new to the paper but already had passed several of her colleagues in terms of quality assignments. Using a baseball euphemism, she was a three-skill player. She had looks, personality, and smarts. Gobs of smarts.

Jason cleared his throat, hoping the officer would reel in his tongue. “She’s a reporter—newspaper, not television. Doing a story on the murders. She’s here to observe.”

Yolanda’s scowl jolted Jason. He knew she could speak for herself, and her patience was thin for situations like this—where two men talked around her like she wasn’t here.

The officer scanned Jason from head to foot and back with a testosterone glare. “I’m not going to let this turn into a circus.” He turned his head to Yolanda and his look softened. “I can’t let you past the tape.”

She glanced at Jason, who shrugged.

“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll wait out here, if you don’t mind. Can I ask you a few questions?”

The officer’s cheeks pulled into a smile.

Jason stepped aside, but he couldn’t yank the officer’s attention from Yolanda. “I’ll get back inside. The sooner we get done, the sooner we can get home.”

The sequential logic seemed to register with the officer, perhaps because of the “get home” proviso. He nodded at Yolanda. “I can’t tell you much.”

Yolanda walked over a few steps and motioned to Jason. She leaned close, her voice a whisper. “Thanks. He’s a piece of work.”

“He’s doing his job.” Jason smiled. With his ID badge firmly clipped to his shirt pocket, defense of a fellow law enforcement employee came out, as if by default. “You got all of the background information I sent?”

“Yes, but I have a few questions.”

“You’d better save them for later. I’ve got to get back in there. Detective Bransome is all business. I’m just now getting on his good side.”

Yolanda’s eyes swept up, her angle in line with the open door and what was inside. She gasped. “I’ll be here.” She walked back over to the officer.

Jason rushed back inside and stopped short. Bransome looked like he hadn’t moved. The detective lifted another print and shook his head.

“I don’t understand. Why did she leave all the evidence this time?”

Jason picked up the camera. “Question of the year.”

“This one is real sloppy. It’s not like the others.”

“Maybe she doesn’t care anymore. If this is her last one, maybe she didn’t bother to be neat. Maybe she thought Eddie didn’t deserve care and precision.”

Bransome stood up straight and stretched his back. “Perps don’t change their ways this much.”

“Maybe Lilin’s planning on disappearing. Maybe this is her final taunt.”

“Or maybe someone else did this one.”

“Not the bet thing again,” Jason said. “Why would Agnes want to kill Eddie? Up until a couple of weeks ago, she’d never heard of him.”

“Let’s see what the prints say.”

Jason surveyed the scene and grimaced. The uniqueness of the view didn’t jump out. It exploded. Still, it couldn’t be Agnes. She wouldn’t do something like this. She couldn’t. Could she? “Okay, but if she’s involved, she was probably forced into it. Maybe Lilin framed Agnes so she could make her escape.”

T
HE SUN WAS ABOUT TO DIVE INTO THE PACIFIC, PRO
ducing a narrow band of glare above the pink and orange cloud cover that stood away at the horizon. The drive to Mendocino was boring if one took the inland route and slow with the coastal highway. But speed wasn’t a necessity since Bransome had said he wouldn’t be able to process anything tonight. He had plans with the missus.

Jason pulled into the parking lot of a poorly marked restaurant in Bodega Bay and let the engine idle. A sudden hankering for calamari and shrimp, and any number of other invertebrates, moved his hand to turn the key in the ignition. He wanted anything that didn’t bleed red.

What was his next move? He still wanted to find Agnes, but what would happen if he went out on his own again? Bransome hadn’t said a word about the initial trip to Inverness, although Jason sensed an undercurrent of tension, a slight reversal in their treaty.

The memory of Yolanda’s pale-faced reaction to the murder scene brought his mind back to Eddie. Yolanda had stayed behind to watch over the body. The coroner was still processing the grave site, with the body in place, when Jason and Bransome had left. The corpse would probably sit there for several more hours before being lifted out and placed in a body bag. Then more processing of the grave would be necessary.

Based on the demeanor of the coroner, Jason guessed that once the body was removed, the site would be sealed for the night. Tomorrow’s light would be needed to complete evidence collection.

Jason mouthed a thank-you to Yolanda. Because of her help, he’d have an early night, so he could be at the Mendocino Police Station first thing in the morning.

In his haste to shower and get moving, the bathroom floor didn’t receive proper towel cover, and the slippery tile nearly claimed a victim. He dressed in a hurry and swept his coat off the chest of drawers, where he’d thrown it in a heap the previous evening. Three envelopes fell to the floor.

“Shit. Forgot to take them in.”

He picked up the mail he had stuffed in his pocket on his last trip to Agnes’s house and shuffled through the pieces. All bills: Pacific Gas and Electric, State Farm Insurance, U-Store self-storage center. The last one was addressed to Gertrude Hahn, not to Agnes.

Two envelopes fell back to the floor as the third yielded to Jason’s tear. Due: rental for space E-24. He scanned the due date and the last payment information. It was a monthly bill. Agnes had been paying it since Gert died.

The U-Store sat behind Agnes’s house, separated by Agnes’s five-and-a-half-foot wooden fence, and only inches behind it, a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire. He’d walked the wooden fence earlier, from Agnes’s backyard. It appeared intact, but he hadn’t squeezed behind all of the tall junipers. Maybe a detour on the way to the police station was in order.

An urge pulled at him. More of an instinct, from his experience as a reporter. If something smelled fishy, chances were there were scales on the floor. Lilin had been watching Agnes. She had put a package on Agnes’s back porch. Only the two fences separated the U-Store from Agnes’s backyard.

Jason paused in the motel room doorway. How would Bransome react if he went off on his own again? Bransome didn’t have to say anything. Jason had seen the look many times on Christian Mulvaney’s face, felt the icy change in demeanor. Neither Mulvaney nor Bransome were subtle.

He looked down at the envelope in his hand. What if space E-24 held a clue about Lilin? More importantly, a clue about Agnes? He slammed the door and jogged to his Volvo.

A rolling gate guarded the entrance to the U-Store. Evidently, the renters slid a card key into a drive-up receptacle to gain entrance. Jason waited for fifteen minutes, hoping someone would open the gate so he could slip in behind the car before the gate closed. Today didn’t bring that kind of luck. Maybe the bright sunshine and the long shadows got in the way.

He swung the Volvo around and parked it on the street ten yards down from the entrance. Slinking to the back of the car, he scanned both ways along the street. Deserted. The trunk hatch creaked like a casket lid in a horror film. A quick shuffle through a mound of meaningful debris produced a rolled and tied canvas tool kit—a Boy Scout’s be-prepared dream, with standard and jeweler’s screwdrivers, assorted lightweight pliers and clamping devices, cutting and boring instruments, a dental mirror, a magnetic retriever, and, most important, lock picks. In the final pocket, he found an M-80 firecracker and a screw-cap tube of waterproof matches.

M-80s were a kid’s fantasy. About an inch-and-a-half long, and as big around as a man’s thumb, they packed a punch that could lift a heavy rock. The equivalent of several cherry bombs. A two-inch waterproof fuse jutted from the middle of the barrel instead of the end like other firecrackers. He tried to remember why he put it in the kit. Maybe for a fishing trip.

He shoved the roll into his jacket pocket and lowered the trunk to contact, then pushed hard until it clicked.

The portion of the fence into which the gate rolled wasn’t capped with razor wire, just two straight strands of standard barbed wire. He scanned for traffic and waited for a pickup to idle by before he scaled the fence. At the top, he braced himself on one of the vertical spires that held the barbed wire, and placed his hand on the top wire, between barbs. Pushing down, he swung his leg over and found a foothold on the far side of the fence top. His weight shifted without a snag, but then the trailing pant leg caught a spur and compromised his balance. He had a choice to make, to move to an even more unstable position to try to free the captured pant leg, or let it rip with a quick pull. The latter won out. The pants could be converted to cutoffs after this was all over.

The rows of storage units strung away from the gate in parallel lines, building A to the left, building whatever to the right, and building E right in front of him. He walked down the edge of the asphalt driveway, counting as he went. Two-thirds of the way to the end of the long building he came to a stop. Unit E-24 was the size of a single garage, closed by an upward sliding garage-type door. The handle in the middle of the door held a standard-key, recessed lock.

Jason looked up and down the alley-like driveway. Building E was in direct line with the front gate, giving an unobstructed view of the street, or rather, giving those on the street an unobstructed view of what he was doing.

He pulled the tool kit from his jacket pocket and withdrew the lock picks. He worked them in the lock like knitting needles laying down garter rib stitches. His shadow, projected on the garage door by the morning sun, mimicked his actions.

“Bad feeling about this.”

The lock didn’t yield. It was recessed enough to limit the angular movements of the picks.

“Come on, damn it.” He hit the door with his open palm and the rattling sound echoed in the barren alley. He tried again. The tumblers moved, but not quite enough.

His thighs cramped from the crouch, so he knelt on the cold asphalt and leaned back. He moved the tumblers to the catch point again, and gave them a hard jerk. One of the picks fell to the ground, but the lock clicked over. He tried the handle, and it turned.

A final look to the street, then another in the opposite direction verified the grounds were deserted. Jason stood and dusted off the knees of his Levi’s. He put the lock picks back into the tool kit and slipped it into his pocket. Inside the garage, he expected to see old trunks, a few pieces of near-antique furniture, and stacks of old, framed family photographs. Boxes of who knows what probably included at least one family treasure worthy of appraisal on the
Antiques Roadshow.