Cyanide Wells (12 page)

When Carly arrived at the spacious redwood-and-glass home in the shadow of the Knob, she found Ard lying on the front lawn beside a pool of vomit. Ard was more coherent than before, but her words were punctuated by sobs and dry heaves. “The house was…too quiet. It felt…weird. I called out to them, then…went looking. They’re in the bedroom, both shot in the head, and the blood…”

Carly went inside, verified what Ard had told her, and—when her hands stopped trembling enough to dial—called the sheriff’s department.

By the time the first deputies arrived, however, Ard was on her feet and had pulled herself together. When they emerged from the house, grim-faced and shaken, she had her notebook and tape recorder in hand and set about covering the biggest story in the history of the
Soledad Spectrum.
Carly watched in awe; she’d always been aware of a core of strength in her partner, but Ard’s erratic behavior and emotionalism usually eclipsed it. That day Ard proved the often-cited principle that extreme circumstances often force a person to call upon the better side of his or her nature.

“Carly?” Lindstrom said.

“Oh. Just remembering. Anyway, after that day everything changed. The gay and lesbian communities here had always kept a low profile, but suddenly we felt targeted. Those of us who never locked our doors installed deadbolts and alarms. We were even more circumspect than usual in public places. Our hetero friends felt the need to shield us. I even found I was self-censoring my editorials about the crime. The only bright light was Ard, who’d been the most traumatized by the killings. She wanted our readers to understand Ronnie and Deke’s situation, the situation of every gay person in this county. And she illuminated it beautifully in her stories, by making the reader see the two of them as human beings rather than just gay victims.”

“My landlady says she’s ‘no fan of faggots,’ but that the series gave her some understanding of their problems.”

“Well, that’s progress of a small sort, isn’t it?”

“I guess. How did the paper winning the Pulitzer affect things?”

“Well, the prize brought a lot of attention to the county and made some people proud. But it pissed off the small-minded folk who thought it branded the place as a hotbed of homosexuality. And the gay community still locks its deadbolts and sets its alarms.”

“Is it common knowledge you and Ardis are partners?”

“You can’t hide something like that in a place like this.”

“People sure hid it from me. The staff members at the paper brushed off my inquiries about her, and Sev Quill cited your dictum that employees’ professional and personal lives are to be kept separate.”

She smiled. “Well, sure. That’s because of the memo from me that they all found on their desks the morning you started work. From the first I felt something wasn’t quite right with you, so I warned them to be on their guard. Even after I spoke with your Millie Bertram I had my reservations.”

“And here I thought I was such a good actor.”

“Well, you aren’t all that bad. And you’re good-looking, even if you do seem to be having a permanent bad-hair day.”

Carly customarily worked in her office at the paper on Saturday afternoons, and she decided, in the interest of keeping Ard’s flight a secret, that today should be no different. She and Lindstrom could continue their conversation there behind a closed door, so she told him to follow her into town.

When she was passing the Mercantile, however, her plan abruptly derailed. A crowd clustered around the old well in the park across the street, and two men were leaning over its high stone wall. Her newswoman’s instincts kicked in, and she pulled her truck to the curb. Lindstrom pulled in behind her. Without waiting for him, she hurried across the street and into the park, asked a man on the fringes of the group what was going on.

“Looks like some kid’s fallen into the well and drowned.”

Natalie!

The response was irrational because by now Natalie was probably far away from here, and there wasn’t enough water in the well to drown a mouse. Still, adrenaline coursed through her as she pushed forward. One of the men at the well straightened and turned. Timothy Mortimer, an old drunk who frequented the park’s benches. She recognized the other man by the green-and-blue wool stocking cap whose tassled tip hung over his face as he stared downward: a shabbily dressed newcomer who had moved into the town eyesore, the Golden State Hotel, a few weeks ago. He’d taken to hanging out with Timothy, who also lived there.

Now Timothy’s red, bleary eyes focused on her. “You all right, Ms. McGuire?”

“What’s happened here?”

“Looks like there’s a dead kid in the well. Me and Cappy’re tryin’ to—”

“Let me look,” Lindstrom said. He shouldered Timothy aside and leaned over the wall. The man called Cappy straightened and glared at him.

“That’s not a child down there,” Lindstrom said, his voice echoing. “It’s a backpack. Green, I think.”

Like Nat’s backpack. Why…?

Lindstrom turned, and his eyes met hers. She nodded slightly. He frowned, unsure of her meaning, but said, “If somebody’s got a heavy rope, I can get the pack out.”

“There’s one in my van.” Will Begley, owner of the Mercantile, said.

Matt peered up at the peaked roof that sheltered the well. There was, Carly knew, an iron bar anchored between its supports, which was once used to lower and raise a bucket. He reached up, tested it, then came over to her.

In a low voice he asked, “What is it?”

“Natalie’s backpack is green with purple trim.”

“I see. Well, if this one is hers, you’ve got to tell the sheriff’s deputies.”

“But then I’ll have to tell them what Ard did. And that I destroyed the evidence of it. I don’t know why she would’ve put the pack in the well, but I sense it’s part of a plan.”

He considered, eyes moving from side to side. “Okay, I’ll deal with it.”

Will Begley returned with the rope, helped Lindstrom secure it to the bar, held it fast as he climbed down the thirty-some feet to the well’s bottom. He was there some time before he climbed back up and heaved the pack over the wall. Carly knelt to examine it.

Definitely Natalie’s. It had purple trim, and she recognized a tear in one of the outside pockets. Her hands trembled as she opened it and looked inside.

Pencils. Colored Magic Markers. Drawing pad. Packet of decorative stickers. Gym socks. Apple. Kit-Kat bar. Half an egg-salad sandwich.

Carly had placed the sandwich Ard made on Thursday night, plus the apple and a small bag of potato chips, in the pack on Friday morning. She couldn’t positively identify the other items as Nat’s, but the little girl liked to draw and had a great fondness for Kit-Kat bars, which could be purchased in the school cafeteria. The backpack had also typically contained textbooks, various spare items of clothing, and a Palm Pilot that Ard had insisted on buying for Nat the previous Christmas, all of which would show—by bookplate, name label, or user—who their owner was.

Carly looked up at Lindstrom. He winked, indicating that he’d been responsible for the disappearance of those things.

And then, just as she was feeling relief, a male voice behind her said, “I’ll take that, Carly.”

Deputy Shawn Stengel was, in Carly’s opinion, the biggest asshole in the sheriff’s department. Someone must have phoned the substation at Talbot’s Mills, and he’d rushed over here, intent on being first on the scene of what he thought could turn into a major case. Unfortunately, while Stengel was short on interpersonal skills, he wasn’t stupid; and he had three young children, so he knew how much stuff kids carried in their heavy backpacks. How long before he realized this one was suspiciously light and checked the well, where Lindstrom must’ve dumped the items that would identify it as Natalie’s?

She glanced at Matt, but he seemed unconcerned.

Stengel ran his hand over his neatly cropped blond hair. “I hope nobody moved the kid’s body.”

Carly said, “There’s no one in the well.”

“The call that came in said there was a dead kid down there.” “The men who spotted the backpack only thought it was a child.”

“Where are they?”

She looked around. With the arrival of the law, Timothy and Cappy had vanished. She told Stengel who they were, and that they lived at the Golden State.

The deputy grimaced. “Somebody oughta torch that place, get rid of it and the vermin that stay there.”

“Shawn, are you advocating that one of our citizens commit arson?”

His jaw knotted. “You know damn well I’m not! And if you dare print anything of the kind, I’ll haul your ass in for obstructing an investigation.”

The threat was too absurd to warrant a response.

Stengel scowled down at the backpack. “Doesn’t surprise me that those two thought that was a kid. They’re both probably boiled.” He hefted the pack, shook his head. “Not much stuff in here, is there? My kids’re always toting at least half a ton of crap. I worry it’ll ruin their spines.”

She said, “Maybe somebody got a new pack, thought it would be fun to toss the old one down the well.”

Stengel squatted, went through the contents. “That doesn’t seem right. I can see them getting rid of a dried-up sandwich and socks with holes in them, but Kit-Kat bars and this other stuff? I don’t think so.”

“So what
do
you think?”

He straightened, looked self-importantly at the bystanders. “At the moment I’m not at liberty to say. Especially to a member of the press.”

Carly closed her office door and leaned against it, expelling a long sigh. Matt went over to her desk and began unloading objects from the pockets of his jeans, shirt, and jacket.

He said, “The books are wedged under a pile of debris at the bottom of the well, and I ripped out the bookplates. Everything else that could identify Natalie as the pack’s owner is here.”

“Thank you, Matt.” She examined what lay there. Gym shorts and blouse, with labels. Bead necklace spelling out “Natalie.” Graded papers, art club membership card, soccer team uniform shirt with her name and number embroidered across the back. No Palm Pilot.

Ard let her keep her favorite thing.

Lindstrom leaned against the desk, arms folded, frowning. “I tell you, McGuire, I don’t feel comfortable hiding things from the authorities—even though Stengel’s an idiot.”

“He’s not an idiot; he’s an asshole. There’s a difference.”

“He didn’t seem too bright to me.”

“You’d be surprised. Even though he was the deputy who coined the term ‘the faggot murders,’ he worked damned hard on the case. In fact, he brought in the lead on Mack Travis.”

“I’ve heard that some people don’t think Travis killed your friends.”

She sat down on her desk chair. “Isn’t that always the way when there’s no trial or resolution? But to be fair, Ard didn’t think so, either. When she started working on her book, she told me she hoped her research would shed light on what really happened.”

“And you—what do you think?”

“I think Ard and the others who believe in the killer-whogot-away theory have been taking the Mystery Channel much too seriously.”

“Well, to get back to what I was saying, I don’t like withholding information from the cops.”

“Even after what the cops did to you when Ard—Gwen—disappeared?”

“Even after that. Lying to a Wyoming deputy was what got me into trouble in the first place.”

“No, Gwen’s actions were what got you into trouble.”

“I don’t care to debate the point. And since when have you taken to calling her Gwen?”

“Since when have you taken to calling her Ardis?”

“…I guess we’re each trying to reconcile who she was with us with who she was with the other. Calling her by the name she used at the time we’re talking about helps. But frankly, it’s not an easy job, and it’s giving me a headache.”

His words made her aware of a dull throb above her eyebrows. “Me, too. Let’s get out of here.”

“And go where?”

“Someplace that will cure our headaches and allow us to speak in total privacy.”

“This is beautiful,” Matt said in slightly winded voice.

“Isn’t it?” Carly sat down on the outcropping on the western side of the Knob, feet dangling over the precipitous drop. “More than a hundred and eighty degrees visibility from here. The first time I climbed up, I thought I could see all of California.”

“How’d you ever find the trail?”

“Ronnie Talbot showed it to Ard and me. Not too many people know about it. Ronnie did a lot of hiking and exploring here in the forest.”

“You must do a lot, too. You’re less winded than I am, and I lead a very active life. Don’t tell me Ardis hiked with you.”

“Only the one time.” She realized she sounded curt, as she tended to when anyone strayed too close, however innocently, to the aspects of her life she chose to keep private. Such as the discord at home that drove her to solitary hiking.

In a gentler voice she added, “Ard’s thing is gardening. It doesn’t seem like much exercise, but when you’re hauling around huge bags of fertilizer and peat moss…Anyway, she keeps in shape that way, and I hike. Newspapering’s a pretty sedentary occupation.”

“Gardening. She always loved it.” He came over and sat beside her. “Point out some landmarks to me. Except for being able to see the Pacific out there, I’m disoriented.”

Glad he’d settled on a neutral topic, she swept her hand to the south. “The coastal ridge, the valley between it, and these foothills run down through Mendocino County. We’re not talking very high elevations on the ridge—maybe eleven hundred to fifteen hundred feet. But look around to the east, and you’ll see peaks in the national forest of up to seven thousand feet. And to the northwest”—she moved her hand again—“that’s the King Range, below Eureka and Humboldt Bay. People who don’t know the state always think of California as Los Angeles or San Francisco or urban sprawl. They have no idea of the vast wilderness and agricultural and ranch lands. There’s endless territory to explore.”

“You love it here, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you a native?”

“No. I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio—Ellenberg. Studied journalism at Columbia, worked for a time as a reporter on the
Denver Post
, then on the
Los Angeles Times.
At the point when L.A. started to wear on me, my aunt died and left me a lot of money; I’d heard about this small-town weekly that was up for sale, and thought, Why not? So here I am.”