Downpour (34 page)

“Sounds like the back of your truck,” Quinton interrupted, “only wet.”

That gave me pause. The house was neat, orderly, and prepared for a stint of bad weather—if we’d had some gasoline, we could have had the generator running, which would have given us plenty of power to run the water heater as well as the lights. If the propane tank hadn’t been empty, we’d have had heat, a working stove, and a refrigerator, all without main power or a gas line. I’d assumed the house had been cleaned and closed up, but Leung’s clothes were still in one of the closets and the shotgun hadn’t been locked up, but left standing beside the kitchen door in case of aggressive wildlife. Except for removing the gas cans that must have been around and having the propane tank drained and purged, Geoff Newman hadn’t done anything to the house but shutter it up and lock it. Leung hadn’t been a hoarder; he’d been ready.

“It
is
like my truck. He carried things he thought he might need if he got stranded or in trouble. He even had his old surveyor’s transit. I’ll bet these are the things he packed when he was still working and didn’t see any reason to remove them once he retired.”

“So you need to concentrate on what doesn’t fit—if anything.”

I read through the list again. “This is strange. Even ignoring the dead fish and soda bottles, there are some odd things in this collection. The weirdest has to be the extra finger.”

“That’s a little gruesome. Where’d that come from?”

“From a grave,” I thought aloud, remembering the petty, squabbling dead of Tragedy Graveyard.

“A zombie was in the car?”

“I don’t think so. I think someone laid a spell for Leung in his car. I don’t know what it did, but that’s my guess.”

“A spell?” Quinton frowned. “Mara doesn’t need bones to cast a spell.”

“Not the kind she does, no. But not all magical systems operate the same way. Mara was telling me that one of our mages out here might be using hoodoo, or something akin to it, and that practice definitely does use bones. I’d guess anything involving a human finger isn’t a nice thing. The rest of the spell has washed away by now, so no telling what it was. What else doesn’t fit?” I wondered aloud, reading the page yet again. “A rock, a pair of lineman’s pliers, a screwdriver . . .”

“Aside from the rock, those don’t sound too odd.”

I looked up. “According to the list, Leung had a complete tool kit in the back. He didn’t need to have an additional screwdriver and pliers in the front seat. He certainly wasn’t fixing anything while he was driving. Besides those, there’s this stone—some kind of quartz and it weighs eighteen pounds.”

“Wow. Maybe that’s your anchor.”

“Maybe, but what was Leung doing with it? The dead near Costigan’s house said Leung had been killed for the anchor—or because of it. Jewel said . . . her father was going to do something about the lake.... Whatever he was doing, he either didn’t do it right or he never finished.”

“Not before someone killed him.”

“But if the rock is the anchor, then the anchor was in the lake. Why didn’t that fix the problem?”

“Anchors don’t do much good if they aren’t set,” Quinton said. “Maybe he hadn’t put it in the right place.”

“But why would his killer risk putting the anchor back into the lake at all? The problem here seems to have started in 1989 when the magic got wild. The only person who wants to shut that off is Jewel Newman, and if she’d killed her father for it, she’d have made sure the anchor got replaced properly. The others benefit only so long as the anchor is out of place. I can’t see why one of them would risk shutting off the power by throwing the anchor stone back into the lake at all.”

“What if they didn’t know?”

“You’re suggesting an ignorant mage.”

“At least one of them is self-taught. Which is sometimes the same as mud-ignorant.”

“I don’t think Willow killed her father.”

“Then it must be the mysterious number five.”

I sighed and sipped the weak tea Quinton had made by warming up cups of water on top of the Franklin stove. “I still have no idea who that is. Or if it’s the rogue or the child. I can figure out the nexus and the puppeteer—that’s Jewel Newman and Elias Costigan. I know the east must have been Jonah Leung or Willow’s mother, because they’re both dead. Willow could be the child, but she could also be the rogue.”

“Think about it from the ley weaver’s viewpoint. They’re his terms, so the titles are based on his ideas.”

“Which is something I can’t begin to fathom. And it’s not helping.”

“Then leave it for now and we’ll need to attack a different part of the problem. What’s on the last sheet of paper?”

“It’s Alan Strother’s car log for the day he died. It shows the locations and times where his car stopped. For most of these, I can tell whom he went to see by looking up the residents on the other list. I also see when he clocked back in, how long he was out of the car—that sort of thing. But there are these holes. . . .”

“So he checked out the houses on the list and then what?”

“He drove around. Back and forth a few times. It didn’t make a lot of sense and I’m still trying to figure out the pattern.”

“Who’s still on your list to talk to?”

“Almost all of them. And now I want another look at that rock, too.”

“I guess we’re driving back to Port Angeles, then.”

Faith was curious about why we wanted to look at the rock. “It’s not some kind of precious stone. It’s just a rock. Probably fell into the car when it sank.” But he pulled out the box of personal effects that weren’t too rotted to touch and let us have a look anyway. He did insist on our wearing gloves when we handled the stuff, though. Just in case.

Out of the water, the objects no longer exuded a Grey mist. Most were so inert, they looked like shapeless blanks in my sight—but not the rock. It glowed green and gold with something burning in its core like a banked fire, and it whined and whispered like distant radio signals. If it wasn’t the anchor, it was something equally magical. Quinton looked at the rock while I talked to Faith.

“Not much to go on,” I commented, stirring the smaller items with my gloved fingers. “Screwdriver and pliers are interesting. . . .”

“We’re thinking whoever sabotaged his brakes and fuel line left them—they don’t match the set in the back,” Faith said, confirming my belief that he was no fool. “It’s too damn bad they’ve been down there so long that we’ve got no viable traces on them. The cold water preserved a lot more than we could have hoped for, but it’s still pretty slim pickings.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. I could see Quinton rummaging in his backpack, but I ignored him for now and did my best to keep Faith’s attention off him, too.

“So are we all. What do you make of this stuff?”

“Not a lot, I have to admit. Looks as though he was prepared for any contingency except being murdered and dumped in the lake.”

“Yeah, Leung was a careful guy, but he was a little superstitious, from what I’ve picked up. Believed in demons, I’m told—Chinese demons, that is, the sort who can’t turn corners and are afraid of the color yellow. You know he always wore something yellow or red?” He nodded to himself. “That’s what I’m told.”

“It must have made him easy to see in the brush.”

“Don’t know about that. Never went hunting with the man. Judging by the rifle, though, he wasn’t averse to it. Some folks think it’s cruel, but round here it can be the difference between making it and going on welfare.”

Quinton held up a meter of some kind with a couple of probes hanging off it. “Do you mind if I test this crystal?”

Faith gave him an odd look. “What sort of test?”

“I just want to see if it’s holding an electric charge.”

“It’s been underwater for a while.”

“I understand, but some materials don’t dissipate electricity in water. If it’s charged, Leung might have been convinced it was something magical.”

“I’m not sure . . .” Faith started.

“I won’t cause it any harm. I’m just going to poke it.”

Faith frowned. “Oh, I suppose you can go ahead. But if it explodes or breaks, I’m going to be a mite put out with you.”

“Understood.” Quinton stuck the probes on the rock in various locations and poked at it in silence until we got bored of watching him and went back to our own conversation.

I started. “But Leung wasn’t shot, was he?” I almost hoped Faith would say he had been, and we’d at least have ballistics to catch the killer by.

“Nope. ’Cording to the doc, head trauma would have killed him if the fire didn’t. Just waiting on the formal autopsy report to confirm which it was, but it’s been pushed back, so it’ll be a few more days.”

“Why?”

“Murdered cops are a little more important than guys who’ve been dead for five years.”

My turn to nod. Of course they’d push the death of Alan Strother up the priority list.

This was especially true since it was a fresher killing that had a better chance of clearing and might solve Leung’s murder at the same time.

Faith didn’t seem to notice when something gave out a bright, hard note in my inner ear like a soprano breaking a glass. Quinton yelped.

Faith and I turned to him.

“It sparked. Not a big deal. I just wasn’t expecting it,” Quinton explained.

“Sparked?” Faith asked.

“Yeah. This thing’s mostly quartz and it’s electrically active. Most quartz is, but this one might be some kind of conductor.... Can I take this rock with me?” Quinton asked. “I’d like to see what else it does.”

Faith made a face. “I’d love to get rid of it, but until we have more information, I can’t let you.”

I chimed in. “You know he wasn’t beaten to death with it, so how is it material?”

“Probably not, but it’s in the inventory and it’ll have to stay. Why would you want it?”

I gave it some thought before I replied. “I think Leung wasn’t the only superstitious one around the lake. His killer might have put it in the car to frighten him. . . .”

“You mean all that mumbo jumbo about Elias Costigan laying Voodoo curses on folks to keep ’em away from his place?” Faith snorted. “I think he’s managed to put a good scare into a few people, but that’s all it is. I’d take it more seriously if one of the Quileutes or Makah were shaking feathers and bones at me.”

“Why?”

“I figure the Indians might know a bit about the spirits around here—if there are any. But a self-proclaimed Voodoo witch doctor? He’s a crank.”

“Even a crank can be dangerous, Faith.”

“I don’t deny it. But all you’ve got there is a spare finger and a rock that sparks. Voodoo curse or not, it’s no smoking gun.”

I needed that rock, but Faith wasn’t going to let me walk out with it until the case was solved. I’d have to try another approach. “What’s your take on Brett Ridenour?”

“What about him?”

“I’ve been thinking that if Strother’s killer is someone from the lakes and we’ve eliminated most of the full-time residents, what about the nonresidents who are around all the time? Ridenour certainly fits that description, and he’s a little obsessive about ‘his’ lake and ‘his’ park. I imagine that if he thought there was a threat to it, he might think he had cause to take drastic action.”

“Ridenour? I’m not sure about that . . . but he can be a little overzealous, I guess.”

“And he has a personal spite for Willow Leung.”

“True—he blames her for his wife running off and leaving him. But it’s not Willow who’s been killed.”

“Maybe his dislike is based on more than his missing wife. Maybe he thinks Willow knows something that could incriminate him in her father’s death.”

“And good luck finding that out. Willow Leung is harder to catch than a snowflake at midsummer. Alan Strother was the only person who ever got close enough and he didn’t manage to catch her, either.”

“That might have been because he was in love with her.”

Faith stared at me. “In love with her? He didn’t know the girl except through her jacket and one meeting when he was fresh out of training.”

“Not true. They’ve known each other since high school. Ridenour arrested them and they were in juvenile together.”

“No bull? How do you know? Juvenile records are sealed. Did Ridenour tell you?”

“Willow told me.”

Faith rubbed his hands over his hair. “Paint me blue. You’ve talked to that crazy woman? Why didn’t you call me, catch her, something?”

“I didn’t have any cell service at the graveyard in Beaver and what was I supposed to do—throw a blanket over her and tie her up? She thinks I can find out who killed Strother and her dad. She was willing to talk to me because I’m not a cop.”

“Can you get to her again?”

“Not reliably. She finds me.”

Faith huffed and frowned. “Damn it. Damn it! You have to get that girl to talk to me.”

“She’s not going to walk in here and get herself arrested.”

“I’ll go to her.”

“What could she possibly tell you? If she knew who killed her father or Strother, she’d have told me already.”

“She knows what happened to her brother and Timothy Scott.”

“Scott was the phone lineman she shot?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure about it.”

“She says she did it.”

“On purpose? Lying in wait? That doesn’t sound like something a nineteen-year-old girl does no matter what Ridenour says about her. If you’re telling me the truth, she’d already done a stint in juvie and, believe me, she wouldn’t want to go to jail after that, so I can understand her running. But what does a kid that age know? She doesn’t have any perspective on the world. She thinks everything is her fault and she blames herself even if it’s an accident. She probably thinks she’s responsible for her mother’s death, too, one way or another.”

“You talk as though you know.”

“I’ve seen a lot of screwed-up kids. They come in two kinds: the truly hard and the scared shitless. Willow Leung’s crimes aren’t the acts of a bad kid, a hard kid; they’re wild-kid stuff. Except for the murder, which makes no sense at all. A young woman whose rap sheet is trespass, joyriding, petty B and E on abandoned buildings, and smoking dope doesn’t lie in wait and murder a man she’s never met. Not without cause.”