Grave Danger (23 page)

“Even more strange is the fact that Angela was granted unprecedented access to the Kalahwamish and now Rosalie Warren is granting
me
—forcing upon me, really—the same privilege and I’m not even a cultural anthropologist—who Indians at least tolerate. I’m an archaeologist—from an Indian point of view I’m the worst sort of anthropologist—a grave desecrater. In fact, I was in the process of doing just that—at least that’s what everyone thought at the time—when Rosalie demanded that I write this report for her. I’m not a cop, but I find all this curious. Why did Angela want that land? Why didn’t she tell Jack? Is Jack lying? Why did she choose to study the Kalahwamish? And why did the Kalahwamish trust her?”

“You could have told me all this before.”

“I’ve just been piecing it together. Today I made a list of questions while I was copying her research. You have to admit that my perspective is different than yours would be.”

“Which is the only reason I’m listening to your attempts to justify this.”

“If I don’t do my job, there won’t be a Cultural Center.”

“I’m not fool enough to believe that the Corps of Engineers will hold you to your deadline. If they have problems with your report, explain the hang-up and give them a copy of the warrant.”

“You have no idea how important Rosalie is. She’s the most revered living elder in the Pacific Northwest. There’s no telling what they’ll do if Rosalie Warren dies before she reads my report.”

“Well, I suggest you call your contact at the Corps ASAP and brace him because I’m taking the three unopened boxes tonight, then I’m coming back with a warrant for the rest.”

“I’d like to finish making my copies first.”

“Hell no! It’s now evidence. If there was a signed confession in one of those boxes your actions have tainted it, and it would now be inadmissible.”

“I hardly think you’re going to find a smoking gun in one of those boxes. I’ve been through eight of them. They aren’t that interesting.”

“You need to understand you’re a part of this case. You excavated the body. Your client is the victim’s husband. You’re staying in a house that belonged to her. You’re even following up on her research. You are
not
an unbiased investigator. My job is to collect evidence to find out who killed her. That evidence will then be used in a court of law with the goal of sending her killer to prison. If there’s anything in those boxes that exonerates or implicates Jack, then a judge will have a serious problem with the fact that you had access to them first.”

“I’d like to remind you that you yourself helped carry those damn boxes into the house. You didn’t have a problem with me having access to them then.”

“That was before we had her body and an investigation. After that point, the fact that her papers had been saved in sealed boxes became important.”

“If Jack did kill Angela, he’d be the idiot of the millennium to bury her on his own property then hire me to dig her up. And I hardly think he would store incriminating evidence all these years.”

“People have done stupider things. I see it all the time.”

They neared the Shelby house. They were no closer to bridging the chasm that separated them. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She knew he’d be upset, but had never considered his reaction would be this extreme. She’d been clueless to the consequences of her actions. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He didn’t even look at her.

“Mark, will you ever be able to understand my actions from my perspective?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled up in front of the house and turned to face her. “Are you sorry because I’m angry, or do you regret what you did?”

She didn’t want to answer that.

“Tell me. If you’d known exactly what my reaction would be, would you still have opened that box?”

“I needed the tapes.”

“It never occurred to you that I could give you copies of her research?”

“No.”

“You should have asked.”

“I’ve always found it easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”

“Not this time.”

Tense silence filled the space between them. Finally, Mark opened his door and climbed out. She followed. At the front door, she didn’t look at him as she handed him her keys.

He took the stairs two at a time. She waited in the living room while he made three trips to his car. Boxes loaded, he returned to the living room. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’m going to wake up a judge and get a warrant for the rest. Do you want to give me the keys now, or will you be here when I come back?”

“I’ll be here.”

“Good.”

The door closed behind him and she locked it. She went to the stereo system and flipped through the shoe box full of cassettes. She had copies of the four most important tapes: the Frances and George Warren interviews. A bitter laugh welled inside her. She’d sacrificed a relationship with Mark, but at least she had four tapes to show for it.

She ejected the last cassette from the tape deck and replaced it in the shoebox. She went upstairs. At her desk, she pulled out a clean notepad and copied the names and dates written on each cassette. Then she flipped through the stacks of papers she hadn’t photocopied and added that information to her list before she repacked Angela’s boxes.

She didn’t cry, but she had to fight the urge. Her pride wouldn’t let Mark see her as a swollen-eyed blubbering mess.

Mark was the most interesting, exciting, attractive man she’d ever met. And he’d wanted
her
. But she’d screwed up royally. Simone would say she’d sabotaged their relationship on purpose, and Libby wondered whether that was exactly what she’d done.

When he arrived with the warrant, she’d hold her head high.

She finished packing the boxes and carried the first one to the living room. She’d hand them over to him through the front door and then head to Simone’s. She no longer wanted to talk to him. Her hurt had changed to anger. Nothing like leaving a woman alone for an hour in mid-argument to let righteous indignation set in. She carried the rest of the boxes down one by one and lined them up by the front door.

Mark had been gone for forty-five minutes and could return at any time. She’d kill time with a glass of wine. She passed through the dining room on the way to the darkened kitchen and then groped along the wall of the pitch-black room for the switch. Panic shot through her as her fingers touched another hand, holding the switch in the off position.

Something pricked her on the back, just below her shoulder. A jolt passed through her body that had nothing to do with fear. A thousand tiny needles ripped her apart from the inside. Her legs buckled. She dropped to the floor.

She lost all sense of time and place. Pain from the needles continued. An endless agony.

Abruptly, the pain ceased. The sensation of being stabbed internally disappeared. Her ability to think returned. A cloth bag covered her head and tape covered her mouth. She tried to regain her bearings. Where was she? She rolled to her side and bumped into a cabinet. She reached out and touched the familiar wood. She was in her kitchen.

Someone grabbed her and pulled her arms together. From the iron grip on her wrists, she suspected her attacker was a man. He wrapped tape around her wrists. She kicked blindly, but her ankles were bound, and her thrashing was ineffective.

Mark, please come back.

The searing pain returned. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. All she could do was feel the agony of being shredded from the inside. He must be using a Taser on her.

Again, after seconds, minutes, or hours, the pain stopped. She tried to hit her attacker, but he moved out of reach. She could hear him. He was still in the room. Footsteps mixed with the sound of liquid splashing against the floor. She smelled gasoline.
Oh, God…

Pounding—the noise sounded as though it came from the front of the house. Mark?

“Libby, open up. I’ve got the warrant. I’m here to collect the boxes.”

Thank God.

She moaned in the back of her throat and rolled toward the cabinet. She kicked the cabinet repeatedly with her bare feet. Another Taser jolt tore through her. Tape over her mouth blocked her screams as the burning pain speared her again and again.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

M
ARK STOOD NEXT TO
O
FFICER
Lance Edelson as he pounded on Libby’s front door. Lights were on upstairs, but the ground floor was dark. She said she’d be here. She was too smart to play games. The warrant gave him the right to enter the premises. Mark tried the door, but the deadbolt was set. He pounded again. “Libby, open up.”

Nothing.

Lance shined his flashlight into the windows. The living room was empty. Mark could see the boxes lined up by the door, ready for him to take possession. In his gut, he knew she would answer the door if she could. The anger he’d harbored for the last hour evaporated and was replaced by fear.

“Police!” Mark yelled. “Open up!” He nodded to Lance, and they both pulled their weapons. Lance smashed the glass pane in the door with his flashlight. Mark reached in, unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

He heard a sound coming from the back of the house and ran to the kitchen. Lance’s flashlight revealed Libby on the floor, a pillowcase over her head, secured with a belt around her neck. Her hands were bound with the roll of duct tape still attached at her wrists. She was kicking a cabinet with taped-together legs.

Mark knelt beside her. “I’m here, Libby.”

She stopped kicking and turned toward his voice.

Lance turned on the lights. The back door was open. Mark nodded to Lance and the officer stepped out into the darkness, weapon drawn.

“Whoever did this to you is gone.” Mark began to loosen the belt around Libby’s neck, relieved to be able to place two fingers between the belt and her throat. The belt wasn’t what prevented her from speaking.

He caught a whiff of propane, let go of the buckle and stood. The distinctive scent was nearly overpowered by the intense odor of gasoline, which he could see had been dumped all over the kitchen. At the cooktop, he found every burner set on high, filling the room with gas. He hesitated. Turning off the burners could cause a spark as the knobs passed through the light section of the dial. Between the propane and the gasoline poured everywhere, one spark was all it would take for the kitchen to explode. He located the emergency shut off valve and twisted it closed.

Lance climbed the back steps as Mark lifted Libby. “Stay out,” he ordered. “The kitchen is full of propane.”

“The back is clear,” Lance said.

Outside, Mark set Libby down on the lawn, as far from the kitchen as possible. She still smelled of gasoline. He could see dark patches on her dress, places where the fuel had been poured over her. He finished unhooking the belt and pulled the pillowcase from her head. Her eyes were wide and scared. He gently worked at the duct tape that covered her mouth.

“I radioed for backup and an ambulance,” Lance said. “I think the suspect is long gone. At least two minutes elapsed between the time we arrived and when we entered. The suspect had plenty of time to clear the alley.”

Mark nodded. “No one is to enter the house until the gas dissipates. Radio for a fire truck, then check out the alley again. I don’t like having her out here like this, exposed.” He managed to work the tape off her mouth. He set the silver strip aside to be checked for fingerprints. She took a large gasping breath and then brought her bound hands to her face and rolled to her side. Her body shook as she let out a sob.

He reached out to comfort her, his fingers running through her hair. He didn’t feel any bumps or other signs of head trauma. “I need to know what happened,” he said softly.

“Jeez, Chief, is this how you entertain women?”

Mark glanced up to see Luke Roth approaching through the side yard. Mark’s response was something of a low growl. The usual irreverent humor used to break tension at crime scenes didn’t apply here. He was crazy about this woman. “What are you doing here? You’re off-duty.”

“I heard the call as I was driving by. Figured I’d come help out.”

Luke knelt beside Libby, across from Mark. Libby put her hands beneath her and pushed off the grass. Mark helped her into a sitting position. She wiped at her eyes.

“Have you been drinking?” Mark said, looking away from Libby and studying his officer. The last thing he needed was a drunk off-duty cop messing with the crime scene.

“I was the designated driver. I was dropping Roger off when the call came.”

Mark nodded, knowing Roger rented a house in the historic district, a block away. Luke’s timing was suspicious and right now Mark wasn’t in the frame of mind to trust anyone. Later he’d check with Roger and the others who’d been at the tavern to confirm what time Luke had left the bar.

He turned back to Libby and focused on her eyes. Her pupils were evenly dilated. “What happened?” he asked.

“I think I was Tasered,” she rasped. She licked her lips and shook her head. “There was lots of pain. A big jolt, like needles were inside me, ripping me apart.”