Chapter Twenty-Three

 

I stepped out of the bathroom and said, “I want to try the icehouse.”

Rachel and Espie exchanged looks. “Where’s that?” Espie asked.

“Down the road a little. Behind the trees, I think.”

“You think?”

“Look,” I said, “I know you’re tired and your feet hurt, but I don’t believe we should split up, and I want to check the icehouse. I think J.X. might be stashed there.”

Rachel said uncomfortably, “But isn’t that where…?”

“Yes. That’s where they’re storing Peaches and Krass. Which is why I think it’s a great hiding place. No one is going to go poking around in there.” No one except J.X., who had admitted to investigating the icehouse the night before last.

Espie stared down at her mud-caked shoes and then stared at me. Rachel looked about as woebegone as I’d ever seen her.

She sighed. “Right. Well, I suppose it’s my fault you’re in this jam. If I hadn’t insisted on dragging you up here—”

“That’s right,” I told her. “And don’t think because you’re admitting this now that I’m not going to throw it up at you in future arguments.” I trailed them out into the swirling mist.

“I can’t believe this shit. It’s like we’re in that episode of the Twilight Zone,” Espie was grumbling as I shut the door to J.X.’s cabin and took the lead, starting relatively briskly off toward the dirt road—or what I hoped was the direction of the dirt road.

“A regular pea souper,” Rachel agreed.

“Is that what they call it where you come from, querida?” Espie asked dryly.

Rachel didn’t respond.

We could still hear our fellow searchers calling out to each other in the cotton wool silence.

“You sure we’re going the right way?” Espie asked after a time.

“Yes,” I lied.

We continued our way down the uneven dirt track—or what I hoped was the dirt track—avoiding the puddles and rain-carved furrows the best we could. The farther we walked, the fainter grew the voices behind us.

“I don’t like this,” Rachel said. “What if we can’t find our way back?”

“There it is,” I said with relief. I could make out the roof through the eddying mists. “Rachel, you stay on the road here. Espie and I will go check the building.”

“How did I get elected action hero?” Espie objected, but she followed as I lengthened my strides.

The building rose in front of us, weathered with time and silvered by the rain. It was a single-story windowless structure built into the hillside behind it. Rain dripped in slow loud plops from the eaves. The double doors were chained and padlocked.

I’d figured on the padlock. I hadn’t figured that there would be no windows or any way to see inside. I walked down the side of the building. No windows. No side entrance. I walked back and explored down the other side. Same story. No windows, no side entrance. I came back to the double doors and contemplated them.

“Bloody hell,” Rachel called. “I can’t see either of you now.”

“We’re right here,” Espie called back. “We got a little problem.” To me, she said, “You ain’t going to break that padlock, esse. It’s got a steel shroud around the hasp to keep people like you and me out.”

She’d read me right; I had been searching the ground for something I could use to smash the lock. She was also right about the padlock. The only way in would be to break the chain, and the links were heavy steel—shiny and new.

“Edgar think he got a pair of zombies in there?” Espie remarked, picking up the heavy links and giving them an experimental tug.

I swore and banged on the splintering face of the door. “J.X.?” I yelled. “Are you in there?”

Espie and I listened tensely. The doors creaked in a phantom breeze, the rain dropped in heavy splashes from the roof.

“If he’s not in there, I hope nobody else answers,” Espie whispered.

I pounded on the door. “J.X.?”

I could hear Rachel pacing uneasily a yard or so away.

“J.X.?”

“You’re creeping me out, man,” Espie said. “He’s not in there.”

“He might be unconscious.”

“Then he’s not going to answer you.”

I slammed my hand against the door in frustration one final time. “Okay. I need to get Edgar to open this goddamned building for me.”

“Now you’re talking,” Espie approved. “Let’s go back to the lodge. Maybe there’ll be some good news. Or some hot coffee. I think they waved the pot this morning over a match.”

“What’s going on?” Rachel shouted. “Are you both all right?”

“Yo!” Espie yelled back. “We’re fine.” To me she said almost kindly, “Come on, Christopher. If he is in there, the faster we get back to the lodge, the faster you can get to him.”

She was right, but I had a horrible feeling as we turned and made our way back to the road. I was convinced that J.X. was in there and that if we left him now, we were leaving him to die.

But there was no way to get inside the damned building…

I stopped walking. “I’m going to wait back at the icehouse. When you get to the lodge, tell Edgar to come down and unlock the doors.”

“You can’t stay down here by yourself,” Rachel shrilled. “What if the killer comes after you?”

“Why should he? He wants me to be blamed for the murders. He can’t very well kill me.”

“He can if you make too much of a nuisance of yourself.”

Espie said, “I don’t know if anyone still thinks you’re the killer after the hissy fit you threw this morning.”

“Sometimes in a room full of women you have to raise your voice to be heard,” I said with dignity.

“Raise your voice? You raised the roof. And then you got in a catfight with—”

“All right, all right.” I said to Rachel, “Anyway, I’ll be fine. The place is crawling with searchers right now.”

“Who can’t see five feet in front of them,” Espie pointed out. “Don’t be stupid, homeboy. Do you see any searchers around here?”

By now they each had hold of my arms—it didn’t help that they seemed to want to drag me in different directions. I shook them off. “Look, enough talk. I let him down once. I can do this much for him.”

Neither of them said anything.

“All right,” Rachel said finally. “We’ll be as quick as we can. But I think you’re mad.”

I was already heading back to the icehouse.

Their voices—and uncomplimentary opinions of me—faded into the mist. And I knew they were right. This made no sense at all. If I couldn’t get into the building, then how would the killer get past the chains?

Unless the killer was Edgar. Or Rita. Or Debbie.

I considered this as the ramshackle structure materialized before me again.

Edgar would certainly be a physical match for J.X. He knew the lodge and was best positioned for moving and hiding bodies. And he’d be the best bet for disabling his own generator—especially since the generator hadn’t been damaged, just a lot of fuel wasted.

I considered the disabling of the emergency generator. Come to think of it, what had been the point of that? Someone wanted us without power…why? We already couldn’t get out. Contact with the world beyond the lodge was sketchy at best. Someone wanted us to eat cold food and drink cold coffee? Someone wanted us to go without heat? Someone wanted the lights off at night? Bingo. Someone wanted the cover of darkness. Because something had been planned for last night. J.X.’s disappearance. But was it voluntary or involuntary?

I believed it was involuntary, but…was that because that was what I wished to believe?

I leaned against the rough wood face of the building, huddling deeper into my coat. It was Northern California, not Alaska, for God’s sake. Why the hell was it so cold? And so quiet…

I tuned out my uneasiness. So…Edgar. He had the means and probably the opportunity, but it was very hard to see Edgar in the role of ruthless murderer. For one thing he seemed too calm, too practical. This kind of murder was a crime of desperation, surely?

I mulled that over. Actually there were three—two—different murders to consider. There was Peaches’ murder, which seemed to have been the best planned out. Meaning, whoever had killed her had time to cart her body off to the woods and hide her. Her belongings had been packed, creating the illusion that she had left voluntarily. And if the bridge hadn’t washed out, and I hadn’t come stumbling along, that facade probably would have held up for at least a few days—maybe even a few weeks. Long enough to better conceal the body and belongings.

One thing was for sure, whoever killed Peaches was pretty coolheaded. They’d have to be, to calmly pack up her belongings and then cart body and suitcases off to the woods.

That meant having access to Peaches’ room. Granted, he—or she—would have that after they’d killed her. They’d also need access to one of the lodge vehicles—but I’d already noticed that the truck and van keys were kept in a key box behind the front desk. If I’d noticed, safe to assume plenty of other people had too. The killer would need to know about the shrine in the woods, right? But the shrine in the woods was mentioned in the lodge brochure as a hiking destination.

So…not necessarily someone from the lodge. Not by any means. Besides…what would the motive be? Debbie had clearly adored Peaches. Rita had loathed her, but loathing was still a long way from removing someone from the face of the planet. Edgar…it was hard to read Edgar. He mostly seemed to view Peaches as a pain in the ass.

Motive. That was the hard part because aside from Debbie, the only person who seemed to feel much affection for Peaches had been Krass.

Man, it was taking a long time for Edgar to show up. I rubbed my hands up and down my wool-covered shoulders and walked the length of the icehouse a couple of times to try and keep warm.

Krass. His murder seemed much more like a matter of expediency. He had seen something that made him suspicious—he couldn’t have known for sure who killed Peaches because he’d surely not have been stupid enough to meet that person alone behind the lodge that night. Assuming that was what had happened. Whoever killed Krass, in my opinion, had killed him out of fear of exposure. So the key to the murderer still lay with figuring out who had a strong enough grudge against Peaches to risk killing her this weekend.

Because that was the other key consideration—timing. Why this weekend? If it was someone who knew and loathed Peaches, why now? Why not wait? Killing her at Blue Heron Lodge guaranteed a small pool of suspects, which upped the chance of getting caught.

There must have been some urgency for getting rid of her now. Why?

I turned my collar up and considered the time-honored tropes of mystery fiction. Pregnancy. Peaches was pregnant with someone’s baby. That let Edgar out, but what about George and J.X.? J.X. had apparently been seeing Peaches socially, so it was a possibility. Mindy kept George on a pretty tight leash, but that didn’t mean he never slipped his collar, and he’d certainly been quick to try and get me lynched for the murders.

Or what about this…what if Peaches was actually Debbie’s biological mother and she had come to claim her this weekend? Even if she hadn’t come to claim her…I could see Rita wiping Peaches out without thinking twice to protect Debbie.

Yeah. I liked that. I liked it a lot better than the notion that Peaches and J.X. were having an affair.

My thoughts were interrupted by the squishy thud of approaching footsteps. I waited, eyes searching the swirling brume.

I saw his cowboy hat first, and then Edgar appeared out of the fog. Belatedly, it occurred to me that if Edgar was the killer, I had placed myself in an extremely vulnerable position—although if Edgar was the murderer, even he must be getting uneasy about the unsightly body buildup.

His greeting was prosaic enough as he held up a key ring. “Your friends told me you think the cop might have been dumped in the icehouse.”

“I know it’s a long shot.”

“Son, it’s no shot at all. You saw the chain on the door. I locked that padlock myself yesterday morning after we put your editor in there. Nobody could get inside.”

“Where do you keep that key ring?”

He hesitated. “In the front desk drawer.”

“Someone could have taken them, then.”

He stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was mostly exasperated or confounded. “All right,” he said at last, in the tone of one humoring an unreasonable but loyal customer. “Let’s have a look.” He picked up the chain and inserted the key in the padlock.

I realized I was shaking with nerves and cold as I waited for him to twist the key, wriggle loose the shank, and pull the chain free. It slid clanking to the ground, and Edgar hauled open the heavy door. The hinges groaned.

“Watch where you step,” Edgar warned me. “There’s a wooden walkway around the spring. It’s not in great shape these days.” He ducked inside the door, and I followed him cautiously.

Edgar switched his flashlight on. The wan beam swept across the still, ink-black water and poked into the cobwebbed corners. Two long motionless tarps lay side by side on the ground beside the walk. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

The smell of death mingled with dank water. My stomach roiled unhappily. I was glad I hadn’t had anything to eat for breakfast.

“Seen enough?” Edgar asked somberly.

“How deep is the spring?”

I felt his stare. “You’ve got quite an imagination,” he said. “It’s about twelve feet deep.”

My footsteps echoed hollowly as I picked my way down the wooden ties that formed the walkway. Kneeling, I peered into the pool. It was black, fathomless. I couldn’t see anything in those jet waters. I dipped my hand in. Ice cold. I pushed the water aside, trying to see through the murky wet. Yeah. Nice try.

I rose painfully, my back protesting all this unaccustomed physical activity. If I managed to survive this weekend, I was going to make getting back in shape a priority. I said, “Can you shine the light over here? I want to check who’s wrapped in these tarps.”

The silence that followed was one of the loudest I’ve ever heard.

At last Edgar said, “You think the killer tossed one of the bodies in the pond and wrapped Moriarity in a tarp? Why not throw Moriarity in the pond?”

“Because maybe he’s not dead.” I cautiously approached the first mound of tarp. I’m not going to pretend I was filled with anything but dread. Thanks to too many scary movies, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a hand had suddenly shot out of the wrappings and grabbed my ankle. Well, maybe I would have been surprised, but mostly I’d have been too busy shrieking.

I said with a steadiness I didn’t feel, “Maybe the killer is keeping him alive for some reason.”

“What reason?”

Edgar’s footsteps came down the wooden walkway. The flashlight beam spotlighted the top of the nearest tarp.

“I don’t know.” I said, “Maybe J.X. has some information he needs. Or maybe the killer is leery of killing a cop. Or an ex-cop. I’d be. Cop killers don’t do so well. Or…maybe I have to believe that he’s still alive.”

“I didn’t think you two got along,” Edgar said after a pause.

“We don’t.”

When I didn’t say anything more or make another move, Edgar said grimly, “Be my guest.”

I bent over the long tarp and pulled back one dusty edge. Steven Krass. Steven Krass with an expression straight out of a horror movie. I swallowed hard and covered his face again.

I stood up feeling weirdly lightheaded.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” I got out. I walked around Krass to the other neatly wrapped mound. I bent and jerked back the flap. Wrong end. But maybe that was a blessing. Her feet looked like wax in the dingy light. The toe ring glinted dully. I tossed the tarp back over her and straightened, hand pressed to the small of my back.

“Seen enough?” Edgar asked politely.

I nodded. Words were beyond me.