My cell buzzed.
"Hey, Soo Jin!" I said brightly, feeling much better. It's amazing what a crazy lie can do for your spirits.
"Hi, Merry! Can you stop by? Eddie has those results for you."
I heard a man's voice mumbling in the background, and Soo Jin giggled adorably.
"On my way."
I drove over there like the good circus freak I was.
"Come on in!" Soo Jin beckoned me into her office. Officer Ruiz gave me a friendly grin.
"Hi, Eddie," I said. "You've got something for me?"
We sat down in the medical examiner's office. Ruiz was wearing his State Police uniform. I hoped he didn't think this was official business. I really could get in trouble for that if he thought the soil sample came from an investigation.
"Yes." He grinned. He really was a very handsome man. With the jarringly beautiful Soo Jin, they made a gorgeous couple. It was so unfair.
"I had a friend who specializes in soil samples at the University of Iowa look at it."
"And?" I asked impatiently.
"It's very odd." Eddie picked up a file off Soo Jin's desk and handed it to me.
I looked it over. "There's nothing in it?" My heart sank. "Is that what this says?"
He shook his head. "No. And yes. It means there wasn't anything in the soil. And by that I mean no traces of corn. For all intents and purposes, this was virgin soil. It had never been planted."
I leaned back, my jaw dropped open. I hadn't seen this coming. "No traces of…you mean…there was no experimental crop?"
Ruiz nodded. "That's what he said."
"Could he be wrong?"
"No. He's the foremost expert on agricultural soil in the world."
I looked at Soo Jin. "That's a thing?"
She nodded.
The wheels began to turn in my head. "So there was no experimental crop?"
Eddie shook his head. "What it means is that nothing has ever been planted in this soil. There should be spores from corn or soybeans or even weeds. But it's clean. It's never been used."
That meant something different. "That could mean that whoever stole the crop stole the soil too!"
The trooper shrugged. "It's possible."
"It has to be true," I thought out loud. "Erskine's been a farmer forever. He's probably second or third generation. His dirt would've been used for decades."
"I'll leave that with you." Eddie got up and kissed Soo Jin on the cheek. "I left Scotty's phone number in there if you need to call him. I've got to go." He smiled at Soo Jin. "See you tonight?"
She nodded and squeezed his hands in hers. Then he walked out.
Back in my car, I read the report over and over. None of the information had changed since I'd read it in the office. Now I was faced with a dilemma. Take this to Riley, who Erskine hired to find his crop. Or take it to Rex, my husband, the town detective, who was also investigating but was also in talks with the FBI.
Riley, on the other hand, was probably sitting in his office.
* * *
"You're joking," Riley said for the tenth time as he stared at the papers.
I had to take it to him because he'd asked me to look into it. And Rex knew that I was helping Riley. But just in case, I made a photocopy on Riley's machine so I could take the same info to Rex after I got done here.
"The professor's number is on the top of the page," I said. "You can call him."
"Does this mean"—Riley leaned back in his chair—"that they stole the soil too?"
I nodded. "That's what I thought. It's a century farm, I'm certain. The dirt would have spores from all kinds of plants."
My former handler pondered this for a moment. "This doesn't make any sense. Who steals the soil along with the plants?"
"The only other possibility is that Erskine has an acreage that has never, ever been planted. Which also doesn't make sense."
Riley sighed. "Actually, I'm glad you're here. Look at this."
He handed me an insurance form.
"Erskine insured the experimental crop for five million dollars? Where did you get this?"
"I did some research."
"You hacked into the company's database, didn't you?"
"It took many tries to find the right one. You wouldn't believe how many insurance companies are out there."
"By obtaining this illegally," I reasoned, "it won't hold up in court."
"I'm not trying to get my client arrested. I just wondered about his motivation."
"You think he never planted the corn, don't you? For five million dollars."
"It might explain the virgin soil," he said. "To throw the insurance company off the trail."
"It proves that he didn't plant it," I said.
He nodded. "Or it proves that something is wrong with his soil. How else to explain that he's never farmed that plot?"
Riley had a point. And that's when it hit me.
"You didn't hack into anything. The insurance company hired you to find out if Erskine is lying before they pay out."
"You have such a suspicious mind, Wrath."
I pressed him. "Am I right?"
"You're right," he agreed.
"Did you accept their offer?"
Riley nodded.
"Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?"
"I suppose so," he mused. "I didn't sign anything, just promised to look around."
"And if you find proof, Erskine could go to jail for insurance fraud."
His face clouded. "I know. But if he stole the crop and hired me in hopes of making a fool out of me, he's got another think coming."
It was a dilemma. I couldn't really blame Riley. You can't get money out of a convicted felon easily. And he didn't want to look stupid. I got that. But taking both jobs seemed a little…well, shady.
I sighed. "If that's the case, then we can cross that off the list of reasons why Anna Beth Trident was here. If it wasn't agricultural espionage, then we're back at square one. Who murdered her and why?"
"It could be Lana. I still think it could be Hilly. Or maybe she just ran across the path of a serial killer. Who knows?"
I threw up my arms. "This is so frustrating!"
"Does Rex consider you to be a person of interest?"
The idea startled me, even after it had been brought up before. "No. He knows I didn't kill her."
Riley leaned back in his chair. "Does he suspect Hilly?"
"She's on his list. But you know if Hilly is really here on business, the CIA will just come down and clean it all up." I sighed heavily.
He looked out the window. "Well, the CIA will most likely blame Lana, now that we know she's here."
I rubbed my stitches, which probably wasn't a smart move. It would make things so much easier by blaming Lana. I wanted desperately to believe it. But for some reason I couldn't.
Riley's eyes grew large, and he grinned. "You still think it's a possibility that Hilly killed that woman!"
I shook my head unconvincingly. "No, I—"
He jumped to his feet. "Yes, you do! I know that look! You think I might be right."
"I've never thought you might be right about anything." I rolled my eyes.
"I've been right lots of times, and you know it," he crowed. "What about that time in Paraguay?"
I frowned. "When you thought the prime minister was really an imposter? That was too easy. The fake guy had a tattoo of a heart with a pug on it. The real prime minister didn't."
"And I was right in Okinawa when I told you we were looking at the Yakuza for that hit."
"You're joking. Of course the Yakuza did the hit. They left a note that literally said, Killed by Yakuza!"
But Riley was on a roll. "And I was right about Hilly planting that bomb she rescued you from."
I slammed my hand down on his desk. "For the last time, she didn't do that!"
Shockwaves of pain reverberated through my stitched wrist. That might not have been the best idea to prove my point.
Riley smiled then looked past me and narrowed his eyes at the window. "Hey, is that Hilly driving by?"
I followed his gaze to see my friend pass the window in her SUV.
"I'm going to follow her." I snatched up my purse.
"Wait!" Riley got up. "We'll take my car. She doesn't know it."
Somehow we managed to scramble into the car without losing her. As we started down the street, using the usual evasive measures, I couldn't help thinking this was a mistake. Hilly was my friend. How would I explain this if she caught us?
"I don't want you having all the fun." Riley grinned as he drove.
"You just want to prove me wrong," I groused.
My former handler continued to flash that cocky smile. "There's that too. But hey, you might get lucky. This might prove me wrong."
I thought about this as we drove through town.
"Let's cast all prejudice aside and consider this logically. You put aside your dislike for Hilly, and I'll put aside my friendship. What do you think?"
Hilly passed the city limit and was heading out of town. Riley pulled in one car behind her. As far as it seemed, she had no idea we were following her. Following someone is not easy, especially in a small town with little traffic. Still, we had this huge red pickup in front of us, which helped. I was just happy we weren't behind a tractor. Those things were aggravatingly slow.
"Okay," Riley reasoned. "Strictly rational. You have to take into account a few things. One, you found her behind that restaurant. If she was looking for you, why was she hiding?"
"To surprise me?" My voice was laden with wishful thinking.
He gave me a look. "Why would she try to surprise you? You barely knew her."
"That's not true," I said before my brain caught up with my mouth—something that happened far too often. "I mean, aside from our first run-in, our paths crossed a couple of times, and we had drinks or coffee."
"A couple of times in all your years of employment. Face it… You know Ahmed more intimately."
I opened my mouth to say something but then closed it. It was true I'd talked to Ahmed more frequently since I started selling cookies. I did have way more contact with him than with Hilly.
"I'll grant you that," was all I said.
"So," he continued, "why would she come here and hide out behind the restaurant you and Rex were in? And why hide out by the dumpster? I have to wonder if she was waiting, trying to get your attention to lure you back there and take you out."
"But"—I held up an index finger—"she didn't take me out."
"Because she knew you were with Rex. Someone would come looking for you in minutes. She's in a small town she's not familiar with. It's best to bide her time."
He didn't wait for me to respond. "Second, a Chinese spy ends up dead in your backyard, a hundred feet from Hilly."
I countered, "Yes, but Anna Beth wasn't murdered in my backyard. She was killed somewhere else and dropped there."
"You said you walked across the street to check on Hilly. Isn't it possible she was watching out for you and faked sleeping? Maybe the body was in the trunk of her car and she was going to bury it in your backyard, but you disturbed her."
My stomach slid to my ankles. "I hadn't thought of that."
Riley's argument for Hilly killing Anna Beth Trident was a solid one. "Maybe she was going to dump Anna Beth at the restaurant. Maybe she had no idea I even lived here." Against my wishes, I was starting to backslide into Riley's logic.
"And thirdly"—Riley held up three fingers—"she always seems to be following you somewhere, right?"
I thought about the trip to the zoo in the middle of the night. She could only find me there if she had been following me. Too bad she hadn't followed me to the field yesterday. That would've saved me some pain.
"Those are all valid points," I grumbled. "My turn. Number one, she's been very genuine and friendly. Even asked me to be her best friend."
"Being best friends doesn't mean she can't kill you," Riley interjected.
I tried to picture Kelly doing that. But even all the times she's wanted to kill me…or had a good reason for killing me…she didn't. Would someone like Hilly, who didn't seem to know what friendship was, think the same? Kelly was a nurse—she saved lives. Hilly kind of went the other way.
"Number two"—I held up two fingers—"killing me would certainly implicate her. Why take the risk?"
"That's a good point," Riley conceded. "But if she knew Lana was here, she might've thought she could take the heat off her. Everyone knows Lana wants you dead."
Hilly turned off the highway onto a gravel road that I knew went nowhere. Riley pulled off the road.
Riley looked into the rearview mirror. "Where does this go?"
"It's a dead end. There's an old quarry out there but nothing else."
"A quarry?" Riley's eyes lit up.
I knew what he was thinking. Quarries were excellent places to hide bodies. Did she have someone in her trunk? Wait…maybe it was Lana! That would solve a problem or two!
"There's an old driveway about twenty yards up the highway. It doesn't go anywhere because the house is long gone. We can hide the car there and go on foot."
Riley did as I asked. We got out of the car, and I led the way back to the gravel road. We went two rows into the corn and followed it as it paralleled the road.
"Why would she be out here?" I whispered. "I only know it's here because I know all the back roads around town. She couldn't possibly know about this place. It isn't even on maps."
"Unless she's been here before." Riley looked mournfully at his very expensive shoes as we tromped across the soil.
"She's good at her job," I mused. "One of the first things she's trained to do is scout out the area she's in."
"How much farther?" Riley asked.
His arms were getting scratched by the raspy leaves. Mine were too, but I hadn't noticed. I was torn between the horror of what we might find and the hope that maybe Hilly had killed Lana. But I wasn't ready to share my theory. Yet.
I pointed ahead. "Not too far. Maybe a quarter of a mile."
We picked our way carefully through the cornfield. I kept chastising myself for giving Hilly the benefit of the doubt. If I had to guess, I'd bet Riley was chastising himself for not having a pair of boots in the car. Oh well. Live and learn.
We fell into a companionable silence that comes from working so long together. I knew Riley well. And while he'd given me reason not to trust him in the past, he was someone I could count on in a pinch.
Could I say the same for Hilly? We really did only see each other a few times on the road. Was that enough for her to want to spend her first ever vacation with me? In the middle of Iowa?
I could be so blind sometimes. Maybe it's because I've been out of the spy biz for so long. Maybe it's because I believed her.
"All of these rational theories aside," I hissed, "she really could be here for the reasons she said."
"Really?" Riley's right eyebrow went up. "If she's just driving around, checking out the scenery, why hasn't she doubled back yet? You can't tell me that seeing an abandoned quarry in Iowa is on her bucket list."
I nodded. I'd been thinking the same thing.
I held out my arm to stop Riley in his tracks. "We should be very close. We will have to tread carefully from here on out to avoid being seen. Follow me and do exactly what I do," I whispered.
We moved slowly, keeping an eye on what was ahead. These rows could turn and open up quickly, and we weren't exactly dressed for a clandestine mission. I was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sport sandals, which wasn't too bad. But Riley was in a navy polo shirt, khakis, and dress shoes.
"And starting tonight, throw some trekking clothes into your trunk," I insisted.
I tried to remember what the quarry was like. I hadn't been here in years, but I remembered that it was surrounded by trees and rusted equipment. And it was filled with water. In high school, we used to come here to swim. That is…until they started finding bodies. It turned out that the crime syndicate in Des Moines discovered our watering hole and had been using it as a watery grave.
A couple of kids had been fishing, when one of them reeled in a human leg. We never went swimming there again. The authorities dredged the water and found seven corpses in all. Most of them were wrapped up. Written on one of the corpses in black marker were the words Richie Did It! But Richie was never found.
Splash!
The sound of something hitting water close by made me stop in my tracks. Riley nodded, indicating he'd heard it too. Then an engine started, and we heard the crunch of gravel under tires.
I started running with Riley on my heels. We burst out of the corn at the edge of the quarry just in time to see the rear corner of a black SUV turning into the foliage ahead. I motioned for Riley to stay and ran after it, keeping to the bushes for cover. I made it just in time to see the license plate before it sped off.
It was Hilly's. I was sure of that.