Twenty-Seven

Dan and I shared a chocolate torte for dessert. We paid the lunch check and went outside, where he kissed me good-bye. Then we separated, heading for our respective cars.

I took Graton Road west, driving out of the little town into the countryside beyond. Just as I passed the turnoff leading to Cousin Pat’s house, my cell phone rang. When I answered it, I heard Joe Kelso’s voice.

“I’ve been looking into that accident back in June,” he said, after we’d exchanged greetings. “The one involving Rick Newman. I got the file from a friend of mine in county law enforcement. There’s nothing to suggest that it was anything but an accident. But I can see why you’re suspicious.”

“How so?” I crossed the bridge over Purrington Creek and headed into a curve.

“Hard to put my finger on it,” Joe said. “But my gut tells me something’s off. Why did this guy’s motorcycle go off the road? It was a sunny day in June.”

“Yes, that’s the way it hit me. So I’m left with the theory that maybe, just maybe, Rick Newman isn’t dead, but he wants people to think he is. And if that’s the case, why?”

“Don’t know,” Joe said. “I took a look at this guy’s record. Drug offenses, the most recent one possession for sale. Some breaking-and-entering, a couple of fights, the occasional drunk-and-disorderly. He did jail time for several of those. But his record is small-time stuff, nothing big or flashy. Maybe he got himself involved in something that got out of hand and he decided to disappear. I’ll keep looking.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

I ended the call, then slowed my Toyota as the car in front of me signaled and then made a left turn into a driveway. The road leading to the Hargis ranch was coming up in another mile or so. As I approached that intersection, I saw a blue sedan stopped there, waiting to make a turn onto Graton Road. I passed the car. The blinker was on, signaling a right turn, and the driver was a woman. She had dark hair tied back with a scarf. After I passed, the blue car turned, heading the same direction I was.

I kept the car in sight in my rearview mirror. At the first opportunity, I pulled off the road in front of several mailboxes. The driver didn’t look at me as the blue car passed, but I looked at her closely. I was pretty sure the driver was Willow, and I guessed she was going to the gallery in Occidental.

I pulled back onto the road, following her. When we reached Occidental, she turned left on Main Street, driving slowly through the town’s small commercial district. She parked in front of Hestia Gallery. I pulled into a space nearby and got out of my Toyota.

The woman got out of her car. She was dressed for the hot weather in her Teva sandals and khaki shorts. She wore a gauzy flowered cotton shirt in purple and blue, the colors matching the scarf she’d used to tie back her hair. Her handbag was made of purple quilted cotton, the strap slung across her shoulder. She walked around to the back of the blue car, a fairly new Honda Accord hybrid. She opened the trunk and took out a large carton, carrying it toward the front door of the gallery. I was there to hold open the door.

“Thanks,” she said in a pleasant, low voice.

I followed her inside and hung around the shelves near the display of Willow’s pottery. I noticed that the green platter I liked so much was still there. She set the carton on the floor near the counter. There were several customers inside the gallery, and Avie Northrup was ringing up a sale.

When she had finished with the customer, the gallery owner turned to the woman. “Hi, Willow, good to see you. It’s a gorgeous day.”

“Hi, Avie. Yes, it’s beautiful. Hot, though.” Willow pointed to the box at her feet. “I brought you some things to take to the apple fair this weekend. Small pieces—mugs, vases, bowls, plates, the usual. Where do you want it?”

“Great. Thanks for bringing it in. I’m sure we’ll sell lots of art at the booth. Put the box in the storeroom.” The gallery owner waved toward the back of the shop. “We’re taking everything over to Ragle Ranch Park early Saturday morning. Are you planning to stop by the fair?”

“I might,” Willow said. “I’m not sure what I’ll be doing on Saturday.”

She picked up the carton again and walked toward the rear of the gallery. Another customer stepped up to the counter and asked to see a piece of jewelry in one of the cases. As Avie leaned down to open the case, I followed Willow back to the storeroom. She set the carton on a bench, opened the flaps at the top and took out a newspaper-wrapped bundle. She removed the newspaper, revealing a large coffee mug, similar to the one she’d sold Brian. This one was cobalt blue, chased here and there with an iridescent rust.

“Nice piece,” I said. “I like the color.”

Willow smiled at me, a friendly expression on her face. “It’s for the Gravenstein Apple Fair on Saturday. The gallery’s going to have a booth. Interested in buying it? I’m sure Avie will sell it to you now, rather than wait for the fair.”

“Right now I’m more interested in conversation. I’m Jeri Howard, Brian’s sister.”

Willow’s hazel eyes widened and took on a deer-in-the-headlights expression. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. She rewrapped the mug and put it inside the carton. “I don’t know where Brian is.”

“But you do know something. How did you know he was missing?”

“Becca told me. She called me, well, called my cell phone and left a message.”

So Becca had been lying—once again—when she told me she didn’t have a phone number for Willow.

“We need to talk,” I said.

Willow nodded. “I know. Let’s get something to drink.”

We left the gallery and walked a few doors down the street to the Howard Station Café. As hot as it was, coffee didn’t sound good. Willow ordered iced tea, and I opted for lemonade. When I took a sip, it was good, a nice balance between tart and sweet. We took our drinks out to the café’s front porch. Willow sipped her tea in silence. I waited for her to say something.

Finally she spoke. “There isn’t anything going on between me and Brian. Even though Becca thinks there is. Brian and I are just friends, that’s all.”

So you say, I thought, examining her face. There might not be anything going on between her and my brother, but I had a feeling Willow wished there was.

“I am less concerned about your relationship with my brother than I am with what you know that will help me find him.”

“I told Brian he could use the cabin,” Willow said.

I straightened and leaned toward her. “What cabin? Where?”

“On the ranch. My grandfather died earlier this year and left the land to me and my brother, Rick. They used the cabin when they went hunting, Rick, Dad and Grandpa. There are wild pigs up there in the hills, and deer and wild turkeys, too.”

“Why did you offer Brian the cabin?”

“He wanted to get away for a few days,” she said. “I ran into him a week ago, at Andy’s Market north of Sebastopol. He’d been on a day hike up here. He said he wanted to get away, but he hadn’t been able to find a campsite at short notice, because they were booked. He said he was planning to stay home in Petaluma and do day hikes at places here in the area. I said he could use the cabin. It would be okay because I was going away. I left Friday morning and went up to Mendocino. I got back yesterday afternoon.”

“When did Brian go up to the cabin?” I asked.

“Friday, I guess. I saw him at the market on Thursday afternoon. We talked about it and he said that sounded like a great idea. I was planning to leave on my trip early Friday, so I gave him my extra key to the gate. He said he’d pack up his gear and go up to the cabin sometime Friday morning. That’s the last time I saw him or talked with him.”

I nodded. What Willow was telling me fit with the information I’d gotten from my cousin Pat. She was right, she had seen Brian’s Jeep in Graton last Friday.

“Brian left a note for his wife saying he was going away for a few days and would be back on Sunday. He never came home.”

“She must be frantic,” Willow said. “But Brian isn’t at the cabin. I went up there as soon as I got back yesterday and checked my messages. You see, I didn’t check the voice mail on my cell phone while I was away, not until I got home. That’s when I got the message from Becca saying that Brian was missing. She thought maybe we’d run off together. That’s Becca for you. She’s such a drama queen. She reads more into me and Brian having coffee than there really is. By the way, I don’t think Becca likes Sheila much. But I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Brian’s marriage. He and I are just friends.”

“You said that. So Brian’s not at the cabin. Did you see anything that indicates he was ever there?”

“I don’t know. I just drove up there yesterday when I got back and heard Becca’s message. I went up again this morning. I didn’t see his Jeep, and the cabin was empty.”

I finished my lemonade and set down the glass. “I want to take a look. Maybe I can see something you didn’t.”

Willow nodded. “Okay. That makes sense. You’re the private eye, you can look at it with different eyes.”

We went back to our cars and I followed her out of Occidental, onto Graton Road. When we reached Hargis Ranch Road, we turned left onto the gravel road. We drove up a gentle slope past the orchard I’d seen on my earlier visit, where windfall apples littered the ground under the trees. When we got to the gate, Willow got out of her Honda and unlocked it. She went through and I followed. She locked the gate again, and we drove up a gently curving hill, through more apple trees, these heavy with ripening fruit. She turned off the gravel road onto a half circle drive in front of the one-story, wood-framed house. It was painted white with blue trim, and it had a wide front porch with an old-fashioned swing hanging from the porch rafters, the kind of swing where one could sit and rock, looking down into the valley with its rolling hills and stands of trees. To the south of the house I saw the brick kiln that Willow had built for herself when she moved into the house. Behind this was the barn she used as a work space.

Willow parked her car in the drive and got out. She walked to my Toyota and spoke to me through the open window. “The road gets really narrow. We’d better take one car up there.”

“Good idea.” I unlocked the passenger door. She got in. I drove back onto the gravel road and continued driving uphill. We went through another orchard with trees full of green apples. Then the road curved and led into a forest of pine and oak trees. “It’s rugged country up here.”

“Yes. My great-grandfather used to log up here. Occidental was a timber town, you know.” She sighed, a wistful sound. “I miss Grandpa. And my mother. She died last summer. Then Rick died in June, just a few weeks ago. Now that Rick’s gone, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all this land. It’s almost a hundred acres. I’m happy to have the house, after living in a rental for so many years. I built a kiln and I turned the barn into a workshop. I’m so glad to have that, now that I’m doing well with my pottery.”

“A hundred acres is a lot of land.” I slowed as the car bounced over some ruts. “And a lot of it in orchards, from the look of it.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Willow said. “You saw all the apples on the ground. Things have been neglected since Grandpa died. I’ve had offers from two wineries. It’s very tempting. They’re offering a lot of money. They want to tear out the trees and plant grapes.”

The road narrowed, trees closing in on us. “Yes, that’s happening all over the area.”

“Becca’s after me to turn them down. The wineries use so much water and so many orchards are being torn out. But I’m no farmer. Even if I was, people are getting out of apples as a crop. They’re not getting very much for apples, and lots of money for wine grapes. I’m up in the air about the whole thing.” Willow waved at the thick forest around us. “I was thinking about preserving this part of the land as open space. I wonder if it could be a county park, with hiking trails. There’s a creek up here by the cabin.”’

“That’s a thought,” I said. “But access would be a problem. People would have to drive past the house.”

“This road goes farther. It winds around to the north and west, and connects with Green Valley Road. So people could have access that way. But the road would have to be improved, either way. That’s the cabin, up there.” Willow pointed as we rounded a curve. Ahead was the creek she’d mentioned. I drove slowly over a bridge with no railings, my tires rumbling on the rough wooden planks, and we entered a small clearing.

The cabin looked to be about twelve feet square, with a small porch in front of the door. Off to the right I saw an old wooden outhouse. I parked my Toyota and got out, looking around me. There were no cars here now, save my own, but I saw tracks on the dirt and grass in front of the cabin, indicating the recent presence of several vehicles. Willow had said she’d driven her own car up here, both yesterday and today. What about the other vehicles? Was one of them Brian’s Jeep?

I walked toward the cabin, noticing cigarette butts on the dirt near the porch. I opened the door and stepped inside. The cabin was a large single room, with no other entrance than this one. There were uncovered windows on all four walls. Directly in front of me was a rectangular table made of lightweight aluminum and two metal folding chairs. The table surface held a grease stain and an empty tuna can that had been used as an ashtray. Next to the table, several wooden fruit crates had been stacked on their sides to create shelves. These were empty, except for a few flakes of something that looked like cereal and a scattering of ground coffee, salt, and pepper.

Someone had been here, though how long ago I couldn’t tell. And that someone smoked. It wasn’t Brian. Smoking was a habit that neither of us had picked up.

To my left, I saw two single mattresses, the kind covered with blue-and-white ticking. The mattresses rested on two old iron bedsteads, with knobs at the head and foot. The bedsteads were painted white, but the paint was flaking, showing black metal underneath. There was a rough wooden stool between the beds and another wooden fruit crate on the back wall, the other side of the second bed.

I moved closer and looked at the mattresses. There was a stain on the mattress on the near bed, a rust-colored stain I examined. Then I backed away and noticed a similar stain on one of the knobs at the foot of the bed. Dried blood, I thought. Not unexpected in a cabin that had been used by hunters. But how recently had the bed knob and the mattress acquired the bloodstains?

“Did your brother smoke?” I asked Willow, who had followed me inside the cabin.

“Yes, he did, started when he was a kid.” She looked around and saw the can filled with cigarette butts. “He must have been up here before he died.”

“That’s a lot of butts,” I said.

“Rick’s friend Harry used to come up here, too. He’s a smoker.”

“When was the last time you came here to the cabin, before yesterday when you came looking for Brian?”

Willow thought about it for a moment. “It was after Grandpa died, which was in January, but before Rick died in June. So I was up here sometime in the late spring, sometime after the rains stopped. That road gets to be a mess when it storms, and in a really wet year the creek floods over the bridge.”

I paced around the cabin, looking in corners. Then I spotted something shiny on the floor near the front door. I bent down and picked it up, holding it in the palm of my hand. It was a tiny link to a bracelet, and I was betting it had come off Brian’s MedicAlert bracelet.

I tucked the link into my pocket. Then I turned and looked at the can full of cigarette butts on the table.

“What kind of cigarettes did Rick and Harry smoke?”

Willow frowned. “Rick? Marlboros, I think. Harry always rolls his own, though.”

So Harry’s cigarette butts would be unfiltered, just like the butts I’d seen in the ashtray at Vann’s Motorcycle Shop. I picked up the tuna fish can and gave it a shake, shifting the contents. There were two kinds of cigarette butts in the can. Two smokers had been in the cabin, and I figured they’d been here recently, in the past few weeks.

Once again I thought about Rick’s motorcycle accident, the one where his body had supposedly washed out to sea from the bottom of that cliff. And the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that Rick Newman was alive. Unless he’d been the man whose body I’d seen in the Sonoma County Morgue a few days ago.

I reached into my bag for the picture I’d torn from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the artist’s sketch of the man who’d died on the boat. I handed it to Willow.

She looked at me, curious. Then she looked down at the picture. Her eyes widened.

“Oh, my God. That’s Harry Vann.”