“The strongest pointers are likely to be in the soil at Hudson Heights, not in some records room up in Albany. Let’s go look
for ourselves.”
“Val, a sheriff can’t—”
“You don’t need to come along, though I wouldn’t say no to having somebody within Mayday range. I can find my way around that
area well enough in the dark to keep out of sight of any guards.”
He rose. “But you’re not going to—if I have to sit on you.”
“You keep telling me I’m not safe right here.”
His hands shot out to grip my shoulders. Not hard, but I do have my flashpoints. “Don’t you ever do that!” I said, furious,
shrugging away.
He reddened. “It’s still ‘no,’ Val. Simmer down a minute, can you? There’s another angle we need to look at. Let’s say we’re
right about Mariah. We don’t know that yet. How did the killers find out at least as early as yesterday that she was on to
something? Could she have left Willem a message, too? There are a couple of calls to the Garden Center on the list, and one
from his home number, late Tuesday night.”
“Given the probable bad guys and Willem’s inability to keep things to himself, I can’t imagine her cutting him in that soon.”
“She must’ve alerted somebody. I have studied and studied the local calls on the list from the last several days. All I see
are people she’d normally call, people—going from the previous records—she did, in fact, call frequently. Take a look, see
if anything strikes you.”
It was a long list. His source had printed out time, call duration, and numbers, next to which someone had penciled in the
names of the parties. He was right: there wasn’t an unfamiliar name showing. And except for Willem not a one with any particular
connection to Hudson Heights. Nobody, indeed, she wouldn’t be in touch with in the course of her normal life’s business. Nobody
she’d likely ring in on her research project. Unless …
Her call was made at six-twenty Wednesday evening. Duration, less than a minute—almost surely a message left on his answering
machine. He had called back at ten-eighteen the following morning, duration three minutes, twenty-three seconds.
“Is it okay if I check out something?”
“With whom?”
“Chauncy Bellis.”
“He showed up on the list several times. A late back and forth, as I recall.”
“That’s what interests me. Do you know what Chauncy’s profession was before he retired here to live with his brother?”
“College professor, wasn’t he?”
“Plant pathologist. He taught at Northwestern, did a lot of projects for the Illinois Department of Agriculture.”
“And you want to ask?”
“If he’d had a chance to answer that question Mariah and I were wondering about.”
It didn’t take him long to work it through. “Maybe that’s why there was no tape in her answering machine. Use your portable.
I’ll listen in on the kitchen extension.”
He picked up on the third ring. “Chauncy, it’s Val Wyckoff. Sorry I’ve been so long getting back to you. Before it altogether
slips my mind, with all that’s happened, did you ever get around to answering that question Mariah said she was going to hit
you with?”
“Certainly,” he snapped in his habitually peevish tone. “It was just Thursday morning we talked. I’d have thought you’d know
the answer to that.”
“I’m not too good on my toxics.”
“Apparently. It’s really rather basic, what a Cornell Pink, or for that matter any other azalea, would do if one were idiotic
enough to plant it where the soil was contaminated with chromated copper arsenate. It would shrivel up its little toes and
expire.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Did you happen to mention to anybody else that she’d asked?”
His never-warm tone grew even chillier. “I don’t believe I like the direction of this conversation.” With that he hung up.
“Chauncy left a message on my answering machine yesterday, wanting to know more about what happened to Mariah. Uneasy conscience?”
Baxter was good enough not to bring up how my mouth got too far ahead of me on that last question for Chauncy, but from his
expression I could see he’d worked it out. “The University Club luncheon meetings are the third Thursday of the month. They
had me as their speaker once. Chauncy and Thurman were both there that day.”
“Thurman didn’t waste any time, then, did he?”
“And we can’t expect anybody to start doing that now. Val, you’re out of here. I’ll put you in protective custody if I have
to.”
“Wouldn’t it be more practical to accompany me to the plateau tonight to get soil samples? Start making yourself an official
leg to stand on?”
“You will be sitting in jail tonight, or the refuge of your choice, provided it’s a goodly distance from here. Maybe I’ll
take a run out, later. I can always claim an alarm activation.”
“Sheriffs aren’t immortal either, and you don’t know exactly where to look. I do, now.”
“You can tell me.”
“No. The sort of guidance I’d be able to send you out there with wouldn’t be good enough. I can show you, though.”
A
friendly standoff? I couldn’t say for Baxter, who had sat back down, reopened the black binder, and commenced, with a show
of concentration, to review the dumpsite material. For me, not quite.
I stared out the window, working on it. Okay, I should have left maneuvering room, but even if I had, how could he possibly
go along? He’d be putting a civilian volunteer—one he’d slept with the night before, for whatever that might be worth—in obvious
danger. But if he continued to say no, what was he going to do with me? Protective custody had to be considered a very short-term
fix.
Surely he was too good a cop not to recognize I was partly right. If checking that soil was the wedge he needed, hadn’t he
better give himself a decent chance to succeed? While Hudson Heights was open for business, nobody was going to let him poke
around up on the plateau without the authorization he was certain not to get. And after closing hours? The outer-perimeter
phase of their security system had been added on at the beginning of June. Doubtless Baxter was more familiar with the system
design than I was, but did he know how you could still drive in reasonably close to the plateau without hitting any security
checkpoints? I’d worked that one out. Up on the plateau, the grounds were discreetly but definitely lit all night. Being able
to pinpoint sample locations, I could work out a shadows-to-shadows itinerary. He needed me: it was that simple.
Maybe I still had a shot at making him see? “The thing is,” I began, turning back toward him.
He didn’t even bother to look up. “Val, forget it.”
All right, then, screw the friendly part. “Baxter, I still have vivid memories of that one night I spent in jail when I was
thirteen. If you lay something like that on me, I will do my best to make you regret it. And I flat-out can’t afford to hang
around wondering what else somebody’s fixing to do to me. The first chance I get, I’ll be out there with my core sampler and
my plastic containers. I don’t see how you can stop me for very long, or that I have any other options.”
He did look up then, his expression carefully blank. “I take your point. Excuse me, I need to go to the john.”
I watched after him, steamed. Maybe he was giving himself a chance to search for other approaches to the problem, or leaving
me time to soften a little. Or he could be thinking about what he was going to have for supper—who knew? I’d already seen
it a couple of times with one of his men, with the media, when he’d had enough of whatever they were pushing. He must make
Phil Thomson crazy. If I were compiling a list of human qualities I liked and didn’t, declaring unilateral breaks in the action
would be well up there among the latter.
I thought about making a run for it, getting as far as the kitchen before remembering there would be a cop car down the road,
ready to take off right behind me. Frustrated, I leaned against the counter. What, other than getting a replacement in place,
could be Baxter’s incentive to hang around? That was probably why he’d gone to the john—to use his cellular in peace. And
what could I do about that? Well, manage to sound even bitchier and more unreasonable if I tried to resume our discussion.
Those do take more than one voice.
So I kept my mouth shut, he went back to his purported reading, and about twenty silent minutes later another sheriff’s department
vehicle pulled into the driveway. The florid-faced deputy, Frank, emerged.
The changing of the guard didn’t take long, mainly because I elected to be gracious about it. This was not what Baxter expected.
His last glance at me as he left contained a questioning element.
Not that I was up to anything. It just seemed an improvement to have someone around I wasn’t actively mad at. Should the opportunity
arise I’d hop in the Bronco and go to cover until it was dark enough for the plateau excursion. This didn’t strike me as the
hottest of prospects, what with that car out on the road and Frank right there with me in the house. I’d have to see how things
broke.
“Do you do much baby-sitting?” I asked conversationally.
“No more than I have to,” came the slightly testy response.
“It’s fine with me if you want to move on to more important things.”
“What it says on this badge, if you want to take a closer look, is Deputy Sheriff. You’ve heard of chains of command?”
“Even when the order strikes you as a waste of time?”
“Baxter considers you the key to a double murder investigation, he thinks you’re about to do something to put it or yourself
at risk, and he wants you watched. Makes sense to me.”
“It strikes me as overkill, putting his lead investigator on it.”
That won me a minimal smile. “You must’ve made a strong impression. Baxter told me there’s no way out through the bathroom.
Anywhere else you go on the premises, I follow. Off the premises is a no-no. Are we clear on those ground rules?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I’d like the keys to your Bronco. In case I need to go to the john. Both sets, please.”
I made a face and dragged a little but complied. Most people probably don’t bother to have a third set of vehicle keys made
up. I’d slipped mine into my jeans pocket while Baxter was in the bathroom.
“Here,” I said, a little sullen. “Any suggestions what we do for entertainment?”
“Ms. Wyckoff, my assignment is to watch you, not amuse you. I thought I’d go through some of the Hudson Heights application
material. It’s all here, Baxter said.”
“That binder on the table and those stacked and rolled-up plans over by the sofa are the most promising stuff. Help yourself.
And could you for heaven’s sake call me Val? I don’t know what to call you. Should I stick with ‘sir’?”
“Frank or Deputy Givens, take your pick.”
“Any relation to Jamie Givens?”
“Uncle.”
“Jamie was one of the few decent workers at the Garden Center. He’s with Skip Boyles now, isn’t he?”
“Right.”
As he edged toward the sofa I gave up hope of any significant thaw. Maybe if he hadn’t been the one to pick Baxter up that
morning? He seemed kind of a stuffy type. “If you want interpretations,” I said crisply, “I can help you. A lot of that material’s
pretty technical. I’ll be doing some computer work—the one in the dining room, so you can keep watch.”
Shift change, hadn’t Baxter said, was three
P.M.
That hour came and went, and my guardian didn’t budge, nor did he choose to tap my expertise. Four, four-thirty. “Would you
like something to eat?” I strolled into the living room to inquire. The fax to Donna on the latest developments had taken
less than half an hour to compose and send, the research on the chromated copper arsenate another forty minutes or so. After
that it had been computer games. I was bored to the point of screaming. He grudgingly agreed to relocate to the dining table
and make himself a sandwich.
At five, we turned on the television for the news. No waiting—the cameras were in Riverton, covering a joint statement by
Phil Thomson and Judge something-or-other Weidell. “At Mr. Thomson’s request,” the judge was reading from a piece of paper,
“I have appointed Assistant District Attorney David Streeter to oversee the investigation into the murder of Ryan Jessup.”
“It is my belief,” Phil Thomson took over, “that the people of Patroon County have the right to feel someone is in charge,
that law enforcement personnel are pulling together and working effectively to produce solid answers.”
“Does this mean,” the Channel 11 reporter demanded, “that Sheriff Dye is off the case?
Good old Phil fielded that one, too. “As you may know, Sheriff Dye is new to the job, and a murder investigation can be a
very complicated business. We just felt we ought to give him some help.”
“Son of a bitch,” Frank Givens said softly.
“They can do that?” I half listened as the female anchor asked if her reporter had been able to reach Sheriff Dye for comment
and was told not yet.
“The county judge has the power to appoint an investigation coordinator, if the DA requests one. They can’t run us off altogether,
but they can box us out. Sit on things, screw up the evidence taking.” He glared at me as if somehow this would be mostly
my fault. “I told Baxter the smart move was to go down to that conference this morning, pretend to play along.”
“You really think Phil Thomson would have bought it?”
“No.” His expression got a shade friendlier. “Any more than he would’ve from me. We’re neither of us world-class actors. That
was Jerry’s game.”
“How solid is the department behind Baxter?”
“Up here, like a rock, and this will get backs up even higher. Of course, a couple of the men do have to think retirement.
The Clarksburg substation’s a different story. Their connections are strongly south county. What Phil’s probably angling to
do is work with Andy Meyers, the undersheriff in charge there, so it’ll look like the department’s still in the picture. Why?
What’re you pushing?”