Where Echoes Live (34 page)

And then I thought, Sanderman never used this, anyway. He probably didn't even know how it worked, since he didn't drink coffee or tea. Why would he have noticed this small opening?

Pulling it toward me, I tipped it slightly and peered into the cavity for the water. At its bottom nestled the gun-metal gray shell casing. A .22 shell casing, I was sure.

“All
right,”
I said softly.

Without removing the shell, I set the coffee maker back in its approximate place on the counter. Turned out the kitchen light and hurried into the bathroom. Most of the towels that hung there were damp from normal use, but there were three large ones draped over the shower-curtain rod that had dried stiff, as if they'd been used with a cleaning solvent. Under the sink I found a nearly empty large-sized bottle of Formula 409.

He probably thought cleanser would destroy all traces of blood, but I knew better. A crime lab would have no trouble bringing them out.

Aware that I had no time to waste, I switched off the rest of the cabin lights, locked the door, and sprinted uphill to the lodge.

Rose Wittington didn't want to let me in. She stood behind the closed door and calmly told me to come back tomorrow.

I shouted that I wasn't going away. That I needed the phone to call the sheriff. That I knew Margo was in there, and if she wouldn't talk with me, she'd damned well have to take her chances with the authorities. And then I kicked the door.

The dead bolt turned and Rose stood before me, a sternly reproving look marring her usually pleasant features. She said, “Keep your voice down, young lady; they'll hear you clear over in Nevada. And don't you go messing up my door with those feet.”

I glared at her and strode inside.

Margot Erickson huddled on one of the sofas in front of the big-screen TV, a small figure in a blue velvet caftan. The purple-black bruises stood out starkly against her ashen skin. I expected her to bolt, but she seemed incapable of further flight. She stared at me without speaking.

“I can't waste time explaining what's happened,” I told her. “Just listen to my end of this conversation.” Then I went to the phone and dialed the sheriff's department in Bridgeport.

Lark was still on duty. She started to tell me something about the lab report on the Hopwood cabin, but I cut her off. “Kristen, I've found out who killed Mick Erickson. How soon can you be at the Willow Grove Lodge?”

Margot started to rise from the sofa. I motioned for her to remain there.

Lark said, “Not for quite a while, I'm afraid. There's been a major pileup between here and there on three ninety-five. All our manpower's been diverted to it, and I doubt I can get through anyway. Tell me what you've got.”

I related what I'd found in Sanderman's cabin, watching Margot's expression change from shock to confusion. “He left here between three and four,” I finished, “possibly headed home to Sacramento, but I wouldn't bet on that.”

“I'll put out a pickup order on him. You know his license number?”

I asked Rose, and she read it off from her guest register.

“Okay, I'm on it,” Lark said. “Is the crime scene secure?”

“Locked, and I have the key.”

“I'll be there as soon as I can.”

I put the receiver down and went over to Margot. She had drawn her bare feet up onto the sofa and wrapped her arms protectively around her knees. After a moment she ran her tongue over dry lips and asked, “Mick really was killed in one of the cabins here?”

I nodded.

“And this … Ned Sanderman … who is he?”

“You don't know him?”

“No.”

I sat down next to her. “An environmentalist with the California Coalition for Environmental Preservation. He was involved with Mick and Lionel Ong in the Golden Hills project; he's probably the one who figured out how they could get hold of the land on the east side of the mesa.”

She buried her face against her raised knees. “That damned project. It destroyed everything.”

“Margot, I know that Earl Hopwood is your father and that you assisted on the project in some way. Will you tell me about it—from the beginning?”

She looked up again. Tears had spilled over, their wet sheen somehow rendering her bruises all the more brutal. Rose pressed some tissues into her hand, then withdrew silently to a nearby armchair and perched on its edge, eyes watchful and concerned.

Margot said, “All right, but first I want to apologize for what I did to you the other night. I panicked and didn't realize—”

“Accepted. Now tell me about Golden Hills.”

“To do that I'll have to start years back, when Mick was still trying to please Daddy. Daddy's whole life had narrowed to Stone Valley and that mine; he was convinced that if he could get someone to work it again, Promiseville would bounce back like it was before. Of course that was impossible—in more ways than one—but to humor him, Mick took some samples and they showed the mine was played out. He didn't tell him the results, though, because Daddy wouldn't have believed him, anyway.”

“When did he and Ong come upon the idea of making it a resort?”

“Resort?” Rose said.

I ignored her, concentrated on Margot.

“I don't know.” She began twisting the tissues around her fingers. “A couple of Christmases ago Mick talked to Daddy about selling the land. He said he had a client with a lot of money that he wanted to move to the U.S. and put into mining. Daddy was ecstatic, but I didn't believe Mick. Besides, I'm something of an environmentalist myself, and I knew what modern mining methods would do to the area. But when I tried to bring that up, Mick … told me to mind my own business.”

Rose snorted derisively.

“What happened next?”

Margot discarded the tissues and reached for a pack of cigarettes that lay beside a full ashtray on the end table. She lit one, made a face, and replied, “I don't know; I decided to stay out of it. What could I do against a company like Transpacific? How could I justify destroying my father's last dream? Besides, things weren't going well for Mick: he was horribly overworked, and the final payment to his former wife for the buyout of the business was coming due. He didn't need any more stress.”

And that final payment, I thought, gave Erickson a motive beyond simple greed for wanting the Golden Hills project to happen.

“Eventually,” Margot went on, “Mick realized I wasn't going to be obstructive, so he asked me to help out on the project. He'd gotten an extension from his ex-wife on the payment and was putting all his energies into getting the company's billings up. I didn't feel I could refuse.”

“How did you help?”

“With the clerical things. He told me they'd decided they needed to buy additional acreage in order to mine the mesa. A man named Franklin Tarbeaux who'd filed a claim on the eastern side had agreed to patent the land and resell it to Transpacific at a good price. Or so Mick told me. I prepared the applications, consulting with the geologist, and handled all Tarbeaux's mail.”

“The mail came to that Transpacific condominium on Telegraph Hill?”

“Yes. Lionel keeps the building for visiting executives and private conferences.” She looked guiltily away, remembering what had happened between us outside that building, and stubbed out her cigarette. “I had a key to the penthouse and would pick up what mail arrived. Nothing ever came that wasn't related to the Bureau of Land Management dealings.”

But her frequent and unexplained presence at the condo had started talk about Ong keeping a mistress there. “When did you become aware that Tarbeaux didn't exist?”

“I never knew, not until you asked me about the name and told me Mick had been carrying a second set of I.D. when he was shot. Then I began to figure out I'd been lied to.”

“And when did your father find out that the mesa was going to be turned into a resort rather than mined?” That, I reasoned, had been the real start of the trouble.

“About a month ago. He'd been hanging around the mesa, all excited about the new mining venture—making a pest of himself, Mick said.” She paused, seeming to listen to her words. “The man's dreams had been taken from him, even if he didn't know that yet, and all my husband could say was that he was a pest.” Her gaze turned bleak, inward. I knew what she was seeing: the callous man her husband had been—or perhaps become—and the sham he'd made of their marriage.

Margot sighed and reached for another cigarette. Rose made a small sound of protest, but didn't speak.

I said, “About your father finding out … ?”

“Daddy wasn't much of a miner, but he knew enough to realize something was wrong on the mesa. He gained the confidence of one of the personnel and learned what Trans-pacific's real plans were. Then he came to the city and demanded that Mick stop the project. Mick threw Daddy out of the house. And that did it for me. I've had three husbands, but only one father.
I
threw
Mick
out of the house, told him not to come back until he did as Daddy asked.

“Of course,” she added softly, “he never did.”

“Your father began making trouble at the mine site, didn't he?”

“Yes. They fenced it and posted guards, but that didn't stop him.” She smiled grimly. “Daddy knows that mesa inside out. There are all sorts of ways onto it—tunnels, shafts—that Transpacific couldn't begin to know about, much less block.”

I remembered the old maps on the wall of Hopwood's “museum,” as well as the newer half-finished one. It probably showed which of the tunnels still existed. “So what did they decide to do?”

“I guess Mick came up here to try to reason with Daddy. I suspected that as soon as I found out he was shot at Tufa Lake. Why else would he go to such trouble to make it look as if he was in Japan? He knew that I'd interfere if I found out what he was doing.”

And she'd thought her father had killed her husband. That explained the almost palpable fear I'd felt at her house on Tuesday morning. “Do you know for a fact that he saw your father?”

“Oh, yes.” Her features twisted, as if in remembrance of real pain. “I found out for sure on Wednesday.”

“What happened then?”

She looked away from me.

“Your father showed up in the city again, didn't he?”

She dipped her chin—a small affirmative.

“He was the one who beat you.”

No response from Margot, but Rose made a strange sound—half surprise, half denial.

After a bit Margot said, “He came to the city that afternoon. He'd been shot a few days before—a flesh wound. He told me Mick had come to his cabin Saturday morning and threatened him. Daddy pulled his gun on him, meaning to frighten him, and Mick took it away and shot him and then ran off.”

“Did you ask him if he'd retaliated and killed Mick?”

“How do you ask your own father a thing like that?” When I didn't reply, she went on, “Anyway, he didn't give me a chance to ask. He wanted Lionel Ong's home address and phone number. I refused to give them to him; I was afraid of what he might do …”

When she didn't go on, I said, “And he beat it out of you.”

Her “yes” was barely a whisper.

Rose moaned in sympathy and started to move toward her. Margot motioned for her to stay where she was; she crushed out the unsmoked stub of her cigarette and added, “Daddy blamed me as well as Mick for what had happened. He said I'd conspired with the rest of them against him. I'll never forget the way he looked at me ...the hatred….”

“Margot,” I said, “did you try to warn Ong before you went to his house and the condominium that night?”

“No. At first I felt … It was like being paralyzed. This man, the one who had done that to me, he wasn't the father I'd known all my life. Mick was dead, and now the rest of my world was ...I just stayed at home, watching it get dark. Then I snapped out of it, tried to call Lionel. When I couldn't reach him, I went looking for him, and that's when …” Again she looked guilty.

I asked, “How did your father seem that afternoon, aside from the uncharacteristic violence? Was he at all rational or in control?”

Rose said, “Is it rational for a good Christian to beat his own daughter?”

Again I ignored her, continued to look at Margot.

She considered. “He was functional, if you mean could he handle himself in a way that wouldn't attract attention. He could speak normally, that sort of thing. And he didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from the gunshot wound, except for a little stiffness. But the way he was going on...He was raving, spouting this biblical nonsense.” She glanced apologetically at Rose. “That's the only way I can describe it.”

“Has your father always been religious?”

“Not until the past few years.”

Rose said, “That's when I began to interest him in my Bible study group. I think at first he only wanted to play Mr. Intellectual and show up us ‘Bible-thumpers,' as he liked to call us. But eventually he saw the light.”

I asked Margot, “Do you remember any of the things he said to you?”

“Oh …” She pushed her hair off her forehead and rested her hand on top of her head. “There was something about an earthquake. And blood. I can't phrase it the way he did, but something about the moon and sea turning to blood and the sun going black and a mountain burning.”

“Anything else?”

“When he left … This part is vague because I was hurting and kind of in shock. He said something like, ‘They will die when Christ died, on the fifth day.' Does that make any sense to you?”

I glanced at Rose. “Hopwood was reading Revelation recently, if that helps.”

She stood and went to the secretary desk in the lobby, returning with a Bible. As she sat and began to page through its final book, Margot expelled a sigh and let her hand fall from her head to her side. Her eyes were half closed, her face flaccid, as if in the telling of her last violent encounter with her father she'd used whatever strength she held in reserve.