With Deadly Intent (23 page)

“I sure hope so.” Amy told him where she and Simon were going and they left the room.

Outside, a temperature inversion had given them unseasonable weather for November. The
warm, humid air felt heavy and she found it difficult to get a full breath. Overhead,
the sun penetrated gauzy cloud cover, spreading a muted, hot house glow.

She rummaged in the car and handed Simon two forensic kits. Pushing her hair off her
perspiring forehead, she said, “I'll meet you in front of the cottage.” She stowed her
unneeded jacket in the car and went in search of a bucket.

When she rejoined Simon, smile lines crinkled around his eyes. “This is great. We haven't
had a chance to be ... er, ah ... to see much since I came. Now, you can point out the
walks you enjoy, the views you like. Oren told me once that you and he have explored
most of Lomitas.” He handed her the shoes and picked up a satchel in each hand. “Wither
way, Captain?”

“Just follow me.” She tied the sneaker's laces together and slung them around her neck.
Taking care not to spill water from the bucket she carried, she set off down the hill.
Where the steep sandstone embankment bordering the beach blocked the way, she set down
her burden to watch their ketch ride heavy swells. “Something's brewing.”

“What makes you think that?”

He stood behind her and she imagined she could feel his body heat. She forced her mind
back to his question and pointed to three silent crows in a bare-limbed alder. “Normally
they'd be making a terrible racket.” She looked up at the gulls circling overhead. “Even
they are quieter than usual.”

“Ah, just as I suspected, you
are
a witch.”

“Don't be silly.” She turned, found him so close her breasts pressed against his chest
and her mouth went dry. “D-don't you feel the"—she glimpsed the throbbing pulse at the
base of his throat and gulped air—"the strange tension? It ... uh ... it feels like the
whole world is ... holding its breath.”

“Um-m-m-m.” His voice made a mellow vibration in his chest.

She risked an upward glance, found herself gazing into his eyes, and began to tremble. He
brushed his knuckle along her jaw, teased a tendril of hair into place and stroked her
ear lobe. Her heart speeded up and her breathing kept pace.

The color of his eyes deepened and she felt her cheeks grow warm. He took her face in his
hands. “Amy, it's okay for you to react to a man.” He smiled a gentle, lopsided smile.
“You're a normal, healthy young woman.”

For some unaccountable reason,
her
words coming from
his
mouth irritated
her. “I have work to do.” Pushing him aside, she headed down a trail winding through
wind-twisted Sitka spruce and low growing shrubbery.

In the sun-warmed tunnel created by the evergreens, the scent of rosin and Simon's
cologne mingled. The combination brought on an infectious sensual languor and she
struggled to keep her senses about her.

On the dunes, winter-browned salt rushes tufted the area she'd marked off with bright
orange crime-scene-tape twelve days before. She directed Simon to put her supplies some
distance away and got down on hands and knees to study the ground. After a ten minute
search, she found a similar combination of soil outside the marked area. She wet it
thoroughly with the water she'd brought.

She straightened and became aware of Simon. He sat in the lea of a large dune staring out
across Rosario Strait. Did he think she was as mixed up and unpredictable as Elise?

She plopped down on the sand near him. “Sorry for my rotten disposition. The pressure is
getting to me.”

He turned and regarded her with a somber expression. “All men aren't bastards, Amy.”

She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. “I know, Simon.”

“Damnit, I wish I could be of more help. Do something to take the load off you.”

“But you do. You're wonderful ... with Dad.”

“He's a great guy.” He moved closer. “I learned some more about Roger Norman this
morning.”

Simon shifted position and his bare forearm grazed hers. She felt the brief contact to
her fingertips.

“The man doesn't belong to a labor union.” Simon picked up her hand, placed it on his
jean-clad thigh, lay his hand on top, and went on talking. “He hasn't applied for a
professional license, nor has he registered to vote. I sent a query to IRS and I also
wrote to request his military record, if he has one.”

“Good going.” She pasted on what she hoped was a self-assured smile—only a naive
romanticist would get all warm and trembly about someone holding her hand. Her cynicism
failed to slow her racing pulse. “Norman must have some type of income. He couldn't have
purchased Elise's car if he was on welfare.”

A horrified expression spread over Simon's face. “Welfare! God, I hope not. Getting
information from them is like trying to get into Fort Knox.” He rubbed the palm of her
hand against his smooth shaven cheek.

“K—keep up the—” Her voice cracked and refused to squeeze through her constricted throat.
She coughed and began again. “Keep up the good work. You're doing great.” She gently
withdrew her hand and began taking off her shoes. “I took casts of Oren's footprints the
night I stayed at Helen's.”

She slid her bare feet into Simon's Adidas. They felt warm as if he'd just taken them off
and to her utter dismay, she got an erotic reaction. Weird. Lately, everything about him
turned her on. The thought saddened her. Since her divorce, she'd come to realize her
attraction to Mitch had been purely sexual. She didn't intend to make a mistake like
that ever again.

She shoved the thought aside and went on with her conversation. “The problem is Oren's
prints don't tell me everything I need to know.”

She stood and took a step. Her foot came out of the shoe.

“You'll need socks.” Simon pulled some from his pockets. “Here, let an old hand show you
how it's done.”

She sat down and supported herself on braced arms.

He knelt in front of her and rested her heel on his leg. “Nice feet.” He worked a thick
white sock over her foot, tested the fit of the shoe and added a second sock. “You
looked beautiful when you came to my room last night.” He kept his head bent and worked
nonexistent wrinkles from the knitted fabric.

Picking up her other foot, he held it in his warm hand and ran his fingertip down the
arch to her toes. He raised his eyes to hers. “Lovely as a...” He licked his lips and
swallowed. “As a sea nymph.”

The air trembled between them. No one around. No one to stop them. She dug her fingers
into the sand. Why not give in? Why not let it happen?

The color in his face heightened, his eyes grew heavy lidded. “Amy, could we ...?”

Without warning, a searing memory of her ex-husband's final, and most devastating
betrayal, burst inside her skull. Him in their bed with her best friend. She passed a
hand over her face. Better to feel nothing than to risk that again. She took the other
pair of socks from him, put them on and got to her feet.

She lifted the heaviest satchel in her arms thereby bringing her total weight to 135
pounds and made a set of footprints. To back up her calculations, she had Simon pile
driftwood on top of the satchel, then she made some more prints. When the casts
hardened, they gathered them up.

On the trail back, she stopped on the embankment. “You can go on up to the house if you
like.” She took a flashlight and a magnifying glass from one of the kits he'd set down.
“I'm going to our boat shack on the beach.”

“I'll come along, if it's all right with you.”

They stacked everything beside the trail and went down the wooden steps. The barn board
shed had been built against a sheer rock face above the high tide mark. Years of salt
spray had bleached the eight foot square building almost white.

Amy pushed open the door. A couple of crab pots teetered in one corner, giving off a
pungent odor. Broken jam cleats, blocks, and turnbuckles lay atop a torn sail in
another.

“In September, I bought a spindle roll of 3/8 nylon rope.” She got down on all fours.
“After Elise disappeared, Dad noticed the rope was missing.” She glanced over her
shoulder at Simon who stood in the doorway. “Of course, someone could have taken it
weeks before her death.” She snapped on her light and began to examine the floor where
the spindle had rested.

She'd been scrabbling around for five or ten minutes with her tail in the air and her
nose inches from the floor when Simon cleared his throat and said, “Anyone ever tell you
you've got an incredibly nice tush?”

Amy flung him a dirty look. “No cute remarks, fella. This is serious.”

“Uh huh, so am I.”

“Sure you are.” She wiped fogged glasses on her shirt tail and peered through the
magnifying glass once more. “Could be,” she mumbled. Taking tweezers and an envelope
from the pocket of her jeans, she pulled several strands of filament from a splintery
board, then rose to her feet. “I'm through.”

When they got back to the house, she made herself a sandwich, and retreated to the lab.
After hours of calculating weight versus depth and pressure, she trudged upstairs to
find the table laid, her father at ease in a recliner chair and Simon getting dinner.

B.J.'s sharp, observant gaze swept her face. “Simon told me about your project. Learn
anything new?”

She massaged aching temples. “The killer wants us to believe Oren walked from the van to
the beach the night Elise vanished. Right?”

B.J.'s chest rose and fell. “What other conclusion is there? His shoes match the casts
exactly.”

“Yes, they were Oren's shoes.” She paused and looked from B.J. to Simon. “But someone
with shorter, narrower feet wore them. Someone who weighed between 130 and 140 pounds.”

“The doctor!” Simon shouted. “He was about five foot eight and had a slight build.
And"—Simon used the large kitchen knife he held to emphasize his point—"his shoes caught
my eye right away. They were narrow, pointed things. Patent leather like women wear.”

“I don't know, Simon.” B.J. scratched his beard. “I can see a number of loop holes. Elise
appeared to be a fair-sized woman. I can't see a small man carrying her body through
ankle deep sand.”

Simon scooped chopped green pepper into a bowl.

“Maybe he couldn't under normal circumstances, but I'll bet if I were scared enough, I
could lift
twice
my weight.”

“Perhaps, weirder things have happened.”

“Unless my figures are wrong,” Amy said. “And I don't think they are. He didn't carry her
to the beach and probably didn't even have her body in the van.”

Simon stared at her. “He must have, Amy, otherwise how did the bloodstains get in the
dinghy?” He took a platter of sliced roast beef, baked potatoes, and a salad to the
table, poured milk for everyone and seated himself. “Do you think he dumped the rug and
sheet in the bottom of the boat, then changed his mind?”

“No, that can't be. Splashing occurs when fresh blood spurts from a wound. Spatters
happen when partially coagulated blood is disturbed, perhaps by a blow.” She took a
small slice of meat from the platter Simon passed. “The stains in the dinghy were a
peculiar mixture of splash, spatter, and pool.”

“And drips from a rain-dampened sheet would not have made the same pattern,” B.J. said.
He slathered horseradish on his roast beef, took a bite, and nodded in satisfaction.
“Besides there's no point in us letting the stains in the dinghy sidetrack us. For all
we know they could be animal blood.”

Simon speared a wedge of tomato from his salad, chewed thoughtfully, and looked over at
Amy. “So you think the mired van, the footprints, and the stuff thrown into the ravine
are all part of a frame?”

She nodded. “That's my opinion ... at the moment.” She smiled faintly. “But I reserve the
right to change my mind.”

B.J. slit the jacket of his baked potato and added butter. “By gosh, you could be right,
Amy.” His cheeks flushed with excitement. “Once you toss out the obvious, all sorts of
possibilities pop up.”

“No lie,” Simon said. “Why would Oren, or anyone else for that matter, bring the body
here to dispose of it? The killer must have had his own car. There's a lot of water and
country roads between here and Seattle. He could have gotten rid of the body anywhere.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Amy said. She sipped a little of her milk, but it didn't sit well
on her nervous stomach. “The whole set-up seems too pat.”

“Can you prove it?” B.J. asked.

“No, not yet,” she said wearily. “A lot of pieces are still missing.”

“That's for damned sure. How did the man know Oren would be gone and how could he be sure
he could get the van?”

“Questions, questions, my head's teeming with them,” she said and sighed.

B.J. put out a hand and touched her shoulder. “Patience, Amy, it'll all come together in
time.”

Their conversation dwindled and finally stopped altogether. After they finished eating,
Simon helped B.J. to his room so they could start the bedtime routine.

Sunk in gloom, Amy did the dishes and straightened the kitchen. Her body felt weighted,
and every in-drawn breath took an effort. She rested her head against the cupboard and
let her shoulders sag. Another wasted day. A weary sigh escaped her.

When a hand touched her hair, she jumped and wheeled around. She hadn't realized Simon
had come into the room.

“Don't be discouraged,” he said. “You and B.J. will solve the puzzle.” He grinned rather
weakly. “Shoot, between the two of you, you know everything about forensic science.”