Nocturne In Ashes: A Riley Forte Suspense Thriller, Book One Page 2

  “I’m sorry,” Nate said, holding her gaze. “I am. Will you tell us what happened?”

  “I already told. Twice. It’s not a moment I want to live over again.”

  Nate leaned forward. “Mrs. Waters, those other times you told it, that’s for the record, well and good. But we,” he gestured at Rick and back to himself, “we are the ones who are going to find the guy who did this. You need to be real clear on that and tell us everything.”

  “Okay, yeah. I get it.” She fumbled through a shoulder-bag on the bench beside her, pulled out a pack of menthols and lit up. Nate watched her eyes turn inward as she accessed the part of her brain that housed the terrible memory. She took a long drag.

  “We got drunk, you know. We were sleeping it off.” Puff and pause. “I woke up feeling like—” She shuddered and blew out a cloud, waving it away. “I brushed my teeth, got in the shower. Pretty soon, Coby comes hammerin’ on the door.”

  “What time was this?” Rick interrupted.

  She stared at him. “How do I know? It was the middle of the night. I got no reason to look at a clock that time of day. I had the door locked, you know, and I tell him to find a bush.” She hugged herself, blowing out another mouthful of smoke. “I sent him to his death.”

  Nate shook his head. “Don’t shoulder that weight, Mrs. Waters. It’s not your fault.”

  She gave him a bleak look and crushed out the cigarette, wrapping her arms tighter. “I put my wet hair up in a towel and went back to bed. Never saw Coby again until—” Her hands clenched down on her own flesh, talon-like. “I woke up in broad daylight and came out here to the kitchen to put on the coffee. I looked at the clock,” she threw Rick a glare, “and it was eleven forty-seven a.m.”

  Rick’s gaze was impassive. “When did you go looking for your husband?”

  “After two cups of coffee and three slices of toast. With jam. Let’s make it a quarter past noon. I began to wonder what he was up to, so I went looking. Started off in the wrong direction, walked down caravan way.” She flung her arm eastward to indicate the sprawl of buses, trucks, and vans that hosted the remainder of the band’s entourage.

  “I asked around. No one’d seen Coby. I got to talking with some of the girls, never dreaming anything was wrong, and then that chihuahua started sounding off. We thought he might have got himself hurt. You know, stuck in a trap, sprayed by a raccoon, something like that. But he’d found Coby and raised the alarm.”

  She fell silent. Her eyes raked the tabletop as if searching for something to cover the awful scene inside her mind.

  “He was cut bad, right across the neck, and it seemed every last drop of blood in him must have found its way out. The ground was soaked with it. Damn dog was standing in it, yapping his head off. Danny led me away, then, and I didn’t see no more.”

  Nate let a respectful silence pass and then asked, “Why is your trailer separated from the others?”

  Her washed-out blue eyes met his with reproach. “It’s not a trailer. It’s a motorhome. Coby’d kick your butt.” She caught her breath and swallowed hard. “He liked to be apart from the crowd. It’s a status thing, you know. Heaven knows he got precious little respect any more from the band, but he took what he could get.”

  “Downed Illusion used to be a pretty big deal and I understand this tour was meant as a comeback. Can you think of any reason someone might have for harming your husband? Were there any disputes among band members, for instance?”

  She stared. “You think someone here could have done this?” Her mouth fell open a little as she considered, then snapped shut with her emphatic head shake. “No way. Their arguments were small-time stuff. A punch in the face, maybe. Never this.”

  Nate’s cell phone buzzed with his ex-wife’s ringtone. “Thank you, Mrs. Waters. That’s all for now.” He walked down the rickety metal steps and pressed TALK.

  “What’s up, Marilyn? I’m at a crime scene so make it quick.”

  “Quick as I can, but it does involve our daughter’s welfare. Forgive me if I take up too much of your time.”

  “Come on, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my plate, too. Can you take Sammi next weekend? I want to head out of town for a few days. I need a break.”

  “Oh? Who’s going with you? You don’t like traveling alone.”

  There was a pause. “Brad is taking me to Vancouver.”

  “Geez, Marilyn. That guy? He gives me a bad vibe and I don’t want him around Sammi.”

  “Sammi will be with you, I’m hoping.”

  “For the weekend, sure, but what then?”

  “You’re being ridiculous. Brad is a nice guy. The first guy I’ve really liked since I liked you. And does this mean you’ll take Sammi?”

  Nate sighed. “I would love to have Sammi spend next weekend with me.”

  “Wonderful! I’ll let you go. Bye.”

  Rick joined him and they sat at a picnic table in the twilight. Lunch and dinner time had come and gone, hours ago and unheeded, and they fell like wolves upon the coffee and sandwiches being passed around.

  “Are you thinking it’s the same guy they’re after in Seattle? We got a serial case?”

  Nate chased down a bite with a swig of coffee, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. We need to get up to speed on those files. Looks like we’ve joined the team. Congratulations. First case out and you drew the short straw.”

  “Hey, I’m happy with it. Go big or go home, right?”

  “Sure, but if you foul this up, you’ll never be able to wash the stink out of your career. It doesn’t even have to be you that falls short. We don’t put this guy down, and fast, we’re all gonna catch hell, but first case makes or breaks.”

  “Okay, pressure’s on. Let me tell you what I got from the Specials. Hansen found a place in the trees where the guy must have waited. Except, get this, there are two spots. So, did he switch from one to the other, or were there two guys? Hansen’s still working it out.”

  “We’ll check the other cases, but I don’t remember hearing anything about a second suspect.”

  “Also, there was a scattering of sticks and stones which might have been arranged like the cairn-type structures found at the other sites. It may have been knocked apart in the struggle, disturbed by animals, who knows? The makings were there, but unorganized.”

  Nate drummed his fingers on the table to accompany his thought process. “Okay,” he said. “Continue.”

  Rick checked his notes. “Stevens went into the lake, turned up a plastic raincoat weighted with rocks. Shows traces of blood, no fingerprints. Guy wore gloves and probably galoshes. Heck, he’d have to be completely encased to escape that bloodbath. If he likes the water, there’s plenty of holes around here where he could’ve dumped the gear and weapon, but nothing else has turned up.”

  Nate watched a couple of grid-searchers sign their findings into the evidence log. Karen Boggs glanced up, caught his eye, and walked over. She carried something carefully in her gloved hands. Nate hoped it was something good.

  “Hi, boss,” she said. “This was outside the perimeter, about a mile from camp, but I snagged it anyway. Figured it wouldn’t hurt. Wanna take a look?”

  Nate cleared a spot on the table and she opened the large paper bag and used it like a tablecloth, placing the item in question gently on top. It was a dark blue zip-front jacket, sized for a man. One hundred percent polyester, with a tiny red figure playing polo stitched to the left breast. Nate lifted the cuff of the right sleeve, angled it so Rick could see the smears of blood. In the pocket, he found a wrinkled score card with Mountain Vista Golf Course printed at the top and an eighteen-hole score of 93 penciled in at the bottom.

  “Not bad.” Nate liked to golf but hadn’t had time for a round in over three years.

  “If you say so.” Rick was not a golfer.

  “Relevant to our crime?”

  “Hmm. Found a mile
away, in a direction traveled only by foot. The blood on the sleeve seems too small an amount and in the wrong place if our guy was wearing gloves and a raincoat.” Rick tilted his head back and forth. “Ehhh…I’m leaning toward no.”

  Nate ran a gloved finger down the length of the jacket. “On the other hand, it looks recently dumped and blood is blood. My experience, and my gut, tell me it’s important.”

  “Yeah? Okay,” Rick said doubtfully. “Where’s Mountain Vista?”

  “Hell if I know, but be ready to head out there tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER 3

  TOPPER WORKED IN THE DARK. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t go near the crater of an active volcano at night. Such an expedition, even in full daylight with a helicopter waiting, is fraught with risk. But there was nothing ordinary about these unfolding events and Topper’s amazement outweighed his fears. He was riding the edge of this thing. Like David had.

  Early in the summer, Mt. Rainier had woken like a fussy baby after a long nap, gassy and petulant. She’d spit up and burped, raged and bawled, and then fallen back into an uneasy sleep. For two months she’d snored away, uttering only an occasional harmless grumble, and Seattle let out its tense-held breath and went about its business.

  Topper’s business was volcanoes and his harvest of data suggested that Seattle’s nonchalance was unwarranted. Geoscientists primarily monitor three predictive factors for volcanic eruption—thrust faults, earthquakes, and tiltmeter readings. When the three factors register critical levels, a warning is issued to the public and safety measures activated.

  Last February, Mount Mayon in the Philippines had drawn the gaze of the world. Her thrust fault measurements and tiltmeter readings took drastic turns, but seismic activity remained low and stable. Two out of three tipped the scales, officials issued alerts, and media hyped the story. Cities and communities were evacuated. Citizens put their lives and livelihoods on hold, perched in temporary housing, and watched the mountain puff serene on the placid landscape. Ten days and millions of pesos later, they returned to their homes and commenced recovery efforts from the damage not caused by the volcano.

  Such occurrences are the land mines of leadership, and the political and economic fallout is harsh. Scientists may be willing to lay it on the line, but the political figures who hold the reins are more skittish, put in a position where they must weigh the potential for lost lives against the potential for lost dollars. And where the bottom line is lost votes.

  At Rainier’s first sign of unrest, scientists had deployed an army of “spiders” and other devices able to monitor the mountain’s activities remotely and their readings were followed with great concern. But as the weeks passed, public interest waned and only the scientists remained keenly aware of the volcano’s activity while Rainier wrapped herself in a blanket of cloud and went back to sleep.

  Topper clambered nearer the crater, his snowshoes making a rhythmic shushing sound. The light from his headlamp opened a little vista in the dark, pushing back the shadows which pressed in from all directions. Mt. Rainier appeared to be pulling a Mayon move, but he believed the end of this story would be far more dramatic than the instance in the Philippines.

  The west flank of Rainier was primed to blow. For centuries, sulphuric acid had been mixing with rain and snow, seeping through the rock, altering it into a clay-like substance, unstable and susceptible to landslides. The Osceola mudslide, 5600 years ago, had blown away the east side of the mountain, displacing the altered rock and making the west side the weak spot in the next major eruption.

  He collected samples of ash and snow, pressing the tube from a solution-filled gas sampling bottle into the vent, taking care to avoid a steam burn. He should have waited until daylight, but he was determined to make his case. His gut told him that Mt. Rainier was poised to erupt and time was short.

  He imagined he felt the hair at the back of his neck singe and crackle. He started down the mountain, headed for the panel of tiltmeters and beyond that, the four-mile hike to the snowcat. At the tiltmeters, he paused to log in the readings. The figures were astonishing and he made a note to check the calibration. He stowed the samples and the logbook in his backpack and climbed into the tracked vehicle, maneuvering it forward over the rough terrain, navigable in the dark only because he knew these trails so well.

  He worked his way down the mountain until he reached the ranger station, where he parked the snowcat and transferred himself and his collections to his Jeep Wrangler. He started down the road into the lower range of the mountain. As he came into cell phone tower range, his mobile blipped. He pulled it out of his pocket and squinted one eye at the screen, keeping the other eye on the road which became smoother as he neared civilization. Four text messages and three missed calls.

  He stopped the Jeep and scrolled through the texts. All were from Candace.

  Call me.

  Call me, it’s important.

  Urgent you call now.

  Call now or die.

  His heartbeat surged as his phone blipped again.

  If you value your paycheck, pick up the phone.

  Candace was his USGS supervisor at the Seismology lab at The University of Washington, Seattle campus. She was calling from the lab and with this degree of urgency, he bet they’d hit the Trifecta. Thrust faults, check. Tiltmeters, check. If Rainier’s seismic activity was on the rise, that could bring attention in all the right places.

  Before he could punch the speed dial, Candace’s jazzy ringtone blared in the Jeep’s interior. He pressed answer and heard the excitement in her voice.

  “Get down here now. You gotta see this.”

  CHAPTER 4

  THE RISE AND SWELL OF voices in the corridor seemed to Riley like the hum of angry bees. She’d fled to the dressing room, locked the door, and ignored the persistent demands for entry. Her stomach churned and rolled under an enveloping wave of buffeting, suffusing misery . She dreaded looking into any human face and longed for the unreserved championing of a dog. In human eyes, she would encounter disdain, resignation, or worst of all, pity. And before she could face that, she needed to identify her own feelings, understand the mechanism underlying her disaster. The wraith of some destructive force teased at the edges of her mind, refusing to come into focus. She could only return to the conclusion which she, and the world at large, had accepted for the last two years. That Jim and Tanner—beloved husband, treasured son—had been taken from her and that the hole they left is a maw which continues to consume her.

  The pain was like stepping on broken glass under a threadbare rug. Riley sensed something sly and furtive, unwilling to be seen and dealt with, an unknown monster crouching in the shadows of her mind.

  A banging louder and above the other pounding came at the door now and the theater manager’s voice rose above the ruckus in the hallway.

  “Mrs. Forte. There’s an urgent matter we need to discuss.”

  He set up a clatter on the thick wooden door and Riley’s mind scooped her away, took her back to fourteen years old, when she was a pale, skinny girl in a green one-piece swimsuit. She’d begged her parents to let her go with friends on a rafting trip down the Snake River in Idaho. Such a rare thing. The life of a budding concert pianist yields few such occasions and she remembered how peculiar it felt for her to do things, and eat things, and say things that ordinary teenagers did and ate and said, as if she was dabbling with another species. She’d started the four-day trip with a surge of homesickness, wishing she hadn’t come, feeling amputated from her piano. A day and a half later she’d become entranced with these creatures and their strange ways, wishing she could always live among them, like Ariel wishing for legs. A heady passion enveloped her. She was on a bender, drinking in all they had to offer.

  She was burned bright red by then, her fair skin beginning to blister at the shoulders from sunburn, no matter how much sunblock she applied. She’d topped her green suit with a tee-shirt as the group had pulled their rafts up onto a sandbank where some of the
boys began to scale the rocks, pulling themselves like monkeys up the steep face of a cliff.

  “What are they doing?” Riley felt a shiver of apprehension, but her enquiry was met with a sprinkling of assurances.

  “We all do it.”

  “It’s fun.”

  “You’ll love it.”

  “Come on!”

  There was an alternate way up which most of the girls took, though it was still a rigorous haul up the rock face and Riley was filled with misgiving. She was vulnerable to injury here, her hands could be damaged. She was literally pushed and pulled to the top amid laughter and chatter, which fell like an alien language on her ears. When she reached the crown of the rocks, she was horrified to see that the boys were jumping off into the river far below and her horror intensified as she realized she was expected to follow.

  When her turn came, she stood at the edge of the cliff and stared down into the circle of water, ringed by the boys and girls who had jumped before her. Their thrashing arms and legs had stirred it into a murky pool, opaque and distant. Unthinkably distant. There was no going back. It would be more difficult and dangerous to try climbing down the steep rock than it would be to jump. Yet, jumping seemed an impossible option.

  A boy and two girls pushed past her, throwing themselves over the edge, and then Riley was the last one on the clifftop and still she stood, frozen. The cries of encouragement acquired a tinge of impatience, and then outright disgust. They rose up to her like pounding on a door, like persistent knocking, battering her eardrums and her soul. She pushed away the fear and jumped.

  Riley threw open the dressing room door and the crowd surged to meet her, to suck her down like murky water. She couldn’t breathe, felt the darkness close in. Her eyes searched the bobbing heads in front of her, focused in on one face as it moved through the murk until it reached her.

  Teren drew her back into the dressing room and closed the door with a firm snap. The human wave lapped against it, but muted and murmuring now, and over the sound of it rose Helen’s voice. Tiny Helen, turning back the tide. She would handle the press and the fans, deal with the manager.