Indivisible Page 5

  “Hey.” Tia had a hug for her too. “I didn’t expect to see you up early on your day off.”

  Piper shrugged. “I prepped a few things at the bakery. Want to try my fig and pine-nut sticky rolls?”

  “You’re opening today?”

  “Experimentally. To help Sarge with the medical bills.” She’d seen the figures her folks plugged in for hospital costs. “While he’s out I want to try as many different things as possible so I know which ones are popular enough to suggest when he gets back.”

  “Sweetie, Sarge is not going to sell anything new. He’s not just set in his ways; he’s set in stone.”

  “I can try.” Walking together toward the bakery, she saw Chief Westfall pull up to the stoplight. “Hold on.” She couldn’t resist one more try. She jogged over and tapped his passenger side window.

  He cocked his head, then depressed the window button.

  “Tia’s brave enough to try my sticky rolls. Why don’t you join—”

  The driver behind him tapped his horn.

  “Gotta go.”

  Piper stepped back, irritated. The light had changed like a second ago. Her irritation grew when she saw the honking driver was auto sales manager Robert Betters. If ever a name matched a person, it was full-of-himself Bob Betters. He’d hit on her twice even though he had to be as old as, well, the chief. He raised his chunky fingers up from the wheel in a cool-guy wave as he drove by. She could think of a use for the gold chain on his neck.

  “Come on.” Tia hooked her arm and marched her off.

  They met Mary Carson on the street, and Tia invited her in to purchase the sticky rolls, which turned out better than she’d hoped—high altitude schmaltitude.

  “I must say, my dear, you have a knack for the unusual.”

  Piper beamed at the older woman. “I could make a new creation every day and never exhaust the possibilities.”

  The timer sounded, and she hurried back to the kitchen for her other experimental special. Mitted, she pulled the spinach, goat cheese, and kalamata olive rolls from the oven as yeasty heat waves exfoliated her cheeks. She placed them on a tray and carried them to the front case as a great big guy with a Lego-man haircut walked in. “Can I help you?”

  “If you wash your hands.”

  She looked down, thinking she’d missed a strip of spinach or blob of cheese, then held up pristine fingers for him to see. “They’re clean.”

  “That would be discernable if germs were a million times bigger than they are.”

  Oh. A germaphobe. She glanced at Tia and Mary Carson, who were watching him and murmuring. Piper turned to the counter along the wall and slipped on a plastic glove, pulled a square of parchment from the box in the case, and held it ready. “Okay?”

  Satisfied by her double line of defense, he looked at the tray. His nostrils pinched in as he sniffed. “What is that smell?”

  “Spinach, goat cheese, and kalamata rolls straight from the oven.”

  He looked at the board, and faster than anyone could have read it declared, “That’s not on the list.”

  “Nope.” She hadn’t dared change the board. “They’re the same price as the cheddar rolls.” With the more expensive ingredients, she would have to charge more if she got to sell them for real. “I bought the goat cheese fresh this morning from a local source. She’s been raising goats and churning cheese for fourteen years.”

  “Then it’s not regulated.” The big fella crossed his arms.

  “On the other hand, it hasn’t passed from farm to packaging to supermarket. Plus, it’s been baked.”

  He frowned. “How long?”

  “Long enough to give the roll a golden crust and cheesy, chewy inside.” She pulled one from the case, laid it on the parchment, and cut it into bite-sized pieces.

  As she set it up on the sample plate, Bob Betters swaggered through the door with a hapless guy who looked like an overgrown baby with downy duckling hair and pudgy cheeks. Bob puffed out his chest. “Isn’t she everything I said she was?”

  She ignored them as her customer took a sample and chewed slowly. He had a pretty good poker face.

  “What do you think?”

  “Too much kalamata. The spinach is stringy.”

  Her spirits sank. “What about the cheese?”

  “The cheese is interesting.”

  Interesting was good. She could work with that. “Would you skip the spinach or chop it finer?”

  “Finer. And fewer olives.”

  Bob’s head bobbled back and forth between them.

  “Would you rather have the last fig and pine-nut sticky roll?”

  The man eyed the two choices, then nodded. With her plastic-wrapped hand and a fresh parchment square, she procured the treat, knowing Bob would have chosen the sweet over the savory. After ringing up the sale, she turned to Bob and his companion, irked all over again that he had cut her conversation with the chief short.

  “Can I get you something?”

  “I’ll take the baker.” Bob chortled.

  “Oh, that’s original.”

  “One date. I will amaze you.”

  She looked at his glossy face and plastic-looking teeth. Every hair on his head in its place. “I don’t think so.”

  His companion laughed uncomfortably.

  “You haven’t taken a test drive.” He actually went vroom-vroom.

  She tried not to gag. “Do you want a goat-cheese kalamata roll?”

  “If I buy one, can we have dinner tonight?”

  “I have a date.” Only a little lie, because the day was young and someone would surely want to hang out.

  “How about two, and I’ll throw in breakfast?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Then I’ll have a lemon scone.” He read from the board, not even noticing the empty case, or he thought she had them in back.

  “I only have the goat-cheese rolls. I’m not really open for business.”

  “You served him.” Bob thumbed the previous customer hunched over the table closest to the door.

  “A pine-nut and fig roll. They’re all gone now.”

  “Well, if you’re not open, why don’t I take you to lunch?”

  She clasped her hands. “How can I say this nicely …”

  “Not no, but hell no.” The Lego man intoned from his table.

  Piper’s eyes widened as she resisted a laugh. She didn’t want to insult Bob, just stop the assault. Did every conversation have to be in overdrive? Mary Carson laughed softly into her napkin. Piper thought she heard, “Well said, young man,” but it might have been, “Watch your language.”

  Piper cleared her throat. “So … kalamata roll?”

  Bob glared. “No, thanks. Not a fan of goat cheese.”

  “I’ll have the regular menu tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Bob walked away, scowling at the Lego man as he passed.

  After grabbing the bag of nails, Jonah climbed out of his Bronco and strode into the cabin. Attending church was not new; attending voluntarily was. He’d been forced into it every Sunday and resented every minute until he had sunk so low there was nowhere else to turn. It wasn’t about proving his piety like the police chief before him, but just the opposite, admitting his need of something bigger.

  He’d stopped expecting lightning to strike when he entered, but others probably hadn’t, so he kept it uncomplicated, going late and leaving early. Piper was the only one to call him on it. She’d become disarmingly persistent.

  Now that he’d crossed thirty, women seemed to think him safe. No longer prowling didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He still had it within him to wreck someone’s life.

  He changed from his jeans and shirt into a battered pair of cargo shorts and T-shirt that had passed ratty years ago. Methodically, he set to work on the addition he’d begun at the back of his cabin, doubling its size with a rec room, workshop, two additional bedrooms, and bath. He had the acreage to support the addition, and with real estate values escalating as the very weal
thy discovered the area’s charm, it made sense to improve his investment.

  He had poured the foundation slab, framed and sheetrocked the walls, and now he’d almost finished taping the seams. After a couple of hours, sweating with the heat of the day and the labor, he pulled up his shirt and wiped his face. He had put off the other task long enough. He climbed down, put his tools away, and climbed into the Bronco. After inserting the key into the ignition, he dropped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Then he started the engine and pulled out.

  As he drove, he braced himself mentally and emotionally. His shirt was damp and flecked with sawdust, but he never wore the uniform when he visited. That would be like running power to C4.

  He parked outside the sprawling, single-level house he’d grown up in, almost seeing his dad sitting out on the long front porch, bottle in hand, leer in place. “If it isn’t the big shot. Thinks he can do the job better than the old man.”

  Over thirty-one years, Chief Stan Westfall’s reputation as the toughest lawman in the county had earned him the respect of its law-abiding citizens. Lawbreakers had respected him too—out of fear. Stan Westfall could chill a man’s spine with a stare.

  The door opened, and his mother stepped out, face slack. “What do you want?”

  He hung his hands on his hips. “Seeing if you need anything.”

  “Not from you.” She had thickened at the waist, and he hoped that meant the ulcers had healed and she could eat. She wore her gray-blond hair loose, having learned the inadvisability of a ponytail early in her marriage. But it made her look old and unkempt.

  His brother, Pete, sent her money each month, though he’d gotten as far from Redford as he could. Jonah tried, but she wouldn’t take any assistance from him. And he’d made no escape. Redford was in his blood. He cared about the city he protected, the responsibility he’d been given.

  He glanced at the empty chair on the porch.

  “You questioning me?” His absent dad mocked him.

  “What happened last night?”

  His father’s withering stare. “None of your business.”

  “Someone died. That’s everyone’s business.”

  “Walk away now. Just walk away.”

  “Go.” His mother’s face crumpled, her tone venomous. “Get out of here.”

  Why didn’t she go live with Pete or her sister? What could possibly hold her to this place? She went inside and closed the door. He stood long moments, knowing she would watch him drive away, every mile he put between them a gift. He retraced his route back to the cabin.

  The sound of a saw greeted him when he walked in his door. “Jay?”

  Half Cherokee, half Dane, Jay Laugersen came from the back room, safety goggles hanging around his neck. “You can’t give it up, can you?” One hazel and one husky blue eye gave the impression of superimposed images, a startling contrast in his dark-complected face. He wore his black hair banded at the nape to form a stubby tail.

  Jonah tossed his keys on the table. “She’s my mother.”

  “And you’re the Raven Mocker’s spawn.” A heart-eating soul-stealer’s offspring was not far off—literally or figuratively. But only Jay could get away with calling him that. Jay had brought him back from the shadow-lands, sweating out the whiskey’s poison and spooning broth and other potions between his parched lips. He had taught him carpentry, making him work his way out of the hole. He had taught him self-respect.

  Jonah said, “Hungry?”

  “Got steak?”

  “What else?” The whole Angus steer Lorraine Goetthe had raised would last until she’d fattened another for his freezer. He kept a week’s worth of beef, most of it steaks of varying thickness, thawed in the refrigerator to throw on the grill when he got off work, whenever that happened to be.

  As the steaks seared, he boiled corn and tore lettuce for a salad. Jay had brought O’Doul’s, the nonalcoholic beer that marked you a recovering drunk. They sat on the front porch to eat, these damage-control meals a Sunday afternoon ritual.

  They talked and ate and laughed.

  The bands around his heart expanded. He might never convince his mother he wasn’t responsible. Ultimately he had been, for daring to hold the man accountable. He shook his head. For now—

  His phone vibrated, and with a sigh he checked it. Moser. “I need to take this.”

  Hiking up through towering pines along an exuberant, tumbling creek, Tia moved at a brisk pace, planting the walking stick she carried, more to wave at bears or cougars than for assistance on the path. The breeze titillated the trembly aspen and bore the scent of golden banner and Queen Anne’s lace. Thorny wild roses drew a few bees in the sunny patches, and flat-leaf ferns burgeoned in the shadows.

  On she climbed, pulling with hands and feet over rocky terrain where the trees thinned, and she drew abreast of their spired tips. The sun beat down beneath the brilliant blue sky. She looked up. With a low drumming of its pinions on the air, an eagle mounted the sky from a crag overhead—her destination. She had climbed it only once before.

  “No, you can’t come; you’ll blab it around.”

  “I won’t.” She’d zipped her lips.

  “That would take superglue. Industrial strength.”

  She had followed uninvited, but he hadn’t gotten mad. When he realized she had made it to the top, he said, “Well, come on over and have a look.”

  She had swelled with the thrill of accomplishment. “Have you shown Reba?”

  “I want to. But she won’t come. The climb is too hard and dangerous.”

  I made it, Tia thought. But Reba was a girlie-girl, weaving Jonah into her feminine spell until he believed her too dainty for real life. Settling into the saddle of the rock, her arm against his, Tia had looked out and thought how much her sister was missing.

  Sweat had collected beneath her breasts, down her spine, in the hollow of her throat. The awareness of him had been as heady as the thin air, the steep pitch, the perilous footing. The hint of danger that lay beneath his calm worked on her like the unfiltered sun, burning into her senses, leaving her breathless with wants she could not articulate.

  Clenching the walking stick, she halted, suddenly short of breath. Jonah did not own this mountain. But she turned around anyway, shaking.

  Six

  Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.

  —FREDRICH HALM

  Climbing the hill behind Duffy’s cabin, Jonah called out so Moser wouldn’t shoot him. The warning wasn’t necessary. He was in no shape to shoot. “What’ve we got?”

  Moser straightened, still white from puking up the contents of his stomach. “Duffy hiked up here, like he does every day, discovered the kill, and thought it weird enough to call.”

  This time, the young raccoons were about eight feet apart. They had gotten that far by emptying their body cavities, the entrails having been sewn together. Two of each animal’s legs had been removed at the hip and shoulder socket so that together they had only four.

  “It’s like a wolf in a trap, chewing off its leg.” Moser’s voice wobbled.

  “Only this trap was another animal as frantic to separate as the first.”

  As he had the last time, Jonah took a number of closeups with the digital camera, holding his gorge with difficulty. It appeared that several of the organs had been divided and joined. A more complete connection than the last time when each beast had been left intact. “Our perpetrator has knowledge of anatomy and surgical skill.”

  “But why … what …” Moser’s question petered off.

  Jonah shook his head. “Let’s get a team up here, do a ground search. Footprints, maybe something dropped by observers.”

  “You think it’s a sport?”

  “Sport, rite, fetish. I don’t know, but these creatures didn’t get this way by themselves.”

  He surveyed the location. The steep slope and dense forestation were not a natural choice for a spectator event, though a half-doz
en hooded spectators could have slipped in among the trees for their ceremony and slipped away as silently. He saw no circle of stones or ritualistic markings on the trees. Maybe it was one sick individual.

  Duffy’s property bordered parkland, accessible from several trails. He glanced at the one a short distance above. Both times the animals were released near a path or trail. Was there a pattern? a purpose? Or was it simple expediency?

  Newly arrived to help with the search. His steel stomach proved once again impervious to stink or gore, but the blood-soaked pine needles, cones, and twigs did not give up easy secrets. Double-pronged deer tracks marked a soft patch, probably a full-grown buck by the depth. They found no wrappers or cigarette butts, no boot prints, no human hairs.

  Jonah sent Newly back to his usual duties and told Moser to ask Duffy for a shovel. The photos would show enough. Not long ago, such a crime would have been considered minor. But animal cruelty had gained recognition, and this took it up a notch. Evisceration was dark stuff.

  Hands on hips, he scanned, trying to sense the motivation, gratification, whatever the perpetrator was going for. Footsteps crunched behind him, and he turned, expecting Moser, but saw Tia, hand pressed to her nose and mouth. She had approached on the trail just above Duffy’s property from which he guessed the perpetrator may have released the raccoons. He moved between her and the carnage, trying to block both animals. “Don’t look. It’s grim.”

  She spoke through her hand. “Dead raccoons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t that Department of Wildlife’s business?”

  “Would be, except they were sewn together. This pair had limbs removed and organs joined.”

  “What?” She searched his face.

  “This is why I warned you not to be out alone.” What if she had happened upon the sicko having his sport? He looked up the trail. “How long have you been hiking?”

  “About three hours. You said not to be out after dark.”

  Leave it to Tia to find the loophole. He checked his watch. “So you passed here, when?”