Old Chaos (9781564747136) (18 page)

“I have to go see Beth.”

“And it won’t keep until tomorrow…” She cocked her head, eyes narrowed. “Tomorrow is the funeral with all that that entails.”

He waited. One of the many good things about Meg was that she was reasonable.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

“I need to talk to Beth alone.”

Again, a considering pause. Rob confided in Meg, more than he should, properly speaking. She had acted on what he’d told her in confidence when she warned Beth about the landslide hazard, so she was capable of breaking faith. On the other hand, she had been right.

He could see that running through her mind, as it was going through his. Before she could protest, he added, “What I have to say will reflect on Mack. I think Beth will come around to my way of thinking, but I don’t want to embarrass her in front of anyone, not even you.”

“All right,” she said again. “I’ll walk over with you. While you talk to her, I’ll go upstairs and get your uniform.”

Rob groaned. He loathed uniforms, but Mack’s funeral called for full dress.

Meg’s eyes narrowed to fierce slits. “I don’t regret warning her, and I’d do it again.”

“It’s okay,” he said hastily.

Her face relaxed, and she smiled up at him. “I do understand where you’re coming from.”

Regretting that she was so short, he kissed the top of her head.

She gave him a swat on the seat of his Levis. “That bruise of yours is traveling south. It’s also turning color. Do you realize you’re going to have green cheeks?”

Beth sat on the living room sofa with her broken leg stretched out on a hassock. She was only marginally less miserable than she had been at the hospital and still very tired, but anger propped her up. The grandchildren had swarmed in and out for an hour after breakfast, which had cheered her a little. Then their mothers had carted them off to church, en masse to Mass, and fury had swept back over her.

The doorbell rang. She heard Dany trot down the hall to answer. Meg’s voice and Rob’s. Beth went cold. She didn’t want to see Meg. Meg was too sympathetic. Then she heard the women’s voices retreating down the hall, Rob came in, and she remembered the reasons she didn’t want to see him, either.

Perhaps he sensed that, for he didn’t smile. “Sheriff?”

Mute, she nodded and watched him make his slow way across the living room. She had talked to him half a dozen times since the landslide, but the last time she had
seen
him, he’d been holding her hand and saying reassuring things as the EMTs shoved her into the ambulance. Then he had been covered with mud and sweat. Now he wasn’t, but the toll he had paid in the rescue was written in his stiff bearing and on his face.

He came to a halt near her outstretched foot. “You’ll have to excuse me for standing. I need to talk to you about these investigations.”

“Plural?”

“You heard about Fred Drinkwater’s death, didn’t you?”

“I heard he was dead.” And good riddance.

“He may have been murdered.”

“Oh, my!” She sat up straight.

“Did you know him well?”

“You mean, did Mack know him well,” she said flatly. She had been thinking about her quarrel with Mack the night before the slide. She had accused her husband of taking a bribe—the too-generous deal Drinkwater had given him on the house. She closed her eyes, because she wasn’t going to cry in front of Rob, not again. “We didn’t know Fred well. He was just another developer. Mack saw more of him than I did, as you might expect.”

“What about Fred’s personal life?”

“His women?”

“Anything.”

“Well, Kayla, of course. Darla Auclare. And somebody suggested he was playing around with our wonderful county clerk, but that’s probably just a rumor.”

“Tergeson’s daughter?”

“Inger Swets.”

“ ‘No sweat with Swets,’ ” they chorused. Rob grinned.

Beth felt her neck muscles ease. “That slogan’s like a lot of political language. Catchy but doesn’t mean much. Not that I know anything bad about Inger. Mack thought she did a good job.”

“She married Larry Swets, didn’t she?” Rob had gone to school with Larry.

Beth nodded. “The barge captain—gone a lot on the river. No kids. I understand that’s an issue for Karl.” She thought about Fred’s womanizing and shook her head. “A crime of passion seems so unlikely. Fred wasn’t the kind of man who arouses grand passion.”

“That’s what Meg thinks.”

“She’s right.”

“There’s the ex-wife. Were they still together when he came here?”

“Five or six years ago? He was already divorced.” Impatience coursed through her. “Look into his investors. Matt Akers, the contractor, put money into Fred’s projects. They weren’t partners, but I’m pretty sure Akers invested. Mack said there was California money to begin with, too.”

“Where did Fred come from?”

“I don’t know where he was from originally. Before he moved here, I think he worked in the Seattle area. I’m not the one you should be asking, Rob. I wish you’d sit.” It felt as if he were towering over her, though he was an inch or so under six feet.

He gave her a crooked smile. “I could lie at your feet, Madam Sheriff, but not sit.” He walked over to the mahogany mantel and touched it. “Somebody’s been dusting.”

“Probably my daughters-in-law. They’re house-proud.” She twisted sideways so she could read his expression.

He leaned both arms on the back of one of Hazel Guthrie’s tall chairs. “Better? Less ominous?”

“Somewhat. You said investigations.”

“Drinkwater’s murder, and a close look at the process that led to approval of Drinkwater’s development.”

“That will put a strain on the department’s resources.”

“Minetti wanted to turn the second investigation over to the state.”

Beth made a face. “What do
you
want to do?”

She watched him take a long breath. He walked back and stood in front of her again. “I hate to agree with Earl, but I think it would be best to call in the state right now, today. If we don’t, pressure from the insurance companies, from victims like the Vander-brooks, and from the Gautiers’ survivors, whoever they may be, will force the
commissioners
to call them in.”

“And the commissioners are part of the problem.”

“Exactly.” He smiled at her. “If
you
ask the state to take over investigation of the missing LHA notice—”

“The what?”

He explained.

“Meg told me about that.” Her mouth felt dry. He was saying she should put distance between herself and the commissioners. “Somebody with courthouse access suppressed the first notice—is that what you think?”

“I’m not positive, but the state has a record of the WSU survey, the first one. They have no record of the second survey, the one the commissioners accepted, the one Fred’s geologist produced. That being so, the problem has to lie here—at the courthouse. If I do the investigation, I’ll need to look at every document involved, of course, but I’ll also need to look at procedures and board minutes. How does a geological survey get to the Records office? Who prepares the presentation when a developer’s plans are on the agenda? And so on.”

Beth interrupted him. “You could do it, Rob.”

“I could, but it might not be wise.”

“Because you’re employed by the county? I see. You’d better tell me what to do. We can call now, can’t we?”

“The sooner the better.” He hesitated. “Everyone who was in a position to get at those records will come under scrutiny, including me. It’s not going to be pleasant.”

“Mack—”

He held up a hand. “I’m sure Mack had nothing to do with it.”

“Why? Instinct?” Her voice shook.

Mack was probably in the clear because he was dead before Fred’s murder. Rob didn’t have to say that and didn’t. “The state investigators will look into Mack’s official records and into his personal finances.”

Beth shivered.

He was watching her. “The real problem will lie with the commissioners. You’ve been sworn in, haven’t you?”

She nodded. Karl Tergeson had administered the oath at the hospital the night before with John, Dany, and Beth’s wide-eyed roommate watching. It had felt very strange.

“Then you have the authority to act. They can’t stop you. Tergeson and Auclare will be under the gun. At the very least, they’ve been careless.”

Beth’s stomach churned. “What if they were all in on it? The commissioners, the clerks…Mack.”

Rob met her eyes. “I talked to Maddie Thomas before the landslide, when Charlie told me about the first survey. If the corruption were that widespread, I think she would have picked up on it.” He didn’t say false gushing things about Mack’s incorruptibility. He was assuming Mack’s innocence, not making a big deal about it. That made Beth feel better.

She said abruptly, “When you said it wouldn’t be wise for you to investigate the approval process, you didn’t mean you were worried about your job, did you?”

His eyebrows shot up. “No!”

“Spell it out for me.”

He stood still, head bent while he thought things over. At last he looked up. “Everybody knows Mack was my mentor, and sooner or later, someone will be charged with this crime.”

“And with wrongful death?”

“Maybe. Definitely with fraud, and certainly with violating the state’s procedures. When that happens, the defense lawyers will call the investigation into question. They’ll claim I did a cover-up to protect Mack’s reputation.”

“Would you?”

“No, not even for Mack. I saw what happened to the Gautier family. I see it every time I close my eyes.”

“And what happened to my family.”

“Yes.” He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger millimeters apart. “We came that close to losing Sophy. Linda had to
yank
her free.”

Beth needed to thank Linda Ramos. Now she said, “But you should be in on it. You know the local scene better than a state officer based in Vancouver or Olympia.”

“I do. I’ll liaise with them, defer, make myself indispensable. And I intend to investigate the Drinkwater murder myself. It happened at Tyee Lake—an unincorporated piece of the county. Our jurisdiction.”

“But—” She bit her lip.

“Since his accomplice probably killed him, we’ll be coming at the culprit from two sides.”

A long pause ensued. “Yes,” Beth said at last. “Yes, go for it. One condition.”

His eyebrows snapped together. “What?”

“I want you to replace Earl as undersheriff—listen to me.” She spoke sharply to forestall his protest.

He was shaking his head. “Ask Corky Kononen.”

“I did. He said no.” Corky would retire in three years and did not want the hassle. “Listen,” she repeated. “Mack chose Earl because he recognized another politician when he saw one. You were right to refuse Mack. You don’t want to run for public office.”

He said wryly, “I’d be unsuccessful running for public office. And I’d hate every minute of it.”

“I know you would. I don’t understand why, but I know it’s true. I don’t want to groom you to run for sheriff.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“When he was ranting at me, Earl said I was no kind of cop. He was right.”

“You’ll learn.”

“Yes, if you’ll teach me. I want you to run law enforcement for the county. You don’t have to mess with the uniform branch. Corky’s a good lawman, and he likes and respects you. Run Investigations, as you do now, and stand between me and my own ignorance. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll attend the Chamber of Commerce meetings, deal with the press, meet with the Board.” Any halfway competent woman could do that. “And I’ll back you all the way, Rob.”

He was rubbing his neck, eyes on the faded pattern of the carpet, cheeks flushed. Beth flashed on the first time she had noticed him, a small, skinny twelve-year-old at the dingy karate school, barefoot and clad in the white pajamas they all wore. Her son, Mike, who was Rob’s age, was much larger. Rob had just thrown Mike over his shoulder. He had worn the same expression then as he did now— not gleeful, not even satisfied, just watchful. When Mike swarmed up from the mat, arms flailing, Rob threw him again.

Now he sighed and smiled at her. He had a nice smile, rueful and accepting. “Okay. On those terms.”

Beth reached for her cell phone.