She smiled and waved and rode away.
One mile later, Hannah nosed the car onto the old fire road and headed uphill. When the Mercedes pulled into the cabin's parking lot, the yellow Rolls-Royce was no longer there, but most of the witchboard people had stayed to play, and that was strange at this late hour. She rolled through the lot and then down to the rear of the cabin, where Evelyn Straub was waiting with a worried look about her-not her nature.
Trouble?
"Thanks for coming back." Evelyn fumbled with her key in the padlock of the crawl-space door. "We need some privacy."
Hannah followed her into the small room in the cabin's foundation. She sat down in one of the wicker chairs and then looked up to the ceiling, listening to the faint chanting of letters.
"D-O-Y- "
"I've never known them to stay so late."
"They won't go home," said Evelyn, "and there's never a shotgun around when you need one. I'm sorry to drag you out here again, but I didn't want the judge around when I talked to you, and I don't think this can wait till morning."
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm in a tight spot." Evelyn settled into the chair next to Hannah's, her eyes turned toward the ceiling, listening.
"O-U-S-T-"
"I heard they found a woman's bones in Josh's grave."
Hannah leaned toward her. "A woman, you say? How do you know that?"
Evelyn pointed to the ceiling and the room above. "They all know. They heard it from the witchboard half an hour ago."
"Well, then it must be true," said Hannah, leaning heavy on the sarcasm. "And when did you become a believer in psychic nonsense?"
"I-L-L-L-"
"I knew about the woman's bones this afternoon. I heard it from one of Cable's deputies. Dave Hardy always stops by my hotel bar when he's in town. I give him free liquor, and he talks up a storm. He'll tell me anything, but there was one thing I couldn't ask. I know Oren went out with the search party today. He was there when they found the grave. Did he mention seeing anything odd in that hole? Maybe some clothes?"
"Shopping for anything in particular?"
"A yellow rain slicker. Plastic would hold up for twenty years in the ground. The damn things are indestructible."
"O-V-E-M-"
Upstairs the witchboard people were stamping their feet to the rhythm of the chant.
"That's new," said Hannah, looking upward. "So tell me more about this yellow slicker that can't wait till morning."
"E-O-R-"
"It ties back to a statement I gave the sheriff twenty years ago. I told him that Oren spent the whole day with me. I said Josh went on alone, heading uphill on the hikers' trail. Cable asked if anybody else came by, and I said no. How can I go back on that now? How can I tell Cable I made a cup of tea for a strange woman that same morning and sat with her for half an hour? Next he'll think I made up the whole thing, and he'll toss out Oren's alibi."
"E-N-I-"
"I see," said Hannah. "What do you know about this woman?"
"She was a day-tripper. I only remember that because she checked her watch against a bus schedule. She didn't want to miss the last ride home. Before she left, she pulled a yellow slicker from her knapsack. There was a shower that day. Didn't last long, but it was raining when she finished her tea."
"M-H-E-"
Evelyn looked upward, irritated now. "I might have to set this place on fire to get rid of those idiots." She turned her eyes back to Hannah. "I made that woman a map of the old hiking trail that runs past my cabin and all the paths that connect it to the fire road. I let her out the back door and watched till she was out of sight… heading uphill."
"Where the bones were found." Hannah nodded. "What did this woman look like?"
"R-E-O-"
"Her hair was blond, a real light shade. I only remember that because it looked natural. And she was tall. Everything else was ordinary-her face, her clothes. I couldn't tell you what she was wearing that day-apart from that yellow slicker." Evelyn opened her purse. "I can show you. I've been carrying a picture around. I was hoping to catch you alone tonight."
"You have her photograph?"
"No, of course not."
"R-E-N-H-"
Evelyn pulled out a picture postcard of a Coventry street in a different season. "I got this off the rack in the hotel lobby." She pointed to a figure in a hooded yellow raincoat. "This slicker looks exactly like the one that woman was wearing." There were other specimens of the same garb in the background.
"Well, everybody in town had one of those," said Hannah. "I remember when they went on sale at the dry-goods store." And the price had been ridiculously low. Back at the house, Josh and Oren's slickers still hung on hooks by the kitchen door.
"E-L-P-M-"
"I think the stranger must've bought hers in town that morning," said Evelyn. "She probably couldn't resist a big sale like that one."
"No woman could," said Hannah, in full agreement.
"There's no other reason she'd have that slicker tucked in her knapsack. That was a freak rainstorm-nothing about it in the weather forecast. Surprised the hell out of me, a downpour like that one. I remember that morning began with a clear blue sky. So everybody in town might've owned a slicker just like hers-but how many people would've been carting one around that day?"
"Only a woman with an eye for good sale prices."
"E-O-R-E-N-"
"You think this might help the sheriff find Josh's killer?"
"I doubt it," said Hannah. "It's not like you can tell him anything useful. Maybe that other set of bones in Josh's grave belonged to your visitor-maybe not. I don't see that it matters. I wouldn't be surprised if the sheriff already knew her name and address by now." Hannah rose from the chair. "Oh, and we never had this little conversation. Understood?"
Evelyn nodded, mildly distracted by the voices overhead. "How do you suppose those people knew about the woman's bones?"
"Same way you did. One of them probably bought a drink for Dave Hardy today."
Upstairs, the witchboard people had ceased to spell out letters. They stamped their feet and chanted, "Oren, help me, Oren, help me, Oren-"
20
The county sheriff's workday had just begun when Special Agent Polk walked into his office unannounced.
The man leaned back in his chair. He was trying not to smile and failing badly. "I guess you heard the news."
"You mean this?" She slapped a copy of a recent e-mail on his desk. It bore the letterhead of a high-ranking politician, who instructed her to step away from the double homicide. She damned the luck that made this an election year for the office of State Attorney General. The top dog of the Justice Department had based his campaign on strong local authority.
Power to the people, my ass.
"I won't ask how you pulled that off," she said. "I don't think you did. Now who's behind it?"
"Your own outfit, the California Bureau of Investigation. They made the final call on jurisdiction."
"The grave is on state land."
"Not anymore. Evelyn Straub just granted a petition of relief on that hundred-year lease. I guess she felt bad about ripping off the taxpayers. Those mineral rights weren't worth a nickel when she sold them to the state.
"No," said Sally "I don't think that's quite it. Years would go by before that petition worked its way through ten layers of bureaucrats. So I'm guessing Mrs. Straub just filed an intention to quit the lease. Good try, though."