Part 25 (1/2)
”It doesn't matter. She hadn't written about the murder on the computer. Not that I thought she would, but you never know. Something as intimate as a physical diary, however...”
Dan remained silent.
”Anyway, I'm going to remind you now that she said she had no other living blood relatives. But there's a cousin who's been in jail nearly the entirety of her life.”
Dan reached into his s.h.i.+rt pocket, pulling out three pictures. ”I thought there must be someone else, but since I wasn't allowed to a.s.sist I was having difficulty checking. I took these from the alb.u.ms last time I was in. Maris's uncles have both died. As has Maris's father. Even though I was off the case, I did some online research and found obits. Maris told me she thought these images all included her father, but that's not accurate, is it?” He shoved the pictures across the desk to Jamie who picked them up, holding the photographs closer to the bulb.
”What makes you think this isn't Maris's father?”
Dan pointed. ”Look at the dress Alva is wearing. It's the same as in this other photo with all three of the Granger boys. They seem to have been taken the same day, if you check the background details. The child standing alone with Alva in the first two I handed you is not one of them, but a younger child. I don't believe Maris knew about another boy, if we're right and there really was one.”
”If we are right? We weren't working together. You were off in some strange fantasy world.” Jamie lowered the pictures to the desk. ”But there was another. Robert Mabry.”
Dan frowned. ”Mabry?”
”Yeah, Alva's son. Her illegitimate son. She ended up sending him away to be raised elsewhere. Think of the timeframe. She had him at the end of the fifties without benefit of marriage, and apparently he was a handful. Troubled and in trouble, all the time. His name was never changed, though. He went into prison thirty years ago for manslaughter and served his time. He was released three months ago.”
Crossing his arms, Dan sat back. ”How'd you find all of that out?”
”Had a talk with a fellow at the FBI.”
”So that's his thumbprint on the Priestess card.”
”Yep.”
”Anything else?”
”There were traces of digoxin on the card.”
”Digitalis? The drug used for treatment of heart disorders?”
”Exactly. It can be absorbed through the skin, causing various types of reactions. Alva Mabry, however, was taking the drug for congestive heart failure. She really wasn't doing well at the time she died.”
”So, are you saying Alva died of natural causes?” Dan doubted it. After everything that had happened, it couldn't be a case of error on Rankin's part.
Jamie shuffled the photographs into a pile and set them on the desk. ”I'm not. It was an overdose of the drug that killed her. Probably over the course of several days. That's what Rankin thinks anyway. Administered topically and absorbed through the raw skin on the old woman's fingertips. Probably applied to the cards themselves. Rankin's running some tests on the others. It wasn't injected. That would have been quick. Rankin doesn't know what that hole was about. The point is, the woman was murdered, and now we know how.”
Dan suppressed a sigh of relief he had no desire for Jamie to hear. ”Maris is cleared, then?”
”No. This man was a relative of hers. It's conceivable they could have been working together. There's the little issue of her coming to town a day earlier than she claimed. I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
”I haven't any idea. You know I don't. And I need to find her as badly as you do. I'm afraid-” He couldn't tell Jamie about the apparition imploring Dan to help Maris. Despite Jamie's own experience with Maris-an experience he would likely dismiss-he would never believe Dan about something like that. ”Maris had this sense of impending danger, of doom. She thought I was the one in peril, but she was wrong about that.”
”Stauffer, you're pitiful.”
Dan persisted. ”Any sign of her car?”
”None.”
”I'm going to look for it on my own.” Dan rose.
Jamie did, too, closing his hand around Dan's arm. ”Don't. We're searching. I've put an all-points bulletin out. You need to stay clear.”
Dan shoved Jamie's hand from his arm, reaching past him to the desktop. ”You dropped the ball by not putting the sketch of the guy I suspected was the hit and run driver in the papers. This is him. Maris's cousin?” He yanked an enlarged mug shot from the paperwork on Jamie's desk and shook it in Jamie's face. ”Age him, and you'll find the guy who was in the hospital. That's why he looked familiar to me. The family resemblance. And to her, too, though she couldn't place the reason.” Or had she known him all along, her upset merely the result of him showing up at the hospital and accosting her in the elevator? Dan angrily dismissed the notion. ”If he was the driver who tried to run her down, whether they were working together or not, his intention now is to eliminate her. We have to get to her before he does.”
”And if the hit and run was a random occurrence, and she left with Robert Mabry?”
Dan waved an arm in rejection. ”What was it you kept saying about too much coincidence? This is the missing piece of the puzzle, Jamie. It has to be.”
Heart racing, Dan hurried from Jamie's office and back out to his car. Jamie followed, refusing to be left behind, specifically, because he didn't trust Dan's motivations. He sat in the pa.s.senger seat, mouth set in a grim line. Dan was grateful for the man's company. Dawn was a long way off, and the dark hours of night could toy with a man's psyche, especially when already troubled. Even though Jamie remained silent, his solid, angry presence was a comfort.
Alcina Cove Nature Preserve had been a bust. Not a single car in the lot, not even the usual late-night parkers. Dan had continued up and down the roads, knowing his efforts were a waste of gas. As Jamie had pointed out before lapsing into silence, Maris could have a d.a.m.ned good head start on her way to Canada.
”She's not running. Not from me. Not even from you and your accusations. She's innocent, Jamie. She's hiding. Or we're too late, and he got to her already.”
”She took everything with her. There was no sign of force. Stauffer, you have to face up to reality. You're wasting your time.”
”Suppose she's had another mental breakdown?” He didn't like to think that, but the possibility existed, given the stress and her recent injury. ”She could be somewhere contemplating the little she might have left of life before she ends it.”
”And you want to save her. How the h.e.l.l could the cool, calm, collected guy I've known for all these years fall in love with a whacko in a matter of days?”
”Don't call her that.”
”Sorry.”
”And I have fallen in love with her. I make no apologies for that.”
Dan continued up the winding road toward the stretch where he'd stopped to show Maris the outstanding view. If her mental state was impaired, she might choose such a spot. The overlook was empty. Dan pulled the car to the side and got out, checking for signs a vehicle had recently been there or gone over the edge. It wasn't a steep drop, but enough. His flashlight cut a swath through the darkness. Soon the light was joined by another. Jamie stood beside him, raising the electric torch above his head and aiming downward for a better angle.
”I get it, Dan. I really do. I'm just doing my job.”
”I know.” Dan lowered the flashlight to his side, staring toward the ocean flickering in starlight and the constant, rotating beam of the lighthouse, its tall, solid shadow black against the navy sky. ”s.h.i.+t.”
”What?”
”I know where she is.”
Chapter 25.
Maris's stress-induced memory loss had cleared. She sat with her back against the wall, her body jolting forward with every pounding beat of her heart. In the room above, two men argued, voices m.u.f.fled by the thickness of the iron-bound wood of the trapdoor in the middle of the ceiling. It had taken her some time to locate the door in the dark. Now that she had, she avoided it, stayed in the corners, because she didn't want finding her to be easy. Not this time.
She'd realized in the past-hours, minutes, days?-that she was in the lighthouse. An underground storage cellar, most likely. The beating of the surf against the rocky base in a constant growl beneath her was discernible through the thickness of the stone structure.
She'd fallen a few minutes earlier, trying to ease her position. The uneven stones of the floor, slick with damp, were her undoing. She was wet and cold, disoriented, and now bleeding from a cut on her lip. Through flaring nostrils, the iron scent of blood was strong.
Out of the blackness, a finger traced her ear, touching the feather hanging against her chin. She froze. She'd felt no one come near. The s.p.a.ce wasn't large. She knew she was alone.