Chapter 18 Cursed #3
“That oddity notwithstanding, cause of death is drowning. The quantities of prescription opioids in his system were sufficient to impair his driving, so I’m ruling this death as accidental.”
“He had opioids in his system?”
“It’s surprisingly common. According to the state’s automated prescription-reporting system, he had a valid prescription for back pain. It wasn’t doing him any favors while operating heavy machinery, but he probably wasn’t feeling much pain at the end.”
At least Sims didn’t suffer much. A small, dark part of me wished he had, though. He didn’t deserve an easy death.
I backed up to let Forensics do their thing. I caught up on messages. To my disappointment, EPA hadn’t called me back. I called them again, and was in the process of leaving a message when Fred Jasper rolled up beside me in a sheriff’s van.
I ended my call and steeled myself to talk to Jasper.
“You trying to reach EPA?” he asked, brow furrowed as he climbed out of the van.
“Yeah.” I blew out my breath. “They’re not responsive.”
“I may have a contact there, from when I was in the military. Want me to reach out?”
“That would be great,” I admitted. Now I was really feeling bad that I was going to confront him about what I’d learned. I squared my shoulders and faced him. “Fred, can we talk?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
We walked a bit away from the scene, to where we couldn’t be overheard.
“I’ve been looking into the Dana Carson disappearance.”
He nodded. “I figured you would.”
“You didn’t tell me you were Dana Carson’s boyfriend.”
He stared out into the river. He wasn’t hostile and didn’t seem to be provoked by my discovery. His expression was just wistful. “Dana was a great girl. She was kind, smart, funny, artistic.”
“Why did you break up?”
“I was going to college in the fall. She was three years younger, and it didn’t seem fair to leave her behind and have her wait for me. In retrospect…” He sighed. “It was the biggest regret of my life.”
“You must’ve been devastated.”
Jasper’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “Yeah. It was what made me decide to be a cop.”
I felt that. I think that, subconsciously, I’d also become one to purge my father’s sins. Maybe it was a way to have the power I never had as a girl. “I get it. You think Jeff and his friends did something to her?”
He nodded. “I do. I hope that someday they get caught and stand trial.”
“I could see that. Do you feel like you can still work this case?” I asked. A decision would be made, far above my head, if Jasper could remain on the case.
“I think so, but that’ll be up to Chief. I’m just going to dive, and report back what I see. You and Chief get to decide what happens from there.”
“What do you think happened to Dana?” I hated picking at old wounds, but I needed to know what he knew.
His gaze darkened. “The Kings of Warsaw Creek were always bad news. They had no limits, and they knew it. Still probably don’t. I think they saw her, and they just…took her for thrills. I think they killed her and threw her away somewhere, somewhere she hasn’t been found yet.”
“I’m sorry, Jasper.”
He exhaled. “I don’t want to prejudice your investigation. I’m here to answer any questions I can, though.”
I frowned. I didn’t like that he hadn’t been forthcoming about his involvement with Dana. It just didn’t sit right with me. “Fred, I have to ask you, because I have to ask you. Where were you the last several nights?”
He didn’t seem to take offense. “I was working overtime on those days, directing traffic for the Flower Festival.”
I nodded. That should be easy enough to corroborate. The Flower Festival was usually a tame event, attended by gardeners, old hippies, and random guys who carried guitars in the woods. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. I know you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.” He smiled at me. “You still want me to suit up and check this out? I can wait for you to run it up the flagpole.”
I nodded. “I’ll do that, just to cover our asses.”
“Sounds good. I’ll just do a check on my equipment while you’re clearing it. If the boss doesn’t clear it, I know three guys from the city dive team are on call this weekend.”
I gave him the thumbs-up. While Jasper busied himself with his gear, I walked down the road, toward Detwiler’s roadblock.
I was a big hypocrite calling Jasper out like that. I called the chief. His secretary said that he was busy, but he’d call me right back.
I paced along the gravel, feeling super weird about this thing.
I didn’t really believe Jasper was capable of murder.
If he wanted to, he could have killed the Kings of Warsaw Creek years ago.
I refused to believe that the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dana’s disappearance would cause him to snap like this.
Most grudge killers didn’t wait that long to explode.
My phone rang, and I picked up.
“What’s going on?” Chief asked.
I told him about Jasper. He was quiet, which meant that he was digesting.
“I don’t like that he wasn’t up-front about this,” Chief said, “but he has an alibi. Watch him carefully. If he does anything weird, I’ll ground him.”
“Yes, sir.”
We hung up. I didn’t like Jasper being this close to the investigation.
He had too much motive to hold a grudge against the Kings of Warsaw Creek, and people close to them were winding up dead.
Fuck. This could be a huge conflict of interest. Or it could be murder.
But Chief hadn’t taken him off this investigation, so all I could really do was watch.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Chief knew something I didn’t know.
Chief was locked in a power struggle with the sheriff.
I didn’t know where Jasper’s loyalties lay, if he was trusted by the chief or maybe drank beers on the sheriff’s boat on weekends.
That was the trouble with Jasper: he was amiable to everyone, and I had no real bead on his loyalties.
I walked back down the road. “Chief says to proceed.”
Jasper gave me a cheerful thumbs-up. I watched him don his gear, slowly, methodically.
“Hey,” I said, unwilling to let him have access to the crime scene without supervision. “Is Ramirez’s suit in there? Can I come with you?”
Jasper paused. “Have you had dive training?”
“I dived a bit in college. My certification has lapsed, though.”
Jasper seemed to consider. “Well, I’m a certified instructor. It would be safe if I supervised you closely.”
I nodded. We would watch each other.
I suited up in Ramirez’s gear. I was a little taller than her, and the neoprene felt tight across my shoulders. Jasper helped me put the heavy tank on my back, and I waddled, in my fins, behind him to the shore.
It would be easier to drop from a boat, but we waded awkwardly in. The quarry was still, with no current, so that was in our favor.
Jasper swam out to the orange donuts, taking pictures. I was at his elbow when he grabbed the handles of the inner tubes, and we began to tow them to shore.
Once we’d gotten them within reach of the coroner’s people, we turned back to the water.
“Let’s see if we can find the heads,” Jasper said.
I took the respirator into my mouth, dropped the goggles over my eyes, and plunged into the cool water.
It closed over my head, cutting off the birdsong echoing in the quarry. The water was clear, and I could see to the bottom, tiny pebbles disturbed by my fins. Jasper was by my side as we searched, moving deeper.
I listened to my heartbeat and my breathing, sounding like Darth Vader’s, as we descended into the quarry, searching a grid from the shallows to the deeper parts of the quarry. Jasper’s camera flashed as he took pictures.
The water had a bluish tinge, the further we went in. Something about the pH of the quarry water discouraged algal growth. The deeper we went, the dimmer the light. I switched on my headlamp.
And it was cold. Before, I might have thought I didn’t need a wet suit, but I was thankful for it now. I felt a slight pressure against my body, squeezing my chest as we went farther down. I saw Jasper’s light to my left. I was watching him; he was watching me.
I felt sort of bad for keeping Jasper under scrutiny, for doubting his motives. I was the biggest kind of hypocrite. I worked the case involving my father’s copycat, and I told no one. Part of me wanted to grant Jasper some grace; part of me wanted to be better than that and follow the rules.
The floor was rocky here. I saw debris—an abandoned oar rotting, a broken piece of chain. I wondered if some debris was from the former mining operation, and how much evidence from other crimes had been chucked here, into blue water that swallowed everything.
Maybe even severed heads. Human bodies tended to float, but I remembered reading in an article about mob hits that found heads were heavy enough to sink, at least until decomposition set in.
When that happened, gases would cause the heads to rise.
I sure as hell didn’t want any drunk teenagers finding severed heads later.
And I was concerned about this development. The previous incidents had been plausible accidents in water. Why this change in MO? Was I perhaps dealing with more than one killer, or—
Jasper tapped my elbow. He gestured to a stack of pale rocks before us.
At first, I didn’t see what he was pointing to. I saw a bunch of small, shimmery boulders, the kind that weighed about fifty pounds and would fetch a pretty penny at a landscape supply store. The rocks were stacked up in a low wall where they must have fallen years ago.
…And then I spied the heads. Two of them, sitting beside each other, staring at me with glazed eyes and open mouths.
I exhaled a stream of bubbles.
They looked like they hadn’t fallen there. They looked as if they’d been deliberately staged there, waiting for someone to find them. Jasper took pictures from every angle.
He opened a bag he’d brought with him. Gently, we coaxed the heads into the bag, disturbing as little as we could.
Jasper began to comb the area around the rock pile, taking pictures of a rusty stain that looked like blood on the limestone.
I stared at the bag. Was this Viv’s curse? The creature she’d summoned?
My headlight went out, and something grabbed the back of my neck. I lurched, flailing. I turned and twisted, trying to free myself from the grip of whatever had me. My air hose was ripped free of the tank, and water rushed into my throat.