22. Time Portal
TWENTY-TWO
Time Portal
Harry
R us dropped him at home so Harry could leave his cruiser at the station and drive his truck to Lillian’s.
Rus was then going to his place to get the dogs and bring them back into town.
Harry had told him he didn’t have to drive all the way out to Bonner Mountain and back in when Harry could fetch his pups, but Rus insisted.
“With all this shit swirling, your time is gonna be limited, and whatever free time you got, you need for Lillian. I can bring the dogs in, and then Maddie and I can have dinner at the Double D.”
He and Lillian were both getting an education on the loyalty they’d earned, and Harry was grateful for it.
Now, he’d packed heavy, had enough dog food in his truck to last weeks, the dogs had their own go bag of rawhides and toys, but before he took off for Lillian’s, he hit go on a number he hadn’t touched in years.
Dern didn’t answer, it went to voicemail.
Not a surprise when he would’ve seen Harry’s name come up on his screen.
But Harry didn’t hesitate to leave a message.
“Weird how Roy Farrell developed a migraine to take him home from work today, then he didn’t actually go home. But just so you know, we discovered the ME’s report on Clifford Ballard was falsified. Theresa ruled it a homicide, not a suicide. You’re the investigator on record, Leland. You signed off on a doctored file. Farrell fucked you. He positioned you real good, then he fucked you hard . Good for you that you’d take your boys’ backs, but they’re leaving you swinging. Think on that.”
He ended the call, and carrying the last bag from his house, the one with his pups’ water and food bowls, Harry headed out to his truck.
He was halfway back to town when his dash told him he had a call from Jesse.
He found a place to swing in so he could give it the attention it deserved, parked in a spot at the back of the lot at the grocery store, and he took the call.
“Jesse,” he greeted.
“Harry, you got time?”
Never.
For this, though, absolutely.
“Yeah.”
“Right. We did our thing in LA. Jace said he briefed you on that?”
“Briefly,” Harry said.
“Well, nothing strange. They had reasons to find the quiet life. All we got on them there was all we’d get if we asked around MP. Good folk. Solid folk. Likeable folk. They were remembered and there was worry they seemed to drop off the face of the earth, since they’d been keeping in touch. Particularly Avery. Apparently, the woman wrote a helluvan entertaining Christmas letter.”
Everything…absolutely everything he’d learned about the Rainiers stated clear they were good, kind, loving, hardworking, decent people.
And they ended up in an unmarked grave on the side of a mountain a state away.
Fuck him.
“They had valid concerns,” Harry muttered what they now knew too well.
“When we got to Idaho,” Jesse continued, “we worked on the idea that it was Sonny and Avery’s destination. That they were going to report what they knew here, out of Washington State, to law enforcement that was enough removed, Leland Dern might not brush shoulders with them at a local convention.”
“Safe assumption,” Harry murmured.
“So we figured they got a hotel room.”
“Right.”
“Fortunately, not only was Avery a knockout, Sonny wasn’t tough to look at either. Found a woman who remembered Sonny.”
Fucking hell.
“No shit?” Harry asked.
“Part was he was good-looking. Part was, her dad remembered both of them. They run a mom-and-pop motel, a lot like our Blue Mountain. Clean, the proprietors give a shit, but not expensive. The woman we talked to was next gen, but she worked there back then, remembered her father talking about it. Had to wait until she could get in touch with him. They retired. Went down to New Mexico.”
“Okay,” Harry said.
“She got in touch with him, he got in touch with us. And this dude still remembered Sonny and Avery.”
Fuck, these guys were good.
“What’d he say?” Harry asked.
“We hit the mother lode, Harry.”
Harry closed his eyes as relief, and the first flicker of hope surged through him.
He opened them and urged, “Hit me with it.”
“He said he wasn’t surprised someone was poking around, because when his daughter phoned him, and he tuned into the local Coeur d’Alene news and saw two bodies were found, he and his wife were debating calling the cops due to remembering Sonny and Avery.”
They made an impression. An impression that lasted sixteen years and was the first thought these people had when bodies were found.
The hallmark of a good witness statement.
Harry stared unseeing at the parking lot he was in, and he listened hard.
“The dude said they were memorable first because they looked straight out of Hollywood. He said he’d never seen such a good-looking couple. After he got over that, he noticed they were acting odd. Not like they were on the run, more like they were being chased .”
“Fuck,” Harry whispered.
“Yeah,” Jess agreed. “Then, they made the request to check out very early, and asked if they could just leave their key in the room so they didn’t have to disturb anybody with checkout. Onward from this, feeling tweaked about their demeanor, that night, this guy recalls seeing a man in a car in his parking lot, parked across the lot from their room. He was just sitting there, and not a patron, so this guy went out to ask him what he was doing. The minute the hotel owner started to approach, the man in the car put his headlights on and drove away. Due to the headlights, the owner didn’t get a good look at his face.”
“What’d you get on this car and this guy?”
“Only that it was for sure a white male, dark hair, beard, youngish. Twenties, maybe early thirties at a stretch. And the car had Washington plates. It was a Ford sedan, he thinks dark blue or black, but that was all he got before the guy was gone.”
“He remember any digits on that plate?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Still puts someone from around here, there,” Harry said.
“Yeah, it does. But that isn’t all.”
Harry felt his blood start to heat, the good kind of that shit happening.
The kind you got when all leads seemed to have run dry, and then suddenly a window opened and you had your pick of them.
Jesse continued, “This dude told us he was surprised when the maid went in the next day, and they hadn’t checked out. All of their belongings were still there. They didn’t come back that day or check out the next, and considering this was all fishy, he reported it to the cops. But at the time, the cops had no interest in it. He did, and thought something was off, so he carefully packed their belongings and put them in storage.”
Harry felt his blood pressure spike, again, the good kind of that happening.
“Where they’ve remained for sixteen years,” Jesse concluded.
“Jesus Christ, Jess,” Harry swore, fighting back the urge to punch his roof in elation.
“I know, man. The daughter took us back there, her dad was on FaceTime, helped us dig them out from under a decade and a half of familial and business debris. We called the cops, met Sergeant Westwood. She and her team came and got the stuff. But she let us stick around when they opened those cases. In Avery’s suitcase there were two journals. The entries aren’t extensive until the last few weeks of their lives. We didn’t get to read them, but thanks to you telling her we’re on your team, Westwood’s letting us come in and have a look after the evidence is processed. We got a one o’clock appointment with her tomorrow. Still, she said she’s gonna keep you in the know, so you might hear from her before you hear from us.”
He’d be a little later to Lillian’s, because Westwood was his next call.
“You see anything while she was flipping through?”
“This won’t surprise you, but I’d keep a close eye on the Dietrichs. Saw that name more than a few times. I’d also expect a call from the Feds. This crosses state lines. Westwood doesn’t have a dick to swing, but she’s easily read as not that kind of cop. She doesn’t give a shit sixteen years have gone by. She’s pissed as fuck someone buried bodies in her beautiful town, and even more pissed they killed them there. She’d call in the Canadian Mounties if she thought they’d help her nail whoever did this.”
That was the impression he got from Westwood.
“Wade’s probably there by now. He’s bringing back the remains,” Harry told him.
“We know. He gave us a call. We’re having dinner tonight.”
“Lillian wants her parents back, but I want Wade to go with you when you look at what’s in those suitcases and those journals.”
“You want me to relay that, or are you gonna do it?”
“I’ll text him. First, I gotta call Westwood.”
“Great.”
He had one more question, for the investigation, and for Lillian.
“This hotel keep registration records?”
“The daughter dug those out too and handed them over. The dad said they were there one night.”
More than likely, the night they died.
So at least Lillian would have a date to put on a gravestone.
“I’m gonna pay you, but even so, I owe you both one,” Harry stated.
“Harry, I heard about the cookies. You don’t owe us dick.”
Those fucking cookies.
Harry had no chance to respond, Jess hung up on him.
Harry immediately called Lynda.
“Figured I’d hear from you,” she said as greeting.
“Jess reported in.”
“I was about ten minutes from calling you. Lab’s still processing. Once I get my hands on them, if it takes me two weeks, I’m going to read every word in those journals. But we’re on hold. Feds are sending some guys. There’s gonna be the usual jockeying that masks itself as coordinating. But I’ll cut through that crap as fast as I can and get this shit rolling.”
“Appreciated, Lynda. And I’d appreciate it if my deputy who’s there to get Sonny and Avery could sit in when you let Jess and Jace look at those journals.”
“Is he hot too? Because I’m married, and those boys are too young for me, but still, I’ve got urges that are detrimental to my continued holy matrimony.”
If Misted Pines did a bachelor auction for the animal rescue, they’d be funded indefinitely if Jason and Jesse participated.
“Bohannan stock is special,” Harry replied.
“Yeah. I’ve heard of their dad. Anyone with a badge has heard of their dad. Then again, you all have been having some pretty public problems for a few years, and he was dragged into it, and he isn’t hard on the eyes either, so I might have paid a bit more attention than I normally would, and normally I’d be all kinds of interested.”
“Time to scratch a vacation to Misted Pines on your calendar.”
“Thanks, no. No offense, but people get dead there in ugly ways, and your people even get dead here in ugly ways.”
He couldn’t argue that.
“One way or another, Harry,” she continued, “you’re in this. Best I can, I’ll treat this like your desk is next to mine. First up, your man will come back with copies of those journals.”
“Then I’ll scratch it on my calendar to drive out there and buy you a steak.”
“That’s a date I’ll keep.”
“Great, Lynda, but I gotta give full disclosure here. I’ll be overseeing, but I’m romantically involved with Sonny and Avery Rainier’s daughter. I’m gonna have to punt this to my detective, Rus Lazarus. He’ll be lead on what comes out of Misted Pines.”
No nonsense Sergeant Lynda Westwood said only, “You’re heard. Anything else?”
“Nope.”
“Right then. Later, Harry.”
“Later, Lynda.”
He shot a text off to Wade before he swung back on the road on his way to Lillian’s house.
He debated what to tell her.
The existence of her parents’ things was going to be a big deal. The journals, even bigger. Just that they were there to be had, not getting into the fact that they’ve opened up a time portal to sixteen years in the past.
But depending on what light they shed, she wouldn’t get them back, more than likely, until the investigation was closed, and maybe not even then.
That said, that morning they had nothing but two bodies and theories, and now they had physical evidence and witnesses.
So it messed with his head to give her hope when this all might lead to nothing.
But Harry was going to tell her.