Chapter 27 Annie
The Boyd house reeked of rodents and strong liquor, and Annie held her breath as she followed Jake inside.
Ronnie’s affinity for unusual animals had clearly not been quelled when she dismantled his exotic zoo.
There was a foggy terrarium under a buzzing light beside the window, and three cages, acrid with urine-damp shavings, sat on the counter dividing the living room from the kitchen, their occupants curled into russet balls of fur in the corners where they slept.
Annie eyed the cages, the game warden in her trying to determine the breed of the animals inside. Ferrets, maybe… or weasels. Jake nudged her with an elbow, and she stopped staring, turning instead to the cluttered living room, where Jamie’s mother and father waited. This was not the time.
Debra Boyd sat on the sagging couch, her face gray and drawn, the eyes she shared with her daughter vacant as blue sea glass in her pale face.
Ronnie had retreated inside the house without greeting Jake and Annie from the porch and chosen the recliner in front of the television, where he now rested with his legs crossed at the ankles in the fully reclined position, giving his undivided attention to the tennis match on the screen.
“You mind turning that off for a second, Ronnie?” Jake asked, not unkindly.
Ronnie merely lifted the remote and turned the volume up.
“Okay.” Jake strode to the set, reached down behind it, and yanked the cord from the wall. The screen winked off with a little puff of static, and silence fell, as thick and unpleasant as the smell in the room.
Annie couldn’t see Ronnie’s face from where she stood, but his voice told her enough about his state of mind.
“Whaddayawant, Jake?” The question was gravelly, nearly incoherent with drink.
“I’ve got an update.” Jake stared down into the recliner. “Why don’t you take a seat over there next to Deb and we’ll go over it together.”
To Annie’s surprise, Ronnie complied without verbal protest, though he slammed his legs down to return the recliner to its upright position before rising unsteadily to his feet.
Jake caught Annie’s eye, nodding toward the long coffee table in front of the couch, and Annie joined him there, taking a seat on the tabletop as Ronnie sank into the cushion beside his wife, coughing wetly with breath that reeked of bourbon.
Annie’s stomach tightened. He was drunk. Completely, stone-cold drunk.
Jake folded his hands with a heavy sigh. “I think it goes without saying that I wish we were here under different circumstances.”
Ronnie gave a bitter little laugh that turned into another cough.
“But,” Jake persisted, “part of my job is to keep the two of you informed as we proceed with the investigation, and that’s why we’re here.”
Annie sat beside him, fingers laced tightly in her lap and her eyes on the floor as Jake told Ronnie and Debra the unexpected results of the autopsy.
When he stated that Jamie’s official cause of death was drowning, Annie felt in her bones the anguished cry that passed Debra’s lips, while Ronnie stayed silent.
Jake gave them the details of the autopsy with the least amount of emotion possible, and Annie knew it wasn’t because he was being intentionally cold, but rather steady.
Secure. Right now, the two people on the couch were lost in a riptide.
Yanked into the sea of tragedy by a terrible undercurrent.
What they needed were the facts, quick and clinical, and the chance to process them alone in peace.
Jake gave the Boyds what few assurances he had, promising them that the lab in Seattle was one of the best in the country and would be able to analyze every detail to provide information that would lead to an arrest, a statement that was met by a feverish nod from Jamie’s mother, and a snort of derision from her father.
Annie caught Debra’s gaze for a fleeting moment, but there was a hollowness in her expression that Annie could not bear, and she quickly looked away again.
Jake finished sharing what news he had, and Ronnie leaned forward to speak at last.
“Frankly, Jacob, I don’t give two farts what the lab comes back with. Or what Doc Porter says. Or what you say, for that matter. Honest to God, I don’t even care how the guy did it, I just want to know who he is so I can break his neck myself.”
Annie risked a sideways glance at Jake, whose jaw had tightened.
“We only found her yesterday,” he said evenly. “We don’t have any suspects in custody yet, and I don’t want you thinking about taking matters into your own hands. There’s a right way to go about this and a wrong way, and I—”
“What about that creep who lives by himself at the end of the road?” Ronnie interrupted, voice rising in pitch. “You talked to him, yet?”
“Ronnie, please.” Debra’s eyes shone with tears as she turned to her husband. “We don’t know if he has anything to do with it. Let’s not point fingers before we have any real reason to.”
Ronnie only shook his head, his bloodshot gaze falling to the stained carpet, where it stayed.
“I got my reasons. Any numbskull in the world could put two and two together. He knows them woods. And Jamie went up there more than once to swim this summer. The guy’s not right in the head and everyone knows it, but she… she trusted him. She trusted him.”
Ronnie’s hardened facade cracked as he repeated the last few words, and his eyes grew misty with tears that he hid by bowing his head to his chest.
Annie watched as his throat bobbed. He was right, or at least partly right, and she and Jake both knew it, though she had been actively trying not to think about Daniel since discovering Jamie’s body. Her heart would not let her head broach the possibility.
Beside her, Jake’s fingertips tapped together, and she knew that he was choosing his next words carefully.
“Let’s focus on what we can do right now,” he said. “Did Jamie do anything out of the ordinary lately? Were there any friends she’d had a fight with, or anyone she mentioned that might have wanted to hurt her?”
Debra’s gaze slid to her husband, whose head remained bowed.
“We—we think she might have been seeing someone,” she said, “but we don’t know for sure.
She didn’t tell us. Jamie is… was… private about that sort of thing.
At least with us. It must not have lasted long, because I heard…
” Debra’s voice trailed off and her eyes slid to the dark hallway that led into the rest of the house.
“I was doing laundry, and Jamie’s bedroom is on the other side of the wall.
She’s got a landline in there, and she was talking to her friend on the phone, the girl with the blue hair, Stephanie.
She said something about breaking up with someone, but I turned the dryer on and didn’t catch anything else after that. ”
It was an instinct, a reaction, the quick glance that Annie shot at Jake, but his eyes stayed locked on Debra’s as he nodded.
“And when was that?”
“Two days ago. Before…”
“Okay,” Jake said with a single nod, pulling out the small pad and pen that he kept in his shirt pocket. “Would you mind giving me Stephanie’s number?”
While Jake took it down, Ronnie shifted on the couch.
“I need a drink,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet and brushing Jake’s and Annie’s knees in his path to the kitchen. Annie watched him go, clicking his tongue at the cages as he passed.
Jake leaned forward with his pen still poised over the pad. “Did Jamie ever sneak out of the house at night?”
“Once or twice. But didn’t we all as teenagers?
I know I did back when I first met Ronnie, and Jamie wasn’t interested in partying or drinking.
She was excited about her future. About painting, and working to save for college and a car…
and starting a family someday. She wasn’t the type to get into trouble. ”
Debra’s eyes filled with tears again, and Jake set the pad down, abandoning his neutrality as he took her hand in both of his.
“I know this is hard, Deb, but you’ve gotta stay strong for me. Tell me about the night before last. Do you remember hearing anything unusual? Anything at all?”
“No.” Debra shook her head adamantly. “Jamie went to bed when we did. Just after ten.”
Annie’s mouth popped open, the contradiction ready to be voiced, but she snapped it shut again.
Saying aloud that she had heard Jamie running up the road at midnight would paint a bright red target on Daniel’s back, when the truth was that there was plenty of room for doubt.
She hadn’t seen Jamie; she’d only heard running footsteps on the road and assumed that it was her.
Hand on a Bible, staring down a courtroom, would she be able to say beyond the shadow of a doubt that the person jogging up the road was Jamie? No.
In the kitchen, the refrigerator door slammed, and Ronnie swore.
“We’re outta beer, Deb,” he hollered, and Debra glanced apologetically at Jake and Annie.
I’m so sorry, she mouthed.
Jake shook his head. “It’s fine. Go on. Tell me what happened the next morning.”
“Well, Jamie was gone when we got up, but she usually goes for her runs in the morning, so I didn’t think much of it.
We had breakfast, and I went outside to feed the chickens.
She wasn’t back by ten, but I still wasn’t worried.
I thought maybe she had run down to the pool, or to Stephanie’s house.
Jamie was independent that way. I don’t think I truly would have started to worry unless she wasn’t back by dinnertime.
It was just a normal day until… until you told us the news. ”
Ronnie stepped back into the living room with a bottle of white wine clenched in his fist. He didn’t bother returning to his seat on the couch, but stood swaying slightly as he stared down his nose at Jake and Annie.
Jake dropped Debra’s hand and sat back, giving Ronnie a silent minute to speak, but when Ronnie merely gazed mutely at him, Jake cleared his throat.
“I want to thank you both for being willing to talk with me. And I promise, I’ll give every waking hour to this case until—”
“Where’s the state?” Ronnie interrupted. “They were all up in arms when that woman from Landers was killed, where are they now? Why don’t they care about my little girl?”
“It’s not that they don’t care”—Jake stared up at Ronnie—“but once Justin Grimes was put into custody, this became a completely different investigation. Half of those guys got sent up to Wenatchee for an active abduction. They promised me more manpower down here when they can spare it, but they’re not a limitless entity, and I’ve got the responsibility to head things up in the meantime.
This happened in my town, on my watch, so for the time being I’m the one going after answers. ”
Ronnie lifted the mouth of the bottle to his lips and took a long swig before lowering it again. “You ain’t good enough.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
Jake stiffened. “Watch it, Ronnie,” he said, his voice low with warning.
“Come on, Jacob.” Ronnie’s eyes blazed as he gestured with the bottle, sloshing the liquid inside.
“I know you. You ran through my yard in your pull-ups, remember? I picked you up when you flew over the handlebars of your bike out on the road there and called your pa when you hit a baseball through my truck window. I know you, and I’ve seen everything that goes on in this town, and you and I both know you ain’t never faced nothing like this before.
You’re still a kid. Just a kid. And if you think you and Annie Oakley park ranger here can take on a homicidal maniac, then you’re off your gourd. ”
Annie bristled at the insult, but kept her mouth shut. This was not a man who would listen to reason. This was a wounded animal backed into a corner, all claws and teeth and blind panic.
A silent half minute passed—Jake and Ronnie staring each other down without blinking.
For a moment, eyes brimming with hostility and hands twitching at his sides, Ronnie looked as though he might lash out—might raise the bottle of wine and bring it down on Jake’s head or slap him with his empty palm, but he didn’t.
Annie glanced at Debra, whose eyes were flitting between the two men as though wondering which of them would snap first. Then, one of the cages on the counter rattled as the animal inside stretched, and Jake rose slowly to his feet.
He was at least two inches shorter than Ronnie, but far sturdier as he squared his shoulders.
“Frankly, Ronnie, I’m all you’ve got.”
Ronnie’s nostrils flared, but instead of retorting, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took another drink.
“Come on, Annie,” Jake said, turning to her, “let’s go.”
Annie rose quickly, avoiding the stares of husband and wife as she followed Jake across the room.
“That’s right,” Ronnie shouted as they reached the door. “Get out of here! And don’t come back until you’ve got whoever killed my girl behind bars.”
Jake and Annie kept walking, and footsteps thudded behind them as Ronnie followed.
“Do your job, Jacob! And if you can’t, then I will!”
Neither Jake nor Annie looked back to acknowledge Ronnie’s words as they stepped out onto the porch. He slammed the door behind them.
Jake blew out a breath as he shrugged out of his jacket, lifting it high to shield Annie from the falling rain as they walked side by side down the stairs.
Inside the cruiser with the doors closed, rain hammered the metal and glass relentlessly, and Jake’s shoulders sagged as he let out a breath.
“That was rough,” Annie said, heart still racing as she buckled her seat belt.
Jake shook his head. “It’s not his fault. He’s hurting worse right now than I’ve ever hurt in my life. He’s just looking for someone to throw the blame at. And besides that, he’s got a point.”
She turned to meet his eyes. Jake’s gaze was wary, and Annie braced herself for what was coming.
“You know what I mean. About Jamie and Daniel. And if she just dumped him, then you and I both know that puts him at the very top of the suspect list.”
Annie said nothing. The seal had been broken, and there remained only the obvious move forward in the chess game of the investigation. Jake shifted into reverse and backed the cruiser up before pulling into the mouth of the driveway.
Annie prayed that he would turn right, back toward town, but not one bit of her was surprised when he turned left instead, toward Lake Lumin.