Chapter 9 #2
Julian snorted. “They were jumping at their own fucking shadows. Edgar nearly pissed himself when I stepped around the corner to offer my condolences.”
“Knowing you, that’s exactly the reaction you wanted, you creepy bastard.”
“It was deeply satisfying. That family’s as unpleasant as their dearly departed.”
“Maybe if you didn’t talk to them like they were trash beneath you, they would’ve been friendlier,” Santiago said, placing his beer on the wrought-iron-and-glass bistro table beside Julian’s ashtray.
He looked toward the far reaches of Shrouded Lake where the dark outline of Olympus Mountain was hunched over like a linebacker guarding the land and waters below.
“I talk to them like I talk to everybody else,” Julian stated.
“Which is why nobody likes you.”
“Yet here you are, my solemn yet repressed friend.”
“Is it really friendship though?” Santiago questioned. “Or more like being bound by a centuries old blood pact.”
“It doesn’t matter how you define it when you seem compelled to bring your hulking mass over here with your offerings.”
“So now you’re gonna act like you don’t love picking my mind apart to use as material in your books.”
Julian went silent.
“I guess you do have a certain quality that makes you more tolerable to be around than most… Although I hear a certain battle-ready Amazonian would say different.”
Santiago sighed and let his head roll back, closing his eyes.
“How about you don’t undo the effects of my lake bath,” he snapped, opening his eyes.
Julian was grinning like a coyote. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“She’ll be gone come Monday morning.”
“How unfortunate. I would’ve loved to meet the woman who provokes you into impulsive anger.”
Santiago didn’t respond, simply sipped his beer until the bottle was empty.
“What I don’t understand is why she can’t just keep her mouth shut and do as she’s instructed.”
“And did you tell her that before or after you slapped her ass.”
Santiago made a grumbling sound in the back of his throat. He didn’t want to talk about what he did when she was the problem.
“Don’t try that wolfman shit on me. All I’m saying is your badge and training are probably the only reasons you didn’t get a bed in the hospital alongside the mayor.”
For a man who rarely went into town, Santiago always wondered how Julian came by his information. He hadn’t been particularly interested in doing more than wonder, but now was perhaps the time to renew that interest. But not tonight.
“She whooped the shit out of him,” Santiago snorted, thinking about the mayor on the floor.
“It’s a shame I didn’t get a chance to meet her before you ran her out of town.”
St. James could say that because he hadn’t had the misfortune of knowing Lauren Green. Santiago’s ultimatum was doing the whole town a favor, and everyone would see that once she was gone.
Monday morning rolled around and the first stop Santiago made was Lina’s.
All day Sunday, all day, he’d avoided that bed and breakfast. Of course, it didn’t mean he didn’t stalk the streets and roadways looking for any sign of that woman, hoping to stop her from doing what she did best: stir up trouble.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been at any of the places she’d been known to frequent, which likely meant she chose to lay low with Aunt Lina before leaving.
If she hadn’t already left. Which was ideal.
He had enough on his plate. Less than an hour ago he’d had to remind the mayor, who’d tried to bring trumped-up charges against “that woman,” as if there wasn’t a house full of witnesses and a video footage that proved his lie.
The man had been wallowing in too much pain to register that Ms. Green had video of the whole visit.
Once he heard that, Anderson had the grace to feign a council emergency…
as if Santiago wouldn’t have been called the fucking moment a meeting was being convened.
Stepping out of his vehicle, Santiago slipped on his sunglasses, which were his shield, where his body and mind were his sword.
He hadn’t known Lauren for long, but his gut told him it wasn’t in her nature to go softly into the night.
He knocked on the door twice before stepping into his aunt’s house.
Silence.
“Tia Lina?” he called out.
The last time he’d experienced this kind of silence, he was in the home of Mrs. Willoby after her death.
Placing his hand on his holster, he walked through the house slowly, glancing into each empty room. Even the kitchen was cold and scentless, no evidence of food cooking or having been cooked. Lina always had food ready, even when he was just grabbing something on the go.
Reaching for his radio he pressed the button.
“Roan, you still at the station?”
“Yeah, Sheriff, I’m here. Need help handling your nemesis again?”
Santiago grimaced. How’d she know he was here?
“Ask Audrey if she’s talked to my aunt?”
“Not since Saturday night, she said.”
“Did Aunt Lina talk about going anywhere?”
“Not to us. She, Saige, and Lauren were going to work on a plan for the women’s group to present to the city council. Lauren wanted to work with Bailey Joe Williams on developing a more ‘forward thinking’ revitalization plan, but I don’t know if she got the chance to meet with him,” Roan said.
“Is Carolina okay?” Audrey asked, taking over Roan’s radio.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, looking up the stairwell. “I’ll check back in a few.”
As he headed upstairs, he heard the front door open and close. He jogged back down the stairs. He had never felt so relieved to see his aunt in his life.
He wanted to demand to know where she’d been, but her forlorn look stilled his tongue. She shuffled toward him, pressing her cheek against his chest as she leaned her weight into him. Her frail arms circled his waist, and he wrapped his much stronger arms around her.
He held her silently, hesitant to ask what was wrong.
After a few minutes she sighed deeply and took a step back, wiping moisture from her face.
“I’ve turned into a sentimental old fool,” she muttered.
“The sentimental part is unusual, the rest…” He shrugged.
She smacked him on the arm.
“Why so sad, aunty?”
Her eyes filled with tears again.
“She kept her promise and checked out. It doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t make a bit of sense that I would miss her this way when she’s barely been gone an hour. She filled this place with so much life, mijo, no matter all that hurt and sadness inside of her.”
“I think you’re misidentifying hurt and sadness for unhinged and angry.”
“Many realities can exist at once. You of all people should know that. Come to the kitchen so I can get something in your stomach before you face the Archers again. I hear he wants you gone in the next election, says he’s gonna put that pendejo, Loyd Peters, on the ballot with his full endorsement. ”
“It’s not the worst thing,” Santi said, going to the fridge to retrieve eggs, bacon, cheese, sour cream, green onions… He searched for the avocado and salsa.
“Vamanos! Out of my refrigerator you overgrown horse!”
Santi laughed and sat at the island.
His aunt told him about the work the women’s group had done with Lauren two nights ago.
She was sad they’d have to move forward without the hellion now.
He brought up the mayor being tased to distract his aunt from her sadness and it worked.
It also distracted him from whatever unsettling feelings he had about her actually being gone.
He should feel a sense of satisfaction that he’d finally chased her out of town, but his aunt was right, the world felt a little less vibrant in her absence.
Maybe that’s why, with every interaction he had, he anticipated her walking up to him or walking into the station to berate him.
It wasn’t until he’d clocked out for the day that Santiago accepted the fact that life had granted him his wish and returned to a more predictable normalcy.
Lauren Green had arrived in Shrouded Lake like a rogue twister that had caused chaos where ever it touched down only to exit quietly while everyone still reeled from the destruction it left behind.
As he turned off his computer and began shutting down his office for the night, his phone rang. If it had been anyone else, he would’ve ignored it.
Returning back to his desk he sat down in his chair and hit the accept button.
“Josiah,” he greeted the coroner.
“Hey there, Sheriff. I know it’s late, but I wanted to give you my findings on Mrs. Willoby’s death before I shut down for the night.”
Santiago closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. He wouldn’t have gotten an afterhours call about someone dying of natural causes.
“Give it to me Josiah.”
“Well at first glance one would believe that Mrs. Willoby died of a heart attack or succumbed to a bout of dizziness while going down the stairs, but the toxicology report says she ingested a toxic dose of monotropa uniflora.”
Ghost plant aka Indian Pipe. It was a relatively rare plant, close to extinction in some places. It could only grow outdoors as far as he knew.
“Well shit,” Santiago muttered.
The almost translucent white flower had been used by his native ancestors and many other cultures who practiced natural medicine.
He knew of the tincture being used for pain relief and mood stabilization but also knew it could cause disorientation and dissociation.
He only had the most basic information about the plant’s uses though.
What he did know was that Mrs. Willoby was a staunch Christian who strongly opposed alternative medicines, which made the presence of the jar and its contents beneath her bed more suspect.
“Oh, that’s not even the most interesting part,” Josiah said with excitement. Santiago didn’t rush him because it was a rare day that the coroner got to experience excitement on the job.
“The most interesting part is there were also traces of an opioid in her system. Minute, but there. If her body had been found much later, this evidence may not have been traceable. I’ll send my report over in the morning.”
This was not the information Santiago was hoping for.
He’d hoped for definitive results, instead more pieces were added to the puzzle of Mrs. Willoby’s death.
Rising from his desk, he left the station without a word and headed for the one place he knew he could find the peace and clarity needed to work through this mystery.