Chapter 6

SATURDAY, JUNE 20

Turned out that Frank Garrison had scads of two-by-four studs, byproducts of his consulting business, In a big stack in the same shed where the antique farm wagon was stored, near their stable. In addition to being under the shed roof, Frank kept the wagon covered with a tarp, so it looked pretty sharp in its glossy forest green with cream trim.

There was baled straw in the bed, seating for the Halloween hay rides they ran for their church’s All Hallows Eve party. To keep them out of the dirt, we stacked the bales on some studs and I swept out the wagon bed. Meanwhile, Tate planned the painting.

Frank had the mix formula for the colors and we opted for cream for the framing and a flat green for the chicken wire. We planned to use tensioning cable with turnbuckles as diagonal bracing rather than clutter the display frames with more studs. Tate had an airless sprayer which we’d use for all the painting.

Tate and Greta went off to the hardware store for paint and supplies while Louise, Emily, and I got busy cutting the studs to length.

If it hadn’t been for waiting for the paint to dry, we’d have been finished by noon. As it was, we were done with the assembly by fifteen hundred.

During the course of the morning -- we’d started at oh-seven hundred -- we had let Tate and Louise know that we would be in Kingston on the following Friday and Saturday, so that Em and Greta could attend the mental health assessor training. Louise thought that there was little else to do, as far as the parade was concerned, so our absence was not a problem. Whatever was left to be done, which was mostly painting the signs, she would finish during the week.

Then she and Tate were planning to do something yet to be determined, on that same weekend. It would be their last chance to relax before Tate’s campaign kicked off. They reckoned the re-election campaign would keep their evenings and weekends filled through to November.

Then Emily said, “That training session has approved CEUs (Continuing Education Units) not only for mental health assessors but also for law enforcement, attorneys, nurses, and medical doctors who might encounter people who are dealing with life-threatening psychotic symptoms. It’s mostly about the legal procedures and restrictions of the Vinley Act as it applies to involuntary holds and commitments, so it applies across several professional disciplines.

“It runs from eight until four both days. We plan to stay over to Sunday. You two should come along and Tate could pick up six CEUs, and you’d still have the late afternoon and evening,” she concluded.

I said, “If you want, we could share a room at the Embassy Suites. You two take the front room and we’ll take the back. I’ve slept on those couch fold-out beds. They’re plenty comfortable. It’ll be our treat.”

Greta jumped on that bandwagon and it wasn’t too hard to convince Louise. Tate was still a bit mopey and was dragging his metaphorical feet.

I said, “If you’re worried about Louise while you’re in class, don’t be. I’ll stick with her every minute.”

“That’s the part I’m worried about.”

“What? Are you afraid I might wheedle out of her the secret ingredient in her waffles? It’s pecan flour. I saw the bag on the countertop back at Christmas.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What? You think I’d risk the opportunities to play with the lights and siren on your malodorous police clunker just for the chance for a roll in the hay with one of the sexiest and most desirable women in the Pacific Northwest? How could you even think that?”

“It’s getting easier,” he growled.

Louise walked over to Tate, put her one arm around him and reached up to caress his face -- and left three streaks of green paint on his cheek. She took off running. He touched his cheek, discovered the paint, and ran off after her. They disappeared around the corner of the stable and seconds later Louise was heard to let out a squeal.

Greta said, “This might be a good time for a break. Let’s go look at the horses.”

As he and I were cleaning the paint sprayer, Tate said, “There’s only one significant event I know of in John’s recent experience.”

“You’re thinking of Evelyn’s murder?”

He blew out between compressed lips, nodding. “It’s been sitting there like dog turds in the middle of the kitchen floor, and I’ve been oblivious to it.”

“You and me both. Are you thinking he’s involved?”

“I have a helluva time imagining that.” He was shaking his head as he ran a straw stem through the nozzle of the sprayer. Then he dropped the nozzle back into the water bucket and said, “Unfortunately, I can imagine his brother being involved in something like that. Not easily, but I can imagine it.”

“I’d have a hard time seeing John involved, at least not directly,” I agreed. “I’ve never even met Nick, so I really wouldn’t know what to think. I mean, I’ve heard he doesn’t have a good reputation, but ... I know squat, otherwise.”

“After I talked to you yesterday, I called Pat Alcivar, and asked him if he’d heard anything. He told me that he’d heard that John was going to campaign based on the increase in the homicide rate in the county.”

“You mean he’s going to try to make you responsible for that whole Pollard rampage last year? Fuck that. You were the one that figured out the blackmail scheme.”

“With a lot of help.”

“Maybe, but not from John.”

“It’s not just that. He’s saying the reason he decided to run was the death of his former sister-in-law, on my watch.”

“Now that part I am starting to believe. Not that it was on your watch, but that it is the real reason he threw his hat in the ring at the last minute.”

“What real reason?” Greta asked, as she brought the tool box over to where we were working.

I said, “That John Durkee deciding to run for sheriff has something to do with Evelyn’s death.”

“Well, duh,” she said. “Louise told me she suggested that to you days ago.”

We both looked at her and Tate said, “She did?”

“Unless she was lying to me and was keeping it a secret from you,” Greta replied, in her best innocently sarcastic delivery.

Tate shook his head. “Must have been when I was busy doing something else.”

“Must have been when you were busy feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Ease up, Greta,” I said.

“Says the psychiatric social worker known for his diagnostic evaluations. Less than a year out of mental health and you’re already losing your edge, Gary,” Greta sniffed her faux disdain.

Emily and Louise, who had been putting the tarp over the wagon, had walked up.

Emily said, “I think he’s been depressed, Greta.”

“Who, Gary?”

“No, Tate. He’s been grieving the loss of a friend. Gary’s been trying to support him and hasn’t had a broader focus. Besides, Gary’s been trying to manage that bakery debacle.”

Greta said to her, “Didn’t you get the ‘Us versus Them’ memo? When a man is down, it’s our opportunity to kick him.”

“Oh. I thought that was a mass mailing. I threw it away.”

Louise, laughing, said, “That’s enough, you two. Where are we going to eat?”

“You’re not cooking?” I gasped.

‘When have I had a chance to cook today, you lunkhead?”

“But, but...” I stammered.

“La Pensione,” Greta interposed. “How about some mussels marinara, Gary? Or pasta primavera? And you like their Marion berry gelato for dessert. But first, let’s go home. I want a shower.”

“Me, too.” Emily said. “The three of us should probably shower together, you know, to save water.”

Recovering quickly from my disappointment over the food, I added, “That would probably be a good policy to follow, at least until this global warming goes away.”

(Saturday, June 20)

SUNDAY, JUNE 21

On Sunday, shortly past 11:00, our home phone rang. Emily was just walking into the kitchen, so she answered it. A few seconds later, she brought the receiver to me, out on the deck. “It’s Lydia Grossman,” Emily said. “She says she’s on-call and has a problem.”

I took the receiver and said, “Hey, Lydia. What’s up?”

“It’s your pal, Richard Jenner, over in Limekiln. His dad called the crisis line. He said he tried your number but there was no answer.”

“Ah, heck, my phone is up in the bedroom.” I’d given Dr. and Mrs. Jenner my cell phone number so they could call me directly. “What’s going on?”

Mister Jenner says that Richard has refused his meds for a second day, and that you said that he should call when that happened.”

“Okay, I’ll call him right back and then probably go out there. When Richard stops the meds, it never turns out well. His folks are both around eighty and I think Richard is bigger than both of them put together. Last time he threw a book at his father and gave him a black eye.

“Do you have any interest in being involved? Your choice, it makes me no never mind.”

“You don’t mind if I take a pass?” Lydia seemed uncertain.

“Not at all. Essentially, I plan to tell Richard he either takes the meds or I’m sending him to the state hospital today. I hate to do it, but he’s a danger to his folks after a week or so off the meds. Not that I can really blame Richard, either. He’s a creative writer, and the meds dull his thinking.”

“What kind of creative writing?”

“Science fiction, mostly. Some poetry.”

“Hold on! He’s that Richard Jenner? The guy who wrote Journeys at the Speed of Time and The Samurai and the Piñata? That Richard Jenner?”

“I’ve changed my mind. You can’t go.”

“Hey! I’m the one on-call. It’s my responsibility.”

“Seriously? You want to go out there?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“It’s going to be crisis business first. He has to take his meds before you can start the hero worship. You comfort his folks while I talk to him.”

“Okay.”

“Call them back and tell them we’ll be there in about a half hour. I’ll grab my stuff and I’ll pick you up.”

Oblivious to what I’d said, she added, “Oh, and he wrote Haiku of the Mafia Dons. He was awarded an Edgar Allen Poetry Raven for that one.”

“I think we’d better revue our priorities on the way out there.”

(Sunday, June 21)

MONDAY, JUNE 22

“Who owns this?” I asked.

Tate had picked me up for lunch and had even acquiesced to my preference for a Whopper Jr. Then he had driven beyond our usual lunch spot, just beyond the east edge of town, and had turned onto a two-rut track that lead between the cottonwoods and through the willows along the river bank, emerging just above the Coldwater Keys.

“You mean right here? I’m pretty sure it’s National Forest, back to where we turned in. Haven’t you ever been down here before?”

“Not on this side of the river. Greta and I walked in on the other side, just to see the historical head of navigation and the so-called Keys. It’s interesting from a historical perspective but not all that exciting, otherwise. Well, except for the cascades. They’re pretty spectacular. Some guy was trying to climb them when we were here. At the rate he was going it was going to take him hours and hours. And that was in autumn, when the river was lower.”

“You should see it when the salmon are running.”

“It’s hard to imagine fish getting up those.”

“Not all of them do. This was an important fishing location for the Ciranaga, back in the day, and for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years before then.” Tate, who was one-eighth Ciranaga, explained, “The spawning salmon would gather in these eddies before taking on the rapids and the Coldwater Cascades. The Ciranaga men would use scoop nets made from woven willow stems and collect their winter food supply right here. The women would clean and dry the fish. Salmon, camas root, and pemmican was standard fare through the winter and spring, maybe supplemented with fresh meat from hunting deer, elk, pronghorn, or bison.” He chuckled. “But more likely from snared rabbits or squirrels.”

I shook my head. “I have a hard time imagining eating the same few things, day in and day out.”

“It does sound pretty boring,” he said, “but they were happy to have it.”

“Maybe it’s because we have the variety we do. We’ve come to look at meals as ... I don’t know ... entertainment, maybe? If we were on a sustenance diet, we might not even consider whether it was boring or not.”

“But it was the same thing with many of the first European settlers, in the early years,, “ he said. “Their diets didn’t have much variety, and you never hear about them complaining. At least, I’ve never read anything like that. Except for maybe cowboys complaining about beans.”

“Yeah, it’s funny. We argue about which of the fast-food burgers we’re going to have and grouse if we don’t get our favorites.”

“You grouse,” he said. “I don’t grouse, I never grouse.”

“That’s because we always have to take your car and we usually go where you want.”

We fell silent as we finished our burgers and worked through the last of the French fries. We were parked right above the middle key.

“The guy who found her body said that two ravens had been on her remains when he walked over.”

We lapsed into silence again, until I asked, “How solid are their alibis?”

He looked at me. “You mean John and Nick?”

I nodded.

“Pretty solid. They were up there with Marty August and one of August’s friends. August has a cabin and a boat on the lake. They spent the weekend fishing and water-skiing with him and whoever.”

“So who did Evelyn get dressed for? Somebody at the brat roast? But she wasn’t even seen there, was she?”

“Nope. Not that the staties could find.”

“What time did she leave the house?”

“Around ten hundred.”

“But the VFW brat roast didn’t start ‘til noon.”

“Right.”

“So, if it takes less than thirty minutes to drive from Limekiln to Leaufroide, where did she intend to spend the extra ninety minutes or more?”

Tate shrugged. “Shopping?”

“Did her credit card show any activity?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t shopping.”

“Yeah, I’ll grant you that,” I admitted. “I’m just saying, if she dressed up intending to meet someone, would she have left the house so early that she had time for an hour-and-a-half of casual product perusing? Seems more likely she intended to meet someone before the brat roast.”

“You’re discounting the fact that Evelyn was not the most stable personality platform. Maybe she intended to do some fishing beforehand, and so she drove to this very spot.”

“Where someone randomly accosted her to remove her uterus? No. I think there’s a sense to this that we have yet to suss.”

“Suss? Did you say suss?” He started the car as he was talking, then began to turn around in the narrow space with a series of back and turns.

“Yeah, suss: to understand something or figure it out.”

“Where did you come up with that?”

“I don’t know. It’s a word.” I pulled out my phone and googled it. “Huh. It can be used as a noun and an adjective, too. I don’t think I’ve ever come across either of those uses. Anyway, the N-gram shows it’s been in use for at least a couple hundred years, though its use has become more common lately.”

“What’s an N-gram?”

“The N simply means the number of times something occurs in some larger sample of the same type. In this instance, it counts the number of times the word suss has been used in published American literature every year since eighteen hundred and plots that number on a chart over those years.” I gave him a quick look at the graph that was on my screen.

“Are you kidding me? They have something that can, that can count, uh...”

“All words in all published books. Yeah. It seems they do. That’s what’s nice about computers and the web. They allow us to find the answers to questions we wouldn’t have even thought to ask, otherwise. All that technology and all that effort, just so we can contemplate the uses of an obscure word.”

“Yeah,” he grumped. “We seem to be learning more and more about less and less.”

(Monday, June 22)

TUESDAY, JUNE 23

At 07:35 I had just dressed after my shower in the Community Maintenance Project’s Transition Place apartment, behind the bakery, when I encountered Liz Garrison, waiting for her coffee at the bakery’s service counter, which had been my goal, as well.

She said, “I just got off the phone with Chet. There’s an emergency budget amendment that’s been added to Thursday’s commission meeting agenda. It’s listed as regarding the CCHHSC budget.”

There it was; the gauntlet had been thrown down. “Well, it’s not exactly unexpected,” I said. Still, it was a declared threat.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Order extra coffee.”

“After that, you moron.”

“Ah-ah-ah. Watch the disrespectful language.”

“That’s going to be a tough habit to break, especially around you.”

“Somehow I now feel even more disrespected.”

Chet wasn’t in his office, but a still-warm mug of coffee was on his desk. We decided to sit down at his table and wait. Liz told me that she’d gone out to look at the farm wagon. She chuckled as she imagined it in the parade.

It was only a couple minutes until Chet walked in and, when he saw us, said, “Oh, good, you’re here.” He retrieved his coffee mug from his desk and came to sit with us at the table. We’d brought a refill for him, and I slid it over to him.

“Hey, thanks,” he said, then he shook his head. “That was strange. Burt called and told me to bring him all of our budget data for the year. When I got there, he told me to leave my file on his desk, and that I could go.”

Liz asked, “Did he say anything about the budget amendment?”

“I tried to ask him, but he said he was too busy getting ready for the commission meeting and that we could talk about it next week.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Next week he figures it will be a done deal. Why did he want your budget file?”

“He didn’t say, and I can’t think of a good reason.”

“Was there anything in there that would give him ammunition for his budget ambush?”

“Not that I can think of. It’s the budget we submitted, along with all the team managers’ work papers, and then the budget that the commission approved. I have no idea what he wants with it.”

Liz said, “Maybe he just didn’t want you to have it.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe so you don’t have any ammunition to argue against him.”

“How could that possibly help? We have all the data on hard drives and flash drive back-ups. The only reason we had paper copies is because that’s how the commissioners deal with it. I’ve heard Pat Alcivar say he would just as soon deal with it in digital.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but Burt and Chairman Denham are old-fashioned guys. Neither of them are very computer savvy. Burt probably doesn’t even realize all of the data is still available to you. When he wants to send a letter or compose a report, Burt still gives dictation. About the only thing he knows how to use on a computer is email.”

And with that comment, the “trusses” that had been haunting me evaporated. “That’s what I was trying to think of at Management Team last week, when I was talking about trusses: email. Specifically, Burt’s email. I bet for sure there’s been some emails about this MHU deal. Does the County archive our emails?”

Liz said, “Every last jot and tittle.”

“Can we get into it?”

“Unless they’ve changed the password routine.”

“Do you know it?” I asked her.

“When I worked over there, it was based on a date that was changed every week.”

“Who changed it?”

“It was a program that updated the password weekly. Once you knew it, it was pretty much a no-brainer.”

“If you get into it, will it leave your ID or the ID of the terminal?” I asked.

“Yeah, but if they’re still using the same program, then I really don’t think any alarms are going to go off. The security on that system is rudimentary and keyed to guys like Burt who have no real concept of what’s involved. It’s an application of the KISS principle.” (KISS: Keep it simple, stupid.)

“But, if you accessed it, could you get in trouble?” Chet demanded.

“The only rule I was given was not to reveal the password to any unauthorized person.”

“Great.” I said. “Just use it, don’t reveal it to us.”

“You really want to see his emails?”

“In the final analysis, under the Sunshine Law, they’re a matter of public record,” I said. “That’s why we never discuss clients in emails, to maintain confidentiality under HIPAA. So yes, I want to see his emails for the past two months, for starters.”

Chet said, “Don’t get your hopes up. Just because Burt may not have a grasp of things digital doesn’t mean his correspondents are likewise misdirected.”

Liz said, “I’ll get my laptop.”

Reaching toward his laptop on his desk, Chet said, “Here, you can use mine.” He opened it and entered his password, then slid it in front of her.

“Let’s see if this still works. It’s been over five years.” She typed in about fifteen characters, hit enter, and, after a few seconds said, “There it is. Still using the same program.”

Chet asked, “So they’re still using the same password after five years?”

She was typing as she talked. “Not exactly, no. The password automatically changes weekly, but it uses the same source pattern. Anyway, here are Burt’s emails. How far back did you want to go?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “I suppose a couple months.”

“Make it four,” Chet said.

“There aren’t that many,” she said, “maybe five or six dozen exchanges.”

“Then make it six months,” he said.

“Okay, got ‘em. Anything else?”

“No. Go ahead and log out, then let’s see what’s in our net.”

“Hold on,” I said. “What about county-issued cell phones? Is there a text message archive?”

“Not that I ever heard of,” Liz said. “If there is, I don’t know how to access it. Besides, Burt was even less comfortable with his smart phone than with his computer.”

Chet said, “Let’s just see if we have anything helpful in these emails before we call in the NSA.”

“So I can log out of the archive?”

“You’ve copied the emails?”

“Yeah, here, to your laptop.” She pointed to a file folder, labeled “New Folder,” on the screen.

“Okay. Then log out.”

Ten minutes later we were looking at one of seven entries with “MH Unlimited” in either the To or From lines. The message in question had as it’s subject line, “Transfer fees,” and was one of a series of three exchanges between Karen Osgood, Vice President for Acquisitions at MH Unlimited, and Burt and three other correspondents: Adrienne Babbitt, Martin August, and, notably, Andrew Denham, the Chairman of the Coldwater County Commission.