Chilling Effect (19 page)

“As in Lee Buckmount?”

“One and the same. He operates a bunch of companies. Th is

one provides security for the casino and resort—and now the drone

testing facility.”

“Isn’t Buckmount on the Tribal Board?”

“Yup.”

“I assume he recused himself from the vote in light of the obvi-

ous confl ict of interest?”

Hunt laughed. “Good one.”

Chief Johnson trudged out of the woods and onto the path.

Offi cer Hunt stood a little straighter and wiped the traces of amusement off his face.

“Okay, we’re all set. Stan Hartman’ll be along shortly, Hunt.

You two are on until shift change. Don’t let anyone near that cave.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chief Johnson turned to Aroostine and Joe. “Do you folks

mind helping me out by driving Isaac’s car back to the reservation?

We had an offi cer drive Ruby and Lily Smith and Boom home in

Lee’s vehicle. Another offi cer took Lee to Doctor Scott’s offi ce to check out that bump on his head. Offi cer Hunt drove Isaac Palmer’s car here from the scene, but he’ll catch a ride back with Hartman

after their shift ends. I’m short a driver.”

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CHILLING EFFECT

Aroostine shifted her gaze to Joe. He shrugged.

“Sure, no problem.”

“Actually, could we borrow it to run an errand fi rst?” she asked.

Th e police chief and Joe gave her matching quizzical looks.

“I suppose so,” Chief Johnson said. “Th e car isn’t evidence in

Isaac’s murder, and it’ll just be sitting around. But what am I supposed to do with Lee while you’re off running around?”

“After he gets his head bandaged, let him cool his heels in a

holding cell. He can wait.”

She smiled coolly at Chief Johnson. He tossed Joe the keys to

the Tercel and pointed through the trees.

“Fine by me. Car’s down there.”

Th ey started toward the path.

“Hang on. How did Boom get the keys?” she asked.

“Says Isaac kept a spare in a magnetic case affi xed above his rear right tire. He told Boom in case he ever needed to borrow it—Boom

doesn’t have a car of his own, you know. Isaac was being neighborly.”

Aroostine nodded. She wondered if Isaac’s neighborliness

extended to leaving a spare house key lying around, too, or if

Buckmount had simply knocked on the door and Isaac let him in.

She’d know soon enough—as long as Buckmount didn’t lawyer up.

Joe leaned against the car and waited while she crawled around the

undercarriage to satisfy herself that the thing wasn’t going to blow up when he started the engine. She stood and dusted the knees of

her pants with her hands.

“All set?”

“Yeah.”

He held open the passenger door and gestured her inside. She

leaned up for her kiss and then settled into the seat. He walked around 151

MELISSA F. MILLER

to the driver’s side, slid behind the wheel, and stuck the key in the ignition.

“Well, my lady, where to?”

She grinned. “We’re going to the hotel to take hot showers and

change our clothes.” On a hunch, she popped open Isaac’s glove

compartment. A twenty, neatly folded into thirds, was tucked in the corner behind a tire pressure gauge. She pulled it out and waved it triumphantly. “But fi rst, we eat.”

“Now you’re talking.”

He put the car in reverse and bumped it down the rocky ground

until they reached the meadow, then shifted into gear and crossed

the meadow, wheels spinning through the long grass, and headed

for the road.

Aroostine rifl ed through Isaac’s tidy, organized glove compart-

ment: service records stacked and rubber banded together; the

owner’s manual; registration and insurance cards; a log in which

he appeared to have recorded his gas mileage; a packet of tissues; a small fi rst aid kit; and a state map.

Joe glanced over at the pile in her lap.

“Anything interesting?”

“No. Isaac Palmer was either the embodiment of the reasonably

prudent person or someone sanitized his stuff .”

“Th e reasonably prudent person?”

“It’s a legal standard—to determine if someone acted negligently,

you ask what would the reasonably prudent person have done? If

your defendant didn’t do that, then he was probably negligent. Only problem is the reasonably prudent person doesn’t exist. Nobody

keeps their tire pressure exactly at the manufacturer’s recommen-

dation, drives precisely three car lengths behind the car in front of them, changes the air fi lter in their furnace at ninety-day intervals, never off by a day. Th e reasonably prudent person would never use a shoe as a hammer or stand on a wheeled desk chair to change a

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CHILLING EFFECT

lightbulb. But, judging him by the contents of his glove box, maybe Isaac Palmer was that mythical guy. Although I guess even he wasn’t prudent enough, seeing as how he got his head blown off .”

Joe gave her another sidelong look.

“What?” she demanded.

“Two things.”

“Go ahead.” She shoved the papers back into the small box.

“One, you’re one to talk. You do all those reasonably prudent

things.”

“I do not!”

“Most of them.”

She frowned. “I’m not that regimented.”

“When does Rufus need his next heartworm pill?”

“On the twenty-sixth,” she answered instantly.

“What temperature is our hot water tank set to?”

“One hundred forty degrees Fahrenheit to best avoid patho-

gens. But if we had small children or elderly relatives living with us, one hundred and twenty degrees would be preferred to minimize

the risk of scalding.”

“Why did you check the glove compartment for money?”

“Come on, you know why.”

“Answer the question, Counselor.”

She sighed. “Because I keep an emergency twenty in your glove

box.”

“I rest my case.”

“Shut up.”

He laughed.

“Whatever, Joe. What’s the second thing?”

His tone changed from teasing to serious. “What would
you

have done if you were Isaac Palmer? You have information that’s

serious enough to get you killed. What do you do with it?”

She was silent for a moment, thinking.

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MELISSA F. MILLER

“I make a copy of it. And I give it to someone I trust—no,

that’s not right. I wouldn’t do that. It would expose someone else to danger—someone I care about, presumably.” She chewed her lower

lip. “No, I make a copy and hide it somewhere safe.”

He nodded. “Th at’s what I’m thinking.”

“Where would he have hid it?”

“How should I know? You’re the reasonable prude or whatever—

you tell me.”

“Reasonably prudent person.” She pushed his shoulder.

“Close enough. Hey, look!”

Twenty feet ahead an exit ramp led to a commercial strip off

the highway. It had no signage to indicate the name of the town

or what businesses were located there, but the view was clear. Th e road made a bugle just off the ramp. On the side of the road, just at the point where it straightened out again, sat a gleaming aluminum

structure with distinctive red stripes. A tall sign in the parking lot read “Barkley Diner—Homemade Pies. Breakfast Served All Day.”

He swerved right and took the exit. Aroostine’s stomach growled

in anticipation as he pulled into a spot next to a blue pickup truck.

She tucked Isaac’s emergency twenty into her pocket and practically ran to the door. A hand-lettered signed read “Open Twenty-One

Hours A Day.”

“Wonder which three they’re closed?”

“Who cares. As long as they’re open now.” Joe pushed open the

door and held it for her.

Walking inside she felt as if she were a time traveler. Th e Barkley Diner wasn’t retro. It was the original—evidently unchanged since

circa 1960. A long aluminum counter anchored the space and ran

most of the length of the narrow room. Red vinyl barstools lined

the counter every couple feet, evenly spaced on the black-and-white checkerboard fl oor. On each end of the building, two sets of vinyl booths were wedged in the corners, providing eight tables for patrons 154

CHILLING EFFECT

who didn’t want to sit at the counter. All of the booths were unoccupied. Two stools were taken, each with an empty stool on either side.

A young waitress with bright blond hair and cat-eye glasses

raised her head at the tinkle of the bell over the door.

“Hi there, folks. Go ahead and sit where you like. I’ll be over in

a minute with some menus.”

Th e old guy closest to the door didn’t look up from his paper-

back and plate of steak and eggs, but the younger man, two stools

away, turned and raised his ceramic mug in silent greeting.

“You go pick a table. I want to wash up real quick,” Aroostine

whispered to Joe.

“What do you want to drink?”

“Just water. Lots of water.”

She scanned the room. Th ere was only one logical location for

the restrooms, so she walked to the right, went down a short cor-

ridor, and squeezed through the doorway that separated the corner

booths from the counter and the kitchen behind it. Th e bathroom

was tiny and dimly lit but clean. She let the water run until it was as hot as she could stand, then pushed up her sleeves, and scrubbed her hands—from her fi ngernails to up past her wrists—as though

she were prepping to perform surgery. Th en she wet a coarse paper

towel, wrung out the excess water, and wiped the grime from her

face. She grimaced at her refl ection in the warped mirror. She’d

done what repairs she could—her eff orts would have to suffi ce until she got back to the hotel. Th e thought of a very long, very hot

shower—or better yet, a bath—was almost more appealing than

food. Almost. She tossed the towel in the wastebasket and headed

back to the front of the restaurant.

Joe had settled on the booth tucked into the far left corner. He

stood when she neared the table.

“My turn.” He turned sideways and shimmied past her in the

narrow aisle.

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MELISSA F. MILLER

She hesitated. If she took the seat across from where Joe had

been sitting, she’d have her back to the door—inadvisable, considering someone was trying to kill them. Sitting side by side would be

cozy, she decided. She scooted across the booth and situated herself in the corner. Th en she looked around. Th e wall to her left was one long mirror. Th e opposite wall was a fl oor-to-ceiling window that ran all the way to the diner’s door. Even worse, though, right behind her head was another fl oor-to-ceiling window that ran across the

entire side of the building. Th ey were eating lunch in a fi shbowl.

No one’s going to kill you in broad daylight in a diner in Barkley,
Oregon—mostly, because nobody knows you’re here,
she told herself.

Joe returned. He raised a brow at her seating choice but slid in

next to her. He raised his hips off the booth, dug Isaac’s keyring out of his front pants pocket, and tossed the keys on the table. Th e stainless cylinder dangling from the ring thudded against the Formica table.

“Look at you two lovebirds. You folks ever been here before?”

said the waitress with a wide smile as she slapped two laminated

menus down in front of them.

“Nope. We’re tourists.” Joe grinned at her.

“You’re lost then. Nothing worth touring out here,” she

informed him. “But the silver lining is you wandered into the home

of Elle’s fabulous homemade pies.”

“We’re going to have to try some then,” Aroostine said. “But I

think I need a meal fi rst.”

“Let me get your drink order in and you can take a look at the

menu.”

Aroostine asked for a glass of water, and Joe ordered an iced tea.

Th e waitress, whose name tag identifi ed her as Donna, left them to consider their lunch choices.

Joe studied the menu while Aroostine stared out the window at

the mostly empty parking lot. She craned her neck to look out the

window behind them and then scanned the front of the lot. She felt

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CHILLING EFFECT

someone watching her and looked at the counter. Th e younger of

the two men sitting on the stools gave her a curious look.

She fl ashed him a forced smile then picked up her menu.

“What are you getting?” she asked Joe, turning the pages

absently.

“A reuben and fries. You?”

“Scrambled eggs and toast. Want my bacon?”

“What do you think?” he asked, elbowing her in the ribs.

She smiled and absently spun the keyring in a circle. Th e weight

of the cylinder made it turn more quickly than she anticipated. It

fl ew sideways and skittered to a stop against the mirror.

“Oops.”

Donna returned with two pebbled plastic tumblers.

“Here you go.” She placed the drinks in front of them and

fl ipped open her order pad. “What’ll it be?”

Th ey ordered their meals, and she rattled them back to confi rm

she had them right. As she headed back to the kitchen, the younger

man from the counter stood and headed their way.

Th e waitress turned to eyeball the guy’s back as he passed her.

Aroostine’s stomach tightened. Beside her Joe stiff ened. She grabbed the keys and held them in her fi st with the key sticking out between her index and middle fi ngers, ready to jab the guy in the eyes. Under the tabletop, Joe gripped her thigh—whether in warning or to calm

her she couldn’t tell.

Th e guy stopped about three feet away from the table and

cocked his head. He was an unremarkable-looking white guy some-