Deep Down (I) (20 page)

“Yeah. If I had one of these beautiful dogs, I’d sure hate to lose him.”

“At over a thousand dollars a pup, I would, too,” Peter said, chuckling as if he’d made a joke.

The kennel was immaculate, built like a miniature horse stable. The entire estate looked pristine and new, even the ubiquitous black tobacco-drying barn at the rear of the property. Drew watched closely as Peter opened a wooden cabinet and brought out a collar. Jess came closer, too. The collar looked identical to the one he’d found in the general proximity of Mariah’s body!

“It looks like those buckle on tightly,” Drew observed. “It would be bad if the dogs lost one. Has that ever happened?”

Peter looked at him instead of the collar. “Not that I recall, but here’s how they work. Embedded within is a chip that sends out a radio transmitting signal. Collared dogs are tracked with handheld receivers and antennae mounted on a chase vehicle. I only buy state-of-the-art equipment, a step
up from what most locals with other hounds might use. These can even transmit activity and behavior signals. For example, they indicate whether a dog is running or still, even whether his head is pointing upward, as it might be when he were baying at a treed animal.”

“Amazing,” Jess said, speaking for the first time since they’d come into the kennel. She’d left most of the dog talk to him and Peter. “Could you also keep track of someone—maybe a kid who was out hunting with one of these—if he’d keep it on his person?”

“Do you want to try it?” he asked. “It surely would work, but I think a little demonstration might convince Drew. I don’t expect a sheriff to just take my word for things.”

That statement hung in the air for a moment. Another challenge or a threat? Drew wondered. Unless he’d fallen victim to the stereotype of the inscrutable Chinese, Peter Sung seemed to speak with a subtext most of the time. Jess agreed to try a demonstration, putting the collar on like a big necklace, then followed Peter’s suggestion she walk across the yard to the back porch of the house. She would move and turn while Peter, with his back to her, would read the signals from his equipment and tell Drew, who could see for himself what she was doing.

As Jess walked away, Peter produced a handheld receiver and a long, sturdy-looking silver antenna from his cabinet. The receiver crackled when he turned it on. He adjusted it with a short joystick, from a selection of four of them attached to the small black control box. With his back to Jess, he told Peter, “She’s much closer, of course, than a hound would be, but she’s moving erratically—weaving.”

“True,” Drew said with a glance her way. “Does it take much work to learn to read the signals?”

“Some practice. One of these is probably more than a small police department like yours could afford, but I could see myself donating one of these with a hound or two, just to know you are in my corner to keep the ginseng trade going.”

The hair on the back of Drew’s neck prickled. A blatant bribe, one that was probably also intended to keep him in Peter’s corner should the murder investigation go in a direction he didn’t like. Yet they were alone, so he could deny it later, say the new sheriff had misunderstood. How harmless, how generous, the donation of tracker dogs and equipment.

Or worse, was it even a taunt, implying that there was no way a backwoods sheriff could track down Mariah’s murderer without help? Could Peter have tried to buy Mariah off with something, and she told him no? Jess was no doubt testing the theory right now that Peter had planted some sort of tracking device on Mariah so he knew exactly where to find her in the random spots she covered.

Drew looked away from Jess’s wavering path. She had gone back toward the black barn but was now sitting on a fence on the far side of the driveway near the house. He faced Peter squarely. “It’s to everyone’s benefit that the sang trade stay strong,” Drew told him. “But a sheriff upholds the law, and the government law says, sang count too low, exports no go.”

“A poet and you didn’t know it.” Peter recovered instantly with a shrug and a smile. “Ah,” he said, looking down at the control box and listening to the clicks and static from it, “your Jessica has gone toward the meadow instead of the house, right?”

“That much is right,” Drew said. “We appreciate your time and hospitality today. So, when will you be back in Deep Down?”

“Tomorrow, to oversee the packing of Junior Semple’s crop at Vern’s store.”

“I can’t find Junior, you know. He’s evidently jumped bail.”

Peter frowned. “He vowed he would not. Well, when he turns up, you can lock him up longer for that, and his cultivated jen-shen will help my customers. After all, otherwise some poacher could have stolen it.”

The two of them walked back toward the house just as Jess was divesting herself of the collar. Peter’s houseboy, butler or whatever he was, came out onto the porch and held out his hand to get it back from Jess. No, that wasn’t it. He was holding a mobile phone out toward Peter and speaking to him in Chinese. Drew wondered if it was a call from the Kulong family no one knew much about, and whom Drew had always pictured as a sort of Chinese Cosa Nostra.

Peter said, “The call is for you, Drew, from your office manager. Important, she says.”

Drew took the phone and put a finger in his other ear to mute the buglelike baying of the Plotts in the kennel. “Emmy, go ahead.”

“Tyler, Cassie and Pearl were supposed to meet Beth Brazzo up near Indian Falls. But she must have tripped jogging on the path and broke her neck. Drew, she’s dead!”

20

D rew put his portable, magnetic, red flashing light on top of the Cherokee, and they sped back to Deep Down. Drivers quickly slowed or got out of their way. Still, he wished he had Sheriff emblazoned on the side of the vehicle instead of those deep scratch marks, ones, he’d noted, Peter Sung had not even blinked an eye at when he greeted them or saw them off. Perhaps the man just didn’t notice them in the overcast day. Or maybe he was too polite to pry. Or he figured, if he made a big deal about them, it would look suspicious.

The guy definitely was under suspicion. Possible proximity to Mariah’s murder and motive, motive, motive. He had said he’d be back in Deep Down tomorrow, when Jess was determined to start her sang count. Now protecting her would be even harder, since he would have not only Mariah’s death to look into, but Beth Brazzo’s. Two women dead in little Deep Down in less than two weeks. As far as he recalled, they had never even had two natural deaths in that timeframe. But, of course, Peter Sung had an ironclad alibi that he hadn’t hurt Beth Brazzo—if she didn’t just stumble while jogging.

Emmy had told him that Tyler would meet him at the place they’d found Beth’s body, but he saw Cassie’s truck was here, too. Emmy was taking care of Pearl for a while, so Cassie could wait here with Tyler. Both of them walked toward Drew and Jess as they got out. Drew had told Emmy to call the coroner, but he obviously wasn’t here yet.

“No one’s touched the body or even gone down to it,” Tyler told them, “though I did take a couple of photos for you. It’s—she’s—on a ledge that kept her from falling way down.” The man looked distressed, but then he had been Beth’s colleague. His hands and voice shook. Drew wondered how well he’d known Beth Brazzo. Had theirs been just a professional relationship or personal, too? Was there friction or harmony between them over Tyler’s pet project and his closeness to Cassie? Those questions would have to wait.

“She could have tripped and fallen over the edge—you’ll see,” Cassie put in, sticking tight to Tyler. “We saw a couple of gnarled roots where she could have caught her foot. It was actually Pearl who spotted her. She said she thought Beth was asleep, but her neck’s at a horrible angle.”

He and Jess darted a look at each other.

“From the fall, no doubt,” Tyler added. “A little puddle of blackish blood is under her head. We shouted and shouted, but she didn’t stir. After Pearl pointed her out, we tried not to mess up possible footprints above where she fell.”

She fell. Drew noted the words. They were assuming this was an accident, and he should, too, unless evidence proved otherwise. But he’d become so distrustful of everyone since Mariah’s death, including fantasy ogres shuffling through the woods.

“You both handled it just right,” he assured them. “The
coroner’s coming with the paramedic recovery team from Highboro, but I’m going to try to get down to her now. I’ll take individual statements from each of you after.”

He took a coil of rope from the back of his vehicle and slung it over his shoulder. The four of them started toward the edge of the escarpment overlooking the falls and Shrieking Peak. It was a beautiful spot, he thought, despite the perpetual whine of the wind through the distant crags.

“Do you know if she was just out jogging?” he asked Tyler.

“Yes and no. She jogged out to meet us here because this is the spot she’d finally picked for the power drink ad shoot—lots of untouched ginseng. I was going to do some stills to send back to Bailey and Keller so they could okay them. The two actors for the shoot were coming in day after tomorrow.”

“Drew,” Jess said as she stretched her strides to keep up with him, “a sang site with beech trees with a view of Indian Falls…I’ll bet there are twenty-four four-prongers there.”

“Yeah. Puzzle pieces are fitting together, but what’s the picture?”

“What about this place?” Cassie asked. “Did Beth tell you about it, Jessie?”

When she didn’t answer, Tyler said, “Beth told me she’d volunteered to count ginseng with you, but she wasn’t sure you were going to take her up on it.”

When Jess only nodded, Drew realized she was leaving it up to him whether they explained about this site. “Tell them,” he said as they approached the cluster of tall beeches which framed the cloudy sky, distant falls and gray-green Shrieking Peak beyond.

“I think Beth might have been interested in this place
for the shoot for over a week at least,” Jess told them, “so she must have known it quite well. My mother recorded in her notes, which Cassie and Pearl found, that if Beth was going to use this special sang site for the ad, she wanted to swear her to secrecy about it.”

“Secrecy from whom? She was going to share it with Cassie and me, the shoot team and actors,” Tyler said. “Not to mention it would be part of a nationally broadcast ad campaign for TV and print media.”

“I don’t know,” Jess admitted. “A lot of things don’t make sense yet.”

They reached the site and edged out, avoiding the area directly over the ledge in case there were footprints there. Beth lay sprawled below on her side, her legs spread as if she still ran, her arms bent, her head twisted to the side with her raven-black hair fanned around her face. Despite the thick cover of it, Drew realized Tyler was probably right that a puddle of blood had congealed under her head. Drew thought the angle of her head was similar to the way they’d found Mariah, yet these circumstances were night and day from that—weren’t they?

“See there?” Cassie said, pointing to the gnarled roots of the beeches that clung clawlike to the edge of the precipice. “She could have tripped on one of these and toppled over.”

Drew moved them even farther away from where she must have gone over. He uncoiled the rope and tied one end of it around a tree trunk, one not directly above the body. Yeah, this looked like an accident, but for one thing: the strangely blurred footprints he recognized in the area Tyler had said they’d been careful not to trample. At first glance, they look like the prints he’s seen near his clawed Cherokee.

He looped the other end of the rope under his armpits and double-knotted it, then let himself over the edge, slowly, swinging his butt out and walking his way down. His feet missed, then hit the ledge. Not stopping to untie himself, he bent to feel for the carotid artery at the side of Beth’s neck. Nothing. She was cold and going stiff. This time, at least, the coroner would be able to estimate time of death.

He lifted a bit of her thick, black hair. She’d usually worn it pulled back in a ponytail. Would she have had it flying free if she was running? Would the fall have been enough to cause it to come loose, or could there have been a struggle? And with whom?

It didn’t look as if she’d been struck in the back of the head like Mariah, but he would let the coroner turn her over. Besides, unless someone had leapt out from behind one of these trees when she passed, he couldn’t picture anyone catching, murdering, then moving the strong, agile Beth Brazzo the way Mariah had been handled. Two dead women—it had to be coincidence, didn’t it? But as he’d told Jess, there was no such thing as a coincidence in police work.

Jessie wasn’t saying so, but she’d been convinced from the first that Beth had been chased and murdered, too. She kept quiet about that because she had no proof, but her certainty went deeper than womanly intuition. Gut instinct, yes, but beyond that—she wasn’t sure.

“At least,” Drew whispered as he walked her toward Cassie’s truck for a ride home, “there were no claw marks on Beth’s cheeks, and her head trauma could be from the fall. We’ll see what Coroner Merriman comes up with. Lately, he’s earning his salary around here.”

Exhausted and emotionally drained, she nodded. The
coroner and the paramedic team—the same people who had carried out her mother’s body—had just brought Beth’s corpse up from the ledge. Scribbling notes, Drew had questioned Cassie and Tyler separately.

“Anyway,” Jessie said, “if this is foul play, we can exonerate Peter. Not only was he miles away but with us. Of course, with his money and local influence, he could have someone who knows this area doing his dirty work.”

“Yeah,” Drew muttered, “such as Junior Semple. Maybe he already had ties to Peter. Maybe Peter was the one who provided him with those poison gas sticks. The two of them could have made a deal beyond the sang when Peter bailed him out in Highboro. Junior’s wife’s even saying now that she doesn’t know where he is, so he’d need some funds to hide out. I may stake his place out to see if he’s sneaking home at night.”

“Peter might have viewed Beth as a competitor for Deep Down sang. She didn’t only want the ad shot near Deep Down, but the product’s slogan was tied to Deep Down sang—deep down satisfaction. She was leading the charge to siphon off Peter’s near monopoly of wild ginseng.”

“We’ll talk later,” he said, squeezing her upper arm. “This on-site investigation is going to take awhile. By the way, Tyler really doesn’t have much of an alibi—says he was on his own this morning before going to Cassie’s, taking photos, which he claims will be auto-dated to back him up. But if he can fake photos, maybe he can fake the dates he took them.”

“You don’t suspect him of anything?”

“I can’t afford to overlook anyone. I’ll stop by when I can this evening. Until then, keep your doors locked.”

By Cassie’s truck, she turned to face him. “I will. I’ll
be planning my route for the count tomorrow. Cassie says she can go along, if she can get someone to watch Pearl. Well, I already have the sang counted here. Amazing a great patch of it like that hasn’t been poached.”

“Keep safe and phone me or Emmy if anything seems strange. Anything.”

They held hands before she turned away to get in Cassie’s truck. He closed the door on her side then headed back to the scene, where Beth’s plastic-cocooned body was being rolled into the back of the coroner’s vehicle. In the rearview mirror, on the other side, Jessie could see Tyler and Cassie huddled, talking, then he hugged her. A miracle, Jessie thought, that from tragedy came something good, not only for her and Drew but Cassie and Tyler—if Tyler was to be trusted.

Cassie got in the driver’s side and started the old Ford. It shuddered of its own accord and was further bounced by the rutted tire tracks as they headed out.

“I overheard Drew talking to the rescue team—recovery team, I mean,” Cassie said.

“And?”

“They don’t think she tripped. Those gnarled roots are too far from the edge. Also, Drew said the footprints above the ledge are not from someone jogging. Someone either dragged her body—or they had huge feet, and were kind of shuffling.”

Jessie’s pulse pounded. She gripped her hands so hard in her lap that her fingers went numb. He must not have told her about the footprints just now because he didn’t want her to worry more than she already was.

“But you did say Pearl was picking flowers there. Maybe you and Tyler kind of shuffled to the edge to look down at her.”

“I guess,” Cassie said with a shrug. “Drew told the rescue guys not to go over the edge right where the tracks were. He wants Tyler to take close-ups of the prints when the slant of setting sun gets just right so the profile and depth of them show up. Jessie? You look really peaked. Are you thinking about that other photo Tyler took? With that large form in it?”

“I don’t know how much longer those of us who have seen Tyler’s photo are going to be able to keep this—this monster myth quiet. Cassie, you should lock your doors tonight. Drew told me to. I know you never used to but—”

“I have for as long as I’ve had Pearl. I’m not working the garden anymore in the dark now, no way.”

Jessie put her left hand on Cassie’s shoulder. She was glad the truck was shaking so her friend didn’t know that she was, too.

When they stopped at the sheriff’s office to pick up Pearl, Emmy told them, “She’s been an angel. I’d love to have a little girl myself, just like her!”

To Jessie’s surprise, Cassie, who had just thanked Emmy profusely and was on her way out the door, rounded on the girl. “I just want to warn you about Ryan Buford,” Cassie clipped out. Jessie’s jaw dropped.

“Why? What about him?” Emmy asked, wide-eyed from the other side of the counter. She crossed her arms over her full breasts, and thrust out her lower lip.

“I’ve heard he’s also giving Audrey Doyle a lot of attention, and with Audrey, you know what that might mean. That’s all.”

“I know how she operates, but I trust him,” Emmy insisted. “Where else is he going to stay around here? Vern
Tarver won’t put up anyone but Peter Sung. I know what she’s like,” Emmy repeated, with a slanted look at Jessie instead of Cassie. “I’ve seen how she had her claws out for the sheriff since he’s been here.”

Jessie’s eyes got even wider, but she kept quiet. She was fascinated by Cassie’s comments about Buford. Her claim that he was romancing Audrey might be reason enough for Cassie to speak out this way about something that was, really, none of her business. But now that she thought of it, Pearl’s looks could be a blend of Ryan Buford’s and Cassie’s.

“Thanks again for watching Pearl with all that’s going on,” Cassie told Emmy. “Didn’t mean to upset you, just a word to the wise.” She pulled Pearl outside, muttering, “She’s being really stupid, bless her heart.”

Back in the truck, heading for her house, Jessie had to bite her tongue to keep from questioning Cassie. Pearl was here; now was not the time. It was getting late. It must be sunset already, for a reddish reflection emanated from the forest as if it mirrored the sinking sun. No, that couldn’t be the sun.