Turn or Burn (9 page)

“I asked for it.”

Francesca sat up in her seat some. “You’re Army, right?”

“Barely. Beelined it to the Special Forces but got out after four years. Been contracting ever since.”

“Aren’t Special Forces types—especially Green Berets—supposed to be masters of working with people?” she asked. “Training allied forces and whatnot. Doesn’t seem to fit your style.”

“I’m not the first cynical Green Beret. I can turn on my likeable leader button if I have to.”

“Is that right?” she laughed. “I think that button is no longer operational.”

“You could say that.”
At least I’m not diving in the dirt anymore
, I thought again.

She put a hand on my arm. First time a woman had touched me in a long time. “I’m just kidding.”

The ferry captain came on the loud speaker and asked all passengers to return to their cars. We were almost there.

“Where are
you
from?” she asked. We were both enjoying the lighter conversation. “Tell me how they raised such a specimen of imperfection?”

I smiled. “The glorious mecca of Benton City, Washington. A little place called Red Mountain. Now famous for wine. I come from a family of farmers. Three generations of dirt diggers. I was raised driving a tractor.”

“Was your dad in the Army?”

“No. Granddad.”

“And how’d you turn into such an asshole?”

“Thanks for the compliment, Francesca. You really know how to make a guy feel good, don’t you? I’m not that bad.”

“Are you kidding me? You are unequivocally, undeniably, a monumental asshole. They made the word for people like you.”

“Now, you’re really flattering me. I’m going to blush.”

“Oh, c’mon. You pegged me. I’m the little princess. Mommy told me how beautiful I was growing up. That’s not too far from the truth. What happened to you?”

“I see…you want the sob story.”

“Exactly what I want. Give it to me.”

“Well, I was a real good kid growing up. Innocent, almost nerdy. Straight A’s all the way through. Never got in trouble. Got a full ride to the University of Georgia to study veterinary medicine. The summer before I moved down South, my mom got sick.” I paused, feeling the painful memory settling in my throat. It had been many years, and it wasn’t getting any easier to broach the subject.

“Ovarian cancer,” I said, trudging on. “She got bad quickly, so I postponed school. She died that October. My dad broke down, too, so I decided to forget about school entirely and stick it out with him. Help him heal. But three years later, I buried him. That’s when I decided to join the Army. I left our cherry trees to die and enlisted. Then left the battlefield and returned to Red Mountain two years ago. Ripped out the orchard and planted grapevines.”

“That’s a very nice story, Harper. Not to be glib, but you have seriously damaged my initial judgment of you.”

The ferry docked, and I put the SUV in Drive and followed the car ahead of us down the ramp toward Bainbridge Island. “Don’t go changing your opinion of me yet.”

That’s when I realized she’d gotten me to talk way more than I generally like to.

I had not been to Ted’s parent’s house in two years. The last time had been right after Jay had been killed. I’d just returned to the States on my way to plant the vineyard and wanted—needed—to see them, to tell them how much it hurt me, too. Now, I had both brothers’ blood on my hands.

I’d spent many evenings at their parent’s home over the years. They were good, simple people and fantastic cooks. They’d always cater to my vegetarian lifestyle by tossing a rib eye on the grill for me, just in case I suddenly decided to up and change the way I’d been eating for two decades. They knew when to talk about the wars and when to leave them alone, and I liked that about them.

They owned a few acres of stunning hillside property overlooking Elliott Bay back toward the mainland. We drove up the gravel driveway and stepped out of the car. Those islands get even more rain than Seattle and all the green, from the trees to the grass, showed it. I noticed Mrs. Simpson still tended to her garden on the side of the house. Llamas and horses were walking around in the neighbor’s yard.

Ted’s father heard us and came out of his tool shed with a red-handled shovel in his hand. Ted had told me that his folks worked in the yard more than anything else these days. Before that, he was a Boeing guy. He started walking over to us.

“What a surprise,” he said with excitement. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

I didn’t say anything. As he got closer, he saw it in our eyes. It’s a look all parents of soldiers are always dreading. He’d already seen it once in his life.

The shovel fell from his hands into the grass, and he dropped to his knees and began to weep.

The fragility of life is nearly too much to bear sometimes.

Once we got back to the mainland, we got onto I-5 and headed toward the home of Ms. Conway’s parents. Her last-known address was not difficult to obtain. Francesca and I had built up a lifetime’s worth of contacts in the business. She put in a call and had the address in minutes. Lucy Reyes’s last-known was in Billings, Montana, so we thought the Conway’s house would be a good place to start.

They lived in Tacoma, the city that shares an airport with Seattle and lies a little over thirty minutes south. A smaller version of Seattle, and a better or worse caricature, depending on who’s talking. We found their home in the middle of a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood just outside of the city. Twenty or so cars lined the street with several more in the driveway. Obviously, their friends and loved ones were there, comforting them.

No cop cars, which was good news. They’d probably already gone by. It had been several hours since the shooting. If Detective Jacobs was any good, he had to be way ahead of us by now. I did feel quite confident, however, that we’d beat him to the finish line, wherever that was. Incompetence runs thick through our justice system. That’s why I make my own justice.

“I’ll go in and feel things out,” Francesca said. “I think this needs a woman’s touch.”

“Suit yourself. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

“Watch and learn, soldier.” She winked and closed the door. I watched her walk away, wondering how such a beautiful woman could be in this line of work. She seemed too innocent and too kind. Maybe that’s why she was good at it.

I welcomed being alone for a little while. As I watched people come and go, I replayed the decisions and events leading up to Ted’s death and found so many ways that I could have saved him. Even up to the last minute. Bottom line: I should have seen the other shooter. Two good men’s deaths were on me now, and I was reminded once again that my life was cursed. Spend enough time with Harper Knox, get close enough, and die. My worth on this planet was negligible.

Forcing the thoughts away, finding strength in vindictiveness, I powered up my computer and read some news sites talking about the day’s event. I found no new information.

Finally, saving me from myself, Francesca came out of the house and made her way back to the car. “How’d it go?” I asked.

“I got into a chat with one of her high school friends. He said the family hadn’t seen Erica in two years. They’d had an intervention and Erica stormed out. Drinking and drugs. Not sure what specifically. He didn’t know. But he said her best friend kept in touch with her a little. He pointed her out, but I didn’t want to approach her yet. She was with Erica’s mom. So I want to wait until she leaves and follow her. She was saying her good-byes.”

Francesca turned the key and rolled down her window. And we waited. Exchanged a few war stories. In some act of defiance against growing up, she joined the Marina Militare, which was the Italian Navy, and after a few years someone at Blackwater recruited her and she started working the Middle East. She’d been working with Ted two years.

“We nearly crossed paths,” I said. “You must have replaced me on his roster.”

“Something like that. An upgrade is what he called it, if I remember right.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

We watched people come and go for forty-five minutes. The air moved crisply through the open windows. Finally, Francesca pointed the woman out. Jamey Rush. She got into a BMW X-5, and I followed her out of the neighborhood. In a few minutes, we were back on the highway.

We followed her taillights all the way to Bellevue, a city near Microsoft. Money floated through the sewage over there. People pissed gold coins and I hoped it hurt. Jamey pulled into a high-end apartment complex with an array of cars that mommy and daddy gave their little precious ones, so that they could fit in with high society and marry who they needed to marry. I’m not judging. That’s just human nature. Survival of the fittest. Keep climbing that ladder until you’re looking down at everyone.

I parked and said, “I guess it’s my turn.”

“Go for it.”

I waited until the woman was near the building, underneath the lights. “Jamey?”

She turned to look at me but didn’t stop walking.

“Hi, Jamey,” I said. “Could I please have a moment of your time?”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Harper Knox. We both lost friends today. I need your help figuring out why.”

“I don’t know you. Please leave me alone.”

“Just five minutes. I need to ask you a couple questions. My best friend died five feet from Erica today. Just a couple questions. I’m a good guy.”

She stopped and I caught up with her. Stuck out my hand and we shook. She was a big girl; not overweight, just big-boned. At least that’s what her mother probably told her. Very warm eyes, like she might be the leader of her Young Life division.

“I’m trying to figure out what happened,” I continued. “I believe Erica was a good person deep down, though I know she got into some bad stuff.”

“She was a good person. You’re right.”

I looked at her for a minute, then said in almost a whisper, “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can trust me, Jamey.”

She crossed her arms and looked around. “She comes from a really good family. I’ve known them a long time and never saw it coming. None of us did. She just changed one day. Started hanging around with some people I didn’t like toward the end of college. This was back in Tacoma. She wouldn’t even return my calls. I kind of had a feeling she was doing drugs…even tried to confront her a couple times. But that pushed us further apart.”

“What kind of drugs, would you say?”

“I don’t know everything, but she eventually told me meth. I don’t even know how you do it.”

I nodded. “Me either.”

“And… and…never mind.” She looked away and then down.

“What?”

“I don’t know you.”

“Please, Jamey. I don’t want anyone to hurt anymore than they already are. I just need to know why my friend died. And I don’t want anyone else to die.”

“Isn’t that the cops’ job?”

“I’ve been doing this since you were in middle school. I want to help the cops. That’s all. Sometimes they need it. Tell me what you were going to say.”

“I think she might have even been selling herself.”

“Why?”

“Comments she’d make. I tried to revive our friendship a few times. Tried to reach out to the part of her that was still real. And she would open up to me…sort of. I was able to have a conversation with the Erica I knew. She’d tell me I didn’t want to know the truth. But I’d go over to her house and see bruises on her. The things she was wearing became more and more revealing. She’d hit the bottom and couldn’t hide it from me. She stopped returning my calls. I gave up after a few months. She snapped at me the last time we talked and told me to quit trying to be her friend. So I did.

“Two years went by. She’d gotten in a pretty bad fight with her parents, and I think her dad basically disowned her. I heard nothing about her for a long time. Almost like she didn’t exist anymore. Then out of the blue, I came home from work one day and she was here. Standing right where we are.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, must have been six months ago. Around Christmas time. I know the holidays are sometimes hard for people who are lonely. That’s what it seemed like. She started crying when she saw me. I asked her to come inside but she wouldn’t. She was acting so paranoid, like someone was watching her or chasing her. It was weird, though. She looked better. Like she’d put some weight back on. Her skin looked better. I asked her what was wrong and she wouldn’t tell me. I asked her how I could help, and she said I couldn’t. She gave me a hug and told me she loved me. Asked me not to tell anyone I’d seen her and she walked away. I tried to follow her and she waved me away and started running. I ran after her for a while, telling her we all cared about her, and that we’d been looking for her. But she outran me.”

“Did you tell the cops?”

“I told her parents but I think they’d given up.”

“How about today? I’m assuming you told the cops all this.”

“Yes. I told them everything. Of course I did.”

I don’t carry cards, but I wrote my number down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “If anything else comes to mind, let me know. I’m going to figure out what happened to your friend.”

“Thank you. Please let me know.”

I climbed back into the car with Francesca. “Seems to be someone behind all this. Erica came to see Jamey six months ago. Made it seem like she was running from someone. Or that someone else was in control.”