Deadly Currents (15 page)

“I’m hopeless.” Mandy held out her fingers and assessed the damage. “With all the work I do with my hands, there’s no way I could keep the polish from getting chipped. Trouble is, I don’t have any remover to take the rest off. I’m sorry I wasted your money. “

Cynthia sat up. “But you didn’t waste it. You found out Evie was no longer seeing Tom King and was upset about it.”

“And upset about me asking questions. Maybe really upset. Someone threw a rock through my kitchen window last night, with a message attached, telling me to keep my nose out of the Tom King business.”

“You think it was Evie?”

“Or Jeff or Paula King. Or Lenny Preble. Or Nate Fowler.” Mandy scooped a handful of potato chips out of Cynthia’s bag and paused before slipping one into her mouth. “Or someone else.”

Cynthia’s brows furrowed. “Have you told the police?”

“Not yet. I know I have to, but I’ve been putting off telling Detective Quintana, since he requested that I not talk to suspects.”

“This is a big deal, Mandy. You’ve got to tell the police ASAP.” Cynthia plucked a stalk of grass to put between her teeth. “Have you fixed the window at least? Someone could get in your house that way.”

Mandy snorted. “That house is so easy to break into, no one needs to mess with the kitchen window. I hadn’t been worried before, because I don’t have anything worth stealing, and Salida’s not exactly a hotbed of crime.”

“But now someone’s after you, not your stuff.”

“A rock through my window doesn’t mean someone’s after me.”

Cynthia stared at her.

“Okay, okay, I know.” Mandy cringed a little. “But I’ve been on the river all morning. I’ll fix it this afternoon. After running the morning shuttle, David said he would slap some duct tape over the hole in the screen before he left for Colorado Springs. And he made me promise I’d get the glass replaced today.”

“David’s gone? Bummer. He was a lot of fun at the Vic last night.”

Mandy studied Cynthia’s face. A blush colored her friend’s ears. “Are you going sweet on my brother?”

“No, no, no,” Cynthia said too quickly. “He’s just fun to be around is all. He even laughed at my oldest, lamest blonde joke.”

“Which one is that?”

“Oh, you know, two blondes flip a raft, and one swims to river right and the other one swims to river left. After they climb out of the water, one asks the other, ‘How do I get to the other side?’”

Mandy jumped in with the punch line she’d heard umpteen times. “And the second one says, ‘You ditz, you’re already on the other side.’”

Cynthia snorted a laugh, then took the blade of grass out of her mouth and tickled Lucky’s nose with it until the dog sneezed. “David’s coming back for your uncle’s service, right?”

Mandy shoved Cynthia’s shoulder, knocking her over sideways. “You lying sack of pinto beans. You’ve got the hots for David.”

Cynthia arched a brow at Mandy then slowly drew her tongue across her lips.

The two of them burst out laughing. Mandy fell back onto the grass, and Lucky, wanting to be part of the game, jumped on top of her and licked her cheek.

When he went after Cynthia, she playfully pushed him off. “Yuck, get out of my face, you slobbery dog.”

Mandy couldn’t imagine her staid accountant brother having fun. She wished she had been at the Vic last night to see it. As her giggles died down, she realized she hadn’t laughed like this since her uncle died. A flash of guilt hit her, but was just as quickly swept away. Uncle Bill would have wanted her to be doing just this, lounging on the grass by the river and laughing with a friend.

She sent up a silent prayer and hoped he was playing on a sparkling, gurgling river like the Arkansas wherever he was. A gust of wind tossed the tree branch above her, letting a bright ray of sunlight through. Closing her eyes, Mandy smiled and let the warmth soak in.

Until she was attacked by another doggie slurp.

“Come here, Lucky.” Cynthia tackled Lucky, pulled him off Mandy, and tossed a stick for him to fetch. Her gaze tracked the dog’s path, then she nudged Mandy. “Speak of the devil. There’s Paula King herself.”

Mandy sat up and scanned the pedestrian path.

Paula saw them staring at her and looked around, as if seeking an escape route. She must have changed her mind, though, because she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. The high heels she wore under her embroidered capri jeans sunk into the grass as she changed direction and approached Mandy. She stopped a few feet away and lifted her sunglasses to scan Mandy’s outfit—an oversized, faded T-shirt and nylon paddling shorts she’d thrown on over a bathing suit.

Mandy bristled under the scrutiny. She felt like shouting, “I just came off the river,” but pride clamped her lips shut. She was also curious why Paula had decided to approach them.

Lucky bounded up with the stick, dropped it in front of Cynthia, and walked over to sniff Paula’s crotch.

Paula shoved the dog’s nose away. “Get this beast away from me.”

“Lucky, come,” Mandy commanded. When Lucky responded, she grabbed his collar and told him to lie down. She started to rub his stomach, which always made him roll over placidly on his back, begging for more.

“I suppose I should thank you for pulling my son out of Pine Creek rapid yesterday,” Paula drawled. She crossed her arms. “You seem to have made a practice of plucking King men out of the Arkansas.”

Mandy glanced at Cynthia, who quirked an eyebrow at her.
This is coming from a woman whose husband died a week ago, one she was reconciling with?

“That’s what I do.”

“Is it your job to ask so many questions, too?”

Mandy’s hand paused in mid-circle on Lucky’s stomach, causing the dog to bat it impatiently with his paw. “What do you mean?”

“Jeff said you were asking questions yesterday. Why are you so interested in my husband’s will?”

“Will? I didn’t say anything about a will,” Mandy said. “We were just talking about why he wanted to finish that race so badly. He was pretty mad he blew his chance to win the Wave Sport.”

Paula harrumphed and stared at a kayaker cartwheeling in the river. “I must be mistaken, then.”

“Was Jeff upset about our conversation?”
Upset enough to throw a rock through my window?

“It doesn’t take much to set either of us on edge these days.” Paula started to leave, then turned back. “You have my sympathies over your uncle’s death.”

“Thank you. And you have mine. For your husband.”

Paula stared at her for a moment. She stood as stiff as a military officer at attention, holding something in, something that was clawing to get out. “Thank you.” She turned and headed up the hill.

After she left, Cynthia gave a theatrical shudder. “No way is that woman a natural blonde. I bet her hair is as black as evil itself.”

Mandy patted Lucky’s stomach to signal she was done with his tummy scratch. “She didn’t seem to be grieving much, did she?”

“No, I’d say she was just plain mad.”

“And her anger’s pointed right at me.”
Just like at Tom King’s funeral.
“What did I do to her?”

No one tests the depth of a river with both feet.

—African Proverb

Mandy couldn’t put off
paying a visit to Detective Quintana any longer. She dropped Lucky off at home and changed out of her rafting clothes into lightweight pants and a short-sleeved shirt with an actual collar.

She tried to figure out how to pull the empty frame out of the kitchen window, but gave up after fiddling with the screwdriver and getting nowhere. Too many layers of old paint had the frame firmly welded into place. She had hoped to drop it off at a glass shop on the way to the Chaffee County building and get them to install new glass. Now, she would have to break down and ask Rob to help her get the frame out.

With hands on her hips, she studied the window. Tomorrow morning the kitchen would be chilly without some kind of barrier. Maybe she could scrounge up some cardboard. And, as Cynthia said, anyone could sneak into her place through the opening that was now just covered by a screen. Mandy tried not to think about that.

When she arrived at the Chaffee County building, she had to search the sheriff’s offices until she found Quintana standing at the copier. She spied an empty paper box next to the machine. “Mind if I take that?”

“No, go ahead.” His gaze went straight to the note in her hand. “What’ve you got there?”

Mandy handed it to him. “This was tied to a rock that sailed through my kitchen window yesterday.”

“Were you home? Did you see anything?”

“I was out of the house all day and didn’t get home until after eight. It shook up my dog, Lucky, though.”

Quintana reread the note. “So where have you been poking your nose?”

Mandy picked up the cardboard box and sighed. “You’re not going to like this.”

“I suspect not.” He grabbed his copies and steered her down the hall. “Let’s go to my office.”

Once they were seated, Mandy steeled herself and told him what she’d been up to.

Quintana listened quietly, stroking his mustache. When she finished, he folded his arms and looked out the window, as if composing what he was going to say—or composing himself.

Mandy clasped her hands and cringed inside.

Quintana directed a steely gaze at her. “Just like I predicted, your personal involvement in the case stirred up emotions—the killer’s. Did you deliberately ignore my advice?”

Morosely, Mandy shook her head. “I didn’t ignore it. I thought about it a lot. I just
…
you know, whoever killed Tom King indirectly killed Uncle Bill, too. I couldn’t walk away from these people when I had the chance to question them, when one of them is responsible for my uncle’s death.”

“And by doing so, you’ve put your own life in danger. What would your uncle say about that?”

Oh God, that was a low blow.
Mandy folded her arms tightly across her chest. “He’d hate it. He’d be yelling at me, ten times angrier than you are.”

“And he’d be scared for you. As I am. As you should be. You could have been hurt by that rock. And who knows what this person’s next move will be?” He braced his hands on his knees. “You’re in danger, Mandy, and I don’t have the manpower to put a guard on you. The best thing you can do right now is to obey the message.”

Mandy took a deep breath. Could she stay out of this? Whether she could or not, she had to convince Quintana. “Okay.”

Quintana stared at her for a moment, then seemingly satisfied, he said, “Okay. Now, do you suspect anyone in particular of throwing the rock?”

“Unfortunately, I left every single one of them pissed at me in one way or another. Though it’s hard to imagine Paula King flinging the rock. It seems to be beneath her. But her son, Evie Olson, Lenny Preble, or Nate Fowler?” Mandy shrugged. “It could have been any one of them.”

“Right now, I’d lay odds on Jeff King, at his mother’s direction.”

“What makes you say that? Have you found out something? Something I can put in my case report or tell the park managers?”

Quintana picked up one of the papers he had brought back from the copier. “This is a search warrant for Paula King’s house.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I have two eye witnesses who saw her hand a sports drink bottle to Tom King. And no one who saw anyone else hand one to him. Given that we found aconite in one of the bottles in your uncle’s trash, we’re going on the assumption, for now, that that’s how the poison was administered. So, I’m going to look for evidence at her house and in her cars.”

“You mean Western monkshood plants?”

“Or the dried roots. I consulted a plant expert in the agriculture department at Colorado State University. He said the roots can be dried and stored for up to two years, then ground into a poisonous powder. We’ll look for any suspicious powders, too.”

He handed her a couple of the sheets of paper. “He emailed some pages out of a plant guide, so we’ll know what we’re looking for. We won’t see those bluish flowers, because they bloom later in the summer. But they grow pretty tall, two to six feet high, and the leaves are what the guy calls palmate.”

“Like a palm tree?”

“No, like the palm of your hand and how your fingers spread out from that. He told me the best example is a maple leaf. We all know what one of those looks like.”

“Can the poison only be made from the roots?”

“The whole plant’s poisonous, but the biggest concentration is in the root, especially a young one dug up in the spring. And he said making a powder out of the stems or leaves is a lot more difficult and messy than using the root.”

She pointed at a picture of what looked like a stunted brown carrot. “That’s what this photo is of?”

“Yes. The guy said the root can be mistaken for wild horseradish.”

He almost had to pry the pages out of her hands. She craned her neck to get another look at the photographs as he stapled four sets of them together. He tapped down the packets, put the search warrant on top, and stood.

Realizing he must be planning to execute the warrant right then, Mandy rose, too.

A woman poked her head in the office. “Deputy Rogers can’t come with you. He got a call that his wife is in labor.” Just as quickly, she exited.

“Great,” Quintana said. “That means I’m short one on my search detail. I need a four-person team, two pairs, and there’s no other deputy available.”

Mandy felt a stir of excitement. “Could you use some help from a fellow law enforcement officer, the one who initiated the case?”

He stared at her for a moment, as if weighing the pluses and minuses. “If you could remain impartial, follow my directions to a T. Think you can?”

“You bet.”

“I’d much rather have you snooping under my tutelage than on your own.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “Now, if Paula or Jeff King object to your presence, it would be best if you went back to your car.”

“I understand.”

He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a rumpled, laminated clip-on badge, with the Chaffee County Sheriff’s logo and the words “Official Observer” on it. He handed it to her. “We use these for fellow law enforcement officers and plain folks who are doing ride-alongs with us. Gives you the appearance of a little more authority.”

Quintana gathered a couple of patrol officers and introduced them as Deputies Mansfield and Thompson. He gave them the handouts on Western monkshood. He described what they were looking for, reviewed the search procedure and made assignments. Then the four of them trooped out to their cars. After stashing the cardboard box in the back of her Subaru, Mandy followed the two police cruisers to the flanks of Methodist Mountain south of Route 50, far from her own small cottage and the close streets of town.

Here, widely spaced paved and gravel roads wound among new developments with large lots and names like Fawn Ridge and Cherokee Heights. Set far back from the road, luxury homes peeked through stands of gnarled pinion pine and juniper, what the rangers called “PJ forest.” Quintana turned his cruiser into a long cul-de-sac and parked in front of a huge custom-built home of Douglas fir post-and-beam construction perched on the top of a ridge line. A covered breezeway led from the house to a detached three-car garage.

Mandy followed Quintana up the drive, then took a few steps into the side yard. She looked past a gazebo containing a hot tub to a panoramic view of the town of Salida, fronted by the curving highway and the sparkling creek alongside it, the South Arkansas, which joined with the main river south of town.

“Quite a place they’ve got here,” she said to Quintana when she rejoined him on the porch.

“Yep. Nice view, huh?” He rang the doorbell.

And cooler and quieter than town.
The only other sounds were the soft rustle of the light breeze blowing through the trees and the creak of stiff shoe leather as Deputy Mansfield beside her shifted his weight. The scent was clean, too, of pine and juniper needles baking in the sun.

Jeff King opened the door, his eyes wide with surprise. Barefoot, he was dressed in jeans and a stained Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt. He held a half-empty soda bottle. When he spied Mandy standing beside Quintana, he frowned. “What’s this?”

Detective Quintana handed him a copy of the search warrant. “We have a warrant to search your home for evidence related to your father’s murder case.”

“My mom’s not here.” Jeff’s hand was still on the door, blocking them from entering.

“She doesn’t need to be,” Quintana said. “We still have legal authority to enter. You can call her, if you wish. Either you or she or both of you can be present, but you cannot impede the search in any way.”

Jeff pointed at Mandy. “Why is she with you?”

“Ranger Tanner initiated the case,” Quintana said, his tone calm and smooth. “The Sheriff’s Department often works cooperatively with other law enforcement officers whose agency is directly involved in an investigation. The team approach saves taxpayers’ resources.”

Mandy kept her mouth shut. She noticed Quintana didn’t offer Jeff the option of objecting to her presence.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll begin on the ground floor.” Quintana stepped forward, forcing Jeff to step back and release the door. “Where would you like to remain while we conduct the search?”

“The kitchen, I guess.”

“Deputies Mansfield and Thompson will go with you to the kitchen and search there.” Quintana nodded to Mandy. “You’ll stay with me.”

“I’m calling my mother,” Jeff said as he and the two officers headed for the kitchen.

“Fine with me,” Quintana replied. “Deputy Mansfield, when she gets here, tell her I’d like a word with her.”

He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and handed a pair to Mandy. He checked that Jeff was out of earshot then said, “Don’t want to take the chance of getting any aconite on our skin.”

A chill went up Mandy’s spine while she donned the gloves and checked for holes.

She followed Quintana through the master bedroom, with its heavy cherrywood furnishings, into the master bathroom. A glass-block walled shower stood in one corner and a Jacuzzi soaking tub in another, under a picture window overlooking the river below. Under a long mirror on one wall was a granite countertop with two sinks. One was cluttered with makeup pots and tubes and perfume bottles, and the other was completely bare except for an electric shaver plugged into an outlet. Either Tom King had been a neat freak, or Paula had already disposed of all of his things except for the shaver.

Quintana pointed toward the medicine cabinet. “You look in there, and I’ll search the lady’s cosmetics and ointments here. Tell me if you find any suspicious-looking powder or something that might be a piece of Western monkshood root.” Quintana pulled out a drawer under the sink counter and leaned over it.

Mandy opened the medicine cabinet. She felt a little guilty, like a party guest snooping on her host, then reminded herself she was part of a law enforcement team. Who would have thought that a former whitewater river guide would be sorting through someone’s medicine bottles?

She went through all the bottles, opening them one at a time, but found only pills inside, mostly over-the-counter painkillers, cold medicine and stomach remedies, and a prescription for a cholesterol-lowering statin. At first, given their body types, she was surprised to see the prescription was written for Paula and not Tom. Then it hit her—Paula was the epitome of a Type A personality.