Excerpt
Chapter One
Patrick Hess could not believe his good luck. It was the kind of luck that occasionally hits private investigators, the kind that is talked about in wonder around the water cooler after the case is long-solved.
The kind of luck that would go into the detective novel he’d always wanted to write…
And to think it happened in the middle of an office supply store!
The luck came in the form of a loudspeaker announcement. "Grace McNeil," announced the speaker. "Grace McNeil, please return to the Copy Department."
And Grace McNeil, he was pretty sure, was juuuussst the woman he was trying to find. Luck, pure and simple.
He hurried to arrive at the Copy Department of the enormous Staples store before Grace McNeil might get there. Picking up a random pack of felt-tip markers, he arranged himself next to the display of markers and waited.
Then his luck ran out. For not one, not two, but three women descended on the Copy Department, and not one of them fit the physical profile of the woman he was seeking.
The first woman was too old. Kristopher Lehrer hadn’t married a woman approaching her seventh decade.
The second woman looked more the part, but she was shepherding three small kids with her. Patrick cocked his head, studying her over the display rack. Long blond hair - check - slightly on the heavy side - check - two earrings in both ears – check. But Kristopher Lehrer had told him that his wife had only one child, his precious little girl Jeannie. This woman had two young girls and an older boy with her, and from her affectionate behavior it was clear the woman wasn’t babysitting. Patrick gave an irritated shake of his head. This couldn't be Grace McNeil.
The third woman didn't fit the profile at all. She was about the right age - late twenties - but she was slim instead of heavy. She had chestnut hair cropped at the shoulders instead of long blond hair; she had no children with her; and she wore only one earring per ear. He watched the woman, pushing aside some pens to peer through the display. Her profile seemed wrong - the nose was a different shape, the shoulders hunched just a bit, the cheekbones too pronounced. Patrick was too far away to hear the murmured conversation between her and the clerk that might have confirmed her name.
But then the woman gathered up her copied materials, turned, and walked past him on her way out of the store. She didn't notice him - it was part of his job, not to be noticed - but for the first time he got a good look at her eyes.
Large, green, heavily fringed, without makeup...they had a haunted quality that pierced him viscerally. Sad eyes. Those eyes, though more troubled than his photograph depicted, looked eerily like those of the woman he was seeking.
He suppressed a twist of pity for whatever troubles had caused those eyes to be so haunted. It wasn't his job to fall for pitiful eyes. It was his job to find those eyes – if they were the right ones - and arrange for them to go back to where they belonged.
At random, he grabbed a packet of felt-tip pens and hurried to get in line behind her at the checkout stand. He didn't stand too close to her - he didn't want to be noticed in any way - but he was able to pick up the faint scent of gardenias and Jergens lotion.
“I can take you over here, sir,” said a clerk, opening the next cash register over.
Patrick shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks. Just have one thing.” He held up his pens.
“Well, I’ll get you through quickly then,” said the friendly clerk. She waved him over. “Come along.”
Shut up, he thought desperately. He saw this Grace McNeil – if it was her – glance his way as she placed her items by the register. But the clerk was insistent, and unless he wanted to draw further attention to himself, he had little choice but to go to the other check-out stand.
So, he missed seeing any identification she may have pulled out for the clerk. But he noted that she was wearing rather old tennis shoes, stained at the edges. Her jeans looked worn, and her short-sleeved plaid shirt was creased.
He shook his head. The one thing Lehrer had emphasized was that his wife, Margo, was a sophisticated sort who enjoyed the cultural benefits of an urban environment. Patrick wasn't sure Eugene, Oregon offered the cultural advantages that Margo apparently enjoyed, but he was willing to be generous.
She did, however, have a second pierced hole in her earlobe. If only the rest of her looked right! Still, the male part of him had to admit that, whether or not this was the woman he was looking for, he sure liked looking at her.
She paid for her purchases in cash, so he wasn't able to glimpse a name on a check or credit card. She gathered up the bag holding her documents and departed the store. Outside, he saw her pause and glance around…the stance of a woman used to being followed.
His instincts were piqued. Used to being followed…
Patrick paid for his pens and hurried after her.
****
Grace emerged into the bright late-summer sunshine and blinked at the contrast. She stopped and glanced around, a habit that had never left her. She felt for “the prickles,” but none came.
Satisfied, she stepped off the curb into the parking lot and crossed over to her 1985 two-toned brown Ford pickup truck. It was a vehicle so ordinary, so common, that it never caught anyone's attention. It was perfect.
She started the truck and then looked at the mileage odometer. The gas gauge was broken – it had broken two years ago and she didn’t have the money to fix it – but she knew when it was time to fill the truck by how many miles showed on the odometer.
One-hundred eleven miles. Should be plenty of gas left.
She swung onto West Eleventh Avenue, then left onto Garfield. When Grace hit Highway 99, she took I-5 heading south. Once on the interstate, the tension she felt whenever she went to Eugene left her. She settled down for the half-hour drive home.
Her home, thanks to Hazel. Grace let her mind drift as she drove in the right hand lane, never speeding, always following the traffic laws. Good old Hazel Flanagan. There had never been a spunkier, kinder, better woman, Grace was sure. For Hazel to take her in when she most needed it had been a blessing beyond all; but Hazel had done more, so much more for her. Even now, two years after Hazel’s death, Grace could hardly think of her without getting teary-eyed.
Thirty miles south of Eugene was the town of Faucet, small and old-fashioned and obscure. Grace drove through the community and hesitated in front of the feed store. She needed chicken feed, but didn’t have enough cash left. She’d have to come back later.
She waved at Dirk in front of the feed store, and then, since the car in front of her had slowed, she rolled down her window and called to him, "I'll be back in a day or two for chicken scratch!"
"See you then!" he called back, as he continued loading something for a customer.
Grace settled back and waited for the slow-down to clear. The traffic of the small town never bothered her. She loved Faucet, loved the small-town closeness of it, loved the welcoming feeling it gave her. She had been scared - terrified - to get to know anyone in town when she first arrived. Hazel had gently led her by the hand, almost literally, until she had emerged from her dazed shell and begun to live again.
The traffic cleared, and Grace made a left turn onto rural Highway 38 and left town. Two miles out of town, she took Hayhurst Road and wound her way into the mountains.
****
Following behind her in his car, Patrick noticed the man with whom she exchanged the pleasantries. A farmer’s feed store. Interesting. She obviously knew the guy. Clearly, she was a regular customer. He made a note to come back and check on the situation.
He followed her, as far back as he could without losing sight of her truck, all the way through Faucet. Faucet, of all places. Criminy, the names these westerners gave their towns. Sounded like a piece of hardware, not a community.
Still, it seemed a pleasant-enough place. There was a combination liquor store and tanning salon - good grief, what a partnership - a grocery store, a number of antique stores, an absurdly large bridal salon, a fire station, a medical clinic…In looking around, he almost missed her sharp left-hand turn onto rural Highway 38. Idiot, he cursed himself. Pay attention to what you're doing.
The car in front cleared away, leaving him following behind her out of town. She slowed and turned left onto another road - Hayhurst Road, he noted. He made sure that he kept a discrete distance between their vehicles as he followed her.
For six miles he trailed her, past a gravel pit, past a scattering of small homes surrounded by broken-down debris and abandoned cars. He swerved to avoid a girl’s bicycle left on the side of the road, its shiny pink-and-silver streamers fluttering from the handlebars. He glanced at the untidy yard where a woman was hanging laundry on a clothes line amidst a scattering of children’s toys. What a mess.
Her truck continued down the road, past small ranches and farms. Six miles was a long time to follow a single car, and he was concerned she would notice him. He made a mental note, if he was able to find where she lived, to return the next time in a different car.
Would she notice she was being tailed and keep driving to try and shake him off? Or would she simply go home? That little edge of uncertainty kept him in this job; that little frission of excitement or tension kept his senses alert and his mind sharp. After five years as a detective, he now wondered if he could live without that sensation.
It didn't appear that she had noticed him. When she slowed down, he slowed too, just as if he was any old car on the road behind her.
She pulled into a semi-circular gravel driveway before a fenced yard. The house beyond was a pale blue, about seventy years old, and tidy. Patrick gave no more than a passing glance at it, acting just as if he were an ordinary traveler, before driving on. He noted the mileage on his odometer, and continued down Hayhurst Road.
The road wound in a large half-circle past fields and woods, bringing him, after another five miles, to the small community of Pincolla. Pincolla, he thought. Sounded like an alcoholic beverage. But, like Faucet, it was a small farming community with a smattering of cafés, a post office, churches, taverns, a community center, and a library.
This woman, hopefully the woman he was seeking, lived on a place halfway between the two towns. Patrick turned his car around and retraced his steps, slowing as he passed the place where Grace McNeil had pulled in.
Sure enough, her truck was still there, and she wasn’t in it. Whether she lived here or was visiting someone would have to wait for more proof, but his instincts said this was her home.
He saw the fields stretching behind the house, the barn, a scattering of cows. The woman lived on a farm. Good. Excellent, in fact. He had spent many summers as a teenager working on his grandparent’s ranch in Colorado. Farm work was not an unknown experience for him.
He noted the address, then sped up and began the drive back to Eugene, swerving wide to avoid a child on the pink bicycle he saw earlier.
It was time to switch cars...and create a new identity. Patrick needed to become a man with an excuse to spend time on a farm.
****
"Three bags of hen scratch, some fly powder, and four sacks of COB with molasses," said Grace. She pushed aside a strand of hair and smiled at Dirk Van Winden.
Dirk was graying at the temples but was handsome still, and he and Grace had been friends since she came to Faucet. There was no danger in Dirk. He was happily married to Ethyl, his bride of thirty-five years, and he had a boatload of strapping sons to take over his feedstore as well as a passel of grandchildren to spoil.
No, there was no danger in Dirk.
"You still interested in getting some help 'round your place?" he asked.
Grace pushed that annoying strand out of the way once again. "Might be. I tweaked my back last week while vaccinating the cattle, so a little help would be nice. I don't know what I afford, though."
"You may not have to afford anything," said Dirk, tossing a seventy-five pound sack of corn, oats, and barley - COB - onto his shoulder as if it was a sack of feathers. "Fellow came through town yesterday, wanting to know if anyone was letting rooms." He dumped the sack in the back of her truck and went for another. "Seems he's a writer, and needs a quiet place to stay while he works on his book. He's willing to pay for his board plus do some work to earn his keep. I thought about you right away, keeping Hazel's farm running 'n all by yourself. You've got that little guesthouse arrangement you stayed in while caring for Hazel - ever thought about letting it out? For pay?"
"What on earth's a writer doing in Faucet, of all places?" asked Grace, loading the fifty pound sacks of hen scratch herself. Her back twinged, but she ignored it. After four years of farm labor, she should be able to handle the bags easily. "I would think one of those types would rather be in Eugene. Writers are supposed to be bohemian, aren't they? If so, Eugene's the place for them."
"That's what I asked him, but he said no. His book takes place on a ranch, he said, so he doesn't want the city surrounding him while he works on it. He's more interested in getting some real live experience with cows and such. Like I said, thought of you right away."
"That's nice of you, Dirk." Grace climbed over the back end of the pickup and hauled the bags of feed around until they were distributed to her satisfaction. "But I don't know...having a strange man about the place, with me out there by myself."
Dirk scratched the stubble on his chin. "I can appreciate that," he conceded. "Still and all, I suppose you can ask for references, that kind of thing." He shrugged and led the way back inside the store in order to ring up her order. "It's something to think about, after all."
Grace handed over four dozen eggs plus cash - no checks, no credit cards - to pay for the supplies, then got into her truck and drove home.
It was something to think about, after all.
****
And think about it she did. She thought about it while she moved the irrigation pipes out of the north field and stacked them next to the pond, despite her aching back. The pipes weighed a good hundred pounds each and ran to twenty feet in length.
She thought about it while lugging a bale of alfalfa out of the haybarn and breaking it open for her herd of purebred Dexter cattle.
She thought about it when she fed and watered the chickens and gathered the eggs.
She thought about it when she sat down that night to fillet the two dozen catfish she'd netted in the pond and prepare them for the freezer.
And when she finally swallowed three aspirin and tumbled into bed that night, tired beyond all rational thought, she actually dreamt about it.
Dreamt about a tall, slim man, with high cheekbones and a shock of black hair, a friendly gleam to his hazel eyes and a quirky smile. A man who was surprisingly comfortable - for a city slicker - around her cattle and around a tractor. A man with a strong back and little curiosity.
She awoke the next morning and milked the two cows, strained and chilled the milk, separated the cream, then pulled the tractor up to the north pasture to mow it. One last cutting of alfalfa this year - that was it. She hoped she had enough to get the animals through the winter.
It took her three hours to mow the twelve-acre pasture. Then she pulled the tractor back into the utility shed, strode into the house, swallowed two more aspirin, and plucked her cell phone out of the kitchen cabinet where she kept it.
"Dirk?" she said. "Good morning, it’s Grace. So tell me...what's the name of that writer fellow who wants a ranch job?"
****
She waited for him at Betty's Cafe in downtown Faucet. Betty’s was a no-nonsense place with Formica-topped tables and cracked-vinyl stools in front of the counter. But it was cheap, and Sally, the waitress, was not the curious type.
Grace flexed her hands and tried to stifle her nervousness. Men still made her edgy. When the tall, slim fellow opened the glass door to the café and stood for a moment inside, scanning its clientele, she told herself the reason her heart jumped was nerves. Just nerves.
It couldn't be his hazel eyes, the ones that turned up just a bit at the corners. It couldn't be his quiet demeanor, one of those still-waters-run-deep types. It couldn't be the comfortably worn clothes he wore - scuffed hiking boots, well-loved jeans, a faded short-sleeved red denim shirt. It couldn't be that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the man she'd dreamed about.
He looked, she must admit, like a country boy, a man used to outdoor work. He didn't look like an urban replant.
She waited for the ‘prickles’ – an awareness of something amiss, her only weapon of self-protection. But nothing came.
****
Patrick saw her sitting alone and watching him. He nodded his head gravely and strode over to her booth. "Miss McNeil?"
"Yes. You must be Patrick Hess."
"I am." He offered her his hand to shake, and she hesitated a moment before accepting.
He kept his handshake firm. "I'm pleased to meet you. May I?" He gestured toward the booth seat opposite her.
"Of course."
Sitting opposite, Patrick saw that she was anxious and unsmiling. She clasped her hands until the knuckles whitened, and there were tension lines around her mouth. Why?
The waitress came to take their order. Patrick ordered coffee, black. Grace ordered coffee with cream and sugar. Patrick made a mental note of that, and added it to his roster of details about her to check out with Kristopher Lehrer later on.
"So...are you from around here?” she asked.
“No. The Midwest.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What brings you out to a place like Faucet, Oregon?”
Patrick quirked a small smile at her. "You really want to know?"
"Well, sure."
Patrick traced the rim of his coffee cup with an idle forefinger. "I took a map of the U.S., closed my eyes, circled my finger--" He demonstrated, circling a finger above the table top. "--and plopped it down. It landed on Faucet."
"You're kidding!" A small smile started at the corners of her mouth, then vanished. To Patrick, it was clear she was controlling her emotions.
"Nope."
"So choosing Oregon was not specifically what you wanted?"
"Nope." He flicked hair off his forehead. He knew he was capable of smooth, realistic lying, just as he was capable of dressing the part to blend into whatever character he was required to role-play during the course of a job. He had raided a Goodwill store just this morning, to make sure he was dressed appropriately. "I just knew I was heading west, but I really didn't care where. That's the advantage of being a writer. I can go anywhere, set a book any place I choose. I just wanted a small ranch or farm-type setting." He gave a casual shrug. "And what better way to learn the ropes than to do the work?"
"But why Faucet? Why not Eugene? That town is crawling with writers."
He grimaced. "I'm not interested in crawling with other writers."
"Where are you from?"
"Chicago," he said, and gritted his teeth. He prayed she wasn't familiar with the city, since he'd been there only once. His parents had only recently moved there. "Hyde Park area. Ever been there?"
To his relief she shook her head. "No. I've never been to Chicago at all."
"Hot and humid in the summer, cold in the winter, but otherwise not bad," he commented.
"Now, you understand, Mr. Hess, that my farm isn't very big. Thirty acres, fourteen head of cattle, that's about it."
"So I make my setting a thirty-acre farm. Nothing wrong with that. All I need is some privacy."
"What is it you write?"
"Detective thrillers. Y'know, those hard-boiled types." Might as well add a bit of realism to his alibi. God knows he knew enough about the detective part.
She raised a cool eyebrow. "A detective thriller? Set on a farm?"
"Hey, it stands apart from the crowd." He kept his voice light and teasing as he added, "I imagine that people living in rural areas are just as much in need of detective work as urban people."
Her mouth tightened. Patrick knew right away he had made a mistake. Idiot, he thought. You're scaring her with all this talk of detectives.
Her green eyes clouded with what looked like pain. She dropped her gaze to the tabletop and picked at a chip in the saucer of her coffee cup with a thumbnail. The silence lengthened as Patrick - for once unable to come up with a smooth cover for his blundering words - searched for something that would ease over his mistake.
She finally raised her eyes to his, and he marveled at the mask of coolness she now wore. It was a shame that she should look upon him with such…such neutrality. He wished she would look upon him as a man.
Get a grip, he told himself. She’s off-limits. It startled him, this humanizing of his prey. He wasn't used to reacting that way.
He realized that he'd better just do his damned job, confirm her identity, and get the hell out of Oregon before he did something he might regret.
"...references. I'm sure you'll understand."
He blinked, realizing that once again his mind had wandered and he'd completely missed what she'd said. God in heaven, what was wrong with him? Show him one pretty woman with haunted eyes, and his entire training and sharpness and perception went down the toilet.
"Excuse me?" he asked, with what he hoped was a self-conscious smile. "I'll have to warn you, Miss McNeil, that I'm subject to wool-gathering at odd moments. I'll think up a sudden turn of phrase for a scene I've been working on, and my mind wanders as I mentally polish it. This is a way of apologizing for missing what you just said."
She raised her brow again - whew, the woman could be frosty when she chose - and repeated her statement. "I'm not in the habit of hiring strange men to work my farm, Mr. Hess. So I'll have to ask for references. I'm sure you'll understand."
"Of course," he said at once. He'd been expecting this, and had a list in his wallet for the occasion. He leaned over on one buttock, removed his wallet from his back pocket, and flipped open the leather. His badge and his driver's license were tucked out of sight, so she wouldn't glimpse the New York identification and panic.
He removed a type-written index card, folded once, and flipped it over on the table toward her. "Here are two guys I boarded with while researching my previous books. I can also give you my home address, if you like, although frankly I'm not there all that often. The phone's been disconnected - I use my cell phone when I crash there." His "references" were retired detectives, co-workers from years past, who had agreed to such a scenario. They were in different states, Florida and Arizona, and were well-coached with the story they were supposed to confirm.
His ‘home address’ was, quite simply, his parents' new address in Chicago.
He watched as she picked up the card, unfolded it, and scanned the names and addresses. He hoped it gave the casual appearance that a writer might portray. Nothing ultra formal, yet something for her to check up on right away.
"How many books have you written?" she asked.
"Two," he answered. "I'm starting to build a name for myself. Jason's Big Day - that's the name of my first one. You've heard of it?" He cocked his head expectantly, and just as he predicted, she shook her head. He was confident she didn't read detective fiction. "And that was followed by Jason's Nightmare. The one I'm working on now will be my third Jason book."
"Well, part of me is flattered, that you'd want to set your book on my little farm. But you understand that I need someone who can do physical labor on the place. Have you ever worked with animals, tractors, that kind of thing?"
"When I was a teenager, I spent summers working my grandparent's place in Colorado," he replied. "They had a wheat farm in eastern Colorado, so I've worked with tractors and combines. I've ridden horses and even learned some roping, though I was never much good at it. I've had some exposure to cattle, but probably not as much as you'd like. I have a strong back, and I don't complain that much. The bottom line, Miss McNeil, is that as long as I have a few hours a day to write, I'm willing to pay five hundred dollars a month in board plus help with the heavy work on the farm."
As expected, her nostrils flared at the mention of the money. So, she was hard up for cash. Good. Much more likely to take the bait.
She picked up the index card and tapped it against the table with a distracted air. Her incredible green eyes focused on some point in the middle distance, and he could practically see the gears whirling in her brain. He was silent while she figured out her finances, knowing that the sum he mentioned would be enough to tip the balance in his favor. Heck, she might not even check out his references.
At last, she refocused on him. "Let me describe my setup," she said. Her tone of voice was still cool, calm. He rather admired her for that. "I have a guesthouse, a two-room building separate from the main house. It has a wood stove and a bathroom. No shower, but you can use the shower in the house. There’s also no kitchen, so I can provide meals. Or, you can use the kitchen if you prefer to cook for yourself. I can't promise your quarters will be completely private, since there’s a pantry next to your bathroom that I use. The rooms are furnished, and since they're separate from the house, you should have all the quiet you'd need."
He nodded but said nothing. So far, this was all working out better than he'd hoped. With some luck, he'd spend a week or two poking around the place. He’d confirm her identity, find out where the kid was, and get the hell back to Buffalo
"As for farm duties,” she continued, “I would expect help during reasonable daylight hours. If I can get some work between nine in the morning and four or so in the afternoon, I would consider that adequate. Does this all sound suitable to you?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Naturally, I’ll need to check your references first. Where can I reach you?"
He hesitated. "Right now I'm staying in a motel in Cottage Grove," he lied. "I can give you my cell phone number, but it seems to get pretty spotty coverage out here. Can I call you instead? Say, in a day or two?"
"I don't have a phone, Mr. Hess."
Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows in surprise. No phone. Interesting. "Then how will you --"
"I use payphones for whatever calls I need to make. I also have a cell phone for emergencies, but I don't give out that phone number."
"Of course. Well--" He scratched at his chin, considering. He supposed he'd just have to find a motel in Cottage Grove, check in, and relay the phone number back to her. "You can just call me on the motel phone, then. I could leave the number with that fellow in the feed store. Would that work?"
"That'll work. Now, another thing, Mr. Hess..." She dropped her eyes to the coffee in front of her, firmed her lips, and raised her head again to regard him with that cool air. "I’ll admit I have some concerns with the idea of a strange man on my place. My farm is not exactly isolated, but it's far enough off the beaten track that we will be essentially alone. A woman by herself is always vulnerable. I know you understand where I'm going with this--"
"Of course. Truthfully, Miss McNeil, I’d be surprised if that didn't bother you. I don't know how else to show my good intentions - give you my word, perhaps? That I'll behave myself?"
She probed him with her eyes for a disconcerting five long seconds. Criminy, the woman had eyes that could see into a man's soul. He held her gaze, for he would not let her think his intentions were anything but professional.
Finally, she gave a jerky nod. "Very well. Let me check out your references, Mr. Hess, and I'll be in touch."
She laid down a five-dollar bill on the tabletop, rose, and was gone. The small bells on the cafe's door jingled in her wake.
He gave a sigh of relief. He was in. The first step was done. With luck, he'd crack this case quickly and be gone - before his heart became involved.
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