Page 61 of It Happened on the Lake

“Just warning you, man,” Rand said, then made his way back to the office.

As he expected, Chelle was at her desk and she was seething, her coffee ignored and cooling on the corner of her desk.

“He’s a douche bag,” she said, and before Rand could get a word in edgewise added, “And don’t make apologies for him.”

“Wouldn’t even try.”

“Here’s a crossword clue for you: What’s another name for partner of Eleanor Brady? Two words.”

“Chelle, I don’t—”

“Bing. Bing.” She pretended to push a buzzer. “Too late. You lose.” She glared up at him. “The answer is Sick Prick .”

He started to argue but couldn’t. He didn’t blame her for being furious.

Poking the air angrily, as if Rand were to blame, she spat, “He’s gonna lose his job and his retirement!

” Her near-black eyes glittered. “I wonder what the old ‘ball and chain’ would think about that?” So livid her mocha-colored skin had darkened, she closed her eyes, balled her fists, and took a deep breath.

As he rolled his chair back to the desk, she slowly relaxed, letting out her breath and allowing her hands to unclench. Then, another prolonged breath, part of an exercise regimen he’d witnessed before when she was frustrated.

“Does that work?”

“The breathing?” She expelled more air and nodded. “Most of the time. But with Gunderson? No. Not yet.” And she repeated the exercise another three times before her normal skin tone returned and she seemed calmer again, more in control.

“Okay,” she admitted and took the time to pluck a couple of dead leaves from a trailing plant. “Now I can focus.”

“Good.”

She crumpled the brown leaves and tossed them into her trash can. After a sip of coffee, she picked up a stack of papers on the corner of her desk. “I’ve started looking for anyone Chase Hunt was associated with, going over their statements.”

“And?”

“The kids who lived at the end of the street in the Musgrave family’s rental, they’re all scattered to the wind.

I’m running down Ronald Mayfield. Looks like he moved to Mississippi, but that may not be current.

I’ve checked with the Jacksonville PD. Charla Lopez is in the Seattle area, and I’m waiting for a call back.

I think I have a lead on Janet Van Arsdale. She’s the one who went by Moonbeam?”

Rand remembered, suppressed a smile.

“They all lived just a couple of doors down from the Hunts and you, right?”

“Yep.”

“You know them?”

“Not by name, no. But I saw them coming and going. I’d heard about the house being a potential place to score pot or LSD or whatever.”

She leaned back and eyed him. “Seems like a bad place to deal out of,” she observed. “Dead end street, two cops as neighbors.”

“I guess. But there were trails leading down through the woods from the street that runs above the cul-de-sac, if that’s what you want to call it. Southway.”

“I know it. Rims the lake on the south side.”

“Right. And there was always the lake access if anyone wanted to meet their dealer and not have their car near the place.”

“Huh.” Little lines appeared between her eyebrows, and she looked about to ask another question but didn’t. Instead, she contemplated the dark depths in her coffee cup.

He asked, “What about Trick, Tristan Vargas? I have a little info on him.”

“Such as?”

He pulled out the information Levi had given him. “Take a look at this.” He explained about Levi stopping by and the information he’d gathered, then handed her the note. “Cynthia left it with Edward Sievers, who also lives at Serenity Acres.”

“Your neighbor, way back when? The guy who first saw Anna Reed’s body in the lake?”

“The very same.” He handed her the note.

“So she expected to die,” Chelle mused, opening the stationery and reading, her eyebrows drawing together.

“Weird. ‘Make him pay,’ but ‘ They killed him.’ Like two or more people actually killed her son and she kept it quiet, even though she knew? And now, what? One or more of them are gone? What happened? Did they move away? Did they die? I don’t get it,” she said, but the wheels were turning in her head when he gave her the bank statement and torn vehicle registration for the van. “More?” she asked. “What’s this?”

“From Levi Hunt. The bank statement came with the note from his mother. He got hold of the van’s registration from Sievers and did some checking on his own.”

“Yeah, he’s a PI. I know that much.”

“Right.” Rand relayed his conversation with Levi including, when she asked, that Levi didn’t know how Cynthia got from the care facility to the lake. She bit her lip, lost in thought as she returned the note to Levi. “Do you have any theories?”

“Nothing solid. Just bits and pieces,” he said.

Over the course of the fitful night and the run this morning, his thoughts had gone down dark alleys to blind corners and blank walls and doors that he was going to force open.

But his ideas were half-baked at best, worrisome and dark at worst, and certainly not ready to be shared.

She perused the pages, her eyebrows drawing together. He thought about what he’d known about Vargas and decided the guy made up personas with his aliases. No way could someone named Larry Smith pull off the cool hippie vibe Trick exuded.

“So you think this is all connected?”

“Don’t know. But possibly.”

“So we need to find Trick.”

Chelle, bothered, set the page of stationery aside.

“Strangest suicide note I’ve ever seen.” She glanced up at Rand.

“As for our friend with the multiple aliases, I haven’t nailed his whereabouts down yet.

But I’m hoping good old Moonbeam can shed some light on where he might have landed.

” She smiled at her own joke. “Van Arsdale—she’s Janet Collins now—still in the area.

Milwaukie—well, really the Oak Grove area—divorced with two teenaged sons.

I’ve got a call in to her.” She eyed him speculatively.

“You didn’t have any dealings with them growing up? Moonbeam and Trick/Larry?”

“Are you asking if I scored drugs there? No. I knew about it but wasn’t into it.”

“What about girls?” Chelle asked. “Did you score with any of them?”

He scoffed. “Give me a break.”

“Hey, I was just asking.” She blew across her cup before taking a swallow and eyeing him over the rim. “Wasn’t it the Summer of Love or something?”

“Not that year,” he said. “Not for me. I was in the army.”

“If you say so.” Chelle slid out of her chair and walked to his desk. “So you’re reopening the Olivia Dixon case?” she asked, motioning to one of the case files on his desk.

“Just looking it over.”

“Maybe find some connection to Chase Hunt’s disappearance?” she suggested, leaning back in her chair. “Both happened on the same night. With Harper Reed at the center of both investigations.”

“Don’t think there’s a connection,” he said, noticing the papers strewn on her desk. “You’ve got Anna Reed’s file out, too.”

“I figured another look wouldn’t hurt.” Taking a sip from her cup, she said, “Too many deaths around the damned lake. All with connections to Dixon Island and Harper Reed.”

“You still think Harper’s involved?” he asked, disbelieving.

“I can’t make the connections,” Chelle admitted, “but she’s always there, on the fringes.”

Much as he’d like to, Rand couldn’t argue the facts.

“Not only did she mess up her grandmother’s pills and it killed her but she was there when Anna Reed ended up in the lake—”

“She was a kid,” he reminded her.

“And then there was her brother, too. She found him.” Chelle held his gaze. “Kind of a lot of trauma for one girl, wouldn’t you say?”

“Evan’s case was open and shut.”

She reached for a file on her desk, flipped it open, and scanned the old pages. Her brow furrowed and her lips puckered.

Rand read Evan Reed’s name typed in bold letters.

His insides squeezed. No way did they need to look into Evan Reed’s death.

“Maybe it’s not so open and shut,” she said, lifting a page and scanning it, though he sensed it was for show, that she’d already read the case notes and autopsy report at least once. “The strange thing is that I checked the evidence room, hoping to find anything associated with the case.”

“And?” he hated to ask. Something in the gleam in her eye warned him.

“And the weapon’s missing.”

Rand felt the muscles in the back of his neck tighten.

“Missing?”

“Uh-huh. No pearl-handled revolver anywhere to be found.” She took a long swallow of coffee. “What do you think about that?”

“You’re sure?”

“I am.” She cocked her head. “You don’t believe me?”

“No, no, it’s not that.”

Her gaze told him she didn’t buy it.

“But there’s a record of who checked it out,” he said, his mind spinning. He didn’t want to think about Evan’s death. Ever.

“Yeah, I know. That’s just it. Back then, all the records were on sign-out cards. The card for Evan Reed’s case is missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yep.”

His stomach clenched.

“I talked to the officer in charge. Of course she’s as baffled as you are. But she’s only been at the desk for three years. And the officer before her?”

“Dead,” Rand said, remembering Fred Chambers and the stroke that took him out. “So what you’re telling me is that there’s no way to find out who was the last person to look in the file?”

“That’s about the size of it. It was way before we had cameras mounted near the evidence room.” She asked, “What about the old man’s death? What’s the story there?”

“What old man? You mean George Dixon?” he clarified.

“Yeah.”

“I think he died in a car crash. Single vehicle. The story was that he was drunk and had a stroke or something, driving home.” He thought back. “I was a teenager at the time, about to get my license, and my father sat me down, told me about it, and warned me about drinking and driving.”

“1965.” She was nodding.

“You think Harper was involved in that one, too?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. And this time she didn’t find the body. But, big surprise here, Gunderson didn’t have all of his facts straight. Yes, alcohol was involved. But it wasn’t a stroke but shock. Anaphylactic shock.”

“He was allergic to something?”

“Severely. Venom hypersensitivity. In layman’s terms, insect sting allergy,” she said, nodding, then glanced up, checking the clock.

“Uh-oh. We’re already late for the morning briefing.

Katz won’t like that. Let’s go.” But she didn’t wait for him, just finished her coffee in one swallow, then shot out the door as gung-ho as ever.

Rand tried to pull himself together.

Evan Reed’s death? She wanted to look into that, too?

Damn.

But it made sense, he supposed, because all the people she was talking about were connected. And at the center of the web?

Harper Reed.

Evan’s sister.

Olivia Dixon’s granddaughter.

Anna Reed’s daughter.

George Dixon’s granddaughter.

And, of course, Chase Hunt’s girlfriend.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, didn’t want to reopen all the old wounds.

Not so Michelle “Chelle” Brown. Nu-uh. She was eager to rip off all the bandages, reveal the scars, dig deep, and excise the truth.

I suppose it’s time , he thought as he got out of his chair and headed into the hallway.

But it was gonna sting.

It was gonna sting like a bitch.