Town at the Edge of Darkness Page 6

  Ahead was Cloud Drive, the street where Patterson lived. Ananke sensed Toni was about to go the other way, so as they neared the corner she said, “This street looks cute. Do you mind if we take a look?”

  Perhaps in another setting, her request would have appeared suspicious, but it was perfectly natural for the kind of tour they were on. Toni said, “Of course,” without batting an eye and turned right.

  “It really is lovely,” Ananke said a few minutes later.

  In truth, she wouldn’t be caught dead living here. While the homes did look well built and even upscale, the construction crews seemed to have been working from only five basic blueprints, creating a cookie-cutter neighborhood. Ananke’s least favorite kind.

  As Toni droned on about the benefits of the area, Ananke searched the addresses until she spotted Patterson’s place. Big for one person, but Patterson was a CFO, and at the lower prices in the area, she could have probably bought a home twice the size. Patterson had chosen blueprint No. 3, a faux craftsman two-story, painted medium gray with white and turquois trim. The only thing setting it apart from most of the other No. 3s was that Patterson’s garage sat to the left of the house, not the right.

  No car in the driveway or out front, but someone clearly had been taking care of the yard, because even with the new spring growth, everything looked trimmed and clean. A gardener service seemed a fair bet, but it would be worth having Shinji check that out.

  I wonder if she has a maid, too.

  “If any of your employees prefers more privacy,” the Realtor said, “there are plenty of properties outside of town with a little land and no neighbors for as far as they can see.”

  “I’m sure a few will be interested in that.”

  “I could take you out that way now if you’d like, so you can get a feel for what I mean.”

  Ananke pretended to consider the suggestion. “Actually, what I’d love to see is…” She paused, as if trying to recall something. “I believe it’s called Green Hills Estates? For our CEO, of course. I understand that might be an appropriate location.”

  Toni’s eyes lit up at the potential commission for one of the high-end properties. “It absolutely would be. Be happy to show you that.”

  Since Rosario knew it would be the simpler task, she tackled checking out Officer Harris first.

  The M on the woman’s name tag stood for Morgan. She was thirty-two, and—except for a four-year stint in the army right out of high school—was a lifetime resident of Bradbury. Her parents had owned a hardware shop downtown that went bankrupt five years before the local tech boom took hold. Patterson’s father had taken odd jobs after that, and been seriously injured operating a forklift. After surgery, he obtained an infection that, two weeks later, claimed his life.

  Young Morgan took a job at the local grocery store to help her mother out, and when she finished high school, joined the military and regularly sent a large chunk of her earnings home. When she returned to Bradbury, she moved back in with her mother and the two had lived together until the elder Patterson passed away two years earlier from cancer.

  Officer Harris’s military service records told of a competent soldier with plenty of commendations and no mentions of disciplinary actions or even minor trouble. After her service ended, she applied to the Bradbury police department, and was sent to a six-month academy program in Seattle. Since that time, she’d been one of the twenty-three officers on the Bradbury PD payroll. The first year, she filled in where needed, but since then had served almost exclusively on the graveyard shift. Her financial records showed her debts were contained to a $35,000 balance on the house she inherited, and about $500 due on a single credit card.

  The only other items Rosario discovered were a handful of mentions in the local paper over the years. Nothing character revealing, just participation in this or that event, and the occasional appearance in the “Police Blotter” column as a responding officer.

  All this boiled down to Harris being a competent public servant who had taken care of her mother until the woman died. Rosario knew Ananke would have liked more, but short of talking to anyone who knew Harris, this was all she’d get for now. Rosario didn’t think Ananke would want her nosing around that much yet.

  Rosario turned her attention to Natasha Patterson’s phone.

  She used a program that rendered her own phone number untraceable, and called Patterson’s cell. Straight to voice mail. She went online and employed a well-used hack to get into the phone carrier’s system. Sure enough, the phone was not currently connected to any network. Which usually meant it was either off or out of range of any cell towers.

  Rosario set up a bug that would alert her the moment the phone reconnected. She then navigated to the company’s records and found those for Patterson’s number. The last tower contact was at 8:07 p.m. on April 5. After that, the phone was off the system.

  The last call had occurred at 7:23 p.m. Reverse lookup revealed the receiving number belonged to Brian Patterson. The name was the same as the missing woman’s brother. Rosario checked the address and confirmed the number belonged to him. The call had lasted for twelve minutes. Corresponding cell-tower information indicated Tasha Patterson had remained within an area covered by a single tower. Rosario coordinated that with a map of Bradbury, and confirmed the tower’s zone included Tasha Patterson’s house.

  Rosario returned to the main records screen. Thirty-two minutes after the call to Brian Patterson ended at 7:35 p.m., the phone disconnected from the network and had not connected again. Rosario would have to dig a little deeper.

  Getting into the company’s raw data wasn’t as easy, but soon enough she was awash in a sea of numbers that made no sense to the naked eye. She brought up a programmable computer worm she’d used under similar circumstances, modified it for her current needs, and sent it into the jumble of information to pull out what she wanted. It ran for eleven minutes before displaying the message it was done. Rosario opened the spreadsheet it had created and raised an eyebrow.

  She had set the parameters to collect data on Patterson’s phone from six hours before 8:07 p.m. to six hours after. As expected, there was a full list of tower check-ins and data use throughout the afternoon and early evening of April 5. What shouldn’t have been there was any additional data after the cut-off time. And yet, there was data all the way up to 9:57 p.m.

  She readjusted the parameters to cover the timespan from 9:57 p.m. on the fifth until a minute ago. This time the routine finished in only a few minutes. No spreadsheet was created because there was no information.

  While Patterson’s phone had definitely gone off network on April 5, it had happened nearly two hours after the processed records indicated. Which meant those records had been manipulated to cover up the true time.

  She jumped back into the real records, to check on the phone’s location for the phantom time. From 8:08 onward, Patterson’s cell had moved progressively from one tower to the next. Given the number of zones covered and the distance between them, the woman must have been in a vehicle.

  Rosario built a map from the data that showed Patterson heading northeast out of town on the highway for twenty miles, at which point she had stayed in a single zone for fifty-two minutes. After that, the phone headed north again, going an additional thirty-three miles before it abruptly stopped registering.

  She brought up a satellite image of the area where the signal stopped.

  “Huh,” she muttered.

  The last zone extended over the eastern half of the only bridge to cross the Columbia River between Bradbury and the Canadian border.

  According to the raw data, the phone had been within the tower’s operating sphere a bit longer than it had been in each of the previous five towers. Had Patterson switched it off and gone north to Canada? Or maybe west, eventually to Seattle?

  Or maybe she jumped off the bridge.

  The Administrator had not indicated the woman might be suicidal but it couldn’t be ruled out. Rosario foun
d photos of the bridge from several angles. It was high, but with the increased levels spring runoff would bring, not high enough to guarantee death unless a jumper aimed for the pilings. But that would not go unnoticed. Especially not for two weeks.

  She searched for mentions of recent bridge suicides, but there were none. The last reported suicide attempt happened seven years ago, and the would-be jumper was talked out of it.

  She checked for reports of bodies that had been found in the river between the bridge and the Coulee Dam to the south. There were more of these than jumpers, but not many. And again, none in the past few months.

  Okay, she likely didn’t jump from the bridge or get thrown over. Then why did her phone go off right there?

  As Rosario considered the different possibilities, her phone rang. She picked it up, assuming Ananke was calling, but Ricky’s name glowed on the display.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Hello to you, too.”

  “I am busy.”

  “And I’m not. I’m just sitting here in my room watching reruns of Judge Judy. A person can only watch her deal with these imbeciles for so long. I tried calling Ananke but she didn’t answer. I thought maybe you could use some help. Ricky’s here. Ricky should be doing something.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. You are going to have to wait for Ananke. I really—”

  “Rosario, for all that is holy! I’m finally off the boat and I gotta stay in this room? I can’t do that! It’ll drive me crazy.”

  “You were only on the boat for a few days.”

  “You’re missing the point. You gotta have something I can do. Anything. Please!”

  Rosario was about to tell him no again, but then an idea hit her, one she was sure Ananke would approve. “There actually might be something. How would you like to go for a ride?”

  “A ride. Yes! I love that idea. Where?”

  She gave him the location of the bridge and told him about the woman’s phone. “Have a look around. If she jumped, then she would have left her car around there somewhere.”

  “You think she killed herself?”

  “Unlikely but still a possibility.”

  “So you’re sending me on a wild goose chase.”

  “I am sending you to investigate a lead. Or would you rather continue watching your Judge Judy?”

  “Whoa, not complaining. Just making an observation. Count me in. What kind of car does she drive?”

  Rosario consulted the information sheet Ananke had texted her. “A Prius. Light blue, 2016.” She gave him the license number.

  “Thanks, Rosy. Don’t you worry about a thing. Ricky’s on the job!”

  Ricky vowed to buy the Administrator a beer the next time he saw him, for hooking Ricky up with the motorcycle. It was a Yamaha SCR 950. Not a Harley but still a sweet ride, with a nice retro feel. Really, though, any bike would have been fine. To feel the motor between his legs…man, there was nothing like it.

  He had to fight the urge to let the thing fly after he rolled out of the hotel parking lot, but while he was still in Bradbury, he had to play it cool. Once he reached the countryside, he let her rip.

  The road snaked northward between the river on his left and the tree-filled hills on his right. There were few other vehicles on the road. He couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful trip.

  It took him forty-three minutes to reach the guardrail-lined ramp leading up to the bridge. The crossing was half trestle, half whatever the hell engineers called open air, with the latter being the side covered by the last cell tower to register Patterson’s phone.

  If the woman had jumped, there were plenty of spots to choose from. And if traffic had been as light then as it was now, she could have made her leap without anyone seeing.

  Upon reaching the other end of the bridge, Ricky U-turned and headed back across. This time instead of driving all the way to the end, he stopped where the trestle and open sections met, and parked as far to the side as he could.

  He stepped over a short guardrail onto a narrow walkway used by pedestrians wanting to cross. Along the outer edge of the bridge was a nearly continuous waist-high metal barrier. The only breaks came from parapets that flanked the bridge, one on each side, both sticking out three feet over the river. They were located right at the point where the two sections met. Solid concrete walls, same height as the barrier, on three sides, leaving only the sides facing the road open.

  Ricky stepped onto the parapet nearest him and looked down. With the water rushing by below, this would have been a lovely place from which to take one’s swan dive. He glanced at the east bank, thinking there was a good chance the cell tower’s coverage reached this far.

  Though he didn’t expect to find anything, he spent a few moments looking around for signs that someone had been there recently, and then crossed to the parapet on the other side. He found nothing of value.

  He remounted the bike and headed back to land. At the near end of Northport, he stopped at a restaurant and ordered the barbeque ribs and onion rings, hoping they wouldn’t insult his taste buds. He was foolish to worry.

  “How was the meal?” the waitress asked when she came to clear his dishes.

  “If I’m being honest, I’d have to say your ribs have shoved their way into my top ten best-ever list.”

  “Not number one?”

  “It’s a pretty tough list.”

  When she finished picking up everything, she asked, “Can I interest you in some pie?”

  “Don’t tempt me. Just the check, please.”

  “Your loss.”

  She returned a few moments later with the bill.

  He handed her more than enough cash to cover it. “Keep the change.”

  “Why, thank you. You have yourself a good day.”

  “Before you go, can I ask you a question?”

  She smirked as if waiting for him to say exactly that. “Sorry, buddy. Married.”

  “You’ve broken my heart. But that actually wasn’t my question.”

  She looked at him, waiting.

  “If someone left a car parked around here for a week or two, what would happen to it?”

  “You left a car here?”

  “Not me. A friend. He was supposed to pick it up a week ago, but you know, things happened. Told him I’d check on it since I was heading this way.”

  “Oh, well, um…” The side of her mouth scrunched up. “If no one reported it, I would think it would still be where he left it.”

  “And if someone had?”

  “I don’t know. Sheriff, I guess. There’s a substation in the middle of town. You might try there.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  He drove around the area, searching for a light blue Prius. He came across three of the hybrids, but none was the right color. He checked the plates anyway, in case the color info had been wrong. No match.

  He did a drive-by of the sheriff’s station, too. No Priuses in the lot. It could have been moved to a larger, countywide holding area, but he doubted it. In that case, it would be in the system and the Administrator would have been alerted. Ricky’s hunter senses were telling him the car had never been left here. The most likely scenario was that Patterson—or someone—had tossed her mobile out a car’s window as it drove across the bridge.

  He reported his findings to Rosario and headed back south.

  A middle-aged Caucasian guard stepped from the hut at the entrance to Green Hills Estates, and leaned down to look into the sedan.

  “Mrs. Mahoney. Good to see you,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, Joseph. Wondering if you could let us in for a little look around?”

  Joseph noticed Ananke. The tightening of the muscles in his face was subtle, but Ananke picked up on it immediately. She’d experienced that look so many times she’d lost count. It was like he wanted to say, “What is she doing here?”

  The joys of a world still peppered with ignorance and stupidity.

  She beamed a smile and gave him a fr
iendly wave, just to make him feel a little more uncomfortable.

  “Um, of course, Mrs. Mahoney,” Joseph said, flustered. “Let me get the gate for you.”

  As they drove in, Ananke stared at the guard, her friendly smile morphing into an I’m-on-to-you glare only he could see. From the increasing discomfort on his face, her message was received.

  “There are twenty-nine lots in the estates,” Toni said, blissfully unaware of Ananke and Joseph’s silent exchange. “The smallest are three acres, the largest over twenty. At this point, less than half the lots have homes.” She switched to her sharing-a-secret whisper. “It’s not cheap to buy in here, but that’s what keeps it exclusive.”

  The road wound around a hill and dipped into a partially wooded valley, hidden from the highway. Ananke could see four mansions spread across the valley to the right, and the signs of several others scattered among the trees straight out and to the left.

  “When I was a kid, this all belonged to the Lindens’ farm. You see that pond over there?” Toni pointed way off to the left, where a small body of water sparkled in the daylight. “I was friends with Jenny Linden, and she’d throw swimming parties there in the summer. So much fun.”

  “Things look like they’ve changed a lot since then.”

  Toni laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. When Scolareon moved here, I don’t think anyone realized what was going to happen.”

  “They were the first?”

  “Not quite the first, but they were the biggest to relocate here. They’ve grown even more since then. Mr. Scudder employs over three hundred people now. Back then it was probably a third of that. He’s also helped the town entice several other companies to move here. You see that smoke?” She pointed at a thin column rising above the trees. “That’s Mr. Scudder’s house. Did I mention that he’ll be at the meet-and-greet tomorrow night?”

  “You said it was a possibility.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be there. He never misses that kind of thing. It’s going to be a really fun evening.”