Virtue Falls

  “Since it’s never happened again, someone who is long gone from this place.” That was always the theory to which all communities subscribed. It couldn’t be one of us, we’re nice people. It must be a vagrant.

  In Garik’s experience, it was almost always someone local, almost always a spouse or family member … or lover.

  “I wish … I wish I could find out for myself he was innocent.” Elizabeth’s big blue eyes were pleading. “It would change nothing and yet it would change…”

  “Everything. I know. Having a father guilty of heinous behavior casts a long shadow.” Garik knew. “There’s always the belief that a parent should love and protect his child, and the knowledge that your parent, your own flesh and blood, failed in that basic requirement … hurts.”

  “Yes.” She pushed at her hair again, and more dust drifted across her face. “In the news reports, people who knew my father said he was so kind, so decent. No one expected he would fly into a jealous rage and murder my mother. So I always fear I’ll do that. Change personality, turn into a monster, be like him.”

  He wanted to tell her it was impossible, it couldn’t happen, that no one had two disparate sides to their personalities. But he knew better. “That is the fear.” That fear could drive a man to attempt suicide. “You watch for that moment when you turn into a monster exactly like the man who gave you life.”

  “Statistically speaking, either through environmental observation or genetic propensity, there is a high likelihood of that occurring.”

  “You mean, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree? And the sins of the father are delivered on the son?”

  She touched his hand on the steering wheel. “You express these matters better than I do.”

  “Not better. Differently. We complement each other.”

  “What a nice thought.” Her voice grew wistful. “It doesn’t seem fair, though, that every person who walks this earth is doomed by … by things over which we have no control.”

  A year ago, he would have said he had control. Now he knew it wasn’t true. But other men and women, better people than him, had risen above their pasts, and he felt able to assure her, “We don’t have to turn into our parents.”

  “No, but people constantly expect that we will.”

  “Yes.” That was the sad truth. People did constantly expect the worst—and were thrilled when their expectations were fulfilled.

  He applied the brake. “We’re here.” Back at the rim of the canyon where her mother’s ruined body had been torn from some hidden grave by the tsunami.

  Now Elizabeth’s flush faded to a cold white marble. “Do you think he buried her in the prostitutes’ cemetery? Do you think she’s been there all these years, without one person to mourn her or a flower for remembrance?”

  He put the truck into park, turned off the motor, and faced her. He took her bandaged hand and kissed it. “No matter where your mother came to rest, she was mourned. Wasn’t she?” It was more a statement than a question.

  Elizabeth’s gaze dropped away from his.

  Lightly he touched her shoulder. “Flowers are to comfort the living.”

  Elizabeth bit her lip, and nodded.

  And jumped when Sheriff Foster rapped his knuckles sharply against her window.

  “Come on,” he said roughly. “Get out and show me this body you found.”

  Elizabeth’s complexion turned almost green, and she put her head on her knees and moaned.

  Garik was abruptly, coldly furious. The mean fucker. He unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, jumped down on the ground, leaned across the hood of the truck, and said, “I’ll show you the body.”

  Sheriff Foster stared back at him, his eyes narrow and spiteful and scared.

  Yeah. The guy was guilty of something. At the very least, being an asshole. Maybe of incompetence. And with that thought came another.

  What better way to cover up a murder than to investigate it yourself? “Where were you,” Garik asked, “when Misty Banner was killed?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Foster gaped as if he couldn’t believe Garik had the nerve.

  He stalked around the front of the truck. “You want to accuse me of something?”

  “No. I want to know where you were when Misty Banner was killed.”

  Elizabeth opened her door and slid down out of the truck.

  Garik flicked her a glance that warned her away.

  She nodded. But she obviously wanted to hear the answer.

  “You little bastard. You get rescued and all raised up by Margaret Smith, and ever since then”—Foster pointed to his throat—“you’ve had this attitude that sticks in my craw.”

  “Because I didn’t have a mother who kept me home my whole life?”

  Foster’s face turned red, his green eyes blazed, and he vibrated with rage. “Don’t you talk to me that way. Always visiting Virtue Falls, always so much more important than local law enforcement. I know what happened to your FBI career. I know what you did. I looked it up.”

  Elizabeth looked back and forth between the two men.

  “Yeah. And I still want to know where you were when Misty Banner was killed.” Garik stepped closer, lowered his voice, and ruthlessly used his height advantage to piss Foster off. “I could make everyone here speculate where you were that day. All I have to do is raise my voice and ask the questions, and your deputies would start wondering why you won’t explain. Want me to do that, Foster? Because this little bastard might have been thrown out of the FBI, but I still know the tricks. I could make your life awkward, and you don’t want that.”

  Foster immediately went into his belligerent stance; shoulders back, elbows out, one hand on his weapon. He stepped close, very close, to Garik, and glared, eyes unblinking. He glared and glared, and when Garik didn’t budge, he finally muttered, “I was out on patrol.”

  Elizabeth sidled around to stand in front of the chrome grill.

  “Got any alibis?” Garik asked.

  “No, I don’t have any alibis. I didn’t need them.” Foster flung out a hand. “Do you know how big this county is? Do you know how long it takes an officer to make his rounds?”

  “I know the guy who’s first on the scene is frequently the perp.”

  “I wasn’t first on the scene. First on the scene was the Banners’ postal worker. He took that photograph of Charles Banner holding Elizabeth, and the scissors, and both of them covered in blood.”

  Elizabeth turned her face away.

  Garik wished she’d get back in the truck. Because he had Foster on the ropes, and he wasn’t going to quit now. “You were the first officer on the scene.”

  “Because I was in the area.”

  “Exactly.”

  Foster’s face worked violently. “I could arrest you right now and throw you in jail, and who among your fancy law enforcement friends would know or care?”

  “I don’t have any fancy law enforcement friends, but you’d have to have some reason to arrest me, and I’m pretty sure that even in this county, an arrest would go through due process. It’s not the Wild West, no matter how much you or I would like it to be.” Garik stood solidly in place for another three counts, long enough for Foster to know he didn’t give a crap about his threats. Then he eased back. “I’ll study the case.”

  “You mean you didn’t do that when you first met Elizabeth?” Foster mocked. “I thought that must be what attracted you to her, the chance for a damaged control freak to mess with a real live head case.”

  “Shut up,” Garik snapped. “She just found her mother’s body.”

  Elizabeth stood with her chin up, no expression on her face, but the red eyes and blotchy cheeks told their own tale.

  Foster might be a gold-plated asshole, but he didn’t like the world to see him in action, and his deputies were definitely getting an eyeful right now.

  “Goddamn it.” He whipped around to face his men, and shouted, “Let’s get this crime scene cordoned off.”

&
nbsp; The deputies moved, but none too fast. The three guys were young, under twenty-five. They had heard stories about Misty Banner’s murder, but they didn’t remember it. And the scene unfolding before them held them enthralled.

  Foster snarled, and they pretended to move a little faster. Then he turned back to Garik, and in a furious undertone said, “I did good work on the Banner case. Charles Banner was guilty of killing his wife in a jealous rage. It was logical.”

  “Logical?” Garik couldn’t believe Foster had to guts to say that. “Crime is logical?”

  “All evidence pointed to it.”

  “Nice dodge.”

  “I challenge you to find out anything different.”

  “You sure you found all the evidence? Because I did read through the Banner case, and I don’t remember anything about Misty Banner’s hair being cut off.”

  Foster froze in surprise … and denial. “Off? Her hair—Misty Banner’s hair—is cut off?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Foster looked like a man right after he’s been hit between the eyes with a tire iron and right before he falls over dead.

  Garik went on alert.

  Foster started talking, fast and defensively. “We didn’t know for sure. There were some loose strands in the carpet. But the body was gone. Criminology wasn’t as good then as it is now. How were we supposed to know?”

  Garik picked right up on the pertinent information. “You found loose strands—strands that had been cut from her head—and you didn’t mention them in the report?”

  “We didn’t see that they were pertinent.”

  Garik laughed. One snort, really, but it completely expressed his opinion of Foster and his investigation.

  What mattered, of course, was that Foster knew Garik was right.

  Garik walked to Elizabeth and put his hand under her arm. “Let me help you back into the truck while I show Foster and his men the right location.”

  “If you don’t mind,” she said. “I’d like to stay out here and … pace.”

  “Sure.” Garik couldn’t resist; he smoothed a lock of muddy hair off her forehead. “Don’t go far, though, huh?”

  “I’m not going to go back to work, if that’s what you mean.” She sounded a little snappish. And that was good.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.” But it wasn’t. The discovery of Misty’s body, combined with the realization that Foster’s reputation as an investigator had been exaggerated, provided Garik with a fear he’d never experienced before.

  If Charles Banner hadn’t murdered his wife, someone else had. And who was that someone else? Where was that someone else? And would this discovery flush him out of hiding?

  “Come on, Foster,” Garik said. “I’ll show you the body, and then I’m taking Elizabeth home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Taking Elizabeth home was a journey taut with fears, unspoken questions, and too many missteps from the past.

  But finally Elizabeth lifted her head off the headrest, looked at Garik, and asked, “Is Sheriff Foster right? Did you study the Banner case out of curiosity, so you could see what it had done to me?”

  Man, was Garik glad to be able to answer this one truthfully. “No. I told you, I read through the case. I did that before our first blind date.” He kept glancing at her. “Look. I didn’t have to study it. I knew who you were. The case was well known at the time, is still famous in law enforcement—and I’m from Virtue Falls. Here, it’s notorious.”

  Her color washed away; she looked like she was going to throw up.

  He did not want her to toss her cookies in his truck. So he talked faster. “But I didn’t go on that blind date because I considered you a test case. I went on the blind date because Margaret was matchmaking and strongly suggested we meet and”—he ran his hand through his hair—“and because I checked out your photos and you were hot.”

  Silence from beside him.

  He glanced at her again. “I’m shallow. So sue me.”

  She looked at him sideways. “Shallow works for me. Shallow—she’s hot—is better than nosy—she’s a lab rat.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Her complexion was no longer Wicked Witch of the West green.

  His truck was safe.

  With utmost sincerity, he said, “Honey, looking at you, I have never once thought of any kind of rat. I promise, I didn’t do my best Bond imitation for any other reason than to impress you. Because I’m a disgusting, horny guy.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Okay. I like you disgusting and horny.”

  Elizabeth was always so successful at presenting a calm façade, he found it easy to think she had dealt well with the murder and its consequences. But today had conclusively proved that wasn’t true. Her emotions were fragile, raw, anguished. She was a lonely, wounded soul, who even now was easily injured … and she needed reassurance. She needed reassurance from him.

  “If you will recall, I spent our first date using every excuse to show my muscles, I talked all the time about my testosterone-laden job, and I pretended to be interested in geology. I think that qualifies for disgusting and horny, right?”

  “All that stuff you said about geology was just pretending?”

  “Yes. But since then … do you know how many Discovery Channel episodes I’ve watched so I didn’t feel like an idiot every time you mentioned your work?”

  “No.” For the first time in the last two hours, she sounded warm and amused. “How many?”

  “Lots.”

  She slid down in the seat and looked out the window at the passing scenery. “Good.”

  Garik concentrated on his driving; on this stretch of road, the asphalt was crumpled like a starched shirt after a tough day of work. When they reached a smooth stretch, he said, “I will say, I thought the Banner case was predicated on the assumption that your father was guilty.” Which, speaking as an FBI agent, Garik totally comprehended, not that he would ever admit that to the public, and most certainly not to Elizabeth.

  “You’re saying Foster did do sloppy police work? That the case was not well investigated?” She sounded hopeful again.

  “I wouldn’t say that. At the time of the crime, law enforcement didn’t have the technology we have now, especially not a small, remote town like Virtue Falls.” Especially not if Foster was out to make his name. “Before and after the trial, the evidence, the testimonies, the verdict was typed up, then copied and sent around to the various agencies. A dozen years ago, somebody, probably some gofer with a thousand pages and fifteen minutes, scanned and uploaded it to the Internet. Lots of room for neglect and error, not to mention lots of smeared print. So I’d have to get up close and personal with the evidence before I could say anything for sure.” And as soon as he could, he intended to.

  He pulled out his cell phone, glanced at it, and silently cursed. No reception. If it was working, he could set it up as a router to access the Internet … but Elizabeth’s phone had worked. “Do you still have reception?” he asked.

  She pulled it out of her toolbox. “No. It’s dead. But it worked this morning. I didn’t think when I called Margaret, but the call went through.”

  Okay. Elizabeth was doing better. Not so tense. Not so pale. She was going to be okay.

  Then she asked the question Garik dreaded. “What did happen to get you thrown out of the FBI?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Garik pulled into the resort parking lot. He parked next to the front door, and put his truck in gear.

  Elizabeth started to snap at him, to ask whether it was the same old, same old, where she talked and he didn’t.

  Then she glanced at him.

  He looked bad. His complexion was pale. His jaw was locked so tight it looked as if it might shatter. He turned off the motor and looked straight out the windshield. And he answered her. Sort of. “I haven’t been thrown out. When I can pass the psychological test, I can rejoin the force.”

  “What precipitated the, um … what incident…?” For the fir
st time, Elizabeth appreciated how carefully Garik had had to tread with her when discussing her mother’s murder. Because she was trying to be sensitive here, and she didn’t quite know what words to use.

  Garik understood. “I lost my temper.”

  She had never in the two years that they had been married seen him lose control … except in bed. “Because?” she asked faintly.

  “Exactly what we were discussing earlier. I turned into my father.” He smiled the kind of smile that looked as if he was chewing razor blades. “I deserve to be on probation. And I can never go back to the work, because I now realize that my father’s always there, inside me, waiting to spring out, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “What did you do?”

  He looked at her, and those green-and-gold eyes revealed ice and anguish.

  Never had she expected to pity Garik. She pitied him now, and reached for him, to kiss him, to comfort him. “Everybody loses their temper. I do, and I mean, look at Margaret! She’s as Irish as they come. It doesn’t mean you’re going to kill somebody, or hurt somebody.”

  “I already did.”

  “You hurt somebody?” He hadn’t killed anybody. She would have heard about that.

  “He deserved it.” Garik clenched his fists. “And I’d do it again if it would change”—he shook his head—“anything.”

  “You’re one of the good guys, Garik. If you hurt someone, I know you did it to right a wrong.” She took his hand, smoothed out his fingers, and petted them until he relaxed. “You’re one of the good guys,” she said again, “and I trust you to never hurt me. Does that mean anything?”

  He closed his eyes as if pain stabbed at him.

  Then he opened them, and looked toward the porch. “There’s Margaret,” he said.

  Elizabeth dropped his hand.

  As if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough, he swung out of the truck. “Margaret! How did you get downstairs?”

  Elizabeth opened her door and slowly got out.

  Margaret pushed her walker toward the edge of the porch. “With enough staff and a great deal of determination.” She offered Elizabeth a shaking hand. “My dear, I heard … what happened. How are you?”