were sent back East for examination. While the murder of the boys, the woman, and the men found in the ground at the Logan farm were the focus of the growing investigation, the arson was also of critical importance. Speculation ran through town that Claire Logan and Marcus Wheaton had been in on the blaze together. It seemed from statements he made that he protected her, might have even loved her. Della Holm, the postmistress, beat that drum to her customers as they came to the post office to send back gifts that hadn’t suited them. Others gossiped, too. As Bauer and others continued digging—literally and figuratively—they learned more details about the woman and her connection to the one-eyed, son-of-a-bitch slob who was locked up at the jail.
One woman called Bauer at the Whispering Pines Motel and told him the story of the time Claire gave her a ride home from work. She did not want to give her name.
“I needed a job and Claire gave me one. I twisted cedar garland for most of October through December and I was good at it. She said my garland was flawless. She was nice to me. One night when my car wouldn’t start, Claire offered to give me a ride home. Her husband was dead by then. Just after we got onto the highway we hit a deer. I remember the jolt and how the doe lurched to the side of the road. The deer was still alive and making this awful noise, kind of a gurgling sound. Anyway, Claire turned off the car and reached over me to the glove box and grabbed a hunting knife. I saw a gun in the glove box. You know that little light? Well I could see the gun very plainly. Anyway, she got outside and grabbed the deer’s head like she was going to hug the poor thing, then took that knife and slit its throat. She started screaming and I was freaking out. I didn’t blame her. But you know why she was screaming? The deer sprayed blood on her jacket. She was mad at the deer. And I said, ‘Claire, why didn’t you just shoot it? You got a gun.’ And she turns to me and kind of smiles a weird smile. ‘I was pretending it was my husband and I wanted to feel him die.’ Then she laughs and I started laughing. I don’t even know why I’m laughing, except for the fact that she is. I thought it was pretty cold killing that deer the way she did. A bullet through the head would have been quicker.”
Bauer wrote his thoughts in a report he knew he’d probably never officially file. He wasn’t a forensic psychiatrist; he was a federal cop and his job was to catch a killer, not profile one. Even so, he kept a notebook of observations that he hoped would help him find young Hannah’s mother:
Claire Logan is a classic loner. Her pleasant facade masks a bitter and angry woman. No one is good enough; no one is worth anything. Her ambitions and desires take precedence over all others and their needs and wants. She has no close friends. Her only living family member appears to be an older sister. Her first husband died in an accident, and there was some suspicion of Claire’s possible involvement. None was proven. She was—is—a very controlling woman. With the exception of Marcus Wheaton, she’s never been able to retain an employee longer than a single Christmas season. Those who knew her insist that she was brilliant, abrasive, and full of grandiosity when it came to her business and her lifestyle.
A week after the remnants of the Logan house were flown in a commercial aircraft’s cargo hold to the labs at Quantico, word came back to Bauer and the others working the case that an accelerant had, in fact, been used to burn down the house. Significant traces of acetone were found on the doorframe and floorboards. The piano, however, was clean. This puzzled Bauer at first, until he remembered the original location of the piano— the
The volunteer fire department’s pump truck had arrived eleven minutes after the call—a remarkable, an
Further chemical microscopic analysis revealed an abundance of cellulose and mica particles found in the area under the piano. At first it was thought to be packing material, but a sharp-witted chemist put two and two together—the chemicals
A photo lineup showing Marcus Wheaton’s one-eyed mug among five others (his lawyer would argue that the lineup was unfair because each of the other men had two eyes) got a positive identification from a salesman for Cascade Floral, Inc., a Portland wholesaler. Beyond mums and roses for the floral trade, the company specialized in supplies for Northwest tree growers. Among their product lines were various brands of cellulose and rayon flocking. When the FBI agent showed up to ask about the various products they sold, the counter salesgirl tried to sell him on buying rayon over cellulose.
“Half the price, twice the markup,” she said, assuming he was there to place an order for his own farm and tree lot. “It fluffs nicely. Looks very real.”
The agent explained that he wasn’t a grower in search of flocking, but an FBI agent looking for answers. He didn’t say which crime. But the girl seemed to know. She pressed the “call” button of the intercom mounted next to her telephone and summoned her manager. A minute later, a short butterball of a man emerged from his corner office and confirmed that Icicle Creek Farm was a customer.
“Not a big customer, but steady,” he said. “Paid on time and always took the two percent cash discount. Could use more like Icicle Creek.”
It took the manager all of ten seconds to identify Wheaton.
“His is a face you’d never forget,” he said, using the eraser end of a pencil to indicate the Icicle Creek Farm’s handyman.
Several days into the LOMURS investigation, the first of what would eventually become scores of Claire Logan “sightings” made the broadcast airwaves. Sheriff Howe and Bauer were drinking coffee when a deputy came in and told them to turn on the old TV that sat on a shelf above departmental service awards and certificates for community involvement.
“Quick! She’s on the tube. Flip on channel six!”
“Who?” the sheriff asked.
“Claire Logan!” the deputy replied, pushing past the round table with the morning’s paper and an overloaded ashtray. He turned the knob and rolled the dial to Channel Six. An attractive female reporter in a tan raincoat and a robin’s-egg-blue scarf stood in slushy snowfall gripping a microphone and pointing to a strip mall twenty yards behind her. Despite the frigid air, her hands were bare. Her showy lacquered talons couldn’t be contained in gloves.
“…police responded after a Salem woman reportedly spotted Logan at this washateria just west of the university…”
Bauer and Howe were flabbergasted. Both wondered what the Salem police thought they were doing talking to the media. Why hadn’t they bothered to notify the Spruce County authorities, not to mention the FBI?
“What the hell?” Howe said. Anger showed on his face. Even his ears were dipped in red. He slammed his fist on the table with such force that a weaker man would have yelped. “Get that cocksucker Reid on the line,” he barked at the deputy. “RIGHT NOW!”
The deputy spun around and went for the phone.
Chuck Reid was the police chief for Salem, Oregon’s capital, a jurisdiction that was big on pulling over boozedup legislators, busting hookers on the stroll, and cleaning up the vices that appear to go hand in hand with government work. Violent crime wasn’t a part of the mix. Not usually. And criminals the likes of Claire Logan were never caught in places like Salem. Just didn’t happen.
The TV reporter asked a woman of about thirty what she had seen. The woman held a baby with curly brown hair to her shoulder and rocked back and forth as she spoke.
“It was her, all right,” she said. “I saw her picture on the news and the next thing I knew she was standing in line with me waiting for the change girl at the Laundromat. It was Claire Logan… I’m sure of it.”
