was someone she’d worked with often when she was with Major Crimes. He was smart and careful and good. After Des brought him up to speed he asked her to notify the next of kin. Then he and his men got busy looking for explosives.
Des climbed into her cruiser and took Old Ferry Road down to Lord’s Cove Lane, a private bumpy dirt road that snaked its way deep into the woods. The sun’s early-morning rays were just beginning to ignite the reds and oranges of the leaves on the maple trees all around her. When she spotted the totem poles and the giant grasshopper standing guard over the largest private junkyard she’d ever seen, she knew she had arrived.
The house itself was straight out of a postcard for rural New England, aside from its color, which was a shocking shade of pink. Hangtown’s vintage motorcycle with its sidecar was parked out front, alongside an old Land Rover and a pickup truck. Lights were on in several windows.
Des got out, Takai’s license tucked under her arm, and used the big knocker on the front door.
It was Hangtown himself who pulled it slowly open. The old artist was wearing a red flannel nightshirt, wool long johns and moccasins. His hair was uncombed, his gaze somewhat unfocused. He seemed dazed. “My God, girl, I just had a dream about you!” he cried out, peering at Des in astonishment. “You were wearing that very uniform. And I was being very naughty. And now here you are on my doorstep. Come in, come in…!”
She entered the house just as another man, a lean, leathery hard case wearing a moth-eaten Pendleton shirt and rumpled jeans, appeared from the kitchen holding a coffeepot. This one had ex-con written all over him-he immediately froze at the sight of Des’s uniform, his jaw tightening.
“Say hey to Jim Bolan, trooper,” Hangtown said warmly. Mitch’s marijuana grower. That explained it. “Grab her a cup, Big Jim. We’ll have us some coffee by the fire.”
“None for me, thanks.” Des stood there uncomfortably, her big hat in her hands. “I have to talk to you about an official matter, Hangtown…”
“Don’t tell me I’ve pissed off another neighbor with my junk. Want to know what’s wrong with these people, girl? They care more about their resale value than they do about their souls. Come on in and get warm. Jim’s got us a fine fire going.”
She followed them into the living room, noticing the suits of armor and the way that Jim Bolan seemed to hang back in the shadows. There were plenty of shadows. It was a gloomy room, and as cold as the inside of a tomb.
“Don’t ever get old, Des,” Hangtown grumbled as he limped toward one of the two leather chairs that were set before the roaring fire. A big German shepherd lay there on the bare wood floor, dozing. “Mornings are the mm- rr-worst-especially chilly ones.” He eased himself slowly down into the chair, groaning. “Now tell me what I can do for you, girl.”
Des removed the license plate from under her arm and said, “Does your daughter Takai own a red Porsche with the license plate
M-y-t-o-y?”
“Yes, I do,” a curt female voice answered. “Is there a problem?”
Des whirled, stunned, to find a tall, slender young Asian woman standing in the doorway. She wore a silk dressing gown, mules and a highly perturbed expression on her face.
“Why are you asking about my car, officer?” Takai Frye was extremely abrupt. Also haughty, condescending and beautiful. She was everything Des had expected her to be.
Everything except for dead.
Des stared at Takai in dumb silence, her wheels spinning. “I’m sorry to tell you that your Porsche, or what’s left of it, is lying by the feed trough at Winston Farms. It exploded there at about five-twenty this morning.” Des held the license plate out to her.
Takai stared at the plate but didn’t reach for it. “I heard some explosions just before my alarm went off,” she said in a cool, clipped voice. “Thought maybe they were dynamiting ledge up on Sterling City Road for another house.”
“Did you hear anything?” Des asked Hangtown.
The old man shook his huge white head. “Not a thing. But Jim was lighting our fire right about then, weren’t you, Big Jim? The kindling pops and crackles and makes one helluva racket.”
“We heard sirens,” Jim spoke from the shadows in a thin, reedy voice. “Thought maybe there was an accident. Remember, boss?”
Hangtown nodded, his piercing blue eyes never leaving Des’s face. “You have more to tell us, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Des acknowledged. “The remains of one unidentified individual were found behind the wheel. Frankly, Miss Frye, I came here to prepare your father for the likelihood that it was you. Do you have any idea who was using your car this morning? Was it stolen? Is that what happened?”
The skin seemed to pull tighter across Takai’s exquisite cheekbones. “Moose,” she said softly. “It’s my sister.”
“Not a chance,” Hangtown protested hoarsely, the color draining from his face. “Moose went to bed right after Mitch left, didn’t she, Big Jim?”
“She did, boss,” Jim Bolan said, fumbling for a cigarette. “Said she was going to take her a hot bath and turn in.”
“She’s still asleep,” Hangtown insisted, his voice quavering. “She’s upstairs in her room.”
“She’s not up there, Father,” Takai said, her eyes fastened on the floor.
“She is so!” Wendell Frye cried out.
“She… she went out after you’d gone to bed,” Takai informed him in a strained, halting voice. “I loaned her my car because her damned Rover wouldn’t start. She knocked on my door and asked me if she could borrow it. I’d just gotten home from a meeting with a client,” she explained to Des.
“What time was this?”
“Twelve. Maybe twelve-thirty.”
“No, she’s upstairs in bed!” Hangtown erupted, his big gnarled fists clenching. “I know she is! Her alarm clock is going to go off any minute now. And she’ll come right down those stairs to make us breakfast. She’s up there!”
“Perhaps you should go take a look,” Des said to him gently.
Jim helped the old man up out of his chair and the two of them went upstairs to find out.
Des stayed behind in the living room with Takai, who was fighting back tears. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered, biting down hard on her lower lip. “I just can’t.”
“Any idea where your sister was going at that time of night?”
“She’d been seeing a man lately. For the past two or three weeks. Always late at night. She’d get home before dawn.”
“Any idea…?”
“Don’t ask me who he is, trooper, because I don’t know. She’s never confided in me that way. Not that there’s ever been much to confide. She’s always been the Frye family good girl. I’m the one who’s the slut. Ask anyone in town. They’ll be happy to tell you all about me. They just love to talk about me…” Takai was starting to run off at the mouth a little. It was her grief pouring out. “I was thrilled for her that she’d found someone. And if she didn’t want to tell me who he was, okay by me. She deserves to be happy. She deserves to-”
An animal roar of pain came from upstairs now.
Des immediately dashed up there, Takai one step behind her, to find Hangtown sobbing uncontrollably in a bedroom doorway, his arms thrown around Jim Bolan.
“No, Jim, no…!” he moaned, tears streaming down his lined face. “No…!”
“C’mon, boss, let’s have you a lie-down in your room,” Jim said, steering the shattered old man slowly down the hall toward his bedroom. “You just take it a step at a time. Big Jim’s right here.”
“She was his little pet,” Takai said to Des in a quiet, bitter voice. “He’s going to have a really, really hard time handling this.”
Moose Frye’s bedroom was small and tidy. There was an old brass bed with a patchwork quilt on it. The bed was still made-it had not been slept in. There was a writing table with schoolbooks and lesson folders stacked neatly upon it. Over the dresser was a bulletin board where she’d pinned some of her students’ artwork-watercolors of bunny rabbits and birds. Also a snapshot of a handsome young man and two little girls standing on a beach.
