Ridenour and Strother both scrambled up to join me while the driver protested that they were keeping him from leaving. They told him to wait while they shoved up beside me to take a look.
Strother looked a little green as he spotted the skull, sticky with bits of soapy flesh still sticking to it here and there.
Ridenour shook his head in annoyance. “Damn it, now there’ll be a bunch of damned investigators up here, making a mess in my park.”
“Any idea whose car this is?” I asked. I knew exactly whose, since the license plate currently sitting on the desk in my hotel room matched the plate barely clinging to the front bumper. The whole front end had been folded into a V by impact with something I assumed was the cedar tree I’d first seen the ghostly car burning under, but I wasn’t going to hand over that information. Someone might or might not figure out the tree connection, but as far as I was concerned, the most important thing was done: Leung’s disappearance and death would now be investigated by someone. I just had to make sure whoever had hidden it in the first place didn’t have power enough to bring the investigation to a halt.
Ridenour and Strother both backed up and began looking the car over until Strother shrugged and Ridenour scowled. “That’s Steve Leung’s car. I haven’t seen or heard from him in . . . must be five years. I wonder—”
“I’m wondering the same thing,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s unlikely that the skeleton found in a missing man’s car would be anyone other than the missing man?”
Ridenour’s expression went darker. “He could have killed someone, and then have run off and hid. . . .”
I gave him a doubtful look. “Do you really think so? Do you think a man in his sixties is going to just dash off and leave a body in the lake?”
“No, I don’t guess so.... Hey, how would you know how old Leung is?”
“He’s one of the guys I was looking for while I was up here. But I didn’t find him and no one knew where or when he’d gone. He didn’t change his address with the post office or the people who send him his retirement checks. Looks like I’ve found him now.”
“Hell,” Ridenour swore. “I guess I’ll have to go talk to Jewel.”
“Is that one of his daughters?” I asked. I knew but couldn’t let on.
“Yeah. Why were you looking for him, anyway?”
“I’d rather discuss that with his daughters.”
“Well, you won’t have any luck catching up to Willow—no one from law enforcement’s been able to catch her in years.” Ridenour’s tone was pointed and bitter.
“So she’s a troublemaker?” I asked, making a mental note of the name—Shea had called her “Willa,” and I now assumed that was just his accent in play, not her actual name.
Strother made a wry face and answered before Ridenour could. “Bit more than that. County and city both have standing warrants on Miss Leung for various violent and property crimes. So far, no one’s had any luck bringing her in on any of them.”
I’d have to find a way to get to her, even though every local authority had failed. What fun. But I said, “I guess I’ll just have to go with Ridenour to see the other sister.”
Ridenour didn’t seem eager to bring this particular news to the Leung survivors, so it wasn’t too much of a battle to get him to agree, but he didn’t like it. He also wanted to take a deeper look into the car before we left; however, the doors were jammed and Strother pointed out that any additional poking about wouldn’t be appreciated by whoever had to investigate. Unhappily Ridenour jumped back to the ground and offered to drive me to Jewel Newman’s once the truck was safely on its way to the county yard with Strother in tow.
The truck driver rechecked his straps once we were all off his flatbed. He didn’t seem too pleased with any of us and I wondered if he was just grumpy in general or if the Grey oozing from the car was affecting him in some way. We watched him climb inside and start the truck rolling. Strother waved the flatbed out to the highway as I stayed behind with Ridenour.
“Who’s Newman?” I asked him as Strother walked away from us.
“Jewel’s the oldest of Steven’s kids. Married a fella named Geoff Newman back quite a few years now. They were in high school over at Piedmont together, but you couldn’t have called them sweethearts. The Leung kids have been trouble since they were little. The girls got a lot worse once their mother and brother died. Not that the brother was a prize—he was argumentative and arrogant.”
By now the flatbed had made it to the road and disappeared, heading for Port Angeles. Strother waved to us and then took off in his own car, leaving me and Ridenour to lock up the ranger station. As we walked toward his park service pickup truck, Ridenour continued the story. “I don’t know what Newman’s got—aside from money—but when he came back from college, he and Jewel hooked up and got married in a big hurry. You might be thinking he got her pregnant, but there never was a child, and she settled down to doing a lot of community work around the area—busybody stuff, if you ask me. The residents treat her like the queen of the lake. What she says goes with most of them. Except with her sister and a couple others.”
We got into his truck and Chaos stuck her nose out of my pocket to sniff the warm, weird smells, but decided she wasn’t too crazy about them and burrowed back down to nap some more. “What’s the story on Willow, then?” I asked.
Ridenour ground his teeth as he started the engine. “She’s just plain-ass wild. Half-crazy and all dangerous and no way to know how she got that way—both her folks were fine people.” He started driving and I kept on asking questions.
“Strother said there were warrants—for what?”
“Well, aside from a couple of homicides, there’s the petty stuff like smoking pot, trespassing, and vandalism, and then she got into breaking and entering, burglary, robbery, and a few other unsavory things. Most of it’s been down around Lake Sutherland and below—which is outside the federal park property—but not all of it. I can’t say I’m pleased to have a few federal charges to press if she’s ever caught—I don’t really like that aspect of my job when you come down to it—but Willow is dangerous. Unpredictable and crazy enough to do damned near anything. Something goes bad around here that isn’t caused by bears or tourists acting stupid, you can bet it’s Willow.
“She’s the best damned woodsman you’ll ever meet, though. That’s the mixed blessing of her having been born and raised here. She can track and hide in this country like no one’s business, which has made her impossible to catch. You’d almost think the trees and animals are on her side or something, and she’s as crafty and as mean as one of our mountain lions. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if she hadn’t killed her dad herself over some damned thing. She’s that mean and crazy. And she’s killed before, so it’s not like she’s squeamish about it.”
“Who did she kill and why?”
“Well, we’re not entirely sure she killed her brother—though that’s the general belief—but we do know she killed a telephone lineman who was working out around Lake Sutherland one summer.” His voice dripped disgust. “She claims he raped her and she shot him in self-defense when he came round for a second try, but she never reported the first incident, and the man was shot with her rifle from one hell of a distance, which sounds like lying in wait, not self-defense.”
“How did you get this statement from her?”
“Well,” he started, but the rest of his words were cut off by a squeal from the truck’s radio and a voice calling out for him to respond at once. Ridenour snatched the hand piece off its hook and barked back. “What the hell is it?”
“This is Metz out at Hurricane Ridge station. We have a situation.”
“What sort of situation?”
“You’re not going to believe this, Brett, but . . . we’ve got animals in the parking lot attacking the trucks, and that damned Leung girl seems to be with them.”
“Willow?”
“Yep. I’ve never seen anything like it—it’s like the critters are working for her or something. You need to get out here ASAP. There’s just me here and the rifle’s in the truck. I think I’m OK in the visitor center, but the rest of the station’s getting a hell of a mauling.”
“What sort of critters are we talking here?”
“Bunch of those crazy white deer, including some big bucks, couple of pissed-off bears—”
“You sure it’s bears?” Ridenour asked. I was wondering if the bears and deer weren’t ugly white guai
