Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

‘Wrongful accusation?’ she suggested, only half joking. She looked over the case material spread out on her desk and pinned to the whiteboard nearby. Evidence, reference to statements, details of the crimes. And photos, those terrible photos.

Dance’s phone rang. But it wasn’t Barrett Stone, Esq., asking where he could serve the papers. TJ sounded sheepish as he said, ‘Well, okay, boss, I guess I will admit that I didn’t exactly look over all those facts and figures. I mean, longitude and latitude of the deeds and the plots or plats, whatever they are, and—’

‘Is Nashima innocent, TJ? That’s all I want to know.’

‘As the driven snow. Which is an expression I don’t get any more than “When it rains, it pours.” The Nevada company’s construction plans have nothing to do with the roadhouse; it’s all the site of the old relocation camp and an area toward Highway One. And he was telling the truth: all the companies involved are non-profits. Any earnings have to be spent on education and support of the museum and other human-rights organizations.’

Nail in the coffin, Dance thought. Reflecting that that was one expression leaving little doubt as to meaning.

Another: back to the drawing board.

O’Neil’s phone buzzed. He glanced at caller ID. ‘My boss.’ The Monterey County sheriff. ‘Brother. Wonder what’s up.’ He answered. ‘Ted. Did Nashima call to complain? The Congressman?... No. Well, he might. I thought that’s what you were calling about.’

Then she noticed O’Neil stiffen. Shoulders up, head down. ‘Really?... Are they sure? I’m here with Kathryn now. We can be there in twenty minutes. What’s the internet address?’

He jotted something down.

‘We’ll check it out on the way.’ He disconnected. He looked at her with an expression she rarely saw on his face.

Dance lifted her eyebrows. ‘We?’

‘The case I was working on, about the man who went missing, Otto Grant.’

She recalled: the farmer who had gone bankrupt after his property was taken by the state. ‘You thought he might be a suicide?’

‘That’s what happened, right. Hanged himself. A shack out in Salinas Valley.’ He rose. ‘Let’s go.’

She asked, ‘Me? It’s your case. You want me along?’

‘Actually, turns out, it’s our case now.’

Michael O’Neil piloted his unmarked Dodge into the countryside, east of Salinas, a huge swathe of farm country, flat and, thanks to the precious water, green with young plants. Dance skimmed the blog entry Otto Grant had posted just before he’d taken his life, several hours ago. ‘Explains a lot,’ she said. ‘Explains everything.’

The reason the Otto Grant case was now both of theirs was simple: Grant was the man who’d hired the Solitude Creek unsub to wreak havoc on Monterey County. In revenge for the eminent-domain action that had led to his bankruptcy.

‘As much of an oddball as we thought?’

She scanned more. Didn’t answer.

‘Read it to me.’

‘ Over the past few months readers of this BLOG have followed the chronicle of the Destruction of my life by the state of California. For those of you just “tuning in” I owned a farm off San Juan Grade Road, 239 acres of very fine land which I inherited from my Father, who inherited it from his Father.

‘ Last year the state decided to steal two thirds of that property — the most valuable — under the totalitarian “law” known as eminent domain. And WHY did they want to take it from me? Because a nearby landfill, filled with garbage and trash, was nearly full to capacity and so they turned their sights on my land to turn it into a dump.

‘ The Founding Fathers approved laws that let the government take citizens’ land provided they give “JUST COMPENSATION” for it. I’m an American and a patriot and this is the best country on earth but do you think Thomas Jefferson would allow taking all this property and then arguing about the value? Of course he wouldn’t. Because HE was a gentleman and a scholar.

‘ I was given compensation equal to land used for grazing not farming. Even though it was a working vegetable farm and there are no livestock for miles around. I had to sell the remaining land because there wasn’t enough to cover expenses.

‘ After paying off the mortgages I was left with $150,000. Which may seem like a princely sum except I then got a tax bill for $70,000!! It was only a matter of time until I ended up homeless.

‘ Well, by now you know what I did. I did NOT pay the taxes. I took every last penny and gave it to a man I had met a few years ago. A soldier of fortune, you could say. If you wonder who’s at fault for what happened at Solitude Creek and Bay View Center and the hospital, look into a mirror. YOU! Maybe next time you’ll think twice about stealing a man’s soul, his heart, his livelihood, his immortality and discover within you a conscience .’

Dance said, ‘That’s it.’

‘Phew. That’s enough.’

‘One hundred fifty thousand for the job. No wonder our unsub can afford Vuitton shoes.’

They drove in silence for a few moments.

‘You can’t sympathize but you almost want to,’ O’Neil said.

This was true, Dance reflected. Bizarre though it was, the letter revealed how the man had been so sadly derailed.

In fifteen minutes, O’Neil pulled onto a dirt road, where an MCSO cruiser was parked. The officer gestured them on. About a hundred yards farther on they came to an abandoned house. Two more cruisers were there, along with the medical examiner’s bus. The officers waved to O’Neil and Dance as they climbed out of the car and made their way to the front door of the shack.

‘Door was unlocked when we got here, Detective, but he had quite a fortress inside. He was ready for battle if we came for him before his hired gun finished with the revenge.’

Dance noted the thick wooden boards bolted over the windows of the one-story structure. The back door, the officer explained, was sealed too, similarly, and the front was reinforced with metal panels and multiple locks. It would have taken a battering ram to get inside.

She spotted a rifle, some scatterguns. Plenty of ammo.

Crime Scene had arrived too, dolled up in their Tyvek jumpsuits, booties and hoods.

‘You can look around,’ one officer said, ‘just mind the routine. Nothing’s bagged or logged yet.’

Meaning: keep your hands to yourselves and wear booties.

They donned the light blue footwear and stepped inside. It was largely what she’d expected: the filthy cabin, latticed with beams overhead, was dingy and sad. Minimal furniture, second-hand. Jugs of water, cans of Chef Boyardee entrees and vegetables and peaches. Thousands of legal papers and several books of California statutes, well thumbed, with portions highlighted in yellow marker. The air was fetid. He’d used a bucket for his toilet. The mattress was covered with a gray sheet. The blanket was an incongruous pink.

‘Where’s the body?’ O’Neil asked one of the officers.

‘In there, sir.’

They walked into the back bedroom, which was barren of furniture. Otto Grant, disheveled and dusty, lay on his back in front of an open window. He’d hanged himself from a ceiling beam. The medical team had untied the nylon rope and lowered him to the floor, presumably to try to save him, though the lividity of the face and the extended neck told her that Grant had died well before they had arrived.

The window, wide open. She supposed he’d chosen this as the site of his death so he could look out over the pleasant hills in the distance, some magnolia and oak nearby, a field of budding vegetables. Better to gaze at as your vision went to black and your heart shut down than a wall of scuffed, stained sheetrock.