Crimes of Memory (A Detective Jackson Mystery) (20 page)

“At six, I think. The news was on. I hate the news, but my mom watches it when she cooks.”

“What did you do after dinner?”

“I cleaned my room. I was supposed to do it when Mom was at work.” Jenna’s facial expression and tone were oddly flat.

“Was your mother home?”

“Yes.”

“What about after you cleaned your room?”

“We watched a movie.” Before Evans could ask her, Jenna said, “
The Princess Bride
, by Rob Reiner. It’s our favorite.”

“You must like movies.”

“I do, but I like novels better. Have you read
The Passage
? It’s very good.”

“I haven’t.” Evans smiled. “Did your mother leave the house after dinner?”

“No.”

“Did you go anywhere?”

Jenna shook her head. “No. I lost my driving privilege for a few days.”

“You have a license?” Evans sounded as surprised as Jackson was.

“Of course. I’m seventeen.”

Evans glanced his way. Jackson could only think of one more thing to ask, and it was more personal curiosity than professional. “Why did you lose your driving privilege?”

“I didn’t clean my room.”

“Do you have your own car?”

“No. I drive my mother’s truck sometimes when she’s at work.” Jenna’s cheeks flushed. “I mean, she lets me. I drop her off and pick her up.”

Jackson thanked Jenna and Maggie for their time and headed for the door. Outside, after Maggie drove off, he turned to Evans. “I have a personal errand. Will you check with the neighbors and see if you can verify Maggie’s and Jenna’s stories for Tuesday?”

“Sure.” Evans cocked her head. “I think Jenna has Asperger’s.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“But I don’t sense that she was lying for her mother. She’s seems pretty guileless.”

“I got that feeling too,” Jackson said. “But I still think Maggie knows more than she’s telling us. Maybe she threatened Cooper or stole the money from him.”

“Maybe. See you back at the department.”

CHAPTER 17

Thursday, March 14, 11:47 a.m.

After Candy Morrison left, River went down the hall to Agent Fouts’ office for an impromptu task force meeting. She was still waiting for the profiler at FBI headquarters to submit his report on their arsonist. They had one from the pharma company incident, but River was curious to see if the arson factor changed the profile of who they were looking for. Two of the four men they were focused on were still unknown, and she needed those names.

Fouts’ door was open and he looked up when she stopped in the frame. “Come in.” Fouts gestured, looking pleased with himself. “I think I’ve got the third man.”

“Excellent. Who is he?”

“Rick Arbuckle. He was arrested at a logging protest in 2010 and did six months for vandalizing a truck. He’s mostly clean-shaven in his mug shot, but that was two years ago. The identifying feature is his nose. Look.” Fouts turned his monitor so she
could see the side-by-side images. The one from Tony’s Tavern was blurry and dark and showed a man with a full beard and shoulder-length hair. On the left was a well-lit image of a younger man with a small goatee and hair that came to his ears. At first, River didn’t see the resemblance.

“Look at his nose, then look at his eyebrows.” Fouts tapped his monitor, impatient.

River studied the mug shot first. The man’s nose had a slight bend at the halfway point, as if it had been broken. The nose in the other image, although less clear, was the same. The thickness and arch of the eyebrows was identical too. “Good work. I might have missed this.”

“I had help from facial recognition software.”

River smiled. “What do we know about him?”

“Not much yet. Rick Arbuckle is an alias with no Social Security number and no known addresses. He never gave the police his real name, and he doesn’t come up in the system anywhere else.”

“Damn. Maybe Dallas can find something. But Arbuckle looks big, and the night watchman described the arsonist as big and burly. Unlike the kid with the mohawk, who looks like he has tapeworm.” River felt like they were closing in. “We’ll get a tail on Arbuckle as soon as we locate him.” She remembered her late-night find. “A man named Samuel Greene worked at JB Pharma at the time of the sabotage. The Social Security number he gave is phony, and I think he’s either connected to, or the same as, Adam Greene, which might also be an alias.”

“I’m glad we’ve got Dallas on the inside.” Fouts leaned back in his chair. “Who did you have in the interrogation room?”

“Candy Morrison. She was at Rock Spring at the time of the arson, and her cousin dates Chris Noonaz.”

Fouts let out a low whistling noise. “You think she let our perp into the building?”

“She’s adamant that she didn’t, but I’m going to see her cousin, Melody Light, next. The good news is that Melody has fraud charges pending for some irregular banking activity. I’m going to try and turn her.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“Thanks, but you should stay on Rick Arbuckle. And get me Mohawk’s name.”

Melody Light’s duplex occupied a corner near a small health food store in central Eugene. River pulled up on the Tyler Street side and saw two toddlers playing in the front yard, unsupervised. In the rain. The little girl was still in diapers. River climbed from her car and said hello as she entered the toy-littered yard. The boy, about four, looked up and said hi. The little girl ignored her, intent on an object she’d just found in the grass.

As the girl stuck it in her mouth, River realized it was a cigarette butt. “No, sweetie.” She ran to the girl and plucked the debris from her little teeth.

The toddler let out a yelp, then whined loudly.

“Sorry, but that’s not good for you.” River started to toss the butt into the street, then changed her mind.

A pretty woman stepped from the house and called, “Get away from my kids.”

River held out her badge and strode toward the door. “Agent River, FBI.”

The woman retreated into the house and slammed the door, the safety of her kids forgotten.

Mad as hell, River pounded on the door. “Open up now or I’m calling Family Services!” What the hell was wrong with this
idiot? Was she taking a moment to hide her drugs? Or was Chris Noonaz sneaking out the back?

River pushed open the door but didn’t enter. “I’m making the call!” She intended to report the incident, but later when she had more time.

Inside the house, she heard the woman rummaging around. River scanned the front room, a cluttered mess of toys, clothes, dirty dishes, empty food packages, and a corner overflowing with sewing projects. She listened for sounds in the backyard and watched the outside corner of the house to see if anyone was fleeing. River glanced back at the kids, who were both coming toward the house.

“Where’s Mom?” The boy seemed curious but unconcerned.

“She’s here. Come in out of the rain.” River stepped aside to let them go through.

The woman rushed into the living room and bent to hug her kids, her long wavy hair nearly touching the floor. She wore a colorful collection of layered garments that didn’t hide her shapely body.

“I’m coming in. We have to talk.” Standing in the foyer, River tried to mitigate her anger. On the list of things you could do to damage your children, letting them play outside unsupervised for a few minutes didn’t rate anywhere near the top, but she would use it to her full advantage. “Are you Melody Light?”

“Yes.” The woman handed the boy a box of crackers. “Take Emmy and go to your room.” A faint smell of pot wafted from the woman’s hair.

“Have a seat,” River commanded.

Melody complied, but River remained standing. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about Chris Noonaz and his acts of eco-terrorism, or I will have Family Services take your
children into state custody, while I take you into federal custody as an accomplice.”

Melody burst into tears.

River was unmoved. “Where is Chris now?”

After a moment, Melody had control. “I don’t know. We hang out sometimes, but we’re not a couple.”

“Tell me what you know about his activities or say good-bye to your children.”

Melody glared. “They won’t take my kids because I left them outside.”

“I pulled this out of the little girl’s mouth.” River held out the cigarette butt, then slipped it back in her pocket. “And you smell like pot.”

“I’m a good mother. I’m just having a bad morning.”

River brought out the backup ammunition. “You have a court date next week for fraud charges. The FBI can either make those go away or make them worse. So you will lose your kids
and
go to jail.”

She sighed. “You win. What exactly do you want to know?”

River decided to test her. “Where does Chris Noonaz live?”

Melody gave her the same location that Dallas, her UC, had supplied recently.

“Tell me what you know about the firebomb at Rock Spring.”

“Nothing. Love the Earth didn’t do that.” Melody was emphatic.

“Have you and Chris talked about it?” River pulled out her recorder. “I’m going to record this, so don’t lie to me.”

“I haven’t seen him since Sunday, but I called and asked Cricket and he said no. I wanted to know because I don’t condone violence.”

“But you thought he might have.”

Melody swallowed hard. “I know that some LTE members have advocated for more drastic actions.”

“What about the sabotage at JB Pharma? Who did that?”

“I don’t know.” The woman looked over River’s shoulder and out the window.

“Save yourself a lot of grief and tell me what you know. As long as you’re an informant, I guarantee you immunity from any federal charges regarding LTE.”

Melody gulped in air. “I don’t know anything for sure, but I heard Cricket talking to Adam Greene one night, and I got the impression Adam had done it. He worked there at the time.”

So Adam and Samuel were the same person. “What exactly did they say?”

“I don’t remember.” Melody started to cry again. “I’m sorry. My uncle Craig was murdered recently. Even though I hadn’t seen him in years, it’s still upsetting and it’s making me emotional. It’s why I lost track of the kids for a minute.”

River let herself feel a little sympathy, then moved on. “I’m sorry for your loss. But you must realize how important it is to find the arsonist. I’m trying to keep people from getting hurt.”

Melody pulled a tissue from a large pocket in her purple tunic and wiped her nose. “Cricket swears it wasn’t him or Adam. They think it might be a new guy in the group.”

A rush of excitement filled River’s belly. “What’s his name?”

“I can’t remember. It starts with an R though.”

“Rick Arbuckle?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Pot-smoking idiot.
“Have you seen the guy or know what he looks like?”

“No. I’m not that involved with the group.”

A yelp came from the bedroom. They both turned as the little girl came crying and running on stubby legs. Melody moved to comfort her. “What happened, sugar?”

The girl continued to cry. River didn’t think the toddler was old enough to talk, but she didn’t know a damn thing about babies. Eager to contact Dallas to see if she’d met Arbuckle or another guy whose name started with an R, River decided to wrap up. “I need you to make an official statement. Find a babysitter and come into the federal building on Monday. If you don’t show, I know where to find you.”

“I don’t want Cricket to get in trouble.”

“If he didn’t set the firebomb, he has nothing to worry about.” River handed her a card. “I want you to think about that name. Make some calls if you have to. Then get back to me. It’s very important.”

“Okay.”

River touched the little girl’s head. “And don’t let your kids play outside unsupervised. There are too many nasty things out there.”

CHAPTER 18

Thursday, March 14, 1:05 p.m.

The problem with an undercover assignment a thousand miles from home was the compulsion to work around the clock. Dallas tended to work too much anyway—everyone in law enforcement did—but without the distractions of either her dysfunctional family or good friend Stacie, she focused nonstop on her case. So instead of taking the afternoon off, knowing she would be shadowing Adam and his group later that evening, she was parked down the alley from Chris Noonaz’s home, watching to see who came and went. So far, it was a bust. A Volkswagen van was in the driveway, so Dallas assumed someone was in the house. She’d texted the make, model, and license plate to River, but hadn’t received confirmation that it was Cricket’s vehicle. Normally, she would refer to suspects and targets by their last names as other agents did, but in undercover work she had to stay consistent in
her head. She didn’t want to slip and call Cricket Noonaz when she was talking to his friends. It might raise some suspicion.