Out at Night

“But not this time.”

“Not this time. He was killed Wednesday night and the GM soy field burned.”

“Where is it?”

“Not too far from the Union Pacific railroad sidings as you leave town, if you’re taking the 10 toward Indio. You can’t miss it. It’s the blackened earth that looks like it’s been hit by a meteorite. Surrounded by cops now, so flash this from here on in.”

He opened the desk drawer again, and this time pulled out a laminated tag identifying her as an FBI consultant. Her driver’s license photo stared back, big dark eyes, black hair, pale skin. Next time she’d put eyeliner on and more mascara. Her eyelashes disappeared completely against the blue background. And blush. Always blush. Something nice and pink. She clipped the tag to her shirt collar.

“This, too, if you need to show it around.” He pulled out a copy of the DMV photo of Bartholomew that Grace had seen stapled to the cover sheet of the coroner’s report.

She folded it and put it in the back of a notebook she’d bought at a Qwik Stop in Escondido on the way there.

“I heard Bartholomew had a running conflict with Frank Waggaman over genetically modified crops. And that he attacked Frank in a clothing store the day he died.”

“You mean, could Frank be good for it? Think about it, Grace. If Waggaman shot Bartholomew he would have let us know. He would have spelled out Waggaman’s name in Morse code, or enough for us to get it. God knows, the man knew how to spell.”

“You’ve got a list.”

“Suspects? Yeah. We’re working some.”

Annoyance flared. His inability to open up mirrored his lack of generosity when she was a child. Everything had a cost. He seemed to sense her thoughts.

“Last night, a second field was torched, also a GM crop—sugar beets this time. Twelve arrests, misdemeanor vandalism and destruction of property. The thing we don’t know is if the murder and fire in the soy field is more than superficially connected to the second torching.”

“Same accelerant?”

“Different. Car gasoline, unleaded, burning Bartholomew’s body in the soy crop. Diesel fuel in the sugar beets.”

“Anybody taking credit?”

“You mean for the second one? It started as an opportunistic student call to arms against Bartholomew’s murder, organized on Facebook. It morphed into something else.”

“Opportunistic?”

“Finals start next week at Riverside U.” His voice was dry. “What better reason for not studying than honoring a dead professor by taking over a genetically modified crop in his name. There were about a thousand kids. It was a candlelight vigil that turned into a swarm. The ag convention head, Frank Waggaman, was giving a tour to delegates in the sugar beets field when it happened.”

She digested that. Jeanne’s boyfriend, Frank Waggaman, in the mix again.

“A lot of it’s caught on tape.”

“They must love that over at Channel Two.”

“It’s Three, here in the Valley, but yes.”

He leaned on an elbow, pressed a finger to his temple, massaged his forehead.

“I love this place, Grace. The Palm Springs Film Fest and the White Party and the Coachella Stagecoach and the tennis matches at the Grand Champions and the Bob Hope Golf Tournament. I love the little stuff, too. I love the statue of Sonny Bono and the horses carrying tourists and lovers. How people can walk down the street here safely holding hands, no matter if they’re green, purple, or polka-dotted, and trust me, I’ve seen them in all those combinations. This is a place with a huge heart, Grace, and it’s my job to protect it.”

He lapsed into silence.

“So you want me to do what, again?” Grace asked.

“Oh, yeah. Lost my train of thought; too busy listening to the ‘Marine’s Hymn’ in my head.”

She half smiled. She didn’t want to like him.

“Grace, you didn’t know Vonda very well.”

She remembered a tea party she’d orchestrated; her younger cousin’s shy delight at the way Grace had placed teddy bears and dollies in a circle, a toy plate holding a crumb of doughnut in front of each. Downstairs, the voices of the adults had been soft, relaxed, mingled with the cries of the boys playing a raucous game of tag in the backyard.

One of her few, undiluted golden memories of a time when things were easy.

Interrupted by other memories—Vonda teetering blindfolded on the edge of the pier, screaming on the handlebars of an older brother’s bike, running into traffic for the sheer rush of seeing terrified drivers slam on their brakes.

Grace remembered Vonda well enough to be afraid of her. For her.

Her uncle rubbed a finger into his eye, exhaled. “She’s our youngest, our only girl. I guess we always babied her. She’s—how old are you again?”

“Thirty-two.”

He nodded. “She’s twenty-six.”

He glanced behind him and Grace saw a frame of Popsicle sticks painted in blue poster paint and decorated with sparkly buttons. In the photo, a young Vonda stood smiling in a party hat, eyes shiny as black buttons.

“Married. We thought that would settle her down. She lives here now. That was one of the reasons I requested a transfer to this field office. I’ve been here six months.”

“Just? Explains the holes in the wall.”

His gaze went to the wall.

“The guy before you had pictures.”

Pete picked up a crystal paperweight embedded with a gold FBI seal and put it down gently. “Vonda might be involved in Bartholomew’s murder.”

Outside, the silence was cut by the faint drone of a jet.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what I need you to find out. Report to me. You won’t attend briefings. I want an outsider’s perspective. See if there’s anything I missed. I’ll make everything available. Whatever you need, ask. Here are contact numbers and directions to the murder site.”

He scribbled on a pad, tore it off as if it were a prescription, and passed it over to her.

“Should have been a doctor, Uncle Pete.”

“What?” His face was shot with worry and blank love.

“Got the handwriting down.” She stuck the paper in her bag. “I take it her alibi’s checked out for Wednesday night.”

“Her husband’s. Hers, not so much.” He opened his mouth as if there was more, closed it, and rocked back on his chair.

“You’re not telling me what those alibis are?” She kept her voice pleasant, but inside, she was fuming. It felt like a clumsy version of “I’m not telling until you guess,” a game Katie was brutally good at.

“It would be more helpful if you did your own investigation, came back with what you find.”

“If you think Vonda’s involved, how can you work this case?”

“Conflict of interest, you mean. Columbine settled that one for the agency.”

“Columbine.”

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